Brian's Blog

I just had an incredible Saturday evening. The power cut out around 3:30PM or so and just finally came back on at around 2:30AM. It's been raining heavily and our two sump pumps run on wall AC so it's been an entertaining 11 hours of scooping out the pumps with a small bucket and emptying it into the basement sink every 15 to 30 minutes. I thought this may happen one day but figured the likelihood of it to be small, so I've been putting of getting a small generator to run the pumps. Time to start pricing up generators I guess. Now watch, if I do get a generator this won't happen again for 20 years.

Time for bed.

So, you want more vacation? Then leave the US.. I think this explains in part why so many seem to suffer from job burnout. I've known that we are the most worked nation in the world for a long time, but I've never seen the actual numbers. It makes me wonder where our priorities are.

You know, I can't think of any case where someone has said with their dieing breath, "I wish I spent more time at the office...". My priorities are with my family, especially my children. I can replace my job, I can never get back the time I've lost with my family.

At least I work at a place where the priorities are sane.

I've been behind in getting my pictures up to the photogallery. I've added pictures from a wedding I was to recently, a Labor Day picnic, and my youngest daughter's first birthday.

I've had this picture setting around for ages to show off how well my wife's garden went for her this year. Take a look. The bottom zucchini is from the store with a ruler below it for perspective. The top two are hers.

Let's just say I never knew there were so may different way to make zucchini! We had to get creative since two loaves of zucchini bread used only about one third of the big one. Plus these weren't the only zucchini harvested. Additionally she also has success with tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts.

She wants a bigger garden next year too! I think it's time to learn how to can.

Having been laid off from my previous employer during the massive turn down in tech industry in 2003 I'm still finding myself asking this question. I mean, asking it as far as what is available within a 50 to 75 mile radius of my home (.75 to 1.5 hour drive). I just did a quick search on Monster.com just to see and of the only 33 jobs listed only 1 was in the ABE area. Many of them are of no interest or not related to my skill set. One thing I have noticed is that they seem to have gotten away from wanting to pay one salary to have you be their Network Engineer, Developer in 8 difference languages, manage multiple databases, and maintain a phone system. All while you provide front-line help desk support for users. OK, I'm over exaggerating a little, but not overly. Also, many of the jobs are contractor positions, they want you for 6 to 12 months, then it's over.

Honestly though, the Lehigh Valley is more than a little bit of a challenge to find employment. It took me almost 9 months of vigorous searching near and far to find the one that I do have, and I'm getting paid significantly less then I was. Don't get me wrong, the guys I work with are great, and they are very family needs conscious but when the daycare costs for two children are more than your mortgage on a modest home it only goes so far. That on top of the ever increasing cost of living and it's now to the point where I have to consider doing something about it. I'm getting tired of having to get creative to find the funds to send my daughter to things like swimming lessons.

I know the jobs are here locally. They just aren't publicized. Or, if they are, it's not locally publicized. In a conversation with an employee of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) he said that they are trying to get local companies to advertise in the Lehigh Valley area, but many of them are advertising their jobs in Philly. For some reason they don't think they can get skilled labor in the Lehigh Valley area. This doesn't make any sense to me since with all the layoffs of huge companies like Agere one would think there would be a huge amount of skilled people crazy to get work.

I guess it comes down to knowing the right people, as usual. Most jobs are gotten based on who you know. I got my previous job because I knew someone who worked there and I got my current job in the same way. Who knows, maybe things will work out where I am now. In a way I hope they do. But the world we live in is cut throat and blind loyalty had gotten me burned before.

My sister put this list up on her blog. I thought it was a fun exercise in self reflection. If you read this you'll probably hear more about me than you'll want to know and also realize just how boring I am.

Here's my version:

01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said "I love you" and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Done a striptease
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long, and watched the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights
16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Touched an iceberg
20. Slept under the stars
21. Changed a baby's diaper
22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
23. Watched a meteor shower
24. Gotten drunk on champagne
25. Given more than you can afford to charity
26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
28. Had a food fight
29. Bet on a winning horse
30. Called in sick when you were not ill
31. Asked out a stranger
32. Had a snowball fight
33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier
34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
35. Held a lamb
36. Enacted a favorite fantasy
37. Taken a midnight skinny dip
38. Taken an ice cold bath
39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar
40. Seen a total eclipse
41. Ridden a roller coaster
42. Hit a home run
43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days
44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
45. Adopted an accent for an entire day
46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
48. Had two hard drives for your computer
49. Visited all 50 states
50. Loved your job
51. Taken care of someone who was s***faced
52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
53. Had amazing friends
54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
55. Watched wild whales
56. Stolen a sign
57. Backpacked in Europe
58. Taken a road-trip
59. Rock climbing
60. Lied to foreign government's official in that country to avoid notice
61. Midnight walk on the beach
62. Sky diving
63. Visited Ireland
64. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
66. Visited Japan
67. Bench pressed your own weight
68. Milked a cow
69. Alphabetized your records/books And labeled them
70. Pretended to be a superhero
71. Sung karaoke
72. Lounged around in bed all day
73. Posed nude in front of strangers
74. Scuba diving
75. Got it on to "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye
76. Kissed in the rain
77. Played in the mud
78. Played in the rain
79. Gone to a drive-in theater
80. Done something you should regret, but don't regret it
81. Visited the Great Wall of China
84. Started a business
85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
86. Toured ancient sites
87. Taken a martial arts class.
88. Sword fought for the honor of a woman
89. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
90. Gotten married.
91. Been in a movie
92. Crashed a party
93. Loved someone you shouldn't have
94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy
96. Had sex at the office
97. Gone without food for 5 days
98. Made cookies from scratch
99. Won first prize in a costume contest
100. Ridden a gondola in Venice
101. Gotten a tattoo
102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on
103. Rafted the Snake River
104. Been on television news programs as an 'expert'
105. Got flowers for no reason
107. Got so drunk you don't remember anything
108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug
109. Performed on stage
110. Been to Las Vegas
111. Recorded music
112. Eaten shark
113. Had a one-night stand
114. Gone to Thailand
115. Seen Siouxsie live
116. Bought a house
117. Been in a combat zone
118. Buried one/both of your parents
119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off
120. Been on a cruise ship
121. Spoken more than one language fluently
122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
123. Bounced a check
124. Performed in Rocky Horror
125. Read - and understood - your credit report
126. Raised children
127. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy
128. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
129. Created and named your own constellation of stars
130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
132. Called or written your Congress person
133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
134. ...more than once?
135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
137. Had an abortion or your female partner did
138. Had plastic surgery. Reconstructive surgery, that is.
139. Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
140. Wrote articles for a large publication
141. Lost over 100 pounds
142. Held someone while they were having a flashback
143. Piloted an airplane
144. Petted a stingray
145. Broken someones heart
146. Helped an animal give birth
147. Been fired or laid off from a job
148. Won money on a T.V. game show
149. Broken a bone
150. Killed a human being
151. Gone on an African photo safari
152. Ridden a motorcycle.
153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100mph
154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced.
155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
157. Ridden a horse
158. Had major surgery
159. Had sex on a moving train
160. Had a snake as a pet
161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
165. Visited all 7 continents
166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
167. Eaten kangaroo meat
168. Fallen in love
169. Been a sperm or egg donor
170. Eaten sushi
171. Had your picture in the newspaper.
172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your
lifetime
173. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
174. Gotten someone fired for their actions
175. Gone back to school
176. Para sailed
177. Changed your name.
178. Petted a cockroach
179. Eaten fried green tomatoes
180. Read The Iliad And translated part of it.
181. Selected one 'important' author who you missed in school, and read
182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your
apartment needed them
183. ...and gotten 86ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times,
they figured out it was you
184. Taught yourself an art from scratch
185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
186. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
187. Skipped all your school reunions
188. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
189. Been elected to public office
190. Written your own computer language
191. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
193. Built your own PC from parts
194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
195. Had a booth at a street fair
196. Dyed your hair
197. Been a DJ
198. Found out someone was going to dump you via the computer
199. Written your own role playing game paper-based, not computerized.
200. Been arrested
201. Shot someone
202. Sang a solo in public, while sober
203. Kissed a hummingbird
204. Given birth
205. Eaten some tree-bark
206. Baked your own bread, without a machine
207. Braided the bread
208. Foraged and eaten wild food, and/or used wild herbs as medicine
209. Climbed a waterfall
210. Walked in total darkness
211. Went snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef
212. Been mistaken as someone of the opposite sex, and they never realized it
213. Had a supernatural experience
214. Performed at a poetry reading
215. Been to a fetish party
216. Been strip searched
217. Gotten a lap dance at a strip club
218. Gotten hate mail from something of yours that had been published
219. Met someone in person who you first knew on-line
220. Cross-dressed
221. Been a resting-place for a butterfly
222. Had more than two novels published.

This weekend I finished reading 1984 by George Orwell. Some years ago my friend Chris introduced me to 1984 via the movie which prompted me to check out the book. Unfortunately I never finished it back then. I got to the point there Julia and Winston were in their little hideout just before they got caught by the Thought Police then put it down and never finished. I think part of that is because on that first pass through the story was nothing more than entertainment to me. All the while that I was reading it I was thinking, this is an interesting story, but this could never happen. Not here in the United States anyway!

Well, this time through I read it in a new light. This time it struck home more than that first time since I think we are seeing things come about that could lead to this sort of world. I don't mean were all going to have to learn Newspeak and call everyone comrade or anything like that. I think it will be a much more subtle sort of control if we aren't careful and the general population (the proles in 1984) don't start to care a heck of a lot more about what's going on in the world.

The technology is there, or soon will be there, to have unprecedented surveillance on the general public. For instance, police may be able to see through walls in the not so distant future. And RFID tags are another interesting one in that they are so small that they can be hidden in cloth or, even paper. Supposedly the newer $20 bills already have them. Of course, these technologies, and many others, are developed with the idea of having a practical use that is to benefit people in some way. However, as with all technology, it can be a very bad thing in the wrong hands. And that is exactly the part the worries me. I don't trust human nature to lead people to do what is right in general. And least of all, I don't trust those in power to do what is right. A good example of this can be found in the recent Pennsylvania lawmaker pay raises in which they increased their pay to the 2ND highest in the country and also discovered, and exploited a loophole in the State Constitution that allowed them to take the pay raise in the current term when the raise isn't supposed to take effect until the next term. If this sort of thing is happening on the State level I'm sure there is a good chance it's happening on the Federal level.

And then comes in the issue of influencing the minds of the people, or manipulating them to think what the government/media wants them to think. For instance, there is the large number of people who believe that Saddam Hussein played a part in 9/11 when anyone who was awake and should have noticed the sudden transition from Bin Laden to Iraq. Some how or another the media/government played the general population into thinking and actually believing something that was not true. I can remember personally thinking, "But what about Bin Laden?!" when we were hearing about Iraq and their mythical weapons of mass destruction. So, at some point 40 plus percent of the American public was manipulated into believing a lie.

The point being there is a similarity with the Party's goal of controlling minds and manipulation of the US population to gain support for a war in Iraq. Albeit, on a much smaller scale than the fictitious world of 1984. Now, the reason I think this was so easy to do is that, well, people are generally living their lives in their own little bubble and don't really care about the big picture. They aren't watching those who are in charge of maintaining their rights. And, as they say, then the cat is away the mice will play. In this case, the cat is the people, and the mice are those we elect into office.

Portions of Orwell's description of the Proles seem to describe the mind set of the general masses in the real world pretty well. A couple of them follow:

They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-ages at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and, above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.

-- From 1984 by George Orwell

It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer work hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as the sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.

-- From 1984 by George Orwell

In other words, people in general are so sucked into their selfish little worlds that they don't have the time or the care to observe what is going on around them. 1984, in my mind, is a big warning of what the world could be like, at least in part, if we don't wake up, smell the roses, and start to watch and care about what goes on in our government as well as the world.

We just spend a relatively relaxing week at Dewey Beach. I just hastily put the pictures in the photo gallery.

Now, no more vacations for a while. It sucks not having payed vacation. Back to reality.

I've finally gotten the pictures in the gallery from the 4th of July. There are a mess of pictures taken using Fireworks mode of the digital camera. This is the first time I've used this mode and the pics didn't turn out to bad. I'm not a photography expert but there has to be some way to make the pictures more sharp and less smeary. What you see is the result of the camera taking care of itself.

I just got back this past weekend from a week in the Poconos for the annual fish trip. For those who don't know I've been going up to the same cabin near Pecks Pond with the same group of good friends for about 11 years now and we always have a heck of a good time drinking, playing cards, and occasionally fishing. My Dad came up and we spent a couple of hours shooting clay birds with the shotgun and target shooting with the .22 and on Wednesday we saw Dave Mathews in concert. As usual for vacations it went way to fast.

I forgot to bring the camera most places we went so I don't have to many pics to show. They are all in the gallery. The picture just to the left is probably be best one out of the bunch. I took this after we went fishing on White Deer Lake.

Somewhere or another I found a thought provoking quote that I'd like to share. I found it some time ago, liked it, and hung it on the wall then never looked at it again until now. It seems terribly relevant these days. Anyway, here it is:

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.

-- Charles A. Beard

I'd been using Knoppix at work to bail out various Windows systems for the past few months so I decided to read Knoppix Hacks. I'd really only been using Knoppix to backup data before reinstalling Windows but after reading this book I have a few more tricks up my sleeve. My favorite ones and the ones I learned the most from are:

1. Wardrive with Knoppix
2. Check for Root Kits
3. Clone Hard Drives
4. Wipe a Hard Drive
5. Create Linux Software RAID

These are just a few of the 100 Hacks. I like the idea of checking for root kits from a read only file system and learned how to use dd for drive cloning. I've used partimage for cloning for a while but not every system will have that while every thing should have dd. And software RAID under Linux has always been sort of Voodoo for me but it turns out to be really easy. I know RAID isn't specific to Knoppix but at least I've finally learned something about it and tried it out on a system. The chapter on Repairing Linux is more useful and complete than the chapter on Repairing Windows but that really doesn't matter since the only effective way to repair Windows most of the time seems to be to back up data and reinstall the OS.

Now that I've done with this I'm not sure what I want to read next. I have a book on NIS and NFS that has been sitting on my shelf for some time waiting to be read, but I don't really have a pressing need to learn it at the moment. I'm sort of torn between learning something about SQL or sed and awk. But there are other things that I want to review and brush up on, like shell scripting in bash and getting better at using vim. I may buy the 3rd Edition of Learning bash since it covers bash 3.0 and read that to learn what's new and to review all at once.

I've been hearing that some sort of nasty virus was going around making people feel really ugly for a few weeks. Well, lucky for us my daughter brought it home and it managed to get everyone except for me, or so I thought. Now, normally I never get sick. For some reason I'm just lucky and have a good immune system. But, after about a week of hanging out with the rest of my sick (physically, not mentally) family it finally got me. This thing is nasty, you end up with a case of the Hershey Squirts, nausea, and become terribly tired. I slept nearly 24 continuous hours before I started feeling better.

Anyway, the issue for this one is timing. I came down with this on Friday night, the night when we were all supposed to go away for the weekend to a House uhh, I mean "cabin", on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Pocono Mts. I didn't want to disappoint the kids so my wife took them up and I stayed home. Come mid-morning Saturday I was feeling pretty much OK, but still very sore. I was considering going up but decided to take the time to do some light work around the house so my wife and come home to a clean place and we can spend the Holiday with the kids instead of doing house work.

In contrast to my rant about Allentown Mazda Volvo I've had a very nice experience with Scott Chevrolet this week. My wife and I received a phone call from the dealer asking us to give them a call because of a recall on the vehicle. It turns out that they needed to replace something in the front breaks. Anyway, since I bought this used Chevrolet itself has no record of me being the current owner so any notice regarding the recall wouldn't make it to me. But, it seems that the dealers are informed of all recalls. Scott Chevy took the time to look through their records and made a point of letting me know that this needed to be done. So, I took it in for the breaks (no charge for the recall fix) and a quick oil change and when they gave me the car back it was all wet on the outside. They washed the car for me! I don't know, this may be a common practice these days but it impressed me all the same.

Remember when I talked about getting screwed on eBay by a guy named vinylguitarguy? Well, if not I talked about it here, here, and here.

Anyway, today I was surprised by another package from him with another copy of the record I bought along with a letter. In the letter he explained that personal problems (health, divorce) caused havoc on his business and that these issues were resolved and he's working on getting his business back up to stuff.

I offered to send back the LP he sent, but he said to just keep it. He seems to be legitimately trying to get things set right.