News on BonesMoses.org

Secret Agent

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 13:46:28 -0500

Last week I started working on a project, and this time I wanted to see what would happen if I did what all the “cool kids” are doing and “vibe coded” most of it. Let me just say it was an absolute disaster. I ended up with about 18k lines of iffy spaghetti code that only kind of does what I asked, is chock full of bugs, and isn’t anything I would ever willingly publish in my name.

I (Don't) Want My MTG

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 11:08:32 -0600

Back when I was a Sophomore in High School, my incredibly astute power of observation noticed a couple friends playing a card game after finishing some work in our Russian class. They asked if I wanted to try it, and I shrugged and assented, because hey, why not? A Short History I had no idea what I was doing. After the draw phase, I ended up with various cards and a Royal Assassin, which you can use to destroy a tapped creature.

The Lower 48

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 14:31:00 -0500

I turned 48 last week, and it was almost as uneventful as I’d hoped. I preemptively took the week off so I spent most of the time relaxing, eating out occasionally, or otherwise doing absolutely nothing constructive. I really needed that. The only problem is that I started coming down with some kind of cold on the 10th. It progressed into an insanely sore throat that resembled gargling rusty razor blades, which I suspected was either the current variant of Covid dubbed razor-blade throat or strep.

Bittersweet Eulogy

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 13:57:55 -0500

Well I’ve never prayed, but tonight I’m on my knees, yeah I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah – The Verve The primary event in the news since September 10th is the assassination of Charlie Kirk. When I first heard that he’d been shot, my first instinct was simply to exclaim, “No way. What?!” It’s always a surreal feeling to know that a prominent figure has been attacked, because at least for my part, it’s difficult to believe anyone would be so blind.

Five Day Fast

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 15:33:09 -0500

Last week I’d mentioned I was taking part in a 5-day fast. That went from Monday the 25th to Friday the 29th of August. I never really explained why I would do such a thing, but it really just boils down to “I wanted to see if I could do it.” I did a 3-day fast back in 2022, and figured I could extend it a bit to five days since I felt basically OK on the beginning of day four.

Busy as Hell

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 19:50:18 -0500

Boy have I not posted in a while. As excuses go, I actually have a pretty good one for once: I’ve been swamped in being ridiculously productive. The best part about it is that it’s been so fun I don’t even mind. And to think it all started when I finished a video game. Beginning the Expedition I think this deserves a bit of backstory. I completed a game called Expedition 33 back in June, and it was so good I played through it a second time in New Game+.

Travel Shmavel

Sat, 03 May 2025 05:35:58 -0500

I may finally have some respite from my hectic schedule full of flying all over the continental United States. On the other hand, I’m typing this very post from the airport, so perhaps not? The yearly EdgeFest company event was the last item on my itinerary after several conferences, and let’s just say the return trip is an ongoing dumpster fire. EdgeFest itself was long, because the team that works on the Spock extension decided to get together and get some actual work done before festivities and other requisite meetings.

I've Got Mail

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 15:29:46 -0600

I’ve finally gotten tired of maintaining my own mail server. I’ve been maintaining it since 1999 in one way or another, and I think it’s just time to take it behind the shed and put it out of my misery.

As to how I reached this decision and what I intend to do about it, well… that’s a story.

Around the World

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 14:14:24 -0600

This year has gotten off to an utterly ridiculous start. Now that I’m working with pgEdge, they’re encouraging me to submit to every possible conference that will have me. So I have. In addition to that, there are a few company events which require travel, so I’m globe-trotting for those too. All in all, this is what my schedule looks like this year so far: Feb 3-7 - Spock developer symposium in Alexandria March 5-8 - Presenting What’s our Vector, Victor?

Living on the Edge

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 13:04:43 -0600

I’ve been somewhat tight-lipped about my job hunt, but not through any particular desire to obfuscate. No, I’ve just been laying low because I caught Covid right before Christmas and spent the last couple weeks recuperating. Just my luck, getting sick again so soon after whatever got me following Thanksgiving, and effectively missing the holidays as a consequence. Still, I had an informal offer before being incapacitated, so I only had to worry about recovering.

PG Phriday: Whats Our Vector Victor

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 09:12:04 -0600

Postgres Conference Seattle 2024 partnered up with PASS this year to present a united database front. They accepted my “What’s our Vector, Victor?” talk, which I graciously gave on the first day of the conference. If you weren’t there and missed out on the fun, this is your chance to catch up and maybe get a bit more information that was cut for length. Let me tell you why RAG is the future, and how Postgres and pg_vectorize make it a reality.

On the Road Again

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 15:31:10 -0600

Things always start in an unassuming way, don’t they? Having recently returned from a short paternity leave, the Tembo CTO wanted a short meeting last Friday morning, and I assumed it was so he could catch up with our projects. Instead, he informed me that the company was changing direction, and my services would no longer be necessary. I knew the company was beginning a sharp pivot, but was hoping my project would survive the tumult.

Building Blocks and Stepping Stones

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 17:41:56 -0600

Last week I attended Postgres Conference Seattle 2024 as a speaker for two sessions. The first, titled “What’s our Vector, Victor?” discussed the merits of the pg_vectorize extension for Postgres. The second, titled “Kubernetes Killed the High Availability Star” served an advocacy piece for the ultimate deprecation of Postgres High Availability tooling in general. On day two of the event, I ended up having a long conversation about system architecture with Harry Pierson from DBOS.

I'm Not Voting for Trump

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 18:18:31 -0500

There seems to be a lot of debate on both sides of the political aisle, and I’m far from a disinterested observer. While I strive to remain objectively detached in most circumstances, I’ve found that this particular election cycle makes that impossible. Being the polarizing figure that he is, the fundamental reason for this is obviously Donald J. Trump. This isn’t click-bait; I’m not voting for him. The reason for that is much more nuanced than some might expect, so I feel it’s important to explain my reasoning.

A Birthday Epiphany

Sat, 28 Sep 2024 15:32:35 -0500

I never got around to it, and I was going to write about how my birthday went last week, but I just experienced a kind of “Eureka” moment. It was a nice day where Jen and I went to brunch at Original Pancake House, did a bit of shopping for pants and other necessities, and then had dinner at Baxter’s Grille. I had a ribeye (of course) and I indulged myself with their flourless chocolate truffle cake.

Sustained Inaction

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 16:23:25 -0500

I woke up from a dream this morning where someone from my past was being incredibly unfair to me. At some point, I exploded in rage and started to yell about said injustice, and referenced being autistic. This being a dream, the person felt really bad about how they were treating me, and that’s about all I can remember. It’s very common for my dreams to “prime” me for the rest of the day, so of course I spent the next hour or so pondering my past as a result.

Bouncing of Ideas

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 16:00:00 +0000

This is a verbatim conversation I had with an older LLaMa 3 model hosted on my PC via Ollama a few days ago. It started because I wanted a translation for the name of an X account named gatos fazendo gatices, and it just kind of spiraled from there. The topic eventually touched on how AI could be improved, the effects on society, and the nature of cognition itself. It’s clear the LLM has a tendency to restate the question as part of the answer, or at least mine was.

Tripping Out

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Last week was a very odd conjunction of coincidence I’m still trying to understand. The aftermath of which left a reverberating melancholy and nostalgia, difficult to dispel, and all too tempting to embrace. It was one of those times where I question the entropy of the universe itself, as pure serendipity would be an impossible convergence. And yet.. An Expert Opinion I drove to Chicago on Tuesday to present a talk on the pg_timeseries extension to the Chicago Postgres User Group.

Fourth of Denied

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 20:54:00 +0000

Though there is unpacking yet to do, we’re settling in rather well. It’s just a matter of time now, as all things usually become. I no longer become hopelessly lost driving around without navigation. Jen is making progress on her office. Fun times all around! What’s important is the core of the house is essentially done, and we can work from there. Nice, eh? The sideboard / TV-stand is now, as is the cabinet bookcase.

Getting Settled

Mon, 27 May 2024 18:46:28 +0000

The dust has mostly settled and we’re finally unpacking in the new house. Since it’s Memorial Day, I’m taking some time to rest and gather my thoughts to chronicle this whole affair. There’s still a lot to do, but hopefully the most grueling elements have passed. In Closing Our closing date for the house was May 17th, meaning we could take possession later that day. It would be a good opportunity to get a second look to refresh our memories and drop some emergency supplies off to make sure there was room for the cat carriers on Monday.

On the Move

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 21:10:42 +0000

It’s no secret that Jen and I have been thinking of moving out of Macomb for a while now. The change in jobs has given me a much-needed kick in the pants to reorganize my life in general. Those interest rates aren’t going any lower until at least 2025, so there’s no time like the present. So we’ve been on the hunt. But where to go? I want to abscond from Illinois on pure principle, but given the amount of family in the area, I can bide my time.

Bones Inc.

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 21:24:10 +0000

One of the job prospects I was interviewing with presented me with a question last week: “We’d like to schedule a final culture interview with you, but before we do, we were wondering if you would entertain a contractor role?” Given I don’t know what’s actually involved with that, I went with an honest answer of “I don’t have the necessary background to act as a 1099, so it would have to be full time.

Tinker Town

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 22:48:28 +0000

With my newfound “free time”, I’ve spent a lot of time catching up on my writing. Two PG Phridays in a row, and I have ideas for many more to come. I finally decided to “Open Source” my homelab setup, and since that’s a work-in-progress, it should see many commits in the future. And I finally started earnestly working on the ol’ home lab. Definitely keeping myself busy!

Free Agentry

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 15:16:46 +0000

Potential layoffs are a persistent fixture in some industries, like some kind of Sword of Damocles looming over them in perpetuity. With the recent advances in AI and the weak economy battering industries of all description, the rate is only accelerating. Perhaps anecdotally, Tech is one of the worst affected in the current climate, with nearly 50k laid off already in 2024 alone, and over 250k in 2023 according to the Layoff Tracker.

Project: Kubed Chaos

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 21:54:33 +0000

I’ve had something of a “busy” week thus far. My sleep has suffered unfortunately thanks to it, but it’ll settle down eventually. See, when I get an idea in my head, it essentially consumes me. I go to bed yearning to work on it, and if I wake up at night to use the restroom, it’s all I can do to go back to sleep. Sometimes, I simply can’t. It was that kind of week, when my urge to tinker absolutely devours my faculties.

Incomparably Square

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 17:01:32 -0600

Well, I’ve finally reformatted my Dell R730 project system and replaced TrueNAS SCALE with Proxmox VE once again. Now that I want to go deeper into virtualizing so I can do more Kubernetes experimentation, using a NAS device as the Hypervisor only serves to complicate the process. There wasn’t anything critical on the system, so that made it convenient to reformat, and just start from scratch. Why all the re-shuffling? EDB wants me to start digging into our cloud products, and that means I need a more convenient place to stage and experiment with that kind of thing.

Into the Hole

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 09:05:27 -0600

Geez, play a few games and then I just fall off of the Earth! Has it really been nearly three months since my last update? Dear lord, I need to summarize quickly! Leisure Activity Which games? In order of completion or last play time according to my Steam Library: Armored Core 6 - I managed to defeat this despite the challenging difficulty. I even got all three endings! It’s great and I highly recommend it!

Birthday in the Swamps

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 10:58:52 -0500

So my 46th birthday has come and gone. As per usual, I took the week off and played video games. The primary focus of this time was spent on Armored Core 6, a mech-focused game by FromSoftware of Dark Souls fame. It’s an excellent pastime, and even though I suck at it, I’m having a blast (pun intended) blowing stuff up with mechs. Unfortunately during my second playthrough in pursuit of the second of three possible endings, I noticed a lot more eye floaters than usual and a weird squiggle of bright light in the periphery of my right eye.

Visually Repaired

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 12:06:32 -0500

So I already noted in my previous post that my Macular Degeneration had returned. I hated to admit it at the time, but it meant finally doing what I’d been putting off since this whole adventure began. I had to prepare myself for potentially slowly going blind. My existing desk situation was going to have to change. Goodbye old friend Getting Carded Given that I work with computers all day, I knew that meant I needed to replace two things: my monitor, and possibly my video card.

Summer in the Sun

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 16:16:45 -0500

Looks like I’ve fallen a bit behind in my updates. The tl;dr of it is that June was all about travel, and July wasn’t. I traveled to London for a few work meetings from July 4-8, and then literally a few days later, Jen and I went to Florida from the 12th to the 18th. Then we went to her parents’ to celebrate Jim’s birthday. At that point, it felt like we’d be in some kind of vehicle until the end of time.

Oh Woe ISP

Wed, 03 May 2023 20:53:05 -0500

Given all of my work on my basement project server, it occurred to me that I would eventually need to override my router’s DNS settings if I wanted general availability through the house. I can modify the DNS settings of my desktop or laptop, but that doesn’t really scale to every cellphone, TV, media device, or other janky tech strewn around our domicile. There’s just one problem: ISP-supplied equipment does not allow that.

Project R730 Part 2

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 13:56:44 -0500

Following up on Project R730 - Part 1, it’s time to expand the tale. It took a while, but the few remaining parts I still needed to finish the R730 finally arrived. I installed, upgraded, or otherwise swapped several components, and I got the server up and running with TrueNAS SCALE. It wasn’t just a job, it was (and still is, really) an adventure! Tripwires The first complication I encountered was in regard to the m.

Ursula the Unlikely

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 17:49:20 -0500

Since her adoption, Ursula has spent two weeks with free reign around the house, yet she primarily constrains herself to my office. Perched atop the cat tree, she surveys and judges, and growls should any other feline dare to darken her domain. Or at least that’s how I imagine her view of the world. Because Ursula has also finally attended her official veterinary checkup, and the findings are a bit surprising.

Project R730 - Part 1

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 12:58:32 -0500

Warning: this post contains copious amounts of impenetrable technobabble; read at your own risk. It’s been a while since I’ve started a project, so of course that means it’s time. As it stands, my r720 is getting a bit long in the tooth and R730s are now the same price I paid for that system. So to Lab Gopher I went in search of a great deal. For anyone who is looking for a server, that is seriously the best thing I’ve found for sorting through all the eBay cruft.

Poor Unfortunate Souls

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 11:21:07 -0600

Jen and I went down to the local animal shelter a couple of weeks ago and delivered 16 pound bag of kitten food after they asked for donations on their Facebook page. While there, we went into the section where they keep the cats, because I wanted to look at a couple they had on their weekly bulletin. There was supposed to be a tortie named Mama. She’s been on the flier for months by that point, but she wasn’t there.

Inner Tube

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 13:34:02 -0600

The MRI followup of my Echocardiogram was scheduled for February 2nd. Given we live an hour and a half away, and it would take a minimum of two hours plus prep time, Jen and I figured it would be an all-day affair. It actually ended up taking closer to three hours, and we started late because the patient ahead of me also needed a bit more time than they expected. We ended up getting home around 6pm as a result, so it was a good call to take the day off.

The Subsequent Shoe

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 15:57:24 -0600

Pretty much ever since my heart surgery in 1984, I’ve resigned myself to a kind of semi-permanent suspense. Would I need another surgery? Am I “fixed” now? What would life be like now that I could play outside and have a reasonable expectation of not passing out? How long would that last? A common refrain from those in the adult community of congenital heart defect survivors is “You are never fixed.

Thanksgiving 2022

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 14:22:17 -0600

With Thanksgiving past, Winter is now upon us. Let these coming, colder days and nights bring us closer in the gloom. May we find solace in each other, and thanks for the company and bounty we share. Jen and I traveled up to visit her parents for the holiday, along with Aunt Joyce. Everyone else had to bow out due to one or more members of the family being sick, so it was a small affair this year.

Searching for Sleep

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 10:53:35 -0600

Ever since I stopped taking Lexapro, I’ve had chronic sleep maintenance insomnia. Nothing I’ve done over the years has helped alleviate the problem, from medications, to meditation, to CBT-I administered by a sleep psychologist. I have a veritable pharmacy of sleep meds in my closet from past attempts. A Little Backstory A few years ago, I’d heard of a new type of sleep medication that doesn’t work through the GABA system like most of the others.

A Fist Full of Quarters

Sun, 25 Sep 2022 08:51:31 -0500

I took a week off of work for my birthday, and as can probably be expected, I spent much of that playing games. Stray Being in a cat-like mood, I started with Stray. Meow It’s a relatively short 7-10 hour game where you control a cat on a quest to rejoin its friends after being separated from them. Like any cat, you can’t talk and must interact with objects using only your mouth and claws.

Reminiscence

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 14:51:18 -0500

The man stared weary ‘cross the valley o’er all that he had wrought, what he had yet still to do, and felt a yawning despair overtake him. – Anonymous Forty-five years, eh? Malformed though I am, I somehow surpassed my expectations to reach this point, and it’s certainly been an interesting life thus far. College, marriage, a few books, and perhaps even the pinnacle of my career, and then what?

An Adventure With Covid

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 16:12:06 -0500

Well, it finally happened. A caught Covid a couple weeks ago starting Monday July 25th. Despite being in Italy in early 2020, I somehow dodged the initial outbreak and then remained Covid free for the next two years. I was even beginning to believe I’d already caught it asymptomatically some time in the past and was actually immune now. Like that time I had a random two-week long dry cough in 2020.

Something That Sucks

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 13:58:55 -0500

Jen and I have been using a Dyson DC-15 Animal ever since we got an apartment together in 2007, and it has been showing its age for a while. The brush driver was extremely hard to turn by hand, it frequently left things behind, and one it has always emitted a high pitched tone that drove me to don firing-range hearing protection. I’d recently disassembled the agitation brush system to clean out a bunch of cat hair and dust that had caked itself into the gear assembly that drives the agitator.

Sounds Like Credenza

Sun, 15 May 2022 14:58:10 -0500

The TL;DR here is that my long vehicle search is over. The last few weeks have been a ceaselessly expanding and contracting series of criteria based on whatever seemed available at local dealerships and Facebook Marketplace. I probably should have just ordered something at a dealer to get exactly what I want, but the supply chain is still extremely precarious, and I’m not convinced the 3-4 month order pipeline will remain viable.

Salesmanship

Sun, 01 May 2022 16:19:55 -0500

Salesmanship This weekend, it was time to examine the Toyota RAV4. The local Toyota dealership in town had a 2021 XLE Premium model on the lot, so I figured we could head down and at least take it for a drive to compare it to the Forester and CRV. The weather looked like it would soon take a turn toward some pretty bad storms, so we didn’t want to drive very far.

Car Trouble

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 16:22:02 -0500

The last two winters, Jen’s parents have let me borrow their “extra” car because Jen was out of town, or I had to park at an airport, or some other reason. While a Porsche Cayman (S trim or otherwise) can drive in most such scenarios, this winter was particularly brutal, with several storms depositing more snow than such a low car could handle. This made me extremely glad I had an alternative.

End of the Walker

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 21:40:26 -0500

I finally found a way to get Final Fantasy 14 working again thanks to a GitHub gist. The author essentially replaces the Final Fantasy 14 Protonfixes launcher script with one that installs FFXIVLauncher into the same Wine instance Steam uses to invoke the game itself. It then uses this launcher instead of the broken one Square-Enix demands. Since Steam invokes the script within Proton, the replacement launcher passes the expected steam account ID to Square and everything magically works.

Final-est Fantasy

Sat, 19 Mar 2022 20:48:28 -0500

Final-est Fantasy Last weekend, I went to try and play Final Fantasy 14 like I normally do, and ran into a nasty surprise. I’ve been playing on Linux this entire time after jumping through a few hoops, and while the game works just fine, the launcher is another matter. Apparently some of the workarounds I put in place were to institute the “old” launcher because the new one uses MSHTML of all things.

Getting Testy

Sun, 06 Mar 2022 20:40:19 -0600

Getting Testy I had some blood tests done recently to check a few things because hey, I’m in my 40s now, and I really haven’t seen a doctor for a while. For the most part, things were as expected, but a couple results surprised me. Though looking back on it, maybe they shouldn’t have. First surprise was a good one: my testosterone has basically doubled since the last time I had it tested three years ago.

Pressing Out the Words

Sat, 26 Feb 2022 03:45:09 +0000

I’ve been using WordPress on my blog for so long, I don’t even really remember when I converted to using it from my homegrown system. My post archives suggest it happened some time in 2010, so that’s a long time to be on a platform I ultimately disliked. Heck, I hated the Gutenberg block writing system so much I followed a guide to disable it. And then I installed an actual plugin to disable it permanently.

Not So Fast!

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 21:00:57 +0000

On Saturday the 12th, I completed 3-day extended fast. Technically it was closer to 88 hours because the last meal I ate was around 7pm Tuesday night and I didn’t eat again until 9am Saturday morning. Still, it’s one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, which I find a bit odd given how scarce food must have been during human evolution. How soft are we that 2-3 days without eating is a notable period?

Deeper Cooling

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 16:50:19 +0000

Given it was the weekend, I finally decided to install the Deepcool Castle 280ex and 32GB of extra G.Skill Trident-Z NEO RAM I ordered a couple weeks ago. Given how things can go unexpectedly while wrestling with the innards of a computer, I gave myself ample time to do everything, and I’m glad I did. But first things first. I haven’t really cleaned my computer since I built it in July of 2020.

Boob Tube

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 20:57:50 +0000

Well, they finally came and chopped down our Ash tree. The neighbors had their own Ash tree that needed removal, so the arborists were pretty busy until 2 or 3 pm. Luckily I didn’t have a lot of meetings, because the only thing anyone would be able to hear is the constant refrain of several chainsaws and the occasional house-rattling thump. It’s really a shame to lose shade trees to invasive pests, and it’s not like they’re easily replaced.

A December to Remember

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 11:49:02 +0000

It is the month of Holidays, I’m currently on vacation, and I’ve stocked up on snacks just to enjoy it for the time being. I’m spending the time playing Final Fantasy 14, and just waiting for the snow storm tomorrow. Christmas is over, and I want to thank Jim and Linda again for having me over, and thank everyone for the gifts. I’ll definitely make good use of the sardines, macadamia nuts, hot sauce, gift cards, and fleece hoodie.

Another Month Gone By

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 15:07:39 +0000

I meant to write this over a month ago, and boy how time flies these days. My beef supplier didn’t have any grass-fed cows available until next year, but she did have a traditionally fed coming in. So I picked up a quarter of quite a few great-looking cuts, and even convinced the butcher to include 4 bags of fat so I can make tallow. I also like the way the new butcher packs the meat in paper rather than plastic, making it much easier to unpack when the time comes.

A Phenomenon Potpourri

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 21:46:52 +0000

My 44th came and went without much fanfare. I sorta wanted to post a “Lordy Lordy, look who’s turning 4040!” meme from Aqua Teen Hunger Force though, because of course I do! Besides decade-old cartoons, I took the week off and just played Final Fantasy 14 for the whole time. I started it about a week earlier than that and am actually enjoying it quite a bit. I never thought I’d say that about a MMORPG, but hey, they clearly know what they’re doing.

Bringing it Home

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 13:35:15 +0000

Well, it’s finally done. I just finished all the inspections, negotiation, offers, paperwork, and bank wire necessary to buy a house. Of course, Jen and I have already gone through all of this after moving out of Urbana, but this time the house wasn’t for us, but for my mother. It’s not a grand affair; just a 3 bed, 2 bath for around $125k basically in the middle of nowhere. Despite that, the mortgage costs less than her current apartment, for more space, with actual equity in the property.

Second Shot at Sight

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 15:45:39 +0000

I got my second eye injection on Thursday, and so far the experience has been roughly the same. My eye’s still a bit score and scratchy, but oddly enough, I don’t seem to have gained any more floaters compared to the last injection. The doctor says the bleeding under my macula appears to be receding and suggested I may not need any further shots after this one. We’ll see in six weeks, I suppose.

Ocular Occlusion

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 22:00:05 +0000

While I was vacuuming up some fur-based tumbleweeds around the house Sunday morning, I noticed that it seemed as if I’d stared too long into a light bulb. That misshapen blob that suggests light has seared an indelible purple smear into my vision until it eventually fades. “Huh, the bathroom lights must be brighter than I thought,” I thought to myself. I shrugged in annoyance and kept vacuuming. But it didn’t go away.

Mysteriously Missing Melatonin

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 21:50:35 +0000

Well I just discovered something pretty interesting while watching a conference talk from Christian A Stewart-Ferrer. He’s a psychologist that seems to specialize in autism-spectrum disorders, and he spent roughly three hours outlining tendencies and dispositions of people with Asperger Syndrome. At one point, he said something almost out-of-hand about melatonin production and quickly moved on. I’ve known about my Asperger’s for over a decade now, but I never really did much research afterwards, and it turns out that was probably a mistake.

To The Moon

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 12:11:07 +0000

In late August 1999, a long-haired calico known only as “Mama kitty” due to her numerous pregnancies gave birth to a litter of kittens in a garage on a farm somewhere in Iowa. Winter came early that year and was not kind. The kittens quickly succumbed to upper respiratory infections that eventually spread to their sinuses and eyes, sealing them shut behind a wall of crust. They all needed to see a vet, and fast.

Harvest Moon

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 15:06:42 +0000

Luna’s health doesn’t seem to be improving after her visit to the vet. If anything, she has gotten markedly worse. While the steroids did increase her appetite for the first day, she continued to weaken further over the weekend. Whatever benefit the steroids initially provided has been overwhelmed by her steadily waning constitution. It’s all she can do to walk two feet from her heated bed, so I’ve provided her with a bowl of water and a tray of food she won’t (or can’t) eat.

Lunar Quake

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 21:23:38 +0000

Two days ago, Luna’s health seems to have started rapidly declining. Jen noticed that she was standing next to the refrigerator and gently swaying for over an hour, and when I tried to pick her up, she yelled and bit me. I couldn’t tell if it was from pain or confusion, but I was being extremely delicate given that I know how old she is. Even after that episode abated, she seemed unable to really walk.

A Quiet Retirement

Sun, 07 Mar 2021 16:35:33 +0000

Not too long ago, I bought a heated cat bed for Luna. Her age is really starting to show these days, and she can barely get around as much. We noticed that she was sleeping near the heating vents in the house, basically flattening her whole body against them. Not only does she love the new bed, she hardly ever leaves it. She gets out occasionally if she’s too warm, and lays down literally one foot away next to the cold air return grate.

A Weirdly Productive Sunday

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 21:59:22 +0000

I woke up today at a time I never thought I’d see again: 8am. As someone who usually wakes up around 5:30-6am unable to return to sleep, it was definitely a welcome surprise. But more intriguing was the sleep chart from my Fitbit. What’s this? Normal sleep?! This is practically a template for a perfect night of sleep. Early dive into deep sleep for several short durations, and then a remainder of REM and light sleep.

Cat Scream Fever

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 21:15:45 +0000

Luna has acquired a new skill that I can only describe as “yowling in utter distress”. This has been happening for a while now, but she’s been steadily increasing the volume and urgency with every passing day. With that said, that sounds a lot worse than what’s actually happening. Luna is old. Super, duper old. I’ve addressed this multiple times in the past. Well, she’s now at the point where she’s starting to go a bit senile.

Key Bored

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 20:26:18 +0000

So now that I have the GMMK, I decided to see just how bad my old Logitech G710 keyboard was after five years of service. It… wasn’t pretty. Imagine five years of never once cleaning it in a four cat household, and never even doing the usual cotton swabs soaked in rubbing alcohol every few months. Well, imagine no further! Here it is with all of the key caps still installed:

We Don't Need No

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 20:57:14 +0000

I’ve considered this once or twice in the past, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Colleges and Universities may very well end as an institution. They’ve long since outlived their usefulness as centers of collaboration and education and devolved into mere adult daycares. Even back when I was attending in the late 90s, it was basically High School 2.0, but with a Boarding School atmosphere and no parental oversight. These aren’t the great institutions we used to read about that once produced by the likes of Newton, Darwin, or Turing.

JoJo Mojo

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 21:40:34 +0000

So I finally decided to watch JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure out of sheer curiosity borne from the memes, and I have to say… it totally makes sense. The show is so ridiculously over the top that it practically begs to be memed. I mean, seriously “Your first [kiss] wasn’t JoJo! It was me, Dio!” is the stuff of dreams. Practically every other line of dialog in the whole show is hammed up to 11, making it not only impossible to hate, but perfect for drinking games galore.

A Full Bundle

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 20:04:09 +0000

In the process of working on a customer migration and came up with a neat query for finding tables that don’t have a primary key: SELECT c.oid::REGCLASS::TEXT AS table FROM pg_class c JOIN pg_namespace n ON (n.oid = c.relnamespace) LEFT JOIN pg_constraint p ON (p.conrelid=c.oid AND p.contype = 'p') WHERE c.relkind IN ('p', 'r') AND n.nspname NOT IN ('pglogical', 'information_schema', 'bdr') AND n.nspname NOT LIKE 'pg\_%' AND p.conrelid IS NULL; For anyone out there that is using pglogical, this is how you figure out if there are any tables that won’t work in the default replication set.

Of Buried Tales

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 09:37:33 +0000

For some reason last night, I dreamed that I was going to give a speech some time later, and as part of it, I wanted to recite the opening of the Canterbury Tales. I believe my intent was to denote that the beauty of the prose can only be truly conveyed with proper pronunciation of the Middle English that has essentially been lost to time with the evolution of the language.

But for the Shouting

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 11:41:29 +0000

So, it’s nice to know that Time Magazine has essentially admitted that the election was manipulated. At least they’re being honest about it now, though using Weasel Words to obfuscate a bit for plausible deniability. “Steering media coverage” is the definition of manipulation I was going to post some huge analysis of how there were tons of inconsistencies, the fact that the challenge lawsuits never even made it to court so the evidence was never heard, or the fact that we should all want audits to reach consensus to finally put this to rest.

A Cat in Time

Sat, 29 Aug 2020 17:25:34 +0000

Though I don’t quite know the exact day Luna was born, I know it was some time in late August of 1999. This means a cat I adopted shortly after I graduated from college is now 21 years old. I had just brought Luna home. When I stop to think about it, that’s a staggeringly long time. Up until now, the oldest cat I’d ever seen was my grandma’s cat Boo-Boo, a beautiful Russian Blue she found playing in one of her wood piles one day.

Sleepless in Everywhere

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 07:30:33 +0000

Sleep is the crank that turns the engine, and mine has long since snapped at the axle. I don’t blog much anymore, a thing I realized once it became obvious even to me. I didn’t wax nostalgic about turning 40. I didn’t say goodbye to the home where I’d spent the last six years. I didn’t gush about the Porsche Cayman I recently purchased to fulfill an old childhood dream. No espousing about Keto, either recipes or studies.

R720 or Bust

Sat, 16 Mar 2019 18:01:46 +0000

Ever since my previous foray into building a server, I’v been trolling Lab Gopher for an upgrade. My preference would have been for a Dell PowerEdge R720xd 3.5-inch format since it could hold 12 full-size hard disks. But those are relatively rare and deals were scarce. Instead, I stumbled across a Dell PowerEdge R720 2.5-inch format with an additional drive cage. So while 2.5-inch drives were lower capacity, I could use 16 of them if necessary.

PG Phriday: Ambling Architecture

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 14:26:35 +0000

It’s about the time for year-end performance reviews. While I’m always afraid I’ll narrowly avoid being fired for gross incompetence, that’s not usually how it goes. But that meeting did remind me about a bit of restructuring I plan to impose for 2017 that should vastly improve database availability across our organization. Many of the techniques to accomplish that—while Postgres tools in our case—are not Postgres-specific concepts. Much of database fabric design comes down to compromise.

PG Phriday: DIY in the CLI (Part 1)

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 12:35:42 +0000

On a higher level, Postgres has a bevy of libraries, interfaces, and clients for accessing a database instance. From language APIs to GUIs like pgAdmin, or SaaS entries like JackDB, every flavor of interaction is covered. And yet, that’s only a small part of the story. For those who dare to tread into the watery depths, there’s also the world of dark incantations that is the command-line. While most are aware of psql, the Postgres command-line client for accessing databases, there are far more creatures lurking in the black oblivion which deserve more visibility.

PG Phriday: Growing Pains

Fri, 22 Apr 2016 14:36:18 +0000

Postgres is a great tool for most databases. Larger installations however, pretty much require horizontal scaling; addressing multi-TB tables relies on multiple parallel storage streams thanks to the laws of physics. It’s how all immense data stores work, and for a long time, Postgres really had no equivalent that wasn’t a home-grown shard management wrapper. To that end, we’ve been considering Postgres-XL as a way to fill that role. At first, everything was going well.

PG Phriday: 5 Reasons Postgres Sucks! (You Won't Believe Number 3!)

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 12:09:56 +0000

I’ve been a Postgres DBA since 2005. After all that time, I’ve come to a conclusion that I’m embarrassed I didn’t reach much earlier: Postgres is awful. This isn’t a “straw that broke the camel’s back” kind of situation; there is a litany of ridiculous idiocy in the project that’s, frankly, more than enough to stave off any DBA, end user, or developer. But I’ll limit my list to five, because clickbait.

PG Phriday: Massively Distributed Operation

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 12:12:46 +0000

Postgres has been lacking something for quite a while, and more than a few people have attempted to alleviate the missing functionality multiple times. I’m speaking of course, about parallel queries. There are several reasons for this, and among them include various distribution and sharding needs for large data sets. When tables start to reach hundreds of millions, or even billions of rows, even high cardinality indexes produce results very slowly.

Why I'm Somewhat Worried About Ebola

Wed, 15 Oct 2014 15:56:20 +0000

Before I really get going with this post, I want to say I’m not panicked, and I suggest you stay the same. Meanwhile, it’s pretty clear the currently cavalier attitude toward Ebola needs to change. And of course, it all boils down to humans being the fallible creatures they are. How Ebola Works There’s good information on How Ebola Works, and how it kills you, but I’ll summarize. Ebola is a Biosafety Level 4 contagion, meaning proper attire when interacting with infected is a fully sealed safety suit with respirator, which should be decontaminated before and after exposure.

Finally Done With High Availability

Tue, 29 Jul 2014 15:23:42 +0000

Well, my publisher recently informed me that the book I’ve long been slaving over for almost a year, is finally finished. I must admit that PostgreSQL 9 High Availability Cookbook is somewhat awkward as a title, but that doesn’t detract from the contents. I’d like to discuss primarily why I wrote it. When Packt first approached me in October of 2013, I was skeptical. I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of the “cookbook” style they’ve been pushing lately.

PGCon 2014 Unconference: A Community

Tue, 27 May 2014 09:02:42 +0000

This May, I attended my first international conference: PGCon 2014. Though the schedule spanned from May 20th to May 23rd, I came primarily for the talks. Then there was the Unconference on the 24th. I’d never heard of such a thing, but it was billed as a good way to network and find out what community members want from PostgreSQL. After attending the Unconference, I must admit I’m exceptionally glad it exists; it’s something I believe every strong Open Source project needs.

Lamentations of a Budding Chilihead

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 13:48:51 +0000

Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion my tastebuds are changing somewhat drastically. How so? As it turns out, where once I couldn’t even tolerate medium heat, and Taco Bell Medium sauce packets were the equivalent of agony, now all commonly available hot sauces only impart a mild zip. Tabasco? Watery vinegar. Frank’s Red Hot? Tomato sauce. Cholula? Ketchup. Sriracha? Garlic ketchup. Insanity, to put it bluntly, and it was becoming a problem.

Free Copy of Instant PostgreSQL Starter

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:18:16 +0000

Another free book giveaway? What, am I running a library here? Well, it turns out Packt liked my review of Instant PostgreSQL Starter so much, they want me host a short period where you can obtain your very own copy for the low, low price of $0. To those ends, I have a few brand new digital copies comprised of shiny premium electrons ready to dispense to three lucky commenters. Does that sound good?

Winning (Free eBooks) is Everything

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:43:40 +0000

It occurs to me I forgot to congratulate the winners of the free ebooks. So without further ado: SAB, who seems to host a nice blog geared toward server administration. Stephan, who’s looking to improve existing strategies. Jeff and his growing PostgreSQL cluster. Pierre, who apparently has an experimental PostgreSQL backend for MySQL. Interesting. Congrats to the winners. But more, I call upon them to pay it forward by contributing to the community, either by corresponding with the excellent PostgreSQL mailing lists, or maybe submitting a patch or two to the code.

Free PostgreSQL Backup Book? Yes Please!

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:53:04 +0000

A little while ago, I wrote to the PostgreSQL general mailing list that I’d been approached by Packt Publishing to contribute a quick manual on doing PostgreSQL backups: Instant PostgreSQL Backup and Restore How-to. They’re the same guys who published Greg Smith’s PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance book which everyone seems to swear by. The goal of the backup book was to distill the PostgreSQL documentation, tools, and Wiki down to a collection of short step-by-step guides much like the O’Reilly nutshell series.

A Little Bit of Wondering

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 19:35:00 +0000

About a week ago, I was prescribed Lexapro. While this may not be the stuff I’m on long-term, it’s still long overdue for reasons obvious to anyone who knows me. What I currently find most interesting about it however, is actually related to a dream I had last night. My dreams tend to be very vivid and numerous, though sometimes they follow a theme or storyline. Last night, there was one particular scene I recall with such clarity, it’s almost difficult to accept I wasn’t awake.

Long Time, no Me. Android, Weeee?

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:31:23 +0000

Yes, I’m still alive. Just in case you were wondering. With that out of the way, I’ve been enjoying my Sprint Galaxy S2 variant immensely. It feels orders of magnitude faster and more powerful than my old Android Eris. And really, the stats reflect about a 4x multiplier over every attribute of the Eris. It took some getting time to mentally transition from a 3.2" screen to a 4.5" screen, but I did it.

Veriz-On or Off?

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:25:20 +0000

The Samsung Galaxy S II is currently the top selling phone in the world. And it’s not a popularity thing, the device is genuinely exceptional. Reviews across the web have effectively hailed it as, “… the best smartphone, period.” What’s notable about this, is that various US carrier shenanigans have guaranteed we get it dead last, right after India and Mexico. And Verizon? Won’t be carrying it at all. Of course, rumors suggest Verizon may be getting the semi-upgraded version of the GSII, dubbed the Droid Prime, with a faster processor, higher density screen, and a few other tweaks.

The Invisible Line

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:10:32 +0000

Technology has come a long way, hasn’t it? Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, we could never afford braces while I was growing up. As a consequence, my mouth contains unspeakable horrors, a jumbled mess of crooked trolls, crowding haphazardly around a fresh carcass. I’m not kidding. While my smile won’t crack any mirrors, I have the overbite of a horse and the canines of a timber wolf. And like an unbalanced chair, my wobbly bite has ushered in periods of intense jaw cramps over the last few years.

Forgotten

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 02:57:55 +0000

In the world that we despise, are there times of loss or wonder? Toiling ever, full of lies, sick of writhing, going under. In that bleakness waiting never, 'till no senseless drone became. Wrath or sunder, thrash or sever, breaking through with none to claim. And that weakness sups upon us, gibbers for our souls do slake. With a thirst so vile and vicious, we but shiver in its wake. Thus all reason burns with malice, shackled minds do shriek and wail.

Into the Droid

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:23:15 +0000

For the past couple of months, I’ve tapped a universe very much unlike the one I’m accustomed to experiencing. I did this by purchasing my first Android phone, in this case, a Droid Eris. My Samsung Rogue suffered a mishap in the washing machine back in June, and I wasn’t eligible for a new phone until March 2011. It just so happened Verizon was veritably shelling out previously owned Eris handsets, so I grabbed one to tinker.

Li-Don't-Node

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 21:11:28 +0000

About a week ago, my website and email vanished off the face of the internet. I think this deserves a certain amount of explanation, lest someone think I’m incompetent in my own field. Not too long ago, I switched off my colocated server because I don’t need my own personal machine for two websites, a couple very small databases, and a low-volume email server. I didn’t downgrade fully to a shared host because I run a Django app, Wordpress, PostgreSQL, MySQL for the afore mentioned Wordpress content, Postfix to better control my blacklists, with Postgrey because greylisting kills an assload of spam blacklists would miss, etc.

Rambling for Science

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 23:46:46 +0000

As I sit here drinking the fifth Pumpkin Ale of the night, I’ve come to a realization I’ve entertained several times through the last few years: I’m too uptight. Unfortunately it’s not just a matter of being a bundle of nerves. I’ve always self-medicated to one degree or another, but it’s readily apparent I’m only relaxed enough to be “normal” when my usual vigilance is chemically retarded. But why would that be?

Local Man Angry Daughter isn’t Dating Vampire

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:25:32 +0000

Many fathers only want the best for their daughters: the most competitive colleges, the fanciest cars, a man that’s truly worthy of her attention. Jim Seymore, a local butcher, bemoans his daughter’s choice of a successful brain surgeon instead of a vampire in her search for love. When interviewed about his unorthodox stance, Mr. Seymore explained. “It’s ridiculous!” he stated, nodding toward a small pile of Twilight books and True Blood DVDs on his coffee table.

Socially Retarded for Science!

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:00:37 +0000

I’ve been feeing irritated again with my inability to interact naturally with people, and of course I wanted metrics quantifying the phenomenon. So I headed over to Wrong Planet and stocked up on tests. The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire gives me 123 aloof, 92 rigid and 97 pragmatic. You scored above the cutoff on all three scales. Clearly, you are either autistic or on the broader autistic phenotype. You probably are not very social, and when you do interact with others, you come off as strange or rude without meaning to.

Maui Confidential - Part 1

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:25:31 +0000

After three years of having our summers trumped by Jen pursuing her Masters degree, we decided to take a crazily overboard vacation to make up for it. As it happened, Hawaii won the coin toss, and Maui seemed a good start. We ended up tweaking our travel times just right and got a deal, so from June 14th to the 20th, the continental United States could no longer taint us with its relative banality.

Spacetacular

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:30:05 +0000

And so, I’ve fallen off the planet once again. It’s not exactly like nothing has been going on, It’s just that my unparalleled boringness was eclipsed by my aggressive laziness. My vacation in Hawaii—which I returned from a month ago—still remains woefully unchronicled. Instead, my precious hours have been consumed by gambling and collecting bellybutton lint. Except for a few minor items . . . For one, my eternal tenure at Leapfrog Online has been trumped by an apprehensive incumbency with Peak6 OptionsHouse.

RPMing Python

Thu, 27 May 2010 15:23:29 +0000

I was fighting with packaging some software at work, trying to produce a workable RPM package to replace the manually installed kludge currently polluting one of our servers, and discovered the --spec-only option to the bdist_rpm action. Now, this particular option only makes sense since a spec file must be generated for bdist_rpm to work anyway, but I never thought about it. What it provides is an awesome shortcut to doing packaging slightly more complicated than merely relying on what bdist_rpm produces.

Revision of Vision

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:16:43 +0000

Well, maybe I spoke too soon about Drupal. Why? Well… it’s 2010 guys, stop with the ID links. I know there’s a plugin that overcomes this shortcoming, but all the internal links, including edits, redirects, and so on, won’t use the aliases you define. No, foo.bar.com/node/123423 is not a valid url. It requires approximately ten minutes to add a table column for a ‘slug’ to look up the appropriate entry, but Drupal refuses to compromise.

Middle School Musical Mania

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 22:02:23 +0000

Jen suckered me into volunteering to help her music boosters with their choir contest this weekend. This entailed waking up at 4:45AM so we could leave at 5:30AM to finish setup and get ready for the festivities to begin at 8:00AM. Woo? My job description was Sound Technician for the day, where I handled four Sony voice recorders; three for the judges and one to record the choir. Each choir used between eight and twelve minutes for two or three songs, but each time block was twenty to act as a buffer between groups.

Ulcerior Motives

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:01:31 +0000

Wednesday would have been a normal day, and for the most part it was, until I noticed my chest getting more and more uncomfortable through the day. Well, to the doctor I went, and after some stuff was ruled out, it turns out I have both costochondritis and an ulcer. Now, I’ve had inflamed cartilage in my chest before, and normally it’s very easy to control with Advil or Aleve, and time.

Now in Paperback Form

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:36:04 +0000

I have had a lot of comments from my friends that they would read Rabbit Rue if they could buy a paperback. Well, now they can! I read a lot about this stuff online and eventually settled on Createspace for two simple reasons: it was both embarrassingly easy, and free. I finally approved the proof they sent me, and though it’ll take a while to show up on Amazon’s main site, they kindly provide Rabbit Rue and other books a free eStore.

Chronologically Flawed

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:45:39 +0000

I’ve lived in a few rough areas. But oddly enough, I’ve only been threatened once or twice while wandering around the neighborhood. Summer in Tacoma is a wild experience. Everyone who’s never lived there claims it rains every day, and that we never see the sky, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Really, I’ve never experienced a more temperate and enjoyable climate since, and it’s easy to wish for the broken clouds and crisp breeze off the Puget Sound now that I’m sequestered here in the harsh extremes of Illinois.

Thwarting Friends and Foes with Colemak

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:08:19 +0000

My apparently undiagnosed masochism has inspired me to switch keyboard layouts. Aiming for pure obscurity, I’ve been typing using Colemak for the past several months. It’s no Dvorak in the popularity arena, having only an estimated userbase of 3000 as of January 2009. According to a computer aided layout optimizer, it’s also more efficient than the venerable Dvorak, ranking highly across all alternatives. Note that all statistics for Qwerty are hideous by comparison.

4Chan Has its Moments, Apparently

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:41:52 +0000

Now… I don’t normally do this, but while wasting time on Fark, I ran across this comment by a user, who himself copied it from an anonymous posting on the notorious 4Chan. While it glosses over many aspects of our government and how it affects our lives, it presents a good snapshot of just how ignorant people are to reality, and how willing they are to push any agenda that matches their own personal biases.

KDEwwwwwww!

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:51:11 +0000

Well, I’ve officially decided to abandon KDE. Why after all this time, you ask, when they’ve done so much work already to alienate and annoy former fans with the rather abrupt 4.x tree? Well, there’s Ubuntu bug #289264, but every large application has the chance of producing some kind of leaky program. No, I can forgive a rather hilarious and long-standing memory leak because I know how to circumvent and disable programs.

My Foot has a Lot of Nerve!

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:30:47 +0000

At great risk to myself and the poor SOB who offered to transport my disease-riddled carcass along Illinois highways, I’ve seen the nerve specialist, and am now the proud owner of something called a Type 1 RSD. According to the doctor–a wizened Chinese man, likely a sage of unknowable renown–this effectively means that my ankle injury confused a nerve in my leg. My brain, like a sugar-infused five-year-old overreacted and went on a killing-spree.

The State of Linux in 2009

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:41:54 +0000

Over the fourth of long Fourth of July weekend, I decided to experiment with some of the other Linux distributions floating around out there. I made only stipulation: I use a netbook, therefore the distribution must install from a USB flash drive. I have an old 1GB Sony, and a newer 2GB Sandisk, so there’s no reason this should be a difficult task. I told myself, “Self, 2009 is halfway over.

Cast Away

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:05:23 +0000

I believe it’s time to return my body for a refund. I got my cast off yesterday, and my ankle still hurts. In fact, I think it’s worse than before the cast. So, what exactly is going on? Well, the orthopedist hypothesizes that I have nerve involvement. This means either my nerve is caught in a pain feedback loop, or is entrapped, possibly by my continuing aggravated ankle sprain. So, not only have I done something horrible to my ankle, but I’ve involved a nerve.

Take a Foot to Ubuntu

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:27:24 +0000

It has come to my attention that I haven’t shared the fact I’m now wearing a cast over my ankle. It would appear that my foot problems weren’t fully explained by the tendon rupture. According to my newly acquired orthopedic specialist, the fact my peroneal tendon hurts without any visible damage, but my ankle is relatively mild even with the rupture means she wants to isolate further. The cast is meant to totally immobilize my ankle and see if something hurts less in a month.

Maniacal Monopod

Thu, 14 May 2009 23:07:27 +0000

Well, after my MRI on Monday, I resigned myself to a waiting game while the radiologist perused the incomprehensible slices of my foot before distilling them into a written report for my esteemed podiatrist. Today, I ventured once more to my Podiatrist’s office to receive, hopefully, good news. Sadly I, like a horny teenager trapped in an nudist colony composed entirely of ponderously obese men, was destined for frustration and disappointment.

One Foot of Fun

Sun, 03 May 2009 00:15:28 +0000

My right foot is a piece of garbage. No, really. Since my teens, every once in a while, through some mysterious transformation enacted, doubtlessly, by clamoring minions of the underworld, becomes an agony generator equaled only by the presence of my Ex. But even I admit that, after years of DDR stomping, years more of wearing Nike Frees to strengthen various muscles, evidence might indicate healing or time or even luck had rendered that particular foot “normal.

I've got The Itis

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:34:52 +0000

Jen, a more avid Facebook advocate than I, posted my malaise yesterday, so I figured it only fair I provide a more thorough explanation as to what actually happened Saturday and Sunday. What am I alluding to, you ask? This weekend, I spent Saturday and most of Sunday at Naperville’s illustrious Edward hospital, and this time, it wasn’t because of my heart! I woke up around 4:00am on the 18th feeling as if an army of ferrets were fighting over my colon like it was composed of especially delicious Pixie Stix.

Adventures in Netbookery

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:03:03 +0000

I haven’t spoken much about the Samsung NC10 I bought to accompany me on the train. Out of all the netbooks, I chose this one because it was one of the thinner, lighter models, I adore the keyboard, and with the Amazon exclusive, came with a bigger battery and slightly enlarged trackpad. Of course, Samsung immediately announced two or three new netbooks, one of which replaces the NC10 and has basically the same enhancements as mine, plus a redesign.

Quadrillion Magillian Zillion

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:07:30 +0000

Read this. Read this Crap your pants.

Pilgrim's Progress

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:19:57 +0000

So, I’ve started reading a highly amusing pseudo-manga titled Scott Pilgrim, and damn… how could I not like this? Seriously, this comic is some of the most innocent fun I’ve experienced excepting Excel Saga. But where Excel Saga was crack-induced insanity, the Scott Pilgrim series apparently derives its entertainment value from light-hearted hijinks gone awry–what Megatokyo started before it was fully engulfed by over-ambitious zeal. Read it, you won’t be disappointed!

Comic Strep

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:08:23 +0000

Some time during Friday, I noticed I wasn’t feeling very well. By 9pm Friday night, I had a fever of 99.8 and an intensely sore throat and slowly aching muscles. By 5am Saturday morning, I had a temperature over 102 and felt like I’d just been accosted by angry bat-wielding thugs. What I thought was the flue–but went to the doctor for confirmation–turned out to be strep. The nurse told Jen I “smelled like strep” and after a test confirmation, I was sent home with a regimen that would have me feeling better “within 48 hours.

Question of Enlightenment: Part 2

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:52:01 +0000

It’s interesting what happens when perspective is adjusted. I see conflict now as pointless, anger as a loss of self, a weakness of infinite depth. But Why? A push was all I really needed, maybe even for years. Scientifically, I know the brain is nearly endlessly malleable, and barring significant cases of genuine chemical or physiological distress, it can be guided to fit a specific end. In this case, I’ve long considered myself helpless to disrupt the cycles of anger that have plagued me since some of my earliest memories.

Question of Enlightenment: Part 1

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:08:41 +0000

It’s a beautiful Sunday night in Illinois, and Jen and I have just enjoyed a wonderful pot roast, complete with some gravy I whipped up from the resulting stock. A nice night to relax with some hot chocolate under a warm fleece blanket with a fluffy kitty curled up my lap.. It’s a good time to reflect, recuperating after two and a half hours of exercising yesterday. A time to finally write up part of the outline I wrote while riding home from work one evening.

Moon for my Honey

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:13:03 +0000

A lot of you are probably wondering how the honeymoon on Hilton Head Island went. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say anything, but I can bring up a few highlights. We had the hotel practically to ourselves for the 22nd and 23rd of December. I’m unsure quite how that happened, but it was highly enjoyable to wander the halls with impunity and have the hot tub to ourselves. I quite enjoyed Hudson on the Docks, though there was certainly a bevy of exquisite sources of victuals dotting the island and surrounding area.

A Wedding to Remember

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:17:51 +0000

I have necessarily been incommunicado for the first two weeks post wedding–not because of our honeymoon, which remains a week away, but to recharge. Too much socializing, an unceasing onslaught of novelty, and a hospital visit consumed every vestige of current powering my scarcely animate carcass. This of course, requires copious explanation. So far as memory serves, the revelry began on the 28th. Aside from checking into the hotels, setting up the dining hall, trucking to and from Bloomington to snatch my mother from the wretched clutches of Amtrak, relaying sketchy directions to visitors, and generally contributing to increasing turmoil all before 5pm to attend the rehearsal and accompanying dinner, I maintained most of my composure.

Election in America Town

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:39:24 +0000

Well, there we have it. Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. For the most part, everyone I know views this as a preferable outcome. One, for whatever reason, perceives Obama as a “dangerous charlatan.” Now, I’m not going to appeal to authority here, but the man is a former professor of constitutional law, wrote two books clearly outlining his core beliefs, and only recently paid off his student loans.

No Results Ever!

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:59:38 +0000

The EP looked through all the event monitor charts I’ve transmitted so far, and didn’t see anything particularly unusual. But he was looking for fast palpitations–basically tachycardia–where I flag anything that “feels weird.” If he’s not alarmed, I can only assume everything is “normal for me,” and move on, right? He wants me to come back a week after I return the event monitor. I don’t expect he’ll find anything odd, since I haven’t had any episodes since the 27th of September aside from lots of PACs and PVCs which are apparently insignificant.

Hearticulture

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:51:03 +0000

So today at 8:30am, I had an MRI. It wasn’t as bad as last time, but it sure seemed louder somehow. The machine was much more recent–sporting a fancy LCD embedded into its doughnut badness–yet in the advancements it contained, apparently none of the engineers considered integrating sound dampening to avoid permanently deafening patents enclosed entirely within its grasping confines after repeated exposure to proximal squeals resembling a drunken hobo occasionally plucking the same frayed string on a “sweet” electric guitar he found jacked into a defective amp incapable of any setting below 100 decibels.

Finish Him! Hospitality! Gameality!

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:16:48 +0000

Ugh! Fine, I’ll write something! Geez. So the post-hurricane monsoon eventually hit Illinois and dumped copious amounts of fluid upon our hapless suburbs, and a friend of ours has an aunt and uncle living in dangerous proximity to a lake. Most of Saturday afternoon on the 12th was spent moving their furniture to the second floor and sandbagging his house, and we didn’t get home again until around 1am. Nothing really notable happened, but I was highly amused by the garter snake seeking high ground on a recently arranged sandbag; thankfully I didn’t step on any wildlife while wading through the knee-deep miasma back to Jen’s car.

Lee's Razors FTW!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:27:38 +0000

On the 8th of August, I ordered a Merkur 39C Barberpole Slant from Lee’s Razors, one of the recommended retailers at a forum I frequent. I waited and waited, and didn’t get any kind of shipment verification. Eventually I saw that Lee experienced some kind of website snafu and lost several orders into the internet aether. I waited a little longer, hoping mine wasn’t one of these, but this was in vain.

Scrollkeep This!

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:33:17 +0000

What the fuck is Scrollkeeper? No, wait… I don’t care. I’m not even going to look it up. You know what, scrollkeeper? Fuck you! I shouldn’t have to nice down a background utility that suddenly decides it’s the most important program executing on my laptop the millisecond it boots. 90% or more of my CPU to do… what exactly? I don’t even know what this fucking program does, and it can’t idle in the background until it’s done?

Shaving: Back to the Future

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:03 +0000

So, I’ve been absent for a long time, and the two or three people reading this probably wonder to where I vanished. Not that I have a lot of wacky hijinks to outline, but I have started a new hobby of sorts. I’ve recently acquired a safety razor. Yeah, the kind that accepts double-edged razor blades, the ones nobody uses anymore. But… why? Why on Earth would I, or anyone for that matter, devolve from wondrous advancements such as electric razors.

Moving: Wacky Hijinks Ensue!

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:11:41 +0000

So, I have finished moving. Understandably, I’ve been keeping a low profile while packing, and the day of the move itself was rather long and arduous, involving three trips along various highways to and from the old apartment for disinfection and other sundries. I was done with everything around nine on Saturday. Sunday, I unpacked a goodly amount of boxes, but I’ve got quite a few to go. And Monday…

I'm Not Dead Yet: I Feel Happy

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:29:48 +0000

Yeah, really I’m fine. Cardiologist gave me a quick look-over and pronounced the episode I had a couple weeks ago a fluke, but that I should keep an eye on it and report back to her if it happens again. In other news, she says my performance in the stress echo is “fantastic,” so there’s that. I’m giving away three boxes of my books, but the people at work get first dibs.

Titillating Tachycardia

Mon, 26 May 2008 22:38:02 +0000

Reports of my demise are highly exaggerated. For those who haven’t heard, I paid a prolonged and unexpected visit to an emergency room on Wednesday. There I was, sitting at my desk doing some last-minute queries sipping a decaf iced coffee I’d acquired from Dunkin’ Donuts, when I’d started feeling somewhat odd. Not to be a worry-wart, I shrugged it off and continued banally pounding-out horrifying SQL resplendent with awe-inspiring and highly convoluted JOIN statements when my heart began pounding like I’d just finished a brisk 20-minutes playing DDR.

Soon Has Smut Shame

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:57:49 +0000

Curious, I wanted to know what my name anagrammed into. For reference, I used “Shaun Moses Thomas” with a minimum word length of two. Nauseas Moths Mosh Aha! Hostess Summon Manta Shushes Moos Smashes Humans Too! Aha! He Summons Sots Soon Has Smut Shame Amusing. Until Tomorrow

Running for Fun and Profit

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:22:45 +0000

It’s too bad I don’t have a previous stress echo to compare this to, since I’ve never had one before. Anyway, my appointment was scheduled for Wednesday 9am at Northwestern in Chicago. I got back to work around 1:30pm, and I was right, they spent a billionty years digging into my ribs and various other spots. They say my anatomy doesn’t seem to match my diagnosis, which is somewhat amusing. He knows how CC-TGA, JAA, and dextrocardia can go together, but it seems counter-intuitive.

Quotes: Why not?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:53:24 +0000

I’m a writer, these pop into my head. That’s life. “It is not enough to be a just leader of men. For how can one rest knowing men need leaders at all? Gently cast down those that idolize or they shall eternally subjugate themselves.” “What is melancholy but the purest conviction there’s been some terrible mistake?” Until Tomorrow

Call for Contact Info!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:40:43 +0000

Hey folks, As many of you know, I’m getting married, and much to my chagrin, I’ve not maintained very good address/phone records for you, my friends. If you could please assault me with a barrage of name, address, and phone information so I can inflict my wedding upon you, I’d greatly appreciate it. If you don’t know how to get ahold of me already, pick your favorite. Take care all!

Driving Toward Insanity

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:27:59 +0000

Last weekend, Jen and I went back to Washington IL to handle a bundle of wedding-related minutia. We met with Monty of Chef’s Catering, consulted with our mistress of confection to outline cake blueprints, and endured an engagement photo session. We also had a wonderful Easter brunch care of Jen’s family, which I always enjoy. We drove back into town on Tuesday and I hopped on the train home, arriving around 6:15.

Holter Skelter

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:56:56 +0000

Appointment at the cardiologist was pretty uneventful. Dr. Mendelson seemed surprised I’m doing so well with such a diverse and staggering quantity of heart defects. She asked me a couple times who referred me, and why I was there, but my answer never wavered: I want a Cardiologist familiar with, and who has seen many other adult congenital heart patients. And here’s the funny part: she more than proved my point.

Total Lunar Eclipse

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:36:10 +0000

Luna is back from the vet, and she’s been diagnosed with severe hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Her left ventricle is enlarged and there was a clot forming in her left atrium. She’s been prescribed Lasix, Enalapril (what I take, ironically enough), Plavix, and Aspirin. Basically, they’re throwing everything they have at her in an effort to keep her from forming clots, ease her heart’s workload, and clear any fluid that backs up into her lungs.

Lunar Eclipse

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:17:30 +0000

Luna is spending the night at an animal hospital tonight. When I got home from work on Monday, Luna didn’t greet me with her usual persistent demand to sit on my lap. In fact, she looked rather miserable sprawled on a plastic shopping bag. A couple hours later, she relocated to the corner behind the toilet. Since then, she has wandered about the apartment as though addled, refraining from eating or drinking.

Bloody Study

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:22:02 +0000

Well, I found out why I’m hitting a wall with my DDR skills, and why I simply can’t do hard 10-footers or the nasty level 11s, 12s, and 13s of ITG. I long believed this to be the case, but I ran into a study by the American Heart Association that specifically covers patients with a corrected transposition by the Mustard procedure, congenitally corrected transposition, and a similar group having undergone a revised Fontan.

Et tu, somes?

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:23:54 +0000

Not sure how I forgot to post this, but last Friday, I went to local TLC Laser Eye Center and practically got laughed out of the office. Their multi-million dollar machinery couldn’t even diagnose my prescription because it was too high. You’d think if a company manufactured something worth several million dollars, they’d go for broke and design the thing to recognize some patently absurd level seen only in Mr. Magoo or possibly a blind mole rat.

Winter++

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:17:13 +0000

Warning, this rant is brutal and not safe for 5-year-old girls. I recently saw this video on temperature, and I have to agree: temperature can suck a bowl of maggots swimming in herpes-infested pus scabs. Especially winter. Fuck you, winter. So far, this particular winter is about as endearing as a festering rat carcass cellphone-cozy. February has been a blistering barrage of snowstorm warnings, wind-chill advisories, and apparently deadly fucking tornadoes.

Update Shmupdate

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:15:39 +0000

Apparently I’ve fallen off Teh Intarwebs. Well, that’s all the fault of Final Fantasy XII, really. Played it once for 100 hours myself, then 50 hours following a guide. Sadly, the second set of characters are far more powerful with much better equipment. :( I guess that just proves they did a damn good job of hiding everything usable. Bad Squaresoft! I also proposed to Jen this Friday. Just let that sink in for a minute… Jen’s birthday, unfortunately is two weeks before Christmas.

Let's Do the Aspie Again!

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:33:38 +0000

So, I ran into a long-ass test for Aspergers, and my curiosity got the best of me, so I took a few minutes to fill it out. Your Aspie Score: 137 of 200 Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 65 of 200 You are very likely an Aspie Doh! Until Tomorrow

All but the Fat Lady

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 23:26:34 +0000

And then there was none. The tale of Rue’s haunt of Tammond Dale is no more. It’s over, damn you, and done. The tale describing an undead lagomorph intent on rending Kyle’s soul has been concluded, and I can only hope I avoided being obvious. Now I must combine the hundreds of separate entries into one giant thing and format it as expected by publishers. I need to print, edit, and refine.

Only One Left

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:38:31 +0000

First, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who managed to come to the party on the 22nd. Richard and Bettina, you didn’t drink nearly enough, but you provided me with reading material, so all is forgiven. Ryan J, I still can’t believe you only broke two of my ITG records; it’s surreal. I’ll try to enjoy your shot glasses, since they’re the first ones I’ve ever owned (at 30, go figure).

Infinite Reflection

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:01:17 +0000

At precisely 11:16PM tonight, I’ll have persisted upon this world for a grand-total of three decades. To understand the true significance of this, I believe I should clarify. I was born on September 18th, 1977 in Washington State, and since that day, life hasn’t taken kindly to my presence. Two months passed, and I went into congestive heart failure; not a heart-attack exactly, but hint enough I wasn’t meant to live.

Parties, Parties Everywhere!

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:27:29 +0000

I never would have imagined, after meeting the man, that Patrick O’Lone would allow marriage to sully his reputation. But it’s true, and I’m happy for both him and Sarah. More Surprising, of course, is that Chris Murley is following his example a mere three weeks later. On September 29th, Hillary officially joins the disfunctional family I grudgingly left behind when I moved to Chicago. They’re all growing up so fast, it brings a tear to my eye.

Of Literary Endeavors

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:04:58 +0000

And so Chapter 19 of my first book is starting. Another three, maybe four chapters remain until everything is finished, for good or ill. I’ve entered the endgame, and done terrible, unconscionable things to my characters at this stage, and it’s only going to get worse. It’s necessary, and for the trilogy to continue, absolutely essential I do these things now. I hate foreshadowing for events that won’t happen for two books yet, but I’m not writing this, so much as I’m experiencing each confusing morsel.

Ratios are The Devil

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:11:19 +0000

I’ve always wondered just how many “words” makes an average printed page, so I looked it up. Apparently that number is roughly 250, with about thirty lines per page. Assuming the average six-by-nine inch book format and a one inch margin, that seems about right. Unfortunately it also means my page count estimates have been the product of pure fantasy. I took chapter one and formatted it according to what’s normally expected by publishers.

Sinks, Blinks, and Finks

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:01:14 +0000

Well, half of my kitchen sink is missing, stolen by the maintenance man for my building. Why? Because half the pipes were filthy, rusted amalgamations of leaky steel. My sink leaked, badly. Running any water through it, via dishwasher, or just through the main drains, would result in water dumping all over the storage area underneath. Judging by the pipes he showed me, this has been happening for months, and the previous occupant never noticed.

To the Uncaring, Go the Spoils

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:46:57 +0000

It’s been a long week, and my vacation is finally over. Late Saturday night, early Sunday morning–either tell me it’s a weekend just like any other. I relaxed, I finally got the chance to enjoy Wicked, and I tooled around downtown gulping food I don’t deserve with a woman equally beyond my reach. I got drunk, I got sick, I had fun, and I’ve got little to show for it but some new rattles in my empty head.

Beat 'em Up With Furniture!

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:26:48 +0000

Well, I’ve had one of the busiest weekends on record. The TV is absolutely gorgeous. I tested out a few movies, anime, and hooked it to the media PC and so far, even from ridiculous angles where it washes out ever so slightly, it’s better than my 32" tube ever was. And what about the media PC? I installed Ubuntu on it, installed all the Ubuntu Mythtv stuff, drivers, codecs, and tweaks, and now I have to say I should have done this years ago.

From the Ends of the Earth

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:21:34 +0000

Yikes! Move from one apartment to another, and suddenly things just go to hell. I’ve managed (barely) to keep up with Rabbit Rue, but all my other activities have seemed to suffer. And then of course, they had to release the end of Harry Potter, and my weekend was pretty much shot. So, onward and forward, I’ve got some catching-up to do. But there are worse things. Like buying bookcases so I can unpack my books, waiting to receive my New 40" LCD and its accompanying entertainment center, so those’ll be fun to haul into my apartment.

Gone a Gander

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:40:13 +0000

There comes a time in a person’s life when they just wonder… why? Today I plucked two grey hairs. This by itself is not notable. What struck me, was that they were both in my eyebrows. Considering the relative distribution of hair follicles across various parts of my scalp, two in such a small area bodes badly. Then I noticed I have quite a few coming in on the sides… sides I normally have shaved down to 1/4 inch, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in for a haircut.

Disturbing Trains, With a Dash of Paprika

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:51:48 +0000

Let there be… disturbing art! I’ve finally managed to work my artist’s wonderful rendition of Rabbit Rue’s true horror into the site design. It’s a work in progress, but it still looks better than without, in my opinion. Hopefully I can tweak the design a little and leave it alone for a while. I’m moving to Evanston. I’m pretty sure of this. Nothing against Chicago, but threatening to shut down the Purple Line express, which ferries my worthless carcass to and from work, and/or raise the rates from $1.

Darkness Without Light

Fri, 25 May 2007 00:17:25 +0000

I have begun chapter nine of my ongoing tale of Rabbit Rue, which has just recently crossed the threshold of 130 pages. After I’ve written a few more of these books, I’ll consider this a mere trifle, but for now, that sheer amount of information is daunting. That I’ve created something that would require hours of reading dismays and bewilders my sensibilities, like a budding architect who has accidentally designed the Sistine Chapel.

Just Call Me Dr. Party Pants

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 01:49:07 +0000

Amanda, I won’t tell you not to worry over your mother, nor to break your vigil, though these past few weeks have been an unjust burden. Like the rest of your friends and family, I can hope for the best, and pray that is enough. Neither can I speak for her, though while I remained incoherent and delirious after my heart surgery, I was glad for the company. You’re doing everything right kid, just don’t go overboard.

Who Needs a Normal Heart Anyway?

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:16:19 +0000

Ah research. Research like this, I just don’t need. After looking into my surgical summary a bit more and joining the ACHA message boards, I have a better idea of what’s going inside under my sternum. So here’s what seems to be the full list, in alphabetical order: ASD: Atrial Septal Defect. Dextrocardia: My particular form is Isolated Dextrocardia. Situs Inversus Totalis (total inversion of all internal organs) is not present.

The Pain...

Fri, 05 Oct 2001 17:06:19 +0000

Ow. Now, far be it for me to complain needlessly, but we moved to a new place a week ago. The apartment complex in which we used to live, Kimberly Club, I must label as the very spawn of the devil himself. Why? Because the building in which we lived had two flights of stairs up to our apartment, yet the stairway was narrow and the landings practically nonexistent. Why does this matter?

Cowardly Bastards

Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:11:05 +0000

God Dammit I’ll have a rant later about this, but for now, go to the Washington Post for updates and breaking news on this story. Now that NATO is involved, I fully expect whoever did this to be reduced to a smoking hole in short order. I think terrorists around the world should be shaking in their boots. I don’t know why we never helped to eradicate them before, but now we have a purpose, and a as the Japanese Prime Minister said after Pearl Harbor: