I just fixed myself some dinner.

It consisted of one frozen chicken breast, sliced into strips about 3/4" wide, fried in water, sprinkled with Cayenne pepper, Paprika, liquid smoke, a couple different hot sauces, including the good old Tobasco, and (here's the odd part) some Dr. Pepper.

It actually tastes very very good, but it probably couldn't be spicier.

Ubuntu is now installed after much toil. I had an issue with, believe it or not, IDE devices conflicting. Once I took care of that, it booted just fine.

Right now, I'm in the process of updating software. Next, I will be restoring user accounts and other configuration.

EDIT All wildebeest users will need to contact me to establish a temporary password.

TV sucks.

I just thought I'd share that,while I'm waiting for the backups to finish.

I just brought down the webserver portion of the 'beest. I'm going to start the backups now. Since there were no additional requests, no additional directories will be backed up (with the exception of a couple administrative directories).

I'll continue to keep you updated as the project progresses.

I'm watching some show that takes place in Finland. They happened to show the time next to one of the shots, and it was 1:00AM there, but the sun was still shining bright.

After talking it over with my brother-in-law, I learned that visitors experience a strong psychological impact when they see the sun shining 24 hours a day. Thinking about it, there's an even bigger impact that would occur.

Here in the U.S., our economy is primarily driven by daylight. Most of the businesses that operate do so during the daytime. Others take advantage of the dark hours and do so rather effectively. What would happen if a key player in the world economy moved to such a place as Finland?

Manufacturing takes place around the clock, regardless, but what about telecommunications, foodservice, libraries, etc.? What kind of impact would it have on the rest of the world?

I'll be taking the Wildebeest offline tomorrow, 9/25/06, for a bit of an OS upgrade. I've been having some pretty substantial issues with the outdated Fedora Core 3 that is on there. I'm going to make the move to Ubuntu LTS.

During this time, I will be making a full backup of user data. The directories I intend to include in this backup are:

/home/ /backup/ /opt/mysql/ mysqldump --all-databases /pub/

If you have any additional data you would like to be backed up, let me know ASAP. This is all going to begin around 10:00AM EST on 9/25/2006.

I just happened to catch the start of today's NASCAR race at Dover. I have to say, I feel violated.

They had Brooke Hogan, "Hulk" Hogan's daughter, sing the National Anthem. When it got to the rest after "...o'er the land of the free...", the crowd cheered. Being the spoiled rich brat, center of pop culture she thinks she is, she got that look of, "They love me!" on her face, smiled really big, and chuckled.

Who says that the crowd was cheering for her? What's to say that they weren't cheering because they are elated to be in a free country?

I just hate stuck up snobs. Sorry.

I am now officially on vacation. :)

After I leave work tomorrow, I'll be on the road, headed towards a week of relaxing by my own schedule.

w00t.

Okay, here's the deal:

Several people have been interested in posting here, both for blogging and comment purposes. Why? I dunno. Apparently a small percentage of the 1300 1400 unique visitors this month have the need to add their $0.02USD (plus tax).

As such, here's all you need to know about posting:

1. You must be a registered user to post here. However, you are free to read all you want.
2. There is no "register" link anywhere on this site.
3. All accounts must be manually created by yours truely.
4. At no conceivable point in time will there be a "register" link on this site.
5. Only special account holders can post to the "Blog Ticker" on the right.
6. I hate spammers and blog-jackers.

If you are interested in applying for an account here, drop an e-mail to tim-blogs AT skudd DOT com. Applications must contain the following:

• Your full name
• Your desired username
• Your desired password or MD5 hash thereof
• Your e-mail address (which I will also have from the message)
• Your own website URL (if you have one)
• Your reason for needing an account
• Where you found out about this blog

Please allow up to 14 days (plus the time it takes for an infinte loop to full execute) for applications to be processed. Be aware that not all applications will be approved.

I just got a shipment of computer parts for a customer. Everything was right except the 2 most critical parts: The hard drives.

What was ordered is the same as what was needed, with the exception of the interface. The drives that I intended to order were SATA, but instead I ordered IDE. Fortunately, the same drive, in a SATA interface, is available for the same price. The only issue is that a restocking fee is going to apply to sending these two drives back, which means the customer is going to lose a little money.

I'm so sick of stupid mistakes.

This computer has reached my last nerve...

• The video card needs replaced: $50
• The NIC needs replaced: $15
• The optical drive needs replaced: $30
• I have 6 hours of labor in it so far: $111

Dell has a very basic Dimension with a Celeron D for $280 plus shipping. I don't know why I'm even bothering with this stupid thing.

I love not knowing things until the last minute.

Today was day 3 of a busy week at the shop. Monday was a 32 car day, yesterday was 31 (I think), and today was 29. The odd thing about it is people are buying things they normally would not, and our new customer count is very low.

This computer is still giving me headaches. I had to physically remove the NIC from it to see what brand and model I was working with. Then, when I went to download the drivers, some 41MB file started downloading. Also, I've noticed that the video card is most likely on the way to the grave, which means more money is going to have to be dumped into this pile of crap.

I'm supposed to deploy the thing tomorrow, I think. I just have no freakin' clue if it's finalized, what time I'm supposed to be there, and what other tasks I'm supposed to accomplish in the process.

Well, my drivers just finished downloading. Now I get to figure out how to transfer the 40MB file across to that computer, without the use of the LAN or optical media. Did I mention the DVD-ROM/CD-ROM drive died post-install? Yeah. It's getting pretty entertaining.

I had to go back to the Garage today to work on that printer. I guess the lockups they ran into with it were stemming from an error message about an ICM profile mismatch and an error about a inability to create a temp file. Now that I'm away from there, I think the temp file issue has to do with network security settings, but I can't be certain.

At any rate, I did a little research and found that it was most likely a driver issue, but could also be an issue with the print spooler on the "server" machine. The recommendations that were given on the forum I read suggested trying a Windows Vista driver for a compatible printer, or simply disabling print spooling. Since I was unable to find a Vista driver for the printer, I opted to disable print spooling.

Unfortunately, the Windows 98 driver for that printer, as well as Windows 98 itself, doesn't much care for the spooling being disabled. As such, I've been comissioned to get a computer in working order to replace that computer, with something better than Windows 98.

Right now, I'm in the midst of trying to figure out what to do about the issues overall. Personally, I think the best bet would be to replace the computer on the shop floor with a new computer, move this computer I have in my possession right now to the role of a print server, migrate the printers to the print server, and reconfigure the network clients to point to the print server for printing purposes. But to do that, I have to get the Boss Lady and Boss Dude to agree with it, spend the money, and pay me overtime pay to go up on a Sunday to redo everything.

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