NikkelNet

Well, I decided it’s high time I started building cool shit again, so I got busy with the ga-rage. Everything’s all spic’n’span now…tools are hung up, shelves are installed, hangers for ladders, shovels, etc. It’s nice. I won’t bore you with a pic…you’ve seen it before…just a bit different arrangement.

So…I decided a long while back that I need to have a PC, more importantly, a Linux PC, in there in my work area so I can do robot-like things again. Then the chinese house firedrill happened and I got set back on those plans. But no more…I finally got the sucker set up to the point now where I can use it in there on wireless.

I got the box set up with Ubuntu 7.10 a while back…installation was painless. Just pop a CD in from windows, click and button, and off you go….into dual-boot land.

Unfortunately, networking is not quite as painless as the fanboys would lead you to think. The nice networking setup GUI does everything BUT set up your networking. It tends to screw things up more than it helps…so I just deleted it, boned up on all the command-line networking voodoo, and got it going the hard way (it took me 3 hours of reading and struggling to recover from the ill state the stupid GUI left the machine in).

Time to build some cool stuff.

Well, we finally did the Rincon Peak hike. It’s a whopper of a hike for Arizona…just over 16 miles, and about 5000 feet elevation gain.

Photos are posted here. This one here is looking off towards Tucson…just over that next ridge. The valley below heads right over towards my house. So yeah…Arizona isn’t that dull barren desert you all pictured huh?

The last two miles of the hike are killer…you’re walking along this flat section towards this really steep section, just thinking the whole time “oh my this is going to suck”…and to your own disdain you are right…it is going to suck. After a mile of going up a hillside that is so steep you can barely walk up without using your hands, you finally pop out of the trees up top to one hell of a view. You can see FOREVER. You can probably see Mexico City or something if you squint hard enough.

Welp time to work on the ga-rage. Yes…thats right…ga-rage.