Fantasizing

My latest fantasy:
1) Win a life-changing lottery pool.
2) Hire gardener/landscaper/yardguy.
3) Quit job.
4) Start a Computer Geek/Fix-it service providing services to the public, according to the following:
---- Unprofitably low rates - maybe $25 flat-rate or something like that.
---- Rather than accepting payments, have a computer set-up on the desk that 'customers' use to make online donations to a charity they choose from a list of charities I've selected.
--- Once the person needing assistance makes the donation, I fix their computer.

Keeps me feeling productive, improves the world, and hopefully is more relaxing for me than actually working for a business that must turn a profit.

And of course there's always my fallback-fantasy - retire, move to the Caribbean, and take a job as a taxicab driver for cruise-ship passengers, ferrying the tourists between the dock and the various on-shore attractions.

Back from the grave.

Keeping this short and sweet:

- a coworker needed my help to access Google Analytics. That reminded me of this blog's existence, and I realized I've neglected the page for almost a year. So I'm back.

- recently decided to learn guitar. Bought a used Yamaha. Have spent some time over the last two nights beginning to teach myself how to play. After about an hour last night, I noticed the tips of some of the fingers on my left hand were sore and beginning to be calloused. I felt pride in that! :-)

- I saw an old post on this blog about an Asus laptop I bought from Woot, that was being sent back for repair. I never updated that post. End result - Asus hardware is awesome. Asus service and support is every bit as BAD as their products are good. We ended up returning the laptop to Woot for a full refund, less my shipping costs to Asus for unsuccessful repairs.

I still love Woot, but have less respect for Asus than I had previously.

- There was also an old post about Bioshock on the PS3. I still haven't made time to continue playing much, but before I stopped playing I found an effective solution for the motion-sickness problem: Sea-Bands. I can't explain why they work, and if the relief is psycho-somatic I don't care. They DO relieve the problem, at least for me. While I don't understand accupressure I'm happy to benefit from it.

-- Lastly - today is Maren's Birthday! Happy Birthday Maren!!!!!

Loads to catch up on.

A lot has happened during July.

I spent a week in New Orleans, visiting my Dad and helping my Mom with stereo and computer issues.

Once I returned to NJ, my friend Jed flew up here and visited for a week.

During that week we took Nate & Maren to the annual West Orange family fun night at the town pool, we took the whole family to the beach at Point Pleasant, and the two of us spent a day in NYC.

Additionally Jed & I got to spend some time playing Magic:The Gathering, videogames, talking sci-fi, TV, and politics, and Jed taught Nate how to play Magic as well.

We baked an apple pie and chocolate chip cookies, and I sent Jed home with about 30Gb worth of music.

I took Jed & the kids to the monthly NAVA meet, and we just about identified every dinner establishment in the tri-state area that closes on Mondays.
All in all, a fun, exhausting week. Photos at Flickr.

Tomorrow, back to work.

Learn something new dept., July 2011

Began building an Exchange 2010 server several months ago. Was sidetracked and never finished up.

When I returned to the project on Friday I found that the Information Store service refused to start. The Event Viewer showed:

Event ID: 301

Failed to mount database 'Mailbox Database 0696636359' on Exch2010.jacobshome.local (Duration=00:00:00.3719227, ErrorMessage=An Active Manager operation failed with a transient error. Please retry the operation. Error: A transient error occurred during discovery of the database availability group topology. Error: Database action failed with transient error. Error: A transient error occurred during a database operation. Error: MapiExceptionNetworkError: Unable to make admin interface connection to server. (hr=0x80040115, ec=-2147221227)

During the original work on the machine, I'd installed an eval of Forefront Server Protection. That eval is long-since expired.

I uninstalled the Forefront Protection (no reboot was necessary), and the IS service started right up, no muss, no fuss.

Hope this helps somebody.

The Joy of nice machinery, the Agony of defective nice machinery

A bit bummed. Saturday afternoon a really nice Asus laptop was put up for sale, for a very low price, over at Woot. It was priced about half of the normal price, but was a refurb, with only a 90-day warranty. Jess' laptop was near-death, so we ordered the Asus. Surprisingly and impressively, it arrived today. Unfortunately, the wireless card on the machine doesn't work at all. The hardware and software behave as though the card isn't even physically present.
I've just submitted the necessary docs to Asus Customer Care, and assuming the docs pass muster Asus will let me ship the laptop to them for warranty repair. The machine is gorgeous though, and assuming it's repaired I'll still be thrilled with it; just disappointed I need to wait a few more weeks before we can enjoy it.

Getting Better

Once upon a time, our den looked like this:

A couple of months ago our trusty old TV decided it was time to shuffle off into the light. Soon after, our den evolved, to look like this:

Even before purchasing the new TV the plan was to route the wires behind the wall. So, as soon as scheduling permitted, my father-in-law and I cut holes in the wall, installed junction boxes and wall plates for the various AV jacks, and the den looked like this:

Still, something was wrong with the picture. Obviously some improvement was still necessary, but what ever could it be ? Hmmmm….

How about….
Some new furniture, more suited to the situation? Maybe.
Cleaning the room, and discarding a lot of junk? That's a promising thought too.

How about BOTH? Eureka!!!!
I present, the den, take 2:

Still not perfect, but much improved.

Karmic payback can be a bitch.

Over the last couple of months I've spent a lot more than usual. There were some unplanned home repairs, but some of the expenses were nothing but indulgence, and could easily be considered unwise.

I think God, Karma, or whatever is making sure I know that nothing comes without a catch.

Our old TV was showing definite signs that it was about to die. The cumulative wisdom I found online seemed to suggest the best deals on TVs occurred just before Black Friday, so I went ahead and got myself a new 50" TV just before Thanksgiving.

High on electronics shopping, judgement obviously taking a vacation, I then ordered a new Playstation 3 on Black Friday. While waiting for the system to arrive I went to a friend's videogame store and bought a copy of Bioshock.

Why is any of this bad? Why am I complaining about getting all of these neat toys?

The PS3 arrived 2 days ago. I began playing Bioshock last night, and played some more tonight. Bioshock looks like a neat game, and so far I'm liking it a lot, and would like to keep playing it.

BUT IT'S MAKING ME SICK. After about 30 minutes of gameplay, I am suffering major motion sickness, and have to stop, or I'm afraid I'll vomit. When this occurred last night I figured I'm overdue for a bout with the flu, and I was very tired, so maybe I was getting sick. But I woke up this morning feeling fine. Then after playing for another 35 or 40 minutes tonight I again felt very queasy. It's now been about an hour since I stopped playing and I'm still feeling sick.

I've never had any problem with motion sickness, so this is a new and seriously unpleasant and disheartening thing for me.

I read a post online about this, and a suggestion was to play for short lengths of time, and gradually build up a tolerance, essentially teaching my brain to handle this better.

All I can say is ARGHHH!!!

Funny PS: I'm not making this up, but about 30 seconds after I posted this, Reese Witherspoon used the phrase "karmic payback" on David Letterman.

Things I'm grateful for.

Wow, I can't believe I haven't updated this for three months.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Listed here, in no particular order, are things I'm thankful for:

Cliched as it is, I'm thankful for my family.

I'm thankful thagt after the last two years of struggling to make ends meet, I'm now earning a living and capable of paying my bills.

I'm thankful for Abbey Road.

I'm thankful for Alice's Restaurant Masacree. I discovered this song about 20 years ago at Michael Cohen's house on Thanksgiving Day, and have ritually listened to it every single Thanksgiving day since then. It doesn't grow old.

I'm thankful that tending to the leaves in my yard during the fall, and tending to the snow in my yard during the winter doesn't debilitate me as much as it did when I first started tackling those things 12 years ago. Practice and almost-regular visits to the gym have noticeably increased my stamina.

I'm thankful for generous relatives.

I'm thankful for The Princess Bride.

I'm thankful for the luxury of getting to drive anywhere I want, whenever I want. On the horizon, our krewe will be heading to Metairie,LA, for example.

That's all. And remember, you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant (excepting Alice).

Seen this morning on HuffPo

That's the drag about being on the Left. You have less power than a gnat with a bad leg, but everybody accuses you of running the world.

          -- Zogimperator

Goodnight Iraq.

I turned on the boob tube tonight and learned that the last US Comabt Troops are exiting Iraq now, as I type this.

Yes, 50,000+ US Troops will remain in Iraq. And yes, our government and politicians still do things I disagree with.

But seeing our combat presence in Iraq finally leave evokes in me feelings of relief, happiness, and pride in our country.

Trouble syncing Windows phone to PC? Me too.....

Yesterday I discovered Microsoft OneNote, and almost immediately decided this was a really, really neat program. I wish I'd investigated it when I first encountered it a few years ago.

OneNote can sync with my Windows Mobile phone, but that wasn't happening. Eventually I discovered my phone hadn't sync'ed at all with my laptop since mid-July. (My email/contacts/calendar items sync wirelessly via T-Mobile, so I very rarely try to sync the phone with the PC.)

I spent a lot of time yesterday, and a few more hours tonight trying to resolve the problem. The computer runs Windows 7, so I've got Windows Mobile Device Center v6.1 installed. The phone is a T-Mobile Touch Pro 2, running Windows Mobile 6.5.

I tried every solution I found online (via Bing, Google, T-Mobile, Microsoft, and HTC). No luck.

I found and unpackaged the USB cable originally provided with the phone and tried it. No luck.

After a few repairs and reinstalls of Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC), several reboots of the PC and/or the phone, a system restore, and restarting services on the PC, all to no avail, I was beginning to lose hope.

Finally I set ActiveSync on the phone and WMDC to sync via Bluetooth. The sync started successfully and is still going. Hopefully it will eventually complete, and hopefully afterward the phone will sync via the USB cable as well. Here's hoping....

......

.......

.....

Another reboot later, and I can report that I still cannot sync via USB cable. Bummer.

I guess I just need to sync via Bluetooth when I need to sync.

Now I need to get to sleep.

A similar letter to Best Buy

Earlier this evening I read about Best Buy's donation to Minnesota Forward. I am writing this email to you to express my enormous disappointment with this decision.

Since Best Buy opened their first store in Louisiana several years ago I've liked shopping at Best Buy for electronics. I've taken my parents there when they wanted new AV equipment or computers, bought countless printer cartridges there, and have bought videogames and music CDs at Best Buy for as long as I can remember.

I am now seriously considering a personal boycott of Best Buy stores. Don't think I'm singling Best Buy out. I read that other corporations including Target also donated to MN Forward and I've sent a similar letter to them.

I am vehemently opposed to Rep. Emmer's immoral stands and offensive, un-American statements on many topics. Even if I agreed with him however, I think it is improper for a corporation to donate corporate funds to a political campaign, even if the donation happens to be legal.

I don't see any way for Best Buy to somehow 'ungive' the donation already given, and that would be dishonorable even if it could be done. While you cannot undo what has already been done, I'd very much like to see Best Buy donate an equal amount of money to an organization supporting Mr. Emmer's opponent, to try to mitigate the MN Forward donation.

Thank you for your time, and I sincerely hope I can continue shopping at Best Buy in the future.

My letter to Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel

Earlier this evening I read about Target's donation to Minnesota Forward. I am writing this email to you to express my enormous disappointment with this decision.

Since discovering Target stores in the late-1990s I've liked shopping at Target and turn to Target first for almost every type of product I shop for. I go to Target for housewares, clothing, electronics, music CDs, small furniture, toys and pet food.

I am now seriously considering a personal boycott of Target stores. Don't think I'm singling Target out. I read that other corporations including Best Buy also donated to MN Forward. I intend to send a similar letter to them.

I am vehemently opposed to Rep. Emmer's immoral stands and offensive, un-American statements on many topics. Even if I agreed with him however, I think it is improper for a corporation to donate corporate funds to a political campaign, even if the donation happens to be legal.

I don't see any way for Target to somehow 'ungive' the donation already given, and that would be dishonorable even if it could be done. While you cannot undo what has already been done, I'd very much like to see Target donate an equal amount of money to an organization supporting Mr. Emmer's opponent, to try to mitigate the MN Forward donation.

Thank you for your time, and I sincerely hope I can continue shopping at Target in the future.

Letter to Newsweek - regarding the common opinion about upcoming November elections

Lately I seem to frequently read or hear in Newsweek and elsewhere about low poll numbers for President Obama and Democrats in Congress. The low poll numbers seem to me to be in response to imprecise questions such as “Are you happy with President Obama’s performance on the economy?”, or “Are you happy with his handling of the BP Oil Spill?”.

The poll results published for mainstream consumption never seem to mention any follow-up questions, such as WHY the respondent feels the way he/she feels. Yet the results are routinely presented to suggest the country is likely to vote out a substantial number of Democratic candidates this November, and the presumption is that those seats will be taken by Republican candidates.

I haven’t seen any mention of another possibility though. What if a sizeable portion of voters feel as I do? I am unhappy with President Obama’s performance on nearly every issue, and far more unhappy with most Democrats in Congress, but will most likely vote for them all again. As opposed to the very vocal right-wing speakers on political television programs I feel that President Obama and Congress have consistently not gone far enough with their actions. If my choice is between somebody that will do something absolutely opposite to what I desire, or somebody that will take a baby-step towards what I desire, the choice is clear. It is not at all a wonderful choice, but there’s not a lot there to struggle with.

If a polled voter is unhappy with a particular officeholder’s performance, that doesn’t necessarily mean the voter will vote for the challenger. Assuming that is a mistake.

Shopped for a clock radio lately?

A few years ago I decided my very old AM/FM clock radio had served an honorable term of duty and should be put out of it's misery. I replaced it with a fancy clock radio with CD player that I purchased from Linens and Things as they went out of business. The fancy model was an Emerson, but it seemed like a decent unit and I bought it against my better judgement.

The clock-radio never worked right, and I finally decided recently to just junk it and get something that works properly. (If anybody reading this is researching an Emerson model CKD5811, DON'T BUY IT. STAY FAR AWAY FROM THIS DEFECTIVE, POORLY ASSEMBLED PIECE OF MEDIOCRITY.)

I spent some time today researching online, and then driving around shopping for a CD/AM/FM clock radio. (I never even looked for AM, truth be told.)

iPod docks have just about eliminated CD clock radios. There are very low-quality cheap clock radios with CD functionality, and there are $250+ clock radios with CD players from the likes of Bose and Cambridge Soundworks. Other than one less-than-impressive $40 Sony there are no other CD-clock-radios available.

Rather than spending a ridicuolous amount or buying another cheap piece of junk I'm skipping the whole thing.

Listen up any potential decision makers at Panasonic, Pioneer, Sharp or Aiwa: If you produce a decent-sounding, decent-quality, stereo clock radio, with CD-player, for under $100 I'll buy it. And I'll bet I'm not the only one.

When I asked for a TV-remote/cellphone combo unit you ignored me. I'm giving you another chance here! :)

Lebron James announcement

I'm not at all interested in pro basketball. Currently with a group of guys watching the Lebron James announcement on ESPN. Tonight's the first time I've ever seen Lebron.

He looks like a black Kelsey Grammar.

Is it wrong to like blue?

So the Uruguay v. Netherlands soccer match just began. All I know about either team is how to spell the country’s names. Is it wrong to root for Uruguay, solely because I like the sky-blue jerseys more than the orange jerseys worn by the Netherlands players?

A Very Brief Comment on NJ Governor Chris Christie

For whatever it's worth:

On April 3, 2010 I sent a very short email to the NJ Star-Ledger and cc'd Governor Christie's office. (I realize I usually write a lot. To prove the letter is short, I've pasted it to the bottom of this post.)

Today, July 6, 2010, I've received a brief, canned response from the Governor Christie administration, and nothing in the response suggests my letter was ever even read. Not much of a surprise, but still disappointing.

I'm not writing about my own opinions concerning Gov. Christie in this post. I might do that some other time.

------------------------------------------------

My message to them:

For as long as I can recall there has been discussion and hand-wringing about our state's financial situation. Perennially there are excessive expenses, and insufficient revenue.

A couple of years ago I heard a news story regarding a plan in Utah that had the state operate with a 4-day workweek. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-30-four-day_N.htm)

State workers would work an extra 2 hours each of the 4 days, and then have an extra day off, resulting in no total reduction of hours worked.

I think this is very much worth exploring, and has the potential to save significant money, as well as reduce environmental impact, wear and tear on our highways, etc...
Thanks for your time.

--

Their response:

Dear Mr. .....:

Thank you for your views and suggestions regarding the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget. I appreciate hearing your ideas to help restore fiscal sanity to our State.

Given these tough economic times, we had some very tough decisions to make in this year's Budget. We had to balance the need to get our State's economy back on track by not raising taxes and making sure we only spend money we have. At the same time, we must never forget our obligation to protect the most vulnerable of our State. That is why the Budget that I signed on June 29 reduces spending by nearly 9 percent, demands a higher level of efficiency and accountability across state government and maintains funding for critical programs.

I believe that while the choices we made in this year's Budget were tough, they were necessary. Today's sacrifices in which we are all sharing have put our State back on a path to lower taxes, more jobs and a place where we can all afford to live.

Again, thank you for writing. Best wishes.

Sincerely,
Chris Christie
Governor

July 4th musings

Between viewings of various fireworks displays this weekend I spent a little time thinking about the state of the country, and my feelings about things.

As is obvious to anybody that knows me, I was truly distressed during most of this past decade. I felt (and still believe) that our country was hijacked by truly evil and villainous people determined to destroy everything America stood for, and I felt powerless to do anything about the situation.

When I learned of President Obama's election and then again as I heard his inauguration speech last January I felt enormously happy, relieved, and joyful. I can't really describe just how optimistic I felt.

Since then I've been consistently disappointed, watching as President Obama and his Administration compromise on issue after issue. Many times I've felt that the left-leaning members of our country have been betrayed.

But at the same time I've always wanted to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, and I've tried to find ways to do so.

This weekend I think I came to a mature conclusion. Or else I'm just a naive sap. In the interest of happiness I choose to believe the former.

I concluded that while a lot of issues haven't gone the way I'd like, and while I think Obama and the Dems in Congress have given up a lot more than I think they should have, a lot of good stuff HAS been accomplished in a relatively short time.

So while things haven't gone as far as I'd like, things are definitely moving in the right direction, and I hope to see more positive progress.

Possibly coloring my perception is that I'm personally having a pretty good year. Answering Reagan's soundbite, I AM better off than I've been in many years.

After nearly a decade of honestly worrying that I was witnessing the end of our country, I am sincerely happy and relieved to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!!

And now I need to go to sleep. Work resumes in about 7 hours.

:)

Weird LAN problem - wireless router degrades LAN performance

I'm suffering a strange LAN performance problem I can't figure out. I'm hoping somebody somewhere on the 'net might read this and offer a potential solution. Here goes....

I use Verizon FIOS for my internet connection. My service level is 20Mbps/5Mbps. My main PC is a alptop with a built-in 802.11n card. The card, according to Win7, is an Atheros AR9285.

Verizon FIOS supplied an ActionTec 802.11g router.

The wireless card in my laptop is DISABLED. The laptop is connected to the LAN using an ethernet cable, plugged in to the back of the ActionTec router.

Speed tests performed at http://www2.verizon.net/micro/speedtest/java/# consistently display results of 19.5+ Mbps / 6+ Mbps.

About a year ago I purchased a Belkin N150 router. I configured it as an Access Point and plugged it in to the back of the ActionTec router. I had found the ActionTec router to have unreliable wireless, and the Belkin's 802.11n would provide faster speeds and greater range.

A couple of weeks ago I started seeing frequent weird network drops. On my laptop network connectivity would seem to just stall every few minutes, although Windows diddn't  report that the connection had dropped. A few minutes later the connection would work again. If I disconnected the Belkin router from the network the problem disappeared.

I did a lot of troubleshooting, and ultimately found that if I used my laptop wired, with the wireless disabled, and disconnected the Belkin from the network, the problem disappeared. This would suggest the Belkin is broken somehow.

I've upgraded the Belkin firmware to the latest version. I've reset the Belkin to factory settings. Still, anytime the Belkin is on the LAN, my laptop gets terrible network performance. The speed test results drop dramatically, down as low as 0.54xx download speeds in some instances. The moment I disconnect the Belkin the network performance returns to 19.xxxMbps downloads.

There is something that makes the culprit less obvious, though. With the Belkin connected to the LAN, another laptop in the house sees no troubles at all, and still gets perfectly good network performance.

On my laptop I've reset the TCP/IP stack. I've deleted all entries from the ARP table. Of course I've rebooted multiple times. It just seems like my laptop is suddenly allergic to the Belkin router.

I'm stumped, and would really like to use the Belkin router if I can just resolve this.

Anybody out there have any idea what might be causing this?