Why My Life Sucks

Well, I got a new battery.  Actually, I got two.  Let me explain.  I go into $CarPartStore across the street from where Darling Wife works and next to where Redheaded Girl used to work. At $CarPartStore, I speak with Clerk Dude about my need for a battery.  Clerk Dude does some computer fu and comes up with a type of battery I need and said that if I bought a 1 dollar “mounting kit” (two felt thingies that go under the cables and some sort of portected goo/lub stuff) he could install the battery.  Sounds good to me, not dealing with heavy toxic acidic crap inside a car is worth a buck, plus I get the little felt thingies under the cables, score all the way around.  He even yumps the battery out to the car for me.   He undoes the battery, puts in new one, plus mounting kit and tells me to start it up.

Nothing.  Not even tick-tick-tick etc.   He putzes about with the cables.  Tells me to try again.  “tick-tick-tick-tick”  Really weeny tick-tick-tick, I might add.

“Oh, that’s your starter.” sayth Clerk dude.

“No, It’s not.  If I hook up the Jump Buddy to it, the car will start.” sayth me.

“I don’t think so, but let’s try it.“  At least he was willing to listen to the customer, unlike the last “expert” I had to deal with (see rant about Vonage VoIP provider below)

Hook up “Jump Buddy”.  Car starts, as expected and predicted.  Clerk dude, to his credit, shrugs and takes my old battery into the store and puts it on on the battery tester.  It’s dead Jim.  Highest value, 6 or so volts, at any sort of amps.

He takes the portable tester out and hooks it up the “new” battery.   It’s even more dead, Jim.  Highest value, 4 volts, and dropped to under 2 under load.  It wouldn’t even power the clock whose display at least, is a 7400 TTL based system, which means 5 volts or it’s dead. (It bothers me some times that I know things like that, but don’t remember what the syntax of a SQL insert statement is.  It’s not like I’ve done any IC works since, oh, 1978 or so.)

He takes the portable test in to the store, takes battery number 3 off the shelf and test it.  Good to go.   Replaces battery number 2 (i.e the one I just bought) and has me do a “turn in” paper work thing.  (zero days on a 3 year pro-rated warranty, comes to, oh, full price….)  While he’s doing that, the store manager type (aka PHB for you Dilbert fans out there) wanders over and asks what’s going on. Clerk dude explains.  PHB looks amazed that a product that is known to have a life span is dead.  Shocked and appalled even.  Really appalled, at one point he was standing with his arms out at 45 degree angle over his head [heralds don't pun, they cant] {rim-shot} Thanks, be here all week. Try the fish...)  PHB doesn’t think clerk dude knows how to run the tester correctly.  (It’s not hard.  I can do now.  Hook up battery like you were jumping it, i.e. red clamp on the positive terminal, black on the negative. Push test.  Enter the Amps of the battery.  Watch LCD. Wait 45 seconds. Read result.  I could train Velifer to do it, if he had the thumbs to hook up the battery.)  PHB putzes with cables.  Pushes Test etc. Still dead.  Reads, if any thing, lower than it did out side attached to the car.

I sign the papers and leave, while PHB and Clerk dude start talking about checking lot numbers and who gets to do what with this issue etc.  That sounds like a load of fun and games. But Not My Problem.

Got the new D&D group’s first game tonight, I’m all sorts of happy about that.

It’s just a bad sinus infection.     Doctor is givng her some stronger antibiotics than she was on last week, something for pain and some steroids.   She sleeping now, but with the IV meds she was given plus the time of day, that’s to be expected.

It’s 9:30 in the morning. I’m in St. John’s Emergency room. The Darling Wife woke me up at 7:30 with the worst headache she had ever had. She had taken Tylenol and it had had no effect. When it didn’t get better after 20 minutes, I, being the med blog reading sort I am, freaked and decided to take her to the ER. My 8:15 alarm went off while driving there. My 8:30 alarm went off in triage. The doctor saw her a little before 8:50. He poked and prodded at her for a bit, and spent a lot of time with the light and funnel thing looking in her ears and nose. Ordered blood work and maybe a CAT scan, plus ordered drugs and IV fluids. One shot Benadryl, some sort of anti-nausea and diladud later and she is asleep. They just came to take her to the CAT scan.

Please, God, let this just be a sinus infection or a flare up of one her normal things. The other options are to horrible to think about. Please, let this trip be a waste of time and money. I can lose those, I can’t lose her.

Well, bonus points are awarded!   At least the first compile is done when I got back.     On to configuration!

Just did the standard /etc/fstab and network files, and now I get to do my next emerge.   Need to make those PCMCIA slots work!

OK, did that, now setting up passwords and such like.

Installing the “must have” tools now.     Syslog etc.

Watching compiles is mind numbing.     I’ve been working with scripting languages to long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like.

Completely unrelated note.   The Darling Wife made Cherry tarts.   Very nummy (and, so far) I’m keeping them down.   More than a bit messy however.

As expected, networking failed.   Off to do the genkernel thing now.

[approx 7:30PM]The only thing more brain numbing than watching a compile go zipping by is watching one that doesn’t puke to the screen as you do it.   I don’t like that sort of compile…

[Approx 8:50PM] It’s still going.   It’s been doing modules for the last 30 or so minutes.   I’m not going to do this very often, once I get it up and running, at least I hope I don’t have to.

[9:15] OK.   We have penguin-lust which means I’m up and have a booting system that has a network.   I’m hyper!
Starting to install vi/vim now.   That’s a 7 step operation, it seems.   At least it’s a puke to the screen type of compile so I know it’s not dead.

[9:28] I’ve got vi installed and I’m got the frame buffer working. Woot!   Screen looks good.   Added my day to day user account.   Starting to add mc, ssh and ncftp,   which will make it a functioning work machine, less web-browser.

[10:13] got outbound ssh working, need to find the magic tweak for inbound.   Dur.   Need to start the server…

[10:38] I’ve been poking about a bit, I’ve got what I think are the bare mininamum text based things installed and I’m trying to clean up the install just a hair.

119 items to install X11?   I’ll be back in a while.     Going to go else where for a while.   See y’all later.

And so does The Darling Wife.

The only thing useful I’ve done in the last 48 hours is to ‘Topspot’ all the critters.   Well, not all the critters the squirrels out side I didn’t bother with, but I did do all the dogs and cats.

bleh.

Actually, the badness started some time Friday afternoon.   I got a migraine, which responded, more or less, to my Midrin, however it didn’t go away, so I ended up take several doses over the weekend.   This is first time since I started on my current “don’t freak the fuck out” drugs that I have had to do that.

I’m not going to again.

There seems to be something about the Midrin/Adderall/Diclofenac/Temazepan/Cymbalta combination that, well, doesn’t freaking work.

Let me explain.   Saturday, The Darling Wife noticed that Pressa wasn’t feeling well.   I made a vet appointment for her on Monday.   Short version, she had some sort of liver disease and on Tuesday, we had to have her put to sleep.   Run with Bast, my lesbian love kitty.

Due to some work related issues, I was already fairly well stressed out.   When the vet told me over the phone that we needed to come in and say good by to Pressa, well, I totally lost it.   Complete and total break down.

Which I just found out isn’t over.   I just lost it at my wife, who I love more than life itself over where to put a bunch of broccoli in the fridge.

Oh, God, please, make it better, I don’t want to live like this any more.

This is Velifer, yet another cat named after bats. Velifer is The Darling Wife’s cat, but he likes any one that will pet him.

He also likes to drink bath water, but only AFTER a human has gotten into it, which is a bit weird.

The Darling Wife took the car out last night, after I took my night time meds.   Just a note, after I take my night time meds, I’m done for the day.   Really, totally out of it. Any rate, this morning she said that she thought it (the car) sounded funny.     If a flat tire on the drivers side front sounds funny, this was a laugh riot.     Can’t find my jack.   Redheaded Girl’s triple A is dead.     Art Dude will be by some time soon to take me to work,   where I have a meeting with the boss scheduled.   Then we have the “move Art Dude and Redheaded Girl’s things” to deal with, then getting my tire fixed.   It’s going to be a fun day.

Things that sucks

1. Last night, for reasons I’m not going into for privacy of others reasons
2. Freon.   Or the lack of it in a central air conditioning system.
3. Either the Bank of Oklahoma or Well’s Fargo.   Maybe both.
4. The City of Tulsa’s abatement inspectors
5. One of my neighbors.   not sure which one.
6. ONG.   Just in general.
7. Postfix on Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
8. Fink on the Mac PPC OS X 10.4 version
9. Ingram Micro,Petra,D & H, and Navarre’s some what odd B2B data systems. Each sucks in their own odd way.
10. Dog Poo
11. The GSL
12. AOL and   ComCast’s white listing system
13. Subscribe Me Professional (yeah, related to above)
14. What ever it is in the air this week that is making me sneeze
15. Forgetting to take my sleep aid
16. Getting a total of 6 hours of sleep over 3 days (yeah, see above)
17. The Cities of Wichita KS and Oklahoma City, OK
18. Internet streaming radio “stations” with ads.   A limited number of ads that you hear over and over and over and over.

Things that don’t suck

1. The Darling Wife
2. Art Dude and Redheaded Girl
3. Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed.
4. Jolt Cola
5. Choc 1919 beer
6. Cats and Kittens
7. Miniature Pinchers
8. German Shepherds

I have a pair of MinPens, Brandy and CoCo.

Actually I have Brandy and The Darling Wife has CoCo, but that’s a whole other story.

CoCo likes to dart out the front door and run. She does this about once a week. Normally she goes to the end of the block and turns back and will come if you call her.

Some days, well, it’s off to the races. Today, for example. This is not the first time this has happened in the last 30 days either. At least this time it wasn’t just above freezing and I had my shoes on.

Ended up chasing her about half a mile. If you include all the twist, turns, etc. closer to 3/4 of a mile. Almost caught her when a random boy child out in the front yard with two adults males (dad and uncle if I understood right) wanted to “pet the puppy”, and CoCo was slowing down a bit and stood back and did her happy bark at the boy, but I’m not going to do a flying tackle of a dog in front of a child while on concrete. Too scary for the child and not real good on my knees. One of the adult males (uncle, I think) tried to help by offering CoCo beer from his can. In this case, it might have worked, given that she likes beer, but What The Fuck? Beer to a dog? Yeah, I live in Oklahoma.

Finally caught her while she was nose to nose with the first dog she ran into about her size that she could get close to. One successful move silent roll and a overbear attack later and I had got her. Given her defense if fairly high with both her dexterity and size modifier being so high, I was glad to have caught her. Yeah, today normally would be gaming day, why you ask?

So what were the Results:

1. Caught dog.
2. Binged knee.
3. Grass stains on knee of dockers.
4. Crotch seam on dockers opened up.
5. Strawberry milk shake I had for lunch wanting to come up.
6. Finding out that 10mg of Amphetamine Salts taken 45 minutes before a major Adrenalin rush slash aerobic exercise will result in a major crash about two hours later.

Any rate, that was my post lunch, and why I am in bed now, shaking like a leaf.