picture post

m'boy had himself a jam-packed weekend last time around. we went and saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow friday night, then he had a soccer game (pics below, in the previous two posts) saturday morning, then a sleepover saturday night (just realized i didn't take any pictures of that at all), then the puyallup fair sunday.

seems a shame to post all the rest of the stuff from the last couple weeks and leave out the fair, so here goes, with apologies to those with slower connections.

Loren with some prizes he won at one of his favorite games....he just cleaned up here.
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he won the hat on the second dart thrown in the first game he played- then he won the lamp, duck and dog the second time playing his second game.
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three minutes later he was standing in line waiting to go on the Enterprise, where you stick to the wall- one of his favorites.
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we were walking back from the car after stashing his loot and we detoured to 7-11 to get batteries for the camera. new batteries? better take a picture.
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this is a big pumpkin carved by some guy with some skills. sucks to be Russ.
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me and m'boy sittin' down havin' some food.
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my digital camera has a delay, so you have to try to time it right when something quick happens- i got this one just right on the third try.
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waiting for another of his fave rides (the tornado) to start.
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the traditional ferris wheel picture- this is a must-have in my book.
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one i took of both of us on the ferris wheel- often there's someone else to take these shots, this year it was just him and me.
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southerly view from the ferris wheel.
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something must have smelled bad- prob'ly cigarette smoke.
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m'boy getting his feet vibrated but good right before we left the fairgrounds.
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full size pics are all in the online album

if anyone's interested in some video of the fair, feel free to check out these:
m'boy talking and eating some dinner
still talking and eating
little man riding a big swinging boat

the rest of these are all pretty dark- you might need to turn the brightness up on your monitor to see 'em
view from the ferris wheel
both of us on the ferris wheel
another of the view from the ferris wheel
heading for the exit

that's it- PEACE OUT / wavers

picture post

hey here's a dozen recent shots. it might take a bit to load the page this time around. as always, the full size shots will be in my photo album soon.

classic
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two brawny ol' girls
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what big eyes you have
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another good looking boy
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nice shot up my nose
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"c'mon, quit screwin' with the camera and let me in!"
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"no, seriously....."
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folks turning out for m'boy's soccer game
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foggy mornin' at the foot of the Cascades
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inevitable consequences of giving kids orange wedges at halftime
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my fave
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the Granite Falls Flames lose a thriller in regulation

the Flames played hard this morning against a team that occasionally played rough, and gave a spirited performance despite not having practiced for the entire week prior, due to field usage conflicts still unresolved. this is a particularly good action shot of Loren making a play on the ball, taken by my mom. more to come later when i have more time.

my friend Shannon webcamming from thailand the other day

Shannon instant messaged me to get some help for her mom, who wanted to get some pictures of her webcamming in thailand the other day, so i took these shots and pasted them together for them.

random instant message

infidel says:
far beyond the reaches of the intergalactic Justice Patrol a small Kylian vessel lurks ominously in the shadow of a pale moon.
infidel says:
a Kylian officer manipulates a cryptic control panel, states something in chirps and grunts to his commanding officer
infidel says:
150,000 miles off the port side of the vessel a shimmering light rips open a hole in the fabric of space
infidel says:
the bow of an immense Kylian mothership slowly emerges through the still-growing rift, massive, bearing dozens of Kylian warships on its belly
infidel says:
as the crest of the mothership passes through the aperture the shimmering light intesifies and modulates into a perfect circle
infidel says:
the stern of the mothership passes through, and the rift is finally allowed to force its way closed
infidel says:
ignition sequences begin in scores of Kylian cruisers and they disengage the mothership, their bows maneuvering into trajectories that will carry them in dozens of vectors, each ship cruising a short distance and jumping to interstellar drive and disappearing
infidel says:
terraquads of information stream soundlessly through the black of space between the mothership and the lone Kylian vessel
infidel says:
the Kylian commander touches a button, acknowledges the transfer and closes the channel
infidel says:
speaking in command tones he orders his vessel to its own course and engages
infidel says:
aboard the Kylian mothership a Spdeeka diplomat pours himself a vile looking liquid from a clear glass decanter
infidel says:
things were going exactly according to plan
infidel says:
Diplomancer Shrorft allowed himself a hint of a smug grin as he raised his glass
infidel says:
at first watch tomorrow, the quadrant would be his
infidel says:
Shrorft's hand went instinctively to the breast pocket of his immaculately tailored uniform, feeling the reassuring bulk of the device
infidel says:
small things can make a man

man V technology

since time primeval man stood alone against the forces of the Earth, surviving on courage, luck, and cunning....
this is the story of one such man, and his mortal struggle to regain control of technology.

scour win98 drive for all relevant non-replaceables. methodically copy everything to the XP drive- very long process. run up against "no disk space" problem. not LOW disk space....zero. gasp! recopy 1.5G worth of non-replaceables to win98 drive. breath sigh of relief that only the copy process hung up. notice very interesting problem of XP not letting me rename the folder i was originally copying from.....made me think the computer hadn't actually lost the files it couldn't copy, but just sort of stashed them away in memory, somewhere they wouldn't show up in the folder's contents. breath big sigh of relief it only cost me a couple files and reboots, not complete system hang. bullet dodge #1. realize i have redundant files in another (yet uncopied) folder. phew! bullet dodge #1 + "drunken waterfowl blind luck style" technique.

attempt to burn remaining files to CD. commence Shao-Lin showdown with Nero 6, which stubbornly refuse to come with the proceedicles. Nero pulls multiple unexplained "lock up at 2% of write function complete" maneuvers; 1 buffer underrun error. throw away shiny new coasters. growl. attempt running CD-burn progs installed on win98....nothing work with XP.....scratch head. 98 no boot, back to square one. renew attack on Nero 6 with double ferocity! clean boot, engage application and carefully stealth recon every single option in every menu of Nero. initiate "Burn" maneuver....no go. FUCK! WTF?! hmmm. scratch head. smoke cigarette. doggedly try once more, reducing write speed to 4x..........BAM! bullet dodge #2.

write half a dozen CDs worth of non-replaceables.

take deep breath.

power down; physically uncable XP drive.

reboot. enter BIOS, change boot order to floppy first. boot to win98 rescue disk. run FDISK. pause at top of bridge and watch bridge burn behind me. delete partition data. repartition. reformat. reinstall win98. reupgrade to SE. boot. locate all hardware driver discs. reinstall video driver. nuthin'. re-reinstall video driver. nuthin'. scratch head. disc bad? disc no read. check disc. disc have big stain in bad place. attempt to spit clean disc. reinstall. success! no! no can read necessary file. growl. remove disc. scratch head. try to pick off particulate snot-like splatter on CD. is it food? hmmm. man need....solvent. get Goof-Off. put Goof-Off on shirt and wipe bad spot on CD. bad move. Goof-Off scores major damage with "fuck-up-CD-completely-forever" technique!!!!!

swear loudly. growl. remember ATI Radeon Excalibur upgrade card bought long time ago. power down computer. crawl under desk. blow major thick dust layer from open case. cough. blow more. get flashlight. uninstall ATI Rage Fury card. install Radeon Excalibur card. install Radeon driver.....SUCCESS! infidel does victorious "extra-hardware-in-da-house" dance!

smoke cigarette.

take deep breath.

reinstall XP hard drive. accidentally slam hard drive to front of case, notice no screws securing hard drive. sweat profusely. reboot machine. machine start to boot. boot from floppy. fuck. remove floppy, reboot, enter BIOS, change boot order to XP drive first, reboot. boot sequence aborts with "PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT" message. reboot, enter BIOS, change boot order to win98 drive, reboot. win98 boots. check out drive letter sequences, notice extra partition information on XP drive. shut down. reboot. same error. power down, reinstall XP drive cables. reboot. same error. power down. locate XP CD. tremble.

begin reinstall of XP. catch fleeting glimpse of "press F2 to enter installation repair mode" but attempt keystroke too late. tremble again. choose reinstall XP from menu. watch screens closely. choose to "let me designate the drive letter" to install XP on. watch screen closely. choose "repair previous installation" option. enter system console. follow directions to log on as administrator. realize i have no fkn clue what i'm doing. guess at administrator password.....lucky guess, i'm in. realize i still have no idea what to do next. choose to search for existing operating systems. it finds one in C:\windows, and another one it cannot identify. choose to enable that operating system. get asked for label. misunderstand command entry structure; accidently label newfound installation "1". growl. get list of available commands. read help sections on commands. find "bootcfg" command and run it. follow most logical-sounding options. choose another command that seems pertinent. run with most logical-sounding options. cross fingers. reboot.....

BAM! two possible boot configs. one named "1". growlz. choose it. XP boots! everything works still! win98 boots! way better vid card works! multiple monitor capable!

10 hours after beginning the epic struggle, infidel kneels, suffused with humility, radiating relief.

by the end of the week i should be back to being able to use my unusable-for-the-last-5-months-since-no-cabling-option-existed speakers and my unusable-for-the-last-5-months-due-to-op-sys-incompatibility recording hardware to pick up right where i left off.

so ends the latest chapter in the continuing saga of our hero, man triumphing over technology.....will he be so lucky next time?