Disaster Averted
13:48 Wednesday, 25 June 2014
Words: 635
I’ve been experiencing some odd behavior on my 13" MacBook Pro (Retina). So I ran Disk Utility to verify the integrity of the file system on the internal drive (a 750GB SSD). Disk Utility reported that the file system required repair, and that I should reboot into the recovery partition and run Disk Utility from there so the file system could be repaired.
I considered booting into single user mode and running fsck, but figured I’d go with the manufacturer’s recommendation.
I restarted and held down cmd-R to get the recovery partition, but it booted into the normal partition anyway. Selecting restart from the login screen while holding down cmd-R then booted into the recovery partition. I’m not sure if the failure to reboot into the recovery partition the first time was because of the file system issue or not, because it happened twice.
I selected Disk Utility from the list of apps you can run in the recovery partition. I noticed that the Encrypted Logical Partition (the part that I boot with) was greyed out, and I couldn’t find a way to get it to mount. I slid over to my other computer, a 27" iMac running Yosemite, to use Bing ("I binged it!" Looks like binge. Hmmmm…) to find a clue.
You have to unlock the disk with your password, but it doesn’t seem like that facility is afforded the user in Disk Utility running from the recovery partition. The only way I was able to do it was to quit the launcher app that lets you run the four apps or scripts available in the Recovery Partition. This dumps you out to a little app that asks you to select your startup disk. There was my boot disk, still locked. Selecting it, the OS told me a password would be required to unlock it. Well, that’s fine, but how do I unlock it now? On a hunch, I right-clicked the drive icon and was able to unlock the disk. I was then able to restart the launcher app and relaunch Disk Utility.
Tricky. Not very Apple-like.
Anyway, Disk Utility does its thing and then stops and reports that the file system is hosed beyond repair, and I should try to save what I can then slick the drive and start all over again.
A shudder went down my spine.
So, I rebooted back into the normal mode, and checked Time Machine to see when my most recent backup was completed. Turns out, it was an hour ago, and all appeared well with the Time Machine disk (a 1TB USB 3, 2.5" external floppy).
Rebooted back to the recovery disk (requiring two attempts again).
Selected Restore from Time Machine Backup, acknowledged all the warnings and set it to work.
I went to bed before it finished, but it was over 50% completed when I walked away.
Got up this morning and the machine was off.
Crossed my fingers and turned it on.
Voila! Back in action.
Very pleased. Mail had to do some initial startup stuff, not sure what; and DropBox app required me to log in again. Other than that, everything has run as usual.
Interestingly, I gained about 20GB of free space I didn’t have before, and dumped about 400,000 files. When I ran Disk Utility the first time, I noted that it reported that the drive had almost 2M files, 1,980,000 thereabouts. After restoring from the Time Machine backup, I have 1,577,000 files.
So count this as an endorsement of Time Machine. I also have Backblaze doing online backup of all my documents and media. It doesn’t backup apps, but I can probably recover all those from the Mac App Store, install disks, and downloads.
Always have a backup. Time Machine worked as advertised.
Disaster averted.
Breinigsville, PA
06:51 Saturday, 25 June 2022
Current Wx: Temp: 82.45°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 712
Last leg of the trek north. Spent the night before last in Ocean City, Maryland. Stayed at a B&B recently purchased by a young couple, our reservation overlapped the previous owners. Place was built in 1927. It was fine for one night, and it was charming in a way. I feel a little anxious for the young couple that bought it. Place is going to need a lot of maintenance.
The boardwalk was interesting. Busy. Looked as though it had been recently renovated. The usual kinds of attractions and retailers. We went north from our place on 5th street, eventually winding up at an Italian restaurant, DaVinci's. We took a chance on it and it was a very nice surprise. Although it doesn't look like much, the food is excellent. Not inexpensive, but not outrageous either.
Walked off dinner and went back to our room. Tried to watch the latest Dr. Strange installment. Kept buffering and the TV would change inputs on its own every now and then, and the audio was ridiculous. If you turned it up enough to hear the dialog over the window AC, the effects scenes would shake the walls. Got the gist of it though. Meh.
The group in the house next door was up partying past 2:00 a.m. Mitzi slept right through it.
Got up early the next morning and walked south. Weather wasn't great, wouldn't have seen the sunrise if we'd been up for it anyway. But the beach was mostly empty and the boardwalk was largely just exercise people, bicyclists and the public works people who clean up.
We'd planned to spend part of the day in Ocean City, but the clouds were moving in and it didn't seem like it offered much so we got in the car and went on our way.
Mitzi looked at the map and decided that Wilmington, Delaware would be a nice place to stop and have a late lunch, check out this riverwalk they'd created. Good call. Had lunch at a seafood place, Big Fish something, and spent a couple of hours walking up and down the river. Weather was beautiful and it was a lovely place.
Back on the road at 3:00 p.m. We only had 79 miles to go, but Siri was showing it would take about two hours and fifteen minutes. Ended up taking over two and a half hours. At one point, Siri announced "Accident ahead, save 20 minutes by taking an alternate route." It gives you about 15 seconds to decide, and it doesn't give you any sort of preview of the route it planned, so I rolled the dice and agreed to take the alternate route.
In hindsight, I think it was a mistake. It may ultimately have saved us some time, we'll never know. But the route was absurd. We drove through little side roads, never spending more than a mile and a half on any one, often turning within 600 feet of making the previous turn. All on two-lane roads with hills and blind curves and 30mph limits. And it seems as if there were more than a few people getting routing advice from Apple Maps, though the number diminished as the absurdity went on.
We finally got back on 476 and ended up in stop and go traffic due to a construction lane merge that wasn't shown on the route. All in all, it was pretty stressful and unsatisfactory.
About three hours left to go. We've never gone this way before, so I have no idea what traffic may be like. It's Saturday, so hopefully it'll just be weekend traffic. We go through Binghamton, but we're not going to stop. Check-in isn't until two, so we'll probably just stop in Ithaca, have lunch and walk around.
All in all, it hasn't been bad taking this "scenic route." Yesterday was a pain, but for the most part it's been benign. We'll be spending a week in Kingston, NY at the end of our vacation, and then we're doing a forced march two days home. It seems like we'll have to pass through this congested northeast corridor again, so I'm not looking forward to that. We'll see. No sense worrying about it now.
✍️ Reply by emailI Heart NY
Current Wx: Temp: 76.35°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 1.01mphWords: 308
Made it to New York safely yesterday. Pretty for much of the drive, it was cloudy over northern Pennsylvania and the early part of southern New York, with strong, gusty winds.
It cleared up quickly as we headed north. We took State Road 26 from Whitney Point north to 46 then on to Verona. It was a very lovely drive, with very little traffic.
It's a welcome part of each of these trips, seeing the green hills, the farms, rivers and lakes and the old houses. We even saw a doe standing in a field. It's remarkable what a little elevation will do to lift your spirits.
Six hours in the car, with moderate traffic and little construction. I-83 and 81 are both in relatively decent shape. Encountered only one case of insanity, where an individual was weaving in and out of traffic and cut us off and had to brake because he couldn't get around the car in front of him, which made me brake hard to avoid rear-ending him. Happened right in front of a trooper parked in the median, but he didn't pursue.
Had dinner with my brother last night at a restaurant at Turning Stone Casino. Food was unremarkable, but we came for the company. Today we're going to visit my father's grave, hike a bit around Chittenango Falls, visit the Canal Town Museum in Canastota, NY which is where I lived for grades 6-12. Tonight we'll get together with one of my old high school classmates, and back on the road tomorrow out to Clifton Park near Albany to see Mom and a few of my siblings.
We're there through Sunday, when we'll head to Trumansburg for a two-week stay in a small place by creek.
It's wonderful to get away from the heat and the insanity of Florida.
✍️ Reply by emailChittenango Falls 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 91.78°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 10.36mphWords: 50
Had a nice morning hike to the base of the falls. It's not a long hike, but it's pretty steep. Had the place all to ourselves for a little while.
Seems like they've recently made some improvements at the park, the restrooms were among the best I've ever seen anywhere.
✍️ Reply by emailIndex
05:53 Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 69.46°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 1.5mph
Words: 287
Accidentally hit the Delete key a couple of times yesterday and lost a couple of posts. "Undo" brought them back, but I learned something interesting about Tinderbox.
"Undo" doesn't bring back the note with the prototype assigned at the time it was deleted. Instead, it seems the prototype assigned by the container takes precedence. So a note with a p_Photo prototype assigned will return as a p_Post wx post, and so it will be set not to export, and the template assigned will not be the photo template, and so the post effectively disappears from the html export. It'll also alter the original publication date, and therefore the permalink URL. Not that anyone would notice.
I caught that on the Mouthful post, but I missed it on the preceding jumping spider "Hi!" Post. Discovered that this morning, so this post is just to have something on the index page when I correct it. (The index page is created from posts written "today." So if I didn't have a post today, the home page would export as essentially blank. The header and sidebar would be there, but no body.)
So, be careful about that Delete key, boys and girls!
Anyway, that's all preamble to something that occurred to me the other day.
You can file most of the reasons for leaving Florida under "H":
Hurricanes
Heat
Humidity
HOAs
Hate
Since I'm here, I may as well mention that we watched The Friend last night. We enjoyed it very much, though it made me miss not having a dog. The neighbors next door have a golden-doodle named Maverick and I've mentioned that if they ever need someone to look after her, I'm happy to do it.
✍️ Reply by emailBreaking Ground
Current Wx: Temp: 59.65°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 81% Wind: 4.12mphWords: 377
We're finally underway. It seems astonishing that so much dirt came out of one hole. But it was all compacted, and now it's loose soil and stone. A lot of shale. We're planning to use some of it to create a small berm along the driveway next door for some landscaping.
Weather and inspections permitting, we hope to have the footings poured soon.
HVAC remains an outstanding question. Had another depressing conversation with an outfit called Massana Hydronic Technologies. Caitie being here has kept me from pursuing the question, but she left yesterday afternoon so I'll be digging in some more today.
If it all becomes too hard, I'll fall back to using ductless mini-splits. I'm convinced that hydronics is the most efficient way to go, but we don't have the products and experience in this country to make it a painless solution for the consumer. Contractors don't have the experience, and they're reluctant to do something they've never done before. At least, they don't seem to be beating down my door for the job.
I'm more confident about the low-voltage wiring, which is also something not a lot of people have done around here. But it's not exotic technology. The only real question I have is how much lighting and where? But I think that's easier to figure out than heat transfer.
We're also going to go with the Leviton smart panel solution. I need to sit down with our electrician and figure out the circuits and what breakers are required. The Span system seems to be the Cadillac of smart panels, but it's very expensive. The Leviton isn't cheap, but you can kind of customize it to meet your needs without gold-plating everything. Some breakers can be "dumb," in that I won't need to know how much power is flowing through them, like the outdoor outlets. Some I won't need to be remotely operable, and if I ever change my mind I can just buy that breaker and snap it in.
It's exciting and stressful and expensive, but it's underway. The shell should be complete by the end of the year, and we hope to get a certificate of occupancy by spring. The basement won't be completely finished, but it'll be usable.
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