Linux isn't that bad... at least it isn't that bad now.

Last year, a couple I'm friends with, gave me their laptop which they purchased in 2004.

It was in great shape, good hard drive, memory, processor...

At least for a 2004 system.

The problem they had with it, aside from the "age" stigma, was that it was running really slowly.

I wanted this Laptop for a research system to be used from the recliner.

We often want to lookup information about movies, actors and add to our NetFlix list.  (We're hardcore movie junkies.)

Since this was such an "old" piece of hardware, I figured that Linux was going to be the best OS to run.

I tried Android, but it wouldn't run correctly.

A little more research and testing, I decided to use Manjaro's distribution with the Xfce4 desktop environment.

It just seemed like a small and fast environment that would work well with this Laptop.

Well, it does work well.

The problem I ran into, is that changing different resources, applications would often toast the environment.

It also had problems with Bluetooth support.

I would get the Bluetooth working, then have something else break.

After breaking/repairing it for a while, I decided to just stop and leave it the way it was.

Big Miss and Ellie used the native LibreOffice to work on documents, only to have compatibility problems and also completely lost data.

This was earlier this year that everything went to shit.

A week ago, I decided to use it to finally type up my children's book.

I spent several hours typing, editing and winding up this story. (I never came up with a good ending to begin with.)

Since I was done, I decided to print it out using the Bluetooth printer configuration.

Well, the fucker lost its Bluetooth settings.

I decided it was time to save the document and reboot.

I'm a smart guy, I saved the document several times and then rebooted.

When I went back to open the file, the fucker was missing!

I take that back... The file was there, but it was empty!

Looking at the file from a terminal window showed that it was there, but the size was 0 bytes.

In a desperate attempt, I checked the /tmp/ directory and used the "find" command to search the entire system for this file.

Nothing...

Fuck.

I was pissed, so I downloaded CentOS 6.5, burned it to a DVD.

Turns out the Laptop processor doesn't support PAE, so I now have a copy of CentOS 6.5 that won't work for me.

Then I tried with CentOS 5.11.

It installed great, but...

I couldn't get the wireless networking configured to actually work.

Fuck.

Finally, I decided to go back to Manjaro.

After each installation and major configuration change, I did a full disk image backup.

I sure as fuck didn't want to reinstall the damn OS and run through the configuration settings over and over again.

Things finally seemed fine.

Last night, I typed up my story, although I couldn't remember the ending I wrote up last time, nor my changes.

This time, when I saved it, I copied the text to "gedit".

Then I closed and opened the word processor to confirm that the file was saved this time.

I figured, why the hell not print it out and let my family read it?

The printer was configured as a network printer, since I kept my computer on as a "print server".

It started printing out just fine...

but...

I only got 4 pages, which looked good...

Yet... I didn't get all of the text which I had typed up.

To wind things up, I attached to an email and sent it to myself.

Using my computer with Windows XP and Office 97, I was able to print out the story in its entirety.

I need to reinstall/fix LibreOffice, because it wasn't working and I used a different application.

Lesson?

Just keep working with the fucker.

After all, what are friends with recovery for?

Last year, a friend of mine wanted me to go through her granddaughter's netbook to find a story her sister wrote. (Not the granddaughter's sister, but her mother.)

The charger was currently out of commission so I slaved the drive to my home computer to start my recovery process.

I didn't find the file, so I used my data recovery software and scanned the drive, recovering ALL files and documents.

Well, I found the document my friend wanted and saved it to her USB drive.

Then I went through all the files and looked for images & videos her granddaughter probably wanted to save.

That was a mistake...

I found all sorts of pictures and even a video that would've embarrassed this girl to no end.

It's not something you can easily forget.

When I gave the USB drive back to my friend, she asked if I found anything else...

Well...

I explained that I had been searching for other things that they might want and found the video & pictures.

She knew it was embarrassing for me, so she told me to just erase things and see if I couldn't restore the laptop back to defaults.

As part of the repair process, I had to rebuild the charger for the laptop.

This took me longer than I expected.

By the time I had it finished the repairs, her granddaughter had suddenly moved out.

When I asked what to do with it, they said to keep it.

I didn't retain any copies of the pictures or videos.

In fact, I also deleted the full disk backup image I created.


Personally, I feel really bad for this girl.

I think she moved here to get away from her past...

Perhaps she thought it caught up with her.

Maybe she thought I was going to treat her different because I had seen things.

Well, I'll never know and she'll never know that I have finally forgotten what it was that I saw.

Damn... Linux is a mess.

For the past 6 months, I've been working on the Linux version of our support tool.

The first 2-3 months, I spent working on getting the launch binary operational, only to find out that it will only work on RedHat 6.5 and newer.

That wasn't a problem as RedHat 5.x is really, really old.

Then I spent over a month trying to get it ready for OSX/Darwin/Macintosh.

That bastard OS didn't want to work out.

I switched back to Linux and worked on SUSE, and got that working for 11.x and newer.

Turns out that Debian, Ubuntu, OES, Novell, etc. all work with the RedHat launch binary.

This is great!

Now I'm back to the fucking Macintosh again...

Now, why would the word Melancholy be the "Hot" word these days?

Seems strange that the post I wrote earlier this year themed after the scene in "Paint Your Wagon" would be so popular.

Now, I don't think it really has to do with how cool I am.

Nor do I think it has anything to do with "Paint your Wagon".

Anyhow...

It is one of my highest hit posts.

So I guess I should just keep writing posts with the word "Melancholy" in it several times.

Melancholy

Melancholy

Now, let's see who stumbles on my blog...

"Trouble with a captial "T" and rhymes with..." ah to hell with it.

I love the Music Man, however...

Today's post title is only quoted from the musical because I have that song playing.

Yesterday was a terrible day for me... at least a very large part of it.

My sleep for the last week & a half has really, really sucked.

Yesterday, I started contemplating (again), applying for disability and retiring

My ability to work is getting worse, and seems to be getting worse.

Here's the low down for what's triggering my thoughts

• Bipolar
• This is obvious, because of all the shit I've written here already.
• Arthritis
• I have it in my most of my joints.
• 98% of the pain I experience is in my knees.
• 1.5% is in my hips
• .5% has been in my hands.
• Cognitive loss
• This isn't any sort of permanent thing that I can tell.
• Seems to only be caused by sleep deprivation.
• My bipolar and sleep appear to make this worse too.
• Your thoughts can make things worse.
• This can be hard realize it's happening.
• Unless you can get away from the situation/thoughts, you might get stuck here.

I wanted to talk to someone about my feelings, but I really couldn't at first.

Here's why I really didn't have anyone to talk to.

1. My family.
1. They all have enough problems of their own.
2. There is nothing they can actually do.
3. Dad
1. He's in pretty damn shape physically and mentally.
2. Not mental dementia or anything.
3. He's having problems sleeping, so he's not really good at paying attention.
4. Mom
1. She's got dementia and it's setting in pretty good now.
2. She is similar to Ellie and wants to try and fix things.
3. She preaches to fucking much.
5. Brothers
1. They're pretty fucking useless.
6. Sisters
1. My oldest one
1. She's pretty isolated from the rest of us.
2. She and I just don't talk very much.
2. My youngest one
1. I can talk to her but...
2. She gets a LOT of crap from:
1. Our parents.
1. They're so fucking needy.
2. Our brothers.
1. See previous posts & comments.
3. I really don't want to saddle her down with more crap.
2. Ellie's family.
1. Great people but...
2. Will tell Ellie what I talked to them about.
3. Mother-in-law
1. She doesn't listen with a very open mind.
2. Has stated that she doesn't like to deal with people who complain about things.
3. She hears, but really doesn't listen.
4. Father-in-law
1. He can listen very well.
2. He's not very literate and as a hard time understanding what and why I say things.
5. Sister-in-laws
1. Listen well.
2. There seems to be a wall between us for some reason, because... I don't know.
3. Ellie.
1. She has bad problems with anxiety these days and this would put her over the edge.
2. Will blow up and yell at me.
3.  Thinks that working at home so much is hurting my career.
1. She might be partially right, but doesn't understand what it's like to go through this.
4. Blames my use of pain killers on my feelings and moods.
1. WTF!?
5. Doesn't understand what it's like to go through extreme mood swings on a regular basis.
1. Menstrual and Menopause do not apply here.
6. Has no true idea how bad my physical pain is.
4. The Misses
1. Not old enough to really understand the ramifications.
2. They understand how bad the pain affects me.
3. Just want me to be happy no matter what.

I finally did something yesterday that helped me, even though I might've over done it a bit.

There are some online chat groups/rooms for mental health.

I joined one for Bipolar.

Part of my initial discussion involved computer operating systems, networks, security, etc.

I was surprised how much I was able to provide everyone.

After all, I have been working in Cyber-Security for over 20 years.

Next I was chatting with others about their problems.

Finally I was able to discuss my problems with everyone.

You know...

After talking with a group of people who have problems and are also bipolar, I started feeling better.


I stayed there chatting for a few hours.

Probably more time than I should've during my work hours.

What actually happened was that I was able to go back to work and really go at it.

I mean, I am SO close to completing the major portion of my current project.

Where I am now, is wrapping things up and

FUCK!

It's working now!
Dammit!

 In the last 3 days, I downloaded another 10+ gigabytes of Linux Operating systems when the problem was somewhere else, not in the version or service pack level of the distribution!

(Sorry for the interruption above, but it happened while I was actually typing this entry.)

So now I'm back to my final testing!

I should be able to wrap up this distribution of Linux!

I didn't do anything wrong, but I apologized anyway.

Previously I wrote about how a female friend from High School fipped out on me when I told her I didn't want to hook up with her.

Well, that email she sent to me kept eating at me, as I felt she accused me of doing something that I did not do, or ...

Heck, I don't know what she thought I did or was going to do.

So, I sent her an email last week apologizing to her...

Why?

I don't know.

It just felt like the right thing to do at the time.