Category: personal

Very humid but somewhat cool, due to yesterday’s rain.   Got a real gully washer at home, and on the way home as I passed under some thunderstorms.  Parts were still dry.  Houston.

I got my networking sorted out.    Dug a trench, laid in some liquidtite conduit, did it right.   Tested everything and my switch has a bad port.    Got permission to order a replacement and keep this as a spare.   It was hot, but not as hot as it could have been.   Even on the roof, it wasn’t blast furnace hot.  Installed a new antenna support pole, and the cell booster antenna.   Took down the DirecTV dish.   I am trying to not go back today unless the gate installer runs into something weird.  Maybe Wednesday.  I’ve got to pull the rest of the DirecTV gear out of the rack and the equipment closet.   I think it can wait a couple days for my stuff to come in.  Makes more sense to do as much as possible at the same visit.

Raced the rain home, but made it in time for the swimmeet.   It was good to see some of the people we used to see all the time.  Kid swam well.  It was very damp, wet even, and my joints will ache tomorrow.  That’s the way it is though.

Today I’ll do some computer work, some house work, and maybe some auction work.

And I will spend some time thinking about Robert Bruce Thompson, re-reading some of his posts, and hearing his ‘mental voice’ in my head.  Check out the keywords to the right.

Stack up the good times when you find them.   It can all change very suddenly.

nick

Cool and damp.   A tiny respite from the heat of summer.   It was actually a tiny bit of cool out in the country at my client’s house yesterday.   Still warm in the sun, and boiling in the attic, but under the overcast or in the shade there was a hint of coolness.   Today should be similar with a bit more sun.

I didn’t get finished at my client’s.   What should have been a slam dunk turned into a dumpster fire when the new NVR turns out to be riddled with bugs and issues.   Brand new firmware too.   Tech support was no help.   I got an RMA number.   Lots of issues, including me making a mistake setting the master password.  Because you are doing it blind, with a remote control and an onscreen keyboard, and they don’t show it to you or make you type it twice, I got it messed up.   It’s not what I wrote down or intended.  Only the first bit of bad software and gui design.

Long story short, I stayed with the same manufacturer because I didn’t want to replace cameras.   But the new NVR doesn’t open and display the cameras.   It works with the two oldest, but none of the others.   That’s despite identifying them, assigning IP addresses, and that they are all supposed to be standards compliant.  A standard this company championed btw…   And it is supposed to be ‘pro level’ gear, only sold through distributors for install by integrators and other pros, but there is no manual override or even a way to see what the automagic is trying to do.   I’m p!ssed, and disappointed in the company.   I should be done and invoicing, instead of trying to find a new solution and continuing this project into next week.

Now I have to decide.  Do I just get new cams that are on the tested and approved list?  Do I go with another manufacturer’s NVR and cams, or do I look at the ubiquiti cams and storage since we’ve moved almost all the networking to ubiquiti?    Gah,  I could have done all that BEFORE if I knew I would have to do it, and I could have prepped my client.  Now it’s last minute,and extra cost.   Yeah, I’m grumpy.   Standards.  You’d think they might in fact be standard.

Today I’ll be doing some more clean up and organizing.   Also some pickups.  I got a bookcase for D2, who seems to have ‘rescued’ every discarded library book at the school.  I got a high security exterior door that should work at the BOL on the garage or one of the outbuildings, and if not now, later when I build my shop.  And I need to start staging stuff for the trip to the BOL this weekend.

Other than that, I also need to address the cams/nvr issue for my client (including applying the unlock code that MIGHT come today and for which I had to submit a photo ID and request- there’s no ‘reset to factory defaults’ if you don’t know the master password), and get some shipping out the door.

Meanwhile, haven’t heard from some people in a while, so here’s a ping.   DadCooks, Miles_Teg, Jenny– welfare check!

Stack it up folks, things are going pear shaped.

nick

Cool, maybe raining.   Hope not, because it’s D1’s school beach day…   I hope it’s like yesterday, which got hot and sunny, before finally cooling off with some big fat rain drops after dark.  I guess we’ll see.

Did my errands yesterday, interrupted and bracketed by school events.   6th grade honors in the morning, 8th grade in the evening.  Oh, and an eye exam for D2 in the afternoon.  Some days, the more I have to do, the more I get done, some days it’s the opposite.

I did a bit of social study during the school stuff.   What did the teachers value for their teacher’s choice awards?  (quiet, tries hard, uses all the resources available, kind, helpful)   Why were girls featured at about a 3:1 or more ratio in all the pix and video?  (they might actually outnumber the boys)  Why if so?  (no sports might mean boys self select to not attend this school)  30% of 8th graders were taking dance classes.  Only one was male.  Salud and valedictorians were all girls.  3rd year for one of the girls.   Couple kids had three years of straight As, 95% or better As at that.  Pretty much everyone in the school would have been on the honor roll in a regular district school, so they made the honor roll harder, and made another level above that too.   Interesting stuff.

Saw a couple of parents I haven’t seen in a while, since we didn’t do swim team with them last year.  Our pool’s team was a great crossroads for several neighborhood groups.  In theory, we’re doing swim team this year, but D2 isn’t going to enough practices, so I don’t think it will happen.  I miss seeing some of the other dads at practices and meets.  It would be nice to see them again.

Today I’m trying to head to my client’s place.  At least do some work.   No kid stuff with afternoon appointments on the calendar.  I usually spend the afternoon there, and into the evening when my client comes home and we meet.  He’s out of town though, so I should be able to ‘down tools’ and head home at a decent time.  We’ll see.  Hope to get some stuff done.

And maybe stack some greenbacks.   They are as much a prep as anything, and I’ve been using stacks to buy some needful things lately.  Need to replenish what got used.

Stack some resources.  They always come in handy.

n

Warm and damp transitioning to hot and damp, with a touch of rain… not unlike yesterday.   The rain held off until the kids were back from the beach, but then  it came and got everything wet.

I got  a few things done during the day.  Slept in my chair most of the evening.   Made pork chops for dinner.   Tasty pork.   Kid had brownies in the oven when I got home, so I put the chops in too.   The brownies are what pulled the plug on my consciousness after dinner.

Today I’ve got local stuff, and I might try to get to my client’s place.   He can’t see one of  the cams remotely, and I can start getting some of the upgrades installed.   I think the cam is probably lightning damage.   I have one that appears to be too.   We’ve had quite the big storms this week.

I’ll be ‘fluid’ today, trying to get the most out of the day, while still doing the kid stuff that is on the calendar.  Can I keep the plates spinning?????

Stack something,

nick