The Death Row Debacle

I was taught in grade-school that when you are taking at test, and you encounter a problem that can not be quickly solved, then you must skip it and move on to the next problem.

Life is essentially a test.   We are all just one giant experiment, just like the dinosaurs and the Pre-Cambrian trilobites that came before them.   Some people woudld argue that it is all random while, others would firmly argue that it all has a predetermined final destiny.

I say we have all been bamboozled, but that is another story.

Any ways, this unique phenomena is not unique to Texas nor to the USA nor to the Western Hemisphere, and especially not unique to 2018 nor even last millenia of human history.

People who are not part of the power structure in a society, are not treated as fair as those who are part of the power structure.

This phenomena is not going to go away, and I would theorize that it is going to increase due to socio-economic trends in the Western Hemisphere.

Anyways, back to the test.      We as a society must skip this problem for now and move on to other problems that can be solved in 2019.    In the very near future robots will have a larger place in our society and Houstonians will eventually welcome with open-arms robot-businesses, self-driving cars, robot-police officers, crime-fighting drones, public online schools.   Poor people will have to compete in that society, more so than they do in our current system.

My new apartment in Alief, Texas

P.S.     While I have your attention.     I now have a clean 3 bedroom apartment at

4545 Cook Rd. # 716, Houston, TX 77072.     I have a guest room and the 2nd room is my

office for my subpoena-delivery business.       I have been working my tail off the past month,

but there are things that are still going on that are related to Hurricane Harvey.   

All that, was why I had to skip TCR.    My business has a website

now.      www.houston-subpoena.com    ( using SquareSpace ).       My daughter, CavePearl, won

a merit award in the school district drama play, called "Selfie," where she played a girl named

Laura.  The play eventually won 1st place in the district-wide competion.   

I only see her about an hour a week for an hour, but we had dinner a few days ago, just the two of us.

There is no way I can go caving in the next few months.    But I did purchase a 48 year old book about caves that

I found in a resale shop this week.     My Sequoia is in need of lots of repairs.    The springs holding

up the hatch are weak and the door creeps downward.     I was not paying attention to that and hit

the top of my head very hard on it last week.  It almost knocked me out.   

I had large lump on my noggin.  But

it looks like it healed.

The Google link below is just some random photos of my new office / apartment.

I won't be having a house-warming party, but I would like to show off some of the progress

I have made in the past month.

[ I do not know if you have to have a Google account to view this ]

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/bRxGDexW4qQ7Ajsy9

The unique feature to this 3-bedroom apartment is that it is 1200 Sq. Ft. along with

a good-sized patio and outdoor laundry area on the balcony, for a measly $ 1,077 per

month, and that includes water.     So far electricity has not been much, as I am never

here.   I really need to find an excellent roommate.

FEDORA Rawhide Install - August 5, 2018

This blog is about my experience today, August 5, 2018, installing the very very latest public version of Fedora Rawhide.

     Disclaimer:

     The iso used to create the install USB thumbdrive, was the latest
     unofficial nightly and was not yet listed as having been confirmed
     as a "good" image.

     Shown as "Fedora-Rawhide-20180802.n.0"
     downloadable from the following website:

     https://www.happyassassin.net/nightlies.html

Background:

     I wanted to distro-hop today in order to learn about new Linux desktop
     concepts.    I have been living in Fedora Rawhide ( fc29 ) for about
     2 months on a old Intel i5 3470 mini-ITX computer
     using DDR3 memory.

     After looking at my options for a new distro, it seemed for me that my
     best option was to do a new install of Fedora Rawhide and look for new
     things I had not noticed before.     I did not choose the Workstation iso
     but instead the "Everything Boot" iso, and then I used the custom settings
     to see if I could get an install more to my preferences.

The installer options were new to me.    It offered all sorts of desktop environments.     I did not choose any desktop environment thinking it would default to Gnome, since Gnome was not an option.   I chose the music option which turned out to be a mistake as it installed over 15 musician apps for guitarist and keyboardist.   Things like "frescobaldi."    I do not yet see an easy graphical way to remove these music packages.

Unfortunately, for me this was not the distro version I was hoping for.   I must have chose the wrong things, even though I tried hard to read all the options.

For example, I did not get Gnome Display Manager, nor dnfdragora, nor even a terminal.     That was super bizarre, but I managed eventually to get them installed.   But, a new Fedora user would have given up at that point and either reinstalled the iso again, but differently, or erased the USB thumbdrive and instead installed the Fedora Rawhide "Workstation" iso on it, or maybe even tried Fedora 28 or, even a different distro.

I had to type "startx" at dollar sign just to get into my system.    Wayland is not installed and I could not figure out how to get it installed.     That was a bummer for me, as I have been using Wayland without issues for 2 months.

The newly revamped Anaconda Installer installed 1664 packages.   Among them were the very latest kernel 4.18.0.rc7, and Gimp 2.10.4, and LibreOffice, Darktable, Inkscape, Pitvi, Shutter, Shotwell, Blender, Scribus, and Audacity.      Components like bash 4.4.28 and mesa 18.1.5 seemed to be installed.    I installed the flatpak repo.    I never saw an option for Software Center or 3rd Party repos, so I installed Gnome Software Center.    I opened it, but it seemed to freeze up.

Wi-Fi did not work.     But keyboard, monitor, mouse, and ethernet, worked out of the box.   I had to install Firefox ( 61.0.1 ).    I have not yet tested the printer.

I just ran an update and it said nothing to do and listed a module of GIMP that could not be installed.

There is only one background choice - a dark solid blue.

At this stage, I do not know whether I should continue or do a new install, but I will tinker with it some more.

***After 2 more hours of tinkering***

I seem to have Wayland installed, but the display manager still will not launch and I have to use the startx command.   I have installed Gnome Tweaks, and got rid of some of the unwanted apps I initially installed.    I still can not get Gnome Software Center to launch nor have installed rpmfusion, or other 3rd party apps.    I just noticed Gnome Files is not installed.

I installed a flatpak app - the game Aisleriot and played a full game of Freecell.   So I assume the other flatpaks will work just as good.     I have 2 Fedora backgrounds installed now.

Hurricane Harvey impact

My name is David Locklear, 

a.k.a. "THE ALR SUBPOENA GUY."

I have been self-employed over 20 years assisting defense attorneys as a sub-contractor with their court cases.    99% of that work involves delivering court documents throughout southeast Texas from Lufkin to Victoria, but the brunt of the work is around Harris County.    I never know from day to day what town I will be in.   I may be in Rosenberg or Anahuac or even Stagecoach.     I spend 14 to 16 hours a day in or near my vehicle. I need a large vehicle for various reasons, thus I waste a lot of gas.    I tried a tiny 2 seater hybrid car, and it was not practical.   I tried a Honda Fit and a motor-scooter and a small pick-up truck and it was not practical. 

While I do have competition, there is not a business in Texas like mine.   I found a niche and tried my best to keep it afloat.

The problems started way back after Tropical Storm Allison.   That decimated my business and I never fully recovered.    So as I watched Hurricane Harvey work its way towards our area, I knew I had to take action.

I had been living in very cheap weekly motels for nearly 13 years.     This is due to entirely to my business model, but also due to a toxic marital separation, where I am trying to keep my child's interest in check.  

So as the storm was approaching, and things were starting to close, court cases began to get reset.    I knew I was in for a long haul.     So I closed my business before the storm made landfall, and put all my belongings in storage in Brenham, in a high and dry space ( I already had the storage unit due to marital issues ).

My estranged-wife and daughter had to be evacuated.    They refused to come to my cheap motel.     So I moved down the road to a similar motel, but one with a larger nicer room.    That ended up costing me money I did not need to spend.  When they arrived at the motel, they turned around and drove back thru the eye of the tropical storm to an area that flooded.   I could not talk any sense into my estranged-wife as she was hysterical and did not understand the storm or what its impact was going to be.  

I ended up having to give up the weekly during the storm ( even though it was paid for ) and head to my daughter's house to try to get all their furniture off the ground.     I ended up getting trapped there "alone" for 2 days, and had to wear my mother-in-laws clothes while I was there.    Ironically after all that stress, their street never received more than a 1/4 inch of water.    My memory is, that all the food had to be thrown away.

After the storm subsided, I had to put all the furniture back.     My estranged-wife and I were at a boiling point.    She had completely lost all common sense, and there was no way I could stay with them.

So for the past 11 months, I have been living like a gypsy.   Sleeping in my car at truck-stops, sleeping on a relative's couch.     But I quickly wore out my welcome with all my friends whose life had quickly returned to normal.

About 3 months ago, I was befriended by a Cuban immigrant that I briefly new about 5 years ago.   I told them my story and they offered to rent me a tiny room in their apartment.   While that offer beats sleeping in my car, it was not practical for my job nor for seeing my daughter.      I must find a clean weekly motel.

There is no way I can afford a similar apartment in Houston, as my income fluctuates due to a cash-flow problem.

You may ask, why don't you just get a better job.    I have an Associates Degree and I completed 3 years of Mechanical Engineering at A&M.   I have worked for local engineering firms in the 80's and early 90's making good money.    I speak fluent Spanish.

It is really hard to go back to all that after being self-employed for 20 years.     I briefly worked in a rural machine shop back around 2007, and it was not where I felt I needed to be.    I briefly worked at the airport pumping gas in planes, and that too, was not my forte.

So what is it I am asking for help.    

I want to live in the Sleep Inn, just north of downtown, ( on I-45 a block north of North Main St. behind Whataburger ).    There are problems with that.   Sometimes I have to sleep in Beaumont or Cleveland or Huntsville or College Station.    So I end up paying for 2 motels on the same night.      

If I had a stable place to sleep and operate my business, and not worry about that, I could focus on my business and make enough money to pay my bills. 

I just don't have the capital or the cash-flow to pull it off without hurricane aid. 

My guess is that I lost at least $ 10,000 due to the storm that I will never be able to recover.

The quantity of business is back but there are nightmare problems due to the Harris County Criminal Courthouse still being closed and that the Central Police Station of the Houston Police Department and other stations are still closed after over 11 months.     So I am having to work harder for less money.     And also that my customer's were affected by the storm and have not fully recovered themselves, nor have their clientele.

If anyone wishes to help, I have set up a spot using the app, CASH.

https://cash.me/app/GMGNRLX

  

Summer Road-Trip 2018

1:20 a.m.  Wednesday:   north of Little Rock, Arkansas in a cheap bargain motel in the town of Conway.

Earlier, I made a long pit-stop in Hot Springs.

This morning, I had breakfast with my estranged-biological father at El Dorado Casino Cafe in Shreveport - not my kind of place at all.   He and I as usual, did not get along - over 50 years of toxic relationship is hard to escape.

As I drove up scenic Interstate 49 southeast of Texarkana, I tailgated a custom truck designed to haul 3 concrete cemetary vaults ( sarcophaguses ).   So I pondered the meaning of life.   Will my legacy be:
"just a foolish wanna-be spelunker who died of insanity lost and body later found naked in a skanky alley in Houston" ?

The only news I have so far is I just started a new long-distance relationship with a Mexican lady.   She does not speak a word of English and has huge baggage issues.

Here in Hot Springs I visited my only aunt.  My mom only had one sibling, and my dad had none.   She is elderly, nearly bedridden and lives in a poor house in Hot Springs.  That visit with her, her husband and 2 young grandaughters, 8 years old and 5 years old lasted about 5 minutes and then they rudely kicked me out.  

I went to her son's house on the other side of town.   He is almost 50 but has an unusual case of Aspberger's syndrome.   He can not read or write, but can use a Mac computer and iPhone with little problem.   ***He remembers ever detail of everyone's life that he encounters,***  thousands of memorized birthdays and calls them all on their birthday.

He took me to a 3-star Italian restaurant in Hot Springs and bought me Shrimp Carbonara.  But then he subtly ran me off.

I have no idea where I am going whatsoever - north ? south ? west ?  But not too far east, I know.

I could justify 1 more day and camping out in the Ozarks.

But Helena, Montana seems like the Moon from here.