Tralfaz

Author: geoffand

  • Sad Days

    As anyone who knows me in real life knows, I have rescued Greyhounds. I have donated a lot of time and money to the southern Arizona Greyhound Adoption org, and ran their website for a few years.

    Last Tuesday, we had to put one of our greys to sleep. He had long suffered from seizures, big, scary grand-mal epileptic seizures that had been increasing in both frequency, and in numbers (clustering).

    While we knew the end would come, and that the decision was inevitable, it still hurts to lose one of your fur kids.

    I am not as sad as when we lost his predecessor, Oliver, whose osteosarcoma was sudden, and aggressive. We have known for a long time that with Tate, our job was to weigh quality of life versus, the horrors of seizures.

    I am using my other blog, Greytbros, to write a series of posts to remember the good times, and the joy that he brought us.

    Having a seizure dog is a difficult course, and we are glad we could make his 5 years with us as enjoyable as possible. In the end, he passed peacefully, and while there is a huge Tate sized hole in my heart, I take comfort in remembering the good times.

  • A rekindled affair – Guitar

    A rekindled affair – Guitar

    Enough with the complaining about hosting, while I am sure I will again blog about the sad state of affairs in that realm, today I want to talk about something fun.

    I have been a guitar player since 1983 or so. I got a late start, in my last year of high school, so I wasn’t a child prodigy or anything, but I had long wanted to play, and guitar was the cool thing.

    Many stepping stones, lessons learnt, and gear came and went, but one thing I always wanted, but never really pulled the trigger on was recording gear. I remember the wonder of working with my guitar instructor who had borrowed one to record a demo for his band, and just how cool it was. A standard cassette tape, two sided, each side had a stereo recording, so by the magic of electronics, if you had the right gear, you could record 4 distinct tracks separately on a single, commodity cassette tape. (more…)

  • More web hosting thoughts

    I learnt early on that you get what you pay for, and web hosting is no different than any other good or service. There was a time when $3 – $6 a month got you a pretty good deal as the explosion in hosting services was happening, but as with all services that are shared, the only way the economics work out is to over subscribe.

    The same happens with internet service (if everybody downloads at full speed at the same time, the “promised” throughput will fail miserably) and with hosting.

    Usually, you either suck it up and deal with glacial response from massively shared mysql servers, or someone destroying the IOPS on the SAN, or you move to a provider that isn’t a dirtbag, and you pay more for that service.

    Of course, if you have done that, and you get long downtimes and poor support, well, you moved once.

    Last week and a half were trouble for my web properties. The hosting I used, a VPS on A Small Orange was part of a lengthy and poorly handled downtime. Staring around X-mas eve, and continuing through to the 3rd of January, their VPS services were hosed. Hosed bad. Like can’t ping, no network route, and the brief flashes where I could ping, the storage was offline, so that my websites were down.

    Down hard. (more…)

  • Web Hosting Blues

    Why is it so hard to find a decent web host?

    Way back in 2009, I began blogging on wordpress.com, and by the end of 2009, I was hooked. I took the plunge, and signed up with MediaTemple hosting, a pretty slick operation that had a quite good product offering, with their “gridservers”. That worked well, and apart from some shared Mysql server bog downs, it was a pain free time. The few support issues I had (mostly around my ignorance) were handled cleanly and quickly.

    In 2012, at the formation of Southern Arizona Greyhound Adoption, I was drafted/volunteered to create and run their website. They had selected GoDaddy for their domain registration, and hosting. I had heard lots of bad things, but for the basic linux hosting we did, running a Joomla site, and handling a bunch of forwarded emails, it worked well. But what I hated about it was the constant hard sell. “Upgrade to xxxx“, “Buy more yyyy“, “DOn’t you need an SSL certificate?“. As a marketer, I was completely alienated by their hard sell at every interaction. Hell, when I called tech support, they even tried to sell something to me. They were worse than Comcast! (more…)

  • Marking another year …

    It is that time of the year, where I once again mark an auspicious anniversary. On Sunday, January 3rd, 2010, at about 8:00 AM, I had a heart attack.

    The morning began as usual, up at 5:00 AM, fed the dogs, had coffee and a light breakfast, a quarter cup of Grapenuts with skim milk. Then I headed to the gym, for an hour of cardio.

    I felt a bit off on the elliptical trainer. I was just “blah”, and couldn’t get my pulse above 100 or so from the monitor. I did make the full hour, but I just wasn’t up to the 5 minute cool-down period. So I left the gym, feeling crumby.

    I got home, and stepped into the shower. And it hit my like a ton of bricks. Shooting pains out the arms, and it felt like Dom DeLuise was standing on my chest. I stumbled out of the shower, naked, and wet, and walked down to my wife’s office. I told her I needed to go to the hospital. (more…)

  • The new Hawaii 5-0

    The new Hawaii 5-0

    As part of my Netflix binging, I have watched (most) of the original Hawaii 5-0 and the 2010 remake. An interesting amalgam of shows.

    The original series was a Jack Lord vehicle, a way to justify living in Hawaii, and to promote tourism in Hawaii. Beautifully filmed, the writing was crisp and fresh (for 1968 that is), and the stories were compelling.

    The Remake is refreshing. A lot more character development gets you more involved with the personalities behind the main players. In the original, over the 8 years I watched, there was “some” development of the McGarrett character (played by Alex O’Laughlin, a favorite for the ladies), and even less of the Danny Williams character. In the remake, there is a lot more background, and extended divergences into their backstories. (more…)

  • Living in a War Zone (San Jose)

    Living in a War Zone (San Jose)

    I must be getting old. My tolerance for ass-hattery is pretty much shot. I mean, who doesn’t love firework displays? However, there is a limit.

    Last year, living on the wrong side of CA85, it was like a war zone on New Year’s Eve. I was hoping that by moving to the “better” side, with more single family homes, and fewer apartment and duplex/triplex dwellers, the volume, and intensity of fireworks would be lessened.

    I was sadly mistaken. There were a couple of early events, but the real displays began a few minutes before 8 PM. Not even when the frickin’ ball dropped in Times Square. From that time on, it was a pretty steady staccato of the illegal sort all night. Firecrackers, bottle rockets (and larger), as well as Roman Candles. Annoying, but ok, I can understand this slight bending of the safe and sane rules.

    Heck, I was a kid once, and enjoyed the pop of firecrackers. (more…)

  • Last post of 2015

    2015 is in the books. Apart from a pretty lazy day in the office, and trying to keep Garrett from freaking out with the inevitable fireworks, you can stick a fork in 2015, it is DONE.

    Some big changes, we bought a house in the Santa Teresa neighborhood, a modest 1,400 sqft abode for a whopping $695K, and every cent we could get our hands on. For the first time ever, we had a significant amount of work done before the move in. Nothing major or structural, but quite a bit of plumbing was in need of work (and the water supply/sewer lines were an expensive “gotcha”). The appliances were Roper and GE out of the 1970’s, and just nasty, and poof they are gone, replaced with decent drop in replacements (Kitchenaid, LG and Bosch). Finally, we had the popcorn ceiling removed, and all the interior repainted, as it was, um, ugly. It is a nearly 50 year old house, with good bones, and we are happy with it.

    Our hounds, Garrett and Tate, are still with us, although Tate’s seizures have been trying. We have worked him down from his Keppra dosage that really wasn’t doing the job, started him on potassium bromide, and we are hopeful that it will work. (more…)

  • It’s over (holidays at least)

    It’s over (holidays at least)

    I am not sure who said it first: “All good things must come to an end…”, but it is a truism. Alas, the holiday shutdown and followup vacation days are now over.

    Today I go back to the office for the first time in 11 days. In the interim was Christmas, some time with family, reading a few books, finishing the latest edition of The Baffler (if you are a natural born cynic, who bleeds sarcasm, I highly recommend it, although it can be a tough read at times), and beginning to plot the creation of a custom designed weather monitoring station.

    Highlights:

    • Way too much eating. Really outdid myself this year. The new year must bring restraint and some self control.
    • Quality time with the family. I hosted a brunch for all the locals, and it was a good time.
    • Tate is now 30 days seizure free. The fear of a pending seizure during the holidays, possibly necessitating a drastic decision didn’t happen.
    • Speaking of Tate, just about EVERY morning we went for a 2.5 – 3.6 mile walk. Phew, at least I got some exercise.
    • I splurged on an Arduino “kit” to teach myself the essentials I will need to build a better weather station than our dying Oregon Scientific unit. It was refreshing to remember some of my crusty old C programming skills.
    • Set up my blood pressure monitoring for 2016, moving to Excel from Google Docs. That deserves a blob post, but let’s say that the 4 years I used google docs has been a love/hate relationship. It works, but even for trivial things like this long term tracking, it leaves one wanting.

    Lowlights:

    • I have been weaning myself on sleep aids (melatonin, and benadryl) so my sleep patterns have been screwy. A good thing, but it is not a good transition. However, I have no trouble falling asleep (the reason why I started the Benadryl in the first place), but as a light sleeper, I struggle to make it through the night. Sigh.
    • It was a damn cold snap through the last 11 days. I got out for one bike ride, on a day where it was barely 50F, and the wind was brutal. No bueno. Alas, I do not have good cold weather gear, and no money for proper gear. Last Christmas, it was flirting with 70F. I guess I shouldn’t complain, this will help the snowpack, and the drought.
    • It is over. Boo.

    Of course, expect this 2 day workweek to be catching up on email, filing away the 2015 final flourishes, and then getting ready for a raucous 2016.

    Tomorrow, I will summarize my year in posts, and try not to over commit to change for the new year. (one change I need to make: I need to sign the waiver, so I can use the gym at work.)

  • Shopping Cart Douchiness

    Some things just piss me off. One of them is assholes who don’t know how to put their shopping carts in the corral area, and just leave them willy-nilly wherever they want to.

    Lazy fucks.

    I am sure you have seen this behavior before. It crosses class, and state boundaries. From the bargain grocers like Lucky, or Safeway, to the boutique like Trader Joes, or Nob Hill, and even to the swanky, over-priced realm of Whole Foods.

    I see abandoned, or poorly placed carts, awaiting for the poor bagger who has to collect them. I know how hard it is to walk the 20 to 150 feet to drop the cart in one of the clearly marked collection points. You are worried that your frozen foods will melt, or that your lettuce will wilt, so you justify that you really can’t afford to delay your departure long enough to walk your fucking cart to the collection area.

    (more…)