Brent’s Thoughts

Original thread from my old forums

Ok so two months ago during the September WKU-Linux meeting (Sept 2) I sold gears to a guy. The original price that we decided upon was $300 for it. When he arrived he said that he only had $280, but that he could get me the rest the next day. Since he is the airborne express delivery man for Edmonson County, that seemed like a moderately decent thought so I said sure. (Actually I was pretty sure I would never see him again.) So I gave him gears and all the kit I had for it. 10/100 NIC, floppy drive, power supply, cdrom, modem, phone cord, network cable. I had gears in a laptop case that belonged to Edmonson county so I told him that I needed the case back. He ask if he could borrow it until the next day and then he would give it back to me when he gave me the $20 bucks. I silently said goodbye to the case in my head and told him sure that would be fine.

I booted gears up and showed him that it worked fine. I had just installed the severn beta on it (so that it would remove my files and everything) so it booted up to a clean desktop. I told him the root password and then stated that the only problem that the laptop has was that when you warm reboot it, it will stop at the bios with an error and not continue. If you shut the machine off and then power it back on it is fine and works great. I then demonstrated this by rebooting it. The error popped up and I turned the power off and back on to show him that it was fine. It booted up and he was satisfied. He gave me the $280 and promptly left. I haven’t heard from him since, until today. Today I got a call from him to my voicemail stating that the laptop had never worked and that it had been at Apollo computers since I sold it to him and that they had decided that it would need a new motherboard. He also stated that he had left me messages and that I had not returned his phone call. He actually had left me one message last week, while I was on vacation, that I disregarded, since he had stiffed me for the case and money. I figured that it was just some question about how to install Windows on it or something.

Now he wants me to either give him the money back, pay to have it fixed, give him another computer or he will take me to court over it (he says.).

I called him and told him that I didn’t think I needed to replace the laptop since not only did it work when he bought it (and he admitted that it booted when he got home at least once), but that he had stiffed me for the money and that I thought over a month and a half was too long to wait to tell me that it didn’t work. He stated, in less than sanitary words, that he thought I was wrong. Amazing to me I kept my cool dispite his increasingly out of hand comments. I told him that I had no intention of replacing the laptop in anyway, but that I might be able to help him get it working. If that didn’t work then he could take me to court if he wanted, because I don’t think I am in the wrong.

So he plans to bring the laptop by the office on friday so I can see if it will work. I still don’t have any plans to replace it for him if it doesn’t. I am not scared to go to court over it since IMO the worst thing that could happen is that I have to pay him $280. I don’t see how that could happen though, since I don’t see why a judge would side with him, but it is possible that I am missing some point. That is why I am posting here. I want all of you to please post your thoughts on the matter. If there is any information that you need besides what I have here then let me know. I am serious though everyone please post what they think. No holds barred.

So I joined up to a company called gamefly (http://www.gamefly.com). They are basically netflix (http://www.netflix.com), except they send you console games.

It is pretty cool now. For twenty bucks I can have two games out at a time and as many as I want for the month. So I got a copy of Dynasty Warriors 4 from it and I really enjoy it. I mean it is still typical Dynasty Warriors, but it has some nice enhancements that make it a little more enjoyable.

It still has all the things that make Dynasty Warriors cool. Tons of people on the screen at the same time and lots of beat downs delievered to fools. It has added a nice duel mode inside the normal story mode. So while you are fighting your way through a ton of fools on the map you might come upon a high level general who thinks he can whip your ass. He chanllenges you to a duel and everyone backs up while you two throw down on each other. Pretty sweet in my opinion.

Oh and for those that care: Yes Lu Bu is still a bad ass.

Seriously, I really do like my job. It is pretty cool working here and I get to mess with a lot of the stuff that I want.

BUT (You guys knew there was going to be a “but” didn’t you?)

Lately I just find myself wishing I was home. I mean I am really starting to find myself longing for some time at the house to just goof off and stuff. It sounds like this is a bad time to feel that way too. This monday I am heading to Louisville with P, My mom and my sister for my sister’s 21st birthday. We are meeting my Grandma and Joe at one of the casino boats. It should be a real cool trip since I have never been to a casino. Then next weekend I agreed (rather stupidly, before I found out how long it was) to help run a Swim Meet which takes place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Plus for some continuing odd reason they always schedule this stupid meet on the same weekend that WKU has a swim meet, so now I have to figure some way to do that as well.

So anyway, I find myself wishing I wasn’t here and that instead I was at home. I am not really sure why, since like I have said I really do enjoy this job. It is one of those really odd things I guess.

Well sort of. It is actually more of a side job. I was talking with my cousin Shelly and her company has a couple Linux servers that no one really knew how to run, so they hired me as a contract employee.

I am installing updates for them and setting things up so that they servers will hopfully do what the need them to. It is a pretty nice chunk of change extra per month. I hope they think I am doing a good job for the money.

Original thread from old forum

Arrrrgggghhh!!!!! What is it with people? Why can they not just read an error message? Hell why can they not just write one down?

I get so tired of people…. (wait I should add something here I guess.) not reading stuff.

If a computer pops up an error and doesn’t do what I want to it, I stop and read the error and attempt to understand what it is saying. I don’t always understand the error and since there isn’t really anyone else to ask, I consult the knowledge base that is http://www.google.com

But these people have me to ask. All they have to do is read the error message and ask me what it means and what they need to do. Instead they ask me something like this:

“Uh this error message popped up and now nothing on my computer will work.”
Ok well no problem. What did the error message say?
Uh, I don’t know. I just clicked it and now nothing works
Hmm.. well without that error message, it will be tough to figure out what it is, do you remember anything about what it said?
Well it said something about something not working and that I should do something, but I didn’t really read it.
I’ll be there to look at it in a minute.

Instead it could go something like this:
“Uh yeah this error popped up on my machine.”
Ok well what did it say?
Well it said that the proxy server is incorrect and that I should check my network settings.
Oh well no problem then. Here is what you need to do…..

See how much better the second one sounds?

Original thread from my old forums

I went out to Staples last night and picked up a desk that I thought was pretty cool. It has a clear glass(ish) top, that I think will look pretty good. I think I might even be able to mod it so that glass lights up with a redish hue, so that it matches Diablo.

Also picked up a chair that I thought was pretty comfy. I almost gave in an paid $50 more for one that has a massager in it, but I decided to not become a wuss quite yet.

The crazy thing about it is this is the first desk that I have had that is mine. For the last 4+ years I have had a room that wouldn’t accomidate a desk so I have been using my bed as a chair and some creativeness for how I use my computer. I am so excited to get it up and see how it looks, that I don’t really want to be here right now. Plus this server is taking forever to install, so that isn’t helping matters either.

Things are coming together fairly decent. I don’t think I will be using cardboard boxes for funiture or anything, so that is fairly good. Of course a percentage of my parents stuff is still there so it is hard to estimate what I will need and what I won’t.

I also found a pretty sturdy table a couple of weeks ago for $20. It is actually a coffee table and it needed a little sanding and stuff to clean it up, but I have done most of that and I just need to clean up the legs on it. Once I get that done I plan to put it in one of the bedrooms and put my 33 inch monitor on top of it. I hope the table will be able to hold it, since the monitor weighs in at over 100 pounds.

Stupid POS Windows 2000 server. One power outage and it craps all over itself. Needless to say since that was the domain crontroller for the district it has caused me all kinds of issues today. Nice to know that you can always count on MS to screw up your day.

Grrr… back to migrating the AD to a new set of machines. Thank god we had a backup domain controller. At least that made it somewhat bearable.

Original thread from my old forums

this past weekend was a blast so I thought that I would write about it. I took off part of the day on friday and went to louisville to see a friend (Joni) and some family (donny, brother & janie, cousin).
Friday night- donny, joni and I went to dinner at texas roadhouse then me and joni went to a place called O malley’s (I think that was the name) and played pool, darts and got up and did one karokee (sp) song. we left sometime around 12 or one I think.
Sat- got up and drove to charlestown IN to see janie where I got to talk to her about stuff and see her new place. she has asked me to make a quilt for her upcoming baby girl and I am thrilled to do so. Then, I went over to a friend of donny’s place (in new albany) where they were having a cookout. everyone was really nice, the food was good and there was some entertaining volleyball going on. I then drove back to joni’s place where we showered and got ready to go out again. we went to eat dinner at kingfish and then went to the comedy caravan which was super cool cause in addition to the comic there was a hypnotist there. I went up to the front as a volenteer but he had a little trouble hypnotyzing (sp) me (although he came mighty close) so I had to sit back down. But, joni stayed up there and boy was it funny. he had the people on stage unable to remember their names, seeing people in the audience with just there underwear on (joni actually told me to cover up) and seeing themselves with just their underwear on in addition to forgetting numbers, vibrating panties, hearing bad jokes coming from their penis, and being members in a butt bongo band where they got up and beat their own butts to the song “wipeout”. it was hilarious and very real (I know, but trust me you could tell) the hypnotysts name was rusty z (he has a website I believe, check him out) and you should definately go see him if you get the chance.
anyways, sunday was just general shopping with joni and then returning to morgantown.

Original thread from my old forums

Had some real weird feeling going on the other day. Thought I would try and throw them down on here, for all the world to view. Y’know because that is what you do when you have personal feelings. Smile

You spend your whole life with a core of family members. In my case it has been my mom, dad and sister. I mean I have always had grand parents around and stuff and I am thankful for that, but pretty much no matter what if you are doing something, you are either doing it by yourself or with at least one member of the core family unit. Most of the time we have been together doing something memorable all together. Working on the farm when we got it is a perfect example. We would all go down there for the weekend and accomplish some goal and at the end of the weekend we would be tired as hell, but we would be saying things like, “Remember when dad pushed the building over and it hit me?” or “Did you see me when I hit my head on that tree while we were on that trail?” or “”Chisuuuummm….. John Chisum!!!” and everyone would know what you were talking about, because we were all there.

But then as you grow older most kids start to seperate from their parents. Kinda, “growing into their own” or some such. I on the other hand didn’t have to seperate from my parents to become my own person. Mainly, I think, because I like my parents. Oh sure sometimes they can be a PIA, but on the whole they are fairly cool and fairly content to let me do what I want without much interference. Only, stopping me every now and then to say things like, “Are you sure you really want to stick your finger in that light socket?” Which on the whole is a good thing.

So now comes the time in my life, where I can’t stick around with them. It just really isn’t an option. I would love to. I really have no issue hanging around with my parents and sister, but it just can’t happen anymore due to the fact that they are going to live an hour away from where I work. That coupled with the fact that I don’t think Pauline would like to live with them all the time(*) and it just really becomes impossible.

So that means that things like what happened yesterday start up. I want to stay over at the farm with them, I think they want me to stay over at the farm with them, but I have to head home for work and to do somethings at my own home. It is weird. I mean my Mom said something to me along the lines of, “I miss you already.” Like I was heading off to war in Iraq or something. My dad wants me to take time off of work to stay over there with them and Stacey is asking me when I will be back. I spend the time watching the clock while I am there, not because I want to leave, but instead because I want to stay as long as I can, but still have time to get home and gear up for the week of work. I want to spend the time with them. I wish I could stop working, grab my girlfriend, head to Cumberland county and setup residence in the new house, but it just don’t work that way.

It is weird.

(*) It isn’t her fault really. I mean they aren’t her parents, they aren’t the people she has grown up with her whole life.

Original thread from my old forums

Well now that the parental units’ house is done, they are starting to move their stuff out of the place in Smiths Grove. What does that mean for me? Why am I putting it in my journal? Well because we worked out a deal were I am purchasing the place in Smiths Grove from them. Actually, for what I think to be a considerable drop in the price that they paid for it. So that is nice, but what it also means is that my limited amount of junk, which seemed so densely packed into the 8′ x 12′ room that was mine, now has to furnish a larger area.

I spent some time today moving my stereo out of my room and into the living room and I must say I am fairly pleased with the end result. I’ll hook you guys up with a picture tomorrow. I routed the sound from the Xbox out through it so that now I get my games in excellent sound as well as the various Mp3s and Movies that I have. It opened up some space in my old room (which will become a computer room) and taking the bed out has shown more space and carpet that looks damn close to new. The room is still a wreck, but as I disperse the stuff throughout the rest of the trailer I think it will get better.

I guess I have to give big props to my parents on this though since part of the deal left me the big screen television. The stereo and speakers used to be my dad’s though I have claimed them since about 1994. They still sound excellent and the receiver of his I have never been able to get above about 6 on the dial. It just has waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to much power. The two black speakers that you will see in the picture have two mates that I am going to try and setup somewhere. I need to find some kinda add-on that will let this reciever do some kinda surround sound, since I have enough speakers to do something at least close to it.

Not cracking on my parents and their stuff or my stuff, but it is nice to see some empty walls in a place. We were just all too cramped up together here I think. It comes from having a fairly decently sized place and then having to downsize to a smaller place. Now that we are upsizing again, and splitting up some stuff it is leaving some spaces on the walls and some carpet that hasn’t seen the light of day in a while. It isn’t like getting a new place and having to fill it with your stuff. It is more like all of the sudden adding a couple rooms onto your house and someone coming in and stealing half your stuff.

BTW Noneofus I want that white afghan back