Organizing

I spent today cleaning and organizing. First, during the day, I organized my office, rearranged the wiring for my computers and did other useful (hopefully) tasks. Then tonight I cleaned off my bookshelves and rearranged things. I got a lot of books off the floor and onto some new shelves. That makes everything look nicer.

Incidentally, I realized today that one year ago last Sunday (June 12) was when my Ruby iMac (aka “Catbert” on my network) arrived over FedEx Ground. Its amazing it arrived in one piece considering my experiences with FedEx Ground… but the seller on eBay did an excellent packing job so it all turned out OK. The G3 400 really ran nicely then and runs even better now that it has Panther installed on it.

Tomorrow I hope to finishing backing up my PC's hard disk and then do an upgrade to Fedora Core 2. I also need to reinstall a copy of Windows XP. Its hard supporting users running it without a copy of my own that works (my copy died about three months ago — just refused to boot any longer).

My Week This Week in Review

This week has been a busy one, but busy in a good way. On Monday, I went over to the Apple Store to buy a replacement for my aging Dell laptop. The replacement comes in the form of a PowerBook G4 12” with SuperDrive (1.33 GHz) — this system seems to combine an ideal set of tradeoffs between power and size, providing a system that is quite fast but fits in my briefcase so that I can carry it around easily. Mega thanks go to Kevin, who provided me with information about his experience using the 12” PB. While I was there, I took advantage of the substantially discounted .Mac subscription, the $99 off printer rebate (to get the HP 5850 wireless printer for only $50) and the available “Incase” case that is designed to be thin enough to fit in another case… my briefcase.

On Wednesday, of course, I spent the morning in Kirkwood watching the KMOX broadcast mentioned in my previous post. As I commented on that post, it was an amazing event. Bill Sammon autographed a copy of his book Misunderestimated for me, and Charles Brennon autographed the receipt (not wanting to sign someone else's book). While waiting for Mr. Sammon to finish signing the book I got a chance to talk to both him and Mr. Brennon for a short while. I stood in line and posed a question during the broadcast, which afterward caused Mr. Brennon to come over and talk to me for a second again (he seems just as nice in person as he does on the radio). The broadcast will be shown on TV on C-SPAN 2 on Sunday, June 20 (I'm not sure of the time yet) — if you're interested, I'm the person posing the very last question, assuming it makes the cut for C-SPAN.

Thursday, I spent the afternoon adding a wireless router to my office network. While a Wireless Access Point (WAP) would have made a lot more sense, I needed another switch, and a Linksys Wireless router includes a switch in addition to a WAP for the same price as just the Linksys WAP. The Linksys Wireless 54G Router installs pretty easily into an existing routed network. Just plug a standard ethernet cable coming from the other router into the fourth port of the router, disable the DHCP server on the wireless router and change its IP address so that it doesn't conflict with the wired router… and presto!

Today, I did a house call for a client — cleaning up her computer and returning her son's computer which had been dropped off to me for repairs earlier this week. Everything went well, and AdAware blasted a record (from my experience) 735 adware, malware and spyware programs from her computer. That should help a lot.

While I was there I also looked up available broadband services for her. She's about 11,000 feet from the DSL CO, meaning she can get SBC Yahoo! DSL, although it might not be the fastest. I then checked on Charter Pipeline, which was also available. At that point, I noticed that Pipeline's speed had been upped from 2 Mbps to 3 Mbps and decided to give Charter a call when I finished.

Before doing that I followed up on a speed test I had run yesterday and confirmed that my modem was only running at 765 Kbps instead of the promised 2 Mbps. So, I checked my modem's status page and it turned out I had been reprovisioned back down to the now non-existant 765 Kbps plan that costs $3 more than the faster plan I thought I should have. That explains why my bill didn't drop $3 starting in March like it was suppose to. Fortunately, the rep I got at Charter fixed my account settings, reprovisioned the modem and supposedly prorated my bill. Broadband Reports' Speed Test and CNet's Speed Test both seem to confirm that everything is now up to snuff. An extra megabit over my previous 2 Mbps connection is a real treat!

Tonight I took it easy, just doing a few minor projects like moving some of the final data off my old server and onto ServerForest. Then I watched a part of the Reagan memorial at the Reagan Library on C-SPAN. I found Michael Reagan's eulogy especially touching. I was also impressed by the Biblically strong sounding pastor of the Reagans. It is unusual to hear a prayer “in Jesus name” and speeches including many references to Christ from even pastors, if they are given the opportunity to do a big public event. This pastor did those things, and that was certainly nice for a change.

So, that's my week. I type this as I lay on my bed, getting ready to turn off the PB and call it a night. How was your week?

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Tomorrow, I will be going to the Kirkwood Civic Center for something rather fun. Charlie Brennan, of KMOX radio St. Louis (AM 1120, which can be heard around most of the country when conditions are right at night), will be broadcasting live there and a local pancake place, Chris's Pancakes, will be providing breakfast as well.

CSPAN is coming to St. Louis and you are invited! CSPAN will tape a broadcast of KMOX's “The Morning Meeting” with Charles Brennan on June 9, 2004 from 9 to 11 a.m. The program will originate from the Kirkwood Civic Center in Kirkwoood, MO. The featured guest will be bestselling author Bill Sammon of Fox News and the Washington Times. Please join us by calling 314-444-1842. Admission is free. Food provided by Chirs' Pancakes and Dining.

I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Ozark Photo #1

Christopher asked about when I was going to post some photos. Well, I haven't really picked out my favorites yet, but I thought I should post at least one, considering how much I've talked about them.

This is Lake Taneycomo during the afternoon, not too far from Table Rock Dam. I'm standing at the bottom of an Army Corp of Engineers boat ramp taking the picture. It was really pretty hot that day, so the fog seems to be caused by the really cold water of Lake Taneycomo (it comes from the bottom of Table Rock, more than 250 ft. below the surface) reacting with that hot air to create a refreshingly cool fog.

Weather or Not

The Ozarks last week were delightful. And the weather was nearly perfect — there were a few rain drops on the last day, but otherwise it was really great weather for a trip. Unlike, the case in St. Louis, as Pressed has attested to. I did run into some of that weather on the way back on Thursday night, getting caught in a storm bad enough that most people were taking cover at the gas stations along the road (the only shelter in the area).

Today, we had another bad storm pass through the area. Whereas the worst had passed north or south of St. Charles/St. Peters the last few times, leaving St. Louis and outer St. Charles county with the hail and such, this time we weren't so fortunate. This one took out a nice sized chunk of several trees in the neighborhood and also gave us a dose of pea sized hail. Nothing like the stuff from last April, but still hail all the same. Fortunately, that did not put a damper on the family barbecue, which was inside anyway.

Photomania on Memorial Day Weekend

1,227. That's the number of photos from my Ozark trip. 997 of those were taken by me, the remainder were taken by my mother who also was on the trip (originally, a close family friend was going to come to, but she couldn't come due to a brief hospitalization — thus why the trip was delayed for a few days). I'll take my photos and combine them with the ones I got off the cards I borrowed from my mother to create a slideshow, perhaps in DVD format, of the whole trip. I did that for our Christmas trip, although I've never actually burned it to the DVD… I need to do that.

The new photo card reader did a good job of downloading the photos. Even thought I took some time browsing through the photos, I got done in plenty of time to get to the family memorial day barbecue dinner. That was a lot of fun too — we had very nice BBQ burgers marinated in Sweet Baby Rays Award Winning BBQ sauce and Maull's Sweet-n-Spicy BBQ sauce, pea salad (which was surprisingly good despite my normal dislike of peas), a berry jell-o salad, beans, and chips. Plus some delicious deserts, which always helps.

Afterward, the remaining family members — myself, my cousins and my parents (my uncle left after dinner) — sat down and tried out “Cranium.” That was pretty fun, it certainly is a game that provides ample opportunity for laughs. Probably the most humorous parts where when someone was blatantly ignoring the rules. For instance… well, you'd just have to be there.

All in all a great day. Did any of y'all do anything special for the holiday, or are you waiting until tomorrow?

Apology

I should apologize for whining in my one post yesterday. I realize it really isn't that big of deal. I suspect it wouldn't have seemed nearly as bad if it had not been the first thing I saw when I opened my e-mail after returning from my trip. I am still sad to see the way it happened as well as the realization that this brings to an end my ability to help in an area I've spent a lot of time in, but it isn't life or death or anything like that. It really isn't even the worst thing I'm facing, so I don't know why I made such a big deal about it.

At any rate, I'm sorry. I should have handled that better.

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Part II)

I guess it is sort of like the difference from wading into the water slowly or diving in when it is only seventy degrees. After a absolutely peaceful week in the Ozarks mountains overlooking Table Rock Lake at quite possibly one of the most peaceful and beautiful resorts in the world, I feel like I've been thrown into an oven.

WARNING: The following post is extremely whiney and you probably should go read something else instead.

I have at least ten different computer help calls (of the non-paying variety), which wasn't all that great, but I can live with it. Then, I opened up my e-mail box yesterday to find the final blow in a long, hard struggle of mine to stay involved in publicity work at my church. As you may recall in the post I linked to, I was removed from that function concerning work to do with the 40 Days of Purpose last year. I had been given the 40 DoP position as a logical extension of a similar permanent role. I had further inherited that role since I did the publicity work, before an official role was created, as part of a committee I am on.

Ever since the official role had been created, certain people had been trying to remove me from it under the excuse of giving me “more time” (as someone under the person filling the role) to work on some of my other projects at church which, presently, aren't even under the authority of the said committee. In other words, remove me from what I am doing and also change my replacement's authority so that they would not only do what I did in that capacity but also would be the leader of other projects I've started which presently are things I work directly with the pastors on (the church web site, for instance).

I had fought that because I loved doing the publicity work. A lot of it provides for a chance to be really creative and I liked that. But, I knew the day was coming that it would be over, I just didn't know when. While I was on vacation I was e-mailed and told — in a manor that, again, attempts to give the impression of “it's for your own good” — that someone else would be handling all communication between committees and the publicity group and that person would handle creating the publicity and that person would handle coordinating with the media. The other members, myself included, would make suggestions to this person. That would “free me up” to devote my publicity time to the web site (which isn't part of the publicity group, as I noted before).

Essentially, then, myself and the team I had assembled would be a figurehead subcommittee that had no real involvement in the core of our work. While I'm not “off” the committee that coordinates these subcommittees, I would have nothing to do with what my committee was in charge of. Obviously, it seems like it is time to step down, if for no other reason than to avoid eventually having the web site reassigned as well. It's all just a bunch of bureaucracy at its worst, really.

It's not life or death or anything, but it has been draining. I had the honor to start a lot of the initiatives that the publicity group works on, so it is hard to let go, but I think that would be better than the alternative of sticking around, when I truly consider what is going on. It is also hard seeing certain people I thought very highly of using behind the scenes manipulation to alter the way this group of subcommittees work. Certainly, the majority of people involved have nothing to do with it, I'm quite sure of that from what I've learned over the last two or two and a half years, but it is saddening to see what's going on with the ones that do.

I probably shouldn't even submit this post, I guess, but here it is.

Back.

I'm back. I meant to post earlier today, but got tied up — its amazing how many things piled up to do in four days. At any rate, I'll post more tomorrow. The Hen House was delicious as usual last night — I tried their Banana Cream pie too… tasty!

I'm Outta Here

Well, if you figured out the math when I mentioned it last week, you know I'm two days late, but I'm heading to the Ozarks tomorrow. I'll explain why I'm going late and all kinds of other good stuff when I get back. Stay tuned!

Step-o-meter challenge: 4172 steps today, I'll try to keep track while I'm gone and report back.