Catch-up Time…

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Weirdly, the other night (Wednesday?) both of the touch lamps we use as bedside light broke and would no longer light. The proximal event was a light-bulb blowout on Marcia’s side (one of three small bulbs). I’ve observed in the past that the touch lamp circuitry, while incredibly convenient, seems to be terribly fragile (at least in consumer-grade gear) to spikes and dips. So yesterday evening I trundled down to Lowes and picked up a couple of three-way manually switched lamps and a pair of three-way CFL bulbs. Bloody profit-taking on the LED “bulbs” keeps those prices too high.

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In Marcia news, on Tuesday evening, she sprained a hamstring attachment point while straightening her leg to sit in the recliner. The surgeon’s office was called on Wednesday morning, and they waved her off of PT for the day, and saw her on suture removal day: Thursday, in the morning. 30 staples were removed, and two different PAs (Physician Assistant) evaluated her issues. With a modified PT order in hand, she went to PT on Thursday evening (where she ROCKED, and was graduated from walker to cane) and again on Friday morning, where she pushed really hard again. She’s making great progress, but pain is the price of progress. She doesn’t like that part so very much.

On the extra-good news front, they’ve told her she can stop taking rat poison on the 30th, and terminate the wearing of the compression stockings then, too. The process around the blood thinner and the stockings is pretty intense, and consumes a not-inconsiderable portion of each day.

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I’m finally getting caught up on the school work. The geology class is rolling, and has lots of reading and a fair amount of writing involved. I’ve finally done all of the work for week one, and forging ahead into week two’s work, since I want to be well ahead of the game before my Principles of Software Engineering course starts on 6 February.

Physical Therapy with a Chance of Walking

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Marcia continues to make stellar progress with her PT exercises – straight leg lifts that could not be done without an assist four days ago are now done on leg strength alone, and twice as high as before. Rockin’! She’s also doing 10-15 minute sessions of laps on the main floor of the house with her walker, and pain management is improving daily. Some neighbors dropped by today, with conversation, balloon, and chocolate to share with Marcia – she enjoyed the little bit of company, I think.

MLK day tomorrow, then I’ll do some work in the ensuing four days, maybe even some AT the office. Maybe the work will amount to half- or three quarter-days, wrapped around blood tests, staples out, and physical therapy for Marcia.

School “Spring” session starts for me on Tuesday, as well. Of course I’ve been pre-reading… The first class this session is also the last of my general education requirement courses, I’m taking Geology 100. I’m sure to learn a thing or two. The next class starts a couple of weeks down the road: Principles of Software Engineering. It’s an upper division elective class – all I have left are those.

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

  • Staff Sgt. Jonathan M. Metzger, 32, of Indianapolis, Indiana, died Jan. 6 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Robert J. Tauteris Jr., 44, of Hamlet, Indiana, died Jan. 6 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Christopher A. Patterson, 20, of Aurora, Illinois, died Jan. 6 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Brian J. Leonhardt, 21, of Merrillville, Indiana, died Jan. 6 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Dustin P. Napier, 20, of London, Kentucky, died Jan. 8 in Zabul province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained from enemy small-arms fire.
  • Pfc. Michael W. Pyron, 30, of Hopewell, Virginia, died Jan. 10 in Parwan province, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Neil I. Turner, 21, of Tacoma, Washington, died Jan. 11, in Logar province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident.

JoCo Artificial Heart Package

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Among the contents therein is the signed CD, which I most incautiously tore whilst attempting a manual decoupling of the liner notes from the case. Sigh. So I used an obtrusive and intimately personal repair method: thin strips of electrical tape. They seem most appropriate, given the title and image of the album. The good news is that it also arrived in Vinyl!

A nearly broken ArtHeart

A nearly broken ArtHeart

Happy Dancing All Around…

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Okay, not Marcia – she’s not going to be dancing for a bit, but she’s got a whole new left knee joint now. Surgery was Monday at 0730 at AAMC, done by Dr. Louis Ruland. He’s a great orthopedist, and Marcia can probably say that with more assurance than I can. He kept her on her feet for nearly 10 years, and when the joint damage was too bad for any further repairs, he’s given her a whole new knee to work with.

By Monday evening, they had her on her feet for a quick evaluation, believe it or not! The last three days have been full of walking about the floor, physical therapy sessions morning and evening, and naps and such. I was making two trips out there a day, to participate (coach) for the PT sessions, and deliver home roasted and brewed coffee. Tomorrow is the first outpatient PT session, at a place close by the house.

Also twice a week, we have blood tests, because they’ve got her taking rat poison, errr, Warfarin(tm), errrr, Coumadin(tm) for the next four weeks. I presume that the compromised circulation from the knee surgery makes clot formation a lot more prevalent, and the thinner helps keep that in check. Anyway, the twice-a-week labs allow them to adjust her dosage and keep her in the right range.

Late next week, the staples come out, and the work continues.

Oh, yeah. Lexi was really, REALLY happy to see Marcia.

It’s A Dog’s Life, Part 42

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I wandered into the bedroom to see if the dog was ready for her last walk of the day …

Lexi in repose

Lexi in repose

This was an unscripted pose, what amused me was that she didn’t bother moving while I strolled back to my office to grab the camera. Clearly the little dog does her best to own a California King.

 

 

The Bionic Woman

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Not the 70’s TV show starring Lindsay Wagner, but perhaps, one day, Marcia. She takes one step that direction this week, getting a knee replacement done. We’ve been doing a bit of prep for that, which has kept me pretty busy outside of work, so sorry. Not much else to report until I report how the surgery went, later this coming week.

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

Petty Officer 1st Class Chad R. Regelin, 24, of Cottonwood, Calif., died Jan. 2 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Senior Airman Bryan R. Bell, 23, of Erie, Pennsylvania, died Jan. 5 in Shir Ghazay, Helmand province, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.

Tech. Sgt. Matthew S. Schwartz, 34, of Traverse City, Michigan, died Jan. 5 in Shir Ghazay, Helmand province, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.

Airman 1st Class Matthew R. Seidler, 24, of Westminster, Maryland, died Jan. 5 in Shir Ghazay, Helmand province, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.

Welcome to 2012.

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Things that might happen this year:

  1. Universe wraps things up, according to an interpretation of the Mayan calendar.
  2. I finish my tertiary education, and get on with life.
  3. The Eurozone dissolves, most of Europe defaults on euro debt, global depression kickoff.
  4. Obama can’t fix the depression, and Ron Paul wins the Presidency.

Two of those are, I think, likely. Observe that I make no REALLY absurd claims about food or exercise. That’d just be crazytalk.

I do note that the loonier portions of Iraq are claiming a victory over the US because we finally withdrew the last of our combat troops from that cesspit of a made-up country. We had one primary goal – dispose of Saddam. Done. We had a secondary goal, which is to leave that country in a fairly stable sovereign condition. Silly secondary goal: expensive in blood and treasure, and pointless since their second favorite thing after killing Americans is killing and torturing each other. Dumbasses.

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

  • Staff Sgt. Joseph J. Altmann, 27, of Marshfield, Wisconsin, died Dec. 25, in Kunar province Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire.
  • Sgt. Noah M. Korte, 29, of Lake Elsinore, California, died Dec. 27, in Paktia, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Kurt W. Kern, 24, of McAllen, Texas, died Dec. 27, in Paktia, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Justin M. Whitmire, 20, of Easley, South Carolina, died Dec. 27, in Paktia, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Petty Officer Stacy O. Johnson, 35, of Rolling Fork, Mississippi, died July 18, while supporting operations in Bahrain.
  •  Spc. Pernell J. Herrera, 33, of Espanola, New Mexico, died Dec. 31, in Helmand province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered in a non-combat incident.

To Be Continued

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And here I am. So, Node.js. First, the lawyer crap: Node.js is a trademark of Joyent. I guess I have to say that, but seriously? Probably, just to protect the project from ne’er-do-wells out here on teh ‘tubes. It’s a sanely licensed project that provides good attribution to the bundled dependencies. I expect nothing less than good open source citizenship from the smart folks at Joyent.

Anyway, Node.js is a hunk of code and libraries that runs on the server-side of the HTML/XHTML transactional pipeline, and allows mind-bendingly simple code to do neat things. Is it secure? I dunno. Is it fast? I haven’t tested that. Is it cool enough for me to download, build, install, and run a web-based file server implemented in about 19 lines of code? Abso-freakin-lutely! If you like web frameworks and such stuff, you owe it to yourself to look into Node.js. You can learn more from an O’Reilly post, What is Node.js?

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Now,DTrace. Why do I *REALLY* want to run Solaris and related operating systems? Two mega-features: ZFS and DTrace. ZFS rocks. DTrace rocks on steroids, all across the universe. (There’s also Zones, and Crossbow, and … there’s so much cool stuff to learn in the OS that used be be Sun’s.) But DTrace definitely takes the cake. And I say that without knowing how to use but the smallest part, yet. DTrace will instrument and help you debug systems, code, and network traffic (that hits your system). DTrace provides the ability to see into places that truss and strace only dream of after dropping massive quantities of hallucinogens. DTrace makes the best chocolate chip cookies on the planet. Okay, not the last bit, but it would if someone taught it how to cook.

I support some interestingly complicated (if small-ish in scale) Solaris-based applications and databases. DTrace gives me the right toolbox to properly support the developers and DBAs.  What can DTrace do? Simple examples abound, just search for DTrace one liners on your search engine of choice. When you want to learn more than web surfing and a few articles online will teach you, do what I did and pick up your own copy of DTrace by Brendan Gregg and Jim Mauro. I’m slowly working my way through the book, using my install of OpenIndiana as my test platform.

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 The coffee, a Nicaragua Mozonte, it is roasted. And that reminds me, I’m down to three pounds on hand. That’s not much, time to visit Sweet Maria’s. Ciao!

 

 

Linux remodel, OpenIndiana build 151a, Node.js, and the DTrace Book

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Lots of computing updates going on. It all started last week …

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It was the Thursday before Christmas, or Wednesday perhaps, the details blur just a bit. I’ve not been using the Linux box formerly known as Slartibartfast as a desktop machine for quite a while now. My old MacBook Pro got refurbished with a small-ish SSD drive, and that’s the primary desktop system these days. It sits in a custom upright support that I created for the purpose a couple of years ago, and finally put to use

Darlion, the sedentary MacBook Pro

Darlion, the sedentary MacBook Pro

Darlion — the OS X Lion -enabled former Darla — sits forlorn at home each day while the Air, known as Agog, travels with me now. But that’s another story. Anyway, the Ubuntu Linux box needed a shedload of updates, so I let it update. Ahem. That was a mistake.

When I was done, the system no longer booted properly. I’d managed to snag not a set of updates for my system, but a distribution upgrade to the latest and greatest ‘buntu. That’s all well and good, but I had lots of system-level customizations, especially on the networking side, that simply didn’t work anymore. Ethernet devices were renamed, the bloody network manager thing from Hell made a reappearance, and other stuff related to dbus and udev flatlined. That I was unhappy was an understatement, especially since it’s still my fault. I managed that system from a functional desktop that operated most of the time as a fairly reliable home server into a flakey piece of crap that didn’t boot. Me, I did this.

It’s ten o’clock at night on a working evening … I’m not getting this fixed today. Marcia’s nightly backups can skip a night, so can my nightly backups from the web (I back up our webs, MySQL databases, etc. every night into a rolling pattern that lets me restore at intervals back at least 60 days). So the backups just fail out overnight, and by Friday evening, I had time to do the work. Or so I thought.

I tried to get an ISO for Ubuntu LTS 10/04 (the long term support version: LTS) that would install. By around 2300 that night, I was ready to adjust the system with the aluminum LART [1] I keep in the house. I walked away, and re-approached the problem in the morning. Finally, on the fifth optical disc, and following two failures with USB media tries, I got Ubuntu Server 11/10 installed. That’s good for three years worth of security updates, and maybe I’ll have migrated to something else before then. I thought hard about OpenIndiana … but that’s the next chapter in the story.

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Since I was rebuilding the system from scratch, I backed up the data I cared about separately from the normal weekly backups onto a pair of disks that weren’t part of the restructuring. I then dismantled both midsize towers, at least as far as storage was concerned.

For the purposes of conversation, let’s refer to these machines by the names they assumed at  the end of the process: Serenity, the Ubuntu Linux home server, and Hellboy, the OpenIndiana build 151a server and Gaming OS box. Both have quad-core processors (but Hellboy’s is a bit faster, and has VTS extensions, for later experimentation with Zones and KVM). Both have plenty of RAM, at 4G and 8G respectively.

I decommissioned the PCIe 1x 3Ware RAID card out of Serenity, and pulled the two 750G drives out of that system. I also pulled three 1TB drives, and a 500G drive out of Hellboy. All I left there was the 500G Windows 7 system disk. I put two of those 1TB drives into Serenity, and built them into a software RAID0 mirror set, which is fine for my purposes, and removed the dependency on the “custom” 3Ware RAID card. The performance hit for the purposes of this machine is negligible.

The Ubuntu install on Serenity is fine, and everything works. Why didn’t I go with a Red Hat or derivative? I’ve got current scripts with dependencies on packages that are trivial to acquire and install on Ubuntu, and I wanted this done before Christmas. Like I said, later. I configured the DNS, Samba, NTP and SSH services that Serenity provides, transcribing configs and updating as necessary from my backups. Then I restored the 500G or so of Userland data, and nearly everything was working again. I had to do some tuning on Marcia’s box to make backups work again, and modify some of her mapped drives to be happy with the new system, but that took no time at all. Putting the newer, larger drives into Serenity was actually a power-draw win, too! That system is only pulling about 70 watts at idle, where it was nearly 90 watts with the older drives and RAID card in play.

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Next I reinstalled OpenIndiana build 151a onto Hellboy. This time, Hellboy got the two 750G drives as a single ZFS rpool mirror set, and that’s the extent of that system. It’s running, I can experiment with Zones and DTrace and Node.js there, and it doesn’t need to be running 24/7.

Why OpenIndiana? It’s one of the distributions of Illumos, the carrier of the OpenSolaris torch after Oracle abandoned that codebase in 2010. Do you want more Solaris history than that, leading up to what happened? Watch Bryan Cantrill’s Fork, Yeah! presentation from LISA 2011. What an awesome talk! Still, why OpenIndiana? I really like Solaris, but I don’t really want to spend the $2K/year which is the only way to legally license and keep updated Solaris on non-SUNOracle hardware. I want a Solaris playspace at home, and OpenIndiana provides that. And if the rumors are true, which is that internal to Oracle, Solaris is really just being treated as firmware for Oracle storage and database appliances, then the only general purpose computing inheritor of the Solaris codebase will be something evolved from/through Illumos. DTrace is cool. ZFS is über-cool. Zones are super-cool. And I want to play there, in my “spare time.”

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Node.js and the DTrace book. That’ll have to wait for a pending post, I want supper! Ciao!

[1] LART – Luser Attitude Realignment Tool, in this case an aluminum baseball bat.

 

Happy Kwanzicamas

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A quiet day at home for us. Happily, our combat forces appear to be done in Iraq, and perhaps mostly at home with their families, at least until that notably unstable “country” blows up again. I think we have no further responsibility to send young men and women there there die, come the day that decision must be made. Aaaaand, we still have a bunch of folks in harm’s way in Afghanistan. Our thoughts are with them and their families this holiday season.

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I was momentarily hopeful, but that gift was denied – we have one casualty reported from Afghanistan in the last week. Our condolences to Specialist Bragg’s family, friends, and unit on the loss of one more warrior:

  • Spc. Mikayla A. Bragg, 21, of Longview, Washington, died Dec. 21 in Khowst province, Afghanistan.