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Week of August 27th, 2001
Last Updated: September 01, 2001 09:06
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Email: tom@syroidmanor.com
Ah, the Dog Days of Summer. Picture perfect mornings, hot afternoons, and around about 9 PM, things cool off dramatically. Fall is in the wind. I do, however, think we're going to have an Indian Summer this year (somehow, "Native American" Summer just doesn't quite cut it) that will stretch well into October. Nope. No snow in the wind just yet...
Unfortunately, today the clear summer skies and pleasant temperatures are only visible through my office window. No pleasant sunny skies in the bowels of Syroid Manor. At least not today. I really hate Mondays that start like Mondays -- it typically means that the week is going downhill from here. Very Ungood.
One: I had to reboot Hydras this morning. I hate it when I have to do that, and honestly, I can't remember the last time I did. But something was kitty-whonkers, and I didn't have the time nor the inclination to muck about. For two days I've been trying to make a tape backup of all my key filesystems. I'd put the tape in the drive, configure the backup command, but when I said "Go", I'd get a mysterious error message about the drive not being "ready". Huh? Not ready? Waddyamean not ready? Is this like a stat holiday?
Anywho, this morning I discovered a slew of orphaned backup processes. Not backing up anything. Just hanging out on my process list. So I tried to kill them. No joy. They'd respawn. Mmm. Tried again. And again I suffered the agony of defeat. Bother.
I decided I needed a current backup more than I needed to foist a long uptime report upon the world. So I typed 'reboot'. When the dust cleared, my backup utility worked again. Puzzling. Oh well.
Two: Last night my frustration plug fell out. It had been a long week, and even longer weekend (without any "play" -- and you know what they say about all work, no play, and Jack). I was trying to configure LILO under Slack on Phaedrus and I wasn't getting a whole lot of cooperation. In retrospect, it was probably just the way I was holding my mouth. The end result, however, was a sudden and violent "loosing of the cool". I slammed my fist down on the notebook's keyboard. At the time it felt good and made LILO aware I was not someone it wanted to piss off -- the error went away and all was well and good. That was last night. Today everything is not all well and good. My spacebar key and "b" are no longer spacing and "b"ing. And that, folks, is a Very Grand Bother. My prized notebook is broke all because I lost my temper with a bunch of bits, bytes, sand, and silicon.
Sigh. I have a feeling I'm really not going to like the repair bill to fix my keyboard. Note to Self: One cannot treat a notebook like a desktop system. Break your keyboard on your deskop -- replace the keyboard. Break your keyboard on your notebook and it's not quite so simple. Everything is attached. Break one thing, and you break everything -- at least metaphorically speaking. And laptops are spendy creatures to repair.
Finally, number Three: Leah's machine (my old Janus -- which I'm using until I figure out what to do with Phaedrus) suddenly starting acting demonic. FrontPage just locked to a hard reset. After, of course, I entered had custom crafted three or four paragraphs. Which I subsequently lost to the land of orphaned bits and bytes. YANTI time? Something amiss? Time to monitor the logs and do some poking and prodding.
It's also time to dust off Phoenix. I'll put a copy Windows 2000 Server + Exchange 2000 on it (planned to do so anyway for an upcoming editorial project coming my way), and use it as a workstation for the time being. That way Leah and Susie can use Janus, I'll use Phoenix, and Phaedrus can go in for repair. I miss Phaedrus already. This huge MS keyboard and 19" monitor sure does take up a lot of room on my desk...
-oOo-
I need some help. I'm trying to get it so that Susie (our Korean student) can read Yahoo email -- which is in Korean. And not being an international font/language kinda guy, I'm have some problems. I installed the Korean font pack from the Win2K Pro CD (Control Panel --> Regional Options, click on Korean). Fair enough. Then I go Yahoo, click on email, then select the Korean language login from the list at the bottom of the screen. Cool. I don't understand a thing on the screen in front of me, but it's obviously saying something in Korean. That much is clear (er, well... sorta clear). When Susie logs in and selects an email to read, the characters displayed on screen are clearly not Korean (in contrast with the prior login screen). What are they? Couldn't tell you. Susie tells me she cannot read or understand the characters displayed. Neither can I, but...
So what do I need to do (sorry in advance if I haven't provided enough info to troubleshoot the problem -- but this is really and truly right out of my league)? Do I need to do something beyond what I've done already? Am I missing something? Is my orientation to Meca all wrong? Is it a problem with Yahoo (doubt it, as Susie says it works OK from "home" -- ie, Seoul, South Korea)?
-oOo-
Do any of my readers have any experience (good, bad, or indifferent) with the Nokia 6185i cell phone? I need to get a cell phone for business sometime soon, and I'm looking at various manufacturer's models and specs. The 6185i caught my eye as it's reasonably priced and does what I need it to do. Anything Ungood things I should be aware of?
See? I knew I was in for a rocky week...
I took everyone out for dinner last night to our favorite Japanese restaurant. A grand time was had by all. Unfortunately, as we were preparing to leave Leah fell off her high-heels and twisted her ankle (Yukon Belles do not do well in high-heels -- they're more Nike or hiking boot kinda people). Before we got home she couldn't put any weight on it. Off to the pharmacy for ice packs and Motrin.
Two hours later, I got a call from my Seester. My mom had a heart attack last night. She's OK, and in the right place (Surrey Memorial, cardiac intensive care), but as I write this the doctors still do not have her stabilized. They have yet to find the right mix of blood thinners. She's not critical; she's just not stable yet.
Once again, all the warning signs were there -- and everyone completely missed them. My mom was having a hard time sleeping; she was in a perpetual state of fatigue; and her right arm had been aching for three days. My sister dropped by to check on her yesterday afternoon and was shocked to see her facial color ashen grey. Only then did her medical training (extended care worker) kick in; she loaded her in the car right then and there, and drove her to the hospital.
Every day the media pounds us with warnings and info regarding how to detect if you're having heart troubles. And we still miss far too many obvious signs. Pay attention to the health of your friends and loved ones, people. Far too many people die from heart problems every day because we're looking the other way.
-oOo-
The Korean font problem is solved -- thanks to all who wrote. It was simply a matter of "forcing" the encoding (was set to auto-detect). View -> Encoding, select Korean. All is well and good. Mother and daughter can both check their Yahoo email. Every one is happy.
-oOo-
If you live in or around the Bay area, or plan on passing through this week, remember the LinuxWorld Expo is being held from Tuesday, August 28th through Thursday, August 30th at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Details at: www.linuxworldexpo.com.
Yesterday. Mmm. One of those days when you get up early (for me it was 05:30), sit down at your desk, and the next time you become conscious of time and/or the world around you, it's almost midnight. What did I do all day? Haven't a clue, but I'm fairly confident I was busy... er... with something... er... that consumed the whole day.
Thank you to all who have called or written. Unfortunately, my mom is still very unstable. From what I gather (trying to get concise details from emotional family members is almost an oxymoron) the doctors have her on a liquid blood thinner as her condition does not yet allow them to use pill form (Kumadin, I assume). So she'll be in intensive care for a while yet. First she'll have to stabilize enough to move to pills, then the doctors will want to monitor her closely for a week or so while they get the dosage correct. Still no word yet on what kind of heart attack she had, or what form of follow-up care she'll need (pacemaker? surgery? just medication?) -- again, she's not yet stable enough for the doctors to do much in the way of diagnosis. The good news is she's exactly where she needs to be, and the head nurse on the ward she's in -- according to my sister who has contacts in medical services -- is one of the best in the business.
So in a nutshell, she's still a long way from being stable or even well, but we live in a day and age when the down-the-road prognosis for heart conditions is extremely good.
-oOo-
I spent two hours on hold yesterday trying to get my poor Phaedrus booked into the hospital. Grrrrr. I hate automated call systems. It seems that every time I have to deal with one of them, what I need is not on the list of menu options. Trying to get to the right person at Dell was a classic example of customer service gone awry. Lots of options and choices for warranty repairs, but that didn't fix my scenario. I broke the system. I wanted it repaired, preferably sooner rather than later. And I'd be paying. So I chose a route through the system I thought sounded correct, and waited on hold an hour only to be told I was on the wrong garden path. "Sorry, sir... do not pass Go, do not collect $100..." you'll have to go around the board again.
Piffle. And to top it all off, there wasn't even any elevator music for entertainment, which left me in constant paranoia I had been cut off or the connection had somehow been lost and I've had to start all over again.
The good news is that once I reached the correct warm body, he was courteous and knew what needed to be done. My notebook is being FedEx'd to Ontario today. I've already contacted the people on the other end, and they've promised to have a keyboard in stock and ready to install. The process only takes 30 minutes, then they'll courier it back to me. If all goes well, I should have it back Saturday -- latest Tuesday.
It would seem, from my conversation with the service manager in Ontario, that I'm not the only one who has got a tad upset with a piece of software and taken it out on my keyboard. Slight consolation, I suppose. On the other hand, the repair is also not as expensive as I thought it would be -- about $150. It will be more than that just for shipping there and back.
Welcome to September. And TGIS. By the time I climbed down off my chandeliers last night it was almost 23:00 and by then I had no energy left to write anything here, much less make it coherent.
My mom remains in intensive care. Apparently, the liquid blood thinner is not have the desired effect so a decision was made to try the pill-form. She had an allergic reaction to the medication. I say apparently because no one was allowed to see her yesterday, and all the staff would say is that she was "about the same". Mmm. I intend to talk to at least one horse's mouth today; I've left several messages at various strategic points of contact. Hopefully I'll get some answers to some of the inconsistencies I'm hearing.
My laptop won't be home this weekend -- Wednesday earliest. When I called Friday AM it still had not arrived. I intended to call Friday afternoon to ensure it had, but I got buried and by the time I recovered everyone in Ontario would have been well into enjoying their holiday weekend.
We've got a busy day ahead -- there's the requisite weekend housework, and a trip to Costco is in order to stock the pantry. I'll check back later.
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Last modified:
September 01,
2001