Sheep Guarding Llama

On all of our minds today is the new Lebonese-Israeli war that started yesterday.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the humiliation being faced by the United States as we are stuck in a position of having no idea what to do about the middle east conflict. In reality we are very much stuck in a bad position much like Germany was at the beginning of World War I – a major world super-power with a poorly chosen, weak and power hungry war mongering state that decides to pick a fight and draw an entire region into the conflict through allegiances. This isn’t an American war anymore than World War I was a German war but we will get involved if Bush stays president. No president except for Wilson ever liked killing people so much. Israel is bringing a fragile democracy to its knees and Bush, “Mr. Go in and kill everyone until they decide to accept a democracy” isn’t going to even suggest to Israel that maybe they are creating the terrorist problem? Once it is a US ally causing the issue, suddenly the rules change. Suddenly it isn’t about stopping terrorism or promoting democracy. Now we see just how much it is about local, American interests. We aren’t in these wars for anyone’s good but our own and clearly Bush has no clue what is or isn’t good for our country.

Today is a long day at the office. I had to work late until around 7:00. Friday nights are often tough. On the way home Dominica called Tanjore and had them get dinner ready for us and I swung by and picked it up. We watched The Producers while we ate. The Producers is a 2005 remake of the 1968 Mel Brooks’ classic that became a major Broadway hit in the 00’s with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. The movie is absolutely hilarious. Really well done. Totally worth watching. Definitely a classic even if it is a remake – of a classic. Mel Brooks has definitely still got it.

After that it was time to go to bed. Not much too report. Just a long day and I am tired.

Google Labs has a product called Web Accelerator which acts as a general web proxy, cache and compressor to speed access to many web pages. It currently integrates with Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer but can be configured manually to work with other web browsers such as Opera. Google’s Web Accelerator is designed for high speed web users such as those on cable or DSL connections. It is not really designed for dial-up users if there are still any of you out there. I am trying it out at work and will try it at home at some point. It is currently only available for Windows users so I don’t have much use for it at home. Maybe Dominica will give it a try.

While I was checking out new stuff at Google today I also took a quick test spin of Google web based Spreadsheet application. My first impression is that Google Spreadsheet is incredibly basic but it is very nicely done and, in fact, might be better than some of the heavy hitting spreadsheet apps like Excel and OpenOffice Calc for the average and lighter than average spreadsheet user. It is far less intimidating, requires no install and is very clean and easy to get started with. Very impressive. I doubt that I will find much use for it myself but maybe I will. I tend to use spreadsheets a bit more intensely than the average computer user.

Today was another slow day at the office. All week everything has been super slow. Kind of nice for a change. I managed to get a bit of work done on transferring old SGL Dailies over to the new system. I can’t wait until that work is all completed. All of 2001 – 2003 is done and most of 2005 is complete. I hope to wrap up 2005 yet this week. 2006 was all originally written to the WordPress system so it is there. 2004 is the only complete year that hasn’t been touched yet.

I got home and Dominica made dinner at home again tonight. Veggie chik patties and squash. We watched the second episode of Tru Calling. It is about the same as the first episode. I am not much into the contrived “new adventure each week” plot device thing but this isn’t bad for the genre. Right along the lines of Early Edition and Quantum Leap and five thousand other shows that I didn’t watch because they are all the same thing over and over again.

After dinner Dominica worked on her class work which she is really upset about because she is paying to take a networking class at SUNY Empire but instead they are just using a generic project management curriculum and using “networking” as the loose subject matter that they are managing. The professor is totally blowing off the class and all of the core material is included in “recommended reading” and is not even being discussed in the class discussions or addressed in the assignments so she is getting absolutely zero value from the class and it is so much work because it is not what the class was supposed to be that it is detracting from her other classes which are really good. I am not very happy with SUNY Empire right now either. They are just sitting on my degree and won’t process the paperwork. I have been calling for a month and they are no longer returning my calls. They just ignore me. For a MONTH!

I worked a little on my Motorola Q this evening before going to bed. I got IM+ installed onto it which is letting me chat over Jabber although I haven’t figured out how to turn on the encryption and I am concerned that it does not have any. But it is the only Jabber client that I found for the Q. I also got PocketPutty installed and working. Sort of. PocketPutty is one of the major applications that I am really concerned about getting working on the Q and it definitely runs and mostly does its job but it crashes really easily and there is no backspace or delete keys or any other type of function keys like cursor keys or the control key. So it “works” but isn’t useful until someone figures out those items. But once they do it looks like it is going to be a killer app for the Q. The Q is perfectly designed for that type of use.

Today is an exciting day because my Motorola Q finally arrived. It is really cool. It is going to take a while before I can really determine that it is going to meet my needs but for the moment is it awesome.

I took some time this afternoon and got the Q all set up and working. So far it is great. It has no problem getting email or surfing the web. That is really nice. Those are just the basics, though. I need it to do more and that is where the real questions come in. I need to be able to use SSH on it, hopefully through PocketPutty but some other software will suffice. And I need Jabber Instant Messaging which I should be able to get from iMov liked I used previously on my HP iPaq.

I didn’t get to leave work until almost seven tonight. Dominica cooked dinner at home and had it ready minutes after I walked in the door. That was a nice change. Eating out in New Jersey has become such a chore that I am starting to dread it even though I like the places that we go. It is just so much effort and every night turns into a big thing with us just waiting and waiting for our food and then waiting twice that long for the check or another glass of water or something simple. It just takes the enjoyment out of going out.

While she was out today, Dominica picked up the first season of the Eliza Dushku series Tru Calling that we have looked at now and then. We are both big Eliza Dushku fans (although even Eliza can’t get me to watch Buffy) and have been interested in the show for some time. We just watched the first episode tonight but it wasn’t bad. About what we were expecting, I think. Enjoyable but doesn’t knock your socks off. We will see how it is as we continue through the first season.

I continued working on the server that I had brought down with me on Sunday. Last nigth I got just about all of the software installs done that I had needed to have done and tonight I worked on getting its graphical environments all set up and working properly. I got it built with KDE and XFCE which are my two favourite desktop environments. I also got the NX server built and installed and working. NX is awesome for anyone interested in a high powered remote access system. NX competes with technologies from Citrix, VNC, Microsoft, etc.

I wanted to go to bed early tonight because I have been fighting to get enough sleep recently but Dominica was working on her database homework and needed my help so I ended up staying up until almost midnight. I was really tired by the time that I finally got a chance to go to bed.

I am back to work in the office today and, of course, I ended up sleeping in way too long after having been up way too late last night. So I got a late start on the day.

It was a really slow day at the office today. Now that I am able to do almost any task necessary I get things cleaned up and then there is a void of stuff to do.

Dad sent me an email correcting my description of the work being done out on the farm.

We didn’t put any cement or asphalt into the pool. We pealed the asphalt back, dug a humungous hole, 40′ by 80′ by 10′ and all the cement and asphalt went into that hole. The dirt from the hole, which turned out to be beautiful, is being placed into the pool.

On the way home tonight I accidentally missed my turn onto Mount Bethel and ended up discovering a much faster way from work to Bound Brook! It cuts off several minutes of driving, some of the most congested intersections and reducing the total number of miles that I have to put onto the car. Good deal.

I got home tonight and Dominica and I decided to do something a little different for dinner rather than just going to either the Omega or Tanjore. We decided to drive out to East Brunswick and go to Red Lobster. We don’t go there because we like the fish but because we like the cheesy biscuits that they make. Boy those are good. Going out to eat really kills our entire evening though. I don’t normally get home until after seven and then it is at least thirty more minutes or maybe even an hour before we actually get somewhere to eat. And no restaurant in New Jersey moves with any speed at all. Sometimes it is just a little slow and sometimes it is unbearable. Tonight was actually pretty good but still much slower than a restaurant in Rochester or Buffalo would ever move. Apparently in New York we all have lives to get back to but in New Jersey this is all that there is.

We came right back home after dinner and it was after ten! Talk about getting late fast. We were both pretty tired and decided to go right to sleep. That was a nice theory but it didn’t end up working very well. Oreo wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t stay in bed. Dominica was pretty much out like a light so I went into the living room to be with the dog and make sure that he was okay. I ended up having to spend about two hours with him and then he seemed to be feeling better and was willing to come in and go to bed. Maybe he just had a tummy ache.

While I was up with the dog I took the opportunity to at least work on the server that I had been working on yesterday. I had been hoping to work on this server this evening but had opted for sleep instead. At least now I got it done.

Because Oreo needs to be puppysat during the day or else he gets upset I am taking today as a “work from home” day so that I can spend the day with him. Dominica had called last night while I was driving down to let me know that she and her sister and the girls had arrived safely in Houston. She is flying back late tonight but today is just a Scott and Oreo day.

Work from Home or WFH days are great because I get to sleep in. My commute takes me a full hour and that is a lot of extra sleep right there. Oreo was very snuggly as he was upset that Dominica was gone.

It was a super slow day at the office. I spent some of my time getting Zenoss installed for the first time. I am excited to be trying it out because it has a lot of potential to make my life a whole lot simpler. We have never used a network monitoring package like this before and it has been sorely needed. With the pending move to Scranton just around the corner having a package like this will do wonders, I hope, in keeping things running smoothly and making it easier for us to diagnose problems. Looks like a neat product.

While I worked today I watched several episodes of the second season of Magnum P.I. Oreo loves it when I just work in the living room and watch some “television” with him. He spent most of the day just lounging on his pillow in the middle of the living room.

For lunch and dinner I ordered a pizza from Papa John’s and just ate by myself while I worked and watched my show. It is a very lonely day.

Once the official work day was over I moved the DL360 server that I had brought down from New York with me over and got to work getting it set up. The first thing that I have to do with any of these machines is get a remote insight board added to them so that I don’t have to have a keyboard, mouse and monitor attached all of the time. Those remote management cards are one of the greatest inventions ever. What a huge difference they make even in the smallest of datacentres.

I had some problems with my remote management card and it is going to have to be replaced before this server gets deployed but I eventually managed to get SUSE 10.1 installed onto this machine. That made me feel good and productive. I wish that I could get this much done every day. The server isn’t completely ready but my goal is to only have it completely ready by the time I return to Geneseo in two weeks for my cousin Sara’s graduation party.

The big news for today is that dad has an excavator over on the farm tearing out the parking lot and the basketball court that have been in front of the house since long before I was born. When I was a kid we lived in an old farm house on the same property that dad lives on now but now in a new house. There used to be a blacktop driveway and parking lot (think four or five cars parked up to a curb perpendicular to the driveway) and on the other side of the curb was a large asphalt basketball court with a basketball hoop. When the farmhouse was there it mostly made sense. The driveway came along the side of the house and the parking lot was a great place to park several cars. Really nice when you have company. I am sure eight cars would have gone in that driveway without any effort at all. But now with the farmhouse gone the whole thing is just a weird, and very large, patch of asphalt in the middle of the front lawn. So now it is gone. Soon it will all turn back into the lawn that it probably was in 1930.

Additionally, by the swimming pool, there used to be a cabana when I was a kid which, like the driveway, made a lot of sense with the old farm house there. Back in the late 1980’s my parents gave away the cabana and it was hauled away and is currently a small building located on Route 19 just south of Pavilion on the way to Pearl Creek. What is left of the cabana is a large cement slab that had served as its base. The slab is unsightly and pointless now that the cabana is gone. So that is being ripped out as well. When I was a kid the cabana served as a huge closet and lawn tractor shed – with a shower. All of this cement, blacktop and asphalt is being dumped into the swimming pool and covered over never to be seen again. The last remnants of the old farm house and party complex that it was are vanishing. Not everything was completed today but by tomorrow it will all be gone and another half of an acre of lawn will be added to the sea of green that surrounds dad’s house. Now the barn is only reminder of the farm that existed there when we bought the property in 1976. Even the fencing is all gone now. The pastures are gone.

Dominica called and let me know that she had arrived safely in Atlanta but that her flight from Atlanta had been delayed so she was going to be coming in late tonight. Oreo and I stayed up working on the server until 12:45 in the morning – way too late for a work night as it is – and then we got in the car and drove up Rt1 to Newark Liberty International Airport to pick up Min. It turned out that she was delayed more than she had thought and Oreo and I ended up circling the airport for half of an hour.

On the way back we stopped quickly at a Dunkin Donuts so that we could get some “dinner”. I was sort of hungry but Min was starving having not had any dinner at all.

It was 3:00 right on the nose when we returned to the apartment. Pretty much we went straight to bed. Boy were we all tired.