It looks like Spring is finally coming. The sun is shining, and I only need my jacket or a sweatshirt in the mornings. I’ve been working outside after work all week. Finishing the decorative wishing well in the yard, cleaning out the old planter boxes, raking, and starting to work in the planter box with my Ground Cultivator. I know it’s not much, but I really don’t need a roto-tiller since it’s a lot to store for such a small area, so I work a bit of ground at a time and rake it out and just keep going until it’s all nice and loose.
The veggies in the starter greenhouses are looking pretty good for the most part. I wish mt green peppers and tomatoes woud grow better. Only one or two of each plant has come up. I’ll probably have to buy some plants to suppliment the ones that are growing when I go to put them in the ground. Aside from that, everything else is growing great. I can’t wait to start using veggies fresh out of the garden this summer.
On another note, I have decided to get a newer Jeep. This one is getting to the point where I don’t want to keep putting money into it. It has 225,000 miles on it, and it’s running pretty good, but there are a bunch of quirks that it would be nice to do without. I’m setting up some test drives next week, and hope to have a new one soon. The dealerships all said financing won’t be a problem.
Hope to blog again soon, drill in the morning so I have to go.
Last night I figured out what was wrong with the computer I’m rebuilding for the rack. Turns out it was the motherboard. I took all of the parts out and installed the Syntax Motherboard I used to have in my main system. No more CRC Errors, no more errors of any type….but I need to pick up some more standard DDR memory for it (all I have in it now is 64MB). CentOS runs OK under 64 Mb and the only problem I have had so far was from the PSMOUSE advanced mouse driver and my KVM Switch. I dropped the mouse driver down to the Generic one, no wheel but it doesn’t do all sorts of unexpected things now.
I plan on using this machine as a development web server so I can free up the resources used on my desktop machine. It will also be more like what my web host is running. (CentOS 4.6)
I can’t afford to buy CPanel for a development machine, so I’ll use Ravencore, and follow this guide for some of the basic stuff. Since Ravencore is written in PHP and bash scripts, I might add some of my own features to it. I’ve written independent management scripts before… maybe I can make it mimic CPanel/WHM more closely.
Work on Jeep
Today I took the day off to have a new muffler put on my jeep, the tires rotated, and an oil change. Basic maintenance that should be done regularly. The muffler looks good, and the oil change is nothing special. On the other hand, the tires could not be rotated because the tread was too worn, so I bought 4 new ones for $99 each (installed price). The only thing is, I don’t think they did the balance right. I’m getting vibration between about 55 and 65 mph, and 70 – 75 mph. I’ll be back down that way this weekend and get that taken care of, or go to the Kost in N. Syracuse to get that taken care of. Other than that, most of the work looks satisfactory.
Conficker
I have been hearing a lot about Conficker (or confucker … configuration fucker), and how it is supposed to take the world by storm on April 1st. (coincidentally when NY says I’ll have my taxes back)
I have to say that it is interesting to see so many organizations working together to prevent it from bing a huge problem. I am doing my part by switching to OpenDNS (myself, and work) and spreading the word. So…. if you don’t already have a plan in place, here is your chance to start one. (no, I don’t work for them, but their service has been a life saver frequently) OpenDNS is a free service that provides Domain Resolution (makes www.wherever.com point to 123.45.678.243 or whatever the IP address is) and content moderation. In a business network, it can be used to block certain types of websites, chat services and other unacceptable Internet related activities. At home, it’s useful for keeping phishing sites from loading before they even get to your computer.
To learn more about OpenDNS, go to their site. To start using OpenDNS, follow these instructions. To learn about how they are blocking conficker, read this blog entry. If you have a prent, grandparent, less savvy family member you know of, setup OpenDNS for them too. They’ll thank you on April 1st if you do.
That being said, good luck with your own vehicle repairs, and keep up the battle against malware!
Wouldn’t it be nice to not pay your electric bill? How about grocery shopping?
Imagine not having to buy electricity, food or any of the bare necessities. You could buy a farm, but that’s pretty expensive. It would take care of food, but how about energy? Maybe you’re not into “roughing it”…
If any of these questions got you thinking… “wow, that would be nice” or “Don’t I wish?” then this post is for you.
I’m looking for people to help build a non-profit cooperative community. Not strictly like the old Hippie Communes or an Amish settlement or anything… well, similar to both in some ways.
What we would do is start off by buying some acreage with a few important features. A running stream of some sort, some cleared land for gardning, and some space for building the “village”
Ideally, the community would have it’s own utility services for water, sewage, electricity and communications. The goal is to have a collective income for everyone. Everyone works either a regular job, or one of the community-owned businesses to earn their keep. There will be a weekly fee that everyone must pay to be part of the community, which covers the costs of operation. Mortgage, taxes, Internet/Telephone uplink, maintenance of the roads and utilities, upkeep of the community businesses, gardens and other necessities. After this is all taken care of, the remainder is divided up evenly to all residents to do with as they wish.
This all a non-profit organization, we could offer things that most businesses offer their employees, benefits such as health insurance, retirement savings, and so on. Ideally, we would also have medical specialists in the community to operate a basic health center.
If it seems like I’m moving from tangent to tangent, it’s because I’m still brainstorming and coming up with things that would help a cooperative community work. The main idea is to combine the buying power of a whole community to increase the standard of living for everyone. The community could have businesses run by residents that are open to the public. The business would be owned by the whole community, and any income from it would go towards the community. Residents could also choose to have outside jobs and contribute back to the community.
Make no mistakes, it won’t be easy. Everyone would have to provide some of the pie. We would need people who are employed by the community to take care of the farm, and utilities even though such things as food, electricity, housing, and such are free to community members.
I’m not sure of all the details, or if anyone else would even be interested, but I know a lot of people who are struggling on their own who would be able to benefit from cooperating together to build a better life for everyone overall.
Things get cheaper when bought in bulk…especially land… For example, it might be pretty expensive for someone making $30,000 a year to buy an acre of land and put a house on it, but with 10 people making that, it wouldn’t be a problem to buy 30 acres of land and put medium-sized dwellings on it. Once the land is purchased, and everyone is paying for it, one could start out living in a meager dwelling (second hand mobile home? campling trailer? etc) and build a larger dewlling little by little without having to worry about coming up with more loans and money right away.
Maybe others have ideas or thoughts on this… chime in please!
With the weather getting nicer and the snow gone comes another blog…
First, about the last post…. that is a Microformat for a CushyCMS clone I plan to do in the near future. I want to make it so just the content of a website can be edited via a web interface, while not disrupting the main template, and my solution will be able to be installed on my own web server(s).
Second, I now have a Facebook account. Some of you might be reading this blog on it because I added my RSS feed in so it will show up. Anyway, while profile building, I was adding my Picasa Web albums in, and found out that Google does profiles now too. It’s a bit more boring than others, and it is mostly links to other Google services that you have….not really an integrated social networking site.
Some of the projects that I am working on this spring are…. a planter box in the front yard. I got most of it built last week, and plan to finish it up on the warmer days of this week. The seeds for this year are started, (in green houses in my kitchen) and should be interesting to say the least. I’m also working on my body…. I doubt I’ll ever have the “chiseled” look, but I can at least work off ome of the gut….not doing too bad so far. This spring should kick it into high gear, because I’ll get outside more and do less sitting around the house.
It’s been awhile since I blogged much so… let’s see what happened over the winter. I upgraded all of my computers, I now have an Athlon64 X2 5600+ with 4GB of memory, a 500GB Hard Drive and a 512Mb NVidia video card for my windows box, which I am squashing with Vista… And the Linux box is a Sempron 3400+ with 2GB of memory and an 80GB Hard Drive (it still runs faster than the windows box cause Vista is such a hog). I moved the 250GB drive out to network storage that all of my systems can access. Away from computers, I bought some paintball gear (which I can’t link to because I don’t see it on the Sports Authority website anymore), and a Jakks Sports Motion video game system (“poor man’s wii”). I thought it would really be crap, but it’s not that bad at all…. I love the bowling… and the only other game I have tried so far is golf…. which isn’t bad either. On the other hand, I still need to try out the Paintball Gear. It should be fun!
I have to go to work now….if I don’t blog more in a few days, give me a holler and remind me to.
Behold! The future…. more soon
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So, as usual…. it’s been awhile and a lot has happened since my last blog.
First,
I am in a new place. The apartment in my parents’ basement. Plenty of space, and cheap rent. This is the most living space I have ever had.
Just finished up the MediaCenter PC using Windows XP MediaCenter edition, and MediaPortal (because it supports more than the standard media center).
I now have some Picasa Web albums online… I like it because it uses Picasa and integrates great with my photo management and Snapfish so I can order prints if I want. I can plug my camera in, tag/label/etc and just upload right to the albums without having to do any extra work making them show up on a page or whatever.
So… right now, life is pretty good for me. I have some awesome ideas for what I plan to do within the next year, and with a lot of determination, I’m sure I can make them work out. I do think I’ll wait a bit longer on buying a house. With the economy going into the dumps, and the fact that I can kill off a huge amount of my debt come tax time… I think I can hold out a little longer and have more money to buy a home in a buyer’s market.
Halloween was awesome, I put on the mad scientist costume and it suited me very well. Trick-or-treaters were asking for pictures with me and everything. Maybe I’ll setup my camera and get a nice snapshot for my album soon.
For the information of all who haven’t noticed, I don’t use MySpace much anymore, and have changed my page to just a white box with a link to my own website. I think I can do better without a social network. I have a blog, photo albums, and my own website to keep people up to date on me… if I should choose to.
Anyway, off to make dinner… and thank you for reading MOOSEUpdate!
I can’t wait to get out of here and on my own. I hate being somewhere where I’m paying to have my personal property ruined. When I moved in, I redid the bathroom because it was utterly disgusting and I was keeping up with cleaning it for awhile until it started becoming a losing battle. I have a place that I put my cleaning supplies, bought new things for the counter and made it habitable. So far, a number of my cleaning supplies have disappeared and turned up later ruined, bent, banged and broken. I bought a new container for hand soap when I moved in, that’s broken. I bought myself a toothbrush holder with a top, the next day the top is gone. I can’t keep something that goes in my mouth on the counter in there since THEY make it a mess every time they go in there. I’ve told them all what I think about it but no one fucking listens to me.
Every time I go in to use the bathroom, even if I cleaned it recently, there is more and more of a mess. Toilet paper all over the floor, the rugs I bought ruined…. the toilet seat covered in piss, and the garbage overflowing. Furthermore there is constantly things piled in there that don’t belong….. then we move on to the door. If the door isn’t shut all the way thedog goes in there and drags things all over the place… basically turns it into a garbage dump. I have told everyone over and over and over again to turn the fucking light off and shut the fucking door, but right along with picking up after themselves it goes right in one ear and out the other.
Finally, there is my vehicle… my brother has been using it for weeks, and it’s starting to piss me off. I bought it… I’m still paying for it, and it’s not exactly new. This is another one of my personal belongings that isn’t being treated like it’s mine.
Wouldn’t you be pissed off? Should I be pissed off, or just put up with this bullshit?
I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE AND FIND A HOME OF MY OWN!!!!!
It’s time for another blog!
First, an update on how things are going…. Things are going pretty good. I decided to wait another year on the house, and save up more “up front” money… so I’m going to be transferring $300 a month to savings towards it, so when I get my taxes back next year, I’ll have a pretty good heap of cash to put down. The St. Paddy’s day party was great. Managed to do a good number on the J&B Bottle. In all, life could be much worse.
So anyway, as the subject says…. this isn’t just an update on how things are going, it’s also about some plans for this Spring.
I bought a bike a few years ago (26″ Huffy Crandale Cruiser – $50 at Wally World – Yeah, I like comfort) with the plan of riding it a bit, but hadn’t found anyone to ride with me. So anyway, one of my brothers has decided this year that he wants to start riding, which is great since it means getting out of the house to go do something fun and healthy.
Now for the beef….as you all know, I love gadgets and everything about them, so here is what I have found. Previously, I had a radio/light/horn that came from somewhere in china…. it broke off so I need to replace that.
As far as the radio goes… no biggie, I have a cheap memory stick that has a built in mp3 player (bought it for the memory… mp3 player is just a nice bonus). I’ll get some speakers from the 99 cent store, so I don’t need to use the awful ear buds that came with it…. that ought to provide some entertainment.
Now, in NY State you are required some safety equipment if you plan to ride when the sun isn’t in the sky (early morning or at night) which isn’t out of the question for me. NY Requires a horn, and a light. What I have found are – a nice loud, and unobtrousive horn and a set of “generator lights” so that requirement is met. The horn should be small enough to keep out of the way, and loud enough to be heard, while the lights should be reliable because they have their own power source. I considered a 12V Generator, but decided that the price to return ratio dictates that I just use the one included with the light.
So, since the law is satisfied, I move on to gadgets and other miscellaneous things I found. (If you haven’t noticed, I use my blog to bookmark things I want to get in the future, while providing links for anyone who might be similarly interested)
I want to get a speedometer. There are two that I am considering right now, since they are relatively low priced and do what I need them to do. There is the classic analog speedometer one the new fangled digital one. The classic analog has the advantage of being mechanical and not requiring a power source, while the digital has the advantage of being smaller, easier to read, and has more functions. I’ll probably go with analog just because it is a lower maintenance option, but the digital, or a higher end digital is still not out of the question.
Finally, there are the utility options. If I plan to do long bike trips, I will want a cargo rack, some sort of water source, some basic tools, and a tire pump. I’m pretty much decided that the rear mount cargo rack is the best option for cargo since it will keep the extra weight off me, and be less of a hassle if I get off the bike to do other things. As for the water source, I’m not sure if I want to get a hydration pack, water bottle, or just refill a squeeze Gatorade bottle. As for tools, I’ll probably get something like the Park Essentials Bike tool kit or the Bell Ultra Tool Kit and just take a few of my other multi function tools with me on the cargo rack. Then there is the tire pump. Something lightweight and frame mounted is the best choice. The most important thing is functionality, and unobtrusiveness, so I’ll probably go with the Blackburn Mountain Air Mountain Bike Pump since it is inexpensive, lightweight and small.
I think that covers everything pretty well, and I’ll keep an eye out for better items to refine my experience, but I think that’s it for now. If anyone has better suggestions, comment me and I will look into it. Otherwise, above is a pretty complete shopping list, and most of it is on Amazon so it can be one-stop.
It’s a week since I was told to move fast and get my mortgage person on board for getting the house I love, and two mortgage people later, I still don’t have anyone truly on board. Not from lack of trying, I call them constantly trying to get answers. No one wants to give a mortgage for less than about $30,000.
But anyway, let me tell you a little about this house. The house I want!
Sure, I can find other houses, but they aren’t deals like this. I was pre-qualified by the first mortgage person I contacted up to $35,000. There are plenty of houses on the market that fall in that price range, but none of them are even near the kid of deal this is.
I did a search for properties $0 – 50,000 in the area, and this is the only house that comes up. That’s because it is a good, low-crime neighborhood, and low-priced homes don’t last long. It also has the benefit of being a house that isn’t falling apart; It’s unfinished, and just needs a loving hammer to make it a good home. Some walls need to be built, some floors need to be covered (one needs to be replaced in a small area), the cedar shake needs some work, but otherwise it is in good shape. I guarantee that any of the houses I can get in the $30 – $35,000 price range aren’t anywhere near as good of a deal. I’d still need to do work on them, but I would need to take down walls, and take up floors to make it how I want it. This house has the advantage of not needing to be torn apart to be lived in and loved.
Furthermore, why spend more money than I need to for a house that isn’t exactly what I want?
Right now I’m trying to get into a “home renewal” mortgage, which is for houses that need to be refurbished. Honestly, the only reason I need this kind of mortgage is to bring what I’m spending on the house into the range of what the banks want me to finance.
Honestly, I don’t know what they are thinking. If I was a lender, I would rather fund someone looking to buy a home well within their means and make a little money off th deal than someone buying a house they really can’t afford and risk not making any money off the deal. Funding a $17,000 house for someone pre-qualified up to $35,000 should be a no-brainer. It’s guaranteed money, and you’ll never see a late payment.
There is also the fact that just fixing this house up a little will increase the value immensely (it’s assessed at $61,000)… so in a couple years I could roll it, buy another home and pay off most of my other debt.
Arrgh!
