Linux Schminux

I am sad to report, that our home's hp (ptui!) desktop computer is back to running Windows. Sigh.

As much as I liked the idea of Linux, and would love to join the Penguin Colony, it just wasn't practical. Madeline went to watch Grey's Anatomy on the net, and don't you know, abc's streaming episode player doesn't support Linux. Neither does nbc's or CW's. I did try to get by running the Window's version of Firefox under wine, but the performance just wasn't there, and the video was unwatchably choppy.

To be perfectly honest, I was disappointed in Ubuntu's stability. I had to reboot a bunch of times when the Gnome UI quit responding. Juice Master, or whatever the default mp3 encoding app is, wasn't all that swift either, getting track times way wrong on VBR encoded tunes. And though I appreciated being able to copy songs from my iPod back to the computer, manually keeping my iPod synched wasn't how I want to spend my time.

So here I am, with Windows again. Sigh. Maybe I'll peel off a partition of my hard drive to reinstall Ubuntu as a kind of playground. We'll see.

I still need a reliable, and automatic backup strategy.

Quick Computer Update

As you'll recall from last week's tale of woe, after resurrecting my sucky hp hardware, and installing Windows (from an old CD I had from a previous computer, because hp doesn't see fit to provide its customers with media), I had no network. Browsing Google News, as I often do, I stumbled on the announcement of the Gutsy Gibbon release of Ubuntu Linux. I am proud to say, that our home computer is back up and running - Windows free! Ubuntu is pretty slick. There are a few rough edges, and some things that will take some getting used to, but most things remain the same. We've always used Open Office for word processing and such, Thunderbird for e-mail, and the Firefox browser, so 80% of what we do doesn't change at all. With a little poking around I got RhythmBox supporting mp3 files, and it does a nice job managing our music and updating our iPods (though when I rip a CD, the track times are WAY off). Now, if I can find a good, reliable backup strategy, and figure out what to do about anti-virus software (no, I do NOT believe that since I'm running Linux I don't have to worry about malware), we'll be good to go.

Hewlett-Packard stinks, Seagate isn't much better

Last week the hard drive in our home computer crashed. Big time head crash with screeching noises and everything. So I called hp support - my computer is 13 months into a 12 month warranty, so hp isn't interested.

OK, the drive is a Seagate. If I had bought the drive and installed it myself, it would have come with a 5 year warranty, so I figured I'm in OK shape. I call Seagate, and nope, the drive came with the computer, Seagate won't support it, and they tell me I have to talk to hp.

To make a long story short (and believe me, I could weave a novel-length tale out of what I've gone through the past week), I'm screwed.

So I went to Best Buy and bought a new 320GB Western Digital drive. I installed it, booted their installation disk, and guess what? Thanks to hp's amazing hardware, the install tools won't see my mouse (did I mention I had the same problem with the Seagate diagnostic tools?), and without a mouse I can't partition the drive into one large partition. I figured how to work my way around that problem, installed Windows, and it no longer sees my NIC, so no network.

Between the troubles my mom had with her Compaq (AKA hp) laptop, this mess, and the offshore support staff - I'm through with hp. Will never buy an hp product again (and I was on the cusp of getting one of their network storage devices, whew, dodged that bullet).

AND YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER BUY FROM HEWLETT-PACKARD EITHER.

So there.

For other's opinions, you can google hp sucks

DePaul University Visit

Madeline and I drove to Chicago Monday night for a visit to the DePaul University campus on Tuesday. Not a bad drive - just under 400 miles, and as luck would have it, the Reds were playing the Cubs at Wrigley, so I got the rare opportunity to listen to a Reds game through the voice of another team. I liked the Cubs' announcers.

A bit before 9:30 we rolled up to our motel, the Heart O' Chicago. It's about three miles from Wrigley Field, and five from DePaul. A very nice room, free continental breakfast, and only $77 for the night. The street was a little loud, so next time I'll ask for a room farther from the corner, but if Madeline winds up at DePaul, this will be my Chicago home away from home.

We got up early Tuesday morning, left for campus, missed a turn on our Google Maps directions, and drove to Lake Michigan. Being lost in a big city during rush hour was a bit unnerving, but we found our way back on course, stopped at a CVS, bought a (completely un-refoldable) Chicago street map, and found our way.

DePaul is an interesting university, half in Lincoln Park, and half in the Loop. The Lincoln Park campus looks like most any small university with its pretty buildings and some green space. Jump on the "L" and in 20 minutes you emerge from the subway station in the Loop, looking directly at an umteen story building housing the DePaul Loop Campus - kind of a University-in-a-box.

Long story short, the Office of Admissions info session was OK, and the campus tour didn't show us a dorm room, but our Loop Campus tour was a private affair - just us and our guide. Madeline loved it all: the hustle and bustle of the city, the neighborhood surrounding the Lincoln Park Campus, the Library. After visiting UT (no not that UT, no not that UT), Madeline was interested in the school, but this time she was excited. Got on her cell in the car and talked about it for nearly an hour. I even broke my personal rule and bought her DePaul sweats prior to being admitted.

We bugged out just in time to beat the worst of Chicago traffic, but it still took us nearly an hour to hit the Indiana border. The 2nd game of the Reds-Cubs series started somewhere around Indianapolis, and wrapped up as we hit Columbus. For me, the ball game really helped drive time pass quickly.

We got home safe-and-sound a bit after 11, went to bed, and today life is back to normal.

It's High School Football Season Again

It's football season again, and Madeline's Senior year. The Johnnies got off to a tough start with a 21-20 loss to Granville. I think a kicker would help a lot.

12 hours of Ozzfest

First things first. I have a pretty good idea of who reads this, and I'm pretty sure there's one thing foremost on your mind: did Ozzy show up? The answer is yes. Ozzy was there and played a set.

Back to the story. I was at Ozzfest grilling $8 burgers and selling $4 soft drinks for 12 hours, earning $$ for Ohio Twistars, Madeline's competitive cheer squad. Man, it was brutally hot. Fortunately, our food stand was under a tent, and we had a humongous fan.

The people-watching couldn't be better. I've got to say, much of the heavy metal crowd puts a premium on fashion over comfort. I don't think I would spend a 95+ degree day in the sun, dressed head-to-toe in black. It wasn't long before most of the women were in bikini tops, and the guys were shirtless. Let me tell you, compared to this crowd, I am buff!

I saw some great ink - I never knew you could get such color, and some piercings that made me wince - but then, that's kind of the point, isn't it? I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by how polite everyone was. Except for the belligerent drunks, the most tattooed and black clad of the bunch always said please, thank you, and have a nice night. Maybe it's the mid-west upbringing bleeding through all the leather.

One thing I could have done without was listening to the freak-show barkers push their extravaganza for 8 solid hours. I don't know how they do it. Their shpiel was pretty funny for the first 3 hours. "Come see the only man to live through stabbing himself in the neck with a rusty screwdriver! How does he do it? Why does he do it? See the rubber lady, who's so flexible, she can put her face, her entire face up her country and city boys alike will enjoy the spectacle! It's all on the inside!" They did have a very cool snake.

If I had to do it over again, I would have taken many, many more photos. There were beautiful tattoos. There were some outrageous outfits (like the guy in a head-to-toe rubber T-Rex suit). There were great venders (You don't even want to know what was on the T-shirts for sale at the I Love Vagina clothing booth). See you next year!

Back from the Beach

We just got back from our near-annual trip to the beach. The Kings Barbecue was fantastic. The weather was the best ever — a bit overcast with a nice breeze. The ocean was almost glassy smooth. Four generations under one roof was pretty special. We flew kites, Robin and Perrin went for a horseback ride on the beach, Madeline got a message. Is there anything better than walking on the beach at sunrise then taking a dip in the ocean?

Update! I figured out how to embed the slideshow of the family vacation pics right here, so you don't have to go anywhere else. (And you can click on the slideshow to view bigger photos.)

Happy Birthday Perrin

It's 07/07/07, and 7+7+7=21, and it's Perrin's 21st birthday. I can't imagine she could come up with a better way to start the day than riding a hunter pace on Cherish.

Running Water Running

How about that! 8:00 PM, Friday July 6, 2007, a mere twelve years (or is it thirteen) and 2 days since we moved in here, we have running water in the barn. Gone are the days of forgetting to turn the hose off and flooding the yard. Gone are the days of lugging buckets of water from the house. I'll let you know if this is the neatest thing since sliced bread after living with it for a while. And a special thanks to Lindsey at Shull's Hardware for turning me on to Shark Bite plumbing fittings. You gotta check this stuff out - it makes assembling plumbing like working with Tinker Toys. Using a Shark Bite Tee and Ball Valve, I had tapped into the house's water with the supply shut off for only about fifteen minutes.

Running Water, Part 1

I am beat. Physically waisted. My good friend Thor and I rented a trencher this past weekend. He needed to replace a broken water line from his pump to a spigot outside his barn. I'm running water out to the barn. It's hard to believe that it's taken 12 years of filling horse buckets with a hose in the summer, and carrying 30 gallons or so of water from the house to the barn every day during the winter to finally get around to this.

Trenching is relatively easy - until you hit a giant rock and have to beat the snot out of it with a spud bar, or until you have to detour around an old and previously unknown buried foundation, or until you hit a steel pipe, etc., etc., etc. Of course, the phone line into the house didn't slow the trencher down much at all.

Then once the trench is dug, and the tubing laid, there's the task of filling the damn thing back in again. (Thank you Robin!) 350 feet of trench later, and all that's left is the in-house plumbing, and digging a big pit in the barn for the standpipe. Stay tuned for progress reports.

Say Bird Design

My hipster niece Emily has (finally) graduated and started her very own design business. The girl is talented, and you should take a look at her stuff at http://saybirddesign.com/. Go buy some very cool note cards, t-shirts and so forth while you're there.

And then there were none

Regina, the last of our ducks was killed the night before last. A raccoon got into her box and wrung her neck. Killed for sport, not food. Raccoons are vicious that way. And this guy's been making a nuisance of himself in the barn lately. Spilling the duck food, and stealing the cat bowls were just the prelude to his latest offense.

In an odd cosmic balancing act, Madeline rescued a 6 week old kitten from a flooded swale along the road on her way to the high school graduation a couple weeks ago. Despite our insistence that she must find a permanent home elsewhere for Roxy Tangerine, procrastination has worked, and the kitten has endeared herself to the family. The poor thing is so homely that she's cute. What the hell, what's one more cat?

Father's Day with my dad and the Reds

Dad and I went to Great American Ballpark to see Bronson Arroyo loose his eighth game this season. Bummer. We sat behind home plate, in the top row of the upper deck. While most of the fans were wilting in the 90+ degree heat, we enjoyed the game in the shade and with a very nice breeze blowing in from behind us. A Sherpa would have helped when it was time for lunch.

Later, we met a very interesting waitress at J. Alexanders where we ate some very good food, followed by a 10 minute drive to the Starbucks, which was about 100 yards from the restaurant for coffee, and I hit the road from home.

Perrin leaves for Pony Club upper-level camp at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning, but I'm still a bit too caffeinated to go to sleep. I'll regret this at 5AM when the alarm goes off.

Perrin and Cherish let their ya-yas out

It's Hunter Pace season again, and this gives Perrin the perfect opportunity to let Cherish get her ya-yas out. Nothing like galloping across the rolling hills of beautiful western Licking County, jumping everything in site to get you and your horse's head on straight.

Demon duck, hot and cold softball, and boat payments

Demon Duck

I was walking back from the barn the other morning, and there was Regina, sitting on the lawn, head down, neck stretched out, looking like a Klingon warbird. I'm walking by ... and she is tracking my every move ... watching ... staring. OK, I can't blame her, a couple hours earlier I had shoo'd her aside to take eggs out from under her. Still, it was creepy.

Hot and Cold Softball

Our summer co-ed recreational softball team has a sponsor this year, and we take the field looking all dapper in our Red Rock Pub T-shirts. It hasn't helped our play though. We seem to be hot or cold. We've won 3 - one by the mercy rule, one coming from behind after spotting them 8 runs in the first, and one was unmemorable. We've also lost 3, two by the mercy rule. Seems that when we aren't playing well, none of us are playing well. I'd like to say though, that our women rock. We're probably the only team in the league with 2 women on the left side of the infield. Unfortunately, shortstop Kelly goes home to Toledo after finishing her freshman year at OSU. Do the math, I had graduated from college and worked at Bell Labs for 3 years before this girl was born! God, I feel old sometimes. I'm more or less holding my own with the young whipper-snappers out there, but I sure would like some eye-hand coordination for Fathers Day.

Boat Payments

Lilly's been lame since March, and off-and-on since last August. Hoping to finally get to the bottom of what's been going on, we elected to make a boat payment for an equine lameness specialist today. Bottom line, nothing's wrong except her foot hurts. Give her 2 aspirin (AKA bute) 3 days a week and she'll probably be fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm relieved it's nothing serious, and we got some cool digital X-Rays. FYI, the screws are holding together a wooden box her foot is on

Prom night

Prom was last weekend. Madeline was chair of the decorating committee, and from what I heard, the room looked great, and accomplished with nominal drama.

Madeline had a fantastic time, the most fun ever! What more could you ask for.

Games Rally nearly rained out

Games Rally for the Tri-State Region of the United States Pony Club was Saturday, and man did it rain. Despite being soaked to the bone and chilled, the kids actually had fun. Ah, youth. The teams I coach did real well, they can be proud of themselves. Can't wait 'till next year.

Mudhens squash the Bulls

Here I am, stuck in Durham, NC on business for 2 weeks, but all is not lost. The Toledo Mudhens are in town for the Bulls' homestand, and I got some comp tickets (thanks Ken!) that were out of sight - three rows behind the visiting dugout. Couple that with a clear sky, 80 degrees, and a 10-2 Mudhens win, and it doesn't get much better than this. Pardon the image quality, all I had was my cell phone

Duck, Muck and Bucks

Regina is laying eggs again

Either Regina has grown accustom to being alone (yes, the two drakes were killed this winter, coyotes the likely culprits, though there's no shortage of raccoon and fox either) or maybe the warmer weather has triggered her maternal instincts, but I had duck eggs for breakfast this morning. One duck laying one egg a day is just about right.

Where's the ark?

The sky opened up again last night. With the heavy rains we've had off and on the past couple weeks, it's once again mud season here on Littlewood Farm. If you're coming to visit, better bring boots if you plan to stray off the driveway. On the up-side, the duck is enjoying all the standing water. And Poor Casey, his stall flooded again this morning so he's living in the aisle - which gets Lilly all worked up. Last time we did this, she whacked her head a good one acting all mare-like, and I wrenched my back bailing water. Note to self: be more careful this time.

Late night with the Buckeyes

Gad-zooks! Why can't this team just go out and win a game? The anxiety did guarantee I wasn't, in genetically predisposed family form, falling asleep on the sofa mid-game. I'm trying to imagine coach Matta's pre-game talk, "let's spot 'em 20 just to make a game of it, and really crush their spirit in the end." Naw, the guy doesn't seem that cold. As scary as the past couple games have been, it show me that this team's got depth, and a lot of heart. I was a bit worried about Perrin, who visited friends on the OSU campus wearing Tennessee orange — and made it home safely.

Cheer

For the fourth consecutive season, Madeline was most-improved cheerleader on the JHS squad. Part fact, part running joke among the girls.

Basketball season comes to an end

I was a bit harsh with the Johnnies the other day. There was a real spark in their play tonight, and their loss to the bracket's first seed Bishop Hartley was an awfully good game. The Johnnies were in the hunt until it ever so gradually slipped away in the second half. I was also impressed by the cheerleaders' ability to eat sloppy joes at half time, then come back to the gym and whip out roundoff back tucks, while keeping it all down.

I'm looking forward to next year.

Winter Report

Winter Finally Arrives

I will never complain about mild winters again. Winter arrived with a bang - and after a week of single-digit temps, our supply of firewood is down to about 3 days worth. So, we're only firing up the stove on cold evenings, and you know what? With no fire to warm the thermostat, the furnace runs more and the house outside of the living room is much warmer. In a related stroke of luck, I bought a tank-load of heating oil at a near seasonal low price. School's been closed about a half-dozen days already (this morning it was for frozen fog, never heard of that before), so Madeline will be going to school well into June.

Vacuum Crisis

When Madeline went to vacuum the living room rug Thursday afternoon, the sweeper emitted a horrific clatter and horrid smell. Alas, after something like 15 years of faithful service, the beater bar had broken in two - and no, duct tape didn't work. You may not think this would be a crisis, but then, you don't own a 140 pound dog that sheds 10 pounds of hair a day. A bit of 'net research, a trip to Sears, and we are the proud owners of a new, bagless vacuum complete with IntelliClean! Because I'm not smart enough to vacuum on my own.

A New Car!

At least to us. We purchased a snazzy little white '97 Corolla with a meager 65k miles on the odo. It's not the '91 5-series BMW we were looking at, nor the '95 C-Classs Mercedes, but it does have stylish alloy wheels and the Toyota "gold badge" package. In an age of global warming and $3/gallon gasoline, I suppose an economical transportation appliance is called for. Truth be told, I hate it.

Johnnies Ain't What They Used to Be

It's a rebuilding year for the boys basketball team. Seems like no lead is to big to blow. I've seen sizable mid-third quarter leads fade away, and I traveled to Loudonville to see a 30+ point loss. The cheerleaders are performing some pretty cool stunts though, so it's still worth the trip to the gym.

The JV is fun to watch, and with only a couple Seniors graduating, I'm looking forward to next year.

Madeline Throws Some

Madeline's been working hard on her tumbling, and is pretty accomplished at flipping and twirling in the gym, but on a hard basketball court and in sneakers, it's harder. Still, got to see her throw some roundoff-back handsprings. I'm looking forward to next year (can you believe she'll be a senior?)