purg.atory – a personal blog by elyograg

New TV series in the repertoire – The Big Bang Theory. Rented season 1 from Netflix on a recommendation, LOVED IT. I’m irritated at CBS, who is not putting season 2 episodes on their website. It seems natural that the show’s target audience would be networked geeks who would very much want to view it…

My main computer at home has been having some unusual trouble until recently. It would occasionally either lock up or just spontaneously reset and reboot, usually when I was clicking on something with the mouse. This was particularly frustrating because every time it would lock up or reset, after reboot the mirrored hard drives would…

Today, in an effort to save money and eat better, I went to the store and bought the bits for sandwiches. Gourmet sandwiches that I would never be able to get my kids to touch, even if they happened to have a thirty-nine and a half foot pole handy. Ingredients: Grandma’s multi-grain bread with visible…

Does anyone know of any free or open source CAD software? I am in a situation where I need to investigate the possibility of building an addition to my house, so we need to be able to draw up some plans. Visio would do the job, and I can use it at work, but it’s…

This is another post about my sleeping patterns, so if you don’t want to read about it, you can move on to the next thing in your reader now. I’ve always had an internal alarm clock that lets me wake up right before the electronic version goes off. I’ve even on occasion been able to…

Well, my night with the EPR setting on the CPAP transpired with a complete lack of success. I woke up several times during the night, with the mask giving me next to nothing in the way of pressure. I was still a little tired when I woke up. Currently the machine is set for a…

From Smith’s Chinese: Now is the time to call loved ones at a distance. Share your news.

No doubt about it, the CPAP is making a difference. I feel so much better. If any of you out there in the blogosphere feel tired all the time and your bedmate tells you that you snore or stop breathing while you sleep, you should definitely talk to a doctor and have a sleep study.…

Two of the three kids that I take to school in the morning called in sick, so I only had to take one. After that I went and voted, then stopped by Starbucks for my free cup of coffee. I urge everyone to go and vote if they’ve registered, no matter which candidate or party…

WordPress has a beta of their upcoming version. I’ve created a complete copy of my blog on a different URL and upgraded the copy. If you’re astute enough to find my list of domains, it will tell you which of them contains the upgraded copy and you can go peek. Most of the changes are…

Modern computers present a quandary to the everyday person. They hear about advances in CPU and computer technology, yet their computers seem slower now than the ones they had five or ten years ago. It isn’t a perception problem, the average brand-new consumer computer DOES respond more slowly with a modern OS. It’s also true…

As mentioned previously, I had a sleep study. The results, which took two weeks to come in, showed that I have moderately severe sleep apnea. The doctor wanted to do a second sleep study and evaluate what air pressure is required. The alternative is an auto-titrating CPAP machine, which figures out the right air pressure…

Today there was a lively discussion in the daily chatroom. It started with election issues because I linked Tim O’Reilly’s blog post about why he supports Barack Obama. Someone mentioned the death penalty and the discussion REALLY took off. Here’s my take on the death penalty. In the Old West, they had public hangings. In…

Any modern UNIX or UNIX-like OS can do internet mail out of the box. Just give it a domain while setting up the mail software, set up an MX record in the DNS for that domain, and you’re well on your way to sending and receiving mail. Normally with the basic setup just mentioned, incoming…

Tomorrow night I am undergoing a sleep study at the Sleep~Wake Center run by the U of U hospital, which happens to be in the same building where I work. For my new patient appointment, I walked two doors down from my office. The total distance was about par with the 50 yard dash from…

I have some interest in picking up a commuturd. For those not familiar with this term, a definition: a cheap car that gets used almost strictly for going to and from work. My commute is about 24 miles each way. I have a few strict requirements: A manual transmission Air conditioning The ability to get…

I have not had a substantial post in quite a while. If any of you are on the edge of your seat waiting for such drivel as I might produce, I do apologize for not delivering. It’s not that nothing’s been happening, it’s just that what’s been happening has either been not terribly exciting or…

Fortune from the usual – Master Fung at Smith’s: Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?

“In order to check for updates, you must install an update for Windows Update.” I should have gotten a screenshot.

That man really needs to shut up.