All’s Well
OK, after 5 years, I now have 4WD again. I was somewhat worried that I had misdiagnosed the problem, as it has been years since I did it and my memory is not so good these days. Actually, my memory never was so good, but that is another story. But, no, I did not make a mistake, the new encoder motor fixed it.
The tailpipe chose the test drive to fall off the truck, so I will have to replace the exhaust system real soon now, and next month (May) is my traditional vehicle maintenance month, so I need to oil change the oil, do a lub job, plus replace all the filters and the spark plugs (150K maintenance). Then there is some new rust from the winters salt that needs to be dealt with. The lady is sixteen now, and every one knows how expensive sixteen year olds are to maintain.
I got a couple of new hard drives in the mail today. I replaced the two old RE2 drives with the two new RE3 drives, and moved the other RE3 from the motherboard controller to the raid controller as a hot-spare. That leaves me with the same capacity as I had, but faster, and more reliable as the hot-spare will switch in automatically if one of the drives in the raid-5 array fails. The Western Digital 500gb RE3’s cost me about $50 each off ebay. They have been replaced by the RE4’s and most folks are buying bigger drives these days which is why they are so cheap right now. If I can come up with the funds to buy a couple more I will expand the array to 2tb which will serve my needs for the next few years. The RE2’s are now doing backup duty. The workstation would also like some more memory, and a pair of faster processors.
The little server, has about reached the end of its life too. I had to delete a lot of stuff off it because the 320gb hard drives were full up. Gah, I remember when I bought a 100mb hard drive and thought I would never need more space than that.
The unseasonably warm weather is going away the next few days, but we do not seem to be going to have the rain they were predicting.
The price of gas has gone up again. The price of food is up again. And Social Security is frozen. The poor get poorer and the rich get fatter. If prices were stable and I had an extra couple of grand a year, I think I could get by OK. That would be about $10K. I used to live kind of poorly on $25K/year, anything more and I actually could build up some savings. That was a long while back however. I actually, had that extra couple of grand the past year, maybe another windfall will show up this year too. Just got to keep that positive attitude.
Is it really ten days since my last post?
Been slowly recovering from the flu a couple of weeks ago.
EBay gets worse! It is extremely hard to find a way to contact a seller. I bought another 16″ reflector and the invoice was for the more expensive shipping. Paypal (Remember, PayPal is part of eBay now) would not let me change it. An invoice request put my message way down at the bottom of the email where the seller probably did not see it. Finally I found a way to send him a message, and no I do not remember how I found it. Within a couple of hours I got a new invoice and paid for the item. Note that this was not a problem with the seller, but one with ebays stupid new website.
Another item from Hong Kong seems to have went astray. The seller says she is sending me another, free. Today was about the first day it could be here, but it wasn’t. Maybe in the next couple of days? I have ordered stuff from HK before and usually have it in a week. Stuff from mainland China takes about two weeks. This is the first time something simply did not arrive.
I tried to order four adapter bushing for my flash heads from Adorama via Amazon. They are needed to fit the heads properly to regular stands which have 5/8″ mounting studs, while the Norman heads have a 3/4″ mounting hole. Adorama wants $8.29 each for these, when I put it in the Amazon shopping cart it came up with $9.00 each for shipping. That’s $36 to ship something that weighs about an ounce each. Needless to say I passed on that purchase. I will get some nylon bushing stock and make some myself; just a matter of chopping off a piece an inch long and drilling a 1/4″ hole in the side.
I came across an interesting section over on the Strobist site. They had a section where readers did film noir style shots (LINK). About 1/2 of them were of the “Does my big knife, or gun, scare you” type, but the rest were quite interesting to look at. Anyway it motivated me to try converting one of my digital test self-portraits to B&W.
B&W Conversion
I do not think I did too bad, I actually changed the curve to a film like one.
Graywolf’s minimal walking in the mountains kit
I wrote this some time back (early 1990’s) and though it might be helpful for some folks. I updated it a bit with LED’s, etc. Items 9 & 10 were added as nice to have.
Graywolf’s minimal walking in the mountains kit
(Assumes you are not more than a day from help –for some strange reason many such lists seem to think you are going to be stuck out in the Amazon Jungle a 100 miles from the nearest help).
1. Common sense: The first thing this will tell you is, if you do not know your way around in the woods, stay on the path. That includes camping in the middle of it if you are stuck out overnight. It is nice if someone looking for you, or maybe just someone who happens by, can just stumble over you.
2. Water bottle: I like the US Army canteen with the steel cup you can cook in. Yes you can go one day without water (unless you are in the desert somewhere), but it is not fun.
3. Disposable butane lighter: If you have to overnight, you will find a fire comforting and it will help anyone looking for you notice your camp. Hum…? It would be good to learn how to build a small fire with damp tinder before you need to do it in a real situation. True woodsmen always use the smallest fire that will get the job done. You can cook a whole meal over a tiny fire maybe 4-5 inches in diameter made with sticks no bigger than your little finger. Heat requires a bigger fire. Drying out: a big fire. Remember that modern backpackers almost never need to build a fire even on a 2 week long trip, but they are properly equipped for it. Be CAREFUL with your fire, I would rather die of exposure than burn down 10,000 acres of forest, so be very careful with any fire you build.
4. Compass: Play with it a bit, read the instructions, so you will know how to use it, when and if. It will help you keep from going around in circles. I just replaced the one I bought in 1977; the fluid had started to leak out. Spend $10 bucks on a Silva Polaris and skip the $2 toys. NOTE: A GPS does not replace a compass.
5. Pocket knife: Nice to have for many reasons. If you are buying one for this particular use I suggest one of the simpler Swiss Army Knifes. The tiny scissors followed by the tweezers are the most useful additions over a regular pocket knife. All those other tools on the bigger models just add unwanted weight. I believe mine is called the Climber model.
6. Bandanna: Serves as a bandage, splint holder, sunshade, towel, and has 1000 other uses.
7. Windbreaker jacket: It would be nice if it is also weatherproof (but Goretex is so expensive). Hypothermia is the most dangerous threat to someone lost in the mountains.
8. Daily meds. If you are stuck out overnight, no reason to make things worse because your meds are back home in the medicine cabinet.
9. Foil packed disinfectant handi-wipes: Just added this in because they are so nice to have with you. Use as TP, to clean wounds, etc.
10. Large trash bag: Use as a poncho, ground cloth, or tarp; and of course to pack your trash out.
Notice the lack of a flashlight. Two reasons: 1. if you need it to navigate by, you are far better off sitting out the night. 2. The batteries will not last long enough to do you much good (This was originally written before LED lights). That said, I now have a mini LED flashlight on my key chain anyway. I also always keep a couple of Band-Aids in my wallet. This was written before cell-phones, you might want to take yours along; these days my cell-phone is like the mini-flashlight and band-aids, something I always have with me.
Nice additions: a snack or two, and a couple of tea bags. (The British SAS Survival Manual says, the first thing to do when you find yourself lost is stop, and brew a cup of tea. I say, it beats panicking by a long shot.)
Except for the windbreaker, and the water bottle all the above will fit in my pockets. Interestingly enough, for an intended overnight, I only have to add a pack, tarp, sleeping bag, mini-stove, and food.
eBay Woes
As I mentioned I have a problem with the seller of the studio flash trigger that would not trigger my studio flash. Somehow that seller besides not giving me a full refund has caused the sale to show as not paid. Seems to know all the tricks, has multiple ID’s, so even if caught she will still be in business. This on in in the hands of eBay right now, how it will end I do not know.
Next I grab what seeme like a bargain via the BIN. $35 for a “like brand new” 16″ 5W refector for the Norman.
In small photo it looks a lot better than it does to the eye.
Ditto
She said yes it is not as described. But that it is just like it came form Norman (I received a new reflector from Adorama that same day which showed that for the lie it was), etcetera. Since I got beat by the previous, seller I asked that this one refund my entire cost before I return the reflector. To which she replied I was trying to cheat her. Guess she figures I am just like her, huh?
And just to prove I never learn, I just bought another LH500 flash head from another seller. I then start to worry although I have no reason to think this seller is anything but honest. It is just that when I used to buy and sell photography stuff quite a bit a few years back, I never had these problems. An occasional slow pay, an occasional minor discrepancy that was quickly set to rights to both of our satisfaction. It seems like eBay has changed a lot.
Maybe it in no longer a place for us mere mortals to be. The only problem is that without eBay I could not buy most of the stuff I want because they no longer sell it in this town.
ADDED LATER:
I have been thinking about this ebay purchase gone sore. The seller had real good feedback, but no selling feedback for over six months. So I am now thinking that maybe she has been ill. That might explain a lot. But just to make it clear this deal looks like this
Item not as described (seller: 10 out of 10. me: 5 out of 10)
Extremely poor packing (actually just tossed lose in a big box)
Lies in emails
Name calling (Calls me a thief that is trying to cheat her)
She did ship promptly however (1 + out of 5)
In fact, I think this is the worst eBay transaction I have ever been in. The problem is she does not come across like a scam artist, I have dealt with a couple of them, she comes across like a mentally ill person.
I know, you are thinking why does he natter on about this, give her a negative and file an item not as described dispute with eBay/PayPal; or just file a dispute with Visa. Sigh, I try to be fair, and half the time that winds up being unfair to myself. I guess I will give here a week to decide to do right. Then, if she has not, I need to make a decision myself.
Writing
I thought I would write about writing. There is this blog that I try to write an article for at the beginning of each week. I am taking a Professional Writing class at the university. I often post on several forums. So ,I do do a bit of writing.
If I write a lot it is easy, but this past week was spring break at the U, so I have not done much of anything. That seems to make it very hard to get started. Oh, it was not entirely lassitude on my part, I was down with a pretty nasty cold the first half of the week and as a result my energy is still pretty low.
It was hard deciding what to write about this week because several things came up that gave me ideas for articles. Many people think coming up with things to write about is difficult. My experience is that I always have something to write about, too many things to be able to write about all of them. The hard parts are getting started, and editing the piece once it is written.
Now if someone would come along and pay me to do this…
Keeping track of tunes (Or what happened to honesty in advertising)
I used to catalog my CD’s with a freeware program, but that was back when I was running Windows 98. Moving back to today, I have been looking for that program, the name of which I do not remember, or another that will do what I want.
I found something that has the same interface that one did. It is called “Sundry Tools”. However, it is not exactly what I want. You see, while I still listen mostly to CD’s, over the years I have aquired a couple of CD Changers and would like something that would keep track of what is loaded in which slot of the changers as well as what is on the shelf. I would also like to be able to print out a list of what is on the changer including track information. Of course, cataloging the mp3’s on the computers would be nice. Especially, as it would let me get rid of duplicate copies, but there seems to be a lot of freeware that does that.
I have tried about ten, so called, freeware programs so far. None of them do what I want. I especially like the ones that tell you that you can only load 10 volumes after you have taken the time to figure out how to use the software and loaded those ten volumes. They are con-artists, but stupid ones, a smart one would let you load a couple of hundred volumes so you almost have to buy the program because you have so much time and effort invested.
The other type I really really like is the unlimited use free version; of course if you want to do anything but load your data into it, you have to send them money for the “Professional” version. There is one of those that looks like it will do what I want; but I will be damned if I will sent them my money. If they had made no bone about the crippled version being a trial version, I may have bought the real version, but after I already feel cheated?
We seem to live in a strange world. Nothing is what they say it is. They assume right up front that you are out to cheat them, so they cheat you first. Actually, the reason they assume you are going to cheat them is because they have no qualms whatsoever about cheating you.
Jus’ A Bumming Around
I picked up and old Dean Martin LP at the Goodwill the other day. Strangely I remember all the songs, but I did not remember that Deano did them. The Album is “I’m The One Who Loves You”. It does not have a copyright date on it but I imagine it is from the early to mid sixties. The play list is:
Remember Me (the title song actually)
King Of The Road
Welcome To My World
My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You
Born To Lose
The Birds And The Bees
Walk On By
Red Roses For A Blue Lady
Take These Chains From My Heart
Here Comes My Baby
I Don’t Think You Love Me
Bumming Around
All of those are kind of pop-country, not the kind of thing I think of when I think of Dean Martin. The most interesting one to me is the last. Bumming Around, I think it affected my life more than I like to think. From my love of slouch hats, to my casual don’t get too involved friendships, it sounds like me. Don’t have a dime? Yep that’s me. Hit the road; don’t know where I am going? Yep! Don’t have any worries, not even the blues… Wait, that is not like me, I worry about everything. But then, I have always tried to walk away from my problems instead of dealing with them so that is actually pretty similar. Did I base my life on a silly pop song?
While the Pete Graves song was originally done by Perry Como in 1953, the Dean Martin version would have been all over the radio just as I hit adulthood, a very impressionable age.
I copied it to tape and then to the computer and made an mp3 of it, but I do not know how to attach it to this post; otherwise I would set it to play when you read this. However, you can Google it and find the words to it, there are a lot of links to them out there.
2009
The comment I heard most this past week was “Good Riddance” when speaking of 2008. Apparently almost no one has much good to say about life over the past year. High prices, financial difficulties, poor health, the wars, politics, and so on, and so on.
Let us hope that 2009 will be better for everyone. I wish for all my readers that 2009 will turn out to be the best year they have had so far.
EOY Thoughts
As the end of the year nears, I thought I would write of some of the silly thoughts I sometimes have.
Things everyone knows that simply are not true. Like: 1- Eskimos have 65 words for snow. 2- Aerodynamically bumble bees can not fly. 3- Thomas Jefferson misspelled unalienable in the Declairation of Independence. 1- The guy who wrote that (too lazy to look up his name) said that he just made it up. 2- According to early simple aerodynamic theory that was correct, but soon they learned that the fuzz on the bees body lowered the drag to the point where the lift/drag ratio was OK. 3- Unalienable means “Can not be taken away”. Certainly since the complaint was that those rights had been taken without trial from many he knew that was not so. Inalienable as he used it means A free person “has these rights”, so if you take them away the he is not a free person. My reason for thinking about these kind of things is that it points out how many people are willing to accept something without thinking about it or checking if it is true or not.
My own contrariness. It is not even stubbornness, for instance, I seem to be into bicycles and bicycling in the middle of the winter when I should be into indoor stuff, and into sewing in the middle of the summer when I should be outdoors. My mind seems to like to do everything backwards to what everyone else does. Sure sometime there can be advantages like it is cheaper to take your vacation in the off season. But I do not do it for avantage, I seem to do it just because I am out of kilter with everyone else.
Related to that is the fact I have all kinds of project to do, but never seem to get to them. Some times it seems like I spend so much effort thinking about them that I do not have any energy left to actually do them. But it is more than that, it is like I am not going to actually get any benifit from the effort so why bother. That feeling is vague, but there most of the time. Of course I do realise that fixing that slow leak in the right front tire will help insure I do not get a flat out in the middle of nowhere, but still I do not bother. Then I get bothered because I do not bother. Oh bother!
May 2009 become the best year you ever had,
–Graywolf
‘Tis the Season
To buy, buy, buy…
Holiday blahs here. I do not actually hate the holidays, it is the commercializm. On the other hand for many merchants this is the make-break season, the rest of the year they figure they are doing good if they make expenses, so now is the time for profits. Only I hate it when they try to guilt trip us into spending more than we can afford.
I think this kind of thing started back in the Great Depression. Before that stores expected to make a month to month profit, and any holiday sales were just icing on the cake. But many were just stumbling along and they got the idea that if they advertised heavily they could make their profits over the holidays. One can see their point of view. Only they do not seem to see the consummer;s point of view.
So instead of a time to get together with friends and family and exchange token, it has become a time to do Potlatch. For those who do not know that quaint northwestern american-indian tradition, it is a way of showing your superiority to your neighbors by out giving them, often to the point of impoverishing yourself. Sounds like christmas, huh?
I no longer have any family, but I tell friends to take whatever they were going to spend on me and spend it on themselves; and that I will do the same. That has the advantage that at least you get something you want, not something you hate but can not throw away without offending the person who gave it to you. And if you chose to use it to pay bills instead, at least that means you will have enough to pay the rent in January.
So by all means, get together with friends and family, enjoy good fellowship, give the kids a new toy, and pat yourself on the back.
Happy Holidays