in a nutshell...

My "real" blog

spam — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:54:25 GMT

Hey folks. I've actually been blogging lately, here: http://www.hell.org So if you want to keep up with my life, check there.

Shout out for folks to help in Chehalis

spam — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:05:31 GMT

Hey folks. Last weekend a few of us went down to the Chehalis/Centralia area to help clean up the flood damage. The place is, for those of you who haven't been down there, a serious mess. My post about the situation can be found here: http://people.tribe.net/spam/blog/b2eff10b-6448-47ad-a856-73a13979ca31 Anyway, a bunch of us are organizing to head down again this saturday to help out again. Were looking for more volunteers to help. Someone like you! If you can make it, then PM me here or at my personal email address (spam@hell.org) with this information: 1) Your name 2) Where you're at, in the following terms so we can figure out places to meet up a) in city, north end (above the ship canal) b) central city (cap hill, downtown, CD, burner quad) c) queen anne/interbay d) south end (beacon hill, georgetown, columbia city) e) west seattle f) the vast, uncharted expanse of the east side g) other ___________________________ 3) Your liklihood of making it, on this rough scale a) absolutely (99.999999999% certainty) b) probably (80% certainty) c) maybe (50% certainty) 4) can you drive or do you need a ride there. Also, if you have any particular skills that would be useful or tools good for demo work, let me know. We plan to meet up at some place yet undetermined (possibly my house, since it seems fairly central to everyone who's already signed up), figure out carpools, and get on the road for Chehalis around 9. Expect to be doing some farily hard, grubby work, so dress/prepare accordingly. What you'll be giving is the gift of taking some work off folks who are weary from picking up after having their lives devestated two weeks ago. There's really no better gift than that. Merry Christmas.

Picking up the pieces in Chehalis

spam — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:53:39 GMT

Today me and a couple guys drove down to Chehalis to see what we could do to help the flood victims down there. As most of you probably already know, western Washington & Oregon got hit with some severe storms a week or two ago that resulted in some terrible flooding and landslides. One of the worst hit areas was in the Chehalis/Centralia area. At one point a week ago, Interstate 5 was under 10 feet of water, and some many streets in the town were flooded as well. It's hard to imagine the devestation that a flood can do. People's entire lives are uprooted and devestated. Their home is unlivable, their posessions and creature comforts are destroyed, and the entire sense of social stability is completely uprooted. It's easy to be cavilier about it when it's abstract, talk about how it's only material possessions that you shouldn't care about. But when you go into people's homes, and realize that these represent 40 years of life, of memories, of work and care, and you're shovelling the waterlogged remains into a dumpster, it all becomes very real. We spent the day helping a could I would estimate are in their 70s. Their house sat in 18 inches of water for three days. Retired and on a fixed income, there's no way they can just rebuild. Physically, it's just not within reason for them to do the labod involved in the cleanup. We removed all the plasterboard from the lower 24 inches of most of the interior walls in the house. For the next few days they'll be blowing fans at all the walls to dry out the studs and exterior facing, to counteract the growth of molds & mildews. Hopefully they'll be able to save the house. Insurance won't cover it; they were nowhere near the Chehalis river flood plain so they had no flood insurance. The FEMA guy had already come by and was no help at all; he claimed that the walls didn't take on any water. Ridiculous. Just fucking ridiculous. He thought that they might qualify for $10K, which won't even begin the rebuild, much less help replace all of their personal possessions - furniture, appliances, and a sense of home. We took pictures of the walls, and noted that some of the studs were still soaked. No water my ass. We encouraged them to file a complaint, and that we would back them up with our observations. And none of that will begin to rebuild their sense of security. When something like that sweeps through your life, it's incomprehensible. Right now they're still in the shock and adreneline stage, and that's what's getthing them through the day to day. Perhaps at some point in the next year, they can actually experience the positive stage of seeing a rebuild come to fruition. It's the time in between that worries me. The weeks and months of sitting around, in their devestated house, unable to afford a rebuild and waiting for assistance from a government that's supposed to help. And always wondering if it'll ever come, or if it'll be enough. When we were driving down there, the reality of the situation hadn't hit us yet. We were joking around and telling stories. Then in Chehalis, at one point we turned a corner and *bam*, all we saw was devestation. There are entire blocks where ever house has a huge pile of waterlogged stuff piled up in front. The mood in the car immediately turned to somberness. Each one of these houses was another story; a story of people losing everything and not even knowing where to begin to pick up their lives. We did a little bit to help one couple, but there are hundreds of similar stories all over these two small towns, as well as other towns up and down the coast. Hey, United Way is still looking for volunteers. They've set up shop in a former hardware store that was empty, and they're both collecting donations of money and materials as well as looking for people to take on small volunteer jobs as we did. If you're in the Seattle area, please consider giving a day or two or more in the next few weeks. Do what you can. People's lives have been completely turned over, and they're not only dealing with a grim view of the near future but the day-to-day back-breaking work of the cleanup. If you can pitch in and help, you''ll be giving a huge gift of relief to them. It's worth it.

My first instructable

spam — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:39:44 GMT

OK, it's nothing amazing. http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-wall-mounted-storage-bins-for-hartware-parts/ But it's always satisfying when you come up with a neat new way to organize your stuff. And it's always nice when a solution to a problem is fast, easy, inexpensive, elegant and totally solves the problem. And it looks cool, too.

Too much excitement already this week.

spam — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 05:55:14 GMT

So, yesterday morning I get a call from the Renton Police. "Do you know where your car is?" Uh oh. I look outside. I know where it's supposed to be, and that's where it ain't. My first experience with a car theft. Fucking joy. So we spend the whole day dealing with this. We get a general assessment of the car over the phone. Looks cosmetically fine, but you can smell the clutch a block away. Ignition is all torn apart. Shit. So we spend the day dealing with insurance, lining up a loaner vehice, finding a place to get it repaired, getting it towed up to Seattle, yadda yadda yadda. It's fucking annoying, a total violation, and a complete waste of time and money. Even though insurance is covering it, there's still the $250 deductable that I really could have put to better use than funding some asshole's joyride. Thanks, prick. So then this morning, building contractors show up to tear out one bathroom completely, and part of the other. It's impossible to work while all that's going on, so the day is a complete wash as far as programming goes. Tomorrow the plumbing goes in, and then they'll finish it up as well as install new flooring in the kitchen. I now live in a house without toilets. And will for the next three days. Joy.

time for a new ISP...

spam — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 23:26:25 GMT

Fucking drizzle fucking sucks now. Once upon a time drizzle was the ISP of choice in Seattle. Great customer service, reasonable rates. I cannot count how many people I've referred to them over the past 10 years, but it's been a good amount. Then they were sold to the aptly named iPNS. And things changed. My DSL has gone down, and it seems they have no one actually manning the store for the long weekend. That is not acceptable behavior from a service-oriented, infrastructure-providing business. Since I go on call tomorrow morning it's actually fairly important for me to be connected this week. So I spent all day running a network cable from the neighbors house and rejiggering the internal house network to handle the changeover. Since the house network is somewhat complicated, this was not an entirely simple operation... But I think I have it all set up now, and most things work. I have access to the external network, the music server, and the email server. I can't actually RECEIVE email, since the internat can't find me, but I can read old mail and send mail out. It's a start. What doesn't work: Inbound email mail lists I host Access to my websites Access to the BBS I also spent some time researching new ISPs. Seems if I get data as well as the wire from Qwest, it will actually be about the same price. And they let you have static IP addresses now. Time to switch. Qwest may be a pain in the ass, but they at least have 24/7 customer support, incompetant tho they may be. And my getting data & wire from the same provider, they can no longer use "it's your ISP's problem" as a way to get me off the phone. Goodbye drizzle. You were a great ISP, once. No longer.

A tiny moment of surreality

spam — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 02:06:44 GMT

So, here was a conversation I just had on the phone: Caller: Hello, is this the owner of hell.org? Me: Um, yeah. Caller: Can you tell me about the message? Me: uh...what message? Caller: The message. Me: What are you talking about? Caller: On the web. It says "Go away". Me: Yeah. Caller: Well what does it mean? Me: Um. nothing. Caller: Nothing? Me: Yeah. I just didn't want anything on the web. Caller: That's it? Me: yeah. Caller: OK Me: Bye, then. Caller: Bye. *click* Caller ID says the caller was john barich, at (415) 927-3562. Not much on the web about him, feel free to give him a call...

more indications that we've jumped the tracks (#5327 in a series)

spam — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 20:17:07 GMT

Playmobile now sells an airport security check in station. Just what the kids always wanted! Daniel Solove gets to play with one here, and finds it less than satisfying: http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2005/10/the_airline_scr.html But in the end, it all works out.

Ow.

spam — Sun, 08 May 2005 05:28:36 GMT

I seem to have injured my back. I'm probably looking at 4-5 days of bedrest, and a few weeks thereafter of being really careful what I do. This sucks. Poor me.

Maui prep & a bit of woodworking...

spam — Sun, 27 Feb 2005 08:49:18 GMT

So, we're going to Maui this week. We spent the day getting prepped; new bathing suit, shorts, swimming goggles, things like that. I have never been to Hawaii so I'm pretty excited. Meanwhile, my worktable is pretty damned wobbly. Not the sort of space you want to do precision work on. So this evening I built a table frame out of 4x4 legs & a 2x6 box frame. I just need to bolt it together and afix the tabletop and it will be done. Yeah. I could operate on a cow in the middle of a 6.5 quake and this thing won't wobble. Slope kitty just jumped up on the bed. I think he wants attention. Nay, he DEMANDS it.