weekend troubleshooting report

Today I have my coffee. Deb came home from work this morning with the dreaded and mysterious "check engine" light. I checked the engine, and yes, it was still there. Having exhausted everything I know about new engines, I took it to Valvoline Instant Oil Change, where they checked and topped off all the fluids, put the computer thing-a-ma-jig on it to read the codes, and cleared it out. The code was for "gasoline evaporation" or some such nonsense, they said sometimes if the gas-cap isn't on it can cause it. I've never heard of such a thing, but they cleared the light out and it didn't come back on. How much did they charge? NOTHING! Friggin' Awesome.

I have a laptop to fix. I used Microsoft's "Windows Memory Diagnostics" program, a program you can burn to CD to check for memory errors, and yes, it found an error.

All this before 9:30 AM.

Maybe I should bathe . . . naw . . .

Sunday: The day of Easter Bla Bla

The sky is clear, but the air is cold. And that cold air busted me up when I tried to run today. Friggin' winter, go away already. It hangs around like a visitor that has overstayed its welcome. Deb was in Flint Friday and Saturday. We held the fort down reasonably well. Today she got home. It's Easter, so we went out to eat at Johnny Carino's. I had spaghetti.

I finished reading On Writing, by Stephen King. Damn good book. It gave clear advice from a guy who has made a boat-load of money writing books.

I bought a new machine for work. I'm starting to get SATA drives, and my 400MHZ Gateway with the IDE controllers can't cut the mustard. I have a converter that works half the time but the transfer rate is for shit and it takes forever to rescue a client's first season of "Desperate Housewives" iTunes files. So I got a new machine.

My March Madness bracket is in the can already, but as of this writing, Brian is on top by three points.

I keep telling myself, spring warm-up is just around the corner, but I'm starting to have my doubts.

I'm still working on my newest bestseller. I'm 90 typewritten pages in and counting.

Rush's "The Fountain of Lamneth" from "Caress of Steel" is a mere 19:58 minutes of geeky fantasy-rock goofiness, but it is still pretty good. I got the iTunes on shuffle.

Well, if you've read this far, I've got to give you credit for hanging in there. This is a hefty blog post, and I appreciate you reading this last sentence.

Oh yeah, Billy Thorp's "Children of the Sun" just came on. I must stop typing now and commence air-guitar. There is nothing more pathetic than a 41 year old man doing air-guitar in his tiny office.

after having a thrombo . . .

Today I installed a wireless network at an accounting office downtown, dropped an ancient HP pavilion with windows 98 goodness off at a welding shop, fixed a PC in a JCPenny’s heating and ventilation area (you wouldn’t believe the air-handling units they need at a mall anchor store), the guy at the Apple store told my my mac-mini is pretty much crashed, when I got home I managed to crash my bench server with a client’s files on it, recovered same files after having a thrombo, put the files back on the client’s laptop, and returned it no problem. I cut the weeds and grass growing between the cracks on the driveway, rebuilt my bench server with an additional HD to back up the backups and now I’m trying to unwind.

the blog post I posted Sunday

Saturday morning I golfed with Brian and Tom. I did Okay, Brian and Tom did better. Took the kids to The Simpson’s Movie. I picked up a new game for the Wii: Mario Strikers. It is awesome. It’s a cross between soccer and a video game, with all the Nintendo Mario characters. You can play it across the Internets against other people, or your friends.

I’ve been plotting my book out, mulling it over and planning before I set one word down in the first draft. Planning. What a concept huh?

I’m running again, and I’m losing some weight. My gut has no chance against my awesomeness now.

I bought the movie 300, the violence is a work of pure art.

Talked to Barry on the phone, cleaned the toilet, reformatted a couple of machines, cleaned the pool, put up a tire swing, cut my toenails, drank some tea, read a book, read another book, watched television, ate a grapefruit, went to some garage sales, stopped smoking, etcetera and so forth.

Generic Tuesday Blog Post.

fixed PC in Grand Haven. Walked to the end of pier. Went golfing with Deb in the afternoon. Actually, she watched and drove the cart, I golfed. Savannah had a band concert. Deb and I played cribbage. Sent out some post-cards.

Savannah's class went first at the band concert, and I enjoyed that because she was up there, and she sounded great. Then the other class performed, and usually, when my child isn't up on stage, it is really boring, but they played THE THEME FROM STAR WARS and that made it somewhat bearable.

wednesday bla bla

What a difference a couple of weeks make. I was worried about it being SLOW, and now I’m changing motherboards, hard-drives, operating systems, networks, cutting off Internet access, cleaning out computer junk, and being busy. I finally have an evening with no PCs on the bench, and I’m too tired to do anything.

Not complaining; work is work, and that’s a good thing. It looks like a giant robot threw up in my office, there are computer parts strewn everywhere. I have to do some cleaning soon.

I spent the weekend cutting firewood, and that's about all I did. It is stacked so nicely. Sometimes I just go out back and gaze at my ultimate firewood stacks.

Sunday, Most Holy Day of Sloth . . .

Today I tamped down fresh mole tunnels with my bare feet. I took a lawn chair out to the driveway and sat in it. A strange, bright light was in the sky. I forget what it is called. Everything was warm. I read a book and soaked up the rays of this strange, unfamiliar ball of fire. I’ll call it, “the sun.”

I thought about taking a run, but didn’t. I watched 5 episodes of “Frasier.” I spoke to Barry on the phone. I spread fertilizer on my lawn. I spoke to the neighbor, Sharon briefly about how to kill moles.

I played tug-of-war with the dog. I read some more. I watched some more television. I played catch with my daughter.

I got a headache, and realized I had forgotten to drink coffee. I drank coffee.

I updated my blog.

bla bla. this post is boring.

We went to Lowes and bought bird seed and one of those solar stick-in-the-ground lights. I planted some flowers. I walked around barefooted. I chipped a golf-ball around the yard. I had a homeade Oatmeal Stout a friend gave me.

The girls went to a friend's house and Deb and I had Nachoes and Coronas at Cheers. I moved the super-heavy railroad ties from the backyard. I traded some computer work so my neighbor would haul them all away.

My back hurt from moving the railroad ties. I finished copying music back to my laptop. The fan doesn't run all the time anymore.

Tomorrow, computer work.

bla bla. this post is boring.