Raam Dev

Hello, future.

53 Ware Street Eviction Evidence

This morning I met with the Lowell building inspector, Mr. St. Hiliare. He emphasized that I have a huge problem to deal with and explained what happened at the property. As I mentioned in my previous post, I explained to him that I was only aware of one incident involving the police. He explained that the Massachusetts law says that he can throw me in jail for a year, vacate the 53 Ware St property, place all the tenants in a hotel for 1 year and make me pay the bill. He also said there is "no way in fucking hell" he is going to put a landlord in jail and a drug dealer in a hotel. So he said as long as I'm willing to work with him, he's willing to work with me. He provided me with evidence to use in court to evict the tenant, George Alicea. First he gave me a news paper clipping to read: Police: Stepmom slashed woman on face in fight. Then he gave me the police report:

As if that wasn’t enough, he also gave me a list of each of the times the police were called to the property since December 2005:

So I called Larry Hickey today and asked if he could serve the 48 hour notice for me. When I told him the street address and the tenant’s name, he said he wasn’t surprised and that he’d dealt with that tenant many times. He went over there today and served the 48 hour notice. Hopefully the tenant will move out and I won’t have to go through the whole court process.

Google Error

Yesterday, a lot of Comcast users experienced a DNS outage, or at least that's what they are calling it. Most were unable to access Google, and those that could access Google were unable to submit searches. There has even been speculation that Google was hacked. As of last night and this morning, however, Google seems fine; or does it?

When I got to the office today, I typed www.google.com and saw this:

About a minute later it was working again. What's up Google? Feeling the strain of a billion searches a day?

Second eviction in the works

I received a call from the Lowell building inspector, Mr. St. Hilaire. He told me the tenant living in one of my properties, located at 53 Ware St, has been dealing drugs and has constant traffic coming in and out of the building and that there has also been a stabbing, several fights, and numerous arrests. Mr. St. Hilaire also said he has photos of the drug paraphernalia taken inside the property. He said that because I'm the landlord, it's considered "allowing criminal activity on your property" if I don't evict him within 48 hours and that I can face a $1,000 fine or 1 year in jail. He explained that he obviously doesn't want to put a landlord in jail and that he will work with me to have the tenant evicted.

I explained to him that I was only aware of one incident with the police at 53 Ware St and that I was at work when it happen. After work, I called the Lowell Police department to find out what happen and no one knew anything about it. So I left my phone number with them and asked that they call me as soon as they find out what it was about. I never received a call back. I told him that I have absolutely no problem evicting the tenant, and that I will stop by the apartment tonight after work.

On my way home from work, I stopped at 53 Ware St and told George (incidentally, he has the same name as the George who was just evicted from my other property on Cumberland Rd a few days ago) that he has 48 hours to leave. I explained that it's out of my control and that the city wants him out of there immediately. He said a 48 hour eviction was illegal and I told him that it's not illegal if there has been criminal activity on the property and if there is a police report to prove it (which there is). He said he will go to the town hall tomorrow morning and talk to them. Yea, sure you will George.

I have a meeting tomorrow morning with Mr. St. Hilaire. Check back for updates on this developing situation.

That property already has two vacant units, which is costing me $1400 a month in rents. I'll admit that I haven't been doing everything in my power to get them rented and I won't even bother you with an excuse (though I can think of many). As soon as this eviction is through, I'm going to place an AD in the paper and start interviewing people. The biggest problem is the time constraint with interviewi... wait, I said no excuses.

This morning I met with Steve Stairs, the same contractor that worked on the two, currently vacant, units on 53 Ware St. He's going to take care of repairing the Cumberland Rd unit. I really want to replace the old cast iron drain pipes that drain the second floor unit. They leak every once in awhile in the basement, and I can tell they are badly in need of replacement. Now is a good time to replace them with PVC pipes because I can tear apart the wall under the kitchen counter in the first floor to gain access to them. If I decide to do it, I'll do it myself. It's way too costly to pay someone to glue a few pipes together. I could easily do it in an afternoon, on the weekend.

The Nine Month Eviction

After 9 months, George Demasse has finally been evicted. He owes me over $15,000, of which I have been told by both lawyers and the sheriff that I should forget about ever seeing again. If George has nothing of value, and no money in his bank accounts (I don't think he even has a bank account), there is no way for me to get the money back. I already spent $1800 to have him evicted, so I'd rather cut my losses and get the placed fixed up and rented.

The sheriff, Lawrence Hickey, was very helpful. After a couple days of pestering and yelling at George, he finally forced him to move all his stuff into the yard. Being the pathological liar George is, he kept telling Larry that a truck was coming to pick up all his stuff. Larry didn't care and told him to move all his stuff out of the house and into the driveway. He then locked and posted notices on the doors. Larry told me that every time he went into George's place, him and all his friends were so high on coke that they couldn't even walk straight; some of them were even passed out. He called them "hardcore drug users".

When I came home that evening from work, George was outside alone in the rain under a tree, watching to make sure no one stole his big pile of junk, which he had covered with a plastic tarp in attempt to keep out of the rain. The following day, he and the rest of his goons attempted to start the junk car that has been sitting in the driveway for over a year. I heard George saying "we'll be on the road in no time". The following day, the car was still there and him and his pile of junk were gone.

Now comes the task of cleaning out and repairing the apartment. All the trash in the picture below was in the yard and hallway:

You can see additional pictures of the yard, and inside the unit here.

The Uneducated Computer User

Viruses and worms are HEALTHY for the world. Sure, the nasty ones are bad, but if there were no viruses the world would be less immune. I enjoy seeing popular programs becoming effected on a large scale because it forces the creators of those programs to take responsibility for the security hole that made them possible. It also means (usually) that programs will be fixed and become stronger (more immune) than they previously were.

The majority of the time, the problem can be avoided by simple user education and prevention. Most computer users are not educated and they don't care to become educated. There will inevitably be those users who will click a link in an email no matter how suspicious it looks, or freely provide any password to whomever calls themselves "tech support".

The key to better, safer computing is as simple as good user education. Fear can be a powerful tool. I like to use a bit of scare tactics when teaching users, warning them that if they don't do step A every time, they are likely to catch a virus, lose all their data, and ruin their computer, or in the case of an office, their entire company. Telling users a quick social engineering story about how someone can "pretend" to be someone they are not also helps. It opens their mind a little so they are less trusting to people asking for information related to the computer. Most people simply don't look at things from the "other" angle.

Installing anti-virus software helps to both make the user feel more secure and helps remind them viruses exist out there. Spyware is another one of those things that can be avoided 90% of the time by simple user intervention. I don't have any spyware on my computers. Why? Not because I run tools to remove spyware every few days, but because I know what things not to download. I rarely click ad's I see online, never touch programs advertised as "FREE", and probably most importantly, I use Firefox exclusively on all my computers.

If there is one thing you can do for an uneducated computer user, you should install Firefox for them, apply a Internet Explorer-like theme such as Luna Blue, set Firefox as their default browser and show them how they can still use Internet Explorer if a specific site doesn't seem to work right in Firefox. I also place a shortcut to Firefox on their desktop and change the icon to the IE icon. It's amazing how many people associate that blue E with "the Internet".

Water in the Palm of your Hand

Take a deep breath. Go ahead, do it right now. Doesn't that feel good? Breathing is an amazing stress reducer. Our body needs oxygen to function and the function of our brain is actually constrained when it doesn't have the amount of oxygen it requires (which is why drowning victims can have brain damage if they were without air for a long time). When we're stressed out we unconsciously take short breaths. This causes our body and brain to work harder and thereby create even more stress. Try to consciously take deep breath's throughout the day and you will feel a big improvement in your overall physical health.

My dad, Adam, and myself had an interesting conversation last night when I visited my parents house. I won't go deep into the conversation, but a couple of key points from the conversation are worth mentioning:

The zone. Most people who are skilled in a particular field have experienced it. It's that feeling you get when things seem to happen without conscious thought, when you feel as if you're watching yourself do the work without actually needing to think about doing it. I've had that experience while typing on my computer, when words and thoughts seem to flow from my head straight to the screen. I've also felt it while running on the treadmill and when lifting weights. When you stop identifying what you're doing as your action and remove your ego from the picture, energy flows without your ego's intervention thereby creating "the zone".

React to problems as water reacts to rocks; flow around them. There is always a tomorrow that exists with the problem in the past, so keep that day in mind and the problem will seem easily manageable.

Life is like water in the palm of your hand: you have a limited amount of time. Do something with it.

I can directly relate to reacting to problems in a calm, intelligent way. My experience with the Bowers St incident has made me feel as if I can tackle any problem that comes my way.

Don't put things off until tomorrow. Would you want the you of tomorrow to have to deal with it? No, so get it done today and the you of tomorrow will thank you for it.

New Theme Installed

As you may have noticed, I installed a new theme for my blog. What do you think about it? Scott over at plaintxt.org has a bunch of really nice minimalistic themes for WordPress, one of which I am now using (Simplr). I made a couple of slight modifications to the theme, such as adjusting the number of recent posts and comments that are displayed.

By default, this theme lists all the pages across the top, including any sub-pages, so I simply hid the Before I Die, Style Changer (only applies to my previous theme), and the To Do List pages. I have not decided how to make use of the pages feature in WordPress. I have been creating posts for virtually everything, including very long posts, paginated into several pages such as the Basement Project. The main reason I have been avoiding using pages is because there is no easy way to organize them. With posts, I can simply assign multiple categories to them. This isn't possible with pages.

The other little modification I made was to the CSS file for Simplr. I really liked having the hierarchical list of categories, where sub-categories were indented below their parents. The Simplr theme did not come with support for this, even if the option was enabled using wp_list_cats, as I mentioned doing in this post. Using CSS, there are two methods of making this happen. You can either use text-indent: 25px or you can use margin-left: 25px.

I would prefer to use text-indent so that the background of each category stays the same width throughout the list. However, using text-indent means if you have any categories that are more than 2 levels deep (for example, General->Writing->Health) the text indent will stop after the first sub category; all sub-sub-categories will look as if they are just sub categories of the parent. The only way around this (that I know of) is to use margin-left. This keeps the list looking nice, however it changes the size of the background of each sub category as well, which doesn't look too pretty. I finally decided that if I only use a 10px indent, the resizing of the background's doesn't look quite as bad. Here's what I finally used:

[css]
div.sidebar ul.children li {
margin-left: 10px;
}
[/css]

Let me know what you think of this theme. By default only the newest post is shown on the front page. This can be changed, however if the list of posts is very long the categories list would appear way at the bottom, requiring you to scroll all the way down to view the categories, links, recent posts, and recent comments.

I also installed WP-Cache. It's supposed to speed up the browsing of my blog by caching static copies of each page once it has been viewed and serving the cached version to new visitors instead of querying the database. Let me know if you notice any speed increases.

Lastly, I installed Search Pages, a WordPress plugin that enables searching not only the titles of posts, but also the post content. This is very useful if you're looking for a previous post you read and only remember something from within the post and not the post title. I think this should be the default for searches in WordPress, but I guess it's not.

The Way I See It #165

I was ahead in the slalom. But in the second run, everyone fell on a dangerous spot. I was beaten by a woman who got up faster than I did. I learned that people fall down, winners get up, and gold medal winners just get up faster.

-- Bonnie St. John
In 1984, she was the second-fastest
amputee skier in the world, and the first
African-American Olympic ski medalist.

HOWTO: Change home directory for a virtual FTP user on a server running pure-ftpd

I run CPanel on my web server and I recently needed to add an FTP account for one of the domains I am hosting. This is easy enough using the FTP Accounts option from the domain's CPanel page. However, I needed to set the home directory for the FTP account to be outside the root web directory (/home/username/public_html). This is not possible from the CPanel interface, most likely because it's a security risk. I checked my server and it shows that I'm running pure-ftpd, so I have no idea why I needed to use the proftpd directory. Heres how I did it:

root@web.akmai.net:~# cd /etc/proftpd root@web.akmai.net:~# ls ./ savememo username2 username3 ../ username4 username5 username6 root@web.akmai.net:~# vi savememo
savememo:RiIR2pPqeBWSM:32023:32024::/home/savememo:/bin/ftpsh ftp:Ad3Dg04yDsk2dF:14:50:FTP User:/home/savememo/public_ftp:/sbin/nologin savememo_logs:RiIR2pPqeBWSM:32023:32024:savememo:/usr/local/apache/domlogs:/bin/ftpsh

As you can see, /etc/proftpd contains a file for each of the accounts on your server. Edit the file for the domain in question, in this case savememo.com, and locate the line for the FTP account for which you wish to change the home directory. If I wanted to change the savememo FTP account's home directory to /home/savememo/myfiles, the new file would look like this:

savememo:RiIR2pPqeBWSM:32023:32024::/home/savememo/myfiles:/bin/ftpsh

After editing the file using your favorite console editor, in my case it's vi, save the file and then restart your pure-ftpd service (I'm not sure if this is required).

root@web.akmai.net:~# /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd restart Stopping pure-config.pl: Stopping pure-authd: Starting pure-config.pl: [ OK ] Starting pure-authd:

And that should do it. Now if you go into the FTP Accounts section of the CPanel for the domain you're working with, you should see the new home directory for that FTP user.

HTML_QuickForm – Setting the advcheckbox Checked Value

I must have spent an hour looking for a solution to this problem. Hopefully this post will save someone from the agony I went through. This problem is specific to PEAR HTML_QuickForm, so anyone who doesn't know what that is can enjoy the pretty colors. 🙂

With the standard 'checkbox' element you can simply append the word 'checked' as the last attribute in the addElement method, like this:

$form->addElement('checkbox','remember','Remember me?',
                         '(Check this to remember your login info.)', 'checked');

However, with advcheckbox, which is required if you want to define the checkbox values, setting the checked value from the addElement method is not possible. So how do you do it? First a quick review of the options available with advcheckbox:

  addElement('advcheckbox',
             string element-name,   // name of advcheckbox
             string element-label,  // label output before advcheckbox
             string text,           // label output after advcheckbox
             mixed attributes,      // string or array of attributes
             mixed values);

OK, now here is what I had to do to solve the problem:

$formCheckbox = $form->createElement('advcheckbox',mycheckbox,'',
                                               $row['name'],null,$row['permission_id']);
if(in_array($row['permission_id'], $groups2perms))
	$formCheckbox->setChecked(true); // <-- this is where the magic happens!
else
	$formCheckbox->setChecked(false); // <-- here too!

$form->addElement($formCheckbox);

Thats it! As you can see, you need to use the setChecked() method. However, before you can use it you have to assign the object to a variable ($formCheckbox = $form->createElement(..,..)) and then call the setChecked() method on that variable ($formCheckbox->setChecked(true)). Keep in mind that you can call any number of available methods on the variable before using the addElement() method.

Adding Power and Lights to my Shed

I needed light in my shed and the only way I would be satisfied was if I had real lights, not those dim battery operated ones. Besides, I know having an outlet in the shed to plug things into would be very helpful. I already ran the wire to my door when I installed the outside light, so all I needed to do was get the power 12 feet away to my shed.

First I dug a 14" deep trench between my basement door and shed (sorry, no pics of the trench 🙁 the line in the sand shows where the trench was). Inside that trench I laid metal conduit with an outdoor 12/2 wire inside. Since I might build a summer house next spring, I figured I would take advantage of running the wire and add a CAT5 Ethernet cable along side the power cable. I'm not sure how the power cable will effect the data running on the CAT5 cable, but I had extra CAT5 cable laying around so I ran it anyway.

I used flexible conduit at the basement door and where the wire comes up from the trench into the shed.

After adding a junction box to the ceiling of the basement entrance (power in on the top, on the bottom one wire to outside light, one wire to shed), I added a junction box inside the shed where the wire comes in. I'm going to be adding an outlet later and having the junction box right there will make that a lot easier. I then ran power up to a switch and from the switch up to the florescent light. The switch will control two lights, but I'm only attaching one light for now. I ran the wire for the second light but just wrapped the end with electrical tape.

Once I attached and wired the florescent light to the ceiling joists of the shed, I turned on the breaker in my basement and flipped the switch in the shed.

September Camping Trip

I had planned to spend all day Saturday mountain biking, however when I missed my exit and took the next exit to turn around, I decided to go exploring and find out where the road went. That decision turned into an 8 hour detour!

I took Exit 40, RT 302E, off of I-93S, all the way over to RT 16N, up through Jackson, Gorham, Berlin, Milan, Errol, passing Umbagog Lake, and through the rest of Coos County. I decided to keep going and crossed over into Maine, where there were plenty of very long, very hilly, very steep roads.

I had started driving at 11am and by 3pm, I decided it was time to look at the map and figure out where I was. I really did not want to take the same road back, so I decided to take RT 17S. By chance, I found an unmarked lookout area and took some nice photos of Rangeley Lake:

I then passed by Coo's Canyon and had to get out and take some pictures:

Then passed through Mexico, Maine where they acknowledge, and apparently are proud of their connection to the country of Mexico. All of the city signs were designed with Mexican art work. I then passed this huge pivot irrigation system, something rarely seen around here:

I then took RT 2E to RT 5S, and then back on to RT 2E all the way to Lancaster, NH. I then hopped onto RT 135E back to the campsite.

Saturday evening I spent by the fire, started with my magnesium fire starter, just as I started the fire on Friday night. It's certainly a lot harder than you'd think, but I was determined to start a fire without matches or fire starter logs to simulate an actual survival situation. It must have taken me over an hour to start the fire on Friday because almost everything I could find was damp and not dry. I also took advantage of the fact that I was alone and started learning to play the harmonica.

The MBTA's new ticketing system; useful or useless?

Three days a week I take the train from Lowell to Boston and then ride the Orange and Red line's to my workplace in Central Square, Cambridge. Recently, I've noticed several changes taking place in the MBTA's subway system. The old system of using tokens (gold colored coins about the size of a nickel) looks like its being replaced with a ticketing system. The method of entry is also changing as instead of three rotating arms you have two plastic panels that swing apart to let you through. To purchase a ticket you need to use one of the unattended machines. You can pay via cash, token, or credit card. After paying the $1.25, the machine ejects a credit card sized white ticket with a magnetic strip. You then walk over to the entry machines and insert the ticket into that machine to let you through.

All of this sounds pretty damn complicated compared to buying a token (or several tokens at a time, as I do) and inserting it into the machine to let you through. Needing to purchase a ticket from the ticket machine takes time, something that is very annoying when the train just pulled up and you need to wait in line to purchase a ticket, even though you're holding a previously purchased token in your hand. After purchasing the ticket and swiping it through the machine to let you through, what are you supposed to do with the now useless ticket? Most people simply place it on top of the machine after they've used it. Some, however, leave use it to litter the subway train. I'd think by now someone in the MBTA would see that they need a trash barrel on the other side of the entry machines, or a way to simply recycle the already used tickets. Yes, I understand that it's supposed to be your receipt, but if people never got receipts when they purchased tokens, why would care to have a receipt now? And why would the MBTA add all this complication of a ticketing system and create such confusion intentionally? Then today it dawned on me: It's easier to track people!

Each of the tickets has a date, time, and serial number on them. Who knows what other information is included in the magnetic strip when you purchase a ticket with your credit card! For now, the North Station subway stop still uses the token system, so I purchase all my tokens there and when I'm coming home I pay for a ticket with a token at Central Square. However, I know this is going to change soon because I've already seen the preparation starting for the ticketing system to be implemented in North Station as well.

Now I'm usually not the one to put down the use of technology on a daily basis, especially when it can make life easier and more streamlined. There are many advantages to the new ticketing system, some of which will not be seen until future methods of payment are implemented. With an electronic ticketing system, adding new methods of payment is rather easy. The ticketing machines could be modified to accept payment via cell phones, or the entry machines could be setup to accept payment from an RFID card that can be "refilled" online. None of that would be possible with a token based system. In addition, tracking people can be a useful security measure. Sure, it's an invasion of our privacy, but no more so than someone listening in on our cell phone call on the train, or being allowed to research our criminal (and other) history online.

In addition, statistical data from the electronic machines can be used to improve the subway system. With a token based system, someone could buy 50 tokens, sell them to several friends, and each of the friends could then use the tokens at any MBTA subway entry point. With a ticket based system, you know exactly where the ticket was purchased and then exactly where (and how long after the purchase) it was used.

The transition phase from a token based system to a full fledged ticketing system will take a little while, and there will no doubt be some bumps along the way. What the MBTA really needs to implement, at least in the short term, is a pay-as-you-go card that allows you to access any MBTA subway entry point and only be charged for what you use; perhaps automatically to your credit card. I don't go into Boston often enough to purchase a monthly pass, so I'm forced to purchase a bunch of tokens and use them as I go. Once the system is entirely moved over to the ticketing method, it will take me considerably more time to commute in the subway; especially if there are lines at the ticket machines.

Hopefully just the serpentine belt

I've long known (6 months+) that my truck has a transmission problem. When the transmission needed to down shift, from 4th to 3rd gear, it would “kick” violently while attempting to down shift. The kicking would get so bad that it felt as if the engine was ready to jump right out of my truck. I figured out that if I quickly press the gas petal hard whenever I feel it needs to down shift, the transmission will “leap over” the problem area and switch to a gear that will provide the amount of power needed. I got so good at doing this, that the problem was not a problem at all. Of course, if anyone else drove my truck, they wouldn't know how to do this, so I usually volunteered to drive when someone needed my truck for something. I knew that actually “fixing” the problem would cost upwards of $2,000, and that was money I just didn't have. So I figured as long as the truck is running, I might as well make as much use of the bad transmission as possible.

Over Labor Day weekend, the battery in my truck basically fell apart and needed to be replaced. After replacing the battery, I noticed the engine felt much stronger when I started the truck. “Great” I thought, “It must have really needed to be replaced.”

Then a few days ago, I noticed a strong vibration coming from the engine when the truck was idling. This worried me, because I've heard that any kind of strong vibration in the engine means something bigger is wrong. Then, the day before yesterday (Sitha's birthday), we were driving to Nashua. The vibrating engine turned into a constant, and increasing, vibration when pressing the gas petal. Bottom line, it sounded really bad. Half way to Nashua, Sitha suggested we turn around and take her car instead. I hesitated, but realized it would really suck to have my truck break down on her birthday. So I turned around; and damn good thing I did.

About 3,000 feet from my house, theres a traffic light. It was red, so I stopped. I was watching the RPM meter closely while the truck was idling, watching for any sudden drops. Right before the light turned green I noticed the RPM drop from 1,000 to 400 and then back up to 1,000. I knew this meant it was very close to shutting down entirely. The light turned green, I went. About 2,000 feet from my house, the engine went from a loud, shuttering, vibrating noise to dead silence. “CRAP” I thought. But to my amazement, when I pressed on the gas petal the truck actually kept going. “What the hell?!” The battery light and check engine light came on at the same time. “Something must not be working...”. I was driving straight, so I had no reason to be turning the steering wheel, but I tried turning it anyway. It was rock solid. “Great, I have no power steering!” I said out loud. Sitha thought she heard me say I have no breaks and almost had a heart attack. I have to make a 120 degree turn onto my street (very annoying) and I knew without power steering that was going to be really difficult. I was also worried that the engine would die at any moment, so I didn't want to slow down at all and keep as much momentum as possible. I put all my strength into the turn and made the turn and rolled into the parking spot in front of my house. “Phew”. I opened the hood, and smelled smoke. To my astonishment, the serpentine belt had actually come off the gears and wasn't attached to anything. The serpentine belt is a single continuous belt used to drive multiple peripheral devices in an automotive engine, such as alternators, power steering pumps, coolant pumps, A/C compressors, etc. [wikipedia.org]. I heard a loud driping sound and looked underneath the truck. I saw a fluid, probably transmission fluid, pouring out onto the pavement. “Hah, I've really driven it to its limit this time” I thought to myself.

So yesterday morning I called Lowell Automatic Transmission and had them come tow my truck. Its been over 36 hours and they haven't called me with an estimate yet. I'm hoping it will be done by Friday morning and that its not going to cost me more than two grand. Luckily they accept American Express, and as much as I hate to add more to my debt position, I really don't have a choice. I paid $8,000 for the truck, two years ago and I decided I'm going to get as much life out of it as possible. I'm planning to move to Cambridge sometime next year, so I'll be using my bike or taking public transportation to commute to work, so buying another truck right now doesn't make sense.

Maybe now that the transmission problem will be repaired, I'll feel a little better about throwing a plow on the truck for the winter. I know having a plow on the front won't be good for the truck, but it's not like I'll be doing any commercial plowing; just plowing two or three driveways. That sure beats spending back breaking hours shoveling every time we have a snowstorm.

Dizzy Spells – Viral Labyrinthitis?

A few weeks ago I experienced a sudden dizzy spell, which was so intense it nearly knocked me over. It happen two or three more times over a five minute period. I don't get dizzy very easily; things such as spinning around or riding a roller coaster don't make me dizzy at all, so this came as a huge surprise. Following the dizzy spell, I felt very nauseous and wanted to throw up. During the next few days I felt very sick, headaches, loss of appetite, more dizzy feelings (though none nearly as intense) and just overall sick. Then it went away and I figured that was the end of it.

Then today, while sitting at my computer working for Aerva, I became extremely dizzy. It felt as if the entire building was falling over on it's side. My hands slammed down on the table in attempt to brace myself. Then I felt sick to my stomach, and wanted to throw up. After a few minutes, I tried standing up but felt as if I was about to fall over. The dizzy feeling continued for another hour, however I didn't feel anymore extreme dizziness. During that hour I did some googling to try and figure out what the hell was causing this.

I finally came up with Viral Labyrinthitis (lab-uh-rin-thahy-tis), or VL for short. I came across this post on Rich's blog about his experience with VL. Hundreds of other people who also had VL started leaving comments on his post. The comments grew to the point where his post was being used as a sort of support forum for those with VL. He had to break up the comments into 7 different pages. Anyway, after reading about 50 comments from people who had many of the symptoms I have (some had the exact same symptoms), I think its possible I have VL. Of course I should go to a doctor to confirm because there are lots of other things that could also cause the extreme dizziness.

My first thought, when this first happen to me a few weeks ago, was that it was a low blood sugar issue. When someone's blood sugar levels get low enough, they can feel very dizzy, weak, and even faint. Generally your blood sugar levels get very low when you don't eat enough, or you don't consume enough sugar (in the bodybuilding world, sugar is generally bad, so obviously I avoid it. Go figure). I had not eaten much during the day, and I usually forget how fast time passes when I'm in the programming “zone”.

Around 3:00pm, I realized I had not eaten anything since 8:00 this morning, so I went to the local Whole Foods Market and bought an avocado sandwich, a natural protein shake, and a couple of energy bars. When I got back to the office, I ate the sandwich, drank half the protein shake, and ate half the energy bar. Then the dizzy spell happen and I instantly lost my appetite. I checked the nutritional content on what I had just eaten and added up the sugar: I had just consumed over 45g of sugar in a 3 minute time span.

Wait a second... If I had low blood sugar and I just consumed a bunch of sugar, that should be a good thing, right? Well actually, when you consume a lot of sugar and your blood sugar is really low, your body releases insulin to control the amount of sugar entering your blood. If your body over compensates and releases TOO much insulin (which could happen if you consume too much sugar in a short period of time), this can cause your body's blood sugar level to suddenly plummet (insulin helps restrict and control sugar levels), thereby causing the extreme effects of low blood sugar. This is probably what happen to me.

Being the way I am, I probably won't go to the doctor unless I continue to feel really dizzy or if any symptoms get worse. My yearly checkup is coming up, so I'll just mention it to my doc when I see him. As of this post, I still feel a little dizzy, but I'm able to eat and don't feel quite as sick to my stomach.

A day of Chess

Yesterday was a nice day so we decided to play some chess. I setup my Drueke chess board on a table outside. This Drueke chess set is the best I've ever owned. The pieces are weighted very nicely. They are big, comfortable, easy to view, and the roll up chess board is of good quality too; it has a heavy and durable rubber bottom that doesn't slide at all.

After playing for two hours, it began to rain. So we brought the board inside and set it up on a makeshift table; the box of litter for my cat and a piece of plywood. We played for another 4 hours!

Vast sources of knowledge

I've often posted about how the Internet is changing the way knowledge is conveyed, and about how a better understanding of the way our world works makes us appreciate it a little more. I have recently been reading a lot of articles on the largest free encyclopedia on the Internet, Wikipedia. There is an absolute wealth of information freely available on the Internet, and Wikipedia brings a lot of it together in a single, easy to use, searchable website. Wikipedia is designed to allow anyone to add or change any information on any topic; the entire site is created be volunteers.

Equally as useful, and maybe even more interesting, is WikiHow; a database of articles on how to do pretty much anything. A lot of the information on WikiHow links to particular pages on Wikipedia in case you want to learn more about it. Today I read an extremely interesting article about how to exercise an open mind (surprisingly, I've already tried many of the things they suggest). You can also learn how to snowboard, survive a long fall, get six-pack abs, and even learn how to do nothing.

Both of these sites demonstrate how the Internet makes sharing knowledge almost as easy as having it passed on first hand. Of course nothing beats experience, so I'd recommend you do more than just read about how to do things. You need to experience them as well.

Changing the Windows clock to display military time

I like to use military time wherever possible. Looking at the clock on my Windows computers in the standard 12-hour format was really starting to bug me, so I researched how to change it:

Click "Start > Control Panel > Regional and Languages Options". Under the "Regional Options" tab, click on the "Customize" button. Then click on the "Time" tab. In the "Time format:" dropdown menu, select HH:mm:ss to get military time. Then click "OK" and then "OK" again. Now you should see the Windows clock in military time!

Ready to Indulge?

Do you feel guilty? You should! Are you too weak to stop yourself? Or do you just not care? Do you even know? Again, and again, you keep at it. Disgusting. Take a look at yourself already! Do you lack the common sense that would otherwise help you make the right choice? Maybe you have the common sense, but not the strength and will power to act upon it. It's not going to resolve itself you know; you need to do something about it. Sitting there, peering through those oval spectacles with your nose buried in a book. That book certainly isn't a magic wand, and it certainly isn't helping your problem! Oh, what's the matter? Not feeling good about yourself? Well you shouldn't feel good about yourself. I'll bet you get that feeling quite often. How unhappy that must make you all the time. Wait, if you have so much of that unhappy guilty feeling, then you ought to use it to your advantage and make it the driving force behind getting better. What? No time? Please. If you didn't watch any TV you could transform within a matter of months. Its a mental thing, really. The solution and all the answers are as close as your brain. Can you reach it? No, not your brain! The answer, the solution! Can you reach out and hold onto it for dear life? Come on, how bad do you want it? Oh, what's that? You don't want it? Never mind then. I'm sorry to be the one to inform you of this, but there's no hope for you...

...until you decide you really want it.

Labor Day Weekend

Sunday evening, after watching Crank (Jason Statham), we stopped at Hannaford's in Tewksbury to buy some fruit. When we came out, I went to start the ignition and what do I hear instead of the roar of the engine? Nothing... It was dead. I tried the inside lights. Nothing. Ah, the battery must be dead. I knew I had jumper cables in my toolbox in the back, so I wasn't too concerned. I just had to find someone to jump it for me. I popped the hood and took a look at the battery. The wire connected to the positive (hot) side of the battery looked a bit funny, so I poked at it. Suddenly the battery contact nut fell right off the battery! The battery had leaked acid causing the contact to erode (see picture below). So now I knew it wasn't going to be as simple as a jump start.

I called Thea and Meera, and they came by to give us a ride to buy a new battery (thanks guys!). While waiting for them, I decided to get a head start and disconnect the wire from the negative side of the battery. Thats when I noticed something. The positive wire that had fallen off with the contact nut fused to the wire lead. Usually you just unscrew the contact nut from the battery, remove the wire, and attach it to the new battery with a new contact nut. Well, since acid had leaked out of the battery, it caused the contact nut and the wire to fuse together. It was one big chunk of rust and metal. So I used a hammer (thanks Thea) and a screw driver to bang it apart. After about 30 minutes, I finally had most of the fused metal off the contact nut, but the nut was still on the wire and it wasn't coming off. We decided to go to WalMart, buy a new battery, and pick up a metal saw to cut the contact nut.

Once I had the metal saw, I was able to cut the nut in half and free the wire. I installed the new battery, connected the wire leads, started the engine, and voila! The truck was working again. Since installing the new battery, I've noticed it starts much stronger than it used to. That was probably the original battery, and since the truck has over 146k miles on it, its no surprise it needed to be replaced.

The weekend was otherwise rather uneventful. Relaxed, worked on programming projects, and spent some time at my parents house. Thea took a very cool underwater picture using their Olympus Stylus 720 SW at the lake (dpreview.com has a pretty good review of the camera here). That camera seems like the perfect everyday camera for me to carry around. I currently own a Nikon Coolpix P1, which has nice wireless capabilities that allow you to transfer the pictures to the computer over a wireless network. But for me, the ruggedness of the Olympus camera outweighs any cool features the Nikon has. I'll probably eBay the Coolpix and pick up a Olympus Stylus 720SW.