Author: admin

Here’s a Good One: EZ-PC

(from Here’s a Good One: Pencil-Pushers).

I’m the last Unix Engineer standing, managing the Frankensteinian infrastructure of three merged companies under a Texas State entity. Picture this: Tandems, Unix, Windows servers, imaging systems, and Xerox high-speed printers—a tech jamboree working in harmony to churn out claims across Texas. While I’m not the only Engineer here, most of my colleagues are Windows administrators. And let’s be real—Windows admins are basically power users with fancier job titles (everyone not named Willie Wilson).

This operation processes 100,000 pages of claims every day. The Tandem systems are the crown jewels, fine-tuned by wizards who write software so low-level it’s practically whispering to the hardware. Sub-second response time? Achieved. These machines are so good, they’d laugh in binary at your gaming PC.

Now, imagine a massive data stream starting with these Tandems, zipping through Windows servers (trying their best not to lag), passing an imaging server, and ending with a Xerox beast spitting out hundreds of thousands of letters daily. It’s beautiful when it works. But when it doesn’t? That’s where the story gets spicy.

Case in point: a Xerox field engineer called me—not one of the dozens of Windows admins—about an NFS mount issue on a Windows PC hooked to a high-speed Xerox printer. Why me? Your guess is as good as mine (maybe not, I’m betting it’s Unix).

It took me ten minutes to spot the problem. The PC was running Windows Home edition. Yes, the tcp/ip stack was having a full-blown existential crisis because it’s not designed for enterprise anything. When I asked the engineer why he was using Windows Home, he admitted the company didn’t send him a PC, so he grabbed an EZ-PC from Frye’s. Frye’s! I half-expected him to say he installed the OS off a cereal box prize.

Let’s just say there are too many things wrong with that picture for me to unpack without a drink.

So, what was the point of the PC attached to the high-speed Xerox printer? The PC is used to augment the formatting of the final output produced on the Xerox. In other words, it’s a simple way to add a signature. Once the letters are printed, the staff would cart the final letters to a department that would actually scan the letters before they were mailed. This was unnecessary since the final images could have been offloaded to repository and saved.

Here’s a Good One: Pencil-Pushers

There was a point where I decided to step away from technology after being over-worked. Let’s call it a “sabbatical”. One day, a friend of mine—a senior enterprise administrator—called me up and asked, “Want to make some quick cash?”

“Sure, why not,” I said, because, well, why not?

The gig? Moving boxes of PCs from one place to another. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it. My previous job had me working round the clock in Greensboro, North Carolina, and this was a nice break after moving back to Austin.

My friend showed up with a few junior IT folks in tow—guys who clearly had nothing better to do. Now, I’d worked with my friend at least 10 years ago. One of the younger guys asks…

Him: “Why is it so easy for you to move these boxes?”
Me: (Grinning) “Well, I am a fine specimen of a man.”
Him: “No, that’s not what I mean. We’re more like pencil pushers and you’re…”

I looked at my friend and said, “I can’t believe he said that.” I actually can believe he said that because it’s not the first time in my career hearing questionable statements.

I dont’ t remember what my friend said at the time, but a few days later, he called again. “Hey, we need a Unix Engineer. Interested?”

“Sure, why not,” I replied.

Fast forward, I’m now the lone Unix Engineer managing the combined infrastructure of three companies under a Texas State entity. We’re talking Tandems, Unix, Windows, imaging servers, and Xerox high-speed printers—all the tech you’d expect for processing claims across Texas.

One day, I get a call from a user. He’s frustrated because he can’t see a file he just FTP’d using his browser.

“Did you refresh your browser?” I ask.
“Of course!” he says indignantly.

“Alright, where are you sitting?” I walk over to his desk. The guy looks startled to see me and it’s the same guy that made the racist comment. Without saying a word, I reach over, hit the refresh button on his keyboard, and voilà—his file appears.

As I walk off, I glance back at him and say, “You should know better than that, pencil pusher.”

Nya’s Two Fathers

by gRj

She was born of stolen whispers,
of love that slipped between the seams—
a secret bright as morning,
a truth too sharp to dream.

The first man held her tiny feet,
kissed her brow before she slept,
built her castles out of maybes,
promised more than he could keep.

(He did not know the mother’s hands
would fold like tides, withdraw like sand—
or how she’d wield their child one night,
a key to turn his lock just right.)

The second man signed her name
in ink that bled through every page,
claimed her laughter as his heirloom,
wore his fury like a cage.

But when the first man dared to speak,
to bare the mother’s twisted game,
the second met him in the street,
hands like hammers, voice aflame.

(And Nya, woken by the sound,
learned young how love can shake the ground.)

Oh, child of tangled, splintered roots,
no man could give you all your due:
one begged for peace and lost his chance,
one stormed the dark to keep his stance.
And you? You grew between the cracks,
a rose that neither hand gives back.

Postgres High-Level View

This information is directed at beginning users and was created for a student. The following section shows a scenario that applies to PostreSQL17 installed on a mac.

Sample CLI Database Creation

Place the following SQL commands in a file named setup.sql

-- SQL commands in setup.sql

-- Create a new database
CREATE DATABASE mydb;

-- Connect to the new database
\connect mydb

-- Create a table
CREATE TABLE employees (
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    first_name VARCHAR(50),
    last_name VARCHAR(50),
    email VARCHAR(100),
    hire_date DATE
);

-- Insert some sample data
INSERT INTO employees (first_name, last_name, email, hire_date) VALUES
('John', 'Doe', 'john.doe@example.com', '2023-01-15'),
('Jane', 'Smith', 'jane.smith@example.com', '2023-02-10'),
('Alice', 'Johnson', 'alice.johnson@example.com', '2023-03-20');

-- Create another table
CREATE TABLE departments (
    dept_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    dept_name VARCHAR(100)
);

-- Insert data into the departments table
INSERT INTO departments (dept_name) VALUES
('Human Resources'),
('Engineering'),
('Marketing');

Then run the following command. 

psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U postgres -f setup.sql
  • Connect with psql
  • select * from employees;

Commands

  • \l # list databases
  • \c <database> # connect to a database
  • \d <table> # describe a table
  • \d+ <table-name> # more information about a table
  • \dt # display tables
  • \dn # list all database schemas
  • \du # list users and their roles
  • \du <user> # retrieve a specific user
  • \df # list all functions
  • \q # quit postgres

Air Force Academy Quotes

Class of 1984, Contrails 1980-1981

The Purpose of the Fourth-Class System

The purpose of the Fourth-Class System at the United States Air Force Academy is to lay the foundation early in the cadet’s career for the development of those qualities of character and discipline which will be expected of an officer. These qualities must be so deeply instilled in the individual’s personality that no stress or strain will erase them.

Duty then is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more. You should never wish to do less.
-General Robert E. Lee

In the development of air power, one has to look ahead and not backward and figure out what is going to happen, not too much of what has happened.
-Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell; Winged Defense, 1924

Victory smiles upon those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur.
-Italian Air Marshall Guilio Douhet, 1928

I don’t mind being called tough, since I find in this racket it’s the tough guys who lead the survivors.
-Colonel Curtis Lemay, USA, to Lieutenant General Ira Eaker, USA, in England, 1943

When there is a visible enemy to fight in combat…many serve, all applaud and the tide of patriotism runs high. But when there is a long, slow struggle with no
immediate, visible foe, your choice will seem hard indeed.
-President John F. Kennedy, Address to the Graduating Class, U.S. Naval Academy, June 1961

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
–General George S. Patton, Jr., War as I Knew It.

If I can’t go back with my self-respect, I won’t go
back at all.
-Captain Harris, USAF, in solitary confinement for 14 months as a Prisoner of War in Korea.)

You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
-Sir Winston Churchill

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed
by so many to so few.
-Sir Winston Churchill, after the Battle of Britain.

If you can ‘t get them to salute when they should salute
and wear the clothes you tell them to wear, how are you
going to get them to die for their country?
-General George S. Patton, Jr.

Man’s flight through life is sustained by the of
his knowledge.
-Inscription on the Eagle and The Fledglings by Austin “Dusty” Miller, HQ ATC.

There is no type of human endeavor where it important that the leader understands all phases job as that of the profession of arms.
-Major General James C. Fry

A leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.
-President Harry S. Truman; Memoirs, 1955

Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don’t in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well mannered and teach your subordinates to be the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.
-Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or the other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others cannot fail to inspire in them respect for himself while he who feels, and hence manifests disrespect toward others, especially his subordinates, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself.
-Major General John M. Scholfield’s graduation address to the graduating class of 1879 at West Point

The general is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing (a vice heretofore little known in an American army) is growing into fashion; he hopes that the officers will by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of blessing of heaven on our arms if we continue to insult it by our impiety and folly. Added to this, it is a vice so mean and low that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.
-General George Washington: General Order to the Continental Army, 3 August 1776


The Keeping of Light

gRj

I still believe—
not in the lies they wore like perfume,
but in the way my hands,
though scarred,
still cup hope like a match
in a windstorm.

Yes, I love too loud.
Yes, I trust the map
before I check for cliffs.
But this is not weakness—
it is the stubborn art
of planting gardens
in a world that prays for rain.

Let them call me reckless.
Let them say I burn too bright
for my own good.
I have known the heat of a thousand false suns
and still, my skin remembers
how to glow.

One day, a woman will stay
as true as her first laugh.
One day, the love I give
will not be a question
but an echo returned
in the same language.

Until then, I practice
the sacred act of falling
and rising—
not as a fool,
but as a tide
that knows its own worth
even when the moon lies.

The Letting Go

gRj

At first, I am stone—
all edges and warnings,
a cliff face carved with no and not yet.
But you? You arrive like weather:
soft hands, softer laughter,
a promise of sun after drought.

(And I forget.
I always forget.)

The days stack like kindling.
Your voice becomes the flint.
I burn so slow I don’t notice
the fire until my skin
smells like sacrifice.

Here is where you change:
The jokes grow teeth.
The silences thicken.
Your love, once a lantern,
now a flickering conditional.

I stay too long—
not because I’m weak,
but because I keep digging
for the woman I met
in the ashes of the one you became.

The leaving is never clean.
It is a bone reset without anesthetic,
a name scraped from my ribs.
But I do it.
Again and again,
I do it.

And if my heart is a map
of all the exits I ignored,
at least I finally learn
to walk through them.