Dale Miller

I’m done with RiverFest for the year. I went into town in between the rain showers and headed down to the park. I broke down the local network and two of the four remotes. I left the other two for Jack. By the time I left it was raining fairly heavily. I was rather wet by the time I returned to the car. Not one of the most enjoyable evenings I have had, but I now have my DSL modem back at home.

I woke up this morning feeling lousy. I pretty much became a couch potato for the first half of the (rainy) day and finished up Babylon 5. Season 5 was good, but not quite up the rest of the series (at least in my opinion). I took a shower and got ready for RiverFest, but just didn’t feel like going. A nice 3-hour nap followed by a BC powder seemed to help a bit, so I’m now down by the river hoping it doesn’t rain any more today. I’m not sure what time we’re going to start breaking things down, but it shouldn’t take too long. Hopefully we will be done by the time the fireworks are over, or shortly after. It really doesn’t do any good to try to leave right after the fireworks, since every road out of downtown will be packed. I wasn’t particularly psyched about coming back today, but I want my DSL modem back. I’m too much of an Internet junkie to sit around the house without a connection.

I was thinking of heading up U.S. 65 tomorrow for some benchmark hunting, but rain is predicted again. I’ll just have to wait and see what the morning brings. I should stay home and mow the yard, but I just don’t want to. Some of the weeds are up to around 3 feet at this point. If I let it go very long my mower won’t be able to handle it — actually it might have a problem at the moment.

It’s 11:00 on Saturday night. I came home after RiverFest and decided to watch some more Babylon 5 episodes. I now have 4 remaining to finish the series. I have snacked too much today — ice cream during the day, and Cheetos tonight. I persist in doing things that aren’t good for me. “It seemed like a good idea at the time” doesn’t really excuse what I do to myself. Anytime I begin to become depressed, I proceed to eat too much, spend too much, or do something else which causes me to become even more depressed.

I really need to learn to enjoy myself. Teri seemed incredulous that I was sitting at RiverFest reading a book. I suppose it’s because reading is something I can do by myself, and it helps me escape the world. I read mostly science fiction, fantasy, and romance. The SF&F help me think there is hope for mankind, and the romance help me think there could be hope for me.

Some time back I was told by several people that I was the only person they had ever seen who brought a book to a nightclub. In both cases it’s a means to keep myself from becoming too sad. Left to my own devices I will hover on the edge of the crowd and never talk to anyone. Reading a book is no better from a socail standpoint, but it takes my mind off the situation. So why did I even go to a nightclub? Because it’s supposed to be a place to “meet women”. It seems to work for many people, but I’m not one of them. I’ve gone a number of times, each time telling myself that “this time I’ll talk to women — this time I won’t just watch”. It hasn’t happened yet, but I hold onto the dream.

Since my DSL modem is downtown, I don’t have a nice Internet connection at home. I have to dial up to have any at all. This is particularly annoying since all the service providers are long-distance calls.

I’m going to head for bed now. Tomorrow will be a long day, since all the equipment will need to be packed up after the fireworks show.

Ah yes, RiverFest. Lots of people, overpriced high-fat foods, musical performers that I mostly don’t know, and wireless access. :) I am reminded of the main reason I like coming here — lots of attractive females in minimal clothing, and the reason I dislike coming here — none of those women will be leaving with me. Almost everyone comes here with family or friends, and I once again feel like I’m on the outside looking in. This is just the sort of venue to feed my depression. I’ve not been doing well the last couple of weeks in any case. Since the network is working, I should just head back home and try to ignore the rest of the world for while. Now that I’m here, though, I’m going to at least make an attempt to enjoy myself.

On the plus side, I met the elusive sunfell earlier. It’s always nice to put a face and voice to an LJer.

It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for your attitude. I hit the bed last night around 9:00, work up twice briefly, and finally got up this morning about 9:00. 12 house in bed and at least 10 asleep. I needed that.

RiverFest again today. All of the WAPs survived the rain shower, and that’s a very good thing. It’s also somewhat surprising, since they aren’t designed for outdoor use. Apparently Cisco builds well. :)

Sitting on a bench in Riverfront Park, 6 minutes before RiverFest opens, in the rain, typing on a computer. I really do need to find something better to do with my time.

Okay, I feel like a first-class idiot now. I didn’t actually go and check the RiverFest schedule for today. I just *assumed* that it started this morning, since I knew that the TV people would be doing spots from here early today. As it is, I was down here at 6:00 making sure everything was working when the event doesn’t even open until 5:00 PM. That was rather stupid of me. Now I have the entire day to wait and be sleepy. I could have slept in, spent all afternoon tweaking, and enjoyed the evening. Now I’m basically stuck. If I go back home I won’t want to get back out, and if I stay here I’ll be useless by 5:00. Grrrrr…

I’m seriously tired. I have spent the day (since 10:00 this morning) down at Riverfront park setting up wireless for RiverFest. Does RiverFest really need wireless? Of course not. But UALR has a booth showing off technology, and it seemed the thing to do. We now have 6 access points operational, and David and Jack have gone to North Little Rock to set up one on that side of the River. I have learned about WDS and how to make Cisco 1200s function using it. I also now know how to mount WAPs on the top of 20-foot masts, how to string cat5 wire through trees, and how to reach high on light poles by standing on garbage cans.

Actually the wireless portion of the whole thing has gone well. The killer was the ADSL line from SBC. I was obviously spoiled by my Alltel connection. SBC is evil. They make you install their SBC-Yahoo garbage just to get a username. Of course neither Jack nor I brought a CD drive with us. Jack went home and got one and managed to get past that hurdle. Then we discovered that the Speedstream they sent us is seriously brain-damaged. It will only give out ONE address, regardless of how machines ask. So, Jack went home again and picked up his DSL modem and an Apple snow WAP. We finally managed to get good DHCP and everything started working properly.

Actually — almost. I have one WAP at the east end of the park that has intermittent connectivity problems. I think I need to give it and the one that feed it fixed channels and that might take care of the problem. I suspect that everything is channel-hopping, and getting confused.

Tomorrow is going to be ridiculous. I have to go home, do laundry, and be back here at 6:00 AM. That means getting up around 4:30. Fun, fun.

On the other hand, I’ll be able to post from RiverFest. That could be interesting.

http://robotfindskitten.net — because I can.

I’m officially tired. I had a long day at work, then tired myself even more. On my way home I stopped at U-Haul to buy boxes and then went over to Susan’s house to pack up the rest of my paperbacks. A U-Haul small box =~ 95 books =~ 40 pounds. I packed up 11 boxes, carried them downstairs and through the house to her garage. Then I loaded 8 boxes in my car, came home and unloaded them. My hands are hurting now. I haven’t had trouble with carpal tunnel syndrome recently, but I certainly overdid it today. At least I only have one more trip to get the rest of the books up here.

I was even more amused with Clown Posse when I checked back this evening to see if anyone else had commented. The administrator has apparently blocked my IP address from accessing their site. Naturally, that didn’t slow me down much. No more comments, so I guess I’m boring now.