Author: Paul

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Sebring Survives

I’m kinda proud of the way the 2002 Chrysler Sebring we bought new just before I retired from the AF in Colorado Springs has made it to 145k miles. The 2.7 engine in it is notorious for some catastrophic failure modes involving the timing set and water pump systems and associated sludge issues. Poor design maybe, but I believe the oil bypass filter I installed early in it’s life did the trick. The only costly repair we’ve done to it in 12 years ownership was the water pump which failed normally last year with an obvious slow weep hole leak. They are known to fail leaking internally fouling the oil with resultant massive damage.

I am re-installing that bypass filter today after it’s rubber lines finally degraded beyond further repair. We were lucky the car didn’t die from an oil leak due to that after I found it leaking with the umpteenth bad hose connection and 2 quarts low after Phoebe brought it home one day last week. This one last time I will re-install the bypass with copper lines and compression fittings for the long haul. After a few more maintenance items coming up in the near future like struts, CV joints, injectors, coils and maybe a cat gut we’ll see how long it goes. It’s all icing on the cake now for a car that was reputed to be one of the worst of it’s era. Just goes to show what the “pundits” know.

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Walking Tool(s) in Public Use

Used the cane getting in and out of the building at work yesterday and again today.  Leg seems to be getting better, but frustrated to find myself visibly crippled in public these days.

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It Sucks to get Old

55 this year, and not really holding up as well as I had hoped.  Right hip replacement back in January 2013 went well, but the rest of my joints are not far behind.  Slipped on ice out back about a month ago and severely strained the right thigh.  Hip seemed OK at the time, but not so sure now.  The prosthesis pin has become increasingly painful and the first steps out of bed this morning were really bad.  I’m using one of the crutches again.
Son of a…!!

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Crunchbang (#!) It Is!

During the process of bringing Francie’s old laptop out of retirement a few weeks ago, I was looking around trying to decide what OS to install and stumbled on an unfamiliar Linux distro I decided to use called “Crunchbang.”  A Brit bloke from Lincoln, UK going by the handle “corenomial” organizes and provides it as a minimalist Debian system.  How did I go all these recent years unaware of this little gem in the midst of the hopelessly splintered Linux ecosystem?  I’ve browsed Distrowatch a time or 2, but somehow never came across it.

So in three short weeks I have completed migrating almost my entire home network to #!.  Only the Apple side of the house and the two oldest PCs going with older Redhat versions as their primary OS, simply without the processing power to run a modern kernel remain un-banged.  If you are tired of the bloatware, distracting eye candy and commercial creep being seen in the Linux world today give #! a try.  I bet you see it my way, too.

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My VA Conundrum

I’m starting to believe the U.S. Dept. of Veterans’s Affairs (VA) might be one of the most bureaucratically inept organizations I have ever dealt with.  That seems especially unfortunate to me, because I have nothing but praise and thanks for the work of the VA medical professionals I’ve interacted with over the past few years at the Denver and Cheyenne VA hospitals.

Like many, they and all their support personnel are just trying to do a difficult job under difficult circumstances.  The disability claims debacle on the other side of the VA house is well known in the military and veteran’s communities, and currently problematic for me.  It’s almost like the VA has reached a paradoxical point of “too big to fail” and “too big to fix” at the same time.  So now 11 years after retirement from the Air Force, fighting a losing battle with arthritis (right hip already replaced) the VA claims people have denied my claim.

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A Breath of Fresh Air

It’s a bit difficult to say under the circumstances, but seeing the DG operators working the system, doing their own thing, looking at it with a critically unbiased eye, really is a breath of fresh air.  I’m starting to believe the dramatic changes now underway will eventually in the long run outweigh any personally negative feelings we may have regarding Lockheed losing the program, at least for as long as Ikonos lasts.  Looks like things will now be proceeding in a real team environment.

One of my biggest, if not only really substantive complaint was the inflexible, almost dogmatic way operations were implemented.  “That’s the way it’s always been done” was the tacity approved modus operandi.  Innovation, analysis or any attempted change to the status quo was actively stifled.  The very few people with any control selfishly administered this oppressive environment with an iron hand.

Good riddance to that.

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Protected Content

You may encounter potentially viral, litigious, politically “in” correct and/or of course personal information posted on this site.  Such information may be password protected.  Please feel free to contact Paul (admin) if you feel worthy of obtaining access.  Passwords will be provided on a arbitrarily unfair basis.

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Exactly When Did Smartphones Become Brain Extensions?

I mean, I don’t need a handheld computer-communications device to do my thinking for me.  Why does daughter #2 seem to have this attitude?  Seems she cannot be picked up from school at the appointed, agreed-to time without getting a text notification of transportation standing by curbside.

WTF?

I don’t think so.  Be on time, be there, use your brain, not your phone, thank you very much.

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Batwoman Loses Her Wheels

Phoebe stayed home from school sick today.  Then ran out in the car somewhere mid-morning.  Schoolwork (assignments) is starting to show up missing again.  How is someone who needs to stay out partying all night and burning through $50 worth of fuel every week ever going to manage?

Game over.

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Where's My Data?

I see a message from one of the corporate email robots this morning telling me to do something I thought I did about three weeks ago.  Evidently, this year’s performance plan updates have somehow disappeared.  At least mine did.  Probably nothing personal.  I’ll bet everyone got whacked.  So I’ll be charging some more overhead time re-entering them later today.  At least I kept my copy.  Data management seems a somewhat nebulous concept these days.  Glad I learned how to do it right a long time ago.

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Phoebe the Night Owl

What is it with teenagers making them stay out all night?  I’m trying to remember back in the day when I did it, and just don’t get it anymore.  Probably didn’t get it then.  Damn kid’s gone Batman on me.  Time – what a concept.

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The Mood at Work…

Is depressing, to say the least. Everyone knows the end is near but continues to soldier on – impressive really, under the circumstances. People are frustrated and in at least one case angry about their particular situation. Ikonos seems to have become almost an afterthought or inconvenience in the customer’s eyes. We are not a priority, rather an issue to be dealt with and dismissed, the sooner the better. It is awkward just being around knowing the customers don’t want you there. Previously high standards and production rate are basically gone. “Whatever” is good enough. Mistakes are completely overlooked. At least the pressure to be perfect is off.

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Another Oldie, But Goodie

On the topic of older PCs, Francie’s, first laptop, a 5-year old HP DV9000, was recently pressed back into service due to lack of resources at work (as if THAT’S anything new!). It’s one of the early Intel Centrino Duo systems with 2gig RAM. I decided to get it ready starting with a fresh install of a distro I’d seen called Crunchbang (#!). I was drawn to it by the claimed low resource requirements for running a modern/current kernel/base and it did not disappoint. I’d highly recommend this flavor of Linux to anyone looking for similar OS features. I’d summarize #! by saying that in the context of the current world of Linux DE fragmentation, it is to me at least, Debian done right.

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Z486 Status Update

Probably the oldest PC on the planet still in use, and the first one I ever purchased way back in 1985, the Zenith 486 is now undergoing it’s umpteenth upgrade/rebuild.

It started as an Intel 286-based machine.  Being a 2nd generation PC with the new, highly touted 16-bit ISA bus and 20 megabytes of hard disk storage space, it was a top drawer machine at the time.  It went to a 386 and finally became a 486 sometime in the late 80’s, IIRC.  It has sentimental value and continues doing file storage duties, albeit obviously limited these days.

In expected fashion for ancient hardware, one of the drives developed an error condition precluding NT4 from booting a couple weeks ago.  To me this is just an opportunity to add a 2nd SCSI adapter, stuff some more drives in there and see how it goes running a similarly ancient version of Redhat Linux.  I just happen to have a pre-IPO copy of 5.2 waiting to be re-used on the next iteration of the venerable Z-486.