Month: June 2020

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I’m almost to the point of hating indoor plumbing!

Not really…

Plumbing issues here at the house have been racking up.

First it was the water heater, and the hose bib and the kitchen faucet. Did I mention I hate working on plumbing???

Then it was the water softening system.

Now, (Mind you as the water softening guy is here working,) the fire suppression system has sprung a leak.

It’s a royal pain in the ass to get someone up here to fix any of these systems and the latter two require professional service. 

I know how my uncle made such a good living as a plumber!

I feel like I’m rebuilding this damn house a piece at a time. And I still haven’t managed to line up someone to sandblast and paint the place.

I hope your summer is going better than mine.

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The Garden is coming along

Planter box (1).jpegI’m still waiting for my carrots peas and cucumber plants to sprout.

But the various squash and lettuce is looking pretty good. Especially since I missed a day of  watering a couple of days ago and it was blazingly hot.

Some of the lettuce plants were looking very unhappy.

It looks like they’re bouncing back. (Amazing what water does for plants)

I’m thinking about putting in the pond i’ve been pondering in the back yard. With perhaps a nice seating area and water feature.

tomatoes.jpegThat is going to require digging. Ughhh!

I think it will be worth it and I’ll have to get some mosquito eating fish or we’ll be eaten alive. Next time I’m at a home improvement place I’ll have to look into the cost and upkeep of a pump and accessories.

I’m sure it will be another pain in the ass project, but it might be nice to hear water gurgling and have some interesting desert like plants decorating that bare back corner.

I’d planned to do it years ago, but Sundance developed a skin condition that meant he couldn’t get wet very often. It broke his little heart when the summer months rolled around and he couldn’t have his kiddie pool to play in anymore.

The potted tomatoes are looking good and while they’re supposed to like full sun they seem to prefer being in partial shade.

I’m looking forward to fresh vegetables a little later in the summer.

Hope your’e all having a good day.

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You can take your “New Normal” and shove it!

This “New Normal” as it’s called is bugging the shit out of me, and I think it’s built on nothing more than fear itself.

I’ve had a belly full of it. It’s starting to damage my calm.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is live my life in peace and unfettered by bullshit.

Now, in this “New Normal” I have bullshit aplenty.

Riots, burning, and looting are not normal.
Wearing a mask everywhere isn’t normal.
Eliminating Police isn’t normal.
Avoiding large areas of cities, towns, & parks out of fear of being caught up in violence or some protest thats roving around, isn’t normal.
Autonomous zones aren’t normal.

I refuse to submit to your version of “normal” 

So all you Media Morons & Politicians; Take your fearful NEW NORMAL and shove it up your ass sideways! Grow a pair, and bring this shit to heal.

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Sometimes the simplest things… You know what’s next.

The other half has an old Mac. The poor thing has been a trooper considering it’s age.

Looking at the newer machines, making a big purchase right now is out of the question.

So I started looking at upgrade options. Surprisingly I found that the hard disk could be replaced with an SSD and that the memory in the machine could be doubled for a couple hundred dollars. Between the drive and the memory, we should be able to get another few years out of this old workhorse.

With that in mind I placed the order and 2 days later the parts showed up.

This morning I pulled the old machine apart and had no trouble installing the new memory and new hard drive. As I was buttoning things up I thought, “That was easy!”

Uh huh, Jinxed myself!

After buttoning everything up I tried to access the nifty Mac network utility to reload the OS. I was able to get to the utility. After answering a couple of questions, the utility started, then told me that the OS wasn’t available. Gee THANKS APPLE!

Now I’ve got a computer that should be fast as hell and no OS. I booted the machine from a bootable memory stick that had the appropriate operating system on it. (Yeah, I tend to have some redundancy.) The system booted, I clicked on the installer, and it started just fine. Again I answered the questions and directed the installer to install the OS on the brand new 1TB internal hard disk.

The system takes off, executes a format of the internal HD then reboots as expected. Things went south from there. The reboot damaged the OS on the memory stick and in the process told me that the OS image (Downloaded from Apple about 2 years ago, and used several times to install the OS,) was invalid or possibly corrupt.

Great! I can’t even install from my rainy day backup.

Now what?

Uh, maybe I’ll just use the TimeCapsule backup.

Nope, Backups 1 – 5 are corrupt.

I do still have the original bootable disk in an external enclosure. The computer is still workable booting from that external disk. But a 1TB internal SSD isn’t being used.

I try booting to the recovery partition. It works, but I still can’t install the OS from Apple.

This leaves me two choices. Do a complete backup from the original disk to another USB disk, then restore from that backup. Or I can try to sequence through the other backups on the Timecapsule hoping to find one that works.

I choose the latter, and remarkably seem to have found a backup that is intact. So I start the restore process.

Currently the restore is reporting 32 hours remaining. Let’s hope it works Otherwise I’m down to only one option which will probably take just as much time. USB 2 is painfully slow, although even with the 1GB speeds of my internal network, apparently network restore is also painfully slow.

Sometimes, the most straightforward things with computers turn into the most complicated.

In this case I’d tell Apple that if you’re going to say in a dialog box that the computer will either install its original OS or the most current version of the OS that is available…

DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU’RE GOING TO DO!

Giving someone the illusion that you’re going to support a system, is worse than saying that you’re not going to support that system. In the first situation your user figures, “No Problem” in the other case the user can make alternate arrangements as long as you don’t as part of some bullshit “verification” process destroy the alternative.

I’m not amused that I’ve lost a whole day to a simple 15 minute job.

1 AM update. The restore from the Time Capsule backup failed about 8PM. Digging around on the internet gave me an interesting option. It seemed I could use Apple’s Disk Utility to clone the existing drive to the 1TB SSD.

Well, what the heck did I have to lose at this point?

Boot from the recovery partition on the 1 TB SSD. (Yeah, that got installed properly thank goodness) Pull up Disk Utility from the recovery partition. select the destination drive. Select “recover” from the edit menu, select the source and hit enter.

A few hours later… I’m awakened by a familiar ding. Click the “Done’ button, select the start disk and Eureka! There is now a bootable usable operating system on the new drive.

I’m going back to bed… this has been a royal pain in the ass. Next up, deleting the corrupted backup from the Time Capsule and replacing it with something usable.

But I’ll do that tomorrow, my brain won’t even allow more than the contemplation of such an exercise tonight.

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10 or 11 days and nothing much new in the world

Ugh! The country has lost it’s mind.

I have finally gotten my dirt. I humped 19 bags of it from the front of the house to the back. Then cut the bags of dirt open to create a “Redneck” liner for the raised gardening boxes. I wasn’t going to pay for some liner thing, all I need a liner to do is mostly contain the dirt and not let too much moisture seep into the ground.

So, I got creative and used the empty dirt bags to form a liner. I’m pleased with the outcome, call it on site recycling. The plastic of the bags is perforated so I don’t have to worry too much about pooling. I wanted drainage, but didn’t want it to be instant.

One box full. Got to use my nifty little shovel too.

The drip watering system is in place. I’m waiting for some valves and miscellaneous parts to complete that part of the project. Hopefully those will be showing up later today.

I purchased some bib lettuce and squash plants They’re already sprouted so later today when it cools off outside I’m going to be planting those. Next up will be some carrots and maybe tomatoes. I’m thinking some zucchini and perhaps some other veggies that I like to have fresh.

Empty, Slightly offset so I can work on
the Drip.

Now the problem will be to keep the critters out of my garden. I’d put a picture of Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits but I’m sure that I’d offend someone with that.

I’ve take some pictures and will be taking more as the garden progresses. These boxes aren’t going to generate a lot of food but they’re keeping me grounded and will spice up the regular meals.

Who knows? I might have to get more boxes and put them all over the yard if the unrest continues. I think that if I had the entire backyard full, I might even be able to grow enough to barely feed myself.

That’s not a theory I’d like to have to prove.

Boxes filled. Drip soaker lines ready to go

This is more of something to pass the time and keep me from losing my mind entirely. I like growing things and somehow, food I’ve grown tastes better. I suppose it’s a matter of literal fruits of my labor. This way I cut out the middleman.

In any case, I hope your day is as rewarding as mine has been.