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GRAFFITI -- May 23, 2005 thru May 29, 2005 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable.     About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
May 23, 2005

0907 - Good morning. I was first at work today, a fact only mitigated by my careful preservation of the sanctity of my badge, at home on the dresser. Hmmm. The good news is that just minutes later, the next brave Monday AM soul turned up, and let me in. Thanks, Ted!

The weekend cleanup project went fairly well. The yard is getting lots of good rain, as we continue with a cool, rainy May, and temps well below normal. The garden is cautiously gaining ground. With less sun and warmth than last spring, it isn't taking off incredibly yet, but the season is young. Out front, the rain and lower temps are being kind to the young perennials I planted a couple of weeks ago, letting them get a good start.

On the computing front, nothing too interesting to report. Keeping up with offsite backups (at home and at work). I'm also mucking about with Firefox extensions -- the latest being infoRSS, with which I can put configured RSS feeds scrolling across in my Firefox status bar. That's accessible, but unobtrusive ... I like it. I also installed OpenBSD 3.7 on the home experibox for another go-round at mailserver testing for an eventual work project. That completed last night as well. I'll configure packages on it soonish.

With that, I'd best be about my business. Happy Monday, see you around.

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
May 24, 2005

1102 - Good morning. Not much to report. Yesterday was a Murphy-induced, SNAFU-filled fun-fest. I'd use more hyphenation, but then I'd have to strangle myself. I had system connectivity issues with error messages that lead down the wrong garden path, a lab AC failure that turned out to be a knife switch on the roof shut off without our knowledge or consent, and other, lesser evils floating about, all simultaneously. It made a long, hard day even worse that I'd forgotten my badge. So of course I needed to be in and out of secure areas all day without any real recourse besides borrowing other people to let me in and out, or propping doors open (not a bad short term choice when the AC is out. All is right with the world today, however. But the day is young and I need to get back to work. Ciao!

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
May 25, 2005

0657 - Good morning. Last night was a reading night. I caught up on lots of stacked up material. A brief selection... MIT's Technology Review has been hanging around for 6 months now, it was the bottom of the stack. The editorial was flammage about electronic voting - no stand taken. A decent article on battlefield sensor networks and problems there-with in keeping front-line units situationally aware during battle. Lots of hot buzz about Eric Drexler's favorite topic, and Bill Joy's greatest fear: Nanotech. There's also an interesting article on magnetoencephalography.

The IEEE's Computer publication from December had an interesting cover story on "Roomware", cooperative buildings, but really about ubiquitous computing. I'm somehow unsurprised that nowhere does the article give credit to Mark Weiser, the late "chief technology officer at XEROX PARC, and father of what he coined ubiquitous computing". IEEE publications scan well, but on deeper inspection, they feel a whole lot like marketing material written by engineers. I contrast this sort of work with the one true science, Physics, where there is conscious and continuous awareness that there are always those shoulders upon which one stands to see as far as we can.

January's MIT reading had Google at it's core - the coming "war" with Microsoft. Hmmm. So I continued on to the Ballard Designs catalog. My, they have some nice stuff for the home and home office. Pricey, but nice. I started flipping through journals, magazines, advertisers that made it past my first-glance filter and into the 18" high stack of stuff I thought I would read. Wasn't happening, I'd never catch up, not if I wanted to do other things as well. So I'm down to a couple of issues now of LJ, three or four Linux Magazines, several SysAdmin issues, a Scientific American and a National Geographic. Oh, and Volume 2 of O'Reilly's Make magazine (Thanks again, Pat!!!). This one features do-it-yourself R2 units. Hmmm, yeah, in my copious spare time, eh? Over the coming four day weekend, I'll take some relax-time out to wade through those magazines that remain, at leisure. Then I'll try to keep up, going forward. It's a little dream, but perhaps doable.

Back to the office with me. Yesterday afternoon was finally given over to review and some testing of the firewall rules. I've some more tweaking to do, and some web searching for the proper way to proxy FTP connections. Have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
May 26, 2005

0643 - Good morning, sort of. I'd forgotten how bloody dangerous Ice Cream can be. And I mean every word of that sentence. After we got home from the Anatomy of a Murder Mystery seminar down at the Smithsonian last night (this one featuring Katherine Neville) I watched the tail of Lost with Marcia. Then, up in my office, on the first bite of ice cream, I managed to bit a hunk of the bottom of my tongue, nearly the size of a centime, nearly out. Bled like crazy, too. The bright-coppery flavour didn't go well with coffee and fudge ice cream, but I managed somehow. It is somewhat swollen and quite painful this morning, too. Sigh. I may wuss out and come home early, as I didn't get much sleep last night. I guess I'd best be going for now, have a better day than I am, 'kay?

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
May 27, 2005

0803 - Good morning. Not much new to report. My tongue is better except when I brush the swollen bit with my teeth, so it hurts when I eat, but that's about it. Thanks for all the mocking email, just make sure you spell my name right on the epitaph. I got home yesterday mid-afternoon among reports that yesterday was likely the only non-raining day we'll have, as there are likely to be pop-up showers and such the rest of the weekend. So I mowed. This morning we're out to do something "fun", like go have breakfast and shopping at the Amish Village, up near Annapolis. Oh, and I got Marcia our anniversary present (7 years, this upcoming Monday)... we're going to see Riverdance at Wolf Trap in a week. Now I'd better get ready to go. Have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
May 28, 2005

0909 - Good morning. Gray morning, email server problems at work due to virus scanner update issues. I remotely reverted to prior version to hold us until Tuesday. Amish market yesterday was definitely not-lowcal. Grin. Now to go give the dogs breakfast. I think we're going to Annapolis today. Have a good 'un.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
May 29, 2005

1125 - Good morning. Wow. Sunday already. We went up to Annapolis and played tourist with the new Naval Academy graduates and their families, including a harbour tour and ice cream. It's okay, I used duct tape to protect my tongue from danger. Heh. A little sunburn and very pleasant, then we went out to On The Border for Mexican food. Yummerlischious.

We got an Epson R320 Photo printer a few weeks back. It makes glorious full size prints, even from snaps taken with the old retired 3 meg Olympus D450Z. I just finished framing out a couple of pictures - they came out very nicely. In a few minutes, I'll head back down to the workshop and make Marcia's corkboards. But it's Memorial Day weekend, and it's good to take note of the soldiers who've fallen in our Middle East entanglements...

• Sgt. Kurt D. Schamberg, 26, of Euclid, Ohio, died May 20, in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Sgt. Benjamin C. Morton, 24, of Wright, Kan., died May 22, in Mosul, Iraq, when his dismounted patrol encountered enemy small arms fire.
• Sgt. Kenneth J. Schall, 22, of Peoria, Ariz., died May 22, in Yusafiyah, Iraq, when the HMMWV in which he was riding was involved in an accident.
• Spc. Joshua T. Brazee, 25, of Sand Creek, Mich., died May 23, in Al Qaim, Iraq, from non-combat related injuries.
• Pfc. Steven C. Tucker, 19, of Grapevine, Texas, died May 21, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained near Shinkay, Afghanistan, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Sgt. Antwan L. Walker, 22, of Tampa, Fla., died May 18 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when his camp was attacked by enemy forces using indirect fire.
• Spc. Kyle M. Hemauer, 21, of Manassas, Va., died May 23 in Zabul, Afghanistan, of non-combat related injuries.
• 1st Lt. Aaron N. Seesan, 25, of Ohio died on May 22 in Mosul, Iraq, from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Spc. Tyler L. Creamean, 21, of Jacksonville, Ark. died on May 22 in Mosul, Iraq, from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Sgt. Brad A. Wentz, 21, of Gladwin, Mich., died May 20 on a main supply route in Iraq when his convoy came under attack by enemy forces.
• Sgt. Charles T. Wilkerson, 30, of Kansas City, Mo., died May 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an unknown ordnance detonated near his tent.
• Sgt. Christopher S. Perez, 30, of Hutchinson, Kan., died May 23 from wounds received as a result of an indirect fire attack while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Ramadi, Iraq.
• Sgt. John B. Ogburn III, 45, of Fruitland, Ore., died May 22, in Kirkuk, Iraq, when his HMMWV overturned after the driver avoided striking a civilian vehicle.
• Sgt. Carl J. Morgain, 40, of Butler, Pa., died May 22, in Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained in Kadasia, Iraq, when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Sgt. 1st Class Peter J. Hahn, 31, of Metairie, La., died May 24, in Baghdad, Iraq, when his observation point was engaged by enemy forces using small arms fire.
• Staff Sgt. Russell J. Verdugo, 34, of Phoenix, Ariz., died May 23, in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated as he was responding to a report of an improvised explosive device.
• Sgt. David N. Wimberg, 24, of Louisville, Ky., died May 25 from wounds received as a result of small-arms fire from enemy forces while conducting combat operations in Hadithah, Iraq.
• Sgt. First Class Randy D. Collins, 36, of Long Beach, Calif., died May 24 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., of injuries sustained in Mosul, Iraq, May 4 during a mortar attack.
• Spec. Bryan Edward Barron, 26, of Biloxi, Miss. died on May 23 in Haswa, Iraq, when his military vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.
• Spec. Audrey Daron Lunsford, 29, of Sardis, Miss. died on May 23 in Haswa, Iraq, when his military vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.
• Staff Sgt. Saburant Parker, 43, of Foxworth, Miss. died on May 23 in Haswa, Iraq, when his military vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.
• Sgt. Daniel Ryan Varnado, 23, of Saucier, Miss. died on May 23 in Haswa, Iraq, when his military vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

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