So This Happened…

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So this happened:

My new ride

My new ride

Frankly, I’ve been tempted by BMW ever since I spent a few days driving a 325 while visiting with my folks a couple of years back. But it took this long to execute on the temptation. The Prius was such a sane, safe choice: great gas mileage, some fun bits of technology built in, and … great gas mileage. But while it is only three years old, it was starting to get rattly and junky – primarily plastic things on the interior failing. The driver’s seat starting to come apart. Stuff like that. And frankly, it’s not a fun car to drive.

The ’12 BMW 328i seems to be pretty good on the mileage front (nowhere near the Prius, but I’m gunning for high 20’s/low 30’s), it’s a solidly Munich-built F30 sedan with the Premium package. Marcia thinks it’s boring because it’s white, but I like white because it’s understated, it doesn’t look dirty 10 minutes after washing the way a dark color does, and better visibility – other drivers can see me better.

I got the model with the premium package for but one reason: The way the seat cushions sat in the shell of the manual seats was immediately uncomfortable and painful for me to sit in, digging into my left thigh. Probably just an interaction between me, my height and weight, and that particular seat design. The same model year car with the power seats was comfortable. And to the eye, they looked identical in the areas that bothered me. Weird. Still, didn’t pay for navigation. There’s bluetooth integration for the phone (but to use the iPod features of the phone, I have to plug in).

The car is seriously fun to drive, even sedately. Marcia drove it home from the restaurant the other night, and she enjoys the car, too. She thinks it’s a very grown-up car for us to have. Oh, yeah … and I have a sunroof again. What will I miss from the Prius? The gas consumption, surely, and the backup camera.

*      *      *

In other news, I get to keep my job. Yeah, also understated. I just had my annual review, and the company seems pleased with my continued dedication to and quality of work. It’s nice that I got a little bump in the paycheck, but as I told Russ, it’s really all about the facts that I enjoy my work and the people that I work with immensely. And that’s what it’s really all about, folks.

*      *      *

In other, other news, class starts tomorrow. All things being equal, unless I screw something up or the school’s computer systems go insane and decide I need more classes: I’ll be finished on 16 December, and graduating with a 4.0 (at least as far as all the classes I’ve taken since I started at UMUC in 2008 are concerned). Hooraw! Wish me luck.

Day Six

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According to the historical records, this is in fact the 7th day. But in this much more specific and present-tense circumstance, this is the sixth day of my summer cold. It was never really a sinus thing, it seems to have skipped from throat straight to ears with only a by-your-leave to the nasal passages. My left ear was pretty plugged for a couple of days, and while that seems to have slightly abated, some of the pressure and all of the ringing is still in the hizzouse. The quality of my focus is suffering, too. I actually took a couple of days off work, but this thing is whacking my ability to sleep soundly, go me!

Number 2 … you’ll have noted the new theme. I was tired of the old one, most especially the part where the body wasn’t wide enough for some pre-formatted text. I’ll probably end up writing my own theme one of these days, after I’m done with school … a scant four months from this upcoming Thursday, I’m just sayin’.

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Cpl. Daniel L. Linnabary II, 23, of Hubert, North Carolina, died Aug. 6 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Petty Officer 3rd Class Clayton R. Beauchamp, of Weatherford, Texas, died Aug. 7 when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device while conducting a dismounted patrol in the Shaban District, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
  • Maj. Walter D. Gray, 38, of Conyers, Georgia, died Aug. 8 from injuries suffered during a suicide bomb attack in Kunar province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Ethan J. Martin, 22, of Lewiston, Idaho, died Aug. 7 in Koragay, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered enemy small-arms fire.
  • Maj. Thomas E. Kennedy, 35, of West Point, New York, died Aug. 8 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an insurgent who detonated a suicide vest.
  • Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin J. Griffin, 45, of Laramie, Wyoming, died Aug. 8 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an insurgent who detonated a suicide vest.
  • Master Sgt. Gregory R. Trent, 38, of Norton, Mass., died Aug. 8 in Bethesda, Maryland, from wounds suffered July 31 in Baktabad, Afghanistan, when enemy forces attacked his unit with small-arms fire.

Update: Dortmunder

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Anthony commented on one of the early pictures of Dortmunder, asking “How does your new computer behave?”

Unremarkably is perhaps the best answer – in that there’s nothing to remark on, it just keeps ticking on. It’s currently acting as my home IMAPS server (dovecot), as well as an IRC (irssi) launching spot that stays connected in a screen session.

Agog:~ bilbrey$ ssh dortmunder
Last login: Thu Aug  9 17:40:36 2012 from 192.168.1.100
[bilbrey@dortmunder ~]$ w
 17:41:11 up 25 days, 20:38,  1 user,  load average: 0.11, 0.04, 0.05
USER     TTY        LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
bilbrey  pts/3     17:41    0.00s  0.15s  0.04s w
...
[root@dortmunder pacman.d]# pacman -Qu | wc -l
68

And given that Arch is a rolling-release Linux distro, I’m not surprised that there are 68 packages awaiting update. But not right now. Now it’s time to feed the mutt.

August Already?

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Time flies. I’m “in between” classes, so I’m just reading ahead for the first class of the Fall session, which starts on August 20. This weekend, I got some work done replacing broken shelving in Marcia’s fabric room, cleaned up and fixed up a couple of things in the woodshop, harvested a metric big volume of veggies (mostly tomatoes), made more salsa, made some chili, and… oh, yeah, worked at the office for a few hours yesterday. I’ve got gear that’s making me very, very angry (as nearly everyone’s favorite Martian has been known to exclaim).

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. 1st Class Bobby L. Estle, 38, of Lebanon, Ohio, died July 28 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
  • Pfc. Jose Oscar Belmontes, 28, of La Verne, California, died July 28 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
  • Spc. Benjamin C. Pleitez, 25, of Turlock, California, died July 27, in Mazar E Sharif, Afghanistan.
  • 1st Lt. Sean R. Jacobs, 23, of Redding, California, died July 26 in Khakrez, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. John E. Hansen, 41, of Austin, Texas, died July 26 in Khakrez, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan W. Gifford, 34, of Palm Bay, Florida, died July 29 while conducting combat operations in Badghis province, Afghanistan.
  • Gunnery Sgt. Daniel J. Price, 27, of Holland, Michigan, died July 29 while conducting combat operations in Badghis province, Afghanistan.
  • Lance Cpl. Curtis J. Duarte, 22, of Covina, California, died Aug. 1, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Kyle B. McClain, 25, of Rochester Hills, Michigan, died Aug. 1, in Salim Aka, Afghanistan.
  • 1st Lt. Todd W. Lambka, 25, of Fraser, Michigan, died Aug. 1, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Jesus J. Lopez, 22, of San Bernardino, California, died Aug. 1, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • 1st Sgt. Russell R. Bell, 37, of Tyler, Texas, died Aug. 2, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Matthew S. Sitton, 26, of Largo, Florida, died Aug. 2, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.

Fuzzy? Mac Air MiniDP/HDMI vs. Samsung Syncmaster P2770HD

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What a lovely lead, eh? But I had a heck of a time finding my answer, and while I never did find precisely what I wanted via search engines, I did get enough of a hint that I finally figured it out.

I have Agog, this Mac Air. It’s got Thunderbolt/Mini Display Port output and I’ve got a MiniDP-to-HDMI adapter. I also have this 27″ HDMI + DVI Samsung Syncmaster P2770HD display. Here’s the problem: When I connected the Air to the Syncmaster at full resolution, the screen image was displayed with about “half an inch” missing at the top and bottom. To get the whole screen displayed, I had to muck with the over/underscan setting in the Display Settings dialog. That would get me to where I could see the menu bar and the whole doc, but at far too great a cost: fuzzy, fuzzy display. Hinky for pictures, awful for text.

There was lots of griping in the assorted forums that I found talking about this issue, but no one had the right answer. Some extremely helpful folks said, “Well, it works for me!” Isn’t that special!

But someone was writing about menu settings … on the display. I had tried and failed with Auto Adjustment – it appears not to have any effect for the digital input modes on this monitor. However, I found the fix: Menu -> Size & Position -> Image Size. It was set to 16:9. When I changed it to “Screen Fit”, the magic happened. Now I have the Air happily displaying crisp text and images on this big screen, which is a good thing.

Hopefully this helps someone else down the road. Ciao!

Getting Things Done

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But not GTD in the larger sense. But getting things done, lower case: I shaved the lawns yesterday, front and back. I did a bit of weeding in the garden, also. And today, I find that for the second summer session class, I ended up 1 point shy of an ace, out of 500. Yes, absolutely where I should have been for a class on UNIX and shell scripting. But now just two classes to go! Huzzah!

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Brandon R. Pepper, 31, of York, Pennsylvania, died July 21, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
  • Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael J. Brodsky, 33, of Tamarac, Florida, died July 21 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries sustained July 7 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, related to a dismounted improvised explosive device blast.
  • Pfc. Julian L. Colvin, 21, of Birmingham, Alabama, died July 22 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Richard L. Berry, 27, of Scottsdale, Arizona, died July 22 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Eric E. Williams, 27, of Murrieta, California, died July 23, in Pul-E Alam, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Adam C. Ross, 19, of Lyman, South Carolina, died July 24, in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered small arms fire.
  • Spc. Justin L. Horsley, 21, of Palm Bay, Florida, died July 22 of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit in Pul-E Alam, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Brenden N. Salazar, 20, of Chuluota, Florida, died July 22 of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit in Pul-E Alam, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Justin M. Hansen, 26, of Traverse City, Michigan, died July 24 while conducting combat operations in Badghis province, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Theodore M. Glende, 23, of Rochester, New York, died July 27, in Kharwar, Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small-arms fire.

SuperDuper! to the rescue!

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Today, I changed the password on my Mac Air, Agog. I then cooked dinner, and watched a couple of episodes of Poirot. I came upstairs … and I don’t remember the password I set. It was a good one. I have backups a couple of different ways, but neither of them seemed to be immediately accessible to me. In order to recover from the Time Machine backups, I need WiFi configured *and* I need to mount the volume that has that sparse image on it. That path seemed blocked to me. But there’s a better way!

I make periodic backups of my system using a program called SuperDuper! Among other lesser capabilities, it duplicates the whole system onto another (external) disc, and makes that bootable. Except that when I booted while pressing the Option key … the USB external drive wasn’t being presented to me as a boot option, as the documentation says it should. Sigh.

After spelunking around in Recovery mode (hold Command-R while booting) for a while, and taking a break to walk the dog, I came back, and FINALLY, in Disk Utility , the Apple menu offered me the option to set the boot disk. I selected the AirDuper disk I’d refreshed just last weekend, and that’s what I’m booted into now. I’m using that to restore Agog’s internal flash drive, which is happening in the background as I write this.

Whew!

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Carl E. Hammar, 24, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, died July 14, in Khost province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
  • Sgt. Erik N. May, 26, of Independence, Kansas, died July 14, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Sergio E. Perez Jr., 21, of Crown Point, Indiana, died July 16, in Wali Kot District, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered when his vehicle was struck by enemy rocket propelled grenades.
  • Spc. Nicholas A. Taylor, 20, of Berne, Indiana, died July 16, in Wali Kot District, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered when his vehicle was struck by enemy rocket propelled grenades.
  • Sgt. Daniel A. Rodriguez, 28, of Baltimore, Maryland, died July 18, in Ghazni City, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Jose J. Reyes, 24, San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, died July 18, in Ghazni City, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Cpl. Joshua R. Ashley, 23, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, died July 19 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Krystal M. Fitts, 26, of Houston, Texas, died July 17 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered from indirect fire.
  • Senior Chief Aviation Warfare Systems Operator Sean P. Sullivan, 40, of St. Louis, Missouri, died in a helicopter crash July 19 in Oman.
  • Naval Aircrewman (Helicopter) Second Class Joseph P. Fitzmorris, 31, of West Monroe, Louisiana, died in a helicopter crash July 19 in Oman.
  • Pfc. Jeffrey L. Rice, 24, of Troy, Ohio, died July 19, in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Darrion T. Hicks, 21, of Raleigh, North Carolina, died July 19 in Ghazni, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained from an enemy improvised explosive device.

From the Garden

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Last week, a couple of tomatoes, a few potatoes, and these butternut squash:

Butternut squash

Butternut squash

Yesterday I made first salsa. Five tomatoes, one each habañero, jalapeño, and cerrano pepper, and some cilantro from the garden. A small onion, and half a clove of garlic. Yummy, but a full 2.75 on my 3 point scale of salsa. I could not finish a measly three cups of salsa – I stopped when I noticed that my lips, cheeks, and tongue were all numb with the heat. Yummy, but too darn hot. It was four hours before that wore off…

Today, from the garden:

Tomatoes, zucchini, and insane cucumber

Tomatoes, zucchini, and insane cucumbers