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Journal Entries for October 2006
October 4, 2006 - 7:01 AM

Two nights ago I started noticing a grinding sensation whenever I braked. Hopeing (in vain) that it would just go away, and not having any time to address
the issue I continued rolling until yesterday afternoon I realized it was getting worse and I would not be able to make it the two more days of work until
my 3 days off, so I brought in the help of my ever-handy father and we performed an emergency roadside brake replacement on the front wheels of my work
van. I was surprised at how easy they were to change actually. I changed the second one by myself and it was under 10 minutes, tire off to tire on.

Unfortunately, the damage had already been done and the rotor will likely need to be replaced. I doubt if there is enough good metal left in it to
just get it turned. That'll be a project for another day though. Here's what was left of the inner brake pad:

That out of the way, tomorrow night we pick up the hot tub Bo and I bought for our birthdays! To celebrate, Bo and I are having a birthday party this
Saturday at our house and you are invited. Give me a call if you need directions. Feel free to stop by any time on Saturday and bring your bathing suit!

October 8, 2006 - 12:04 AM
Boy that hot tub takes it out of you! I have to work in the morning or I'd fill in more details, but her is my evening in pictures:


















October 12, 2006 - 2:02 AM
Ok, I am a big geek. So the other day one of the hard drives in my gateway / router crashed and although at first I didn't lose anything, the drive has
spiraled out of control and is now completely unreadable. The only things that I ended up losing were my emails and all the settings for the firewall
and router, but nothing I'm going to lose any sleep over. So having lost all the configuration files, tonight I set out to re-create them from scratch.
Not having a working router has meant our whole house has been without Internet and you may have noticed my web site was down. (And of course, if you
emailed me anything I did not get it. The mail server is STILL not back up yet...) BUT, because I have built this new router with cutting edge leading
software (Fedora Core 6 Test 3 to be exact) - there are a lot of new features and enhanchments in the software I use to establish my network infrastructure
and online presence on the 'web. Consequently, as I was reading through all the new commands I was quite excited at the possibilities they present and
had to take a step back to chuckle at myself for being so easily amused.
I pass through quite a few houses a day as I go about my occupation of installing cable, Internet and Phone services to residents in Calgary. Throughout
my journeys I often encounter unique individuals, but today I met someone I found to be truly interesting. As I installed her Internet service, I
found myself staring at her face and being increasingly attracted to it as I did so. Our conversation, though maintaining a professional aire, bordered
at times on the precipice of flirtation and we diverted from the mundane mechanics of Internet Installation to delve into the depths of our personal lives.
Would you believe she enjoys red wine and hot tubs; ironically two things I personally enjoyed not more than a week ago as Bo and I celebrated our new
hot tub with a bottle of wine? (Incidently, the consumption of alcohol while parcially submerged in substancially heated water will amplify and intensify
the effect of the alcohol! Wow!) She is also a photography phanatic, much as myself taking countless digital images whenever and wherever she sees
something that captures her attention. We found we had several similar interests and experiences as we conversed and even after I'd completed my work
there and left I could not stop thinking about her. I can't help but wonder how, when and where we will meet again for without a doubt an encounter such
as this one could not have occured to be a singular event.
My plan for the morning before I stayed up past two to get the server up and running again was to set my alarm nice and early, get up while it's still dark
out and hop in the hot tub to watch the sun come up. Then, after a significant soaking in the soothing and stimulating waters, I can slip back into bed and
have a much needed morning-to-afternoon nap. Or at least that's the plan as it stands at 2:22 AM... But what do we all know about plans?
Plans change!
October 14, 2006 - 6:55 PM

No rest for the sleepy around here... Well actually Maddy let me sleep in quite late today and I was in fact already awake when she tiptoed into my room
for my Saturday Morning Wakeup Call. We had quite a fun day today; I got to be a horsie and run around the house (upstairs AND downstairs) on all fours...
We played with the birdies and I made us some sandwiches (but she doesn't like the crusts so I had to eat hers.) I think the accomplishment of the day
however, was when Maddy learned how to play (the first line of) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So then of course she had to call Grandma down to
show off, and as soon as Bo was home there was another performance... She is such a showoff.

It's taken years but I've finally got my server cluster and interconnecting network hardware powered by an Uninterruptable Power Supply. I found this APC
model used in a second hand computer store but it's batteries had been replaced so for $50 I couldn't refuse. It powers two servers, my main switch and
Shaw Modem and indicates it's capacity to be around 50% which is perfect. Now if the power ever goes off, at least for half an hour or less, the heart
of cubeinc.net will stay fully functional.

After much tinkering and tweaking I finally got [a new] server built, using the latest Fedora Core Linux software. It is actually pretty sweet. So far
it's been running flawlessly, and everything on it is better than ever! Fedora has really come a long way, especially in the desktop environment.
Traditionally the vast majority of my servers' configuration was done from a text-based console, modifying text configuration files until the server did
what I wanted it to. Now, most of the configuration in this server was performed from the desktop through graphical windows. It's become so easy I'm
almost afraid Linux will lose some of it's mystique as a hacker's operating system...

Ok, I don't know if it's just because it's been several months since I've had any, but I have to admit I took a handful of sunflower seeds the other day
and I was hopelessly adicted. Before I knew it, I'd emptied an entire 1-pound bag! They are so good. Perhaps my last taste of the Summer of 2006.

I went to Robyn Lee's place yesterday to fix an intermittant cable problem they've been having. When I got there, the signal seemed great and the picture
on the TV looked perfect, and then all of a sudden - it got snowy and channels 2, 3, 4, and 5 got their usual ingress and even white lines all throughout
them. Then, a few minutes later - it was back to being perfect! Very strange. But after a bit of troubleshooting I found one bad connector outside that
feeds many of the outlets in the house, and once it had been changed everything worked fine indefinitely. It's amazing how much of a difference one
bad connector can make with cable. When Shay got home she was in her usual fine-fettled funny mood, and was wearing a magazine face she'd cut the eyes and
mouth holes out of.
Last night as I was falling asleep I couldn't help but take some unique pictures of objects around me. I've always loved the little end table lamps that sit
either side of the pullout couch in my living room. I've been sleeping on that couch for the past couple of weeks, but tonight I re-arranged my room and put
my old green and blue bed back in there, so my living room will no longer double as my bedroom. It makes very efficient space of my bedroom now with the
computer desk in there, but it's quite functional and I quite like the coziness. Here are a couple of pictures I took last night:









Last night we watched Click, an Adam Sandler film where he is given this remote control that allows him to control the timeline of his life,
rewinding to parts he's relived, fast-forwarding to parts that are yet to come. It's Adam Sandler so of course there's the usual gags, including the
O'Doyle kid who lives next door. But unlike many of his previous films there is a definite message to this one, and there was even a tearjerk
moment in the film that had me sniffing; I don't know about Bo or Maddy... Ultimately, the jist of the film is Family Comes First - A concept
that is easily lost in the busy-ness of business. I know even my own work can keep me quite busy, busier than even I'd like to be sometimes, and fortunatly
I don't have a wife and kids to disappoint by my absense (or at least yet, anyways...) I liked the point of auto-pilot used in the movie, a mode
we frequently go into whereby we simply pass life from day to day with our head down, working away, doing what we have to but not really living.
And then one day you look up and realize you've wasted years you'll never get back. Make every moment count.
Last but not least, here are some more pictures Maddy and I took this morning:




October 16, 2006 - 10:36 PM
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