Best Soap Ever.

Neutrogena Men's POWER SCRUB Deodorant Bar.

I've been using it for about a month now and I swear I feel the cleanest I've ever felt in my life.

The soap is contained in a pouch that is textured so it scrubs better.

I gotta remember to buy more when I run out thus this post.

Belated Birthday lunch.

Today I had a late birthday lunch with some of the folks from my lan party group, Chris , Doug, Jimmy and the other Doug.

Fun lunch at Pei-Wei, had the Honey Seared chicken which Doug paid for.

Got a gift, Doom3, It came wrapped in a printout of a playboy centerfold, Now that was a interesting thing to have at the table at the restraunt.

Time taken to drive home

Using the frontage roads from Silverlake to Grant took 41 minutes 54 seconds. This was with exiting on Sunrise and taking the river train crossing.

Game Night

Another Great night last night.

Two games of Ground Control Two and HOURS of Starwars Battlefront.

Rich did not get on my shit list this time as he didnt steal my name, Infact I cant really think of anyone who got on my shit list.

Chuck was awesome, he brought a extra PC for me to use as mine is still not working corectly, You Rock Chuck!

Tylers Birthday

Today we celebrated Tylers Birthday.

First we went to El Greco's Grecian Gardens.

Nice place, Run by a family I guess, They knew Gus.

In attendance were Tyler, A woman who's name I can not remember, Matt, Matt's brother, Gus, Alex, Jon Shay, Steph Shay, Madison Shay, and briefly Jack. Oh and myself.

I'm not sure how the food was, I only had a small salad which I couldn't finish, It didn't agree with me.

The dish with the fried cheese was really good however.

Next we went to the Fox and Hound.

At the Fox and Hound we had Tyler, Alex, The woman who's name I can not remember, and Myself initially.

We ran into a Co-worker Amy, I hope she doesn't feel offended or anything by the way we acted, It was nice seeing her but I had no clue what to say or talk about.

Oh and I also introduced Alex as Gus which seemed to piss him off a lot, Sorry Alex!

We got a pool table finally and started playing, initially it was Tyler vs Alex, Alex one.

Next up was the woman who's name I can not remember vs Myself.

We were evenly matched, Both doing really poorly.

Still it was fun, She won.

At this point in time the Grossman brothers, Gus, and a guy from Login named Ryan showed up.

Next up was Gus vs Ryan from Login.

I'm afraid I don't know the outcome of the game as I had to go home at this point in time as the smoke in the Fox and Hound made me very sick :(

Sakura

Tonight we went to Sakura,

Jack, Matt, Tyler, Gus and Myself.

Damn cool place, We went to the east side one which they all siad was gheto on comparison to the West one but I still had a lot of fun.

Having a dude cook the food at your table is neat, and he was amusing.

I voted today.

Today I voted for the first time.

Not as cool as I thought, I was expecting digital voting machines, or something with chad atleast.

Nope, Felt tipped pen and a scantron sheet.

Well maybe it'll be cooler next time.

GNU screen

screen has to be one of the most usefull tools in my sysadmin arsonal.

It lets me move terminals from work to home, from home to work.
It lets me run jobs overnight without worring about them not completing
It lets me not worry about my desktop crashing and taking out whatever I was doing on the servers.

Today I wrote a new .screenrc and I think I'll share it with the world.

#make scrollback work in terminals
termcapinfo xterm*|rxvt* 'ti@:te@'
#use my .bashrc and .bash_profile
shell -$SHELL
#kill the nag
startup_message off
#scrollback
defscrollback 1024
#status line
caption always "%{.bW}%-w%{.rW}%n %t%{-}%+w %=%{..G} %l %{..Y} %m/%d %C%a "
# remap w to the selectable list
bind 'w' windowlist -b
bind 'W' windows

Crushed

I just broke my 512mb SD card.

I'm quite unhappy with myself now, I dropped it on the floor and rolled my chair back from my desk so I could get up and look for it.

*CRUNCH*

There the card was, under the wheel of my chair.

No visiable sign of breakage, but it no longer shows up on the Zaurus or my Mac or my Linux Box.

Mysql Reminder

I can never remember how to change the value of a table from the mysql cli.

update table set field1='value1' where field2='value2';

insert into table values ("one", "two", "Three", "Four", "Five", "Six");

Is Work making me sick?

Am I sick because I don't want to go to work?

Is this my body's way of trying to cope with the stress of the office?

Back in Jr. High and HighSchool I used to get sick a lot, When I dropped out of school my sickness magically went away.

I won the Attendance award at work years ago before I got promoted into this position.

I also don't think I was this sick when I was working for Rob or Doug.

Is it something about my current work environment that is making me sick?

I will admit I'm not happy currently at work, I feel unappreciated and overworked.

I want things to be back like they used to, I want to work on cool projects and have fun again.

I don't even feel like I'm part of the team, I feel like I'm a burden to my boss and that he does not like me or the work I do.

Fortune Cookies

My co-workers found the fortunes I received at work today quite humorous.

You have unusual equipment for success, use it properly.

Your creativity will take you to unexpected places.

Scam or Stuff?

Today I found a link to FreeFlatScreens.com and I thought in the name of Science I'd try it out.

Currently I've found 7 people to help me out, I still need a 8th.

I picked the Ebay signup as my offer to do as it's free and doesnt even need a Credit Card which isnt true about the other offers.

I'll update with details as things progress, They claim it'll be 5 days or so before the Ebay signup registers.

Hacking Tivo

Tonight I hacked my friends Tivo.

We replaced the 14 gig disk in his Series 1 with a 40 gig disk.

The Tivo is much faster now with its 7200RPM disk and he appreciated the additional 24 hours the upgrade gained him.

We also installed some of the hacks for a series 1, He doesnt have a Ethernet card yet so we hope that everything will be OK.

Stargate Atlantis

I'm enjoying the new Stargate series, The characters are starting to get fleshed out a little and it's a good thing.

Tonight I half expected the thing that would remove the creature to be the chocolate bar that McKay was eating.

I wonder if we will see him use the shield device from last week again.

Nice explination about their lack of inertia being a problem, and a reasonable sollution as well.

Tivo

I ordered a Refurbished Series 2 Tivo yesterday.

$49 from tivo.com after rebate.

Would have been nice if it was in my hands tonight, I look foward to the ability to pause live tv.

Registered to vote

Today I filled out the paperwork to register to vote.

I've not voted before, I'm not sure what I was doing last presidential election but this time I plan to take part in the process.

Currently I feel I'm very uninformed about issues, I spend too much time watching tech news and alike but I've never really paid attention to politics, I hope to change this.

John Kerry looks to be my candidate of choice, He rated a 81% match with my answers on Presidentmatch and I like the things his website say.

Trying out Flickr

This service sounded like a neat way to add Photo's to this Blog. Here is one from the Oranski Wedding.

Mike and Jen Originally uploaded by johnkiniston.

Perl FTP

Here is the first program I'm giving the source for, it's a FTP upload script that is designed to run from Cron.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use Net::FTP;

use File::Copy;

#Setup the variables

$ftphost = "ftp.hostname.com";

$username = "user";

$password = "password";

$remotedirectory = "public_html";

$outputdirectory = "~/transfered/";

$localdirectory = "~/dropbox/";

$fromaddress = "username\@host.com";

$toaddress = "tousername\@host.com";

$subject = "Automated FTP Transfer";

# Build the filelist

@files=`ls -1 $localdirectory`;



#Connect to the FTP Server

$ftp = Net::FTP->new("$ftphost", Timeout => 30, Debug   => 1) or $erroroutput = $erroroutput."Can't connect: $@\n";



#Login with the username and password

$ftp->login($username, $password) or $erroroutput = $erroroutput."Couldn't authenticate, even with explicit username and password.\n";



#Set Binary Mode

$ftp->type(I);



#Change Directories

$ftp->cwd($remotedirectory) or $erroroutput = $erroroutput."Couldn't change directory\n";



#Upload the files if everything is OK So far.

if (!$erroroutput){

        foreach $file (@files) {

                chomp $file;

                $ftp->put ($localdirectory.$file) or $erroroutput = $erroroutput."couldn't upload $file\n";

        }

}



#Close the FTP Connection

$ftp->quit();



#Mail the results

$mailer = "/usr/lib/sendmail -f$fromaddress -oi";

open(MAIL, "|$mailer -t") || die;

print MAIL "To: $toaddress\n";

print MAIL "Subject: $subject\n\n";

if ($erroroutput) {

        print MAIL "Error $erroroutput";

        foreach $file (@files) {

                print MAIL "Did not transfer $file\n";

        }

}

else {

        foreach $file (@files) {

                chomp $file;

                print MAIL "Transferred $file\n";

                move ("$localdirectory$file", "$outputdirectory$file");

        }

}

close (MAIL);

Rippoff Alert!

reservationrewards.com just put an unauthorized Charge on my Visa.

See http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff97160.htm for more info about these people.

Code I've written

From now on I plan to share anything that I write be it Perl, Shell or PHP here in my Blog so it may be usfull for other people.

Off the top of my head I've written a quick FTP droplet in Applescript, Several FTP transfer Shell and Perl scripts (Both FTP and SFTP), A module for a webpage that shows a random graphic based on the Time of day and Day of week from a predefined set, A graphical forum signature that grabs information about the current viewer and displays it,And a image watermarking program.

I'll be adding the sources to these programs to here as time permits.

Results from 07/27/04

Did backups.
Checked Oil (Low added two quarts)
Stayed Positive
Didnt stay as focused as I could have.
Sent Registration Project Data storage draft to Jeff.

Goals for 7/27/04

Stay Positive
Stay Focused
Work on Registration project
Check OIL in Escort
Do Backups

Results for July 26

Stayed Positive
Stayed Focus
Turned in phone bill for partial re-imbursement
Worked on Data Storage plan
Asked for help about Test plan

Got stuck in meeting from 10AM-4PM, Did not get much else done.

Short Term Goals for July 26 2004

Todays Goals:

* Stay Positive
* Stay Focused
* Turn in final Phone bill
* Data storage plan for Registration
* Ask for help on Test plan
* Backups
* Camera

Things I need to bring to work:

# VPN Endpoint
# Can opener
# Zaurus
# iPod
# Phone Bill

Handy Zaurus applications.

I dont know if I've mentioned before that I have a Sharp Zaurus 5500 Personal Mobile tool or not but I do and it's quite handy.

I've found a number of programs I love:

Gaim
Mileage
Opie Reader (With the addition of Plucker)

I'm currently searching for a PIM that I like, I tried using MiniRubyWiki Which worked but it required a lot of upkeep in starting and stopping it every time I changed my network settings so it would have the new IP.

I'm using TKCRom so I no longer have the Sharp PIM apps built in, but I didnt like them anyway.

Another Lan Pary

Another Lan Party this weekend,

They are starting to become a quite often event it seems.

This weekend it was at Doug's house, Which was nice for me as I'm about 15 minutes away from his house instead of over an Hour away from Chris's House.

Doug has a nice house, Two floors, decent yard and best of all AC.

There were 7 of us this time and we played the same two games we always play, C&C Generals : Zero Hour and Battlefield VietNam.

We were supposed to start at 10am per Doug's email, I arrived there at 10:15 because of a slow gas station line.

Unfortinately the next person arrived at roughly 11:30am, And forgot to bring the table they were supposed to bring to set up on (7 gamers with space for 3 machines does not a lan party make).

Luckily we were located close to a Super Walmart where we purchased a new table, food and drinks and lunch at the Wendy's in the parking lot.

Online Shopping

I'm quite unhappy with the state of Online Shopping for Servers.

On the 28th of last month I placed an order from Dell, Dell did not ship my order with the three day shipping I paid for, Infact they never shipped my order at all because of a 'Miss-Configuration' Somehow their online tool set the server up with a DC power supply, That wasnt even an option on the page!

So instead of calling me or emailing me they just sat on the damn order.

Fast forward 10 days, Where the fuck is the server?

We look online, Order is gone.

We Call Dell, They cant find the order, Claim it was never ordered.

Finally we got them to process the order or so we thought but once again the server got held up for a 'Miss-Configuration' This time it was because we had 3 disks in the server one 40 gig disk and two 80 gig disks and we specified we anted Raid 1. Most people would put the two matched disks in a raid 1 configuration, but noo not dell.

At this point we either had the option of starting over or going with another vendor, I chose to change vendors and went to CDW's site to spec out a IBM.

I found a nice IBM for about the same price as the Dell which fit our needs, Using their options page I ordered it with a Extra processor, 4 Gigs of extra ram, One 40 gig disk, Two 120 Gig disks, A RAID 1 controller for the disks and a 3 year warranty.

Monday I got a call from CDW saying that they were out of the RAM I ordered so they upgraded me to 2Gig dimms from 1 Gig dimms.
That was fine, It wasnt supposed to impact the shipping process at all.

Today I got another call from CDW, They said that the Disks I ordered were IDE and the Server was SCSI, Asking about the RAID controller I ordered it was IDE but they said it would not be compatible with the server as the server had SCSI Raid.

Also it turns out their ordering system allowed me to order 3 disks for the server when it only had 2 Drive bays.

So today we ended up switching to a HP from CDW with two 140 Gig Ultra 320 SCSI disks, a Built in RAID 1 controller and 5 Gigs of ram (It came with 1 Gig and we added our 4 from above to the order)

I hope we get the server by Friday, I need to have it received by then for Billing reasons.

Photography

This article http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/06/22/dark_room/ makes me want to learn photography now, I've never done much with a camera, I have three or four cheap Digital cameras that produce poor quality pictures if they produce at all, Film sounds damn cool right now.

Scout Update

Well the fuel pump worked for as long as I could run the scout when we tested it.

Unfortunately now the starter has failed.

There is a loud CLUNK when the key is turned which indicates the Bendix is being moved into position but there does not appear to be any power being applied to the starter itself.

Tucson Alternator has 6 Starters that are compatible with my Scout so I'll be getting one from them and installing it this weekend.

Gmail

Woohoo!

Thanks to Tim I now have a Gmail account to call my own.

It's damn spiffy!

Repairing the Scout

It's been a while since I posted about the problem with the Escort I had been driving.

Unfortunately it still will not start, despite a new timing belt, new plugs, new TFI module, new plug wires, new rotor, new distributor cap, new coil and new waterpump (had to remove it to change the timing belt and it looked warn).

We have given up on the Escort for now as it's cost us a lot of money in parts and we have had no luck in restoring it to operational status so we have gone back to working on the Scout.

Today we ordered a new fuel pump to replace the one that is currently spraying gas everywhere and leaking fuel into my Oil, Checkers had it for about $60 which is about half the price it was when the Scout broke and we decided to hold off on repairing it due to the cost of the part needed when we had other working vehicles.

I'm looking forward to getting the Scout back on the streets again, It's nice and warm out and I want to take the hard top off and maybe even fold the windshield down and go adventuring with it.

Mexico

I recently left the USA for the first time in my life.

It was a short trip, Just a drive down to Nogales Mexico for lunch, Total trip was just over 3 hours long.

We went to celebrate a bonus my boss got, He treated the entire department to the best Mexican food I've ever had (Wow I should go to Mexico more often!).

Pretty cool, We rented some big SUV thing with three rows of seating yet it still wasnt big enough for the 10 people we had total so we also had a party in Christina's small car.

Leaving the country was easy, just a step through the turnstyle and there I was in another actual country!

Now this was a big step for me as I've only left the state of Arizona one other time since we moved here in 1988.

The restaurant was really cool, A place called La Roca which was partially inside a cave in the side of a big hill.

After we ate we wandered around the Mexico side of Nogales for a while looking for a store to buy some stuff in, That's when I got to see the worse side of life there: little kids begging you to buy their candy/plastic toys, People in wheelchairs and on crutches missing limbs selling things as they moved from car to car at the vehicle entrance to the border.

I now wish to learn spanish as only Jeff and Dora could really understand what people were offering us and what was on the menu in the restaurant and I really want to go back to Mexico again.

Cars, Gotta hate them.

Well I'm pissed off.

Yesterday on the way to work a belt broke on the car I'm driving.

I got it switched out without a problem but somehow now the car will not start, the starter turns the engine over, I've got spark from the plug wires and I can smell gas yet it does not start.

I wish I lived close enough to work to bike or walk at times like these.

Lan Party!

Wow,

I had so much fun this weekend at Chris's lan party.

There were 6 of us including myself that attended, We started at about 2pm and ran till 2am, 12 hours of continuous gaming!

We played two games, Battlefield Vietnam and Command and Conquer Generals Zero Hour, Alternating between the two of them as we got bored or tired of one.

This was a whole lot of fun and I cant wait till I can go to another one.

Long work day

8:45 AM - 8:07PM

Today we did a site re-launch which took a lot of work, a number of things had to be fixed at the last minute.

It looks like I'll have another long day tomorrow, 10-8 and then late night work at like 11pm or 1am to replace a failed disk.

Guess he's gone.

It looks like the homeless dude has moved on to another corner or another town, It's been 3 days now since I've not seen him on the way to or from work.

I took the jug of water out of the car, No need to carry it any further.

No homeless today.

Today I decided I'd bring a gallon of fresh bottled water with me to give to the homeless guy begging on the street corner.

Unfortunately he was not there today, I'll bring it with me tomorrow and friday and hopefully he will be able to accept it on one of those days.

Fruit Juice

I Saw the same homeless man as yesterday begging on the corner again today.

Today he received from me a bottle of fruit juice destined to be for my lunch.

Tomorrow maybe I'll pack something extra for the guy, a breakfast bar maybe.

Todo

Organize bookmarks.

Backup iPod.

Finish backup script.

Setup disk mirroring on Blue & White G3

Find a new cell phone.

Clean office.

Clean bedroom.

Rebuild carburetor on Scout.

Change fuel filter on Escort.

Donate to binderbulletin.

Purchase Scout Factory repair manual.

Clean desk.

Clean hard drive.

Re-OS server with Solaris 9.

Return Chuck's games and anime.

Good things.

Today I did two good things.

On the way to work I stopped to make a left turn and gave my cold soda that I was bringing with my lunch to the homeless man begging on the corner.

On the way home from work I followed a older gentlemen 6+ miles until I could catch up with his vehicle to tell him that at the last light he had stopped at that his vehicle had leaked excessive amounts of fluid.