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I suppose time travel is a little tricky, if the title of this post is any indication. Don’t let that worry you too much, I just got a good look at the causality rules for not screwing your life up from the movie Primer. I watched it tonight for the third or fourth time, and things are slowly starting to make more and more sense as I view the movie again. It’s sort of like the Big Lebowski in that sense, except it’s a science fiction film rather than the greatest comedy of all time with bowling.

I’ve been at work three days so far, and so far I like it pretty well. The first day was mostly just orientation stuff, filling out forms and the like. Yesterday my ID badge/access card started working, and my info found its way into the company wide address book. I have a phone number and everything!

I spent most of the last two days working on some country resource information documents that need some revising before they can be published. It’s a bit tedious but not too hard. I just have to take breaks now and then to refocus my eyes.

I found the cafeteria on the ground floor today. I’ll probably visit again, though how regularly I can’t say. I’ve been taking an hour for lunch and I live so close to work that I could easily head home for that time, and I might do that instead. At the same time I’ve been having lunch with coworkers and getting to know them, which is in itself valuable.

In other news, Serenity comes out on Friday. I don’t know anyone here who is a Firefly fan but I’ll ask around to see if anyone wants to go see it with me. If not I’ll just go myself on Friday night. It’s not like I’ve never seen a movie on my own before. It’s just not as fun.

Also, Adam invited me to a birthday party on Saturday. I have a feeling that there will be quite a few people I don’t know there, but making new friends in this town is important, I think. Can’t be all sitting at home along with a beer or Scotch watching movies all the time, can I? No, I think not.

steve :: Sep.28.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 5 Comments »

I start work on Monday. In fact I just talked to one of the guys I’ll be working with. He’s supposed to be a mentor of sorts, and it sounds like getting into the flow of things won’t be too hard at all. So orientation is Monday morning, and after that I’ll be a working man.

Sometime this weekend I need to fill up my gas tank and really explore this area. So far I’ve pretty much stuck with familiar places, but if I’m going to live here I’ll need a better sense of things. After all when friends come to visit I should be able to show them more than just the local Best Buy or Applebees.

steve :: Sep.23.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 3 Comments »

I made it to KC. Actually I made it to Overland Park, but whatever, it’s close enough. The new apartment is pretty nice and I’m getting it set up now. The kitchen is almost arranged but I have approximately zero food or drink.

Clearly I need to go get some food from Price Chopper or Hy-Vee or something, and then get some beer and maybe some wine and cook some stuff to break the place in.

Ross helped me load everything up on Monday morning, which was a huge huge help for me. Alex helped me unload everything from the truck later.

Today I dumped $100 at Target for apartment fuh. Shower curtain, soap, soap, other soap (hand, dish, laundry), trash cans, trash bags, and I’m sure there were other things.

I had a list but it’s not here.

I talked to Time Warner today about getting some internet, but in classic cable fashion the only time that someone can come out is either when I will be at work, or Saturday, October 1.

So much time without internet except for broken cell phone internet. While I can I will leach off of Alex’s net, but he moves at the end of the week. Bleh.

I start work on Monday. That is the most exciting thing. The next most exciting thing will be my first paycheck, since right now I have essentially no money.

Whee long post.

steve :: Sep.20.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

New apartment ready, moving truck reserved, 90% of crap boxed up. I’m really close to moving now.

steve :: Sep.15.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 8 Comments »

So far getting an apartment has been the crappiest part of this moving thing. I hope to have it pretty much done with by tomorrow. I found a place I like well enough, though. It should do fine and the price is right.

steve :: Sep.08.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 10 Comments »

I went up to Remsen with my dad for the weekend. My grandparents moved from their farmhouse into a smaller house in town this year. The place has a single car garage where Grandma keeps her car, but Grandpa wanted a place to put his tools and his truck. The last couple weekends have been building weekens while we try to get his garage built.

On Saturday I helped put the chipboard walls up on the outside of the garage frame, then square up the place, get the rafters on, and put the plywood roof on top of that.

On Sunday we shingled the whole place and started putting the Tyvek sheeting around the thing. It’ll be ready for siding and soffit panels pretty soon. I figure I won’t be able to get back up until it’s already done, though.

I spent most of today hauling bundles of shingles up a ladder to the roof. 80 pounds a bundle, and I hauled 20-some bundles up. My right shoulder is bruised and scraped raw now, but I’ll recover.

It feels good to see the progress of your work. I can see the appeal of working in a business like that, though having to work all summer in weather like we had today (mid 90s) would get old fast.

steve :: Sep.05.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 6 Comments »

I’ve been sitting on a kernel update for months now for the server that runs this site along with tagisu, symposed, and others.

I didn’t want to reboot since I love getting high uptimes, but the new kernel had already been installed by an earlier system update and I couldn’t load any kernel modules until the version in memory matched the modules on the disk.

Before I rebooted I set up the bootloader, kernel, and system to use the first serial port as the console. Normally the console input and output is the keyboard/mouse and vga monitor, but I set it up so all input and output were over the serial port.

This allowed me to use my hosting provider’s remote console service, where I ssh to a terminal server that connects me to the serial port on my actual machine. I was able to watch the entire boot process from lilo to login as if I was sitting in front of the actual computer.

I don’t plan on rebooting much in the future, but at least this is a way to keep tabs on what is happening. Better than saying “reboot” and crossing my fingers until ssh has loaded and I can log in.

For more information, check the quick howto I wrote.

steve :: Sep.01.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 3 Comments »