The Changelog

Last year, I wrote about a small town funeral home.

Today it's time to write about small town banks.

So last Saturday, Terah and I went to the bank in the town we're going to be closest to (population 590, compared population 3500 town we live close to now). We were discussing financing for the house and renovations.

The loan officer at the bank is also the city mayor. She's lived in the area for years. I don't know her well, but I know of her and she has heard of me too.

So some of the questions we got were:

"Are you still working the same place I heard about awhile ago?"

"Now should the seller's copy of this example contract go to your aunt or your dad?"

"So the place you're buying -- just a couple of miles from your great uncle then, right?"

Unlike the large nationwide bank we talked to, we were NOT asked:

• Are you farmers? Because we aren't set up to work with farmers. (There's no way a small-town bank could survive with an attitude like that)


• Are you SURE you're not farmers? Because that's a lot of land for someone that's not a farmer, and some of it is a pasture!
  (I hate to break it to him, but 17 acres is not nearly enough land for most farmers around here)


• Hmm, so there's a well on the property? That's cause for concern, but hopefully it will be OK since rural water is hooked up there.


• Could you just tell me who you are and what you're doing again? (I got this EVERY TIME I talked to or e-mailed them, even though it was always the same person)

The person at the small-town bank also actually returned my calls, answered my e-mails, and kept appointments. She also provided all sorts of help for us along the way. It's as if the bank would actually like to have our business and would work to get it.

Guess which bank we're going to use.

At long last, I've finally updated Debian From Scratch (DFS). For those of you not familiar with DFS, it's a single, full rescue CD capable of working with all major filesystems, LVM, software RAID, and even compiling a new kernel. The DFS ISO images also contain a small Debian mirror subset that lets you use cdebootstrap, along with the other utilities on the CD, to perform a manual, "Gentoo-like" installation. It also serves as an excellent rescue CD, with a full compliment of filesystem tools, backup/restore software, and a development environment complete enough to build your own kernels.

DFS also refers to dfsbuild, the tool that generates DFS images. dfsbuild is available as a Debian package. dfsbuild is designed to make it trivial to build your own custom DFS images. You can have your own set of Debian packages on your images, your own kernels, etc. Unlike many other systems, you can go from the example dfs.cfg to a customized DFS build in just a few minutes, even if you've never used dfsbuild before.

Version 0.99.0 is a from-scratch rewrite and port to Haskell. You can read the full list of new features in the announcement, but the biggest is that it now supports standard Debian initramfs kernels in addition to ones that have enough drivers statically linked to be able to read the CD-ROM.

You can also download my DFS images or browse the docs online.

Just today, in a bathroom really quite near....

I woke up this morning. I used the toilet. I flushed it. There was the satisfying sound of a toilet, well, flushing.

Then there was the very unsatisfying sound of the toilet not refilling its tank. I tried a faucet -- sure enough no water. Obviously, the ants were at it again. (Read this story from yesterday for how they disrupted our water supply once before.)

So, now I have to rush out there and fix the well before I can get to work. This time, I'm going to be prepared. I found a can of insecticide, a metal file, and head out there. Sure enough, more ants had been killed in the pressure switch. I cut the power to the switch, cleaned off the metal contacts, and sprayed insecticide everywhere I could. I restored power, and there was a satisfying faint hummmm as the water pump whirred to life.

So then all I had to do was cut power again for a moment as I did a final cleaning and reassembly of the switch and headed back inside.

All was fine until this evening. I noticed somewhat low water pressure. I tried to be optimistic -- "the pump's probably kicking on right now." But no. Once again as I flushed a toilet, the toilet tank didn't refill.

By now I am MAD. These ants are going down. I was a few minutes late to work because of them, and now I'm going to have to go out to the well in the dark to fix them. So I again grab my tools, and this time I find the stickiest thing I can -- some tape. I figure I'll wrap it around the post the pressure switch is on, sticky side out, and trap them on their way up.

So I turn on the flashlight and head out to the well house. I open it up. And hmm -- different problem this time.

The power is off entirely. The little twerps have somehow applied 20 pounds of force to the power lever and cut it out!

I'm sure there is no way that I would have forgotten to turn the power back on this morning, in my thirsty trying-not-to-be-late-for-work semi-tired daze...

All I can say is: it amazing how much water you can store up when you have two pressure tanks. Terah even ran the dishwasher today.

I made a shocking discovery today.

Terah called me in from outside to inform me that the washing machine was just sitting there. No action. Just stalled in the middle of the cycle. I poked around a bit, and sure enough. It's stuck.

I then turned on the water faucet next to the washing machine. Nothing came out. So naturally I thought: the terrorists have attacked our water supply! Run for the hills! (which in Kansas are a 3-hour drive)

(Actually, what I thought was we want to put this house on the market next week, and the last thing we need now is a lack of running water. But I'm sure if I watched the cable news channels, I'd think of terrorists first.)

Now before I can explain how SUICIDE ANTS were the cause of our water problems, we need to take a small diversion into the fascinating realm of rural plumbing. When you have a well supplying water to your house, there's a pump connected to a pressure tank, which is then connected to the house's plumbing. When you turn on a faucet, you drain water out of the tank. When the pressure reaches a certain minimum, a pressure switch turns on the pump. The pump pumps water into the tank until the pressure reaches a maximum, at which point the pressure switch turns the pump back off.

Now, inside the pressure switch are little metal plates. To turn on the pump, the plates snap together, completing the circuit. To turn off the pump, the plates snap apart.

So, back to our story.

I went out to the well house (the small outdoor structure that houses the tank and switch) with my usual well-adjusting tools: pliers, screwdriver, gloves. I open up the well house and cut the power. I take the cover off the pressure switch and stare at it for a minute.

Hmmm I think to myself. The system pressure is 0 PSI, so the pump should have been running... And indeed the pressure switch plates had snapped together....

...or had they?

No! There was -- and I am not making this up -- a cake of DEAD, PARTIALLY SINGED ANTS between the metal plates. In fact, there were ants crawling around all over the pressure switch. So I used my screwdriver to scrape the plates off as well as I could. I couldn't get them perfectly clean because of the angle, but I figured it'd be enough to make contact.

I turned the power back on. Little blue sparks appeared at the pressure switch (burning up the last of the SUICIDE ANTS), and then half a second later, the pump sprang into action.

Now this raises some alarming questions:

Why didn't our government do anything to stop the SUICIDE ANTS from attacking our water supply?

And more importantly, who is behind this sudden sinister interest in pressure switches on the part of our hill-building friends?

I can see the headlines now:

"Ants attack water supply in Kansas... Is New York far behind?"

"Gitmo Intelligence Links Suicide Ants to bin Laden"

"Price of Raid Hits $200 A Barrel Amid Fears of Ant Attacks"

"5 Troops Deployed With Cans of RAID to Terrorist Ant Training Camps in the Pakistani Mountains"

"Thirsty Latchkey Children Forced To Scrape Dangerous Terrorist Ants From High-Voltage Switches Before Using Faucet"

"Is Your Water Safe? Watch the story about the latest threat tonight at 11"

"Small-town Kansas man detained for posting instructions for attacking rural water systems using ants"

I've posted some pictures of Grandpa's yard. Follow the link (and note the second page).

Here's a sample:

Last month, I wrote about some reactions to the news that we're expecting a baby. Now we have some additional news that we've been sharing with people. Here are some of the reactions we're getting.

"You have NO IDEA what you're getting in to."

*laughter* "Oh, you were serious!"

*stunned silence*

"That's GREAT! I'm so happy for you!"

"That's exciting!"

"A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY.... BIG, BIG, BIG project!"

So.... We're planning to sell this house:



And buy this one:



The place we're buying is my grandpa's farmstead. As you can see, the house needs a lot of work. We'll hire the same person that did some remodeling in our current house to work on it. We'll be replacing the foundation, siding, roof, interior walls, wiring, plumbing, etc. A big project for sure. But it should be very nice when it's done.

The floorplan on that house is, for us, more suited for having children around. It has some large common areas and smaller bedrooms (our current house is the opposite). The house is smaller than our current one, which is actually a plus. Terah is even interested in learning how to drive on dirt roads! Plus it will be nice to live at a place that's been in the family for so long.

Also, there's little chance that this area will be developed any time soon.

I'll post some more pictures in the next few days.

Saturday, I got Terah switched to Serendipity. Went well, though due to a heisenbug in Drupal involving hitting the Back button at certain times, her entire comment table had been wiped out. Fortunately there was a backup and restoration was easy.

And earlier last week I got an air compressor. It's amazing how much fun it is to have pressurized air on hand.

Did I say "fun"? I meant "useful", of course.

I'll have to write about that soon.

Plus, another potentially Really Big Project that I'll write about shortly.

So just when I thought the whole Tuttle story had wound down, more starts appearing.

The Register has a new article: Only "freaks" waste their time with Linux in Oklahoma. In it, they posted a video clip from an Oklahoma TV station that called Tuttle "an international laughing stock." Quite a funny little piece. The Register also mentioned that the Tuttle city manager left work when he heard a TV crew would be there to interview him. Favorite quote:

Instead of a website, Taylor discovered an Apache server configuration page that mentioned CentOS. He's an Oklahoma man, and the Apache feather must have proved frightening.

Today's next little piece of fun is this page at the Tuttle Times. Look on the right, under Links. See the link that reads "Example of CentOS test page"? Notice where it points to. Yes, that's right, www.tuttlechamber.org. Click on it, and sure enough, up comes the infamous test page. So the Tuttle Chamber of Commerce apparently is getting ready for round two...

And while we're speaking of the Tuttle Times: they have published a letter to the editor from Johnny Hughes, the CentOS lead developer that was on the other end of those exchanges with Tuttle. I think Johnny wrote an excellent little piece there.

And finally, another funny headline from the Tuttle Times homepage: "Prosecution attorney presents complete case." I am glad to hear that at long last this terrible scourge of incomplete cases has been brought to an end. But beware, this shocking story is not over yet! The next article is "defense raises compelling questions." Another first for Tuttle?