Update (8/1 @ 8am)… SPOKE TOO SOON!  ARGH.  This is unbelievable.  I must have some kind of magical RF blocking technology in my house that is not letting the signals make it all the way back to my office.  It might be time to do some creative cable routing………

Update (8/1 @ 10am)… Maybe have a workaround.  Rerouted some cables and have the console higher in the closet… stay tuned.

Update (8/1 @ 5:30pm)… Still having reception issues, even with rebroadcast.  Apparently there is some crazy stuff going on in the closet.  Tomorrow I will route some cables from one room to the next through the walls and see if I can get a connection from the console that seems to have good reception.

Update (8/2 @ Noon)… Been up routing cable in the attic.  I always remember how much I hate fiberglass insulation AFTER I get down.  Ugh.  Half of the cables are routed, other half requires me making noise near a sleeping baby.  I may be dumb, but I’m not THAT dumb.  Hope to have a fix in the next 2 hours.

Update (8/3 @ 9am)… Wade is going to help me get cables punched down correctly.  Tomorrow maybe.

Update (8/4) @ 7pm)… So you are NOT going to believe this.  SOMEHOW, the channels of our baby monitor overlap with the weather station.  Both in the 900MHz range, and that’s the damn problem.  Thanks to Davis for helping me figure it out!  Now I just need to figure out the right combination to reduce the signal->noise ratio.  Expect some funny readings over the next few days.

Once in the city, there are some rare occasions (especially in sub zero weather) that I need to take a cab to go twenty blocks. Small luxury, but I bet those cabbies make a ton of money on $10 rides during cold weather.

In early February I was downtown for a corporate event and took a cab from my hotel on E. Wacker to S. Wacker. I took the time during the five minute ride to chat with my wife. I was wearing a suit, and had my elbow resting on the door handle while I chatted. I arrived at my destination, hung up my call, and tried to pull my arm away to reach into my wallet. My arm did not move.

Panic.

The door handle was broken and the metal piece that holds it together was exposed, and now through my suit coat.

DAMMIT!

A dime sized hole! I paid the driver, got the cab number and made some phone calls. After working diligently to find the right person (it’s amazing what happens when you ask for the president of the company’s name and mailing address), I was able to get to the claims department. I filled out my form, and am PROUD to say, I received the full reimbursement for my tailor’s bill on the reweave!

AWESOME!

No, my suit will never be the same, but unless you know exactly where the rip was and what to look for, you will never find it, and you will never see it by looking at me in a meeting. The total amount to fix it was minimal, but I am grateful to Yellow Cab of Chicago for standing behind their company and their product!

1. The rule is that I do not travel north of the Mason-Dixon line between November and March

iPhones Causing Mistrials? Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia Out of Order? | The iPhone Blog.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Here’s mine:

Brando’s Morning Power Shake

• 1 cup 0% Horizon Organic Milk (9g protein)
• 1-2 scoops Vanilla Impact Protein by Chicago Nutrition Company (24-48g protein)
• 1 handful Kirkland (Costco) Fiesta Blend frozen fruit (~1g protein)

Drop in a blender and mix until all fruit has been pulverized.  I use the Magic Bullet blender (~$40 at Costco) and it is super fast with very easy cleanup.

Depending on how much protein powder you use, you are looking at ~34-58g protein.  Your target intake of Protein each day should be around one gram per one pound of your target weight.  That is why there should be discretion on how many scoops of powder.  I use two for me, but one for Chris.

This year is looking bright!

I know this will never happen, but it is my wish for Bill Cowher to be the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. This means that Jerry Jones is going to have to own up to letting someone else make personnel decisions and effectively run the field operations.

Wade Phillips would make a decent Defensive Coordinator. Probably not for this team, but he definitely does not work as head coach of the Cowboys. The mere fact that Dallas was the WORST in penalties per game (average 7.5 per game in 2008 for 60.7 yards per game) shows how little discipline this team has.

Discipline starts at the Coach. Not Jerry.

Wade, I am sure you are a great guy. You just got the shaft when you took this job. Being Jerry’s puppet seems to pay well, but as Barry Switzer, Dave Campo, and Chan Gailey can tell you, it does not end well. And your time is here. Whether you quit or Jerry fires you, it is time for new leadership for the new Texas Stadium.

For players, I suggest we can Pacman Jones. The guy has not contributed a thing this year, and as we saw in this last game, is often a better player for the opponent.

Terrell Owens… I’m really tired of seeing you bitch on the sideline after dropping so many passes this year. Sure, you can make that amazing catch every once in a while, but it sure does not look good for a guy who only logged 63 receptions with 10 TDs in 2008 that also happens to e tied for FIRST in the NFC for most dropped passes.

This team has arguably some of the most raw talent on the roster, yet completely missed the playoffs this year. What an utter disappointment. You did a disservice to the last season at THE Texas Stadium and to your fans who wanted so badly to see a playoff win (since the last one we saw was December 28, 1996).

Well, at least you don’t have the playoffs to get in your way of some much needed spring cleaning.

So Hollywood is not a good source for information on how the real world works?  I don’t know what they are talking about.  My entire knowledge of physics is based on James Bond movies.

So when the wind does not work on the weather page, it is FREAKING COLD outside.

Thanks to everyone who gave me birthday wishes! Hope to see you guys later for the party.

And, I’m going FLYING on Sunday! Going to re-do the skydive attempt, but we have a few more folks going. I’m going to be ready with the camera, and catch them as they come down. I love flying so much, it’s just a joy to be the cab driver up to the airfield.

Maybe on the way back I’ll show those folks the uphill landing at Ironhead.

Anyway, I’m testing for a couple of certifications tomorrow and will be partying later!

Unfortunately, the Niners lost, so on our trips that makes us 2 and 2.  Batting 500 is not too bad, but the next home team we see should be afraid… VERY afraid.

Only saw a couple of folks get kicked out, and James saw some really drunk chick wheeled across the field in a wheel chair.  I had to get a brewski and a peeski, so I missed it.

Oh, and Seahawk fans are really annoying.

Then, when I opened it, it opened the wrong way and got pretzel crumbs and salt all over my lap.

doh.

Well, despite all the hell that residents had to deal with (my family included as we used to live in McKinney), IT IS FINALLY OPEN! I drove it for the first time today on the actual six-lane highway piece, and it was glorious. TX-121, you have finally moved from the “CRAPHOLE FREEWAY” category to “DAMN SKIPPY.”

The only bottleneck that I know of now between McKinney & Fort Worth is the short strip in Grapevine/Coppell where you go back to a four-lane road with traffic lights. Other than that, it is smooth ace sailing for drivers!

He asked, “What do you mean by ‘went flying’?”

I said, “I’m a pilot.”

It was a first for me, but definitely a proud moment when I look back at how hard I worked at getting through my training. Well, through the first stage anyway.

So, anyway, thought I’d share that with you. Whee.

James brought his camera along yesterday, and I threw some pics up on Facebook (I gave into peer pressure).

Call me a dumb American tourist, I don’t care. The Rocks would be my anchor, or rock if you will, if I lived there.

I’m just plowing through all of the junk my RSS reader picked up while I was gone, and importing my new Aussie music! Going to fly with the family today as well, then OFF TO THE LAKE!

Looking forward to a relaxing weekend away!

Tomorrow AM is all tourist shopping before the briefing (catch up to the US work before that of course).  Then hit a few pubs and get ready to come home.  I have really enjoyed my trip, but have fallen in love with Sydney while I am here.  The city is absolutely incredible.

Keep watching the blog for more shenanigans!

• Woke up late, but good thing because the conference call (late Friday US time) got cancelled.
• Went to the Starbucks on the corner for breakfast
• Walked through The Rocks to the Sydney Harbor Bridge
• Walked the footpath & climbed in the tower
• Headed back over to Circular Quay, bought a ferry ticket to Darling Harbour, and then walked to the Opera House
• Walked around and took some pictures of the Opera House, and inquired about the tours
• Made a last minute decision to take the tour
• LOVED THE TOUR
• Briskly walked back to catch the ferry
• Rode the ferry to Darling Harbour
• Had lunch
• Hit the aquarium (not as great as I hoped)
• Headed back to Circular Quay, and then to the hotel
• Took a load off, fixed/charged my Blackberry
• Loaded back on and headed to the pub tour in The Rocks
• Did the tour
• Went back to Glenmore for food
• Hit the Mercantile for drinks & music
• Petered out and headed back to the hotel
• Got a drink, watched a crappy hotel lounge band
• Talking to you.

That about does it!  Now I need to sort laundry and pack because I am headed to Brisbane early in the morning.

Today I am going to be doing some stuff with local press and meeting a customer.  I’m going to get moving here and walk around a little bit this AM, but not too much.  When I was doing the elliptical today, I was getting a slight twinge in my left leg.  I don’t want to push it as I still have two more cities to see before I leave.

Took the ferry over to Manly Beach yesterday and walked around there for a little bit.  It was chilly, but there were at least 50 surfers in the water down the way.  After I’d been there about an hour, I headed back and picked up the Jet Cat on the way back.  Half the time, but COLD up on deck.

Last night I hit the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel.  Quite awesome.  Then I had enough, so I walked back here to the hotel and crashed.

Yesterday on the Ferry ride, I got some great shots of the opera house.  I’m going to put together some of those and hang them at the house methinks.

1. Light switches on the OUTSIDE of the room
2. Driving on the left
3. Road signs (look EXACTLY the same)
4. The first floor of a building actually being the second.

That said, I’ve learned some key differences so far.

1. Food…. MUCH FREAKING BETTER here
2. Longer flight here…. but ultimately worth it
3. Better weather
4. Did I mention the food?
5. I went to a place called Manly Beach today.  Go find that in the UK.

Anyway… I’ve been up for a while now, and I’m going to sleep.  Catch you in the morning (or EVENING for those of you back home!).

I also practiced a slip to land, and nailed it.  I’m getting much better on the landings.

Then I went back to Northwest Regional and did a few more touch & gos there.  Mainly because the pattern at Propwash is right traffic, where the majority of airports are left traffic (just means which direction you fly that rectangle around the field).

Then I met my instructor after I secured the plane and we discussed my cross country planning.  I feel much better and spent the better part of my commercial flight to Dulles planning my routes.

I will be flying tomorrow and Friday afternoon, and I am taking the day off on Monday to get some solo cross country time.

So I shut the car down, put on the flashers, got out and walked into the street (fully planning on stopping traffic on the two lanes coming my way) to pick up the turtle and move it into the grass on our side. As I put down the turtle, a lady pulled up behind the Jeep and had this look of horror on her face. I’m not sure if it was because I was making her late (honestly, if you are just leaving the house at 8:30, you are going to be late to work anyway), or because she wanted to have him for dinner.

When the wind dies down, I’m going to get up there on the roof and check it out.

whee! Thanks springie for showing me this!

Something occurred to me today as I am still having the “It’s Tuesday… why do I need to worry about my Wednesday deadlines yet?” thought. The four day weeks following a three day weekend are hell. For whatever reason, we still seem to have to cram five days of work into four days of time. I know I’m not the only one thinking this… Somewhere around my 5th or 6th conference call today I had full-on confirmation.

Tomorrow is THURSDAY, so at least we just have 2 days to go until the weekend!

Thank goodness it is after five here….

Your voice dialing functions in stride.
The WiFi feature is a thrill.
Your video camera I have not tried,
    And as sure as the tide,
        Get me scolded it will.

Your small frame packs quite a punch,
And you fit comfortably into my pocket.
I’m sure you have a hunch,
    That your vibrate mode gets me in a bunch,
        Making people ask, “is that a wocket?”

This weekend I signed on the dotted line for a commitment I have not had in over three years, a personal cell phone.  I’ve had a cell number, but when I joined my company, it became the company’s number.  With the sell off, the policy was relaxed and I was able to get my number out.  w00t!

So I started my trek by looking at a couple of providers and their phones.  One provider was adding up the data services required for some of their phones and before I had even chosen a plan, I was up to $100/month!  Screw that!  My current phone bill on the company plan is around $110/mo with everything.

So I walked over to the other provider and found a sweet deal on a HTC Shadow.  Not a bad piece of equipment from the looks of it, but it is a Windows Mobile device.  I’ve had one before (the original BlackJack) and it was unpleasant.

I gave it a shot though since there is a buyers remorse policy.  After two days with it, I decided it was not for me.  Once the number port went through, I played with it a little bit and had a few crashes.  Not major, but it had quirks.  It seems underpowered.

So I went back to the store, and exchanged it for a Pearl.  For me, it was an even swap.  No change in service.  I LOVE this device.  It is very similar in use to my Curve which is the work phone (also love THAT, just a little big).  The form factor is fantastic, and fits nicely into my pocket.  The syncing of contacts/calendar is a little wonky without the enterprise support, but I can deal with it until Plaxo gets off their ass and makes a Blackberry client (Note to Plaxo/Comast: Get on it!).

All in all, one of the best decisions I made this weekend!

• People who are just sitting at a slot machine and punching the buttons every so often are either trying to get a free drink (which seems hard to come by), or is just renting a chair for a few.  I paid $3 to rent a chair for twenty minutes.
• Good things do not happen immediately following a dramatic increase in music volume.
• Bartendresses must dance violently on the bar every thirty minutes at Centrifuge.  Their outfits will make you wonder if you are in a gentleman’s club as they throw their hips around.
• When the bartender asks you to move your drink so HE can get up and dance on the bar, move it, and turn away (unless you enjoy watching the dancing pork sword).
• Sirens are not always for show, sometimes they will shut down the strip.
• It is apparently acceptable to sit at the Verizon Recharge Station with your cell plugged into an outlet and carry on a conversation in a foreign tongue, ON SPEAKER PHONE.  Please duly note that.

Thank you for your attention, please continue on with your day!

It comes with the job, and there are days that I really enjoy it.  I could trade some days for others, but it’s days like today that make it all worth while.

I’m sitting at the Las Vegas airport waiting for my new flight (previous one is probably going to cancel now) and someone from the TSA hops on the public address system.  I was ready for a “To the person who left your ID at the security checkpoint, please return to claim your item,” type announcement.  What came on instead was:

“To the person who left the false teeth and hearing aid at the security desk, if you can hear me, please return to claim your items.”

How freaking awesome is that?

I played Blackjack for a while and had mixed results.  Finally left when the table went cold.  Went over to the Irish Pub here at New York, NY, and then tried my luck at Roulette.  Sure enough, I started winning.  Then the roller coaster started (not the one outside my window).  I was down, then I bet on 24 (love you Chris) and WON!  After a few hours down in the casino, I am only down $15 (minus the $5 ATM fee… jeepers).

Better luck tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll end on a high note!  I speak at 4pm Pacific.

Full of Unexpected sNafus.

Parted works great! Except when you need to move the STARTING position of where a partition is. Ouch.

For those of you out there who have run into this, in order resize a partition where you need to change the start of the partition, you essentially have to move all the data off and delete it. There are ways to create new partitions in the space you have left free by shrinking another partition, but I ran into problems there because I was goofing around with a mixture of primary and extended partitions. That did not work out well.

So three hours later, everything is up and running. And as of this post, all is fully back to normal. Went from 78% full to 39% full on the partition in question.

Apple, get a clue!

Anyway…. I’m trying to slog through some work laptop issues (they won’t give me a MacBook… bastards!), I really noticed I have taken for granted the Mac’s propensity to notify me of updates for the software I use often. Really, how simple is the “Hey, I’ve got a new version, want to update?” functionality? Almost ALL Mac software has this, but very few PC titles do.

Well, hopefully I can get my PC up and running to have a semi-productive day.

Thanks to the guys over at RustyBrick, I have implemented an automatic pause/resume system. I have a PHP script that connects to my Asterisk box and watches it for relevant activity. When a call comes in, I get the Caller ID through a Growl notification, and AppleScript tells iTunes to pause. When I hang up, AppleScript tells iTunes to resume. If I make a call, it pauses as well.

It sure took some hacking to get it to work though. The RustyBrick guys may have been using an older version of Asterisk, and parts of the AppleScripts did not work on Leopard. It’s OK though as I’m just using this for me, so I just hard coded a few things in there.

Fun stuff!

One of the hardest things that I’ve had to do is cut. With the advent of DVDs, we can connect with the directors of a film in a way never before possible. I always enjoy watching deleted scenes with director commentary. For someone making a film, cutting pieces hurts. It is an excellent lesson in the art of brevity though, and there is a lot to learn from directors (good and bad) that cut scenes from films.

As I write for publication, I take a lesson from my high school journalism class. “It’s always better to have too much stuff than not enough stuff.” It definitely is, but you have to cut out pieces that you created. Each word of every piece that I do is part of my creation. Cutting hurts.

But as we learn from Zinsser, “Clutter is the disease of American writing.” So much of what we write can be cut and the meaning does not change. In his book, he talks about taking a first draft of eight pages and having students cut it to four. Students revolt and say it cannot be done. After they find out that it CAN be done, Zinsser would give them the hard assignment. Cut it to three.

I just finished editing my second draft of my monthly column and cut it from around 800 words to around 660. PAIN! But the end product is much better!

Crickets.

Did see a bunch of people sleeping at SFO, though that is not terribly unusual.  Anyway… off to enjoy the weekend and recover from a week of travel!

I started to really get into the tools of OS X, and then decided it was Chris’s turn.  So she turned in her old red Dell, and got herself a MacBook with a pink cover on it.  If you know Chris, you know how much she LOVES change.  She eventually gave in, and really has started to like it (I think anyway…).

In my migration, I combined 2 Dell machines functionality into this one Mac Pro.  My desktop and main beefy server at the house are now combined into one.

In the process, I needed to migrate some automated tasks from the Debian server onto the Mac Pro.  In Leopard, cron and StartupItems have been deprecated in favor of LaunchD.  So I had to learn a whole new way to deal with scheduling tasks.

Mind you, this is absolutely new to me, and still fairly  new in the community.  There are not a ton of examples out there.

So my problem was (apparently) that some of the default behavior of the launchd scripts was causing my little backup runs to be constantly loaded and called.  Was taking about 2.5Mbps of my download bandwidth steady because it would run over and over, sometimes 3 and 4 times per minute.

My lesson?  Watch the exit status of the scripts.  And be sure to set KeepAlive to false (that’s the default property, but I’m not feeling a whole lot of confidence in that).

Slowly but surely, I will own you Launchd….

Yes. March 6 to be exact.

Just under 4 inches of snow fell at the house. Crazy weather we had here, but the kiddo enjoyed it. I certainly did not enjoy being “jailed” at DFW Airport waiting for a gate, but thankfully it was only about an hour on the ground. Getting home was another adventure.

We took the kiddo out for some fun, and had him goof around in the snow. He enjoyed all the fun, and Chris has pictures posted here.

Snow is all melting today, mostly gone. Temperature is already up to 47, and it’s not even 1:30.

Take THAT Global Warming!

An interesting story about seafood exports from China.

To combat all the sewage dumped into the lake, officials have devised an utterly nonsensical fix-it. They’ve released 1.5 million silver carp, each of which can eat up to 100 pounds of algae.

The problem here is that fish eat algae, bigger fish eat the smaller fish, and so forth until it comes to the dinner table.

And that’s exactly what the Chinese are doing. They plan on directly selling the fish to consumers.

(Via Gadling.)

I am glad that you are paying attention to my state and understand its importance to your campaign. Recorded calls by you and/or your wife begging for my vote will change neither my disposition, nor my vote. The calls (2 out of 3 anyway) seem to conveniently interrupt family time, taking my attention away from where it should be.

Rest assured, I will be voting in the primary next week. You will have to wait until then.

Sincerely,

Off The Hook, Texas

Really.

So after some heroics, I have moved the weather station collection routine to another machine, and dump the results into the DB from there. Seems to be working just peachy now. The real trick is to see if we can get data for 48 hours straight without any intervention. I would have had this wrapped up in a flash, but real work buts in.

Thank goodness for conference calls that run long, and I’m listening.

Check back in about 6 hours.

Do not call list.

So is something that is now law not sacred?  If I vote for Obama, what other laws might be broken?  I must say, that makes it hard to love ya.  I know Texas is important to both campaigns, but seriously…

Dude… just tell me you need a php.ini, don’t echo the script back to me.  I wrote it, I know what it looks like!

Anyway…. Weather is back up and running.  Hopefully to stay.  We’ll see how the USB->Serial interface deals now that is not in a hub (it DID NOT like being plugged into a hub).

With Jack McCoy protecting Gotham City, nothing could go wrong!

(Via T-Shirt Blog.)

Anyway…  Brent & I are having our parties together, and we will be toasting to Matt’s speedy recovery.  Get well buddy!

Freaking babies……

(Via BuzzFeed.)

So what I did was create my OWN ripping abilities… After all, it’s all base64 encoded, right?

So, it is now returned. If you had an RSS reader looking at the moblog feed, you will see about 100 or so new images as I have uploaded all the old ones that did not make it.

Link: http://www.brw.net/moblog/
RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BrandosMoblog

Enjoy!

In their book Made to Stick, Chip & Dan Heath discuss the same type of principle when it comes to sticky ideas.  Seth Godin expands upon this in All Marketers are Liars and ties it more directly into how to develop stories around products or solutions.

The point being, the better you are at this, the more accepted your ideas will become!

Edit: You will need shell access to the server as well as the Subversion client installed. 

Note: BACKUP YOUR WORKING COPY! I will take NO responsibility for broken WordPress installations!

1. run svn diff http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.3.1 http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.3.2 > wp-upgrade.patch to get your unified diff patch file. Keep in mind, just change the versions at the end of those URLs to the versions you are upgrading. The first version number should be your current WordPress version, the second should be the one you want to upgrade to.
2. Check to see what the patch is doing, and make sure it is not dinking with anything in the wp-content directory… If so, review those patches carefully and optionally remove them.
3. Disable all the plugins.
4. Move the patch file into the directory for the WordPress installation you are upgrading.
5. Run patch -p0 < wp-upgrade.patch (Note: you may need to do this as a super user depending on permissions)
6. Be sure that patched file owners/permissions match the existing owners/permissions.
7. Go to http://www.yoursite.foo/wp-admin/upgrade.php.
8. Reactivate plugins.

Then you are all done! I hope this makes your upgrading process feel safer!

• Segments Flown: 115 (plus at least 2 others that I know were not counted).
• Miles Flown: 114,450 (not including aforementioned segments).
• Airlines flown: 3.

Phew….  Enjoying time off!

Wait… who’s They?

Probably the same guys that are stealing my water!

Anyway…  What a year it has been.  I watched our son grow another year older and slowly start turning into a little person.  I watched my wife continue to grow in beauty.

And with that (and Steve Miller telling me about that magic word), I’ll people watch for the next 25 minutes or so before heading on to my flight.

Seasons Greetings!

I was reading in the paper this morning about the skipping of Thanksgiving, and may folks said “Thanksgiving is what Christmas is supposed to be.”

I have to agree!

Thanksgiving in our family is a fairly subdued holiday where we have good food and are thankful for it. We can reflect on what has happened this year and enjoy sharing that with those closest to us. Isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be?

After Thanksgiving happens, I am ready for X-Mas music to be on the radio, not after Halloween like KVIL and WRR have done here in Dallas.

Oh yeah, and I know that pictures are not making it over to the Moblog Archives… working on that.

Thank you for everything you do!

Pictures are posted!

How bout them Cowboys tho! Holy moly.  6 turnovers, ALL BY ONE FREAKING GUY, and the ROOKIE kicker does what virtually no other kicker in the last 15 years did.  Nailed a career long 53 yard field-goal in the clutch, TWICE!  25-24 baby!

Now, on to the biggest game so far this year, NE vs. DAL!

Look for us on TV.  We’ll be wearing green.

Anyway… James says “Hi.”

Anyway, it’s almost time for a party!  I’ll let folks know when it is.

I’m in town today, but in and out the rest of the week.  Maybe I’ll find a travel rant to wrap up the week with.  Then this weekend is PACKER FOOTBALL!  Heading to see Brett cream the Bears at Lambeau!  At least those frequent flier miles count for something….

Click here to see the video!

As regional travel increases, many airlines have been operating smaller regional jets from companies like Bombardier and Embraer. Gone are the days of always expecting to ride on a big Boeing 757 everywhere you go. I primarily fly American Airlines since I live about 10 minutes from their hub in Dallas.

If you have traveled at all over the last 20 years, you know that airplanes (even those fancy 757s) have progressively turned into sardine cans where passengers are crammed in. The worst legroom I have ever had was on a recent TAM Airlines 737 round trip flight from Sao Paulo to Porto Alegre in Brazil. Ass to the back of the seat and my knees were touching the seat in front of me.

Nice.

Most of the regional jets and other jets by American have decent configurations, and they actually went and removed seats from certain aircraft to increase the overall legroom. Some of us are tall enough have to duck when boarding the CRJs and ERJs that American Eagle flies, but once we sit down it’s not so bad. You have to pay attention to your posture to get the best comfort (meaning, ass to the back of the seat, no slouching).

Market pressures have dictated that many more regional jets be purchased, and some are even used on longer runs (such as Arkansas to New York, LaGuardia, or Dallas to Minneapolis-St. Paul) simply because travelers prefer more options and more flights. It’s more cost effective to purchase smaller jets and run them full more frequently, than purchase larger ones that could be empty.

So just remember, consumer preferences and buying patterns have dictated this.

As I was boarding a flight to XNA on Wednesday morning, a rather familiar and tired conversation started as I watched a portly gentleman slide his way down the isle and belly up next to me, and a tallish (I was just a smidge taller than he) gentleman took up temporary residence behind me.

“Either I am getting bigger or these planes are getting smaller! Hah-heh-chuckle-heh-me-oh-my.”

Ol’ Chuckles there lit up the plane with that original humor at 7am. Then Smalls behind me starts slouching in his seat so that his knees hit the back of my seat and push it every few minutes.

Knees in your back is just about as bad as the person who hangs on to the back of your seat for leverage to sit down (or collapse) into their seat. Why is it bad? Cause it puts the seat into the little known “Ejector-Seat Mode.” Pull back, then when the fall into the chair is done, release forward in a spring like fashion. Small children go “Wheee” as they ride the airplane seat ride.

I try to be respectful of my fellow passengers. Watch the knees so you don’t bother the guy in front. If the guy behind you does not have his seat leaned back, don’t lean yours back. If he has a laptop, let him know you are coming back, or just come back VERY slowly so he can move it out of the way. Keep the gassy emissions to a minimum. If possible, eat off the plane and don’t bring food on. Put one of your bags under the seat.

Anyway… since that guy decided to throw his consideration of others out the window, so did I. Boy I’m sure it was unpleasant for him.

I had chicken enchiladas the previous night.

I keep wondering if we have a peeping tom in our neighborhood that keeps walking into the web sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

Serves him right.

I’m keeping my mind open, because I know he enjoys it.  I also know that he likes grown-up bands like Guster and Sorta.  His first live music event was seeing Dread Clampitt at The Red Bar in Grayton Beach, FL.

Maybe I’ll load up the iPod with some Slayer or White Zombie and have my own mosh pit adventure among the 2-4 year olds.  That could land me a primetime spot on the 10pm news!

Scooter is going to have to be pulling double duty on Sundays during football and sleep on laps extra hard for Bonzai.

Going to miss you little guy…

SO ready for football to start.  Training camps started this week for most teams, and as we speak I have NFL Replays on TV right now.  Watching the AFC Championship game from this year.  Yes, I know the outcome, but dammit, I am ready for football!

Been goofing with the new radio in the car a bit.  Still debugging a gremlin or two.  The output power is not what it should be in my opinion (I can’t verify this, but I’m thinking that is the cause of my APRS issue…  For some reason I am only getting picked up by a fixed station in Grapevine).

Anyway…. off to put the kids to bed for nap!

Anyway… had a very fun time getting it going in the Jeep, and I’m looking forward to lots of fun with it!

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

We had more fun weather when I got back, but it all stayed north of us, and we only got three hundredths of an inch of rain.  It was a scorcher tho today, heat index at the house was measured at 110 degrees.  Jeepers, this humidity makes it feel like Houston up here.

Chris is sitting next to me typing away (she’s an angry typer like James is), and sadly enough, between that and the TV, and Scooter walking over to have a seat, I’ll probably be doing my cough-snore in the next half hour.

Tomorrow is another busy one.  I’m in town, but it seems to be an interview laden day.  Have some in person ones, and I’m double booked part of the day.  It sure is fun to be in demand!  Anyway….  zzzzzzzz…

Since the Debian PHP maintainers just announced that PHP4 is now EoL in Testing & Unstable, it’s time to move to the stable PHP5 packages.  If you see some funny stuff happening here over the next few days, that’s what’s going on.  I’m going to start with my weather station stuff, so that should tell me right away if I’ve borked something.  Then I’ll move down to Altair.

Today is a prep day for the party!  We’re hoping for the rain to hold out!

Oh yeah, it’s when we leave the country & kid behind in August.

Even though I gave Chris a hard time about it, I’m really looking forward to it.  The chance to completely unplug does not come very often, and I’m going to be taking full advantage of it.

So the vacation at home consists of catching up on dentist appointments, cleaning the back yard, cleaning up the office, etc.  On Sunday, James commented that my office “looked like GTD threw up all over it.”

He’s right too, it’s a bloody disaster.

The famous Double Oak parade is tomorrow, and I’ll be driving the Mayor around in the Jeep!  I’ll have to leave the doors at the fire station or something though, because there are still torrential rains in the forecast.

Speaking of rains, we went to the lake this weekend.  Holy moly, so much water.  Not looking to stop any time soon either.  As long as Possom Kingdom is getting rain and leaving flood gates open, it’s going to rise.  Hell, as long as Whitney is getting rain, it’s going to rise.

At any rate, time to go hit the dentist and get a haircut.  Whee, Vacation!

OK, so I’m standing at the B22 gate trying to see if the gate agent is ready to hook me up with a boarding pass (since the flight was only checked in at 80% full and I was number 1 on the list). As she is processing tickets BY HAND mind you, this lady that obviously has some physical medical issues walks up behind me and loudly says “Excuse ME!” Here’s how the conversation goes.

Gate Agent (GA): Yes?

Stocky Lady (SL): I can’t stand up for a long time, should I board now?

GA: …. ?????

SL: My feet hurt if I stand too long.

GA: uhh, sure. Just get in line.

Random Guy At The Front Of The Line (RGATFOTL): Just go in front of me.

SL: OK

At this point, I’m cracking up because of the priceless reaction from the gate agent. If our thoughts were communicated across scrolling LED screens on our heads, it would have read, “What the F?”

So after everyone is on, she hooks me up with an exit row seat. We’re on an Embraer 145 (for you non-fliers, that’s the smallest American Eagle Jet (shout out to Captain Ron!), and has the 1 by 2 rows. I get to my seat, and it’s on the B side, and no one is in the C seat. Rock on! Hells yeah I’ll operate that emergency exit in the case of an emergency! With no flunkie to show how to operate the door because he was unprepared, I’ll throw that door out and start getting people out the door.

When you get in this situation, you study EVERY person carefully coming down the aisle. You think, “Aww, you better NOT be coming to sit next to me.” Well, unless you get lucky and draw the hot chick neighbor card in the seatmate lottery (hey James, can I get a Woop Woop?). So everyone’s on board, and the seat is still empty!

I win!

Or so I thought.

So SL calls the flight attendant over and starts (loudly) talking about how small the seats are, and she needs a seat on the 2 seat side so she can spread out. She spent $600 to get on this flight so she could be in Atlanta this afternoon. Here’s how this abbreviated conversation goes.

SL: Can you get me a seat on the 2 side?

Flight Attendant (FA): I don’t know, but I’ll have to check with the gate agent. Should I just get you the seatbelt extender instead?

SL: Well I’ll probably need that. But I’m in pain when I sit in these seats.

FA: Well, that’s definitely an issue, we don’t want you to be in pain.

SL: If I sit too long part of my leg goes numb.

FA: I’ll go check with the gate agent and see. BRB! (no he didn’t scream BRB, but he should have.)

(Intermission, time to go get a soda and a snack!) And he returns.

FA: I’m sorry, we don’t have another seat, but I think you should come with me because it is not safe for you on this aircraft. We need to put you on another flight.

SL: OH no, I’ll be OK. I’ll just sit in here and my leg will be a little numb. I can still feel it sorta.

FA: Are you sure, we are concerned that we have a safety issue here.

SL: (Then she goes into a 2 minute diatribe about the $600 to be in Atlanta)

FA: OK, well, here’s your seatbelt extender.

Then about 2-3 minutes goes by, and she calls the FA back. Keep in mind, I’m sitting 2 rows ahead of her, opposite side of the plane. She starts talking to the FA in a low tone, and I start to get a little worried. I turn around, and she’s got this wild look in here eyes, like she is lusting after my exit row love seat. I get a little creeped out, and turn back forward.

Not 20 seconds later, Mr. FA man comes and says, I’m terribly sorry to ask this, but SL is interested to know if you would switch seats with her so she can be more comfortable. I look up at him and say “Are you sure she can open this exit in the case of an emergency? I’m not sure someone who can’t stand up without being in pain, or sit without parts of her body going numb is capable?”

He says, “Well I asked her (I don’t think he did, because he asked her as I was sitting down in my new seat) and she said yes, and I’m not really at liberty to tell her she cannot sit there because she can’t operate the exit.”

Well, being the nice guy that I am, I switch seats. She does not thank me, though the Flight Attendant did profusely. Thankfully, I’m used to riding in these aircraft with all my regional travel, so I’m making do just fine. Here’s to hoping I get into First on standby back to Dallas!

I’m typing this on the plane looking 2 rows up and to the right thinking “Man, I REALLY hope we get this magical flying thing down without having to use the emergency exit. If we are reliant on the numb stocky lady, we’re doomed.”

No worries for me.  Sucks for sure, but nothing you can do about it.  Boy there were plenty pissed off people tho.  Holy crap.

So I stayed in Downtown Boston last night and walked up to Quicncy Market (as you could see).  Had some decent grub, and bought a new shirt and underthangs to at least have some resemblence of clean clothes.  I’m sure that Chris will be the ultimate “sniff” test.

We’re headed to the lake this weekend, but due to the high water & rain, we’re not going to hang the whole time.  Lakefest was officially moved, so we are hoping for better weather when we do that.  Speaking of rain, we’re all doing our anti-rain dances to have a dry 4th of July!

OK, time to head to the gate…

I went to bed Sunday night exhausted from all the Dad’s day fun and watching the Robot Chicken Star Wars episode (What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?). As I’m letting my eyes flutter closed, I was watching some lights hitting the blinds in our bedroom. Just a little bit of lightning in the distance on a warm summer night.

About an hour later (around 1am) my eyes pop open to a loud crack of thunder. Seems like it is starting to rain a little bit, but thunderstorms are not uncommon at this time of year.

Thirty minutes later, I am again woken up, but this time in addition to all the thunder and light show, there is another sound. The phone is ringing. Not many people call at 1:30ish in the AM, so after I got myself woken up enough to realize it was not the alarm clock, I sat up and wandered over to the phone. Of course, by the time I got there I had missed the call. I reviewed the Caller-ID and saw that Dad was calling from his cell.

Any dad calling at 1:30 in the AM is not good in the first place, but from their cell is even worse.

I returned the call and he alerted me to some potentially severe weather coming our way. He lives north of me, so it would hit us first. Preparing for severe weather is so much easer when you have a build up of time and readiness. It sure is not when you have to run and go grab the radio, listen for a few minutes to figure out what is going on, then distill it down for the Wife.

Lots of reported activity, but nothing confirmed. Lots of rain. LOTS of rain. I had Chris go get the kiddo and hop into the bathroom for a while. I got the radios and laptop and headed in with them. As I round the corner, I hear Chris bellow, “Don’t forget the cats!”

Well we got a ton of rain, and had a quite noisy early morning, but no tornados. Instead, massive flooding. We are very lucky that our house is safe, but south west, and north east of us the story is not the same. I guess we’re making up for that 2 year drought right now.

So thanks Dad!  We appreciate the warning!

Excitement aside, back trying to sleep at about 2:30, and woke up at 5:15 for my 7am flight to Chicago. Got to see Aunt Niece, Uncle Mike, Alex & Lynn!

Now, I’m back at DFW after returning yesterday, and heading out again. Ahh the life.

What’s the net cost you say?  $400.

OR.  I could just fly standby on a relatively empty flight (I have 3 choices that would work), and pay the original fare.

Standby it is!

Give me a Ch(u)B.

Whoops.

Did I mention I was in the lobby of the Marriott in Bethesda, MD?  Yeah, pretty stuffy.

Scratch that, he was a lot drunk.

I walked into this quaint little bar inside the airport here at CLT, and as I’m looking for a place to plug in the laptop (yes, n3rd all the way), I walked past this guy talking to the bartender.  Then as I set down my stuff, I hear the guy start escalating his voice.

Drunkie: “This Budwieser was total CRAP!”

Bartender: “Sir, you ordered a Bud Light.”

Drunkie: “You even said this was crap!  YOU SAID!”

Bartender: “…”

Drunkie: “You are a JERK!  (to the bar) THIS GUY IS A JERK!”

This goes on for another full 2 minutes, and the guy finally staggers out.  Jeepers…. If you are going to have a beer, 1) learn how to hold your liquor and 2) don’t do that.  Ever.  Especially in an airport. You dumbass.

Well, as I type this, the fire alarm just went off, so I’m going to post this now and worry about the fire alarm.  No one is running or screaming, so I think I’m probably OK.

Maybe drunkie pulled it thinking it was the lever to stop the bus he was riding on.

Installed Munin on some of the servers the other day, WOH!  That’s what I’ve been looking for!  Still trying to tune the plugins, but from what I hear, that is not new.  The “etch” version of Debian broke some of the plugins and I noticed a different install experience from the “sarge” install.  I still have a few servers running “sarge” at this point, and will convert them over the next weeks.  Upgrading production is always scary!

I WILL be posting pictures from the field, thanks the to the fixed moblog (thanks for the warning AT&T).