This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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We are neck deep in the middle of moving stuff into the truck. All the big heavy stuff is already in the truck, but we are still loading the little stuff. Soon… meaning anywhere from an hour from now to 48 hours from now, I’ll be unplugging the server that abulsme.com runs on and loading it into the truck.
At that point abulsme.com will go offline. You’ll still be able to send me email and such since I piggyback off Chris for that stuff rather than having that on my own servers too. But the webnsite will be down and off line. I’ll probably end up being able to get things pointed at a redirect page saying I’m down, but the site itself will be off.
This may last for several weeks until DSL is up and running at the place in Melbourne. (We tried to get cable installed a few weeks back, but they had trouble with a dog next door or something, so we decided to forget about cable and go DSL. We’ll see how it goes.)
Oh, and my laptop is fixed, but I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet. Not sure if I will be able to before driving to Florida or not. (If not, they will ship it to me.) So email is still not reliable to get to me, although I am still trying to look once in a blue moon.
In any case, I’ll post again as soon as the site is back. In the mean time, call if you want to chat or get news since effectively I’ll be offline for both web and email for a while longer.
Talk to you all when we’re all settled in Florida.
Well, a little over 24 hours ago my Powerbook went to sleep and would not wake up. Nothing I could do could make it even open an eye. Well, until I did something Ivan advised, and let it sit overnight with no power and no battery. Then in the morning it came on again…. until it went back to sleep again, and then once again I could not get it to wake up. Seems after going to sleep, the only way to wake it up again is to depower it for several hours (looks like at least 3).
I took it to the Apple store about 4 hours ago. They think it is probably the Power Management Unit. (Makes sense.) But they can’t verify without taking it apart, and because they would probably need to order parts, they couldn’t ensure that I would have it back before I have to leave Florida. So I put a case in the system, and will be taking it to the Apple Store in PA instead Saturday morning.
In the mean time, I got the machine up and running again, and set the energy controls to not allow the machine to go to sleep at all and I am keeping it plugged in. That will hopefully keep it up and running until I leave town.
Having said that though, my acess to my machine may be unreliable for the next couple days, and once I take it for Service on Saturday, I may be without it for up to a week. I am going to go through major withdrawal. (Although I should be packing that whole time anyway.)
In any case, email may not be a fully reliable way to reach me for the next week and a half. Feel free to call if you need to talk to me. I’ll be occationally checking my email on other computers via the web, but I often miss things that way, and almost never answer email that way. So really, feel free to call. :-)
Now, I just need to get a few things done that I need the computer for before I send it for service. (And do a full backup, just in case.) But right now… it is way past my bedtime. So time to snooze.
Wish me luck on getting this thing repaired! I do want a new machine, but with everything else going on this month, this is not a good time for that! I’m crossing my fingers for a relatively cheap repair!
I emailed this to some folks yesterday, but thought I would post it as well. :-)
Hi all! A bunch of you have asked lately, and many more of you haven’t, but just thought I would update you all and beg for a little help. The update is for everyone. The plea for help is really only for the people who live near me, although some from farther away have offered help and would be most welcome.
Anyway, the update first… I’m on my last week in Florida before Brandy, Amy and I actually MOVE to Florida. I fly back up Friday. Then it is packing packing packing. Which goes into 100% mode after Amy’s school finishes on Tuesday. After much debate, we decided to go the UHaul route again instead of professional movers. Saves a bunch of cash which we can use on other things. So over the weekend we’ll be loading up the truck, then Monday morning we’ll drive the truck full of stuff, plus one of Brandy’s cars full of pets down to Florida.
Then probably one last trip to PA on the 30th to actually sign all the papers to close on the house and possibly bring back Brandy’s backup car. Then we will be Floridians!!!
The job is going great and all that too. :-) A tree in the back yard of the house we are staying in did fall over on Sunday, but it didn’t hit the house, so we still have a place to stay. Yea! :-) In general, things are going well, and slowly falling into place down here. As the final move approaches things are getting more and more hectic and stressful, but hey, that is part of the process.
OK, now the plea. Yup, helping us load the truck and stuff. Those of you who have helped me move in the past will recoil in horror. (See the story of Putrid Rotting Fruit.) But Brandy has tamed me somewhat, and there won’t be live bugs this time. Well… probably some crickets for my lizard to eat. :-) And I’ve actually thrown away a lot of junk! Promise! Anyway, those of you far away obviously can’t come to help us load the truck, but anybody close by who is willing and able, we would much appreciate added hands to get everything loaded. (Hopefully everything will be packed by then.) We’ll provide food, refreshing beverages and entertainment!
We’ll be doing the truck loading Saturday the 19th. (Picking the truck up in the morning, loading in the afternoon.) If we don’t finish the 19th, we’ll continue on Sunday the 20th. But the 19th should be the big day. Once we’re all done, we’ll be ready to hit the road at the next opportune moment.
The big loading day is a week from Saturday. If anybody thinks they can come, please let me know via email. We appreciate all the help we can get. Once we get to the Florida end, I expect we’ll be doing it by ourselves. Don’t know anybody well enough yet down here to beg for help. :-)
Anyway, thanks in advance! We appreciate it!
Well, someone else beat our offer. Not sure if they actually beat the dollar amount or if so how much, but we did get told that they put down almost 50% of the price of the house in cash. Something we definately could not do. Oops.
Oh well. It was a nice house and we liked it, but buying before everything was settled on the PA house did make me nervous, as I mentioned. But we finally saw one we liked and moved on it, ya know? Anyway, we’ll still look at any that match our specs which come up in the next month or so. But having said that, I’ll be a lot more comfortable if we wait until late July (when all the cash flow stuff should be settled down) before making another offer. Maybe on one of the places to be built. I really like the Tiffany “Oriole” model. It is at the high end of our range though.
Well, we’ll let it play out. If something perfect comes up we may do the offer thing again. Otherwise… not until at least July, maybe August I’m thinking. The longer we wait the stronger the money situation will be. Of course, at the same time, the longer we wait the higher the prices will be (unless the market crashes) and we’ll have to deal with the whole schooll juggling thing.
Argh! Anyway, time to just think about getting the actual move done.
There are 2 other offers besides ours on the place in Florida. And the owners are playing hardball on things like how much deposit up front as opposed to at closing, and when the closing date will be and things like that. We put in an updated counter offer reflecting that stuff and sweetening our offer a little bit. But there is competition, so who knows what will happen.
If we don’t get this one, we’ll probably wait until mid-July to even look again. The situation in terms of available cash and the closing on the house here and everything else will be a lot more stable then. Juggling the sale of the house here, the timing of relocation payments from the new job, and the purchase of something new is really quite stressful. I like doing things in sequence without so many dependancies a lot better.
But this seemed like a good place that we all liked, and it will also be really nice to actually get settled in the perminant place before the school year starts so Amy won’t have to bounce schools at the second move. Plus prices are going up at a rate that can already be seen in the couple of months we’ve been looking at houses down there. So when we found this one, offering seemed the right thing to do.
We want it.
But… if one of the other two people get it instead, we’ll be OK with that too. We’ll find something a couple months down the line. Every month we stay at the Bou’s should actually do a lot to put us in an increasingly better position… but at the same time, we’re anxious to get settled in a long-term spot, especially because of the school thing.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens.
I put in an offer on a place in Florida today. We had been thinking of building, but saw one on Thursday that seemed to be a good match and all three of us liked. And the price is in my original budget range, not the higher range I had decided to also look in after not being satisfied initially with what I saw in the lower range. If the offer is accepted I’ll post more info in a few days. And I guess if it isn’t I’ll post that too.
Well, as of last night Amy and Brandy have seen the place in Melbourne we are renting from Ivan’s family for the first time. We won’t be fully moved in with this as our primary home for another month or so, but we’re starting to get the feel of the place and the neighborhood.
I was going to take the time and make a photo gallery page on abulsme.com with my look and feel and my navigation and my site stats tracking and all that fun stuff, but things are pretty busy these days and who knows when I’ll have the time. So here is a mac.com photo album (took only seconds to post with iPhoto). Enjoy!
Some Pictures of Our Place
This is a transitional place, for us to stay until the sale of the house in PA closes, and we decide what we want to buy down here and then wait to be able to move in. That may take a little while. In the mean time, this will be home!
Edit 2016-12-05 03:30 UTC to replace link to defunct mac.com page with a new page with the same pictures and captions I just created. The old URL was http://homepage.mac.com/abulsme/PhotoAlbum24.html. A Wayback Machine snapshot of the original page is also available here.
I convinced my mom to give a try at putting a print newsletter she edits online in blog form. I set her up on Blogger and showed her how to post. Just a couple posts so far. She is experimenting. I don’t know if she’ll keep it up, but I’ll keep an eye on it! Anyway, it is my mom, so check it out.
Just Peace Advocate
The Just Peace Advocate appears in three formats. The “short version” is two pages per month included in Western Area News and… which is mailed to pastors, churches and leaders in Massachusetts by the Western Area office. The “long version” appears 5-6 times a year and goes to a special list of persons who have requested to receive it or are known to have an interest in justice and peace issues. This site posts updates between publications of the print versions.
The Top Ten list for March 2004 has now been posted to the public. Enjoy. (Of course the actual winners were notified weeks ago.)
March 2004
But I think Chad will be disappointed. Because this total means he missed the previous all time record for emails sent to me in one month by only 45 emails. Of course, that record is held by Chad. March 1999. But only 45 messages? Poor Chad. Perhaps if he hadn’t taken off the 9th and 10th of the month and sent no emails at all those two days he could have done it. Oh well!
The process of moving to Florida is now well underway. The new address and phone number are final. As of about an hour ago, my phone was switched over to the new number. The old one now gives a “no longer active” type message when you call it. (They couldn’t put a forwarding message, and I lost some voicemail, which is annoying, but it is switched.)
So if you need to call me, you need the new number.
The new postal address will probably be ready to recieve mail around the end of the month (we have to get a mailbox to put outside the house). Until then use the old addresses.
Oh, and no, I won’t post the number and address here. If you want it, send me an email. :-)
(Those who send me lots of email will get the info by email in a few minutes.)
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