Memorial Day weekend
May. 27th, 2008 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damontIt was, in some ways, a very satisfying weekend. To what extent I contributed to other people having had a good time, I am glad to have made that contribution.
But honestly... for me personally, it was also a difficult weekend, and while I have no trouble seeing the good parts for others, I am having a lot of trouble seeing the good parts for myself.
The first half of the weekend (Friday and Saturday) involved significant amounts of physical labor, effectively concluding a process that had begun back on Wednesday the 14th. The aches are still with me. Those days *also* involved a significant amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth over unsuccessful attempts to get any of our older machines to boot up to where they could see a CD-ROM drive. (WARNING: some techspeak ahead.) This is significant because I was -- and STILL AM -- trying to read some QIC-150 tapes, and while I have a tape drive designed to read them, it uses a proprietary interface from the 1980's and will not run on newer hardware because the interface requires an ISA slot. (See this earlier post for more details.) I did receive some donated hardware from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
draftwitch and her husband, which did successfully boot on Saturday evening, and I installed an older version of Ubuntu Linux on it. But it does not appear to be seeing the tape drive. Though the drive itself *is* getting power, the LED light on its front never goes out.
Saturday night and almost all of Sunday were not easy for me. Some of what went on was family-related and I shouldn't be the first to talk about it on LJ. Some of it was continued frustration about the computer stuff. As for the rest... I screwed up, and hurt some people, but most of all myself. Only a handful of my LJ friends were affected by this at all. Between all the stuff-schlepping and everything else going on during the week, I had totally failed in my efforts to deal with the second half of the weekend in advance. As a result, I caused a great deal of mental and spiritual discomfort (perhaps even anguish) to both myself and some of my friends. I am still uncomfortable with myself over the results. For those of you who were present -- and for those of you who wanted to come but couldn't -- please, *please* do not feel bad about this. *I* am the one who screwed up -- nobody else -- and I am deeply sorry for having screwed up, and for having caused you all discomfort, even just in passing. My own discomfort is probably greater, and while I could wish that it were not so much, I am aware that I did this *all to myself.*
Sunday night and most of Monday were not as painful -- Monday, perhaps, in part because there was nothing further to be done about it. It really was nice to see everyone yesterday, much as I might not have been showing it; how much socializing I was really ready for, I'm not sure. I hope I wasn't too much of a wet blanket.
Monday night things went less well. I managed to cause hurt, however inadvertently. I'm sorry. Later on I received a piece of news from a non-LJ friend that I am going to need some time to come to grips with, time that should include some talks with that friend, especially as it could potentially have an effect on certain details for Pennsic.
So that's how my weekend went. I have a phone interview at 3 PM today, which is related to the whole computer gyrations I've been going through this past week. I hope my lack of success with reading the tapes will not be a significant obstacle.
But honestly... for me personally, it was also a difficult weekend, and while I have no trouble seeing the good parts for others, I am having a lot of trouble seeing the good parts for myself.
The first half of the weekend (Friday and Saturday) involved significant amounts of physical labor, effectively concluding a process that had begun back on Wednesday the 14th. The aches are still with me. Those days *also* involved a significant amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth over unsuccessful attempts to get any of our older machines to boot up to where they could see a CD-ROM drive. (WARNING: some techspeak ahead.) This is significant because I was -- and STILL AM -- trying to read some QIC-150 tapes, and while I have a tape drive designed to read them, it uses a proprietary interface from the 1980's and will not run on newer hardware because the interface requires an ISA slot. (See this earlier post for more details.) I did receive some donated hardware from
draftwitch and her husband, which did successfully boot on Saturday evening, and I installed an older version of Ubuntu Linux on it. But it does not appear to be seeing the tape drive. Though the drive itself *is* getting power, the LED light on its front never goes out.Saturday night and almost all of Sunday were not easy for me. Some of what went on was family-related and I shouldn't be the first to talk about it on LJ. Some of it was continued frustration about the computer stuff. As for the rest... I screwed up, and hurt some people, but most of all myself. Only a handful of my LJ friends were affected by this at all. Between all the stuff-schlepping and everything else going on during the week, I had totally failed in my efforts to deal with the second half of the weekend in advance. As a result, I caused a great deal of mental and spiritual discomfort (perhaps even anguish) to both myself and some of my friends. I am still uncomfortable with myself over the results. For those of you who were present -- and for those of you who wanted to come but couldn't -- please, *please* do not feel bad about this. *I* am the one who screwed up -- nobody else -- and I am deeply sorry for having screwed up, and for having caused you all discomfort, even just in passing. My own discomfort is probably greater, and while I could wish that it were not so much, I am aware that I did this *all to myself.*
Sunday night and most of Monday were not as painful -- Monday, perhaps, in part because there was nothing further to be done about it. It really was nice to see everyone yesterday, much as I might not have been showing it; how much socializing I was really ready for, I'm not sure. I hope I wasn't too much of a wet blanket.
Monday night things went less well. I managed to cause hurt, however inadvertently. I'm sorry. Later on I received a piece of news from a non-LJ friend that I am going to need some time to come to grips with, time that should include some talks with that friend, especially as it could potentially have an effect on certain details for Pennsic.
So that's how my weekend went. I have a phone interview at 3 PM today, which is related to the whole computer gyrations I've been going through this past week. I hope my lack of success with reading the tapes will not be a significant obstacle.
