Category Archives: #GeneralBS

Jan 18

Every Time I Think I “Should” Post I Find Something Else To Do.

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And I’m not really understanding WHY. I used to love to post about the trials and tribulations of an average everyday American; Me. Lately, though, it seems a chore that I don’t want to add to the end (or beginning) of my day.

Sometimes I think that if I could get SWMBO to drop the one e-mail address she has through our site and switch over to her Google e-mail completely, that I’d just kill off my (many) blogs.

Bought a new NAS (TerraMaster) that is REALLY picky about what kind of drives it uses, and finally bought a couple of 8 TB (Seagate Ironsomething) drives for it. (Then splurged for 2 more that’ll be in soon. $160 ea for these things!) Just last night finished setting it up the way I want it and copying all the movies/tv shows/music/pictures to it and the thing is working Great! Mirrored everything on it to the two  8-TB drives I bought (that the thing will NOT use) for “just in case.” (Still have to learn about the Kubernetics and VPN stuff on it.)

So I shut down my old (flakey already rebuilt 3 times because it reboots and wants to reformat the RAID and it’s so old there is NO tech support or updates available for it but don’t get me started) NAS and put the new one in it’s place. And, wouldn’t you know it, when I plugged the old NAS in in my office and turned it on it sure enough it came up with “Choose RAID type and reformat” message. Fuck it. Garbage. You’d think that a $380 NAS (not counting drives) would last more than 8 years. So I’ll stick it in the basement for a few years, retry making it work a couple of times before finally just throwing it away. Maybe try to find a way to install linux in some form on it?

So I took the 4 5-TB drives out and re-partitioned/reformatted them (only 1 truly seems hosed but I’ll keep playing with it) and they’re sitting on a shelf. What the hell am I going to use them for? The last 5-TB drive I replaced in the old NAS I re-partitioned/re-formatted and it’s been working in my desktop for almost 2 years without a problem.

I had set up a Raspberry Pi 4 for SWMBO to use as her desktop. She wanted a 2nd monitor so I bought her a 2nd monitor and holder-arm thingie. Then Got Stupid and thought that the 2nd video port on the Pi wasn’t a video port. (Which it is, but, like I said, I Got Stupid. Hey, it happens occasionally. Danged mini-HDMI ports anyway.) So I set up that mini ACEPC (with two regular sized HDMI ports on it) I had laying around with Linux Mint and got it all set up for her and copied all her data to it and that’s working great. She likes it when she can just sit down and IT WORKS. Silly Woman! But, so far, she seems not unhappy with Linux and the smaller computer. I did add a 500 GB SSD to the ACEPC so she can store things locally if she wants.

My Father-in-law gave me a ION Video Archiver when we last saw him (last month) that I’ve been capturing the last of my personal video tapes with. It only does 720×480 at whatever crappy resolution the tape is but, so far, it’s been doing a pretty good job of capturing video. So now I can post my video from Naked City or Black’s Beach from back in the late 80’s and get banned from YouTube! Cool!

Oh, he also gave me a Roomba. Thing seems to mostly work pretty good and freaks SWMBO’s cat out when it turns and heads directly for him.

Been pretty much raining since we got back so haven’t been outside doing anything for awhile. Was with the Marines too long to let rain stop my morning walk with the Dog though. Poncho up and get ‘er done!

I see where New NASA Study Reveals Devastating Impact of Rising Sea Levels on U.S. Coasts. Yet, every time I get to the beach here in Washington State the water always seems to be where it was the last time I was there. And I’m not worrying about it until all the rich muckity-mucks sell off their beach-front properties. Lead by example, Dipshidiots.

I still think NASA should be studying Space and leave the Earth Sciences to other organizations. Just think, we might already be colonizing Mars if NASA had stuck to Space stuff. (We should have been permanently on the Moon since the early 70’s.)

I don’t like going to sleep anymore. Sometimes feel I’m pretty close to not waking up. Too much to do. Too much to learn. Too many smooches with SWMBO to go.

Jan 07

6487 Miles Later …

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SWMBO threatened to “chop ’em off!” when my OCD kicked in at the end of the trip and I suggested we “ride around a bit” to even the mileage at 6500 exactly. She’s mean.
So, let’s see. SWMBO’s Mom died the 6th. I flew SWMBO out the 7th. Her son and I followed (driving) the 10th. Part of I-90 was closed so we wound up taking an “alternate route” through Bend, Oregon, snow on the hills and packed on the road, that added several hours and a couple of hundred miles to the trip. Pulled in to Oregon, Oh about 37 hours later.
Got some rest. Holy Fuck, it’s cold in Ohio. “Viewing” on the 14th. Burial the 15th. SWMBO asked if we could stay through Christmas so her Dad wouldn’t have his first Christmas without his lovely-young-bride of 63 years alone. Sure. Except for the endless “cab view train videos” and -2 degree Wx (-25 with the wind-chill) it wasn’t too bad. SWMBO packed up a lot of sewing/quilting stuff from her Mom’s stuff in the basement. That fills the bed of the truck. (And behind the seats in the truck is absolutely stuff with our personal ‘stuff.’)
Took off the 26th heading South. Got caught 5-miles back in a 20 mile backup on I-75 somewhere south of Cincinnati but north of Lexington. Followed a bunch of other cars and semi’s across the “Do Not U-Turn” thing on the highway and back-tracked about 10 miles (seeing miles and miles of cars still in that traffic jam on the south bound side) until we stopped at a gas station (I had to pee!) and used their porta-potty (in sub-zero wx) cause their restrooms were out of order.
I believe we took highway 32 through Sadieville to Connersville to Lee’s Lick to Leesburg then highway 62 back to I-75 (all of it snow covered to about 8″ and following a long line of other vehicles). Almost made it to Lexington before I had to stop for the night.
Where we discovered the “Cracker Barrel” chain of restaurants. OMG, SWMBO and I stuff ourselves on some really good food, had enough left over to take some with us, and it cost only $30 (with tip). It was so inexpensive that I paid for some old Vet’s dinner ($15 & tip) on the way out. So Cracker Barrel has become one of our favorites. (Nearest one to our home is down Beaverton, Oregon way. Bummer.)
Got to Como, Miss the next day to visit my 83 year old Uncle on my Mom’s side. My 87 year old Aunt and her husband drove over to see us. We visited my 93 year old Uncle at his not-quite-assisted living place. Stayed for a couple of days and took off. Took the back way through Sardis and along H-315 to 61 to 49 to I-40 Westbound. Glad to be Westbound.
Visited my 89 year old Aunt in Arkansas for a couple of hours before heading on home. Wx slowly improved the further West we went. Mostly.
Took a couple of days following I-40 to get to 191 North to head to Midway, Ut. Took the “Southern Route” to avoid the heavy snowstorms in the mid-west (and it mostly worked). Didn’t hit much Wx until around Moab, Utah. Then it got snowy. Good God there’s some desolate areas along 191! (And I was actually accosted by a drunk Indian (Native American) wanting “a couple of bucks” at some Burger King we stopped at on a Reservation along the way.)
Took a very snowed over Highway 6, in the dark, and followed that to I-15 North to Provo and the very snowed over Provo Canyon to Heber to Midway. Where we got snowed in for 2 days. About 15 inches of new snow overnight.
Left Midway Wednesday and made it as far as Boardman, Oregon before I had to stop for the night. Made it home around 1300 the next day. It wouldn’t have hurt SWMBO to let me round off the mileage to 6500.
And that’s it. Our unplanned trip of the decade. So far. We’ve been lounging around the house just enjoying being home. Enough so that we’ve only been out grocery shopping and even picked up a pizza to eat at home for date day this week.
Not going to get into how beautiful northern Arizona/Southern Utah is, for now, but know this: I Could Move To Northern Arizona/Southern Utah Tomorrow! That’s got to be the most beautiful stretch of land on this Earth.