The Manic Mechanic

Today is Jeff's birthday. Together we are over 104 years old. I feel every bit of those years too. To celebrate, I took Jeff to Outback Steakhouse (g'day, crikey, fair dinkum, crocs, you call that a knife and all that stuff). On our way home he got a call out of the blue from a former coworker he was very good friends with. Hearing them catching up and recollecting old times and seeing the smile on his face was a treat. I seriously ate too much, and in the last few days, I've been eating more beef than in a long time.

I had gotten him a new bicycle as a birthday gift, his old one was never fun for him to ride, as the frame size was too small. I took him to a "real" bicycle shop where I had gotten mine and we looked at a few and tried a couple out. He came back from a test drive of the one I picked out after a very short ride and said he loved it. It's a GT "comfort" or "hybrid" bike, essentially the frame, gearing and components of a mountain bike, but with less knobby and overall softer tires. It also has 29" wheels, better able to deal with bumps and other hazards. I got a pannier rack delivered today for it as well, and put that on while Jeff was talking to his dad. Our bikes will be the primary mode of transportation when we head up to PTown in July. I can't walk for any distance at all in my condition, but as has been the case with this back ordeal, I can get around quite well on a bike. Jeff's old ride was not comfortable for him, this time I think we'll truly be set.

I've been offline as far as social media goes while I tend to personal issues as well as computer troubles. the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) that powers my primary computer went bonkers a while back. The malfunction made everything plugged into it go on and off like a car's turn signal. Other than perhaps dropping a computer into sea water or hurling it from a cliff, cycling the power is one of the worst things that you can do to it. Consequently, the hard drives were scrambled, the BIOS corrupted, and a few other minor bits of hardware were hosed. While I had mostly current backups of files, all of my current work, saved web pages, and the like were all unavailable. So I had to stumble around on one of the other PCs for a while as I worked on the beast machine in the studio. It's back, but it has some corrupted registry entries and other annoying problems (Photoshop registration got borked, Windows update doesn't function, some other software is screwed up in odd ways, and the like). A while back I had taken the original main hard drive out and replaced it with a nice, big 1TB SSD. This SSD is what got beat up by the UPS, but it was not physically damaged. The original drive has been hiding safely in the Underground Lab of Mayhem, I can simply make a copy of it again, but only after I get through some stuff. The copy would put the PC back to December of last year, when I did the upgrade. There are more computer stories to tell, but I'll save that for some other time.

Jeff has been busting his ass doing work in the yard, and it shows. The flower beds, rose garden and other areas are looking better than they have in years. I wish I could be more help with that, but the required stopping and bending is just too painful. I managed to do some serious suspension work and other maintenance on Jeff's truck last weekend, a friend came over and basically gophered tools and parts while I did the work. This saved me from having to constantly get up and down. I have to do the same on my old Stratus, but I will wait until after the wedding. It does need rear brakes, so those will most likely get done this weekend, it's only about a 45 minute job. Safety first.

As more aspects of our big wedding day begin to coalesce, the two of us are excited as well as still in a bit of a panic mode. It's less than a month away, and there's still a ton of stuff to get done. This is where I'm glad I'm stuck at home. I just wish I was able to do more. Having my back fail again was the worst thing to happen that I was worrying about, and loading up with narcotics to control the pain has the unfortunate side effect of scrambling my thoughts much like the hard drives in that PC. I lose track of time, forget what day it is, and forget things while I am having conversations. Even writing this entry is a chore, and this is one of the prime reasons for me hiding from the world. I just hope this is not a sign of something more serous. Given my luck of late, it's quite possible. But I refuse to let anything get in the way of our big day.

For the entire day I've been unable to access my friends list view here on LJ to catch up on everyone's stuff. Seems I am not alone, but at the same time, it appears to be a fairly isolated problem. The status page shows all systems go, but there are a few folk leaving tickets for tech support. I've done a bit of individual friends reading, but it's remarkably tedious compared to the all-encompassing friends list view. I guess it's just another temporary (hopefully) failing that happens when the overlords of LJ push updates and unwanted features into the system. I can read my own pages, individual friend's pages, and, so far, all of their own f-list pages. I can also, obviously, post entries as well as comment elsewhere. Try to look at my own f-list? 500 Error.

In Soviet Russia, Livejournal something something you, I guess.

Sometime during the last of all the camping trips last year I had lost or misplaced the battery charger for my little Pentax Optio W30 point-n-shoot. Since my trusty Canon S230 bit the dust a few years ago, this was my only pocketable camera, save for my cell phone. I figure the only way the charger would ever show up is if I were to buy another one. I managed to find a cheap aftermarket charger and an extra battery online as the little Pentax was back in business. I was going to take it with me during the great machinery bargain hunt this past weekend. While gathering up stuff to take with me, I managed to drop the camera on the floor from about waist high. Since it's not the first time it's been dropped, I thought nothing of it. However, once at the machinery dealer, attempts to power up the camera were greeted with a brief blurry view of the viewfinder/preview, and it would shut right back off. Since the camera would play back pictures already taken, it was not a battery issue. Holding the camera to my ear while powering up, I heard the various zoom/focus/diaphragm motors rattling and straining, where there used to me a quiet buzz on powerup. Great. Apparently the fall jammed up or dislocated some moving element, and the camera was not having any of it when turning it on.

Needless to say, I was a tad miffed on just getting the charger and extra battery and looking forward to using the camera on vacation (it's also waterproof). Being the technician that I am, and having had success in dismantling broken digicams and repairing the lens elements, I figure I had nothing to lose at doing some work on the thing. But, experience being the teacher it has been all these years, I have various processes and procedures I follow. While sitting in the bathroom at the machinery warehouse, I pulled the non-functioning camera out of my pocket and began some troubleshooting. I remember which end struck the floor when dropped. I listened to the powerup sequence of motor buzzing to get my timing right. Once I figured it out, I hit the power button and performed my repair procedure.

I smacked hard the end opposite from that which the camera was dropped against the bathroom stall wall. It cheerfully powered up without a hitch from then on.

There is no piece of equipment that is above being fixed with some well-placed smacking, hammering or other jolt. I've applied the process from the most mundane gear to RF network analyzers costing a half million dollars or more. And it's always the most sheer form of delight when it does the trick.

For the last 4 days I have been laboring through cable internet slowdowns and stoppages that essentially ground me to a halt. The last entries and comments I have made on LJ have been made courtesy of my old standby dialup connection using my ancient Compaq laptop. The phone lines here have deteriorated to the point where all I can manage is a 9600-14400bps connection, if it even manages to connect at all. On the phone with Comcast tech support who say I have decent signal strength but suffering from huge packet losses, which makes sense. The modem is a piece of crap, and my attempts at finding one in various stores tonight was fruitless (unless I wanted to buy some cash-cow device saddled with various internet tele-phoney services). I have to wait till Thursday to have a tech come by to tell me my modem is bad and leave me with one of the horrific little Comcast-branded modems that will end up being even more of a trouble later on. (I speak from experience here).

The semi-good news is that Verizon left a calling card on my door informing me that they will be digging up the neighborhood and upgrading the lines. From what I understand after talking to a phone tech who came by to fix my ailing lines a while back, this is going to be the FiOS fiber-to-the-house service. This is able to carry hugely fast internet, television and phone service over one line. Even if I dont switch my ISP, the competition will be healthy and Comcast will match whatever Verizon offers as far as throughput and price.

If I dont respond to comments and postings, this is the reason. I have more articles coming, an uber-geek post regarding the specs of the new PC (and pictures), plus several other bandwidth-intensive things that have to wait until I have more bandwidth available than the days when I used to ply BBS systems at 2400 baud.

In the meantime, Jeff and I are off to see some independent film about gay cowboys eating pudding. We are hoping to see something about snakes on a plane next.