Who needs 80Gb Anyway?

So we recently changed out the Princesses' computer that was running Windows 98 to a new one running XP. This left me with a Windows 98SE computer and little to do with it. I had a few ideas here and there, and wasn't really settled on anything specific, so I started at the simplest and moved into the way too complex and irritating.

My first inclination was to network it with the others to share the files on the 80Gb hard drive that's on it. Well, I hadn't networked anything before, but I figured since I had the others going through a router to connect them (very successfully) to the internet, how hard can it be? Well, harder than I thought, that's for sure.

I started by (gasp!) following the instructions. I set up the main conputer for networking, copied the client file out and installed it on the 98 computer. I made sure everything was named correctly, shared the folder I wanted to share and tried it out. Nothing. Suspecting that maybe I just wasn't getting it because of the archaic operating system, I tried to network the Princesses' XP computer. No dice there either. So I asked the Engineer, since he'd dealt with networking before. He said my router needed to be a switch as well.

So, I looked online and found the specs for my router. Sure enough, it had switch capabilities, but how to activate said capabilities? No information. Not in the manual online. Not on any message boards. No where could I find anyone with this problem of wanting to enable the switching capability of my router. Without networking, I can't remote desktop into them, which means switching monitor cables with the 98SE computer and using a net program to login to the other one.

At some point, I got the bright idea that I could use the computer as a Media Center with the TV in the living room that does have a VGA input, so it can be used as a monitor. After finally finding a driver to run my USB drive, I found I couldn't run iTunes, and therefore, can't play the movies I have saved on my iPod. Tried an MP4 player, but iPod movies don't play through those. Apparently their container is just slightly different. So I decided that since I had a restore disc from the Princesses new computer containing XP home, and since my old computer does meet the system requirements to run it, I'll just install it on the old computer. They are manufactured by the same company, so I figured it was worht a shot. There was nothing on the smaller 6 Gb drive that I didn't have a backup of, so I went for it.

It wouldn't install. Well, more to the point, it wouldn't boot after it was finished. It had a specific error during the install that might have something to do with it, but I checked online and discovered someone else had done this exact same thing, and it turns out that the model of computer I have has a BIOS that may not work with XP, so that was out.

At this point, I have a machine with no workable OS, but an 80Gb storage drive full of stuff. Oh, and I can't just move the drive into my main computer. No extra bay. I can move it into the Princesses, though, which after you hear the rest of this, you'll find why I seriously considered.

I've always wanted to try Ubuntu as an OS, so I figured I'd give it a shot. After all, while it won't play Netflix movies online (must have Windows XP for that), it did have a program that would read the iPod, so maybe I could use that. After all, people have had good things to say about that free Linux based system. So I downloaded the install disc and tried it.

Didn't work. Didn't ever get to the point where it loaded the OS. After a full night of trying a few different things, I gave up and figured it was my memory restrictions. I only have 160Mb RAM and apparently an install uses 256Mb. Now, you can usually get away with this sort of thing because your average computer does something called disk swapping where it copies a piece of the program into memory, saves it to the hard drive, and copies a little more in. As it uses the program, it "swaps" the pieces it needs from the disk to the RAM and back again. It takes longer, but it works. This wouldn't do anything past a certain point.

So I decided to use the stripped down version call Xubuntu. I downloaded it, and started it going. Again, it froze. Wouldn't work at all. I was getting kind of frustrated. Not sure what to do here.

Told Optimus Prime about my ills, and he suggested DSL (Damn Small Linux). So I downloaded the dinky thing and found its intent was to have an operating system on a shoestring, using only 50Mb of space to run along with a myriad of programs. Cool, to be sure... but I couldn't install it as a permanent system despite the specifications saying it is possible. Could be because I don't enough Linux to use it, though. So that's out.

At present, I still have my OS-less computer with an 80Gb hard drive of stuff. I'm down to probably reinstalling Windows 98 then doing the SE upgrade unless I come up with an upgrade or fresh copy of XP. We'll see.

Late Again... why?

I work some long hours at my job. Long enough that missing any time at all, while not of much concern to management since I work my "scheduled" hours without a problem, concerns me since I have expenses to meet and use all those hours to make sure I meet them. I usually get in at seven even though I'm scheduled for eight, but two days this week, I've been late by almost an hour each time. This is odd since I haven't come in at eight since probably February.

I've been trying to work out exactly what the deal is since I do enjoy my job, and usually, I start coming in late when I don't enjoy it. There have been some harder days over the last week, but nothing that has turned me off. We've been working hard on the house for an upcoming party, and I've been going to bed at 1am, but even that hasn't much affected me. I've laid off the caffeine and started drinking water, but even that doesn't cause much. Then it hit me.

I got myself onto a committee here at work. It was one of those things where I was approached about it, and then there was a selection process. I held the opinion that if I was meant to do it, I would be selected, and if not, then I wouldn't. I leave things like that in God's hands and try to pay attention to what goes on to decide what to do. I've failed to do that before, and it's bit me pretty hard.

But I made it. I made it, and the first thing the committe is doing is getting together all in one place. Well, the group is spread out across the country, so the place we're all meeting is the headquarters which is in Alpharetta, GA. So, I get to take my first business trip, but it's also away from the family for three days. I leave early, early Monday morning and return on Wednesday evening, and through our entire marriage, I can only think of two times the Queen and I have been apart for a couple nights.

So part of me doesn't want to go. I haven't been on a plane since 1995 when The Engineer graduated high school, and I returned from Colorado for a couple days, and I couldn't afford the time to drive. Now, I did enjoy flying during my military venture, but not having been in over thirteen years, I'm a little trepidatious over the whole thing. Add to that going to a strange town and depending on everyone else to get me around makes for one stressful situation for me.

It's probably a subconscious reaction to the situation that I'm going through. I'm I'm late, they won't like me anymore or something. But on the flip side; shall we say, the rational side? This committee thing will reflect well on me from a career perspective, as my current job is the first one I've ever had that shows some career potential that I might actually enjoy. My last job was ok, but I knew I'd hate moving up. In fact, it rang as kind of scary since they were always so strict, and let's face it, I'm not.

So in order to fix my lateness, I'm staying late, and I'm going to seriously try to come in early for the next two days. If I'm resolute about it in my head, I'll get up. Otherwise, I'll be here till 7:00 on Friday night, which would suck, so I've got to get this into my head.

I will wake up. I will wake up. I will wake up ... on time. ...on time. ...on time.

Pink Potty

So during the entire last week, we started a project. You see, the Queen has a party thing this coming weekend where a lot of family we haven't seen in forever, and most of which have never seen our house, are coming over. This, naturally, set the Queen into a frenzy of cleaning and fixing stuff so the house is as good as possible when they show up.

One point of contention was the main bathroom, also referred to as the girls' bathroom. Sure, it's where anyone who comes over would go in case of the call of nature, but 90% of the time, they use it and no one else. Well, the former owner of the house (the Herbologist who likes Terracotta -- I should call her Herbie-Cotta) liked her terracotta and nothing accents terracotta like...brown. Naturally, a beautiful shade of deep skid mark brown to set off the terracotta carpet. And the wallpaper was set to several shades of this brown from skid mark to 3rd-day-of-diarrhea. Fabulous, eh?

We tried to get the wallpaper off the wall, and even employee the princesses in this tearing frenzy over the couple years we've been there. As you can imagine, this created a wall of torn paper and exposed sheetrock. Not wanting this to be the impression our guests have of the bathroom, we set ourselves to painting it starting last Monday night. Naturally, we could only do this at night, since it's the only time the Princesses aren't trying to help.

So every night, we made a little progress. Two nights of primer. Two nights of one color. Two nights of another color. We replaced the wall switches, plugs, and plates to be white instead of ivory. We painted the towel rod to be white instead of that lovely brown shade. Re-painted the french doors and vanity as well as replacing all the knobs to be very prissy.

We finished it last night. It's pink. Very, very pink. Pink with white cabinets and doors and trim. The knobs on the doors and drawers all look like they're made of pink glass. Oh, and not one shade of pink either. You see, their bathroom is divided into the section with the sink and the section with the toilet and tub/shower. So the anteroom, as it were, is a different shade of pink than the water-closet proper.

The princesses are thrilled with the end result, and really, so are we. Instead of feeling like you're walking through a sewer pipe, it's very bright and cheerful in there now.

And pink. Very, very pink.

And Life Goes On

It's been a few weeks now since my last post, and I am left pondering the reasons behind such a thing. Some people like to say when they stop blogging that they had nothing to say. Can't say that's true since life always has something to say. In fact, people tend to lead more interesting lives than they let on if they choose to see the adventure in it. Is it time? Well, that's a big factor, but you can't really say that you don't have time because everyone gets the same 24 hours and some manage to make more of it than others.

For me, I just continue to forget about it. I'm driving down the highway in the morning, thinking about my life with the Queen, and I think of things that are worth writing about. After all, with 24 hours and multiple contacts, surely, there are many things I can write about. Well, there are, but the real trick is remembering to do so once I hit a terminal to write them down on.

Ah, now there's the key. I get into work, and the sky is falling. I get home, and get distracted by everything there. So all the stuff worth writing about takes my attention away from just writing about it. Weird, huh? Almost ironic in a way. Can I promise for certain that I will keep blogging every day? No. Sure can't. But what I can do is continue to make an attempt to share one little piece of my life with everyone out there as often as I can. If you happen to be getting daily feeds, then this will pop up periodically, and I can only hope that it will be worth reading when it does.

I want to write about a great many things and document others, so I'll be using the date function a bit to backdate some posts I've been meaning to write. So if you could swear you checked it yesterday and there was nothing there, but suddenly something is, don't be concerned. There might be something new pop up between the 10th of July, when I posted legitimately, and the 30th, when I'm actually doing it.

I do enjoy writing about all the goings-on, so I do want to take down some things down. Enjoy the fillers and going forward, the dates will be right.