Category Archives: Fallen Warriors

Late Summer

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With three weeks to go in Summer (proper), summer in terms of weather and humidity finally arrived this week. A few days up into the low 90’s brought us some unpleasant heat and occasionally lots of rain. Last night we had 1.3″ here alone. I didn’t look at the weather  radar at the time so I don’t know how broad that front was. But we had lightning and rain for the best part of three hours.

Leading up to that, I spent about 5 hours working out in the yard. Some of that was regular stuff like mowing and cleaning out some dying plants in front.  But I also gave a couple of hours to fence-mending…

A few days ago, Lexi was out hunting bunnies in the back yard, then … she wasn’t. Lexi followed a rabbit, not down a hole, but out a hole. Yep, a hole in the fence which Lexi was able to rapidly enlarge enough to chase through and after. Sigh. The good news is, once discovered, we went out calling her name, and she came running up to me from out of the small wood in the common area behind our property. The bad news was that the fence needed mending.

I ended up replacing about 20 boards, and blocking off a few more bits with patching. I’ve still got to mix up a slightly matching stain combo and get those boards coated. But between the fence and other yard work yesterday, I dropped about 6# sweating. So, I rehydrated for much of the afternoon.

Today: Shopping and patching systems at work consumed the bulk of the day.

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Recent Reading: The Big Aha by Rudy Rucker.

Last year, I backed Rudy’s Kickstarter ™ for his new book, The Big Aha. I’d been a fan of Rudy’s since reading Software in the early 1980’s. The Big Aha is a big departure from the style of fiction, and of writing, from that earlier era. The author credits Bill Craddock’s Be Not Content as his primary stylistic influence. Using quantum mechanics instead of Lysergic acid diethylamide as his tool for making an entire world behave like a bunch of loons is … interesting. However, I found it difficult to follow the story. I found it difficult to care about the characters – they remind me of everything that’s bad about soap operas. And, sadly, though I persevered to the very end of the book (and it’s taken me a good long while), I just didn’t like it.

That doesn’t mean that you might not like it. You will want to be happy in a place where there are lots of new, made-up words. You’ll want to like characters that make even less sense (when straight, aka not in “cosmic mode”) than people on this screwed-up planet. If you like soap operas, and fantasy, and science fiction, you might like this story. My clear personal failing is that I don’t like soap operas.

The better news, from my perspective, is that with The Big Aha done, I now have my permission to start reading pTerry’s Raising Steam.

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Spc. Brian K. Arsenault, 28, of Northborough, Massachusetts, who died on Sept. 4, in Ghazni, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his unit was engaged by enemy small-arms fire.

Labor Day

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Labor Day. It means “do chores at home instead of working at the office”, I think. I certainly did. Marcia asked last night if I’d put up my usual Sunday post. I figured that since it was a three day weekend, I’d put up my post on the last day of the weekend. Yes, that’s reasoned procrastination.

So, chores much of the weekend, working in the basement on the floor, etc. We have new neighbors across the street, which is nice (and they’re nice, too). Tonight, I grilled some chickens, and now I’m here. But I’m not going to drone on and on and on about the chores, so on to the penultimate bit …

Lexi often likes relaxing in the sofa back cushion behind my neck when I take a break and watch some television. Here she is again

Lexi behind my back

Lexi behind my back

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Sgt. Christopher W. Mulalley, 26, of Eureka, Calif., who died on Aug. 22, in Gardez, Afghanistan, as the result of a non-combat related incident.

Yellow

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Unlike Arthur Dent, I won’t be seeing yellow (first) on a Thursday, but on a Monday. The buses start rolling tomorrow: screwing up the traffic, and taking kids to the place where they can practice disrespecting teachers, learning, and each other every day for the next 9 or so months. Actually, for PG County kids, it’s the 7th, 8th, and 9th graders getting accelerated remedial disrespecting tomorrow, then ALL the kids are on the bus come Tuesday.

The weekend was full of chores. Saturday was house cleaning. Today was yard work. I should have roasted coffee today, but fell asleep on the sofa instead.

We watched the Doctor Who season premier this evening on DVR. That was fun. I expect to enjoy this iteration of the Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, very much. It’ll take him a while to settle into the role, and for the fans to settle in to having a new Doctor. But I’m hoping for great things.

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Sgt. 1st Class Matthew I. Leggett, 39, of Ruskin, Florida, who died on Aug. 20, in Kabul, Afghanistan, of injuries received when he was engaged by the enemy.

Push Through

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I’m tired. There’s been a fair bit of unscheduled work over the last few days, leading to sleepus interruptus. But I got done what must be done, and a fair bit else besides. The big project of the weekend was a bit of reconstruction on the front step, which has been sinking away pretty much since the house was built. For some reason, they didn’t rebar the step into the concrete porch.

What I need to do is break that old step out, drill some holes into the porch and epoxy in some rebar, then pour a new step. But I’ve not had the time to take on that project. Sadly, we’ve spent a lot of time this summer telling people to mind the first step, since it sank another inch in the last year or so. What we had was a 7″ rise, then an 11″ rise. That’s a lot.

So yesterday I put in some pavers over the step, so we now have two 9″ rises. Even height risers are much safer.

Better step height

Better step height

The other fun thing I learned about the original step installation is revealed by the shadow line you see under the pavers. Yeah? Me, too. The underlying, original step is 12″ deep on the left side, and 13″ deep on the right. Sigh.

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Sgt. 1st Class Samuel C. Hairston, 35, of Houston, Texas, who died Aug. 12, in Ghazni, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his unit was engaged by enemy small-arms fire.

Summer?

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We’re ten days into August, the last (usually) properly hot and humid month of the year … and we’ve only made it up out of the 80’s into the low 90’s ONE day this month. Mind you, I’m not complaining. Our electric bills are lower, the house is more comfortable, etc. But this definitely bodes, eh? If the ice comes in September, I’m going to be upset.

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In other news, like most non-lazy people, my time is defined by the work I do. Yesterday: patching an ESXi host, and mowing the lawns. The latter was a big catch-up, because it’d been at least three weeks since last I mowed (well before the Red Hat course). The one mitigating factor is that even though it hasn’t been super hot, there also has not been a lot of rain. So the lawn stayed mostly dormant. Today, Marcia joined me for the shopping, then I did a bit of around-the-house maintenance before heading into the office to do some patching of Solaris systems. I could do that work remotely, but it’s a lot easier to do on my multi-screen setup at work. All of the patching stuff (both days) went well, and systems are stable, which is good.

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Marcia and I recently started watching a new (to us) show on HGTV called Fixer Upper. The hosts, Joanna & Chip Gaines, have a great chemistry and fun working together on their projects. It makes the show a joy to watch. Recommended!

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Our condolences to the family, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Girard D. Gass Jr., of Lumber Bridge, North Carolina, died Aug. 3, in Jalalabad Air Field Hospital, Afghanistan, from a non-combat related incident while on patrol that occurred in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.
  • Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, 55, of Schenectady, New York, died Aug. 5, in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by small arms fire.

Certifiable

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OOOooo … err. Certified. That’s whut I am. The week of death march revising on RHEL7, followed by two certification exams on Friday, it is over. And most interestingly, I passed both exams, and now have my RHCE. Coming out of the building after 5 on Friday afternoon, I was sure I’d passed EX200 (the RHCSA exam), but frankly wasn’t feeling too warm and fuzzy about EX300 (the RHCE). So I was pleased as punch to learn that I had in fact passed both, and by comfortable margins.

Better yet, I learned a hell of a lot about the tools and technologies in this latest iteration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and I’ll be putting that knowledge to use in production systems within the next several months. So, that’s a good thing, too.

This weekend, I tried to stay awake, and to do some chores. I almost got enough done. What really needs doing is … everything. The house needs a deep cleaning, and the yard needs quite a lot of attention. All in good time. Oh, and while the garden isn’t doing well, it is still producing a bit:

Garden Goodies -2 Aug 2014

Garden Goodies -2 Aug 2014

Some of that has turned into salsa, we’re having more in salads, and some goes to work to make people there happy, as well.

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DoD has announced no new casualties in the last 6 days.

A billion, billion comment spam

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Well, that might be an exaggeration. It was more like a few hundred comment spam. Fortunately they were all so marked, making it easy to click–delete.

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Monday? Monday?!? So sorry to have missed y’all, yesterday. I’ve been preparing for this week’s RH300 course, and stayed pretty focused on that goal. We’re covering 14 days of regular Red Hat coursework in four days of grueling review, followed by the RHCSA and RHCE exams on Friday. And the exams are … challenging. I’m really good with the bits I use. And I can puzzle out the bits I don’t use often. But come exam-time, there’s 2 or 4 hours to do a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff, and it all has to work right, and it all has to survive a reboot.

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Pfc. Donnell A. Hamilton, Jr., 20, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, died July 24, at Brooke Army Medical Center, Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, from an illness sustained in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan.
  • Staff Sgt. Benjamin G. Prange, 30, of Hickman, Nebraska, died July 24, in Mirugol Kalay, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when the enemy attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Keith M. Williams, 19, of Visalia, California, died July 24, in Mirugol Kalay, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when the enemy attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Boatswain’s Mate Seaman Yeshabel Villotcarrasco, 23, of Parma, Ohio, died as a result of a non-hostile incident June 19 aboard USS James E. Williams (DDG-95) while the ship was underway in the Red Sea.

Cool July

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We’ve had several days of unseasonably cool weather. I’m not complaining, mind you. But all the same, it’s weird. Temps in the early mornings in the high 50’s, and barely breaking into the low 80’s. Who’d a thunk? But they let me take Lexi on a two mile walk this afternoon without arriving back home as a sweatball holding a dead dog.

The garden, it fares poorly. I gave it virtually no attention in the days leading up to Marcia’s surgery, nor in the weeks that followed that event. Bugs have killed my zucchini plants, the tomato plants are small-ish with yellowing leaves and low production, and my herbs have all bolted. But I was paying attention to the important tasks in life, so that’s okay.

I’m otherwise tired. I had a couple of rounds of system work today: an hour early, and a couple of hours following the shopping run. In the coming week, I’ve got to spend a fair bit of time working with RHEL7, in advance of a Rapid Track training course the week following, with an RHCE certification exam at the end of that.

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Another week, another span of time during which DoD announced no casualties. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of unpleasantness in the Middle East and in the Ukraine … but I sincerely hope we stay the hell out of those conflicts.

At the Edge of the Woods

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We’re not out of them yet, but there’s more scrub brush at the edges, right? Stuff that needs pushing through before we can be out of the woods? Yeah, that’s it. Overall, Marcia’s doing well. We got here home midday on Wednesday, and had formal outpatient PT on both Thursday and Friday. We managed a lot (relatively) of exercise yesterday, including a couple of walks up and down the sidewalk on our block. So she’s improving rapidly. Today: blood test (for effectiveness of blood thinner) and PT.

Me? By the time I was done with all the chores plus the Marcia-care, I was wiped. That’s my reason for failing to post last night. Sorry about that. This week I’ll be working from home as many hours as I can manage, starting in just a couple of minutes…

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. David H. Stewart, 34, of Stafford, Virginia, died June 20, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Lance Cpl. Brandon J. Garabrant, 19, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, died June 20, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Lance Cpl. Adam F. Wolff, 25, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, died June 20, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Sgt. Thomas Z. Spitzer, 23, of New Braunfels, Texas, died June 25 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Ready for tomorrow

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Marcia gets even more bionic tomorrow early, with a full (left) hip replacement. They’ll have her on her feet in the afternoon, walking around and doing stuff on Tuesday, and presuming everything goes dory and hunky, home on Tuesday evening. Wow! We expect wonders from Dr. King and the great staff at AAMC. Wish us luck.

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I’m glad to note that DoD has reported no casualties in the last week.