Alex read Ivy + Bean

Alex just finished reading Ivy + Bean, all 113 pages (less illustrations), and I couldn't be more proud of him. I had him read it one chapter at a time and I'd quiz him after each chapter to make sure he got it. That is quite a book for a kid his age, at least I don't recall reading anything on that level when I was in the first grade. His comprehension seemed to improve from one chapter to the next, perhaps because he knew I'd be asking him questions, then later having him explain what happened in the chapter, and then asking him questions. The biggest trouble was getting him to take the time to read it, often coming down to, "you can go outside and play after you read the chapter".

My take on Ivy + Bean is that is is a book written for girls, because it is about two girls who didn't really know each other, but one girl, Bean, ends up in a little trouble with her sister who she expects to tell on her and the other girl, Ivy, helps Bean cast a spell on her sister, and they become friends. Alex seemed to like the story though, so that is good. I think today I will ask him to explain the book as a whole part. What happened at the beginning of the book, in the middle, and at the end.

I hope to make reading chapter books at this level a regular thing for Alex for the rest of the school year and through the summer. My mom encouraged me to read, but somehow it never became important to me when I was a kid and I only read when I had to. Amy on the other hand reads a lot. Hopefully this will rub off on the children and they will read more books just for the fun of it than I did.

Crampton Gap Camping

Alex got a new tent from his granddad and I must have told him that we would go camping because he reminded me. Then he balked at camping in the back yard, so I figured it was about time to take him on a real camp out. I've become pretty familiar with the Appalachian Trail over the last few months and knew there was a camping area not to far from Gathland State Park where I could park the car over night. I packed my pack with a little food, two sleeping bags, Alex's new tent and all the various odds and ends that I'd need for a one nighter. I also packed a book bag for Alex to carry a few of his essentials.

We got to camp with about one hour of daylight left. So we got right to work setting up the tent.



Alex was quite proud of his tent.


Once the tent was set up, we decided that it would be nice to have a fire, so we were off to gather wood and ended up with a lot more than we needed, but that is OK, I'm sure the next camper will appreciate it. I built the fire, calling on all my fire building skills from my Boy Scout days. I was a pretty good fire builder back in the day.



I must have retained my old skills well as one match later, we had a lit fire.



Alex and I prepared camp for bed before it got too dark and spent some time around the fire eating snacks and telling stories. I already forgot what Alex told me about, but I told him about the witch that lived in those woods, keeping it cool so I didn't really scare him.



I had just put more wood on the fire when Alex declared that he was tired. So, he went to bed while I stayed to tend to the fire until it was out to my satisfaction.



About four o'clock in the morning the rain started. I had my pack hanging on a tree, covered, but I thought it would be best to have it near the tent in case it was still raining when we packed up, which it was. After Alex woke up, sometime in the seven o'clock hour, we hung out in the tent for a while, waiting for the rain to stop, but it never did, so we packed up as much gear as we could inside the tent and went out into the elements. I didn't pull the camera out in the rain, so I missed some great pictures.

Despite the rain, the camp out was a success and Alex enjoyed it. In fact, he really didn't seem to mind the rain at all. I guess if we would have had to stay in it all day, it would have been a different story. I'm sure this won't be our last camping adventure in the rain.


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Now I know what DTE stands for

Amy's van has a little display with miles per gallon, temperature, etc. It also had this thing called DTE, now I knew what it meant, it was the number of miles you had before you ran out of gas. I figured that the E stood for empty, but I couldn't figure out DT. Well, now I know, DTE stands for Distance to Empty. Should I start to doubt my intelligence? I think I should have been able to figure that out.

The Priorities of My Countrymen have Disappointed Me

So, Barak Obama wants to answer questions from ordinary Americans, which are voted on by ordinary Americans via the web. I’ve been browsing these questions on http://www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions/ and I was a bit surprised, especially in the budget category. I expected that some of the top questions would be related to the budget’s size, the national debt, or other budget priorities. What I read was shocking, the top seven questions were all about legalizing marijuana. While most tied it into the budget as a savings for drug enforcement or income from taxation, the thought of this being the dominant subject in questions for the president regarding the budget is quite a disappointment. I’m not part of the pro marijuana legalization movement, but I understand that it is a legitimate concern for some people, and it is a point of view that should be considered by the government from time to time, but seriously, do the majority of Americans really believe that seventy percent of the top ten questions about the budget should be related to marijuana legalization?

Americans of all political affiliations should be concerned about the President’s budget, if for no other reason than its size. I asked a simple question about federal government agencies and their end of year spending practices which I’ve personally seen waste hundreds of thousands of dollars. I suggested that the President work with Congress to fix this problem by allowing federal agencies some flexibility to roll over money from one year to the next without fear that their budgets will be cut simply because they didn’t spend it all the year before. There were some fine questions about how to pay down the national debt, raising or lowering taxes, eliminating government waste, and other important subjects.

One big problem with the question form is that there wasn’t much room to articulate a question the proper background required for the question to make total sense. I don’t recall the character limit off hand but the first version of my question was about 250 characters over the limit. I had to reword the question many times before getting it to fit properly and still retain most of my original thought. Something tells me that this wasn’t a big problem for the marijuana legalization crowd!

E-Mail is Down

Yes, I work on the email system for my government agency, but my e-mail account has been moved to the new system for testing. Wouldn’t you know it, the new system (which I had no hand in designing whatsoever) is having a hardware problem and they had to take completely down to fix it. This system is so full of single points of failure it isn’t funny, this problem being a good example. Since most of my job revolves around e-mail, well, there isn’t much that I can do right now which is frustrating because I was out yesterday and have some catching up to do.

Kid Cuisine & Hungry Man

You know, if I wasn’t married to Amy, I would probably think this stuff tastes good. But compared to Amy's cooking, my meal last night sucked.

Alex's birthday was yesterday and he was able to choose anything he wanted for his birthday dinner. His choice, a Kid Cuisine prepared meal. I don't know where he got the idea that this stuff is eatable, but that is another story, maybe he is watching too much TV. Ok, no problem, I was just going to get them for the kids, and Amy and I would have something good to eat. Well, Amy was sick and didn't want to eat, so while I was at the store, I figured I'd grab myself the Hungry Man turkey dinner meal that was right above the Kid Cuisine. Yeah, big mistake. I thought it would be a good idea because they cooked in the oven at the same temperature, with the Hungry Man taking about 10 minutes longer, perfect timing for getting the childrens' meals in front of them once they are done.

It wasn't all bad, the apple cranberry dessert tasted great, and the corn, once copious amounts of salt and butter were added was good too. I added a little salt and butter to the childrens' corn too. They really seemed to enjoy their meals, and as much as I don't like the thought of it, they might be a good thing to keep around, especially since we have a couple of coupons for them now.

Will I Participate in the WPX Contest

One of my more favorite amateur radio contests is the CQ magazine WPX contest. The scoring is based on the amateur call sign prefix, meaning that while each contact you make counts as a point, each one with a different prefix is a score multiplier. So, if you contact N3XYZ, N3ABC, W3QRZ, W3QSL, & KB3ZZZ, your score would be 15, because you worked 5 stations with 3 different prefixes.

This is where my call sign, NE3R is awesome. Early in the contest, nobody seems to care, but on Sunday, folks are really out to get those multipliers, and my station becomes pretty popular. There just aren't that many stations on the air with an NE3 prefix. The FCC shows 29 call signs starting with NE3, but I've only ever met 2 others on the air. Compared to over 15,000 N3 calls, or over 17,000 KI4 calls, NE3 is pretty rare.

Also this weekend is the Greater Baltimore Hamboree & Computerfest, which I haven't been to in a while. That would make a pretty good Saturday morning. Aaron's pinewood derby race is also Saturday which might be fun to attend. So, I have no shortage of things to do this weekend!

Aquarium Update

Well, the aquarium fish stocking is basically done.

• 4 angel fish
• 5 corydoras catfish
• 12 neon tetras
• 3 kuhli loaches (that I've seen recently)
• 5 adult female guppies
• 3 adult male guppies
• 2 adolescent female guppies
• 7 juvenile guppies
• a few guppy fry
• 4 rosy red minnows

I think that two kuhli loaches have died, as has one of the original female guppies. I added an adult male guppy, a turquoise blue color. I plan on adding some live plants and over time, replacing the fake plants to have a completely live planted tank. I already have a java fern which looks pretty good, I think I might add a few more of those next week. I'd also like to get rid of the rosy red minnows, they have served their purpose of getting the tanks biology going, but now I don't know what to do with them.

No more Windows XP at home

The last computer running Windows XP at home has been upgraded, well, formatted and had Windows Vista installed. My XP installation was showing signs that it might have a virus, which was all the reason I needed to wipe it clean.

Vista runs well on this 4 1/2 year old PC with a recently upgraded video card and 3 gigabytes of memory. I also installed Internet Explorer 8, which seems OK so far, with some slight page formatting issues with gmail.

I'm also using Vista's parental controls on a generic login I created for the children. They can only run programs or access web sites that I specify on a list. Their hours are also limited. Alex came down stairs the other night and said, "I know it's bed time" and we asked, "how do you know that", and he said, "because I can't get on the computer".

My old laptop also got a fresh Linux install. The hard drive had died a while back, and I just now got around to replacing it with a free drive I got several months ago. It is a Dell Pentium 3 with 768 megabytes of memory running Slackware 12.2.

Happy Birthday Alex

Today is Alex's birthday. He is 7 years old. Hopefully Aidan & Zoe don't get into his cake and we can have some tonight. His party was yesterday and his gifts were right on target. A skateboard, helmet, & pads from his Grandma Debbie along Bakugan stuff from my mom, Robin, and a friend.

Alex's main gift from us was back ordered and I didn't realize it. I ordered him the Cub Scout day pack. He still got a box of other Cub Scout stuff: t-shirt, wallet, pencil, reminder band, and for next year, socks, wolf neckerchief and slide, and also on back order, a Cub Scout belt. I think that is everything.

Alex really wanted to have lots of friends over, but we like to keep these things low key, so, we let him invite two friends, but one of them couldn't make it. I think this was good enough for Alex though, maybe next year we can expand on it a little.

Jacqueline Charron Gray 1925 - 2009

Well, I haven’t blogged for a while, mainly because I wanted my next blog entry to be about my grandmother who passed away recently.

Jacqueline C. Gray, Obituary

We just had Alex's birthday party, one of those things that Grandma would have attended. I sung happy birthday to Alex in French, something she would have done. Just about everything reminds me of her in some way or another.

I guess it is time to get on with things and start blogging again.

Seven more guppies

A few days ago I spotted a few more guppy fry in the aquarium. Oddly enough, they were in the worm feeder that I haven't used in a few weeks. They must have been just a few hours old when I spotted them. It took a while to find them all, but over the next day I was able to count seven, and I'm pretty sure that is it. That is a lot of guppies! For a while, four of them were hanging out by the filter, which leaves them sort of exposed to be eaten by some of the larger fish, but it seems that their little fish brains have figured out that staying in the floating plant will give them the best chance of survival.

The original two guppy fry are growing quite well, they are taking on their guppy like characteristics. I'm still not sure of their sexes yet, but I'm leaning toward female, but they'll need to get a little bigger before I know for sure.

The tank biology and chemistry still isn't quite right. I need it to stabilize before I add some more fish. I really need to get my neons, then the angel fish. I'm planning on having four angel fish to keep the guppy population in check!

My take on the Maryland State Song

I think that a lot of people forget, or would like to forget about Maryland's place in the nation's history. Maryland is a southern state that didn't secede, but Maryland was not treated well by the north, especially during the war. Unfortunately, the south showed little sympathy for Maryland either, although I think that Maryland's treatment by the union was far worse, but that could just be because the Confederate army was pushed to the south in the later part of the war.

I've read some of the interviews and comments that have been given by the Maryland lawmakers that sponsor and support the bill to change the lyrics, and I don't really like their reasons. They seem to want to deny the history of our state, deny that the union marched an army on Baltimore! I like the current state song, it is historic, I even recall learning it (at least a few verses) when I was in elementary school. If the people supporting this bill would just have kept their extra reasons to themselves, I'd be a lot happier.

That being said, I totally like the proposed lyrics also. I like that it was written in Maryland by a Marylander, from Frederick County no less, the same place as Francis Scott Key. The words would definitely be easier to remember, especially for school children.

So, I like both songs, but I don't really know what I would do about this. I'd create two state songs. The original, and title it the historic state song, and the proposed, and simply call it the state song.

Proposed Maryland State Song Lyrics

2009 Maryland House Bill 1241 if passed would change the lyrics of the state song to those of a poem of the same name by John T. White, a native of Frederick County Maryland.

I
We dedicate our song to thee,
Maryland, my Maryland,
the home of light and liberty,
Maryland, my Maryland,
we love thy streams and wooded hills,
thy mountains with their gushing rills,
thy scenes our heart with rapture fills
Maryland, my Maryland.

II
In twain the Chesapeake divides
Maryland, my Maryland,
while ocean ward its water glides,
Maryland, my Maryland.
Yet we in thought and purpose one,
pursue the work so well begun,
and may our state be ne’er outdone,
Maryland, my Maryland.

III
Proud sons and daughters boast of thee,
Maryland, my Maryland.
Thine is a precious history,
Maryland, my Maryland.
Brave hearts have held thy honor dear,
have met the foeman far and near,
but victory has furnished cheer,
Maryland, my Maryland.

IV
"Sail on, sail on, o ship of state!"
Maryland, my Maryland.
May we, thy children, make thee great,
Maryland, my Maryland.
May gratitude our hearts possess,
and boldly we thy claims express,
and bow in loving thankfulness,
Maryland, my Maryland.

Maryland State Song (Current)

I
The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!*
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!

II
Hark to an exiled son's appeal,
Maryland!
My mother State! to thee I kneel,
Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird they beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland! My Maryland!

III
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland!
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland!
Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's warlike thrust,-
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland! My Maryland!

IV
Come! 'tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array,
Maryland!
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray,
With Watson's blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland! My Maryland!

V
Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland!
Come to thine own anointed throng,
Stalking with Liberty along,
And chaunt thy dauntless slogan song,
Maryland! My Maryland!

VI
Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain,
Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain-
"Sic semper!" 'tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back amain,
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland! My Maryland!

VII
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland!
For thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland!
But lo! there surges forth a shriek,
From hill to hill, from creek to creek-
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland! My Maryland!

VIII
Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll, Better the blade, the shot, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland! My Maryland!

IX
I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!

Don't Procrastinate

Yes, I learned a valuable and expensive lesson today, but I need to rewind about two years for it to make sense. See, two years ago I managed to break my car's outside door handle on the passenger side door. It is just a piece of plastic, so, it was bound to break eventually. At some point, I bought a replacement door handle and put in in my glove box and never really thought much about it since. It did cross my mind that if the driver's side handle broke, I would be in a lot of trouble. Well, that is exactly what happened today. With two door handles broken, there is no way to get into the car. I tried to go in through the trunk, I thought for sure I could unlatch the seat from inside the trunk, but no, all I ended up doing was bending the seat. I ended up having to break a window to get in, there was no other option.

I removed all of the electronics from the car and I'll just leave the window open when it isn't raining. I have tested a method where I use some nylon cord tied around the inside door handle, with the other end sticking out of the car. I have one rigged up on the passenger side now and it tested well. I'll leave it in place, and on a rainy day, I'll rig one on the driver's side too, that way I'll have a backup. If that fails, I can remove the covering from the window that I broke and get in the way I got in the first time. The good news is that it should be fixed on Wednesday. The bad news is that it is going to cost about $550 for two door handles and a window to be replaced at the shop.

Message for President Obama about TV

If there is one thing I don't want to see when I push play on the DVR, is President Barack Obama talking about anything less than an attack on US soil. Fortunately, he was just wrapping up, but I spent the whole show worrying that I would miss the end. So, Mr. President, 24 is more important to me than anything you have to say about the economy.

20 years ago, Frederick High PTA got it wrong

I really enjoy reading the 20/50/100 section of the Frederick News post. This one really shows how the world changes.

Six percent of Frederick High School students plan to seek technical training beyond high school, a recent survey showed. In contrast, 80 percent of the jobs in the 1990s will require technical training, rather than college degrees, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. "Many students just don’t explore all the avenues available," Elizabeth Vest, Frederick High PTA president, said. "Parents are also unaware of how many avenues there are."

Eight percent of the jobs in the 90s won't require a college degree? I think that most folks these days would disagree. These days, it seems that now, more than ever, you need a college degree to get anywhere! That doesn't mean that a degree necessarily makes you qualified for a job, or that not having a degree means that you can't do it, but it has become the benchmark for getting most jobs these days.

Alex receives the Light of Christ

The Light of Christ is the Catholic religious emblem awarded to younger Cub Scouts, Tiger Cubs and Wolfs for completing a series of requirements. For Tigers, it at least as involved as the Tiger Cub badge itself, if not more, because simply trying doesn't cut it, requirements must be completed!


I worked on it with Alex and Aaron over the last few months and they both were presented their awards today.

Aaron, who attends St. Jane Francis in Pasadena Maryland, was the only one in his parish to be presented a religious award, but his was awarded by Bishop Rozanski Archbishop O'Brien. While I think it is cool that the Bishop presided, the reason sucks, because it is due to leadership issues with the parish.



Alex on the other hand received his award at our church, St. John the Evangelist in Frederick Maryland, along with about forty other Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts of various ages (couldn't fit them all in a photograph). Most were from the Cub Scout pack and Girl Scout troops that are chartered by the church, but there were some, like Alex, from other packs, including one boy who received his Parvuli Dei from the same pack as Alex.



Now I just need to figure out how the Pack 285 does the knot of recognition. The way I remember it is that the next pack meeting after the boy receives the religious emblem, the pack presents the knot.



The knot is worn on the uniform on all occasions, while the metal is worn at pack meetings and more formal occasions. The youth religious knot is one of the few that can be worn on a Cub Scout uniform, Boy Scout uniform, and adult uniform.

Zoe Free Falls

Robin had Aaron's birthday party at pump it up. I'm not a big fan of these sort of places, but the kids had a great time. Especially Zoe.



Yeah, the entire point of this post was to show that picture!

Kulhi Loaches Love to Hide

I've never seen all five kuhli loaches at the same time, and they aren't easy to photograph. They are great little fish though. Not only are they nice to look at, but they do a pretty good job keeping food from settling at the bottom of the tank.



Kuhli loaches also have a low bio load for their length, so you can have several of them without worrying too much about how they will impact the tank's biology. In fact, since the kuhli loach is sort of a social fish, you should always have four or five to keep them happy.



I should note that I don't have the best tank bottom for kuhli loaches. While I have plenty of places for them to hide, my gravel is much larger than they would like. Kuhli loaces do better in fine gravel or sand.

Pinewood Derby 2009

Today was the annual Pinewood Derby race for Cub Scout Pack 285 in Frederick Maryland. Things are a little different than they were when I was a kid. They had computer scoring and timing, and a pretty fancy track.



We'll start with Amy's car. The pink shoe with a black bow and black polka dots. Unfortunately, there was only one other leader car entered, and she came in second. She did beat out some of the boys in the heat races though!



Alex's car was definitely fast, winning three of his four races. Unfortunately one of the wins wasn't timed because the sensor was broken in that lane, and the one he lost he lost big time because his car had jumped the track. His average time kept him out of the top three so he didn't get a trophy. Since we really weren't trying for trophies in any of the other categories, like best design or most original, he only took home the participation ribbon and patch.

Alex's car leaving the track!


Alex's car in the lead!


Amy's car in a good race!


While I'm a little bummed that Alex's obviously fast car didn't win him anything, he seemed to take it OK. I'm going to try and get the raw data from the folks running the event and see just how well he did if the slowest score was thrown out!

DTV - WTF?

So, congress just passed a bill to postpone the date where television broadcast stations had to turn off their analog transmitters from February 17, 2009 to June 12, 2009. We have endured two years of constant advertising about the DTV switch on February 17. I was really looking forward to never seeing them again. I have cable, so I really don't care one bit. I as thinking about getting one of those boxes just in case I went broke one day and needed to get TV over the air, but I never did. I really don't know what good congress expects to come from this delay. I seriously doubt that anyone who gets their television signals over the air doesn't know about the DTV switch. I doubt that anyone who isn't ready now would be ready four months from now. This is a prime example of why congress has such a low approval rating.

Michael Phelps

So, Michael Phelps smoked some pot. I can’t say that I’m happy about it, but I’m not sure that it is as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be. I never smoked weed (unless you count the occasional second hand), or did any other illegal drugs (yeah, I know, hard to believe). I know that Andrew doesn’t really understand such things, but if Andrew has a sports hero, it is Michael Phelps. Even Alex knows who Michael Phelps is. A lot of children look up to Michael Phelps and the image of him smoking weed will not be helpful when they are faced with hard choices of adolescence. But how much will it hurt? I don’t know any kids when I was young that said, well, such and such big name star smokes pot so I guess it is OK. So, is it really a big deal, I don’t think so, is it something that he should have to deal with, sure.

What bothered me most was the public relations machine spin and coldness. His words “I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again.” I just don’t like it, it sounds like a team of lawyers and PR people made it up and told him to say it. If it were really him, I’d expect to hear something like, “wow, someone took a picture of that, what a jerk, well, there is nothing wrong with the truth, it happened, and it looks like I’ll have some explaining to do to the fans, I bet I let a lot of folks down, I’m sorry.” Would that have been so hard?

Yes and No on CEO Pay

Today Obama is expected to say that he is setting limits on executive pay, but it sounds like all talk to me. For example, “Banks and other financial institutions that receive capital infusions, but are considered healthy, could waive the $500,000 salary cap and the stock restrictions.” So seriously, if they can just waive the restrictions, why have them?

This proposal doesn’t seem right to me. “The administration will also propose long-term compensation restrictions even for companies that don't receive government assistance, the official said.” Ok, now, I think it is fine for the government to control compensation for taxpayer funded banks, but for banks that the government isn’t involved with, they should stay out of it. I do think that executive compensation should be decided on by shareholders. I get so much “junk mail” related to my financial holdings, but I’d much rather get a one or two pager from the compensation committee regarding their decision on the CEO’s pay check or bonuses and have the right to approve or disapprove.

Typical Russian?

Now here is a story. Passengers boarding an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to New York noticed that the pilot was drunk when he greeted them. The passengers complained, rightly so, but the response from Aeroflot representatives is classic. An unnamed Aeroflot representative announced that it was "not such a big deal" if the pilot was drunk because the aircraft practically flew itself. I guess this is how Russians are working hard to live up to their old stereotypes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5651516.ece

Administration Tax Cheats

Regular Americans would probably end up in jail for failing to pay nearly $150,000 in taxes, but former senators and cabinet nominees seem to get a pass. Three of the President’s high profile nominees have been implicated in some way or another for failing to pay taxes. Political views aside, there is something wrong with this picture. How can we have a treasury secretary who failed to pay nearly $40,000 in taxes? Sure, he paid them, only after finding out that he would be nominated for a cabinet position. I suppose it is easy to support tax and spend policies, when you aren’t actually paying the taxes you are supposed to.

Mr. Bento Lunch Box

Today was the first day that I used the Mr. Bento lunch box that Amy gave me for Christmas. I must say, I can’t believe that I haven’t been using it more often. While I didn’t use it as a way to keep the food warm and cold, it was great to have separate containers for my potato salad, baked beans, pulled pork, and the roll. When it was time for lunch, I heated the baked beans and pulled pork, used the supplied metal spork to transfer the pulled pork to the roll, ate the meal, then packed up all of the containers, with no mess.

I suppose I should explain a little more about the Mr. Bento lunch box. It is a stainless steel jar like container that is about one and a half quarts in size. Inside are four separate containers with lids that can store hot or cold items. It comes with a small nylon bag and a metal spork with a little cap to keep things neat.



If I had a single complaint, and this is a pretty minor complaint is that there is not enough extra room in the bag for a bottle of water or can of soda. It is also a little expensive, but the quality seems to be pretty good, and if you can find it on sale, it is probably worth the cost.

24 Season One is Done

Thanks to Amy for staying up until nearly 3 in the morning two nights in a row so we could watch 8 episodes each night. It was pretty good, but having seen later episodes, you know some things. I won't really get into them here, but you know how it is, some characters you don't see in later seasons, you know that something is more likely to happen to them or that they turn out to be a bad guy. And of course, you know that Jack doesn't get killed. As the night wore on last night I was getting a little loony, saying, "I bet they are going to kill Jack now, there is now way he can get out of this!" LOL! Anyway, when we got a late start on watching last night, I only planned on 4 episodes, but at the end of the last episode on that DVD, it really left off at an intense moment. Now the dilemma, to move on to season two, or go with season four, a season that will really clear some things up for me, but then again, with the way season one ends, I would like to know what happens next. I wonder if I can find season two fairly cheap second hand.

Two Guppy Fry

No, we aren’t frying guppies for dinner, baby guppies are called fry. Now I know that there are at least two guppy fry in the aquarium as I’ve spotted them both at the same time. They are still very small, but you can tell that they’ve grown from their smallest size. They are still plenty small enough to get eaten, and I’m not sure they get enough food because they are hanging out closer to the bottom with the rocks and plants. I’ve added a live floating plant but they don’t seem to want to go up there. When I add food, the other fish tend to get it before it gets that low. I bought some sinking food, algae wafers and sinking pellets for the kuhli loaches, and I saw the guppy fry going after that, so, that might help.

24 First Season: Two Discs Down

Well, I couldn’t really wait until the weekend to start watching season one of 24. It is an interesting season, but I bet it would have been better if I would have seen it before seeing later seasons. Kiefer Sutherland looks much more like he did back in the 80’s in the first season! So far I’ve seen eight episodes, which are on the first two of six discs.

The plot line is pretty good though, although it is clearly lower budget and the writing isn’t quite as good as what I’ve seen for seasons five and six. I’m not finding the writing of season seven to be as good as the previous two. But we are only a few hours into it, so it has a chance to get better. I think the hard choice for me will be to decide what DVD set to get next. I really want to see season four, because when I started watching at season five, they referred back to season four a lot. But once I’ve seen season one, I might change my mind.

Kuhli Loaches and some Ghost Shrimp

I’ve added five kuhli loaches to the aquarium. They are great! I stopped by the local fish store in Urbana on my way home from work to pick them up. They are very difficult to catch, and I told the guy to take his time, I’d rather wait than to see a fish get hurt in the process. He bagged them up, but included some ghost shrimp that were in the tank with the loaches. While he was ringing me up for the five loaches, I noticed that there were only four, so he went back to the tank to get another, and ended up with some more ghost shrimp in that bag too.

The kuhli loaches are doing exactly what I expected them to do, hide. But you see them every so often. Once they get used to the aquarium, I hope to see them a little more often when the lights go out. That is why I got five, as they like to be in groups. Just one kuhli loach won’t have a good reason to come out and play, so it will remain mostly hidden. The kids like them. Aidan & Alex both said they look like snakes. And they do, a little, especially to a young boy. I explain that they do look a little like snakes, but that they are really fish, and they are friendly. The boys also like the ghost shrimp.

Amy Found the Baby Guppy

Baby guppies are very small, so the picture isn't so great, but here it is.



Well, the big fish are well fed, so, hopefully that will help the little fry have a chance to survive.

Baby Guppy & Some Black Worms

Well, today we saw the first baby guppy. I'm not intentionally trying to breed guppies, but when you put male and female guppies together, that is what they do. It was very tiny, and I haven't seen it for a while. It may have been eaten. And since it is rare for only a single guppy to be born at a time, I guess more than one baby guppy was eaten today. I'll keep my eyes open for them still though, they are very small and can hide very well. I'm going to try and keep the adult fish well fed, as maybe that will help spare the little guys. I've also added some floating water sprite plant to the tank, which should give the guppy fry a chance, even if they hide well at the bottom of the tank, they'll have a hard time getting food down there.

Along with the well fed notion, I like to feed fish a variety of food. This week I'll supplement their flake diet with black worms. At first, the guppies ignored them, but the rosy reds were gobbling them up. I took my eyes off of them for a while and when I returned, the guppies were chowing down on the black worms. I'm a little worried that I put to many in and over fed the fish. They seem to be doing OK right now. When I get my kuhli loaches, I'll add some algae wafers and sinking pellets to the menu. I'll also feed them some brine shrimp on occasion. Sure, they will live on just flake food, but they will live better with a varied diet including live food.

Another Pack Meeting Canceled

The Cub Scout pack meeting for Pack 285 was canceled in December because schools closed two hours early. Since the pack meets at Tuscarora Elementary School, it has to follow the school rules on closings, so, when school is closed or let out early, there are no after school activities. While we were disappointed, we just looked forward to January.

The January pack meeting was supposed to be today, and guess what, it is snowing and schools are closed, and you know what that means. Hopefully a way can be found to re-schedule the pack meeting. One idea that occurred to me is that one of the dens could give up a den meeting and use that space for a pack meeting, otherwise, they won’t have another pack meeting until the blue and gold banquet on February 24, when more than three months will have passed from their last pack meeting on November 18. The boys work pretty hard for their awards, and it would be nice to see them actually be awarded to them. That is just how Cub Scouts works.

That doesn’t even take into account the cake bake raffle as the scheduled activity for tonight’s pack meeting. I don’t know about the rest of the boys, but Alex, Amy, and even me, to a lesser extent put a lot of time and effort into getting his cake baked. Alex wanted the tallest cake, so it was started well in advance of the final weather forecast. We’ll have a lot of cake to eat I guess! Amy did come up with an awesome solution though, for the boys to submit pictures of their cakes for display on the web site. That doesn’t solve the “what do we two with a foot and a half high, four tear, eight layer cake”, but it will be nice for Alex to have something to show for it!

To Help Other People…

This morning when I went out to start my car, a neighbor asked me if I could give him a jump start. “Sure”, I said, knowing that I had been running on a weak battery for several months before replacing it recently and could have needed the same then. The neighbor’s vehicle is a large old 70’s style Ford Bronco; my car barely had enough juice to turn it over! After he got it started, I still needed to run inside and grab a few things for work, and return the broom that I used to brush the snow off of the cars.

When I got inside, Alex asks “Why did you help that guy?” I think I hesitated a bit, but answered, “Well, I was a Cub Scout, and what do Cub Scouts promise to do?” To which Alex replies after a few seconds of thought, “to help other people.” “Yes”, I said and continue on with the conversation about how it is good to help others when Amy chimes in and says, “He was one of the neighbors who helped me bring in the aquarium.” I said, “Really, wow, I didn’t know that.” I think Alex got a good lesson this morning. It is one of those times when all seems right with the world.

Guppies are not Sushi

Maybe the rosy reds would be OK! LOL! Seriously, should I be worried when Amy looks at my fish tank and declares that she wants sushi? I'm sure that she isn't actually thinking about eating my fish, it is just a little bit of irony. Maybe the next time Amy gets sushi she should eat it in front of the aquarium.

First Water Change

The first water change after adding several fish to the tank is always scary. Last night I changed about ten gallons of water, which is about the most I can do at one time. I should really be doing about fifteen gallons at a time, but I’ll have to find another bucket. Still, even with changing only ten gallons, I worried that I’d kill the fish or disrupt the biological filter. All of the fish have survived at least the first twelve hours, which is when temperature and PH differences can cause the fish to be stressed or die. The next day or so I’ll keep a good eye on the biological filter to make sure that any chlorine didn’t kill off the good bacteria that break down the ammonia and nitrites. I conditioned the water before adding it, but this is my first time dealing with chlorinated water, so I don’t have a good feel for it. My old water was well water that was very acidic. I brought the PH up with baking soda, which worked quite well. My tap water in Frederick is great for fish, other than the chlorine and chloramines, which should be removed by the Stress Coat + that I add to the water before putting it in the tank.

Averaging one post per day

I would like to post once a day as well, but I didn’t make it a resolution or anything like that. I figured that I wouldn’t post every day, but I’d try to average one a day over the month. So far I’m doing well as this will be my twenty-seventh post for January 2009. Just about every post has substance, but I won’t guarantee that they would be interesting to everybody, or even most people! There is always more that I’d like to blog about, but I don’t always get to it right away, and then it doesn’t get done!

For a while there, Amy was blogging every day. Her New Years resolution was to blog every day. But her post rate has slowed a bit, but still, twenty-one posts this month is more than any month for the last two years other than November 2007 when she was partaking in National Blog Posting Month. I’ve enjoyed reading her blog posts, even when I’m part of them.

Robin needs to blog more! In fact, I don’t even know where her blog is anymore, so, that would be a problem. She does update twitter every so often.

Aidan & Zoe in YMCA Daycare

While we were trying to avoid putting the children in daycare, my work schedule and Amy’s class schedule have left us with few options. Since Amy will be going to school during the day, our youngest two will need to be cared for. I wonder how they are doing and how the drop off went? Based on Amy’s previous reports of how they reacted to being left in the YMCA play room, I suspect that Zoe will do fine, at least for a while, but Aidan might not want to be left. I’ve been thinking about them more than normal I think today. I guess because it is new. Hopefully this will only be for a semester or two.

Twenty-Four: Season One

For my birthday I received the first season of the show 24 on DVD. I got interested in the show at the beginning of the fifth season, and always wanted to know what happened leading up to that point. Most TV episodes on DVD are about forty to forty-five minutes. So, it should take about eighteen hours to watch the complete season. Other than the super bowl, which doesn’t have me too excited this year, there is really nothing going on next weekend, so that would probably be a good time to start watching it. While it may be possible to watch the entire season this weekend, it will depend a lot on the kids. If they are keeping themselves occupied and out of trouble, we’ll be able to watch a lot, but if they are in need of attention, we’ll have to pause it a lot and probably not get it all watched in a weekend. Still, we will probably get most of it watched. Then on Monday night we’ll watch the current episode, and then we should be able to finish up the remaining episodes during the rest of the week. The following weekend will be out of the question as Saturday is booked with the pinewood derby race and Aaron’s birthday party, then on Sunday, Alex has faith formation and then a Scout Sunday mass in the early afternoon. No matter what, I’m looking forward to watching the season that started it all. I’ve found 24 to be a pretty good show that keeps me coming back for more.

The Aquarium's Biological Filter is Going

Today's water tests has revealed nitrates. While nitrates aren't exactly healthy for fish, they aren't as lethal as ammonia, which the fish produce as waste and also comes from decay, and nitrites, what ammonia is converted to when nitrifier bacteria metabolize it. The nitrates are produced when the nitrospira bacteria metabolize the nitrite. So, having nitrates in your tank is good, in moderation, the only way to really get rid of it is through water changes, although some live plants will consume nitrate, but generally not enough to avoid water changes.

Right now I my readings are: ammonia, 0.125 ppm, nitrite, 0.125 ppm, nitrate 4 ppm. When things are perfect, you'll generally see 0 ppm to just a trace of ammonia and nitrite. If over the next few tests I see my ammonia and nitrite hold steady or drop, and the nitrates rise, the tank will be ready for some new fish. Hopefully that is when I'll be able to add my kuhli loaches. I'll need to call the local fish store and ask them if they are in stock, I'll want at least 5.

Eight Guppies

I know it is way to early, but I just couldn't stand looking at an empty tank. Since the tank is good sized, and guppies are small, they should be OK. I'll need to keep an eye on the ammonia levels in the tank to make sure the fish aren't poisoned by their own waste. So far, my water tests show a trace amount of ammonia, maybe 0.1 parts per million.


Male guppy


So, I've added two male guppies to the tank, with six female guppies. I took extra care in acclimating them to the tank so the fish are stressed as little as possible, because they might have to be stressed with higher ammonia levels for a little while. I follow the rule of three to one females to males because male guppies can fight over to few females, and if they are chasing the same female all the time, it will stress out and can kill the female.

Female guppy


Back when I had my thirty gallon tank, I took a couple of pictures with a thirty-five millimeter camera, you could see fish but they didn't turn out that great. These days, with digital cameras, you can keep taking pictures until you get it right, and you can see it right away and adjust. So, I was able to get some OK shots and crop them down to individual fish.

I'm Almost Famous

Joseph Durnal Mentioned in Local Newspaper

OK, so I made up that headline! But there I am, complete with picture. I've you've been keeping up with my blog you know that I have volunteered to help with communications during the inauguration. It was a cold day, especially early in the morning, but I was dressed for it. It was also pretty boring, not the inauguration itself, as I was able to watch Obama take the oath of office and listen to his speech, but there wasn't much for me to do in my volunteer role. I suppose that is a good thing though because that is a sign that things were running smoothly and there were no major incidents. My duties were over by four o'clock and I was able to make it back up to Frederick in time to join Amy, Alex, and the little ones on his Cub Scout go see it trip to a local radio station!

First Fish

Well, I couldn't wait, I wanted to get this aquarium started right away. The problem with starting an aquarium is that fish pee where they live but they can't really live in their pee. There needs to be bacteria in the tank to break down the ammonia, but in a new tank, there is nothing to really get bacteria started. So, in order to jump start things I put a few twelve cent rosy reds in the tank. As feeders go, they are clean, and since they were 12¢ it really doesn't matter much if they don't last long. All I need them for is their ammonia.

I still need to get a master test kit, which is pretty important when you are getting started. Right now I'm just relying on memory and experience from years ago. I planned to buy a kit when I was at Petsmart today, but the salesman just had to ask me if he could help, and I forgot all about it.

I did make the rounds to some local pet stores though, finding that one is out of business. Another, Rick's Fish was right up my alley, but his fish are a little pricey. Pricey fish are not necessarily all bad, if that price is due to overhead of healthy fish, and Rick's had the feel of a place that knew their fish. I will go back there, most likely for fish. I'll probably get other products at the chain stores like Petsmart, Today's Pet, or Wal-Mart.

Fish Aquarium

For my birthday, Amy surprised me with a sixty gallon aquarium for fish. I've been mentioning it here and there for some time now, and sometime around Amy's birthday, I mentioned that I would find one to be a good gift. Fish were one of my hobbies growing up. For many years I maintained a 30 gallon tank with a variety of fish, usually centered around a pair or two of angel fish. I'm really not sure why I didn't move the tank when we moved, or even take it when Steve, my stepfather, didn't want it anymore either. I told him to give it away! I do hope that whoever got it was starting out and is now enjoying the great hobby.

Tonight was setup night. I had actually started filling it yesterday, and added the gravel, but tonight, I setup the filter and heater, finished filling it, and placed the decorations, rocks and fake plants. It looks pretty good, but one of the fluorescent bulbs on the cover doesn't seem to want to light. The water needs to settle and let some bacteria develop before I add some fish, but it won't be long. I should be able to add a few small fish in three or four days. I'm not sure what to add though. I'm thinking of rosy barbs or tiger barbs. As tropical fish go, they are virtual indestructible or at least the most resilient for a new tank.

In the coming weeks, I want to add a couple of loaches for bottom feeding, a school of neons or other tetras, eventually leading up to four or so angel fish. Before introducing the angel fish, I want the smaller fish to be well established in the tank, and grown a little from their pet store size. Angel fish can bully and even kill smaller fish in the tank, and this introduction method will give the smaller fish the upper hand.

Much later, I would like to work on a more complete ecosystem. I had a lot of trouble with this when I was a kid, but I think I have more patients now, and even then I understood that my 30 gallon tank was a little small for that. With the right balance of different types of fish and plants, and proper water filtration, you get a balanced ecosystem that requires less overall maintenance. The trick is getting the right balance! We'll see, first, I have to keep the first few fish alive!

The President has been removed

I was surprised this afternoon when leaving the federal building I've been working in for the past several weeks. The portraits of President Bush and Vice President Chaney were removed from the lobby. I understand that his term is almost up, but almost isn't quite all the way. I know it was there this morning, because I was thinking to myself about how long I thought it would take for the new official presidential portrait to be posted, specifically, if it would be there when I arrived for work on January 21st.

Inauguration Day Weather Update, 5 days out

With Inauguration Day at the tail end of the 5 day forecast, it is looking like it will be a lot colder than originally expected, thirty-one degrees now. That is OK, I'll be ready for it. They still aren't calling for any precipitation, so that is good. One of the scenarios we were keeping in mind was the requirement for opening shelters in the surrounding areas in the event of a snow storm. The thought being that if snow moved in on the day, that many folks would not be able to leave the area and have no place to go. That doesn't look as likely now.

It's my Birthday

Yes, today is my birthday, I was born on January 15, 1978, making me 31 years old. It is going to be a hectic day. For starters, I have to work, I'd take off but I was just out of the office two days for training. Alex has gymnastics tonight too, so we won't be leaving to get Andrew until a quarter after five or so, putting us there closer to seven o'clock. Then I'll have a birthday dinner with the family at Outback Steakhouse. Outback is my favorite casual restaurant! Come to think of that, do they do one of those birthday songs? After eating we'll drop Andrew off and then come back home. I figure we'll get home around 10 or so. Hopefully everyone will be feeling better by this afternoon!

TMI: Hugging the Microsoft Toilet

This is one of those to much information posts, but I'm going to write about it anyway. I was at the Microsoft office in Reston Va on Tuesday and Wednesday for a hands on seminar on the new version of Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Management, which isn't officially named yet. Through the night Monday/Tuesday morning, Aidan was up sick several times with a stomach bug. Well, I didn't realize it at first but I must have been suffering from the same stomach bug. After I couldn't really eat lunch, I figured it out. To make a long story short, I had to leave class to get sick in the bathroom. What is funny is that I thought of it as it titled this post, hugging the Microsoft toilet. I was up all night, and I think I nodded off during the slide presentations today, but I was able to keep it together for the labs. I'm feeling a little better, but still a bit dehydrated and quite tired.

Inauguration day weather

It looks like it will be thirty-nine degrees, partly cloudy, with a ten percent chance of rain. Of course, it is still a ways away yet, so that is subject to change. I suspect it will as it is unusual for the weather to be good when I volunteer for things like this!

They are still calling for snow showers on my birthday!

Blagojevich is starting to look not guilty

Here is an interesting defense for Blagojevich, all he has to say is "would the Senate have seated the man I appointed to Barack Obama's Senate seat if they suspected I tried to sell it or trade it for political favors?" If I were the defense, I would call every Senator who voted to seat Roland Burris to the stand, and ask them if they felt that Rod had received anything of value for the appointment. They would surely answer no. It is a defense made in Washington!

The Giants needed Plaxico Burress

I just can't believe that the Giants lost to the Eagles yesterday, but I think I know why. The guy that makes up half of the big play duo was missing. Eli Manning is a great quarterback, but like all great quarterbacks, he needed his big play receiver, Plaxico Burress. It isn't just his statistics that get lost, because just being on the field makes him a threat that defenses can't ignore, opening up the running game or having other receivers get open.

I've been trying to find out if he would have been physically able to play, and most evidence points to yes, but it isn't concrete. If he would have been able to play, the Giants should have let him play. I don't think that being a bonehead off the field should have much bearing his playing status. If he is found guilty, he'll have to deal with that, maybe spend some time in jail, and he alone would have the blame for not contributing to the Giants offense, but the Giants preventing him from playing have to take the blame for this loss.

I'd like a new NFL rule

One thing that I really don't like to see is players showboating by making referee signs. It is as if they are trying to convince the referee that they should call a play a particular way. The following football signals should be off limits to players: touchdown, safety, incomplete, & first down. Also off limits should be the waving arm motion they do to simulate the referee throwing a penalty flag. I think that these things are worse than end zone celebrations when they score. Lets force these players to show the fans and referees some respect and start handing out personal foul penalties for this sort of behavior.

The Presidents of the United States of America

No, not the band, but now I can't get the song Peaches out of my head. But here is something you don't see every day. Three former presidents, the current president, and the future president all at the White House.



From left to right. The 41st President, George H. W. Bush, the soon to be 44th President, Barack Obama, the 43rd President, George W. Bush, the 42nd President, Bill Clinton, and the 39th President, Jimmy Carter.

If only Ronald Reagan was still alive to be part of this group. Reagan tops the list of Presidents who have served during my lifetime and Georg H. W. Bush (41) is the best in my book of those pictured. Barack Obama hasn't had a fair chance yet so I guess I'll have to revisit this in four to eight years.

I think this says a lot about the system of government we have here in the United States. Men who once held the most powerful office in the land who have stepped aside and pass the power on to the next.

I've reached the end of the Internet

Years ago, Amy turned me on to a site called BlogExplosion. It is a neat concept for blog surfing. Basically, you surf blogs in their frame, and for each two blogs you visit, you get a visit in return. Back in the day, there were a great many blogs to be surfed via BlogExplosion. Neither Amy nor I paid much attention to BlogExplosion for a while, but recently, we've returned. The service doesn't seem to be as popular as it once was, but there are still many interesting blogs that it will present to you. One thing that I don't remember running into in the past is surfing all of the blogs available, basically, you get to a point where you just can't view any more blogs through their surf random blogs feature. This is probably because not enough other users are earning visits by surfing blogs.

One solution to this problem would be to allow blogs to be surfed even if they have not earned any visits. Writing a bot to check blogs that haven't been active on BlogExplosion recently but have been recently updated would be the best idea. This could help bring bloggers who have signed up but aren't active in the site back, and it would make the service more useful to the current active users.

If you like surfing blogs and you would like some more visitors for you blog, sign up for BlogExplosion.

I'm dreaming of a white birthday

Just noticed the extended forecast is calling for scattered snow showers on my birthday. Since we haven't seen a white Christmas around here for a while, maybe I'll get a white birthday.

I will be keeping an eye on the extended forecasts as I'll need to be prepared for whatever the weather may be on January 20th. I'm still not sure exactly what I'll be doing, so for now I'll just assume the worst, that I'll be outside in poor weather.

I saw a musical and I'm still a man

Not just any musical either, Legally Blonde the Musical. That was my Christmas present to Amy. It wasn't so bad, it was actually kind of good, I didn't fall asleep or anything like that. Amy's Legally Blonde the Musical blog post says it all.

Let’s talk about Israel and Palestine

Starting with my somewhat biased view of the conflict as a Christian and American, which will provide an excuse for others to completely disregard what I have to say. I’ve developed a view that I don’t feel is biased, even as either side will view it as totally biased against them. You really have to read the whole post to get it, or maybe, just skip to the end.

Each side should consider the fact that not all wrongs can be righted. It is a fact of life, that sometimes we must let bygones be bygones. There is a lot of disputed history involving the land of Israel and Palestine which intertwines religion and politics. It is safe to say, that the Jewish people were there first, at least the first well defined civilization, of course, they were ruled by other empires throughout ancient history. The Roman rule at the time of Christ seems to be the best documented, and resulted in the mass expulsion of Jews from the area about one hundred years after the death of Christ, although Jews remained, throughout recorded history.

In the seventh century, Islam was spreading, and the Muslim conquests captured the land known as Israel and many Muslims came to the area as a result, often with no connection to the pre-Jewish inhabitants. At this time, there is no doubt that the land was Palestine and belonged to the Muslims, rightful or not, they were there from the seventh century until the early twentieth century.

The Jews returned in mass numbers in the early twentieth century, especially during and after World War II. This obviously crated conflict as Arab Muslims had the land as their own for centuries. In 1947 the United Nations stepped in to set some borders, which were accepted by the Israeli Jews, but not the Arab Muslims. Although neither side really liked the borders that were defined, this was the point in history where both sides could have lived in peace as independent states. After Israel declared its independence as a state within the UN defined borders, Arab countries invaded, indenting to destroy the state of Israel and create a single state of Palestine. As we now know, this move backfired, destroying the state of Palestine and creating a larger state of Israel. It is important to note that Israel was not the aggressor in this conflict, and many Palestinians fled the area fully expecting Israel to be destroyed and the spoils of war would be theirs for the taking. There is a clear wrong done by Israel here, they took over the land and denied the right for its inhabitants to return. When the war began, the Palestinians were all too eager to have the other Arab countries on their side, but such a deal involved risks, and the armistice borders known as the green line was accepted by those same Arab countries at wars end.

Despite the wrongs of the past the green line was another chance for peace, even if it didn’t include a state of Palestine. But Israel’s Arab neighbors felt differently. In 1967, another invasion of Israel was on the horizon. And while Israel was the first to strike, it was clearly a defensive move, with Israel again involved in a war with its neighbors where it is not the aggressor. The outcome of this war again cost the Palestinians a great deal, land once ruled by their Arab neighbors had fallen into Israeli hands. While I believe that Israel was right to occupy these lands for a time following the war, it was clearly wrong to establish settlements and remain for so long. I’m not sure what I’d do with Jerusalem, clearly there are a lot of issues there and I’m not so sure that the 1947 solution wouldn’t be valid today. The problem here is that the Palestinians were very supportive of the effort to attack Israel, but when the war was lost, simply could not accept defeat.

Israel desperately wants peace with its neighbors and supports the creation of a Palestinian state roughly within the borders of the 1949 green line. Israel wants security for its people, and to right some of its wrongs. The 2005 Israeli withdraw from Gaza is a good example of Israel’s intentions. Israel felt that leaving Gaza was the first step at establishing a lasting peace in the region, but instead, it has created greater security problems for Israel, which will surely delay the righting of another wrong, the occupation of the West Bank. Palestinians are still as close as they have ever been to having a state of their own since 1947, but such a state will likely require a Jerusalem compromise, claims to land on the Israeli side of the green line, and a desire to live in peace with their neighbor.

I’ll part with what Palestinians claim as the right of return, one of the most difficult issues in the region. My argument being, if the Arabs would have won in 1948, would the same right have been given to fleeing Israeli Jews? I have my doubts. The many wrongs done in the region, it was wrong for the Arab countries to invade in 1948, it was wrong for Israel to capture the land, it was wrong for the Arab countries to attempt to invade in 1967, and it was wrong for Israel to capture more land. Israel is willing to right some of these wrongs, but it can not right them all, but most importantly, Israel wishes to right the wrong of denying the Palestinians a state of their own, even if the borders are not what Palestinians wish for.

Microsoft's Obama Hotfix

I want my last name not to show up as misspelled word when I'm typing a document. I suppose if you are Barack Obama, you get special treatment. Microsoft actually released a hotfix for Microsoft office that updates the spell checker to recognize Obama as a correctly spelled word. Obama Hotfix 935305

Missed mass today

This year they changed the time for faith formation class (Sunday school) from nine o'clock in the morning to nine thirty. The idea is that faith formation ends closer to the start time of the eleven o'clock mass. I just can't seem to make the eleven o'clock mass fit into the Sunday schedule and I much prefer the nine o'clock mass, which I miss regularly now that faith formation starts at nine thirty.

Since faith formation is out for winter break, I've been making sure to take Alex to mass, but for some reason today, my timing was based on mass starting at nine thirty, not nine o'clock. So, we arrived a half hour late with only standing room. If it were just me, I would have stood, but Alex could never handle that, so we went home. You would think that I was in the nine o'clock routine, since faith formation has been off for a few weeks, and I've made it to the nine o'clock before, but for some reason, this morning, my timer was messed up.

Heights

I don't normally identify myself as afraid of heights, but whenever I have to do work on a ladder, I remember that I am. Today I will be working on the roof of my townhouse. It is two stories down to the deck below, and two and a half stories to the ground on the other side. When I'm up there I get really nervous about falling. Not a paralyzing fear or anything like that, but it definitely has me being extra cautious. Maybe it is a good thing, in a lot of cases, a little fear is just the thing you need to make the good decisions to keep you from getting yourself killed. I'll keep that in mind as I do my roof repair and put up some antennas!

Why you should back up your blog

So, you have your blog hosted on some Internet server somewhere for all to see. You've built up quite a following on your subject or your friends and family keep up with your goings on regularly. You have no reason to believe that one day it will just disappear and every reason to believe that the administrators running the site hosting your blog are at least somewhat competent and know a thing or two about computers.

Well, you are wrong. A popular blog and online journal host, JournalSpace has gone offline, apparently for good. How did this happen? Apparently, they didn't back up their database. The thought was that the database was mirrored on a RAID volume so it would never fail, even if a disk failed. Didn't they think for a minute that the database file(s) could be corrupted and the corruption would be written to the mirrored disk as well? I find it hard to believe that anyone managing a database server would ever make this sort of mistake, but I guess it can happen.

Something I just had to know

I had occasionally seen Out of Office reply e-mails referred to as OOF and each time I had wondered how they got OOF and not OOO or OO. I have my answer.

Why is OOF an OOF and not an OOO? from the You Had Me At EHLO blog.

Back in the day, when Microsoft ran the Xenix mail system, there was a command called OOF which set a user as 'Out of Facility'. The term was wound into the Microsoft culture to the point that when someone was out of the office, they'd just say, so and so is OOF.

The post also explains why in Outlook you use CTRL+R for Reply, and CTRL+SHIFT+R for Reply All!

MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator

I wouldn't call myself an administrator any more, but that is what the certification is named. My transcripts are updated with Microsoft and I've built my new logo!



I like the nifty logo builder. I think it will come in handy down the road if I end up with several different MCTS certifications. I'm not sure if I'll work on any more MCTIP certs just yet, but I'll definitely do the Windows 2008 Active Directory MCTS, and maybe the Office Communications Server 2007 MCTS.

President or King?

Reading the news lately, and the associated comments has been interesting. For starters, why is the Obama presidency more historic than others? They keep attaching the word "historic" to everything Obama related.

What I've been seeing is a country that is making the man in the office more important than the office itself. Millions of people are expected in DC to see the inauguration of Barack Obama, instead of the inauguration of the next President of the United States. Those who see the event as something more about the man than the office should use the word coronation instead. Those are attending but would not be if John McCain were the one being inaugurated should be ashamed of them selves, and the same goes for those who would have gone if it were McCain but will not because it is Obama.

What happens when Obama leaves office? Will people still look to him as their leader and not the President of the United States? There is a man named Vladimir Putin who enjoys that kind of popularity. In Russia, they are following a man, not the office, the sort of thing that our Founding Fathers wanted to prevent when the United States of America was born.

Passed another Microsoft Exam

Since I found out that it had been ten years since my first Microsoft certification, I figured that I needed to get my certification caught up to my skills. I started by working on the Microsoft Exchange 2007, Configuring exam, 70-236, a difficult exam that I passed at the end of November. Simply passing that exam earned me the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS), Exchange 2007, Configuring certification. At the time I wasn't really sure what if I was going to go beyond that or not, but I soon decided to work on the Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional (MCITP): Enterprise Messaging Administrator certification which required two more exams. The first was 70-237, Designing Messaging Solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, which seemed oddly easy, but I suspect that is because that is what I've been doing for the past year. Today I passed 70-238, Deploying Messaging Solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

Now that I've completed all of the requirements for the MCITP certification, I'm anxiously awaiting for Microsoft's records to be updated so I can print out a new certificate and get a new logo for the resume'. The next exam on the list is 70-640, Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring for yet another MCTS. Once passed, I will have all of the elements I need to get the Microsoft Certified Master certification. Well, almost everything, I'll need to get funding for $18,500 ($13,000 for a limited time) for the course, and three weeks to go to Microsoft in Redmond to take it. At this point, I'm not sure if it is worth it, since it seems likely that there will be an Exchange Server 2009. I guess we'll see.

Five Hundred Posts

I just noticed in my dash board that I have 500 posts on my blog. That is quite a milestone. I post about anything and everything. Sometimes I go for long periods of time without posting, other times I have several posts in a day. This being post number 501, I guess I can say that I'm more than half way to a thousand!

Merit Badge Sash(s)

I asked, and I received. It takes more than one merit badge sash to display 121 merit badges!



Photo from http://www.bsa-gnyc.org/.

Shawn Goldsmith Earns 121 Boy Scout Merit Badges

Shawn Goldsmith has achieved a rare feat, earning all 121 merit badges offered in the Boy Scouts of America program. There are twenty-one merit badges required, among other things to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. Eagle palms are awarded when more merit badges are earned, combined with troop service tenure. The best part about scouting is that there is much more program offered than one could ever take advantage of fully. Leaving boys to make decisions about what is important to them and what they would like to learn.

Shawn's achievement is great, but at what cost? Earning merit badges is an important part of scouting, but it is not the only part. Was his focus on the number of merit badges earned, or actually learning what each merit badge program had to teach? I wasn't a big merit badge earner. I look back at all the things I did when I was in the Boy Scouts and realized that I probably came close to earning several merit badges that I wasn't even trying to earn. My focus was more on service to scouting. I did a lot for my troop and the district, and even the council. I helped perform many Eagle ceremonies, even though I never had one of my own. And I worked on countless Eagle service projects. I also enjoyed the outdoors, camping, hiking, backpacking, canoeing, etc. I learned a lot in the process. Looking back, I probably should have finished enough merit badges and did my own Eagle project, because now I have little to show for my time in Scouting. I figure that I'll make up for that as a Scouter now that Alex has started in the program.

Even though Shawn earned every merit badge, the timeline does not add up to earning all possible Eagle palms. It is possible to earn up to 20 palms, which would be displayed as six silver and one gold palm. (silver = 3 palms, gold =2) Each palm requires you to be active in your troop and patrol for at least 3 months after becoming an Eagle Scout or after the award of your last Palm. The Eagle rank would have to be earned by your thirteenth birthday. And at least five merit badges would have to be earned every three months. All requirements must be completed by your eighteenth birthday.

Shawn's 121 merit badge feat is commendable. I hope he continues with venturing, and as a scouter. I would also like to see his merit badge sash, which unfortunately, he isn't supposed to wear now that he is an adult!

Old Quarters

Somehow, I have a pocket full of old quarters. I have seven quarters and a nickle in my pocket. The nickle is from 1970. The quarters are from 1967, 1971, 1974, 1979, and three from 1980. I spent a couple from the early to mid 80's at the snack bar this morning.

Interestingly enough, the dollar coin is back in the news. I don't mind the dollar coin at all, I used to use them a lot when I used the Baltimore light rail regularly. Face it, coins last for a long time. The 1967 quarter in my pocket is still in good condition. When is the last time you've had seven paper bills over 25 years old in your wallet?

Old Andrew Picture

I was looking through my pictures and found this old one of Andrew.

New Domain Name

A great Christmas present, the domain name cryptojoe.com was given to be my my brother in law, stealthfiction. I always said that I would get a domain name, but never got around to it. I guess now I'm good for 2 years, but I better put a note on my calendar when it is time for renewal!

So, I broke my blog

As you might be able to see if you look at this before I get around to fixing it, my blog is broken. I was simply trying find a way to change the way the blog archives were organized, and poof, all of my template customizations are gone. So, now I have to fix it.

A new stealthfiction

The stealthfiction blog has been updated. Including a great section on Tim Burton's 9.

Updated top row photos again

Same pictures, just re-cropped and saved with a lot less jpeg compression. The last time I saved a jpeg, I had compression turned up really high, and things looked a little funny in the 100x100 pixel thumbnails.

Updated Template Photos!

I finally did it! I have up to date template photo thumbnails in my title bar. Here are the old ones.

WhooHoo - I'm on Techdirt

I think this is the first time I've been mentioned, linked even, on mainstream blog (well, mainstream to me). I try to read techdirt a few times a week and find it an interesting source on things that are wrong with things like online censorship, copyright, patents, and so on. I recently ran into my own interesting brush with what a copyright issue that I wasn't pleased with. The short story is, a company bought the rights to Heathkit, and has been on a mission to remove copies of the old manuals from web sites where they have existed for years. This was just the sort of thing that I would read about on techdirt, so I sent them the tip and they posted it today! Old Electronics Kit Manuals Forced Offline Thanks To Copyright. My favorite part is "from the can't-learn-unless-you-pay dept".

Inauguration, I may go after all

I may be going to the inauguration after all. Not for the sake of going to the inauguration, but to help with communications. The planners have asked for Amateur Radio operators to provide communications on the Mall and coordinating charter buses and shuttle buses for the event. Since Frederick County's Amateur Radio Emergency Coordinator will be out of town that week, I volunteered to round up volunteers from the county, finally living up to my title as Assistant Emergency Coordinator.

I really haven't been given a lot of details on exactly what they want us to do, but regardless, this is a big event that will create communications gridlock. Ham radio operators are unique in that they understand how their radios work and they are frequency agile, not limited to specific channels. Combine that with message and traffic handling skills that many hams bring with them, and you get a good situation. I think the hard part will be getting folks to volunteer to go to Washington DC on inauguration day!

Darned Internet Restrictions at Customer Site

Ok, so, I've been sent to a customer site for a long term stay. It is bad enough that the customer has simply not moved past the 90's when it comes to their IT processes and doesn't seem very interested in doing so, but they have blocked access to live meeting audio. Why is this important? Because I'm trying to sit in on a Microsoft webcast on Managing and Administering Exchange 2007 using the Management Console and Management Shell. A lot of this stuff I know, but since they don't have Exchange 2007 here, it is a good way to keep it fresh in my head. Along the way I sometimes learn of a new or different way of doing something that I can apply later. With no audio to go with the slides, the webcast isn't very useful.

To make matters worse, I can't even access the virtual labs! I had sort of left the webcasts alone for a while as they were the same thing over and over again. But the new labcast concept sort of turned me onto it again. The webcast, I can just download, but the labcasts, they are online all the time, and it looks like there won't be an option for using them. In the IT field, staying on top of technology is pretty important as every new version of a product obsoletes your skills.



It seems just about anything modern is blocked and restricted. This organization will not do well attracting the best and brightest in the IT field if it continues to block the connections we use to interact with our peers and to improve our understanding of technology.

Laptop fixed

I had no trouble fixing my Windows Vista laptop once I got my hands on the right Windows Vista install DVD. All I needed to do was boot with the CD, and click repair, then tell it to perform a system restore. I'm still going to sweat a little when I go to install those updates again. Before I do I'll probably do a quick backup of some things that will be a pain to get back if the computer dies again

A little trouble with my laptop

After installing the latest updates last night, the computer is now in a state of infinite rebooting. When starting up, I see the familiar "configuring updates stage 3 of 3 0% complete do not turn off computer" but it never completes and just when you would expect your logon screen to appear, it says, shutting down and the process repeats. It does this when booting in last known good, safe mode, etc. I'm pretty sure the fix is to use the Windows Vista installation DVD to boot and you should get an option to repair and restore from a previous system state restore point. I'll need to get the service desk at the office to give me a copy of Windows Vista Business so I can do that. I'm not sure if I will want to rebuild the computer after this failure or not.

I can blog from work!

Wow, they have so many Internet restrictions at this job site that I didn't even try blogger. I really wanted to blog about my first real Powershell script today, so I figured I'd give it a try. And it worked! I'm glad I tried. Now, I better get back to work!

Just wrote my first real Powershell script

I wrote a script that searches an Active Directory group recursively for any nested groups that includes sender restrictions.


function GroupMembers
{
$adsistr = "LDAP://" + $args[0]
$group = [ADSI]$adsistr
if ($group.objectcategory -eq "CN=Group,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=local")
{
if ($group.authorig -ne $null)
{
$group.name
}
foreach ($member in $group.member)
{
GroupMembers $member
}
}
}
GroupMembers "cn=dl-all users,ou=groups,dc=domain,dc=local"


I actually wrote the script in Visual Basic script first, and then translated it into Powershell. While I've been doing well with various Powershell cmdlets with very simple logic one liners, I really don't consider them scripts. I've been trying to become proficient with Powershell for a while, and now I think I've found a way to do it. I think that I'll take some of my old standby Visual Basic scripts and rewrite them in Powershell.

Talk about traffic

It took 3 hours longer than usual to get from the Baltimore area back to Frederick this evening. The shoulders of I70 were littered with cars, especially between Mount Airy and New Market. I was almost caught up in someone else's accident between Sykesville and Libson, I don't know how it could happen, but the SUV a few hundred yards ahead of me just lost control, slid to the left into the median, then over corrected to the right across 3 lanes of traffic right in front of me and a tow truck

One College Football Game per Year

I only make it a point to watch one College Football game each year. That is the Army versus Navy game. It has been a tradition for me since I was in the Boy Scouts. Sounds weird, but December was when we had the annual father and son camp out, which was more like a camp in with one or more cabins complete with electricity. On Saturday afternoon we'd watch the Army versus Navy football game. I always root for Navy, I guess that is because I grew up in Maryland not to far from the Academy in Annapolis.

Auto Industry

If Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors will be expected to pay back loans from the government, why can't they just borrow money from banks? Might it be that nobody expects them to be able to pay it back? I think that the US auto industry has some fundamental problems that it needs to fix and I think that sending them money isn't the best incentive for them to fix their problems.

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.2

Remember network monitor AKA netmon from back in the day? Yeah, it really wasn't that great of a tool, at least not compared to some of the other tools out there like ehtereal. Even in situations where I thought that it might help, it was a tool that I rarely pulled out of the toolbox. So infrequently that it really hasn't been in the toolbox (you know, the mental toolbox that says, download this from Microsoft if I'm having trouble) lately.

I've been learning about Network Monitor 3 (3.2 to be exact) and it is great. What makes it great? Parsers, lots of parsers. And a fairly easy to understand language to write your own parsers if the packets you need to parse aren't included! Any systems administrator or engineer responsible for Windows or other Microsoft applications should definitely spend some time with the new Network Monitor. You are not likely to be disappointed. The Active Directory administrator could make great use of the DNS, Kerberos, and NetLogon parsers, among others. There is even an iSCSI parser for the storage folks.

Fire Drill!

Yep, we had a fire drill. No, not at work, or at school. The fire drill was at home. It is one of the requirements to earn the Tiger Cub rank in Cub Scouts. Alex really enjoyed planning and executing the fire drill. Our gathering spot is at the mailbox, and then when everyone is there, we move to the far parking spot.

Prometric Testing Center in Frederick Maryland

I guess this place is new. They gave me a card that said "Now Open In Frederick". It works for me because, well, I live in Frederick!

65 Thomas Johnson Drive
Suite A
Frederick, MD 21702
301-662-3808 x0

So, if you need to take a Microsoft, other IT, or whatever else is offered through Prometric and you live in or near Frederick Maryland, this is the place to go!