Update on things and stuff...

So it's been 13 days since my last post. I haven't heard anything about the DNS amplification issue I mentioned in my last post, so I think I got that problem solved. I also had another issue with my router I had to figure out - I was informed that it was sending out DHCP requests on the peering network I'm connected to, so I had to find out why and shut that down. I did some googling and found a few forum posts on Mikrotik's site that helped me understand what was happening, tweaked a couple of things on my router, and that was that. I shot off an email to the peering network admin to verify it was fixed but I haven't heard back from them yet. I had my truck in the shop at the dealer twice in the last 10 days or so. The first visit was just regular maintenance, an oil change and such. I brought it in a week after that to get the alignment checked, since it was pulling to the right at higher speeds. I got some bad news about it after a 2 hour wait: the alignment was fine, but the tires were causing the issue. The truck has aftermarket "Ironman" tires on it that were there when I bought the truck back in January. The dealer took it for a test drive after putting it on the rack and checking the alignment, saw it was still pulling to the right, brought it back in and swapped the front wheels from one side to the other, took it for another test drive and found it was now pulling to the left, so they told me it must be the tires. I asked them how that was possible and they didn't know. So I took the truck home after paying the alignment bill (goodbye, $150). Later that day I drove it to San Joe and back, and while it still slightly pulls to the left, it's not pulling as much as it was before they swapped the wheels, so I think I'm just going to live with it for now. I'm not inclined to drop $1100 on a new set of tires right now not knowing if that'll fix the problem. I just keep telling myself to be grateful it's not worse. Because it always could be. I started going to a Python Meetup in Mountain View on Tuesday evenings. It's at a place called the Hacker Dojo, which is just a makerspace for nerds to hang out at and work on stuff together. They have a meetup every Tuesday. I've been to two meetups so far and while I haven't really participated in anything yet, I'm enjoying the environment and learning about a few things along the way too. All I've done so far is sit in the back and watch while they go through their presentations. This last one was about exploratory data analysis in Python, and covered material I was slightly familiar with so I feel like I got something out of it. I'm hoping that eventually I'll get to know some people there for future job opportunities or something. I have also finally started working on the bottom toolbox I've had sitting in my living room for the last year and a half. I got it sandblasted at a local shop, brought it home and started putting on the primer coat, and found that it's really difficult to paint with a spray can when it's windy outside (lol). I've been painting it a little bit at a time to try and get an even coat on it, but I still have runs in the primer. I'll sand those off and give the whole thing a good scuffing before putting on the color. It's been a fun little project so far.