greatbear | Geeky goodness and 35 pound extension cords

Well, the last big power failure a few weeks ago reminded me just how bad off I was regarding the health and well-being of my various computers. I've been putting off getting new batteries for the uninterruptible power supplies during The Great Period Of Paycheck Absence because I needed so many. A grand total of 24 batteries, in fact. I managed to find a local supplier that outdid any online or mailorder deal I could find, which was great because the shipping on lead-acid batteries is killer. I got 16 batteries to start with, these go into a mere two (2) UPSes. The Clary unit that my server is run on takes 12 of the suckers by itself. The other one which runs a workstation in the basement took the other four. All the same 12 volt, 7 amp-hour battteries, about 100 pounds of them total. Sheesh. Well, tonight it's done, and I can ride out some serious line craziness once again. Eight more batteries will be needed soon to deal with the other two units. An old APC UPS died completely during the outage and was not worth fixing. It got replaced by a 1500VA unit I got during my only foray into a store during Black Friday. It was worth it though.

I also discovered that dragging a 400+ pound generator up a muddy hill from the garage to the house is an exersize in tearing up the yard combined with mud wrestling and futility. This was the shakedown cruise of that new generator powering the house since I got it early this year. My old Coleman generator died a spectacular, spark-showering death when the rotor windings shorted and melted the insulation and spat the end bearing out onto the ground. It was time to get something bigger and more industrial-duty. I went overboard (so 'me', it seems) and got a 15000 watt Generac model. I knew that dragging it up the hill would be a chore, but I didnt think about bad weather and the mushy yard. I remedied that situation by making up a huge extension cord that will allow me to leave the generator by the garage and simply bring the cord up the hill to the house. I needed something heavier than you can get at Homo Depot, and compromised by making one out of a four-conductor #8 cable.

If there is ever an extended blackout, there will be a generator party at my place. X-D

I took the time while messing with the server to tighten up my firewall and web server, since it seems I am attracting more and more port scans and exploit attempts. So far, it's been good at flipping the bird at those miscreants. That old server is hanging in there. Not much can be done with a dual PII-333 these days, but it works great still to this day as a web/print server and router/firewall.

I have a nice new copy of Doom 3 sitting here that I have yet to install. Reason is simple - if I install it, I will play it. Nothing will get done. At least, until I finish the game and kick lots of ass in deathmatch games. lol

I am collecting parts to put together a home theater PC as my next geek project. Something needs to replace the VCR for recording, and I refuse to pay for TiVo. I cant see paying a monthly fee to operate a video recorder, when PC solutions can be just as good, configurable and free.

The new PC will be a great project now that it's getting colder. In the meantime, I got some hotrodding of my car to keep on with. :-D