I bought a [[amazon:B00007KDVI Linksys Wireless-G and 4-port DSL Router]] from Amazon last week and it is doing a great job. The purchase was somewhat silly as I own no wireless products. But I plan to get started soon, like networking my Tivo wirelessly and perhaps getting a laptop. The main reason I bought it was to replace my dedicated and always-on Linux PC as my NAT router. And for that, it is doing a superb job.

What is ironic, is that is turns out that it too runs Linux, though it is of the embedded variety (ie in firmware). And I think that is WAY cool. Through a bug in their administrative interface and a few scripts, I can access a private telnetd, a public httpd, snort, vi, and other useful tools. Granted it is only a 125 Mhz MIPS processor and 16 Megs of RAM, but it can do some useful stuff. I can do live packet introspection with snort, spray syslog events at an internal PC, or mount an NFS share on the device (hello private mp3 server!).

What’s even cooler, or not as your case may be, is that it only writes to the (temporary) ramdisk of the device. Simply power-cycle the device and it will be back to its normal self. Of course, if you come to rely on the extra services this distribution provides, reinstalling after every reset could be tedious and cumbersome. Anyway, go get your copy of this slick little Linux distro.

The real-estate sign went up on the front lawn today. The house is now officially in MLS (multiple listing service), so other agents will start finding it in their searches. Mark showed the house to other agents in his office today. And funnily enough, someone in the neighborhood saw the sign almost instantly and gave Mark a call. So he showed them the house, surprising DalRae when he showed up unannounced. He has assumed that no one was here as he had just left it empty, no biggie.

Anyway, it is quite exciting, hopefull the interest will only grow. Not all that much else to report. The weather was very strange today. I wish I had taken my camera with me to work to document the incredible colors and shadows I saw during sunset.

Corinne’s going away outing was today, and all of the other engineers attended, so I obliged. It just seemed a bit silly, as I’ll be out there in NC next weekend myself. It isn’t really a going away to me. I saw some old employees as well, so that was fun.

I’ll get some pictures of the house up tomorrow. I wanted to do it tonight, but I got back after the light had already faded. Nothing will really change in the interim, this house is like a [[grahame:journal/museumhouse museum]].

I got a not-very-detailed quote from Mayflower faxed to me today. It is one hard to read page vs United’s 3 pages, hrmm. Choices choices, I’ll have to get some good advice.

And I called [[grahame:journal/altatrace Alta Trace]] today, there is only one garage available in my side of the complex, and it isn’t really that near my place anyway. Plus there are two conflicting notes in the file pertaining to its rented status. Sheesh. I might have to sell more here, or rent a storage unit out there, neither sound too keen.

As of tomorrow, I will be living in a house that must always be spic and span. I’m no pig, but I’ll have to be the neatest I’ve probably ever been, for the longest I’ve ever been. I’ll have to clean the dishes, clean the litter box, make the bed, open all the the blinds, clear the bathroom counters, and probably vacuum—every morning. It is hardly a complaint really, some people wish they could afford to complain about such trivialities, but hey, I’m spoiled.

The house really does look great, almost unrecognizable. There is so much open space it is incredible, but it also has an artificiality. Oh well, hopefully it will look inviting to potential buyers, that is all that really matteres.

Today at work, my boss asked me if I could postpone my move. They’re having trouble with the NC building lease and the sooner I arrive the sooner I’d just be working out of her house. This instantly made me very nervous, and I’m not really sure why anymore. I suppose at most other companies this would be a huge red flag, but at this place it is just part of the usual eb and flow. John convinced me that there probably isn’t really all that much to worry about. They won’t leave me hanging dry. It helped to hear that.

This morning John, the United Van Lines guy, came to give a moving estimate. The contrast with Marcus, the Mayflower guy, is quite incredible. John showed up 15 minutes into the hour window he gave me, Marcus arrived 15 minutes after his 2 hour window elapsed. Marcus attempted to talk me out of shipping my books via the USPS’ fantastic book/media rate while John nearly encouraged me. John used a small hand-held device to calculate the volume and weight and printed out the estimate before leaving. Marcus gave me the total price over the phone last Tuesday and still hasn’t delivered the detailed estimate by mail. Tanya, who is providing organizational and emotional support at work, has had to call Marcus’ office several times already. Unfortunately, United Van Lines was only around $70 cheaper than Mayflower, and United had the benefit of several hundred pounds less to estimate on. So, do I go with gut instinct, or cheap and trusted (as Mayflower has done two other people at work)? Ahhh, a dilema.

A complete aside, but I found it funny that both “Relocation Specilalists” made comments about my radio controlled car. Kudos to John for knowing an old RC-10 when he one, he used to have one apparently. Marcus had a Hornet, ehh, not so bad I suppose. John also went to NHI, as DalRae did, after which he left his girlfriend of six years. A very ironic and errie parallel, I thought.

Yet somehow I’m in a really good mood. I couldn’t stop smiling to myself on the drive home, which even included some traffic. Somehow I just felt good, and it isn’t as though I still have a lot of big stuff ahead of me to deal with. I wish I could escape the weight more often, it is quite nice. And DalRae also seemed in good spirits when I saw her tonight, even though she admits she is somewhat stressed with the house, school, Puss Puss. Kudos to her for the effort and making it work.

Also, two inquiries into the car. Not bad for 10 hours or so with a free advertisement. Hopefully I’ll get some more interest in the next few days. If not, I’ll need a different tack.

And on an entry with many alsos, I contacted the Goucher Alumni Association to see if I could track down an old college friend I didn’t keep up with. Saeko Ishii was a cool Japanese girl I met in school, but my new (at the time) girlfriend kept me happily distracted from my previous life (school work included). So I thought I’d try to reopen that channel of communication. It has been 7 or so years, but why the hell not, right? I’ll have to forward my message through the Alumni Assoc, klunky but effective. And to anyone out there who automatically assumes that a recently divorced man plus an old female friend equals remotely romantic, get real cuz that’s retarded, are you that cynical? And am I actually attempting a one-way conversation with you, maybe I’m retarded?

Konichiwa, Konbanwa, or Oyasumi Nasai.