a hard drive

Had some success. The other day, our main Sony desktop 'puter, with all the crap on it (as opposed to the three laptops that we actually use) scared me. I had to restart it to update it or something, and it burped and told me it couldn't find a bootable disc. YIKES!!. Restarted and it did it again!! Restarted and it fired up. I think perhaps after three years of constant running, the hard drive might be getting tired. But the Sony is our 'dial up internet gateway' using Microsoft Internet Sharing, so it needs to work. Not to mention all the video files, picture files, music files, etc that end up there, rather than spread all over three laptops.

We were in the big city the other day (Burlington, Iowa) and so I popped into Staples and bought a new Maxtor 200Gig ATA hard drive to replace the potentially failing 120Gig Seagate unit in the aforementioned Sony. Also bought Norton Ghost 'cuz I'd read it worked well to transfer one drive to another.

Didn't need the Ghost. Not to mention the instructions included with the Ghost are just vague enough to be dangerous. The software that came with the Maxtor drive did the job just fine, except.....

The original drive had 2 primary partitions, and one logical partition (its a Sony thing....). Maxtor took the C: partition, copied it to the new drive, and called the whole 200G drive the C: drive. So I've still got work to do. All the stuff that was on the D: and G: partitions are still on the old drive. I left the old drive in as a slave, so I can still access the files, but I'll have to spend some quality time rearranging things, such that the files aren't stuck on a drive that might fail. In the meantime, while the old drive works, I now have 320Gb of storage available on the Sony. (plus the 80Gb on this laptop, the 80Gb on #1 son's laptop, and the 40Gb on #2 son's, oh...and don't forget the 60Gb on my Linux box, hidden in the back room) That's a total of 580Gb of storage available in the house. Well, not including the 40Gb available on the 2 iPods and the 5Gb on the iRiver. Kewl, lets fill it up.

What fun. In the middle of all this computer stuff last evening, we went trick or treatin' in the lovely little town of Donnellson. Even more fun.

they don't understand

Ain't dial-up internet wonderful??? Took iTunes 3 hours to download the Sawyer Brown album 'Mission Temple Fireworks Stand'.

But what a great album it is. Worth the wait. Particularly the tune 'They Don't Understand'.

Its a humbling tune. I think I'll go listen to it again.

haunted

Crossed 'over the road' tonight to the school, and toured the haunted forest. Here's the thing - I don't think the forest is truly haunted. It looked to me like a bunch of high school kids hiding in the trees, dressed in cheap halloween costumes.

But I did get to pull my usual haunted forest trick - I always carry my high powered camera flash unit, and use it strategically when a ghoul runs at me from the forest. Worked perfectly tonight. Poor ghoul ran right into a tree!!! HA!!! Take that, you scary halloween critter!!!

I can be SO obnoxious.

anti-septic

OK, so by way of competing with my brother for things gone wrong, our septic system starting burping like it had indigestion, suddenly, last evening. Then nothin' would drain, which can be most inconvenient at times.

So today a plumber guy comes out to the house. He's about the sixth plumber I called - apparently this rural, lightly populated area of Iowa has huge plumbing issues - they were all busier than one armed paper hangers.

So anyway, he and his quite overweight assistant start diggin' away to find the septic tank, and....you guessed, they found it, right there where it was supposed to be. BUT, its crumbling apart where the pipe from the house joins it. So right now we have an open hole out there in the garden....its lovely....smells heavenly....we can compete with the cattle farm up the road... :-) And now the kids can have fun flushing the stool and running outside to see if they can beat the turd to the tank....!!!! HA!!! Country living pastimes can be fun...

SO, BRO - I'll trade you my dead septic system for your dead Honda.....

cross bones

Read an interesting book the other day. Titled 'Cross Bones' by Kathy Reichs. (ISBN #0-7432-3348-4 in case you care). Its probably as controversial as The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, but didn't get as much press.

Kathy Reichs' main character in her novels is Temperance Brennan, (Tempe) and her character is the basis for the new TV series 'Bones'. Tempe is a forensic anthropologist. Whatever. (the show is pretty lame, in my opinion)

So anyway, the book is a novel, with the usual 'this is a work of fiction' disclaimer, but the story basically asks the question..... what if Jesus survived the cross and lived a nice long life with his family??? Would it change anything? How far would the church, either protestant or catholic, go to prevent such information from going public?? Would this change everything?

Makes you think........

audits

Its been a week of audits. TS16949, and ISO14001. TS is a quality system, and ISO14001 is a 'save the world' system. (environmental, to some people). So here's how it works.

Somebody, somewhere, wrote down how they thought a company should run to produce quality parts, and save the trees and the whales. Ran the concept by all their buddies, and then sold the whole thing to the big automakers. Of course, the automakers, having nothing better to do, thought 'what the heck' this should be fun.

Now thousands of companies pay millions of dollars on non-value added work, particularly when close to a mandated third party audit, which occur at a 6 month frequency. (oh ya, and guess who pays for these audits????)

Countless hours are spent rushing around, making sure all kinds of paperwork has dotted i's and crossed t's.

Lots of nail biting for a couple of days, a bit of blame-throwing once the audit findings are publicized, then we can get back to actually running the business.

But its just my opinion.....

mainstream

OK so I went mainstream again. Walmart had the regular 4th generation 20G iPods on at a fire-sale price (making way for the new ones, I reckon) so I bought one. I had sidetracked into an iRiver player for a while, and although it worked fine most of the time, it just didn't work as well as the iPod I once had, and which I donated to my son in a weak moment. I just don't like going with the flow - EVERYBODY buys iPods, but in this case, there appears to be a reason other than being sheep. iPod + iTunes works as advertised - never had an issue. iRiver + Windows Media works most of the time, but hangs up too often. Perhaps Microsoft needs to do a bit more reverse engineering on the Apple system.

Along with the iPod, I picked up an iHome clock radio thingy. Seems to 'work a treat' as the Brits would say. Drift off to the sounds of Mozart, or Judas Priest, depending on your mood. (and of course the music available on your iPod).

Sunset.....

I do believe the sun may be setting on the Cardinal's hopes for a World Series appearance....but its only the 4th inning, so I may be wrong. There's still that bottom of the ninth 2 out thing they could pull....iffen I am wrong I shall most gladly admit it.

My son and I are watching the game on TV, with the sound muted, while listening to the game as broadcast on KMEM out of Memphis, Missouri on the radio. So we hear the action about 12 seconds before we see it!!! Such fun. Small things amuse us - its nice to have at least one thing in common....

unbelieveable.....

What an awesome ball game last night!!!! Maybe the Cardinals ARE ordained by God. Unlikely, but holy cow, 9th inning, 2 out, and they come back and win when its needed most. I believe they could go to the World Series now. Its like all of a sudden they woke up, and said 'Crap we'd better show up to the ball game here or we might lose!!!' Maybe it was staged. Maybe they meant to drag it out like this. Maybe pigs can fly.

It really won't make one hill of beans difference who wins, but its fun to watch.

I see bro is back from Cali. He didn't even wave as he flew over. Hmmmph. Not Nice. I might be in London this weekend. See if I stop by his house..... doubtful..... :-)

maybe......

Maybe I was right, and the Houston Astros are going to put the God-Ordained St Louis Cardinals in their place. Looking promising after this evening's game. A hard earned win for Houston. Add some St Louis whining and sniveling, resulting in 2 Cards being kicked out of the game, and it was quite entertaining. Seems that even IF your team is God-Ordained, you still can't mouth off to the umps....they'll kick you off the field just as fast as if you played for the prince of darkness.

I wonder if there's a moral to that story. If there is I can't think of it. So I reckon I'll just go to bed and watch the rest of what promises to be a good White Sox / Angels game.....

unsub

The word for the day...UNSUB. It's word used in the new TV show 'Criminal Minds', in an attempt to make it sound authentic. Interesting.

So my topic this evening is unsub. Unknown Subject. Meaning I have no idea what the subject is this evening. Any thoughts?

NO, WAIT! Got a new garage door on the house garage today. But, ummm, the garage floor is not level, and since the new door IS level, there is quite a large gap at the bottom. (sigh) another weekend project...... On the upside, the door opens and closes with the auto-magical door opener without banging and crashing and sounding like its about to explode. Its lovely...

hands

So, I get home from my usual 12 hours work deep in the bowels of an automotive parts manufacturer, only to discover that my wife has worked much harder than me!!! Her hands are all beat up from moving brush, and preparing and covering the pool for winter. (sigh, yes we have winter here in Iowa.....I am starting to miss North Carolina, suddenly...) So I am humbled, but at the same time very pleased, since I hate covering the pool.... :-)

Watched NCIS tonight. Kinda miss Kate, although the new girl is pretty good. The NCIS team has maintained most of the chemistry, even though Kate is gone. Good episode, a much better show than most of the typical 'crime scene' shows, IMHO.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my brother is galivanting about California. Something ain't right here. Why wouldn't he just come to Iowa?? Fewer people, and the sunsets are every bit as nice, if not nicer...

Finally, I shall be rooting for Houston in the upcoming NL Championship Series. Only because EVERYBODY else around here thinks God Himself organized and coaches the St. Louis Cardinals. We'll see..........

i wish.......

Been reading some other web logs (aka blogs, apparently) and it set me to wishing I had NOTHING BETTER TO WORRY about than some of the drivel I've read about. Oh to be 17 and carefree again.....

Reminder to all those below 20 years old.... 'IT DOESN'T get any BETTER than it is RIGHT NOW' so shut up and enjoy it. Before you know it you'll be old and wonder where all the fun went.

what ever

Just made this so's I can post comments on bro's blog...since he don't allow anon nee mouse comments.