I've been incredibly, incredibly busy. I've been working overtime, I'm still trying to work through my backlog of short consulting gigs, and I've been dealing with one of those with-friends-like-that-who-needs-enemies? problems, and, yes, a couple of sniper-type comments on the site this past month or so really torqued me off.
OK, ok, I'm selling out. I don't want ads on my front page here, but I signed up for a couple of affiliate programs. And one of those vendors--Software And Stuff/Surplus Computers, is selling $20 microATX Socket A motherboards. If you visit my ads page and click on a link and buy something, I get a kickback. They say the $20 price is only good until midnight. Regular price is $30, which still isn't bad.
I was going to cannibalize a computer to turn into a Linux-based MP3 jukebox--I figure get the OS up and going on it and figure out later what software to run on it. It'll take me a while to get the sound card and wireless NIC working in it, I'm sure. Especially in Debian. If it turns out to be too much of a struggle, I can cave and run Red Hat or SuSE on it since they're likely to just autodetect the stuff. And then I'll be a Linux wimp, yeah, but hey, I'll be a Linux wimp with a really cool sound system.
I find myself wanting to take three weeks' vacation all at once and go somewhere far, far away--I'm trying to think of who my farthest-flung relatives are these days--and write a novel. I could emulate F. Scott Fitzgerald and rework, yet again, the same tired novel I first started writing my freshman year of college. Or I could try something new.
I got a comment on the site here today that I was going to repeat verbatim here, but I realized it was basically asking three questions, so why not just ask and answer the three questions?
I'm sorry the site's been down. My DSL modem has been really bad about picking up a signal and even worse about holding on to it when it finds one. Out of desperation I unplugged my Speedsteam and pulled out my old Alcatel that I had in my apartment. The Alcatel didn't see a signal at all. At least the Speedstream usually saw a partial one. So I pressed the Speedstream back into duty.
Sorry about the disappearance this weekend. I'm going to try to finish the promised post after I finish writing up the article for my church newsletter that I'm working on. (No, it won't interest anyone here. I'm trying to figure out how to write about revising the constitution without putting people to sleep. If I succeed, I'm nominating myself for a Pulitzer. I don't care if there's no category for church newsletters. I'll make them make one.)
