Orb Designs

Category: Beware of Leopard

This is the catch-all category.

  • Fresh Pi, Have a Taste

    Here’s a shot of the screen:

    Big screen running from new computer
    Big screen running from new computer

    The screen is running from my newest linux-based computational device, which you can see at the lower left of the picture above.

    It's a Raspberry Pi!
    It’s a Raspberry Pi!

    I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, yet, but at $35 plus shipping, I’m sure I can find a cost-appropriate use… I got in on one of the first few batches manufactured, placing my order last February, I think. It arrived today, a few weeks ahead of original schedule. They’re supposed to be opening up ordering again in a few days (whenever “mid-July” is, in marketing-speak), at this Newark/Element14 page.

    Anyway, I’ve got to go roast coffee, but I thought I’d show you the newest small member of the menagerie around here. Ciao!

  • Stormy Weather

    Well, not anymore, just back to HOT. It was 104°F according to my car, on the drive home yesterday just after 1600 EDT. By 2130, the lightning was lighting up the sky in the west. Fast moving storms with big winds, shedloads of lightning, and hail plowed through here. Maybe half an inch of rain, too, much of that within a 15 minute period.

    The good news, from my perspective, is that other than a few blips, we kept our power, both here and at work. More than a million other folks in the greater Metro DC area … not so much. They’re talking about several days to get everyone restored, and it’s supposed to stay hot.

    We have some plant damage, and fence damage, but nothing major, and the veggie garden came through unscathed, best I can tell. I’ll wander out that way very shortly. But my focus is on the schoolwork, which I need to get to right now. Ciao!

  • The Living Room Reboot

    Just to be clear, here at the beginning, Carolina Chair rocks! As an anniversary present to each other, Marcia and I purchased a few weeks ago a new Crawford sectional from Carolina Chair, after I’d done considerable online research about Made in the USA furniture, and reliable vendors, etc. Marcia worked by phone and email and mailed fabric samples with Cathy Fry and the rest of the team down there to get the right design, etc.

    Carolina Chair got the furniture built and shipped before we even expected it to be fit into the manufacturing schedule! Then, we got the furniture a week into a two-to-three week likely delivery schedule. So, while your mileage may vary (that is, they may take as long as quoted, depending on how busy they are, etc.), the time to furniture in the house for us was simply stellar. And the quality of build and upholstering is superb. I’m very happy, and Marcia is wowed!

    So, before I started clearing the living room last night, it looked like this:

    Living room before clearing
    Living room before clearing

    I got the room cleared, leading to yesterdays antics with dogs and tables. I cleaned the floor fully, then we laid down the new carpet pad and rug, and hauled the recliner and a side table back into rough position so that someone could watch some TV last night.

    Living room stands ready
    Living room stands ready

    This morning, I was at work at 0710, and bailed out at 0930, to get home before our 1000-1400 delivery window opened up. I needed to do this so that Marcia could focus on work, which is always hectic as the end of each month approaches (and triply so at end of quarter, but that’s not this time).

    The delivery company called just before 10 and said they’d be here no later than 11 (yay!), then turned up at 1010. The good news is that I’d made it home in time to inspect and provide guidance (there’s some assembly steps explained on the website that the local, very pleasant delivery guys don’t grok, but that’s cool). The delivery of the new sectional and ottoman was uneventful and no furniture or walls were harmed during the unpack or load-in. Once that was done, the new sectional in place looks like this:

    The new sectional from Carolina Chair.
    The new sectional from Carolina Chair.

    And after I loaded back in all of the things that make this our living room, it looks like this:

    Living Room, Rebooted
    Living Room, Rebooted

    Awesome. Thanks again to the Fry’s and the whole team at Carolina Chair for taking such good care of us, and producing such a fine product!

  • Eventful

    The week, that is. Eventful.

    First, I’m past halfway now, and on the long slide down into the twilight time. Yep, I turned 51 on Tuesday. It was a fun day: I worked my normal 9 hours, did some light VMware reading in the evening, and retired at my normal time of the evening. Do I know how to live it up, or what?

    Regarding the light VMware reading, I’ve been boning up in preparation for a VCP vSphere 5 certification exam, which I took this afternoon.

    Event the second – I did not pass that exam. Sigh, I suck. Well, in my defence, perhaps 20% of the exam covered upgrade topics, which neither the training class nor our work environment nor the VMware mock exam have anything to do with. So, some expanded scope in my reading, and I’ll sign up to retake the test in a month or so. I was hoping to have it out of the way before school starts up again in mid-May, but that wasn’t to be.

    *      *      *

    Lexi a-bed
    Lexi a-bed

    Lexi now retires before we do, often enough. For a nearly three year old dog, that’s rather pathetic. But she definitely thinks that she is people. This was last night, shortly after 9 PM.

    *      *      *

    At that time, I was still battling learning more about networking on OpenIndiana. The network was broken after an upgrade, and I had to learn how to fix it. But my normal tools for learning are manual pages. In this specific case, the manpage for ipadm was/is missing. Not a borked install, but actually missing from the distribution, a known bug. Hmmm. Still, thanks to generous souls who post online, the Goog helped me find the answer. I had to delete the interface, recreate it in a persistent mode, then set the IP address. Explicitly:

    $ ipadm delete-if e1000g0
    $ ipadm create-if e1000g0
    $ ipadm create-addr -T static -a Q.Z.N.Y/24 e1000g0/v4
    $ ipadm show-if -o all

    Yeah, you see that I bowdlerized my internal IP there, you can take it as read that it’s in a non-routable range and leave it at that. There are other steps to networking in a modern Solaris without using the bloody awful NWAM (network auto-magic) facility. But you can look those up. But when you want to set an IP on an interface with ipadm, and it whines, saying that you can’t set an IP on a temporary interface … just adapt the steps above.

  • Training Week

    A week of intense training, VMware vSphere 5 Fast Track presented by Global Knowledge, is now done. I had the benefit of a great instructor: Scott South. But my brain is bursting with information about this latest update to the VMware product line.

    Also, Spring session at UMUC is almost done for me. I’ve got one paper-ish thing to write this weekend, and then wait for the ‘A’. Yeah, but I’m not just being smug: I’ve got 86 points going into this last week, and 12.5 points still to be graded, so it’s a reasonably certain ‘A’. Much more statistically sound than playing the bloody Lottery, which I also did, just because of this: You can’t lose if you don’t play.

    The reading stack
    The reading stack

    Why do I share this boring picture with you? This is what happens to me when school is in session. Stuff I want to read is stacked up way behind schoolwork, etc. There’s Make in there, woodworking mags, and much more. There’s also a virtual stack in the Kindle. I’m going to start at the top of the physical stack and unwind from training week this evening.

    I’ll do the schoolwork tomorrow, and probably some yardwork on Sunday. Ciao!

  • Another Spring, Another Garden

    The snow peas are coming in fine …

    Snow peas coming up
    Snow peas coming up

    … although that might be a bit of a misnomer. It was nearly 80 yesterday. Fortunately the humidity didn’t match. We could still get a late cold snap, and even snow. But I really want to get more things started. Potatoes should do okay regardless:

    Where the potatoes are
    Where the potatoes are

    That looks boring now, but soon, soon. As the potatoes come up, I’ll sweep the earth in from the sides and mound over the potatoes, which should increase yield. And there at the bottom left, you can see my snow/frost preventer.

    Finally, a cold frame
    Finally, a cold frame

    In years past, I’ve started from seed in trays similar to those above. Sitting out in the weather, all it took was one frosty night to kill all my seedlings dead. I’d have to remember to bring them in at night, and put them out in the morning. Now I don’t have to do that. And since I don’t … I probably won’t need to. It’d be even cooler if I could put a temperature sensing system connected to a motor to crank that frame up and down at the appropriate times. But I can certainly go outside and pull the prop as necessary. The frame is hinged to the bed on the side away from the camera. The top is 3′ x 4′ x 1/8″ plexiglass, screwed to the top of the frame, and one center bar.

    I got all that done, and tools brought in, and pictures taken just as the rain started to come down. Apparently we’re due for an inch or two this weekend. I hope the potatoes like that.

     

  • Yum

    Tollhouse Cookies
    Tollhouse Cookies

    I’m just sayin’ … Life is occasionally good.

     

  • Argh III

    In my introduction conference entry for my CMIS class, I said I hate school group projects. At work it’s fine, people are motivated and interested – the mission gets accomplished. My dislike continues to be fueled by the current group project I’m participating in. I posted up template documents, did my part quickly, completely, and early to provide exemplar material to make it easy for my teammates to follow the template … and we needed everyone to the the first part done by last night. Of the other three folks, only one had anything done. Me == Sad.

    I’ve finished my Geology course – that’s the last of the General Education Requirements retired. All that’s left is upper division electives – the one that I’ve got three weeks left in now, two in the Summer session, and two in the Fall. Huzzah!

    So sorry for the delay in this post – my life is pretty bloody full right now, and daylight savings time sent me for a loop. Feeble excuses at best, but I’m here now…

    *     *     *

    Our condolences to the family, friends, and compatriots of Specialist Acosta

    • Spc. Edward J. Acosta, 21, of Hesperia, Calif., died March 5, in La Jolla, Calif., of injuries sustained Dec. 3, 2011, when his vehicle was struck by an improvised-explosive device in Wardak province, Afghanistan.

  • I’ll rest when I’m dead

    I took off from work a couple of hours early on Friday.

    At that time, I was still feeling a bit off my feed – this whatever it is that isn’t a cold anymore has been kicking my ass. So I “took it easy” this weekend: I slept in past eight both days! Thanks, Lexi!!!

    After that, though, no rest for the wicked. I put in about 12 hours writing for both classes yesterday. Today: Shopping, washed the car, cleaned the dining room, weeded out the raised beds, and seeded/prepared for snow peas. Then I reviewed the writing I did yesterday, and submitted the assignment I could. The other one doesn’t have a class link for submission yet, argh! Now THAT’S frustrating.

    Oh, yeah, and the bug’s still got me, more’s the pity. Still plugging away with the antibiotics, fluids, and other OTC meds.

    *     *     *

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

    Maj. Robert J. Marchanti II, 48, of Baltimore, Maryland, died Feb. 25, from  wounds received during an attack at the Interior Ministry, Kabul, Afghanistan.

    On Feb. 25, the armed forces medical examiner at the Dover Port Mortuary in Dover, Del., positively identified the remains of Staff Sgt. Ahmed K. Altaie, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. On Dec. 11, 2006, a casualty review board declared Altaie “missing – captured” after his disappearance in Baghdad, Iraq on Oct. 23, 2006.

    Cpl. Conner T. Lowry, 24, of Chicago, Illinois, died March 1 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

    Staff Sgt. Jordan L. Bear, 25, of Denver, Colorado, died Mar. 1, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from small arms fire during an attack on his base.

    Pfc. Payton A. Jones, 19, of Marble Falls, Texas, died Mar. 1, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from small arms fire during an attack on his base.

  • Columbus Revisited

    Formerly lurking, kind reader Doug was sad to read of my problems in Columbus (as you might see in a comment to the prior post).

    Let me be clear – the problems in Columbus were those of my cold virus, a car rental company, and an airline. Columbus has always been a gracious and pleasant place for me to visit – everyone is seriously NICE! That’s probably a middle-of-the-country thing that’s also related to the pace of life far away from the loons (like me) on either coast.

    I haven’t seen much of the town yet – I usually fly in, work, and fly out again. However, I may try to visit during one of the nicer-weather times of the year … though it wasn’t too bad for mid-February: rain and 40’s is way better than snow/ice and teens. I’ll let you know, Doug!

    Through the cold, another school assignment turned in each of the last two days. That and a few hours and a few hundred bucks on new tires yesterday. Sigh. I’m still on track, and it’ll get a bit better in another two weeks, once the one class is done with. Two eight week classes with overlap leads to a hellish pace during the overlap time. I’ll have to pay attention to scheduling for the summer session, or the garden might die…

    *     *     *

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

    • Capt. Ryan P. Hall, 30, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, died February 18 when his U-28 aircraft was involved in an accident near Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa.
    • Capt. Nicholas S. Whitlock, 29, of Newnan, Georgia, died February 18 when his U-28 aircraft was involved in an accident near Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa.
    • 1st Lt. Justin J. Wilkens, 26, of Bend, Oregon, died February 18 when his U-28 aircraft was involved in an accident near Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa.
    • Senior Airman Julian S. Scholten, 26, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, died February 18 when his U-28 aircraft was involved in an accident near Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa.
    • Sgt. Allen R. McKenna Jr., 28, of Noble, Oklahoma, died Feb. 21 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan.
    • Sgt. Joshua A. Born, 25, of Niceville, Florida, died Feb. 23, in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit came under small arms fire.
    • Cpl. Timothy J. Conrad Jr., 22, of Roanoke, Virginia, died Feb. 23, in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit came under small arms fire.
    • Lt. Col. John D. Loftis, 44, of Paducah, Kentucky, died Feb. 25 from wounds received during an attack at the Interior Ministry, Kabul, Afghanistan.