NEW YEAR UPDATE FROM RANDY'S ROOST

Well….another year has come and gone. I stand almost speechless at the speed with which the world speeds by. The “BIG 60” has also come and gone. I’m pulling it rather than pushing it now. Pushing is better. There was no thunder or lightening and I wasn’t smitten with an overnight manifestation of gray hair. I guess I expected the ground to at least wiggle or something as I passed this significant milestone. Perhaps I was thinking that God would speak to me from the heavens and say something like, “Son, you’re now at the age where you can no longer blame the stupid things you do on being a kid”. I took solace in the fact that, though a few good folks remembered my birthday, no one congratulated me on being old. It was only somewhat comforting to know that billions of people have traveled this path and billions more will soon do the same. Just about makes me want to dance in the street. The only kudos came from the aches in my body. I pretended to be deaf because they were speaking with such sarcasm. “60 years old….great, Ran….can hardly wait to see what new pain relative you will send us. Maybe it will be Uncle Billy Aiken”. I can’t help but notice that I’m running out of places to stack all the discomfort.

My age-related issues not withstanding….I’ve been quite busy as of late. Some of it is not a good busy. Three of my computers went down….at the same time. That was rather weird. I lost my database and a ton of pictures but had enough backups made to where I’m only perturbed and not panicky. I’ve been scrambling to get my one duck back in the parade.

Now.....I'm a pretty sharp steak knife for my size but I was able to screw up my main work horse computer without the aid of a single person. I was installing a monitor switch so I could use two computers with one monitor. It called for hot connecting (i.e. with the computer running) of the monitor cable. I wasn't trained to do such things! So, I booted with the device attached. Get this...it wiped out Windows and took down my 160 gigabyte hard drive. It’s now a cute shiny rectangular door stop. I wasn't a cappy hamper about that one.

To atone for the self-inflicted foot shooting, I bought a wonderful 500GB internal replacement hard drive. We’re talking huge here! That’s a half-terrabyte! If it were any larger, I may be cast as an extra in the next Star Trek flick! Just as I was about to call my agent, I realized that my computer doesn’t support the newer (SATA) technology. OK…that’s two feet with bullet holes in them. So…. I’m having to use some adapters and having to replace my power supply to bring it up to speed. I also have a 500GB external hard drive that is used for backups and such. It’s a sweet little gadget that comes in quite handy. If it goes down, I’m selling everything and taking up painting.

Then, my back up computer went south and I had to do a Windows repair on it by using the Windows install disk/CD. Even then I had to uninstall SP3 and then reinstall it because it was all bogged down like it had been updated with Peach Pomade. Sheese. If that wasn't enough to make you slap your grandma, my bench box went nutzoid. That was about as welcomed as a cactus at a nudist colony. I forgot that I had taken it in trade from a client who said "It has some problems". He couldn't afford to get it fixed so offered to give it to me in trade for another one (only one of two clients I allow to make payments). I took the deal because it was a super little box that I had overhauled earlier last year and knew that it was a solid performer. I didn't give it much thought until now. The box was bugged with the nastiest hairy-eyed fanged monster browser hijacker I've ever seen. I threw every imaginable bomb at it and was even tempted to try a can of Raid. I searched the web and worked for hours and tried everything to strangle this ugly bug. After ten hours I just nuked the hard drive and started all over with a fresh Windows installation.

Why didn’t I just do that in the beginning (*sigh*...people always ask me the hard questions) ? Mostly, it was to see if it was a curable issue because I knew that I would run into that Bugasaurus Rex again. Most bugs I can clean in a short time. Not this one. It was the mother of all bugs and a step-brother to some other invasive creatures. It's a good thing I headed that direction and practiced because I just now had a client who had the same creepy crawly critter in his machine. I threw the regular software hand grenades at it and ...nothing. So, rather than fight with it, I just replaced the OS. He needed the upgrade anyway. He’s the happy camper now.

Despite my hectic life of megahertz herding, I do take a few minutes from time to time to practice music. My latest toy is a fiddle. I swapped a nice Compaq computer for it. A friend of Connie’s gave the box to us when they moved to a smaller home. It was running Windows 98 on it so I upgraded it to XP and added some extra RAM. It was a solid little trooper when I was finished with it. Anyway…I tuned me ol’ fiddle up, ran an A scale, and promptly cleared the neighborhood of cats. I’ve been working on it but it’s obvious that no one will mistake me for Andre Rieu, Johnny Gimble, Vassar Clements, or Mark O’Conner any time soon. Still, it’s a hoot to play if even for my own amazement. I play the mandolin and a fiddle is tuned and chorded the same way. So, it’s working out. If I can, I’d like to wind up with a large upright bass for Bluegrass music. I played one for a few years when I toured with the Cedar Grove Bluegrass Band back in the late 1990’s (which now seems to be ever so long ago).

The computer biz isn’t booming so far. It’s more like boofing. I prefer booming but am content. We pass out flyers and cards all over the place from P’ville to Springville and do get “hits”. Then, there’s word-of-mouth. It’s moving along. We hope to do some newspaper advertising soon. I also need to sell some of the 20 or so refurbished computers I have under foot. That would be nice not only for the money but for the room! The good news is that I have parts, pieces, and piles of stuff to fix things with. It’s nice to have the proper tools, to be sure. I do like the (constant) challenges presented by computer technology. The changes in hardware and architecture are also challenging. I can hardly keep up with some of it. I just take it at my own pace so that I don’t lose a gasket or a fuse.

The weather has been quite mild so far. There’s only been a small amount of frost and almost no fog to speak of. We’ve had the “high fog” but only patchy “Tule Fog”. That’s fine as far as I’m concerned! I don’t need no stinking fog. The temps have been cool but nothing at all un-seasonal. The small amount of rain was sorely needed. Our season rain amounts to only about ten inches per year.

Lake Success is almost empty and is now Duck Muck Pond. When full, it has a 22 mile shoreline. But, it's such a small bunch of water now that the bass have put in for a transfer. The USACE is supposed to build another one soon. Seems they forgot to use Scotch Guard or something and ended up with a leaky earthen dam after 4 decades of earth shakes.

Anyway….that’s what’s happening at the ranch. Speaking of which…not much ranch work is getting done. There’s no time to fix stuff until I can get out of this cave and start chasing gophers again. They have remained un-mole-ested for too long and have dug so many tunnels in the front yard that the illegal aliens are using them to sneak into town.

More later when I can get to it.