My wife has decided that my son needs to be moved out by July 1. I’m ambivalent about this. It’s true that he needs to take responsibility for his own life, and I surely won’t miss the messes, noise, smoking, drinking, and swearing, but when it comes down to it I just can’t bring myself to throw my baby out of the house. I wish he had more time to pay off debt, save up for a car, find a decent place to live. As it is I think he’s going to move in with one of his friends, which is OK, but I don’t know how he’s going to get to work without a car.
Archive for April, 2009
My son is leaving home
Posted in Family on April 26, 2009 by scott8035My Amazing Daughter
Posted in Family with tags daughter on April 26, 2009 by scott8035
I have an amazing daughter. She’s raising her 4-year old daughter with the help of her fiance. She’s a full-time college student. On top of that she’s a teller at the bank, takes care of the magazines for local grocery stores, and works at Pier1. Plus the cooking and cleaning. I don’t know how she does it all, but she makes it work and only melts down occasionally. I’m incredibly proud of her!
The death of rock-n-roll
Posted in Music with tags hard rock on April 26, 2009 by scott8035What happened to rock music? Does anyone make it anymore? When I turn the radio on to our local alternative rock station, 75% of what I hear is weak and depressing, full of minor chords, angst, and grown men singing in a key they should have left behind with puberty. Why did the lead guitar solo disappear? It’s as if someone passed a law banning prominent guitar playing. Perhaps it’s the local Milwaukee radio market, but I don’t think so.
Here’s a list of 50 songs today’s musicians need to take inspiration from: Read more »
Coming home to Linux
Posted in Software with tags linux on April 25, 2009 by scott8035I was a Linux user for years before I turned to the dark side. From about 1998-2001, I used RedHat (this is before there was a Fedora). We used it for various server functions at our family business, and for a while I forced Linux on all the family members. At one point, I had five Linux workstations/servers running in the house. From about 2001-2003 I was an avid Gentoo user. I loved being in total control over the various settings, always tweaking compiler flags, installing only the packages I needed, compiling my own kernels, etc.
By 2003 I had changed jobs, and the company I work for was switching over from AIX to Windows for the area I support. Although I was still a believer in Unix, it was now my job to eliminate it. I thought I had better get myself on the Windows bandwagon and learn how to be a proper Microsoft developer. So I switched my home workstations over to Windows XP. Got a copy of Visual Studio. Learned how to be a .NET developer using (gasp) Visual Basic .NET. Pirating all the software I could have never afforded if I had to buy it.
Well, it’s 2009 now, and after six years on the dark side I’ve come home to Linux. In this case, Ubuntu. I’d heard good things about it, and to tell you the truth, it’s better than I expected. It installed flawlessly on my Toshiba laptop, and I was instantly comfortable with it. In the past I’d been a real command-line geek, but now the GUI utilities are so good I don’t even need to dredge that up. Now I can try out tons of software with a guilt-free conscience.
It’s good to be back. I don’t miss Windows one bit, especially the horror that is Vista.
Update: my son finally got tired of relentless waves of viruses and strange behavior on XP. Even after starting with a fresh install, all the Windows Updates, and AVG 8.5, his computer would soon be trashed after a month’s use. So he let me install Ubuntu Jaunty on his computer. He uses his computer mostly for streaming movies and keeping his iPod music. We’ll see how it goes!
