diehn.net/blog

If I want to rename a user from “Mike Diehn” to “mdiehn”

Log the user out.

Log in as an Administrator, preferably in the realm in which the user account is defined rather than simply in the local computer realm.

Manage Local Users and Group
Rename the user account, maybe fill in the Full Name and put the old username in the description field so you’ll have it later if you need it.

Find the user’s profile folder, usually in “C:\Documents and Settings” and rename it. Maybe you wanna make a copy of it first, but this isn’t awful to recover from.

Start regedit “Start->Run->”regedit”->

Find this key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

In the key is a list of keys named as the SID for each user on the machine, local or not. In those SID named keys, the value named “ProfileImagePath” contains as it’s data the pathname of the folder holding the user’s profile. Find the one that had the pathname you recognize as the “old” username and change it.

Log out Administrator

Log in the user with it’s new username.

Are Greyhounds grey? No. Not usually.

We adopted two greyhounds. Pope and Bagen. They’re amazingly cool dogs. And I do mean “cool” in the 1980’s sense of the word – just laid back, calm, collected. They remind me of horses they are so cool.

But they aren’t grey. Nope. Pope is black, going grey in the muzzle. Bagen is white with red brindle markings around his ears. Very pretty dogs.

These two fellows were racers and they ran a lot of races and didn’t win many. OK.

So they’re retired now at four years old, and they are perfectly pleased to lie on their sides, practicing being very still, and waiting to be petted. They walk so easily it’s like they aren’t being led and they aren’t being restrained by their leashes – no, they are simply holding up their ends of the leashes. Just being helpful.

Lovely animals.

Fairly common practice from Sendmail and even Postfix setups is to use an alias in /etc/aliases or some such file to route mail for a certain address to the “bitbucket.” Like this:

spamtrap: /dev/null

Well, put that into /etc/aliases on a Debian system running Exim4 with a stock config and it won’t work. I learned from a post to the Pkg-exim4-users list what config change should allow this to work. Then I saw the bug they’d found. Then I came up with a better way around that bug – I think.

Now, there’s a bit of going around your elbow to get to you ankle with configuring exim4 on Debian – probably so that autoupdates with the package system works well…

Start in /etc/exim4
A stock config will ignore what’s in conf.d and subdirs. It will build a config file from exim4.conf.template and update-exim4.conf.conf and put the result in /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.

Edit exim4.conf.template and find this set of lines:

group = SYSTEM_ALIASES_GROUP
.endif
.ifdef SYSTEM_ALIASES_FILE_TRANSPORT
file_transport = SYSTEM_ALIASES_FILE_TRANSPORT
.endif
.ifdef SYSTEM_ALIASES_PIPE_TRANSPORT
pipe_transport = SYSTEM_ALIASES_PIPE_TRANSPORT

and change it to this:

group = SYSTEM_ALIASES_GROUP
.endif
#.ifdef SYSTEM_ALIASES_FILE_TRANSPORT
#file_transport = SYSTEM_ALIASES_FILE_TRANSPORT
#.endif
file_transport = address_file
.ifdef SYSTEM_ALIASES_PIPE_TRANSPORT
pipe_transport = SYSTEM_ALIASES_PIPE_TRANSPORT

Then run “update_exim4.conf” and restart or at least reload exim4 with “/etc/init.d/exim4 restart”

Turns out that the macro processor which assembles the config files from templates doesn’t handle names > 24 characters in length and so, what you intend setting in SYSTEM_ALIASES_FILE_TRANSPORT never gets set. So, just do it staticly and remember it.

Should you ever need to switch to the conf.d/{subdirs} mode of managing your config files – make a similar change in conf.d/router/400_exim4-config_system_aliases and you’ll be fine.

Started a new job on Monday. Too much stress working freelance and a good oportunity came up. So, we decided I should take it. I’m to be the System Administrator for the Interactive Media Lab at the Dartmouth Medical School. After only three days, I like it; I don’t think there’s much more I can know yet, eh? If you want to see what the IML does, have a look at the web site here: http://iml.dartmouth.edu.

Isn’t this lovely? Found this while reviewing the images that Picasa found on my laptop. It’s a picture of my broken tooth…. 

Yep. So, I went down to the grave to see for myself how things lie. And, well, sure enough, there’s a bit of backbone exposed and a small hole.

If by “a bit”, you mean 38 or 40 inches of vary large vertebrae arching across the edge of a hole and if by “small” you happened to mean “nearly too tight a fit for a pack of coyotes and a murder of crows to comfortable have at a meal together.”

Oh god.

I’m going to have to rent a backhoe again.

No, it’s really not that bad. It’s just that, well, horse parts continue to amaze me with their scale. I mean, REALLY. We have a Clydesdale – her hooves are quite literally as big as my head. And I’ve got a big head, man.

I’m used to seeing those delicate little spines you see in decomposed squirrel carcases or the occasional bird skeleton at the museam – that sort of thing. And then there’s this monstrosity that we’ve created. I loved Bay, I really did. Burying him was just about one of the most awful things I’ve ever had to do.

And now, well, it’s all coming back to me again.

And yeah, I gotta laugh…

[15:29] MikeDiehn: so, okay.
[15:29] MikeDiehn: here we are.
[15:29] MikeDiehn: I’m so bored.
[15:29] Friend One: why a chat room?
[15:29] MikeDiehn: cause [two]is on too.
[15:29] Friend One: she is?
[15:29] *** [Friend Two] has joined the chat.
[15:29] Friend One: ohhh… she is 🙂
[15:30] Friend Two: hey all!
[15:30] MikeDiehn: and speak of the deveil
[15:30] Friend One: hi [two]
[15:30] MikeDiehn: devil
[15:30] Friend Two: you know me
[15:30] MikeDiehn: 🙂
[15:30] Friend Two: evil evil evil
[15:30] MikeDiehn: yessss… we doooo…
[15:30] MikeDiehn: so, I have to tell you this.
[15:30] Friend Two: what???
[15:30] Friend Two: do tell.
[15:30] MikeDiehn: You know we buried Bay last fall?
[15:30] Friend Two: yes
[15:30] MikeDiehn: our aged 1/4 horse, right?
[15:30] MikeDiehn: You hear the grave storey?
[15:30] Friend Two: no
[15:30] MikeDiehn: ohmigodwhatapun
[15:30] Friend Two: lol
[15:30] Friend Two: nice
[15:31] MikeDiehn: dug big grave 10 days early, huge rainfall in fall. (shit, too puny) …
[15:31] MikeDiehn: doc comes, puts horse down…
[15:31] MikeDiehn: I fire up the backhoe, haul him to the edge of the… no, not grave… the
[15:31] MikeDiehn: edge of the new SWIMMING POOL…
[15:31] Friend One: oh no!
[15:32] MikeDiehn: ten by ten by eight, filled to within six inches.
[15:32] Friend Two: eek
[15:32] MikeDiehn: right.
[15:32] MikeDiehn: so, dead things… sink or float?
[15:32] MikeDiehn: right.
[15:32] Friend Two: not good
[15:32] MikeDiehn: so,… it’s a shallow grave for Bay.
[15:32] MikeDiehn: I do my best to break him up a bit (and I’m REALLY trying hard not to visualize right now)
[15:32] MikeDiehn: and sink him
[15:32] MikeDiehn: but there’s a bit that a little too close to the surface for my liking.
[15:32] MikeDiehn: Anyway.
[15:33] MikeDiehn: Winter.
[15:33] MikeDiehn: Spring
[15:33] MikeDiehn: Mud Season.
[15:33] MikeDiehn: Now….
[15:33] Friend One: eewww
[15:33] MikeDiehn: Balmy, lovely cool breeeeezy night…
[15:33] Friend One: i don’t like where this is goin
[15:33] MikeDiehn: windows open…
[15:33] MikeDiehn: hey, honey… you smell something?
[15:33] MikeDiehn: Oh GOD, something’s wrong with the new sheets! No, it’s the baby!
[15:34] MikeDiehn: Oh JEEZ, it that your… your teeth or something? I mean, I love you, but, jeazus.
[15:34] MikeDiehn: So…. noooo…. it’s coming from … yep.
[15:34] MikeDiehn: That dark lonely corner of the Paddock…
[15:34] MikeDiehn: yeah.
[15:34] MikeDiehn: I think I need to blog this.
[15:34] Friend One: hah
[15:35] MikeDiehn: Anyway, I ask Andi – hey – I just can’t bear it to check on that grave…
[15:35] Friend One: you’re a good storyteller
[15:35] MikeDiehn: She volunteers and calls me this morning…
[15:35] MikeDiehn: It’s not to bad sweetie… yeah, the grave has sunk a bit and there’s one small hole.
[15:35] MikeDiehn: Not *much* BONE SHOWING THROUGH!!!!
[15:35] MikeDiehn: Ph*****
[15:35] Friend One: ew
[15:35] MikeDiehn: Looks like backbone, BUT IT”S PICKED Clean…
[15:35] Friend One: she’s brave
[15:35] MikeDiehn: Yeah
[15:36] MikeDiehn: So, that explains the crows I’ve been seeing hanging around the corner over there.
[15:37] MikeDiehn: Anyway…. we gotta add some soil to the grave and all should be well.
[15:37] MikeDiehn: .
[15:37] MikeDiehn: .
[15:37] MikeDiehn: .
[15:37] MikeDiehn: Yeah, she writes well, eh?
[15:37] Friend Two: that’s rough…
[15:37] Friend Two: good story, though — you should blog it, you’re right!
[15:37] Friend Two: does she use her real name in the paper?
[15:37] MikeDiehn: I’m copyuing and pasting…
[15:37] MikeDiehn: Andi? Yeah.
[15:37] Friend Two: i’ll have to look
[15:37] MikeDiehn: And mine, and Tallis and Luca…

The boys and Andi came home around noon thirty. We told them about Tooppy and wow – kids are really resilient. Tallis, our four year old, understand what’s going on and we all went down back to where Tupelo was resting on his old blanket on the lawn.

Tallis and Luca petted his fur, looked at his eyes, touched his teeth and lips, moved his rigor-stiffened legs. Generally got up close and person with their old friend in his new state. Then Tallis helped us pick out a spot for the grave. We decided after much discussion and walking the grounds to put him in the round herb garden out front.

So we dug. And dug, and dug…. Tallis with a hand trowel and me with a spade. Andi and Luca supervised (ok, Andi helped me dig… 🙂 ) We brought Toopy up from the back to “watch” while we dug. We took pictures of him on his blanket, of Tallis and I digging, of the grave.

We put a meal of dog food and a bowlfull of water (sans bowl) into the hole to feed him on his journey. The we also put in Baba’s ashes – Baba was Toopy’s brother whom we had put down and cremated *last* May. Finally, we lowered Tupelo in, tucked him neatly into the bottom of his grave and filled it in around him. Tallis and I worked together the whole time filling it in. Tal was a bit disturbed when I stepped into the half-filled hole to tamp down the earth – he was worried I’d wake up Tupelo and scare him.

Yep. A little over an hour ago, I came home to pick up Tupelo and take him to the vet to find out why he’s been acting so strangely the last 48 hours or so. Andi had let him stay out on the back lawn and when I went out to find him, he was still pretty unhappy – gasping a bit, really down, didn’t want to move at all. I’m *pretty* sure I recall that he lifted his eyebrows when he saw me and twitched an ear.

Anyway, I picked him and carried him to the car – he moaned and groaned. Not a happy dog at all – Tupelo has always been the most stoic of animals and before this just never complained about anything.

I put him in the car, walked around and got in. Halfway down Ibey road, about a minute from the time I’d set him in the car, I saw that he was having real trouble breathing, slowly gasping and gasping. Thinking I’d put him in an awkward position, I pulled over, leaned over and lifted him up to rearrange him a bit – he was completely limp. Checked his eyes – no response at all. His gums were ashy colored. A few seconds later, he stopped trying to breath.

I put on my hazards, floored it and called ahead to the Vet to let them know what had happened and that I’d be there very shortly with a nearly (I hopedead dog. I started chest compressions as well as I could while driving….

When I arrived at ACE (Animal Clinic of Enfield) about three minutes later, I rushed him into room two – Wendy and her staff had setup a respirator and tried to entubate him. The Doc’ checked him over thoroughly and told me very gently that she was pretty sure he was gone – would I like her to keep trying? Maybe they’d get him back…

No. He’s had enough. I think he’s done. Could I just have a few minutes to not think? Of course, we’ll be outside. Tears, sobs…

Andi arrived a few minutes later. Luca was sound asleep in the car and stayed there peacefully while we cried and loaded Tupelo’s body back into my car. Wendy helped us out – told us there wouldn’t be any bill for the visit.

Tallis is in school this morning so Andi and Luca headed back out to pick him up while I drove Toopy home. We’ll gather soon as everyone is home and bury Tupelo this afternoon after we’ve had some time to say our goodbyes. Sort of a doggy wake, I think.

As I write this, Toopy is on his blanket on the back lawn, lying in the sun, birds all around. There he is again, waiting patiently for us to come home to him, as he always did, one last time.

Happy Sunday all.

Tallis is four today. Luca was two on the 12th. We had a party for the two of them yesterday and it was great fun: Grammy and Mada were up from Plymouth and brought Granmma Pat. Julie and Ryan from Tallis’ school came with their families. We had the Reynolds and Shinlingers as well, though the Moms from both those packs were absent.

Grammy, Mada and Grandma Pat took Luca and Tallis to the Montshire around 10:00. Andi and I read for a while and then had a nap. Wow. How deeply one can sleep without two thrashing bodies in the bed….

Okay, back to the family.