cal -3 | cut -c1-16 | grep -v "^ *$" | tail -1 | sed -e 's/^..* \([23][0-9]\)/\1/'
It turns out you need a fairly modern version of the cal command. Darn… perhaps gnu cal will help if your system has an older cal version.

How it works…

cal -3

Gives me three months; the month prior, the month I am in, and the next month.

cut -c1-16

Ignores this month and next month.

grep -v "^ *$"

Ignores any blank lines, note the space between the ^ and the $.

tail -1

Ignores all except the last week of dates.

sed -e 's/^..* \([23][0-9]\)/\1/'

Uses the streams editor to ignore all except the last two digits, and specifically, only the last two that begin with 2 or 3 (all months have 28, 29, 30, or 31 days in them). Note the space preceding the \ character.

We are left with the last day of the preceding month, no matter which month it is now. So… why was I trying to solve this again?

Update: Alan points out that on modern systems with TimeZone features you can actually just have date itself do all the heavy lifting:
TZ=`/bin/date +%Z`
DS=`TZ=${TZ}+24 /bin/date +%m-%d-%y`
echo "Current time `/bin/date +%m-%d-%y`"
echo "One day earlier $DS"
DS=`TZ=${TZ}-24 /bin/date +%m-%d-%y`
echo "One day later $DS"

TZ=`/bin/date +%Z` ; TZ=${TZ}+24 /bin/date +%d


Repair day shows up and a Sears technician shows up with absolutely no idea what brand and models he is working on, no parts in hand, and he begins the diagnosis. Furthermore he keeps calling me “boss” even when I told him my name was Scott and he does it a way that makes it creepy. He checks with his dispatcher (a 40 minute phone call) and finds that Sears can not even beging to cover the Viking fridge. He confirms my diagnosis of the Dacor oven as needing a new controller board and orders the part, and I pay him for the repair in full so my wife (who will have to take time off for the repeat visit, scheduled two weeks out) does not have to pay anything.

Ten days later the part has not arrived, and I call A&E to let them know there may be trouble. A&E re-connects me to Sears. I spend 90 minutes in voice menu hell trying to give my name, address, and phone number to a computer that cannot understand English and will not allow me to simply type the keypad on my phone. I discover my parts order has been cancelled…. but that Sears never bothered to tell me. I ask for a call back from a human who can actually understand why the parts order was cancelled and schedule my oven repair.

Two days later an automated recording calls my number and says to call Sears at a new number pertaining to my parts order. I call the new number and spend another 60 minutes trying to identify to the stupid robot that cannot understand English which case I am by repeating my phone number, name, and address again and again. When I finally get a human, they have no idea why parts division cancelled the order either and will need to check with parts and get back to me.

Later the same day I spend another 90 minutes trying to get the parts division on the phone through the same horrible robot based 800 number so I can just get a refund. I finally get a direct to customer service number out of this call, but customer service cannot find out why the original parts order was cancelled from my own house on the day if the original “repair” where nothing new happened as I had already diagnosed the problems. Customer service guy admits my experience is horrible beyond belief and is very sympathetic and guarantees that I will get either my part and repair or a refund.

The next day I call customer service direct and spend 45 minutes navigating the voice menu prompter from hell, this time I get customer service with a clue… My parts order was cancelled because parts knew immediately upon initial order that they could no longer get this part from Dacor because Dacor will not do business with Sears. Dacor is sounding really smart about now. Apparently Parts department figured they could find an alternate source. Customer service person talks me into giving them two more days.

Two days later I call Sears customer service direct and ask for my refund, as they still don’t have a way to get the part they need to do the repair. They agree, but say it will take some time for the paperwork to catch up.

Good news, I discover that Foremost Appliance has not gone out of business, but merely moved to a new location! I arrange for Foremost to come out and look at the fridge and oven. Foremost guy diagnoses both devices and his diagnosis matches exactly my original diagnosis, though we discover that my under-counter fridge is stuck and I will have to figure out how to get the thing out so it can be worked on when the parts come in. Friends help me break the seal of spilled cola and get the fridge out.

Two weeks go by and Sears has not refunded me any money, I call customer service direct again and waste another 72 minutes trying to get the robot to understand my case. When I finally get a human they claim they never were told I wanted a refund and I read the poor person the riot act for how crappy the entire Sears experience has been but I know it is not them personally but their company that sucks beyond belief. They estimate refund in about a week. Another week goes by and I get a partial refund, they deducted the service call from the moron who came out originally.

Should I hire a lawyer and sue Sears for full refund and financial compensation at my contracting rate for the number of hours wasted?

Irony: every voice menu systems at the Sears 800 numbers says “Thank you for choosing Sears” even though I never chose Sears, and the menu for A&E does not identify them as merely taking up business for Sears. Bait and switch.

I will try to catch up a little for those who are not inclined to use farcebook…

Some catchup below the fold:

I had a lovely Thanksgiving and then went through a brief period of feeling out of touch with the world because my two jobs are resetting my natural clock and daily rhythm to a schedule that few of my friends share. I have learned that some people don’t mind a late night text and phone call, and for that I am grateful as I can talk to people on my drive home from the 2nd job. With both of us working two jobs, Erci and I are seeing less of each other so we’ve made an effort to have a date night now and then. We got to see the recent Muppet movie, and were delighted by the show, the dance numbers, and the appearance of both Jim Parsons and Neil Patrick Harris.

I once again (and pretty much every quarter) am very grateful to Mike Bombich for Carbon Copy Cloner which makes full backups of your Macs easy and you can boot from them. Highly recommended.

I took advantage of some employee discounts and replaced our original Time Capsule with a new one and our D-Link with an Airport Extreme for much faster wireless throughout the house. I am also replacing the Linux with Xen virtual Open Filer machine iSCSI disk share to an old Mac Mini as home media server with Linux NFS shared directly to newer Mac Mini as Media controller and AppleTV units as Media viewers. This is the sort of thing I find fun!

A lot of my personal project time got stolen when I discovered my 120 gallon marine reef aquarium spring a leak! Jeff Lofgren was my hero and helped me move the fish, shrimp, corals, and other living things to a variety of smaller tanks and coolers the day the leak was discovered, and most everything survived (though I did have one of the smaller tanks crash). I am trying to get the leak repaired so I can put the big tank back together again, but have not had time to really progress on it much.

Discovered that Domaine Raspail-Ay 2008 Gigondas is a spectacular wine while having a lovely dinner out with a special friend, highly recommended. I also found out that Fireworx pizza in Leesburg is delicious for those who can do gluten, thanks to co-workers for dragging me there.

ThinkGeek has some pretty spectacular iPad cases with integrated Bluetooth keyboards.

Cassandra and Jeff recommended and lent us “Across the Universe” and we finally watched it Christmas Day and it is both spectacular and moving. I went out and bought my own copies of both the movie and the soundtrack the very next day and have been listening to it ever since… beautiful dance numbers, some very compelling re-arrangements of Beatles music.

I am trying to get several appliances and home repairs done, and we keep running into no one wanting to pick up work, so I guess the economy must be recovering. I am learning that I despise the incompetence that is Sears Appliance Repair, and the fact that they seem to have bought out all the competition. Our Dacor oven has an F1 code alert, which indicates problem with the control panel. Our Viking under-counter fridge has been out for ages with a failed thermostat. We have a small roof leak over our kitchen. All will get fixed eventually, but it’s like pulling teeth to get people to come take our money and fix things.

I successfully replaced a 5th generation iPod classic hard drive and then sold it to a niece for the cost of the replacement parts, very happy that was so easy. Steve and Ashley helped me bring the 120 gallon tank outside and hose it out, and then my hero Jeff Lofgren and Alexandrea Lynch helped bring it back in on New Year’s Eve… Odd mystery, it did not leak when outside, nervous about filling it without having done a repair…

Jill and Eddie hosted the Molecular Mixology blow-out bash to bring in the New Year at their place and Kate, Erci, and I joined many friends there and had a fantastic time being irresponsible… I discovered that coughing after sipping Pyrat rum over a bonfire can be a mini-fireworks show!

Now I am recovering from a fairly nasty ear/throat virus and then infection… Life is always full of surprises.

When I have one Airport device daisy chained off another, both setting up private NAT networks, they appear in series, correctly reflecting the new topology!

Sadly this is not the case on my iOS 5.0.1 based iPhone 4, it simply shows all the network devices it can see in series regardless of the actual network topology.

I still think it is really cool that a topology map is created at all! Thanks Apple. I guess I am a geek, having fun with networks.

On the iPhone or iPad:
* Tap Settings
* Tap iCloud
* make sure the iCloud Account is your regular AppleID (iCloud/iTunes/AppleID/MobileMe/Mac.com accounts are all the same thing), it should be a full email address format account name
* scroll down and turn on Find My iPhone or iPad (or make sure it is already turned on)

On any computer:
* point a web browser at https://icloud.com
* log in with your AppleID (same one you just used on the iPhone or iPad)
* Set your Language and TimeZone
* Click the Find my iPhone Button

It should list your devices (iPhone, iPad, etc) by name if you have named them.
* It can find the one you select, and show it’s location on a map.
* You can send a sound alert (finds the devices when they get lost under laundry or between sofa cushions).
* You can remote lock or remote wipe them (if you think they are in the hands of bad guys).
* You can report location to the police too in that event.
* You can send a message that will appear on screen.

Trust me – you want to do this as soon as you get the device, just in case…. and Murphy’s law says that if you are prepared to lose your iPhone or iPad you will never lose either.

aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/201111191022862285.html

Virginia Board of Elections

If you are unsure of your district, or where to vote – you can enter your County or City and Address on this website and find out about your districts and voting location:

What’s on My Ballot

All polling places will be open from 6am to 7pm on Tuesday, November 8th.

Many state senate offices are being challenged. All state legislature delegates are up for re-election. Many county and city offices are also having elections.

These state and local elections have very far reaching impacts as the redistricting was decided by the winners of the last set of state and local elections, and the winners can shift the balance in the U.S. Congress by several seats per state each redistricting. It is one of the failures of our democracy, but one we have to live with until we amend the constitution.

Go vote and make your voice heard, even if your vote is for “None of the above.”