#2011

New Story Post: Awakening Part 10

Finals are done for the semester, and I’ve finally found time to put some polish on the next installment: Awakening, Part 10. I’m hoping that between now and the beginning of June I can knock out the next part, but as usual… Well, you know by now.

For my Desktop Publishing final project, among other requirements, I needed to create a ‘menu or program.’ I wound up making a wedding program for a nice couple I know. The tentative date for the wedding is sometime in 2048. I’ll get photos of the printed version, as the PDF in this case just doesn’t show off how nice the end result turned out. (Although, I admit, I made a rookie mistake on it.)

Spring Finals

We’re coming up on the end of the spring semester and things are kicking my behind. It’s a challenge, and that’s okay; this whole thing so far has helped provide a little more focus on my priorities. I have a feeling fall is going to be different (in a good way).

Between tutoring a young gentleman in the Intro to Computers class and juggling other assignments and projects, I’ve had some time to do editing on the next chapter of Awakening. Sadly, however, it’s not -quite- done. If I manage to knock out this week’s projects early, I should be able to give it a spitshine and get it up by Friday.

#2009

Metigoshe Ice Tower, 2009 Edition

Oh, the wacky things we do to stay sane.

My brother’s been visiting for the Christmas holiday, and one of the projects he likes to do in the winter up here is make it look like we’ve got an Artesian Lake. You know, like the wellheads that flow out of the ground without a pump, because of the pressure in the aquifer? It’s the same thing, just… in a lake.

Chilly

The cold keeps the riff-raff out. They migrate south for the winter.

metigoshe.us

My second attempt at a photoblog is getting started over at metigoshe.us. Powered by WordPress using a novel little plugin called PhotoQ.

I’m dearly going to miss cact.us, presuming the transfer ever completes…

Status

Half of the year is well behind us now. I don’t feel like much has gotten accomplished, and my wallet would tend to agree. None the less things have gotten done. There’s a new garden plot cultivated, potatoes in the ground. Three loads of firewood bundles have been delivered to the state park. Docks have gone in for the season. A brick patio has been layed.

It would however appear that time to do much personal things has been scarce. Days off are just days where I can work on equipment that doesn’t directly pertain to regular work. This of course means that I have nothing new to report here. :(

#2008

Day Job

The days are few and far between where I stop long enough to forage up something to call ‘lunch.’ I also seem to skip breakfast too often, so it’s a rare treat to actually be able to sit down and have something to eat at a reasonable hour. Today, it’s a steak sandwich at a little place on the Lake Loop Road called ‘Jerry’s.’

I’ve been thinking as I wait for the meal to leave the kitchen - I don’t think I’ve actually ever explained what it is that I do. Most days I’m not certain that I understand it myself.

#2007

Chilly

My Windows PC’s power supply has been slowly failing. It’s been a contest between it and the laptop screen to see which would ‘splode first. I declared the laptop the winner, which of course made the PC jealous.

The guts make this squealing, hissing sound when it’s under high loads. Sitting on the floor, the damn thing got so cold it turned itself off tonight - the voltages dropped too far and the motherboard just turned off. Picked it up on top of the desk, waited 5 minutes, booted right up. Set it back on the floor, it shut down again after a few minutes.

Copper is Better Than Fiber

The local telephone provider has a trenching crew digging and boring holes all around the Lake Loop Road. There’s a little flag next to the box along the road at the top of the hill, marked “Fiber Node 6”.

This gave me no small amount of joy. At the moment, the only DSL product I can get is the so-called “Longreach” or “Extended” DSL. It’s a synchronous DSL, 768K up and down. It’s the best they could do for me where I am.

#2006

November 10, 2006

Okay, so I’m a little off on my goal of once a week.

A good friend’s younger brother passed away yesterday morning.¹

The lake’s completely frozen over now. Ice is averaging between 2-3” thick. We chip open a hole every morning and evening near shore for water to use for necessities (do I need to name them?) since there’s no rural water system up here. Drinking water we get at the store here, reverse osmosis stuff. I’m pondering the wisdom of a well in the coming years. It’d be nice not to have to haul in 5-gallon pails every day. There’s a 65 gallon tank outside that we need to put indoors but there’s a big crack in the top half right now needing repair.

Reverse Progress

Long entry incoming. Flee now, before it’s too late.

So. Software updates.

Bad stuff.

Of course, I should know this by now. Any time I try to update a piece of software on this poor little debian installation, it blows up in my face. I thought that the whole reason for debian’s packaging system was to prevent this sort of thing. First discovered problem: the apache webserver. Somehow, the upgrade script determined the stock configuration was the ideal upgrade to my haunted house of config files. It proceeded to wipe out my customizations to the apache.conf file, in addition to disabling all the virtual-host sites and every apache module I’d loaded.

#2005

Produce Accelerators

My brother came up to Metigoshe from Fargo a couple of days ago. The weather has been windy the last few days, but today the breeze finally died down. We took the opportunity this evening to break out the Produce Accelerator and put some potatoes into low orbit. Some might call this an air cannon, others a spud gun. If you still don’t have a clue what I might be speaking of, there are a few sites (like Spudtech) that have some more details about the Accelerator’s brethren.

Terror on the Prarie

We had 20+ inches of rain in June; Lake Metigoshe, my favorite place in the world (it’s even better than sliced milk) flooded a little bit.

From the time the ice went out this spring, it rose 52 inches. (For the math-impaired, that’s more than four feet.) The lake has dropped now and is no longer restricted to Idle Speed Only. I snapped a few (hundred) photos when the water was high; I don’t expect that we’ll ever see a flood like this here again.

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