Always amazed when the journal software manages to deal with the year change. I think I say that every year, someday I'll remember it just works.

I had to go check and yes I've checked to see if it works for 3 years now. Next year... I'm sure I'll check again and find myself look at this text to see if I did. Hello self in 2020.

Scared the crap out of myself with a corruption problem on my encyrpted .dmg file that holds all my data. LIke everthing. Backups were the same as the one I couldn't open, and time machine is totally busted on ALL the macs (the time capstule isn't actually working even though it says it is). So, time to redo all my backup schemes and make sure this scare doesn't go to waste.

Look, I made a gun related purchase in 2019 already, against my "try not to buy anything" plan.... ok, this hardly counts. The castle nut on my main AR came loose and my home made wrench isn't actually that good so I splurged $20 to get the proper tool to do the job. I'm also down to the last few drops of oil from the bottle I've been using for 15-20 years so it was time to get more. I have CLP and it's fine for blasting the bolt in an AR but makes a total mess trying to do pistol stuff.

Last two WiFi cams I've put in the garage have gone funny, they work for weeks/months and then just randomly stop. Then when I pull them down and try them on my desk, they work. No amount of pwer cycling or resettting works in the garage. So odd. So, rather than try #3, I just hard wired in a PoE camera. Done.

I pulled the IC7k out, replaced it with the IC-718. So yea, we went from a high end mobile rig to the "beginner" HF unit that every HAM on the planet starts with. Why? Well, it does PSK31 just fine with the signalink box I already own, I can't really do HF voice much, and Jason (the gay cop, not the local Jason) had interest in my IC7k. Said they're valuable because people want them and Icom doesn't make anything like it anymore. Sounds like a sellers market.

I added a little shelf under my desk to try to help organize some stuff. The sound switcher, headset, phone charging setup was just a freaking mess and always getting tangled. I've moved the mixer under the desk, and in a brilliant move ran the headset cord under the desk instead of on top. Now it won't constantly be in the way and pulling stuff off the desk when I get up and move around. If only they made a bluetooth adapter that could interact with my mixer and everything.... but alas this is the best I can do to simulate hearing aids in my headset with a mic for the phone. I'm already running a big ass external USB mic for the computer for WebEx and the sound quality is good but the mic itself is yet another thing in the way.

I'm going to move my core services back to the mac VMs now that the Mac is serving multiple functions: iMessage server, backup target with an external drive, infrastructure VMs. It's going to be the system I leave on all the time and try to shut down a few random laptops that are drawing lots of power. Our bill is up about 20% this month, might be because I have too many lab systems running doing too many things.

Back from the range and I cleaned the 308 bolt gun, both ARs and the Ruger PC9. Only the 308 was actually fired today but the others were in various (bad) states of clean so I figured it was good to just do them all while I had the stuff out. I ended up using the last of the oil from my cleaning kit that I got at OSU... a little goes a long way. That oil is so old that it was made in the USA and of course has no web site listed.

I moved the web server back to the Mac, and will move the 'core' VM back over in the next few days. Basically I'm returning the Mac to server duties since the time capsule stuff on it seems to work.

I've changed my 17" MBP from using a SMB mount and a .dmg file for backups to using AFP and talking directly to the volume on the remote Mac. Should be more reliable? Can't move that over to a windows box but at this point the mac is staying the home server so I might as well make it the most efficient/reliable setup while I can. If/when the mac craps out I'll have to come up with something else since the woman's newer OSX box won't talk to the SMB share .dmg trickery.

The woman is getting fancy with her ride.

Setup to do some of the Tilley movement drills from Friday's lesson. Damn, you would think with all this trying and practice I would be getting better.

Updated the pond data this morning with all I had. Looking good, or at least interesting.

The update was tricky though because I can't tell what's the master repo for my documents anymore. With all the backups and copies in and out of .dmg files I'm sure I'm going to screw something up. So, I've put the master copy on a share on the central Mac and will just SMB mount it to my work laptop, my every day mac, etc and call that central copy the master. Since it's on a unix-ish machine I can still rsync stuff around which I will do, although I'm going to setup a rolling sync target, write something that keeps 5 or so copies and over-writes them as needed. That way I have 5 chances to catch the corruption before I have to rely on the Mac's backup/restore capability.

On that topic, the Mac server is serving the documents off it's internal SSD, and that is being backed up to the external SATA disk, so even local I should have it twice and in theory backed up locally. Now I just have to solve the problem of how to get it off site encrypted.

The core services and web server VMs are back on the Mac server. They're slower, and this Mac is now the true center of the universe which really worries me, but it will at least let me shut down another system and not have 3 machines running 24/7 trying to keep things up. The security PC is still the backup web server and core server, so that's good redundancy.

I still have the core hypervisor machine running as it's hosting my 'home' system for my lab (which I'll just move over to the lab-hv machine, it's got the CPU to pull it off, and the VNC session I'm currently typing this on. That's easy to move as well.

Taco Bell is hiring! So I guess I've always got options.

Freaky weather yesterday. It's the middle of winter, but it popped up to 68F outside and was not windy or raining. I had to get away from my desk for a while and just chill by the pond.

Working every day like a full day of work is so.... draining.

Pile of radios, trying to figure out what to do with the van setup.

Got some van upgrades in today. Antenna mounted and wired in, radio head mounted and wired in above the package shelf and it's running. Not sure I like it up there but I figured I would give it a try vs. having it on the dash.

Also built this birdhouse camera holder for the next camera mounting project. Tomorrow, if my cable gets here.

Finished the fence camera box setup. I put the old PoE switch into the goat barn and removed the single injector running the cam there and now have 2 devices off the single switch. Four non-PoE ports are also in use (network in, network out to the coop, wifi AP, crappy cam). Lotta networking.

The worst parts of running a camera like that are cleaning up the inevitable mess made by the wet patch when trying to seal the slip joints in the conduit. My wire snake is only 50' long so every 48' feet or so I have to use a 1" ID pipe as a slip joint, and that needs sealing.

I also finished up the van. No new pictures really, it's the same stuff as yesterday it's just now all the wires are neatly run and tied up and whatnot. I also put in a dual USB and single 12v socket power connector; it's been sitting in the box with the inverter forever. Two more things done!

Scared the crap out of myself last night. Walking around the basement in the mostly dark using the thermal scanner looking for the source of the power draw we're still seeing and I turn a corner and see a giant alien dildo! Or, it's just the vacuum cleaner I put there 15 minutes before that was still hot from being run. Doh.

The door sensor in the van has been getting worse, it takes 2-3 times to get it to register that the door is closed and with it confused you can't lock the doors, or the doors unlock and lights come on while you're driving. To fix it, it's not just a simple switch like the olden days, it's integrated into this $450+ part (with the switch at the bottom to ensure it gets maximum dirt intrusion and fails) that you have to pull the door apart and remove the glass to get it installed. Nice design all around, if you're trying to generate parts and labor revenue.

Using the wiring manual I got off eBay, my trusty volt meter and some leftover parts I came up with a 'fix'. The circuit is really weird, it's got +12v going to the circuit when the door is closed. They switch the ground, when the door is open the circuit is open. That's dumb, it's burning power 990f the time since the door is closed most of the time. Just grounding the correct wire in the correct spot and you have a complete circuit all the time, so the door looks closed all the time so you can lock the doors whenever you want. Fuck you, Ford.

Nicely tucked out of the way, but also very obvious if I need to get at it. I did put an 'auto' mode back in there to reconnect the failing switch if I find a situation it's needed in, but I can't think of one. Maybe I'll never use the switch, but it's done now.

Mandatory fun work even last night, probably could have skipped but I got a ride so that took care of me having to deal with driving and parking. The one shining moment of the evening was the beer I picked. It was good.

Another touch to the van, replaced just that simple volt meter with one with a clock and temp sensors. Mostly I wanted the clock, now that the display on the radio is set to turn off after 10 seconds (it's so bright at night) I don't have a clock I can see without touching a control somewhere. This fixes that, and lets me know how cold it is outside just like the rich people's cars do.

Only time will tell if the back light is too bright. It's changeable between blue and red, but the red seems even brighter.

Also playing around with the label on the door switch. Still not quite right.

Went to the gun show yesterday to pick up things, and not really look around. Went alone, spent about 1.5 hours (at most) and got powder (HP38 for 380 and and IMR4895 for 77gr 556), a few 75gr Hornady match .224 bullets and.... 5 white PMAGS. I always (if I remember) buy mags from the same guy it seems, and he's still got white gen3 PMAGS for $10. Some day I'll dye them a fun color. Some day.

I did look around just a little, saw a brand new SU16 for $490... in FDE. And saw a used SU16 in OD Green for.... $800. Damn. So the used one did have $60 in aftermarket parts on it... so yea. But it was green. The FDE sitting on the orange table makes it look like pumpkin spice...

Today Jason and I did the first part of the fix of the roof at the gun club. Not as nice as I had hoped, but as usual nothing is squared up after 30 years so we had to wedge stuff in as best as we could. I forgot to bring short screws for the hurricane ties, so they're just on there temporarily with 3" deck screws sticking through the joist. Tacky, and I'll fix it tomorrow.

After the construction, we shot just a little. I ran some rounds though Don's SKS and my XDs, just to get them some rounds in for the year so they don't show up as 'unused' on my spreadsheet.

Not exactly rocket science, but I set the yearly summary page on the spreadsheet to show me which guns have 0 rounds fired for the year by changing the cell color red via a rule. Seems to work. 2017 isn't part of it because the data is incomplete, but it shows which guns have not been fired which (at the end of the year) should point to things I should get rid of, or at least reconsider why I have them.

Also, another fun chart added. So many ways to slice data.

Fixed those hurricane ties on the repairs on the roof at the gun club. I feel better about this, it's one less thing for them go to WTF? about our repairs. We already had to do some hackery during the project, so making it look like we know how things work when we don't have to be creative is important.

Stuck a pull-up bar in the dirt room. I don't really workout beyond martial arts anymore, can't hurt to throw 5 minutes of work in each day. A few sit-ups, push-ups pull-ups and body weight squats will be easy to work in.

Last night we made the veal schnitzel from the Keller class. The woman prepped everything, I just had to do the coating and she fried it up and served it with potatoes and some brussels sprouts. It wasn't half bad.

This is why you have to be careful when playing head butt games with Taco. His head is really hard, and you only want to push against him with your head, you don't actually want to let him hit you...

For reasons I don't want to go in to, or remember years from now, I got myself into an overpressure situation on the 17 HMR. Blew the head off the case and got it stuck in the bolt face. You can see where it blew out the extractor channel, made a clean notch in the top of the cartridge. Luckily it was just the 17, if this was 308 it would have come apart for sure. The rifle is now shooting lower than before, so either the barrel getting dirty has thrown it off... or I bulged something and it's ruined. It's also not shooting as tight as before. Could be the end of the 17...

Since I shot it, I added a spot for 17HMR on the spreadsheet and put the savage in there. When I updated the yearly / total graph thingies it shifted the colors up. Now 9mm is a funky purple. Kinda like it.

Chickenwire event tonight, this was an outdoor thing where everything was cooked over a fire. Not proper grills, just goals and such. It was kinda like a Top Chef event, you just wandered from station to station and tried everything.

The woman approves of the bread the guy was making for the lamb sausage dish.

Got the ring installed on the Delica, but ended up breaking the head off the pivot screw. Grrr.... stole it off the Endura, but will have to find a replacement.