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October 20, 2002 - 3:45pm - This is my first update to my website in almost 7 months, and many things have changed. The last
post was when my grandfather died earlier this year, and that event has changed many aspects of life for the family. But all and all, things have
finally started to get back to norm. Outside of the family, I've started pursuing Linux more then ever before. I've been using Linux at home off and on for many years and switched exclusively to Linux several months ago without looking back. Other then some games I liked to play under Windows, Linux does everything I need and more. Some say Linux won't support their hardware, but if anything, it's easier to get hardware working under Linux. My digital camera, webcam, dual head video card, network card, video capture card, and flatbed scanner all work without needing downloaded drivers or applications. Also, Linux gives a much fuller Internet experience with a great interface. I couldn't ask for a better OS to use. Also, the Linux User Group has started taking off, which is great. We're finally getting a Linux presence in Waco. Check out our website - http://www.hotlug.com - which is hosted on a Linux box we installed at a LUG meeting. Well, that's it for now. I know no one reads this site, but for those that accidently run across it, I'll try to keep things updated more. Later. |
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March 26, 2002 - 6:21am - It's been almost 2 weeks since my grandfather died, and things are still rough. We're converting the garage at my grandparents house into a room so my sister, brother-in-law, and kids can move in. It's still hard to believe that he's no longer here, but I'd rather be going through what we're going through now and have known him then never to have known him at all. I never knew my other grandfather, so I'm glad I got to know at least one. Well, off to work. |
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March 16, 2002 - 3:25pm - I just got back from the funeral. It was a great service with all the family and many friends, plus the preacher, Nathan Stone, was wonderful. Here's a quick link to his obituary. |
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March 15, 2002 - 10:39pm - I haven't posted anything in quite some time, but with the events of the last week, I really need to vent some place. Yesterday I had to face something I never expected to, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. My grandfather, who we call Caca (my sister was trying to say Papa, and that's what stuck), died yesterday around 3:00pm of bone cancer. It was a very sudden death which we were not expecting. He went on kidney dialysis about 8 months ago with no apparent reason for the kidney shutdown. He was doing great until probably 3 weeks ago when he started getting sharp pains in his back. He'd already broken a rib while coughing, so the doctors admitted him after a dialysis treatment. After over a week in the hospital, an MRI showed cancerous tumors all over his spine, and they were affraid it had spread throughout his body, which is what had happened. It had metastasized to a state to where they couldn't do anything but give him chemo for the pain. Our options were to continue chemo and dialysis or go on Hospice and quit dialysis, which we were told meant death in a week or two. His condition went down hill very fast. I saw him Monday afternoon, and he was walking with some help. Wednesday morning he couldn't walk, but could talk fine. Wednesday afternoon I stopped by and he could hardly talk. Thursday (yesterday), he was virtually non-responsive. My grandmother decided to take him off dialysis and have Hospice give him whatever they could to make him comfortable. He passed away yesterday afternoon surrounded by family and friends. He was pieceful and free of pain, which is what we wanted. We each had our chance to go in one at a time and say our goodbyes, which was literally the most painful thing I've ever done. He was awake and could hear us, but he couldn't respond. We had a closed casket viewing this evening and will have the funeral in Waco tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 11am. He's being buried in Cedar Bayou (Baytown, Texas) Monday at 2pm, so we're driving up there either Sunday night or Monday morning. Caca left behind both of his parents, yes they're still alive and live a great life in Silsbee, Texas, two brothers, Robbie and Herbert, one sister, Kelly, one daughter, Donna (my mom), three grandkids, Robin, David, and me, and two great-grandkids, Hunter and Caroline. Since I'm a web programmer by profession and hobby, the best tribute I can think of is a website dedicated to my grandfather. With the wealth of knowledge we've gained over the years, I'm sure it'll grow into an extensive geneological site on the Muckleroy family, which is why I registered muckleroyfamily.com (muckleroy.com, net, and org were taken). I know I won't sleep much tonight, so I'll start on it now. It can be reached at http://www.muckleroyfamily.com. If you're part of this family or know of any Muckleroys, have them visit here and put in their word. There's not much here yet, and I'll be moving it to its own server soon, but until then, here it is. |
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January 11, 2002 - 12:00am - Another day gone by... Flip and I spent the evening putting up a 120" antenna outside my window to hopefully pick-up UPN-21 and WB-33 from Dallas. After searching all over town for the right mounting brackets and getting the stupid thing up, it was after 10:30pm. And alas, the stupid thing doesn't pick up much better then my loop UHF antenna. I even got one of those signal boosters. My project for this weekend will be to bump it up from 15 feet to 25 feet with guy wires to the roof. I just hope my landlord doesn't get pissed with all this stuff going up. Either way, I'm already about $150 in the hole after taking back the parts I didn't use. I'll keep posts on how this turns out. Later... |
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January 10, 2002 - Well, it's over a week into the new year.. can't believe it's already 2002. Anyway, the camera is back up. I had it down due to a flakey system, but it's back up. Another bummer is KAKW-62, the local WB/UPN network, has switched to Univision, a Spanish network. Both local cable providers already have this network, so what's the point? Anyway, some friends and I contacted all the local cable providers and I posted messages on the newsgroups. The local paper got wind of this and interviewed us for a front page article. I have heard back from both cable providers and Road Runner is attempting to find other sources for UPN and WB, but Clearsource is not. I'm in the process of getting an outside antenna setup. |
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December 29, 2001 - Just checked Google and my site is finally showing up there and in Yahoo. It only took three weeks to get posted... not too bad. I also checked my logs and found several hits from Google with people searching for me. That's kind of cool. |
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December 24, 2001 - Well, it's Christmas Eve at 11:25pm and yes, I'm editing my website at home alone. Just left my dad's house where we had a wonderful evening with family and friends. I hope everyone out there has a great Christmas and safe New Years. I wonder what 2002 will bring and what new technologies will be around this time next year. Who knows, the standard PC might be a 4 GHz system with 2 Gigs of Ram and 100 Gigs of HD. Remember when instead of Giga, it was Mega? |
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December 15, 2001 - Ever wonder what the Internet was like in its hay day? Ever heard of or used Tymnet or Telenet (no, not Telnet, but Telenet)? If not, then check out my new section called Text Library. This section contains text files I've collected over the years, many of which are on networking in the 1980's written in the 1980's. For network admins, these are great. Can you imagine paying $15,000 a year for 500Kbps? Hell, my cable modem at $39/month is three times faster then that. But that's what they paid in the early ninties and late eighties for bandwidth. If you want to learn more... check this new section out. |
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December 8, 2001 - I've added many new items to the site this weekend. The first thing I've added is a Webcam - "The Sam Cam". Yes, his is a peak into the life of a total nerd who spends an average of 10-12 hours being bombarded by radiation and getting a monitor tan. I've also finally added a counter to the bottem of each page. It's written in PHP and set to not bump up with ever refresh from the same IP. So hit that F5 all you want... it won't be fooled :). Finally, I've got my Linux box reloaded. I was getting an error when starting xfs on my linux box with X Server. I did find a solution, but only after I attempted to reinstall the xfs RPM's and hosed KDE. Instead of trying to totally uninstall and reinstall X, I just did a reinstall of the OS. I also helped Tod get Linux RH 7.2 loaded on his PC. It's a 200, but SCREAMS!!! |
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December 3, 2001 - Welcome to my site. For the most part, I'm a plain guy who enjoys computers, science fiction, books, and caffeine. Yes, I live on Jolt and Penguine Mints, but hey... everyone needs something. Anyway, enjoy what I've got and email if you want. |
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