The Living Room Reboot

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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!

What? Wait.

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Preparing the living room for a furniture delivery tomorrow means emptying the whole thing out, back to the walls. New rug and pad, etc. But while I’m moving stuff and cleaning stuff, I hear barking, and go to look:

Lexi innovates a new vantage point

Lexi innovates a new vantage point

Now, I have some work (remote to the office) work to do. Ciao!

AND a dollar Short

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Yep, I’m a day late with this. The weekend got away from me, but I did get a lot done. Not a lot in the garden, but the garden’s doing fine on it’s own right now:

Bilbrey garden 21 May 2012

Bilbrey garden 21 May 2012

As you can almost tell even in the small format, the peas are going wild, as are the potatoes. Everything else is just trying not to get left in the dust. But it’s early days for this growing season.

The old lawn mower went the way of Fat Albert’s car – spitting fuel sideways and back while making a lot of noise. It wasn’t an expensive one, but the expense and delays I would incur to fix it means that new makes more sense, so I bought a new Troy-Bilt self-propelled mower on Saturday. Marcia keeps asking me if I want a tractor or a zero-turn riding mower … But for the cost of an inexpensive tractor, I can buy five of the mowers I bought on Saturday. So for now, I walk. Also, the Troy-Bilt has 20% more horses than the old Toro, and doesn’t bog down in the tall grass where the Toro would fall over. So, win-win.

The first week of my database “capstone” course is also done. Gonna be a bloody busy summer. I’m very happy, though, to be taking another class taught by Reggie Haseltine. He’s one of the best instructors I’ve had, full stop.

*      *      *

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

1st Lt. Alejo R. Thompson, 30, of Yuma, Arizona, died May 11 in Bagram, Afghanistan, when enemy forces attacked his unit with small-arms fire.

Sgt. Wade D. Wilson, 22, of Normangee, Texas, died May 11 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Spc. Alex Hernandez III, 21, of Round Rock, Texas, died May 12, in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Sgt. Brian L. Walker, 25, of Lucerne Valley, California, died May 13, in Bowri Tana, Afghanistan, when the enemy attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.

Pfc. Richard L. McNulty III, 22, Rolla, Missouri, died May 13, in Bowri Tana, Afghanistan, when the enemy attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.

Staff Sgt. Israel P. Nuanes, 38, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, died May 12, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained during an enemy attack with an improvised explosive device.

Sgt. Michael J. Knapp, 28, of Overland Park, Kansas, died May 18, in Asadabad, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an indirect fire.

Sgt. Jabraun S. Knox, 23, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, died May 18, in Asadabad, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an indirect fire.

Garden Progress

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Moving right along, I managed to take a picture this evening as the clouds started rolling back in. Here’s the state of the garden today:

Garden, 15 May 2012

Garden, 15 May 2012

The potatoes are coming in nicely, as are all the other plants. The snow peas … they’re in production. I’m pulling a meal’s worth out every two days, and they’re barely started yet.

*      *      *

School is started too, and for grins, the first project in CMIS 485, the capstone course for databases, involves PHP and an Access database. Yeah, Access. Whatever. I’ve mostly completed the design of the required tables based upon the ERD, and I’ve got one question into the instructor about apparently duplicated fields. Beyond that, I’m going to roll as fast as I can in this class, getting ahead before the next class starts in three weeks from yesterday.

Another Sunday

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My day started in New Jersey. Seriously. I spent Thursday evening through this morning in New Brunswick, New Jersey attending PICC’12. What a great conference. Sponsored by LOPSA, and hosted by the New Jersey chapter of LOPSA, it was two superb days of new friends, meeting in meatspace folks I only knew electronically, good food, and some awesome technical training classes. My major focus this time around was on configuration management, security, and IPv6.

I can’t recommend this conference highly enough. Only a three hour drive for me, it’s also right close to the train and near to Newark airport. Think about it for next year for yourself. Oh, yeah, it’s inexpensive, too. Conf + food + hotel + gas was under $900.

Special thanks to William Bilancio, Thomas Uphill & Benjamin Rose, Aleksey Tsalolikhin, Shumon Huque, and Jesse Trucks. These folks were crucial to making the conference super for me.

*      *      *

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

Master Sgt. Gregory L. Childs, 38, Warren, Arkansas, died May 4, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Sgt. John P. Huling, 25, of West Chester, Ohio, died May 6 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Thomas K. Fogarty, 30, of Alameda, California, died May 6, in Ahmad-Kheyl, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

2nd Lt. David E. Rylander, 23, of Stow, Ohio, died May 2 in Logar province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Spc. Junot M. L. Cochilus, 34, of Charlotte, North Carolina, died May 2 in Logar province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Sgt. Jacob M. Schwallie, 22, of Clarksville, Tennessee, died May 7, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Spc. Chase S. Marta, 24, of Chico, California, died May 7, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Pfc. Dustin D. Gross, 19, of Jeffersonville, Kentucky, died May 7, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Petty Officer Second Class Jorge Luis Velasquez, 35, of Houston, Texas, died as a result of a non-combat related incident in Manama, Bahrain.

Best Two Out of Three

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One more day of weekend to go – I’m taking Monday off work, for a variety of reasons, some of which will be explained later. But Saturday and Sunday I was in the yard, planting: Both in front and in back. That process is pretty much done. I didn’t get the watering system fettled for the season yet, and that was my original goal … but the rest of the plants was an important part, too. So, tomorrow for that, I think. Pictures tomorrow, too.

I also have to replace the kitchen sink faucet, since it gave up the ghost just before supper tonight. Fortunately, it wasn’t a catastrophic water-everywhere type of #FAIL, just a handle came off, broken bits inside, can’t get any water out at all type of #FAIL. C’est la vie.

*      *      *

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

  • Master Sgt. Scott E. Pruitt, 38, of Gautier, Mississippi, died April 28 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Christian R. Sannicolas, 20, Anaheim, California, died April 28, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Nicholas M. Dickhut, 23, of Rochester, Minnesota, died April 30 in Zharay, Afghanistan, from wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.
  • Capt. Bruce K. Clark, 43, Spencerport, New York, died May 1, in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan.
  • Staff Sgt. Zachary H. Hargrove, 32, of Wichita, Kansas, died May 3 in Bagram, Afghanistan.

Garden and War

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Yesterday, I mowed the yards, and little else, since rain was inbound. We got another 2/10″, which is all to the good – perhaps a total of 1.5″ over the last week. That’d be a wonderful regular event.

Today, I planted all the seedlings in the garden.

Seedlings in the Garden

Seedlings in the Garden

It doesn’t look like much right now – 28 or so tiny tomato seedlings spread out through two beds, zucchini and butternut squash, cucumbers, and half-inch tall jalapeño plants. None of the cerrano peppers germinated. I’ve got spares of some of the tomatoes bedded for now where the cold frame was, in case of a late failure … and everything’s documented, so that I can preserve seeds for next year from this crop. The main purpose for this picture is to provide a baseline for the jungle to come.

Snow peas and tomato seedlings

Snow peas and tomato seedlings

The snow peas are doing very well. All about eight inches tall, and starting to flower. I sense YUM in our future.

*      *      *

Walking the dog after her supper tonight, we were lucky that her feet weren’t cut on the broken glass left behind by an asshat who was done with her bottle of Smirnoff. It covered a chunk of sidewalk. Fortunately, Lexi was trailing me, so that when I crunched, I stopped and made her walk around. After the walk I went back and swept it up and disposed of it. I suppose it’s true in any neighborhood – some are always going to be asshats.

*      *      *

A bad week in Afghanistan for our troops, sadly. Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

Staff Sgt. Joseph H. Fankhauser, 30, of Mason, Texas, died April 22 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

1st Lt. Jonathan P. Walsh, 28, Cobb, Georgia, died April 22 in Paktia, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Pfc. Michael J. Metcalf, 22, Boynton Beach, Florida, died April 22 in Paktia, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Chief Warrant Officer Nicholas S. Johnson, 27, of San Diego, California, died April 19, in Helmand province, Afghanistan, when his Black Hawk (UH-60) crashed.

Chief Warrant Officer Don C. Viray, 25, of Waipahu, Hawaii, died April 19, in Helmand province, Afghanistan, when his Black Hawk (UH-60) crashed.

Sgt. Chris J. Workman, 33, of Boise, Idaho, died April 19, in Helmand province, Afghanistan, when his Black Hawk (UH-60) crashed.

Sgt. Dean R. Shaffer, 23, of Pekin, Illinois, died April 19, in Helmand province, Afghanistan, when his Black Hawk (UH-60) crashed.

Spc. Manuel J. Vasquez, 22, of West Sacramento, California, died April 24 in Paktika province, Afghanistan.

Spc. Benjamin H. Neal, 21, of Orfordville, Wisconsin, died April 25 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Spc. Jason K. Edens, 22, of Franklin, Tennessee, died April 26, in Bethesda, Md., of wounds sustained April 15, in Laghman province, Afghanistan, when the enemy attacked his unit with small arms fire.

Spc. Moises J. Gonzalez, 29, Huntington, California, died April 25, in Balkh province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle rolled over.

Lt. Christopher E. Mosko, 28, of Pittsford, New York, died April 26 while conducting combat operations in Nawa district, Ghazni province, Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Brandon F. Eggleston, 29, of Candler, North Carolina, died April 26, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.

Sgt. Dick A. Lee Jr., 31, of Orange Park, Florida, died April 26, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.

Staff Sgt. Andrew T. Brittonmihalo, 25, of Simi Valley, California, died April 25, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained from small arms fire.

Eventful

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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.

So Much For Relaxing…

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I was going to take a weekend to relax. Really I was. But I’m on call, see. So my Saturday started with a page at 0608 – a dead system. I was at the office by 0715, and fixed that, then worked on a couple of other tasks before heading back home. So … I washed the car, cut the lawns, finished the mulching, and cleaned up the side yard. That put paid to Saturday.

Today, Darlion (nee´ Harmony), the 2007 MacBook Pro was laid to rest. It had shut itself off several times in the last couple of weeks. Just a matter of time, really, until it ate data I cared about. So I migrated everything off the system, and issued the (probably) final shutdown command. Supper out tonight at Mi Hacienda with Marcia and LindaRose, yum.

*      *      *

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

  • Staff Sgt. David P. Nowaczyk, 32, of Dyer, Indiana, died April 15, in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his vehicle was attacked with an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Cpl. Aaron M. Faust, 22, Louisville, Kentucky, died April 15 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Capt. Michael C. Braden, 31, of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, died April 18 in Bagram, Afghanistan.

Apologies

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Today, I was at work by 0555. We finished up the necessary work, I dropped by the nursery to pick up a couple more bags of mulch, and I was home by noon. So that’s a good thing.

A bad thing is that I managed to not push the publish button on last Sunday’s second post: My apologies, as I really don’t like shirking on my acknowledgement of the sacrifices made on our behalf by the men and women of our Armed Forces.

*      *      *

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

  • Spc. James E. Dutton, 25, of Checotah, Oklahoma, died March 31, in Logar province, Afghanistan.
  • Cpl. Michael J. Palacio, 23, of Lake Elsinore, California, died March 29 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Staff Sgt. Christopher L. Brown, 26, of Columbus, Ohio, died April 3, in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained after he was attacked with an improvised explosive device while on a dismounted patrol.
  • Cpl. Christopher D. Bordoni, 21, of Ithaca, New York, died April 3 of wounds sustained Jan. 18, 2012, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Capt. Nicholas J. Rozanski, 36, of Dublin, Ohio, died April 4, in Faryab province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained during an enemy attack by a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey J. Rieck, 45, of Columbus, Ohio, died April 4, in Faryab province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained during an enemy attack by a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. 1st Class Shawn T. Hannon, 44, of Grove City, Ohio, died April 4, in Faryab province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained during an enemy attack by a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device.
  • Cpl. Alex Martinez, 21, of Elgin, Illinois, died April 5 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Jeffrey L. White, Jr., 21, of Catawissa, Montana, died April 3, in Khost province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Antonio C. Burnside, 31, of Great Falls, Montana, died Apr. 6 at Ghanzi province, Afghanistan of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire.
  • Staff Sgt. Tyler J. Smith, 24, of Licking, Missouri, died April 3, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when he was attacked with an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Constructionman Trevor J. Stanley, 22, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, died April 7 while deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.
  • Lance Cpl. Ramon T. Kaipat, 22, of Tacoma, Washington, died April 11 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Philip C. S. Schiller, 21, of The Colony, Texas, died April 11 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.
  • Lance Cpl. Abraham Tarwoe, 25, Providence, Rhode Island, died April 12 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Sgt. Tanner S. Higgins, 23, of Yantis, Texas, died Apr. 14 in Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.