![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bits and pieces
Sep. 12th, 2006 10:39 pmToday's (Tuesday's) miles: 1.2 (to the bus stop and back with a couple of side trips)
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1313.1
Miles out of Rivendell: 848.1
Miles out of Lothlórien: 393.1
Miles to Rauros Falls: 15.9
Finished up another article for TechNet Magazine today, tho' I'll need to read it again tomorrow before I send it in. It's not due for another month, so I'm well ahead of this game - but it's kind of hard to concentrate when I'm on these stupid anti-siezure meds. I don't need them (and the doctors pretty much said this) but they're standard in the case of most head injuries that involve brain impact, so I'm on them until probably the 28th, which means my first day at school I'll be rather dumb. Oh well.
(I know it's the meds because I forgot them one night and the next day I was much smarter. Also less tired. These are listed possible side-effects on the bottle. Gir.)
I should also have a column in the new issue of TechNet that's just coming out. I know it's in there, I got paid for it. ^_^ (Plus the editors told me it was.) I'll link to it when it's online in a couple of weeks.
What I'm really sad about is that I had to turn down an offer to be a regular columnist for them. I'm not in the industry anymore and between that and grad school, I'm taking grad school - but I'm still really flattered and wish I had four things to write about a year. One, I like writing for them; two, I like getting paid by them (their rates are good); three, I haven't been a regular at a magazine for a while and it's good work if you can get it. But I don't make promises I can't keep and I just don't have four column topics a year out of my IT-related experiences anymore. But I'm still really pleased they made the offer.
Talking of IT noise, I went through and did another round of bind/named cleanup at the Murknet, and sent various bits of mail to various domain masters asking them if they can clean some things up when they get a chance, and also fixing a couple of errors that had crept into our own named.conf. Always remember, kids: watch syslog on bind restart after named.conf edits, and always fix anything that goes wrong!
Finally, we got someone in to repair the rotten post on the front porch. It turns out that there was a central (highly cladded, buried in extra wood apparently just to bulk it out) 4x4 that was properly pressure treated and was JUST FINE. And it's what was actually bearing the load. So yay! But the footer they'd originally poured was still surrounded by a now-rotten form they hadn't bothered taking out, so could tilt over at any time, and the cladding was all still rotten down at the base, and even pressure-treated lumber isn't supposed to be in water. So the repairer put in a saddle pier (using concrete adhesive to permanently connect it it to the footer) and bolted the metal saddle to the 4x4 before putting all the cladding back. The wooden part of the post now stops higher - it meets up with the top of the new concrete pier - but it looks fine and should be much more durable against water. (No more earth contact, yay.) And the rotten form wood was all taken out and replaced with packing gravel, so no more potential footer tilting in an earthquake. I feel much better about it now.
Now if I can do something about these stupid meds.
( Quizzes and such )
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1313.1
Miles out of Rivendell: 848.1
Miles out of Lothlórien: 393.1
Miles to Rauros Falls: 15.9
Finished up another article for TechNet Magazine today, tho' I'll need to read it again tomorrow before I send it in. It's not due for another month, so I'm well ahead of this game - but it's kind of hard to concentrate when I'm on these stupid anti-siezure meds. I don't need them (and the doctors pretty much said this) but they're standard in the case of most head injuries that involve brain impact, so I'm on them until probably the 28th, which means my first day at school I'll be rather dumb. Oh well.
(I know it's the meds because I forgot them one night and the next day I was much smarter. Also less tired. These are listed possible side-effects on the bottle. Gir.)
I should also have a column in the new issue of TechNet that's just coming out. I know it's in there, I got paid for it. ^_^ (Plus the editors told me it was.) I'll link to it when it's online in a couple of weeks.
What I'm really sad about is that I had to turn down an offer to be a regular columnist for them. I'm not in the industry anymore and between that and grad school, I'm taking grad school - but I'm still really flattered and wish I had four things to write about a year. One, I like writing for them; two, I like getting paid by them (their rates are good); three, I haven't been a regular at a magazine for a while and it's good work if you can get it. But I don't make promises I can't keep and I just don't have four column topics a year out of my IT-related experiences anymore. But I'm still really pleased they made the offer.
Talking of IT noise, I went through and did another round of bind/named cleanup at the Murknet, and sent various bits of mail to various domain masters asking them if they can clean some things up when they get a chance, and also fixing a couple of errors that had crept into our own named.conf. Always remember, kids: watch syslog on bind restart after named.conf edits, and always fix anything that goes wrong!
Finally, we got someone in to repair the rotten post on the front porch. It turns out that there was a central (highly cladded, buried in extra wood apparently just to bulk it out) 4x4 that was properly pressure treated and was JUST FINE. And it's what was actually bearing the load. So yay! But the footer they'd originally poured was still surrounded by a now-rotten form they hadn't bothered taking out, so could tilt over at any time, and the cladding was all still rotten down at the base, and even pressure-treated lumber isn't supposed to be in water. So the repairer put in a saddle pier (using concrete adhesive to permanently connect it it to the footer) and bolted the metal saddle to the 4x4 before putting all the cladding back. The wooden part of the post now stops higher - it meets up with the top of the new concrete pier - but it looks fine and should be much more durable against water. (No more earth contact, yay.) And the rotten form wood was all taken out and replaced with packing gravel, so no more potential footer tilting in an earthquake. I feel much better about it now.
Now if I can do something about these stupid meds.
( Quizzes and such )
