Diary of a Network Geek

LastChanceGas

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

Well, this is about your last chance to get what you need before everything that’s open still closes.

I didn’t manage to top off my tank Thursday, so, when I went to get my friend’s DSL working, I swung into the Shell at the corner of Clay and Beltway 8. They were still open and there weren’t lines, even though they were busy, and they weren’t even price gouging, as you can see from the picture here.
I’m afraid I wasn’t very helpful to my friends, though, since they’d done everything right, as far as I could see. So, they ended up calling support who told them the last step that the automated setup seemed to leave out. At least one of the their laptops was connected to the Internet when I left. The other one had some other problem with it. I think it was a virus or spyware because as soon as we got an Internet connection working, the machine slowed to almost a halt.

Oh, and let’s see…
I’ve got my last load of laundry drying right now. And, the dishwasher is full, so after dinner tonight, I’ll run that, too. I’ve filled all my water containers, and the bathtub upstairs.
It’s been nice for most of the day, really. Cooling off a bit. The wind is starting to pick up a little bit and there are clouds, which are getting pretty dark, but, so far, it’s not a big deal.

The weathercasters on all the news networks, and the Weather Channel, are all starting to irritate me. One guy on the Weather Channel started out saying that a “large number” of people in the Houston area *may* lose power and in the space of an hour had changed his story to “more than a million people in Houston *will* lose power”! What a crock of shit! Okay, look, if things are as bad as they look, a lot of people can expect to lose power for at least a couple hours, sure, but these “journalists” are trying to make it sound like we can be certain that everyone in Houston is going to be without power for weeks! C’mon!
Oh, yeah, and one guy on regular news was so clueless about what was going on that he admitted to having to e-mail someone to find out just what “storm surge” was and why it mattered! This mouth-breathing drooler is who I’m relying on for weather news that could save my life? I think I’ll take my chances with just plain old common sense, I think.

Well, I’ll have more later and things get more interesting.

StormAlert

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

Okay, so if somehow you haven’t been watching the news, or just don’t care about Texas, there’s a storm in the Gulf headed our way.

There are a bunch of computer models, but they’re all pointing toward Galveston and Houston. It really looks like this is going to hit us dead on this time. Oh, sure, they said the same thing about Rita a couple of years ago, but, well, let’s face it I’m just not lucky enough to miss this one, too. I mean, sure, I got out of an ugly marriage clean and I beat cancer, but I don’t think even I’m lucky enough to dodge two hurricanes pointed directly at Houston.

So, I spent the morning cleaning out my yard and cleaning off my porch. I filled the fountain, so I’d have flushing water. (I’ll show a picture of my fountain later, probably.) Then, I filled two collapsable water containers, that total five gallons together. And, I filled a five gallon SunShower, as well as my percolating coffee pot and my regular coffee maker and a tea kettle and an 18 quart pot. I’ll fill a few more containers later this evening, just in case. Last year, I kind of freaked out about having enough drinking water, so this year, I’m making sure I’m okay. Oh, and I have a hand-pump Katadyn water filter, too! So, if worse comes to worse, I can drink water from my ponds.
I’ve checked my batteries in my lantern and made sure I know were my candles all are, not to mention lighters and matches. I’ve cranked my Freeplay radio/flashlight, to make sure it has a charge. And, I have a spare battery fully charged for my camera. So, as long as I have an Internet connection, I’ll keep posting. After that, I’ll keep taking pictures to upload later.
I’ve got a load of laundry in right now and I’ll run the dishwasher after dinner, so I’ll have clean clothes and the maximum amount of clean dishes, too. I’m debating about going out and getting my tank totally topped off, as I didn’t have a chance to do that yesterday. See, I was a loyal employee and did everything I could to make sure our systems were good for the storm. You’d think I’d learn better by now, right?

Okay, the thing that drives me nuts about this Hurricane Ike coverage on the Weather Channel is that these guys are really, really hyping this all the way up to justify their own existence. I get that, but I wonder if they feel bad at all about making people panic? Do they really think they’re doing such a public service with that?

Well, since it’s before noon and the high winds aren’t supposed to start in my area until something like 7:00pm, I think I’m going to run over to my friend’s apartment and get their new DSL working for them. They don’t have cable and I’d hate for them to be cut off from communications about any storm danger or anything. Also, it’ll give me something to do. And, while I’m out if I see a gas station with gas, I might swing in and top off.

Stay tuned, readers! More pictures and posts later!

Or, if you prefer, the end of the world is nigh!

So, yeah, there’s a hurricane of respectable size and intensity named Ike headed my general direction.  As per usual, I will not run like a rat deserting a sinking ship, but will, instead, bravely blog my way through what will no doubt prove to be far less than the crazy weather people are predicting.  Oh, I’m sure it won’t be “good” and we will probably lose power for a couple hours, maybe more, but I doubt that it will be as bad as the people who make their living scaring the public with tales of Mother Nature gone wrong are making it sound.

Long time readers will recall that I stayed when Rita was supposed to wipe the greater Houston area off the face of the Earth, too.  And, I blogged then, too.  Not much to report then, and I doubt there will be much to report this time, either.  Oh, one important difference is that I have a good digital camera, so I’ll have pictures this time.  In fact, I may just have a picture for every post this time around.  Or not, as the mood strikes me.

In any case, if you’re in the area, be safe.  Otherwise, I’ll do my best to keep everyone updated!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"I love deadlines. I especially love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
   --Douglas Adams

Make yourself a safe room.

Hurricane season is upon us. Do you have a safe place to weather any storms in your house? Well, if DuPont has their way, you will. They’ve got this new system/product/”thing” that they’re rolling out to the public with the help of the Home Depot called the DuPont™ StormRoom™ with KEVLAR®. It’s for both new construction and existing homes, though I’d imagine a retrofit would be much, much more expensive. And, if you add optional plumbing, they say you can use this space as a “panic room”, too.

Years ago, I bought a book about doing this yourself called the Secure Home. At the time, of course, my ex-wife thought I was crazy for even thinking about it, but now, here’s a big company who’s doing it for a tidy profit.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this; decide what you want."
   --Ben Stein

Some of you may have noticed that my site went down for bit today.

Well, it was just a bit of hardware problem at my web hosting company.  They’ve fixed it and I’m back up and running.  Sadly, I did temporarily lose one post from yesterday, which I’ve recreated, but I’ve also lost comments made yesterday.  No way to get those back, really, as they weren’t on the backup and I don’t have a personal backup, either.

So, my apologies to anyone effected.

Wow, that’s two in the space of a week.

They say that famous people die in threes.  Last week it was Gary Gygax.  Today, it was Arthur C. Clarke.   He was a great man who predicted the communications satellite, among other things, though he’s probably best known for writing 2001:A Space Odyssey.  He wrote more books and stories than I can think of and continued to influence the science-fiction world right up until the end.

Locus Magazine has a more detailed biography.

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons died this morning.

He and Dave Arneson just about invented the entire role-playing game industry.  I don’t think I know anyone who wasn’t touched, in some way, by D&D.   Those of us who played owe Mr. Gygax a debt of gratitude that is hard to put into words.
He grew up in Lake Geneva, which is also where he started playing war games.  Those war games added more and more fantasy elements, until, finally, rules were developed to allow individual heroes to adventure without the armies.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Now, those rules are in their fourth major revision and have been copied, or emulated, or added-to, the world over.

Wow, the world has changed so much in such a short time.
We’ll all miss you, Gary.

I’m of two minds on these.

When I was in Boy Scouts I earned Wildernes Survival Merit Badge. One of my Merit Badge Councellors at the time mocked survival kits saying that it seemed to him when he most needed such a thing, it would be no where to be found. So, mostly, I learned to make do with what I carried in my pockets. I think that was about when I developed the habit of always carrying a pocket knife and a lighter, come to think of it.

In any case, with hurricane season growing ever longer, and all sorts of terrible disasters looming on the horizon, according to the television press, I suppose it’s not a bad idea to have something a little more substantial around. Cetainly, I’m not the first blogger to talk about survival kits, nor will I be the last. And, I have to admit, I have other reasons for thinking about this. Not only am I a bit of a survival nut from way back, but I’ve been reading a book called The World Without Us that’s set me to thinking about this sort of thing.
Earlier this year, Wired Magazine reviewed several emergency survival kits, and after a lot of searching, I managed to find a link to it. (Scroll down, past the speaker reviews to the survival kits.) More recently, however, Wired ran an article on making your own kit from scratch and building the “smarter emergency kit“. That article makes a great supplement to the suggestions made at the Department of Homeland Security sponsored site, Ready.gov. They’ve got a whole list of emergency preparedness documents, in PDF format, including a list of suggested emergency supplies. Incidentally, that was what Wired Magazine rated as the best emergency survival kit, the one you made yourself following the Ready.gov guidelines. Keep in mind, though, the advice my Merit Badge Councellor gave in his smarmy way… Make the kit portable and keep it near you in case of emergency. (If you want to include food in your kit, you could do worse than using stuff from Mountain House. But, make sure to rotate it out every couple of years!)
Also, for you fellow dog owners, you might make a kit for your best friend, too. Again, from the Wired blogs, there are pre-made dog emergency kits. But, mainly, I just keep extra dog food on hand and allow additional drinking water.
Another idea for readers who are, like me, very digital in nature, having a spare laptop in an emergency “bug out” laptop kit isn’t a bad idea at all. In fact, now that I’ve got a spare laptop, and a bit of time, I may just make that myself!

(Don’t forget to check out the pictures in the last post and vote!)

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Justice may be blind, but she has very sophisticated listening devices."
   --Edgar Argo

The cold war didn’t start in the U.S.

You know, sometimes, we think that the U.S. invented bomb shelters back in the late Fifties, but, really, they weren’t an original idea. The Brits, who frankly have a lot more experience with actually being bombed than we do, have had bomb shelters for far longer than we have. In fact, theirs are organized and, in some cases, state subsidized.
Here’s an article about one such bomb shelter that’s been abandoned, sadly.
Actually, with land prices being what they are in the UK, I’m surprised they haven’t rented it out!

Many people will be thinking back to what happened on this day in 2001, when a group of tragically misguided fanatics created terror on a previously unimaginable level by flying two passenger airplanes into the the World Trade Center twin towers and a third into the Pentagon. Some fewer people may recall the heart rending heroism of the passengers on the fourth plane, who managed to wrest control back from the hijackers and, sacrificing their own lives, crashed their plane in a field where the damage and horror could be minimized, if such a thing is possible.
Many will remember the heros who went and did their job in the face of impossible odds, trying to save as many victims of that terrible tragedy of hate and terror and politics as they could. Many paid the ultimate price in that effort, giving up their own lives in exchange for others.

The terrorists who rained destruction on us five years ago wanted us to be crippled. For a time, we were. I don’t think much work got done terrible day, five years ago. Though, I remember working a full day, even as people around me went home to sit glued to the television, frozen, impotent, and frustrated. I remember the shock and unreality of the whole thing. It didn’t seem possible, but it had happened. And, five years later, we still feel the after-shock from that event. We still deal with the repercusions.

I hesitate to add my voice to the multitude. My message less uplifting, less hopeful. I worry that those brave people sacrificed their lives only to see us less free than we were before that terrible day. In the years since that horrific day, that event has been used to justify some of the worst abuses of power and violations of our freedom ever recorded. Which is precisely what the terrorists were after. They want us to be afraid. They want us to change our way of life based on their actions. They want us to live in such fear that we willingly give up what generations have fought for in this country; Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
I’ve heard the arguments for why I shouldn’t mind having my every move watched by government “keepers”, all of whom, I have been repeatedly assured, are there for my own good. I’ve been told that if I have nothing to hide, I shouldn’t mind the invasions of privacy or the loss of freedom. Interestingly enough, similar arguments are used for things like gun control. Why should I need to have a hand-gun to protect me? The government keeps me safe, right?
My response is the same, to both arguments. “Where do you draw the line?” and “That’s what Chancellor Hitler told Germany, too.” The second argument for what I shouldn’t let the people in power erode my civil liberties comes right from my old neighborhood. From men and women with numbers tattooed on their arms. Men and women who remembered how things started there. How the loss of small freedoms, meant to “improve” life, led down that slippery slope into Hell. They remembered, but there aren’t many left. Those survivors are mostly gone, lost to age and illness and time. We think we know better now, but we don’t. As has been said before, those who do not remember history are destined to repeat it. We must remember. We must never forget either of these things and find the balance between protect ourselves and throwing away all the things that we have worked and sacrificed so very much to have. We’re still the “freeist” country in the world, but that means less today than it did.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”
-Benjamin Franklin