by srhuston

Let There Be Light

And computers, and A/C, and fridge, and freezers, and a whole lot more.  PECO finally got the problem fixed after only 22 hours!  Apparently, around the time we left for my in-laws (they were supposed to come up here for dinner, but since we had no power we took the food down there and cooked), they were driving around and poking in peoples back yards for the problem.  They said to a couple neighbors, “We’re here, it’ll be fixed soon!”  Then they left, and the voicemail thing you call to report a problem was updated to say it would be fixed by 9am instead of 8pm Saturday… and that they still didn’t know what the problem was.  Of course, I couldn’t sleep since it was somewhat early for me, and happened to still be staring at the ceiling when I heard the house wake up from its slumber and saw the clock was telling me the time now.  So now, almost 24 hours from the outage, things are all back to normal – computers up and running, freezers keeping things cold (we had dry ice in them, and there’s still a bit there – and they were doing a good job, I grabbed a soda from the fridge and it was damned cold), and even most of the clocks reset again.

Now maybe I can sleep 😛

by srhuston

Candlelit Posting

Had some really good storms pass through here last night.  Three if I counted properly.  And the third one, around 03:33, took out the power for this block.  Best part is, it’s still out – PECO knows there’s ~27 homes without power here, but apparently has no idea why.  They estimate it’ll be back on by 20:00 today.  So, we’ve got dry ice for the freezers and fridge, and my laptop and cell phone are charged enough that I can hop on now and then to regain contact with the outside world :>

by srhuston

Birthday Season, Part I

Stephanie’s birthday is today, so we’re going shopping.  Not for shoes or clothes or other stuff, but for Fiestaware up at Holley Ross Pottery – they sell seconds for Fiestaware, which sometimes are as simple as the mark on the plate is a little off, but otherwise the item is in perfect shape.  End result is that you can get stuff cheap :>

by srhuston

No More Teazing

Well, since First and Dragon sold TeaZers University in Second Life, where I sorta worked, I’ve seen a lot of changes going back and forth.  A lot of good people are leaving the university, either because they don’t believe in the changes or because they don’t believe in the leadership going on.  I joined those ranks, though mostly because there’s been so many changes there that I’d need to go through all the orientation and such as if I were a new instructor again anyway just to get caught up.  I also don’t care for the style of one of the admins, but I’m not going into that – I’d been thinking of leaving before this happened, and if not for First’s insistance that I stick around I probably would’ve left right around when we moved into the house.  Just haven’t had time to get in there and do anything.

On another note, the other day was the first time that WordPress sent me an email to tell me of a new user registering.  I was all set to click ‘delete’, since most of the mail I get from WordPress is about spammers trying to post their spammy comments here (“I have much experience on this topic!” with a URL to some pill selling website) when I noticed that it’s my mother who signed up.  So I’ve got my first real subscriber – my wife didn’t even sign up for an account here 😛

by srhuston

I Wish…

Not like there’s any holidays coming soon where it’s necessary, but I put my wish list back on teh Intarweb. I used to have it hosted on the same site as my old website, which was my desktop computer – and it’s actually still there, but that’s not www.srhuston.net anymore. So since WordPress makes page design as easy as I like it (namely, I don’t need to muck about with HTML), I figured I might as well move the wish list there too.

So if you feel like getting me something, have a look. Any donations appreciated :>

by srhuston

Look Ma, No SWRs!

Went down to Delaware yesterday afternoon to fuel two of my habits – one being served by Ham Radio Outlet, and the other by a store next door that sells things by the carton cheaper than in NJ or PA.  Of course, we got there at 16:28, two minutes before they closed, but I wasn’t really there to browse; I had a mission.  Asked for a soldered type N connector, but they’ve been out of them for four months.  Okay, how about a SWR meter that does 2m/440?  He asked how low in frequency I wanted it, and I admitted I’d like it to go to HF.  That one is $200.  Okay, how about just 2m/440?  That one’s $79.95.  So I bought the less expensive SX40C, made by Diamond (who coincidentally made my antenna as well).  Last question was about standoffs for mounting my antenna mast on the house.  Right now, I drove a good 2.5′ of it into the ground, and bolted it around 5′ from the ground, but I’d like another standoff near the top of the house so I could make it taller too – only problem is, the gutter sticks out more than the 4″ that the current standoff gives.  But, they didn’t have any of those either, so I’ll have to check the home improvement and hardware stores in the area I guess.

The good news is, when I got home and installed the SWR meter, I checked the antenna and have barely any reflected power, even when pushing out 100W on 2m or 440MHz.  So I guess that N connector adapter I used which I didn’t like very much is doing a good enough job.  Oh, and I’ll see if I can get some more photos uploaded today, since I haven’t been doing that much and we have a lot more done in the house now :>

by srhuston

Should’ve Stayed In Bed

Didn’t sleep well last night, didn’t wake up well this morning, wasn’t feeling well all morning, left later for work than I like to, knew I’d be out of smokes in a few hours and would have to walk over to get more, and realized halfway here that my wallet is sitting on the counter at home.

Some days it’s just better to turn off the alarm and roll over.

by srhuston

So What?

I went through all the old posts, and put them into categories finally.  And I realized something.  I started entirely too many of my posts with “so”.  Wasn’t quite as bad before I guess, but reading through them all now .. just sounds silly.  Oh well, don’t feel like editing them all to give nice fancy intros.

by srhuston

Whaddya Mean, It’s Not Broken?

That was an interesting few minutes.

This morning, I saw that one of the hosts at work, which is not mine (belongs to HVAC for the control system for the building – tells them about the status of the systems in here, and lets them change things remotely like the temperature of various rooms and such) had gone red and then green again. Now, it was red again, but when I got down there nobody was around next to it. Panel was left open, and you could see the ethernet, serial and power cables where the terminal server used to sit. So I waited, and as soon as I saw it went green I ran downstairs. Since the management station only checks every ~15 minutes for a host’s existance, I was hoping that it came online recently and someone was still sitting next to the box. Sure enough, when I got down there, Nate (I think that was his name, I’m terrible with names – and if somehow you’re reading this and it’s not your name, I apologize) was staring at the blinkenlights and wondering what to do next. I said hello, we exchanged formalities, and I said, “You know, that thing’s not broken.” “Well, we can see it’s there, but we can’t talk to it.” “Yes, I know. But it’s working just fine.”

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by srhuston

HVAC And Switches And Firewalls, Oh My

Well, this morning was a bit busy. We had friends over who left around 10 something, and I finally got to sleep around 1 or so. Then at 0250 my cell phone buzzed. “Main server air intake too high: 77 deg F” Well, let’s see what happens in the next few minutes… same message. As I’m getting dressed to come downstairs and have a look at things, it continues to buzz every few minutes as the environmental sensor sends new traps to the management station. I login to it, and sure enough it’s warm – and even one of the machines in the room complained that its drives were getting hot inside the case. While I’m looking at things, I get the magical page: “Server room *WAY* too hot, shutting down Hydra” [our Beowulf cluster]. After watching to be sure Hydra shut down properly, I put on my shoes and left to head into the office, arriving just before 0400.

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