2002 Remembrances

[Jerry McBride]

On Fri, 03 Jan 2003 16:56:05 -0500 Matthew Carpenter <matt at eisgr.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 01 Jan 2003 18:05:44 -0500
> Jerry McBride <mcbrides9 at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 01 Jan 2003 15:09:44 -0700 Collins <erichey2 at attbi.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > Memorable moments for me in 2002 included:
> > > 
> > 
> > Mine...
> > 
> > * layed off and called back to work, before I even left the building on
> > two separate occasions. What a night mare! A age 46 I've learned alot
> > about human foibles and frailties and how cheap some humans appear in
> > the eyes of other humans. I'll never be the same.
>  
> I'm still having to cope with these lessons...  Not laid off or fired, but
> sometimes I wonder how far I am from it.  Then again, if I ran Windows at
> work like everyone else I'd probably annoy my boss less...  
> 

If you're on the radar screen for any reason at all, you'll be remembered come
someday. I was sacked twice, once with two weeks notice and once out of the blue
and called back to work before I left the building. It still warms my cheeks
when I think of it. If you've got a supervisor, then you've got a number stamped
on your forehead. Just prepare yourselves as best as possible and try and live
with it, one day at a time. 

> > * compiled kde 3.10 on a whim and fell in love with the pig... Really
> > nice.
> 
> I can hardly wait...
> 
> > 
> > > * On the cusp of the new year I slayed the CUPS dragon and put up an
> > > lprng printing system (thanks to Joel's help)
> > > 
> > 
> > * ditto... CUPS sucks so bad that your ears pop when you install it...
> 
> Ok, now I can't sit by and let this one slide...  lprng is a great daemon
> for sharing a local printer.  CUPS is great for printing to non-PS
> printers.  Sure, you can make lprng do it, but it sure ain't nice and
> friendly.  Biggest problems I've had with CUPS is setting a wrong printer
> driver and getting NOTHING printed as the print jobs evaporate, and:
> remote print server goes away temporarily, and CUPS stops the local print
> queue... not to start back up without manual intervention.
> But my nightmares with lprng on a desktop machine still live, burned
> eternally into my memory.  CUPS is a good desktop system.
> 

I'm waiting for the version that has those particular problems fixed. Then it
will be  a very nice printer daemon. That manual intervention that you mention
is just fine... unless you've got to walk a mile to kick the box that's hung...

> > * Built my first real performance computer; msi kt3 ultra, xp 1600 at 2000+
> > water cooled.
> > 
> > * Paid off the mortgage on our house... It's like being born again.
> > Imagine having an extra $1000.00 a month in your pocket. :')
> 
> This is where I get SUPER jealous on both counts.  You must have done
> something right to have the house paid off by 46.  My wife and I are
> refinancing taking the 26 years on our mortgage and rolling them into a 15
> year, paying off one piece of land and the school loan.  At 29 years and 4
> days, we're working on it :)

It's a tough row to hoe, you want to know the secret?

What we did was; lived like hermits and put every spare dime we had against our
mortgage. And I mean every single one... Any day you want a tip on how to make a
dime cry... just ask.

It's been one big nut cracker, but now it's over. Would I do it all again? Hell
no...  :0)

-- 


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