It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

@Mezmerelda ’sup. Will you marry me (again)?

#blacksmith

This is purely out of curiousity -- is there a blacksmith "community" on this site? Would love to share trials and tribulations, but don't want to bore the ever-loving bejeebus out of folks.

Outside analysis (no inside information...always _highly_ questionable): much of the site responds -- that loading to 99% and then stalling. Speaks to very specific targeting, which is a nicely sophisticated attack and not just a skiddie. Still expensive to maintain for long -- you're going to burn a botnet quickly....just speaks to the main perpetrator.

Little bit on DDoS attacks:

They're a bitch to defend against...but they're also a bitch to maintain. CoSo is particularly vulnerable right now due to both what I would call politics (as the bird site collapses) and the huge influx of new users (as the bird site collpases).

Depending on where Jester has defenses deployed, it may be an extremely short-lived inconvenience or a fairly short-lived inconvenience.

TLDR: give it time and all will be well.

#DogsOfCoSo
The inseparable duo - Fiona (Greater Swiss Mountain Dog) and Brighid (Irish Wolfhound).

Brighid was raised by Swissies...and Fiona was raised by Brighid. They're very confused.

End results...immediately before a rather epic night of fun, frivolity, drinking, and a great parade (one of the largest nighttime parades in the midwest, if not the country)

My esteemed colleague, The Doctor (aka Doc aka Doofus) -- wondering why I'm not either feeding him or getting on with Operation Tire Change so that I can get back to feeding him.

@Thornton Welcome aboard! You'll find it's a remarkably friendly place -- look around, drink (gently) from the firehose, follow tags of interest and make some friends, you recluse.

A little additional info that came out during Operation Tire Change: the old tires are in rough shape because they're _old_. The truck came into the family in '84 and was painted black then. It was originally a Red Baby. Beneath the clamps for the tires was the original red paint, so the old tires were on when it was painted....putting them in late 70's - early 80's.

So far so good...the truck has _not_ fallen off of the blocks yet (the ground is still holding), and the mechanic I spoke to said that he'll be able to get the tires swapped out on the rims though it was, in his words, a remarkable pain in the ass...something which made me feel a bit better about my inability to get the dang things off on my own. Should have the tires back this week...and will promptly mount them back on the truck.

Current status of the tire change on the IHC. Hoping for the following (in order):

1. The blocks that the truck is on manage to hold on the remarkably uneven ground. I’ve got the truck about as level as I can get it, but am still going to worry about it until I get the tires/rims back on.

2. The repair center I came across on Friday can figure out the removal of the old tires from the rims and the installation of the new tires.

I won't get into just how much swearing was involved when I pulled the tire off and saw that it wasn't a split rim. 90 minutes of trying to use the wrong tools to _attempt_ to get the old tire off of the rim before I gave up in disgust.

Followup on the IHC Model S Speed Truck tire change: Turns out that between clincher tires and split rims there was a (very) brief period of solid rim, tubed tires with retaining rings. Precursor to both split rims and widow makers. Retaining rings are not a concern -- they come off easily and without danger...but the lack of a split rim makes my master plan null and void.

Thankfully there's a tire shop here that knows exactly what this is and can take it from here.

Starting the photo documentation only slightly into the process - tires received, unpacked, loaded with a metric assload of gold bond powder (best I could do for talc), and then tubes fitted in (with much swearing) and flaps worked in over the tubes (more swearing). Ready to experience the joy of working these onto nearly 100 year old split rims.

Moment of truth today: going to mount new tires onto the 1925 IHC Model S Speed Truck. There is a remarkable amount of misinformation and partial information out there about working with old split rims, so this is going to be an interesting experience. Pics documenting the experience will be forthcoming, though I can say so far that just getting the tubes and flaps into the tires was a bit more work than expected.