These are legacy posts, imported from ancient blogs. Many of them have formatting issues, broken links. I blame any apparent spelling errors on some technical glitch with the import process. ;}

Ansible Flush Handlers Immediatley (#ansible ) 2018-01-19
ansible flush handlers In ansible playbooks, handlers (such as to restart a service) normally happen at the end of a run. If you need ansible to run a handler between two tasks, there is “flush_handlers”. - name: flush handlers meta: flush_handlers

Pornhub Articles (#pornhub ) 2018-01-18
I browse pornhub for the articles. Not only is this an interesting article on the drop in traffic during the Hawaii Missile Alert, I also discovered that their insight’s blog has a lot of good data analysis type articles. The blog itself is SFW with no bad images, though of course the logo and items mentioned in the articles themselves would not be. #yourtech-dailies

Mocking Consul for fun and profit. (#python ) 2018-01-04
I’ve been creating a fun microservice tool that provides a single API frontend and merges data from multiple backends. Since the app itself relies entirely on external data, I was wondering how in the world I would write unit tests for it. It’s written in python using the amazing apistar framework. All of my external data so far is gathered using the requests library. The answer for this, turns out to requests-mock.

First impressions with emacs () 2017-12-24
Learning emacs really sucks. Let’s do this. My current stack Because I’m insane, I decided to give Emacs a try. While I’m still pretty pleased with Omnifocus, I do find limitations with it. I also store all kinds of notes in Quiver. Anytime I’m working on anything, I keep my notes in Quiver. I had been keeping a worklog in it, but it got goofy when work (and the associated notes) span multiple days.

bits and bobs for 2017 () 2017-12-23
Abusing my blog to record a few things. This is kind of a year-end wrap-up before Christmas, or a pre-pre New Years Eve post. I am off work till the end of the year, so this is kind of a good week to reflect and prepare for the upcoming year. I cover a couple different things in this post, find the section you want. Home Security Cameras Financial Tools (quicken, ledger, hledger, beancount) Security Cameras tl;dr - I recommend Q-See NVR, refurbished 16-channel for $250 with 2TB drive

Vault Standup () 2017-10-14
This is a little walkthrough of settng up a “production-like” vault server with etcd backend (Not really production, no TLS and one person with all the keys). Hashicorp Vault is incredibly easy to setup. Going through the dev walkthrough is pretty easy, but when you want to get a little more advanced, you start getting bounced around the documentation. So these are my notes of setting up a vault server with an etcd backend and a few policies/tokens for access.

I'm on my way () 2017-08-09
This chart only goes back a bit, but I’m down 27 pounds since April.

Camp night () 2017-07-03
My wife and son will be spending the night camping outside. I’d love to join them, but someone has to stay inside and have the entire bed to himself.

The Cheap Machete Problem (#machete #consumerism ) 2017-05-21
This weekend, I was finally clearing out the bit of walk between my pole barn and the hill behind it. Erosion has been filling it in, making it hard to get back there with any sort of push mower. Vines and brush have been filling in around it. I did what I could with the trimmer, then I went back in with the machete. Now, this machete was $6 at Harbor Freight and I haven’t used it much because the cheap plastic handle was starting to break.

Frustrations () 2017-05-07
This morning I took a meter I was working on outside so I could take it apart and watch my son run around the yard. I planned ahead and took a box to hold the parts. After I had gotten a couple screws out, the wind picked up and blew my box into the yard. I can’t find the funny screws in the grass. I should have left them out of the box.

All The Changes (#meta #website ) 2017-05-07
tl;dr Here’s a quick summary of changes that have taken place: A new site Nifty Noodle People has been launched BCARS has been moved from mezzanine to wordpress and re-organized A new community forum site has been launched: https://community.yourtech.us/ Comments for BCARS and YourTech use the community site now. YourTech.us and YourTech Community now live on a dedicated VPS. YourTech.us is now using WordPress, though all content is still generated in Markdown.

things are in a state of flux (#meta #website ) 2017-05-06
UPDATE: Content has been re-added, but the published date information is still being corrected. I am migrating the site to a new server and from mezzanine to wordpress. There’s always a few thins to work out, and I should be able to restore the content sometime this weekend.

Cable Combs () 2017-04-19
I’ve been incrementally updating my home lab, and now I really wish I had a 3D printer. These cable combs look like they would be awesome for when it comes to getting the server rack re-organized. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1320948/ One commenter said that the ones with a zip-tie slot will also fit nicely into a rack’s square hole. I do have a 3D printer on my “big ticket wish list” but I don’t think it’s in the cards for this year.

Down 6 pounds (#health ) 2017-04-13
At the beginning of this month, I said enough is enough and I forced myself back onto the slow carb diet. Slow carb is really another fancy name for low carbs, but it makes a distinction between complex and simple carbs. You also get a cheat day. Rule 1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates Rule 2: Eat the same few meals over and over again Rule 3: Don’t drink calories Rule 4: Take one day off per week I have been almost exclusively eating steak salads (from Sheetz and Ed’s) and avoiding soda/sugar drinks (including diet).

Offline Social Networking () 2017-04-10
A few days ago, I read a blog post by André Staltz about “AN OFF-GRID SOCIAL NETWORK”. I immediately intrigued and I’ll tell you why. Amateur Radio. The bulk of all amateur radio traffic takes place as either phone (voice) or CW (morse code). Textual communication is only a portion of the traffic. I have been on and done PSK31 to send real time messages to people that are listening right now.

documenting my homelab with openDCIM (#homelab ) 2017-03-28
Background I’ve been wanting to document my home and homelab network for a while now. I used to keep some individual files around with a list of ip addresses and networks, and I used to have a yaml file with the network laid out. But a lot of it was out of date and any time I made a significant change (like adding vlans or tagged interfaces), the entire format would need to change.

Welcome to 2017 () 2017-01-03
This year, I have made a few new resolutions. One of them is to write more blog posts. This post is the first step towards that. Rather than just naming off a few common resolutions, I spent a couple days working through the exercises in Alex Vermeer’s 8,760 Hours: How to get the most out of next year. In my opinion, this is an excellent book. The author and myself used mind-mapping software, but this is also very doable using pencil and paper.

Worst Practice Lab VM Automation (#homelab ) 2016-09-05
Worst Practice Lab VM Automation I’ve started the process of switching my lab over from unmanaged to ansible. I’ve used Puppet and Salt quite extensively through work, but after a handful of false starts with the lab, I think ansible is the way to go.g his is a series of what many (including myself) would consider “worst practices”, but are more along the lines of “rapid iteration”. The goal here is to get something working in a short period of time, without spending hours, days, or weeks researching best practices.

Ceph getting acquainted (#ceph ) 2016-01-20
The two key components: Ceph OSDs: A Ceph OSD Daemon (Ceph OSD) stores data, handles data replication, recovery, backfilling, rebalancing, and provides some monitoring information to Ceph Monitors by checking other Ceph OSD Daemons for a heartbeat. A Ceph Storage Cluster requires at least two Ceph OSD Daemons to achieve an active + clean state when the cluster makes two copies of your data (Ceph makes 3 copies by default, but you can adjust it).

Ceph 1st Runthrough (#ceph ) 2016-01-13
title: Ceph 1st Runthrough author: ytjohn date: 2017-04-30 21:42:52 layout: post permalink: https://new.yourtech.us/?p=34 These are just some notes I took as I did my first run through on installing Ceph on some spare ECS Hardware I had access to. Note that currently, no one would actually recommend doing this, but it was a good way for me to get started with Ceph. Installation Following this guide http://docs.ceph.com/docs/hammer/start/quick-ceph-deploy/ I set this up the first time in the lab, nodes:

postgresql hstore is easy to compare () 2015-08-23
hstore is an option key=>value column type that’s been around in postgresql for a long time. I was looking at it for a project where I want to compare “new data” to old, so I can approve it. There is a hstore-hstore option that compares two hstore collections and shows the differences. In reality, an hstore column looks like text. It’s just in a format that postgresql understands. Here, we have an existing record with some network information.

Programming Uniden AMH-350 for APRS () 2015-08-03
This is a narrative post. If you want to see my python program that calculates out the diode matrix, skip to the end or click here, I recently received this “Force Communications AMH-350” radio. Actually, it was an entire cabinet with a large power supply, an MFJ TNC2 tnc, and an old DOS PC running JNOS. These had active in a tower shed and turned off 3 years ago. The club wanted me to repurpose this packet system for APRS.

rPI DPI Display, cheap. () 2015-06-03
Recently the internet noticed the Raspberry Pi could drive LCD panels using DPI. This allows very inexpensive displays to be used with basically no additional hardware. This is not a full post, just capturing some details from someone elses blog post so I don’t lose it (will my site become my next bookmark holder?). http://blog.reasonablycorrect.com/raw-dpi-raspberry-pi/ Summary: Robert Ely learned his tricks from this forum post 40-pin TFT Friend $9.95 5.

Enter the Matrix

Everyday Superadmin () 2015-02-05
Every morning I wake up bleary eyed Another victim of aggressive deadlines I don’t think this is supportable It’s not good at all I’m just your average ordinary everyday super admin Trying to save the build but never really done I’m just your average ordinary everyday super admin Nothing more than that, that’s all I really am Just an all day job, there’s so much left to do It’s kinda hard when everything fails on you

All about git pull () 2014-11-09
All about git pull Because you know I’m all about git pull ‘bout git pull, no copies I’m all about git pull ‘bout git pull, no copies I’m all about git pull ‘bout git pull, no copies I’m all about git pull ‘bout git pull Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no guru But I can break it, break it Like I always do. And now I got that pull request, that we all want.

Radio Musings () 2014-10-18
Completely unrelated to the post below, I discovered that some has forked a copy of my website on github. I’ve actually migrated from the static site to Mezzanine, but the repo is still in place. I was very surprised someone has forked it. I checked the user out and he recently forked a large number of repositories, all related to docker or coreos type things. It appears that “builtdock” is putting together some sort of platform as a service offering.

Python Modules and Single App OS (#a:1:{i:0;s:58:"a:1:{i:0;s:40:"python console, python, import, pysphere";}";} ) 2014-09-17
Emacs standing alone on a Linux Kernel. I’m not an emacs user, but I thought this was really fascinating. Basically, the author took the linux kernel, a statically compiled copy of emacs, the mount command, and that’s it. You could dd that to a hard drive and boot into only emacs. This gets me thinking about what I’m going to call SAOS - Single Application OS. Sort of like the python on a chip scene.

Salt The Earth () 2014-04-29
Learning Salt I am just beginning to read up on SaltStack, but I am really liking it. It has a number of things I like from Ansible (separation from code and state), the targeting abilities of mcollective, and the centralized control of Puppet/Chef. Salt can be run masterless, but in a master/minion configuration, it uses a message queue (0mq) to control minions and get information back. All messages in this queue are encrypted using keys on both the minion and the master.

Codebox in Docker

C270 Review () 2014-02-01
Acer C270 Chromebook Last week I picked up a Chromebook, specifically the Acer C270. One of my coworkers uses one and kind of convinced me that one would be worth checking. I compared what was out there and other than the Pixel, the C270 had the best specs, including battery life (8.5 hours). It’s an Intel chipset, 16GB space, 2Gb of RAM, 1.4Ghz. The good: You get a lot of functionality for $200.

Foreman managed virtual datacenter (#a:1:{i:0;s:49:"a:1:{i:0;s:31:"foreman, puppet, libvirt, virsh";}";} ) 2013-07-28
I ordered the KS2 from <www.ovh.com> - $50/month, 3.4ghz, 16gb ram, and a 1TB software raid setup. My plan is to set this up as a single server virtual datacenter. They also have the SP2 with twice the ram and storage for $90, but I figured I’d test out the cheaper option first. I can always upgrade and migrate to a larger server later if I get into heavier usage. The prices are rather cheap and they have scripts that will automatically provision physical servers.

Starting with Ruby and AWS () 2012-11-02
rvm rubies ruby-1.8.7-p371 [ x86_64 ] ruby-1.9.2-p320 [ x86_64 ] => - current =* - current && default * - default ytjohn@freshdesk:~$ rvm use 1.8.7 RVM is not a function, selecting rubies with ‘rvm use …’ will not work. You need to change your terminal emulator preferences to allow login shell. Sometimes it is required to use /bin/bash --login as the command. Please visit https://rvm.io/integration/gnome-terminal/ for a example.

dingus problems () 2012-09-20
This weekend I decided to takle both learning Ruby and working with AWS via the Ruby API. Having only played with both of these in the past, this presents two learning challenges at once. However, from past projects, this is how I learn best. I am somewhat familiar with AWS terms and once made a script in Python to fire up an instance. This was before Amazon came out with their management console, so I imagine things have come a long way since then (hopefully easier).

Bootstrap and CDNs () 2012-09-18
Often when creating a “modern” web page, it’s very common to find yourself reinventing the wheel over and over again. I know any time I wanted to create a two-column layout, I would have to look at previous works of mine or search the Internet for a decent example. However, I recently came across Twitter’s Bootstrapframework. At it’s core, it’s just a css file that divide your web page into a 12-column “grid”.

python console import tip () 2012-08-29
Tags: python console, python, import, pysphere This is a quick little python tip. When experimenting with python commands and modules, it’s usually easiest to use the python console interactively, then create your programs later. The downside of this is that sometimes you have to do a bit of typing before you get to the specific command you want to try. Imagine the following example: Here, I had to type in 3 lines, including my password in plaintext, to test out querying the server.

pysphere: VMWare in Python () 2012-08-29
Tags: api, python, programming, vmware, pysphere I do a good bit of work with VMWare vSphere and I’ve been wanting to work more with their API. Everything (except console) that you can do in the vSphere client, you should be able to do through a web-based API.Unfortunately, it seems that VMWare does not provide an SDK for Python, my current language of choice. I could work in Perl or Java, but I want to develop a web application, which I don’t want to do in Perl.

Upgrade Redmine () 2012-08-09
Currently, I have Redmine version redmine 1.3.3 installed via the ondrej/redmine PPA. I have been wanting to upgrade to the 2.x series of redmine, but no PPA currently exists for it. Redmine is officially provided by Ubuntu, but the version for Precise is 1.3.2, and Ondřej’s PPA is on 1.4.3. While I usually prefer to have my software installation and updates handled by packages, it looks like to get to the 2.

Markdown Blogging () 2012-08-06
I recently have started a process of migrating my website over to blogger.com. One of the main reasons for this was because in my last server move, I had broken my Movable Type installation, and found myself too busy to fix it. I found I didn’t want to spend my time fixing and updating blogging software. I wanted to work on my projects, write them up, and post them. It was time to move my content to an existing platform that handled the back end.

Gate One supervisor script () 2012-08-02
Yesterday, I setup gateoneto run as a non-root user. I also spent some time looking at potential init scripts for starting and stopping this. The gateone project does not currently provide any init scripts, but this is planned for the future ([Issue #47]). I tried to use one of the scripts in that thread, but I wasn’t really pleased with them. The big issue is that gateone.py doesn’t fork. However, I believe there is a better solution.

Exploring GateOne Browser SSH terminal () 2012-08-01
I came across a program called Gate Oneby LiftOff Software that just amazed me. This is an open-source, web-based ssh terminal. It is capable of multiple users, sessions, and bookmarks. I’ve tried a number of AJAX terminals or Java applet based ones in the past. The javascript ones usually did not have very good terminal emulation, while the Java apps worked, but worked just like a local desktop app (making it’s own connection to port 22).

Puppet Dashboard and selinux () 2012-06-25
Tags: puppet selinux Once I got a rough handle on setting up Puppet, I decided to get Puppet Dashboardworking on my puppetmaster (a Centos 6 server) to have a sort of web interface to view puppet statuses. Since I already have the puppetlabs repositories setup from when I installed puppet, this was almost as simple as running “yum install puppet-dashboard”. You then go to /usr/share/puppet-dashboard and follow the install guideto get the database working.

Using puppet to install djbdns () 2012-06-22
This is a basic walkthrough of getting a slightly complex “step by step to install” program like djbdns to install under puppet (in this case, under Ubuntu 12.04). It shows building the manifest, testing it, and some possible gotchas. I am generally following the guide put together by Higher Logic[1], with a few changes of my own. Step 1: InstallationI use the dbndns fork of djbdns, which has a few patches installed that djbdns lacks.

Enabling remote logging () 2012-01-17
I was experimenting with rsyslog to allow remote logging and within 20 minutes, I had two rogue log entries show up from random hosts. Jan 17 05:00:23 64-181-24-18.unassigned.ntelos.net kernel: Configuring keys for mac:14:5a:05:ad:6b:cd, sc_hasclrkey is set Jan 17 05:01:05 64-181-24-18.unassigned.ntelos.net kernel: Configuring keys for mac:14:5a:05:ad:6b:cd, sc_hasclrkey is set So what is interesting about this? I’m on comcast in PA. The host that sent this is on ntelos.net, or Lumos in (most likely) West Virginia.

Audible Thoughts () 2011-12-24
Recently, I’ve been working my way through the Ender’s Saga audio books. I had read Ender’s Game back in grade school, but I didn’t know there was a whole series. They’re a really good read.. or listen, as the case may be. I’ve been listening to the Ender series in mp3 format. First, I had them on a thumb drive which was read by my car’s radio. I find it very convenient that a radio in my car can directly read a thumb drive’s file-system and play any audio files found on it.

Impressive Notebook () 2011-11-16
Those of you that know me probably wouldn’t guess this, but I actually work with a bunch of nerds, geeks, and freaks. Pretty much all of my coworkers have smartphones, and many of them have at least one tablet. Every time a new portable computing device launches, it’s a guarantee that someone in my group will show up with it. Since all these devices are nearly similar, no one is really impressed when a new one shows up in the office.

For Sale: Dirt Devil Ultra Vision Turbo. () 2011-04-28
For Sale: Dirt Devil Ultra Vision Turbo.Price: Make an offer“It Kinda Sucks” - John Hogenmiller, USMCI once owned a regular Bissel bagged vacuum cleaner. For the better part of a decade, I would turn it on and vacuum the floor. Before that, my sister owned the vacuum and did pretty much the same thing. It was a rather boring device that picked up debris from the carpet and would place it in a bag.

Sending messages using xmpppy () 2011-04-05
In continuing working with XMPP and Python, I managed to get xmpppy working. This proved to be particularly tricky because xmpppy uses some outdated modules like md5 and sha. It also relies on some dns functions which no longer seem to work. I was able to use the sample script “xsend.py” that the project provides. The big thing is that I had to specify talk.google.com and the port number directly in the connect command.

Nagios and XMPP () 2011-02-28
I found that someone has written a perl script geared towards sending alerts from Nagios to XMPP usernames. http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/wiki/Nagios_jabber_notification I have downloaded this, but have not yet got it working as of yet, but it does look promising. It took me a while to update all the dependencies for it, but if those were in place, the installation itself is rather simple. That is, the notification script works, but I haven’t actually configured nagios as of yet.

Jabbering about Python () 2011-02-27
I am getting more and more into the idea of using XMPP for sending messages. XMPP (also known as jabber) is a very open protocol. Anyone can throw up a server, and by publishing a few DNS records, your server can interact with any other XMPP server out there (that is open). For a popular example, anyone can throw up their server with their domain and send messages to someone using Google Chat.

Expanding a raw image file () 2011-01-13
On one of my customer’s devices, the backup software requires that the backups go to a separate partition (or drive). However, the customer only has one raid array and the bulk of the space is in /home. To work around this limitation, I created a raw image file called backup.img, which gets mounted as /backup. After the software performs its local backup, I use duplicity to backup /backup remotely to a backup server at my location (with encryption).

Learning Python () 2011-01-03
I am reasonably familiar with Perl and PHP languages. Recently though, I have taken it upon myself to learn Python. I’ve played with Python a few times, and it seems to be very powerful with lots of useful functionality under the hood. For some basic practice, I recommend Learn Python The Hard Way, which is free book by a reputable Python author, Zed Shaw. He makes the book itself available for free as a PDF download or you can purchase it directly.

We have moved! () 2010-09-06
Starting around Memorial Day, we have been busy working on moving our office to our new location in Bedford, PA. We have now completed that move and wanted to let everyone know our new address. Our new address for correspondence is: YourTech, LLC300 Cumberland RdBedford, PA 15522 

Securing Apache2 () 2010-01-02
A client wanted to make files available available to the web browser from within their LAN and a handful of static IPs without requiring any sort of username or password. This is the web equivalent of a shared, read only folder. This is no big issue, you can create an .htaccess file like so: Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 10.10.0.1/16 Allow from 127.0.0.1/32 Allow from 1.1.1.1/32 However, they would also like to access it from a remote location with a username and password.

Backing up with duplicity and Amazon S3 () 2009-10-26
Duplicity is a great little backup tool that can do incremental backups to a variety of different servers (ftp, scp, and Amazon S3). The Install I am installing on a Centos 5 system which uses the yum tool. I also have the http://rpmforge.net/repository enabled. I need that for librsync and librsync-devel which provides rsync capabilities when the remote file details are not available (like in FTP). All of these requirements are found on the duplicity main page.

Forgotten Realms () 2009-09-30
Yesterday I was working on a very old server – a Cobalt RAQ 4. I actually leased a RAQ 3 for web hosting back in 2001 and thought it was the neatest thing, but found it too limiting in many ways. These servers were popular because they could be administered using a series of push buttons and an LCD screen up front. It also has a web interface that controlled everything.

Back into programming, monitoring notes () 2009-08-25
I have been out of the programming circuit for a few years and have been looking at getting back into it. My traditional programming style is an ssh window into my server and all my editing takes place on a development server, in vi. Recently, I’ve been trying to decent work out a way to determine how the world sees your connectivity from within your network. Essentially, I wanted to simulate accessing one of my locally connected machines from the Internet.

My Time () 2008-07-21
Yes, it is my time. Last monday on the elliptical: 3 miles = 21:16 (~7 minute mile) Today: 3 miles = 19:26 (~6.5 minute mile) Next time? Who knows. I am excited about being able to set this pace, however I have to temper that with the understanding that running on an elliptical is much, much easier than running on flat ground. On the 13th, we managed to capture Sean on camera trespassing at my parent’s house.

Purple Triangulation () 2008-07-08
So I’ve been noticing these purple triangles have been invading our trees. Along the roads, trees would be found with this big hollow purple triangle hanging off of it. What wasn’t immediately apparent is what they are up there for. If it was just one or two, I’d say some kids put them up there (unfortunate kite incident). However, these things are everywhere, giving it a more ominous and official vibe.

Not My Time () 2008-06-24
(unless your talking about my worst time). Today the dream has ended and the fantasy has been washed away. After keeping the pace for a whopping 0.2 miles, my shins hurt and I just couldn’t make myself go on running. So began my walk home. It’s been many months since the elliptical, over a year since I ran anywhere. Riding the bike did little more than delude myself. A 2 mile bike ride on flat ground is not exercise, it’s just a way to make you think that you’re doing something good.

Strange Call Redux () 2008-05-20
Checking my voicemail: I don’t recognize the name or know anything about the camera. However, I have installed a few security cameras in my life and given out cards a couple years ago to people that were interested. Then, I look up the number – it’s in Meadville. I have never been to Meadville – all of 3 hours away. Does my Yellow Book ad reach Meadville? It might, but it doesn’t have my first name or cell phone number on it.

May Change () 2008-05-05
For only 5 days into May, it’s been fairly eventful. Robin is graduating this month – the pinning ceremonywas on the 2nd and her graduation is on the 10th. Of course, before she even got to go to her pinning ceremony, I had a few questions for her. The first question (both chronologically and in order of importance) was “Does it fit?” (it did) and the second question was “Do you want to be my wife?

Strange Calls () 2008-03-25
I was in Anne Arundel County on Friday and Saturday. On Monday, I get a missed call from Hanover, MD on the cell phone. I call it back later in the day thinking it’s either a friend or family or a family member in the area. A “Jim” answers the phone and has no clue who I am or that he called my number. So that was kid of odd getting a random, wrong number, from a place I was just at two days ago.

Move/Game Night, February 22nd () 2008-02-06
It’s been a couple of months, but the first movie/game night of 2008 is coming soon! This month we’re having it on a Friday – the 22nd of February to be exact, starting around 6pm with games and potentially migrating to a movie or two. Pizza and drinks will be provided. If you can bring a couple bucks to throw into the pizza pot, that would be great. If not, don’t worry about it.

The Battle Begins! () 2008-01-03
I always considered myself a somewhat lazy person. I guess I never really realized how active I was. I knew I was active in the winter of ‘06. I was carrying and climbing ladders, attaching antennas to buildings, pulling cable, and facing off against freezing temperatures on a daily basis. In January of ‘07 my activity level decreased as I stopped doing this, but I was still doing other things for other people.

Falling Forward () 2007-12-14
I’ve been relatively busy recently. Obviously, there is work, which takes up about half of my week. But I’ve also been working on a few projects – not related to computers. My house has 22 windows: 12 downstairs, 10 upstairs, All but 9 of these windows are older single pane. Six of them face the neighbor’s house – 4 feet away. For the downstairs, I’ve slated 6 windows for removal. Over the last few weekends I’ve been boarding them over on the outside – not the typical “hurricane safety” boarding up, but precisely cutting the OSB to size and attaching it to the outside of the window frame.

Classic Robin Quote () 2007-09-23
Just so this is remembered for all time: Robin (via AIM):i thought those boobs looked familiar!

ANNOUNCE: Game/Movie Night October 20th

Iced Tea () 2007-09-18
At work, getting something to drink is an issue I face each night. I can drink water, which I don’t enjoy for too long. I could get from the vending machine ($1 per bottle, $2-$3 per night), or I could bring something in, which would have to transported in my backpack. Now, there is another option. They have a “coffee station” here with hot chocolate, coffee, and tea bags.  I don’t drink coffee, and if I drank nothing but hot chocolate all night, I would explode.

What I Have Always Wanted () 2007-09-15
When I was a young kid, I was interested in electronics. When I got into my early teens, I got into computers. Before I could drive, I had an idea that I wanted to start a business dealing with computers. I was so cool.. I thought I could write programs in QBASIC and sell them. I never did that, but I did start my business. First it was a sideline, and things were good.

Condictive () 2007-09-15
A few weeks ago I came across a choice phrase that got me thinking. The phrase was “unable to get addicted”. You know, I’ve never been addicted to anything. I wondered if it was possible for a person to be unable to get addicted to something. Then I wondered if there was even a word for it. Google came up dry at first. After some creative searching, I discovered that the following are the “opposite of addiction”: desensitization, prayer and fasting, and recovery.

ANNOUNCE: Movie night resumes () 2007-08-27
On Saturday, September 8th we will resume the movie night tradition. Somewhere around 5 or 6pm on Saturday, people should congregate at the Hogenmiller Professional Building in Everett, PA. There will be movies, food, drinks, and games. Please feel free to donate food, drinks, and/or movies to the night’s entertainment.

Brain on Fire () 2007-08-09
Today I had to do some physical labor (gasp), which I normally have no problem with. This building was huge. Greg and I were carting an undisclosed number of PCs from a shipping container to the receiving office – about 1 football field of distance. My hair and back were dripping wet before we were done. Granted, it’s not as big of a sweat as I get after riding my bike 2 miles in 90F+ heat, but still a lot sweat.

Splurge () 2007-07-27
I like to splurge on something once each year, typically a gadget. As you may have read, I am working for “the man”, a big corporate entity in Virginia. My main business has become a sideline endeavor for the foreseeable future. I still have customers I support, and I’ll still do a lot of the same stuff. But, I’m not taking calls constantly for the business and not using my phone that much as a phone.

We are forming () 2007-07-14
So far, work down here has been pretty good. I get along with those that I work with, I understand the job, and I’ve been able to be valuable with some of the knowledge I picked up along the way. Now, the place I’m working at is not the only place down here that’s hiring, but I know that they are looking for people and not getting them in. Right now, it seems like things are pretty slow (and the seasoned workers also say it’s kind of slow this time of year) but there are busy times of the day and there will be busy days.

Hired () 2007-06-25
Some of you may recall that in January I was planning to get a job to supplement the shop’s income.  At the time I was looking at a company in Hershey, PA that needed “weekend workers”. The company decided that they were only going to hire full-time people, and that opportunity went away. Since then, I’ve been searching around, submitting resumes, getting calls and emails from recruiters. Some really interesting positions have been offered to me.

Fugitive () 2007-06-06
It happened on a Tuesday. I’ve never gotten the hang of Tuesdays. This Tuesday started out fairly simple. Someone I knew was moving and had an air conditioner he no longer needed. I was told I could have it for free if I got it myself.. otherwise, he would leave it behind.  Free is usually a good price to pay for a known working air conditioner, so I accepted. Last evening, I drove to the house to pick up my purchase.

Formal Wear () 2007-05-26
A few months ago, I was asked to be an usher at a wedding. For some reason, I decided “why not?”. I should have thought more about who was making the request. I actually do have varying degrees of dress clothes. I have my military dress uniforms. I have “business casual” clothes. I also recently purchased a formal suit to wear the last year’s Marine Corp Ball. However, none of these will work in this wedding’s bridal party.

April 20th () 2007-04-20
April 20th is a pretty popular day. It is the Birthday of Adolf Hitler and Muhammed. It’s also the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Ludlow Massacre, and The Columbine School Shooting. It’s also known as National Smoke Marijuana day. It’s only fitting that on a day like this, I turn a year older.

Garp

American Idolatry () 2007-03-29
For those of you that are like me and don’t have television service, American Idol is apparently a pretty popular tv show. I read that it’s been running for about six seasons now. What’s more is that I’ve actually seen parts of about 3 or 4 episodes over the last several years. The premise is that people (presumably American, but I’m not an expert on this subject) will do karaoke performances on the show, judges will judge them, and then other people will vote for the contestant that they want to stay on the show.

Kubuntu, Sabayon, and Windows XP () 2007-03-17
I have an HP dv1000 Pavilion laptop. Back in ‘05/‘06, I had this setup with Mepis Linux, dual-booting with Windows XP. Now the thing about this laptop is that it has a Broadcom wireless card (BCM43xx). With Mepis, I used ndsiwrapper to get the card working. However, the screen resolution was never very good, media files would play weird (codes at the time were a bit off, I think), and sometimes when switching wireless networks, the entire system would freeze.

Beeping phones () 2007-02-26
At first, I started noticing that my phone would beep in the middle of the night. Upon checking, there would be no missed call, no voice mail, no text message.. nothing on the screen to tell my why it beeped. Recently, I realized that the phone would beep at 1:13am. This was the great mystery that I typically didn’t think about until oh… 1:13am. Today however, the mystery has been solved.

Summer of &#8217;05 () 2007-02-21
Talking with some friends got me thinking about the Summer of 2005. Thinking about that reminded me of a song, which I quickly parodied. There’s a lot of inside references here, so don’t worry if you can’t follow along.  Summer of ‘05I got home by April sixteenth Deployed for the very last time Prayed that it would end It was the summer of 05 Me and some friends were real cool Had no job but we tried real hard Jenny quit and Curt got fired I shoulda known we’d never get bored Oh when I look back now That summer seemed to last forever And if I had the choice Ya - Id always wanna be there Those were the best days of my life Aint no use in complainin When you got a job to find Spent my evenins down at the Denny’s And at the Gateway we’d play pool Riding in Evil John’s car He said that the tree-trimmin was over Oh and even Chris got tanned I knew we’d be friends forever Those were the best days of my life Back in the summer of 05 Then around winter time We were no longer jobless We ended up reassigned I guess nothin can last forever - forever, no And now the times are changin Look at everyone thats up and gone Sometimes when I play that old pool thing I wonder if the gang will come along Riding in Evil John’s car He said that the tree-trimmin was over Oh and even Chris got tanned I knew we’d be friends forever Those were the best days of my life Back in the summer of 05

PEX Master () 2007-02-19
i just wanted to say some amazing things about PEX piping. This stuff is simple, and it works. I’m not a marketing guys, but here’s some things I love about it: Anywho, I had the opportunityto do some plumbing last week. I had to replace two runs of pipe (hot and cold) running about 13 feet each, with 7 elbows (and small sections) on each pipe. I had a few holes 6"x6" each cut into my wall to see the existing pipes.

Robin&#8217;s Induction () 2007-02-15
Robin gets inducted into the honor society at MAC

I&#8217;ve had worse, but things are getting better. () 2007-02-12
So the last several weeks weren’t the worst I’ve had. I’ve been in some pretty messed up situations before. That being said, the last few weeks sucked. I ran out of oil, so no heat or hot water, my car went on the fritz, Robin wrecked her car, and some new bills started coming my way. So first let me tell you about the car. I had some bald tires due to a bad alignment, plus the steering was sloppy.

Cold snap () 2007-01-30
Monday was the last day of Skyweb installs for me for a month. If things go as I plan, I probably won’t be doing any more installs. As I’ve said before, I’m currently seeking “regular employment” in hopes of funding a few projects I want to bring about. While the job seeking process is now in full gear, I do have a few projects lined up for February. First off, I’ll be taking back the tech support telephone from Greg and doing more work in the shop.

A Tale of H () 2007-01-18
I was going to call this “A Tale of Two H’s”, but then I realized that there is a lot more of H going on than I originally realized. Anyways, since people have asked, the job in Hershey is somewhat up in the air. I got some feedback about it. Essentially, three people left for other jobs during December. I don’t know how many were full time and how many were part time, but I know they went and hired one full-time person.

Ghosts of the Past () 2007-01-17
For those of you that don’t know – I live by myself. Now that winter truly seems to be here, I have only been heating the living room in my house (with a space heater). The living room has become my office, my bedroom, and my changing room. This one room stays between 65F and 70F while rest of the house seems to hold around 49F. Anyways, I came home tonight and went up to my living room/office to do some work on the computer.

Vic&#8217;s wedding

Kristin&#8217;s wedding

Vietnam Vet Christmas party

After the champagne runs dry () 2007-01-03
New Year’s Eve 2006 has come and gone. My “party” if you can still call it that was a lot smaller than planned, but still an enjoyable evening. The end of December has given me a lot of of time to reflect on the past year or so, on where I am, and think about what I want to do next. Reflection:In April of ‘05, I got home from my second trip to Iraq.

End of the year () 2006-12-31
Several interesting things (to me at least) have occurred recently. For the most part I’ve been spending my time doing wireless installs and network troubleshooting for Skyweb down in Berkeley Springs. Robin and her family has had a few rough spots recently. Her Uncle Lonnie died on the 20th, we had the viewing on the 22nd and the funeral the next day. The day after, she nailed a deer with her car, and then the day after that, her sister’s fiance’s great grandfather died.

How to write more better

November&#8217;s Gone? () 2006-12-01
For my part, I can’t believe that August is already here. Wait.. it’s December? Well, so much for having all that spare time. Anyways, I’ve updated a lot of pictures from the last several months, so feel free to check them out. Robin and I went to this year’s Marine Corp Ball and had a blast. I went in an actual suit this year – it was picked out to match Robin’s dress.

Even more undignified () 2006-11-11
This song is inspired by 2nd Samuel 6. At the time, King David was so wrapped up in his worship of God that he was leaping about, dancing and twirling and probably doing some cartwheels in the street. His wife, upon seeing this, was shocked and yelled at him about it. David responded “I will play music before the LORD. And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight.

godaddy has gone down 45 minutes now () 2006-10-13
Around 11am today I noticed godaddy was down. I would be laughin, except I need to get in there to set something up. How long will this last? Server objecterror ‘ASP 0177 : 800706be’Server.CreateObject Failed/gdshop/i_shop.asp, line 83800706be

Slides about a library in general () 2006-10-11
As found when cleaning out the old shop.

It almost makes sense, SpamSense (#spam ) 2006-10-08
I’ve been noticing computer generated poetry in spam for a while now, but this one really inspired me. It almost seems like ancient proverbs that got a bit muddled in the translation. “It takes a real fruitcake to avoid contact with the scythe.” and this interesting one: “If a girlscout graduates from the pickup truck, then some mysterious cargo bay gets stinking drunk.” (We’ve come a long way from when I first noticed spam poetry.

History () 2006-09-17
First off, if you’re a regular visitor, you’ll notice that for the first time in over 3 years, we have radically changed our site design and moved to a more “standard” platform for publishing articles and rants. Please read the Site Historyfor more information on this change. Also take note that we will be moving away from using numbers to using names. Speaking of history, my Aunt Dorothy turned 80 just a little bit ago.

211 () 2006-08-30
Things have been moving really fast recently. I bought a house, a Jeep, joined the chamber, bought an ISP, and am working on starting a broadband Internet company as well. Since events in my life have been moving faster than I have been able to keep up with, I have worked out a few additional goals/ideals/resolutions to work into my existing set. These new ones include:

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209 () 2006-08-19
The times seem so exciting but what’s with all the rhyming? I met my girlfriend Robinin DecemberBut it feels like we’ve been together forever. In March I parted ways with the MarineCorp. I won’t be going to Iraqany more. I bought my housein May. It’s a nice place to stay. My parents have been married for 40 years. We celebratedwith crabs, hot dogs, and beers.

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207 () 2006-07-24
Many people have debated about the existence and nature of the Internet. While most people generally agree and believe in the general concept of an Internet, some will argue that it isn’t truly real. However, the majority of people that do believe in the Internet believe that the Internet can be whatever you believe it to be. “What you believe is true for you, and what I believe is true for me.

205 () 2006-07-22
Vacation ends. A lovely week down at the beach. Essentially I can just walk barefoot out the door, wander down the hall, down the steps, and I’m on the beach. I spent some time in the ocean, time at the pool, but I got sunburnt on the neck during miniature golfing. Robin, who constantly lathered up with sunscreen, got burnt really bad. All in all though, the beach is a nice place to visit, but it’s definately not a place I would choose to live at.

204 () 2006-07-14
Got up this morning at 2:50 am, left around 3:10, on I-70 around 4am (stopped for gas and to check the luggage rack). It’s now 10am and we’re travelling through North Carolina. I’m connected via cell, travelling about 75mph on I-95, sharing my connection with Robin via a wi-fi ad-hoc network. I left it open, so if anyone is on I-95 around mile marker 127… hop on and keep up!

203 () 2006-06-19
More time has passed and more things are afoot. I have officially moved into the house, and I even have a sign set up out front (a temporary one). I spoke with my existing landlord about the old property and if we can get someone ready to move in, then I can get out of my lease early. I have been kept pretty busy trying to balance everything out. Like most of my friends, I actually like keeping busy and having a hectic schedule.

202 () 2006-05-13
The best way to find out if things are going on in my life is to see how much I post on here. The more I post, the less is going on. I’ve been eyeing up this house across town that has come up for sale. It’s got a full living area upstairs – 1 bedroom, 1 living room (that is large enough to split into another bedroom), full kitchen and bathroom.

201 () 2006-04-19
In keeping with posting about scams that have affected me: I noticed a $10 charge on my bank account this month, and the carge actually reads: “WLISHOPPERDISCOUNT 800-889-8776”. At first, I just did a search on “WLISHOPPERDISCOUNT” and came up with shopperdiscountsandrewards.comas the first link. I don’t know what I went through that signed me up for the service, but when I called up, they didn’t give me any hassle in cancelling the service and refunding the charge.

200 () 2006-03-30
so I got up this morning around 8:30 and thought of all those poor people I know that have been up for over 4 hours already and have been hard at work since the sun came up. I could be one of those people, but curiously enough, I am not. I think that’s because in the beginning of this month, I parted ways with the Marine Corp. A slow sense of relief begins to roll over me.

199 () 2006-02-10
I wanted to bring this comment to the light of day. I got it off of a Techdirt article, and I completely agree with it. I’m not saying that people were healthier “in the old days”, but in my mind, unless you have some known medical condition that says otherwise, getting sick, getting germs, getting the occasional virus, and even some parasites is overall good for you. You should get all this as a child, your immune system then trains itself to fight off and recover from these diseases so they don’t affect you as bad later on in life.

197 () 2006-02-07
Happy belated Birthday Kristin. Yes, I knew it was coming up, I had the date at several points, and I did plan on sending a card, but as you know.. I’m not perfect. Anyways, I just wanted to thank you for being my friend and for knowing me all too well.

198 () 2006-02-07
Oh, and I found this today. It’s a music video to the song Alive by P.O.D. This has been one of my favorite music videos for a long time – I love special effects that freeze liquid motion, and they did this one amazingly. Requires Windows Media Player or MPlayer (with appropriate codes). And here is the link.

196 () 2006-01-30
Slippery slopes, we all fall in.. what ever happened to my sure footing? Why do I fall down, why do others follow me down? If I miss the signs, will anyone ever give me warning? Who tells me when to stop, when I go too far? Oh well, my fault, my mess to clean. If you know me well enough to know what I’m talking about, keep me in your prayers, maybe drop me a line.

195 () 2006-01-27
Spambots are starting to wax poetic now. do cut hurt somewhere turnoff give for watch speak That stand fill A ask put lie know hurt sleep cancel look will try understand Are clean think right shut close lie open open close have sing we lose sing But fix change eat fly forget them tell reply

194 () 2006-01-26
Today I added the word qlolto WikiPedia to see if will become more popular. Essentially, well over a year ago, in rant 128we were discussing the fact that people don’t really laugh out loud when they say “lol”.. they just type it. So, we coined the term “qlol” to indicate that while we may be laughing, we’re doing it very quietly. I’ve been pushing this around to various friends and some of them have started using it on a regular basis, so now I’d like to conduct an experiment to see if others will pick up on it and start using it.

193 () 2006-01-20
Here’s a little something I made up after some recent grocery shopping expeditions. Shopping at the store, gonna get a lot of peachesPeaches come in a jarThey were put there by ThailandShipped to my townAnd if I had money to payI’d eat peaches everyday

192 () 2006-01-17
Grailingor more accurately, Holy Grailing is a time-honored pasttime where one quests for the Holy Grail. There is a lot of different stories concerning this grail, and while no one can agree on what it looks like, everyone agrees that it is lost and that “you’ll know it when you see it.” No one knows where the grail is, which means that it can be anywhere. Additionally, no one knows if the grail is stationary or mobile.

191 () 2006-01-16
Got this from Kristin

190 () 2006-01-10
The Weekend. I wrote about this weekend in an email first, and then slightly edited it for public consumption. Friday Chris and Jess came down. We were headed for Hoss' before picking up Robin, but the line was long so we went to Ed’s instead (Friday night fish fry). Usually, when a place has a fish fry, it’s all pretty much made up and ready to go. Chris and I ordered the fish fry, Jess ordered steak.

188 () 2006-01-03
I think I’ve become addicted. It started out with a busted lip a few months ago, which led to constant chapped lips. So I started using chapstick. I kept using it because my lower lip kept splitting back open whenever it chapped. So I moved up to “Carmex” which helped, but not enough. Then I stepped up even further a couple weeks ago to “White Petoleum Jelly”. I can’t stop using this stuff.

187 () 2006-01-02
The year drew to a close, and so does this saga. I don’t have my family’s Christmas pictures gathered together yet, but the rest of December’sis up for viewing. Some have asked me about New Year’s Resolutions. I rarely make them, because I make resolutions all the time. This year though, I decided to make one, but I’ve actually started it well before the end of the year. I want to remove those things in my life that seperate me from God (bad habits, ways of thinking, etc).

186 () 2005-12-29
The saga of the season continues… So I went down to Kristin’s the last two days. Originally, I had an invite to go visit April, and the bulk of my time was going to spent visiting her, with a visit to Kristin in the midst of it. Kristin herself warned me that she was pretty busy, but wanted me to visit. Then, April dropped off the face of the planet, and I had to change my plans to visit Kristin and stay until plans were made with April.

185 () 2005-12-26
Another day of Xmas gone by. Yesterday I went over to visit the family for our Christmas and there were all told about 15 of us gathered for the eating of food, exchanging of gifts, and catching up of events. I took several pictures with my phone, but I don’t have the cable yet to transfer them to my computer, and it costs some amount of money to email them to my computer (as well as a lot of button pushing, time waiting for them to transmit), so you will have to wait on those.

184 () 2005-12-25
Ok, let’s see.. to address an email sent to me, yes I am aware of the spam infection on the guestbook. I have plans to a) block the spam, and b) implement a comment system in the main page. I’m just very lazy about it. Ok, now for today’s events (journal like for now, but then I plan to get more rant-like later in the post. Ok, so while I was composing this entry in my mind, I came up with a quasi-philosphical/psychological question for myself to answer – I’m not even sure exactly what I’m asking, so this is my way of working it out.

183 () 2005-12-24
Hmm… what’s new? Well obviously it’s (for many people) Christmas day, unless your Orthodox Christian, in which case that’s (I might be wrong on this) January 6th. Anyways, per tradition, my family is having their celebration on Monday. I’ll be spending today drifting from family to family, spending time with friends. Going back a bit in time, traveling up to the present… I met a nice young lady online about a week ago (this is becoming a theme now, isn’t it?

182 () 2005-12-15
Oh, why am I one of the few that love winter, loves snow, performs best in cold weather? We’ve had our second snow storm of the season (yes, winter hasn’t officially started yet, I know – work with me here). I’ve had to shovel the parking lot three times so far. I’m not disliking that activity as much as previous years. In fact, it’s a great excercise – but I’m usually left standing outside in a t-shirt sweating profusely as the wind whips around me.

181 () 2005-12-12
Come home Sunday, walk to my room.. neither the microwave or the fridge are running. So, I check the power strips, unplug, plug back in, no love. Down to the basement, check all the breakers – only one is turned off. I can’t flip it on. Back upstairs, I notice another device plugged into the same circuit, I unplug everything on the circuit and try again. Still… no love. Hmmm… the breaker seems a bit loose in the box, so I turn off power to the building, fiddle with it, turn power back on, the breaker turns on, yet no love at the plugs.

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179 () 2005-12-02
More pictures are up now.. basically I just grouped all of November’s (except the ball) into one album. Umm.. not too much going on, I feel like I’ve put my life on pause as I try to finish up some projects I’ve committed myself to. However, I am getting some good stuff accomplished that will help me out down the road, which is good.

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177 () 2005-11-27
So yeah, it was a good holiday weekend. Met with family, met with friends (both local and long distance ones) and with the exception of some food poisoning (Which was healed within 4 hours, beat that!), I pretty much had a blast all weekend. I mean, healing is just amazing when it happens. Also, I managed to double the list of things that I know one of my long distance friends enjoys doing (bringing the total count to two).

176 () 2005-11-17
Turn to the left, turn to the right… potential problems fly by, I slip through in a frenzy of activity, and then I pause and breath. Take a moment, rock back on my heels, smile my happy smile and sigh. Friends appear, encouragement is shared and shared alike. I do good, I say, and I mean it as well. Time slips past me again, a raging torrent threatening to tear me from my precarious perch.

175 () 2005-11-16
Never, ever, let me have a bright yellow plastic slicker again. dorks of the night

174 () 2005-11-14
Sometimes when you think you have someone figured out, they can pleasantly surprise you. I guess it’s all part of growing up. Let’s see… the issue has become a non-issue, at least as far as I’m directlyconcerned, no one got injured, and with a flip of the switch, everything slides to the back burner, lowest setting. So movie night was a decent success. The movies themselves were pretty bad choices. We had (in order): Extreme Days, Kung Fu Hustle, The Ring 2, and Anchorman.

172 () 2005-11-10
So let’s see… a lot has happened, but little has been said. First off, moved the website to a different server, one that I have better confidence in (connectivity wise). I have not collected a drop of unemployment, not now, not ever. I am still living in a hole in the wall, still living on sandwiches, pasta, and handouts, but I am living and paying my bills. It has been over 6 months since my last paycheck of any kind (with no savings to speak of).

173 () 2005-11-10
I kind of ranted in haste about something that was troubling me without really giving the other person a chance to talk to me. I forgot today was Friday so I thought that they were ignoring me when I didn’t get a call early this morning. Oops. Another apology from me. This morning I woke up with a lot of clear thinking about a bunch of things. Some things are still tangled in my mind, some things were revealed to me that has made some simple things more complex, and some complex things more simple.

171 () 2005-11-01
Still no time for an update, but I figured I’d write down some songs I had made up during recent car trips. Your Minionsbest sung by a lot of burly guys in a bar holding beer mugsWe’ve got your back!We packed a snack!We’re on your side!(Some of us run and hide.)We’re your minions!We support your every decision!We have no opinions!Cause we’re your minions!A girl named KristinOriginally done as a rap song, can easily work as a country song, a pop song, or even a folk songStop, sit back and listen.

170 () 2005-10-31
Site is back online.. I’ve got a lot to talk about, and not much time, so I’ll post more when I can.

168 () 2005-09-05
Here we are several months home now. My evil twin is no longer “freeloading” at my place currently – he has gotten himself employed again. My shop has paid its own bills and occasionally paid for things like food and gasoline. However, it isn’t paying everything. I am considering my options at this point. I may have to take that unemployment I’ve held off on getting. On one hand, I’ve always wanted to get the business going on its own steam, but right now it (and me) needs a serious infusion of cash – all of the extra money has been going into building the cafe, and currently development in that direction has stalled completely.

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167 () 2005-06-10
I have been having serious problems connecting to this site from my dsl connection, hence the lack of updates. However, I figured I should throw some stuff out here.

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165 () 2005-04-11
I AM BACK. Well wasn’t that fun. While I can plan on not being deployed again, it’s now time for me roll the dice and see what life has in store for me. Interesting things are bound to occur. BTW, I’ve put out the first issue of JHN (John Hogenmiller News) on The Source of H. How is it that I can simultaneously feel like Mr. Awesome and a looser? I’ve climbed rocks, jumped out of windows, been shot at, did my own taxes, dated two strippers at the same time – from the same club, led a prayer group, out-chugged a chugger, hung drywall, hot-wired a car, sat home alone many a night, walked 3 miles barefoot through town just to say I did, got cut in a knife fight, choke-slammed a Marine, took out the trash, did laundry, and wear open-toe sandals.

164 () 2005-01-24
I haven’t really been watching this site too much recently since I’ve been mostly focusing on my other site Iraq again. Maybe once I get some of this other stuff out of my way I’ll post some more updates here. I’ve been working on a lot of stuff recently, from running the internet bunker, to my extending an accounting package, and working on coWiki. Cheers, Squegie

163 () 2005-01-02
I get a bit worried when someone will come up to me and sincerely thank me for something. I respond graciously enough with “no problem man”, but inside I’m thinking “Who is this person and what do they think I did for them?” Well, I guess it’s better than people coming up and cursing me out for things I don’t think I did.

162 () 2004-12-24
Happy Saturday! For those of you tuning in back home, then Merry Christmas! Here in Iraq, it’s business as usual, just another day. But it is also important to note that for me and my gange, we’ve past the halfway point and it’s all downhill from here. That is a good cause for celebration. Cheers.

161 () 2004-12-13
You know, sometimes it sucks knowing what the right course of action is. Instant gratification is a bitch to turn down, especially if you don’t know how well the “delayed gratification” will turn out. Why does doing the right thing seem like the boring one?

160 () 2004-11-27
I talked about it with some people, but now I have finally launched the site Iraq… again. I am going to put all Iraq-related blog entries and pictures on that site, so start looking there instead of here for a while. Of course, things that are just my usual musings and findings will naturally go here.

159 () 2004-11-26
From Slashdot:Yeah, but…they’re spammers. It’s like the Indiana Jones movies. Melting people’s faces is bad. Melting Nazi’s faces is awesome. Because, honestly, they’re Nazis. I’m not saying spammers are Nazis, just that we should melt their faces.

158 () 2004-11-23
Oh crap.

157 () 2004-11-22
Quick update. Dryden is now hosting his pictures on here as well. Check them out. You probably need to get to page 15 or so (can’t remember off hand, don’t feel like looking it up) before you get to the Fallujah pics. The rest are from Cali and before.

156 () 2004-11-21
I figured I should do an update as I haven’t done one in a while with all the stuff that’s been going on. We reopened the internet cafe about 7 days ago, and people starting coming back in from Fallujah around 6 days ago. They are rotating in for a couple days of R&R, and then back off to the city for 3-4 days. Basically, 4 on, 2 off, and so on.

155 () 2004-11-10
A moment of silence for our fallen heroes. Keep the members of our military and their families in your prayers.

154 () 2004-11-09
10 Nov 1775… 2004 229 years and counting. Today marks another birthday for the Corps. UPDATE: Still no major injuries for 3/5 or Truck Co Marines. Personal update: I finally got a vehicle to use while carousing around base.

152 () 2004-11-07
We have begun. It was pretty interesting yesterday when everyone was getting staged to go in. Last night, we took out an 8-building apartment complex and secured a hospital. Back here on base, all you can hear is the sound of artillery pounding away, all night and all day. There hasn’t really been any incoming. I think the insurgents are being kept pretty busy elsewhere. The next 14 days will be pretty darn interesting.

153 () 2004-11-07
BTW, CBS has the majority of the embedded reporters and should provide the most up2date news.

151 () 2004-11-04
Today’s a tight-lipped day. All comm is shut down, and that’s all I have to say about that. However, I can point you to some publicy available information that has been around for quite a while.

150 () 2004-10-31
I can’t say too much of what’s going on out here, but I guess if you read the news, you can extrapolate what is going to happen very, very, soon. It’s really wild to be part of a new-making organization. Imagine reading about things that happen just outside your door on the news the next day, knowing that people are hearing about it on the tv as well. When a jet breaks the sound barrier and shakes my house, I can read about air strikes on fallujah the next morning.

149 () 2004-10-30
Patron signs in. 21 is the next open computer, already written in next to his name. So I say:Me: You can get on 21.Him: (confused look) what?M: You can get on 21.H: Er no, it was already there…M: You can get on 21.H: I just signed up.M: You can get on 21.H: Oh. Ok. Thanks.M: No problem.Tell me again why I shouldn’t mock these people?

148 () 2004-10-20
Not a whole lot going on as of late. Things have been pretty slow at the cafe, but we have been bring some serious force to bear down on the insurgents of Fallujah. They’ve been retaliating with mortars out by my location, but so far they’ve done nothing more than stir up the fish. They were at it again before 5 this morning in fact. These people have no consideration for those that may be sleeping.

147 () 2004-10-18
Well, it’s been a while since my last update, so here goes. We have had all sorts of connectivity problems here. A crossover cable went bad (intermittenly bad), shutting down internet access. On the phone side, our modem went bad (slowly degrading over time), and then, we got hit by a virus on the computer side and segovia shut us off. These things happen I suppose, but when it all goes on within a weeks time, it tends to be very fustrating.

145 () 2004-10-08
Well, I have finally fixed the photo album so that I may upload new pictures. Then, after fixing it, I dedided to go ahead and upgrade from 1.2.1-p1 to 1.4.4-pl2. It has a lot new features (that I may never need), but it changed some of my template files, so the colors are all different now, plus you don’t get the links at the top. It seems to have the ability to have headers and embedd itself into webapps, so I may be able to get this fixed in a different way then before.

146 () 2004-10-08
OIF II pictures are uploaded! Check them out!

144 () 2004-10-06
I just got news (well, a day or two ago) that a former co-worker and good friend fell ill while on vacation. At the hospital, he was diagnosed with Leukemia. A day later, he went into a coma. Within a day or two, he was taken off of life support and died. The whole thing from feeling sick to death took place within a few days. Mark Strozzi, you will be missed.

142 () 2004-09-30
Very small update: The time changed in Iraq. So now, they are GMT+2 instead of GMT+3. So, noon in PA is 8pm here.

143 () 2004-09-30
I finally got to get ahold of Danielle last night. The last several times I’ve called her, I’ve always just missed her. The one time, she was at the fair, the next time she was working a 16-hour shift (and where she works, she’s not really allowed on the phone), the day after that I had just missed her leaving the house. However, I called at 1240am our time and got her as she was getting to the house.

141 () 2004-09-25
Well, I’ve been at the internet cafe for 5 days now and things are working out pretty good. I got a helper, and we worked it out where he takes the morning shift (5am-10pm) and I take the “evening” shift (8am-midnight) so we both get a decent amount of sleep and both of are covering during the busy times of the day. Some other good news is that I did my laundry and pulled out a fresh set of camies from the ol' seabag.

140 () 2004-09-20
For all ya people keeping track… I got it! I have just moved into the internet cafe in Iraq and will be running it for the next 7 months. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have more skating to do. :}

139 () 2004-09-17
Well, all worked out well. We got into the air field on the 14th, and made our way into Fallujah by the 16th. They have decent internet access here, but the actuall facilities are crowded. Basically, everything is overcrowded with the number of Marines living here and all the generators are overloaded, meaning we can’t run all the “niceties”, but otherwise the base is pretty nice.

138 () 2004-09-12
Well, we have another flight scheduled for late tonight… anyone taking bets on wether we make to Iraq this time or not? In other news, I managed to get a shower and put on the same stinky clothes again. I won’t really get into my good clothes until we can really unpack. I’ll keep people posted as time permits. :}

136 () 2004-09-11
Touched down in Kuwait last night (9/11, a very commemorative date) and on our way to Iraq tonight. Things have improved a lot since last time. Lots of niceties, I suppose to contrast the bad situation going on outside the firm bases. Anyways, thanks for everyone’s support and prayers. If anyone would like to write:JOHN HOGENMILLER3/5 H&S CO MOTOR TTRUCK ATTACHMENTUNIT 40380FPO AP 96426-0380I’ll post more as time permits. Perhaps a nice log of my take on the war will be possible this time.

137 () 2004-09-11
Well, when we invaded Iraq last year, it was hailed as the largest inland movement by marines in history. Last night was perhaps the most inefficient movement by marines in history. We boarded a c-130 and took off, flew for about 15 minutes, and then you could feel the plane banking yet again, and sure enough, we were turning around. We landed back in Kuwait due to a hydraulic leak that they somehow didn’t catch prior to take off.

135 () 2004-08-13
ssh terminal http://www.cmp.liv.ac.uk/terminal/

134 () 2004-08-03
I’m home right now on leave for a few days, trying to catch up with as many friends as I can. Sorry if I didn’t get to meet you while I’m back, but it seems everyone can only do stuff from 6pm - 9pm… :{ Anyways, I came across my old “asian” post on xanga, so here it is.

133 () 2004-06-19
With everything going on, I haven’t had a chance to post on here. I’m on deployment now, and probably won’t be back till at least March of ‘05. Those who know people that know me should ask around on how to get in touch with me. I may check my guestbook on here as well as my “deployment” email address.

CheckByNet () 2004-05-27
/* echeck.class, Copyright 2004 John Hogenmiller [email protected] http://h.hsource.net/ This is an api to interface with ChecksByNet (http://www.checksbynet.com/), provided by CrossCheck, Inc. This program is in no way (currently) endorsed by Crosscheck, Inc., nor is the author in any way affiliated with CrossCheck, Inc. Distribution: This program is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License. (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.php) CONFIGURATION: Go to the function post_echeck and change the $payto and $paytoid variables to match what you have with ChecksByNet.

132 () 2004-05-20
I guess I just never realized how many hot women were out there wanting to meet me. Here’s an example:

131 () 2004-05-08
My life is not a movie.

130 () 2004-04-30
Site has been moved to a new server in preparation for “the end”, please stay with us as we work out “the bugs”.

129 () 2004-04-26
People are incomprehensible. I just got off the phone with someone who called up because they couldn’t get connected to the internet. They had a specific error message (error 678) that comes from doing thing correctly to connect. I had them restart the computer and wanted them to try connecting again. We then had to spend 15 minutes helping her find the connect to icon, as well as internet explorer. I just want to scream “how the #&)@ did you get nearly connected the first time!

127 () 2004-04-11
This was quite a weekend. Thursday started off like any other day.. get up, go to work, leave work. The change came when I got close to home and I decided on a whim to try and call up an old friend of mine (by old, I don’t necessarily mean that she is older than me) and actually got ahold of her. We talked and caught up on news till I stopped in the local BPs for some Chester Fried Chicken… the bomb* (*not affiliated with BPs or Chester Fried), where we talked some more before I could even order my chicken, and I got invited out to a biscuit and pepsi party, which got me mightily excited, as you can imagine.

128

126 () 2004-04-09
Scan the cafeteria for some good seating.Found a spot by the cheerleaders eating.The quarterback asked me if I’d like a beating.I said that’s one thing… I won’t be needing.And since I am so smart and cunning… I took off down the next hall running.Relient K rocksSo I took a look at my phone bill today. The total came to $179.12, which is slightly more than I’m used to paying (~$54). Intrigued I check out page 6 where I find two charges from ESBI which stands for Enhanced Services Billing Inc.

125 () 2004-04-06
For anyone watching the news (as it relates to Iraq) recently, you may start to notice something. In previous months (ie, between August and now), you may have hear reports like “soldiers picked off by drive by shooters” or “car bomb kill 4 coalition forces.” Well, my guys (I’m talking Marines here), went back into country this last month. The headlines now read “Marines are engaged in heavy fighting across the region” or “Marines get into firefight with rebels, destroy wall in the process.

124

123 () 2004-03-27
Hi GateCourier, I’m SmarterChild!I’m your new robot friend. I bring you the info you want faster and easier than ever! Click here to see my privacy policy.I can’t wait to show you what I can do, but first I’d like get to know you a little.May I ask you a few general questions? (To do this later, type “skip.” You can also skip any question.

122 () 2004-03-24
(00:51:52) Squegie: it’s depressing cold, and i like to wallow in self-pity(00:52:58) Squegie: as i sit here alone, bathed in the soft glow of a computer screen, slowly eating my leftover macaroni and cheese dinner and reflecting on past failures…(00:53:40) Squegie: i realize that i need a soda.(00:55:45) Squegie: so, i walk back, back to my fridge and pause. my fridge was technically a loan from my previous employer, and comes up to my waist.

120 () 2004-03-20
(14:29:11) Gilformen: i’m not a dork elf!!(14:29:17) Gilformen: error: dark(14:29:28) Squegie: rofl

121 () 2004-03-20
Ok, the first bot is back online. For those of you who don’t know, SQBNet stands for Squegie Bot Net because of the fact we ran a bot net. With the collapse of the ircnet social structure, the botnet went away, but I continued on with the site. Now, I am getting back into bots, which are one of my favorite things on the internet. A bot is like a robot, but cooler.

119 () 2004-03-19
Have you ever thought about when someone says rofl? I mean, they can’t be literally rolling on the floor. How would they type? It woudl be tricky that’s for sure. You’d need a wireless keyboard.This statement that someone told me would work because they aren’t rolling: wow i’m definetly like on the floor laughing with that one.“…investigators say the deceased was on “aim” a popular online chat program, when she started to “rofl”, which means rolling on the floor lauging.

118 () 2004-03-16
You know what’s great about being me? The fact that I am listed as a cache administrator on at least one caching server that I don’t maintain. I have contacted that administrator about this several times, but for one reason or another, I remain the administrator of record. This doesn’t really bother me too much though, and every once in a while, I get an email like this:Subject: what does this mean?

116 () 2004-03-14
Ok, now it’s saying “save password”, “connect automatically” or “work offline."Do you have 1 phone line, or 2?She only has 1 line.Ok, so when we hang up, go ahead and hit connect.Do you want me to click off that x?No. Your computer is ready to go, so when we hang up, hit connect.Should I do anything now?No. Your computer is ready to connect to the internet. It can’t do it now because we’re on the phone and you’ll get an error saying no dialtone.

117 () 2004-03-14
Ok, display name is going to be her name.Should I type that in now?Yes. And then hit next.silenceUm… did you hit next?It’s asking for my email.Type your email into that box.Ok.after a pause…and hit next.My incoming mail server is a “P” “O” “P” “3”.It certainly is. Now, in both of the boxes below, type “mail.domain.dom”Ok.Hit next.I don’t have a next. The one box is still empty.Put “mail.domain.dom” into the outgoing box.

114 () 2004-03-13
Don’t let the spiders crawl up beside us…They want to bite us,Inject the virus

115 () 2004-03-13
cool schemeMy life in a nextel minute:Date?

113 () 2004-03-12
Time plods ahead steadily, as I drift backwards, a stick in the current of raging rapids.

112 () 2004-03-11
A lot of people I know believe that weight is proportional to quality. The heavier a device is, the more “solid” it is, and therefore, a more reliable/higher quality device. “Feel the weight of this power supply.” or “This cell phone has more weight to it, which indicates higher quality components.”. Now, to be fair, there is some truth to this. A heavier power supply typically means a larger transformer, which is able to handle higher loads.

108 () 2004-03-08
Some of you were expecting a different rant #108, and I’m sorry to dissapoint you. Stay tuned for rant #109 though. For those who have no clue what they’re missing, let me tell you. A local fellow recently has been having trouble with his laptop’s power adapter. I had bought him a new adapter (with his money mind you), and then he had problems with that one, so I replaced the new one.

109 () 2004-03-08
The following rant was submitted by windex/theinx/theOracle/redinx at my request. When I first heard the story of the borrowed floppy drive, I couldn’t believe it. However, strange as it seems, the following story is true. We just can’t make stuff like this up. So, Squegie asked me if I knew anyone who is into graphics design and could create a logo for one of his websites. I told him I knew of someone who was between jobs and looking for something interesting to do besides calculus homework, so I passed the word along.

110 () 2004-03-08
For those of you who have been watching the space from rant 105 and are feeling a bit put out, let me put your fears to rest. The non-geek in this story is the friend in rant 109, while the geek in 105 is the ex-boyfriend in 109. The co-worker’s computer in rant 109 is as of yet an unknown entity.

111 () 2004-03-08
Feel free to customize SQBNet to your liking with the new Prefspage. SQBNet has been capable of this for years, but I haven’t gotten around to making an interface to this capability until now.

104 () 2004-03-03
I have found something worse than spam. When people spam using your email address, you get the bounced messages. What makes that even worse is when tons of people who have received spam from your email adress (but not necessarily you) get infected with a virus, your address is in their list. So, you will either a) get the spam victims' virus email, or b) the spam victim’s computer will send messages from your email address and you will get the virus scan bounce backs alerting you that you had a virus or your message was rejected.

105 () 2004-03-03
Watch this space. I’ve been hearing about the breakup of a geek/non-geek relationship and the troubles it has caused the non-geek in dealing with her computer. I heard about about it because the non-geek girl has created a logo for me, and it is on this computer. More to come as this rant unfolds.

106 () 2004-03-03
See if you can catch the professionalism in this communication I received from one of my vendors.If you are a “PRICEWATCH” customer, please take a second to give us your " FEEDBACK “. We need your advise to provide more good products and greater service as our goal.Please note that I myself am quite guilty of many spelling errors, some are at the business level. Imagine a antire roll of address labels that start off with “Seviced by”.

107

102 () 2004-03-02
Of course, who can forget the scene where the Son of Satan is leading a band of demons through Central Park, all carrying a gigantic glowing box of Popeye’s chicken as Rock you like a Hurricane plays in the background. It’s very inspiring.

103 () 2004-03-02
Of course, there is nextel. I never really cared about cell providers before. It used to be just a comparison of minutes/dollar/month and coverage area. I had long ago bypassed the coverage area problem by getting a national no roam plan with the V provider. I recently went to check out Nextel’s no roam plan, which led me to realize how arrogant Nextel is.Nextel does not allow other phones onto its network.

100

101 () 2004-02-24
Oh drat. I missed it. The 100th rant of Sqbnet. Well, this is now the 101st Rant of SQBNet. May the world rejoice. Actually, I expect the world at large to remain mostly ignorant of this momentus milestone. In celebration I am offering everyone free access to the SQBNet website.

99 () 2004-02-01
A good chat log, worthy of the SQBNet can be found here.

98 () 2004-01-24
These are amazing times. I have freed myself from the past, and have already embraced the future. In other words, I switched jobs and am enjoying my prospects already.

97 () 2004-01-13
I guess you could say I’m just not that interested right now.

96

95 () 2004-01-02
I have finally responded to the “jennifer” that has been contacting me. 6is online. Also, 4and 5now have the picture attachments that I had received.

94 () 2003-12-31
My recent email conversations with Jennifer Kabila are now online. Number 6 doesn’t exist yet, but it will soon, and many more, I’m sure.

93 () 2003-12-23
Christmas is here… time to go shopping, I say. There is nothing like places open 24 hours and last-minute panic to inspire holiday gift giving. I always shop at the last minute, not because I’m a procastinator (which I am), but because I generally don’t realize it’s the last minute till that minute is upon me.I hardly notice holidays at all… most of them show up on the radar, I hear other people talk about them, and then they are past.

92 () 2003-12-20
I can not allow myself be in that position again. The position I almost face now. I move now to prepare. The balancing act ends now. I will rid myself of these burdens, till all that remains is a trifle.

91

90 () 2003-12-14
Incredible pressure, incredible strain. Everything is swirling around, trying to collapse inwards. I push back to my limit. I push as good as I get. Something is bound to snap, something is bound to break. The pressure builds, and I push harder. I must change course before all is lost. I am getting ready to move, and when I do, it will be fast and furious.

89 () 2003-12-01
The BCLug has grown another step and has a web page up under http://lug.bedfordcounty.org .

88 () 2003-11-27
Attention!!! Bedford County is forming a Linux Users Group. If you’re interested, send an email to [email protected] for a great time.

87 () 2003-11-23
It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire’s ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire’s sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network… – DECWARS

86 () 2003-11-19
Argh! People are crazy sometimes. People seem to think that because I’m a relatively smart guy, that I’m somehow above them. As if being intelligent puts me beyone reproach, beyond question. Not only is this not true, I’m not even that smart! I am no genius, I am no scientist. I have one specialized area that I’m really good at, and people take that to mean that I’m intelligent in many areas.

85 () 2003-11-18
People never seem to understand my signatures or even comment on their cleverness. Take for example: Wouldn’t the sentence “I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign” have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

84 () 2003-11-16
This turning, and I’m still walking, but I now stand still. I most likely will not leave for another six months yet. In other news, things go smoothly for me, as smooth as any other uphill battle would go. If you’re interested, I have added two more photo albums. One is this years Marine Corps Ball, and the other is for my “outdoor adventures” pictures. Enjoy (or don’t you ungrateful wretch)!

83 () 2003-11-12
I’m not sure what’s more dangerous, eating instant ramen out of a questionably clean beaker, or using glass stirring rods as chopsticks. – Credits to Krakow Studios.

82 () 2003-11-11
Squegie: oh, she had me mimimized

80 () 2003-11-09
: yeah i know but i am not as good as you When people say things like that to me, it really takes away my humbleness.

81 () 2003-11-09
Once in a great while, a flash animation comes along htat is so powerful, so intense, so mind-boggling amazing that it goes beyond flash and becomes… a rant. http://www.

79 () 2003-11-06
Time for me to move. It wasn’t so long ago that I took a hand in liberating Iraq. We conqured that country, toppled a regime, and established order. The people of that country would always be coming up to me and my brothers to thank us for helping them. Then, we handed control over to others and moved on. Now, I see that the occupational forces we turned the country over to are not up to the job.

78 () 2003-11-04
Behold! I stand with both feet on the ground and then I walk. I do not react to the garbase the world throws my way. I am in this world, but not of it. When I choose, I move, and the world may react as it will. I stand here now in charge of my life and how I handle it. There are no limits, there are no boundaries. Stand clear, for I am about to move again.

76 () 2003-10-31
redinx: cool, you can set the peasants on fire!

77 () 2003-10-31
I’m considering opening up the ability for other people to rant or “blog” on this site. If anyone is interested in doing so, or would like to see it done, email me. I’m still mulling it over.

75 () 2003-10-28
Yes, I’m back, and the website is back. It has been back for a while, in a mutilated form. Check it out: temporary site.

74 () 2003-10-25
Well, amazing as it all seems, the old system is starting to come together, better than ever perhaps?

73 () 2003-01-11
For the last three years, I have been training with the United States Marine Core, and now I have been called to put that training to use. For security reasons, I can’t tell you exactly where I’m going, and how long I’ll be there, but I will be gone, and most likeley unable to get to my email. For those of you that want to contact me, try to call the store first (866-470-TECH).

72 () 2003-01-07
In February 1999, a team of researchers from Harvard University led by Lene Vestergaard Hau used the BEC to slow light—which normally travels at 186,000 miles per second—to just 38 miles per hour by shining a laser light through the condensate. In 2001, Hau’s team announced that it had briefly brought a light beam to a complete stop.

71 () 2003-01-01
It’s 11am.. the phone rings. Being a considerate person, I answer the phone. me: Hello?her: Hey it’s me. Did I talk to you last night?me: (Thinks back a bit) Yes, yes we did.her: Oh, ok. I wasn’t sure, I don’t really remember much of anything last night.me: Oh really? I remember every word (what did we talk about anyways?)We go back and forth a bit like this, ending up with me revealing that we had worked out some wedding plans and were going to get married sometime within the next two weeks.

69 () 2002-12-25
I uploaded a few new picturestoday. I’m thinking of sorting out my big picture collection… maybe…

70 () 2002-12-25
Ok, organizing the pictures was easier than I thought it would be. I did a lot of moving of pictures, so the link in the last update is now invalid, but will at least put you in the proper album. Also, for family members, I have a hidden album. Get ahold of me for a username/password to log into it as. Cheers.

68

67 () 2002-12-12
08/04/2000 08:00:00 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds12/25/2002 08:00:00 124 weeks, 5 days, 1 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 secondsHave a Merry Christmas!

61 () 2002-12-01
Notice: This rant has been edited from previous. All I have edited has been the link presented and added this part on the topI had a link that looked like this: http://www.pennswoods.net/~dbrantner/rants.html which has since changed from the original to a page which redirected you to a gay porn popup loop. To actually get to the site, you’ll have to navigate through from the home page: http://www.pennswoods.net/~dbrantner/ Over the last year, this site has grown and changed and generally mutated as I have thought of new ideas to test out here.

65 () 2002-12-01
Some people just can’t tell their arse from their elbow.

66

63 () 2002-11-30
Nothing much, just a few links for people that love links. A basic philosophical paper on linking laws. http://www.internet-tips.net/Legal/Linking.htmA story about a case between TicketMaster and Tickets.com over a “deep linking” dispute.http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35306,00.html Oh and a waste management site in the UK. http://www.brantner.com/en/abfallw/index.jsp

62 () 2002-11-29
If the Jim, The Aussie (www.jimtheaussie.comhappens to be coming to a club near you, and you happen to be the kind of person that likes humorous people, then I would recommend you go and watch his show. If however, you are the kind of person that despises humour, or perhaps Australians are not your cup of joe (or tea for that matter), then I would recommend not going to see his show.

59 () 2002-11-27
02/11/28 17:42:43 red13n> average blue whale produces over 400 gallons of sperm when it ejaculates, but only 10% of that actually makes it into his mate. So 360 gallons are spilled into the ocean everytime one unloads, and you wonder why the ocean is so salty.

60 () 2002-11-27
I’m afraid it’s Turkey Day again. For those of you who don’t know, Turkey Day (also known as Thanksgiving) is a day set aside (mostly by US citizens) to give thanks for all the blessings that they have received. All in all, not a bad day, not a bad concept. Since I actually have what I consider to be a good life, good friends, and what is generally considered to be a promising future, I have many things to be thankful for.

58

56 () 2002-11-21
Ok, Jenn responded to my response, I posted her response and my reply here. Since the whole thing was in email, I’m going to make use of the pre tags again, bear with me if it messes things up.A rebuttal to the response to the rebuttal (BTW, this is going on sqbnet).> OK, let’s add it up another way.>> 2001 Toyota Tacoma - around $15,000 total (taxes and everything). Six> thousand down, and the other $9K at 7.

54 () 2002-11-20
Got an email today from one of my friends. It’s a conversation I’ve had before with people, so I’ll state here again. Let me start with the email.Ok, sounds simple enough. Now, let’s look at some real numbers here. The cheapest 2003 Toyota Tacoma is blue booked at $12600. Let’s say I got one of these guys at exactly $12,600 AND let’s say I manage to get a 5-year loan at 4%.

55 () 2002-11-20
Ok, let’s look at this. Real world scenario. My friend bought a 2001 (in 2001) Hyundai Tiburon bought for $15,500 and pays $367/month . Hyuandai has one of the best warranties on the market. About the same time that my Jeep broke down, his Tiburon lost first gear. His vehicle and my vehicle are in the shop getting repaired. My repair will cost me $500 tops, which is significantly less than two months payment of the Tiburon.

53 () 2002-11-19
You know… it’s one thing when one vehicle dies on you and needs the engine replaced… but when the second one does the same thing for a different, after having its engine replaced last year… one starts to develop an acute sense of paranoia towards their vehicles. Sigh…

52 () 2002-11-17
A used car is a great thing. It’s very cheap, it will get you to the places that you need to go. They will stick with you throught think and thin, and will never let you down. That is of course, until you absolutely, positively, need it to work. A used car is more aware of your financial situation than you are. If you can’t afford to put gas in it, much less repair it, the car will run.

51 () 2002-11-14
Do you use your powers for good or for awesome?

50 () 2002-11-13
RoostHeavy is an awesome font.

48 () 2002-11-12
Throughout my adult life, I have maintained a few basic principles that have kept me happy and calm in the face of great opposition. I share them with you n ow in hope that it will help others to be as happy as I am.

49 () 2002-11-12
I was working in the shop today, and from time to time, I worry when 2 or more computers I’m working on have the same problem, and it’s usually severe. I start to suspect that the coincidence is too great for this to happen, and then start doubting my technical troubleshooting abilities. Tonight I was doing this on two computers I had replaced the motherboards on, a premio and a gateway.

47 () 2002-11-11
For those of you who don’t already know, we had our Marine Core ball on the 9th up at the Ramada. This year, I took harlei, who is pictured elsewhere on this site under a different name. The day was doomed from the start. It all started the Friday beforehand. I drove up to my parents' place where I keep my uniforms. I had (one month prior) placed my alpha’s into a uniform bag and driven it up to the center for tailoring, and presumably drove it back to my parents' place for safekeeping.

45 () 2002-11-03
Another all nighter. Why do I put myself through such things? I feel great the entire night, up until it turns to my time to go into work. I get to work feeling great, and then I stare at my screen, and the life begins to sap out of me. Sigh…

42 () 2002-10-31
I’ve been tired lately. I try to compare my sleeping schedule now with schedules held in the past. Basically, I work from 7am till 8pm, which is nothing new. This means I need to be up from 6:30 till around 9pm. However, I stay up till around midnight or 1am some nights of the week and go to bed by 11pm other nights. This gives me anywhere from 5.5 to 7.

43 () 2002-10-31
I did however, go running again last night. It was an easy run, somwhere around 2.25 miles through town. I didn’t have a watch to time myself with, so I don’t know how fast I ran it in, but it probably isn’t an impressive time anyway. After running, I feel more on top of my game, which should be motivation enough for me to run in and of itself.

44 () 2002-10-31
I am currently going through a business relationship breakup. I won’t go into too many details, but basically it involves a friend of mine who I had planned to add as a business partner/owner. Things were going great, and I was planning on drawing up an ownership agreement for us (which needed to be done before December rolled around for tax purposes), when he suddenly declares that I am not doing my share of the work (we were both working in my store, acting as owners/partners before anything official was done), and had spoken with an attorney about taking the business from me.

41 () 2002-10-10
Such is the excitement on meeting random people online.

40 () 2002-10-09
According an article, Gen-X is setup worse than any other generation for a financial crash. My favorite quote: “I had a college president say to me, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can pull this off because people will start to ask, Is it worth this much money to be that much smarter?’ “Credits to slashdot.

37 () 2002-09-21
Which do you like better, the , or perhaps the current scheme ( < ul>black on white)?

38 () 2002-09-21
I suppose what I mean is Orange on Black

39 () 2002-09-21
I picked up a bad reputation over inManchestertoday. Squegiehas quite a potty mouth. 1.6% words were foul language. For example, like this:[17:17] shitpassword

36 () 2002-09-14
So I was thinking about opening a pr0n shop on the internet the other day when I realized that I had no pr0n of my own to sell to people. I immediately set out to make some pr0n when I further realized that I had no one to model for my pr0n shop. This set me back for a minute until I came up with a brainstorm. I knew that the walls in my apartment were naked, so I took many revealing snapshots of these walls.

35 () 2002-09-13
I suppose I should mention that I am redesigning my web site. For those of you who like the older style of website, click on the oldsite link up above.

34 () 2002-08-30
Klez.E is the most common world-wide spreading worm.It’s very dangerous by corrupting your files. Because of its very smart stealth and anti-anti-virus technic,most common AV software can’t detect or clean it. We developed this free immunity tool to defeat the malicious virus. You only need to run this tool once,and then Klez will never come into your PC. NOTE: Because this tool acts as a fake Klez to fool the real worm,some AV monitor maybe cry when you run it.

33 () 2002-07-27
Driving home last night, I was taking the alleys through town, heading over to my office building. As I prepared to pull onto the main street for the short period that I had to, I waited as one car drove by, and then I saw a pair of flashing lights as one of the local coppers gave chase to this vehicle. I waited for the copper to drive by, plus the car behind it, and pulled out myself.

32 () 2002-07-04
So this was another one of those days. As some of you may know, the 4th of July is a day that America supposedly celebrates its independence from Britain. We do this through various means, waving flags, shooting fireworks into the sky.. that sort of thing. I celebrated by going up to this fair type thing that they were having in Martinsburg. Tickets were $1.75, which got you onto one (1) ride.

31 () 2002-07-01
OMG. I just updated the stats, and I am averaging over 1000 hits per day, and that is not me. Could this be the beginnings of a cult following? Perhaps I should consider putting a message board in place.

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29 () 2002-06-10
Blatant link for the purpose of directing google to this totally awesome sight. silentc.

28 () 2002-05-22
It’s been a while, but that’s fine. Just wanted to let everyone (except for you of course) know that a major overhaul is in the works for this site as I prepare to take this site into the next 3 months. I also have some pictures of a certain squegie, certain western coastline, and certain inxthat I will soon be posting up online, as soon as I fix my photo gallery program.

27 () 2002-04-22
I’ve been sitting here, in front of my computer, yet my thoughts are thousands of miles from home. I’ve recently set out on a quest to find out something, but I do not think I will be able to find that out (it is the answer to the question that must be answered). I was hoping to make decisions, or beging planning on making decisions based upon my findings this week, but I am discovering that more, oh so much more, time is needed.

26 () 2002-04-08
I think this is an accurate reflection on society:you get to play with the lights once and then its off to the basement to look in two rooms and from that figure out which switch controls which room?

25 () 2002-04-01
The plans are set, the deed is done. As it stands right now, my course is set, there will be no deviation. All that is left for me to do is to go through the motions, and to learn of the end result. Then, you take that end result and feed it back into the master plan. Currently, the plan can only succeed, not fail. The results may not be what I have expected, but they will be results nonetheless.

22 () 2002-03-29
Support HR256 http://www.

23 () 2002-03-29
You can email support of HR256 to: [email protected], or visit his web page at: http://www.

24 () 2002-03-29
Hello! I’m here!This is what greeted me just a few moments ago today. ICQ went uh-oh and that is what I see. I am immediately suspiscious.At this point, the “Tammy” decided to go offline. Random chatter loosing connection perhaps? I believe not. Aha! I have more proof now! (This is a live rant btw). “Tammy” has come back online. How about we ask her, ok?

21 () 2002-03-28
It’s been a while now, hasn’t it?Welcome back, those of you who are returning from places unknown (Texas perhaps?). This has been a busy time for the Squegi`, people running everywhere. I myself have been madly coding things for the project. The aptly named carver aka silentc (the c is silent) has managed to go from head technician to actual supervisor, as well as documentation writer for the PennSwoo. Suddenly all of Antioch (the is now in a PennSwoo authority position, forming a mega-block of PennSwoo virtual power.

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18 () 2002-03-16
Exciting times, boring times, these we can be assured, do exist. First off, I reinstalled my computer. I figured I would give W2k a try as I have not used W2K yet (although I have used NT workstations before). I went through a mad distro, from RH 7.2 to Debian, onto Turbo Linux (which is not that bad), and then a quick stint with Beos, and now I am running Slack on my laptop, and testing out windows 2k on my home puter.

13 () 2002-03-10
Have you ever been in a situation where someone has asked you a question, and they need the answer, and you need to give them the answer, and you don’t know the answer? It’s not something that you can look up in a reference book, or on the internet, but must come straight from you. The problem with these type of questions is that if you don’t know the answer, it will keep nagging at you until you have the answer.

14 () 2002-03-10
[21:08] &lt|inx|&gt so what question have i been dodging? ;)

11 () 2002-02-27
tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive

12 () 2002-02-27
I have recently joined in with a new breed of RPG. Basically starting the “fire-and-forget” class, Progressquest (www.progressquest.com) will advance with our without you. Their site is a bit hammered right now from massive traffic, so I have mirrored the download here. Here is the introduction, and the download.

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8 () 2002-02-01
Ok, so I’ve been getting some grief from this girl named Kristan. I didn’t copy the first conversation I had with her, but this is one a few days later. She thinks that I am sonya.

6 () 2002-01-28
Lot of stuff to talk about. Something like two weeks prior to today, I moved into an apartment with carvo and the aptly named “josh”. This leads to a new era in the life of Squegie. Now that I am living back in town, work is much closer to drive to. Furthermore, we are all very much computer… enthusiasts. Therefore, we have a lan. I’m getting into multi-player online games like Q3A, and my old favorite, GTA2.

7 () 2002-01-28
My newest niece was born on the 25th at 5:27am, weighing 9.1lbs and 20inches in length. Check it out. You know, while at the hospital I was privy to a revelation. Hood-rats in the area will actually go to the hospital to hang out. That seems eternally sad to me. I witnessed three of them getting thrown out by the security guard. Apparently these teens go there, get something from the snack bar, and then wander the grounds.

5 () 2002-01-12
The Citizens For Truthhave vowed to get to the bottom of this case. Please show your support by getting a ribbon from this site: http://www.geocities.com/dianawilm/However, even in the midst of this controversial assasination, there are some that claim he is still alive. There is already a documentary in progress, it will be called: Nothing So Strange. But don’t take their word for it, check out this review(translated from german).

3 () 2002-01-08
I have gotten tired of constantly spending money at the soda machine for iced tea. Furthermore, making iced tea is time consuming and the tea doesn’t last very long. The part I dislike the most is the quantity of trips I must make for beverages. My solution is to purchase a gallon of bottled water from the local grocery outlet. Since my intent is to drink from this bottle, I need something slightly unlike the traditional gallon jug.

2 (#webalizer ) 2002-01-06
Well, I got the webalizer going again. You can now see the bare minimum of traffic that this sight receives. Excellent. I was excited when it came up with 4 hits for the entire month of December, but unfortunately, that’s only because the logs were goofed up. You see, most people like to have lots of visitors to their site. I on the other hand would prefer the opposite. Repeat visitors expect new content all the time.

1 () 2002-01-05
The rants of the past have gone. It is time for the rants of the future. BTW, I have taken a dare and turned my picture into hotornot. I am now a hotornot fiend!