Blog

  • Monday Blue

    Monday’s are never easy and the first one back that not after a 4 day weekend is especially cruel. Oh well, it’s not like I had anything that needed to get done. I’m actually a bit worried that work has dried or is drying up. It doesn’t have anything to do with the virus, unless you can call Oracle a virus, and the way they destroy software they acquire that may not be too far off. MySQL, Java, Star Office are just a few that come to mind. Oh well, after a year and a half of primarily helping clients archive the data to move off of Taleo, it looks like there are some changes in the wind. Whatever is next on the journey I’ll do my best to embrace and make the best of the changes that are coming.

  • Wildcard Weekend

    3 football games yesterday and three today, although the Cowboys were watching the games from the couch like I was, it was still nice to have football on for 18 hours over the weekend. Not sure why, it just felt normal despite no one was in the stands and even the head coach of one of the teams was out for the Covid protocol.

    I did get a chance to talk to General, it’s always good to talk to him, he thinks that the end of the virus shutdown is in sight, it would normally abate as spring and summer come to be and with the vaccination push on it should be mostly under control by the end of the summer. I’m hoping things are back to normal sooner than later but I’ll keep improving myself and my surroundings during the down time.

    In other notes, I’ve started the procurement project for the materials for the shed, it’s looking to set me back about $3500 for materials alone. I guess that’s not too bad, I spent probably $1000 on tools to build it and I think to get it built would have been about $5500 so I guess I saved myself $1000 in trade to do it myself and got the tools for free, at least that’s how I’m looking at it.

  • New Linux Mint Desktop

    So for the longest time my old development box was sitting around with an unactivated copy of Windows 10 on it and I was using RDP to VPN in and do my torrent downloading and what have you. Those are things you set and forget because it takes hours/days for the download to complete.

    After jacking with the activation and not meeting success immediately, I started thinking that I’ve always wanted a Linux desktop and they’ve always been the last stop for hardware before the junk pile. Why not see what it’s like to have a screaming fast Linux desktop? So my Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz with 24Gb of ram and 500Gb SSD is now my premier Linux desktop.

    I bounced back and forth between Mint and Ubuntu, starting with Mint, getting lost because it’s Debian and not Red Hat, then switching to Ubuntu and completely disliking the GUI there even with Cinnamon installed and finally settled back with a clean install of Mint. Scavenged a blue tooth speaker with an aux port and that works for sound from it. And I have a 32 inch curved Acer Nitro EDO series – ED320QR monitor hooked up to it. So far I’m impressed. Lots to learn with the GUI but it’s a nice change. Already have xRDP installed so I just use mstsc.exe and connect right in.

    As for the computer that can sit on the VPN and do my downloading? I’ve actually got my old laptop doing that. It’s also running Mint Linux and it basically closed and sitting plugged into a Gb network dongle and power source under the desk next to the UPS. Even have the VPN running and the qBitTorrent running only on tun0, so that if it dies I’m not sitting there exposed with my torrent hanging out. It did briefly happen, let’s hope no bad comes of it.

  • Early Flight out of DAL

    So Sandy is on her way to visit her friend in Colorado Springs and got the best deal on Southwest, I’ve never flown them personally and have nothing against them but they are based out of Love Field in Dallas, which isn’t really that far away but it’s twice as far as DFW. As I type this I realize how trivial it is but I’m not good on 4 and a half hours of sleep I got to get there on time. There’s part of me saying I’ll have energy one day when I can get out and do stuff. I’m wondering if that day will ever come if I don’t force it to… Oh well, the weekend is here and I’m going to make the best of it.

  • Guns Acquired

    Whoo hoo!!! The guns are here. Meet framing nail gun and roofing nail gun. They have shown up to help with the shed building!!!

  • Instant Pot Cheesecake

    I absolutely love cheesecake but it’s been a culinary DMZ for me for years. Then I got an instant pot, then I got an accessory kit which came with a spring form pan. Cheesecake, in the instant pot? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!!! This way, now!!!
    This recipe is blatantly plagiarized from these fine folks.

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  • Meatloaf

    Probably one of the better comfort foods around, easy to make and ingredients readily available. Love it with some mashed potatoes and green beans.

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  • New to the Site – Recipes!!!

    After some careful consideration I’m consolidating my food blog with this one. I’ll be adding a category under food for recipes and tagging actual recipes to it. I’d always been keen on splitting out the different sites (e.g. food/recipes, tech, movies, document site) but I’m going to try to consolidate except for the tech site, that one has more than enough content to warrant it’s own iteration of word press. So stay tuned for the good eats!

  • Cowboys Season is Over

    You know I’m not much of a sports fan these days. I mean I hold nothing against them and I really enjoy having live sports on, maybe it’s the pandemic but it feels normal even if there isn’t anyone in the stands. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a Cowboy’s fan just because I was born and raised here but I’m not about to stand idly by without laughing hysterically at Jerry Jones and his coaching follies. Today’s major blow coaching call was a non-challenge decision on something pretty much everyone agreed would have been over turned.

    I do hate they are consistent losers but it does lend credence to my theory on the Jimmy Johnson curse. Jimmy Jones was such a prick when they won the Superbowl the last time with Jimmy Johnson that he will never have another trophy until he leaves the team to someone else. We shall see if this is the case but so far they’re doing a great job of proving me right.

  • Lazy Study Day

    So it was statistics and hanging around today. A good way to spend the fist Saturday of the year. Sandy and I took a two mile walk in the afternoon south of Pipeline, I make my steps for every day this year! Both of them. Dinner was the teriyaki pork chops with baked potatoes and corn. I also got the framing and roofing nail guns along with assorted other tools from Harbor Freight, I could have bought the pieces one at a time for 25% off with coupon but I want to get this underway. So they have a bit more of my money but I have my tools:)