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June 30, 2006
Profiling
During my recent travels to and from New Jersey I fear I fell victim to profiling.
At security in Port Columbus I was asked to step aside as I'd forgotten to remove my PC from its bag and place it in its own tub for scanning. This led to a delay of a couple of minutes as the cute, young security gal escorted me to a specially roped-off area for further scrutiny. The delay, like I said, was just for a few minutes and the time lost was easily offset by the young and cute of the security gal. And, face it, there's something about women in uniform.
On the way back I was hip to the game the man was playing and had my notebook, camera and PDA out of their cases and in the appropriate tubs. My shoes were off, as they'd been before, my belt was off, my keys were in a tub, my pockets were empty and I'd removed my Prince Albert and ear lugs. Still, I set the metal detector off -- twice -- when I went through it and had to step aside for further wanding.
The jean shorts I had on had enough rivets in them that they set off the metal detector. These were rivets that were invisible to the naked eye and hidden somewhere in the fabric.
The worse things about these jeans was that I'd put them on only to demonstrate to my buddy's daughter that I'd actually brought several pair of shorts with me. For the first three days of my visit I'd been wearing the same shorts. I'm a guy ... it isn't like I was running a marathon in them. Even though I'd taken four pair of shorts with me I sort of like to see how much stuff I could have gotten by without -- not that I'll ever not pack a pair of shorts per day when I travel (if it is shorts season) ... it's just a contest I play with myself. I know some of you understand.
Anyway. My buddy's daughter is a teenager and I know I fall into her dad's (who is an old man by her standards) old-man-buddy category. For some reason it bothered me that she might think that her dad's friends might wear the same shorts day after day. Then she'd tell her friends that her dad had gross friends. See -- it wasn't about me -- it was about my buddy. And, of course, older people always smell like cheese to younger people ... so there'd be that.
Which led to the strip search.
Fortunately, The Man, had second thoughts and just did the wand thing again. Maybe the cheese smell put him off.
The flight that that security check went with was canceled.
The next morning I arrived at the airport several hours early. The line through the security checkpoint was way, way long. It was a good thing I was early.
I showed the first security agent my ticket and ID. She told me to step aside. Since my flight had been canceled the day before, I had to go through the special super-duper security check.
And this is where The Man slipped up. The special super-duper security check had no line. I was in and out in just a minute ... it reminded me, in so many ways, of my honeymoon.
And there it is. Three out of the three times I went through security I was taken aside for extra security scrutiny.
Coincidence? I can't imagine.
Profiling? It has to be.
But why? Why me?
I assumed it had something to do with the fact that I am obviously a buffoon and that while a buffoon would never do anything on purpose to cause anyone a problem he could possibly do something accidentally. I dismissed this idea due to the fact that if it were true Dubya would never make it down a runway and that guy flies all the time.
As I thought it over I finally hit upon the idea that I am the anti-terrorist profilee. I am a big, white, clueless-looking guy. Clean shaven. Polite. Nice ass. I am the guy that is going to be pulled aside time after time to demonstrate to the place minority here, place facial-hair affectation here, scary looking, with the place not-so-nice comment here assed man/woman that they are not being singled out for any reason other than mere randomness.
I imagine when the scary looking people get home they'll have conversations like this:
Scary-looking Person: Well, I got pulled aside at the airport security check again. Only wanded this time. Not the cavity search.
His/Her Buddy: Do you think it was because of your skin color and poor facial-hair choice.
SLP: No. They had some big, white, clean-shaven, goofy-looking buffoon pulled aside too.
HHB: I thought he always flew on Air Force One.
SLP: Different buffoon. Besides, any plane he boards is technically Air Force One.
HHP: Really?! Could you hand me that detonator?
SLP: Really ... Here you go. Be careful.
Posted by delmer at 7:15 AM | Comments (4)
June 29, 2006
Alien Abduction
I may have been abducted by aliens last night.
I have a pain in my left butt cheek that I can't explain. It feels like I've had a tetanus booster; but I haven't.
When I went to bed last night I felt fine. The temperature dropped into the 50's -- I had my windows open -- I slept very well. Maybe too well.
This morning I awoke with the pain in my butt cheek. And it hurts a little when I walk.
I've done nothing this past couple of days even remotely exercise like.
Not only does my butt cheek hurt but when I got out of the car this morning I had a little trouble walking ... I couldn't get my legs working just the right manner and wondered if some sort of really bad problem might be on its way. A few seconds later this was reduced to a sore cheek.
Assuming this is not the result of an alien abduction I'll have to go with the pain being a physical manifestation of the irritation I've been putting up with from Comment Spam. The last couple of days I've spent more time tweaking things than you'd ever be able to guess from looking at the site. I never did get the Comment Preview looking right. I'm not sure I even had a Preview button before the tweaking began.
Comments to older entries will now be shut off after a certain number of days. This should have no effect on most people -- once in a while a comment will be made to an old entry, but this is fairly rare.
There is a chance I broke something during the tweaking and I'm unaware of it. If you see that something is busted, please let me know.
The item that I finally decided to use to take care of spam was fairly easy to install. As was the thing I installed and decided to uninstall. The problem I had was that to install the first item I had to bring some of my templates to a more current state; and then I couldn't get them to look the way I wanted (a shortcoming on my part). And then I wasn't 100% in love with the way the first item worked.
So I installed the second item. And in the ten minutes that have passed since the install, it seems to be working.
And while the whole process of trying to get rid of Comment Spam is a pain in the ass, it still doesn't explain my left butt cheek.
Posted by delmer at 5:41 PM | Comments (3)
June 28, 2006
Do not adjust your set
I've screwed up the Comments template. The problem is not in your monitor.
This comes as a result of trying to tweak a solution to stop Comment Spam.
It seems it would be easier to have roving death squads just track down the spammers and put them out of our misery.
Posted by delmer at 6:02 PM | Comments (0)
Philadelphia
I am in the City of Brotherly Love.
I arrived at the Philly airport two hours early and briskly made my way to security. I'd gotten my boarding passes via the Internet so I had a head start on the non-computer literate.
I forfeited my headstart at the metal detector. Despite the fact I'd removed my computer, camera and PDA from their bags. Despite the fact I removed my shoes. Despite the fact I'd emptied my pockets ... I set off the metal detector. Not once, but twice. I was taken aside by a very polite security guy and wanded. The shorts I was wearing had too many rivets in them and were the problem.
I made it to my gate -- E2 -- one of the Northwest Airlines gates, and started my wait.
(Have I commented in this blog yet about Northwest Airlines changing their moniker so that is is more NWA than it is Northwest Airlines. Is the board of directors so white that NWA didn't set off the smallest alarm?)
So, there I was, standing next to our pilot, Ice Cube, when I looked up at the board and noticed a flight was canceled. Too bad for those guys, I thought.
It was a Detroit flight, but not my Detroit flight. Further down the board was a canceled flight to Cincinnati. Whoa, and a flight to Minneapolis was also canceled.
Now, I mentioned yesterday that I am geographically challenged. Despite this, I'm quite capable of envisioning an imaginary line extending from Cincy to Minneapolis -- a line that could be comprised of hellatious thunderstorms. And I started thinking ... not long ago Pat Robertson said something akin to, "If I understood the Lord correctly, the east coast is going to be lashed by storms."
Maybe Pat misunderstood the Lord. Maybe the Lord has an account with Sprint/Nextel and his calls are hard to understand. Maybe the Lord had said an imaginary line extending from Cincinnati to Minneapolis would be lashed by storms.
Maybe the Lord is tired of me ragging on Pat and just want to inconvenience me.
But wait! My flight was still good. And then it wasn't. I got in line and I got on the phone.
Anthony, my phone contact, pushed some buttons and told me the computer automatically put me on a Detroit flight, tomorrow, with connector to Columbus. I'd leave Philly around 7:30 and arrive in Cow Town at 12:30. A mere five hours later.
He also told me I might be able to get a hotel voucher from the gate agent. The ticketing agent would have them if the gate didn't.
As I'd already had a good long time invested in the Gate Agent Line I thought I'd wait a bit longer to see if she had a hotel voucher.
As luck would have it, she wouldn't. She was, however, able to get me on a US Air flight that leaves just after 9 a.m. and is a non-stop to Columbus. Tomorrow, of course.
So, I'm spending the night in the City of Brotherly Love.
I'm using the experience as an excuse to partake of some General Tso's Chicken and some Diet Coke.
As always ... I know how to party.
Posted by delmer at 12:17 AM | Comments (2)
June 27, 2006
Bruce Recap
Really, doing a recap won't do any of you any good. Backstreets.com has all the stuff you need to read and in a format that makes more sense than anything I ever crank out.
What I should say, and what might help you decide whether or not to go to the Seeger Sessions Tour -- had I not seen the last show here in the states and you still had a chance to see him -- is that I am not an everything Bruce sings is golden kind of fan. I'm not a fair-weather fan either ... I save that kind of conditional love for the Cincinnati Reds (Not really -- I never care about baseball. I'm still all about hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. Baseball? No.)
Bruce may be going overseas to continue the tour so this may help some others. And you others that may be south of the equator can do me a favor. Americans are forever fascinated by the prospect that toilet water may spin counter-clockwise as it goes down the drain -- I can't explain why though I suspect is has something to do with the fact that when we screw screws into wood (for example) the motion is clockwise. Sheet metal screws are the same way. Bolts into nuts the same. The point is clockwise, is going into something. Counterclockwise is coming out. I think on some subconscious level we can't figure out what would keep fecal matter from flying out of the toilet and into our faces should we be bold enough to flush a south-of-the-equator toilet if the water does, in fact, spin in a counter-clockwise fashion.
Don't you think it's interesting that Nicole Kidman is from Australia, which is south of the equator, and she was in The Others? Last week I saw her on The Daily Show. She said she'd just landed from a non-stop from Australia and hadn't even had time to freshen up. I believe she had a little poop in her hair. And, not to pick on Aussies but, really my geography skills are pretty limited, a lot of the time Russel Crowe looks like he might have just dragged his head out of a toilet -- up until this post I'd thought it might have something to do with his night-before activities -- now I'm thinking maybe he simply forgot to put the seat down before he flushed; he is a man, after all.
Where were we?
Bruce.
As I said, I'm not a Bruce-can-do-no-wrong sort of guy. In all fairness I'd prefer to see him with the E Street Band -- I've put some time into learning all the member's names and, as willing as I am to spend three hours simply yelling "Bruuuuuuuuuuuce,' I do have the skills necessary to yell, "Claaaaaareeeeeenc," (sometimes just "Big Man"), "Daaaaaaaannnyyyyy," etc., and I like to show those skills off to 15,000 people who couldn't possibly hear what I was saying if I were yelling directly into their external auditory meatus (My geography sucks, but I'm still pretty much in-tune with parts of the ear.)
[Honest-to-god, the last time I saw Bruce and The E Street Band together I'm certain that one of my Clareeeeeence's got through to the Big Man. Just after I yelled it he sort of missed a step as if he were distracted and thinking, "Was that Delmer?"]
I had no idea Bruce was touring until Joe called from New Jersey and said he had tickets for the final show. Earlier that same week, probably (my sense-of-time-passing is as poor as my geography), a coworker had told me that he'd seen Bruce singing some of the new stuff and that he could do without it. I got the same word from another Bruce fan at work.
I don't know what they saw. I'm assuming there was a clip of Bruce's Columbus concert on the news -- something like a 15 or 30-second clip. Having seen the concert it wouldn't be hard to pick out several short clips that, if that is all you saw, you'd have serious wonderings about what might go on at the concert.
Simply put -- you may be worried about being bored out of your mind.
Folks. The concert was anything but slow-moving and boring. It was full of energy. A lot of fun. Kick ass. Bitchin'. However you want to say it. Bruce is a great entertainer and obviously enjoys himself. He does a good job of getting the audience involved.
His kids were there ... and his mom.
There were 18 people in the Seeger Sessions Band. A banjo, a couple of fiddles, three trombones, a couple of trumpets, a couple of guitars, a keyboardist who would periodically whip out a steel guitar, someone would strap on an accordion once in a while, I think the big horn was a Sousaphone (you wear it right? You hold a tuba in front of you. Okay, I've looked at the photos ... it was a Sousaphone.) Some background singers.
As much fun as this concert was I did notice one big difference between this one and one of my other favorite Bruce experiences. During the River Tour (c. 1981) I was able to stand and scream the whole concert. During The Seeger Sessions Tour (c. a couple of nights ago) I had to sit down and take periodic breaks.
I don't think it had anything to do with the material.
Posted by delmer at 8:58 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2006
Don't let me oversleep
It it isn't raining tomorrow and looks half-way decent outside, wake me up at 10:15.
A note left for my buddy and his wife by one of his children.
Ahh ... to be fifteen and on summer break again.
Posted by delmer at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2006
Lessons Learned
Today was a day of lessons learned:
1. Taking the underwear out of the clean laundry, folding it neatly, and laying it stacked on the washer is not enough to ensure that it gets to New Jersey. At some point the clean, folded, stacked underwear needs to be placed in the piece of luggage that will eventually ride in the plane in overhead storage.
That's right. I'm in NJ without clean underwear. What is worse is that I stopped at Target on the way to the airport to buy socks. Underwear is right next to socks and I could have easily picked some up.
2. Your Sunday workout will be better -- you'll seem just a little stronger -- if you spend Saturday making sure you eat well, or well enough anyway, and going to bed at a decent time. If you spend Saturday drinking a couple of beers and then vodka martinis until 1 a.m., your Sunday workout will be a little rougher. Of course, there is alway the chance that Olympic plates just weigh more in New Jersey.
Another thing we learned from this lesson -- expensive beer and vodka have the same bad-workout effect as the cheap stuff.
3. My computer mojo works outside of Ohio. Joe and Cris have a computer that was being problematic. I had it in an unproblematic state almost immediately. When Joe asked what I'd done and I told him he said, "I did that several times," and I don't doubt it. It's just that I have better computer mojo. Joe has better math mojo.
4. Bruce still puts on one helluva show. I guess this was really no surprise.
Posted by delmer at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2006
Port Columbus Airport
I'm at Port Columbus Airport waiting for my flight to Detroit, then New Jersey. I got an incredibly early start -- leaving home at 9 a.m. to make the 11:50 departure.
En route I stopped at Target and bought some socks, two shirts, a toy for the son of the buddy I'm visiting, and a belt; the shorts were hanging a little low and I feared my PDA and cell phone might take them off me. I tried the shirts on in the store -- first thing -- and didn't notice I'd failed to zip my pants up until I was in the parking lot. Sweet!
area and free, wireless Internet.
I made a quick stop at McDonald's and had the usual: an Egg McMuffin, a Fruit & Yogurt Parfait, and a Super Size Diet Coke. I napped a second McMuffin for the road and plan to have it in Detroit.
See how I said 'napped' above ... that started in my brain as 'snagged.' What the hell? The 'p' and 'g' aren't all that close on the keyboard.
Columbus has done a pretty good job of making the drive to the airport pain-free. The route is well marked. From where I live I simply follow 670 around and make a mental note to drive under any AIRPORT icon I see. It's a simple plan -- it works well enough most of the time.
So, I was on 670, keeping tabs on all the AIRPORT signs. I made the necessary lane changes. I was admiring, honestly, the fine job the city traffic engineers (or whoever) had done.
Then I noticed the AIRPORT: Right Two Lanes sign that was followed by a smaller, orange so more easily noticed, sign that said Right two lanes closed ahead.
Well, certainly the lane closure would be after the Airport detour. It only made sense. Traffic had passed the point of no return -- there were no detours marked. I wasn't worried.
Up ahead I could see several big, city trucks and some police cars blocking all the 670 lanes. This would have been a problem had it not been for the cones that had been set up that herded traffic past the trucks and cruisers. They were in no danger from traffic.
Of course, we were now all headed on 71N.
Hmmm. I can get to the airport from 670 and 70W without too much thinking. I can get to Cleveland on 71N.
As I pondered my options I came across 5th Avenue and figured I'd better get off. Years ago I'd taken 5th to the airport and figured I'd take my chances.
Obviously I made it to the airport. And, inasmuch as I didn't have a van full of screaming kids I did it handily -- without so much as a wrong turn. (I'm not saying the kids would be the problem. What I'm saying is that if you have a van full of kids, and you really wanted to get someplace, just to show off your manliness and innate-direction-I-always-know-where-I-am-ness, something would have gone wrong and you'd have a bunch of kids saying, Isn't' this the same KFC we passed ten minutes ago.)
What I'd like to take a moment and consider is: The collection of trucks and cruisers on 670.
This did not look like an ad hoc meeting. It looked planned. I'll bet there's paperwork somewhere telling those guys to be there. I don't think the truck guys started out the day at the McDonald's wondering what to do.
Truck Guy 1: How long will the truck-pool manager be at the conference.
Truck Guy 2: A week is what I hear.
Truck Guy 3: Sweet! We can have these babies out until Thursday without having to worry then.
Truck Guys 4, 5, and 6: Bitchin!
Truck Guy 1: Whattayawanna do?
Police Officer 1: I couldn't help but overhear, you guys got a bunch of trucks and you're looking for something to do?
TG2: Yea.
PO1: I just heard that guy with the Egg McMuffin, Fruit & Yogurt Parfait and Super Size Diet Coke is going to the airport. What say we have some fun with him and close down 670. I'll get on the radio and have some guys meet us there.
TG1,2,3,4,5,6: Sweet! Let's roll.
Okay. Maybe not.
Posted by delmer at 10:44 AM | Comments (1)
June 23, 2006
Bruuuuuuce
I'm leaving for New Jersey tomorrow to visit a buddy. I'll be gone until Tuesday. Sunday we're going to see Bruce Springsteen.
Today was spent doing all the stuff you do before you go on vacation so that the people you've left behind, you're coworkers, won't feel compelled to call you while you're out of town.
Two years ago I went to NJ and, upon landing in Philly or Pitt -- wherever the connector was -- my phone went off. As it happens the RAID array on the Netware server had died (of course, we didn't know that over the phone).
Things like that can't be prepared for. It's the only time in the 15 years (about) I've been doing this that that has happened.
Anyway. Today I did what I could.
We'll see how it goes.
Oh yea, I'm taking a six-pack of locally-brewed beer ... what am I saying, Bud is brewed just up the road from me ... I'm taking a six-pack of a local microbrewed beer with me.
Posted by delmer at 10:33 PM | Comments (3)
June 22, 2006
Lost and Found
I lose my gym membership card about once a year. It's nothing I plan -- I've checked my calendar and I've never penciled it in (or, in my case, put it in my Palm T/X, synced it to my computer and then zapped it into my watch by aiming the watch at my computer monitor while it flashes white bars) -- it's nothing I understand.
I keep the card in a storage bin at the bottom center of my sweet ride's dash assembly. It is always to the far left and is wedged there among tapes the boys and I never listen to but that I don't bother to toss (anybody here familiar with Dinosaur Cafe? Maybe the Sesame Street tapes ... C is for cookie, that's good enough for me ...).
It was about 28 months ago that I went to grab the gym card to discover it was not where it should have been.
The folks at the gym were OK with the missing card and I explained that I'd spend some time looking for it after work. I tore the van apart. I checked the house even though I'm sure the card has never crossed the threshold. I couldn't find it.
Replacement cards are $10.00. I bought one.
Roughly 12 months would pass. I repeated the above and eventually dropped another $10.00.
Roughly 12 months would pass again -- bringing us to about 6 months ago. I was at the do-it-yourself carwash and had most of the van doors open as I vacuumed the beast. As I walked around the van, my gym card was laying on the pavement. The wind whipping through the van had snatched it from it's safe, next-to-Dinosaur-Cafe location, and whisked it outside.
Is this how I'd lost all the cards? I could see how it might be. I clean the van often enough that the vacuuming scenario would make some sense. I've been with the boys several times when we've had the doors open and tornado-force winds have whipped through the van.
Finally the puzzle was solved and I had broken the cycle.
About a week ago I was in the van alone and looked down between the seats. My gym membership card was laying on the floor. Ah ... this is how they get lost, I thought as I picked it up to return it to the storage area.
Beneath the card was ... my gym membership card. And beneath that, Jack's library card.
This was a puzzler. I had two gym cards in my hand as I checked the storage area. It, naturally, had in it my gym membership card.
WTF.
The cards had been missing for more than one and two years. I didn't remember Jack having a library card at all. And now they appear in a stack on the floor between the seats. I was very close to contacting The Phoenix thinking that maybe he'd have some insight. Maybe I had a trans-dimensional thing going on in the mini van (which would make it even sweeter).
I had cleaned and vacuumed the minivan numerous times -- I'd had the glove box emptied -- I'd had that locked thing underneath the passenger seat emptied -- I'd never seen the cards. And here they were!
Unlike television, the explanation that makes the most sense is often the simplest. At my house the simplest explanation often involves one of three children.
At dinner that night I asked, "Does anybody here know what my gym card looks like."
"Yes," Haydn offered, "I found two of them."
"Where?"
"When I was looking for that battery," the one I remembered him dropping in the van near the storage thing, "I found a secret pocket under the cassette tapes. The cards were in there."
The secret pocket is the heater vent that blows air across the floor of the van. I'm guessing I'd had the cards -- months apart from each other, mind you -- sitting on the carpet when I applied the brakes and that they'd slid forward into the heater vent.
So. If you've lost anything in a minivan, take a look in the heater vent beneath the dash between the seats. It may be there.
(Women ... this does not apply to your innocence.)
Posted by delmer at 7:01 AM | Comments (1)
June 21, 2006
Haydn's Knee Follow-up
As you may recall, Haydn, my 12-year old, had knee surgery to correct OCD ... osteocondroital defect. Osteocondroital is probably misspelled -- I'll bet the spell check isn't going to be much of a help with it.
Yesterday we had a follow-up visit.
When the doctor came in he said something like, "Things are looking good. You can hardly tell there was anything wrong." I thought he was referring to the arthroscopic incisions, dots actually, that remained on Haydn's knee from the surgery.
Actually, he was referring to the X-rays we'd had taken a few minutes earlier.
He held them up to the light to give me a look. I've pointed out, in the past, that I'm no Marcus Welby and that assuming I'd have any idea what an X-ray was supposed to be telling me was giving me way too much credit. In this case, however, I was fairly certain that I was looking for a sort of rounded, smooth knee joint. Which is what I saw.
Things could not have been better. It looks like blood flow has increased to the knee and the knee is developing as it should.
Restrictions on Haydn's activities have been removed for the most part. He can't do leg extensions yet. No squatting with weights. No leg presses with weights.
We weren't doing any of those things anyway.
So ... all is well.
Posted by delmer at 7:08 AM | Comments (6)
June 20, 2006
What I saw on the ride
(For more on the ride, start Here and continue here.)
Update: You know folks. Yesterday I tweaked the photos below so that they looked nice and bright. Later I put this entry together on my laptop, sitting in front of the TV ... the photos looked too bright and almost harsh so I undid the tweaking. This morning on the work monitor they look a little dark. My apologies if they look less than beautiful on your monitor -- I'll try to get a better grip on this in the future.
There is a bike trail about a half mile from where I live. If you are using something other and Internet Explorer and you want to follow along some, look here and zoom in one level. G. Map and G.Hybrid will give you a pretty good look at things.
A static map is provided for your convenience. Mechanicsburg gets lopped off at the left.
The trail heads northwest for 6.5 miles. On the map you'll see that a portion of the path is comprised of railroad tracks. This makes for some dicey riding and things get a little treacherous when the 6:06 out of Memphis comes barreling through. People typically need just one or two close calls before they start paying closer attention to the train schedules and there have been but a couple of near misses this year. Okay ... so maybe the map is a little out of date. From the trail you can see things like:
Six and a half miles out the trail ends at a fence. A purposefully-easy-to-get-around fence with a sign that thanks you for using the trail and assures you steps are being taken to extend the trail further.
Just past the fence and down a small incline there is a road that may be called Cemetery Pike. Heading west for an additional 8.5 miles you come to Rt. 38.
A single-lane bridge I've just come across
One of the few hills I encountered.
Yea, it isn't really all that much.
Oh, and my Schwinn.
A farm
Same farm from a Homeland Security satellite.
I'm not sure what the crosshairs are all about.
To the untrained eye, that is, non-Buckeyes, a lot of Ohio looks a lot like other parts of Ohio. Especially the western, flat part of the state. For example, the following two pictures, while very similar looking were actually taken 15 miles apart from each other.
The first photo is of the intersection at Rt. 38. The second picture, like I said, is 15 miles away in a part of the state that is inaccessible by automobile. The only way to safely get there is by hiking, by bicycle or by train -- and only the 6:06 out of Memphis makes the run.
Don't let the bit that looks like a road in the second picture confuse you.
You will notice a lack of wildlife in these pictures. Or maybe you didn't notice. Perhaps you are more familiar with the pre-packaged varieties of wildlife available in many of your finer grocery stores.
Anyway there was abundant wildlife -- I just wasn't in the mood to stop and snap photos during the times of wildlife abundance. I WAS IN THE ZONE MAN! ... er ... I don't really ever get in a zone. I was probably making good time, or I'd just been off the bike taking photos, or, toward the end, I just wanted it to be over and wasn't confident of my abilities to get the Schwinn rolling again should I be foolish enough to let it stop. You know ... that whole a woman who is bitching is likely to remain ... um, wait an object in motion is likely to stay in motion thing.
There were horses, sheep, cows. Maybe pigs. Groundhogs, bunnies, and, on the bike path, I passed a skunk. Su-wheat. Yesterday I drove by a fox that was smashed on the road -- you don't see many of those.
Why weren't there any Canadian Geese? Jeez. These things are all over the city! They should be out with the rest of nature. Maybe they have a problem with predators in the country.
Other photos:
It's a very peaceful ride and I'm fully aware of how lucky I am to have country roads like this available to me. Sometimes I feel like John Denver. I don't think I encountered a dozen autos the whole time I was out.
Like a night in the forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean ...
Posted by delmer at 12:30 AM | Comments (5)
June 19, 2006
Bike Shorts, Compression Socks and My Life as a Stripper
There were a couple of mistakes I made on my recent bike outing:
I didn't take enough water with me. Not that I was really concerned. I planned on refilling in Mechanicsburg and knew I could always stop at someone's home (this is the Midwest, after all). Still, I drink a lot and two liters over three hours isn't enough.
I should have written down the road names. Too many roads in the country have similar names. If making Mechanicsburg had been a solid goal -- more than simply cranking out 50 miles was -- road names would have really helped.
A snack would have been nice. An apple. A Snickers bar. Something.
There were several things I did that were thought out pretty well:
I bought and installed a tire pump.
I made sure I had some patches and tire tools.
I cleaned out my bike bag.
I bought bike shorts. The mail-order pairs should arrive later today but, as I was going out on a big ride, I drove by the sporting goods store and picked up a pair. They kick ass. And make the ass a good deal more comfortable.
The other day I had a 30-mile ride and finished that with a sore booty and some chaffing. I hoped that bike shorts -- as silly as they look -- might make the ride more comfortable.
I picked up a Lycra pair with gel in the tushy area.
Based on what I've read a person is not supposed to wear undies with bike shorts. Underwear would interfere with the ability of the garment to wick moisture away from your person. I shorted up commando.
Not only is there gel in the tush there's also some padding for the toolbox. So, in addition to being very comfortable, the shorts enhance the line of the male form. If I were a Chippendale dancer these would be the things I'd dance in -- for the aesthetic appeal and because, I'm guessing, that a group of women could cram about ten-thousand one-dollar bills down these babies. And the way these things fit, Susan B's and Sacajawea dollars wouldn't be out of the question.
I will never make, even to myself, snide comments about bikers wearing Lycra. I always thought these were Tour de France wannabe poseur-types. Really, they just had a better understanding of the equipment needed to ride comfortably.
I can only imagine how comfortable a long ride would be with bike shorts and my compression socks. I'm not sure that's a look I'm willing to test out right now.
But I'm betting each sock would hold several hundred ones.
Posted by delmer at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2006
Recovering from the Trip
Yesterday I awoke with the intention of riding my bike 50 miles. I'd eventually modify that intention to 55 miles -- about 18 years ago I had a long ride of 50 miles plus ... I think 52, maybe 53 ... I was pretty sure that 55 would be the furthest I'd ever gone.
(If you are using a non-Internet Explorer web browser, you can probably see, in more detail, the route I took. The GMAP option gives a pretty nice view.)
I called up Google Maps and put together a course. I figured I'd go as far as Mechanicsburg, maybe refill my water bottles there, head south and then loop around on my way back to the bike path.
I'd recently gone as far as Rt. 38 (The n in Unionville is on Rt. 38.) This point is 15 miles from home. On the map the upper intersection marks my trip toward Mechanicsburg.
Rosedale Road -- or versions thereof -- played an important part in this journey. Unfortunately, I hadn't paid all that much attention to the various versions or where they might intersect and at one time shot up the wrong Rosedale.
Which is not a bad thing.
It was windy along stretches of the ride -- fields with month-old corn and soy beans don't really offer a lot in the way of windbreaks.
At one point I was doing a pretty effortless 25 mph down a stretch of road that was in really good shape. As good as this sounds it is an indication of future problems. I was pretty sure that I'd eventually be riding into the headwind that was, at that moment, pushing me along in the form of a tailwind. Sure enough -- about 20 minutes later it was all I could do to crank out 12 mph.
It must have been about 8 p.m. when I decided I'd better head home regardless of the number of miles I was going to make. At this point I was more concerned that getting lost was going to shave miles off the trip and that I'd come in at something under 50 miles. I'd probably cranked out 30 miles by this time.
And I was sort of lost. Not oh-my-god-perish-in-the-heartland lost. Just off course. I was wearing a GPS and I think, there is a function that will help me get home in there.
And I knew to keep the sun at my back. This was part of a larger plan -- with the sun at my back on the way home, traffic coming up behind me will not be blinded by the light -- or cut loose like a deuce -- and would be less likely to hit me.
And really, I wasn't all that far from home.
Just below the u in Mechanicsburg you'll see a spur that seems to go nowhere. There's a smaller spur off that -- a route I almost took before deciding to undo some pedaling and backtrack. You men will understand just how hard it is to backtrack -- it is always more exciting to plunge forward into the great unknown than it is to go back and undo something.
The urge to explore the great unknown is easier to control on a bike.
If you were so bored that you took a look at the Google Map, chose GMAP, and you zoomed in on the southern-most leg of my trip (the straight line) and followed it along, you will actually see the blip in my path where I stopped my bike, spoke with a local guy and refilled my water bottle from his hose (the GPS is on my wrist ... not mounted to the bike.) The whole thing is pretty cool, really. The guy told me that Rt. 38 was just up the road -- I was going the right way.
I should probably mention that the first thing I did yesterday was go to the gym. Yesterday was an upper-body day. I worked my chest, shoulders, back and triceps. A lot of those muscles are the same muscles used in keeping a person upright on a bike. A smart person would give his body more than 8 hours to recover before heading out on a 50-mile ride.
At 35 miles my shoulders were killing me as was my neck. My quads were also burning and I was disappointed to discover they burned more when I coasted than when I was pedaling.
It was getting dark when I hit the bike trail -- a signal that I had a mere 6.5 miles left. Per the bike computer I was going to make the 50 miles. I was tired enough that you couldn't have paid me to try for another one mile, let alone five.
When it was over, my bike computer had me at just over 50 miles. My GPS at just a hair under -- something I hadn't noticed until I was sitting in my big green plastic lawn chair, basking in the cool evening air, with no intention of moving.
Posted by delmer at 11:45 AM | Comments (2)
June 17, 2006
The long and winding roads
Good gosh. Talk about a long way to go for just a little bit of return. This has taken hours. And by hours, I mean four. Fortunately I was too beat to do anything else but sit, read, and tweak.
Anyway.
If you are using Firefox you will notice a map with a highlighted course.
If you are using Internet Explorer, you'll see the map, but no course. You'll notice that the map bleeds over the Search box and that you have two bonus boxes generally screwing things up.
If you're using a Mac, you see the map, the course, and you have an incredible feeling of inner peace. Really, I don't know if you see the map at all.
Everybody gets some extra white space under the title.
A lager version of the map is here.
I won't go into great detail about the problems I had. Most of the problems were caused by my unfamiliarity with the process. A couple of the solutions were of the I've already tried that and it didn't work ... what the hell, I'll try it again ... well whatta ya know variety. I hate those. I like to know exactly what boneheaded mistake it was I made that I then fixed.
I can tell I'm going to start to drone on ... so I'll stop.
Below is the map of the bike ride I took today. At first glance it doesn't look like 50 miles. And when you check the GPS, it isn't 50 miles -- it's 49.16. The bike computer (and I have two hooked up ... one is also the Heart Rate Monitor) shows over 50 miles.
I'm counting it as 50. It hurt a little bit.
Posted by delmer at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2006
Bicycle Shorts
The other day I ordered a couple pair of biking shorts from an on-line retailer.
I'm not really one of your lycra-wearing types and opted to get a pair of Liquigell Baggie Shorts. They're supposed to look more like the regular gym shorts I wear. (I also ordered a pair of the standard lycra jobs you see the bicycle geeks wearing -- I thought I'd do a comfort comparison.)
Why get shorts at all? It's not like I'm Lance Armstrong. As I approach two hours on my bike my butt aches like nothing else and it really detracts from the thrill of riding. Also, at the end of my last ride I had some chaffing.
I went to the retailer's web site and placed my order. I received the prompt asking if I were a new or returning customer. I was a new customer.
I filled out all the new-customer stuff and clicked next. My order was placed.
As soon as I saw the order placed prompt I knew I'd misordered. I was certain the baggy shorts were the incorrect size. They were. I needed a large and I'd ordered a small; I suspect that will affect the bagginess somewhat.
I immediately called the retailer (and noticed they were an Ohio company ... I should have probably checked their location before I chose to have the product delivered next-day air ... ah well, it was just a few dollars more). The customer service rep said the order hadn't made it into the system yet and that she wasn't able to do anything about it until it did. She suggested I call back in an hour.
After we were done talking I reread my confirmation e-mail. There was a line in there about sending an e-mail to customer service should I have a problem with the order. As I had a problem, I sent an e-mail.
An hour later I also made a call. The order had made it into the system ... and had been processed.
Kudos, I guess, for the quick processing speed.
It looks like I'll have to return a pair shorts. And start my bicycle-short-experience as a lycra-clad weenie.
Posted by delmer at 7:01 AM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2006
From the Valley
Our ERP package (the software we use to run the company) uses Oracle 8 tables to store data.
We use several tools to slice and dice the data -- though we've never been able to get the julienne fries attachment to work -- so we're able to create output in and eyeball- an brain-friendly format.
One of the tools we use is Microsoft Access.
We have hundreds of databases using Access as the front end. When these were created, everyone in the building had the Oracle 8.0.something ODBC driver installed. And everything worked well for a good long time. (I want to say it was 8.0.1).
Years would pass, the amount of data we had to sort through grew, Bush would take a holiday in Iraq, decide his friends at Haliburton could use come cash, invade, and we started getting ODBC errors. The errors were related to queries running too long and timing out; the Iraq thing may have been coincidence.
The solution was to install the Oracle 8.1.7 ODBC driver. I know what you're thinking. How could Bush be such a continual f*ck up? I don't know.
Or ... 8.1.7 is only 0.1.6 newer than 8.0.1 -- how could it make such a difference? Well, there's a checkbox that comes with this driver that says: Enable Query Timeout. Just uncheck it.
And that works some of the time. Other times you also have to edit the registry and tweak one of the query settings for Microsoft Access. I don't know why this isn't necessary all of the time.
Oh! And a single OH doesn't begin to provide enough exclamation for this ... it really needs something like, Oh! oh! oh!.
Oh! Oh! Oh! You might think that installing the new ODBC driver/ Oracle client would be as easy as starting the install and choosing the Uninstall option. This option will find the old files, go through a song-and-dance routine, and assure you everything has been removed that needs removed. AND when you go to install the new version things look good ... progress bars move from left to right showing progress ... there's another song and dance (some soft-shoe, this time, if I'm not mistaken) ... and a big finish.
And then, of course, it doesn't work.
To make it work you have to go through the registry and remove the remnants of the stuff that the uninstaller missed. Do this before running the new install. It may be that you can run the uninstaller and then Microsoft's Registry Cleaner to put things right -- I've only tried this once.
So now you've got the new Oracle driver installed and working.
You run many, many, many Access reports without any sort of problem. In the back of your mind a tidbit of knowledge is floating around reminding you that once in a while the new driver causes a report that ran well with the old driver to not run at all.
To summarize/clarify:
- The first driver ran all the reports. As the data grew, we started getting timeout errors and some reports quit working.
- The new driver does not bomb with query timeouts ... but some of the queries started kicking out ODBC errors involving oddball outer-join errors.
Recently, month-end rolled around and all of the accountants were in as was the CEO. The CEO called me at home, apologized for bothering me, and said he was receiving an ODBC error. I thought it was the timeout error and was a bit embarrassed as I'd sat in his office and fixed it for him just the month before -- nothing screams incompetent IT guy like screwing up the month-end and the CEO's ability to generate reports.
Fortunately, our CEO is a pretty nice guy.
On Monday he demonstrated the ODBC error. It kicked out too quickly to be a timeout issue.
I looked at the database and then the query in the privacy of my own office. A sort in a make-table query was causing the ODBC error. This shouldn't happen. Fixing it was as simple as removing the sort -- but then our data was stored out of order in a table ... a table that will probably never be looked at (it's there just in case), but out of order nonetheless.
Fixing it after the query was run would add two steps for people higher up the food chain than I.
I eventually added a search-criteria string to the portion of the query that did the sorting. The string converted a text value to a numeric value. A sort without the string caused the query to bomb. The same query, with the same sort, and the addition of the unneeded-otherwise search criteria and we have smooth sailing.
Things should be okay so long as none of our product codes begin with negative numbers.
Things like this should not happen.
Posted by delmer at 8:40 AM | Comments (2)
June 14, 2006
Legguffin My Eggmcmuffin
Yesterday I had breakfast at McDonald's -- the usual -- Egg McMuffin, Fruit & Yogurt Parfait, and a Super Size Diet Coke. I took my tray to my favorite seat and set it on the table. I scooted into the chair, reached for my Diet Pepsi, and noticed my fly was open. And not just a bit ... all the way down.
I took a quick inventory to see what might be sticking out. I was worried mostly about the tail of my shirt (a pink one as it happens -- very much like the one Abe Vigoda gave me) more than I was the tools; based on the fact I'd felt no zipper abrasion, I was sure they were tucked away safely. (Hmmm ... with the fly down they're be no zipper abrasion. That's something to think about in the future. There might be some cutting.)
While we're on the topic, if you haven't read Jack and the Zipper, it makes for a nice diversion.
Today I went back to McDonald's and had the usual. As I paid I said to the gal taking my money -- the gal I see almost every morning -- "If you ever notice my barn door open, don't be afraid to say anything."
And she turned beet red. "I didn't know what to say. I asked Margaret if she'd noticed and she said that isn't where she looks. I don't look there, but it was wide open ..."
I guess we were all lucky it wasn't Friday.
Posted by delmer at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2006
Do you have a one-piece?
Granny gave Jack some birthday money. Jack would like to use it to buy a Game Cube game called One Piece something.
I had hoped it was a game involving Swim Suit Models and that maybe Jack would let me borrow it when he was at his mother's.
The game, as it happens, is called ... One Piece: Grand Battle. (Which does not necessarily mean that it isn't about swimsuit models, I guess. Seeing them battle might be interesting.)
Sunday evening we went to Target only to find they didn't have it. We then went to EB games to find them closed. Meijer didn't have it either.
I told Jack we'd go by EB Games Monday evening.
Monday I decided to surprise Jack and pick the game up at lunch. I made the trek to EB Games and applied a keen eye to the shelves -- there was no One Piece.
I asked the guy behind the counter if he was familiar with the game. He said he was, he knew they were out, and he knew the game had been discontinued.
I asked if he'd write, on the back of it, "I am out of One Piece. I don't think Wal-Mart has it either." He did.
On the way back to work I stopped by the house to visit with Jack. I showed him the note and explained that a new One Piece: Pirates something was going to be released in September. Jack asked if we could continue the search after work ... well, he asked if we could do it immediately and I told him I had to go back to work.
After work Jack asked about the game again. I told him it looked like we'd exhausted most of our resources and asked if I didn't at least get partial credit for looking for the game at lunch. Jack told me I did get credit for the lunchtime journey and then continued to politely suggest his need had not yet been met.
I looked over at my dad and asked, "Dad. When I was Jack's age how many times did you run me all over the city looking for Game Cube games?"
"Never," replied Big D.
"That's because the wheel hadn't been invented yet and it was too hard to go anywhere," chimed in my oldest.
As it happens, we did have the wheel when I was Jack's age. Fire was well known. And I'm pretty sure we'd gotten our first color TV by then.
Today at lunch I went for a haircut. Next to my barber's is a non-chain video store. While they didn't have a One Piece: Grand Battle, I got a line on one there: EB Games. The same EB Games I'd been in yesterday. When I told the line-giver that I'd been to EB Games yesterday and they'd been out she told me (and this was a customer) that she'd just left and they had one now.
I drove over. They did have a One Piece: Grand Adventure ... for the PS2. (The line-giver at one time had an awareness that I was looking for a GC game, as she'd repeated it to me. However, in a man-like fashion she slipped up somewhere between forming a thought and expressing it verbally.)
I eventually placed an order with Amazon. They have it all. All the time.
Posted by delmer at 8:34 AM | Comments (2)
June 12, 2006
Heart Rate Monitor
Saturday I set about looking for a heart rate monitor. Polar is the popular brand and they typically get good reviews.
I usually start a search like this by finding a product I like and then researching the hell out of it for such a long period of time that when I finally make a buying decision the model I want is no longer available. This is the course I seem to be taking with the HRM. Sometimes it's a money saver.
There is some debate, in Usenet, over the need for HRMs. Some think it helps their training ... others think they are useless for any except the elite athletes.
Me. I would like to know my heart rate when I'm out on my bicycle. I also like to keep both of my hands on the handlebars as much as possible which makes putting the fingers to the throat a bit tricky.
I've considered taking up serious, late-night, drinking as a way to help monitor my pulse. There were times when I was younger that I would have such a hangover that every beat of my heart would send a blinding pain shooting through my eyes. I'm not sure this is how I want to train now that I'm older and I'm not convinced I'd be able to balance on my bike if I have too many cobwebs filling the corners of my noggin.
I'm also pretty sure that the cost of the alcohol would soon surpass the cost of the HRM. I'm nothing is not frugal.
I thought maybe I'd pick up a used HRM and shot over to Craigslist.
The first item under Exercise Equipment was a bunch of dumbbells and Olympic weights. The guy wanted several hundred dollars for the set -- which was a good deal considering all that was there.
I have an interest in keeping my kids healthy and want them to grow up with exercise as part of their lives. I don't want working out to be that thing they dread ... I want it to be that thing they do on a regular basis just because ... well, it's that time of day -- or that day of the week ... whatever the activity is.
Sunday I gave the guy a call and the boys and I ended up making the ten-mile trip. We ended up buying the weights -- and a skate board -- and then making two more trips (three total) in order to get them and the associated benches and miscellaneous bits home.
Posted by delmer at 7:21 AM | Comments (3)
June 11, 2006
Wellsopolis
My post about Bubba Wells has kept me wondering why it is that I run into so very few other people named Wells. Aside from Wellses I'm related to, I don't really happen across all that many.
What makes it weirder is that it isn't all that uncommon for me to hear of a city, town, village, burg, or crossroads named Wellston, Wellsville, Wellsopolis, or just plain old Wells. There must have been some Wellses in the past founding places. The alternative is, of course, there were just one or two really cool Wells people out there who were so loved and admired that other people felt compelled to name places for them.
Wellston, Michigan
Wellston, Ohio -- Named for Harvey Wells.
Wellston, Georgia is now called Warner Robbins
Wellston, Missouri
Wellsville, New York
Wellsville, Kansas
Wellsville, Utah. Right next to Wellsville Mountain.
Wellsville, Kansas
Wellsburg, West Virginia
Wellsburg, New York
Wellsburg, Iowa
Wellsburg, New York
Wells Somerset, UK. This place takes its name from the three fresh water springs in the ground of the Bishop's Palace.
Wells, British Columbia, in Canada. Eh.
Wells, Maine
I've driven through Wellssomething New Hampshire. It was very small and most of the mailboxes lining the road had Wells on the side of them
Steubenivlle, Ohio (birthplace of Dean Martin) and Canton, Ohio (Marilyn Manson's hometown) were both founded by Bazaleel Wells. I've got a feeling Bazaleel might be from the same branch of the family tree that I climb around on ... it makes sense ... Clyde, Delmer, Orby, Corby (these last two being twins) Orlone Ree, Bazaleel ... it fits.
Harvey, mentioned above, could go either way.
As for Wellsopolis ... I sort of made that up.
Posted by delmer at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2006
Win an Aunt Jane's Pickle Mobile
Just this week someone named George left a comment on the Aunt Jane's Pickle Mobile post.
"Win an Aunt Jane's pickle, pickle mobile, win an Aunt Jane's pickle mobile..."
For some reason that jingle started playing in my head today so I Googled it.
Thanks for the pics.
This comment cleared up, for me, something about the AJPM.
All these years I've been singing, "Get an Aunt Jane's pickle, pickle mobile"
Win makes more sense. It explains why you never happen across one. Before Shawn sent pictures of one -- one that his wife won, I'd never seen one except for the one in the commercial way way back.
Over the years I've had an awareness that the AJPM was available for a short period of time. I'd thought that maybe they weren't that popular and had not been sold for too awfully long. If they were prizes, that would explain the short window of availability.
Also why they're so rare.
Now, for all I know, the AJPM has been on sale in every Wal-Mart, Kroger, Pep Boys, and McDonald's for the past 40 years, and I've just been overlooking them. But I don't think so.
I like the idea that they were promotional prizes. It adds a little bit of tidiness to that memory.
Having said that, my mail carrier will probably drive up in a brand-new one tomorrow.
Posted by delmer at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
June 9, 2006
Abe Vigoda
So there I was, sitting in the stands at some indoor event. Two of my buddies were with me, one was Joe. I was sitting between the two.
Down on the floor I noticed Abe Vigoda, which was sort of reassuring as he's one of those people I sometimes wonder about in an I can't remember if he's dead or alive sort of way. 
Abe was handing out shirts -- he seemed to be working for the company putting the event on.
He had a pink shirt in his had. I could tell it was a short-sleeved pink shirt just like one I used to have. I thought to myself, a less-secure man would have called it coral.
I knew Abe was going to give me the shirt. I just knew it. And sure enough, he walked toward me, reached over some seats and handed me the shirt -- it was still folded.
And then I woke up.
Was Abe Vigoda still alive? I wondered. (Yes he is.)
I started humming My Sharona as I lay in bed ... substituting Abe Vigoda for the My Sharona part. Just the beginning musical part ... none of the further-into-the-song lyrics. Nothing like:
Come a little closer huh, uh will you huh? Close enough to look in my eyes, Vigoda!
I was in a pseudo dream state -- not nightmare state.
This became Hava Nagila. I'm pretty sure I saw Abe sing it in Joe and the Volcano.
Shortly thereafter Scott Ian, of Anthtrax, was banging away on the drums. He had a group of guys with him and they were doing the beginning of Foghat's I Just Wanna Make Love to You.
I woke up fully just before the vocals started.
Now, for the analysis:
Abe Vigoda: Miller Lite is running a series of The Thinking Man's Beer commercials. Burt Reynolds is in one, Eddie Griffin is in another -- hell, they may be in the same one. At least one of the commercials ends with an older guy nodding his head yes. The first couple of time's I saw the commercial I'd wondered if the old guy was Abe Vigoda.
Pink Shirt: The pink shirt in the dream is like one I used to have.
Scott Ian: I see him all the time on VH1. Haydn, my 12-year old, mentioned him the other day by name.
Foghat: I've been hearing a lot of Foghat lately. One the radio and, of course, on my MP3 player.
No more cottage cheese before bedtime.
Posted by delmer at 6:58 AM | Comments (0)
June 8, 2006
A walk down memory lane
My phone woke me up this morning. Again, it was the you've got a message waiting beeps that did the waking. And, again, it was all a dream. There was no phone message so there was no beeping -- there was no indication I'd received a call.
I thought I'd go to work anyway. I got there right about 7 a.m.
As I entered the building one of my coworkers commented that she was just about to call me. One of her computers was down -- it was the test rig that we use to run diagnostics on one of the products we make ... without this PC one of our products does not get produced.
The PC was in the production area and while booting it made a sickly sound that had a grinding tone to it. In my office, without all the noises of production in the way, it sounded more like a weak beep. The weak beep was followed by the sound of the hard drive spinning up and I was pretty sure I could hear it reading .... things were not as bad as they'd seemed.
The test rigs all run a particular form of diagnostic software that was written by one of our engineers in an old form of BASIC. The PCs all run Windows 3.1; we know the diagnostic software will run on Windows 3.1 ... we don't know what the newer flavors might do to the program. The computers all have a special, expensive IEEE cards in them that require an ISA slot -- so they're not exactly state-of-the art boxes.
A couple of years ago I took all the test rigs and created duplicates of each. Sitting behind me, right now, is a stack of six, well five now, computers that can be put into service by simply moving the IEEE card from the dead PC to the new one. We're talking minutes people.
I mentioned to the department supervisor what my plan was. He was happy to hear that things would be up and running in fairly short order. I felt good about being able to be a helper ... and all before 7:30 a.m.
"So, you're just going to move the IEEE card and hard drive from the old PC to the new one?" he asked.
"I don't even need to move the drive. I duplicated this system a while ago," I said.
This is when the super pointed out that of all the test rigs, this was the only one that changed periodically. We could certainly, manually, load the changes if we had to, but moving the drive would be quicker.
I told the super I'd make a backup of the drive before I put everything together.
I am going to try real hard to never again complain about the state of technology today. We are so far beyond where we were just a few, short years ago.
Maybe it was more than just a few short years; we're talking about a 386sx-16.
How are things better?
There was only one IDE controller in the old PC, so I couldn't simply plug the second hard drive into the secondary controller and start a copy.
The IDE cable had a single connector and it needed replaced if I was going to add a slave drive -- which meant I had to remove two backplanes and the RAM.
The BIOS didn't recognize the second drive when I installed it. I didn't expect it to.
The hard drives do not have the markings for cable select, master and slave.
There was no keyboard access to the system BIOS. I had to locate and download the setup disk. (Which was really pretty easy, given that it could have been a totally impossible bitch-of-a-task to try to complete.) To enter the BIOS I had to boot with a DOS disk and then run the BIOS setup from the files I downloaded.
As I was trying to setup the Master/Slave combination I ran into this: Rather than just plug the drive I needed into the computer and start a copy, I thought I'd plug a couple of non-critical-to-the-process drives in just to make sure I didn't destroy anything I needed. I had several one-gig drives laying around and even a 750 meg job. The BIOS gagged anytime I tried to enter a Cylinders value greater than 1024! I didn't have a drive small enough to make this work.
The only small drives I had were the mission-critical one and the one from the replacement box -- I couldn't easily figure out how to master/slave these guys. (By the way, the mission-critical drive is a Conner. I'd forgotten they'd made drives.)
I put it all together and booted the new box. Windows came up and was unhappy with the video driver -- and why not -- the card in the old box was a Cirrus card and the replacement PC used an integrated card with a different chipset.
How the hell were Windows 3.1 drivers changed???? On a whim -- or maybe something on a subconscious level jumped to the conscious -- I typed setup and was greeted with the big, blue, and by-today's-standards primitive, Setup Screen. I chose the generic SVGA driver and rebooted.
All was well. Or well enough anyway. There are two dialog boxes on one of the test screens that are out of place. I'll tweak the video setting after our production department goes home.
Posted by delmer at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 7, 2006
Nextel and Crappy Voice-Message Service
I stepped out of McDonald's this morning at 9 a.m. I'd gone in for the usual Egg McMuffin, Fruit & Yogurt Parfait and Super Size Diet Coke.
When I entered the van my cell phone was signalling that I had new messages.
I played them. Keep in mind that this was Wednesday June 7 at 9 a.m.
The message voice said something similar to:
You have three new messages. First message ... Sunday ... June 4 ... 1:30 p.m.
And then, of course, the message.
This is not the first time this has happened. As a matter of fact, I'd say it happens if not all the time, too freakin' much.
This message came to me three days late. What if the content of the message was:
Delmer. Bob and I are here with three Hooters girls. They're full of green M&Ms and the blond one keeps asking for someone who's holding up pretty well for being a 45-year old. Natuarlly, we thought of you.
As you know, green M&Ms are potent -- but I'm pretty sure even they wear off after three days.
As it happens it was a call from a guy at work. On a Sunday. He called back later that day and I'd answered that call ... so all is well.
He wasn't calling about Hooters girls -- he had some furniture he wanted to me to help him move.
Posted by delmer at 7:46 AM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2006
I am still not the smartest man you will ever meet
(This is a continuation of an entry that has yesterday's date ... both entries were thrown together one after the other. The first was finished as I started a hot cup of protein drink ... the second, this one, was started as I finished the hot cup of protein drink. You probably should read yesterday's entry first)
I arrived at work around 6:04 a.m. Full of spunk. A song in my heart. A spring in my step. I'd round this all out with a hard drive in my hand and a screwdriver in my pocket and then head to the AP Clerk's computer.
My plan was to replace her older, slower hard drive with something newer that had a faster transfer rate. Setup would take about 10 minutes and then I'd be able to address the CEO's ODBC problem while files transfered from the old drive to the new drive.
I removed the case, disconnected the CD-ROM drive and plugged the new drive into that IDE connector. I booted and received a CD Drive not found error. No shit! I'd disconnected it. I'd done this a thousand times before and never run into this error message. Maybe I'd missed something. I rebooted and got the same message. The Press F1 to Continue was useless as pressing F1 did nothing aside from burn .00001 calories.
I eventually reinstalled the CD-ROM drive and set the new hard drive as a slave on the primary controller.
I rebooted and got to the message advising me that system settings had changed did I want to (S)ave, or (I)gnore them. This message is provided by our antivirus package -- since I knew why the settings had changed I opted to save them. I pressed S.
There was no keyboard response.
Ah yea. This happens more than you would think. And yet, not all the time despite the fact that 90% of the motherboards in the building are the same. At some point during the boot process the keyboard becomes disabled. I'll have keyboard capability at the point I need to hit DEL to enter the BIOS and then when Windows is running. At the point I need to answer the system settings query, however, the keyboard is nonresponsive.
This can be fixed by tweaking the BIOS. In the past I've tried shutting things off one or two at a time only to eventually give up and just disable a whole boatload of BIOS crap. Today I thought I'd be a little more scientific and make notes of my progress so in the future I could go to exactly what I needed. For more than an hour I tweaked the BIOS and rebooted. Nothing worked.
Finally I thought maybe I had a hardware problem of some kind and decided to swap out video cards. I replaced the PCI card with an AGP card and hit the power button. The sound the PC emitted suggested that something bad had happened. The smell that presented itself a fraction of a second later backed this up to a degree. The lack of any type of lights flashing or fans spinning was the icing on the cake.
I started unplugging things -- it was time to head back to my office with this box. And this is when I noticed something ... the part of the process that points to my profound stupidity ... as I unplugged the keyboard I noticed the USB end.
The non-responsive-keyboard problem had never been corrected when the keyboard in question is a USB keyboard. I knew this. I also knew this PC had a PS2 connection as it also had an extension due to the distance between the CPU and keyboard. I'd set it up a good long while ago.
Unfortunately, about a month ago I'd replaced that keyboard with a USB keyboard. It would seem my long-term memory has it all over my short-term memory.
The item that had fried was the power supply. It may have been coincidence that it cooked after I plugged the AGP card in. During a couple of the reboots I'd noticed the fans spinning a couple of revolutions only to stop. Each time as I'd formed the do I have a short somewhere question in my mind the PC would crank up. It seemed odd, but not odd enough.
I guess it was odd-aplenty.
Everything is working now. All is well.
Posted by delmer at 10:47 AM | Comments (1)
June 5, 2006
I am not the smartest man you will ever meet
(This post has been sent back in time to Monday -- June 5, 2006. But really, everything that happened here happened on Tuesday June 6. This just became terribly long and, well, I broke it across two days ... that will both be posted on the 6th ... sometimes I'm a slug.)
And while I'm not the smartest man, there are days when the I am brilliant. Days when I can do no wrong. Days when I am just a half step away from being Superman.
Today was not one of those days.
I awoke early with a full bladder. A quick trip to the bathroom took care of this problem while a glance at the surrounding tile and porcelain surfaces indicated my aim had been dead on. As I'd spent a portion of Sunday cleaning the bathrooms, this was good. A promising start to any day.
It was just after 5 a.m. and, while I can stroll into work any time before 9 and not feel like I'm late, I thought I'd go in early and get some things done that would make the lives of my coworkers better.
Specifically, the CEO is getting an ODBC error that I thought I'd work on and our AP Clerk is suffering from sluggish-PC syndrome.
I showered and shaved (no nicks or cuts ... another promising sign) then dressed. I was out the door and on my way to McDonald's by 5:30 a.m.
A new woman waited on me at Micky D's. She was unaware that I get the same thing each and every day so I had to say, "One egg McMuffin, a fruit and yogurt parfait and a really big diet Pepsi ... er Coke."
Ordering the largest drinks possible from restaurants sometimes presents problems. I always want the biggest one they have. Sometimes it's a Super Size. Sometimes it's a Biggie, sometimes its an Extra Large. Sometimes it's a Large.
Prior to this morning I'd say "Super Size." Today I just said "the biggest" and then I felt foolish for not knowing what the drink size was called and I looked at the menu. It said "Large."
On some level I was aware that Micky D's had once had Super Size drinks. I also know our McDonald's did away with them for a while back when goofballs were suing McDonald's for making them fat and that ding-a-ling Spurlock was creating pseudo-documentaries about eating there. (Folks ... I eat at McDonald's several times a week. Sometimes seven days a week. I've dropped 135 pounds)
Anyway, Super Size drinks had returned a while ago -- but I was never really sure they were officially called Super Size.
I continued my thought, "I guess that's Large."
The gal pushed some buttons and I saw the price come up -- $4.44 or thereabouts. I normally pay $5.06 and, while I didn't think tax was 62 cents, I said, "Oh. That's for here." She pushed another button, I scanned my card, she grabbed what used to be the Super Size cup and headed toward the drink machine. The new price, I noticed, was still well under $5.06.
"I've made a mistake," I said, "it looks like I ordered wrong."
One of the women who waits on me daily stepped over and said, "He wants a Super Size."
So. While it is not on the menu, my McDonald's does have Super Size drinks and they are called Super Size. Which is how I've been ordering them all along. Today, I tried to play by the menu and goofed up.
I got the Super Size for the price of a Large. Guilt would keep me from going back for a free refill.
As I cleared my table I was thinking ahead to the stuff I was going to get done at work. It was going to be a spectacular day ... I was sure.
As I left I smashed my finger between the swinging trash receptacle lid and the plastic grommet mounted to the side that is there to keep a person from smashing his finger between the swinging lid and the trash bin opening.
That should have been the first clue that today may not be as spectacular as I hoped it would be.
(This is where this part ends. To celebrate having typed this much I decided to reward myself with a cup of oatmeal and a little bit of protein drink. I eat like this not because I'm a health nut, but because it is convenient. I fill two cups with water -- one from the cold-water faucet the other from the coffee machines hot-water spigot -- and then scoop protein powder into the cold water and old fashioned oats into the hot water. Just this second I dumped the protein into the hot cup. You know that's going to taste swell.)
Posted by delmer at 7:06 AM | Comments (0)
June 4, 2006
Train in Vain
My friend Steve, from Whatiz, snapped the photo appearing in this entry. I think it's kind of cool and thought I'd share it.
I decided to head out today and try to put 30 miles on the Schwinn -- a feat I have not attempted since the 50-plus (just barely plus) miles I put on the bike about 17 years ago.
How do I know it was 17 years ago? I would eventually call for a support vehicle to come get me. My sister volunteered to be the support person and in the process of heading out locked my niece, then almost one, in the car in her child seat. My sister called the police for assistance ... yada yada yada ... my niece is now almost 18.
(On the chance that my niece was almost two when this happened, well, it would have been 16 years ago. In any case I was in my 20's then.)
I shot down the Heritage Trails bike path just before 7 p.m.
Six point five miles later I was at the end of the bike path and on country roads. It was sunny, not too hot, the wind was acceptable, nobody tried to run me off the road.
Fifteen miles out I turned around and headed back home. It was really rather uneventful.
I had my bike computer and GPS unit with me. It looks like my bike computer has the wrong tire size entered as it consistently thinks I'm going about .4 mph faster than my GPS. The old bike computer and GPS were pretty much dead-on in sync; which I thought was pretty amazing.
I averaged just over 16.5 mph (most likely 16.1 mph) for the trip and was out about two hours.
I made one wrong turn on the way home. It could have been worse -- at one point I came to a crossroad marked "Chappel-Smith" and remembered that while that didn't sound exactly right I knew I'd been on "Chappel-something" so that must be it. As I started the turn I saw the sign for the road I was currently on "Chappel-Jones," which sounded more right. Of course, Smith and Jones are not part of the actual names which means I'll have to pay closer attention next time.
Another time I was debating making a right turn when I noticed the concrete corner post for the farm fence I was nearing was marked with a big M -- which led me to believe it was part of the May Flag Farm (est 1880 ... maybe 1818 -- I'll check if I'm out that way again). It may have been the May Fair Farm.
It may have been a Super Wal-Mart ... my attention to detail isn't always the best when I'm on my bike. I wish I could say it's because I get in The Zone, but really, I just don't pay attention to what's going on around me.
At least I'm not pretending to run the country.
Posted by delmer at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
June 3, 2006
Bubba Wells
On this page there are two samples of the same portion of the same photo
When I downloaded the picture from my camera I had one of those what the hell is this moments. The picture was mostly dark and I, initially, couldn't make much of anything out. I ran it through Picasa and chose I'm Feeling Lucky which cleared things up fairly well. I added a bit more brightness and, well, you see the results.
I know. Even in the first picture you can see the flag and the ball. In the non-cropped version of the photo there's enough black that the what the hell is this moment is justified.
Anyway.
Charles "Bubba" Wells played basketball for Austin Peay University and was apparently number 13. It's rare that I run across a famous Wells -- there's H.G., Orson, David, and a Wells that is involved in a television show I watch on a regular basis -- but not many more come to mind; and including Orson is sort of a stretch.
I'm not sure if Charles is related or not. I asked Dad if he thought there were any Bubba's in the family tree. Dad and I both agreed that our tree is probably chock-full of Bubba's -- we're just not sure this Bubba is from the same branch.
Oh. Dawn Wells. From Gilligan's Island.
Posted by delmer at 9:04 PM | Comments (2)
June 2, 2006
Picnam for renaming image files
Recently, as you know, the boys and I went toward Nashville -- stopping just short of Elvis' birthplace and landing in Pleasantview, Tennessee. Well, maybe we were five hours and fifteen minutes north and east of Elvis' birthplace (Tupelo, Mississippi); just trying to keep you on your toes.
When I got home I was disappointed in the number of pictures I took. I have a digital camera -- it's not like I have to develop each and every shot. And if I do want to get prints of each shot it's not like I have to fill out a form and mail anything in OR even go to CVS, fill out a form, and wait a day. All I have to do is upload them to Snapfish, click a button here and there, and wait for the mail carrier.
I did take about 30 picutures. 
Probably the biggest thing I dislike about digital photos is that when they download they all have odd names like DCS00012.JPG. I know I can't expect the camera to apply realistic names to the photos -- SAMMO PLAYING SOCCER 1.JPG -- can you imagine the setup that would be required for something like that even if the technology existed? Well, and it was available in consumer products. I'm sure the NSA has it already ... DELMER EATING ICE CREAM NAKED WHILE TALKING TO SUSPECTED POTENTIAL TROUBLEMAKER.JPG.
You either need to live with the oddball names, rename them one-by-one or stock up on Pat Robertson's Age Defying and Digital-Picture-Name Memorizing Shake. (That's a Google link ... I'm not sending anyone straight to CBN.)
Stocking up on the shak