Dale Miller

Answer: Awake, alert, and attentive.

Question: What are three words beginning with A that do not describe Dale this week?

I have just dragged through the past several days. I haven’t felt bad enough to actually be considered sick, but I haven’t felt good enough to do much of anything useful. I’ve mostly done enough at the office to consider it worth the drive, but barely more than that. I’m hoping that the weekend will revive me a bit.

I have a pool, and I’m tired. The pool installers arrived yesterday afternoon, and spent several hours setting it up. I wasn’t able to fit it where I really wanted it (as I had guessed), so it’s at the back of the deck. While the installer was leveling the ground, I was removing the railing from the back of the deck. It turned out that he had to cut away so much to level it (a 15″ difference from one side to the other) that the pool top rail is several inches below the deck and about two feet out. That’s not quite what I had in mind, but it’s livable. Water started flowing in at around 7:00 p.m. yesterday, and I turned it off about 8:00 tonight. I spent today hooking up the heater, assembling the ladder, assembling the steps, modifying the deck to allow me to *get* to the steps, installing electrical outlets, etc. I was able to try out the pool today, even though the water was 75°. Another day or so of 80°+ weather should fix that problem nicely. The only thing left that needs to be done is clean up the rocks. They are all around the pool where the workmen tossed them when trying to level and smooth the base. Oh, photos will be available on Flickr soon.

The last week in May I went and spent too much money on an above ground pool. The installation was “as soon as possible, maybe the week of the 9th.” In anticipation of having the pool in, I went ahead and scheduled a party for the 21st (if you haven’t received an invitation and want to come, let me know). Finally, yesterday I took a call telling me that they would be out today. I didn’t have a time, just “today”. I was told that it would be about a five-hour installation, and given the temperature recently, I expected them shortly after sunrise. It’s now 11:20 and I still haven’t seen anything of them. I’m fretting at this point. I am never fond of waiting on service people, and particularly when I’m as eager as I am to have this done. If a couple more hours pass without some notice, I’m going to be quite unhappy.

At the conclusion of my RedHat course, I took the test to become an RHCT (Red Hat Certified Technician). It’s the lowest of the certifications that RedHat offers, but it’s a start. Although I have worked in computers for 30 years now, I’ve never had any certifications, and I’ve had very few training classes. Most of what I know is self-taught. The advantage to that is that I’ve learned things by actually doing them, rather than in a classroom. The disadvantage is that my knowledge is spotty in some areas. If I’ve never need to use something, odds are that I don’t know much about it. Formal training at least makes me touch several utilities that I might otherwise have avoided. Sometimes that means that I find something that will be useful to me in the future.

Oh, I made 100% on the exam. That made me feel fairly good.

I was worried about my house and kitties while I was gone, but Jack graciously volunteered to check on them for me. Having a report that things were okay helped my peace of mind. I returned home to find one cat (Oscar, of course) that was willing to stick around while Jack was here. During the course of the evening the other three wandered in and demanded loving. That made me feel good. I missed the kitties.

This morning I had plans to get out and mow the yard, both near the house and out by the street. I walked out to the shed to discover that someone had tried to get in again! They apparently took the screws out of one hinge, and when they were unsuccessful removing them from another they resorted to brute force, breaking a board and bending the other hinge. I don’t know if they were successful in climbing in under the door or if they gave up.

I fixed the hinge and pulled out the lawn mower and trimmer and went to fill them with gasoline. It was then I discovered the other thing missing that I hadn’t noticed before — my three 5-gallon gas cans (one with 2-cycle oil mixed in, two without). Since I didn’t really feel like driving into town today just to mow the yard, I went out to the street and cut grass until I ran out of gasoline. It’s not what I had hoped for, but it looks better than when I started.

I’m not sure what to do about the storage shed. There’s not much that’s both portable and valuable, but I don’t like having people steal things from me. It just ruins my day.

I’m in Austin, Texas this week at a RedHat training class. Nothing terribly exciting, and I’ve seen much of the information before. However, it doesn’t hurt to have it presented in a logical manner rather than the haphazard way I learned it.

I haven’t done much of anything here other than go to class and back to the motel. I’m not sure why. I usually want to get out and see new things when I’m away from home, but so far this week going back to the room and reading seemed more interesting.

One observation from my trip down here: it appears people don’t like self-service. When I entered the Little Rock airport to check my suitcase, there were a dozen or so people in the Southwest line, and two empty terminals. I checked myself in and was on my way to the gate before the line had dropped by two. Upon arrival in Austin, the same thing happened at Alamo car rentals. When it’s easier and faster to use a terminal, why would I want to stand in line?