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GRAFFITI -- September 25, 2006 thru October 01, 2006 >> 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.

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September 25, 2006

1628 - Good afternoon. I've got stacks of pictures to go through and pick a few to post here. But clearly, I haven't done that yet. Marcia had to get back to work today, because it's end-of-quarter. I took the day "off", to get the assorted normal weekend chores done. So I got the oil changed in the Elantra, did the food shopping, and mowed the front and back yards. Before the day is out, I'll pay bills, sort through those photos, and get a set of them on few CDs for sending out. Look for snaps tomorrow.

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September 26, 2006

1038 - Good morning. Some highlights from the wedding. I'll backfill the commentary later...

[2006-09-27] One day later, I added the alt and title text for each image below, and put a bit of prose following each row of pictures.

The wedding was on the beach, North Island Naval Station, Coronado Island, San Diego. Most of the families and such stayed at the Naval Lodge nearby. Rachel and Aaron were married surrounded by friends and lots of family. No, I mean lots! Three of the Bride's Maids were Rachel's sisters. On of the Groom's Men was Joel, Aaron's brother. And of course Bill, Aaron's dad, performed the ceremony. One nice feature was the two sets of parents taking the mike and having a few nice things to say about the couple, as a part of the wedding ceremony.

Bill gave them a sheep's skin. Something allegorical there, but I sure hope the sheep was done with it! (Grin!) Some somber exchanging of rings, and the happy couple snogged for a bit before heading down the "aisle" between chairs set on the sand.

Following the Bride and Groom was the Wedding party. I managed to get decent snaps of four of the couples, seen above. The fifth was pointed badly, shadowed and hair blowing everywhere, so I'll spare you that. Then it was time for friends and family group photos.

As the parents had their picture taken with Aaron and Rachel, the Matrons of Honor rested under their parasols, awaiting respite from the heat. I didn't get many pictures of the reception, held nearby at the Island Club (there were three simultaneous receptions going on in the Club). Those I go were blurry and off, for some reason. But I did get a couple of decent shots of the mashing of the cake!

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September 27, 2006

0640 - Good morning. I've put a few words, alt-text and title in, to accompany yesterday's post. Oh, Microsoft apparently couldn't stand the heat in the kitchen - they've released an out-of-cycle patch for the IE VML vulnerability. If you run Windows and don't have automatic updates enabled, I'd take care of getting that patch installed. As they noted on the ISC site, if you've installed a mitigating third party patch, you'll want to undo that prior to applying the official patch.

An old friend, Bruce Koball, is doing some fun work recording the trains of New York for his friend Neil Young - Bruce is profiled in this article (soul-rending registration may be required) in the New York Times.

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September 28, 2006

0834 - Good morning. Today's a slow-start. I'm going to go help Linda Rose move some cabinets from truck to house over at her place in a couple of hours, then I'll proceed to work from there. In the meantime I'll just do my normal remote admin stuff from here, instead of from my desk.

O'Reilly's Safari service has a new feature, called Library. Instead of bookshelves, and needing to keep the books you've "checked out" for a month before swapping them out for new ... Library is the whole darn thing: 4000+ titles. The downside: $40/month introductory, really $50/month after the dust settles. You know, if I bought more than 10 O'Reilly titles a year, it would come pretty close to making sense. As it is, they've apparently discontinued the lowest-end bookshelf level (the one I'm on) - $10/month for five books at a time. So now there's only the 10-slot bookshelf, and Library. I've not gotten notice that I have to give up my current subscription level though. If that were the case, then either I'd drop my subscription, or get reimbursement for it.

Time for more coffee. Waking up appears to be an issue, today. It doesn't help that the book I'm reading, Altered Carbon, is coming to its climax. It was pretty hard to put down until nearly 1 AM, when I found that I'd lost the ability to focus both eyes simultaneously. Such is life. See y'all later!

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September 29, 2006

0926 - Hoooray! I do like Fridays. Yesterday, after a late start following some cabinet deliveries with Linda Rose, I ended up putting in a full day anyway, due to my support:Support role, one of several hats I wear. So, getting routing setup properly so that I could access all of the internal machines I needed from home, then researching to the best of my admittedly limited ability, and plunking out a couple of answers that in hindsight aren't nearly as good as the more complete ones that I generated this morning ... well, that's the price that's paid for working well into the evening. It's okay though, because Marcia was working until about 11 PM, too. End-of-Quarter, can you tell?

This article, A view from (under) the long tail is certainly one of the funniest sad Internet tales I've read in a long time. Now, back to work for me, and probably for you, too. Ciao!

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September 30, 2006

0954 - Good morning. We were watching something on the screen (no point in calling it "the tube", as it isn't, anymore) the other night, and a commercial aired for a company that will finance a computer for you. One of those "Call NOW for best deal" sorts of things. But this one had a website associated with it, so I thought ... let me go check this out, look at the terms and figure out how much they're screwing the consumer. So off I went to MyFAI.com. I'm not going to make that a link, no Google juice for them.

I drilled down into the "Deluxe Financed Laptop" option. It's a Dell, dude, of some type, for $46 per week, on a 12 month term. So that's $2392 for a Dell, before tax, shipping, etc. Yeah, that's possible. My own personal rule of thumb is that if I haven't spent two grand on a laptop, then corners were being cut in component quality and such that I would regret later. Anyway, I was able to get enough specs on the FAI site to take those to the Dell site and figure out which machine it was...

Urk! The "Deluxe Laptop" from FAI is a stock Dell B130, the lowest spec "home" laptop one can buy. After adding in a couple of common software items, and the 3 year in-home service warranty, to match what FAI was claiming to sell... well, the total on the Dell site is $887. So, for the privilege of buying a crap low-end Dell box from FAI, I get to pay them $1505 on top of the value of the computer itself ... in order to not have to pay out the lump sum all at once. Look, I can't recommend that. Seems to be beyond usury, and straight into the land of "How can we best take advantage of stupid people who have financial difficulties?" Anyone reading this page is unlikely to do business with these sorts of folks, but it's ALWAYS worth the effort to look at any deal that you're offered as critically as possible, and determine what's truly best. Paying $2400 dollars for a computer that lists for less than $900 can't count as best by any definition ... except for the people who rake in all that cash. Me, I couldn't bring myself to do that for a living.

Bear in mind, I can spend a crapload of moola at Dell, too. Can you imagine this: The very best "Home" laptop that Dell has on offer, the XPS M2010, with every thing maxed on it (but without lots of external geegaws), I was able to configure it up to $8164. Yes, over eight grand for a laptop. Even in its base configuration it was over $3700, and that didn't include MS Office, nor any service beyond the standard 1-year. Amazing. Do you remember just above, where I said that if I spent less than 2 grand on a laptop, I wasn't going to be happy with component quality, etc? Well, if I spend eight grand on a laptop, just shoot me. Don't worry, it's not gonna happen.

Marcia's off at the first day of her writing class, being taught by Noreen Wald. Then she's going to some sort of sewing show in Chantilly, where she can get all of her scissors sharpened. There goes her day. Now, I have several chores I'd like to take care of, so I'll be about that. Have a great day, and be careful out there!

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October 1, 2006

1301 - Good afternoon. Everybody slept late, so we've just gotten back from the weekly shopping expedition. I return to find that SANS/ISC has moved the Infocon to Yellow, in honor of the ascendance of the new-ish WebViewFolderIcon setslice exploit. There's no official patch, though there are unofficial patches, and mitigation actions documented by Microsoft. And at this particular moment in time, there's a known (but unverified) javascript vulnerability in Firefox. You might consider browsing with a text-mode tool, like lynx. Oh, yeah, or just work in Firefox with JavaScript disabled. Computers ... maybe we ought to go back to smoke signals.

Too much time on his hands, that's clearly the problem: Half Life 2 Rube Goldberg device. Clearly, having access to the design tools and game engine is lots of fun, for minds with a certain, um, twist.

And the battles in the Middle East go on. The troops fight, and some die. My heart goes out to the families, and to those who continue in harm's way on our behalf.

• Cpl. Cesar A. Granados, 21, of Le Grand, Calif., died of injuries sustained in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept.15, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Sgt. Allan R. Bevington, 22, of Beaver Falls, Pa., died of injuries suffered in Ar Ramadi, Iraq on Sept.21, when an improvised explosive device detonated near him during combat operations.
• 1st Lt. Ashley L. (Henderson) Huff, 23, of Belle Mead, N.J., died of injuries suffered in Mosul, Iraq, on Sept.19, when a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near her mounted patrol during combat operations.
• Cpl. Bobby T. Callahan, 22, of Jamestown, N.C., died on Sept.19, in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his HMMWV rolled over while maneuvering.
• Sgt. 1st Class Charles J. Jones, 29, of Lawrenceburg, Ky., died in Baghdad, Iraq, from a non-combat related incident on Sept. 20.
• Pvt. Eric M. Kavanagh, 20, of Glen Burnie, Md., died of injuries suffered in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 20, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Lance Cpl. Howard S. March Jr., 20, of Buffalo, N.Y., died Sept. 24 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Rene Martinez, 20, of Miami, Fla., died Sept. 24 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Cpl. Windell J. Simmons, 20, of Hopkinsville, Ky., died of injuries suffered in Taji, Iraq, on Sept.23, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Staff Sgt. Carlos Dominguez, 57, of Savannah, Ga., died of injuries suffered in Taji, Iraq, on Sept.23, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Sgt. Velton Locklear, III, 29, of Lacey, Wash., died in Riyadh, Iraq, on Sept. 23, of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Pfc. Kenneth E Kincaid, IV, 25, of Lilburn, Ga., died in Riyadh, Iraq, on Sept. 23, of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations.
• Pfc. Christopher T. Riviere, 21, of Cooper City, Fla., died Sept. 26 of wounds received while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Spc. Jared J. Raymond, 20, of Swampscott, Mass., died on Sept. 19, in Balad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his M1A2 Abrams Tank during combat operations in Taji, Iraq.
• Cpl. Casey L. Mellen, 21, of Huachuca City, Ariz., died on Sept. 25 in Balad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his mounted patrol came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire during combat operations in Mosul, Iraq.
• 1st Lt. James N. Lyons, 28, of Rochester, N.Y., died on Sept. 27 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his mounted patrol came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire during combat operations.
• Staff Sgt. Jose A. Lanzarin, 28, of Lubbock, Texas, was killed in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, on Sept. 26, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations
• Lance Cpl. James Chamroeun, 20, of Union City, Ga., died Sept. 28 of wounds received while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Staff Sgt. Edward C. Reynolds, Jr., 27, of Groves, Texas, died in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 26, of injuries suffered when his M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled over while maneuvering.
• Pfc. Henry Paul, 24, of Kolonia Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, died in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 26, of injuries suffered when his M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled over while maneuvering.
• Pfc. Christopher T. Blaney, 19, of Winter Park, Fla., died in Taji, Iraq, from a non-combat related incident on Sept. 29.

I find myself feeling less than chipper, for some reason. I guess I'll take it easy today. Happy October!

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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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