Vincent The Dragon

Yep, it's today.
I'm 50 now.
that is all.

We snagged these at the local big boxmart store we all hate. They were on sale but then also rang up at like $100 less that the sell price.
31.5 inches of curved big ass monitor running 1920x1080 refreshing at up to 240Hz
...yes, my desk is a mess right now.

The home server, HAL5 is old...very old..and also out of drive space.

I snagged an old server we decommissioned from work. It's a Dell PowerEdge T420.
I worked on the SAS drive plane that was always giving us a random drive disconnect, replaced the dead drives and ordered 4 additional drive trays to fill its 8 bays.
I started with windows so it would be easier to upgrade the various bios's in the system as the people we had manage the server never updated a damn thing....
It would load Linux from a boot dvd and would go through all the motions of install but the wonky Dell iDrac/Lifecycle controller refused to let it boot from the install....EUFI/TPM/Secureboot ...they are all mostly a pain in the ass trying to get them to play nice with OS re-loads or changing the OS. All the research I found that seemed useful all pointed to me having to update the iDrac which I did...but...something went wrong somewhere as upon reboot iDrac is dead.

No indicator light, no front panel controller and Bios states Lifecycle Controller is disabled and nothing I can seem to find or do will bring it back to life.
iDrac is a dead stick, there maaaayyyybe might have been a way to force load the firmware file IF the server had the iDrac SD/remote card slot adapter populated AND if the system had the proper license to even use that part but it does not.

The system WILL still boot to an error you must F1 past and I still can't get Linux to load...all in all HAL6 is dead before he fully came to life...now I need another solution to replace my aging and full home server....

I don't like big cities, never have...never will.
Forest dragons like to be out in the woods.

However; larger metropolitan areas do have things I don't normally get and that is a wider range of foods to eat.
I am away from home for a 2 week training class on a large machine for work and there is a hand pulled noodle shop near by.

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So there we were, it's 3am and we give up...for now.

Old Dell with uefi bios that was being bad about replacing it's dead hard drive and loading Linux in it...Got that done.
Install Virtual box - was fine
Installed W10 on a virtual computer - was fine
USB pass through - was being bad
tried endlessly to get the application I wanted to use the W10 for to run - gave up...for now...
I also tried to get it running on WINE but to no avail.
There are 2 dll's in the program that fail to load in either WINE or VM setup.

We had like maaaybee 3 inches of powder. Nice easy to drive on snow powder...You did NOT pre-treat...What you did do was plow off all the nice grippable snow and expose road...which in 17 degree temps meant they are now wet with water from the sun which turned into a shiny sheet of glass the moment the sun started falling. There were 20 people off the interstate on the way home as they were bumper to bumper in the 'clean' side of the road and sliding all over the place. I was doing 60 in the un-plowed side in my sub-compact with no computer controlled traction assist front wheel drive.

So as you know, I roller over a dead deer in the middle or the Interstate coming home at night.
Someone else hit the thing and of course, left it in the middle of the road. Someone about a mile in front of me also hit the thing. Its dark and just over a hill so there was little to no time to react to the lump. I managed to center the car over it but that was all I had time to do. The truck in front of me was disabled by the impact, breaking his radiator. Ditto to me as it folded my radiator in half.

Progressive insurance company was fast and polite and did a great job.

The towing company not so much but it all got worked out...6 hours into setting at the side of the road…

The collision center did not have much of a job to do; Radiator, AC condenser, radiator support lower, guts and stuff hanging under the car, passenger floor pan bent up, mid frame stabilizer bar bent, broken muffler hanger.

They did the radiator, condenser and lower radiator support with paint and literally nothing else and they left some things unattended with the radiator.

It took a week, nothing wrong there but I got zero updates or feedback at all from them. The day of pickup all the guy there would say is that I pay my part over there. I asked if he knew where they put my tow bolt but all he would do was bring up a terrible phone photo as some sort of proof that it did not have one...One, the picture did not show the part of the car where the bolt screws into. Two, I put the bolt there myself while waiting for a tow so the tow guy did not have to dig it out from where it’s stored in the car. I went to the pay window and tried to have the same conversation however big but Betty was not going to get off her ass and would not give keys without payment.

I found the bolt...also my car stank like rotting flesh...and made some odd noises.

So over the weekend, I had the car in the car port at home up on blocks so I could wash the under carriage and hand dig out guts and bone in the cold. The noise was the muffler resting on top of the mid frame bar, which was bent up several inches. I removed the broken muffler hanger for now and reformed the structure bar. There is also a holding bracket assembly that holds up all the fuel and return lines that is all bent. I will have to remove it, reform it and put it back on some other day. I don’t want it to rub holes in the fuel or return lines. They did nothing about the passenger floor pan, easy to fix by just walking around inside the car. They did nothing about the oil filter with a big damn dent in it either. They also clipped off all of the wire ties that run along the top of the radiator fan shroud assembly rather than unhook them so now that wire harness is just resting on top of the shroud and could fall into the fan blades. I’ll have to purchase new clips.

I will never have another vehicle there for any repair and they are permanently off the list of places to ever purchase a new or used vehicle.

I have been meaning to put up a a post about a project I did.
That being some small engine work I did on a mower but time has not allowed.
Was also going to post about getting Wuf a different car as the G6 is a POS and drinks oil about as fast as it leaks it..not had time...
Was going to update about the fact that the house's heatpump shit the bed and had to be replaced but....

Coming back home from Dad's where we did a family gathering for the holiday and I hit a dead deer carcass in the middle of the interstate.

It was dark, speed was 70, I saw something in the road but only could straddle the large part. There was something else to the left that we are not sure of what it was.
Someone hit the deer and kept going...
There was a small truck about a mile in front of me that also hit the carcass and disabled their vehicle, busting their radiator.
I pulled safely off after going over the deer, no air bags or crash.

The radiator support, radiator and AC are broken on mine...at first look, I felt that was most all the damage but when the tow truck came like 2 hours latter...Small pool of oil...
That's not good...Hopefully its just the oil filter as it's pretty exposed and right in the front of the engine...When I got the car some moron had removed the underskirt which probably would have protected everything in the motor though I would still have the radiator support and radiator damage.

The car is in a holding place for the night and will be taken to the body shop in the morning..I should know more then.

I am going to guess that my shitty luck will mean the car is totaled.

Tried all the things..nothing seems to keep them away.

It would have been your 46th.
We still miss you.

Just some updates on something I did weeks ago and forgot to upload

Fix one thing and one or two another breaks….

So way back in January I got 2 tires and 2 TPMS sensors for my car.
The tires, it was simply due for and the sensors was because the TPMS light came on.
The light was on when I got there and was still on when I left. I assumed the car would auto-learn and since it needed to be above 40 degree to do that I waited. 50 degree weather finally arrived and still no reset so I did what I should have done to begin with and researched. My car will not auto-learn, you have to enter the sensor information into the PCM. For various reasons I have waited until now to get it fixed. I few weeks ago I went to the place I got the tires and the sensors at to begin with to ask some questions and mention what my research showed and if they would clarify and agree but the 12 year old working there was being a smart ass. I returned a week later to ask another person but he was 13 years old and also a damn smart ass. Luckily this auto tire discount store also has a store on the other side of town and I took it there. I explained what went on thus far and what my research pointed to and if they would verify and program. The guy handling my case was older, not quite my age but he basically said...yes, you have to program in the information into the PCM pretty much for all cars and that the younger people generally do not know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Not only did the other store not program the PCM, they would not have been able to because the two TPMS sensors they did replace were keyed to the same information. His scanner showed two sensors with the same ID’s and that would never work. First, the car needs to see 4 sensors and second seeing one sensor ID with overlapping transmitted data would freak out the TPMS module.

Got the car back and no TPMS error, just a TPMS warning flashing light...which IS normal as the car needed to be driven for a while. We drove around a bit and YAY! No error lights now.

Back to home to mow the yard and...UM...nope, the tractor will not start. No crank, no lights, no nothing….battery is good, fuse is good but there is no power. Must be a wire issue or the keyswitch….I’d just push mow but that mower is also fucked. The rings are shot and it smokes after getting hot then drinks all its oil.

Oh! also the attic vent fan died...Now that its 90 degree outside and will be over 100 up in the attic crawl space, I’ll have fun replacing that thing….

United Healthcare has been trying for several years to switch those of us on Remicade to Inflectra.

Inflectra is biosimilar, not an exact copy so no guarantees, It's main side effects is respiratory infections and bronchitis so good luck with that.

Remicaide's main side effects are stuffy nose and headache.

It's only about $300 cheaper for the insurance company but considering that its an infusion just like Remicade, it's still going to cost about $30,000 a treatment anyway so I'll not see any change.

The only way I can afford to hit my max out of pocket expense every single year for the past 20+ years is a rebate from the Remicade manufacture and there is no guarantee I'll get any rebate from the Inflectra people.

Our system is broken

Well...got up early to mow the yard...Mower said NOPE

Went to our town's fireworks display - it was okay, not as good as years past.
Went to Wuf's family for a family food gathering.
Decided to grill out the next day - it was goood!