Family Archives

January 11, 2014

The Rule of Threes

When I told Kid Matt I was running out of storage space on my computer because photos and videos are BIG files, he offered to help me upgrade my old computer. Of course, like any construction project. It is subject to the Rule of Threes: it is going to take three times as much money as was budgeted; it’s going to take three times as long as projected, and it’s going to take at least three trips to the store for every component involved.

The project meant I needed a larger computer case, a different motherboard, a bigger power supply, a new RAID card and some extra drives.

He ordered the case and power supply through Amazon prime and specified the free two-day shipping so we’d get it Friday for a weekend installation.

TWO big boxes arrived

When we got the tracking info, we saw they were promising delivery next week, not Friday. Matt called Amazon to complain, and they said they’d place a new order and give us overnight shipping so we’d get it when we needed it. As it turned out TWO big computer boxes arrived on Friday. The tracking info must have been wrong. The power supply arrived on time from a different vendor.

Matt wanted to go for a bike ride on Saturday, so he asked if we could start playing Friday night instead of doing a Saturday build. Sooner is always better when it comes to new toys, so I assured him Friday night was good.

Looking down inside the new box before most of the stuff went in was looking down on a futuristic city out of a science fiction thriller.

This is only going to take 45 minutes

Matt said building the hardware piece shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes – “45 minutes, tops.” Restoring the programs and data was going to be the long part.

After about an hour, we (meaning him) had enough pieces/parts together that we could fire it up to see if it was going to boot. The fans started spinning and a red LED next to the CPU lit up, then everything went quiet. Time after time after time.

Matt started frogging (swapping) components into different slots, trying different video cards, trying different RAM. No joy.

Three or four hours later into our 45-minute (“tops”) project, he swapped out the brand-new super-duper power supply with one out of an old computer. It worked. The power supply was defective.

The RAID controller won’t work

The magic thing that was going to make more efficient and safer use of my data drives was a new-fangled RAID controller. That sounds like an electronic moat drawbridge to keep invaders out, but Matt assured me that I didn’t have to know what it was or how it worked. I just needed to know that I was going to see my internal storage space effectively double, from four drives and 3 terabytes to six drives and six terabytes of mirrored stuff. He did some kind of crazy math thing where he said that four times two terabytes equals six terabytes of usable storage, but my eyes glazed over like they did in Grace Williams’ math class, and I just nodded from time to time like I understood what he was saying.

Magic wands and ritual sacrifices

The only problem was the computer didn’t recognize the RAID card, no matter how may times he waved a magic wand at it. He was muttering something about ritual sacrifices when I headed him off before he saw the grilled chicken I was planning to snack on.

He actually pulled out the docs at one point, that’s how desperate he was. Finally, at 4:30 a.m., I jerked awake and realized that I had fallen asleep with my chin on my chest. It was time for a nap.

When I got up at 5:30 a.m., he was gone. He figured out that he wasn’t much more awake than I was, so he left for home at 4:45 a.m..

More fans than Elvis

We (he) took another crack at it late this afternoon. He took an approach that was going to take longer than the quick fix we had tried last night, but it was going to be better in the long run. It will be doing some software gyrations tonight while we sleep, then we’ll finish it up in about 30 minutes (“45, tops”) Sunday.

Let me tell you, this new box has more fans that Elvis Presley and is twice as cool. To assure you that they are running, they are lit with purplish LEDs that are supposed to comfort the inner geek.

Thanks to Wife Lila for documenting the event. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Thanks to you readers for using the big Click Here button when you shop Amazon. That helped pay for some of the new equipment.

December 28, 2013September 15, 2021

Old Maid

Chapter 24 of Jo Ann Bock’s book, Around the Town of Cape Girardeau in Eighty Years is entitled Games, Games, and More Games.

“Even before those Monopoly-dominated years of the 1940s, I spent my earliest years playing card games like Old Maid, (today the game would be politically incorrect, giving way to an updated title such as Career Girl or Miss Independence),” she wrote.

A trip to the sock drawer

That reminded me that I had a bunch of old playing cards in the back of my sock drawer. My sock drawer is the repository for miscellaneous old heirlooms that don’t fit any other place. There is plenty of room because this is Florida where socks aren’t a big priority.

I showed the cards to Wife Lila: “Do you know what card game these are for?”

“Old Maid, [dummy].” The “dummy” part was unstated, but clearly implied. “They came in pairs except for the Old Maid. The person holding the Old Maid was the loser.”

Not much of a card player

I never was much of a game player. I dismiss board games as bored games and nearly got drummed out of the newspaper business when it became known that I never learned how to play poker.

Dad and I spent many an hour in the basement playing gin rummy and canasta, but I think it was mostly so he could win back my allowance. I might be able to pick up gin rummy again, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten all the arcane rules of canasta.

Around the Town

Where’s the Old Maid, you ask? She either dried up and blew away or she ran off with one of the odd socks that’s missing from my sock drawer.

December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve 2013

We started a tradition of migrating to Son Matt’s on Christmas Eve for Chinese takeout food several years ago. Wife Lila, Sarah and Malcolm and I stuffed ourselves, then gorged on cookies until we could barely move.

Matt and Company had an even more unconventional “tree” than usual this year. It was made out of bicycle wheels. Next year, he says, he’ll scout around to find wheels of different diameters so the tree will have more of a conical shape.

By the way, Wife Lila did a really nice job of documenting the ornaments we’ve collected since our first Christmas in 1969. I wish I had thought of it.

Malcolm was happy

Looks like we picked the right gift for Grandson Malcolm, a Razor Spark 2.0 kick scooter.

They weren’t kidding about “Spark”

Here’s a photo gallery of Malcolm taking it out for a test drive. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery of sparks.

Y’all have a Merry Christmas and a Safe New Year. Thanks for your comments and your support.

December 2, 2013December 2, 2013

Back (Florida) Home Again

I made it back to West Palm Beach Saturday night, November 30, after leaving town on October 12. In that time, as I wrote last night, I drove 6,393.8 miles through Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and several side trips through the State of Confusion. I had Friend Shari as a road companion from Florida to Missouri, celebrated Mother’s Birthday season with Wife Lila, and Brother Mark and his Fiance Robin.

After that, I headed out to Athens, Ohio, to do a presentation on the birth of the student rights movement with former OU Post colleague Carol Towarnicky. Athens Historical Society Curator Jessica, who just had to see with her own eyes if Missouri in any way came close to my stories, followed me back to Cape. After roaming around in SEMO for a couple of weeks, I made a pass back through Ohio, where I got snowed in.

I slept in Sunday, unpacked the van, had some belated (and very good) turkey leftovers, then headed out with Wife Lila to see the grandkids.

Grandson Elliot, loves hearing weird sounds, something that we Steinhoffs are very good at providing.

A flower for Gran

Grandson Graham picked up a flower off the ground in his backyard and insisted that Gran put it behind her ear. The kid is going to be a lady killer, I can tell.

When I told him that his grandmother had told me that he had grown a foot while I was gone, he held his legs out to prove that he still only had two.

It might be a caulking gun to YOU

Don’t let appearances deceive you. What looks like an ordinary caulking gun turns into a laser blaster in the hands of a 2-1/2-year-old. He also has a magic wand that turns his grandmother into a chicken. You will NOT see a video of that. I have no desire to be smothered in my sleep.

Malcolm concentrating

I bought these rainbow-hued twirly things in St. Louis on my last trip. I gave one to both West Palm Beach boys and one to Mother. A windstorm took Grandon Malcolm’s out, so I brought him a new one. Here he is assembling it. He’s a serious computer geek and reader. He can also feed you the last half of Groucho’s line: “A book is your best friend outside of a dog.” [Malcolm:] “because inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

Your cute is leaking away

Here he is with the finished product. While I was shooting it, I warned him, “Sorry, kid, your cute is leaking away. You’re going to look like a teenager soon.”