El Gringoqueño

All a man needs out of life is a place to sit ‘n’ spit in the fire.

Page 43 of 51

Blessed be the Melancholics, for this world will never meet their expectations

July 22, 2004 /

Sometimes I think that the black
bile will overwhelm me, fill me up to my eyeballs with anger and
despair, anger at those in power that have not accepted the true
responsibility to those they serve, and despair at being so utterly
powerless to affect the change that I feel this world so desperately
needs.

Here I am with this stinking goo leaking out of me, affecting
those around me, venom poisoning relationships, attitudes, positive
change, weighing down, hanging in the air with its foul putrefying
odor.

I was speaking to my dear old friend Courtney the other day, and
she said, "It’s just that the complete powerlessness… I mean,
the Bush administration just makes me feel so… powerless." I
had been feeling so under the weather about the present state of the
world, my military service, my military fellows, Laura’s brother
Carlos who has been put on standby to be sent to Iraq. I wanted to
scream and point out this evil mist that had settled over American
society. I couldn’t scream though, buried as I was in my own
excrement.

I have been working so hard, seems like 17 hours a day, and
getting nowhere. Oppressing me is this shroud of ugliness both from
within and without, angry, nasty, vile, desperate thoughts, as I hear
Fox News in the background, parroting cheerful messages of war and
how liberals are undermining America. Hello, people?! We’re at fucking
WAR. You’re prisoners in your OWN homes! And your government thinks
you’re all criminals and wants to SPY on all of you! Liberals are doing
what again?!

I toil for clients that don’t pay, put up with ingrates,
degenerates, and malcontents, while I hear Bush’s administration’s
"stop loss" shenanigans, designed as a back door draft,
whose purpose is to keep in harm’s way those that have already
sacrificed so much. Bush is taking advantage of the faithful service
of thousands of Americans pressing them into involuntary servitude
beyond their enlistment contracts, beyond their retirement, beyond
any measure of good faith that should have been rendered to them.
This comes from a man who did everything he could to avoid military
service himself, who never sacrificed, who didn’t do shit. Look!
daddy set me up in a cool airplane! Chicks dig pilots. Do you
think, Mr. President that chicks dig disabled veterans? Of course
you don’t Mr. President, despite what you’ve read in Penthouse.

Does it make me feel powerless in the face of this evil dictator
who acts like he owns the country? This is our country, dammit! Bush
is the CEO, we elected him to the board, but we shareholders own the
thing. It’s our country, but he wields it like his personal
conviction with his smug little smirk and federalist totalitarian
self. Midget dictator, fucking creep, smug bastard, beady eyed
miscreant, bible thumping wacko, American society hostage taking
fool, abuser of military service, arrogant trampler of civil rights,
and big business whore.

I was asked recently if I had seen Fahrenheit 9/11. Hell, no, I
responded. I’ve lived it! Why would I want to drag myself through
that shit, something to make me feel more powerless, less
significant, less valued, and a victim of a presidency gone horribly
awry. Fuck that, I can get that from Fox News, and the fucking
erroneous pay or die letters I get from the Defense Finance and
Accounting Service (DFAS) for recoupment of military service WHICH I
PERFORMED! Fuckers.

There, I’ve let some of the ugliness out, exorcised some of my
demons. Whew, it felt good. You know what. If I were ever on Inside
the Actor’s Studio (which I won’t be), FUCK would be my favorite
expletive… there’s such a nice draining feeling to it, like a good
satisfying puss-filled pimple pop.

I think I’ll go sit next to Laura and see if she’ll put up with me
now.

Data Migration Day Three

July 17, 2004 /

When will I learn? I don’t care how many times in the last five years I’ve had to mess with LDAP, I never learn. Why the hell don’t I write shit down when I figure it out. Do I enjoy re-learning the same stupid crap over and over and over? Must be.

Okay here’s the thing. I shall endeavor to remember the following:

  1. When upgrading an LDAP directory service, make sure to dump the data out of the running system before breaking it down.
  2. If I fail to do #1, please oh please dear God have made a backup of it at least. chroot into the old environment, launch the ldap server, slapcat the whole shebang and proceed to step three
  3. slapadd the slapcat-ed ldif file… NOT ldapadd. ldapadd is suggested in most places as the tool of choice, but slapadd is what I need. Geez, stupid fuckers.  Of course who’s the bigger idiot, the fool or the fool who follows him?
  4. Make sure to modify the slapd.conf file to change the default db from ldbm to bdm.

Pretty damn simple, eh? Not so simple when I’ve forgotten more of this LDAP shit than any sane person would care to remember.

While I’m at it, please oh please, remember for the next time about the dbmmange httpd password files. You’ve got to export the old entries, and then import them dbmmanage2 users import < old-data, modify the .htaccess files and be done with it.

Oh and a neat trick for dumping reliably an entire PosgreSQL database for an upgrade:

pg_dumpall > backup.sql

stop PostgreSQL, upgrade it, wipe the data directory, run initdb as user postgres and then psql -f backup.sql template1

Flawless. At least that part went well. The cursing was fun though.

It’s Olympic Time Again and the “Best” We Have is Popping Out All Over

July 16, 2004 /

edwards.jpgIt reminds me of a scene. Picture this. There was a rising star
in the business community. He had even done pretty well monetarily,
well enough, in fact to have been invited to play polo at the club.
Look at him, they said. He’s young, so much promise. He’s bright,
good looking, and doing well for himself. We shall invite him to the
club to play polo.

So our young businessman dedicated himself to practicing a bit of
polo. He was a decent horseman, but he’d never played before. He
dutifully hired a trainer and secretly practiced on the weekends
hitting balls, riding, turning etc. He was sure he’d impress the
crowd and the blue-bloods with his ability.

The day of the polo outing arrived and he was out in front
immediately, whacking balls, shouldering into riders, shoving,
pushing, yelling. He’s going to crush them, CRUSH them and win!
WIN! WIN! He’s went for that prize with everything he had, that
little white ball bouncing around in the mud. He never took his eye
off the little white ball.

At the end of the day he’d bested the field with his take no
prisoners attitude, showed his metal and that he was superior stock,
better than the rest, worthy of inclusion.

An older gentleman made his way to the club house to find our
young friend, where he rested his hand upon his shoulder and said, “Dear
boy, a polo match isn’t about the polo.”

The Sweet Nuanced Tones of Fuck

July 15, 2004 /

I installed all fresh shiny brand
new super gooey-licisous software on this server today. The new OS and
tools weren’t the hard part, it’s the migration of all
the old data, the interesting easter-egg hunt of new features
masquerading as error messages, and the cursing. Ahhh, it wouldn’t be a
software upgrade without the cursing… sigh, I’ll look back fondly on
this one day and remember the cursing, for it was rich indeed.

"Son, in my day, we knew what voice activation was."

It
was the subtle nuanced language that only system admins knew how to
speak… that and the sound of the keyboard being impact-hammered into
oblivion. Pure poetry…

*sniff* brings a tear to my eye. I need a pint, I’m feeling in a bit o’ a brood.

When Your Blade is Dull

June 18, 2004 /

Jaimito was such a doll today. What a sweet sweet darling little
child he is. I love spending time with him.

This morning I was preparing breakfast when I cut my thumb while
sharpening a knife. I was rushing because the skillet was hot, and I
wanted to get that chorizo in there quick. Cold chorizo is a pain to cut when the knife isn’t razor sharp.

There’s a famous Spanish proverb:

When your blade is
dull and your chorizo is cold, defeat will follow you wherever you may go.

Or maybe I shouldn’t read Sun Tzu’s, Art of War while drinking. Anyway, feel free to use it as a personal philosophy.

Blood went everywhere. I grabbed a paper towel and proceeded to
apply pressure and hold it over my head. Jaimito looked concerned.
Daddy, what’s happening? Are you okay, he seemed to say?

Drat drat. I was also trying to get Jaimito’s breakfast. He
wasn’t complaining, so I went searching for a band-aid and some super
glue. Super glue makes a nice field expedient suture. I found the
super glue, and was trying to wrest the top off, yield, damn you,
yield! Blood started going everywhere again as I tried to work the
vice-grips on the diminutive glued shut stupid, stupid!! arrgh.
Geez, stupid tube. I tossed it in the trash.

Sigh, I grabbed Jaimito’s plate and served it to him, poured him
some juice. “Daddy, has a boo boo,” I explained. He looked
concerned and a little scared, so I smiled and went to look for
another tube of super glue.

I found it. The bleeding had stopped, and I patched my sliced,
julian thumb. Now, I needed a band-aid. Where are those damn
things?! A-ha. I found them. Scoobie-doo will have to do. Now
Jaimito was getting into it. “Scoopi doo” he informed me,
pointing.

Later in the day, I asked him if he wanted to kiss my boo boo to
make it feel better. He looked a little apprehensive, so I explained
that kisses make boo boo’s feel better. “Remember when I kissed
your little toes this morning when you stubbed them, little man?”
He stopped and thought for a little bit. I could see the courage and
bashfulness at odds right on his face. He was pondering his next
move. Then he suddenly grabbed my thumb and kissed it. I gave him a
big huge hug and thanked him for his cure and that my thumb felt much
better, thank you. He grinned from ear to ear and buried his face in
my chest, patting my shoulder.

Construction Jaimito

June 18, 2004 /

Jaimito, leaned his elbow on the window of his truck. It was
going to be a long day. He was glad he’d gotten up at the crack of
dawn, gathered up his crew and shoved off in the twinkle of new
light. He’d roared out over the road in his shiny yellow dump truck,
loaded with blocks. He had more blocks than he could haul in one
vehicle, so he loaded the excess in a smallish VW beetle, cramming
them in through the windows and hatch until there was room for only
the driver. He had to get the materials to the project site, and
Jaimito was a resourceful fellow. “Can’t be done” was a phrase
not in his vocabulary.

The road in the early morning was twisted and bumpy. He
down-shifted and roared over a rump shaped mound. He smiled and let
out a yip. The morning did that to you, filled you up with so much
optimism that even small victories were cause for celebration. The
way was filled with craggy opportunities for victory, and Jaimito
passed the time pretending that each bump was a great and wondrous
obstacle, fitted especially for him to conquer.

Upon arrival at the work site, Jaimito and his crew set about
unloading the blocks, and staging them strategically. It became
apparent immediately that there was a problem with the grading.
There was a large bump where the plans required a level surface.
This was not going to do.

“We’re going to need to move this earth!” Jaimito exclaimed.
“Let’s get these things out of here.” Large pillow like rocks
were quickly dispatched to lower ground. “Hmm, we still have a
problem with this giant vein of protruding bedrock here,” he said
aloud. Time to get the rock pulverizers.

This was fun work. Crushing rock had to be the best job on the
planet. He imagined he was a large ancient elemental force and with
a whoop and a holler, the rock crumbled before his hydraulics and explosives. Where
others saw obstacles, Jaimito saw opportunities, and where there was
drudgery, Jaimito made fun. Perhaps it was no coincidence that his
crew was the most productive, the most motivated.

“Okay, men,” he exclaimed. “We’re all through, go ahead and
leave the vehicles and material where they are. We’ll get an early
start tomorrow.” And with that they headed home leaving the shiny
yellow dump truck, and the yellow VW Beetle and the blocks behind in
the cleared area where he had dispatched the giant rock.

For Richer or for Poorer

June 11, 2004 /

or, "Hanging out in a European Café."

Laura and I had an early morning meeting at a Cyber Cafe here in
Puerto Rico, in Rio Piedras. We arrived early because traffic was
light due to the day of remembrance for President Ronald Reagan.
What are we going to do for half an hour in Rio
Piedras, we asked ourselves?

"You know it kinda feels like we’re in a small European town
square," Laura remarked.

"Yeah," I said, "If you cover your eyes, your ears,
your nose, and your sense of aesthetic." I chuckled at my own
joke. Laura didn’t laugh. I repeated it in a lame attempt to get a
smile at least. She giggled slightly.

Then, in her ever indomitable spirit of can-do, she stated, "Let’s
see if there’s a coffee shop." We took a couple of steps up the
block, passed a stray dog, a homeless man, a coin operated laundry
mat, and abandoned our search.

"Hmmm, Europe, you say?" I chuckled again.

"Let’s check behind this street. I ambled off at Laura’s
heels like the dutiful dog that I am. It was eight in the morning
and already it was hot. I began to sweat as we walked across a large
parking lot to an adjacent street. "Hey, this looks promising,"
Laura said, nodding toward a corner café.

"Yeah and as we walk in, I hope we
don’t startle the grizzled old woman as she finishes her cigarette in
her nightgown." It looked like that kind of
place.

Once we stepped inside, the atmosphere
changed. Gone were my visions of an old woman in her pajamas with a
shotgun and a cigarette clenched between her teeth. No, they were
replaced by the cold grim reality of a couple of college kids in a
sparsely established tiny corner student hangout dump.

"Well, we’re here, I guess. What
should we have?" I mused. I checked out the selection. "Let’s
get quesitos and coffee. That okay with you?"

"Sure." I ordered two
expresos (that’s espresso in Spanish for you snobs out there), and two cream cheese pastry
rolls. We scoped out a clean table near a window with decent chairs
and sat down. We were then next to the street
in front of a large glass window. As the second homeless man passed,
Laura remarked.

"Don’t you just have the feel of a
European café nestled here against the window gazing at the
street?" She started to laugh.

"You know I like hanging out with
you, Laura. We should do these mini dates more often. I’m having
fun in my European café."

Laura started laughing harder and a
tear formed in her eye. "And you know if we put chairs out on
the sidewalk we could drink in the rich aroma of urine." She
started to lose it in a giggle fit, mascara streaming down here face.

With a flick of my wrist and a wistful
French flourish I sighed, "Aahh," and sat back in an
artful recline. Laura could not contain herself as she turned into a
hapless puddle of giggles and tears. She could barely sip her coffee
and eat her pastry. We commented on the buildings, how wonderfully
artful they were, with their square corners covered in mold and
pealing paint, and their imaginative shapes, concrete boxes stacked
one on top of each other for as far as the eye could see.

"This is the
life," I said. "An eternity of European cafes couldn’t replace this one moment I’ve spent with you, my dear."

Hens a Layin’

May 18, 2004 /

We recently endured two straight weeks of rain, over 24 inches of
constant precipitation from morning, through the afternoon, during the
night. It has been tough. I don’t think I’ve endured being inside for
so long in a good many years. You get used to being able to go out
everyday and do some sort of activity. In Puerto Rico, you get sudden
cloud bursts, but in a few minutes that tropical sun mops it up and
life goes on.

Monday was my first morning bike ride in over
two weeks, and it felt good. My chain had rusted a bit from the
humidity. Annoying. You leave your keys a couple of days on the key
holder and you get rusty keys. Such is life.

"I’d like a dozen eggs, " I said to Estéban.

"There are none," he replied.

I sighed, drat. No eggs. I got my milk and headed out. It started raining again. Can’t catch a break, can I?

Tuesday
rolled around, and it’s a welcome relief, sunny and mild. Ooops, what’s
this? Black clouds were rolling in. I headed out in a hurry, hoping to
beat the inundation that was sure to come.

"Any eggs today?" I asked.

Estéban chuckled and checked with the guy behind the counter. "Yeah, looks like there’s enough. We can spare a dozen."

I
thought to myself. Weird, they’re still short on eggs. Then it hit me.
Chickens don’t lay when it’s raining hard. It bothers them. An unhappy
chicken is a non-laying chicken. I remembered the last time we were hit
with tropical storms, there was a short term egg shortage on the island.

The guy next to me, curious, asked idly how much they were. "How much is a dozen?"

Estéban,
got a twinkle in his eye. He chuckled and recounted an incident where a
woman asked him that same question.  "’¿Cuanto es una docena?’ she
asked me, "Twelve little eggs, I told her. Doce huevitos. You know she
got mad? Told me that was more than she had expected."

The whole bakery started rolling. Chuckles went all around, and the mood was genial.

Why Rumsfeld is going Down.

May 7, 2004 /

smug_bastard.jpgI watched the testimony and questioning of Secretary Rumsfeld today
and it became crystal clear to me that his people just dropped his
pants. Either he’s not paying attention to what’s going on, or he’s
pissing people off who could be his friends. Somebody leaked this
investigation. Maybe he wasn’t managing the situation closely enough,
and it just "got out", or his people decided that going over his head
to the public would embarrass him. Either way it shows a failure of
leadership and he’s got to go.

When I was mobilized in Puerto Rico there were numerous
problems with the facilities, training, and planning. Even before my
unit had gotten there, there were news stories about the conditions,
strict restrictions on free time, and severe morale problems. After
having had the pleasure of spending a few weeks there, and hearing
about soldiers vandalizing toilets and showers, I became convinced it
was a failure of leadership. Demming said that 85% of your problems are
management and only 15% come from labor. This to me was never clearer
when the commander of the brigade showed up one day to "lay down the
law" to all of the bad little soldiers who weren’t playing nice. He
promptly got back into his car and drove his fat ass home to his cozy
house. My point is this: soldiers will endure the harshest conditions,
the strictest rules, and the worst possible conditions if they know
their leadership cares, is in it with them, and will sacrifice
everything for them.

Good officers know soldiers are the ones who fight, are the
ones who sacrifice, and are the ones who die. They are the point of the
sword. We officers wield it. Would we blame the sword for our pathetic
failures? The sword was too heavy. The sword wasn’t sharp enough. The
sun was in my eyes. I’ve heard it all, and you know what? It’s a poor
officer, Secretary of Defense, or President who blames soldiers for
problems.

It should tatooed on the heads of all leaders: "My
success is due to this fine sword. These is no equal to it in all the
world." and conversely: "My failure is mine alone. I did not do honor
to this sword. In more capable hands it would have yielded victory."

The failures in Iraq go all the way to the top. They go all the
way to the cowboys in charge, who believe a big sword makes them
somebody. It is the unconquerable soul of man, and not nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory.

And Secretary Rumsfeld does not understand that the sword HE
wields is a human sword. The sword is not made of metal, Apache’s,
F-16’s, Strykers, or any other technological "magic bullet." He has
forgotten, throughout his rampaging through the defense department, who
he works for, who’s the one fighting the war, who’s the one dying. He’s
forgotten, pissed off, trampled, belittled, and made a mockery of the
entire military.

And they fucked him. They fucked him hard.

Soldier’s will do that to you when you don’t have their respect.
Sure, heads will roll for not, "keeping this in-house,", but you can be
sure there’s an officer worth his salt staring Rumsfeld down saying,
"You can take me down, but I got you, you bastard. I got you!"

Mr. Personality, Chuckle-muffin, my Bello-licioso

April 22, 2004 /

easter_crafts_2004_0008.jpgWhat a lovely morning I had walking with Jaimito. He’s such a
delight, and it’s nice to see the world through his eyes. Everything is
important to him.

We headed out the door around 7:20 AM. He
was neatly tucked into his jogger-stroller with what he calls a "beep
beep," little Matchbox cars that he loves. Olaia handed him one before
she left with Laura for school. "Daddy! Daddy! Beep beep," he proudly
said holding it up. "Olaia!"

"Yes, I know. Olaia gave that to you. What a sweet sister you have, Jaimito."

We walked down the sidewalk and turned the corner. "Daddy!! Daddy! Doggie!"

"Yes
Jaimito, that’s where the doggie normally barks at us." He remembers
the exact house where a big dog habitually charges the gate and
furiously attempts to protect his territory. The dog wasn’t there this
morning but Jaimito made sure to point it out.

We continued
down the street on the sidewalk, the overcast morning and high humidity
quickly drenching me in sweat. "Whew, Jaimito, Daddy’s hot. It’s hot
out. Are you hot?"

"No!" he emphatically replied. "Daddy,
Daddy! Beep beep go bye bye." He pointed out cars passing us on the
street heading out to work. "Bye bye!" he called waving to the
multitudes of morning commuters. Some, mostly women, waved back and
smiled.

"Look Jaimito, the paper tree." We stopped and
examined a tree with papery bark. I have to look it up and see what
type it is. Jaimito pulled off a bit and made sounds akin to "Coool!"

As
we got to the edge of the neighborhood where it borders with the
countryside we heard a rooster. Cock-a-doodle-doo, it crowed.
"Cock-a-doo-dl-doo!" echoed Jaimito. "Daddy, Daddy! Da
cock-a-doo-dl-doo." And then he crowed in Spanish, "Qui-qui-di-qui!
Daddy, wow!" The rooster humored us with several more crows followed by
the answers of Jaimito, big rooster of the yard in his voice fuerte. What a show, let me tell you, like a chorus of barnyard sounds.

"Daddy
Daddy, da boat! Da boat en da agua!" He called out letting me know
about the house that normally has a boat parked in the driveway. It
wasn’t there this morning, and apparently Jaimito speculated that it
was in the water. What a smartie. "Daddy, Daddy. Papoo (Papi Tito) an’
da boat en da agua! W’ mami! ‘an Olaia."

"Yes, Jaimito, you went with Mami and Papi Tito on his boat in the water. Wow! That’s neat."

"Daddy
daddy, da ball!" He pointed to an abandoned ball in a yard that was now
covered with mold. It’d been there for months. It’s a highlight for
this little sportsman. It doesn’t matter the condition of the ball, as
long as it’s a ball.

"Daddy Daddy! Da arbol!" He stretched out his hand letting me know he wanted to touch the tree.

"Yeah, that’s a big tree, right Jaimito? A big tree. Ooo, that’s a nice big tree."

"Yeah,"
he agreed. "Ooo Daddy Daddy, da arbol!" We touched the next tree too.
It was a little tree. I rolled my eyes. There were a lot of trees, and
now we were going to have to stop and touch every one. Chuckle.

We
did four laps around the neighborhood, and the highlights for that
little munchkin never got old. Upon every lap, they were just as fresh
and new and exciting as if they were the first time.

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