Bikerscum - Patrick St. Jean

Well, I made a stupid programming mistake and messed up a monitoring script such that it was reporting that the drives were OK when they in fact weren't. Between that and some flakiness that I've localized to the motherboard/power supply, and needing to upgrade the O/S, I'm putting a new machine together. It'll be based off of an Athlon 64 X2 and will have a little more RAM than the old one did. As a side benefit it looks like the processor supports virtualization so I'm going to build a few VMWare virtual machines to play around with. Look for an outage later on this week while I build and move data.

The paper pots have been made, filled with dirt, and the delicate plants which need to be seeded indoors for early planting have been seeded. Now it's just a waiting game to see which seeds come up and which don't. I've put a few extras in the pots just in case, so we'll see...

The last of the dirt is now in the frame and now I'm hoping for some rain so that the dirt will settle in a little. It's pretty fluffy right now, and I'd like to get it a little more compacted before planting. The good news is that there's still a few more weeks of waiting before we're out of the woods as far as freezes go. As I recall, north Texas last freeze date is something like March 18.

Living Earth came by this morning and dropped off four yards of soil and a yard of mulch. I've started moving it from the driveway to the garden, and have gotten about two thirds of it moved. Doing this has really made me appreciate my desk job!

I've also added some more pictures to the album.

I finally got around to exporting the pictures that I took while building the garden from Aperture into my Gallery installation. If you're interested, here's the link. It'll be updated with more photos as more stuff, like the dirt and the frames for the climbing plants, get added.

I got home from work to find the new feeder on my front step. It's definitely bigger than my old one was, and looks to be a lot sturdier. I ordered the medium sized one because, even though they're on diet/light food, two Maine Coons eat a bit more than a pair of average sized cats would. The medium sized one comes with a whip to stir the food as it's dispensing as well, which was a nice feature.

Now on to the details. Unlike the last one, this one dispenses using an auger so there are less things to go wrong. The downside to that method is that you've got to figure out how long to run the auger for in order to dispense the amount you want. The estimate in the manual was just a little bit off, and with two trial runs I got it down to the correct amount of time. The timer on this one is pretty full featured. You can set up to eight dispenses per day, dispensing different amounts of food for each one of them. That alone makes this thing worth the money.

So if you're looking for a pet food dispenser that's a little better than what I've seen in the pet stores, head on over to AutoPetFeeder.com and see what they've got to offer. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I got the dirt for the garden ordered from the nice folks over at Living Earth. I've got four yards of their Specialty Planting Mix coming over on Friday. It's going to be a busy weekend shifting all that soil in to the garden frame, but with the planting season just around the corner, it's got to get done.

I've been enjoying the CZ-85B that I picked up late last year, but the Wolf ammo that I've been using has become suspect. I've had persistent misfeeds with it. Nothing that simply pulling back on the slide wouldn't cure, but still. So that brings me to the point of today's post. I've got before me three 9mm cartridges, one each from Wolf, Winchester, and Remington. Using my trusty digital calipers, here are the dimensions of each one:

It looks like the Wolf's a little outsized versus the other two so I'm going to run a bunch of rounds of each of them through and see if my feed issues go away.

Well, it's been acting a little funny for the last few months and just gave up the ghost. It looks like the stepper motor has shorted out internally, and that means there's really no way to resurrect it.

I placed an order on AutoPetFeeder.com today for one of their medium sized feeders. I bought the refurb instead of new because of the cost, and hopefully it'll work out. At least if I have problems with a component I can replace it since they're all modular. More info when it arrives...

Alex and Mike came over today to help me pick up parts and get the irrigation system put together. I can't take any credit for the design, it was Alex's idea, but it looks like it'll do a good job of keeping the roots moist. Basically, it's a kind of french drain. We used some two inch PVC pipe to create a loop that has small holes drilled in the underside to trickle moisture in to the soil without having most of it evaporate from sitting on the surface. There is a five foot tall standpipe on one side that will be used to fill the system and act as a reservoir. Right now, with nothing around the pipes it won't fill up, but we're expecting that with some dirt around it the flow will be a little slower and we'll get the reservoir effect we're looking for.

I finished my state mandated CHL training class today, down at DFW Gun Range. It was both enjoyable and informative. Between the ten hours of classroom instruction and the range qualification, it was a full day's adventure. Now I've got to get the packet put together and sent off to the state for processing.

One more trip to Home Depot down and I've got the rest of the bolts that I didn't have and have gotten the rest of the frame assembly completed. It had to be moved so that it didn't lay at an angle because, apparently, my back yard has a slope. Now that it's done, I've got an irrigation system to build and dirt to order.

The boards are dry and the assembly went pretty well, up until the point where I ran out of bolts because I miscounted. The frame is completely together, but there are some places where I'm going to have to put more bolts in. It only took three trips to Home Depot to pick up parts and tools that I either forgot or didn't have. As for the missing bolts, that'll be the fourth trip. I'll pick them up on the way home from church tomorrow.

I got the remaining sides of the boards stained today so they should be dry by the time I start putting them together tomorrow. The weather's holding so we'll see...

I set up all of the boards for the raised bed garden in the garage and put down the stain/waterproofing on as much bare wood as I could reach. They'll dry overnight and I'll flip/move them tomorrow and finish them off. After that, they'll be waiting to be put together this weekend. Once they're in place and happy I'll be able to get the soil ordered, which is good because the first batch of seeds has arrived and the North Texas spring isn't that far away...

I had a few friends over to watch the Super Bowl, and even though the Pats lost, it was still a good evening. Good friends, buffalo burgers, homebrew, and some good scotch makes for a great way to spend an evening.

The raised bed garden has been started. Mike and I went up to Home Depot today to pick up the building supplies for it. Here's the shopping list.

• 7 10"x12"x10' boards
• 12 L-straps
• 8 straight straps
• 12 pieces of rebar
• Screws to fasten the straps to the boards
• Also pick up some waterproofing stain and brushes

The basic plan is to cut one of the boards in half, using those as the narrow sides of the garden. It will end up being 5'x20' but there will be a lane down the middle so that it's easy to walk down, no hard reaching in from the sides to the middle. The rebar is to be pounded into the ground to secure all of the joints so that they won't buckle with the weight of the soil.

I got the call I was waiting for this morning, the dealer letting me know that the Jeep was ready. I got a lift over there and picked it up. Turns out that they replaced all 12 lifters, reground the valves, and installed new valve seals. It's running well now, no ticking noises to be heard. The only bummer is that they washed it. I'd worked for years to get that patina on the finish and now it's all nice and shiny, with a coat of wax even! It is good to have it back, clean and shiny or not.