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  • Missed, Work, Duolingo, Movie

    By Derek | April 18, 2020

    A quiet Saturday. (18th)

    Realized that I didn’t write a journal entry on Friday (yesterday). I’ve been doing well at writing every day, but I missed yesterday. It was a regular work day for me. My GMRS radios came in, early, and I was able to get them set up. They were not scheduled to be delivered until May 5th.

    Today is also a regular work day for me. 

    Got some work done cleaning up some minor leftovers after our last migration. 

    After work, worked in my office a bit. 

    Kept up my DuoLingo streak. Naturally, I got this: (pic)

    El restaurante esta cerrado.
    Of course the restaurant is closed right now.

    Jill and I watched Coyote Ugly. I hadn’t seen it. 

    Time for bed. 

    Topics: Entertainment, Family, Home Improvement, Linux, Me, Movies, Photos, Technology, Work | No Comments »

    Dr, Work, WRFQ803, Duolingo, Mac

    By Derek | April 16, 2020

    A good Thursday. (16th)

    Got up and went to my doctor’s office. I wore a mask, and everyone else there was wearing a mask, too. I went to get my blood drawn, before my routine appointment next week. 

    Regular work day for me. 

    Big news today, though, I received my GMRS class FCC license and call sign today. I don’t have my radios yet, but my call sign is WRFQ803, pronounced Whiskey-Romeo-Foxtrot-Quebec-Eight-Zero-Tree. Here’s a cool diagram of the letters:

    Military Phonetic Alphabet
    Military Phonetic Alphabet

    Our younger son and I have been doing Duolingo again. I’m up to an 11 day streak so far. He started a few days before me, so he’s at something like 14 days. It’s a good challenge for him!

    My dad got his new iPad yesterday, and but he wasn’t able to restore his previous iPad backup to it, something to do with changing his Apple ID email last year. Bummer. He let me know that he had the idea today to restore his current iPhone 6 backup to it, which gets him most of everything he wanted, minus a few things he can add, so that’s cool. 

    Once he got into it, he found out that Dropbox went back on their promise, and now only allow three devices on the Basic Plan. That’s never been what they promised, and it still makes me angry that they changed it. 

    I had been personally recommending Dropbox for over a decade and it just stings that you get demoted to 3 devices (no matter how many you were allowed before) when you try to upgrade or add a new device now, because they changed their terms. Dropbox grants you space for each referral, and I successfully earned nearly 10G of space. Personally, I had 5 devices (as did my Dad today) and I had to remove two devices, to stay under the new limit, to add a new one. 

    I know it’s a first world problem, for sure, but it feels slimy on their part, and it makes me not want to support their business model. 

    That’s OK, I’m migrating my important stuff out of Dropbox. I really don’t need 2TB of Dropbox space for $10 a month. Between iCloud, Google Drive, MegaSync, and Box. If Dropbox had a $3 or $4 a month plan, they’d get some of my money. I mean, Microsoft Office 365 is $10 a month, and that’s the family plan, you get other users, and cloud space, plus the entire Microsoft Office suite. 

    I went through my work Mac today, and worked on upgrading my 32-bit apps. I’d like to upgrade it to macOS 10.15 at some point, but Catalina doesn’t support 32-bit apps. 

    Topics: Family, Me, Photos, Work | No Comments »

    Work, Lunch, TV, Sign

    By Derek | April 15, 2020

    Tax Day. (15th) Except it isn’t. The IRS has moved tax day to July 15th, to compensate for this lockdown.

    Regular work day for me, but I didn’t feel good this morning, so I slept in a bit. When I did wake up, I had a headache, and ended up having to take some Tylenol to compensate. 

    I think I haven’t been drinking enough water the last couple of days, so I’m drinking a ton today to make up for it.

    Jill went to pick up food for us today, she tried Tokyo Express, but they were closed. She grabbed us some chicken strips from Popeye’s. When she got there, there were a couple of cars in front of her, but by the time she left, the line was all the way out to the street behind her. I guess that’s normal if lots of other stuff is closed down. 

    We all got red beans and rice as our sides, despite the fact that Jill asked for fries for our younger son. They must have felt pretty frazzled in there, ’cause they normally don’t mess up orders like that. It was ok, since our younger son like the red beans and rice ok, they’re just not his favorite. He ate them. 

    Watched a little bit of Agent of Shield season 5. I’m interested to find out the explanation behind where they get transported to. 

    While we were out (maybe not today, maybe it was yesterday), we saw a somewhat confusing highway sign.

    I think it’s supposed to say: 

    STOP COVID-19
    SAFE DISTANCING SAVE(S) LIVES

    … but I totally read it as:

    STOP COVID-19 SAFE DISTANCING
    SAVE LIVES

    Not sure about y’all, but I always practice SAFE DISTANCING when I’m driving. Maybe I’m just a little twisted by this whole thing.

    We had to loop around the next exit to get a good picture of the sign. Jill did a great job capturing it.

    We took our older son to work this evening, then we came home and I got my exercise done. Hung out a little bit, then went to pick up the boy and take him home before bed. 

    Topics: Auto, Entertainment, Family, Health, Me, Photos, TV, Work | No Comments »

    Health, Work, Rations, Eggs, Movie

    By Derek | April 14, 2020

    A good Tuesday. (14th)

    Slept in, then exercised first thing. 

    Logged onto work in the early afternoon to help with a migration in our Sydney datacenter. It’s technically one of my days off, but my coworker could use the help, and honestly, I prefer being involved in things like this anyway. The migration went well. 

    I tried an expired food emergency food bar this afternoon. It was listed as a 5 year shelf life, and expired in 2013. As it’s made with just flour, with added vitamins, vegetable shortening, sugar, corn starch, corn syrup, natural lemon flavor, artificial butter flavor, and ascorbic acid it was pretty safe to eat, even expired. It tastes just like a lemon butter cookie. Pretty good, actually. This is what I imagine as modern day Lembas Bread.

    Both Jill and our younger son tried one, and didn’t really care for them. I don’t think either of them have eaten MREs before.

    Worked in my office a bit, then we took our older son to work. 

    We came home and Jill made us spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner. Yummy. 

    Picked up our older son from work, and swung by Walgreens for my prescription. I have hypertension and take a nightly medicine for it. We went through the drive thru to get it. 

    Before we drove away, we decided we wanted some Cadbury Eggs (we hadn’t gone out on Easter) so we pulled around to the front of the building. Of course, the 24h store was closed early, due to this lockdown. So, we went back and waited in the drive thru again, and got some Cadbury Eggs. 

    We dropped our older son off at his home, then went to drop off a few off the Eggs with Jill’s stepmom, who had wanted some the other day, too. 

    When we got home, I realized that my leg was hurting a bit. I think it’s hurting from yesterday’s elliptical attempt. 

    Jill and I watched Valentine’s Day before bed. 

    Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Me, Movies, Photos, Work | No Comments »

    Produce, Tacos, Shopping, Health

    By Derek | April 13, 2020

    A good Monday. (13th) 

    We got up early to run to River City Produce. We picked up some fruits and veggies for ourselves, and some potatoes for our BBQ restaurant owner friend. While our younger son and I were waiting in the car I colored a page on Jill’s iPad. (pic)

    On the way back to the house, we grabbed some breakfast tacos, then dropped off the potatoes with our friend. 

    Next we went and did our bi-weekly shopping at Costco. We got everything we needed. 

    After that, we made a quick trip to Academy to buy some more essential sporting goods. I also picked up an all-metal horseshoes game, in case we want to play outside during lockdown, or later, during a zombie apocalypse. 

    Our niece came over to pick up her PS3 and PS4 after I got them working again. 

    I logged onto work briefly to set up a Slack channel for our Spring into Motion team. My work is running a contest for teams to log their steps. Alternatively, you can do other exercises, and it will convert it to a step count, as well. I started a team last week, and got a few of my coworkers to join. 

    Once that was done, I got my exercise done for the day. I tried doing some on the elliptical, but I hadn’t realized how difficult it would be compared to recumbent biking. 

    Of course, after I was done exercising, our heater came on, because it was starting to get cold outside. In April. 

    We took our older son to work, it was a really long night for him, since they’d had Easter Sunday off. 

    On the way home, he let me know he’s hosting a couple of Ark servers. 

    Time for bed. 

    Topics: Entertainment, Family, Health, Me, Photos | No Comments »

    Slept, Health, Groceries Not Groceries, Star Citizen

    By Derek | April 12, 2020

    A good Sunday. (12th)

    Slept in. Exercised when I got up, though. 

    We all left the house to go put gas in the car, and see if Costco was open. They were not. We played a little Pokémon while we were out. Stopped by our local “essentials” store to put gas in and buy some junk food, I mean essential groceries. 

    Ate dinner, then played Star Citizen for a few hours. 

    Had to go to bed early to get up early, we have a trip to River City Produce planned for the morning. 

    Topics: Entertainment, Games, Health, Me, Star Citizen | No Comments »

    Alarm, Work, TV, Weather, Movie

    By Derek | April 11, 2020

    A good Saturday. (11th)

    Regular work day for me. Of course, I forgot to set my alarm, so Jill woke me up a couple of minutes after 9am. I was logged on by 10 after — that whole WFH thingy — and ill stay a few minutes late on my shift. 

    Completed the container work I’ve been doing for the last few weeks (has it been that long?), all my testing went well today. 

    Started working on host work, to get some hosts ready for maintenance. 

    Finished watching the last episode of Jessica Jones season 2. Apparently I hadn’t _quite_ finished the season. 

    Started watching Agents of Shield season 5. It starts out with a good twist on what’s happened so far. 

    After work, we ate dinner, then we went to put my car at the underground garage at work. There might be hail coming. 

    When we got home, our internet was out, so I rebooted all the things, then exercised. 

    We also watched Jumanji The Next Level together tonight. Fun.

    Time for bed. 

    Topics: Entertainment, Family, Health, Linux, Me, Movies, Technology, TV, Work | No Comments »

    Work, Movie, Health, PS4

    By Derek | April 10, 2020

    A quiet Friday. (10th)

    Regular workday for me.

    Finally (with help from my coworkers) was able to solve the major issue with our container deployments. Now it’s a “simple” matter of deploying the changes to the other regions, and test, test, test. Turns out, deploying to each region is a very time consuming process, as all the repos have to rsync, and new container images are built for every flavor. 

    Watched the Dark Tower. I’ve only read the first book in the series, but enjoyed the movie. 

    Had to exercise after work again. 

    Worked on cleaning my office a bit. Making progress, still. 

    I was also able to pop the PS4 drive back into it, and get it re-installed. My diagnostics showed no issues with the drive, so it just have just gotten a corrupted file system. I would have been a little sad if the drive turned out bad, it was only manufactured in 2018. 

    Honestly, though, coming from the XBox world, I’m very impressed with how easy it is to re-install a PlayStation 4. Literally download the OS to a specially named folder on a USB drive, boot the thing with it plugged in, and an empty drive, click a few buttons and bam, back in business. Of course, my niece will have to re-download any games or whatnot that need installed. 

    Time for bed. 

    Topics: Entertainment, Health, Me, Movies, Technology, Work | No Comments »

    Work, Culture, Nachos, HHG, Health

    By Derek | April 9, 2020

    A good Thursday. (9th)

    Regular work day for me. Got up too late to exercise. 

    Got some good work done, but our team had a “Minecraft Server Culture Day” where we all logged onto a hosted server to play. We had probably 20 odd people logged on, including my younger son, and another Racker’s younger son. That was pretty fun, we played for around two hours. I think they mean to leave the server up for now, if we want to play some more. 

    Jill made taco nachos for lunch, super yummy. I watched a few Watch Later Youtube videos I had saved up.

    Also, some Rackers in one of our company “water coolor” channels was discussing Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I love that series, and thought the movie was pretty great too. Anyway, they were talking about their physical leather-bound collector’s volumes. I had to show mine off, too. (pic) 

    Douglas Adams, HHG

    After work, I helped a new customer via remote. She needed some help as she had about 100 extensions loaded in her Chrome Browser. Also, her internet is slow because she has HughesNet (satellite). Of course, she lives in the country, so she doesn’t have many options.

    Since I had to help her, I wasn’t able to run with Jill to drop our older son off at work, but I was nearly done by the time he was done with work.

    Once back from that, I was finally able to exercise. Pretty late, compared to usual, after 10pm. Watched an episode of Phineas and Serb with our younger son. 

    After that, I played Star Citizen for a bit, then off to bed. 

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    Topics: Entertainment, Family, Food, Friends, Games, Health, Me, Microsoft, Photos, Star Citizen, Technology, TV, Work | No Comments »

    Relax, Solar, Errands, DuoLingo, PS4, Animal Crossing

    By Derek | April 8, 2020

    A great Wednesday. (8th)

    Got up around 10a today. Today would normally be a work day for me, but instead it’s a free mental health and wellness day prescribed by my bosses at work. They gave each of us an off the books day to take and relax. Of course, we’re still in “lockdown” and now, even, the parks are closed, so there really isn’t anywhere to go. 

    Watched an episode of Phineas and Ferb with our younger son while I exercised. 

    We took our new solar panel outside to test it today, as it’s a bit sunny. Jill watered and checked up on the garden while I set up and tested the solar panel. The USB2 and USB3 ports worked perfectly to charge my iPhone, and the plug port charges our Suaoki “generator” battery. I didn’t get to test the USB-C port because the only C device I have is the Switch. I didn’t really want to take it outside. I’m sure it works. Of course, I haven’t run any real tests to see how _long_ it takes to charge stuff. 

    We left the house just to take our older son on an errand, and pick up a couple of RedBox movies, then came almost straight home, we did play a little Pokemon (from inside the car) on the way home, though. 

    Also forgot to mention I started DuoLingo again. I’ve got a three-day streak going already. Look me up on it, if you want. 

    We left the house again to take our older son to work, and stopped at the convenience store to watch the bats fly. It turns out, there’s an overpass (at Thousand Oaks and Wurzbach Parkway) that houses tons of bats. About the time the sun goes down is when they start flying on their nightly journey. 
    When we got back home, I put the PS4 hard drive on to test, then I worked on my office some more. Making progress, but still lots to be done. 

    Ate dinner, then left to go pick up our son from work. Took him home, then headed home. 

    I started playing Animal Crossing. No, not that Switch one, I’ve never played Animal Crossing before, and didn’t really want to find $60 for it, so I figured I’d play the DS version, first. I was able to locate a copy of it, so, started playing it tonight. Played for maybe an hour. Boy, that Tom Nook, he’s a hustler, ain’t he?

    Animal Crossing: Wild World, for Nintendo DS

    Time for bed. 

    Topics: Entertainment, Family, Games, Health, Me, Nintendo, Photos, Technology, TV | No Comments »

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