Andrew Gaffney

I've begun to think that my truck hates me. Last weekend, I had it at the shop because the heater has been working intermittently this winter. It turns out that the heater core was clogged, which meant that very little hot coolant was flowing into it to actually make it work. On top of that, I needed new back tires. Those two things ended up costing me just shy of $400. A few months ago, I had all 4 shock absorbers and the front tires replaced as well as a frontend alignment and something else I'm forgetting. All of that cost $800 or so.

Tonight, when I started my truck to leave work, the Service Engine Soon light came on. I was not happy. I stopped by AutoZone on the way home to have them pull the diagnostic code. The guy hooked up the reader and the first thing he said was "Ooh, this is a fun one". I cringed. The code was "random cylinder misfire". I cringed again. He said that there a few things that would cause this problem. The first was a fuel pressure problem, which makes sense since my truck tends to idle a bit rough and have some problems starting (when the engine is cold (regardless of outside temperature), I have to turn the key for 10-15 seconds or even a second time). The second possibility is the crank and/or cam sensor. I'm sure either of these possibilities will cost me lots more money. Hopefully, this will be covered under the 3-year/36,000-mile coverage plan I got with my truck when I bought it in September 2005. I guess I'll call the dealer tomorrow.

For a while now, codeman and I have been working on a major overhaul of GLI (Gentoo Linux Installer or "the installer"). After I wrote Quickstart, it became apparently that the entire reason for GLI's current design was no longer valid, since Quickstart was already more functional as an automated installer than GLI ever would be. We decided to drop the "configure first, then install" structure that the installer was originally designed with.

The results have so far been more than we could have hoped for. The entire install is now done in real-time (like virtually every other installer out there). For example, adding/deleting a partition takes effect immediately, clicking the Next button on the stage selection screen downloads and unpacks the stage before you move on, etc. Just the partitioning change has eliminated one of the largest complaints about the installer of old (it tended to eat partition tables if there was anything "weird" about the existing layout, such as partitions out of order, primaries after an extended, overlapping partitions, etc. due to the fact that it had to track all the changes in memory, serialize it to XML, read it back from XML, compare to the existing disk layout, and then make the existing match what was in the XML).

This allows us to do many things that we couldn't do before, such as allowing the user to go back and change a setting if an install step fails, opening up an xterm/gnome-terminal window for 'make menuconfig' so the user can configure their own kernel, etc. Of course, you now have to babysit the installer, but you have to do that with a manual install, too.

A few weeks ago, I decided to create a myspace account on a whim. Today, out of the blue, I get a friend request from a girl named Jessica. It turns out that it's the same Jessica that was my first "girlfriend" in kindergarten and first grade. I had lost touch with her for a while after I switched schools in second grade and her mom moved to Colorado shortly after. The last time I saw her was 9 years ago when we were 13. Today was the first time I've talked to her since then.

We talked online for a few hours and got caught up. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I look forward to actually seeing her the next time she comes out to Missouri to see her siblings that live with her father. I told my wife about this, and of course, she over-reacted initially. It's not like Jessica is out to "get me back" or something like that...she's actually looking forward to meeting my wife. For some reason, my wife always seems to think that someone is waiting just around the corner to take me away from her. If you've seen my picture, you'd know this is just crazy

She seems to have returned to "normal" for now, but I'm sure I'll hear about it later Anyway, it's worth whatever crap my wife may give me to have have an old friend back in my life, however limited (by distance and such) it may be. I have more than a few acquaintances, but I have very few good friends, and I'm hoping Jessica turns back into just that.