One Shining Moment



For a little bit of time tonight, I had the G4 and the old Mac networked and sharing files. I could access the files and programs on the G4 from the old Mac and Laurie could access the files and programs on the old Mac from the G4.



It fell apart when I tried to print a document from the G4 off the old LaserWriter NTR connected to the old Mac (G3 hotrodded from a 9500). No go. When I made it so that happened, so that I could print, the network connection broke down.



But for one brief moment, there was a network and file sharing connection between the 2 machines. It was a beautiful thing.



Tomorrow, the RedHat 7.0 machine gets hooked into the NetGear router. This network shall be my servant and I shall be its master. Worship me!!!!

Friday Five



1. How much time do you spend online each day?

Too much, if the truth be known. About 3-5 hours per day, actually.



2. What is your browser homepage set to?

My Yahoo!! That still gives me links to everything else I want to check.



3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?

Yahoo!!!

4. Where was your first webpage located?

Blogspot

5. How long have you had your current website?

Since March, IIRC

Stands With A Fist

Finally found a picture of myself at Gnomedex, evidence that I was there.



But what is the deal with me? Fists!!! My mother mentioned, years ago, that I always have my fists balled up in family pictures. She was going through a book of pictures and pointed them out.



"Fist. Fist. Fist.", she said, "here's another one."



I don't do this intentionally. I mean, what do you do with your hands while you're dancing?

Monday Morning Rock



I'm sore this morning and it's hot. I'm not sure whether it's opening two mornings in a row and throwing hundreds of pounds of ice into the case a couple mornings in a row or it's due to the bike ride last night or just working on the computer at Laurie's desk but the deltoids are killing me. I believe I'll rest today until it's time to work this afternoon.



Had the weirdest damn dream this morning after I woke up at 5AM and finally got back to sleep. Think that I was going to some sort of job interview and was parking my truck. I drove up an entrance ramp into the parking garage and it turned out to be a stairway. Fortunately, the people got out of my way and no one was harmed.



I walked around the building, looking for the office I was supposed to visit but no avail. There was a theater or auditorium of some sort with a restaurant in the back. I looked for someone at the tables and suddenly the servers started dancing wildly.



Then I couldn't find my truck anywhere and I woke up.

Keep on keepin' on

Interesting night last night. I was forgotten at the close of business last night and left in the store as it was locked up. Only because Christina was still in the parking lot, talking to Susan through the window of their cars and they saw me jumping up and down and waving was I able to get out the door without setting off the alarms.

Am I too quiet, too reserved? It consistently aggravates me when Laurie tells me something I told her 3 weeks before because she read it in the paper or heard it from someone else. I refer to this as the "Popcorn Guy" syndrome.

You see, my friend Mark Lidman, was meeting his wife at the Royals game one night a few years back. He told her, upon arrival, "I heard on the way over here that Ewing Kauffman (founder of Marion Laboratories and owner of the Royals) died."

His wife didn't believe him so she asked a passing popcorn vendor, "Did Mr K. die?"

"Oh yes, it was on the news."

"So she believes the Popcorn guy and not me," he finishes the story.

That's married life, folks.

Email me if you have any questions.

Meanwhile, I'm still thinking...


My deepest desire is to live in a place with:

1. mountains to hike with Laurie and our dogs



2. An REI store to get stuff to go to the mountains and hike with
   
   Laurie and our dogs



3. An Ikea store to get stuff to come home to after I'm done hiking
   
   in the mountains with Laurie and our dogs



4. much more remunerative employment



5. high speed internet access



6. quality mass transit



7. Art Houses



8. Cross country skiing in the winter

This would likely mean Denver. Of course, this would mean giving up

football fandom since I could never be a Broncos fan. It's like when

people convert for marriage. Could one ever sincerely be Catholic after

a lifetime of Judaism? "I don't know. I guess that was all crap before."





So goes it.  I'm working on the Mini-ITX situation. Looks like

each of the 2 free boards I won at Gnomedex are going to cost me about

$300 to build the computers to go with them and that's without

monitors, keyboards, OS or mice. After reading about the mini-itx built

into an Ikea breadbox, I'm choosing this

for my case. I have my friend Glenn, the finest scavenger of the Swap and Shops I know, searching

for an old toaster body for the other one. I mean something from the

1950's or 60's, something from the streamline era. I'll definitely run

some Linux distro on one or both of them. I'm thinking Gentoo just because it sounds

intriguing from the folks at the KCLUG

message board and I could always stand to learn more Linux stuff.





After Gnomedex, I don't think of Microsoft as harshly as I used to do.

I loved seeing the things they're doing with XP and Windows Media.

(probably should insert some links there but what the hey!)





Anyway, it occurs to me that perhaps someone might well be reading this

but I don't know because I haven't got comments set up yet. So, if

you're reading this, email me

and we'll get something going. I need to find more that I can blog

about. I'm always thinking of stuff when I'm running, or walking

Chester or cleaning up at work but not when I'm at the computer.

Another Day away from the Office

We went to a wedding this weekend in Jeff City. Our friends' daughter Susan Murphy, was getting married. It always makes me consider my marriage when I hear a man of the cloth pontificate about marriage. It's one thing to feel a comiitment to someone and profess that in your heart but when you have to stand before your friends and family, it really comes down on you, not in a bad way, but that you feel the enormity of the commitment and of what you're doing.



Anyway, it was a really nice day. I wish that we'd known our friends would be bringing their bikes and we could have taken ours for a short ride on the Katy Trail. We wandered around the Capitol Building viewing busts of noteworthy Missourian's, such as Walt Disney, Scott Joplin, Walter Cronkite, George Washington Carver, Sacajawea, Ewing Kauffman, and Stan Musial. It was also interesting to note that my state once had a governor by the name of No comments:

Nostalgia means "Return to Pain"



For some reason, I've been into music from my high school years. Maybe, it was when Half.com came up with Todd Rundgren's Utopia and I bought it. It's exactly the right length that I can listen to each side (or what used to be a "side") back and forth on my commute to work.



Maybe it was picking up the Kinky Friedman novels and getting into his music. Laurie had been interested in him, for his animal rescue work and I had long known about his old songs like "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed."



Or maybe it was the Cheap Trick cd, I picked up in Des Moines. I went for a run while I was at Gnomedex, early in the morning. I'll bet that I was the only person doing that. Anyway, I ran by this record store and saw a Ramones poster in the window that I had to have. So, on the break for dinner, I took a walk from the hotel and one can't just go in to the store and pick up a poster without looking at everything else. So I found a copy of Cheap Trick's Music for Hangovers. Thinking it was the highlights from their early records, which I loved, I picked it up and listened to it on the way home. Somewhat apropos, as the free, as in free beer, beer from the Google party had given me the "Beechwood Headache" as Anheuser Busch products are prone to do.



After all that, the other day, I get an e-mail from the coordinator of my high school reunion, 25th to be exact.

It's morning and I'm completing the Track Club newsletter, trying to get the roster to fit on 2 pages. When I get the website up and running I will post it up there. Then, I'm going to run with the 2 foster dogs. I'll post the link for them later. Gotta go sell fish this afternoon. Such is the rockstar life.

Ran 12 miles tonight at the Wednesday Night Run and all the food, not a lot of it, was gone when I got there. I had a Fat Tire and some chips and a couple cookies. Was a great night for running, though and I'm not too unhappy, just tired. Loving this D-Link Air Plus card, too. Wore my Google gimme cap that I got at Gnomedex to run in and told the story of my wonderful voyage to nerdville. That's all. Going to bed.

I have managed to get my laptop/notebook online. I was so stoked by the wireless access at Gnomedex that I put one in at the house. It's a Netgear and it worked flawlessly. Just went by office depot and bought the one with the best rebate. I didn't even have to put in the CD.



Now, I'll be able to post every day. Lots going on. No cat news, though.

Just got back, or got back 2 days ago from Gnomedex. Who did I meet? Cheyenne, Solonor, Sunidesus, R. Josh Quarles, Chris and Gretchen, Steve Crabbe and his lovely wife Melanie (who tried to steal my miniboard that I won in a drawing) Lori, Phil (my roommate), KB, Tom Bridge, and many more that I can't yet remember. Great experience for me! I've always had this picture of myself as a really shy person but I'm managing to make some bold moves lately.

OMG, has it really been three weeks. I'm never gonna make it as a blogger. I'm working hard at getting the household computers networked so I can do this not via dial-up and more frequently. I also need to mail my job dialogue into work.

Another week has passed since my last post.

One might ask, (one might, but since I don't have comments properly set up, one might not know if another one is asking) where the name of this blog came from.



There used to be a radio commercial, where a guy was selling something and it was one of those "too-good-to-be-true" deals. Another guy chimed in, "Hey I didn't just fall off the turnip truck".



It has been a code word in my family for some stupid person. Like our Turnip-in-Chief.

Thanks for sharing

So I'm working the other day. A customer asked me where our halibut came from.



"Alaska," I respond.



"I'm afraid of fish from polluted waters."



"Well, Alaska has the cleanest ocean waters on earth, I'm told." adding "Despite the oil spills."



"They've found dioxin in the sperm of polar bears."



"Well......" (moves to attend to hopefully ringing phone)



What possesses him to share this tidbit of information with me. I suppose someone could know this in the normal course of life, particularly someone who shops at a natural foods store and follows EarthFirst type things. It's just that scenario it conjures up in my mind.



Scientist, in white labcoat, hands test tube to assistant, "Beaker, go get a sperm sample from Gentle Ben out there."



Mercifully, I will let the picture fade to black there.

Laurie has made it home. Actually she's been back since the day of my last post. She's bearing my cold now.



It definitely sucks being sick. What's worse, perhaps, is being around a sick person.

Meeting this morning at the store. Things keep getting better. Halibut is now in season. We'll make some money this week maybe.



Maybe I should backtrack a little. Nope, I 'm gonna go lie down.

Here I go again. I'm fighting a cold and feel like I'm drowning in snot. Going to bed before I have to go to work.

Well, here I go. It's a start to something. I've been looking at these things for months now and thinking maybe I should get on the bandwagon before it gets away from me. I'm here at home tonight listening to the basketball game (Kansas vs. Texas Tech).



My wife, Laurie, is off cross-country skiing in Winter Park and I'm playing on the computer. I tend to stay up too late when she's away, reading or watching TV or something besides getting to sleep. I don't know if it's because she draws me into bed when she's home (that sounds strange) or I just don't want to face sleeping alone.



Anyway, a normal Monday at the store. Working in retail, I've lost any sense (guess I could end the sentence right there.) of the weekly cycle.