Social Media

Looking back, when I first began using social media, it was something that I found highly interesting and very entertaining, a new novelty. Seeing all the stuff my friends and family were up to, many of whom I hadn’t seen in many years, what hijinks the more puerile amongst us were (some still are) taking part in (perhaps living a bit vicariously through their posts). But slowly, over time, at least in part, social media for me has become more of a system for identification and classification of some of the worst tendencies society seems to exhibit, as manifested within some of these same people (fortunately, at least for my sanity, this is not universal).

Certainly, by and large, I continue to see a pretty significant volume of the mundane, daily life snapshots, which is very much appreciated. But interspersed throughout are some of the most illuminating takes on past and current challenges, we as a society face.

Until recently, I had little indication that there were people in my circles that would actively minimize the impact, implicitly or explicitly, of the terrible loss of life associated with the current global pandemic. Some, reducing this tragedy by quibbling over percentages or how media coverage has portrayed the urgency of this situation. Better yet (and yes, this is intended to be sarcastic), are the ones that feel that economic recovery or “personal freedoms” far outweigh any actions that could, many would argue should, be further taken to mitigate ongoing impact. Some, so called Christians banging on these very same drums. Apparently, “pro-life” only applies in utero or where there is a perceived point of societal control or possible benefit to them. “All the benefits for me and mine, none for thee and thine.”

Until recently, I had little indication that there were people in my circles that would actively argue that their right to not wear a mask outweighs the rights of others to not be possibly exposed to a life altering or life ending virus.

Until recently, I had little indication that there were people in my circles that would claim that the government has no business in helping keep people healthy. Especially when some of these same people have relied, and some still rely heavily on government assistance. Some via direct governmental support (price supports, direct payments from various sources, as well as healthcare via Medicare and Medicaid), some via indirect governmental support (think downstream from those taking direct support, in Iowa pick most/any/all Agribusiness).

But I digress…

I often find myself giving folks the benefit of the doubt, things like, they must not fully comprehend an issue, or perhaps they lack the necessary context to adequately view issues in. As of late, I’m beginning to wonder if these behaviors are intentional on their part so as to not have to fully come to terms with reality, or perhaps to prevent them from having to reassess past behaviors.

I Do this Sort of Thing for a Living…

So, I finally got my new computer all put together and set up, in and of itself, no small feat. Not so much the putting it together, but getting everything installed, configured, and what needed data/files moved over is a major pain in the ass… I feel somewhat fortunate that I had implemented, a number of years ago a centralized and synchronized storage for things like documents, pictures, music, etc. but you have to be pretty vigilant in ensuring you’re saving all items to these shared locations.

I cannot imagine how people who don’t have access to options like these do it… And the “cloud” doesn’t really count. I mean, it can, it’s kind of there, but you had better have a very wide connection, or the ability to not have everything immediately available, if you have a lot of data stored out there. Also, it can be a very manual process. The nice thing about my set up, with an active directory domain and group policy is, is that when I log on for the first time on a new system, synchronization is automagical…

But, I digress.

So, I’m cruising along having some “fun” with the new system when I start to notice some idiosyncratic behavior. Periodic screen freezes, certain open windows freezing, seriously W.T.F… Now, I deal with misbehaving applications all the time at work (though it’s typically reached the data layer when I become involved), it’s something I am very good at so, I have some confidence in this not being a hardware issue, based on what I am seeing. This is a good thing because it would certainly be a major headache if it were a hardware issue. Having to track down the offending component, then going through the RMA process to get a replacement, etc… So, time to tear into this.

First thing to do, check on system resource utilization. CPU activity is good, RAM is basically waiting for data to occupy it, disk activity all look normal. Then it jumps out at me, there are over 1.5M handles allocated. Hmmm… I just got done dealing with a massive handle leak issue at work due in large part to some questionable choices some software vendors have been making. This is not something I want to be having to deal with at home too.

So, I track down the offending process, fortunately it was a single process using around 1.4M handles, and kill it. Performance immediately returns to normal.

Great… easy enough. Now, what is this process, LEDKeeper.exe. Quick search with my favorite search engine… well shit. This is one of the components that controls the LEDs on my motherboard and CPU cooler. I guess the music synchronized LEDs were fun while they lasted. Not sure I’m getting paid enough to deal with this… 🙂

When you think you’ve lost something…

Deer hunting (Iowa’s Gun 1) started on Dec. 1st, the first full weekend in December 2018. This years opening day was absolutely miserable, temperatures just above freezing, and a pretty constant drizzle. I saw a few doe scattered about, but nothing worth writing about (and yet, here I am). The next day was a bit better, colder for sure, but instead of rain, we had snow. I’m no fan of cold weather, but snow is far preferred to rain when out hunting, outside of the increase in noise you make walking on snow.

As I’m getting my gear in place at the back of my vehicle, I see a couple of doe off to my left, at 175-200 yds. Just outside of my comfortable range, even with my black powder, so I just watch them a bit while I continue to gather my gear. Then I notice movement to my left again a ways off, but when I look over, I see a VERY nice buck walking up a waterway. At about the comfortable limit of my black powder (on a bench), but I figure, I’ve got my tailgate open and can use the back of the vehicle as a rest. So, I take the shot… and miss. Apparently, the wind was sufficient to keep him from spooking and he walks another 10 or so yds., and lays down in the tall grass. Me taking a mental note of his location, I walk off in search of others.

Fast forward an hour or so, and I’m not seeing much and I’m circling back to near where I saw him bed down; time to see if he stuck around. I’m wading into the tall grass, getting closer to where I saw him, and suddenly all hell breaks loose. Less than 10 yds. ahead of me, this monster jumps up and starts running. I fire three slugs at him (shotgun for walking), and after 5 or so minutes, as my heart rate slows back to closer to normal, I move forward looking for signs that I hit him. Swatches of crimson greet me as I moved forward, “success”…

Apparently, deer must have some massive reservoir of blood that we mere mortals don’t posses. As I’m following this pretty profuse blood trail, I come over a terrace and what do I see 300 yds. away, that monster jumping a fence into the next property headed west toward the creek… W.T.F…

Continuing to follow his trail I walk into the woods surrounding the creek, mile one has ticked by as I get to a small crossing for a tributary for the creek and as I’m approaching this, the deer jumps up again over 100 yds. away, with a companion doe and head north, into the last standing corn for miles in all directions… Great. Now I have to back-track to cross the feeder as it’s cut out a deep gully and the feeder itself is too wide and deep for me to cross.

Pick his trail up again headed into the corn… Have I made it clear how much I’m not a fan of this farmer for leaving the corn in the field this late in the year? Wading through the corn, the buck has made things a bit easier by sticking to the edge (this farmer planted right up to the creek), so I follow, until he decided to go back into the corn, crap… I go in after him, and make a (for me) cardinal mistake; never ever carry your long range, sitting firearm in your shooting hand when you’re bushwhacking. As I’m walking through the corn, looking down at his trail, I take a moment to look around me, and not 5 yds. away, there he is laying down. I damn near stepped on him again. Heart rate jumps as I put my shotgun (STUPID) down and try to take aim on him, as he’s bolting in the opposite direction… Needless to say, that shot hit nothing but corn stalks and dirt.

Now, I’m feeling like a complete bone-head, but, I need to push on… He left a pretty substantial puddle of blood where he was laying down, but I can tell by the trail he’s leaving, it is coagulating, i.e. not leaving much of a trail. But, with fresh snow on the ground, and his size, he is pretty easy to follow. Give him a 10 minute head start to get comfortable and pick back up…

Moving forward, as I am approaching mile two, his trail has mixed in with other large deer. And the blood has slowed to nothing. Shit, I cannot believe this. I look around for another hour, to no avail. Calling it a day. Man, I feel like complete shit for the litany of missteps that made me lose this deer.

Overnight, I have a hell of a time sleeping, running through all the things that transpired, mostly the mistakes. When I wake up from what little sleeping I did get, I decided that first thing, I would go back to where I last had solid indication of his trail and start with fresh eyes.

Picking the trail back up, I notice that a heavy set of tracks I didn’t notice before veered off into the corn… time to see where those lead. Followed those for the better part of a quarter mile when I look off to my right, between rows and I see the backside of a doe, not 15 yds. away. Well, at least I’m not freaking everything out by trudging through the stalks… Another 50 yds. in, I’m trying to be more vigilant in looking up, as opposed to just looking for/at the tracks, when I look up and see through 4-5 rows of corn, the buck, laying down looking in my direction. This time, no mistakes, shotgun in hand, I end this two day drama.

Technology is great… until it isn’t

The scene from Office Space, you all know the one I’m talking about… where the three of them go to town on the P.O.S. printer. I’m in that place right now.

My main workstation at home has been having all kinds of problems for the last couple years, with two or three blue screens due to DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION errors, with the second one so bad that I had to recover the system from backup. It was fortunate that I had a recent enough backup that this was even possible. Sprinkled in between have been all kinds of sporadic restarts that seemed to come on when the system was being brought out of sleep. Now, to be sure, this system is VERY long in the tooth, I built it a month or two after the RTM release of Windows 7, so going on almost exactly 9 years.

I’ve been putting off replacing it for a while now, but it looks like I no longer have the luxury of waiting any more. Not looking forward to dropping the coin on the replacement, but if it were to go completely T.U. without something to take its place, I would really be up a creek without a paddle.

Wallet, look out…

Dipping a Toe…

So, as we’ve been living and growing with the internet we felt, probably more me than anyone else, perhaps it was high time that we add a bit of our own flavor to the chaos.

I am by no means a writer. Now, I can certainly communicate clearly, and if you ask my wife, at great length on topics I am intimately familiar (and if you really ask her, topics that I’m not at all familiar with). My hope is that this will be a form of catharsis where I can more intimately and clearly cover something on my mind, at least more so than what I feel comfortable doing, to some degree, on social media.

With that said, let’s see where this particular ride takes us…