Sunday, March 17, 2024

I thought I found a clover made of stone. It turns out it's a sham rock

 Ok, after a long workout this morning where I had to stop to watch the sunrise over the airpark and the airplanes, I'm in the chair listening to classical music and thinking what diabolical story can I dig up for today. 

See if this fits the bill! 


A little girl was in church with her mother when she started feeling ill. "Mommy," she said, "can we leave now?"

"No" her mother replied.

"Well, I think I'm gonna be sick, Momma!"

"Then go out the front door and around to the back of the church and then behind a bush."

After about 60 seconds the little girl returned to her seat.

"Were you sick?" her mom asked.

"Yes."

"How could you have gone all the way to the back of the church and returned so quickly?"

"I didn't have to go out of the church, Mommy. They have a box next to the front door that says, 'For the Sick'."

Saturday, March 16, 2024

I never ride my bike around the mental health hospital, There are dangerous cycle paths down there!

 Between adding two teaspoons of cocoa and an ounce of peanut butter to my morning oatmeal and an ounce of Dulce De Leche (Caramel Sauce), this is getting a bit out of hand.  Tasty, but a bit out of hand.

But yes, tasty.  And hey I'm not going to give you any bad ideas but my own diet has me at 600 calories per meal - and this just hits it.   Maybe hold back on the caramel sauce next time couldn't taste it :)


Anyway



A preacher was making his rounds to his parishioners on a bicycle, when he came upon a little boy trying to sell a lawn mower.

"How much do you want for the mower?" asked the preacher.

"I'm just trying to make enough money to buy a bicycle," said the little boy.

After a moment of consideration, the preacher asked, "Will you take my bike in trade for it?"

The boy said, "You got a deal."

The preacher took the mower and tried to crank it. He pulled on the string a few times with no response from the mower.

The preacher called the little boy over and said, "I can't get this mower to start."

The little boy said, "That's 'cause you have to cuss at it to get it started."

The preacher said, "I'm a minister, and I can't cuss. It's been so long since I've been saved that I don't know if I even remember how to cuss."

The little boy looked at him happily and said, "Just keep pulling on that string. It'll come back to ya!"

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Migrating my Linux Install From One Machine to the next. Took me longer to open the case.

Before I retired, I always had very new computers.

Then I moved down here to Florida.  The power company who shall remain nameless with their crappy infrastructure took care of that.

I had a rather nice desktop machine.  Then I realized that it was killed by power spikes.  The old laptop I had still worked.

Hmm, I'm onto something here.

Basically that power brick on the floor filtered the power spikes.  Literally, it blew out a power brick and left me powerless until I could get to the computer store down in Miami.

Then I realized that there is not enough room for a desk and a desktop and a giant CRT Style Monitor.  Hey it was the "Naughties" so LCD Screens were still expensive.

I migrated to my laptop permanently.

It was harder to move data around then, the hardware did not lend itself to it, and Windows... Well the less said about that the better.

Now, my newest computer is a little more than 3 years old (November 2020) and it's fast in comparison.  I moved over to Linux permanently and never looked back a while ago.  Some time around 2010, maybe earlier.  When Windows 8.1 came out.   I still have that install on a very old laptop and cringe every time I use it.  Ugly block land, and now Windows 11 is coming back to the way it used to look in Windows 2000 ... with AI?  Sheesh how do you people use Windows these days?  It's a steaming pile of sluggish poop!  Do you want SkyNet because AI is how you get Terminator.

This particular "new" machine I have here is a Lenovo T15 with 16GB of memory and a rather fast 500GB hard drive. 

How I went to it was simple.  I opened it up and connected the new machine and the hard drive clone of a backup from my X390 Yoga.  Turned it on and it worked.

Yep.  That's it.  Really, that old Yoga was feeling it's age because the USB-C socket that I used to power it was getting flaky but it is still a solid performer - Linux is a very forgiving environment.  The prior two upgrades, going back about 10 years, are both usable speed wise, even today.  You can't do that with Windows.

Oh, I had the "new" computer reboot a couple times and looked over the bios on the new machine and everything was just like I left it.

All done until this morning.  I was presented with an "initramfs" prompt.  It was an error that was fixed easily by two file system checks.  Took about 5 minutes once I remembered what I needed to do.

fsck -y /dev/mapper/luks*d
fsck -y /dev/mapper/luks*2

That means: File System Check, answer everything yes, on the drives referenced in the Mapper directory.

Yep.  That's it.  Took about 15 minutes to move the hardware.  Newer machine, larger screen, faster processor, still an encrypted hard drive.  Thanks for the upgrade!  I am right back where I was, doing my thing and happily listening to Mexican Pop on my cheap little external speakers.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

If that’s Orion’s belt….Where’s his pants?

 Since my Wordpress backup of this www.ramblingmoose.com site liked the topic yesterday, I thought I'd repeat the silliness.

So folks?  Did you reset your clocks?  How many will you miss until May or June or some other dear sweet lady's named month?

Don't let's go on that metaphor, it's a bit odd.

Just back from a workout, nice day for it.  Here is hoping your weekend is just as awesome!




A timid little man was terrified of flying, and was on a long distance trip.

He was on his first ever flight, and he had the window seat. Besides him sat a giant man, heavily tattooed, and not smelling the cleanest.

After the plane took off, the timid little fellow soon found himself feeling sick. But he didn't know how to get past the large fellow that sat between him and the way to the bathroom, especially because his neighbour was now fast asleep.

Suddenly it was too late, he couldn't help himself, and he got sick all over the other man. He frantically tried to wipe up the mess, hoping the giant wouldn't wake up.

Despite his best efforts, he noticed the man stirring, and his eyes opened. Thinking quickly, the timid little man smiled and said, "Are you feeling better now?"




Oh ew, but he did cover his mistake fairly well if a bit evil.

How about a second one?  Since we're heading to a burger joint similarly named, and I was just at a golf course biking circles around the place...





Two guys are out playing golf

Jim and Dave are playing golf one day when they come to the 8th hole there are two women teeing off.

Jim turns to Dave and says "go ask if we can play through"

Dave takes off towards the two women but only makes it about ten paces before he turns around and comes back

"What's the matter?" Asks Jim

"Well you see one of those women is my wife and the other is my mistress" replies Dave

"I see" says Jim as he heads off to ask the women if they can play through, like Dave he takes about ten steps then returns to Dave and says "small world"

Saturday, March 9, 2024

The Orion's Belt is just a big waist of space..Terrible joke. Only three stars.

 Well, I did complain that I whacked my jokes back up file, and my original or current jokes file.

I found it on an old laptop.  So if I give you a duplicate, just tell yourself that you heard it before, and if you like you can reach out to me here or on facebook (ugh) and say so.  I'll be gracious, shrug, and "try better".

Now, about those old laptops... I have a stack here, and I am sure you do too.  If you have an old intel Mac (i3/i5/i7) that you are trying to get rid of securely, I can help you there too.  We'll talk.  Either you donate it to the cause or I hand you your machine back with a base install of Linux...

On to the Jokes...


This one I know I heard but I don't care, I like it!




A burglar breaks into a house. He begins to search the home for valuables when hears a quiet voice say
“Jesus is watching you” he dismisses it as paranoia and carries on with his crime.
He hears the voice again “Jesus is watching you”.
He’s knows this time it’s not in his head so he looks around the room and sees a parrot in the corner.
He walks over to the parrot and it repeats one more time “Jesus is watching you”.
The burglar says to the parrot. “Is your name Jesus?”
“No it’s Moses” the parrot replied.
The burglar laughs and says “Who names a parrot Moses?” and
the parrot says “The same person who named the Rottweiler Jesus”



If that was not enough, here's my tip o the hat for a two-fer!





A priest and a nun are caught in a blizzard.

They find a deserted cabin and take shelter.

They find a sleeping bag, a bed, and a pile of blankets.

The priest, being a gentleman, offers the nun the bed and takes the sleeping bag for himself.

As they get tucked in for the night the nun calls out,

- "Father, Father I'm cold!"

So the priest gets up and puts another blanket on the nun.

- "Is that better Sister?" he asks.

- "Yes Father, much better," she replies.

So he gets back in his sleeping bag and starts to nod off when she again calls out with,

- "Father I'm still cold!"

So once again the priest gets up and puts another blanket on her, ensuring she is tucked into the bed well.

- "Is that better Sister?" he asks.

- "Oh yes Father, that's much better," she says.

So the priest gets himself back into the sleeping bag and this time is just starting to dream when he wakes up to her call of,

- "Father, Father I'm just so cold!"

The priest thinks long about this and finally says,

- "Sister, we are in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard. No one but you, myself, and the lord himself will ever know what happens here this night. How about, just for this night, we act as though we were married?"

The nun thinks on this for a minute, she can't help but admit to herself she's been curious, and finally answers with a tentative,

- "OK Father, just for tonight, we will act as though we are married."

So the Father replies,

- "Get up and get your own damned blanket ya cow!" and rolls over to fall asleep.



Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Trust in Dog, That Storm Means It's Not A Workout Day Even Though It Will Clear


 I guess the light comes on and nobody is still home.

The alarm has a light on it that is "just enough" to wake me.  Ear plugs are in so I can't hear the thing anyway. 

I can't also hear the rain outside until I pull the ear plugs out.  After checking the radar, it's no workout so I drop into a lower gear and ask Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) if he's ok and can wait or "Do you need to go out". 

Rack just lay on his bed, sprawled out, vibrating from the outdoor thunder and lightning, very, very, frightening.

Yes, a McNab SuperDog (TM) is smart enough to tell you if he needs to water a tree or not.  That's why he's a Super Dog for crying out loud!

He didn't.  I watered my own porcelain "tree".  Was able to check Radar while doing all that and realized that "It's Not A Workout Day" or as a Visitor or Tourist to My Fair City would say "Not a Beach Day".

I grabbed my clothes after checking the scales for the daily weigh in.  Leaning against the wall in the hall I heard the Weather Alert Radio agree with my appraisal.  The Radar was evil and green/red and mottled, and we were in a lull in the downpour.  The Pompano Beach AirPark where I workout was under a red blob, and just forget it.  Ok, not going to happen.

The clearing that they need to do after the storms was not going to happen either because it's not a high priority.  It rains, their choices in plantings next to the trails drop litter on the trails, and eventually they get the blowers out to clear it off, but it could be a solid week in some cases.  Your workout is not their priority.

I pulled on the jeans and looked in the mirror.  Not bad, my two-pack may not be a six pack, but I'm also close to being a grandfather's age.  Memento Mori can wait.

...and we went out for a walk. 

By the time we got back he was laying at my feet as I made his food bowl vibrating.

All that is to say basically that if you think the Sunshine State is easy to predict weather because it is rarely colder than 50F and rarely warmer than 95F, hold my beer while I get Radar up.  Storms can come from any angle.  Here they tend to ride the border between Broward and Dade Counties right on that line.  The heat islands from Miami and Miami Beach and Downtown Fort Lauderdale, tend to push the storms right along that.  Just North of Downtown Fort Lauderdale in Wilton Manors and adjoining Oakland Park are in the "rain shadow" and drier, and the Pompano Airpark is a cool bit of land that pulls in storms. 

I once outraced a Thunderstorm coming south on Federal Highway/US1 from Boca Raton into Deerfield Beach into Pompano Beach getting to my car completely dry on my racing inline skates.  Apparently that storm was not moving at that high a speed.

So trust in Dog, and get a good Radar app.  Oh and those Weather Alert Radios are generally programmable with something called "SAME" which will limit the alerts to just your one-ninth of the county.  In a square county, like mine, that's important.

Mind you by 9AM all that is immaterial because the weather has cleared for a couple hours.  Slop will still be on the trails in Pompano but momentum has it's own charm and so do the Peppermint Patty Pancakes that I made for breakfast.  Well, Peppermint.  Not really enough Cocoa yet to call them Peppermint Patty, but that's easy to fix.


Sunday, March 3, 2024

Pay Attention When Your Computer Warns You Your File Is Open On A Save, I Lost My Jokes File

 Hey I mean I can recover it, but it will take some flipping back and forth to get it back.

What happened was that in all the nonsense that I do here, I blinked.  It was not due to anything other than just being busy and or tired blah blah blah.

I had the file I keep open on the desktop.  That Jokes file.  It's titled "Thirteen Bad Jokes.txt".  Many months back I started putting jokes and stories into that file but started with saving one liners.   I found so many more one liners that I used them for the weekend titles.

That many...

But I would have people send jokes to me and others I would "farm" from joke sites on the web.  I had a few basic rules -

They have to be funny to me,
They have to be funny to me after I clean them up to be able to be told in a class room of 12 year olds,
They have to be not-evil - Not racist/sexist/etc-ist.

I personally don't consider myself terribly offensive - here.  In person you will know exactly how you sit with me in chapter and verse, and probably learn too much about my own head, too quickly.

If you find that strange, be truthful with yourself, because I am sure there are some out there who would say exactly that about you. 

The "Hold My Beer" mindset that extends in our recent culture is very different than it had been even 20 years ago.

So I screwed up.  While I watch this particular post come up with a warning message that says " Update Failed ".  Oh yes, it will be one of those days.

I guess I'll be spending time on those same sites looking to start over.  Having a zero byte file on the desktop of this machine is useless. 

Since I was gifted a machine so that I could continue writing the blog as well as other things, I may be able to leverage one of those machines to help.

Repair Software Rules

1) Never use Windows because the ick factor is just too high
2) when backing up Linux don't try to use your back up on the machine you are trying to restore to because the Linux hard drive is a clone, and if you plug a cloned back up into an encrypted master, it will error out.
3) if trying to restore a single file or directory of them (Folder to you Windows people), use a temporary Linux install.  It only takes an hour to create one, only 10 minutes to book from install media. 

On that note, if I want Lunch at Noon when I have company, I have to release this blurb of helpful hints, and rants, and get my beefy and fit self into the shower!

We will see how that all goes won't we?  LOL

Saturday, March 2, 2024

What do you call a good looking Pig? Hamsome.

Ok, I'm back from being an athlete today.  Beautiful day for a 14.6 mile bike ride.  Trying to do a file by file copy on a very large volume in Linux with my feet up on the couch at the moment.   We'll see how that goes, the destination was formatted for windows.  "ext4" is so much more flexible.



John and the Mob Boss

John was serving as a jury member in a high-profile gangster trial. The mob boss's underlings approached John with threats and a bribe:

"There's no way a death sentence will be passed. At worst, it'll be a life sentence." Shaken, John agrees. The trial proceeds, and the jury is sequestered. Hours turn into days, then a week...

Finally, the jury returns with their decision:

"Life imprisonment."

The gang members are thrilled. The boss grins at John, and as his men hand John $10,000, they praise him, "Great job, you've truly earned this. But what took so long? Was it tough to persuade the others?"

John sighs and says, "You wouldn't believe it! Right from the start, they were all set on acquittal. It was a nightmare convincing them for a life imprisonment!"

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Debian may be stable, but that doesn't mean I have to be. "touch /forcefsck" will help.

I started the day the way I ended the last one, cursing at a laptop.

You see, If you are running Windows on your personal computer, a lot of the control has been slowly taken from you until Microsoft has turned something that was once a long time ago a hobby machine, into an appliance.

The Mac never really was anything but an appliance.  Do as we say, stay in our little walled garden, and walk in lock step while pretending you have freedom.  Draw your pictures and enjoy.

I run Linux.  There really are no rules.  You have a computer, in my case an older one that is a hand me down from corporate life.  You push the Windows install away, and you take the control back. 

The design philosophy is drastically different.  You have control.  Free will, really.  So you find an acceptable level of risk that fits your capabilities, your knowledge, and you make your own decisions.  This implies you will make mistakes along the way.  You will break things.  It's not always a comfortable ride, although it can be.

I use a version of the operating system called Debian.  In its Stable form, it is one of the most comfortable and competent pieces of software you will ever experience.  It is the warm comforter on a cold night with a nice mug of hot chocolate and a Labrador retriever sitting by your side.  It simply does not break.  Oh sure, it is known to be a bit older, but that software being older has its benefits.  Stability. 

It's the air cooled VW Beetle of your dreams, or in my case that 2002 Jeep Wrangler that is sitting in the driveway with no rust and no check engine light.  I'm proud of that, really.  I mean who has a 22 year old car that is worth $15K without really trying?

On the other hand, I've turned this island of stability into a rowdy puppy.  With the Zoomies.  Colliding into the china cabinet and breaking dishes.

How?  I turned it into "Testing Debian".  Now keep in mind, Debian anything is more stable than most.  There are companies that have based their entire existence on running something that is called "Testing" by one of the most careful and conservative organizations in the Linux world. 

Where Windows and the Mac are all hush-hush and closed source, if I had a mind to, I could get the actual code that built the software my computer runs on and build my own version.  Create my own distribution.  There are a large number of computer companies that do just that.

But, things sometimes go awry.  Hence my bad night and day.  Something has been lingering and I tried to force it.  I ended up in a "Dependency Hell" where one piece of software was depending on another to run at a low level within the computer's library of software. 

Didn't work.  I gave up just after breakfast and did something I did not want to do - I restored the computer from a backup.

And that's the moral of the story.   Always have a complete back up of your computer.  I did.  A clone of my hard drive.  Why not?  Memory is cheap these days, and I set the machine to do a full and complete backup on Sunday night so on Monday morning, I can update the thing on my own time.

Yes, Windows users, I can tell my machine to do things on my own schedule even if the thing is not going to work right once I am done. 

Windows Update be damned, I'm flying by the seat of my pants.

That is how my Jeep got its wheels cleaned.  Start the restore, then get bored.  I went outside and cleaned the car while the "dd" copy was working.

"dd"?  Originally meant Disk Dump, but I have used it like Disk Destroyer before.

Jeep has the wheels cleaned, windows washed, and I have a 22 year old car that the check engine light is now turned off.  Not every Jeep Wrangler (2002 TJ) Owner can say that.

The Computer?  I'm back on it, as you can see.  Feet up on the couch creating a divot on the arm just like always.

On the other hand the version of Debian will tick over so the Testing version I am on becomes "Stable" in summer.  Until then, I just run in parallel like I am here.  Encrypted hard drive, testing operating system, and all.

Had I had any sort of a command prompt I'd look for the following:

From the command prompt, make sure your encrypted disk is at least readable.  Mine was not, it booted directly into the Bios which meant I was stuffed.

In /dev/mapper there are files pointing to your encrypted hard disks. 

fsck -y /dev/mapper/ (your disk names)

Then try a reboot.  If you are successful you will end up at your normal desktop.  If not, find your back up drive and do a restore.

You did do a backup right?

Ok, now that you are back, this command will force a fsck (file system check) on your hard drives when you reboot next time. 

sudo touch /forcefsck

Sunday, February 25, 2024

What did they yell at Edgar Allen Poe to stop him from walking into the oak? Poetry!

 A little Canadian Content.  I started the day listening to the news on CBC Radio 1, via the internet.  I'd rather be using one of my shortwave radios, but here in South Florida in this day and age, it's very doubtful that can happen.



A couple were driving through Canada on their way out west.

After a while it became clear they had made a wrong turn and got lost. The wife consulted the road map but couldn't figure out where they were. They were driving along a rural road when they saw a farmer standing by the road.

"I'll pull over and see if he can help," the husband says.

He gets out of the car and asks the farmer "My wife and I seem to have taken a wrong turn. Can you tell me where we are?"

"Saskatoon, Saskatchewan," the farmer replies.

The husband gets back in the car.

"Well, where are we?" the wife asks.

"I don't know. He doesn't speak English," the husband replies.