Stale

My blog is so stale -- I wish I updated it more. I've had another child since the last update. Maybe I'll work on adding her picture to my header. :)

More than a month

Wow, I don't blog much any more. It isn't that I don't have anything to blog -- just haven't found the time.

Uncool Ebay Sellers

Ebay’s feedback system is quite flawed. I’m sure everybody knows this but I’m going to write about it anyway. When I sell something on Ebay, feedback is given once I’m paid. As a seller, that is what counts, being paid. As a buyer, I give feedback once I receive the item, and make sure it is as described. What I don’t like is when sellers who have been paid on time, shipped their item, refuse to give feedback until you have left feedback for them.

Why is that wrong? Well, because I can be the best customer in the world, always paid on time, never ripping anybody off, but if the seller ships me something bogus, or broken, or not as described and I leave them negative feedback, they can simply retaliate by doing the same to me.

Of course, we all know that eBay is all about protecting the seller, because, that is where they make their money.

Crab Feast

We finally did it, a crab feast at our house for our friends and family. Amy put in our order for a bushel of crabs on Friday to be picked up at 1:30 today. Last week we invited some family and friends to join us in Frederick for all the crabs you can eat, at least until a bushel was gone.

Amy, Brandon, and Steve were the crab eating champions. I ate some steamed shrimp and some of Amy’s claws. Also on the menu was corn on the cob and sausage, which, along with some potatoes and onions made up Amy’s steamed, well, boiled shrimp recipe. They were good.

Robin said “I’ll eat a dozen crabs” LOL yeah right, I’m sure she will comment and let us know how many she really ate, but it was probably more like four.

We had seventeen crabs left. We sent six home with Steve and a half dozen home with Brandon and Amy has five plus a bunch of claws in the refrigerator.

Family Reunion 2006

Once again we made the trip out to my Grandparent’s house in central West Virginia for their family reunion. I really like spending time with the family and the kids really have a blast. Well, Alex does, Aidan, he just got passed around a lot which he didn’t mind, as long as he got is floor time.



We had high speed internet at the hotel we stayed at, which made Amy really happy. She updated her online journal just about every day. Having a hotel room is a definite plus with the kids. It gives them a chance to unwind and settle down. Not to mention long hot showers where nobody is waiting in line after you.



We went to the Barbour County fireworks display. Terri was trying to get us to leave at eight o’clock, but it turns out that the fireworks didn’t start until ten! It worked out though, we parked the van just outside the gate, had a great view from the tailgate seats, and we didn’t have to wait in traffic to go home.



Tuesday the fourth was our day to travel home. Instead of taking the interstate the whole way, we decided to take some back roads through central WV. The good part about that is, you get to see a lot of the country side, and stop at Black Water Falls State Park! Even though it rained on us, it was a nice break from the trip. This time Alex wasn’t even scared as he was the last time we stopped there.

Field Day

As expected, I really enjoyed operating on Field Day. I didn’t earn as many points as I had intended, primarily because I underestimated the amount of activity on the two meter band. I was able to make some extra points by making some CW contacts. I also failed to make the satellite contact that would have given us one hundred bonus points. There weren’t enough operators for my station on Saturday and on Sunday, it was raining pretty good and I didn’t want to stand out in the rain with the antenna.



The best part was that Alex wanted to be there the whole time! I had him there during setup, but dropped him off with my mom when I picked up Amy so she could spend some time there with me. When I brought Amy back after dinner, we learned that Alex was quite upset that I had left him, and wanted to go back with me. I wasn’t quite set up to have him there, but I figured, he can sleep on the grass next to the station and I could crash next to him when I got tired. That worked out great.



Sunday afternoon was a bit miserable; it rained, and rained hard for most of the day. Of course, we were taking things down, and really couldn’t stay under shelter the whole time, making it that much worse. The good part was, there was no lightning, and being on top of a mountain with a couple of antenna towers doesn’t mix very well with lightning.

The club’s score was 4914, we will have to wait and see how that ranks with everyone else.

Myspace this and Myspace that

What is up with people blaming myspace for their problems, particularly parents who blame myspace when something bad happens to their kid? As a parent, I look at it as my job to keep my children safe, and that is what, along with my wife, I will do.

Lets make a comparison with one of the latest news stories, where a 14 year old girl was sexually assaulted by a 20 year old she met on myspace. The girl and her parents are suing myspace for not protecting the girl. What if these kids had met at the local mall, would the mall be liable anything? I’ve never heard of a mall being sued because some older guy hooked up with an under aged girl, took her to his place and sexually assaulted her. In this case, the biggest problem is that this girl went out with someone she didn’t know, and her parents didn’t even know about it. Myspace had nothing to do with the sexual assault, it is a simple website. Did the guy talk to the guy on a cell phone, via AIM, or e-mail? Why no suits against those companies?

I have three sons and a daughter on the way. The kids won’t be going out with people that I don’t know and certainly not with people that they don’t know. Their online activities will be transparent to their mother and I. Kids, they don’t need much privacy, if they tell you they do, than they are probably doing something they shouldn’t be. I’m not saying I’ll be reading every e-mail they send or receive, but that is certainly an open option. The kids will learn early on that mom and dad will know about everything that happens on the computer.

Aggressive Negotiations?

I like that John Bolton guy, the US Ambassador to the UN.

"You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles," AP quoted U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as saying on Wednesday in New York.

Somehow that remained me of a line from Star Wars Episode II

Anakin: When I got to them we got into aggressive negotiations.
Padme: Aggressive negotiations? What's that?
Anakin: Ah well it's negotiations with a lightsaber.

Coming Soon – Field Day

Another amateur radio club I belong to, the Mid Atlantic DX and Repeater Association is putting together a pretty big Field Day event. Ask 10 amateur radio operators what field day is and you will get at least 11 different answers. To me, Field Day is an operating event and contest that is performed in the field with no existing equipment or infrastructure. Of course, home stations can participate, as well as stations that exist in emergency operations centers, personal vehicles, or club hamshacks. MADXRA’s Field Day will be run in the field with generator power and we will bring in all of the equipment needed, including towers, antennas, radios, computers, and so on. It should be a lot of fun.

I’m setting up the stations for the 2 meter band and 70 centimeter band, 146 & 440 MHz. For 2 meters, I will have a great station, with a 14 element beam antenna with 13 dB gain, plus a 150 watt amplifier and preamp. I hope to make at least 100 contacts with that station. I will also have a digital station setup with a small beam to run packet on 2 meters. Two of the big bonus point items I’ll have in those bands is a satellite station, which we will use to make at least one, if not more satellite contacts, and an amateur television transceiver, camera and monitor. We were a little worried about the amateur television setup, that we wouldn’t have anyone on the other end to talk to, but I did find another club that is planning the same thing, and they should be in range.

Frederick Amateur Radio Club Hamfest

I just experienced my first hamfest as a club officer. It was quite an experience, I got to see a lot of folks that I don’t see very often, or that I’ve never seen, but talked to a lot on the air. I was a member of the club last year, but I didn’t make it to the hamfest, and this year, I’m the treasurer, go figure. It seemed to be well attended, the parking lot was quite full, but the count may have been less than last year according to some of the more experienced club members. The good news is, we got an article in the Frederick News Post. I’d link it, but they don’t keep them up very long. My first official act as treasurer was to deposit the proceeds from the hamfest into club checking account which I promptly took care of on Monday morning when the bank opened.

EBay Mix-up

I arrived home to find a package waiting for me at the front door. This was a surprise because I wasn’t expecting anything, at least not on that particular day. I open the box, and what do I find, but a Yaesu 2 meter amateur radio transceiver.



Now it was a nice surprise to get a radio out of the blue, but I figured something wasn’t quite right. Fortunately, the sender’s phone number was on the package, so I called and left a message. It turns out that the sender was someone I had bought a Morse code key and keyer from the day before.



I wasn’t expecting it so soon, which added to my confusion. It turns out that the key and keyer that I won was shipped to Washington state, to the person that won the eBay auction for the radio that I received. It should be worked out soon, the seller sent me a FedEx label so I could ship the radio to its indented recipient, and the person who wanted the radio should be doing the same with my package. It is a good thing too, because the key and keyer weren’t really for me, they were for the Frederick Amateur Radio Club station.

Amy’s Having a Girl

Does anyone read my site that doesn’t also read www.modernprincess.com? Well, if you don’t read Amy’s journal too, then you don’t know we are expecting our first daughter in October. With three boys running around, it should be a nice change. After the visit to the doctor for the ultrasound, we went strait to the outlets in Hagerstown and Amy got to shop for whatever she wanted. I thought she was going to spend more there, but she got a lot of clothes and didn’t even break $300 so a few days later we went to the Arundel Mills mall, which is sort of a mall / outlet mall in one building. In all, the closet is bursting with about $500 in baby girl clothes. It sounds like a lot of money, but she got a lot of clothes for that money, something like 70 different things, many of those were two piece outfits.

New Office – Sort Of

I no longer work on the Mall in DC, the office has moved to Herndon Virginia. The commute is a lot better for me, and the building is nice, well, at least it will be. Right now, there aren’t any offices or cube space available so twelve of us share a console inside the climate controlled section of the datacenter. In a picture, it looks bad enough, I have about 30 inches of space to work between two co-workers at the desk, but the cold gets to me sometimes.



Back to the commute, from Frederick I take the scenic route down US Route 15 to Leesburg Virginia, and take the Dulles Greenway toll road to Herndon. The trip takes about an hour in the morning, compared to my ninety minutes to the Mall. I got our smart tag / easy passes yesterday, so, now I don’t even have to stop at the toll booth. The trips home take a little longer, but the good news is that I get a little bit more time to operate on the ham radio, it sort of makes me want to get a radio / antenna to operate HF mobile.

Zoo

I finally got around to taking the family to the zoo today. We’ve only been talking about it for a couple of years. All that is required is to get up early on a Saturday instead of waiting around to nine am or so to finish getting up. We left the house just after eight o’clock in the morning, hoping to arrive at the zoo by nine, and we timed it almost perfect.



We didn’t see everything; the national zoo in Washington DC is very large, so seeing everything in one day with three kids isn’t easy. I suppose if I lived in the mid west some where and this was our only trip to Washington DC ever, then, maybe I would have made the kids stop and look at everything, but the zoo is only 41 miles away, so, we’ll go back, someday. We saw the pandas, of course, but they weren’t in the mood to be up close, and seemed to know right when we wanted to snap a picture and disappear.



The trip is well documented in photos on Amy’s site. We took 134 pictures, many of the kids, well, the backs of their heads, with a few poses. A camera with only digital zoom just doesn’t cut it with some of the exhibits, digital zoom sort of muddies the image, and makes it easy to blur with the slightest movement. Amy’s picture of the elephant is probably the best of the group. Amy's Zoo Pics.




One advantage of being a Smithsonian Institution contractor, I get a lot of discounts, for one, I don’t have to pay for parking, that saves sixteen dollars right there. We saved over ten dollars at lunch, with the thirty percent off discount, that also saved a couple of bucks on our popsicles, and ice cream. If that wasn’t good enough, another twenty percent off at the gift shop. I’m sure glad I brought my employee ID.

Basketball Hoops

Amy was visiting yard sales in a nearby neighborhood and I noticed something odd. I was sitting in the van, and I was able to count 9 basketball hoops setup on the street. I decided to go back there and count basketball hoops to houses. There were 28 houses on that street, and 11 basketball hoops setup. That is enough for 44 kids to play some 2 on 2. I don’t know about the kids in this neighborhood, but if there were 4 of us playing some 2 on 2, and there were 40 other kids around, I think a bigger game would be in order, maybe even some 5 on 5.

It peeves me a bit, because these are the same neighborhoods with home owners associations that will flip out for putting a modest ham radio antenna on your house, and a tower, forget it! They say, antennas are unsightly, while some antennas can get out of hand in their size and profile, in general, the modest antennas most ham radio operators have setup aren’t even that easy to see. Not that I dislike basketball, but all of these basketball hoops aren’t the most attractive sights when looking around the neighborhood from your front door.

Work - Datacenter Move

Got up at 1:00am today - went to work, the new office in Herndon Va. Things went pretty well, we are just waiting for some GroupWise things to work to complete our testing.

Co-worker Scott has a little poem for us:

Here we sit all broken hearted
Exchange is up
GroupWise is barely started

Antennas

It is been quite a week for me and antennas. On Saturday, yeah, I know Saturday was last week, but it is within the last six days, I helped a local ham radio operator assemble his 53 foot hygain hytower antenna, which is part tower and part antenna. We didn’t get it set up completely, mainly because we were missing one critical bolt that attaches the base. After work today, I helped two other Frederick Amateur Radio Club members set up a new antenna at our club station. Now we have two complete HF radio setups at the station. This weekend is the Mid Atlantic QSO party, a low key ham radio contest that our club is participating in, having two stations will be great, we should be able to work on two bands at a time when things get busy. Too bad I have to work Saturday, but Sunday should be fun.

Soda at Costco

It's a catastrophe! Costco was out of mountain dew this weekend. While Costco's inventory isn't exactly consistent, mountain dew has become something I could count on. I sure hope they continue to stock the 36 pack of 12 ounce cans, it was a great value, and mountain dew from an aluminum can is the best tasting mountain dew in my opinion.

A similar thing happened with Coke, Coca-Cola Classic. Costco stocked these four-packs of two liter bottles for less than 4 dollars. It was a great deal, and soda in a two liter bottle is ideal for keeping around the house, just in case you want a small glass. Costco stopped carrying the two liter four-packs though, and started selling the 32 pack of 12 ounce cans. They are portable, yes, but not the great value found in the two liter bottle. Amy is the Coke drinker in the house, and since she is pregnant, we haven't bought Coke in a while, but once the baby is born, we will have to stock up, thank God for Costco!

My Metro Ride Home Thursday

The Metro was packed yesterday, and, as usual, I was standing. When I first got on, a middle aged woman sitting down was arguing with a standing old guy with a cane, he had to be at least seventy-five, about a seat clearly marked for disabled people and seniors. She finally got up and stood like the rest of us.

Later in the trip, the doors wouldn't shut, the operator tried several times. If you've never been on the Washington DC Metro, when the doors close, there is a chime and voice command that says the doors are closing. The operator comes on the intercom and says, "the door chimes are not for your listening enjoyment, they mean the doors are closing, please step away from the doors to avoid personal injury and inconvenience to other passengers. If the doors can not close, the train will go out of service." This happens sometimes on a really crowded train.

A few stops later, I see this rather large woman standing, someone really should have offered her a seat because what I saw next was something I wish I hadn't. With her back to one of the poles people use to hold on to, she leaned against it, the pole slowly disappeared in her backside, literally, to the point where there was part of the pole that wan not visible because the lady's butt was wrapped all the way around it! I'll probably think twice about hanging on to one of those poles at waist level from now on.

E-Mail is Down

Here I sit, waiting for someone to fix the Storage Area Network so that I can turn e-mail back on for everyone where I work. Unfortunately, I have no involvement with the SAN, so, I depend on it, and those who manage it to work right so that e-mail works right.

While I wait, I guess I could do some work. I got a few comments on my immigration post, one saying something about the economy, I thought I addressed that, in step one, fill the need with legal immigrant workers, we will need more of them, of course.