Network Troubles (Final Answer)

It wasn't my laptop. It wasn't my firewall. Slowly every computer in the house lost it's ability to connect wirelessly. Finally the computer in the basement with the adapter matched to the router lost it's ability to connect. So the culprit must be the router's wireless capability. I guess that since it's a piece of hardware that I bought 9 years ago when we moved here, I should be pleased with a piece of electronic equipment that performed flawlessly for that long.

So today I installed a new router. The PC adapter for the old router worked with the new one but since it only connects at 11 mbps, I installed a new adapter on the basement PC. Everything is working just fine...hopefully for another 9 years.

Network Troubles (continued)

Sheesh! I thought I had this fixed, but apparently not. Laptop still goes fubar after and hour or so of Internet connectivity.

So I started shutting off stuff. Like TeaTimer. Yeah, I know it's a pain in the a$$ but it's saved my bacon really good twice so I'll trade some residual slowness for the protection. But TeaTimer doesn't appear to have been the cause of the problem.

Next shut down, the firewall. It hasn't nagged me to update it in a while and that's probably a strong argument for it not functioning correctly. Once it was turned off, things seemed better so I grabbed a recent installation package from the web and did a fresh install. So far the laptop's been running with no connectivity issues for about four hours straight.

Someone say network troubles?

You know, after working on computer equipment all day long, the last thing I want to do when I come home at night is troubleshoot my home equipment. So it's been a majorly crappy thing that the wireless part of my home network has been effed up.

At first I thought it was the wireless adapter on my laptop but I took it to work and it operates just fine on work wireless. My nephew was complaining of connectivity issues before he left for the Air Force, but quite frankly I didn't give a $hit if he could connect or not (long story).

The other wireless user in the house has an adapter matched to the router so no connectivity problems there and if I drag my laptop upstairs and plug in an ethernet cable, we fly.

I've disabled/enabled the adapter, without and with reboots. I've run every ipconfig release/renew/flush/register both via Windows and from the command line. Nothing. Deleted the adapter-reinstalled it. Zip. No Internet.

About the only thing about the router that isn't factory default is the IP Address schema which I had to change because of a VPN conflict with my work network. So today I shut down all the computers but for one cabled connection and set the router back to factory default. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! I am posting this via wireless from my deck.

My world is complete.

Gone in 60 Seconds

No, not the movie about car thievery, though speaking from experience it was realistic from the standpoint of yes, there is usually a list of wanted models that you work from. No, I'm talking about the network. The one where all our little computers talk back and forth to one another and the outside world. It takes so little to make it not work. The diagram below shows just how little it takes to make it not work.

Adult Recess Equipment

Quick, what's the first thing you thought of when you read the title of this post?

April Fool's?

This just might be one of the funniest pranks I've seen on the web:

Automatic e-mail by G00gle

It Makes My Head Hurt

I've had occasion to be party to some interesting conversations over the past couple of weeks. I don't suppose I'll ever be privy to the big picture on the work front---thank the Lord my personal life is perfectly clear. The conversations have made me put on my manager's hat. Now I haven't put on my manager's hat since I managed service stations for Gulf Oil back in the 70's.

Quite frankly, that job is the one that made it clear to me that I never wanted to wear the manager's hat again and as long as I worked in organizations that were small and I was a department of one, it was never an issue. It's become an issue a couple of times over the past few years as I work for a company that's gone from the Mom 'n' Pop flavor to the major regional employer flavor.

With encouragement, I have reached out into the supervisory area a couple of times in my tenure at this unnamed company. One such reach was sabotaged by another (albeit inadvertently), but I think I have to admit that there's a little self-sabotage too. After my last experience I cringe at becoming responsible for the work product of people I currently call friend. Nothing kills a friendship faster than a promotion, be it on the part of the governed or the governing. Maybe I don't have the coaching skills necessary to be a leader rather than a boss.

So it is with misgivings that I put my self in the new-new sheriff in town's shoes. I'm led to believe that the initial plan to clean up our town involved scraping all current staff and hiring from scratch. I'm also led to believe that that plan was thwarted by the noble sacrifice of someone that was let go. "Blame the problems in the department on me, not them. Give them a chance." Perhaps the slaughter of one lamb avoided the decimation of the entire herd. Only time will tell.

But as I put on the shoes of someone else and tread their path, if only in my imagination, I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be easier to do the clean sweep thing and start afresh. The new sheriff has a bunch of deputies that have been so badly beaten down by the empty promises and bad decisions of past management that it will take something very special to get their morale and work product to the level where it should be.

Somebody get this effing hat off my head...

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

OK, I sort of fell for the hype. I stayed up waaaaayyyyy too late last night to see if the 'puters would go bonkers at the stroke of midnight. They didn't. I did.

Although my ISP apparently had some sort of issue. I had to power cycle my modem and router before I could post this.

You have to wonder

...what the back story is when the new-new sheriff in town manages to accomplish in mere months what the old-new sheriff in town couldn't accomplish in over a year. I smell politics. I smell strange bedfellows. Work is becoming an excellent training ground for my future in politics.

Friday the 13th

Amazing. Two months in a row that have a Friday the 13th. Last month the gang in sales region 13 did a 13 item buffet. It was very cool and I made repeat visits over the course of the day.

I have no idea what celebrations tomorrow might bring but I plan to make sure I hit every area of the building so I don't miss out.

Just because

Just because you come in and start changing vendors on us doesn't mean you are improving things.

Just because you come in and start holding department meetings doesn't mean you are improving things.

Just because you are here doesn't mean you are improving things.

The jury is still out. Just because...

Poisoning Me With Incompetence

There's a lot of finger pointing going on right now over the food poisoning scandal. The people are pointing at the government; the government is pointing at the food manufacturers; the government and the food industry are pointing at non-government inspections. That's a lot of fingers pointing in a lot of different directions.

Let's talk about where the fingers aren't pointing.

The fingers aren't pointing at the people, people like you and me. Nobody's pointing at the people who went to work at this plant every day. The people who navigated through filthy, unsanitary, illegal conditions and collected a paycheck at the end of the day. Where is the personal responsibility for a job well done? Where are the whistle-blowers?

The fingers aren't pointing at us, the consumer, who bought these products. Where is the personal responsibility for the food you lay out for your family every day? When was the last time you slaughtered something personally to feed to your family? When was the last time you grew your own produce? Baked a loaf of bread? Milked your own damn cow?

When was the last time you walked into a food manufacturing facility and said, "I feed your product to my child, I'd like to see how it's made."

Step up to the plate, folks. We are all, each and every one of us, responsible for the way things are. Don't like it? Change it. Take some responsibility. There's plenty to go around.

Caution: Work Rant Ahead

Here I go, breaking the rulez again...

But I can't help myself when they force the wrong person to resign. We all knew the new sheriff was gonna shake things up and butt heads both above and below. I thought that was the whole point of bringing in the new sheriff. Get rid of the milquetoast yes-man. Get some fresh ideas, some fresh blood. Think outside the box.

Now, in some respects the new sheriff was smoke and mirrors (un-fulfilled promises---like the "big" raises we've been promised for three years now). Lot's of blustering with little result (un-backable threats). But there were some core improvements to working conditions that raised the moral of the little peeps a whole lot and that's worth a great deal to me & mine.

The micro-manager was seen for what the micro-manager was and was relocated to an area further from me & mine and given a project that could be micro-managed to the hilt with no impact on the Techs. For this I am forever grateful. It was demonstrated for the micro-manager what the Techs could accomplish if the micro-manager would just assign a task and GTF outta the way.

Unfortunately the up-the-food-chain head-butting was more than up the food chain could handle and the sheriff has been released to clean up some other town. Micro-manager has been once again elevated. It remains to be seen if micro-manager can retain the lessons of the past year...

Pray for us Techs.

Just checking in...

Busy week last week and it looks like all the weeks leading up to the holidays are going to follow suit. I'll stop back when I can but let me share this. MS Office 2007 helped me to finally solve a problem with previous versions of all MS Office programs. It only took 6 years to find the cause and solution. See, it takes so little to please me...

Dinner and a movie

Oops. Skipped the dinner part. But I had popcorn and water at the movie so maybe that counts? Went to see Twilight...finally. Enjoyed it. Thought they got the important part across. Didn't agree with all of the casting, but like I said. I enjoyed it for what it was and didn't compare the story line to the book but Edward was dreadfully miscast.

Lights! Camera! Action!

You know, a four-day weekend has got to be the only time I've got to make time to watch movies. Regular weekends are just too short and packed full of 'round-the-house shit that I have no time to do when I'm working a full-time job during the week.

So in addition to the movies mentioned yesterday, today I watched 27 Dresses, which I loved, and Charlie Bartlett, which I really, really loved. Dresses was full of pretty women and horrid fashion (I love horrid fashion). Charlie Bartlett was so what high school was like for me.

Why is it that we're so fascinated with reliving the high school years? OK, maybe it's just me that's fascinated by that... Do I think I'd do it better if I had a second time around? There's so much about it that I wouldn't change that it makes me wonder if the few things I would change would have changed the things I wouldn't change. Do you follow me?

Once I found my niche, high school was pretty easy but there were a couple of horrific spots that I won't dwell on here. Let's just say that on the years I do attend my HS reunion, it's more a "Fuck you, assholes. I survived you." occasion rather than an "OMG! It's so great to see you." event. Plus it's real fun to see the looks on girls faces when I tell them that ...yes, I really was looking at them in the shower...

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes...

Did I mention who the company is that came to visit today? It was my current's ex. Yes, we sicko's just can't let go of the past and for some reason maintain ties that "normal" people cut, dynamite, or otherwise burn at the end of a relationship.

And the ex brought the exes current. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the ex. I mean, I obviously won here, right? And quite frankly the ex is a nice person and probably someone that I would have as a friend were it not for the prior claim on something I hold near and dear.

It was a nice visit. The dogs did not attack them despite the boot camp training and brainwashing I'd subjected them to this past week (which is probably good since the ex owns the sister of my dog). It was also a short visit because exes are like fish. Keep them around the house too long and they both start to stink up the place.

Watched two movies in the evening: The Bucket List (very good) and The Happening (not so good but not terrible either). And now I'm posting this. Night all!

Happy Thanksgiving

To everyone who reads this and the millions more that don't, Happy Thanksgiving day.


We had all the traditional ingredients for an American Thanksgiving meal, but the recipes were decidedly non-traditional. The Turkey was roasted in the oven (as usual, none of the deep frying $hit for us) but the stuffing was some decadent thing with bacon and pine nuts. Divine, I tell you. The green beans were stir-fried on the stove top with mushrooms and fresh thyme from our garden. The crescent rolls were rubbed with fresh rosemary from our garden and the cranberries were picked from out bog just two days ago---just kidding about the cranberries but anyone who's seen my pond would probably believe it.


I finally got out into the garden and planted the last few plants I should have planted last spring. I then promptly covered them up with mulch. And that means the mulch pile at the top of the driveway is no more. It's finally where it belongs. What motivated me besides the fact that it needed to be done? We have company coming tomorrow. I should have company come at least once a month to guarantee that I take care of the projects that are currently languishing around my house.

Unblocked!

Hey, they unblocked my blog. Hoorah! I'm not S*P*A*M!


Watched the news with horror and apprehension. My lady was just at one of the hotels and one of the restaurants that were targeted by terrorists in India. Interesting that instead of going to the heart of Britain and America they are now having to search out Western targets by going where the security is maybe not so tight and the surveillance not so pervasive. I thought we were rather lax here, but not counting the illegal immigration problem to the south we seem to do a pretty good job of keeping the bad guys out.


I really hope this is not something that escalates over the next few months and totally ruins my trip to Amsterdam and Paris. That would really, really suck

The wheels on the bus go round and round

I. Have. My. Car. Back. Finally.

It's been gone it seems like forever. I was on my way to Bonnie's on kitty duty and the tranny made a clunk. Then it made an unhappy spinny noise. It still went down the road but it was definitely not the vehicle it was five minutes before.

My mechanic took a drive by and said that it seemed to be low on fluid and I should top it off (drat, he didn't happen to have an auto parts supply store in his trunk) and give it a try to see what worked and what didn't. After adding fluid I proceeded to drive it down the block. First gear good and on into second. Never got up enough speed to hit the next shift. Unbeknownst to me, it was trailing fluid. When I got down the block to the turn around point I decided to put it in reverse. No reverse. So I safely parked it and arranged for a tow. And that was the last I saw of it until today.

I have been driving a motley and not-so-motley collection of rolling stock since it died. I've been in a Dakota truck, a Jeep Cherokee, and a Sebring convertible. Mostly the Dakota. Now I don't want to seem to be complaining 'cause I'm not. It has four wheels, windows, and now that the seat belts are fixed it's probably pretty safe. But nothing is located in quite the right spot like the Jimmy. You sit low, the stereo buttons are totally different from what I'm used to, and I have no clue how to turn on the windshield wipers or make a left turn without blinding oncoming cars with the high beams. For no good reason the cup holder is some dual contraption that inexplicably pulls out of the passenger side dash.

And I can't complain about the time it took to fix. When it's costing me half what it would cost to get done at the shop I can wait quite a while. Especially when I have driving alternatives. But it's good to have it back. I know where everything is. I know how everything works. My world is right again. Thanks Jess!!!!