Author: bob

House Hunting; Joy Of

So I took a little trip up The Hill last weekend to look at some more cute, cozy, charming cabins and I may have found just the right one…

Yep, shingles, real wood paneling throughout, a large deck off the front for entertaining, it’s got a lot going for it. Including an abundance of white vinyl lattice…

…which is sturdy and lightweight enough to pitch into a dumpster many feet away without breaking up into little bits first. What a useful application of the world’s dwindling petroleum reserves!

(yeah, sure, but at least it ain’t this…

– ed)

That’s true, but I also passed on that house fairly quickly too so you have to give me a little credit.

Much more later.

Your pal,

bob

Angoraphobia?

Oh dear!

Despite the lack of comments (which I can only attribute to the “what-what-what?” factor), I’ve received some commentary on my original diagnosis of a certain little, itty-bitty psychological problem I seem to face. The evergreen “should you even be posting that? What if a future employer reads it?” chestnut reared its ugly head. Do I have to say it? Apparently I do.

This is what you get. Disclosure and honesty is king. If you can’t handle it, I’d rather not work for you anyway.

There. Is that plain enough? (sure, plain enough for a guy who currently has a job. Just don’t get too cocky – ed)

I guess I’m interested in finding out what’s going on in my noggin and the only way to do that, I think, is to reach out and see what others think about it. To get a little input.

Maybe you can help. Post a comment and let me know what you think. I’d appreciate it.

– bob

Agoraphobia?

Is that my real problem? Let’s look at the definition from the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary of 2002:

Main Entry: ag·o·ra·pho·bia

Pronunciation: “ag(O)-re-fO-bE-uh”

Function: noun

: abnormal fear of being helpless in a situation from which escape may be difficult or embarrassing that is characterized initially often by panic or anticipatory anxiety and finally by avoidance of open or public places

Gee, do you think? I do like to plan my escape routes, and I do feel uncomfortable if I don’t know how I can get out, and I tend to be a little anxious about going to places I know little about ahead of time, and I’ve spent a certain amount of energy lately avoiding going out…

…but really, that can’t explain my problems, can it? (Of course it can. Just get out more often, weirdo! That’ll fix it! – ed) Thanks for the encouragement, boss.

Granted, I’ve been this way forever, or at least my personal chunk of forever. What others choose make of my mania is theirs to deal with, I suppose. All I can say is that, in a sense, I’m getting better. Or, rather, I can hide it better. In the last decade or so, I’ve found that I can get on a plane without being short of breath from the anxiety of being trapped in an aluminum tube at 60,000 feet with no escape (even though 9/11 rolled me back on my heels a bit). I’ve spent quality time in the narrow crawlspace under the house (although I have expended great energy to build robots to survey the underside of the house without my presence). I’ve attended public events in buildings lacking clearly marked exit signs. I’d say I’m much better now.

So what’s the problem?

That, sadly, is the question of the day.

Your pal,

bob

So, Care For International Politics?

I’ve been watching the Olympics lately and I’ve noticed a trend: sure, I want the Americans to win—as they have in some surprising places—but if they don’t, I don’t seem to mind if the gold is snatched away by a resident of one of the nations represented by the “Coalition Of The Willing.” An Italian won the bicycle road race and I cheered. He was clearly the best man in the event even though the US Postal team seemed to be phoning in their performance (neat mixed-metaphor! – ed Thanks! I thought of it all by myself. – bob). If the Aussies beat us in the pool, that’s okay because they’re with us. When (if) the French win anything, I’m sure that it will be a “hiss”-able event.

Remember how, when we were kids, that the Russians not only inspired the fear of nuclear annihilation but domination of sports like gymnastics (is that a sport? – ed Ask NASCAR drivers. They’ll tell you! – bob). It was an arms race with real arms, and legs, and heart, and everything else that defines a true athlete. How could we possibly win against the Eastern Bloc countries, what with the East German female (and I use the term loosely) swimmers, the Romanian gymnasts, the Yugoslavian basketball team beating our brains out year after deflating year?

We cajoled the IOC into allowing professionals in, that’s how. Now we have a group of spoiled millionaire NBA thugs losing to Lithuania while at the same time our other teams can lure top talent by allowing them the endorsement deals that would’ve been prohibited under the old rules.

But Lithuania is “with us,” aren’t they?

Your pal,

bob

Hey Super Friends!

Time only for a tiny update, I’m afraid.

Job? Stressful. Cabin hunt? Fruitless. Dinner with my sister this evening? Lovely (and delicious!). Swift boat veterans? Who gives a flying flap? Dogs? Goofy. Jeep crankcases? Leaky (times two).

My spirits (overall)? Fairly low.

But thanks for asking!

Your pal,

bob

IMPORTANT UPDATE: My email address is currently being spoofed to send spam to people. So much for raising my spirits, eh? I’ve changed the link in the bar to the right in the hope that robots trolling for legitimate addresses to use in their nefarious exploits in the future may be foiled, but the damage has already been done. If you wish to send me email, just decode the crypto-address I’ve spelled out or leave me comments at your leisure. Hopefully, it was just a worm that infected some peecee out there and it isn’t actually a robot, but I wanted to take precautions nonetheless.

sigh.

Er, Um…

What with all this trundling up and down from The Hill and back to America’s Finest City, the Jeep Grand Livingroom needed a little love. This was the weekend to do it. The oil change was past due, but the price tag for the new shocks was a shock. Does this make sense? The right rear and the left front had failed. The fronts were relatively new, but the rears were original equipment (judging from the pentagon Chrysler logo stamped on them). They were leaking, they were squishy, they were sticky. That made the trip through the mountain twisties very exciting as you might expect.

I was speaking with somebody last evening (that somebody? – ed Right again! – bob) and I thought about something wholly unrelated (and that’s a shock how? – ed). I haven’t posted anything to the blog for a couple days! Not that there’s been a real clamor for any writing from me, but the emptiness experienced by both of our readers seems to have traversed the ether and landed upon my shoulders. Here’s why I’ve been away:

• We had a little oopsy-daisy network security breach at the Omnipresent Charitable Organization, so I was charged with backing up all of the servers before the white hat hackers dyed their chapeaux a much darker shade. On top of the the desktop support I provide (with a little more help nowadays!), I am the “backup administrator” as well. A plan was put in place before I was hired, but the new equipment didn’t arrive until much later (like after you were hired? – ed Gee, you’re two for two. – bob). I was to be in charge of strategy which was to proceed methodically over a month or so. That idea was thrown out the window after the breach. We crammed that month into about six hours so that we could install hardware, new software, and entirely backup huge stores of data—you know, just in case.
• We also received a donation of about fifty peecees from a certain company whose headquarters is moving to Orange County from the bucolic, rolling hills of rural Northern San Diego (but, you know, I shouldn’t name them, should I?). I’ve taken on the task of sorting through the pile and finding the machines that will; a) be useful, b) actually boot, and c) even have innards! So far, I’ve been able to get less than one quarter running, but I suspect that they got a full-price write off on all of them. Make your own judgment on that.
• People have asked me to take on new side projects or continue existing projects that didn’t pay the bills while I was “under-employed” which I have for the most part blown off. That’s not very friendly, and I apologize. To make amends, I’ll be offering ersatz Mac help next week to an existing client and doing some web work for an old friend as well. I hope this effort will help ameliorate any bad feelings (and maybe bring in a little extra cash).

Who can say what will happen in the next couple months. There are big doings going on here, both at The 1912 House AND at the Omnipresent Charitable Organization. I’m just trying to stay ahead of all of the silliness.

Or maybe I should embrace the silliness instead.

Your best pal in the whole wide world—bar none,

bob

A Quick Update

Somebody (that somebody? – ed Yep! – bob) took me to task today for the glorification of sloth post below. Was it really about me?

Hell no! I’ve got a lot to do! I get up early, work a lot of overtime (to the chagrin of my minders at the Omnipresent Charitable Organization). I take on special projects and take some of them home with me.

Sure, I fell in love with the section about thinking over a problem before tackling it. I even liked the section on laying in bed thinking about how to resolve the issues of the day. The other stuff was merely icing for me. It helps when somebody can tactfully give Ben Franklin the what-for, don’t you think?

So was that MY affirmation? Not necessarily, but it does deal with a complaint that’s been leveled against me time and time again so I’m grateful for the third-party backup…

Even if it is in the Guardian.

Your pal,

bob

I Am Lazy: An Affirmation

If you labor under the weight of the yoke of mental activity. If you find yourself just barely getting sorted when the alarm goes off in the morning. If you have ever been accused of thinking too hard about a particular problem instead of “acting” on it, then you’d do well to read this essay from the Guardian.

Then you can body-slam the Puritans quickly and with aplomb so you can get back to bed.

You’re welcome,

bob

Hey Saucy!

What is it about my feverish quest to grab a hold of a tiny piece of Idyllwild? Why can’t I see the forest AND the trees and change my mind? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to buy a little place in San Diego itself and watch it appreciate exponentially even while I work on my morning coffee?

Because Idyllwild has this:

…and this:

…and this:

And that’s just the bustling downtown!

I took a little detour there this afternoon after a trip to the desert to belatedly celebrate Dad’s birthday. The folks are naturally excited for two reasons. One, because it’s fully one hundred and ten degrees there right now. Second, I’m going to give them a set of keys so they can escape said heat whenever they wish.

…so two bedrooms would be ideal, don’t you think?

Your pal,

bob

Hey There Chief!

The Gawker Media empire has taken something of a shine to my mad skilz as an automotive writer (after a certain amount of begging on my part) and may actually hire me on as a counterpoint to the Autoblog (a part of the rival Weblogs.Inc empire). I like the Autoblog well enough, I suppose, but there seems to be something missing…

…like snippiness!

I can supply that in abundance as those of you who have followed this mess can attest. For instance, I can tell you why I hate the Toyota Prius: because it’s not a straight Diesel-electric. Apparently, although the Union-Pacific railroad figured this out a long time ago, the granola set has fallen in love with Toyota’s marketing to such an extent that they can’t see a grand proposition even though it’s right in front of them. Imagine if you will a small Diesel powerplant, running at a constant rate (and hopefully in a perfect state of tune) simply charging a battery pack instead of revving up and down—challenging the best computer to keep up with its emissions.

Wouldn’t this be the 100 MPG solution that the eco-nutbags are sobbing softly into their soymilk for? The internal combustion engine isn’t powering anything but a generator. Ask the maintenance guy at the hospital what they use for backup power and they’ll tell you; it’s Diesel.

A one-liter powerplant should do the trick, while the batteries it charges give the electric motor(s) instantaneous torque and not inconsequential horsepower. Oh! but for the oxides of nitrogen! you wail. What about the soot! you shriek. The smoke! The clatter!

I feel for you.

All of that doesn’t have to happen if the engine is running at a constant rate at its performance peak (which for a normal Diesel engine is somewhere around 1,500 RPM). Just make the computer decide when to fire up the engine and the remainder of your drive can be on batteries alone. I even think that you won’t pay as dearly for this solution as you would for the precious Prius (or Insight, or Civic Hybrid, et al) because the technology already exists to make it happen.

Each of the Big Two +One have a small Diesel on their shelves, plus the computing know-how, plus Hitachi’s phone number, so what’s the hold up?

California, I guess.

We don’t care for oil-burners since the smoky, sooty 70s so we’ve essentially found a way to legislate them out of our state. You remember, the state that buys more cars than the rest of the country combined? Yeah, that state.

If you can’t sell it in California, why bother (I guess)?

Because it’s a good idea that can get our country out of a certain geopolitical mess, that’s why. Where’s Arnold when you need him?

Your pal,

bob

Hi Sugarpants!

Sorry for the silence during the week, but it’s been fairly topsy-turvy over here. I can’t say a lot about some of it, but I’m happy to report that I’m looking for a Cute and Cozy Cabin in Idyllwild, CA right now. It’s always been a dream of mine to have a place there of some sort and I credit my brother (Stinko!) for kicking me in the pants and helping me realize that it’s not a far-off idea but rather an attainable goal.

I took a look at some cheap places yesterday and I was left unimpressed. One was shabby and house-like (as opposed to cabin-like. Knotty pine, good. Drywall, bad.), another was crammed against the neighbors, the third was overpriced, and the last one—that I fell in love with for its quirky charm—seemed to be falling apart. My folks trundled up the hill to ride shotgun and Dad thought the last place was on the verge of literally blowing apart with its poor construction, shoddy electrics, and the painful drainage problems of the lot itself. I half agreed and took a tentative pass, only to get a call a half hour later that somebody else had snapped it up.

But hey, I was just looking, right? Not ready to buy. Nope, not ready. Not yet.

Maybe this is the wrong time. It is their prime tourist season after all, so the other out-of-towners may be snapping up the affordable ones while they remain affordable. Maybe I’ll be left with the expensive fixer-uppers for a couple months, but I’ve got nothing but time.

It’ll be a grand adventure though. Don’t you think?

Sure you do!

Your pal,

bob

Bits And Bits

Firstly, if you’ve tried to send me email in the last 48 hours, I haven’t read it because Network Solutions can’t decide where to point my domain. It wouldn’t hurt them to consider pointing it where I told them to, but who can say what’s cooking in their fevered brains? Maybe they’re positioning themselves as agents for change. I just wish that they hadn’t decided to change my stuff.

Jaunty Democratic Convention Analysis: Al Gore gets software upgrade, seems much more lifelike in speech, text-to-speech capabilities improved but inflection needs work (inflection algorithm ends each sentence in rallying cry). Dissenters locked in pen, allowed time to concentrate. Margaret Cho disinvited to speak, might say something provocative and unequivocal.

Work Update Couldn’t complete the peecee installation on Saturday, so how about first thing on Monday? While the dispatchers were working? On those very same peecees? I like those guys a lot, but not enough to stick my hands under their hands to change settings and add printers, and that’s what ended up happening. They were good-natured about all of the fuss, but really… We should have got it right the first time, while they were away.

Then I spent the afternoon chasing a broken network connection to a remote office to find out that it may not be broken at all! Maybe it’s a bad motherboard after all, and wouldn’t that be exciting? No, it wouldn’t. Testing that theory waits for tomorrow. Bah. More jobs not yet done.

Jeepster Update Time for the dwell meter. I changed the points and cap and rotor making what had been a hiccuping acceleration into a smooth purr. Gee, who knew all you had to do was throw parts at the thing to make it okay? Fine tuning awaits, but it fired right up after the installation. Small miracles do happen!

That’s it in a nutshell (accent on “nut” – ed Thanks for that. – bob). You’ll get much more during this week, especially once I resolve the bobtherieau.com problem.

Your best pal,

bob

Um, That’s Pretty Dumb…

Network Solutions couldn’t resolve their way out of a paper bag! They couldn’t find their name server with both hands! When they saw the sign that said “Airport: Left” they turned around and went home! They spent four hours staring at the orange juice carton because it said “concentrate!”

I host all of the pictures that you see here (including the banner) at bobtherieau.com but apparently, Network Solutions—the rocket scientists through whom I’ve purchased the domain—can’t seem to see the machine that actually hosts my stuff. It’s very confusing for them and the urgent service guy in India couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted them to do.

How about fix it?

“Well, we’ll need to enter those values manually and remember, it takes 24 to 48 hours to propogate…”

Bah!

I’d like to recommend Register.com again. I’ve used them for sites that actually work, and besides that, they try harder!

Thanks for listening.

– bob

Oh No!

Go read Dr. Bud. Do it now. You’ve lived it, he tells it (in excruciating detail). Then go back to Autoextremist.com and read the rest.

You’ll be sorry, then you won’t.

Trust me.

– bob

P.S. Don’t delay, they don’t have permalinks and the articles will be gone by next Wednesday.

Good Gravy!

I’m making nice until the big announcement, but there’s been big doings near The 1912 House this evening. How about twelve cop cars chasing two little econo-things down our sleepy street? Very exciting! Especially with the sirens wailing. Particularly with the three cop cars blocking off the escape onto our very own Transportation Corridor!

What happened next? you breathlessly ask. Nearly nothing. The suspects stopped. The constables apprehended the suspects, and that was about it. They didn’t even call for helicopters this time. Maybe they figured that fifteen units were enough.

Sure, some left the party early (“what? no donuts? i’m gone…”) but what can you do? At least they appear to be looking out for our best interest and arresting those DWB in our predominantly pale neighborhood, but who can really say. The Polezei weren’t talking.

Maybe greener pastures are in order.

More later,

bob