Category Archives: Personal

Just a quick update

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Nothing much to report, really. I’ve been busy at the office, getting ready for the increase in traffic on the web site because of Black Friday, and the start of the holiday shopping season. Drove into the ‘burbs yesterday with a coworker to pick up some new servers to add to the server room. Spent the day fixing some things for devs and configuring the new servers.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! If you are flying this week, please tip your friendly TSA agent after you receive your complementary deep-tissue massage.

Full electric power!

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Last year, my trusty gasoline powered push mower of eight years kicked the bucket right at the end of the mowing season. Perfect timing! I decided to wait until this spring to replace the mower, so I had lots of time to consider what I would purchase.

After becoming disappointed at how expensive a replacement gas powered mower would cost, I realized that an electric powered mower wasn’t all that much more. Looking at the pros and cons of an electric mower, I decided to buy the electric mower.

With one season of mowing under my belt, here’s my take on the switch to electric:

    Pros:

  • The electric mower is lighter than the gas powered mower, making it easier to push.
  • No gas to purchase or oil to maintain.
  • Comparable in price to gas powered mowers in my area.
  • Came with a rear bag attachment! Never had one of those before.
  • Slightly quieter than the old gas mower, with none of the exhaust fumes.
    Cons:

  • Extension cord takes a little getting used to, but isn’t that big of a deal for my yard.
  • Doesn’t have the power of the gas mower, can’t plow through tall grass or children’s toys as easily.
  • Mulching setup doesn’t cut as well as using the bag, so I ended up using the bag all the time.
  • Bag isn’t all that large, so sometimes you have to stop mowing several times to empty the bag.
  • Deck on the electric mower is 18″. The old gas mower had a 22″ deck. This makes for a few more trips up and down the yard, but it’s not THAT big of a con (more exercise).

All of that said, I have to admit that the yard looked better this year because of the bag catching the clippings, instead of blowing them out the side discharge all over the yard. Also, the bag is GREAT for sucking up leaves, which I found out this evening. I may not have to rake my lawn this year!

Final verdict: I think my new electric mower is MUCH nicer than the old gas mower, now that I am used to how it operates. I don’t think the corded electric mower makes sense outside of a city lot like I have, though, and battery runtime is something to consider for larger plots of land.

Do the research, and see if electric is right for you!

The Bill Watterson commencement speech

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Bill Watterson, creator of the one and only “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip, gave an inspiring commencement speech back in 1990 to the graduating class at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH.  I had posted it previously in my blog, and felt I should retain a link to it, which is now outside of my blog:

http://www.serverunderground.com/archive/bill_watterson.html

More info on the fellow here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Watterson

Lazy Sunday

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So, I felt like crap all day today.  Didn’t begin the basement sale after I saw some poor soul putting up a computer on Craigslist for rent money.  I’ll give him a day before I flood the list with cheaper stuff.  :-)

Managed to watch about 1.5 seasons of Stargate Atlantis while I waited for my headache to go away.  Kids put on a short play (ceiling fan was used as a prop to launch a balsa wood airplane, how creative of my spawn), wife made some awesome meals, and we decided to do a road trip this fall to Colorado.

For not leaving the couch all day, somehow a lot was accomplished.

The great basement sale of 2010 begins!

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Well, it begins tomorrow.  Starting on Sunday, I’ll post stuff deemed ready to sell on Craigslist and see if I can’t clear out some of this hardware from my basement.  Lots of stuff for older machines, and even a handful of running systems.

I have a LOT of pictures to take of PCI/AGP cards, the complete systems, hard drives, cases, you name it.  Can’t wait to spend a day posting all this cool stuff online.  *gack*  I just hope people buy it!

Up and running… again.

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Yes, the blog is back.  I had such grand plans for this domain, but it appears to always come back as a blog site.  Oh, well.

Welcome back to ServerUnderground!  Not much has changed, just more procrastination getting in the way of this domain becoming more useful and well known in the universe.  I’m going back to blogging to see if I can keep in the habit of posting new content on a regular basis.  I have a feeling this may happen, for a couple reasons I’ll expand upon below.

First of all, I’m starting a forum site in the near future.  This will be a tech forum for the Rockford area, with the sole purpose of tying together all the different industries and businesses with the people that make up the tech collective.  I’m talking about a forum where all the IT professionals can hang out, and help each other out when needed, as well as possibly be of assistance to others.

The forum will be free, but I don’t expect everyone to volunteer their time to help others.  I’m planning on setting up sections where people can ask questions to the general public, and also post services for hire/wanted sections for those who are looking for a little work on the side or help.

Not only will the forum be open to anyone in IT, but the general public as well.  The goal is to be of help to this economically depressed area, and get more people up to speed with computers so they can enhance their performance on the job, get a better job, or improve their life in anyway possible through technology.

With all that said, I think you can see where I’m coming from with regards to the blog updates.  It’s going to get busy around here, and I’ll need to collect my thoughts at the end of each day.  :-)

Aside from all of that, we have migrated out of a datacenter and into our own private server closet at work.  Yes, all of our servers are now hosted under the same room as my office.  There have already been a few challenges, and I’m sure there are many more to come, which should provide for some interesting commentary!

The last blog had quite a bit of information about one of my new hobbies, off-roading with my 1989 Jeep Cherokee 4×4.  I’ll try to continue posting about my exploits with the blue beast, and throw up some pics of body damage and trails.

That’s all for now!  Thanks for sticking around!

–Dan