Getting Sun's JDK working right in Fedora

This should be an easy task, right? Just download the RPM, install it, done and done. Right? Well, no, not quite.

I've managed to whip up a couple commands that help with the post-install though. Namely, overriding all of the various symlinks throughout the system to IcedTea and GCJ. Here, for your viewing and usage pleasure, is what I have come up with. Please feel free to emend where you deem appropriate, and please let me know if I am missing things!

alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/java 20000 --slave /usr/bin/keytool keytool /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/keytool --slave /usr/bin/orbd orbd /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/orbd --slave /usr/bin/pack200 pack200 /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/pack200 --slave /usr/bin/policytool policytool /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/policytool --slave /usr/bin/rmid rmid /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/rmid --slave /usr/bin/rmiregistry rmiregistry /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/rmiregistry --slave /usr/bin/servertool servertool /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/servertool --slave /usr/bin/tnameserv tnameserv /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/tnameserv --slave /usr/bin/unpack200 unpack200 /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/unpack200 --slave /usr/lib/jvm/jre jre /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/jre

alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javac 20000 --slave /usr/bin/appletviewer appletviewer /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/appletviewer --slave /usr/bin/apt apt /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/apt --slave /usr/bin/extcheck extcheck /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/extcheck --slave /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jar --slave /usr/bin/jarsigner jarsigner /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jarsigner --slave /usr/bin/javadoc javadoc /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javadoc --slave /usr/bin/javah javah /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javah --slave /usr/bin/javap javap /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/javap --slave /usr/bin/jconsole jconsole /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jconsole --slave /usr/bin/jdb jdb /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jdb --slave /usr/bin/jhat jhat /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jhat --slave /usr/bin/jinfo jinfo /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jinfo --slave /usr/bin/jmap jmap /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jmap --slave /usr/bin/jps jps /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jps --slave /usr/bin/jrunscript jrunscript /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jrunscript --slave /usr/bin/jsadebugd jsadebugd /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jsadebugd --slave /usr/bin/jstack jstack /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jstack --slave /usr/bin/jstat jstat /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jstat --slave /usr/bin/jstatd jstatd /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/jstatd --slave /usr/bin/native2ascii native2ascii /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/native2ascii --slave /usr/bin/rmic rmic /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/rmic --slave /usr/bin/schemagen schemagen /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/schemagen --slave /usr/bin/serialver serialver /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/serialver --slave /usr/bin/wsgen wsgen /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/wsgen --slave /usr/bin/wsimport wsimport /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/wsimport --slave /usr/bin/xjc xjc /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07/bin/xjc --slave /usr/lib/jvm/java java_sdk /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_07

You may notice that I did not include the manpages in these alternatives definitions. This was intentional... because alternatives is looking for gzips and the JDK, by default, does not gzip them. Whatever. I leave that as an exercise for the user. I just didn't feel like bothering, myself. :)

Another yummy veggieful recipe

I may not be on my low iodine diet anymore... and it may have been a few years since I've been vegetarian, but I still enjoy experimenting with foods related to both diets. In that light, I made up some totally delicious pasta on Friday evening, which I felt needed to be shared. The idea originated from the Pasta Romantico at Boulders on Broadway, then changed a bit from a recipe found on the side of the pasta box... then received a few changes and additions of my own. A nice personal touch from yours truly.

The resulting recipe has no name, except for delicious. Here it is:

Ingredients:

• 1 package (8oz) angel hair pasta
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 3 whole scallions, chopped
• 1 red onion slice, chopped (I sliced one ring from the middle of the onion)
• 1-2 small white mushroom(s), chopped
  
• 2 roma tomatoes, chopped
• 1/2 lime
  
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 2 tsp fresh chopped basil
  

Directions:
Preparing the pasta:
Boil 3 quarts water, add noodles to the boiling water, let the water return to boiling, then cook for an additional 3-4 minutes or until noodles are tender. Careful not to overcook! Once thoroughly cooked, drain and rinse with cold water to ensure they don't continue cooking.

Preparing the rest:
In a large skillet, heat up the olive oil. Once warmed up (just a couple minutes) add the garlic and scallions to the olive oil. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Don't let these brown! Next, add the scallions, red onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepper and basil. Cook all of this for another 5 minutes or so, continuing to stir frequently. You want the garlic to start getting yellowish, but not browned and give all of the flavors a chance to mix together.

Final touches:
Once both the pasta and veggie medley are ready, combine them in a large bowl (including the olive oil you cooked the veggies in!) and toss them together. Squeeze the 1/2 lime over top of the mix. Toss some more to make sure all the flavors are mixed throughout, and you're ready to go!

Serving:
Serve warm (not hot!) with a sprinkling of feta cheese over top. Makes about 6 full size servings.

This does refrigerate and microwave well. A good sized portion takes 60 seconds to get warmed up perfectly in my microwave.

Enjoy!

As always, let me know if you have tried and enjoyed the recipe!

P.S. If you want to get a small bit of meat in here, I haven't tried it myself but I would bet that if you sauteed some shrimp and added them in here, it would be quite tasty.

Highs and lows

Life definitely has these, all the damn time. Today was going great. Hanging out with my buddy Don and his kids. We had lunch, I went and picked a new SWEET tv, we had just gotten that dropped off and were heading to a movie, when BAM! A lady pulled right out in front of me in an intersection. What is it with people and pulling in front of me? Seriously. It's like I've got a big flashing sign over my head saying "PLEASE PULL IN FRONT OF ME!" So now the front end of my car is all smashed up. The passenger side headlight is hanging down, the entire bumper is hanging down, as is the front grill. It's quite lovely. Luckily, nobody was hurt... and the airbag didn't deploy. Still though, it sucks ass. I can't even really drive at night now, because one of my headlights is popped out. Hell I don't even really want to drive much at all if I don't have to. I'm worried parts might start falling off.

sigh.

Oh well, at least I can sit here and watch my pretty new TV. I may be moving in a week, but I just couldn't help myself. There's no way something like that is going to stay in the box around me. :)

A whole new level of frustration

This whole low iodine diet thing is going to kill me one of these days. Not only is it a hassle to have to cook all of my meals, with very limited ingredients... but I'm also staying with friends right now, so I don't have all of my normal kitchenware and spices. Then to top things off, since I am staying with friends, my entire life is packed up in boxes in the garage... which, up until 5 minutes ago, included all of my cookbooks and loose recipes. Just about an hour ago, I began the endeavor to hunt for these materials... and I have just now finally gotten to sit back down at my computer, finally having achieved my goal. I had to, quite literally, climb around, over and THROUGH all of my belongings. I opened nearly ever box that I had packed in the hopes that these were in there. Now, I know what you're thinking... cook books, the box should be labeled "Books". That's what I thought. Next logical guess.. "Kitchen". Nope. Then I started going through the unlabeled boxes, of which I had plenty. I packed and moved in a bit of a hurry. By the time I got to the last 2 boxes, I was about ready to give up. One of the boxes is nigh impossible to get to without removing half of my other belongings first. The other box, which was in fact right out in front within easy access, I had discounted right off because it was far too large. Certainly I wouldn't put books in a box that large. ...right? Oh well the hell, so I tried it, and lo and behold, there are my freaking cookbooks.

Damn that sucked.

At least I can say I got a good workout today. Even if it wasn't rock climbing, my thus-far limited experience with it certainly helped, finding foot holds and hand holds through that mess.

...now I have to spend the time actually cooking something. Ugh.

I think I may just go get some of The Joey Pizza.

The Joey Pizza

Alright so I've been enjoying this pizza so much (in fact, a few cold slices served as breakfast this morning -- yes, it is incredible cold) that I decided I should post it up here to share with the world. Really, I can't take credit for the creation myself. That credit goes to Eric Geryol, owner of Boulders on Broadway, which is a bar I happen to frequent. The reason this pizza is that I was on a low iodine diet at the time, and there was no way Eric was going to let me be stuck at home because no restaurants would cater to me. Out of the many dishes I tried, this one stood out in amazing glory. Now granted, there is *some* iodine in this pizza, because there are minimal amounts used in the dough and perhaps a bit in the pizza sauce (I have also gotten it without the sauce though and it is still wonderful.) This pizza can be easily made at home, however, using the pizza dough and tomato sauce recipes from ThyCa's low iodine cookbook.

Anyhow, without any further ado, the pizza is as follows:

• Thin crust (essential!)
• No cheese
• Pizza sauce (optional, as noted above)
• Artichoke hearts
• Garlic (actual chunks, not just powder)
• Basil
• Balsamic vinegar

The vinegar should be drizzled over the top before cooking. In my opinion, you can't really be too liberal with this. The sweet/tart flavor of the vinegar really makes the pizza. Cook it until the crust is a light golden brown and enjoy!

Not only is this pizza one of the staples of my low iodine diet, I have continued ordering it regularly since... and other people have actually called me up to ask what was on it so that they could order it as well!

If you try this pizza out, let me know what you think! Also, if you happen to be around Tempe, AZ and craving a pizza, I highly recommend stopping into Boulders on Broadway and trying out the original! This place has the best pizza in town, by far.

Enjoy! Also keep a look out, I may be posting some more recipes soon, as I'm starting back on the diet for a few weeks.

The last bit of my sanity is officially gone

I just proved this to myself a minute ago. You see, for anybody who didn't know, I'm a bit of a weather nut. I enjoy monitoring and learning about the weather... so I've got all kinds of notifications going on my computers for different kinds of weather events. So just a few minutes ago, a severe weather alert pops up. Curious... these are usually just for big storms, and our cloud cover just rolled out of here last night. After clicking and waiting anxiously for the page to load, I am presented with the following:

...RECORD BREAKING HEAT EXPECTED ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST CALIFORNIA AND SOUTHWEST ARIZONA DESERTS...WITH NEAR RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES ACROSS THE GREATER PHOENIX AREA THIS WEEKEND INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK...

A STRONG RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE THAT HAS BEEN PARKED ALONG THE WEST COAST WILL SHIFT EASTWARD THIS WEEKEND...FOR SIGNIFICANTLY WARMER WEATHER ACROSS THE DESERT SOUTHWEST. RECORD TO NEAR RECORD HEAT IS EXPECTED SUNDAY AND MONDAY...BEFORE A COOLING TREND BEGINS MIDWEEK. TEMPERATURES ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST CALIFORNIA AND SOUTHWEST ARIZONA DESERTS WILL NEAR 110 DEGREES SUNDAY...WITH A FORECAST HIGH OF 112 DEGREES AT YUMA ARIZONA MONDAY. THE CURRENT RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE FOR SUNDAY AND MONDAY AT YUMA IS 109 DEGREES.

ACROSS THE GREATER PHOENIX AREA...THE FIRST 100 DEGREE DAY OF THE SEASON IS EXPECTED AT PHOENIX SKY HARBOR AIRPORT SUNDAY...WITH A FORECAST HIGH OF 103 DEGREES SUNDAY AND 106 DEGREES MONDAY.

Now most people... normal, sensible, sane people anyhow, upon reading this would react with something along the lines of "Aww crap. Not more heat. Just what we need." That would be the sensible reaction. Of course, me, being far from sensible, my instant reaction was a very emphatic "YES!" accompanied by pumping my fists in the air and doing a little dance of joy in my chair. I think that right there is definitive, irrefutable proof that I have no shred of sanity left in my mind.

Oh well, it's more fun this way! Now I can go swimming this weekend, get another sunburn the color of a fire truck and not care! Hooray! :D

Moving haiku!

Moving is teh suck
I hate packing all this shit
Will it never end?

People are cheap bastards!

It really is true, people are cheap bastards. Especially on Craigslist.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Craigslist. You just won't catch me trying to sell things on there anymore. It doesn't matter how cheap you try to sell something on there, chances are nobody is going to jump on it.

Over the past week, I have been giving away ridiculous amounts of things away on CL and people have been all over them, since they've been free. I've received probably *at least* 50 responses per item, with the first response being only minutes after it was posted. I did try selling 2 items though: a small stereo, and a queen size headboard/frame. The stereo got zero responses. I moved it to the free section and it was gone within hours. The headboard/frame got 2 responses. The first person had an emergency and bailed. The second person came, looked at it, nitpicked, and left. Now I moved it to the free section and, despite the fact that it's 2 days old and not even on the first page, have already received a response.

Damn you, people! Stop being such cheapskates! I've spent probably $300-$400 on items from Craigslist myself. Am I the only person who actually goes on there looking to spend money? Sheesh!

Feeling a bit lost here...

Life really does happen all at once... and it really does suck. I've been through a fair bit in the past year, which has thrown my life into total chaos. Anybody who knows me is well aware of that. Right now, however, seems to be the most troubling for me. I'm supposed to be moving out of my house by Sunday. No big deal there. I'm buying a house, right? Well, we haven't closed on the house yet. In fact, we've run into a snag which may prevent it from closing soon. We're in the final mile and just now being told that it's not going to happen. Of course, this is just my luck. So now I'm supposed to be staying with friends -- the ones who are selling me the house, in fact, until the house is finalized. That's great, don't get me wrong. The problem is, I have a LOT of stuff. They have offered to let me use their garage for storage... but I don't think they understand just how much stuff is involved here. So now I've decided that I'm just going to start giving things away on Craigslist... and I don't mean just one or two things. I mean... well, a lot. Almost all of my furniture. Even my couch is going tomorrow. It feels pretty good to be giving all of these things away... and with this, I'll be able to get new stuff, which is good. I just feel very frantic right now. I'm not really sure where I'm going to be living, and for how long... and I'm not sure where all of my things are going to be, or how long they are going to be there.

One of my biggest problems is going to be my VW Golf. It's in my garage... back in one piece again... but it doesn't run. It doesn't even start. It's been sitting too long as an unattended project. This one could suck.

Anybody got some free space? :)

...and my list of issues grows even longer.

Not that my new issue is a particularly bad one... or even a new one for me. I just have a name for it now. This particular one is called, apparently, Islomania. Islomania, according to this Wikipedia entry, is an obsession with islands characterized by an irresistible attraction towards them. This would explain my recent longing to visit pretty much any island I can find. It would also explain why I have, at different points in my life, been determined to move to each of the following: Hawaii, The Philippines, Mauritius, Reunion, Isle of Man, Guam, Bermuda, along with a few others. I know that there were some Micronesian islands as well.

I really like the quote from the original identification of the condition:

We islomanes, says Gideon, are the direct descendants of the Atlanteans, and it is toward the lost Atlantis that our subconscious is drawn.

That sounds like a good explanation to me... I'll accept that idea. :)

Atlantis, here I come!

Life = Insanity

Yes, it has been several months since I've posted on here again. Bad Tarky, bad!

Life has been, if possible, more insane in these few months. This week, however, seems to be somewhat of a culmination of all of this craziness. Just today I've dealt with car insurance, 2 different people about my health insurance, Big Brothers Big Sisters, City of Chandler, the HOA for the house I'm renting, a mortgage consultant and helping an employee with a broken down car. The good news is, my car is getting fixed, my health insurance is finally getting taken care of so that hopefully everything will get paid off, I'm getting rid of all the old clothes which have been bagged up in my garage the past few months, I'm getting rid of all the large trash that's been cluttering up my back yard, the front yard for this house will stop sucking, I may very soon be a home owner and I may get to help replace a clutch... very good experience there!

The big news there, of course, is the house. This bit of good news, however, comes covered with acid. Apparently not all of my friends are happy with me because of this. To be more specific, I have fully lost one of my best friends, and perhaps gained an enemy solely due to the fact that I am buying a house. Now, okay, we had talked about me moving into her place because I have to be out of my current house by April 20 and I didn't have another place to go. So it worked out great for me. Then recently I had some other friends basically drop a house in my lap and say "Here, buy this. Please. We want you to buy this and we will help in any way we can." Great! What an opportunity! This is of course something which I did convey to the friend I was going to be moving in with and we talked about it very briefly but I had made no final decisions at the time. I would note, however, that not once during these conversations did she say "No, you can't do that, I need you to move into my place like we talked about before." To me that basically solidified the fact that offering me a place was basically just a friendly gesture... which I appreciate greatly. As I found out today, after conveying the good news of the house, it was apparently not. What I am hearing now is that she needs me to move in so that she can cover the bills. Great for me to know that NOW.

This puts me in quite a dilemma. Do I drop out of the home buying process now, so that I can help a friend? Do I continue buying the house and just let this friendship drop? I don't want to lose a friend, for sure. She has been a wonderful friend and helped me through a lot. Then again, this whole situation is, for lack of a better term, pretty fucked up. From our brief conversation today I picked up on a few things. The first one was, of course, that she can be quite self centered sometimes. It's very rare that I do something for myself as opposed to doing everything I can for everybody else. This is something that people have been getting on my case about for a long time now, including the very friend now angry at me for doing this. The second piece is, seeing how she knew about the house opportunity and that I was interested in buying it, that means that she ASSUMED I was going to fail in some form or another. In her mind, there was never any possibility that it would actually happen. What kind of friend is going to assume that you will fail in your endeavors?

Either way, I'm out of a backup place to live now, in case the mortgage falls through for whatever reason. Today was just initial application and docs. There are still a million things that could go wrong. Hell, I could even decide to back out still at this point.... I think. Not that I would want to, this is a pretty exciting prospect for me. This is like a defining point in my life, buying my first house... and most importantly doing it on my own.

I think my new motto is going to be: Fuck it all, I need a drink.