Swimming in the Pensieve

Ever since I opened that box, I had a subliminal uneasiness that followed me about while I was clearing a spot in the dining room for the machine. Something was very wrong, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I checked on dinner in the midst of juggling a few other things, and felt an weight of non-specific dread.

I dashed back into the dining room to finish hooking up the machine and flicked it on. That’s the last thing I can remember before waking up with a knot on my noggin. I fought to remember what happened…then realized that dinner must be burning. “What happened to me?” I wondered while walking up to the stove. Dinner was fine. Musing that I couldn’t have been out more than a couple of minutes, as I stirred the sausage gravy; I rolled my mental clock back to the moment I turned on the CAliVA computer.

In my mind’s eye, I saw myself push the power switch and watching the machine run the POST routines. The second the POST summary screen evaporated, I could hear the sound of a million Penguins–screaming in pain–then I fell to the floor; knocking over a stack of code sheets on the way down. What does it mean? And we don’t have penguins in our home!

I looked around the wall, into the diningroom, and saw the mess I had made–and there’s my hardcopy of “The Cathedral and the Bazaar“ that I thought I’d lost. “How strange! I don’t remember printing it out on ultra bright paper stock. The way the light is hitting it, it almost looks like it’s glowing!”

Looking at the monitor, I saw that they imaged-over a custom-configured version of windoze xp-pro. May I do my impression of ‘Bill The Cat‘ now? Fighting-back the nausea, I logged-in and ran windoze update (for all the good it’ll do), because it always pays to be >ahem< safe, now doesn’t it? I moused-over to select custom install and had it scan for updates (this should only kill two hours of my evening) so that the download portions could take care of themselves while I finished-up making dinner.

On my way back into the kitchen, I picked-up the papers from the floor and tossed them into the chair, next to the keyboard; hurrying to stir the gravy some more. (That’s the only thing I hate about making biscuits and gravy–it seems like I’m constantly going in circles.)

As I was doing the mindless thing of stirring, I thought about one of my favorite moments in Bloom County; wherein Oliver Wendell Jones scores a “Welcome to NORAD” login prompt, and responds, “Avast ye scurvy dogs! Heave-to and prepare to be boarded!” (Don’t ask. Stirring gravey just does that to me, OK?); and I heard what sounded like one of the kids clapping their hands together–just once. Except, it didn’t have the same quality as a hand-clap, children rarely clap just once, and I detected the aroma of fried semiconductors wafting into the kitchen.

Looking around the wall, I saw a penguin waddling toward the front door, and a blank monitor. :::sigh::: I guess that outlet liked the Linux machine better than this one. Now I have to pack the chassis back up and have it swapped-out for one that doesn’t make smoke. Maybe I can just get the K12 folks to send me a power supply?

It could happen!

Now you get to find out how things go with CAliVA/K12 when equipment dies. Stay tuned.

What is the sound of a penguin laughing?