Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

  • Unbelievably Pissed Off

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    As the title reads, I am so angry I could cry. I rarely get this angry and incensed that I am beyond yelling or even silent anger – this is one of those times. I just watched a segment on YouTube from vlogger Lindey Glenn called People With Jobs Are Sleeping in Their Cars Now. I agree with about 99% of the content that Lindey puts up. About 1% of the stuff she puts up though is capitalist apologia and I don’t care much for that as I think it detracts from her overall vibe and message. Anyhow, I digress as the episode put me in a very dark and angry place. There is truly no hope for the United States now and it really doesn’t matter what political aisle you identify yourself on.

    With thanks to politicians of Democratic and Republican persuasion we have effectively criminalized homelessness. We have found a way to do a complete end-run around the constitution which expressly forbids criminalizing a status. I am so angry and sad. It’s going to take a fucking miracle to fix this and there is no political will to do so because the venture capitalists have actually bought up all of the housing resources, alternative or otherwise, and made basic living impossible. I am autistic and will not survive 12 hours, let alone 24, living on the street. Is life worth living if I cannot even lead it in basic safety and dignity!? I am really thinking right now.

    Maybe it is dangerous to think this deeply so late at night when the night demons come out. The night demons are real for people that suffer from major depressive and generalized anxiety disorders like myself. Yes, this is a very real phenomenon. I am feeling so much right now that it will be a good thing I am seeing my therapist tomorrow. I feel so much right now that I know the only thing that will improve things for me will be talk therapy to help stop the swirling thoughts. Not even sleep is helping me recover.

    On top of all of this, I think I might have been the victim of a job search scam. This is not of those direct monetary ones but one where the company posts a fake job and then requires their candidates to “solve a problem” or “complete a task.” They do this knowing people will jump through hoops in these economic times. This task was especially difficult but I did solve it. The more I think about it, the more I think this was a phantom job offer. It only made me angrier! I need to sleep this off.

  • A Reattempt At Writing

    I am going to make another attempt at writing a fun information technology book. This time I have a much better idea for the intended target audience. Surprisingly, my therapist helped narrow down the audience to the intermediate computer user who is fascinated about how computers and networks operate and wants to learn more; take it to the next level. In my latest thinking, my ideal reader will want to balance learning by doing with grokking the theory behind it as well. So I may sit down to figure something fun out this weekend when I am at work

    I am planning on enjoying today’s day off to its fullest possible. Yesterday, I was so tired that I was falling asleep on the job. I will also have Friday off too and it will feel good. In an ideal world I’d rack up enough paid vacation and just relax. This is going to be a short article as I have a lot to do.

  • A Sleepless Night

    Last night was quite unpleasant. It was another sleepless night. I really needed three days off but my boss contacted me about covering a four hour shift on Thursday and then I would have Friday off. I need the money and I am in no shape to turn opportunities down. This isn’t much fun but it costs money to live and the elites would have it no other way. Life feels like an unending punishment.

    Last night I think I brought back my Mastodon and WordPress instances back from the dead. Well, I know I brought back my WordPress instance. I am not so sure about Mastodon. The database might have gotten corrupted while I was doing a few things and I stupidly neglected to take a backup of the damn thing. Well, I seem to keep learning this lesson over, so yes, this is stupidity at this point.

    I don’t know quite how today is going to play out other than that I will be spending another 4 hours guarding a dock door when I am rather capable of so much more. This also frustrates me very much.

  • Learned Something

    Abilify is making a big difference in my life. It’s not miraculous by any means but I am doing better. However I learned that I cannot take it at night because it is activating. I wake up at 4:00am all ready to rock and roll. By 2:00pm, I’m falling asleep. So yeah, I’m going to try it as a morning med instead.

    Another day in the coal mines is upon me but I don’t necessarily care because I am doing what I must. I feel better than I did last night when I was all salty and morose. I’m in better spirits and feel a better sense of hope; at least for today. My goal is living in the present. I’m asking myself what my needs are to make today happen. That’s the most important question and thought.

    Looking beyond today will merely overwhelm and sadden me. Once I have a better handle on my depression, I can begin to be more forward looking. For now, a life in the present is a life well lived.

  • I’m Pissed Off

    I don’t know why but I’m exceptionally angry this evening so I’m doing some additional writing to externalize the thoughts. I feel like a victim and I’m simultaneously angry and depressed about this. I feel like no matter what I do I just get knocked around by life. I had my hours cut at work and I’m wondering what will be next. I feel like I’m being exploited as I’m being paid a whopping $17 per hour. This is two dollars an hour over minimum wage in a medium cost of living area.

    The conservatives would tell me to get another job while they’re stealing money left and right with a cigar hanging out of their mouths and sipping on expensive liquor that I’ll never afford. I don’t know if this is capitalism, corruption, or both. I personally think America is too late to be saved. Tomorrow I go to work to earn the miserly sum of money. I’m nothing more than a whore for my employer. I have a fully incorporated pimp. The irony is not lost on me.

    I’m tired but sleep does not restore me. My two hobbies no longer give me satisfaction. I feel like a machine of anger and despair. I’m too chicken to off myself. I’m also chicken for wanting to go to sleep and not wake up. I don’t see a path forward. Today I lost sight of living for today. Perhaps I will regain this tomorrow.

  • Frustrations

    I’m somewhat frustrated that my skill set in computing seems to have atrophied. I’m struggling and making rookie mistakes. On the flip side it is good that I am recognizing this and I do need to slow down and plan better; step away when my frustrations start to get too high.

    I’m finding myself looking forward to work today. It’s easy and I earn okay money. Things could be better, and yet, they could be a whole lot worse. I do need to honor my promise to Denisse to help her study and I am doing that first thing when I get home.

    I think while I sit in the dock office this morning I will try to get Let’s Encrypt certificates working so I can stand up my private cloud and have it secure. I am planning on hiding it behind a VPN because I don’t want it externally exposed.

  • To The Salt Mines

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    Today begins a 7 day streak of work. While I am not thrilled about it, I will manage. At least during the week, I am only working 4 hour shifts. That makes things much more manageable. Today I shall live in the present as I did yesterday. I will enjoy the challenges that Linux and BSD provide.

    I would like to look for work right now. It’s something I want to do but I’ll end up doing it passively because the grass is not greener on the other side. The schedule I have now works despite not quite being ideal. At least work is easy enough.

    This morning I want to get my private cloud going. I had time this morning to install the operating system and I chose Alpine Linux for its small, efficient footprint. I’m finding that there is an ideal Linux distribution for just about every scenario. The only 2 Linux distributions that I dislike are Ubuntu and Mint. They’ve been as troublesome as Windows.

  • I Am Doing Better

    I have been on a low dose of Abilify now for a couple of days and I am doing better. I didn’t realize how tired my depression was making me. For the second day in a row now I have no needed extra sleep. I won’t use the word hope just yet. I have to see how things pan out over a 30 day period. I need some time to be convinced that this is not a placebo effect.

    I’m going to be working for the next 7 days straight but I am not finding myself that much bothered. Of course I say this now but let’s see how this actually plays out. I did a good job living in the present and not thinking of the future. This is exactly the headspace that I needed to be in and I will take this win.

    I even managed to finally get my fully virtualized network and VMs done. I realized ChatGPT was the enemy of this endeavor. I just did plain old Duck Duck Go searches this time to separate the wheat and chaff on my own. Lo and behold I found the answers I was looking for. AI is really not good for very much. Nothing beats good research and critical thinking.

    I realized I needed a virtual network for my home lab to exist on so I’m not breaking shit for poor Denisse. Part of that challenge was the fact that Verizon gave me this shitty router that I had to work around. I also wanted features like an internal DNS server for my home lab so that I don’t have to assign IP addresses to the VMs. All I have to do is let DHCP do its thing and the names get registered with DNS. This makes management easier.

    I really like dnsmasq. It makes DNS and DHCP easy. It’s had a somewhat dubious security history but it is healthy now and it’s mature software. It works well for virtual networks like mine. Now that all of this is done, I can spend some time spinning up a private cloud VM. At least the tinkering is done. The network is finalized.

  • Mourning The Loss of a Dream

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    I’m mourning the loss of my dream to one day have land in the mountains. I think I have come to the sad realization that I won’t be climbing out of poverty. I’m thinking the coming years are only going to be increasingly difficult. I fear that my life is going to be one of survival. Perhaps I’ve accepted this. But that doesn’t mean I cannot create new and very practical dreams.

    Since my prescriber has added Abilify to my regimen, I’m doing mentally better. Instead of feeling like I could break down and cry, I feel like I honestly could create new dreams that will be every bit as good and more achievable. I wonder what the coming days will bring. I know I’ll be in survival mode for a while because the economy is bad. I’m fortunate enough to even have this low end job. Service jobs are even hard to get!

    For the time being, I’m trying to live in the present, go to work, and do what I love which is working on my home lab. I’m not going to think more than a few days ahead. This is still living in the present. I feel good when given a good mental challenge and task.

    The next mission is to setup a private cloud with Nextcloud!

  • Some IT Work This Weekend

    I decided to get a lot of IT work done this weekend. One of my major goals was to get my lab systems on to a virtual network. The virtual network uses NAT for outbound connectivity but does allow some things inbound. I had to do this the manual way and it’s been a challenge. One of the things that makes Linux and BSD so powerful are their networking tool set. With the pretty much stock install, you can set up an entire virtual network within a host. If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, there are some very cool things to do.

    The first thing I did was create a virtual network with a bridge on my server called virbr10. The virbr10 has a dummy interface called virbr10-dummy. The dummy interface is just to keep the bridge in an up state while the virtual machines load on boot. It’s an important thing to do so that the boot time is faster.

    This consolidation is ultimately a good thing but taking a lot longer than I had planned. I am still wrestling with getting my Mastodon instance moved but that’s okay. I know Mastodon can be really finicky. It’s not tolerant of stupid/arrogant sysadmins. 😆