But I've found some other cool tricks that one can do with Foxmarks. It often happens when I'm on one machine, reading a blog (like Lifehacker), and think, "oh, this looks good. I really need this software on other machine". Until recently, I would keep the entry unread making a mental note to look at it when I'm on the other machine. But I've found a very good trick with Foxmarks. Create a bookmark folder on my bookmark bar called TODO. Inside it, create a subfolder for each machine I use (eg. "Office", "Mini"). Then, if I'm surfing the web at home and find something cool I want to use on my Linux box at my office, I just add that bookmark to the TODO/Office folder. Then Foxmarks copies the bookmark to my office computer. So next time I'm on my office computer, I can look through the TODO/Office folder, make use of the bookmarks therein, and remove them.

Another trick I found is an alternative to Morning Coffee. Morning Coffee is a nice Firefox add-on if you want to open the same websites every day (or every morning with your morning coffee). It has a couple downsides, though. One is that it only works on a single machine, and there's no easy way to copy it to other machines. Another is that, at this point in time it doesn't work with Tab Mix Plus (the morning coffee button never shows up).

I use Morning Coffee to read my morning comics. I have about 15 websites I open and read every day, along with a smattering of only some day websites (weekly columns, etc). But using Foxmarks, I've found another way. There's an experimental add-on called Daily Bookmarks that, if you tag your bookmarks with "sunday" through "saturday" or "everyday", opens those bookmarks tagged with the current day or everyday. So I copied my Morning Coffee links to a "Daily" folder (with subfolders for each day). So now, I install Daily Bookmarks on all my machines (using the aforementioned TODO/machine trick), and can read my morning funnies on any machine. Also, if I find a new comic (*cough*), I can add it to all machines at one time.

There are two things that would improve Daily Bookmarks. One is if instead of tagging, you could give it a folder to use for each day (or if there was a way to set tags for more than one bookmark at a time). The other is if there's a button you can press instead of going into the Bookmarks menu (like Morning Coffee gives you).

Michael

Also, I'm going to lie about the date. I'm posting this on Monday, but the "Authored On" date is Saturday, the day we actually canoed. I think that'll make things a bit easier to follow. I'll put the actual date in my signature.

Saturday, we put in at the top of the Dedham Loop (right there in the brick-paved spot off of Great Plain Ave (or whatever it's called on the east side of 128). One thing noteworthy was that we were combining a canoe trip with regular Saturday errands, so the car was full of not just the canoe stuff but 5 5 gallon water bottles we were returning. Car was somewhat cramped.

The put-in is good. Not very busy. There was another car there when we got there but they were gone when we returned. There's a short half-gravel / half slippery mud path down to the water. Got the canoe off and everything out of the car and in the canoe, and carried the canoe down to the water. Remember what I said about slippery mud. Well, a youtube-if-we-had-video-going moment was when I slipped in the mud, landing flat on my keister -- twice. The biggest downside to this put-in is the "beach" itself, which is mostly clay, mud, and murk (yeah, just coined murk; the active ingredient in anything murky, not to be confused with the verb form). What with the mud-wrestling with the canoe and getting my sandles stuck in the mud, I was rather messy when I finally got in the canoe.

We went upstream from there. It's heavily wooded, and the water was high and flowing well (not so well that we couldn't paddle or anything, just enough to ensure a nice time coming back). Before we hit 128 there looked like some better put-ins, that probably bear further investigations. Some guy was fishing there (he didn't catch anything, but I think for some, actually catching fish just interrupts a good day fishing). It was loud going under 128, as expected, and I thought I saw a paved path on the south side between the two bridges, but it was just for drainage. After the two 128 bridges there was a third bridge (off-ramp? not sure), then the river turned sharply to the right, then to the left.

Continuing on, it seemed there might be some picnic spots here and there, until we got into some definite backyard area. Lots of private docks. We ended up tying our stern painter to a branch sticking out of the water and eating lunch in the canoe. I thought Maria wasn't feeling well (she was hardly paddling the whole trip, which isn't like her), so I suggested we go back, but both ladies wanted to continue on, so we did.

After a little while the river turned to the left in a wide open area, and we saw a bridge, and some VERY low fast water. We initially tried to navigate it, but the water was too fast and shallow, so we gave up. On our way back we noticed a picnic table nearby, to make a mental note to stop there next time.

Heading back downstream was nice and uneventful. I managed to keep my feet under me while we got the canoe out of the water and back on the car. But I'm sure I was still a muddy mess to look at at Shaws.

All in all, a good day, and nice paddle in some new territory.

Michael, 9/22/08

If you're wondering, I've got a running gag of sorts going on here. That is, the disproportionate number of posts that solely introduce a new category.

When I was a kid, we'd go up to Canada for our vacation every summer. We had a canoe, and I spent a lot of time in it. There's something about getting out in a canoe on a glassy smooth lake early in the morning.

Now fast forward to about a decade ago, my brother invited me out to the Adirondacks to go canoeing. It didn't start well; my first step in the canoe caused it to capsize! But after that, we were more careful (and I was always the first one in the canoe!), and I had a lot of fun canoeing.

Fast forward again to 2-3 years ago; up at St. Xenia Camp, they have canoes there, and when I'm not running the store (at that time, probably doing inventory), I would go canoe a bit.

Back in July my family and I happened to drive by a canoe rental place, and stopped to investigate. It seemed like it would be something nice for us to do as a family. A few days later, we went to Norumbega Park and rented a canoe there. We just went downstream for a ways, ate a picnic lunch, then went back.

It was so nice that we started watching Craigslist for canoes. We almost bought a nice one for about $600 until saner minds prevailed, and we got a cheap Gazelle Kennebunker with paddles for $200. The guy who sold it said it was 60 lbs, but frankly if it weighs 60 lbs, then I weigh 180 (trust me, I don't). The canoe is, as we put it, a "starter canoe". We're hoping to get a better (lighter) canoe next year. When we do, my wife wants to use this canoe as a planter.

We had to spend some money outfitting. We got some life jackets (oops, sorry. Gotta learn the new terminology: "PFD"s), some cushions (both PFD cushions and thin seat cushion types), and a dry bag.

We've been canoeing mostly in Norumbega Park and Dedham on the Charles River.

Later (some time in the next couple years :)) I'll post some details of specific trips.

Michael

Update: there are some posts back-dated to August so my canoeing posts can be properly date-stamped.

We put in at a new place we found, right across the street from the Dedham Mall and Sears. There's a little dam there controlling a creek, and a parking lot by the building that controls the dam. Just off the parking lot is a short path to a sandy beach and the Charles river.

Put in there, and started upstream. The weather was absolutely perfect. The Charles is rather windy and narrow here, so there's plenty of water, but it can be a bit fast. We managed upstream just fine, though, eventually getting as far as the Dedham Parks and Recreation department. We got out there, had lunch, and had a nice drift back down to the car.

Michael, 9/22/08

We decided to try Millennium Park itself. We've been to Havey Beach a few times, and investigated Millennium Park (without putting in). But this time we drove the car there to put the canoe in there.

Strike 1: it's a LONG walk from where you're allowed to stop your car to the beach. It's paved, so if we had wheels, it might be easier. But it was quite a chore to get everything from the car to the water.

Strike 2: Dogs. Lots. Of. Dogs. That path is very popular for dog-walkers. And while I don't have anything against dogs personally, Christine is very allergic to them. Shlepping all the stuff back and forth with dogs everywhere you looked didn't do her lungs any favors.

Strike 3: no water. We tried going downstream, mostly because we hadn't been there before. But we ran aground, and I ended up having to get out of the canoe and drag it by the painter to get back to deeper water. So we went upstream. Not much better. Before we could go very far at all, we got word from someone that it was shallow up ahead, so just gave up and went back to the car.

Plus side, we know not to bother with millennium park (at least not for canoeing -- kite flying is a different matter entirely). And on the way back we found another place nearby to put in that looks much nicer. It's right at the bottom of the Long Ditch, so if we ever wanted to do the Dedham Loop proper, we'd know where to start.

Michael 9/22/08

July 12th: Our first canoeing trip. Went to Charles River Canoe and Kayak at Norumbega Park in Newton, and rented a canoe. Went down to a beach past the playground, had lunch, and came back. I was a bit nervous coming back, because I was *TIRED* (and a bit hypo, too) and we had to go upstream and upwind. But made it back okay.

July 18th: bought our canoe, a used Gazelle Kennebunker. Well-used, I might add. The guy said it weighed 60 lbs, and wouldn'tcha know we didn't bring a scale. But we didn't need to. It weighed more. But we were able to put it on the car. The plan for this canoe is it's a starter canoe. We'll use it and enjoy it this year, and if we still like canoeing next year, we'll buy a better canoe and Christine will use this canoe as a planter.

July 19th: the maiden voyage in our new canoe. Back to Norumbega, This time we went to the playground, had lunch and came back.

July 26th: I'm guessing... our first trip in Dedham. Havey Beach (across VFW Pkwy from the VA hospital). Havey Beach is a nice little put-in. Not well-traveled, with a medium length path to the water. We put in there and paddled to the end of the Long Ditch (to satisfy my curiosity), then to Millenium Park where we had lunch, On the way back we went past the beach and crossed under Spring or Bridge St (again, to satisfy my curiosity) before going back to Havey beach and getting out.

Here the trips and dates get a bit blurry. I took August 4th through 8th off from work, and we did some canoeing that week, but not as much as we'd planned. For the most part, I don't know which dates we went where. So I'll just sort by location, except where known.

Dedham: went back to Havey beach, and went farther up the river, past probably the cheapest riverside property in Boston -- a trailer park. River wasn't very interesting, so after a little while we went back, crossed the Bridge St. bridge (could be the Spring St. bridge, but Bridge St. bridge sounds better), and had lunch at the park there before going back to the car.

Later in Dedham (either Sunday, 8/10 or 8/24), we put in at the Dedham Parks and Recreation Office (in back of the building is a large field and at the end is a rocky area where you can put in). We put in there, and went upstream, making as far as Great Plain Ave. We got a glimpse of the head of the Long Ditch before zooming back. The water was fast and hard to paddle but we managed okay. I'm teaching Christine a new stroke, the bow rudder.

Norumbega: couple trips: went back to the playground we went to before, and continued on downstream to the next bridge. And the other trip, we went upstream, under 8 bridges, up to the golf course, before turning back and finding a delightful meadow where we had lunch.

And the Concord River one is worthy of it's own post (besides, I know the date).

Michael, 9/22/08

We decided to try canoeing the Concord river. Someone at work had mentioned a canoe rental place in Concord, so we went there (our experiences with Charles River Canoe & Kayak being a positive one, we assumed it would be fine here). Turns out the rental place in Concord is a closed dock, so we couldn't put in there. But they gave us directions to the Lowell St. put-in, and we went there.

The put-in was good, Drive down a rutty road and there's a nice sandy beach. Plenty of parking back up on the street. We put in, and went upstream. Turning left we ended up on the Sudbury River (how was I to know? There weren't any signs...). It was a lovely paddle, all things considered. A rather long paddle, I might add, but lovely all the same. After a while we started getting hungry, and looking for a place to get out and eat our lunch.

Nada.

We eventually made it back to the canoe rental place. They said there was a nice place to get out "a couple bridges upstream". As they were right by a bridge, it wasn't clear whether they meant two MORE bridges or if they were counting this one. But we continued upstream.

Next bridge. Still no place to take out. A kayaker told us it was past the next bridge (so they weren't counting the bridge they were at, apparently). We were getting tired, but continued on. Finally, we got to the next bridge.

There didn't seem to be many places to take out here, but there was a little muddy strip right by the bridge where someone had left a rowboat to rot. We decided that either (a) must be it, or (b) wasn't it, but we didn't care. And we got out anyway.

Christine had made what she thought were hummus sandwiches. I took a bite. It tasted salty. Really salty. "Umm... Christine, are you sure this is hummus?" Turns out it was miso paste. Delicious in soups. Not so good in sandwiches.

Lack of any kind of real meal, coupled with the mosquitoes, meant we didn't stay long. Soon we were going back downstream. That was the best part of the trip, by far.

At one point, Christine pulled out a sketch pad, and I did just enough paddling to keep the boat heading in the right direction, and she sketched in a particularly nice section of the river. Being in no hurry to get back, we almost-drifted lazily back to the car.

Next time we go there, we're going to go downstream first. If we had done that, we would have quickly reached Minuteman Park, which would have been a very nice destination, to be sure.

Michael, 9/22/08

I tried clicking on the Street View option in Google Earth, and, after loading (which seemed, on my slow DSL link, to take a while), it showed pictures of cameras on various major roads. I clicked on one, and it zoomed in to reveal a sphere sitting in the middle of the road. This is where it got cool. You adjust the viewing angle in GEarth, and you can see, in the sphere, the pictures from Street View. Usually, in GEarth, the images you see (barring 3D buildings and elevation changes) are flat (comes with the territory from being taken from space, ya know). But this adds another level of dimension to it, where there's this row of spheres going down the road and you can zoom into any of them and look around them and everything.

Anyway, pretty cool, at least I thought.

Michael

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=06d65840-0997-482e-a84d-b09b61a7b0e5

What baffles me is how (or maybe 'if'?) the Chinese Gov't didn't see this coming.

And the 'if' is the scary part. It wouldn't take much for them to create a HUGE army. That's why I can't help wonder how sincere their efforts to crack down on those "war games" clubs.

I remember in a history class I took once we learned about the middle ages, where, because women could marry above their station but men couldn't, it created an excess of upper class women and lower class men. The upper class women were no problem -- they just became nuns. The problem was the lower class men (and this seems to be the same problem China is facing now; what with the lower class men not able to find wives). The solution back then was to draft them all into a big army for what became the Cruisades. I wonder if China will adopt the same solution.

One other note that wasn't mentioned in the article is that in addition to all that, girls are being exported (so to speak). A friend of mine adopted a girl from China.

Michael

My approach to the internet is something like a homesteader. My ISP gives me a single pipe (static IP) and I've been doing everything myself. DNS, web, email. Well, this blog you're reading is hosted by the wonderful people at phpwebhosting.com and I've recently started using a real server for my DNS, and a good thing I did that, too. But I use my home domain as an email namespace for all my solicited commercial email (so if it becomes unsolicited I just delete an entry from my aliases file and never have to hear from them again).

When my server crashed recently, I offloaded my personal email to gmail, but my wife's personal email (she doesn't get much, actually) is still coming here.

Now, what does that have to do with the router? The router works... for outgoing traffic. I mean, I'm actually using it to post this to my blog. But I can't get any incoming SMTP or ssh. I did have to reset and reconfigure it recently, and I suspect it died at that time. I've been through all the configuration menus for it over and over, and everything looks fine.

I found an old router lying around, and tried using that, but it didn't work at all. It's a linksys, so I know it's default internal IP address is 192.168.1.1 but when I try to ping it, it just sits there. Unpinged.

In a brief fit of retro-tech geeking (with a bit of marital told-you-so) I also thought about going the LRP ahh.. route. LRP, for those who don't know, is (was?) a cool idea: take an old PC, throw a couple NIC cards on it, remove the hard drives and just leave a floppy. The floppy contains an extremely stripped down version of Linux that mostly runs off a ram disk. The upshot is that the floppy can be readonly, leaving the system quite reliable.

Now, I have a few old PC's gathering dust in my basement. My wife has been begging me to throw them away, but I haven't yet. So if I can use one of them for this, that's an added bonus (in the marital told-you-so category).

Well, the first PC I grabbed was a semi-recent vintage. But when I went to plug in the power, I noticed that the power supply had been removed (probably back when I had my computer woes a couple months ago.

The second PC I grabbed looked more promising. It was old. No question there. It had a power supply (always nice to find :). It had a floppy drive... ahh.. 5 1/4" though. That should have been a warning sign. It even had two NIC cards in it already! Now all I needed to do was put a 3 1/2" floppy drive in. Easily done, and it saw it.

After I put LRP on a floppy, I went back down to boot it up. That's when I took a closer look at the BIOS screen. 40MHz 486 w. 16 MB RAM. Wouldn't boot the floppy. No doubt LRP includes some pentium instructions.

Later, found another router just sitting there. But no power supply for it. Frustrating.

NEWS FLASH: just found the IDE-USB adapter thingamabob (sorry, USB drive enclosure for IDE drives). Now I can look at my old Windows hard drive and see if it contains the saved config for the router. Maybe if I load that, this'll work after all.

UPDATE: Success! Found the config file right there in my My Documents folder, loaded it up, and the router's working fine!!! Yee haw!

One mailbox I found from about 10 years ago was from someone who went to school with me at a school called Wanderjahr. Wanderjahr was an "alternative" school, a boarding school at Far View Ranch in Bangor CA (Bangor is in the foothills; if you draw an equilateral triangle with Marysville and Oroville, Bangor is the third point, to the east). I remember that area so fondly, with small towns like Challenge and "Rough and Ready" (and even Gibsonville, just beyond LaPorte, population 3).

Anyway, Kim Schafer, the daughter of the co-directors of the camp, somehow managed to track me down (Kim, if you see this, my email address still hasn't changed), and mentioned some upcoming newsletter and the possibility of a reunion. I didn't hear much more from her after that, so presume nothing came of it.

But it got me curious about how well I could track down some people from there. So I set my google skills to work.

First thing to try was to google "Drobish". Bo Drobish was the founder of the school, and I haven't heard from him in at least 20 years if not longer. A few years ago, I tried calling the phone number of Far View Ranch (where Wanderjahr was located), but no answer.

First suggestion was an ancestry.com search, so I went there, and searched the most recent year's census, 1930. What did I find?

Faith B Drobish name city, Riverside, CA abt 1896
H Boardenan Drobish name city, Riverside, CA abt 1922
M Joy Drobish name city, Riverside, CA abt 1924

Now, I never heard "H Boardenan" before, but I remembered that Bo had a younger sister, Joy (who founded Far View Ranch Camp, which was a summer camp I attended for a couple years before Wanderjahr). So Bo must have been short for Boardenan. I had never known his full name until now! How about that.

Also, Faith. When I was living there, there was an older woman named Faith, on top of the hill behind the main house complex. We called her Aunt Faith, if my failing memory serves. And Faith is also listed there in Riverside in 1930. And Bo was about that age back in the mid 70s (very active man, but a bit gray and balding).

I then tried to track down Joy. I googled Joy Drobish, and found a few hits, but not many. Dope-slapping me back to reality, I tried her (then) married name, Joy Palmerlee. I actually found a few hits with Joy Palmerlee Apra, suggesting that she apparently remarried. She appears to be living with her husband Dan, in Oakland. I could even call her, but I wouldn't know what to say, and besides it's getting late even there.

I then refocused my attention on finding Bo Drobish, so I googled him. I found a notice in the Middle Mountain Foundation newsletter that mentioned:

In Memory of:

...

H. Boardman “Bo” Drobish

So at this point, I knew he'd died. And then, I found the link that tied it all together.

This link is from the Lisle Fellowship newsletter from Winter, 2002:

Last issue we had a brief entry for “Bo” Drobish, who passed away in April 2001. His sister, Joy Drobish Palmerlee Apra, submitted a lovely summary of his life and relationship with Lisle. We decided it would be sweet to include it in this issue.

“This is to inform you that my brother, “Bo” Drobish (H. Boardman Drobish), died on April 20, 2001 at age 79. He and I were Lislers together in Golden, CO the summer of 1947.

He later took on more leadership, for instance a Lisle Unit in California (1950 and 1951) and perhaps another. We have a family ranch in northern California at Bangor in Butee County, called Far View Ranch)…Uncle Si and Aunt Edna were there then.

Bo was a graduate of UC Berkeley in 1947, after serving as a pilot and 1st Lieutenant in the US Air Force, dropping food over Italy. His specialty was agriculture and permaculture. He died naturally and suddenly in Kalispell, MT, where he lived near a son who was an organic farmer. Thank you. Sincerely—Joy Drobish Palmerlee Apra.”

Our thanks to Joy for sharing this view of her brother’s life with us. Also, our condolences to her and the rest of “Bo’s” family.

This told me a LOT! First, it confirmed that Bo was dead. It also confirmed that Joy Apra was the same Joy Palmerlee who was his brother. And finally, when I heard that part about "near a son who was an organic farmer.", my immediate thought was "Kip!" That's GOT to be Kip!

I then did some googling of Kip Drobish in Montana, and sure enough, he's there. He lives close to the land, off the grid (more or less, he's on enough to post comments in blogs). He owns (and rents as a vacation home), a straw bale house. I even read a moving statement he prepared for a Senate subcommittee on the demise of old growth forests.

There are some others I wasn't able to find (at least not yet, it's only 2 AM, and I still have 5 hours to kill). Notably, John Suttle, the cowboy and my closest friend there. I don't think I'll call Joy or maybe even Kip (although I may email him a link to this). But I sure wouldn't mind getting ahold of John again.

A quick check wasn't terribly encouraging. Suttle's not that strange a surname, and I somehow doubt he's a lawyer (never struck me as the lawyerin' type, if you catch my drift). Nor can I imagine him in a B-minus grade horror film (according to imdb).

Anyway, with over 2500 Google hits for "John Suttle" (even with the quotes), I'm not hopeful of finding him. I also tried to find Linda Morgan, but got 31k hits for her. Won't even bother...

Michael (was David) Vezie

First, maybe a little theology lesson. What the Orthodox call the Dormition of the Theotokos, Roman Catholics (and others?) call Assumption. The difference is that they believe that she was lifted up to Heaven (Assumed to Heaven) while still alive, but Orthodox believe that she died (Dormition). It is an important distinction, theologically. They believe the heresy of original sin, which required the immaculate conception (of Mary), which kept her from dying. So, in their theology, sh e couldn't die, and must have been brought to Heaven while still alive. Orthodox don't believe in original sin. We know that Christ inherited the entirety of our fallen nature. After all, if Mary couldn't have died, and He got His human nature from her, what does that say about the Passion and Resurrection?

The upshot is that there is a big difference between "Assumption" and "Dormition".

Anyway, many years ago, back in California, I saw an Orthodox church named for the "Assumption of the Theotokos", which struck me as odd. Someone explained that when the Russians came to America, they looked at the Roman Catholic names for feasts, and assumed they were the English translation of the names for the feasts (in other words, they thought that if you looked up the Russian word for "Dormition" in a Russian to English dictionary, you would find "Assumption" -- a false assumption if you ask me :).

Now, as for Pascha and Easter. Most languages on earth have, as their word for the feast celebrating our Saviour's Resurrection, some variation of the word "Passover". I could be wrong, but I think only English and German (and possibly some other German-derived languages) have "Easter" as the name of the feast. The word "Easter" comes from a Germanic pagan celebration (that, not coincidentally, includes a pagan deity that takes the form of an egg-laying rabbit).

The fact is, what we celebrate as Orthodox is the Passover. Not the same as the Jewish Passover, but there are parallels. The Jewish Passover was a prefiguring of our Passover. My priest even makes a point to call it Passover (using that as an English translation of Pascha). I'm trying to remember the parallels between ours and the Jewish Passover. I think some are that, when we have the Blood of the Lamb (Christ) on our lips (the door to our soul), that death will pass over us. There are also parallels of the week. The Passover seder was Friday night, so Christ died at the same time as (and mystically was) the sacrificial lamb.

The other reason why I like "Pascha" over "Easter" is it provides a separation of the feasts. Whereas the secular will celebrate Easter with anthropomorphic rabbits and the like, we celebrate Pascha with the Resurrection of our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life!

Trying to decide what to do about my computers. I have a little money courtesy* of Uncle Sam (*money from the gov't is typically in the form of "we steal money from you and may give some of it back. But I digress), but priorities above computing, so I do want to be somewhat careful.

First, here's what I have now:

1: A 1.3GHz, 512MB SDRAM PC running Linux, acting as my server, working great.

2: A 2.4GHz, 256MB DDR PC running ubuntu, to be my regular desktop Linux PC

3, A (unknown sped), 512 MB DRR2 RAM dead PC with a WinXP Pro hard drive.

Now, some caveats. #3 is dead. Power Supply is fine, probably something with the mobo or CPU
(or maybe RAM, but I doubt it). #2 got somewhat fried when I managed to (almost) put it's RAM in backwards. Boots and runs fine, but for some reason (1) the onboard audio doesn't work anymore, and (2) when I try to use a PS/2 keyboard via KVM, it's either unreliable or doesn't even work.

Okay, now what do I need? First, a server, handling email, spam filtering, and other sundries. Next, a ubuntu PC to use as my general PC, and probably a windows PC for occasional use.

Now, I've got half a mind to just swap #1 and #2. Reason: the server doesn't need much in the way of RAM (256MB would be ample), but does have some CPU needs. Downsides: 1, I'm not too confident in #2's mobo. I mean, granted, I can work around the keyboard issues, and I don't need the sound. But this machine really has to work at 100% reliability. And a semi-fried PC doesn't fill me with confidence. 2, while getting enough ram in the ubuntu machine is paramount, I'm not thrilled about it's speed being cut in half.

The other thought to think about is, do I want a mac? If I did, it would probably be a Mac Mini with dual mac/windows boot. On the other hand, there's little, and getting less and less, I need with Windows. So, if I did this, the mini (sudden thought -- I need a monitor anyway, why not just get an iMac?).

More to think (and sleep) about.

UPDATE: I'm seriously considering the Mac Mini, but it is somewhat pricy...

UPDATE II: tried plugging Win XP hard drive into ubuntu machine. Boots more-or-less okay (keyboard works for a while, mouse doesn't). Was able to attempt to log in w/o mouse, but it complained that an administrator was needed to re-authorize it with Microsoft. Given that it's an OEM version, I suspect that given that the mobo/cpu's presumed dead, it's dead too. :( Q for all my readers*: what's the actual part that windows uses to decide if it's been moved? I'd guess it's the CPU, but I don't know.

Also, I'm tracking some good deals on Mac minis on eBay. Looks like I'll buy it there.

UPDATE III: Bought a Mac Mini on eBay. Can't wait to get it. Now need to think about what else I need.

UPDATE IV: Time to think about what I have (or will have), and what I need. I've got a Mac Mini w. 2 GB RAM, and the bootcamp dual-booting software. But I don't have a legit (non-OEM) version of Windows. Q: Do I need windows? Most (non-web) that I use windows for these days is for things like iTunes. And if I'm not mistaken, iTunes has been ported to MacOS. The other issue is the tivo support, and I know that there is a version of tivo for the mac. According to tivo's website, I need to buy Roxio or Toast 8. There's a chance I won't.

There may be some sundry applications on Windows that I'll miss. I can't think of what they are, and I suspect that whatever they are, there'll be some MacOS analog. There may also be some Linux apps that I may want to be able to use. I have the debian server, and the ubuntu machine, although I may try to make those the best of both worlds (not sure what that means yet).

So, what other sundry hardware will I need? I'm getting a monitor with the mac. I have a PS2 keyboard and a presumably functional KVM switch. Problem: I don't have a USB keyboard (well, precisely, I'm typing on a USB keyboard, but it's needed elsewhere. Besides, it's a microsoft keyboard, and I suspect they don't have mac drivers for it). There exists a PS/2 to USB adapter (saw one at MicroCenter). I could use that with the KVM that'll give me the ability to use the PS/2 keyboard. Or I could I suppose just use the USB keyboard, but that'll mean one more keyboard lying around, and I need some way to control the KVM (I'm assuming I'm going to keep the kubuntu around just for old time's sake). Other option is to buy a USB KVM along with the USB keyboard, but I have a glut of PS/2's downstairs, so this seems the best solution. Mouse would be a bit tricky, except that I may be able to use a USB to PS2 mouse adapter for the (USB) mouse I like.

So that's it, I guess. Looks like I have all I need, if I just get a PS/2 to USB adapter. I may need to rethink hard drives. Internally, the mini only has 80GB, but there are plenty of external options (I have an external IDE case I can use with any one hard drive I have). But maybe investing in a nice big external drive might be simpler. I wonder if bootcamp can boot off a USB drive?

UPDATE V: Didn't think to look carefully. The Mac I bought is a Core Duo, not a Core 2 Duo. Apparently that means 32bit, not 64bit.

Michael

Start with, what's with this $15k bonus for throwing your helmet?? So does that mean NASCAR won't penalize drivers for throwing helmets? Is this a change in the rules, or is the bonus designed to offset penalties by NASCAR. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Also, don't get me started about that first caution in lap 2. Someone threw a T-SHIRT onto the TRACK?? Yikes...

Now lap 17, Harvick's still in the lead.

4:10:58 PM (44 minutes on Tivo): Had to restart Firefox to get this cool add-on that gives me the time-stamp. Not much changed yet, getting ready for green flag pits.

4:18:53 PM (53 min on Tivo): Ouch! Kevin Harvick just lost an axle. That'll ruin your whole day...

4:20:22 PM Got to admit. Tivo live blogging is rather silly. Unless you're actually in my living room right now, these times are absolutely meaningless (well, the XX minutes on Tivo time might mean something).

I started following NASCAR about a year ago. I don't recall the first race I watched, but it was around this time of year or so. I've been watching it enthusiastically this past year. I even made it to my first race at Louden in September '07. That was awesome (and wicked loud!).

Who do I like? My favorite driver last year was Jeff Gordon (my wife liked Jimmy Johnson, and we had a friendly rivalry going on last year). This year, I'm more interested in Carl Edwards. The guy's a class act; always gives away his prizes. He wins races, too.

My thoughts on the most popular driver, Dale Earnhart Jr aka Junior, aka Junebug, etc... I've not been impressed with him. But I hasten to point out that I've only been watching NASCAR for a year, so I've never seen him actually WIN a race yet.

Wasn't a big fan of Smoke (Tony Stewart) last year, he seemed like someone who, when someone else wrecked him, got all hot-headed about him, but when he wrecked someone else, "well, that's just racing...". I like him a bit more now.

Why do I like the sport? Despite the stereotypes regarding NASCAR fans, it's really a geeky sport. There's so much physics and science in it. Deciding when to pit, and what line to race in, etc. There's a lot to it.

Oh, and by the way, contrary to what I said here, I do enjoy an occasional beer.

Michael