Checking In

A catch-all, catch-up post

There are 1,132 posts filed in Checking In (this is page 16 of 114).

Up to speed on Amazon Web Services

I’ve been getting up to speed on Amazon Web Services over the past few weeks. With the end of the year bonus I got from my work I put down the money to get a 3-year reserved instance, gaining a hefty hosted server for a remarkably low price.

I’d had an Amazon instance for a few months just to kick the tires. However, when my reserved instance got purchased, it took me a while to figure out that Amazon had changed its virtualization techniques and in order to take advantage of the new instance I would have to convert my existing image to a completely new one. The blocker for this was that the CentOS-based AMI I used seemed locked and the root drive couldn’t be mounted to a new instance. I had to copy everything using the old instance.

My new instance was created completely by me, using a recipe that helped me build it from the ground up. Now that I have a good base to start from I can build some useful AMIs and share them with others. I hope to make a Rivendell Radio Automation AMI someday so that people can launch their own online radio station with a few clicks of a button.

I’ve also dug into the wonder that is S3, creating an s3fs “filesystem” on my Linux instance for serving up music for my Rivendell install. I will eventually do the same for the media included here on MT.net and push that to CloudFront.

The cool thing about the cloud is that it’s a geek’s ultimate laboratory. It’s incredibly easy and cheap to spin up computer sessions. I can play with technologies without having to commit to them long-term. I’m having a lot of fun with it.

I’m particularly proud that I was able to migrate the server that hosts my neighborhood email lists from a locally-hosted server over to AWS without any of my neighbors knowing I’d done it. I guess twenty years of sysadmin experience pays off every now and then!

Photos from the Google Fiber announcement

Google Fiber is coming to the Triangle

Google Fiber is coming to the Triangle


I was able to attend yesterday’s Google Fiber announcement. As I walked towards the auditorium in the North Carolina Museum of Natural History, I was attracted to a table out front that displayed shiny plastic. Spying my Canon camera in my hand, the helpful woman staffing the table asked “would you like a media pass?”

Feeling like the limo driver in the Bud Light “Dr. Galakawicz” commercials, I answered “yeaaassss, I would” and smoothly hung it around my neck.

Inside, I hung out with the media pros and snapped photos with wild abandon. I’ve collected the shots into my Google Plus album. Check them out!

Raleigh gets Google Fiber

Google Fiber is coming to Raleigh

Google Fiber is coming to Raleigh


Last week, word leaked out that Google was hosting two events this week: one in Raleigh and one in Durham. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to guess that Google Fiber is on its way to the Triangle. Word now is that Charlotte will also get the gigabit-speed Internet service.

I hope to attend the upcoming meetings to learn more about this service, after having fought a long battle to bring truly high-speed Internet to the state. I have no special inside track on the goings on, though, so I’ll likely learn about it like everyone else: through the media. It would’ve been great to receive an invitation, though, but in the bigger picture I’m just glad that a cause I’ve supported for many years will finally become reality.

The Goog and The Gov will hold a 1 PM press conference today to announce the news.

Larry Stogner and ALS

I was saddened to hear local WTVD anchor Larry Stogner has ALS, also known as Lou Gherig’s Disease. He has been the face and voice of the Raleigh-Durham area for decades and to see him doing battle with this devastating disease is heartbreaking.

I’ve been thinking of my own recent health issues. For a while it seemed that the twitching that popped up last summer had subsided but recently it has come back just as strong as before. I can’t sit at my desk during the day without feeling some muscle somewhere just twitching away. I had to reschedule my follow-up visit with a neurologist due to a PTA conflict but I see him again next week. I hope we can figure this out.

Goodbye, CR-V

2001 Honda CR-V EX

2001 Honda CR-V EX


This past Friday we said goodbye to our 2001 Honda CR-V, sold to a very happy young woman who answered our Craigslist ad. The CR-V had been in our family for over nine years and was a very good, reliable car. It was also a bit boxy for my taste and the 2.0l engine was underpowered for the car’s size. And it’s not electric, like our new Ford Focus.
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Busy busy weekend

Been pretty busy around Chez Turner. First off, right around Christmas I caught some sort of cold which sapped much of my energy for a few days. Then my stuffy nose kept me from sleeping well for several nights. But that wasn’t enough to keep me from trying to do way too much as is my habit.

The changing calendar brought about the urge to knock out plenty of tasks that have been nagging us for a while. We cleaned out our attic of a ton of unneeded stuff. Then we did the same to the garage. Then we did the same to the utility room. Then we painted our dining room (after, what, six years?). Then we shifted our living room furniture around. Then we hung pictures on the wall (after, what, six years?). Oh, and I put in a charging station for our electric car.

In-between, we found time to go ice skating with our friends, go on a run or two, host our kids’ friends for playdates, go see the excellent movie The Imitation Game, and even get in some music practice. I’ve also spent some time building a spreadsheet to decipher our Time of Use – Demand (TOUD) electricity rate from Duke Energy Progress. I fixed up our CR-V to sell (Armor-All, car wax, engine cleaning, photography, create an ad) and used a smartphone app and a $15 OBD2 adapter to get the car like new. I also toyed with my new RTL-SDR tuners I bought from China, capable of tuning from about 50 MHz to 2200 MHz. And somewhere in there I made time to cook a very tasty meal tonight, after I watched the second half of the N.C. State win over Duke.

Life sure is busy but it’s also good.

Twitches and fatigue

My initial optimism about the magnesium supplements helping with the muscle twitches I’ve had has worn off. The twitching has continued, spread out all over my body now. In fact, one night last week I felt the muscles between my shoulder blades twitch when I was sleeping – waking me up. It’s the biggest damn pain in the ass.

To top it off, we had only walked about the fairgrounds for about an hour before I started feeling very fatigued. I felt like my arm and leg muscles were slow as molasses. It dawned on me that night that I am finally able to effectively define fatigue versus simple tiredness. Fatigue is like tiredness but without the mental urge to sleep. Fatigue is not having any energy while still maintaining the will to do something. The mind is willing but the body unable. It seems that the fatigue that would once make a visit to me for a few weeks every year or so has begun to occur far more frequently and persistently. And it really sucks. I’m tired when I have no right to be and it’s starting to affect my quality of life.

I hope to revist my doctors soon to discuss next steps. This journey is obviously not over yet.

Weekend update

It’s been a busy weekend. Friday morning was the press conference and the official kickoff of the Parks bond campaign. NFL stars Torrence and Terry Holt joined other city officials to urge passage of the bond. As the marketing co-chair of the bond committee, I helped plan the press conference and some of the talking points used. The location of the Chavis carousel was perfect, the weather was perfect, the messaging was perfect, and it all just came together. What’s more, I was able to collect the photographs of many attendees, all to add to our “I Flip 4 Parks” social media campaign. Oh, and the official website, iFlip4Parks.org, was unveiled as well. Marketing has been a group effort, with the Raleigh Chamber pitching in as well as committee members Jeff Tippett (committee chair), myself, and Patrick Buffkin (speakers chair). The website was designed by Scott Reston with video provided by Napoleon Wright. Everyone did a super job!

Friday afternoon was the visitation for Thomas Crowder, held in the lobby of Meymandi auditorium. There was a huge turnout of people paying their respects. I was glad to meet many of Thomas’s family and say hello to those I’ve already met.
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Gimmie gimmie shock treatment

Yesterday was my appointment to get an EMG and a nerve conduction study done to find out more about my twitchy legs. The technician’s name was Diane and she had me take off my shoes and socks and lie on the table. Diane asked if I was having twitches now and if they were visible. Unfortunately, none were active that I could point her to (though I noticed them again later on the way home).

She then attached a few electrodes to my ankle area and used what is essentially a cattle prod device to run electric shocks into my muscle while a computer charted the responses.

“This is a little more active than I expected,” I told her, not expecting shocks. “I was thinking this would be more passive.”

“Well, we’ve got to check your muscles’ responses to the electricity,” she responded without looking up.
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Twitches continue

My muscle twitches have continued constantly since I first noted my left knee twitching. Now I get twitches in my upper left quadricep, right quadricep, right foot, both hamstrings, buttocks, left calf muscle, and elsewhere. It seems that at any one point in time there is something twitching. It’s as if someone is tickling me, 24 hours a day. It frequently wakes me up hours before my usual waking time. I’m really starting to wish this would go away but so far it has only gotten worse.

I am set to visit a neurologist tomorrow who can hopefully give me some answers. As I pondered my upcoming visit, I realized I had been assuming the doctor could provide some sort of medicine that might still my twitching enough that it wouldn’t disturb my sleep. Tonight I considered the very unpleasant possibility that the doctor can’t do anything to calm my muscles. Never mind whether this is a symptom of a more serious condition – nevermind the underlying cause – what if I was simply stuck with being invisibly goosed for the forseeable future? This alone would suck.

In the darkest corners of my mind is the fear that the mysterious health issues that have occasionally plagued me for decades have now fully latched onto me, having chewed through my body’s defenses. Pessimistic, I know, and premature since I haven’t seen the neurologist yet, but I admit that whatever is affecting me now has my full attention.