A New Idea March 30, 2008
Posted by tony in : Pointless, Hobbies, Recreation , add a commentSo, we traveled up to our cabin this weekend and encountered a little snow. Unfortunately, the only real snow was around the gate and the first 75′ or so of driveway which happens to be a bit of an incline. Needless to say, the 2wd Ram couldn’t make it 10 feet through the snow. The heavy front end just buried itself in the snow. I spent about 2 hours digging out a path in the snow, moving the truck forward, getting it stuck and digging it out again. The Range Rover would have been fun but it has no load capacity. We are hauling up more furniture and stuff so it just isn’t practical for anything more than the drive to the train station.
So, I’ve been looking around at a diesel van. Really, only the Ford E-350 because it has a good engine (the Powerstroke) and it can be found with four wheel drive or it can be converted with some work. And I’m all about doing some work… I’ve been wanting to learn about fabrication for quite a while and I think this may be a very interesting project. It’ll give me some time through the summer to collect the parts and then I can work on it maybe this fall. That’s my goal anyways. My wife scoffs but I like a challenge where I have to learn on the fly. I’ve become more interested in working on cars as I’ve gotten older. I enjoy figuring out the mechanicals, I guess. I wish I would have gotten over my high-school idiocy and taken a shop class back in the day.
So, I’m probably going to sell my current two trucks and start working on a new one. Fortunately, my commute is short to the train station and I’m probably going to start riding my bike when it gets a tad warmer. At any rate, it sounds fun. Right?
Another Rover February 3, 2008
Posted by tony in : Pointless, Hobbies, Recreation , add a commentSo, I picked up another Range Rover. I found a 1991 for pretty cheap. It’s nothing spectacular but most everything works and the things that don’t are pretty much only minor nits that I can work on. Or so I thought….
So I was driving it home (the night I bought it) in a raging snow storm. It took me about 90 minutes to go about 10 miles. So, I spent most of the drive idling in traffic. I immediately figured out that there was no heat. The temp gauge doesn’t work but I don’t know if that’s due to a bad thermostat or a bad sender. Because, after looking a little further, the entire heater core is bypassed. My guess is that it leaks and was never fixed. It was just cheaper/easier to bypass (nevermind the heat). But I get the knock for not catching it when I was looking at the Rover. Oh well, I need heat… so it will get fixed. It’s just a heater core and about 10 hours of work to replace it.
That wasn’t the least of it as I had made some progress towards home, the Rover was running fine and other than fogged up windows and no heat, I was doing ok in the snow. And just as suddenly, the oil light started to flicker on. WTF, was my first thought. I did notice that if you gave it a little gas, the oil light went off. Very strange. Fortunately, I was only a few blocks from home so I took it easy and pulled in the driveway and pulled the Rover in the garage. Fearing the worst, I thought I was lemon’d or that I’d overheated the engine or something like that. Fortunately, doing a little web searching gave me a lead on an issue where non-LR filters can cause air in the oil lines that can cause sporadic oil light flickering. So, I struggled with changing the oil (popeye evidently tightened the drain plug) and filled it with fresh 15W40 Rotella and a Cooper filter. I fired it up and the oil light went off and I was very happy. I took it out for a drive that night and it ran great (but still no heat).
Today’s fun was removing the joke of a brush guard. I was rusted and posed more of a risk for bending back and damaging the hood than protecting it. So, again, the struggle with rusted bolts and falling rust chunks into my eyes, I finally was able to remove the brackets. In the process I destroyed the valance holding the fog lights (it was already cracked and broken anyways. But, I felt better. I got to break something.
So, I’m Rovering once again. I have to register it tomorrow and order the heater core, but I’m going to start driving it because I don’t go that far every day and my diesel truck wouldn’t warm up during that time anyways. Pictures to follow when we get a nice day.
Long Way Down December 3, 2007
Posted by tony in : Hobbies, Recreation , add a commentSo, I’ve been interested in motorcycles for a while now. I’ve become pretty partial to BMW as a brand choice…. not sure why, maybe just my first experiences have been so good. So, I subscribe to the ibmwr.org mailing list and found out about this interesting motorcycle adventure. It features Ewan McGregor (of Obi-Wan Kenobi fame) and Charlie Boorman (not sure who he is, but he’s very entertaining) and a 15k-mile (give or take) motorcycle ride from the north of Scotland to the tip of Africa near Capetown, South Africa. Of course, there’s a supporting cast including cameramen, a medic, producers, helpers, etc. But, I’ve very much enjoyed the series (thanks to Bittorrent. We don’t get BBC in the US). But, I’ve asked my wife for a pre-order of the DVD and maybe a T-shirt for Xmas. Did you read that media companies? Good programming I’ve obtained for free and I still want to buy? It’s awesome compared to the absolute drivel on TV here in the US.
You can find information about Long Way Down here.
A New Day October 31, 2007
Posted by tony in : Kids, Hobbies, Recreation, career , add a commentHi. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything new here. Let me give you the update…
I’ve moved back into a position that’s put me in a position to do a bit of both of what I like to do, Unix and Security. I recently joined a firm downtown that has been fairly progressive regarding their infrastructure. Virtualization, SAN, etc., etc. I think it’ll be great to learn some new stuff again and the guys/gals that work here seem to be highly proficient at what they do. All of this without being cluttered by project managers, architecture review boards and sixteen levels of approvals. Refreshing. To say the least.
I sold my last truck (the F250) and bought a 98 Dodge. Why a 98? That year is the only one that has the 12V Cummins diesel and the quad-cab (4 doors). It has to be family friendly, if anything. The 12V engines are noted for their reliability and efficiency and I have no doubt this truck will run for a good long time. I also sold my 94 Range Rover. I’m thinking about picking up a 4×4 for the winter months especially since we bought a cabin up in Wisconsin. The road will not be plowed regularly so I don’t think our van or truck (a 2wd) will be able to make it in. So, buy a 4×4 just so I can drive the 1500 feet of driveway o our cabin? Well, yeah. And I won’t break the bank either. This will just be a “fun” truck for the winter. I’ll probably end up getting another Land Rover, but I’m thinking a Discovery this time. They can be had for pretty cheap. The gas mileage is abysmal but it won’t get driven that often… mostly just to the train station and the cabin.
We bought a cabin in Wisconsin near Lacrosse. It’s a great parcel of land, almost 40 acres of mixed woods and pasture. So, it’ll be good for some atv’ing, hiking, a treehouse or two, hunting and a great playground for the kids. The neighbors are really nice too. It’s just a great place to kick back and relax.
Kid Fun February 4, 2007
Posted by tony in : Family, Kids , add a commentSo, my daughters went to a birthday party and got some pretty cool face painting. Thought I’d share a pic.
Training
Posted by tony in : Technology , add a commentSo, I completed my introductory and advanced ISS Siteprotector and Proventia appliance courses. I’ve been using Siteprotector for about six months and have learned alot through self-debugging and troubleshooting. But, there was always that element of “what if” I changed something… what would it affect. I’ve come away from the class with a pretty good understanding of how it works and what it can do for us. I have quite a few ideas of things to put into practice and I’m going to start doing that on Monday. There’s a *lot* of tuning to do to an IDS/IPS to make it effective. A lot of people just install an IDS and consider themselves “protected” but there’s much more to it than just installation and event collection.
The ISS stuff is expensive but they really nailed it for IDS/IPS. Please IBM, just make them even better.
Coldness
Posted by tony in : Pointless , add a commentMan, is it cold. I can’t remember when we’ve had a cold stretch like this… zero degrees or below for about the last 18 hours. It hasn’t been above 10 degrees in about 2 days and it’s not supposed to for another 2. So much for a mild winter.
So, in any case, I will be staying indoors today. I’ll probably go out and start the cars at some point just to make sure they don’t freeze up before I need to go to work tomorrow. I started everything up last night and the Rover was lugging to start but once it started it ran fine. I took it for a spin and filled up the tank. Then I came back and started the truck. It had been plugged in for about 6 hours and started like a champ. I took it for a fillup too and nearly froze while filling. Don’t ask (you should know) what excessive idling does to your overall mpg. It isn’t good.
Jobs January 30, 2007
Posted by tony in : Technology, career , add a commentSo, my debate lately has been, do I stay with Security or jaunt back over to Unix work? I’m in the middle of an Internet Security System class and it’s really opening my eyes to the power of their Intrusion Detection products. So, with this new-found understanding, I like Security. But, having been in Unix for nearly 10 years, is it worth throwing all that away to move in a new direction? I’m fairly sure I don’t want to move back to daily administration work. I’ve had enough of daemons, shell scripts and patching. I would be interested in managing a team of Unix admins, doing enterprise planning and architecture work or something along those lines.
I’m not sure… I guess the next few months will move me along a path.
Weekend Musings January 22, 2007
Posted by tony in : Pointless , add a commentSo, it was a fun-filled weekend. Thought I’d share with my hordes of admiring fans. My parents and sister braved the weather woes to travel to Illinois for my daughter’s birthday. Caitlin is four now (unbelievable) and we had a nice party for her. It was mostly cousins and a few friends that showed up and it was a good time. I kept my tradition of bringing some “strange” brews (strange to the Miller Lite crowd) for people to enjoy and my wife cooked up about 3 gallons of chili. It was excellent.
Sunday was a day of football. I can’t even believe that the Bears have made it back to the Superbowl after 21 years. I was never much of an NFL fan growing up in Nebraska. We were really only exposed to Nebraska football. But since I’ve been in Chicago I’ve come to be a Bears fan. I arrived towards the end of the Ditka era, survived the Wannstedt and Jauron days and have enjoyed watching them rise with Urlacher and Brown (ex-NU dontchaknow) with Lovey at the Helm. This town loves to keep talking about the 85 Bears. Granted, they were a good team but stfu already. Maybe the Bears will win and everyone will just shut up about 1985. I mean, it was 21 years ago. Well, the Blackhawks have been in the dumper longer but that’s for another topic…
One More Today… January 15, 2007
Posted by tony in : Pointless, Technology , add a comment
I have a life. No, really I do. In any case, just more playing around with Live Writer. I figured I’d drop a pic in my text just to see what happens. Well, if you are still reading, this is what happened.
It goofs up the links around it, which isn’t good and I can’t figure out how to make a margin around the pic so text butts up against the photo. Annoying.