I always have to jinx things. It wasn't long after my previous entry that another Computer Circus event occurred.

My router died.

I'm not sure why it died. I was trying to set up an FTP server to experiment with sending my blog (yes, this blog) to my own server, and I was not having much luck. I did a little research and determined that some ports were not open on my SMC Barricade firewall, so I was changing the settings and rebooting. Just as I was getting close to getting it working, I issued another software reboot command, and it never came back online. Computers on my LAN were still talking to each other, but the WAN connection was dead. And the router was no longer showing a blinking yellow light that indicates normal operation.

I also discovered the device has no factory reset button, even though there is a hole in the back to stick a paper clip into. So I ran out and bought another router at a local computer store that closed before I got back home, but this router is not working properly on my network. It won't let me plug a switch/hub into it, and when I try to access my web pages (at least from the LAN side), I get the router login screen, instead. Now I'll have to wait until tomorrow or Monday to return this new one.

What a piece of shit.

So I went on Craig's List and discovered someone has not one, but THREE routers for sale for half the price of what I paid for this ONE new one. And one of the three is the latest version of the router I had that just died. So, now I'm waiting to hear back from this person to see if they are still available - they're just a couple miles from here. I really didn't need to be wasting my time with THIS crap today - I have a resume to finish and a yard sale to prepare for. But, hey, if I get these three routers and sell two of them at the yard sale, I might actually come out ahead of the game!

One can only hope.

Well, now I'll never know for absolutely certain if the guy who bought my magazines was trying to scam me or not. He eventually wrote back and said he got me confused with someone else from whom he ordered something. Lockheed Martin even wrote back and said they couldn't tell me anything about the employee (company policy), but that the address was a valid LM address. And the money order hasn't bounced, yet.

The guy said he received the magazines, but they were left by a door that he doesn't use often, and his wife found them...and there was a "UPS" notice on the door (even though I shipped them USPS media mail). So who knows. Now he says he doesn't know if it was UPS or USPS but that he is happily reading the magazines. So I may never know for sure...but he still thinks I'm moving to Arizona...so perhaps we're even.

Nothing to report on the Computer Circus front. I'm still removing stuff from the workshop. Going to have a garage sale tomorrow. I took an old monitor and a ton (well, a bunch) of AOL and other CDs to the recycling place yesterday. I also sold an old (14-year-old) video transmitter kit that I bought in 1991 and never assembled, so now I don't have to find a place for that. I found a tiny desk that was perfect for my workshop that now replaces the behemoth desk that used to be here, so that's where I am sitting right now. It has three drawers on the right, and two bookshelves along the left side and takes up very little space (comparatively, anyway), so that's a good thing. Now I just need to get the huge desks physically out of here (i.e. SOLD) and I'll have a real room out here for the first time in...well...since I've been here. No more tripping over crap!

I'm spending the day putting together a resume to shoot on over to Yahoo!. I recently met a woman who lives nearby who competes in combat robots with a heavyweight robot...and she works at Yahoo!. I helped her with her robot and she took it to a fight in New Orleans and had a good time, so now she's helping me connect to Yahoo! to see if there is a place for me there. I think it could be fun to work at Yahoo! - hopefully, I can get in. It sucks to be out of work when you can't afford to be out of work, and I really want to get in somewhere where I can build up my knowledge and skills as I progress into the 21st century.

Heh.

At least if I was working, I would have 8 hours a day that I could focus on honing my skills, unlike the distracting home life as of yet, trying to stay on top of household chores and projects, etc. It's a full-time job to stay at home - no wonder I always felt like I could never get anything done in my personal life when I was working full-time. One thing I'm not going back to, however, are 60-hour work weeks! Ideally, I'd like to have a part-time job, but I'll take full-time at least for a while to replenish my savings. Besides, I have a new robotic venture I want to explore (which involves making a live ant be the pilot of a small vehicle). Details of that will come at a later date, probably as a project on my projects page.

Also, I want to build a small flame thrower to go up in one of my night-flying model airplanes. Wouldn't that be cool? I'll get one working on a combat robot, first.

Well, I have been making progress on organizing my workshop. In the cleaning process, I got rid of and sold a bunch of old magazines. In fact, I sold a bunch of Model Aviation and Radio Control Modeler magazines to a guy...who is now trying to scam me!

Asshole.

I posted an ad for my magazines on Craig's List - which is like a big pool of easy pickin's for scammers. Normally, I simply don't deal with anyone who is not local. But I had advertised these magazines in a number of places (including an RC forum where someone - probably legitimately - offered to buy them), but I got a better offer from someone off the Craig's List ad who resided in Georgia.

My ad specifically stated it was for local pick-up only and that I *WOULD NOT SHIP THEM*, but the guy really seemed to want them. So I wrote to the other guy on the RC forum to see if he would match the offer, but he never wrote back. Maybe he wasn't legit. So, one day I decided I had some free time and boxed up the magazines and took them to the post office to get an estimate on shipping costs. Then I contacted the guy from Craig's List who said he wanted them.

At least two weeks went by before I got a reply (red flag #2?), and the guy said he still wanted them. Not once during our correspondence did he or I mention anything about PayPal. Not once! They guy only offered to send a check or money order. I told him to send me a postal money order.

Last week, I got a Western Union money order. I was leary about it, but I took it to the bank and deposited it into my account. I was thinking about waiting until I was sure the money order was valid before shipping out the magazines, but for some reason, I felt it was safe enough, so I shipped them. The guy was writing from a Lockheed Martin email address, and he included a phone number in his email (which I never called...until tonight), so I assumed it was valid.

Big mistake.

I got an email from the guy tonight asking where the magazines were. Oh, and by the way, he also said he realized he had also paid me via PayPal and would I please refund the overpayment as soon as possible.

PayPal? Who said anything about PayPal? I never even told him I used PayPal, never mind provided an email address to use for payment!

Fucking asshole.

So, now I'm pretty sure the money order was forged and I will be getting a notice from the bank, soon. I called the number from the guy's email and someone with his name at Lockheed Martin answered, virtually, via his voice mail system, so either this is a professional scam set up, or some guy at Lockheed Martin is pretty damn stupid...cause if this transaction falls through, I'm going to track him down. Either that, or there's some poor guy at LM who doesn't have a clue who sent a bunch of magazines to him from California. I'm just waiting for the scammer to come back and tell me the magazines never arrived.

I wrote back to the guy and pointed out that neither one of us ever mentioned PayPal (and also that I never provided any PayPal payment instructions, nor had I received any notice from PayPal indicating a payment attempt). I didn't actually say that I have a PayPal account, and worded it such that he wouldn't really know for sure if I use PayPal or not. And I'm not telling (him or you)! But I'm sure with a little research, one might be able to find out one way or another. Just not from me.

Anyway, it just goes to show that anyone can be scammed. It just pisses me off, because that sale paid for my smog test...and I'm still unemployed and don't have $50 to lose! I also told the guy to let me know if the magazines come within the next two weeks, because I would be moving to Arizona at the end of the month and would no longer be able to receive email at my address.

We'll see if he believes that. I also told him that I am flat broke, selling old magazines to eat, so scamming me is a waste of time.

I think I'll go make a prank call to his number before going to bed.

Synopsis:
- I put my car up for sale and someone bought it the next day.
- I was without a car for a couple weeks and felt totally stranded.
- I wanted to buy an old Honda Civic Wagon.
- I wound up buying a Honda Civic Hatchback (in a severe lapse of judgement) that won't pass the smog test (which is a fucking scam in California, anyway). The tires were shit, so I swapped them with the tires on my wife's Honda Wagon that died of a timing belt failure.
- I took two old hard drives and stuck them into an old computer and installed Fedora Core 4 Linux on it.
- I plugged into a Linux user group and watched some geek spend hours on my computer doing who-the-fuck knows what that didn't get me any closer to what I wanted, and wound up not even working when I got it home. Damn geeks! ;)
- I have been fighting with Linux to get Apache, MySQL and PHP ("LAMP" as *they* refer to it) up and running. Sure it's easy - if you already know Linux!
- I found a huge computer case (with five cooling fans in it) in the trash today at my apartment building. Of course, I retrieved it. *** WHY?! ***
- Someone wrote an article about blogging for a campus newspaper and included references to my blog (the entry showing the pins sticking out of my hand). God knows why...but he's not talking.
- My hand still hurts a little and gets stiff. Only regained about 90% normal range of motion...so far.
- The hillside it a total fire hazard. Fortunately, nobody lit it up this Fourth of July.
- We got ANOTHER new cat (a kitten) and I discovered it is stone cold deaf. Our other cat hates it.
- My wife has three job offers on the table and is soon to be making a 6-figure income. HOLY SHIT!!!
- I still don't have a job -- even a rotten one. Maybe I can work at Taco Bell. Maybe.
- I hate the fact that nobody speaks English in America anymore. How do you say "fuck it" in Spanish?
- I think it is TOTALLY cool that the Mars rovers are still going strong. Why do people hate that we're hitting comets with copper probes for a mere $300 million when we're spending BILLIONS of dollars to kill thousands of people on Earth? And that's OK?
- I absolutely loathe, detest and despise the weather here. Mars couldn't be much colder. IT'S JULY ALREADY! WHERE'S THE SUMMER!
- I wrote this blog entry. Maybe someone will write about it.

Details:
- Later.