64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1891 ttl=46 time=184315 ms
64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1892 ttl=46 time=179395 ms
64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1893 ttl=46 time=174392 ms
64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1894 ttl=46 time=169384 ms
64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1895 ttl=46 time=164469 ms
64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1896 ttl=46 time=159507 ms
64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1898 ttl=46 time=149559 ms
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64 bytes from 140.88.32.28: icmp_seq=1900 ttl=46 time=139532 ms
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So far everything is going well. It's been pretty fun. Saturday was a wedding in Iowa. It wasn't that bad, as the service was about 30 minutes, and then the reception was like 6.5 hours. They blew out the sound and lights twice (actually took out power strips, not breakers), and the first time everyone just started singing. It was a little scary how well some people knew the songs, so that was interesting to see. It was a bit over 100 there, with heat indexes around 115. So we stayed inside a lot. Then was off west on Sunday for lots of camping.

BTW, gas is dirt cheap in Iowa, premium is cheaper than regular in Nebraska (apparently nobody wants ethanol, so it's significantly cheaper), and the regular is only 85 octane in Wyoming but everything's a bit pricy.

In Nebraska we drove through to Ogallala and camped right on the edge of Lake Ogallala. It was pretty nice there. The next day we drove to see some friends in Wyoming who we hadn't seen for about 10 years. It was nice to see them again, and we ended up spending most of the day there. By the time we got on the road and ate dinner and decided to find a place to stay it was like 10pm, so we stayed at this hole in Rawlins. BTW, in Wyoming the cheap hotels are like $150/night since people are traveling and the other options are hundreds of miles away. If you're already expecting and packed for semi-rustic camping though, you can get away with cheaper places though. Wouldn't want to use them for much more than a roof over the head though.

After that we've been camping in the Grant Tetons area, the first couple nights in a KOA just outside of Jackson, tonight in the park, and the next few in Yellowstone. Those are a bit nicer. Fun things include a chuckwagon style meal and show, whitewater rafting, finding all the good places to eat from the locals (much better than paying the $30/plate for average food), and driving around the parks taking pictures of wildlife and scenery. I've only gone through a few GB so far, but think I have some good shots. I'll have to go through them and post them somewher when I get back.

The computer situation on the trip is sorta funny. Since a large portion of the trip involved I-35 in MN (which we all have seen plenty), Iowa, and Nebraska, we've had a LAN in the car with cellular Internet Access. It was pretty much in solid use until the western edge of Nebraska, and a couple times a day in Wyoming so everyone can check email. It's actually working pretty well, and much to my surprise after tracking down the source of the slow connection for a while it does support streaming audio decently. That 20s latency (not a typo) is killer though... They're useful for looking things up, and google maps comes in very handy while traveling when you haven't bothered to plan ahead and are just going with whatever seems interesting to do for the day. It's also handy for offloading a few memory cards per day. Although we forgot media and had to pick up a 30 pack of DVD-Rs to store pictures. Hopefully that'll last the trip. Two guys with DSLRs shooting RAW eats through stuff at an amazing rate...

I think that's enough for now. I haven't gotten any frantic phone calls so I can only assume Pete hasn't burned my house down or anything and stuff is OK in the cities. Although I do see Bethel has been having the all too common network issues again. Anyways, I better double check all my food and toiletries are in bear-resistant containers and get some sleep.

This looks like fun. I've only read through the first part, but it looks like it just keeps getting better.

So it's been a while. It's been crazy at work with getting ready for some time away, combined with the usual summer schedule and trying to sort out some other stuff. I'm at the point where a lot of stuff is either almost done, or to go back for revision two. And everyone else is so busy that it'll probably be a while before I know. Hopefully by the time I get back people will have had time to respond. I'm just trying to make sure everything's ready and set for easy maintenance so nothing gets held up.

My brother came back yesterday and cut the grass today. It looks really weird, since it's like 6" shorter. He said something about having to go over it twice, I'm not sure he liked me leaving it for a month. The neighbors still haven't cut theirs yet though, so not like anyone can complain there.

Last weekend I watched Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II. Both classic movies, can't really complain about them. Also watched The Conversation, which was interesting as well. A few ways the story could be taken, and it's a bit slow, but good overall. That's it for now.

Heh. I was just throwing around some numbers in my head,wanted to add a quarter of half, and factored in .128. I didn't realize until a few steps later what I did. Dang base 2...

Going back to work was OK. It's work and busy, but it's interesting too. Still feels like nothing is getting done, although I'm starting to get to the point on some things where I know a lot of prerequisites are out of the way, so that helps. I managed to get my schedule all messed up so by Friday I was really tired and just wanted to sleep all weekend, but that's sorta to be expected I guess.

Thursday night I got around to upgrading the firmware on my Axim. Apparently I hadn't been paying attention, and it was three versions out of date. The process went relatively smoothly, other than due to the way VirtualPC works with USB it wouldn't run the firmware update (basically OSX reads the device IDs on connection, and passes to the appropriate VPC instance if it goes there, a very quick process. However when the PocketPC resets and sees the "glitch" in communication, it considers the link unstable and won't do an upgrade. I've been upgrading and rebuilding enough machines to have an office that's turned into a server storage/junkyard though (seriously, my couch has stuff stacked, there's stuff on the chair, and most of the rack is full, and now there's a pile of new machines too), so it became a quick process. It was good to get the thing wiped clean, and the interface does seem a little more stable (although I can still push the thing to the point of lagging a lot relatively easily).

Saturday I watched Alien³. I don't really like it as much as the first couple, but not really sure why. I think it may be because it's somewhat more character development based, and I like the sci-fi side of the series.

Sunday was Blade: Trinity. I actually sorta liked it. The soundtrack was the best of the bunch, but we'll see how well it sticks. A lot of people were disappointed with this one, claiming it wrecked the series and wasn't as good and stuff. I can definitely see where that comes from, as the movie makes fun of the whole genre. If you are a big fan of the story behind the vampire comics and movies, you won't like the movie. The history/backstory stuff seemed broken up, but I think it would have been worse if it was all jammed together. They could have probably dropped a lot of it though - it's an action movie, it's to be watched for stuff blowing up, not for the plot. :)

The long weekend was nice, although there was way too much water up there. You could stand in knee high water on the docks if you wanted (well, except for the wood ones which were moved to land whenever they went underwater), and the boats were only in the water during the day when they could be parked on the lawn as needed. Not helping the situation any resulted in many storms with heavy rain and lots of lighting. They gave flash flood warnings, but I don't think anyone would have been too surprized at any level of flooding. Anyways, it provided lots of opportunity for me to sit outside and watch the rain while listening to music and sometimes taking (and more often attempting) pictures of lighting. Dave will be happy to hear that I did listen to some HA up there, and I'd have to say that's probably better than in the dark. I will admit I like it, but it gets tiring after a couple songs.

Anyways, issue number one with the weekend was I forgot the charger to my karma at home. That's an issue, because although it lasts like 15 hours, the weekend is a lot longer than that. The drive time was easy, because then the computer is usable (while I'm not driving at least), and it can be plugged in. After being unsuccessful in locating a charger by my high-tech text-to-intarweb gateway (aka schdav), and their support people not being able to tell me anymore than "we have to tell you that you can buy them through our web site" (odd, considering he did try to help me after that statement) and the same specs that are on the back of the unit, I came up with another good idea. My Axim has plenty of CPU and battery capacity (and a charger), BetaPlayer plays pretty much anything, and being that I have a digital SLR I have plenty of CF memory available. So I loaded up a decent amount of music on there, plugged in my headphones, and was quickly annoyed that the lowest volume level was quite loud - I think it's designed for normal headphones. Equalizers and preamp settings came to the rescue though, and I had a nice source of music all weekend. I'm actually sorta impressed by the sound quality, and the battery life was nice in that I could listen to music all day without any problem on the standard battery. Someone commented on it and my response was "the nice part about having too many toys is that they can start substituting for each other." And I'll stick to that. :)

Issue number two was with my phone. It wasn't so much that I locked myself out of it (sorta), but that by the end of the weekend I had a pile of voicemails and text messages I couldn't check and had no forseeable ability to check. Anyways, my phone usually stays on for months at a time. The only time I turn it on is if I've been out of service or on analog for most of a day and the battery goes dead, which is pretty much only out in the middle of nowhere. So of course out in the mountains of North Dakota, this is actually the case. As a side note ND is actually relatively solidly covered by VZW otherwise. And yes, the description is worse than Eagle Mountain in MN, but they're enough that there's natural forests and lakes up there. Anyways, I turn the thing back on and it's locked. Except it doesn't like my code, and being there's the months between restarts, I'm sorta iffy and try a few different things. I walk over to a digital area and try a reprogramming, and that doesn't work (probably because the phone was locked). Anyways, after trying off and on, and VZW being confused at the programming menus not letting me run them without it being unlocked (Nokia eliminated the concept of a default override security code and programming loopholes recently since it pretty much defeated the effectiveness of the locks when they were common knowledge), I decided to just switch phones when I got home, and bring it to a store the next day. After 10-15 minutes of letting the computer go at it, the guy told me the code, which turns out to be a truncated version of my previous one, that must have been set by the system during a recent update. I had tried it before, but after too many attempts it locks me out, and I hadn't been persistent enough at resetting and trying. At least I have a phone I can use for things other than incomming calls, calling my work phone, and calling customer service though.

Anyways, the weekend went well otherwise, and I'll hopefully post pictures sometime soon. We'll see how motivated I get on that one though.

This week has been busier. Basically prep for both my boss not being around for a while, and me not being around for a while. It's weird both not wanting to make major changes, but not wanting to get started in longer projects either. So it's sorta figure out what can be changed and then do a bunch of testing. Or do minor changes that have been pushed off because of priorities. Anyways, Dave was trained in the basics of how to poke at the email servers and other things, and a quick summary of how the ERP sync works. We didn't give him a test that was hinted at by hitting the EPO switches though (actually the network guy who's also gonna be gone started that rumor). It'll be nice to forget about all that stuff for a while though.

Google released the Google Maps API today. For those who haven't played with the maps already, how in the world did you miss it? Anyways, as an example of how it works... Most of you know how cell companies are always talking about their coverage maps, but nobody will give you a map of where the sites are actually located. I guess it's sorta notable as if you don't understand how the cellular system works, people would freak out at things like the layout of the MSP area sites. Anyways, the maps are usually available through the FCC (they're required to file maps, exact locations, antenna direction and HAAT, and measured strength in every direction which the FCC considers public data), but the quality is barely workable, and mapping it out by hand would definitely not be worth the effort. So anyways, now one can just take the list of coordinates and make a really cool version. Those of you who use Verizon Wireless in the Twin Cities may find that map interesting (it's also very similar to Cingular's TDMA and AMPS which are on Cellular Side A, but probably very different from their GSM which is on PCS). Now to think of what I'll make next... It'd be sorta cool to take a GPS with logging and use the polylines to make a map of travel that people could browse. Or dump in a package tracking number and have it show the rough path it took (I'll let someone else handle that one).

On a more fun note, check out Sysco's new VoIP-in-a-can. There's also the WiFi Speed Spray. Note that's for outdoor use only, and not to be used near electrical appliances. Anyways, that's enough for now.

It's been a good week. On Friday the 24th the new Chipotle located 1.3 miles away from my house officially opens. However that meant that on Tuesday and Wednesday it was free food days. Of course that meant waiting in line for 30 minutes the first day and over 45 minutes the next, but hey - free burritos and whatever else you want. I think half the people in line both days were Bethel people too. Today they get to sleep in though, as they've all been there every day for 8 days and need rest for the big day tomorrow. Apparently the way to be first in line for the official opening is to fax your order in at like 8am asking for it to be ready at 11. Or at least that's what one of the workers said. On Wednesday I was sitting down eating with Ross and Lindsey, and suddenly one of the workers walks by, looks at me, and says "hey, it's the fix-your-computer guy!". We all sorta were puzzled for a second, until I realized that on Tuesday I had worn this shirt. I hadn't talked to any of the employees that day, but I guess I must just make an impression on people.

Otherwise the week has been sorta boring. Work is busy with too many projects, all of which are going in and out of various states of holds on certain things. It's an interesting balancing game of figuring out something to do while waiting for something else to avoid ending up with yet another in-process project hanging over my head. I say it's better to not start rather than have to keep track of state. I spent the day hiding in the server room, which was actually sorta peaceful. No interruptions, and it's a room with white noise (fans/air through the ducts) so loud that you have to raise your voice to talk to people, but with my earphones in I can't really hear that. Perfect background for just listening to music while waiting for progress bars and doing all the daily requests.

Tuesday night the Comcast guy came out to disconnect the video trap. I sorta felt bad for him, since he was a short guy and the ladder and fence were definitely disproportionally large for him. And the fact that I actually have no intention of ever hooking up a TV to it. The reason for the visit was actually because they offered me a free upgrade to 6Mbps service for a year, along with that video. They came bundled, not separately. I haven't noticed anything different yet. Unless things change drastically, I think it's pretty definite that in a year I'll switch back to 4 or possible 3Mbps service (if I even have Comcast HSI at that point).

I'm rather annoyed at Microsoft tonight. ActiveSync is being flaky and saying my PocketPC is a Guest (allow network pass through) rather than a syncing connection. Apparently this isn't an uncommon problem with it, which doesn't sound like fun. And ActiveSync 3.8 has issues with the installer (as does 3.7). I think I may start looking at sync4j again and possibly do a complete wipe and rebuild once that's working. That's assuming it handles all-day events now. Why don't any of the open calendar solutions handle that properly? vCalendar supports it, which is what stuff seems to use. Apparently iSync breaks it on everything though (on my PocketPC, and also for someone who uses it with a blackberry). It turns them into 00:00-24:00, which is completely broken with timezone changes. Actually IIRC Outlook has this issue too if you're not careful, and it came up in a recent /. article. I'm thinking that I may need to customize a solution to get what I want. I've said it before and I'll say it again - PocketPC is fine for those who know computers and want certain features (like VGA resolution on a 3" screen and it backed by a fast CPU and lots of RAM), but sucks for non-computer people. So yea, basically they're horrible for the people they're targetted towards, and fun toys for the people outside the marketing department's view.

And now we can't even trust credit card processors. Looks like MasterCard isn't too happy with the company, as they weren't in compliance with their guidelines. Oh, and I probably won't bother to post a more complete list of what I did a while back. Although that list was only about half the size of what it should have been...