We’ve undergone some network configuration changes at the office which have cramped my style. Our IT guy is an ITP-Reader, so I won’t bash the IT department here. 😉 The wireless network to which I’ve been connecting has gone away, so the blogs will now be written at home. I can still read/comment, but creation has to change.
It Was A Marginally Productive Weekend
Needless to say that I did not accomplish the big tasks I desired to tackle this weekend. No ethernet rerouting occurred, at least in my house. No massive photography project was undertaken; I didn’t even take the opportunity to shoot the moon on Saturday night. I have still not watched “Megamind.” No, instead I hung out at Taco Mac on Friday night (and have given up on trying to get any of the ladies there to like me), cleaned off my face (see you in the Winter graybeard), did a bit of reading (I’m caught up on my “Chef’s Story”), software development (well, sort of), and sleeping (I did a lot of that). Tasks relating to the bicycle accident were also accomplished (though the end is not yet in sight).
Step One: Don’t Be Stupid
I headed over to ITP-Reader Betsy’s early on Saturday morning to help her get her networking fixed. I’d installed a wireless router on Tuesday night and everything seemed to be working well for a few days. However, by Friday no internet surfing or email checking could be done.
Like any good debugger I brought my computer (a MacBook) in order to remove one component, that being Betsy’s laptop, from the equation. I could not surf the internet either from my laptop. I then removed the new wireless router from the equation, but that didn’t help either.
I was perplexed. I was able to “ping” Google successfully, but no other websites were responding. I had given the wireless network a strong password (though admittedly forgot to change the admin password on the wireless router until Saturday morning) so I figured that no one had logged on.
I logged into the DSL modem and tried to figure out what was going on. The modem passed all of its diagnostic tests except the IP test.
I’d failed. So, after trying everything I possibly could I called AT&T. Armed with all of my networking knowledge I traded questions and barbed-responses for about an hour, when the AT&T customer service rep essentially told me that everything was okay as far as they were concerned. And, for those who follow AT&T’s suggestion their ping server, “ping.fastaccess.com” does not respond — I’ve tried from three different networks — so don’t believe them when they tell you that it should always work.
More failure.
As I drove away I started thinking about the first thing I should have checked. Well, the second thing really, as the first thing “Are all of the components plugged in?” seemed readily obvious to me. I never checked the cables, nor did I swap them out for other cables.
Yesterday afternoon Betsy was about to start the process of calling AT&T again when I texted her with a *crazy* idea. “Try swapping the new yellow cable with old yellow cable that is on your floor by the window.” This “old” yellow ethernet cable was the one Betsy had been using before Tuesday night but I didn’t like the way its connectors were crimped so I used the “new” yellow ethernet cable which was packaged with her wireless router. Wouldn’t you fucking know that it was the damn cable after all!
The moral of this story? Never help friends with their computer networks. Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem. Huh, that has a familiar ring to it…
ITP Flickr Pic
You may have seen me eat tofu before, but I doubt that you’ve ever seen any tofu dishes that I’ve made.
Many years ago tofu was a regular part of my diet. I may have to resurrect that.
As If My iPhone Development Needed Another Hurdle
I’ve “upgraded” my computer at home to Apple’s newest development environment — Xcode 4. Holy hell have they changed things to the point of confusion! My attempts to follow along with a book last night were brought to a screeching halt as I had to consult the Internets to find out how to do once-routine tasks and to find answers to why things were no longer working the way they used to. In fact, I became so frustrated that I stopped working on code to write this blog.
RealiTV Update: The Amazing Race – Wait, A Team Was Actually Eliminated?
If’n you don’t want to know, move along.
It seems as if it was an eternity ago since Team Goth Gone Wild completely sealed their fate by forgetting their fanny pack in a gondola. This after they broke the rules by not taking a specific flight because they drove the wrong way for hours. Let’s not mention the mental breakdown trying to get all of the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. In a perfect world they would have been sent packing last week… but nooooooo, we’re still racing!
As should’ve been predicted, the organizers of The Amazing Race orchestrated travel to punish the teams who have done well and aid those who do things like those mentioned previously. All teams boarded the one and only train and everyone’s “Even Steven” because only Team Goth Gone Wild refused to admit that they’ve been penalized a mere thirty minutes for their monumental fuck ups (or is that fucks up?).
Even worse, there is a Double (Dog Dare You) U-Turn on this leg of the race so two, count’em two, teams can be screwed.
As an aside, what has happened to Team Assburger With Fries? Old Zev and Justin don’t seem to be the sure-lock that they were prior to losing a passport on the first time they ran The Amazing Race.
Team Noun steal the Globetrotters taxi (not an The Amazing Race foul apparently) which all but counts the Globetrotters out. But children fear not, some of this seasons The Amazing Race competitors are little more than Washington Generals point guards to these lads.
Team Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! once again have the upperhand as they can boss around the locals in Chinese. This sort of advantage always seems unfair to me, but I guess there is little that can be done. Realizing this advantage many teams follow their taxi creating an Amazing Race conga line through China. Whoops, it looks as if Little Miss Perfect may have put the em-PAH-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble because a third of the team have ended up at the wrong cultural center.
At the Double (Dog Dare You) U-Turn we see Team Goth Gone Wild fuck Team Cheercamp — not literally mind you because I’m not sure that Kynt has the goods to do so — by U-Turning the lasses as they stood there right behind them. If there were ever to be an Amazing Race catfight it certainly should have broken out then. In hockey fighting is a five-minute “major” penalty. Given the lax Amazing Race rules it can’t be much worse there. Team Cheercamp in turn chooses to fuck with the wrong Globetrotters by U-Turning them. Want to incite a team to talk trash if your Master Plan goes awry? Pick on the ‘trotters.
Later, as the teams all arrive to the Stone(d) Forest to build life-size dinosaur skeleton models — that shit ain’t easy, I’ve had two non-life-size dinosaur skeleton models for years now and I’ve yet to put them together — we see Team Daddy’s Little Miss America (Really? Mallory was a Miss America contestant? I don’t see it.) use their “Get out of work free” Express Pass and ensure themselves a first-place finish. Of course, they manage to finish in second place behind Team Noun.
Team Sign Language finish in third place, and disappointingly Team Goth Gone Wild hit the mat fourth. But wait! They have a thirty minute penalty! Meh, we all see how badly things are for the remaining teams in the bone yard. Team Sista Sista come in while K&V wait impatiently, so that put the Gothers in fifth.
As it turns out, cheerleaders are better at jumping bones than reconstructing them. The natural redheads came in dead last and were eliminated.
Gimme an ‘E’
Gimme a ‘L’
Gimme an ‘I’
Gimme a ‘M’
Gimme an ‘I’
Gimme a ‘N’
Gimme an ‘A’
Gimme a ‘T’
Gimme an ‘E’
Gimme a ‘D’
What does it spell? “ELIMINATED”! And that’s what you are, ladies!
I have the feeling that the “to be continued” legs are substitutes for later stay of elimination endings in the future. Of course I could be completely wrong about that.
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – tired, but getting better
Current Music – a KEXP podcast from SxSW featuring Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3.
Website Of The Day – If you are tired of all of the other online airline booking services, give Hipmunk a try.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car, though I considered riding MARTA today
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – haven’t wanted to check
Monthly
Foot Mileage – 0.0 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 0 flights
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 0 (0)
Vegetarian Days – 1
Carnivorous Days – 19
Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0
March Goals
– Recover from the bike crash
– Not to get sick for the entire month
– Not get fired from my job
– Run
– Lose two pounds
– Go out on a date with someone else
– Read an entire book, specifically Chef’s Story
2011 Goals [will be a little more fluid than in past years]
– Reduce my weight by 25 pounds based on the my weight as measured on February 1st
– Completely read the book Daily Negations which I received as a Christmas gift.
– Run Sharpened Stone as a real business — one which does not get penalized.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
– Ride in no fewer than five 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Run in no fewer than two one half-marathon
– Submit at least one application under the name “Sharpened Stone” to Apple’s iOS store
The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in Objective-C
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
– Eat smaller portions
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
I like how more than one team is wearing globetrotter clothing, that little basketball game while they were waiting was pretty funny.
Sorry I didn’t bring you any beer back from NC, I never thought about it since you get up there often enough. But – we’ve got a mixed case of wine from the Grove Winery, I’ll share some of it with you.
Bike riding up there in the Greensboro area was gorgeous, it is rolling hills, so nothing tough, but enough of a work out that the 42 miles we rode was enough for me. The Irish stew was really good at the end of the ride, that & a beer later that night at an Irish bar was all the St. Patty’s day celebrating we did.
And – we had a couple beers with Whiner – he says Hi to all you folks.
No worries Barb, I certainly don’t *need* any more beer.
The basketball game was pretty funny. As dorky as Team Noun is, I still like their attitude. As I think of this now, I thought that doll arranging Detour was going to be much harder than it appeared to be. For some reason I didn’t hear that the teams knew that they’d have to arrange the dolls in the proper order.
Sounds like a fun weekend away. It almost makes me wish that I could ride. Almost.
And I’m glad you got to see Whiner. I miss seeing him. Perhaps *this* will be the year I make it to Greensboro for a minor league baseball game (before heading over to Raleigh, of course).
Hey Barb, please remind me which weekend is being set aside for zip lining? Now that I know that I’ll be able to walk again some day soon without too much pain I’m starting to do some preliminary travel planning. Thanks!
Saturday 4/30 is the zipline day – you just reminded me to call & set it up. I have to call separate from the other folks I know going because of the groupon.
I got Megamind on Saturday. Jerry has an after work function, so maybe I can watch it tonight. We could make this a game to see who can keep it the longest 😉
So what else is in your tofu dish? Looks good.
We made it up to Dawson Forest on Saturday. It was hot and ended up being a long day. The trails were ‘okay’, pretty tore up (they are mostly for horses and bikes) and muddy…plus shade seemed limited. Oh, we couldn’t do the blue loop because the river/creek looked too high and fast to cross and the 6.5 mile orange trail was 11 miles??
I had a simlar problem when I set up the wireless internet at my house, ended up being the power cord, as the say the lights were on but know one was home.
The dish consisted of leftover rice into which I had stirred some store-bought tikka masala sauce, some green onions which I fried along with the tofu, and some Sriracha. It was pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.
I’m hoping to watch Megamind this week. We’ll have to see how my week goes, however.
Boogers!! Debbie reminded me we still have the zipline coupon to use and I have a niece getting married on 4/30… in Athens.. on the day of Twilight!!! Jenifer, this is wrong on So. Many. Levels!!
Ziplining might still work out for us, so keep us in the loop.
A big weekend of bike race action in Union City. Good fields, good racing, poor race management makes for long days for officials…
Don’t mess with the Trotters.. they are my sleeper pick.
-FP
“on the day of Twilight”?
If the Trotters can pay attention to clues, and not get screwed by having teams continue to steal their taxi they should be in the final running. I’m trying to remember what cost them during their original season.
I had forgotten that the cheerleaders were screwed in Hawaii during the final leg when their cab driver stopped to get gas for his taxi. Funny how karma can come back to haunt you, eh?
The Twilight Criterium… only one of the largest one day races in the country. It isn’t like her uncle Steve could have suggested a better weekend….
Steve – fun times with traffic in Athens that day for the wedding – huh?
Hopefully, it won’t be a problem… I think the venue is actually Monroe, but the hotel space will be in Athens.
Liking the tofu dish – now we know who’s cooking the next time Uncle Paulie heads to Raleigh!
Has your PT let you know whether you should sell your Twisted Ankle bib? Tell them you need to know before May 31st so you can beat the next ticket price increase for LEAF… 🙂
Ooops, the next LEAF cutoff is March 31st.