Diary of a Network Geek

Right, I need to keep this all in mind.

So, as my regular readers know, I’m technically back in the dating world. I say that, “technically”, because, honestly, I haven’t been trying very hard at it. I’m still really recovering from chemo and trying to get my life back on track, which, rightly or wrongly, I feel I need to do before I’ll be ready to date. Naturally, for me, part of straightening out my life revolves around money, or the lack thereof.
See, back when I was out of work for a year, to keep the house and my erstwhile family together, I took a rather substantial pay cut. Now, I’ll grant you, I also didn’t work as hard, or as long, which was fine at the time, since I actually liked spending time with my family, especially my step-daughter. I liked being dad, even if I was one of two and only his “stunt double” most of the time. But, the thing is, I made a trade-off. I decided it was better to not have quite as much money so that I could have more quality time with friends and family. Only, sometime between that decision and now, during the divorce or chemo most likely, I lost sight of that. Until I read this article on MSN about dating a woman who makes more than you.

Sure, the average female lawyer or doctor earns vastly more than I do, but she also has to slave away for 80- or 100-hour weeks, whereas I can achieve my modest income with just a few hours of writing a day. Often, the result is that I’m desirous of her attention, while she’s envious of my ability to kick back on a lazy summer weekday afternoon and do absolutely nothing.

Wow.
I read that and re-read it. Then, it occurred to me just how unhappy I really was when I was “doing well” financially. I was so miserable and grouchy and stressed and … Well, let’s just say I wasn’t any fun to be around anyway, so I might as well have been at work where at least I might do some good.

The only thing is, with medical bills stacking up, I really started feeling the pressure and getting stressed and grouchy and miserable all over again. So, I really need to enjoy that I don’t work every weekend any more, or eleven-hour days. And, I need to not waste that time suckling at the glass teat, either. Geez, I have so many books to read that they’re piling up! Not to mention all the stuff I have to write.

Heh, maybe God really was doing me a favor when He forcibly slowed my life down and curtailed a lot of my spending.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Sometimes someone says something really small and it just fits into this empty place in your heart."
   --Angela, "My So-Called Life"

Now is the time, gentle readers, to help your Uncle Jim out.

So, Thanksgiving is at my house this year. Maybe this will be the start of a new tradition, who knows? In any case, this year, I’m bringing the joy of the season to my house. Only, now, I have a small problem. Outside of making the turkey, which is frightening enough, I don’t have any simple, traditional, passed-down-from-grandma recipes that are easy enough for me to do. So, give me yours.

No, seriously. Look, I’ve invited a lot of people and, while I’ve gotten some polite refusals from some of them, many more have either said yes, or are waiting until the last minute to confirm. What’s more is that I’ve told several of them not to worry about bringing anything, lest that hold them back from coming. All of which means, I have an unknown number of people coming, some of whom aren’t bringing anything and may show up at the last minute. And, now, I sort of feel obliged to, you know, feed them and stuff. Except, I’m a fairly inept cook. Truly. So, I need your help. Kat has already sent me a brilliant and easy corn pudding recipe, which I’ll share in just a minute, but I need more. I especially need a good, simple, but interesting stuffing recipe. Most of you have my e-mail, so if you want to share privately, you can, otherwise, just leave them in the comments. At some point, I’ll collect them all and share them, and let you know which ones I actually try.

So, while you ponder that, here’s Kat’s Best-Friend’s Cousin’s Corn Pudding:
Fold in this order: 1 can drained corn, 1 can creamed corn, 1 stick melted butter, 8 oz. sour cream, 1 box jiffy corn mix. Bake at 325 for an hour to an hour and a half (should be the consistency of pudding in the middle). You can also add shredded cheese and jalapeno if you like.

Now, Kat knows me well, so she’s got a handle on the “keep is simple for the kitchen dunce” vibe that I need. Let that be your model and your guide.
Help me cook to fill stomachs, hearts and souls with warmth and joy.
But, keep it simple.

I hate it when the doctors are right.

No, I don’t have cancer again or anything like that. No, I just hate it when someone, especially a doctor, tells me that I can’t do something and they turn out to be right.

HeavyBag

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

In this particular case, I’m talking about running and my knees.
I was pretty well prepared to ignore my oncologist’s advice against taking up running because I’m tired of having even a small gut, even at my age. I know, as I creep up on forty, I should lower the bar, drop my personal standard and just accept that I’m probably always going to carry a “little extra” weight. Except, I just can’t. I hate the pudge that’s built up around my middle. Also, according to an article I read in Men’s Health while I was in the hospital, that “spare tire” could have been part of the reason I actually had cancer in the first place! So, one way or another, that gut has got to go.
Running may be out, but I know aerobic exercise is the best way to drop that weight, so I’ve been walking. Four days a week, weather permitting, I walk. The past month or so, I’ve walked at least a mile and, by my calculations, up to a mile and a-half most of the times I’ve been out. And, that’s good, but it’s not taking the weight off fast enough for me and, well, just not really enough to satisfy me in general. I feel the same about bicycling, though that might still be better than just walking. Not that I’d stop walking, but I feel like I need something more. So, as you can see in the picture, I got my old heavy bag out of the garage and cleaned it up.

Back in the “old days” when I was in something that resembled good shape, I hit the heavy bag twenty minutes, or more, at least three times a week. Of course, I also did some weight training with dumbbells and push-ups and sit-ups or crunches in the morning five days a week. But, I know it was going after that heavy bag that got me and kept me in shape. Thankfully, I still have some of the callouses and the bag gloves and wraps to start up again. I know it won’t be easy, but I’ve got to do something. Besides, I did like being in shape. I seem to recall more than one woman I knew at the time appreciated it, too, and well, my long-time readers will know, nothing motivates me like the opposite sex.
If you’ve never tried it, boxing and kickboxing are great ways to stay in shape. I wasn’t overly lean when I did it, but I certainly carried a lot less weight in general and fat in particular. I mean, I wasn’t like a cast member from 300, but I know I looked better than I do now. Also, I eat better now than I did when I was in my late twenties and thirties. I’m no vegetarian, but I do try to avoid eating whole boxes of Twinkies, no matter how much I love them.

Well, I guess there’s nothing to it, but to do it. So, I’ve got the heavy bag out there and my bag gloves are by the back door. I only managed three minutes after my walk on Sunday, but, well, I’ve got to start somewhere! I’m sure if I keep at it, I’ll be back to twenty minute workouts in no time!

I once read somewhere that doing 100 push ups in the morning makes you feel like you can accomplish anything.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done 100 push ups every morning, but, when I used to do that, it was true. I’d feel like if I could do that, well, at least the day wasn’t wasted, so I might as well give whatever crazy task was at hand a try.
Apparently, someone else agrees with me and has actually developed a program, of sorts, that lets you build up to that goal of 100 push ups. Not coincidentally, the site is called “one hundred push ups” and, if you believe their press, following this plan will let you do 100 push ups, in one, continuous set in just six weeks.

I haven’t tried it yet myself, but I’ll get back to you.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"As human beings, we all want to be happy and free from misery. We have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion, a sense of universal responsibility, are the sources of peace and happiness."
   --Dalai Lama

So, I’ve come up with the perfect antidote to my holiday blues.

I’m having Thanksgiving at my house this year.
Here’s a copy of what I sent out to some of my usual suspects:

“Okay, so J. was supposed to do this, but, I want to make sure you all get invites before someone else snatches you all away.
As you all should know by now, the traditional J&L Married-Name Thanksgiving (formerly the traditional J&L Not Married Thanksgiving) has made a break for freedom and is going to be at my house this year. I told J. to invite all the people he’d normally invite, but he’s still working out his issues with his guest list and the fact that I’m insisting that it’s really okay for him to invite his entire family. So, I’m not going to wait for him.

Y’all come to my house for Thanksgiving.
I’ll have turkey and maybe something more, so if you want anything else, bring it! Especially if there’s something that makes Thanksgiving happen for you, bring that. Also, if there’s someone, or even several someones, that make the holiday happen for you, bring them, whether they’re family or not. If you can think of anyone I missed on this list, too, that seems like fun, forward this on to them. If you can, please, give me a count at least a couple of days before so I can plan to have enough turkey and whatever so no one goes away hungry. Oh, and if you have folding chairs, bring them, too.

I’m warning you now, even though I’m cleaning, my house will be a wreck. I’m a total bachelor and it shows. The only woman that’s seen the inside of my house in six months or more is my dog, so you’ve been warned.

Hope you all can make it, even though I know you may have other plans, family, or some other lame excuse to blow me off.

Thanks,
Jim

P.S. So you can find the place, here’s a map”

Then, because I left part out, I sent this:

“Right, so, for those of you not attuned to my psychic abilities to broadcast thoughts, I thought I’d actually mention when to come for dinner this time. I was figuring on 2:30pm being ‘Turkey Time’, but don’t hesitate to come over early to escape your family, if you feel so moved. By the same token, I’m sure there will be plenty of food, so come by later than you think you should if you have obligations you can’t duck but still want to bask in the warm glow of knowing your house is cleaner than mine.”

And, yes, I am cleaning and yes, my house will still be a wreck, but at least it’ll be good enough that I won’t be too embarrassed to have people over.  Besides, most of them know what my past couple of years have been like so they know why cleaning is pretty low on my priority list.  And, frankly, anyone who doesn’t like it can hit the bricks!

I’m actually planning to do a turkey in the oven and a ham on the grill and, possibly, either some beer bread or sweet potato pie.  My beer bread is always a hit and I have a recipe for sweet potato pie that uses canned sweet potatoes that I’ve been meaning to try.  Who knows, maybe I’ll impress someone with my domestic skills.  My ex-wife did always say that I’d make someone a wonderful wife one day.  Maybe someone will show up, one way or another, who needs a little extra tender loving care, just like I did the year my ex-wife left.  That’s really why I’m doing this.  Because the holidays can be rough and someone helped me through the roughest of holiday seasons, so maybe now, I can return the favor.

Last week, I read Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan.

Though this book wasn’t terrible, I can’t really recommend it to anyone. Look, I applaud anyone who can write a whole book and get it published. Just writing a novel-length work is quite an accomplishment, but that doesn’t make it necessarily good. That’s kind of how I feel about Geek Mafia.
The implication of the title is that the book will somehow link “geeks” with some sort of organized crime, which, to me, usually means La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. But, the author never really quite manages to accomplish this. The book starts with a comic book artist that’s been working for a game company who’s about to be fired dodging work at the bar of a Mexican restaurant. There he meets an attractive free-lancer of some kind who immediately starts to flirt with him. Now, in the real world, this should have set off bells and whistles in this guy’s head, but it doesn’t. Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that a pudgy, almost middle-aged guy completely buys that a pretty girl more than ten years his junior, who he’s just met, is interested in him and doesn’t have any ulterior motive. I know what I think when that’s what seems to be happening to me. Yeah, right, I don’t believe it could be happening to me, but we should believe that this guy totally buys it. What’s more, we should buy it when it turns out to be true.

Well, this girl volunteers to help him get one over on his company and bluff them into giving him a bunch of money instead of the two months severance they want to give him.  Again, if this were me, I’d be super, super suspicious, but this joker just completely buys it and goes along, until it’s almost too late.  Then, and only then, he gets worried that maybe, just maybe, this girl is too good to be true.
But, all that aside, the writing is just, well, mediocre at best.  The author not only uses all the geek and mystery/heist cliches but he over uses them.  I mean, this guy really piles them on.  In a way, he takes using trite situations and predictable scenarios to an art form.  It’s almost like he was trying to make use of every single scene he was given from a writing class or something.  It was amazingly formulaic, from the various scams to the main character trying to join the criminal crew, right down to one of the criminal crew betraying him and his new lover.

The whole thing works, on one level, but it’s certainly not “Best Seller” material.  It was disappointing in several ways beyond the lackluster writing.  For instance, it never really lived up to either promise in the title.  There was no mafia in the book and, in fact, barely any organized crime to speak of at all.  Nor did it live up to the geek portion, really, either.  Any technology or “geekiness” was merely a plot device seen at a distance, at best, and was really not required to move the story forward at all.  It could have all pretty much been done some other way without any significant impact.  Or, the technology was used at about the same level that pretty much any traveling salesman might use.  Laptops and e-mail and all the normal trappings of modern life, not really geeky at all.
And the characters did all sorts of fairly incongruous things, too.  They were quite inconsistent, even considering their obviously “hidden” agendas.  They were, at times, wholly unbelievable, acting in ways that I cannot imagine any normal, reasonable person acting.  Not even perfectly reasonable criminals.
This whole book read like someone attempting NaNoWriMo for the first time and not doing any editing work to the manuscript afterward!

Frankly, I had a lot of hope for this book.  The title alone led me to expect an entirely different book.  One which I had truly looked forward to reading.  Sadly, what was behind that title was not the book I’d hoped to read.  So, as appealing as the description of this book may seem, I just cannot recommend it to anyone.

It’s getting to be that time of year again.

I’ve really been craving a cigarette the past week or two. It always happens this time of year. The air turns cool and crisp, which makes it perfect weather to stand outside and suck long drags of hot, molten tar down deep into my lungs. Of course, I won’t. It seems morally incorrect to increase my chances of cancer again after M.D. Anderson worked so hard to keep me alive, but, oh, I do so want to just sit with strong coffee and smoke cigarette after cigarette, one after another. I don’t know what it is, really, besides the time of year and the change in weather. Perhaps there’s something that’s making me miss a time long since past, before I moved to Houston, before I was married. Another Fall, in another place, when I was another person.

It may surprise my readers to know that I am a bit of a romantic. I suspect that my co-workers would especially be surprised, since I tend to maintain a somewhat cynic mode of conversation in the office. I think, perhaps, most of my friends from church would be surprised, too. There, oddly enough, most people see me as a wise-cracking joker, I think. But, a tired, world-weary, old romantic is what I am most nights, especially in the Fall.
The holidays are approaching quickly. Too quickly, it seems to me sometimes. And, with the holidays come memories. Memories of old dreams that died young. Memories of old betrayal, old pain, that nags at me like a bad knee in damp weather. The holidays are a hard time for me these days. Alone again, after thinking I’d never be alone again. My family is all in another state, two thousand miles away. Even home isn’t home any more, another place that’s changed too much and a time that will never return. This season, which includes my birthday, always reminds me of all the things I regret, all the ways my twisty life has gone in circles no one could predict. Even my old ally, words upon words, fail me, leave me stranded. What words can describe the hollow feeling this season evokes in me? Not sadness, not really true regret, but an emptiness so full that it sucks all feeling out of me like a vacuum.

I’ve been watching an old movie. The Yakuza, starring Robert Mitchum and Ken Takakura. Mitchum plays a former service-man who, along with a number of friends, was part of the Occupation after World War II. One of those old friends, played by Brian Kieth, has gotten into trouble and asks Mitchum’s character to help him out. The trouble, of course, involves the yakuza. I think it may have been my first exposure to any sort of yakuza movie. It’s hard to find, but Netflix had it. Maybe this, too, reminds me of all the ways life has surprised me. And, naturally, it’s filled with smoking, which makes me crave that cigarette even more. But, I have to watch it, twice, back to back. It’s as if I’m looking for an answer to my own past in the way the characters deal with theirs. I always find myself stuck in no-win situations with people I care about. Someone to whom I can’t express my deep affection without causing hard feelings with someone else to whom I owe a debt. There’s a line in the movie, one character talking to another about the part played by Ken Takakura. “Yes, he is insufferable at times. Honorable men often are.” I sympathize with that, identify with it. Once, when describing a complicated social situation I found myself in to a friend in Japan, he told me I was “more Japanese than Japanese”, which is quite a compliment, actually. I’ve always admired yakuza films, the Japanese film noir.

And, that’s the thing, maybe. On the inside, my life feels like film noir, but on the outside it plays like a Doris Day comedy. God, not even a Cary Grant comedy. I could take that. Who doesn’t want to be Cary Grant? Even Cary Grant would’ve liked to have been Cary Grant. But, my problem is I’m always trying to be Robert Mitchum or, yes, even Ken Takakura, “the man who never smiles”, except I can’t keep a straight face. It’s hard to be a tough guy if you can’t keep a straight face.
They say every comedian is crying on the inside, and maybe that’s me. Maybe that’s why I’m always joking, to hide the fact that my life seems a little tragic to me. And, yes, if it seems tragic to me, how must it seem to anyone looking at it from the outside? Almost forty and alone. My friends seem to think I’m undatable, or incapable of picking someone appropriate to date. I’m not so sure they’re wrong. If I drank hard anymore, I’d start drinking myself to sleep every night, but even that’s not really a viable option to me anymore, thanks to my doctors. I told someone not too long ago that I’d done all my crying and that’s why I joked so much now. Because it was a choice I’d made between laughing and crying and I’d cried myself dry. So bad jokes are all that’s left. No smokes, no women, maybe a little booze, if it’s the good stuff, but all that’s left really are bad jokes and brooding self-recrimination.

I suppose if I were smart, I’d take all this ennui, this overgrown teen angst just returned from French boarding school, and channel it into a moody mystery novel or a vampire story or something. But, I’m not, so instead, I just blog. And you read. Thanks.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
   --Albert Einstein

Even though I use Microsoft Windows Server 2003 at work, I’m an unabashed Novell fan.

This is a total geek-out post, so if you’re not into server operating systems or e-mail systems or if up-time doesn’t matter in your world, ignore it, okay?

Now, for the few of you who are left, let me emphasize, I am a total Novell fanboy.  I mean, I totally drank the Kool-Aid on this one, okay?  I don’t have a Novell tattoo or anything, but I have been a Novell Certified Engineer since Jesus was a baby.  And, I’ve maintained that certification through the years, even though I have to admit, we’re kind of hitting the law of diminishing returns here.
Novell’s e-mail solution is called Groupwise.  It started out life as something else, but it’s been improved to a very reliable, stable platform that was actually pretty easy to maintain.  Of course, that’s relative when it comes to e-mail packages, but it was a good trade off between ease-of-use and robustness that made it a really nice solution.  And, obviously, it integrated very cleanly into the rest of Novell’s network management systems.  So, once it was all setup right, you could make a user and a new e-mail account in pretty much the same step.  I loved it.

Naturally, there was always a rivalry between Novell and Microsoft.  They each fired shots back and forth about who had the better, more reliable product.  Die-hards like me always argued in favor of Groupwise.  Guess what?  It turns out, we were right!  Google did some testing and polling and compared e-mail packages.  Naturally, they came out as the most reliable system, though, if they lock your account, good luck getting it unlocked again.  But, go to their blog entry about their e-mail findings and scroll down until you get to the graphic.  Go ahead, click the link and look at the graphic.  I’ll wait.
Did you notice the shortest bar, next to Gmail?  Yeah, Novell’s Groupwise.
Groupwise, on average, has half the down-time of a Microsoft Exchange system.  Half!  And, I bet if you loaded it in a multiserver configuration, or even a Linux server, that number would drop even more.  But, still, half as much downtime as Exchange!

So, why don’t more people use it?