Small Talk: The Welcome Mat

[Netfoot]

QEH at 10:25 and my number is #46. They are now serving #12. When I came in I got #54 but I'd barely sat down when a complete stranger came up and said "Here is an earlier number!" and handed me #46. At that time they were serving #6 but in the time it took me to settle down and whip out my phone, they reached #12 and they are now on #14. Hopefully things continue at a rapid pace so I can get out of here. 

I forgot to bring my book. And I couldn't find my battery bank which should still have been in my bag from the last time I played this game. Battery now 74%.

Took two Panadol with my breakfast meds and my back is not troubling me much, thank goodness. 

Now serving #15.... 

Edited January 15 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

11:52 and I'm home again. I gave my #54 to a guy who had #63, he gave the #63 to a guy who had #74, he gave #74 to a guy who had #81... And so it went. 

The pharmacist pointed out that I was getting a different brand of pyridostigmine. I said I'd had it before. She told me the jar/bottle contained desiccants. I told her I knew and understood. She told me they should not be thrown away. I explained that I'd had this medication before, knew all about the desiccants. She told me I should not eat the desiccants. I asked her if she thought I was an idiot. She started again, telling me that the jar/bottle contained desiccants......

[Netfoot]

Mo has been harassing me for the last two hours. Can't be sure why. I assume he is hungry. He shouldn't be. He had a good lunch and a good dinner. I warmed up some more rice and he had 2½ heaping scoops and I had the same. I also brewed up an extra simple curry gravy by toasting the curry powder in hot oil for a few seconds and then adding water. The water quickly boiled (only a few seconds) and then I reduced the gravy until it was where I wanted it to be. Added a little cornstarch to help with that, so now we have only about one teaspoon of cornstarch remaining. Everything has either almost run out or completely run out.

Anyway, the hungry puppy is curled up against my tummy in bed. There are three scoops of rice remaining so he can have that for lunch tomorrow. Or I can make fry-bread and we can split the rice 1½ scoops each, with fry-bread to make it go further. But there isn't much flour left. Probably enough for a batch of fry-bread, especially if I add corn flour. I have some Indian come flour so that would work. It wouldn't leave much flour remaining, though, I don't think. Will check before making any decisions about lunch. Or I could cook that last potato as chips. But it won't make a full meal for anyone. Not even half a meal. 

Got one more $1.59 package of pasta so we can have that with BOK for dinner. And also got yellow split-peas soaking since yesterday so tomorrow they should be ready for making another pot of rice, but I won't make the rice until Friday.

And that will be the last of our food. Some of the split-peas will remain and could be boiled into a plain soup but Mo really can't be fed on soup. He will certainly drink it, but he won't be satisfied with it. I'd have to pack the soup with fry-bread fishes and as said previously, we don't have that much flour.

Also running lowish on sugar and only one remaining tin of condensed. About 20 tea bags left but they are of the undecaf type. They are OK for making tea but you have to blanch them to reduce the caffeine which also reduced the strength of the brew. Compensating by drawing the mug for longer works but then by time you get to sipping/slurping, the tea is not cold but not hot either. 

It's been so long since evap was available that I don't even consider it any more.

Phil Collins sings You Can't Hurry Love. You know, Genesis was a hugely popular band but I was not particularly fond of them. When Collins left to pursue his solo career, he produced a number of good tracks that caught the eye ear of the public. I Never became a huge fan but he did produce music that I liked and continue to listen to. I recently saw a photo of him and I would never have guessed it was him in a million years. He looks positively ancient! And he's only 5 years older than me! So I guess I must look positively ancient too....

Watched a classic sci-fi/horror today:  Aliens. Yes, plural. The sequel to the original in which Sigourney Weaver reprised her role as Ripley. This (and of course the original, singular Alien) was quite well done. After that they went down hill and I wouldn't really recommend them unless you are a completist. And the latest one from 2024? Highly recommend for the insomniac. It will fix you right up!

I was surprised to see Bill Paxton as a grunt in the movie (because when you're nearly as old as ancient Phil Collins, I guess your memory has to be crap, right?) and shocked to see what a prick he was! But it wasn't he that was the the prick, rather the character he played.

Also continuing with Day Of The Jackal. Reached about the halfway point. 

Mo came and curled up against my back but he very quickly moved to lean against my butt instead. He's on his back in a rub-my-tummy pose but he has placed the tummy just out of reach. And now, unsatisfied, he has left the room. 

Was supposed to take my blood sugar this morning, but with all the getting my meds ready to go to the pharmacy and getting the van out of the yard without letting puppy play Houdini and calculating whether I needed to visit Dr. Kristi before Edgar Cochrane, I completely forgot. Will do it tomorrow morning instead.

They require that you bring the boxes or bottles from last month before they dispense. If you arrived within a box containing enough for the next month they will not give you any more. Since they sometimes simply run out, I like to accumulate extras. So I have to unload the boxes before taking them in.

The Barbados Drug Service gives me all my meds for free because my doctors choose meds which are on the "formulary" and because I am a Pensioner. There are rules as to how it works. You have to wait a month between refills. If you don't show up to collect your refills in 90 days they "expire" and you must get a new prescription. Now, my blood test strips are on the formulary but you can only get one box of 50 every three months. Since I use one every three days, that is actually enough for five months. But if I wait five months before collecting the next box, the refills on file will have expired. Besides, sometimes they simply don't have any, so it is a good idea to accumulate some spares in case this happens.

Today was exactly 90 days since my last refill, so I wasn't sure if the refill on file would have expired yesterday or today. Since I can only get the next box by waiting 3 months, would they refill  today? It was 90 days but that isn't quite three months! If I wait too long to reach three months since the last refill, will the refill have expired by then? Because they expire in 90 days but you have to wait three months which is more than 90 days.....  I decided to try it and see. If they said it was expired I'd pop back and ask Clauder to get Dr. K. to write me a new prescription. But they refilled without comment.

Now, you are probably thinking that the difference between 3 months and 90 days is so close and the thought of expiring the refill 2-3 days before you are legally allowed to collect it is sort of silly! You are right. But it is the Barbados Drug Service we are talking about!

While swapping numbers at QEH this morning I discovered some interesting news! The QEH pharmacy is open seven days a week! And I was told that there are never more than a handful of people there, so there is very little waiting. At least (I was told), that is how it used to be. But apparently the secret leaked out. Because for the last two months it has been packed on a Sunday, worse than during the week! Just my luck. But I'd have had to go to Edgar Cochrane on a different day anyway, because they don't open on Sunday. Making it a two-day process....

Mo was looking out the window but now he has run off outside again. I will read and when he shows his face again, I will try to lock up and then grab my shower. Speak of the devil...

[Netfoot]

It's 10:30 AM and I'm drowning in sweat. With no fan, I survived the day yesterday because I was out for half the day! Hope I can handle a complete day.

Especially with my lower back absolutely killing me. 

Tired of this grayed out monitor, especially with my grayed out cataracty eyes. I have another monitor but the monitor stand went missing years ago. So I have been building one, using what ever half-rotten, filthy old plywood I could find. Here is the result:

The ¼-20 bolt that allows it to swivel up & down is too long and I can't afford to go buy a shorter one. So for now, I will use this one with two ugly little wooden spacers. I have a bag of star-knobs somewhere, so when they surface, I will (hopefully) find the perfectly sized bolt with a star-knob attached allowing easy adjustment.

When I went out to photograph this, I found:

Yes, an LED bulb with a bayonet fitting, chewed to hell. I know it was a bad bulb to start with, because (believe me) there are no working bayonet bulbs in this house. Bulb-bandit was napping on the corner of the bed. I woke him up and have gave him a bollicking but he took no notice. I should sell the little rotter!

Edited Friday at 04:24 AM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Here is the monitor, attached to the crappy, homemade stand, sitting on top of a storage container:

Only remains to connect it up and hope it works...

(The container is full of books.)

[Netfoot]

Ok! Here is the new (actually, very old) monitor compared with the one I've been using:

Old:

New:

The screen shows my desktop picker. I usually use 9 desktops but I'm trying 16 to see how it works. It actually works fine, but do I need 16? As seen here, I'm only actually using 9, although I might find use for more at any time. I will decide anon. 

I digress! The old monitor is whited out (very bluish, actually) and very difficult to read text upon it, depending on the colour scheme. As I do a lot of work in the console, the white text on this whited out background is very hard to read. Yes, I could change the console colours to something else. Green on amber? Pink on yellow? No thanks, I'm accustomed to white on black.

The new monitor is clean, crisp and clear. It does have several issues which I will point out, but it is at least legible. 

Now, issues with the new monitor. 

There are a couple of spots on the screen where white flecks exist. This is not good but really minor, in comparison to what I've been working with:

You can see a little, white fleck on the screen, right under the "s" in "returns". Further down and under the "r" is another, smaller fleck.

To the right of the cursor and just under the dashed line is a bigger fleck. 

But worst of all, and under normal circumstances this would be an absolute show-stopper:

Right under the top bezel are four areas of dead screen overlapping into two separate patches. Seen here obscuring the top frame of Amarok (my desktop music player). Horrible! But it doesn't actually obscure much that I need to see. When I switch to full-screen, to watch a movie for instance, it is more serious. But since the entire movie is very difficult to enjoy when whited out, I think I will just try to manage with this. Hopefully the action will not be taking place right at the edge of the screen!

Tell me what you think. I will report back anything that arises. One thing I noticed immediately is that the crappy stand does not balance very well. It has a tendency to tip forward. Well, I didn't have much plywood to play with so I had to cut my coat to suit my cloth.

Now, I have to take two Panadol because my back is killing me. And Mo will be here in the next few minutes looking for his lunch.

Edited Friday at 04:26 AM by Netfoot

[b4pjoe]

3 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Tell me what you think. I will report back anything that arises. One thing I noticed immediately is that the crappy stand does not balance very well. It has a tendency to tip forward. Well, I didn't have much plywood to play with so I had to cut my coat to suit my cloth.

Looks great. Stick a heavy rock or brick on the back of the base and it should solve the tipping forward.

[Netfoot]

52 minutes ago, b4pjoe said:

Stick a heavy rock or brick on the back of the base and it should solve the tipping forward.

I went with this big lump of lead. 

The monitor will stand upright OK on its own but it is just asking to fall forward onto it's face. The lead usually stands upright on the flat bottom (it was cast in a baked beans tin) but I put it on its side for the photo so you can see the size of it. 

Another flaw had developed with the monitor but it is still streets ahead of what it replaced:

Notice the small group of vertical lines on the screen. 

This monitor is not new. It was taken out of service years ago but thankfully, not discarded. Now it is being brought back into service again. I am sure it will deteriorate with time, but I hope not too fast. I have one more monitor but it has a vertical line like the ones shown above. Only, that line is a brilliant, glowing, fluorescent green.....

Edited January 16 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Bathed and In bed with my son but I still have to lock the door. 

Woke to a very painful back. Every movement sent a stabbing pain up my spine. Tested blood glucose. Of the last ten readings, nine have been in the green: (4.0 to 5.9) but the last one was a skyrocket at 6.9!  So glad when this morning was 4.1 mmol/L, back in the low green region again. 

Back pain continued for the morning until I gave up and took 2x Panadol 500 and crossed my fingers. Panadol usually works well for me but today it took most of the afternoon before the pain faded. Thankfully, it has not returned. I'm hoping this is because what ever crick developed during the night has managed to un-crick itself while I was enjoying the relief delivered by the pills. 

The last of the rice went for lunch. Mo had a good bowl full and I had about half a bowl full. To compensate I cut and fried the last potato as chips. For dinner I made up the last package of the cheap pasta and we had it with BOK. Those packages actually make a little more than two meals so there was some leftover. Mo came around after dinner and asked for seconds so I took the remainder of the pasta from the pot and we split it between us. So we have eaten well today. Not well in the sense that it was great vittles and healthy. Well in the sense that it tasted pretty good and it filled up our bellies.

Here he comes now. Straight to the window.

So we finished the pasta today. And the potatoes. And the garlic. And the ketchup. And the MSG. And the cheese. There is no pepper sauce. We are on our last tin of milk, we have about ¼ bag of sugar. 4-5 small onions. One carrot. ¼ tin of corned beef. Enough rice for another pot,which we will prolly cook tomorrow.

But! We got $200! My buddy came around to say he had been too busy to acquire the lumber for the towel racks. The $200 is for me but I have to acquire the lumber out of that. It won't cost that much. I estimate $70 for the lumber and $21 for a small bottle of glue, since mine is running out. That will give me about $100 for groceries. Anyway, some basic supplies should be forthcoming, so long as I don't get wrong buying the lumber.

Been watching more of The Day Of The Jackal. It's been well done. The original movie done in the 70s with Edward Fox was brilliant, and while there have been some changes to accommodate the 50 years of world change since then, the series is well worth a watch. 

Mo continues to transition between window and door. 

So, tomorrow I will be buying some wood. First, I have to model my design to see exactly what I will need. Then I can start on the towel rack at last. Some of it will be challenging. I hope it comes out OK. There was some talk of orders for ten at a time. I had better create jigs to allow rapid construction of multiple racks. Orders for 10 at a time may never come, but if they do, I won't want to spend a week on each one.

Listening to Hush by Deep Purple. This is from Shades Of Deep Purple which is one of their earliest ailbums. If not their very first, before Ian Gillan (with the five-octave voice) joined. 

Late again and puppy still not ready to settle down. Will read awhile and then lock up. Here's hoping my back problems don't recur in the morning.

Edited Friday at 05:32 AM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Just back from buying lumber. And groceries. 

My electricity is off but my immediate neighbors have power. That means BL&P have cut off my electricity service.

No electricity, no power tools. No power tools, no towel rack. No towel rack, no money. No money, no electricity. 

☹️

[Netfoot]

Got up this morning, put on my Croc and headed out to find my other Croc. 

Turned out of the passage and put my foot squarely into a puddle of pee left for me by my rapscallion of a roommate. Didn't see it - no lights.

The foot went one way and I smashed my knee against something hard. My knee is still leaking and it hurts like hell. It didn't stop there. 

As I went down, I smashed the back of my head against the drill press. I must have gone cross-eyed because I saw double and I think I nearly lost consciousness for a moment. I now have a headache and a large, sore lump on the back of my head. It didn't stop there. 

Something heavy fell off the drill press table, landing on top of my head. I have a small cut to prove it. Thank goodness it isn't bleeding much. The knee is bloody enough. It didn't stop there. 

My well padded butt smacked down onto the floor without injury, sending a shockwave up my back. You may recall I've been complaining about back pain for the last few days? That was not back pain. This is back pain! It didn't stop there.

When I thought my brain was stable enough and the little tweety-birds stopped circling my head, I thought I'd stand up. That is when I realized I was sitting in a puddle of pee!

But Mozie came and gave me a kiss, so I suppose it's all OK. 

Still, I had to carry on with what I was doing:

Last night was very uncomfortable. The fan obviously was not blowing so there were no lights to read by and no music. And there was no breeze in the window. I was very uncomfortable.

I am now over at the mall. I received a WhatsApp sent yesterday but not received until now because I was offline. My friend offered to come and give me money to pay the bill. Generous of him, but.....

Yesterday, the Telco decided to disconnect my cell phone. Because even though it had a balance on it, I had not topped up in over 3 months. (Why it should be a requirement that I top up when there is money already on the phone is another story.) I had to top up this morning to get the phone working again. I ended up with $10 on the phone and called BL&P to get my balance. $459.36 total. I might be able to pay a partial amount and get it reconnected but I couldn't get the robot I was talking to to give me the required amount. After that call the amount left on the phone was $5.20 so just finding out how much I owe cost me $4.80 which is crazy. 

I am going home again now because my phone is about to run out of juice (14%). Without power, recharging the phone will be tricky. I will have to use the car battery to recharge but that depletes the car battery and if I am not careful it won't start when I need it to. So I must run the engine but that depletes the fuel tank.....

[andidante]

3 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Got up this morning, put on my Croc and headed out to find my other Croc. 

Turned out of the passage and put my foot squarely into a puddle of pee left for me by my rapscallion of a roommate. Didn't see it - no lights.

The foot went one way and I smashed my knee against something hard. My knee is still leaking and it hurts like hell. It didn't stop there. 

As I went down, I smashed the back of my head against the drill press. I must have gone cross-eyed because I saw double and I think I nearly lost consciousness for a moment. I now have a headache and a large, sore lump on the back of my head. It didn't stop there. 

Something heavy fell off the drill press table, landing on top of my head. I have a small cut to prove it. Thank goodness it isn't bleeding much. The knee is bloody enough. It didn't stop there. 

My well padded butt smacked down onto the floor without injury, sending a shockwave up my back. You may recall I've been complaining about back pain for the last few days? That was not back pain. This is back pain! It didn't stop there.

When I thought my brain was stable enough and the little tweety-birds stopped circling my head, I thought I'd stand up. That is when I realized I was sitting in a puddle of pee!

But Mozie came and gave me a kiss, so I suppose it's all OK. 

Still, I had to carry on with what I was doing:

Last night was very uncomfortable. The fan obviously was not blowing so there were no lights to read by and no music. And there was no breeze in the window. I was very uncomfortable.

I am now over at the mall. I received a WhatsApp sent yesterday but not received until now because I was offline. My friend offered to come and give me money to pay the bill. Generous of him, but.....

Yesterday, the Telco decided to disconnect my cell phone. Because even though it had a balance on it, I had not topped up in over 3 months. (Why it should be a requirement that I top up when there is money already on the phone is another story.) I had to top up this morning to get the phone working again. I ended up with $10 on the phone and called BL&P to get my balance. $459.36 total. I might be able to pay a partial amount and get it reconnected but I couldn't get the robot I was talking to to give me the required amount. After that call the amount left on the phone was $5.20 so just finding out how much I owe cost me $4.80 which is crazy. 

I am going home again now because my phone is about to run out of juice (14%). Without power, recharging the phone will be tricky. I will have to use the car battery to recharge but that depletes the car battery and if I am not careful it won't start when I need it to. So I must run the engine but that depletes the fuel tank.....

Goodness what a way to start the day! I hope you don't have a concussion! I am sorry about your electricity. hopefully you can get that turned back on. Maybe take your friend up on his offer? I know you would rather not, but then you can get the towel racks done? I wish I could help in some way!

[Netfoot]

20 hours ago, andidante said:

Maybe take your friend up on his offer?

In the absence of any other option, I don't really have a choice. Without electricity the tools won't run and without them I can't earn any money. I just seems now that when I work I am doing do to pay off monies already received so nothing to como from it. I am living on borrowed money and working to pay back what I owe so I can borrow some more.

He says he will pay in advance for small sofa feet and bring the money tomorrow morning. I will go pay immediately and hopefully power will be reconnected before dark. They reserve the right to take 48 hours and they just might because they can be bastards when they want. That is why they always disconnect on Friday - so you get to do without power for the entire weekend before you can pay and get reconnected.

Head still hurts from the double impact. May have been (still am?) slightly concussed. No appetite and only want to sleep. Taking it very easy because it seems to make sense considering, and there is nothing else to do but lie in bed and read.

Sitting on the steps of the mall. It's closed but their wifi is still up and reaches me here on the steps. Mo is in the van,

we are going for a run up the highway and back. I have been charging my phone and torch in the van so I hope a run will help revitalize it's battery. 

Biggest inconvenience of power loss is you lose the fiber router which takes out the phone and internet. Biggest real problem: refrigeration. I don't have any meat to spoil but a big pot of rice is not going to last. It is meal-by-meal for now. Chips tonight, I think

Tried to make split-pea soup last night. Boiled it, added an onion, decided against opening a tin of bully I couldn't refrigerate. Garlic, paprika, etc, poured the boiled peas into the blender and flicked the switch..... Did I mention I am a dumb-ass?

OK, going to take Mo for a little drive now. I'm hungry too. He got lunch but I didn't...

[Netfoot]

The power is back on again! 🙂

The computer won't start up. ☹️

Powering up and down are thermal events. You power up: the computer and all the little chips inside it and all the ultrasonically bonded, microscopic wires inside of them get hot and physically expand. You power down, everything cools down and physically shrinks. This expanding and shrinking results in microscopic back and forth movement that can eventually cause a bonded joint to fail. This is the reason old fashioned light bulbs (with filaments) lasted longer if they were just left on and not switched on and off a lot. This is the reason I don't like to shut down my computer, especially if it's an old machine - which mine is. 

Now, I've had problems with this computer before, where it did not want to power up after a power failure. It runs on a UPS so usually, when the power goes, I do an orderly shutdown on the machine before the UPS runs out of battery. Even so, when the power comes back it has in the past refused to start up for some time thereafter. Eventually (like 30-40 minutes after the power cut is over) it does start up and runs fine. I'm going to give it some time to see if will collect itself and respond to the power button. If it doesn't... Well, there is no chance of me building myself a new PC (even though I would love to get rid of this AMD-powered piece of junk) or even fixing this one! I don't know if I could put together a new machine from junky parts lying around here... So I will just have to hope that it recovers before too long.

Rain is pouring and I am thinking of going to bed and  trying to sleep. Not a wink last night. When I lay back and put my head on the pillow it hurts quite a lot where I bashed it on the drill press a couple mornings ago and if I lay on my left side it hurts worse. Right side: bearable but you can't stay in one position all night. My back also hurts if I make sudden moves but at least the knee - which hurt so bad I could hardly walk - no longer hurts at all! So that's good at least!

We had chips for dinner last night. I made a sauce to go on top so maybe it was poutine? I didn't want to open a tin of bully because I had no way to refrigerate it (which reminds me: check that the fridge is working!) so I used a tin of tuna instead.

Mo was suspicious of the tuna sauce I poured on top of his chips in the middle. He gave it a cautious sniff, then carefully ate the chips all around the tuna, starting on the outside and working his way in towards the middle..   Eventually he must have eaten a chip with a little of the tuna on it. After that he positively inhaled the remaining chips and  slurped up every drop of the tuna. 

Computer still not booting up. Back and head still very achy-painy. I think I will drink a cup of tea, take two Panadol (probably not in that order) and try to grab 40 winks.

Found condensed milk at Popular for only $1.89 which is a better price than the $2.29 I was paying for the Global budget brand I've been using (and way better than the $2.99 for PHD). The Global is definitely not as good as the PHD but this new condensed milk is made by Western and their other products are fine so hopefully their condensed milk is too. Or at least no worst than the Global!

[b4pjoe]

10 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Computer still not booting up.

Sounds like a power supply issue. Take a quick smell up close of it and see if smells like an electrical burn.

[Netfoot]

6 hours ago, b4pjoe said:

Sounds like a power supply issue. Take a quick smell up close of it and see if smells like an electrical burn.

I'm not detecting the smell of magic smoke but it is very reminiscent of a PSU issue.

I will take the PSU out, or at least disconnect all the power plugs and have a look at them. Sometimes they develop dirt/corrosion and just taking them out and putting them back in again can cause the electrical mating surfaces to wipe against each other, which cleans them up a bit and the PSU begins to work again.

Failing that, I have a low power PC I was building several years ago when I first fell sick. It consists of a low consumption motherboard with (I'm pretty sure) a CPU in place but I can't remember what. I can't recall if it had RAM. It was to be fitted in a very small case and there was a very small PSU with it. I can't recall if it was 80 watts or 180 watts; hopefully the latter. If I can dig that out then I can try the mini-PSU on my desktop, if only long enough to see if the desktop tries to start. That would point a finger even more directly at the suspect PSU. If the low power system has RAM and three SATA ports, I could just move my three drives over to the new system and hopefully it would boot up. The small case doesn't have room for three drives but that is what duct tape is for. 

Unfortunately, I am not feeling too chopper chipper right now. My back does not hurt unless I forget and turn or twist or move in a way that triggers it. When that happens it will literally bring me to my knees. My head is still splitting and the actual back of my head is so sore I can't lay back against a pillow. I have to roll one up and use it as a neck-pillow.

So, I'm going back to bed. The fan (the bedroom fan, not the livingroom fan which is quite dead) works now which is good because it is a hot day and occasional showers help keep the humidity high. There is also a bit of breeze in the window. So I might be able to get a little sleep, which I have had none of since Saturday night. When I get up I wil fiddle with the PSU and see if I can get the damned machine to boot up!

You know, the last 3-4 days when the computer wasn't running would have been an ideal time to build the new computer desk I have been thinking about for so long. But I don't have enough materials on hand, can't afford to buy any and there was no electricity to run the tools to make a thing anyway!

I have slowly and carefully gotten myself horizontal and into bed without setting my back off. A pillow is rolled up under my neck. The fan is blowing nicely. There is no iced water because the fridge is still busy making ice again after the January thaw. Mo is on the bedroom tiles but hopefully will join me for at least a little while. (He barked at 1,000 people out the window of the van, on the way down to BL&P this morning. He barked at 2,000 on the way back!) By keeping my head still I can make the headache abate a little. Maybe I can get an hour's nap in?

Edited Monday at 09:33 PM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Listening to It Wasn't Me by Shaggy with Rayvon as guest vocalist. A somewhat silly song but also somewhat amusing.

Mo and I had pasta with TOK (tuna) for lunch. My culinary skills must have been absent because the flavour was largely absent as well. I ate mine but Mo only picked at his.

I tried to get a nap later in the afternoon but only had a very brief one. However, I spent the remaining  time relaxing in bed and in a semi sleeping, semi daydream state that was quite restful. 

Got up for dinner. Mo had his leftover lunch but with some ketchup on it and he ate it happily. I had a mug of tea. I don't know how you make condensed milk but I'd guess milk, sugar and water. This new condensed milk seems to have less milk and more water. I mixed it up as usual and tasted the result. It was definitely less milky than I'd normally expect. The mug of tea I had for dinner also tasted less milky than I'd normally expect. When the tins I've acquired are done, I think I will go back to the Crown brand unless ca$h is very low. 

Garden Patrol started with a Croc-recovery...

...and was otherwise uneventful.

My headache seems to be gradually diminishing.  Unless I shake my head, or sneeze. The actual back of my skull is still mega-tender. My back is back being painful to the point where I took two Panadol before coming to bed.

Mo is in and out, what with the door still open. 

Oh, I have dug out the pieces for that low-wattage computer I was building back in 2018. I will give details later. Right now, I want to read a bit more, lock up and sleep. 

[Netfoot]

Woke up and reached for my shorts:

The system I was building years ago uses a Mini-ITX motherboard based on the Intel NM10 Express chipset which features an Atom D2550 processor at 1.86 GHz.

This board is fully compatible with standard Intel processors but not very powerful. It is still capable of a fair amount of workload. 

It has two sticks of DDR3 RAM running at 1,333 MHz (4GBytes total) which is the limit for this board.

It was to be installed in a simple, miniature enclosure 

which is equipped with a SanDisk 120Gb SSD and a Toshiba 1Tb hard drive. (The motherboard only supports two SATA drives so I can't use this machine to bring up my desktop system.)

The PSU installed in this enclosure is a 220 watt device.

I can't remember why I was building this machine in the first place. Perhaps I was making a machine for use in the bedroom, to allow me to listen to music and watch movies stored on my main system? But the motherboard comes with two gigabit Ethernet ports so perhaps I was planning to build a firewall with one port outward-facing towards my internet router and the other port facing inwards to the house LAN. With Linux's NetFilter in between it would offer a reasonable level of protection. The low-power/low-noise nature of the machine support this - if your firewall is going to be running 24/7 it makes sense that you use a system that is quiet and not too power-hungry.

If this machine was more capable I might think I was building a NAS and bonding the two Ethernet ports into a single 2Gbyte data path onto my network. It could be done with two large drives set up as a RAID-1 mirror, but I doubt that was my plan. I prefer RAID-5, which would require at least three drives which neither the motherboard nor case are able to handle.

Not that I never use RAID-1 because my desktop is using it now. But I would never sit down with a clean sheet of paper and deliberately design a RAID-1 NAS unit unless I was restricted as to what hardware was available. Which, clearly I was not, seeing as all the parts I have were deliberately selected and purchased for the project.

Unfortunately, the limit of two SATA ports on this board means the option to bring this machine up with the three drives from my desktop running does not exist.

Edited Tuesday at 01:33 PM by Netfoot

[b4pjoe]

I mean if this one will boot it could still be used for internet stuff. One working PC is better than none.

[Netfoot]

3 hours ago, b4pjoe said:

I mean if this one will boot it could still be used for internet stuff. One working PC is better than none.

Absolutely. I even thought of bringing up one of my RPis just for surfing in the meantime.

Unfortunately, I would need to download and burn an install CD for the latest Slackware (25.0). I already downloaded it some time ago - it is on the drives of my dead system. The RPi idea would work but similarly, I would need to download the latest RasPiOS and copy onto a bootable Micro-SD. 

So, I'm sort of stuck in a bad place right now. Normally I have multiple computers running in the house (once, as many as 11) but over time I have not been able to maintain them and I'm now down to one. And as of yesterday, zero.

Meanwhile my back & hip hurt so bad I have difficulty getting from the bed to the bathroom and back. Right now fighting to cook lunch because Mozie came and insisted.

The club is having a do on Saturday. I've been offered a lift there and back, but I told Aussie I'd let him know when I see how my back feels later in the week. 

[b4pjoe]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

Absolutely. I even thought of bringing up one of my RPis just for surfing in the meantime.

Unfortunately, I would need to download and burn an install CD for the latest Slackware (25.0). I already downloaded it some time ago - it is on the drives of my dead system. The RPi idea would work but similarly, I would need to download the latest RasPiOS and copy onto a bootable Micro-SD. 

So, I'm sort of stuck in a bad place right now. Normally I have multiple computers running in the house (once, as many as 11) but over time I have not been able to maintain them and I'm now down to one. And as of yesterday, zero.

Ah OK...I thought maybe it already had some OS on it.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, b4pjoe said:

Ah OK...I thought maybe it already had some OS on it.

Alas, no.

I downloaded the Slackware 15.0 install ISO intending to burn it to a disk but never got around to it.

Anyway, started to look at zaphod (my desktop machine which once ran double-headed until one of the monitors died). I am setting it up in the bedroom where there is good light and (often) a pleasant breeze. Moving the UPS, CPU, monitor, etc has not done my back any favours. And first I had to move my folding table in there and then run an extension to get power. This last required lying on the floor in the passage and squirming forward like a snake until I found an outlet under the book cases..... going to get back to it now.

[Netfoot]

She's up!!!

RAID arrays are active... and they don't even need to rebuild!

Edited Tuesday at 09:39 PM by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Filesystems are all mounted...

Can we ping the forums?

Yaay!

[Netfoot]

That just leaves the GUI...

Right. Now I'm going to make a mug of tea and pour a glass of iced water. Then I will take two Panadol, lie in bed and snuggle with Mo.

Dr. Kristi once told me the maximum number of Panadol you could take in a day but I've forgotten. So two a day it is.

Will post the recovery saga later.

[Netfoot]

Lying in bed (Mo is on the tiles) posting in the forum and simultaneously watching Back In Action with Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz. No idea what it's about - only just started it!

I need a permanent computer in the bedroom! But wait. If I had that, would I ever get out of bed?

Took the computer apart and brought it into the bedroom piece by piece. Had to run in an extension cord because the fool who built this house only put one outlet in the bedroom and it already has 217 gizmos plugged into it. Then I had to find an extra long CAT5 cable and run it from the router all the way to the bedroom.

First, I checked that the UPS was delivering current by plugging in a lamp. It worked in all UPS outlets. But I put the UPS to one side so as to eliminate one possible factor and plugged the computer directly into mains power. The machine refused to boot. Or show any signs of life at all. 

I pulled the 24-pin and 8-pin power connectors from the board. They looked fine. I plugged them back in with a solid side-to-side wiggle. This can help seat the contacts in the connector together. But no dice.

I was sitting directly in front of the machine checking the documentation for the motherboard when the CPU fan spontaneously started to spin. After a few seconds, it span itself down and stopped. I gave the power cables another good shake/wiggle to try to reseat them. It took several wiggles before I got a reliable fan. Then I tried booting again.

The machine booted up but experienced a strange error where only some of the system was working and I couldn't find anything. Not even the programs I wanted to use to help search!

Rebooted and entered the BIOS. My two 2Tbyte drives (sdb and sdc) were recognized but my boot drive (sda) was not found. 

Powering off I gave the data cable for sda a good shake/wiggle then powered up and checked the BIOS again. Boot drive sda had reappeared.

Full reboot and up she come!

The problem with this machine is that it is an old machine made up of old parts! An old monitor with black patches, an old keyboard with the legends on the keytops actually worn away. Drives that are ancient and have been spinning for over five years. 

Now, when I power it down and move it out of the bedroom and back into living room, will it need more wiggles & shakes to start up again?

In any case, I want to move the computer to a new location. It was placed in it's last location as a temporary thing. About 5 years ago. 

The Panadol is working. The pains are much reduced. Not gone but much reduced. Got to go and shower then lock up. But not until the movie is over! Remaining runtime: 59:06... Arrrggghhh!  Glenn Close! 

I'm hungry. We had boiled potatoes & carrots with BOK for lunch. There was enough left over that Mo had the remainder for dinner. I had a mug of tea and one potato worth of chips. But I guess I should have cooked more chips because I'm still hungry. Once more nothing in the house to eat that doesn't require extensive cooking. Eclipse biscuits are $11 99 for six packs. I have a little cheese but nothing to eat the cheese with.

[Netfoot]

Movie is done. Not too bad except for the horror that is Glenn Close. Two spies (Foxx/Diaz) retire to get married & have kids. Fifteen years later they are forced out of retirement with their kids to save the world from The Key. A maguffin that will let it's owner take control of everything in the world. (Why do movie makers keep trying to make this idea sound plausible?)

The movie wasn't bad. The pains in head and back/hip are returning but so far are very mild. Now, I'm off to bed. 

Now, he's not Goldilocks, but someone has been sleeping in my bed... and they are still there!

Edited 10 hours ago by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Ran a test on drive sdb overnight. It passed without error, but I notice that sdb has been running, virtually non-stop, for 7¾ years. There were no errors, but over the span of those 7¾ years there have been 42 sector reassignments. This is a "self-healing" feature that the drives are built to perform. Zero would be better than 42 but this would only be a problem if that count were to start increasing at a higher than expected rate. It looks like I've lost (and reallocated) one sector every two months. If that starts to speed up, it would be a warning sign. 

I expect the same sort of time for sdc because they are identical drives, installed as a pair. I am now running a test on sda and when they completes I will also (for completeness) test sdc.

I can also initiate continuous checking. If I do, I will be able to send myself a telegram if anything noteworthy happens. Like an increase in reallocated sectors on sdb.

But I now have to go and cook lunch for Mo and myself. I'm hungry. It seems like I'm always hungry these days.

Edited 8 hours ago by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Made bully beef rice with channa and carrot for lunch. It wasn't great but it tasted OK. There is more remaining in the pot. Enough for dinner? For one of us (Mo), certainly. Both? Maybe.

The test on drive sda has completed. There were no errors detected. No sector reassignments. This drive is relatively young: only 3½ years of continuous use. 

I have initiated a test on the remaining drive (sdc) which is expected to complete by 10:19 PM tonight.  

Drives are the soul of a computer. Maybe the CPU is the heart or the brain, but the drives are where it's character and nature live. Or more correctly, not the drives but the data stored on them.

The roughly 64,000,000,000,000 bits stored on my computer drives are what distinguish it from all the others on the world. If I had to replace the motherboard, CPU, RAM, case, and everything else, so long as those 64,000,000,000,000 bits are retained, then it is still my computer.

With disk systems in even domestic computers growing as large as they have, backups are essentially impossible. They all day "Make a backup..." But to back up my system would take five billion floppy disks. And my system is not large, in comparison with others, especially in the field of video production, aka YouTube video making.

Sure, there are bigger backup media than the venerable 1.44 Mbyte floppy. But you quickly reach the stage where the best backup is another computer with the same amount of storage.

That's why I like to have RAID on my machine. It delivers data redundancy and a great boost to data reliability and if tuned right, a performance boost as well. And I like RAID-5 rather than RAID-1 because RAID-5 gives higher data density (more data space  for the same money). As well as being expandable, allowing you to quickly and easily add more space when you run low, which you will! (Adage: There is no such thing as enough disk space.) I do keep my boot drive on RAID-1 because I can boot from either of the drives in a mirror and if the boot fails, I can simply switch to the next as as my boot drive.

Why am I waffling on about this? I doubt anyone is interested.

See those silvery whisks on his ears? And the tiny top-knot on his head? My baby gets more beautiful every day.