Coffee, WiFi and coding
Today I had the pleasure of working. I know, that sounds really weird, but it is true. It was a pleasure. The reason it was pleasurable is because I was able to work outside of the home in a fairly quiet place that served all the coffee I could drink for $1.50.
Thanks to Mission Coffee and their free WiFi internet connection I was able to spend about three and half hours working on a project that I have spent entirely too much time on already but seriously needs to get done. It was clean, quiet, conducive to programming work and, well, it had coffee. Lots of it. And it was only $1.50 for never ending cup.
It was a nice feeling to get out of the house today. Usually as I am at home working I get derailed by the screams of children fighting or someone needing something. Being out meant that the distractions that I am faced with at home were virtually non-existent (save for guy that sat behind me and talked to himself in a quasi-farci-spanish mix). I had an entire table to myself, off in a little corner, where I wasn't messed with by anyone. Mostly.
After about three and half hours I was asked to move because the wall I was sitting next to was getting artwork hung on it. As soon as I stood up I realized that it was time to get home. It just seemed right to be done at the time. And I have no regrets. The day was productive, the environment was nice and the coffee was great.
So if you are ever in Fremont and need a coffee joint to sit at and spend some time on the Internet, hit up Mission Coffee. You'll be glad you did.
Tough economic times indeed
Given the nature of the economy we live in it is no wonder that so many people have fallen on such hard times. Jobs are being lost, houses are being foreclosed on, cars are being repossessed, families are being destroyed and the list goes on and on. It is a tough time to be alive but thank God we are alive. I cannot wait to see the end of this thing.
Today reminded me of how tight things are for us. Before I get into all that I have to qualify my situation a little bit. I was not affected by the housing crisis like everyone else. I rent, I don't own. So that means that in a world of people losing homes to outrageous mortgage movement I have remained pretty much untouched with that. My landlords are awesome people. They own the home we live in and during the course of tenancy, which has now extended to six a half years, they have not once raised our rent. They have done everything they could do for us as landlords and have done it faithfully.
No, my financial situation stems from my own personal inability to be a strong man. I let the spending in our house get ridiculously out of control over the last few years and allowed our debt to climb to a point where there really is no light at the end of the tunnel. Well there is, but it is attached to a large train barreling down the track.
Because of my decisions our once very good credit rating has evaporated into the depths of credit risk. Though I make a very good salary it is nowhere near enough to manage the levels of debt I have allowed my family to take on. Gone are the days of a large 401K (not because the market shafted me but because I had to draw on it in order to get out of what I thought was a critical mess I was in about 18 months ago). Gone are the days of no car payment because I had to refinance my car that owned outright in order to pay off debt that was run right back up within a few months. Bad decisions have led to most of the trouble I am in. And we are in some trouble.
As I checked my bank account this morning I realized that after the rent is paid and an obligation I have to tend to is handled (this is an unavoidable obligation that must be handled) my family - me, my wife and five kids - will have about $100 to live off of for the next two weeks. That gets to pay for food, for gas and anything else that might come up over the next two weeks. I cannot remember being in this tight of a position ever. Especially when not having any savings or credit to rely on for that time.
Worse yet, everyone I know that could possible assist me are in the same predicament I am. My brother and sister are both fighting their own personal financial demons at the moment. My sister-in-law makes barely enough to support herself. My in-laws are on one income since my mother-in-law got laid off a few months ago. So there is really no one to turn to for help right now.
I can't borrow because my credit is crap in a can. I have no credit because we ran up our credit on stuff we didn't need and could probably not even find anymore. I have no savings because it was spent on paying back creditors for credit we ran up. I have no assets because they were all used up before. This all leaves me in a rather precarious position. And quite frankly I am scared.
I know we are going to make it. We always do. And I am finally at a point where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for real. We are about a month away from being back on time with our creditors and utilities. A month from now we will have plenty of money to live on after the bills are paid. Two weeks from now it will be a struggle again, but not as bad as this.
But for now I have to find a way to contend with all of this. Not sure how I am going to do it, but it will get done. Of course, if you have any suggestions or ideas, I am all ears. Well, eyes, as it were, since I am reading. 
Is this the start of something?
Yesterday I wrote about a family that was murdered by the head of their household who subsequently killed himself all because he got fired from his job. I have a special level of anger and negative feelings for pieces of crap like that and I am always shocked when I hear stories like that.
What shocks me more is that today it was reported that in Ohio another family was found dead from what appeared to be a suicidal, murderous, cowardly father. Come on. Where are all the men going?
All day long we hear about the "tough economic times" and the "economic downturn". We hear about layoffs, cutbacks, belt tightening and conservation. Everyone is going through it. Why in the hell would anyone take the life of their family because of it? WHAT THE F***?!?!?!
Again, I am at a loss for words. Again, I am shocked that this happens. My heart goes out to the families that are left behind to deal with this very confusing, nonsensical incident. They, like the families of the bastard that did his household in down in Los Angeles, need prayer and comfort right now. Lift them up in your prayer. And pray that this epidemic stops.
What kind of a piece of crap does this?
I was reading a story today about a man in Los Angeles who took the lives of his wife, his five very young kids and himself after he and his wife lost their jobs and could not put the pieces of this thing in my head. How does someone see this as the only solution?
I mean if you want to shoot yourself in the head Mr. "no-way-out" by all means, do it. Being a coward is a tough thing to live with. Sure, it would make life for your family very hard but at least they would still have a life and a chance.
But how do you point a gun at your babies, eight years old and under, and pull the trigger not once, but five times on them, then on your wife, then on yourself? And all because you and your wife got fired from your jobs?
At some point a man needs to step up and be a man. Life is tough. God knows that everyday is a struggle to maintain our masculinity and position of authority. But for the life of me I cannot fathom how a person does this.
I was flabbergasted today. Left without words. Totally shocked by this to the point of confusion. That doesn't happen to me much. Maybe it was because it was so close to home for me. I mean, I have a wife and five kids too. Not as young as those, but still, kids that need a mom and dad. It just rocked me to the core reading the story.
Now all I can think is that there are relatives left with the task of making sense of this all. They need prayer. Lots of it. So if you pray, please lift that family up in prayer that they would be protected, covered, blessed in some way by all of this and that they could find peace somewhere in the midst of this tragedy.
We’re off to see the wizard!
A few weeks ago Sarah and Adriannah got invited to an Ohlone College performance of The Wizard of Oz as part of their drama team from church. This was something that they have looked forward to for a while now and I was glad they got to do something as part of their teamwork with the drama team.
Unfortunately Sarah has not been feeling well the last few days so she was not able to attend. But Rebekah, being the team player that she is, took her sister's place and attended the performance for her. What a sport.
So late Saturday night Rebekah and Adriannah had the privilege of going to see the Wizard of Oz featuring Callie Garrett as Dorothy. They not only got to see the performance but hang out backstage afterward and meet the cast, get autographs and generally have a blockbuster of a night with their friends and the cast of the play. Adriannah loved it. Bekah did too.
My heart has to go out to Sarah though, who was really looking forward to going and who couldn't go because she was sick. I hope she gets to attend something at some point to redeem this event. It meant a lot to her and it saddened me that she was sad because she couldn't go.
But thanks to the Jubilee Christian Center Drama Team leadership the kids were able to experience something that not a lot of kids get to do. And they enjoyed it. And I enjoyed putting my three remaining kids to bed, one each in their own room, without a lot of fuss. I so need more nights like that.
So much work to do, so little desire
Today was a day of cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. With the onset of cold weather the kids have been more confined to the house and some have not been feeling well. That means that more things are getting used, and not clean up after, while more of us are feeling less and less like handling what we should handle.
Yesterday Sandi spent the day cleaning out the refrigerator. It badly needed it. It was starting to smell like a landfill and was almost starting to look like one, too. That was a massive undertaking and I am so thankful she chose to take that on. Of course that means that since she did she was pretty much incapacitated today. She was not doing well at all, needing help from the walls and other structures around the house just to stay up. I haven't seen that in a while and I hope I don't see too much more of it. Last time it was a by product of a serious illness.
But with mom out dad, that's me - HI EVERYONE!, had to pick up the slack. So I did, taking care of much of the rest of the kitchen, the week old dirty dishes, the table, the counters and the garbage. I also did heaps of laundry just so I could see my hallway floor again and so that me and the kids had clothes for the week. I also took care of the bathroom garbage and some of the living room before auntie Katie showed up for a visit. Sandi was asleep for most of the afternoon but was able to get up for a little while when Katie showed up. And the kids had a nice little respite from homework and housework to visit with Aunti Katie so it all ended up pretty good.
One thing has stuck in my head since yesterday though. Sarah, my oldest daughter, said something that struck a chord with me. She said "It's kinda funny that everyone opened the fridge and smelled that nasty smell and didn't do anything about it until mom cleaned out the fridge." And she is exactly right. None of us did anything about that nasty fridge until yesterday. Which leads me to think that I need to start looking for more opportunities to handle things that have been left unhandled. I guess, in a way, that is really the only way that anything is going to get done anyway, right?
So it. Do it. Regardless of if you want to. Which, today, I didn't. But I did it anyway.
Setting up Fedora 10 as a VM in Windows
A couple of days ago I posted about my experience in setting up Ubuntu 8.10 as a virtual machine under Windows Virtual PC. I was so insanely surprised at the ease of that installation that I decided to try doing it all over again with Fedora 10.
That was a colossal mistake.
I think part of the mystique behind Ubuntu as the next real viable alternative to Mac and Windows as an operating system is its total ease of use and installation. Even in a VM it was super easy to install and get working. Whether it was Wubi or a straight install, Ubuntu is just easy to install. Kubuntu is too. And for those that need super ultra easy Xubuntu is the way to go.
Fedora however is not at all on par with Ubuntu when it comes to ease of use. Fedora has never been easy to install or use and trying to get it into a VM was no exception.
I started out like I did with Ubuntu by trying a live install ISO. That failed miserably because the installer could not get through the first step. So I moved to the full install DVD ISO. Again, epic fail. After several failed attempts I ended up downloading and installing by way of the text based internet installer.
The text based installer worked, but it took about four hours (the first run did - yes, I said first run) as it downloaded various packages for installation. It also didn't help that I didn't know about a huge boot bug that would render a perfectly good installation as a black screen of crap. So after a few hours of actually getting Fedora 10 installed correctly - and without knowing it - I reinstalled it thinking I had screwed up. That was another four hours or so down the toilet.
After getting the second good install installed I had to figure out why I was getting that stupid black screen. It ended up being that the Fedora text based installer seems to not be able to pick up the monitor its on and chooses to not install a default monitor like Ubuntu does, so it just leaves it and tries to pick it up later. But it never gets there so it tries to display into nothing. So with a little research in hand and some googling done, I learned that if I hit a down arrow key immediately on start up I get access to the GRUB boot loader and I can edit the start up commands. Armed with that I was able to get some stuff handled.
The first thing I had to do was, at the kernel ... line, enter "e" to edit the loader and add vga=0x32D then enter "b" to continue booting. After that I followed a small bit mentioned in this tutorial about Installing Fedora 10 on Virtual PC about installing the system-config-display package and reconfiguring your display configuration.
Once that was done I was able to get logged in to Fedora to the command prompt. But I didn't get a desktop yet. After some work I was able to figure out that since there was really no display set that even changing the default run level from 3 to 5 would not force Fedora to boot to desktop. Entering the init 5 command at the prompt would take me to a GUI, but it would only allow me to restart or shutdown once there.
However I was able to get to a desktop by entering startx at the prompt, which allowed me to setup a default user instead of root. But...
That is where it stops. I haven't had the time to get this tested further. I will be spending more time on this, but I believe I will be spending that time in VMWare instead of Virtual PC because of the cross platform compatibility and portability. But if you are looking to setup a Linux install as a VM in Virtual PC, do yourself a favor and use Ubuntu instead of Fedora. It will be way better for you.
Celebrating success
Today was our annual awards ceremony for work. In the past this ceremony was held at various venues, including the Marriott hotel, in grand fashion with lots of fanfare and hoopla. Sometimes these events would span days as salespeople and administrators would come together before and after the ceremony to set goals for the future and compare milestones form the year.
But economic times being what they are it was no wonder that this year our annual awards ceremony was held at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center near Lake Merritt. Not to say that this year's meeting was any worse than any other year, but it certainly was different.
In years past the company would put on a nice breakfast spread and have the hall set up to handle the entire company (about 650 people) all in one banquet/meeting hall. After breakfast the ceremony would start followed up by a nice lunch after which we would be allowed to leave for the day. We would also almost always be treated to some little knick knack (or swag, as it were) as we entered the building or left the building.
But this year it was different. This year there was no swag. There was no breakfast. There were donuts, and a box lunch, but not all the hoopla and craziness that usually went along with this event.
And you know what? It was nice. I could probably have done without the bus ride in and out of the event but even that was not that bad. It saved me gas and the stress of trying to find parking. And it kept me out of the headache of fighting the nasty rainy morning traffic that our poor bus driver had to endure.
So considering the times in which we live and the freefall our economy is in right now I have to say that my company did a great job putting on a kick butt ceremony. To those that planned it, well done. I enjoyed it.
