Valuable lesson.

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Um... I have been a subscriber for about 5 years, I cannot be trusted with mod points, and yet I am eligible to turn off advertising? Gee thanks. I feel special - you'll give me for free what I already paid for. Whee.

I have made it clear over the years that I question my choice of going into IT as a career path. I am very good at what I do and I have not really flopped at anything I have set my hand to doing. I have written code, written technical documents, fiddled a little with web stuff, built operating systems, and more. It pays my bills. But it does not satisfy me.

I find myself to be happiest when I am rattling pots and pans in the kitchen. I like to cook. I am good at it. I regard myself as a better cook than an IT professional, and it has a lot to do with attitude. My attitude in IT has soured a lot over the past 2-5 years, and some of that is because I don't have time for the kitchen all that much anymore. Some of it is because I have so many things on my plate that I cannot complete anything for all of the demands. It is not unusual to get called in by my manager to ask why I am not working something specific because the internal customers know that he sets all of my priorities and they call him just to get more attention.

It's frustrating and discouraging.

I find myself again looking into what it would take/cost to open up a small, community bakery. I wouldn't mind a small restaurant either, but I am not that dedicated to run a full-fledged eatery right now.

Next week, and the week after that, my group lead is on travel and that leaves the rest of us. I'll be the one on the firing line in his stead. It's going to be an excellent and terrible experience, in ways that should be obvious. I need the experience if I am going to progress in IT, but at the same time I don't need any more aggravation. I just want an opportunity to do something I really enjoy, and that is a rare thing anymore.

I used to make homemade bread for my family 2-3 times every week. Because of the time, it's about once every 4-6 months now. If you wondered why I quit posting stuff about food and bread, that's why... There's no time anymore.

Sorry. I am having a rough week. Eventually it will all pass and the crap I am wading through right now will be a terrible memory. Even so, it has not quenched my desire for a more fulfilling role in life. Yes, I know, IT pays well and I should be very, very thankful for having the job that I have - it IS a good gob, with a good company and great coworkers, but that doesn't mean it's a perfect fit.

This.

What happens when a squirrel eats fermented pumpkins?

We just figured out Blue's Clues!

I need some assistance from the brain trust.

I have a Linux system that has worked well for a while. I was tasked to update the kernel, upgrade some COTS products and basically make it better. This I have done. However, something ugly has happened.

Compile times have doubled. During compiles, the system bogs down so much that it has on occasion killed its TCP connections.

I have been through the whole system with a fine-toothed comb, including the kernel config file and I am coming up empty. There is nothing to suggest why this is happening. I have not changed the grub.conf kernel parameters and I have not changed anything in /etc.

Old kernel: 2.6.20-1.2320 with RTAI, smp enabled
New kernel: 2.6.25.14 without RTAI, smp enabled

When I go back to the old kernel, the problem is persistent.

This is a system based on Fedora Core 5 that I am not permitted to upgrade from there.

I had auditd running but gunned it down early. Looking at the process list, I see that kjournald occasionally wakes but is not really a factor.

Help?

Samsung phones suck donkey butt.

I have had two of them, the most recent being a Glyde. I have had it for 9 months, and after not being able to answer calls, hang up, dial, or search contacts because of a touch screen that gets messed up and requires a physical removal of the battery to reset, I finally decided to scrap it. When I was in the Verizon store talking to the sales person, I told her I was the proud owner of the worst cell phone ever made, and when she looked at it she agreed and told me that at that specific store they get 50 *replacement* Glydes every MONTH.

I took my Glyde in and had it serviced and had the software upgraded. That made it much worse.

My previous Samsung was not quite as bad, but it dropped calls. In fact it dropped a call on the DC Beltway - I was complaining to the service department about a sucky cell phone that dropped calls, and their answer was to spend more money. I guess a dropped call was convenient in this case.

My advice - don't buy a Samsung phone. Two soup cans connected via a string are much more stable and reliable. And if you have your heart set on a Glyde - well, I would seriously consider either buying something else or even not getting a cell phone at all because not having a cell phone is better than having one that you can't rely on.

Someone got a bright idea and decided to put an air freshener in the men's restroom here. Now, instead of smelling like, well, a restroom, the men's restroom literally smells like a bottle of cheap wine. Not sure who, not sure why.

Another 697,000 jobs lost in a single month.

As a conservative, do I blame Obama? Actually, no, I don't. This crap was in motion long before Obama was even a blip on the radar. This goes back deeper than that, to an administration that told the mortgage companies to find a way to lend to people that could not afford to buy a home. It also falls on the mortgage companies that said, "Yeah, sure thing." I personally think Obama is making it worse with his mammoth spending bill, but that's another story completely and it will take time to see how it plays out - I could be wrong and will admit I misjudged if he ends up being right.

Delivery on Monday - yeah, 3 days away.

I was told TODAY that the kernel I built does not like the "shutdown -h now" command and blows a gasket on the way to downing the system.

Would have been nice to know last week...

Wonder where everyone is? Awful quiet here. :-/

I have limited space on the title so I will clarify here first - "Why I believe the stimulus package will fail to meet its objective of stimulating the economy and why I think it's a horrific mistake". There, that's better.

Obama is about to sign into effect a "stimulus" package this morning that will start funneling money into the system. The idea is to get the lending market moving again. Essentially, this is supposed to be a big, economic laxative. Will it work?

1. We're pouring around $800,000,000,000 into the economy. That's a lot of money! But, where is it coming from? WE DON'T HAVE IT. It's simply a numbers thing where the government is lending what it does not have.
2. If the money is not there yet we are injecting more dollars into the system, shouldn't that mean the dollar will be majorly devalued as a result? Darn right it will. You can count on your money being worth a LOT less, very soon.
3. Ok, so people start spending money again. On what? Almost everything in this country anymore has a small sticker on it. Almost all of those stickers say "Made in China". Whose economy does that help?
4. What happens if the bailout doesn't work? All of a sudden, the govermnent has nearly another trillion dollars in debt to deal with - and, don't pin that one on W, he didn't sign it.
5. How did we get here? We got here by BAD CHOICES and living beyond our means. Doesn't having the government throw money into the system equate to getting a mulligan? That runs contrary to how things should work. If you make a bad choice, there are usually consequences, not "do-overs".
6. I can't imagine what my kids will have to deal with when they are grown up. This will have fallout for YEARS to come. WW2 is what got us out of the depression last time, but I suspect we will be much more encumbered in WW3 (when/if it happens).

I believe that this bailout has to be one of the most irresponsible things our government has done. No, the government doesn't have to bail out anyone. Actions lead to consequences, and people who made bad choices should pay - instead, EVERYONE pays this way.

Some rat bastard stole the IP address of our development machine, costing some time to figure out why we could not log in across the network.

The hunt for the perpetrator begins, baseball bat in hand.

Sitting in the lab
Installing Linux again
Hope the changes took

80 hours of work
40 hours to get it done
Something has to give

Pretty woman here
Comes to the lab twice a day
Smells like vanilla

Nervous manager
Gets uptight too easily
Got it all in hand

Big test coming up
Just over 2 weeks away
Will not be ready

Took an in-house class
It was mostly useless fluff
Got a free book, though

Too much time away
Wishing I had more time to
Spend with family

Wearing a new shirt.
I look like a candy cane
I'm getting comments.

Travel coming up
Going to be gone a month
Already depressed.

Kids can't understand
Why I will be gone so long
Have to bring back gifts

Time slipping away
Kids are growing up too fast
And it makes me sad.

A friend from college
Have not seen him in 10 years
Lives 2 miles from here.

Going to have lunch
And catch up with each other
Has it been THAT long???

Kids play basketball
Oldest son made two baskets
And I missed them both

Youngest son made four
And he made a free-throw too
Got to see that game.

Very, very tired.
Wondering why I am here.
Weary in my lab.