by srhuston

One-Click Easyness

So Stephanie wanted to setup some new stuff on her site for her school.  Hey, now that I’m not hosting stuff on my desktop PC anymore, this should be simple.  And boy was it.  Create a new domain, install WordPress on it, and just now created another domain and will setup a calendar there.  As Cartman might say, “that was hella easy.”

Yesterday in general, however, was not.  Stephanie ran out to a couple teacher stores, and I decided to try to tackle some of the yard work.  Succeeded in taking down a few of the small trees that had taken root in various places where they shouldn’t be, including the one semi-large one in front of the gas meter.  I’ll have to call the gas company to figure out how we’re going to get that one out – its roots could be close to the pipe, and I don’t want to chance it since it’s on the “hot side” of the shutoff valve.  Not worth the whoops.  Got most of the ivy from the front of the house out, but not all of it yet.  That shit is massively entangled in there, and not coming out easily.  Started digging cylindrical holes in the ground around it, and then pulling up bits and shaking off the dirt from the roots.  If I’d started that way, I might have got all of it done instead of how I was pulling it out.  Oh well.  When Stephanie got home, we got all the stuff into trash bags and cans, and ready for Tuesday’s pickup.  And some time this week, she might try to finish getting the ivy out.  We seem to have killed the most of the spiders, and I even dug out the tree stump that was in the ground there.

As for now, I think I’m going to plug this in to charge, and go setup the Buddipole in the back yard.  Time to get on the air methinks – especially since I haven’t done that since we moved here yet :>

by srhuston

All I Have To Do Is Dream

Well, as of right about now, my wife’s website is also being hosted by Dreamhost after having its registration information transferred to them as well.  The registrar I was using before was fine in the past, but these last couple times I’d tried to do simple changes (like updating the IP address of an authoritative name server) nothing happened in what I’d call a reasonable amount of time, so I decided to move the registrations over too.  Costs less in the long run, since Dreamhost gives me one free registration, and the others are $9.95/year (before I was paying something like $15.00/year for two years at a shot).

So in the next day or so, my home computer will return to being a router, caching DNS server, and IRC server (You do know IRC, right?  Good… irc.srhuston.net 6667 (normal) or 9999 (SSL) to visit).  Still contemplating either building a new desktop, or replacing joshua’s routing capabilities with a separate box so I can take it down and play with it without killing my Internet connection.  Though the idea of leaving it as a server sounds better, since there’s other things I wouldn’t want to have to kill any time I decide to upgrade it.

by srhuston

Flashback

Since it’s been a few days since the last post, a quick re-cap of what’s gone on since then.  We fired up the new gas grill, and cooked a rotisserie chicken on it the other night.  As Stephanie said, “I’ll never again pick up one at the store if I can cook it at home just as easily (and it’s even better tasting).”  We love it.  Well, Stephanie loves it.  I still like my charcoal and hardwoods :>

We got office furniture, and got it assembled.  I like my new desk – now I need a nice comfy chair to put there.  But I need a nice comfy chair for the shack too, so I’ll be in need of a couple chairs.  Got blinds hung in the master bedroom, and Stephanie got the room painted (just a few touch ups here and there to do).  Soon we can move in the dressers and have a fully functional bedroom again.  I’m most concerned about moving the bed back against the wall; twice now I’ve lost pillows overboard since there’s no headboard either.

Haven’t done anything with the antenna at home yet, still waiting on Leon to have free time enough to swing by and drop it off.  But he’s been pretty busy lately, and I also haven’t bugged him about it – when he’s got the time, I’ll worry about it.  Not going to be a pest.

As for why it’s been a little while since posting, my web provider (Dreamhost) has had one problem after another for just about the whole weekend.  File servers crashing, network switches melting.. they’ve had a rough few days.  So I’ve had some trouble getting on here to post things (and anyone who might be reading this has had trouble getting on to read it too).  I’m also having some issues with DNS – apparently, since my home computer was formerly the authoritative name server for two domains, its A record has been (or is being) cached by some of the root nameservers.  So although I changed its IP with Dreamhost’s DNS editor, and it propagated out just fine for a couple days, it’s now being overridden by other root servers.  Hopefully that’ll either sort itself out after the second domain is transferred, or Dreamhost can help me sort it out with the roots.  In the mean time, I’m starting to learn my home IP address, ’cause anything I want to do to connect there I need to use it.

Last, but not least, I’ve been away from Second Life for quite a while now.  I hop on now and then and try to spend a few minutes catching up with things that have happened, but I’ve found it difficult to get on after work like I used to (and while at work, I’ve actually had work to do).  A lot of things have changed with the university where I work there, and a couple friends of mine have left the university due to some of those changes.  I hope to see them around somewhere, even if they come and hang out in the lounge (formerly the lobby) like how I met them.  But I guess time will tell – as well will it tell if I can even get back in there and back to what I was doing, or if I too will have to depart the university and just visit on occasion.

by srhuston

Now We’re Cooking With Gas

Got our delivery yesterday, which was an upright freezer that was to go in the basement (didn’t fit there, now it’s in the office since we’re tired of measuring things that will fit and having delivery drivers say it won’t), and our gas grill.  Yes, I already have a charcoal grill.  I like charcoal.  Stephanie likes gas.  She appreciates the flavor of charcoal, but prefers the ease of use of a gas grill.  So we got both.  Tonight’s project will include assembling the grill, and figuring out what size mini-patio we want to create to put them both on – right now, the charcoal grill sits on the grass in the back yard.  With a little luck, and a little patience, we might even be cooking on the gas grill tonight – already have the natural gas hookup out the back of the house, and just need to assemble things and perform the “burn in” (run each thing for like 20 minutes at high).  Since it’s a stainless exterior, there’s no need to set the paint like with the charcoal grill before.

by srhuston

A Clue, At Last!

So I spent a good chunk of today trying to get my DNS PTR record changed. First, I had to get the username for my account, which after calling one person he informed me that there’s a website to go to which lets you set that up. Went to the website, set it all up, he asks if there’s anything else he can do. I tell him about the reverse DNS question, and he said he has no idea how to do that. Fair enough, I’ll file a ticket online.

Oh wait. But you can’t file any trouble tickets online. You can view your tickets online, but you can’t create a new one. What kind of bass-ackwards system is that? Apparently, one that the Big Red Check uses. Loverly.

Continue reading →

by srhuston

One Strike Already

Well, the red-checked telco monopoly has already pissed me off.  Yes, it’s 2:20 in the morning, and I was going to go to bed an hour and a half ago.  But I wanted to login to my account and file a support ticket to fix my PTR record.  Only problem is, I have no user name to use to login.  Ask for help on it, and am told it’s the user name I chose when I “installed my DSL software.”  What software?  I don’t need any software, and even looking through the stuff they sent me, there’s no software to install.  There isn’t even a CD.  I tell them that, they ask me if I’m using the right user name.  How the HELL would I know, when you never told me one to use?  Oh, the one when I signed up for my account.  Problem there, I don’t recall being asked for one.  I also don’t have any email from them that mentions what it might be.  And the “forgot your password?” page that asks for a username, when I give it any of the few that I would have chosen, it says the username is invalid (all but one, and I’m sure I’m not the first person to chose the name ‘huston’, let alone the fact that they then tell me the security question is wrong).

So I haven’t had working DSL for more than a day, and already they’ve got me pissed off.  Just counting off the days until Covad says they service this area, and this shit is going out the window.

by srhuston

Gallery Post

Some more photos of the house are in the house gallery – I didn’t feel like going back through the posts to see what quirky titles I’d come up with so far, so this one is boring.  But the captions on the photos are new.  Then again, so are the photos.

by srhuston

What’s New in the World This Week

I really miss Dennis Miller’s HBO show…

Anyway, a quick flashback to this past week. I was off of work the whole week, and had no internet access for most of it. Been away from Second Life for awhile, and I do miss it, but I’ve got so much other stuff to worry about right now that it’s not been much of a priority. We got most of our stuff packed, and got the living room in the house finished paint-wise. Movers came an hour early on Thursday, and we got everything moved in 6 hours – well, almost everything. Still some dishes and stuff in the kitchen at the apartment that needed to move over by hand, a small pile of stuff in the corner where the radio was sitting before (a lot of it stuff for the truck, so that’ll go right in the garage) and the shelves in the office are still full. One with computer stuff and one with Stephanie’s jams & jellies that the movers said they didn’t want to move because of possible breakage and such. So we’ll collect those things in the next week or so, bring it all to the house, and then the apartment will just need a cleaning before we hand in the keys.

On the homefront, the living room is now mostly unpacked and ready – TV & entertainment center hooked up (and Comcast came out on Friday to setup the cable connection, which is working okay – new DVR and I’m not thrilled with it, there’s a couple bugs, but they’re mostly minor), couches where we want them for the most part, blinds were hung up… just a few boxes here and there left to either unpack or repack for storage. The shack is also mostly done, with only a couple boxes of books and assorted stuff that was on the desk before and the blinds hung in there as well. I might just finish that up tonight depending on what else goes on. The kitchen & dining room are still a bit of a mess, though the table is setup now with chairs around it – part of the problem is that the painting needs to be finished before we can put stuff up on the walls, so that stuff and the stuff that would be in it has no place to go for a bit.  As for the office, we won’t talk about that – it’s hard to see the floor right now, let alone anything else in there that isn’t on the top layer of boxes.

The bedroom is mostly setup, though again we didn’t want to put a lot of things there due to needing to paint still.  Our bed and nightstands are in the room (one because we need to sleep, and the others because we need places to put alarm clocks).  Dressers are still in the spare room upstairs, though we discovered that we might not need new ones due to the A-frame ceiling – looks like ours might just fit on their own anyway.  Our queen size box spring was another story – that is currently in the office because it wouldn’t make it up the stairs at all (and not for a lack of the movers’ trying to make it fit).  We ended up ordering, and already having delivered, a split queen box which fit up the stairs nicely and gets our bed up off the floor where it sat Thursday and Friday nights.  Once the bedroom is painted, then I’ll get the blinds in there as well (right now there’s nothing, but we can work around that with clever use of towels and sheets :> ) and we can move the dressers into place.

Basement doesn’t have much to go in it, just storage stuff.  We need some more storage shelves like we have at the apartment, and will be getting some as time passes.  We had ordered a chest freezer, and when they came to deliver it we discovered that the freezer at its smallest (removing the door and hinges) was still about 1″ too wide to fit in the basement stairwell.  So we returned it (no problems fortunately) and ordered an upright.  It’s actually larger capacity, yet smaller outer dimensions – with the door on, it should just fit, and with the door off it’ll have 2.5″ to make it.  Not a lot, but enough I hope.  At least this time the freezer should make it off the truck before they say “It won’t make it.”  Got a dehumidifier too, and that’s been running nonstop for a few days.  Basement feels a lot drier now, and I think the A/C is working more easily too.  And while ordering our freezer, since we got one of those nice zero percent for 12 months (and no payments) deals from Lowes, we ordered our gas grill.  Both should be delivered on Thursday, since Stephanie has workshops to do this week.

Lastly, I got an offer of an antenna for the home station – same one I was looking at in HRO’s catalog.  So once the two of us can actually get together at some point, I should have an antenna for the shack.  Already bought the TV antenna mast to hold it up in the air too :>

I think that about covers things.  And I’m finally caught up on a week’s worth of emails too.