schlepping and shopping in da rain

Yesterday, I found a location* where I could sign the petition to put Kinky on the ballot, and added my name to the (hopefully 44,999+) others who'd like to see Governor PrettyHair sent back to the farm, where he can't do any more damage.

* Dirty Dawgz - they have four locations in the area .. one is less than 3 miles from my home. They provide a nice place to wash your dogs (I'll have to ask if anyone ever brings their cat in for a bath) and I'll have to take Beta the Wonder Dog there sometime.

Today was a good day for running errands -- (shopping) mostly -- because the rain (and the NCAA basketball games) kept most Texans indoors. Judy-Bob and I fed at the usual breakfast dive, but since it was after noon, I opted for the Philly CheeSteak on an onion roll, which was Da Bomb.

Then, I moseyed over to MicroCenter in search of a spare battery for my PowerBook (found it) as well as a laptop cable lock (didn't find it, and got a really puzzled look from the sales guy when I asked if they carried them). After about a 5-second pause, he admitted he had no idea what I was talking about. I strolled around the store anyway, and didn't find one. Heap strange. You'd think people would do more to secure their laptops, but I guess not.

I decided to try the nearest office supply place, and I found the Targus Defcon CL (PA410U) which will work nicely. I hope the TSA is used to seeing this lock-and-cable combo on the X-ray machine.

While at Office Depot, I moseyed around and found a laser pointer which will come in handy when I give presentations, and also found some index dividers for the 12 months (Avery 11127). They had many, many packs of dividers from which to choose and it took a couple passes before I spotted the ones I wanted. It's odd that their website page doesn't say anything to indicate the tabs in the 11127 pack are labeled JAN/FEB/MAR etc.

Finally - one thing I did not find was a place that buys/sells PC memory. There was such a place in Addison on Beltline, but it's apparently gone. Due to some upgrades, I'm the proud owner of 6 strips of Orphan RAM and would like to negotiate a trade (!) for two strips of 128 MB DIMMs to max out my Win98SE laptop (Fujitsu E6530). There was a place on Preston (north of LBJ) called Computer Renaissance but they're also out of business. I guess the Used PC Component Business ain't what it used to be.

when a Supreme Court Justice sh-ts in the woods, will anyone hear it?

Okay, so Georgetown University isn't exactly "in the woods," but ...

Did former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor choose a forum where only one reporter was present, to hide from Tom DeLay and the other members of the CFRP?

After reading an editorial in the Houston Chronicle ("Judicious temperament") I decided to track down the original article. Turns out it was a radio piece by NPR's Nina Totenberg entitled O'Connor Decries Republican Attacks on Courts (3:18) Good listening, IMHO.

Related: in case you missed The Memo, DeLay's (obviously moron) constituents elected him as their party primary's candidate, to go onto another term. It's a given that he'll handily beat any Democratic challenger in November. I guess DeLay now knows that he can break any law and the good ole boys of his district will send him back to Washington (perhaps in shackles) for another term.

Wal-Mart: foot, meet mouth

In one side of their mouth:

Wal-Mart's Acres for America program, where they will plant trees and presumably raise bunnies and nurture wild birds.

and out the other side of their mouth:

Residents upset over retail plan / Apartments would be razed for development (free signup) says that Wal-Mart (or someone just as evil) is planning to buy this urban oasis and convert it to yet-another megastore.

I suspect that, in future years, they'll begin developing on those Acres for America parcels and have to buy new ones. In the middle of a national park. Or atop a cemetery. Someplace where no one will object.

de-stressing : distressing!

I was a few days late in reading my RSS feeds, so I didn't Get The Memo that Geoff had been RIF'd after 20+ years with his employer. Ouch! After such a long stint, he may have difficulty adapting. Looking back on my own episode (May 2004) I understand why some people have heart attacks and die soon after retiring: the change in daily pattern ("de-stressing"?) is too severe. Me, I enjoyed my Extended Vacation, but I lacked many pressures that others face.

One of the things I'd forgotten was the excruciating joy involved in porting my phone number to a personal plan. This is all doc'd on blog entries from that era. This time (last week) it wasn't nearly as bad, although I was carrying two phones for several days (the old one for incoming calls, and the new one for outgoing). After about 3 days -- this time -- the port is complate and the world has returning to it's melodic state of euphoria.

I got two curious text messages that are worth mentioning; the first was from my old carrier:

5 cent txt messaging to send & receive starts on or after 6/18/06. Even cheaper text messaging buckets coming in June too! Current rates remain until then. Received: 4:56PM 03/07

Not being a believer in Conspiracy Theory, I'm sure it was just a coincidence that this arrived moments after they were informed that I was moving to another carrier.

The second TM was the one from my new carrier, advising that the LNP is complete:

Welcome to Verizon Wireless. You can now make and receive calls on America's Best, Most Reliable Wireless Network. See vzw.com for network details. Fri, Mar 10, 8:17pm

What's amusing to me is that both carriers "announced" the success of the number porting via Text Message and not Voicemail.

Also (curiously) I tried to Forward the Verizon TM to email, but it will only let me forward a TM to another cellphone: weird.

remembering St Patrick Hernandez

I ran the Defragmenter on the Win98SE laptop overnight. I've learned to only do that from Safe Mode, because otherwise it restarts and restarts and restarts and restarts .. you get the idea. I think it's now respectable again, ready to be borrowed as needed. Heck, I'm entering this blog post from it. The Lithium Ion battery won't hold a charge more than 3 minutes, so it must be tethered to a wall socket all the time. Else, I might use it myself.

It's supposed to be 85F and windy today; I should go butcher prune some of the bushes along the driveway, but only after a leisurely trip to Virgin Megastore to use my free CD coupon. Yesterday was Saint Patty's Day, but you'd never know it around here. I guess there aren't too many Latino-Irish celebrations yet.

Tomorrow is the monthly Bulk Trash Day; Thursday was the first day we could legally put stuff at the curb. Even so, lots of people can't count to 2 (must be lots of blondes here) so there's been trash piled for the past ten days. Lately, the scavengers have been more obvious than prior years .. I've spotted quite a few pickups prowling the streets, slowing down whenever they approach a pile. I think there's a Dallas ordinance prohibiting this, but I'll have to look it up.

Deep Thought: is it okay to pepper spray a homeless guy who wants my old refrigerator to live in?

Soon after moving to Dallas, the water heater failed (in the house we were leasing) and The Repair Guy said we should just leave the old one at the curb. Within a few hours, there was a knock at the door:

"Yew want that water heater? It'd make a damn fine smoker!"

said the Texan. Not knowing what a smoker was at the time (hint: it's what Dallas Cowboy fans do before a game), I agreed. Heck, one less water heater sitting on the curb, and if he wanted to make moonshine with it, I'd have been fine with that, too.

laptop: back from the dead

I have possession of an old laptop: a Fujitsu E6530. It's an Intel Pentium III 500 MHz -- a real museum piece. A few weeks ago, a co-worker needed to borrow it while hers was in the shop, and I felt bad about the condition of the OS; I decided to freshen this box when she returned it. The copy of Win98SE has been in use for many years and is highly suspect.

The maximum RAM on a a Fujitsu E6530 is 256 MB; Settings/Control Panel/System confirmed that 192 MB is installed. The disc capacity is 8.41 GB. I tried to install Linux on it once, and there wasn't enough RAM/disc (although some versions may fit, the one I used did not).

1. Press F12 and boot from the Recovery CD. This places a fresh copy (as of the time that CD was created) of Windows 98SE on the laptop. Reboot (#1) and continue.

2. Add a Wireless-G card (ConnectGear's WE340G has Win98SE support). It installed easily, works great. Reboot #2

3. Attempt Windows Update. Start Internet Explorer [MS-IE] v5 and select Tools/Windows Update. When I try "Scan for updates" I get an error, and a popup asks if I'd like to email that info to Microsoft. Sure, why not? I configure Outlook Express (v5) and email the error. Meanwhile (I don't really expect them to answer) I decided to try another tactic: update MS-IE and see if the new version will allow Windows Update to start.

4. Update to MS-IE v6. This includes several new versions of the Win98SE applications. Reboot #3

5. Windows Update now works! There are 21 "Critical Updates and Service Packs" and 44 Recommended Updates. The 18 MB of Critical Updates takes 3 minutes to download. Reboot #4

6. There's a new "Connect to the Internet" icon on the desktop; since Internet access was already working, I ignore it. I've gotten into the habit of creating a text document called "ChangeControl" on the desktop, to record what software/hardware I load. Pressing [F5] in a Notepad window gives the time. The format's simple:

2:42 PM 3/11/06    updated MS-IE to 6.0.2800.1106
                   updated Outlook Express to 6.0.2800.1106
etc.

7. Start MS-IE 6 and do Tools/Windows Update to inspect the 44 Recommended Updates. The first is "DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime*" where the * indicates "Must be installed separately from other updates". After a 90-second download, reboot #5

8. Load MS-IE 6. I'm tiring of seeing the Microsoft Network home page. Tools/Windows Update/Scan for Recommended Updates (43 remain in the "Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition" category). I quickly scan for any more * (indicating "must be installed separately" or "installation may include additional items (prerequisites)". Many of them (34) are in the "Multi-Language Features" section and provide support for Arabic; Chinese; Czech; Danish; Dutch; Finnish; French; German; Greek; Hebrew; Hungarian; Italian; Japanese; Korean; Norwegian; Pan-European; Polish; Portuguese; Russian; Spanish; Swedish; Thai; Turkish and Vietnamese. It appears that 9 Recommended Updates need to be installed, and only one ("Windows Media Player 9 Series") wants to be installed separately: 13.3 MB and less than a minute to download. No reboot!

9. In the Windows Update page on microsoft.com a new "Critical Updates and Service Packs" item has appeared: "Security Update for DirectX (KB904706)". I install that separately (no reboot) and then install another 6 Recommended Updates totaling 24.5 MB (3 minute download). Curiously, "Download time remaining" has stopped updating, but the download proceeds, followed by lots of disc I/O as they are installed. Reboot #6

10. 36 Recommended Updates remain, but 3 additional "Critical Updates and Service Packs" items have appeared: "Security Update for Windows Media Player 9 for Windows 98 and Windows ME"; "Microsoft GDI+ Detection Tool" and "Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1". None have asterisks. Total: 3 = 12.3 MB, 1 minute. Installation failed, so I try installing them one by one, but that also failed. I'll try installing the 2 remaining "Recommended Updates" (Euro Conversion Tool and "Mapped Drives Shutdown Update*") .. that worked, but then prompted for Reboot #7

11. Those 3 additional "Critical Updates and Service Packs" items remain. Windows Update downloads them, then a popup appears: "Microsoft GDI+ Detection Tool" asks if I'd like to "learn more about a security vulnerability". Sure .. why not? It takes me to "How to update your computer with the JPEG processing (GDI+) security update" page. While I'm reading that, another popup says that another reboot is needed. I decided to [Cancel] that and read the GDI+ suggestions, which scanned the disc for software that needs updating ("Check for affected imaging software"). Recall that this is an out-of-the-box installation of fresh software. The tool failed with the message "We are sorry, but the tool did not work properly on your computer. Please try again later." I bookmark that page, if I ever hope to find it again. Reboot #8

12. A new icon appears on the desktop: "Windows Media Player" (never mind that there's another one in the taskbar). There are duplicates of the Internet Explorer and Outlook Express icons already. Icon proliferation is one of the greatest problems of the modern world. Now, Windows Update shows no Critical Updates, and there are no Recommended Updates! Only the GDI+ issue is unresolved. I scan again, and it fails again. Well, at least I gave it The Old College Try.

13. Some things are not available with Windows 98SE, including anti-virus and anti-spyware. I install Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4 for anti-spyware and AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.1.375. The anti-virus software installation meant that a restart is needed. Reboot #9

14 The OS patching (oops .. Microsoft never uses "the P word") Updating took about 2 hours. Final touch: update the "ChangeControl" document so I'll know what was done.

I guess I should run Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter before putting it to bed for the night. Total disc used: 1.26 GB with 7.13 GB free. Woo hoo.

Tomorrow, I'll install StarOffice 8; Adobe Reader 6.0.1 (the latest for Win98SE); Atomic Clock Sync; Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird and whatever else I need to make this laptop productive.

mind boggle in Plano

HayJax bailed on us Friday night, so Jill-Bob and I ended up at The End Zone in Plano, which is roughly equidistant. The End Zone's a typical smoke-filled neighborhood sports bar complete with pool tables, dartboards, an under-used mini-buffet and a mysterious Back Room. An odd blue canopy juts into the strip-mall parking lot.

Jill has decided to write a book entitled "The Cheese Fries of America" and (as part of the research) sampled the Cheddar Fries (you can read a review on her blog Real Soon Now). I had a Dickweed Burger, named after the world-famous Dickweed Motorcycle Club, which gathers there Thursday night. The waitress barely batted an eye when she asked for my order. "I feel like a Dickweed," I said. She didn't ask how I wanted it cooked. I guess it only comes one way: medium. Also: pity she's only 22.

After viewing their website, JB noted:

"There's KARAOKE on Tuesday and Friday nights for all you singers out there."

Pity we didn't hang around that long. The thought of Gene-Bob and Jill-Bob singing "Feelings" to a karaoke machine is just too mind-boggling ...