<jaw drops> DANG, I would've *sworn* that I would've been the only person that had a raccoon as a kid, but there's already two others! Mom found the one we had in the mountains injured. She caught him, brought him home, we nursed him back to health, then Mom took him back where she'd found him, & released him again.

We also raised chickens & rabbits, but those were more "additions to our diet" than pets. Hmmm, I raised ferrets for a while, had horned toads, hermit crabs...

Oh, & Mom trained K9s for a couple of local LE agencies from when I was about 11 until I was about 15 or 16... Had *one* dog that took a dislike to me, & attacked me one day (fortunately he had a muzzle on!). The _bad_ thing about that is that you can't have someone else subdue the dog & get it "back in line", whoever he attacks has to do it, or the dog won't respect that person.

Even with a muzzle, subduing that 90-lb dog was EASILY one of the two most difficult things I've ever done... If you're _ever_ in a situation (God forbid!) where a cop says "Come out, or I'm sending the dog in!" - TRUST ME, just come out...

Between the K9 thing & raising/selling AKC-registered dogs for years, I learned quite a bit about dogs.

Forgive me if I'm not exactly hopeful/excited for improvement in this area..

The unmistakable light coming from my eyes...




(...when you shine a flashlight in my ear).

AND Arizona...AND NM, AND Colorado... Heck, the last time I was in downtown L.A., it seemed like there were more Hispanics than whites/Asians/blacks/etc.

NICE one, Reb...

The second story requires a bit of background - I was dating a girl that I worked with (yeah, I know, bad idea - but good body). Just before the company Halloween party she'd been *emphatic* that I needed to attend that party - which was held at a house out in the country. I didn't have my car running at the time (because work drops off in the fall/winter), so I had to call in a favor or two so that I could attend. I did so, & discovered that she'd chosen to bring her old boyfriend...

The next party was the company Christmas party, & it was held at the company warehouse. She again showed up with that boyfriend. Several of my buddies & I were hanging around outside (no smoking/drinking inside the bldg), where my coworkers were telling me what a rotten deal it was that she'd done that to me, & that she'd brought him to this party as well. Then, one of the guys popped up -

"HEY!! This is <the boyfriend's> car!!"

One of my best buddies chimed in that we "should turn it sideways in the parking spot!" Well, since we'd had a couple drinks in us - and since the dweeb drove a VW Bug - we did exactly that!! The *BEST* part of that day was that he was on the other side of the window, watching us rotate his car until it was diagonally-oriented in the parking spot, & would require multiple tiny back-and-forth turns to get out. His jaw was clenched & lips were pinched so tightly you could slice cheese with them, but he *knew* that he didn't dare step outside... Strangely enough, they never showed up to another party...

My point in saying all of that is this:

A "smart" car weighs between 1600 and 1800 lbs, the Chevy Vega weighed between 2,181–2,270 lb, and the VW Bug weighed 1,760–1,850 lb. Given the relatively-narrow design of the "smart" car, I wouldn't think that you'd need to lift too much weight in order to essentially pivot the car on the left-side or right-side wheels. I'd think that two guys (each of whom could lift 350 lbs or so) should be enough. Hell, ONE strong guy could *probably* do it, if he had the time to rock it several times & take advantage of the momentum that he generates...

'“You definitely need a few people to do that,” said Josh Devereaux...'

Bull$#it. Two true stories from when I was working as a mover just out of high school:

A couple of us guys were friends with another guy who was known for sometimes getting totally sloshed before driving home on Fri/Sat nights. He *also* lived on a street that had inexplicably tall curbs - I'm talking 15" or so!

One late-night we were wandering through the neighborhood & saw that his car was parked a bit sloppy, & one of us got the bright idea to pick it up & lift it onto the curb, then ask him the next morning HOW IN THE HELL he'd managed to do that... (It's worth knowing that his car was a Chevy Vega, which came with 13" wheels, so the entire wheel/tire package wouldn't have been much taller than the curb - so driving up on that curb would have been a physical impossibility, never mind the ground-clearance issue.)

So we got a couple of us on each end of the car, & did just that, moving it about 15-18" at a time. The guy's reaction the next morning was AWESOME... He stood there with his eyes open wide & mouth slightly open, and for several seconds he couldn't even say anything. After a few minutes of tormenting him, we put the car back in the street...

That *was* pretty cool - I'd just found a good deal on a fairly-big TV when that came out, so I'd largely stopped going to the theater to see movies. But I went to see that one in 3D, & I remember thinking "Oh man, THIS just blows my TV out of the water!!"

not helping .. Lmao and running like Forrest

OK... Well.. What if I move like _this_ when I hug you???

If that was NZ, it must've been Smaug...

AAAIIIGGGHH!! OW!! My back...! <crawls away>

Hugs to all who could use one tonight.

Well, here are my initial thoughts on the subject. When I replace my computer (ohhh, every 4 or 5 years or so), I've been able to do so pretty consistently for around $300, $350 or so - and that's with getting a "known" brand like ASUS, Dell, etc. So I personally wouldn't spend much trying to resolve a hardware issue, it's easier & cheaper to say 'screw it' & migrate to a new box.

Once you do that, it's probably going to be running some flavor of WinDoze - but Linux installation routines have gotten so easy that you can pretty much accept all of the defaults & boot into a workable system. Migrating applications/data is where things can get tricky.

Finally, you've said "...but he is not near now to maintain it now..." - I'd recommend that you have him take a look at TeamViewer.com. While my Dad was alive, that's what I used to provide "tech support" for him, even though we were separated by almost 100 miles - we'd just hop on the phone, set it up, & have a good conversation while I took care of the problem. (I *SURE* wish to God I could do that one more time...) With any luck, that'll work for you guys as well.

Good luck.

Heh - Just realized that I contradicted myself in the blurb above, since Kali is built off of a Debian base...

(OK, so that's the "exception to the rule"!!!)

Hey all,

I first started messing with *NIX/Linux somewhere around '93, '94 or so, since that (a 2400-baud dialup account to a text-based shell account) was the only affordable way for me to access the internet at that time... MAN things have changed a bit since then!!

Kinda funny to think about it now - it was me, that dialup account, & a copy of SAMS' Publishing _Teach Yourself UNIX in 24 Hours_ that launched my career - talk about "the right place at the right time"!

I'm currently playing around with Kali on one of my ESXi VMs, as well as trying to set up Nagios monitoring on a Raspberry Pi that's running RedSleeve Linux (I have a deep loathing for anything based on Debian).

Anyone else working on any cool projects??

Heh - when I first saw the first part of that photo, I was expecting to see _these_:

Not *QUITE* that cut-n-dried, my friend. Being tall (even with a decent build) hasn't been a "Golden Ticket" for feminine attention for me. I have some features that are decent, & a couple features that I wish I could change, so it's not like I've just had to "walk in the room & smile" to get a lady on my arm. People like different things, & you still have to "pass the interview" so to speak (show that you can carry on a multi-syllabic conversation, make her laugh, have something in common, etc.).

Man, I sure wish that being tall *was* a "magic bullet" like that...

Hear, hear!! <high-fives TMommy>

Hey Cat, since I've (reluctantly) accepted the fact that I'm too tall for your tastes, I mentioned you to a friend of mine who's a bit shorter...

Y'know... Sooner or later, that's going to get you banned from the nursing homes...