Diary of a Network Geek

Yes, it’s true the higher cost of sending things overseas makes our economy stronger.

Well, in what I have to admit is a nice turn of events, ABC has an article telling us how the high oil prices are actually generating manufacturing jobs here, at home, in the good, old United States of America. Yea! So, what I’ve been saying for quite some time is finally being recognized by industry at large: it’s cheaper to “outsource” to small towns in Middle America than it is to send the work overseas. Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite as true when I was saying it back in 2003, but it sure seems to be now.

You know, it’s not that I mind being right, even when I’m right so far ahead of the curve, but I sure wish people in positions of power would start listening to guys who have been in the trenches. Most of us really do know more than you’d expect about this stuff. Honest.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong."
   --Warren Buffet

Too many people read my blog.

Too many people I know, too many people I care about, too many people who care about me.  In the early days of this blog, eight years ago, all I wanted was readers.  Now, all I worry about is who’s reading.  Since I started this blog, we’ve added “Dooced” to our vocabulary.  We live in a world where potential dates Google each other to see what’s on their Facebook or MySpace pages.  And, now, I’m much more careful about what I write.  I’m afraid to rant about the English gits, er, fine gentlemen from the UK, that I work with, in case they happen to be reading.  I don’t say everything that I might otherwise about women I’ve dated, or even my ex-wife.
So, poor me, right?  So many people read my blog that I’m worried about how I’ll come across, who I might offend.  I fret over little things like not getting to far away from who I am, or who I think people perceive me to be, lest I overly disturb their sense of how I fit with them and the world.  Yeah, what a terrible burden I bear.  Ha.

So, I’ve talked about starting another blog, a creative blog, that’s not so closely associated with my professional life, with me.  Something where I can experiment on the screen and go mental and emotional and creative places that I feel too stifled to go here.  The Super Secret Creative Project of Doom.  It keeps me awake at nights, like tonight, and gnaws at me like the Midgard Serpent gnaws at the roots of the Tree of Life.  And, even as I write things like that, I feel the teenage angst that’s been sent off to French boarding school and grown up into upper middle-class ennui, like I should be wearing a black beret and smoking clove cigarettes.
So, where’s the drug that’s supposed to help me?  The clove cigarettes don’t take the edge off any more and the single-malt Scotch doesn’t help me sleep.  So, what’s a guy to do at 1:00 A.M. when my mind is racing, but the track is a tight circle that’s getting ever smaller and muddier?

What’s there to do but blog?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"I don't know the secret to success but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."
   --Bill Cosby

Everything is still clear.

The doctor said my blood work was excellent.  I put on a couple of pounds, but, then it beats the way I took off all that weight last year!  My blood pressure was lower than it’s been on a Monday in a very long time, though, that’s probably because I wasn’t at work.  The scar tissue on my right lung is about as small as it’s likely to get though, and the doctor seemed fine with that.

Everything else, medically, satisfied the doctor, who seemed quite pleased with my progress.
The one thing I do still worry about is the money.  Even with what my medical insurance pays, I’m probably going to owe several thousand dollars this year and next year and, possibly, the year after that!  The thousand dollar deductible and 20% the insurance company doesn’t cover adds up pretty quickly with all these scans.  At least I’m on the right side of the grass to deal with them, though, so, I know things will work out eventually.
And, even though we’re paying big money at the pumps, I’m very grateful to be working in an industry that services the oil fields right now.  We have work for the next three to five years and they keep me busy.  That’s something else I’m really thankful for: having a job.  It’s not too many years ago I was out of work and didn’t know when I’d work again.  I try to remember that when I have problems on Mondays or have to work late on a Friday to update the firmware on the server drive array.

On a sad note, I found out this morning that an old friend whom I’d fallen out of touch with died yesterday from pancreatic cancer.  Even though I hadn’t really talked to him in years, knowing that he’s gone makes my own results a little bitter-sweet.
Cancer touches so many lives and I count myself as truly blessed to have been spared so many of the worst aspects of it.  In many ways, I’ve been very fortunate.  I do want you all to know that I’m more than willing to talk about cancer or my treatment with anyone who may be dealing with it elsewhere in their life.  I hope no one has been touched by cancer more than they have through me, but, if you all have, know that you don’t need to be alone with it.

Thanks again for all your prayers and positive support and thoughts!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Forewarned, forearmed; being prepared is half the victory."
   --Miguel de Cervantes

hummus bread with eggs

Originally uploaded by carmen maria

You know what I want to ask LK?

Why didn’t you ever fix my kitchen? You were going to make my kitchen efficient and work better, in some way that you never were able to explain to me. I was always secretly hoping that you would find a way to fix my kitchen and, by so doing, somehow, fix me.

I wanted to be a good cook, you know. I wanted to be the kind of man that Padma Lakshmi apparently pines for, one who would cook for her. I have to admit that cooking for a food person like LK was very, very intimidating and, well, I did a poor job of it. It’s funny, though, because she wanted a man to cook for her. I think I won her over by making macaroni and cheese. LK, that is, not Padma.

And, I do like to cook, most of the time. Though, I have to admit, I really do think it would go better if I had a more efficiently arranged kitchen. I mean, I might actually accomplish more and finish more of the strange culinary experiments I try.
The picture that I’ve sneaked from Flickr, which inspired this post, has toasted hummus bread in it. And eggs. I think it would be rather perfect if it included bacon. But, whatever hummus bread really is, and really tastes like, it sounds like an adventure to me. Something to challenge and excite the taste buds. And, of course, I love bread. And toast.

But, I need someone to fix my kitchen.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"While it may be true that the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, sometimes it can be much more satisfying hacking your way through the rib cage."
   --Cara-Beth Lillback

Life is about passion.

Tomorrow, there will be a post that links to an article about meeting someone in a coffee shop. No, I haven’t met someone! Rather, it’s an article about how to meet someone. I tend to associate that sort of thing with passion. The passion of need, of possession. Of two becoming one. But, I have to be honest, my idea of passion has always included more than that.

Okay, sure, you’re thinking “Hey, a divorced, middle-aged, white guy who makes a living by being geekier than the average geek survives cancer and thinks he’s suddenly qualified to ramble on about passion”, right? Well, it’s not that. I’ve been hurting for something to be passionate about since the sixth grade. Oh, I get obsessed with things, sure. Some small, obscure subject will fascinate me for a few weeks or months and I’ll go through a cycle of knowing as much as I can about whatever it is before it bores me and it becomes something that gathers metaphorical dust in the attic of my mind, if I’m lucky. If I’m not lucky, it gathers actual dust on my coffee table. This is how I account for my owning both the complete, original John Byrne run of Alpha Flight, the collected Prisoner, the Dune Encyclopedia and Space: Above and Beyond. It’s also how I learned Perl and Linux and wrote plugins for WordPress. That same cycle is how I learned about survival, security, self-defense, koi, philosophy, and just about anything else interesting that I know. But, none of it really lasts. It’s just a flash of white-hot passion, then it’s gone.

What I long for, what I’ve always longed for, is something that makes me feel passionate forever. And, yes, I thought I had that when I was married, but, well, it turned out that passion was misplaced. So, now I wonder if all of it was misplaced. If it was all a useless, empty quest to find passion that is impossible to grasp. Before I met my ex-wife, I felt that passion about my work, but, after losing a job that was my life, I discovered work was just a job. So, now, I’m left searching, seeking, hunting that elusive passion which seems so slippery.

So, in spite of what you’ll read in this space tomorrow, I don’t ever want to sink all that passion into a person, of either sex, again.  And, any thing or activity that I allow myself to be passionate about again will have to be something that can’t be taken away from me.  Work comes and goes.
But writing…  Well, if I were to lose this blog, this laptop that I’m writing from, I could still write.  A cheap notebook and stub of a pencil stolen from Ikea is enough.  The words, the hammering out of the words, sentences, paragraphs, that takes no special tools, only, well, the passion.  So, too, God.  Even fewer tools to seek God.  I can find His presence anywhere, anytime.  Again, what matters is the passion for the spiritual connection, the seeking God’s presence.  But, how?  What to write?  How to find God?  What step to take next?

Who knows?  I suppose I’ll find out if I keep after it, that search for passion.  So, dear readers, what makes you light up with that passion for living?  What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone."
   --Frederic Bastiat

Just trying to love the skin I’m in.

I hate being transparent. I especially hate it when my little character flaws show through so easily.
I was talking with someone about dropping weight the other day and he made a comment about how I seemed to have a self-esteem problem. If I recall, he phrased it as a question, which made the observation a bit more palatable. But, the truth is, I’ve never been all that comfortable in my own skin. I’ve always rather wanted to be someone else or to be doing something else. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been drawn to writing and reading fiction, as it gives me the opportunity to be someone else, even for a short time.

Oh, I know, intellectually, that I’m not such a bad guy. A bit over-weight at the moment, but working on restoring a healthy lifestyle. Somewhat above average intelligence, but not so smart that I’m overly annoying. Far from movie-star handsome, but I don’t make small children cry in horror. Mostly, I’m an average guy, who’s pretty much a self-made man. Really, most of the things about myself that I’m truly proud of are things that I did or earned through plain, old hard work. Yeah, sure, I have a college degree, which actually makes me above average in many respects, but I taught myself most of what I know in my chosen career. Even my writing, when I was really good, was a mostly self-taught skill, honed through hard work and practice. So, I suppose that it’s not surprising that I’m proud of my ability to lose weight and re-sculpt my body into something less soft and weak. Really, this will be at least the third time I’ve done that.

But, it’s true that my efforts in the area of diet and exercise are driven by an essential distaste for my own physical self. I want someone else’s skin. At the very least, I want to carve my own skin into something, someone, else.
It may be that single fact is what holds me back from a deeper spiritual life. I think when I do truly learn to love the skin I’m in, only then, will I find peace and through that inner peace, God. And my struggle, is to not struggle with that, but to let the process unfold as it will, as it needs to unfold. To let go, and let God.
By the way, I lost another two and a fraction pounds as of my weekly weigh-in on Sunday.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed."
   --Kate Halverson

I think I may not ever buy a new PC again.

Notice, I didn’t write that I’d never buy another computer, but, rather not another PC. Hear me out. With prices the way they are, laptops are so cheap that I could easily find one in whatever price range that I might set for myself, within reason. I mean, MicroCenter always has laptops in their sale fliers. Not to mention every one else who sells them. And, what’s more, in recent years, laptops have come configured to replace similarly priced PCs from the year previous. Now, I know you’d think that a super-powered IT geek like me would be working on the latest, greatest hardware at work and at home, but, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s just not so. Everyone else gets new equipment before I do. I end up working on last year’s model, at best! And, upgrades? Forget about it! The last time I did an upgrade of any value, I might as well have just gotten a new PC anyway. Besides, now I have a LinkStation Live 500Mb Network Attached Storage device to use as a backup before upgrading, so I shouldn’t have to worry about losing data. In fact, I should be able to use this little toy to backup my servers, my workstations, my router configurations and even my one Linux laptop.

So, to recap, the only things I really upgrade on a machine are memory and diskspace. Laptops, which are adequately configured most of the time anyway, are priced well enough to be affordable and can easily take my normal, preferred upgrades. Laptops take up less space and are, obviously, more portable in case of emergency, but still can handle all my peripherals, thanks to USB. And, furthermore, I can still get laptops that have docking stations, if I want to have them hooked up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse most of the time.

Pretty much, I can’t see a reason to buy a regular PC ever again. If I need something special, like a server or a firewall, I can get a specially configured machine, or build one myself specifically for that purpose.
So, what do you all think, is the desktop dead?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'.
   --from "The Shawshank Redemption

The biggest excuse that “wannabe” writers give for not writing is that they don’t have the time.

“Q) What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?

A) I do most of my writing during my lunch breaks at work. Typically, a few minutes are spent actually eating, and then there are a few minutes of stalling and procrastinating before I dig in and start typing. 50 minutes or so isn’t a lot, but I’ve found I can do about 5000 words in a good week, which allows me to write a book every year in addition to some short fiction.”

– from Wyrdsmiths; Q&A with Jim Hines–Goblin War So, um,yeah, an hour a day really is all it takes, if you really want to write. Really. So, uh, guess what? Yeah, that means no more excuses…

Also, I recently purchased a book titled Time To Write, with the intention of finding ways to make regular writing part of my normal weekly routine.  Well, writing beyond this blog, that is!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it."
   --W. Feather

Ennui is a disease of the rich.

I heard, or read, sometime, somewhere, that the poor are too busy to feel ennui.  If that’s true, then I must be quite wealthy indeed.  I don’t know what’s going on, but I just feel a general lack of passion for, well, for pretty much anything right now.  Just sort of empty, hollow and disconnected from everything that means anything.  I suppose, if I were more concerned about day-to-day living, I’d have less time to be bored with, as the French say, the pain that is life.
The funny thing is, like the French, when I get this way, I crave cigarettes.

Should I feel sad that I haven’t indulged in a smoke while still suffering the disease of the rich?
Or, should I be happy that life is going so well that this is my biggest problem?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity."
   --Abraham Lincoln

So, a funny thing happened Friday night.

As I wrote in my last entry, I went to dinner with three friends Friday, to celebrate one’s birthday. The prettier half of the married couple, actually, L. To make things easier, I ran by their apartment and rode with them to A’s apartment. As per usual, I snuck past the security gate behind someone else and popped up to their apartment to visit for a moment before we left to gather up our last gustatory adventurer.

We walked down to their car and I went around to the rear passenger-side door via the back of the car. I watched with growing horror as the couple parted, J going to the driver’s seat and L going, by herself, to the front passenger side door. She opened her door and let herself in. I sat down behind her.

“So, you guys have been married for a long time now, haven’t you?” I asked, knowing that it had been less than a year.
“What do you mean?” J asked me as his wife started to laugh. “What?”
“I think he was asking why you didn’t open the door for me.”

That scene repeated several times before J was finally shamed into opening his wife’s door for her.
You try to raise them right, but these kids today…

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."
   --John Barrymore