The Short, Happy Life of Sue's Snowman

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon

Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon

Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,

Lighting a little hour or two--is gone.

--from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Edward FitzGerald, 1859

Late in the evening on December 5th, it started to rain. In the middle of the night it changed to ice. By mid-morning on the 6th it was snowing heavily and continued to do so for much of the day. We eventually got about 10 inches which lingered on the ground during the series of cold days that followed.

By the 11th it had become good packing snow, which made possible the birth of Snowman. Here he proudly stands beside his mother--sturdy, straight, and smiling.

Snowman enjoyed his days in the sun, but by the 15th was starting to develop an elderly list to the left and a pinched smile.

As you can imagine, Snowman was beginning to welcome the chilly December evenings.

Even so, time does not stop for man or snowman. Here he is late in the afternoon of the 16th.

And then an hour later.

And then a minute later.

By the 17th Snowman was little more than a memory.

Sic transit gloria . . .

Unbuntu 12.04 LTS on the Asus Eee Pc 900

I recently decided it was again time to upgrade the installation of Ubuntu on my Eee Pc 900 and again I decided to use the simplest and safest method possible. First I purchased a new 16 GB SDHC class 10 memory card. Then I booted up an old laptop with a CD/DVD drive and downloaded the iso image from the official site -- http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop. After I burned that image to a CD, I shut down the laptop, flipped it over, and disconnected its hard drive so that I  couldn’t possibly screw up the OS. (Usually it is very simple to disconnect a laptop hard drive. In this case I removed two small screws, detached the plastic plate covering the drive, and then gently slid the hard drive out of its socket.)

After inserting the new 16 SD card into the card reader slot, I rebooted the laptop and followed the instructions for installing Ubuntu using the entire disk. I ticked the boxes to install third-party codecs and to upgrade packages. Once Ubuntu finished its time-consuming installation, I shut everything down, and inserted the SDHC card into the slot on the right side of my Eee 900. After pushing the power button, I hit the Escape key as soon as the splash screen lit up. That allowed me to scroll down and boot from the SD card instead of the internal SD drive. Bingo! Ubuntu booted perfectly.

While the standard installation of Ubuntu does work on the Eee 900, the Unity desktop interface eats up too much RAM and slows everything down. I prefer to use fluxbox. Do this by opening a terminal window and typing in--

sudo apt-get install fluxbox

Even after you install fluxbox, you can run Ubuntu with the Unity desktop if you choose to do so simply by exiting the fluxbox window manager and logging back in using Unity. Fluxbox, however, allows videos to play with no lagging or stuttering--even in full screen mode. All of the standard software packages in Ubuntu seem to work well in fluxbox--except for the Nautilus file manager and the Gnome Screenshot Utility! If you use them, you may get shifted back into a partial--and very vexing--Unity desktop that sometimes forces a reboot. I handle file management with pcmanfm and midnight commander (mc). Install them with--

sudo apt-get install pcmanfm

sudo apt-get install mc

In /.fluxbox/startup I added these lines:

gnome-settings-daemon &

nm-applet &

exec fluxbox

Gnome-settings-daemon allows suspend and resume to work correctly. Nm-applet puts a network manager applet into the taskbar.

Various key combinations are extremely helpful in using fluxbox. To find out the way these keys are configured by default, have a look at the file ./fluxbox/keys. In ./fluxbox/keys scroll to the section following the lines “# open a terminal / Mod1 F1 :Exec x-terminal-emulator” and inserted the following:

# Chrome

Mod1 F2 :Exec google-chrome

# Firefox

Mod1 F3 :Exec firefox

#File Manager

Mod1 F6 :Exec pcmanfm

Mod1 stands for the Alt key. Thus, Alt-F1 opens a terminal window, Alt-F2 starts google Chrome (after it is installed), Alt-F3 starts Firefox, and Alt-F6 starts the file manager. You should note that Alt-F4 closes a window, Alt-F5 kills a window, Alt-F7 and F8 are unassigned, while Alt-F9 minimixes a window, Alt-F10 maximizes a window, and Alt-F11 makes a window full screen. Be sure to try out the last two since some programs boot into full screen (or larger) by default.  

If you do wish to install Google Chrome, just go to

 https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

and download the 32 bit .deb version. Once it has finished downloading, double-click on the downloaded file in pcmanfm to install it. If you get an error message "errors were encountered while processing" enter the command--

 sudo apt-get install -f

To enable Firefox to display Amazon Prime videos, one must first install (or update) Flash. Do so by going to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Select “tar.gz for other Linux” and download it.

Put it in its own directory and extract it by double-clicking on the file name with pcmanfm (your file manager). It will create usr and libflashplayer.so

Now open terminal in this folder and type the following commands 
  
sudo cp -r usr/* /usr
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins

Finally, to enable Amazon Prime Videos to play open a terminal and type--

sudo apt-get install libhal1 hal

When running any browser from an SD card, it is a good idea to change the browser’s cache to RAM memory (to speed up the browser and minimize write activity that will eventually destroy your SD card). I followed the advice from this blog regarding Chrome: http://www.joeyconway.com/blog/2011/09/11/ubuntu-ssd-move-chrome-cache-to-ram/

This is the relevant material:

1) Decide where to move the Chrome cache location to. I’ve picked the following location: /tmp/chrome.

This directory, /tmp/chrome will need to be created on boot and properly setup.

On Ubuntu 11.04 and probably older versions, this can be simply done in the /etc/rc.local file as follows:

[In a terminal window type] sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

Add the following lines:

mkdir /tmp/chrome

mount -t tmpfs -o size=1024M,mode=0744 tmpfs /tmp/chrome/

chmod 777 /tmp/chrome/ -R

. . . [C]reate a symlink between the default google cache directory and the new temporary cache directory in RAM. . .

[In a terminal window type each of the following line and then hit ]

rm -rf ~/.cache/google-chrome

ln -s /tmp/chrome/ ~/.cache/google-chrome

Removing the cache in Firefox is even simpler. Start Firefox (Alt-F3) and go to Edit-Preferences-Advanced-Network. Tick the box to override automatic cache management and then set the cache to 0 Mb of space. That’s it.

In addition, I downloaded xnview for linux XnViewMP-linux.tgz at --

http://download.xnview.com/

and installed it in its own directory under Documents by opening a terminal window in the directory where I stored/moved the downloaded file and then typing--

tar -xvpzf XnViewMP-linux.tgz

Run Xnview by using pcmanfm to navigate to the directory in which you extracted the files and then double-click on the "xnview.sh" file. Xnview is an excellent program for organizing and editing photos, but it also allows one to take and save screenshots easily.

I like to have Synaptic packet management available. So, in a terminal window I typed--

sudo apt-get install synaptic

If you happen to use a Garmin to keep track of running or cycling or hiking, you will want to open and terminal window and type--

sudo apt-get install garmin-forerunner-tools

sudo apt-get install pytrainer

You will also want Andrea Diesner’s plugin for Firefox so that you can make full use of websites like Strava.com and Connect.garmin.com. Here is his website--

http://www.andreas-diesner.de/garminplugin/doku.php?id=start

I use Audacious for playing mp3 files and Mplayer for various video formats. Install them with--

sudo apt-get install audacious

sudo apt-get install mplayer

Finally, you may wish to install Jupiter power management for your Eee Pc.  Consult the following web page -- http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/things-to-tweak-after-installing-ubuntu.html -- on installing jupiter and jupiter-support-eee. I followed this advice and am satisfied for with the battery.  The relevant terminal commands are --

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/jupiter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jupiter

sudo apt-get install jupiter-support-eee

This latest version of Ubuntu seems to work even better than the previous one. The cpu runs cooler, the fan runs less frequently, the battery may last longer. All in all an Eee Pc 900 running Google Chrome (with Firefox as needed) is a fine little machine for surfing the web and general word processing.

A Poem or Perhaps a Lament: Hand Cove Weather Forecast - 11/11/13

The forecast hints that by tomorrow's dawn
My garden pond will not remain ice-free.
Now butterflies flit from flower to leaf to limb.
The urge to warn them that their future's grim
Is frozen by fear of what they'll say to me.

Jeffrey D. Hoeper

Running Android Jellybean 4.0 on the Asus eeepc 900

The Asus eeepc 900 came on the market in May of 2008. If it were human, it would be just old enough to go to kindergarten this fall, but since it is a computer it is more like an elderly retiree. I can still run the original Xandros Linux on my eeepc, and it is still a speedy, capable operating system. Over the years, however, I have booted a variety of other distros on the device including Tiny Core Linux, BrowserLinux, and most recently Ubuntu. This week, however, I decided to install Android Jellybean 4.0 on an SD card and test it out in the little Asus.

To create a bootable sd card with Android Jelly Bean for the Eeepc 900, follow the following steps:

(These instructions assume that you are using a Linux system. Windows users will need to use a software program for burning a bootable usb stick.)

1. Download the android-x86-4.0-RC2-eeepc.iso from http://www.android-x86.org/download

2. Once the file has downloaded, open a terminal window and change directories until you are in the one containing the iso (to simplify typing the dd command below). Use the ls command to see the files in each directory as you navigate to the correct location.

3. Rename the iso file to android-sd.iso (to have less chance of making a typo on the all-important dd command below).

mv android-x86-4.0-RC2-eeepc.iso android-sd.iso

4. Use the mount command to see what  device drives you have normally:

5. Insert your usb stick and use the mount command again to discover the name of the device:

Be sure to unmount the usb stick at this point!
6. Carefully type--

dd if=android-sd.iso of=/dev/sdc

(Change /dev/sdc to whatever is the correct device name as discovered using the mount command above. Since you are going to overwrite the usb stick's master boot record, make sure to use sdc instead of sdc1. Double check for typos or any other errors before you hit the key. The dd command is popularly known as "disk destroyer" for a reason, but it is also the most direct and efficient way to accomplish the task at hand. You will probably need superuser privileges for this command. If so, preface the command with sudo or su--whichever works in your version of Linux. Or type su on its own line before the dd command. If you are creating your bootable usb stick on a Windows computer, you will need to use something like UNetbootin and follow the instructions of that program.)

7. After the file has copied, shut down your computer and reboot using whatever procedure is necessary to boot from a usb stick. Ascertain that Android works properly in live-cd mode.

8. Prepare a bootable sdhc card. I used an 8-gb card and reformatted it in Linux using cfdisk. I formatted the card as a single partition using the ext3 file format. Make sure that you toggle the switch to make the card bootable.

9. Boot Android from your usb stick with the formatted sdhc card in the sd card slot. Follow the instructions for installing to hard drive. Here is a little Youtube video of my eeepc booting Android.

Some Notes on Using Android x86 on the eeepc

Swiping with a mousepad can be difficult. To swipe to left or right, try positioning the pointer on the far left or right side of the page and then clicking. That works in some apps. Swiping pages up and down can be unpredictable. You can often double-tap and then drag text up or down, but you can also use two fingers to more easily scroll up or down. However, most apps also allow the use of the up-arrow and down-arrow to move a line at a time. Most allow the PgUp and PgDn key combinations. And a few advance a screen of text at a time with each press of the space bar.

Selecting / Highlighting text. This actually works better on the eeepc than it does on my Android tablet. In some apps (text editors) you can highlight text simply by positioning the cursor and then using Shift+rightarrow to highlight. In others (e.g., the browser) you should first double-click on the first word to highlight and then use Shift+rightarrow to extend the highlighted selection. 

The "Menu" key reliably brings up menus.

The key "Esc" sometimes serves as a "Back" button.

Google Play Store works well and allows you to download virtually any app you might like, but be prepared for occasional difficulties. Some apps display only in the portrait rather than the landscape mode of the eeepc screen. When that happens, the easiest thing to do is to shut down the computer, reboot, and uninstall the offending app. The following apps work well for me: Google Play Music, X-plore (for file management),  Google Keep (for note taking), QuickPic (for photo displays and slideshows), Google Currents (for general magazine-style articles), Kingsoft Office (for word processing), Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube.  

In some apps (X-plore, for example) double-tap-and-hold brings up a menu of options for actions on the selected file. This allows one to edit a text file that is stored on Google Drive and be confident that the changed file will be uploaded to Google Drive.

After a page has fully loaded in the browser, double-tap enlarges the text. Double-tapping again makes it smaller.

Music Player works nicely but it is necessary to transfer music into the sdcard Music directory for it to be recognized. It will not play music directly from the sdb1 partition. On the other hand, X-plore will play music directly, but it seems to be a limited music player (no playlists or cue controls that I can see). Google's Music Player does have a nice equalizer that allows the eeepc to have pleasant volume and sound. Hit the three dots in the upper right corner of the dedicated menu key on the keyboard. Then click on Settings and Equalizer. Click the "On" button in the upper right corner of the screen. Play with the various preset options or select "User" and tinker for yourself.

Superuser access is readily available and the distro comes preloaded with a handy superuser app. This is a true blessing because you will need to enter some terminal commands in order to get access to the built-in sda and sdb drives as well as usb sticks. Here are the commands to use in a terminal to access sdb1:

Open a Terminal window

In Terminal type:

mkdir /mnt/sdcard/sdcard2
su                                         (Note that you will be asked to grant superuser privileges.)
busybox mount /dev/block/sdb1 /mnt/sdcard/sdcard2

You can now use a file manager to navigate to the sdcard2 directory where you will find all of the files on your eeepc's internal sd-drive.

A single push of the power button attempts to send the eeepc into sleep mode, but even when it does go into true sleep mode it soon reawakens into a semi-comatose state with a dim, locked screen and only somewhat reduced power usage. Another longish push of the power button is needed to bring the screen back to full power and allow swiping to unlock.

To shut down the computer, try two slightly spaced pushes of the power button.

The PMS Ride

On Saturday, September 14, 2013, Chris Horner came in second on the legendary Angliru climb in the Vuelta a Espana, thereby sealing his victory in the three-week stage race and becoming the first North American to win the race as well as the oldest winner of a grand tour in the history of cycling. In fact, according to the powers-that-be in the cycling world, Horner is the only North American to win a grand tour since Greg Lemond did so in the 1990's. (Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis have been cast into the outer darkness for using the same performance enhancing drugs that almost everyone else used in their era.) An interesting story about Horner's achievement can be found here. I especially recommend watching the video clip from the race. (By the way, the photo up top shows Horner in perhaps his most famous pre-Vuelta moment. Click on this link to read the story associated with the photo.)

In my own smaller world of cycling, on September 14th I completed a 68-mile ride that hits the hardest climbs and the best views of any road ride in north-central Arkansas. I may, however, need a little reader assistance in naming the ride. I'm not sure I hit quite the right tone in calling it "The PMS Ride," but in this context PMS would stand for Push, Matney, and Shipps--the three biggest climbs on a very hilly course.

The ride started at the Sheid Bridge on AR 341, which has a lovely view of the famous White River and its impressive limestone bluffs. From the bridge my friend Laurie and I headed south on AR 341, first working our way to the top of the 2-mile climb up Matney Mountain. The average gradiant on this climb is only 5.9%, but that is because of a long flat section about half-way up. Most of the climb is in the 7-8% range, and even so it kicks up nastily near the very top.

There are stunning views of the surrounding Ozark National Forest from the top. About a mile after the crest of Matney, we slanted off to the right on Shipps Landing Road. A beautiful descent takes one to the landing, which was fogged-in on the day we rode, but which normally provides agreeable views of the riverfront. The climb back up Shipps is actually considerably longer than the descent since the road continues uphill after the right turn at the intersection with 341. The total climb is 2.4 miles at an average of 5%, but note that the first half of the climb is quite easy. Then the road pitches up very sharply for three-tenths of a mile; parts of this section hit 20% and all of it is brutally hard. After turning right at the stop sign, you climb another half-mile to the very top at an average grade of about 7%.

The 15 miles or so through the Ozark National Forest to the base of Push Mountain contain some of the prettiest (and least traveled) blacktop in this part of Arkansas.

There is the occasional roar of passing motorcycles enjoying what is widely known as "The Arkansas Dragon," but the road is usually empty of all traffic, and loudest noises are the humming of insects and the ticking of bicycle freewheels. (Except that several times a year the entire region is disturbed by the deafening overhead passage of AirEvac helicopters picking up the careless motorcyclists who crash on the descent of Push Mountain.)

Push Mountain is a punishing 2-mile climb with an average grade of 7-8%. It has the switchbacks of the classic climbs of the Rockies and Sierras, but it is a bit steeper. (For comparison, the famous Flagstaff Climb in Boulder, CO, is twice as long but with a gradient of only 6.4%.) Follow this link to a nice web page about Push Mountain Road.

At the top of Push Mountain we turned around and backtracked the 15 miles or so to the Sheid Bridge, crossing the river again and heading north to the intersection with 201 and the right turn toward the "Jordan Loop." This loop of about 30 miles has one big climb of its own (1.1 mile at 6.5%) and a descent of truly stunning beauty with expansive views of Norfork Lake and and the dramatic crossing over the Norfork Dam. Laurie and I added a bit more challenge and a bit more beauty to the ride by taking the turn to Jordan Landing and back.

Once we completed the loop, we finished off the ride with 10 miles of flat pavement on the River Road, enjoying its views of the dramatic bluffs overlooking the White River. 

Here is a link to more data about the ride (for those of you with Strava accounts). I hope to try it again in the coming weeks of pleasant fall weather--perhaps adding to its more than 5,000 feet of climbing by taking a little side excursion up 201 to the spur roads overlooking the White River from the top of the bluffs. 

Snake Day

This morning Sue noticed that the pair of Phoebes nesting just ouside our back door where very agitated. When I came out to see what was going on I was able to snap these two photos of a contented black snake who had obviously found a way to make a meal of someyoung hatchlings.

Later in the morning I saw this pretty little garden snake twined around the protective grate of our new heat pump.

Fergus Survives Cytauxzoonosis -- aka Bobcat Fever

Cytauxzoonosis or Bobcat Fever has been aptly described as Ebola for domestic cats. The disease is endemic and nonfatal in bobcats, but is far more deadly among smaller cats. It was first observed in Missouri in 1976 and killed over 90% of infected felines. It has since spread from Florida to North Dakota and as far east as Pennsylvania.

Lone Star Tick

The disease is caused by a protozoan parasite named Cytauxzoon and is spread primarily by the lone star tick. During a certain stage of development, these protozoa gum up the smaller vessels in the cat's circulatory system, eventually causing multiple organ failures and an agonizing death. The initial symptoms are lethargy and (at least in our cat Fergus) the vomiting of clear bile at intervals of several hours.

I first noticed Fergus vomiting sometime during the night of Friday, May 24. Since Fergus often goes out to eat grass and then comes inside before throwing up, I didn't make much of it--except for being mildly surprised by the absence of grass in the bile. By Sunday morning he had vomited several more times and was dozing continually. I isolated him with a clean litter box and set out measured amounts of food and water to see if he was seriously ill. He didn't eat or drink, and when he vomited a few more tablespoons of clear bile at 6:30 pm without even having the energy to get off the bed, we put in an emergency call to our veterinarian, Dr. Christina White of the Animal Health Center in Mountain Home, Arkansas.

By 7:30 pm she was treating him. He had a fever of over 107 degrees (about 100 is normal in cats), and she immediately suspected Bobcat Fever. She put him on an intravenous drip to begin hydrating him in an effort to bring down the fever. She also took a blood sample and examined a smear under a microscope in order to confirm her diagnosis.

Note  the shaved patch where the IV was attached

Only three years ago Fergus would have been doomed at this point. Among animals whose temperature exceeded 106 degrees, the survival rate was minuscule, and death was expected within one to three days. The most humane treatment would have been euthanasia.

Fortunately, in 2010 a pair of veterinarians from the University of Missouri published a paper about a promising new treatment of Cytauxzoonosis, involving hospitalization, hydration, and aggressive treatment with the antimalarial drug Atovaquone and the antibiotic Azithromycin. They reported a survival rate of approximately 60%.

Fergus remained hospitalized until Wednesday, and then we brought him home with our precious vials of Atovaquone and Azithromycin to continue his treatments for another week--1.7 cc of Atovaquone every 8 hours and 1 cc of Azithromycin daily, administered by prying his mouth open and squirting the doses down his throat with a syringe.

Although he seemed entirely cured as soon as he was released from the pet hospital, we were aware of the need to be sure that no more protozoa were developing in his blood system and that he did not develop any secondary infections as a result of the circulatory stress and potential  organic damage. Only now can we begin to breath easy.

Fergus has gone from being a pampered pet who treasured the beauty of an Arkansas spring to an even more appreciated pet who is already seeking out more cerebral indoor enjoyments like card games and music.

Further Information:
http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/circulatory_system/blood_parasites/cytauxzoonosis.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120418162258.htm

http://www.examiner.com/article/most-cats-with-bobcat-fever-saved-by-new-treatment

http://www.catster.com/the-scoop/house-cats-falling-prey-to-bobcat-fever

Cell Phone Cinema

In past blogs I have tried to highlight what can be done with the relatively primitive digital camera on my cell phone. Recently, I have upgraded to a much more advanced cell phone, a Samsung s390g. It is still a Tracfone and its total cost was less than $35 so it is not very advanced by contemporary standards. Still, one can use it to place and receive calls; it has a very fine mp3 player along with a standard assortment of calendars, calculators, memo pads, and alarms; it has free web browsing via wifi; and most importantly from the point of view of this blog entry, its two megapixel camera is a big step up from the one on my previous phone. Sue says that it isn’t really a smartphone, but rather one with above average intelligence. I am now using it almost exclusively to record my progress in construction. The video here is my first use of the movie camera on the new phone:

Speaking of construction, I have just passed a number of milestones. The windows are all in so that the west wing is now completely enclosed. The wiring is finished. The mini-split heat pump is scheduled for delivery today. And crucially the ping pong table has been moved from the garage to it new home in the west wing.

Bedroom wall--Note the wiring

Two layers of 1/2" foam provide insulation

The fixed-pane windows

The area for the mini-kitchen with its window

The great room

Almost Enclosed

After four more weeks of work--made intermittent by Christmas celebrations and the inevitable winter weather--we have finished the siding and begun work on the interior.