WHY

Soo… it's been awhile, and well right now things are tough. Simple things that most of the population seem to have no issues with tend to bog me down and imobilize me. Nothing gets done, nothing progresses, and it sucks! It's not like I don't want to do things I just don't want to do anything. For example I have a few projects that would be great if they were done, meaning that I would personally enjoy them being done, but every time I look at them I just feel overwhelmed and give up. I don't even try! And it feels pathetic, I feel like I'm pathetic and not worth anything. And I know that's the shame talking but it still takes it toll. It's buggy that what should modivate just overwhelms me and pushes me further down. Perfection is a hinderence and struggling doing a first draft, a failed run, just seems wrong. I know… well I understand that failure is one of the ways we learn but school taught me that failling is bad and I'm bad for doing it. WHY? Why does living have to be so hard? What's the point? Simple daily tasks like getting out of bed, finding food, or showering shouldn't be this difficult! And it is, it is…

RPI Blank/Black Screen

While trying out the latest Raspbian with PIXEL on Raspberry Pi using the Window Manager I noticed that the screen would only go blank/black and never went into standby mode. Now I don't know if this has to do with my cabling setup but I am using an HDMI from the RPi with a converter to DVI into the monitor. After searching for a while I came across a few different suggestions. The following is what I feel is the simplest and most reliable mix of my findings.

The simplest and cleanest way to get the monitor in and out of standby is by using the commands below.

$ vcgencmd display_power 0
$ vcgencmd display_power 1

xscreensaver has a watch option for checking when it blanks, locks, or unblanks the screen.

#!/usr/bin/perl

my $blanked = 0;
open (IN, "xscreensaver-command -watch |");
while () {
    if (m/^(BLANK|LOCK)/) {
        if (!$blanked) {
            system "vcgencmd display_power 0";
            $blanked = 1;
        }
    } elsif (m/^UNBLANK/) {
        system "vcgencmd display_power 1";
        $blanked = 0;
    }
}

Now I'm sure there is a way to get this working at startup, but I'm not that skilled, and as this was just to tryout and temporarily play with that's as far as bothered with.

Enjoy!

wpa_supplicant.conf

Reference info for wpa_supplicant.conf:

I got tired of looking through pages of documents to find the information I mostly use for setting up wpa_supplicant.conf on my Raspberry Pi devices. So, I'm putting it here.

If you are looking for a way to setup DHCP or Static settings for your networks follow the example under ### Other Options ###.

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

#
# home network; allow all valid ciphers
network={
    ssid="home"
    scan_ssid=1
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    psk="very secret passphrase"
    priority=5
}

# This will connect to any open wifi connection
# if no other connection is available.
network={
    key_mgmt=NONE
    priority=-1
}

### Other Options ###
network={
    ssid="SCHOOLS NETWORK NAME"
    psk="SCHOOLS PASSWORD"
    id_str="school"
}

network={
    ssid="HOME NETWORK NAME"
    psk="HOME PASSWORD"
    id_str="home"
}

The following is part of the ### Other Options ### setup. Edit /etc/network/interfaces with iface school inet static and iface home inet dhcp in it so it looks something like this:

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

iface school inet static
address 192.0.2.7
gateway 192.0.2.254
netmask 255.255.255.0

iface home inet dhcp

Sep165

This was a hard week. I'm not sure when it started to go down hill but I know by Wednesday evening I was out of it mentally and physically. I know I wasn't sleeping well and I guess the added stress of the divorce paperwork put me over the edge. I had lost all vitality and mentally I became easily distract.. Squirrel! Hm? Oh right, Anyway if you're wondering what it's like to deal with depression there is a TED talk which describes it well.

So, what got me out of the funk you ask? Well Wednesday night I prayed, something I had gotten out of the habit of doing. I basically said that I'm really struggling and asked for a lifeline –someone to talk to because I didn't know who to contact (I blame this on the mental mush, I've had a number of friends tell me I can call and chat any time)– and I guess I also wanted someway to know that God was really listening.

Sep159

I know it's been some time since I posted last, but not much has really happened. I feel like all I've done is run and recover and I mean that literally. Back in November I was enticed by a friend to run a marathon. This is something I've wanted to do for some time now and with everything going on I needed a change and a goal, so I signed up. Now this isn't my first sporting event I've signed up for but it's been years since feeling like I could even attempt something of this magnitude and even then I wasn't sure I could do it.

This month I've run for 10 hours and 55 minutes completing 63.7 miles and burning almost 8,000 calories. The marathon takes place at the end of May in Utah. At this rate I should be able to finish without much trouble, but right now it feels like a constant battle and a lot of recovery. Just yesterday I ran 12 miles and tomorrow I'll probably run about 6 miles. I never thought I would say this but a 1 mile run is a piece of cake, two miles isn't really even that bad. Crazy right! I guess with all things in perspective 1 mile compared to 26.2 miles really isn't a lot.

Sep145

It's been a couple of busy weeks. Although I'm realizing I can't remember half of what happened off the top of my head. I may have to start doing this once a week, maybe even every few days. But I think for now it will be a weekly update; and as this process of journaling becomes more accustomed –causing either the posts to be longer or written faster– I will look into updating more often.

Well since today is the freshest in my mind I'll start there. Hmmm.. on second thought I suppose it's better to start with what lead up to today's events. So I'll be starting with what happened this last week.

Sep131

The past year has been... well, let's say the events in my life have changed things drastically. And today I stand looking at a closed door, struggling to find hope and encouragement; contemplating what I'm doing and why I should bother pushing forward. Alexander Graham Bell once said, “When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” and he's right. I've had doors close before and it was challenging. Sometimes I've even seen the new ones open, but this, this is different. Maybe it's not, maybe I just want it to be; but, for arguments sake, right now, as I'm writing this, it's different.

I'm sure by now you're thinking, "Enough with the thoughts and emotions, what happened?" Well, the reason I'm telling this is to get those emotions and thoughts out of my head; call it therapy. If you don't like it you don't have to read it. But, just to warn you from this point forward the blog will be about me blabbing about my life.