Cell phone follow up

I've fallen behind in my writings. My goal is to write something once a week. Why? There are all of 3 people that read this but that's not the point. I write because it feels good. Plain and simple.

In the past 2 months i've not been in a position to have my phone off anymore. My current job requires me to have my phone on 24/7 because of my on-call status. Irritating. I sampled what it felt like to have my phone off the other weekend while camping in Georgia. Phone died and i didn't charge it right away since i was with my friend/coworker. For the bulk of the day, i actually didn't have that weight in my left pocket like usual. It rarely rings. I rarely get txts/pages. Yet i'm constantly aware that it's there.

I used to believe that i could get by without my cell phone if need be. I've spent some idle time lately wondering if that's still true. If not for work, could i handle just walking away from my cell phone completely? Can i handle losing that level of attachment?

After much reflection i believe that i can still handle life without a cell (if not for that pesky job thingy). Those brief couple hours where my phone was dead while camping were nice. When my phone was in my tent, i never really felt awkward or even acknowledged that anything was different. It's not so much that i felt like i felt that my pocket felt "light" without it or even that i felt the absence of it. It's more that i just didn't even notice it either way.

I've since realized i tend to gravitate towards phones with a specific feel to them. They tend to be slightly heavier (not lead bricks but still). I like heavier phones because when they're in my pocket, i always know they're there. Perhaps i subconsciously want that style so that i'm always aware of my "tether" to society. I'm comfortable with them doing more and more but i'm hesitant to embrace anything especially light or small.

Perhaps i'm delusional but i'd like to think i'm still capable of "unplugging" at any given time. My biggest regret is that i can no longer go biking during the summer without it. It's always going to be there in my backpack while i'm trying to be carefree for a couple hours. My ears are always going to filter out background noise for my ringer...

...but nobody ever said i had to answer it when it rings though. :)

Camping

November 13-16, I got to go camping in Georgia at http://www.gastateparks.org/info/georgels/ for work. The owner of the client company footed the bill for us to fly there and go camping. Needless to say, this was an opportunity that i couldn't pass up.

Thurs night (fri morning technically) we arrived at 230am at the camp grounds. Lucky for us, it had rained that day and the tent leaked. That meant we had to set up our sleeping bags after drying off the floor of the tent. Fri all day it rained off and on. Sat the sun poked through and then the temp dropped that night to 38. Sun morning i couldn't wait to get home and shower and warm up.

Overall it was a very cool time despite the weather. Beautiful park and i'd love to go back there again. Food was amazing (low country boil, fried dough, and meals that made me fat).

Highlights:
-A sign in a parking lot that was yellow with black text, appx 3'x8' and read GUNS
-Sign that read "cold beer needs a good home"
-One owner calling the co-owner's girlfriends cat-dog "gator bait" when he saw it
-More signs for Evangelical and Baptist establishments than pawn shops (there were 4 pawn shops within 3 blocks)
-Camping for the first time (sleeping bag, tent, no air mattress)
-Canoing for the first time

Isn't crazy how you can need a vacation after having a vacation?

Coming soon...

The weather is getting cold so now it's time to start writing!

-Research project I'm trying to volunteer to help with
-Cell phone follow up
-Adopted cultural identity
-Cooking!!!

CentOS 4.7 - Install (follow up)

It worked!

[root@null ~]# yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"


It took like 20 minutes do download and process the headers but it worked. Now all i have to do is type "startx" and i'm in. Hot damn. I must say though that the background that CentOS has by default in gnome is pretty fruity. Yikes. Seriously guys. Do you have to make your default backgrounds that ugly? I'm not exactly a fan of the Ubuntu brown theme but c'mon!


Off run updates and start the web server process (again).

CentOS 4.7 - Install

Oh great! I burned all 4 iso's just to find out that all i truly needed were the first two disks. Typical. I went through the same garbage with Fedora and look where it got me.

The real irritation about this install so far surrounds "xterm". It seems that the package which is on iso #2 is corrupt and thus your install won't get past that if you're using Gnome. I went through 3 downloads and burns of iso's before i figured this out. It seems as though that CentOS 4.7 i386 iso #2 on all of the mirrors have the same date/time stamp which implies they're all bad. I wondered if this is the same on the dvd version which is "newer" but then i don't have a dvd drive in that box so that's kind of a pointless issue for me.

My workaround has been pretty half assed and seems to be working for the moment. I did a bare bones stripped down install with no x server or gnome. In theory i could have installed everything and just unchecked the package for xterm in the x server packages but opted to go the stripped down route instead to prevent any further unknown issues like this. Well... that and i figured why the heck not see what it's like. :)

Install went fast and smooth which isn't much of a surprise. SSH was selected to be on right away and all i had to do was add a user account. Currently i'm SSH'ed into the machine and trying to install gnome via yum. OMG. YUM has been pulling down headers for the past 20 minutes and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.

I've decided to let YUM do it's thing over night and hopefully it'll be done in the morning so i can begin the fun task of setting up Apache in my spare time while at work. If successful, this will be my most half assed install of any OS to date. I'm starting to get the hang of this!

He's baaaaack!

Things have been quiet yet hectic here. Not much worth truly mentioning these days but the winds of change are blowing.

At this very moment i'm in the middle of installing Apache on my Ubuntu box. Why? Because this is one of my homework assignments. This is needed to start my learning process which will kick into full speed if/when i get a job that i've been working on.

Once i do a couple things with Apache here, i plan to blog about my accomplishments. I'm not exactly going to reinvent the wheel here but hopefully soon i'll have a better understanding and appreciation of the technologies involved.

More to come as i reemerge from my cave and come back to reality....

Playing with search terms in Google to get infected

Yet another EXCELLENT report from Alex Eckelberry. His blog is one of my personal favorites and a great way to stay informed.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, this is what i do all day instead of watching YouTube clips. Damn i need a job....

Can't Take Me Out In Public Most Days

Saturday I had the opportunity to go roaming around with my friend and no adult supervision. Under normal circumstances this is not necessarily a bad thing but Sat was different. Our destination would be Best Buy. Our goal would be the purchase of a new monitor for my buddy. What's the worst that could possibly happen?

Turning a 100% USDA certified geek loose in an place like Best Buy is a recipe for trouble. As I'm running around, I'm constantly on the look out for security cameras and undercover's because old habits die hard. I'd hate for these individuals who have painfully boring jobs to not at least have some form of entertainment. Aren't i considerate of my fellow humans?

As soon as I walked in the main door my A.D.D. kicked in. So many bright shiny objects to look at. Do i look at software? TV's? Computers? Games? Mp3 players? Car audio? Focus damn it! The mission is to look for a monitor. Must... walk... towards... monitors. Resistance is futile.

Success. We were in the very back of the store and looking at their woefully pathetic selection of monitors. I managed to stay away from every other section of the store. Some would say this is a miracle. I consider this merely delaying the inevitable. We were by the monitors for less than a minute when my buddy points out the end display of RAM. The prices were pretty painful. I should note that i didn't make note of the stats of the RAM, or speed, and only vaguely remember basic prices. What i can tell you is that it wasn't anything out of the ordinary and the prices were in the $80-$120 range. Their prices are obscene to say the least which is when i started laughing. How bad are prices? Compare the same identical RAM from NewEgg.com and BestBuy.com. THAT's why i started laughing.

Immediately we're approached by a blue shirt Best Buy rep asking if we need any help to which we gracefully decline. Seemed like a nice enough person and wasn't annoying. He dodged a real bullet with us! As we're trying to determine the difference between an LG and Samsung monitor of similar prices, we see some late teen "kid" staring at the RAM behind us. Whatever. Eventually some blond girl comes over in a black Geek Squad shirt with him.

Ladies and gentlemen, the anti-christ has arrived on the seen. Do i opt to be a jerk and butt in and make her look bad? Do i try to get her number? Do i try hitting her up for a job? Bah. I'm not in the mood for these mere mortal games. I let her do her thing. So here we are looking at monitors (and making random customers nervous by how we're just flipping them upside down and giggling about how one of them beeps) and at the same time eavesdropping on "blondey" explaining to the "kid"what the difference between DDR and DDR2. W O W. I would have sworn the "kid" was a 6 year old the way she was talking to him. Maybe i shouldn't be surprised because most of the patrons don't know sqwat and need someone to give them a crash course in what i take for granted every day.

The LG was picked out after we decided that hunting down a sales rep was pointless. Target acquired. Mission accomplished, right? Not even close! Now we had to run the gauntlet of going towards the cashiers. Helllllloooooo ADD!!!

Right by the Geek Squad station we found 4-5 HP and Dell machines. The HP's have a sliding door on the front for you to insert external HD's etc. The size and placement of them in front was a perfect setup for lewd comments. Some of those comments may have included: "would it be cybersex if i stuck it in that hole", "I want to molest this one because it looks like a dirty whore", and "this is just down right retarded". From there we pretty much zig zagged around the store acting like rats lost in a maze to an outside observer when in reality ADD was in full effect.

FINALLY we were near the cashiers. I had a hunch that people were aware of our presence and the thought had crossed my mind that we might in fact get booted out for our lewd comments and general stupidity. Right by the row of cashiers was a sign. A picture truly is worth a thousand words and this one spoke to me.


Wow. Despite my constant instability with finding a job, i have never even considered selling my soul to these people. Not knowing what they get paid, i now have concrete evidence of just how obscene their prices are. They get $50 for "networking consultation"? Does that mean i tell you to buy a router when you have more than one machine that you want online? They charge $30 for "optimization"? WTF is that all about? Does that mean they go and take your new Dell machine and uninstall all of the excessive garbage that comes with it out of the box? They want $60 for diagnostic and $200 for both diagnostic AND repair?

I know for a fact i had a few strange looks at me when i was taking a picture of this sign but it was too good to be true. I'm still floored by this. Wow.

What bothers me the most is that i have people preaching to me about how i should take any job that comes up. Even if it's Geek Squad. Any money is better than none supposedly. To that, i say bull shit. I have a soul and a conscience. I'll not sacrifice what few morals i have in order to pursue the money to pay my bills.

Anyways, we left Best Buy with a VERY nice 22" LG wides screen monitor. It cost enough but it's a damn fine piece of technology and i'm sure he'll be happy for years to come with it (until i get something bigger and better). I had a lot of fun just being a total joker in the store and i'm quite thankful that i haven't gotten kicked out yet. Everyone needs goals in their lives. Mine is to get kicked out of Best Buy. I regret to inform you that i have failed once again at attaining my goal. Have no fear for "I'll be back!"

Racial disparity in Milwaukee in drug cases among worst

Always nice to see something that i feel is obvious spelled out in black and white. Definitely worth a read even if the source is the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Consider this a follow up to these previous posts:

http://naughtatnull.blogspot.com/2007/12/crack-vs-powder-disparity-is-questioned.html

http://naughtatnull.blogspot.com/2008/02/one-in-100-us-adults-behind-bars.html

Microsoft Gives Backdoor to Law Enforcement -- Well, Not Really

This article came to my attention via email (courtesy of Grypp). I found it to be an interesting read and thought i'd share it with others.