Murphy

Fig. 1: Murphy, laying in the yard.

This is Murphy, our Tibetan Terrier. She was such a sweet little pain-in-the-ass. I will miss her kisses with her little soft tongue. She would get scared if someone cooked something that got a little smoky, like burgers or bacon, and she would track me down specifically and hide under my feet ... no one else's. She was stand-offish and would ignore you until she wanted something. When she wanted something she would let you know it. She truly embodied the typification of the breed in that she thought she was a person.

Fig. 2: A close-up of Little Ms. Sweetness and Light

She was born January 1, 1991 in California at one of the very few Tibetan Terrier breeders in the US. She was put to sleep on July 28, 2009, because of a solid mass tumor in her chest. As the tumor grew, it would begin to cut off her airway and we could not in good conscience let her suffer in that manner.

Needless to say, we are all in a rather sad state at the moment. She was a mommy's girl, and mother is quite distraught at this moment. She will be missed very much.

You can read more about Tibetan Terriers in the following Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_terrier

Faulty Tape Drive

The tape drive on a server at work went belly up yesterday. I hoped that it was something simple that I could fix, but alas, it was not.

The subject tape drive is a Compaq DLT 40/80 drive that uses DLT3 tapes and can hold up to 80Gb compressed. We use this tape drive to back up the data and applications on our old minicomputer, a DEC AlphaServer 2000 which runs HP's OpenVMS. DLT drives are great ... obviously when they work ... and this technology lead to better drives like the Ultrium. DLT stands for "Digital Linear Tape" because the data is written to the tape linearly, in long horizontal stripes like an 8-track tape, rather than in slanted stripes like a VCR tape. This slanted stripe technology is used in DDS and AIT drives and did, indeed, come from the technology used in VCRs, so called "helical scan".

The problem was that this drive got a tape stuck inside for no apparent reason and was making buzzing noises. We had seen this problem before when using tapes that had been used previously with a different style of tape drive. DLT 'VS' drives and DLT drives take the same tapes, but cannot be used interchangeably. Once a DLT tape is written to using a 'VS'-style drive, it is then rendered unreadable by a plain DLT drive. If a DLT 'VS' tape is inserted into a DLT drive, it tries to find the alignment tracks by moving the heads. This is where the buzzing comes from.

The tape that was in the drive had been used previously on this same server, so why it was doing this was a mystery. Powering off the tape drive, resetting it, etc, did not work and the tape would not eject. I removed it from its enclosure to get the tape out manually, hoping that I can reassemble it, runa cleaning tape a few times and all will be well.

There was no such luck.

I cut the tape and got the cartridge out and removed the tape from the internal spool and got the tape drives leader put back on the hook. On this tape drive the "flashing lights" error usually indicates that the leader, a thin piece of plastic attached to the internal spool that hooks onto the tape inside the cartidge and pulls it into the drive, is unhooked from the little plastic hook that holds it in place to be able to catch the tape when the tape is inserted.

I plugged the tape drive back in to its enclosure, powered it up and reset it. I loaded up a cleaning tape to test it out and maybe clean it up so it might work once again.

Again, no such luck.

I kept trying to eject the tape, and the more I pressed eject the more tape would be wound into the drive! Within a few minutes, the drive had taken so much tape into its internal spool that it completely emptied the cleaning tape! For those that might not know, DLT tapes and many of their kin to not have the end of the tape permanently attached to the spool within the tape cartridge. Thus, the tape could come completely out of the cartridge ... and it did.

Fig. 1: 'Manually' unwinding the tape.

So, to clean up my mess, I again removed the drive from its enclosure and connections and got the cartridge out of the drive. I began to pull the tape off the spool when I got the idea of making it easier on myself by letting a power screwdriver unspool the tape for me! I tucked the loose end of the tape into the bit holder and put the screwdriver bit back in to hold it in place then started winding. My workmate CB told me that I should have thought harder about it and use a piece of tape to hold down the button so I wouldn't have to hold it. Great idea!

I got the tape removed and again reattached the leader to the hook and put everything back. It was a lost cause, but pretty amusing to work on. Thankfully our service agency we contract with had all kinds of interesting old equipment, including tape drives like this, so getting a replacement will be quick and painless.

O, Canada

I went to Canada over the weekend! I went, specifically, to attend Anime North 2009 and to visit with "Piper" and "Psyche".

This was the first time that I had ever been to Canada. Upon arriving at the border for the immigration checkpoint, the agent was surprised ... well, shocked, really ... that me being as old as I am and living in Ohio had never been to Canada.

The trip up and back was rather uneventful, other than the ubiquitous construction. Driving through Michigan was an awful chore, numerous construction zones, potholes on the interstate that could swallow a car. The roads in Canada, however, were nicely maintained.

Driving through Canada was no different than in the US. Highways worked the same, signs were similar enough, drivers were no different than I experience in Ohio.

The weather was great throughout the whole weekend. I drove much of the way with the windows down when the temperature wasn't oppressively hot. Upon entering Michigan, I noticed a peculiar odor of sewage that persisted until the Ambassador Bridge. I don't know what that was all about, but it was nasty.

Before I left, I washed my car. When I got home, it looked as if I had driven through a plague of locusts! The windshield is splotched with the remains of bugs like I've never seen. The front bumper is even worse. I guess I will have to wash it again!

The trip was a little over 912 miles (or, nearly 1 kilomile in metric) there and back. It took about 8 hours one-way straight driving. Surprisingly I averaged 25.4 miles per gallon on the entire trip. That's pretty good for a car with a V8 engine. I usually average 17.1 mpg in daily driving. Of course, daily driving is a stop-and-go affair. It also proves how nicely the 'Active Fuel Management' of my engine works. When cruising at highway speeds, it only uses four of the eight cylinders to save fuel.

Fig. 1: The view from my hotel room.

I stayed at the Toronto Airport Marriott which was a very nice hotel. The bed was probably the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in. The hotel was very clean. I did have trouble with the pay-to-use internet service. I had to jerry-rig the settings on my laptop to get it to work, but it was speedy and served me well. The television service was being worked on while I was there, and some stations were absent or had lots of interference. Other than that, the room was great and I would definitely stay there again.

Something, though, caused me to break out on my hands and face. I speculate that it was some kind of fabric softener on the sheets and pillow cases. However, one of the medications that I am on does have the side-effect of sensitivity to sunlight, so that could be it as well.

Some random observations:

• Michigan smells bad.
• Michigan roads suck.
• Michigan drivers suck.
• Everything in Canada is metric. Speeds, lengths, people. Everything.
• Not all Canadians say 'Eh?' or 'Aboot'.
• Nearly all signs are in English and French.
• 'Reduced Speed' is translated as 'Reduit Vitesse'. It just sounds cool.
• Canadians drive on the right side of the road.
• Milk in Canada comes in bags.
• Canadians look like regular people.
• Trips are shorter in Canada because they use kilometers.
• Canadian money is in colour, and the $5 has an image of people playing hockey on the back!
  

I will be posting an entry on my blog account on LiveJournal about my experiences at Anime North 09, meeting my terrific Canadian friends and observations of the people at the convention. I'll post a link here to that when I get it written, so stay tuned!

Anyone from the US that may be thinking about going to Canada just to check it out, I highly recommend it. Be sure, though, that you are aware that starting June 1 border crossings by land and sea will require a passport or passport card. Birth Certificates and other proof-of-citizenship documents will no longer be accepted. Travel by air will continue to require a passport book, with no exceptions.

New Addiction: Kheer

I really do intend on blogging more. Really! I promise! I have a lot more "Nihonjin Nibbles" to do as well as I am slowly working through Orchid's care package...

Within the last year my workmate and best friend CB started eating at a buffet south of town called Amar India. They put out a decent buffet spread for lunch and they are usually quite busy. It is very much enjoyable, but very much filling.

One of the things that I like ... er, love ... is kheer, an Indian rice pudding. The way they serve it at the buffet it is quite a bit thinner in consistency than what us Americans consider pudding. Sometimes it is almost soup-like. It also has a flavor to it that I found to be totally unique. When I first tasted it, I didn't like it. I could not quite place the taste, it has a sort of anise-y quality, like licorice but muted and somewhat different. The more I tasted of it, the more I started to enjoy it. Now when I go it is difficult to resist going up three, sometimes four, times for refills. Thank God they have tiny little bowls for the desserts!

I asked very dear friend from Toronto, whom we call Piper, for a recipe since she and her family are from over Pakistan way. (As soon as I hit send on the email asking for a recipe it struck me that I could have just Googled it ... but whatever. LOLduh!) I figured that the recipe would be complicated and involve many strange and exotic ingredients.

Boy, was I wrong.

Sometimes the simplest things can have quite a profound affect on a person. Like kheer. Rice, milk, sugar, cardamom. That's it. I did some research online to see how others make kheer and I slightly altered Piper's mum's recipe to make a smaller quantity because the original recipe would have made approximately one metric ton of pudding...

Simple Kheer Recipe
4 cups Milk, 2% or greater
1/4 cup Basmati (or other starchy long-grain) Rice
2/3 cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 tsp Cardamom, powdered or ground

Soak rice in water a short time to remove some starch.
Boil milk, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Yes, it WILL burn ... using non-stick cookware or a double-boiler will help.
When milk boils over, clean up the mess, then drain and add the rice.
Reduce heat to medium.
Keep stirring.
Cook until rice is tender and milk has reduced some. Consistency should be like a thin creamy soup but much thicker than the original milk.
Keep stirring.
Add sugar.
Keep stirring.
When rice is tender but not mushy, sprinkle in cardamom.
Keep stirring.
Remove the conglomeration from the heat.
Keep stirring.
Let cool.
Enjoy slightly warm and soupy or chill. Chilling will thicken the consistency.
When in doubt, stir.

Here are some caveats I found while monkeying with the recipe...

• 1/4 cup of rice makes a LOT of kheer.
• Milk does burn. If it burns, start over. If you stir it into the kheer it will taste like something evil.
• Add sugar to taste. I like mine on the sweet side. The sugar also acts with the starch to give the kheer body and thicken the pudding.
• Cardamom powder can clump. Put the cardamom powder in a small bowl and add a little milk and whisk with a fork to declumpify it before adding to the mixture.
• It doesn't look like it will be very thick when being cooked. It will thicken, trust me. If it is thick and pudding-like in the pan, it will be like a brick when cool. You can loosen it with water or skim milk.

I didn't realize until I made some that the unusual taste of the kheer comes from the cardamom. I have never cooked with cardamom before, but it has a wonderful smell to it, somewhat grassy with hints of licorice. It is also widely used in apple pies, I have come to find.

The first batch I made was of perfect consistency, but lacked some sweetness and flavor as I had only used 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 tsp of cardamom. I adjusted the recipe for the second test batch to use more of both and not cook the milk so much so the extra sugar would not throw off the consistency. The second batch came out too thin indicating I should have let the milk reduce some more. To make up for this, I made another batch like above but used only three cups of milk. Near the end of the cooking process I mixed in the second batch and let it cook for a bit. This mixture of batches 2 and 3 came out great and is nearly perfect!

I don't think mine will ever be as good as what is available at the Indian buffet, but since one batch of kheer costs about $1 to make, I think the savings is worth the effort.

Nihonjin Nibbles: Crunky

According to Wikipedia...

Crunk is a type of music which originated from southern hip hop and EDM in the early 1990's.

The term "crunky" would then be seen as something to do with this type of music, not a Japanese candy bar.

Fig. 1: A Crunky chocolate bar.

The Crunky bar is manufactured by Lotte, a large South Korean company. The bar appears to be the Japanese answer to Nestle's Crunch bar, though the Crunky bar uses fine malt puffs rather than crispy rice. The Crunky bar weighs in at 48 grams and is 261 calories.

Fig. 2: Nutrition Information, in Japanese of course.

The first thing I noticed is that the bar comes in a box rather than a plastic sleeve like our typical American candy bars. Another unusual thing that I noticed with this Crunky bar, as well as the previously reviewed Pocky, is the packaging's instructions on opening. The instructions actually worked. Unlike so many American products, like cake mixes, that say press here and pull back to open (and you wind up denting the side of the box so bad that you say screw it and just tear open the top flaps), when you "tear here" on these products they actually open up properly. Amazing.

Fig. 3: The Crunky foil packet.

Once I got inside the package, I found a foil packet not unlike what a typical American candy bar would have been wrapped in 'back in the day'. (Most candy wrappers are now plastic.) The foil of the packet is quite thin and every easy to open.

Fig. 4: The actual Crunky bar.

Comparing to the Nestle Crunch bar, the Crunky bar is quite a bit larger and thicker. The tiny malt puffs give the bar a similar look to the Crunch bar, just there are more of the little bumps. The taste is, however, not the same. The Crunky bar has a similar texture and crunchiness, but is no where near as sweet as the Crunch. This is probably due to the Japanese palate not liking sweets as much as other flavors. I generally have a tough time with sugary candy as it invariably hurts my throat, and this bar did not noticably affect me. The chocolate seems to have a similar mouth feel as typical milk chocolate as it melts. The malt puffs do not seem to add anything to the flavor of the bar, and they may be there for texture only.

On the whole, this was a pretty good bar. I like Nestle's Crunch bar, and this would seem to be a good substitute for that.

I think this bar deserves a 7/10.

Nihonjin Nibbles: Mikan Pocky

I have been away from blogging for far too long, so this will be the first of two today!

Next in the series of Japanese Junk Food to review, and one that I have been especially excited to review is Mikan Pocky.

Fig. 1: Mikan Pocky

I am familiar with the chocolate variety of Pocky, having had them before on shopping trips to the international market in Cincinnati. Every time I go I make sure to grab some.

Manufactured by Glico (the famous 'running man' of Osaka), Pocky is a thin, sweet breadstick rod with a consistency not unlike a cross between a cookie and a pretzel. The rod is dipped in chocolate of some type, be it white, milk or dark covering about 4/5 of the stick. The chocolate variety is delicious and I have to control myself from eating every one of them on the ride home. This review is, of course, not for the mundane chocolate variety but for the Mikan flavored version.

Mikan is a citrus fruit like a tangerine. Most people in the US are familiar with Clementines, and they are similar, but not the same. I always looked forward to winter just so I could get my hands on some Clementines! Unfortunately, since the radiation treatments, most fruits don't taste at all good to me anymore (notable exceptions: pineapples, bananas & strawberries) so Clementines are out. I still do, however, love the smell of citrus.

Fig. 2: Nutrition information in Japanese.

The package of Pocky is a small box with four packs of five rods. Each little pack (I think it is each little pack, I can't read Japanese ... yet) is 67 calories, which is not bad. The rods are about as long as a standard Sharpie marker and about half the diameter of a typical pencil.

Fig. 3: The open box and packets of Pocky.

As with the previous entry on KitKats, I was shocked when I opened one of the packets. It is like an orange had exploded -- the intense smell of citrus filled the room and it was wonderful! I removed a rod from the package and tasted it. At first I got a creamy texture as the white chocolate melted and it had an almost vanilla flavor to it, but as time went on I began to get a definite orangey flavor, though light and subdued. As I consumed the remainder of the Pocky stick, more of the orange flavor started coming through. At no time was the flavor overwhelming.

Fig. 4: Size comparison for a Pocky rod.

I was apprehensive at first about these because of my problems with citrus. I so much wanted to like them. Thankfully, I was not disappointed!

Hopefully by time I get up the funds and courage to travel to Japan, I will be over my taste problems so I can enjoy the little Mikans for real. Barring that, the Mikan Pocky deserve a 9/10.

Here is a take on the Mikan Pocky from the always lovely Orchid: Mikan Pocky on Japanese Snack Reviews.

The Croaking Dog

Over the holidays, I spent lots of time at home napping. Napping is one of my favorite activities since I lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle, especially in winter. Sleeping is not really a problem for me, it is getting to sleep that can be a nightmare.

In one of the houses behind me is a family that has a dog. That, in and of itself, is not unusual. The problem is that this dog does not bark, it croaks. Loudly. No, it is not a basenji, it is some kind of mutty-poodly mixture of random canine genetics. It is not very old, either, which is why I cannot understand why it croaks. Loudly. I suspect that it may have some sort of disorder or some past injury that causes it to be unable to bark properly. Perhaps it barked so much that it eventually suffered some sort of throat damage that causes the raspy pseudo-bark. Who's to say?

When this dog is outside, it croaks constantly. I'm unsure of whether it wants attention, wants water or is mentally ill, but that is all it seems to do is bark, er...croak.

During the holidays, from Christmas Eve to the following Sunday, the dog croaked ... constantly ... for those nearly five days, twenty-four hours per day. I am not exaggerating on this. The house where the dog lives was dark, so I can only assume the family was away.

From my property, I can see the house pretty well, but I can only see the dog on occasion it gets near the chain-link end of their fence. The compassionate part of me wanted to have gotten closer to see if the poor thing actually had food and water and confirmed that it was ok. The cynical part of me would have stopped the compassionate part of me because it is none of my business and they would have surely called the law on me. The mean, unpleasant part of me just wanted the thing to shut the hell up.

Nihonjin Nibbles: Halloween KitKat

Fig. 1: Halloween Theme KitKat

The first item up for review is a Halloween Theme Kit-Kat. The first striking thing is the packaging. It is bright and colorful in a blue, orange and yellow themed wrapper and has some of the typical accoutrements that we Americans associate with Halloween…bats, witch’s hats, ghosts, the moon, stars and houses.

Halloween seems to be a relatively appropriate holiday for the Japanese. Not the candy beggars, ghouls and goblins mind you, but the innate spirituality. The Japanese seem to be a deeply spiritual people, as evidenced by the large number of temples and the regular visits of people offering prayers to their ancestors. Of course, I'm in it for the candy.

I was shocked upon opening the small package…the smell was overwhelmingly wonderful! As I sat at my desk jotting down my thoughts, the candy was sitting in front of me with the corner torn off. I could smell the candy in the next room. I cannot quite place the odor, kind of nutty and vanilla-ly, with a hint of oats. When you open a standard-issue American Kit-Kat, there is no smell. Well…either that, or I am just used to it.

Fig. 2: A Sharpie (top), a standard American two-bar
KitKat (middle), the Japanese KitKat (bottom).

In a size comparison, this Japanese Kit-Kat is smaller lengthwise, but the same width and thickness. (The aroma is still lingering and I am getting anxious to eat it already!!)

The flavor is unusual but pleasant, the wafers appear to be standard issue Kit-Kat, but the filling is a light tan color. The chocolate is creamy and smooth and has a good flavor in and of itself.

Fig. 3: The interior of the Japanese KitKat.

This KitKat was far and away more appealing than the standard-issue American KitKat. The aroma was intoxicating, the chocolate significantly creamier and it was more flavorful overall. I am still trying to place the flavor, though, as it is completely different than what I'm used to.

I figured that a Japanese KitKat would be different but not this significantly different. I certainly wish that our KitKats were like this.

The standard-issue American KitKat garners a 7/10 on the completely unscientific scale of tastiness. I give the Halloween edition Japanese KitKat a 9/10!

Care Package from the Land of the Rising Sun

Japan: the Land of the Rising Sun, home of Japanese people, ninjas, sushi, good cars, lasers, robots, five million varieties of KitKats and VCRs. I love Japan and the idea of Japan. It has this mystery and alien-ness to it that I find so appealing. I can't quite put my finger on why; I'm not particularly fond of anime, but I love me some sushi; I could never quite bring myself to buy a Japanese car, but I love all things Sony. Perhaps it is the capsule hotels, vending machines selling everything from beer to used ladies drawers or the fact that there are no actual street addresses.

I had (and probably still have, actually) a jaded view of Japan. You know, the view of someone on the outside looking in at the sanitized, all-good-things view that we gaijin get. My views started when I was young, back in the '80s they would run the James Clavell mini-series 'Shogun' on the telly. It completely absorbed me. The epicness and beauty of feudal Japan just sucked me in and never let go. I knew then that I had to learn all that I could about the place, so far away from me ... not only in terms of distance but also what I'm used to in general, everyday living activites.

Yes, my perspective was one that was typical for those that have never been to Japan. An ideal, utopian society with no crime, all high-tech, robots everywhere serving every need, friendly people, green grass, cherry trees that bloom on cue, samurai walking the streets, flying cars, etc.

Unfortunately, as I have learned over the years, the grass is not greener on the other side of the pond. Japan does indeed have its share of problems. I have long been a follower of the always lovely Orchid and her blog The Monster Flower, on which she has a unique perspective on Japan, having lived there for almost two decades. If you are at all interested in Japan, I implore you to visit her blog to get all the details on what it is really like for a foreigner in Japan.

Sure some of the things that go on to foreigners in Japan isn't nice. You're cool and an outcast all at the same time. Sometimes older people go out of their way to be supremely passive-aggressive towards you just because they can. The police are apathetic and nearly always assume the gaijin is at fault.

But for all the things that are part and parcel of the reality of Japan, both good and bad, I still want to visit there. I am hoping to make a trip in 2010 or 2011, and to that end I have purchased some Japanese language learning books and a number of travel guides. I hope to take a week, maybe two, to enjoy the sights, the temples, the nightlife (not the naughty nightlife, mind you!). I want to stay in a capsule hotel, sample an onsen, eat real ramen and weird sushi, visit all the Akihabara electronics stores, ride the shinkansen, and just take in how life operates in such an unusual culture.

-----

The always lovely Orchid and her CH sent me a package of delectable delights from Japan. Orchid runs another wonderful blog, Japanese Snack Reviews, which she guinea pigs her American point-of-view on some of Japan's typically unusual junk food selections.

She gave me explicit instructions that I was to blog about my experiences with the goodies, and I will make good on that!

Fig. 1: The package on my cluttered dining room table.

I was very pleased and more than excited to see the box from Japan. How exciting it was to delve in to all the precious goodies waiting inside, so many alien wonders to behold!

Fig. 2: All the wonderful goodies from Japan!

As Orchid pointed out in one of her entries, the Japanese have a fondness for using English in their product naming. As you can see, many of the items have English names. The most amusing one is the "Crunky" candybars in the foreground. What immediately came to mind is the word, if you can call it that, 'crunk'. According to some of the definitions in "The Urban Dictionary", crunk is to 'get crazy and drunk' or a type of dirty southern rap. Bizarre.

What is particularly interesting about the state of Japanese junk food is the proliferation of variety in KitKats. According to Wikipedia, Japan has had no less than 25 special varieties of KitKats in flavors ranging from 'Caramel and Salt' to 'Green Tea' to 'Soy Sauce'!

As an extra special bonus, Orchid and the CH sent along a beautiful set of chopsticks...

Fig 3: Japanese chopsticks.

This was a great package of stuff, and I intend to review every one of the goodies that was tucked inside. I am going to get impressions, too, from family and friends on the goodies in order to share the adventure. I have already consumed one of the individual KitKats in the picture, so my review of that will be coming up soon.

To Orchid and the CH: thank you very kindly for the package! It made a wonderful early Christmas gift! I hope that my reviews of the goodies will be up to par with your in depth reviews on your JSR blog. I am intending on boxing up a few special, indigenous goodies from around where I live and send them off your way early in January, so be expecting them! :)

Another Math Joke

Here's a funny one from Neatorama, one of my favorite websites in the whole wide web...

There were three medieval kingdoms on the shores of a lake. There was an island in the middle of the lake, over which the kingdoms had been fighting for years. Finally, the three kings decided that they would send their knights out to do battle, and the winner would take the island.

The night before the battle, the knights and their squires pitched camp and readied themselves for the fight. The first kingdom had 12 knights, and each knight had five squires, all of whom were busily polishing armor, brushing horses, and cooking food. The second kingdom had twenty knights, and each knight had 10 squires. Everyone at that camp was also busy preparing for battle. At the camp of the third kingdom, there was only one knight, with his squire. This squire took a large pot and hung it from a looped rope in a tall tree. He busied himself preparing the meal, while the knight polished his own armor.

When the hour of the battle came, the three kingdoms sent their squires out to fight (this was too trivial a matter for the knights to join in).

The battle raged, and when the dust had cleared, the only person left was the lone squire from the third kingdom, having defeated the squires from the other two kingdoms, thus proving that the squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.

LOL! Indeed, as stated by the caption on Neatorama, Pythagoras is rolling in his grave!

Nuthatch

There's a little nuthatch that keeps visiting the pine tree in my front yard for some of the many bird and squirrel goodies mother sets out for them. I managed to shoot a few pictures when it would stay still long enough, so here they are for your enjoyment.

Fig. 1: Closeup at 300mm, f5.6 @ 1/125.

Fig. 2: Closeup at 300mm, f5.6 @ 1/320.

Fig. 3: Closeup at 300mm, f5.6 @ 1/125.

I was able to get rather close to this beautiful little creature, but what you see is actually an illusion. It helps to have a decent high-megapixel camera and a long lens. The pictures, above, were taken with a Sony alpha 200, 10.2 megapixels in JPEG mode, with a Minolta Maxxum autofocus 75-300mm lens at 300mm. I then cropped them from there and did some color and contrast adjustments using Google's Picasa 3 software.

Power Outage

September is usually uneventful here in Ohio...as is pretty much every month. However, September of 2008 will go down in infamy as being the windiest on record. On Sunday, September 14, the remains of Hurricane Ike blew through our area and knocked out power to about 330,000 people in the Dayton area. In other words, everybody.

I have never, ever heard the wind howl like this. Ever. And it wasn't just one strong gust every now and then. I'm talking a constant wind of nearly 50 miles per hour, even gusting as high as 75. This went on for hours. The wind started about 10am that day, we lost power at 1pm and it finally stopped howling at about 6pm.

Thankfully, my house was spared any wind damage, save for my big satellite dish which was blown out of alignment. Mother and father's house was similarly undamaged.

Fig. 1: Misaligned Satellite Dish.

It is not that big of a deal because it wouldn't align properly where it was anyhow so I moved it back to the bird feeder post nearer the ground.

Lots of trees suffered in the storm, which was the major cause of the power outages.

Fig. 2: Tree limbs in my neighbor's yard.

The trees belonging to my backyard neighbor were the hardest hit. The wind stripped the tree nearly bare and tore off a number of limbs.

Fig. 3: A limb in my parent's backyard.

We were without power for nearly seven (7!) days. Most of the line crews from around here had been dispatched to the ravaged areas of Texas after the hurricane proper took out electric down there. No one expected such a savage windstorm to come through our area.

Fig. 4: The view between my parent's
house (left) and mine (right).

We didn't expect the power to be out for so long. Thankfully, we had some rather cool days after the storm blew through, so I left the windows open. Sleeping with the windows open all night was actually pretty terrific!

At the second day I had to clean out my fridge and freezer.

Fig. 5: My empty fridge.

All I had left was some mustard, pickles, microwave popcorn, bottled water, film, batteries and my stash of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I threw out some mayonnaise, frozen chicken pot pies, mini pizzas and hot pockets. Hey, I'm a bachelor...you expect me to have actual food? I used this time to actually do a good clean on the fridge, too, which was convenient.

Mother and father were hit harder in this regard. They ended up throwing out two new gallons of milk, lots of new frozen stuff, lunchmeat and bacon and more. They had just gone to the store that Saturday! Needless to say, we ate out nearly every night. Well, at the restaurants that had power. Most of the nearby joints were without power for the duration, too.

The phone company had set up a number of generators and power trucks at their central offices and tandems to keep the phone lines powered. There were so many traffic signals without power that the city did not have enough portable stop signs to go around. Luckily, people were doing right and treating them as four-way stops like they should.

I think I dealt with the situation pretty well. I didn't have internet, which was driving me crazy, but I took it in stride. I would take my iPod, laptop and cell phone to work to charge them and when I got home I would play solitaire or pinball until my battery died, then I would listen to music or watch videos on my iPod until time for bed. I had to use my cell phone as an alarm clock so I could get up on time. Taking showers by flashlight really isn't much different. At least I had hot water...behold the power and glory of natural gas!

Fig. 6: My house, before and after the power outage.

Fig. 7: My house, during the power outage.

Mother, however, was a different story. I thought that she was going to have a breakdown. I'm serious, she was getting worse every day; getting closer to that edge that once you cross you can never come back. She was getting mad at me because I was dealing with the situation in a calm, cool manner as if it was no big deal. She was unusually salty at work and would severely admonish people who called in because they had no power.

I saw no reason to get all worked up. Sure it was annoying and I would rather it not happen, but it did, so there. She did not see it that way. By day three, she was ready to do violence to anyone from the power company. By day five, she was ready to kill for a generator. More than once she was near tears. I can't say as I blame her, she is sensitive and when out of her comfortable element she doesn't know how to react. Afterward she said that she was not good in a personal crisis. She's right.

I will miss you, dearest Beverly...

I was planning on putting up a posting tonight about the hurricane and power outages here in Ohio, and some musings about some of the stupidity and interesting things that went on during the extended blackout. I swear I had it all ready in my head, complete with pictures!

That, of course, was in a perfect world where I could come home from an extremely annoying day at work and vegetate. This, alas, was not to be.

Mother called me over to her house tonight, as per usual. However, when I arrived, she started crying. This is a prime indicator of something extremely bad. And, well, it is. My mother's dearest best friend, Beverly, passed away suddenly last night. It may have been a stroke or a heart attack, no one if for sure yet. She was 50. Mother worked with her at the nursing home. Mother is the personnel director and Beverly was the Director of Nursing.

It was only a few months ago that we attended a surprise birthday party for her 50th. In more recent memories, she came over numerous times this summer to swim in mum and dad's pool and shoot the breeze.

I remember clearly the last time I saw her was this last Friday. I went to the nursing home to work on a faulty computer and she stopped to visit with me for a while. I was whining to her about how I still had no power and how mother was getting pretty close to her wit's end being in the same situation. She gave me a back rub. A good one. She gave great backrubs.

Beverly will forever be close to my heart for helping me deal with having cancer, since she had gone through chemo and radiation herself. She was also integral in helping my mother cope with my treatments and what understanding what I was going through. She was a great friend to mummy as well.

Going to the nursing home will not be the same without seeing her there, ransacking her office for candy, a backrub and the inevitable two-way street of venting about life, the universe and everything. I will miss her very much, as will a lot of people.

Hurricane Ike

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

The bits and pieces of Hurricane Ike blew through the Dayton area on Sunday afternoon knocking out power and throwing full-grown trees around like matchsticks. There were wind gusts of up to 75 mph throughout the area and this went on for hours and hours. About 225,000 people are still without power.

I have been powerless since Sunday at 1pm EDT. Other than that, I have come through unscathed. My house in fine, no damage to any of my trees. Mother and father's house, next door, is undamaged as well. There are, though, vast quantities of leaves in both our yards.

I have a few pictures which I will post as soon as power comes back on. They say it may be the weekend before that happens, though.

My relatively boring life has just increased its boredom factor by 10x. I've been turning in early every night. Sleeping with the windows open has been quite refreshing; thankfully the weather has been really nice and the evenings unusually cool.

No one in Ohio expects a hurricane.

Another One Bites the Dust

Fig. 1: The remains of Mailbox No. 2

When I moved in to my little house, one of the first things I did was replace the mailbox. The mailbox that was here was kinda funky and falling apart, so I decided to get a new one to start my house on its way to a non-amateur-pharmacy identity.

The post you see in figure 1, above, I purchased for it and bought a heavy duty mailbox made out of thick steel. I painted it in green and put it up and had many a month of mail deliveries in it. That is until a nice, older gentleman driving with his wife turned the corner a bit to shallow and struck the edge with the passenger side mirror.

The guy stopped and was quite woeful of my mailbox. The leading edge was bent such that the door would not open. He wanted to pay for it, but I told him to put that money towards a new mirror on his minivan, that I could bend out the damage on the mailbox with a plier and that it was no big deal. I was more impressed...well, shocked, really...that the gentleman even stopped. Where are classy people like that now-a-days? What followed was many more months of trouble-free postal mail.

As winter came and went, it started to get harder and harder to keep the mailbox closed. The piano-style hinge holding the door was beginning to rust, as were the welds holding the top to the bottom, and the area the I bent out to get the door to open and close. I decided to take action this spring. I bought a new mailbox, the one you see in figure 1, above, to replace it. This one was a bit flimsier, but bigger and painted in a nice shade of brown that would compliment my home.

That is until someone knocked it down in the night this last Friday night/Saturday morning. The results are what you see, above. Just what I needed.

So, I went to the local DIY store and bought a new post and mailbox and some nice numbers. This time I painted the box and numbers the same shade as I did my front storm door, a flat, textured forest green. I think it turned out pretty well. It was certainly a better paint job than the original mailbox, which I painted with a "hammered" finish bright green...and did a terrible job on it.

Fig. 2: The new mailbox, No. 3

The new mailbox makes the third mailbox I have had in as many years. I only hope that the bastard's car looks as bad as mailbox number 2.

Another Pointless Victory

Fig. 1: Screen capture of my record Solitaire score.

I play Solitaire way too much. It is pretty much a mindless game that can be easily worked in while waiting for something, to alleviate boredom or whatever. It is an interesting game because each deal results in a different combination of luck and skill required to complete the game. A lot of the time it works out that you can't place any of the cards you flip, like the one that I played right before the one shown, above.

In the one shown above, I got a bonus of 8,022 for completing the game in 84 seconds (the fastest I've ever played) for a total score of 9,029. This is the highest score I have ever achieved, handily beating my previous record being 8,222 in 93 seconds on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.

Just to be sure, the parameters of the game are standard scoring, three-card flip, and I right-click to move valid cards to the upper-right completion piles. I do not use the SHIFT-CTRL-ALT cheat, because that is cheating!

The "Griefer" Experience

The always lovely Orchid, in her blog entry titled Griefers, related experiences about how many people seem to get a charge out of causing pain, anguish and difficulty to others. This was in the context of an online game that her husband was playing.

This type of behavior seems to happen a lot in the online world. Unfortunately, some circumstances can cause it to get out of hand quickly, especially if those involved are in a relatively short distance of one another in the real world...and they have an easy way to find out where you are.

I have been a licensed amateur radio operator for quite some time now, relatively speaking. I was first licensed in 2000. A friend of mine, "GL", also got licensed at the time I did. One day I got a bug up my bum that I was going to finally test and get licensed. I thought that ham radio, as it is often called, would be an amusing hobby to pursue. (Albeit a very expensive one!)

For a number of years prior I did quite a bit of research on what was required to take the exam, where they were given, as well as what was going on in the local ham radio scene. I was aware of the number of radio clubs in the local area and which ones were the "good old boy" clubs filled with holier-than-thou thinking and douchebagguery. Because of this, I was not really thrilled about the prospects of meeting new people in this hobby but I thought that they could not all be bad.

To this end, I decided that it would be in my best interest to take the test far outside the local area, so I found a testing session in Columbus, some 70 miles away. This way I would be nearly guaranteed to not interface with anyone from the local crowd that might cause issues in the future. So, one Saturday morning, "GL" and I went east and took the test and passed.

Afterward, we had to wait for about two weeks to get the official paper license and our call signs before we could actually start talking on the radio. To pass the time we became active on IRC in some of the local radio chatrooms to see who was around and what they were up to. It was in here that I met a good friend "B", who had been licensed since the dawn of time. She, "GL" and I would talk often, usually about nothing in particular. Also in the chat rooms were a number of douchebags that were affiliated with some of the aforementioned clubs.

In ham radio, one of the things clubs often have is what is called a repeater. This is a radio who's sole purpose is to take incoming transmissions on one frequency and retransmit that over another frequency with significantly higher power. This is so users of small, handheld radios with low power can talk far and wide while still maintaining low power. This is quite useful, and will end up as a radio-based party line, if you will, where people over a large area can congregate and talk about nothing in particular. This, at least, is the way it is supposed to work. (More on this coming up...)

One of the clubs was having problems with its repeater. There was intermittent interference which they thought was being caused by someone. Jammers, as they are called, are an unfortunately common problem.

In the chat room, the douchebags were talking about the jammer when "GL" came in and joined the conversation. I do not remember what he said, since I was not there, but he made some innocent remark that the other people in the room, except for "B" took exception to. This, then, escalated into those people thinking that he was the source of the jamming. "B" took exception to this and started to defend "GL" and myself. Why was I all of the sudden involved? Because those in the room knew that "GL" and I were friends, and our call signs were one character different! I wasn't always around, so I must be lurking around jamming their repeater. (Never mind that I was working full time and had a part time job.)

This turned from online IRC chat into phone calls from the "leaders" of the club to "B". She was once affiliated with said club except she decided that the general attitude of the members, the embezzling and crookedness was too much to handle, so she left the club about 15 years prior. (She launched an investigation into an accouting scandal that caused a lot of aguish amongst the officers of the club that were embezzling funds.)

After essentially proving that myself and "GL" were indeed two separate people, and that neither of us had the need or desire to cause interference to the club's repeater, "B" told those in the chat room that were causing us problems to lay off or they would answer to her personally. One of the people was an ex-acquaintance of hers that tried to swindle her farm out from under her and hit her on one occasion.

"GL" offered to help track down the interference. So, one evening when the jamming was really bad, he and several others set out to find the problem. After hours of hunting they finally converged on an address in Enon, Ohio, not far from where I live. They traced it to an apartment in a block of flats. Much to the dismay of one of the people that caused "GL" and I grief on the air and in the chat room, it was found to be where they lived. It was discovered that there was an intermittent short in the microphone to the radio and that would cause the radio to transmit dead air when a nearby fan would blow on it. Talk about just desserts.

After finding out from the FCC's online records where "GL" lived, some of the members of the club actually went to his house and knocked over an antenna on his property. No one ever did anything to me, thankfully.

This series of incidents showed me that even something as interesting as ham radio, which is supposed to be the epitome of camaraderie and "help in the times of disaster" is not free of "griefers" and douchebagguery. It was this series of incidents, too, that nearly caused me to turn my license back into the FCC.

It was "B", though, that caused me to not do that. With her help, we overcame the trouble that the griefers started and we now are involved in the same small club, with our own repeater. The club that the griefers were affiliated with is no more and most of the irritants have faded into the distance.

Some clubs don't like for people to talk on their repeater. When you do talk, you are admonished if you make idle chit chat and not give weather and signal reports or talk about club business and functions. This is the exact opposite of one of the main ideals of our club. Anyone that wants to come on and talk on our repeater is free to do so, member or not. What is the point of having a repeater if all you can do is give a weather report? Just look outside! Ham radio is supposed to be about friendship, camaraderie and courtesy. Chit-chatting and having a good time is part of that, helping in emergencies and being available and prepared to disasters is another. Causing problems and hurting people is not.

Stuck in Traffic

I had some errands to run today, so I left early. After completing them, before going home, I needed to go to the car dealer to get my oil changed, tires rotated and have some annoying rattles looked at.

I tried to get on the highway and was almost at the end of the ramp when I and numerous others were stopped by security escorts for the motorcade carrying presidential hopeful John McCain and his hitherto unannounced vice-president. They were appearing at a rally at the Nutter Center on the campus of Wright State University here in Fairborn. (Though they tell you it is in Dayton, Ohio, it isn't.)

I sat on the ramp to the highway for about 20 minutes ... waiting. A little voice inside me said that I should take the surface streets, but I didn't listen.

Whatever. They should have to fight traffic just like the rest of us!

Interesting fact: I can see the Nutter Center, a.k.a. "The Nut House", from my house as I live only about 1/4 mile from the campus. I can often pick up wireless microphone transmissions from concerts and such on a police scanner. I am sure that if I were home I could have picked up the live broadcast truck satellite transmissions on my big satellite dish, too. Not that I give a sh*t about politics though.

Pointless Victories

I was aggravated today at work and decided to play a few hands of Solitaire on my computer rather than deal with dumb things and people. In one game I played, I beat it in 93 seconds for an end score of 8,222.

It is these pointless, stupid little victories that can make life kinda sweet and calm the nerves.

World According to Uncle Dan

Fig. 1: The Art of Dan, in his Black & White period.

The image above was sent to me by my friend, Chris, whom I work with. It was drawn by his son, Dan. It was sent along by his wife...Chris' wife, not Dan's...with the following (unedited) explanation as was dictated to her by the artist himself.

The attached illustration depicts how Daniel views his family lifestyle.

On the left, we notice that he has titled the work with his name using large capital letters, showing ownership for his viewpoint.

Beneath, he has drawn a remarkable likeness of his brother Jason (including ears of greatness and curly hair) holding a heart.

Underneath the image of Jason, Dan described the work as containing a picture of his own heart, which is shining like a star and to the right of that a sun, which represents his happiness.

Finally, along the right we must interact with the drawing by turning it around so that we can realize the full visual impact of the artist's viewpoint - the Famwee Hug.

When interviewed Monday morning, just minutes after the work was completed, Daniel said, "This is a Famwee Hug. It's where my mommy and daddy scoop me up and kiss all over me." As you will see, the famwee hug portrays family cohesion: with three happy face circles at the top (two facing the viewer and one drawn as an implied circle, i.e., back of head), a large body circle encompassing the group, and their feet entwined with love.

It is clear that Daniel is a lucky boy.

I have noticed that he has an unusual and unique insight of how the world works. Such is being a child. A lucky boy indeed!

Of note: he may already have a small grasp on Russian, noting the backwards "N"...