My Series of Unfortunate Events

11.10.2006

The past few days have been frustrating. Most days go by without inc1dent, which I've come to accept as the norm. If a problem does pop up, it's usually nothing that I can't fix without too much thought or discomfort. This week I was thrown a couple of curves that managed to throw my week off kilter.

Wednesday evening I got a call from Mom out of the blue. It seems we had each been thinking of the other and it had been a while since we had gotten together to chat. We could chat on the phone, but every once ina while you just need a face-to-face with your Mom. Nashville is pretty much the halfway point between us, so we agreed to meet there. It was 4:45, so I was hoping that I would miss the rush hour traffic by spending most of my quality time on I-65.

15 miles from home, 1 mile south of the Tennessee line, 87 miles from Nashville, traffic going north on I-65 stopped. I had just passed the last exit on the Alabama side - actually I had managed to come to a stop past the off-ramp but before the overpass. Over the next hour I moved 12 car lengths. Thanks to the advent of cellular technology Mom and I kept talking off and on while I was stuck and she decided to turn south once she got to Nashville and kept on coming. We ended up meeting at the Shady Lawn Truck Stop in Elkton (better known as the home of the World Famous Boobie Bungalow Club). Mom and I got our talk in while having some fine dining at the Shady Lawn. I even got home in time to watch the news and found out my delay on the interstate was due to 2 18-wheelers sideswiping each other causing all types of vehicular carnage. Everybody was ok, though.

Yesterday was going to be a good day. I woke up refreshed and focused. I had things to do on my to do list and I was raring to go. All was going well until 4:45 (I'm starting to see a pattern). I was ftp'ing files to my webserver for testing when the phone rang. It was a recruiter for one of the job postings I had sent my resume off for, and he needed a cover letter. He was going to email me some details and I should incorporate them into my cover letter. No problemo. I turn back to the computer and it's locked up. Odd. I reboot the computer and it waits.

And waits.

And waits.

I try booting into safe mode and it never starts up. I try booting into the verbose, message ridden safe mode and see that it's getting hung up on the MUP.SYS file (I later found out this is used when running multiple operating systems - WHICH I'M NOT!). The file must have gotten corrupted somehow. I'll just stick in the XP disk and have it load the file back. So I load the XP disk....

... and it can't recognize the hard drive, probably due to it being 2 drives with a RAID 0. A software RAID 0 managed by the BIOS. That's important, I would find out. All the XP disk sees is a big, unpartitioned, unusable drive. Crap.

I then remember all the rage of Knoppix - a flavor of Linux that can run on a bootable cd. Thanks to my handy dandy laptop from work, I'm not completely cut off from the world. I manage to download a copy of Knoppix! Thanks to a little coaching from Jer, I burn my very first iso image to a disk and now have a bootable disk and I can boot up the computer! Once I'm in Knoppix, it even shows my big honkin' 800G Disk.

Except it can't open the drive.

I search the net, trying to dust off my Linux skills. I remember something about having to mount drives. Oh, here's an article on the net about setting a raidtab so Knoppix can set a raid partition. I type all of this stuff in and it does no good. Then I come across a little tidbit on a message board that makes my heart drop. Linux can't read Windows raid partitions (and vice versa). My raid partition is a software partition created for Windows, so that must be the reason that I can't open up the drive.

Welcome to Screwedburg, population me.

After hours of fighting with the computer, I went to bed at 2:00 in the morning hoping I would come up with another plan (I had run out of letters for naming plans long ago). I woke up and thought I would try booting in safe mode one more time. I went through the steps and saw it get hung up on the MUP.SYS file again. Dejected, I just left the computer and ate some breakfast. I came back half an hour later and found the normal Windows desktop waiting for me. I could do stuff! I could rescue files! I could replace the seemingly corrupt MUP.SYS! So I did all that. I rebooted and the computer got hung up again. I rebooted again and the computer started right back up without a problem.

So I've resigned myself to the fact that there's something wrong. The only thing I can think of to fix it is to rebuild everything and get rid of the RAID drive. I've got all my data backed up thanks to 2 external hard drives along with a web server I hide stuff. But I really hate doing that. The computer always ends up fighting me whenever I attempt something like this.

Permalink mom random

Fore Rendering

11.06.2006

Today has been my day to try and organize all the little projects I've got going on. Parts have been more frustrating than productive, but overall I think it's been a good day.

One of my projects (at least I'm pretty sure it's one of my projects) is the upgrade of the website for the golf course Gina works at. I'm trying to pump up the "wow, geewiz" factor by sneaking in a little Flash intro page, if for no other reason than it's a good excuse to boost my Flash skills along the way. I'm also using Poser to create the animation that I'll import into Flash. If everything works out right, there'll be a golfer hitting the ball which will swoop up as the camera angle zooms in to the ball in mid-flight. Once you get close enough, you'll see the golf course logo on the ball, and then the logo will come off the ball and form the logo for the page. It's a good idea, at least I think it's a good idea, but I don't know 100% of how I'm going to do it yet. But that's part of the fun of learning. It's the frustrating part, too, but I'm trying to be optimistic.

Here's an early render of the 1st set-up shot before the animation starts:

The animation for the swing is all set up, all I've got to do is have the camera follow and zoom in on the ball. After that, it's the fun of figuring out how to integrate my golf ball/logo idea. It's a good thing I love playing with the boat load of graphics programs I've garnered over the years!

Permalink programming/interweb

Insert Tab A Into Slot B

11.01.2006

A couple of years ago (I think) I got sucked into the world of the Star Wars Miniatures game at one of my local comic book shops. I'm easily drawn into new games, but seldom do I actually get around to actually playing any of them. The appeal of the SW Minis game is the collectability of the pieces, much like the trading card games that are out there now (ala Pokeman and Magic: The Gathering).

After amassing more of the figures/pieces than I had intended, Jerry and I got around to playing a couple of games. They were "learning the rules" scenarios, but they played out quickly and helped to show how fun the game could be - especially if we went ahead and figured out all the optional and advanced rules. One of the drawback when playing was that Jer and I would forget what was what on the 2D map. Walls with red lines go to the ceiling and block line of sight, a different color represents low cover which serves as a to hit modifier. I'm sure that anyone who has played this game more than a handful of times knows these rules, but it still something that a beginner has to look up more often and thus slows the game down a little.

Tangent to the days of ResGen and the scenry building skills of JD. JD had an expert hand at making scenery, which in turn made whatever game we were playing more fun. Epic Warhammer 40,000 wouldn't have been nearly as much fun if it weren't for the terrain and ruins that JD had made. When we started to play Frag, JD got on the local plotter and made a huge map for which he then made elevated walls, walkways, debris boxes and crates. These were the things that added to make the play more enjoyable.

While surfing around I came across a site that has paper models and dioramas for the Star Wars Miniatures game. (After signing up) you can download PDF files that can be printed, spindled, folded, and mutilated to make your very own 3D Star Wars gaming map. I've printed and tried out some of the files for walls, and I think this is going to work out pretty well. It's been a while since I put my arts and crafts skills to work, but it's very calming to have a little project away from the computer.

This first pass was printing out test walls (for lack of a better term) on regular old paper. I think to do this properly I need to get a heavier grade paper. Right now I think that building the scenery is going to be as much fun as to when we get around to playing another game.

Permalink boardgames

Job Searchin' Searchin' Searchin'... Into The Future

10.26.2006

I've once again ventured out into the world of job hunting. It's not that I dislike my job, but the contract under which I am working is not being funded for my position any longer. So luckily it's not personal or have anything to do with my skills, it's just a lack of funding. Or so I'm told.

It's been years since I've looked for a job, especially without the vast network of friends and co-workers who know of some available position at another company. Unfortunately, those connections have slipped away over the years. A lot of it is due to friends and co-workers moving away. Even larger is that my skillset has gotten more precise to where all of those jobs for which I may have applied for in the past aren't quite in my specialty any longer. But that's ok, I like having a specialty.

Now I have a morning routine of searching job sites: Monster, Dice, Career Builder, Yahoo, and al.com. I've submitted a handful and even gotten a couple of responses.

So if anyone out there knows someone that needs a semi-cocky web guy, let me know!

Permalink random

Observations From Home

10.23.2006

For a good chunk of the past couple of weeks I've been working from home (more on that later in the week). As such, I've gotten a chance to see/hear some of the things that happen around the house while I'm usually away.

I'm on some type of automated call list. Some days, starting promptly in the 10:30-10:50 range, the phone will ring. I answer with a self assured "Hello" and hear nothing except a few eventual clicks. If I wait long enough, I eventually get a dial tone (I guess there's a time-out period where the dialer eventually hangs up). 90 minutes later the phone will ring again. 60 minutes later the phone might ring. If not, it's an extra 90 minutes before the phone rings. Whenever I answer, the same clicks to eventual ring tone are found.

One time while listening to the clicks I tried just punching numbers on the keypad to see what would happen. I heard a few more clicks and then a ringing on the other end. Not just any kind of ringing, but the old, rotary phone style ring. You know, the kind that you heard when you used to call Granma. After a couple of rings, someone actually answered! A woman, who I swear was someone's grandmother, answered in an elderly voice "Hello?". "Hello" I answered back. "Hello?" she said again. Again I said "Hello". Undaunted, she again said "Hello?". It was obvious that while we both heard each other, neither of us knew what was going on. So I hung up.

Thursday after patiently listening to clicks and pops after answering, I was (surprisingly) greeted by Ali Ali Ocksen-Free from BellSouth. He was telling me how I had been such a good customer and how they could add lots of neat things to my already over priced phone service. I told him how that sounded neat, but I really wasn't interested. Ali Ali started to tell me even more neat things I could add, but I really wasn't in the mood to listen (I was still sick, after all) so I reiterated my lack of interest and hung up. I think the Granma I had been saying "Hello" to understood me better.

Saturday was the semi-annual fund raising visit from the Volunteer Fire Department. I don't know if this counts as one of those normally unobserved visits since they traditionally come by on weekends. They either have a fund raiser every 6 months or so, or the Fire/Rescue Squad is a separate entity. They both sale portrait sessions for one of the local photographers - is it selling if they give it to you for a contribution?

Today I returned home from a grocery shopping jaunt to see a woman standing in my driveway. My driveway is far off the beaten path, so it's not often I see someone standing there, especially someone I don't know. There was a car farther down the gravel road I share with 2 other houses backing up in my direction, so I guessed that the woman standing in my driveway was waiting for the car that was backing up. I pulled into the driveway and started unloading my groceries as the woman got into the now-backed-up car, and off to the more travelled path they went. As I continued putting up groceries, I wondered just what had brought these people down my less travelled path. Neither of them had said anything to me as I unloaded the car. Curious. Wait, many times when the people you want nothing to do with come by they leave something on your stoop! Now that the groceries were up I went to the front door! Attached to the door was a flyer from the local chapter of Mormons. Most of the time when confronted with Mormons, the local Alabamian gets caught in an hours long religious discussion from which they valiantly attempt escape. In my case it seems they just loitered in my driveway.

Permalink rambling random