Back to the Gym

Woot – Back to the Gym for the first time since the MD said I could not go back on July 8th (Yes, I have medical clearance)

Short/light workout, as you might expect after what, 5 months of not working out, but I feel good

Casi - A study in Black and White

 

Casi

Sometimes, I hate weekends

Particularly LONG weekends.

A lot of the work at my job runs 24x7, and when I come in after a long weekend, there are usally all sorts of issues to deal with. Sigh

Wire Management - again

How come, in this day and age of way too many wires, we don't see desks, either for the home, or for the office, with good cable/wire management features? Wire troughs, outlets trips build in, etc?

Yes, I know wireless stuff is becomeing more common now, but that just means you'll have a USB or charger cable up to the desk, along with at least one monitor data cable and power cable, probably a keyboard and mouse cable (or else a cable up for the wireless head)

Cable Management

Did a bit of cable cleanup today - No, the lan cable and the power strip you see on the floor were NOT included

Happy Holloween

Good checkup

Saw my endo yesterday, and a basically good checkup. BP was good, A1C at 5.9%, foot tests good, got my normal flu shot (they did not have the H1N1 available - call in a week or so)

The only bad was I put on 4 lbs

Nice weekend

I did 2 things this weekend I haven't done in over a year

1)Played in a ham radio contest - actually, the first NY State QSO party that has been held in 17 years,

2)Had a wee dram of scotch - as I'm no longer on pain killers, I was able to sit by the fire, and enjoy a single malt while listening to a Windam Hill Record yesterday during the rain

Gahhhh

Forgot my Medic ID necklace AND my USB thumb drive at home today (they stay together).

I swear that some days I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached

Blogrolls

An interesting post on the roll of well blogrolls (no pun intended) over at Ripples in the Ether

Time to rename the Nobel Peace Prize

Time to rename the Peace Prize - the "Seinfeld Prize" It's an award about nothing

Just before impact this morning, LCROSS's last transmission:

Not Kidding

"That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?"

Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize?

WTF?

This is a joke

Drop me a line...

I know I have 1 or 2 readers out there, but not many

A short bleg - IF you read this blog, post a comment or drop me a line at

kg2vny @ nospam @ gmail.com

Remove the obvious part

Let me know what you like, what you don't - what you'd like to see me write on (hey, the reason I don't write more is I don't know what to say

Charlie

Think I'm coming down with a cold

Oh Joy, think I'm comong down with a cold

Never Forget

Enough said

Squirrel Season

It's the opening day of Squirrel Season in most of New York (well, except for LI, the City and what, Westchester?), and the weather is stunning. Wish I had the day of to nominally go hunting.

Why do I say nominally? I can't tell you the number of times Dad and I would go upstate to go "Squirrel Hunting", grab our lunch, stuff some ammo in out pockets, I'd grab my .22, he'd grab the shotgun, and we'd look at each other and say "Going to load the gun today?" "Nope" and we'd go for a walk in the woods, sit under a tree, and nominally "hunt Squirrels". Of course what we were really doing was enjoying each other's company, and continuing the tradition.




I miss Dad, particularly on days like this.

So Ted (The Swimmer) Kennedy is Dead

I see that Ted Kennedy is dead. May justice for Mary Jo Kopechne be served in the afterlife. It sure wasn't served here

Soccer Starts Tonight

Sigh, another soccer season starts with 90 minutes of practice for my Son tonight. Yea!

Working Effectively with Legacy Code

What can be said about Michael Feathers' Working Effectively with Legacy Code that has not already been said?

This book, along with a few others (for example, Code Complete
and Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
) belong on every programmer's bookshelf.

Michael defines "Legacy Code" as "Code without tests". In this book, he shows you examples of HOW to find the "seams" in your code, so that you can add tests, in order to refactor your code and/or extend your application without breaking your code.

Code refactoring is the process of changing a computer program's internal structure without modifying its external functional behavior or existing functionality.

If you work at ALL with legacy (brownfield) applications, you need to read this book.

Machine Shop Trade Secrets

A couple of years ago, the author of the book Machine Shop Trade Secrets sent me a copy for review, and I've had a quick review on mw web site for a long time, but I thought it was time to expand it a bit.

This book, written by James A Harvey, is a compendium of tips and tricks for use in the machine shop.

It's somewhat in the same vein as Guy Lautard's The Machinist's Bedside Reader, but with a heavier slant towards the professional machinist, for example, there is an entire chapter on Mold Making, which is not normally a Home Shop activity.

The book has 18 chapters, with everything from the aformentioned Mold Making Tips, Tips for Novices, How to make your parts look good, how to work fast, and lots of others.

I DID notice one mistake in my copy of the book that I pointed out to the Author. In the Chapter "Tell Me something I didn't know" he claims that "The 'RS" in RS232 stands for Radio Shack". Nope, it stands for 'Recomended Standard'

Summer Soccer if Over

Ah, Summer soccer is over - Hugh's team (U7-U9 unisex) came in 2nd, Anna's (u12-u15 I think, again Unisex) came in 3rd

Of course, one of Hugh's (and looks Like Anna's too) leagues has their parents meeting Friday - it never ends

"Dissent is patriotic."

Of course, except when you have a Dem as President

What could Possibly go wrong?

Health Care Reform - >What could possibly got wrong?

If Obama has his way, his health care plan will be funded by his treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by his surgeon general who is obese, signed by a president who smokes, and financed by a country that is just about broke.

Shack Updates

Well, I never have gotten the beam up. Two years later, it's still sitting in the yard. I can't find anyone to install it, because no one waht the liability of bolting it to the roof. I might just have to save up, and out up say a 40 ft crankup in the yard.

One thing I really want to do in the shack is change my desk around. It's a mess. I really think I'm going to make or buy a couple of desktop "turret" racks to mount all the ham gear in, plus put say a 2.5 or 3 ft rack under the desk to mount all the computer stuff and power supplies in.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

Leg aching today

It's aching - just aching. I'm tired. I need a vacation

It's watching me

40 years ago + 1 day

Yes, I know it's an urban legend, but...

"Good Luck Mr Gorsky"

Painting

Recently, I've been painting my old bedoom at my parent's house. As the ceiling was new sheetrock, I decided to try that new Behr (read Home Depot) paint and primer in one. I found it worked really really well on the raw sheetrock, and the few spots I spot primed on the walls, it covered the old paint extremely well. The raw wood trim however was not so good (needed a 2nd coat)

Interestingly, I've always been a Benjamin Moore user - I went to paint the walls with the standard Regal Wall Satin - the color choice was "Opal" (aka OC73), simply because I had 2 gallons of it sitting here at the house. It didn't cover worth a darn - 2 coats were manditory, where the spots with the ONE coat of white Behr paint just covered.

YMMV

Charlie

Gahh - Wound Care

As I think I've blogged, my old wound care MD disapeared in Mid-Feb. Started with a new one today. I've been told no gym, stay off my feet, I'm back in a Unna boot, and there is talk of major time in a wound care center.

Breaking News

Michael Jackson is still dead.

(and so is Generalissimo Francisco Franco)

Endocrinologist visit

Went to my endocrinologist yesterday

First the bad news - I gained weight (boo)

The good news - my A1C is down to 5.8

This is kind of a shock to me, as I expected it to have gone UP. My average readings have gone up, but that is partly because I've started to have a mid morning and late afternoon snack. Good news on a whole I guess

Dentist turned out to be no big deal

Woot!
Turned out not to be a big deal - the chip was small enough that they were able to bond on some sort of plastic or something - no drilling, no pain, in an out in 15 minutes.

While I was there, I made an apointment for my cleaning. As I go every 3 months, that's usually not too bad

Dentist tonight

I woke up Friday moring, a spit out a small chunk of my left rear lower molar - joy, but luckly no pain. I had a choice - travel about 1 hour, and mess up my weekend, or wait - DDS said "it's OK to wait if you're not in pain", so tonight is the night

Oh so true

A quote from Tocqueville

The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations—complicated, minute, and uniform—through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way… it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own … it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my lovely wife Mary, and to Canada

Billy Mays

First there was Ed,
Then Farah,
Then MJ

But wait, there's more...

Didn't do Field Day

Missed Field Day for the 3rd year in a row.

Sheet rocking on Friday ran LATE - but we got started late, so I didn't get the 1st coat of tape up. Ended up doing that on Saturday AM, then had to spend the rest of the early afternoon running to Home Depot, and the local appliance place(AC in the den died last summer - time to replace it)

Sunday I went "Upstate" - aka the Kingston Area (West Hurley and Lamontville). The Ashokan was going over the spillway and the woods were WET. Nice party for Jane's graduation, and it was GOOD to see everyone. The last time I saw most of them was just over a year ago at Dad's Funeral. I normally get up there 4-5 times a year, but the last couple of years have been crazy. I hope to get up there (and to PA to visit with John and Lyn) a LOT more now that things have calmed down a bit in my life

Field Day 2009

I was really really hoping to make it to Field Day this year, but last Friday I received an invite to a friend's Daughter's High School Graduation. This is one I will NOT miss. I hope to get to play some on Saturday, after putting a 2nd coat of taping compound on the spare bedroom ceiling at Mom and Dad's place

Look for KG2V as either a 1D or 1E (depends on how I feel) from NLI section (probably 1D)

Dix Hills Soccer Tournament - A wet time

So, on Saturday, I took Hugh out to the Tournement. His club had 2 teams playing, and Hugh got to play with the more advanced players, despite not normally playing with them. (They were short handed, ended up playing with only 2 subs)

They won 1, lost 2, but played well

Sunday, Mary took him out, and they tied 1 (against the other club team) and lost the other game

Saturday, the Coach was happy, despite the record, as the kids played well, and tried. I gather that on Sunday, this was NOT the case

Dr Seuss for the internet age

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4440353&cpp=1

Breakup Songs

Today I was listening to Matt Pinfield on WRXP, when Leslie said "Everyone has a breakup song"

WRONG

I married my childhood sweetheart, and we're still together

There is only ONE bad thing I can think of with marrying your childhood sweetheart - it's that they remember all the stupid things you used to do when you were a teenager

Mary, Thanks for puuting up with me for all these years

Air France 447

First, may the victims rest in peace

What worries me (and HAS to be worrying Airbus) - Have you looked at the photos of the wreckage? A nice ripped off vertical stabilizer floating on the water. Now where have we seen that before?

Oh yeah - American Flight 587 which crashed in the Rockaways when the vertical stabilizer ripped off an Airbus A300

Normally, when you look at plane crashes, you'll see that the "tail feathers" (Vertical and Horizontal Stabs, rudder, elevator etc) stay together, as that section of the airplane is fairly "beefy"

Another thing that worries me - from what I gather, Airbus and Boeing have VERY different ways of looking at "fly by wire" - I gather that with Airbus, the software will do what it wants, no matter what you want, with Boeing, you can override the software

Why is this relevant? Having actually read the AA-587 crash report, they blame the crash on the pilot making excessive rudder inputs, and ripping the VS off the plane, when he got stuck in turbulence. I don't buy it. We have a few pilots here - if you were stuck in an emergency/rough turbulence - you going to be doing much with the rudder? Ailerons make you turn, the rudder makes it pretty. I still believe that the VS was already parting ways with the A300 and the pilot was trying to compensate - that the turbulence of the previous flight was causing the plane to come apart

Now we have an A320, in turbulence, over the Atlantic that comes apart.. I'll bet that Airbus hopes they never find those black boxes

Dix Hills Soccer Tournament this weekend

This weekend is the 2009 Ken Graff Jr. Memorial Father's Day Tournament. My son HUgh will be playing with the U-8s from Jigs Soccer. Should be fun.

Bencher BY-1 Paddle Mod

I had some ham radio fun this weekend. For a while, I've been thinking of modifying my old Bencher BY-1 paddles to use a 1/8" mini-jack instead of a cable. Makes things a bit easier to swap in and out. I'll modify my Kent paddles next.

Take a look

Wow, didn't realize it's been this long

Sorry about the gap, but I've been twittering, and facebooking

The good news - last time I went to the MD, I got my A1C down to 6.0, not half bad, but recently (last 10 days or so), my blood glucose has been high - can't figure it out

The last week - 10 days, the gym has been lagging due to work and not feeling great.

I'll have some ham radio posts SOON - have done some interesting things in the shop, some Ham releated and some shooting sports related

Good Workout - and watch out for those carbs

Good workout today. I went to the gym expecting problems, as my left ankle was really bothering me, plus my left bicep was sore, but I had no problem.

One interesting thing, I've been going to the gym less than 1 week, and I had been doing some aerobic exercise at physical therapy, but my peak as well as average heart rates for the same treadmill workout has already fallen 10 BPM! Not bad.

Yesterday, I got home, to Hugh to soccer, and Anna to dance, then checked my BG levels - and they were higher than I would like (around 130). I was really confused, until I started really looking at the nutrition information for what I ate yesterday. First, the Sugar Free Lifesavers are NOT zero carb - arrghhh. There are sugar free candy that is, so I'll have to go get some. The other "Interesting" one was the soup at lunch. When you buy canned soup, Campbell's Tomato is one of the lower carb soups out there. At the company cafeteria, it turns out NOT to be the case, in fact, the other 2 options (Italian Wedding and Chicken Noodle) have about 2/3rd the carbs as the "Old fashioned Tomato" Who'd have guessed?

Been a while

Been a while since I blogged, and a LOT has gone on. Besides the usual Holiday stuff in Decemeber, I just wasn't feeling right.

On Jan 6th, I woke up with HORRID abdominal pain - I mean BAD. I had my wife take me to the emergency rooom at North Shore LIJ Manhasset. I was admitted to the hospital with acute pancreatitis. I was there until Jan 20th (aka 2 weeks).

It seems that this was caused by an extremely high triglyceride level (14000 - yes that is the right number of zeros)

While I was in the hospital, they also discovered that I am a Type II diabetic. They DID manage to get rid of the infection in my leg wound, and I'd say it's about 70% healed now.

About 1-2 weeks after I got home, I started physical therapy, as I was extremely weak. That went very well, and I "graduated" on March 16th, in other words, when they did my reevaluation, I was too well to continue.

I finally got back to work on March 18th (yes, I was out 10 weeks)

When I got back to work, I joined the Reebok Gym across the street from work. So far I really like the place. I met with my personal trainer Spencer yesterday, and we setup a good routine. Today was the first weekday I missed going to the gym because my leg wound (remember that other 30%) was really aching. I may try to go at lunch.

Project Valour-IT

Guys (and Gals)
What I think is one of the BEST charities out there is a group called "Project Valour-IT". They supply voice activated laptops to wounded service members (any service) - They are related to Soldiers Angels. Please give - and in the spirt of froendly competition, you can give with credit going to "your team"

APRS-SCS

Last week, the developer of APRS-SCS, John - KB2SCS announced that he was dropping all support for APRS-SCS, as it is written in VB6, which is no longer supported by "the boys from Redmond", aka Microsoft. At that time, John put the source code up on his Web Site.

I started to talk with John (he lives close by, and I really have to get together with him), and I think I'm going to take a crack at porting the program over to VB.NET.

This is NOT going to be a trivial port, and in fact, I've had a bear just getting the development environment up to the point I can compile the existing source (I'm there now - if you need hints, email me)

Anyway, John as agreed that I can "open source" the program.

I'm thinking that I'll put this up on Sourceforge (gasp - a windows app on Sourceforge!), and anyone who wants to contribute can.

The first issues that MUST be taken care of

1)The application uses what are called "old controls". These are .OCXs that Microsoft shipped with VB4 and 5, that were basically replaced by native controls in VB6, but were still available for download, but non supported. There is an "interesting" problem with the "Old controls" - they will not work in the VB6 development environment under Vista. (an aside, the VB6 IDE does not work in Vista64, but IS supported under Vista32)

2)The application uses a 3rd party OCX called "Socketwrench". There was a free version of this control, but there no longer is. Under .NET, we don't need it, the stream reader/writer classes can handle this for us

3)The VB6 and .NET graphics systems are totally different, and this will probably be the biggest part of the port

Anyway, I'd like to hear what you think, and many hands make light work. I'll need testers, reviewers, and even a few developers to help.

Anyone game?

Sorry Bloggings been light

Sorry blogging has been light. My Dad passed away just over a week ago, and was in bad shape before that. Obviously Dad took precidence over the blog, and just about anything else.

RIP Dad - Bah, another old WWII vet gone

Memorial Day

This Monday is Memorial Day.

It is the day we are supposed to honor those who gave all in the service of our country.

Fly your flag (half mast till noon, then full staff)
Thank a Vet
Remember those who gave their all.

Taps is played at 2 times during the day in the military. At night, signaling the end of the day, and during the day - signaling the end of someone's days here on earth.

Taps:

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake,
From the sky.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.

Not The Post but... Visual Studio on a Mac?

I still have not gotten my deep thought post written, the brain just has not been into it (hey, the leg has been bothering me, so..)

Anyway, I've been thinking about getting a new Laptop (the current 'personal' laptop is a PIII based unit...)

I've heard some good things about Macbook pros laptops runing Vista under either Parallels or VMWare. Have any of you had any experience running Vista/Visual Studio 2008 (and in particular VB.NET) on a Macbook pro?

Comments?

Bloggings Been Light

Hi Gang (I know I've got at least 3-4 readers out there, hey, that puts me well above average)

Blogging has been light, because I've been seriously thinking about a post. Last week, a bunch of different blogs posted about working alone and Agile/XP/TDD. I found it interesting, because this is for all intents the situation I'm in (department has 15 programmers, but mostly, we work alone - dumb, but)

AAArrrggghhh Legacy Code

Recently, I've been working on what is probably the "Ultimate" legacy/Brownfield application. It's a VERY important application for our business, or WAS, but the users are starting to find other ways to do their job. The problem is that the application in question is VERY hard to maintain, and management does not want to risk making any "non critical" changes. It's the classic "Big Ball of Mud" design.

Now no matter HOW many time's I've read Michael Feather's Working Effectively with Legacy Code, I can can never quite figure out how to make it work in this case. There are almost no seams to exploit. We have numerious routines that have a Maintenance Complexity in the 2000 to 3000 range. Of course these routines have no REASON to be that complex, it's just that previous programmers had a tendency to lump all sorts of things together that had nothing in common except that they needed to execute at the same time.

DRY? They never heard of it
The classes are just mirrors of database tables, and if a calculation needs to be done on a class or collection, the routine is usually inline in a form event, with "other" code mixed in.

I do find RefactorPro! to be a very useful tool, but even with automated tools, I have to take huge risks, just to get the code to the point I can start putting test harnesses on it.

Anyone else have to maintain a probram like this? The goal here is to get the application maintainable enough that I can start to add features to retain/regain our internal user base

A central place for Visual Studio hot fixes

can be found here:


http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=Hotfix

Hat Tip:Neno Loje

Bummed

About 15 years ago, Mary and I went on vacation to New Mexico, and stayed at a place called Starhill Inn. It was the BEST vacation we ever went on. We always said that when the kids got old enough, we would go back. Last week, we decided "This summer is the time"

I just called them. They are closing June 30th. No more Starhill Inn. I'm seriously bummed. I was REALLY looking forward to it.

Oh well. Now comes the question. Do we want it to be a "Northeastern New Mexico" Vacation, or an "Astronomy" vacation? Any readers have any good ideas?

Vista SP1 out..

I see that Vista SP1 is offically out. I guess all those folks who said "I'll wait until SP1 to try it" can now go out and well, Try it.

Want MY Honest opinion of Vista? By now, you've probably seen my posts. I LIKE Vista, BUT you have to do things "The Vista Way". If you try and do things the "XP Way" you will often end up in a "Boy is Vista Annoying" mode.

BTW It turns out Vista was designed to be annoying to try and force small software vendors to change their software to work with Vista. That backfired on Microsoft, and folks complain about Vista instead of the small programs. I think this is because > 50% of the small vendor programs become 'naggy', and people blame Vista instead of the program running under Vista - fair enough. I won't go into the reason WHY Microsoft wants these changes (see previous posts), but...

A Basic Class Design Lesson

Hi Gang,
I'm going through some OLD code today, probably written before classes, but looking at it, I realized it might be a good class design lesson for those not used to writing classes.

The code was in a form, and was actually used multiple times - which by itself says the code should be in a function - code has been changed slightly to obscure the exact nature for my blog, and is in Visual Basic 6.0, but the lesson works for any Object based language

If Left(instanceOfClass.pollclose, 2) > 12 Then
objGrid.Text = (CInt(Left(instanceOfClass.closingTime, 2)) - 12) & ":" & Right(instanceOfClass.closingTime, 2)
Else
objGrid.Text = Left(instanceOfClass.closingTime, 2) & ":" & Right(instanceOfClass.closingTime, 2)
End If

OK (again, VB6 syntax) you could say:

Private Function formatClosingTime(byval theTime as string) as string
If Left(theTime, 2) > 12 Then
formatClosingTime = (CInt(Left(theTime, 2)) - 12) & ":" & Right(theTime, 2)
Else
formatClosingTime = Left(theTime, 2) & ":" & Right(theTime, 2)
End If
end Function

and put that in the form

Which would make the call in the form

objGrid.Text = formatClosingTime(instanceOfClass.closingTime)

- it's ok, and a heck of a LOT better than it was (remember, it's used multiple places - the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) concept comes in here)

BUT - that's NOT where the function should really be. What we do is add a Property to the class

Public Function formattedClosingTime() as string
If Left(me.closingTime, 2) > 12 Then
formattedClosingTime = (CInt(Left(me.closingTime, 2)) - 12) & ":" & Right(me.closingTime, 2)
Else
formattedClosingTime = Left(me.closingTime, 2) & ":" & Right(me.closingTime, 2)
End If
End Function

Now, this reduces the code in the form to:

objGrid.Text = instanceOfClass.formattedClosingTime

Isn't that better? The class is taking care of itself. Ahhhh

Agile/XP programming and the OODA loop

Today, over at Inc.Com, Joel Spolsky of Pragmatic Programmer had an article called Fire and Motion, where he talks about getting your competition responding to YOU. It's a really good post that I think you should read.

When I was reading it, I was reminded of

John Boyd's OODA Loop, and all of a sudden, I realized WHY Agile/XP works. It's NOT the Agile Manifesto. It's NOT Pair Programming, or any of the OTHER tools. Agile/XP is a Tool to speed up your development teams OODA loop massively. One of the tenants of the OODA loop is that a GOOD decision, quickly implemented, beats a PERFECT solution delivered later.

Let's think of what XP/Agile has you do - Short iterations. Observe at what the client needs, and quickly fill that need. Not necessarily with a perfect answer, but something. Then ask the client "OK, Now decide how it needs to change", and then add that. Quick loops

Why I never thought of Agile/XP in terms of OODA before, I don't know, but it was a light bulb going off

How to Compress Virtual PC Hard Disks

As more and more of us use Virtual Hard Drives to test/develop different software, here is a great HowTo: Compress Virtual PC Virtual Hard Disks over at Kurt Shintaku's Blog - HT to Kirk Allen Evans - via Jason Haley

ALT.NET Leadership to suppliment the traditional .NET leadership

Jeremy Miller has (as usual) and interesting post on The need ALT.NET to supplement the traditional >NET leadership

I can't agree more. Right now, I think some of the best REAL WORLD developemnt stuff is coming out of ALT.NET. It seems Microsoft IS listening to a point (Unit tests in VS2008 etc) but...

Links - March 17th, 2008

First - Happy St Patty's day!
What is Alt.NET

This may be subscriber only - but Taming Software Dependencies

Links for March 14th, 2007

5 ways to Engage Employees

The Ribbon He seems to like them - I think they are the worst thing I've seen in years. I can never find what I want

Linq2SQL, thoughts after a few hours of leaning

Some observations from Jeremy D. Miller

Link to Everything: A List of LINQ Providers

Developer Tools

I don't think I've ever made a list of MY favorite developer tools.

First some background. I've been at least a part time developer since 1982. Since the late 80s, I have been pretty much a full time developer. Yes, during part of that time I did operational stuff with the software I wrote, but I probably spent 75% of the time coding/designing, and 25% as my own end user. Anyway, here is a list of tools I use all the time:

Microsoft MSDN Team developer ($5469) or Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Premium ($2,499)

Textpad I see lots of other editors mentioned - but I like Textpad

Cygwin Being able to use most UNIX command line tools in windows is great. I regularly have to parse 30+ meg files here at the office, and the tools in Cygwin do it faster than any windows based product I've found

RefactorPro! A totally amazing tool for refatoring your code. I'd say most C# programmers feel the same way about ReSharper. At one time, ReSharper didn't do VB.NET, so...

Microsoft Virtual PC The ability to have clean build boxes, and test boxes, plus being able to test my software under various OSes. Great

Paint.NET Free Photo Editor

Feeling Frustrated

Today, I'm working on a VB 6.0 application. After a couple of years of working almost exclusively in .NET, boy is it driving me nuts

The WORST part? I'm adding a form and some classes to an application that is about 90% done being ported to .NET

Vista, and what went wrong...

First, let me say I use and LIKE Vista. I designed the PC It's on to well exceed what turns out were political and not technical minimums. I also chose (wisely IMHO) to run the 32 bit version of Vista. Part of my reasoning for all of this is that by trade, I'm a software developer for the Microsoft platform. I figured I'd BETTER be able to make my software work correctly under XP and Vista. The changes you need to make, IF you have been following the Microsoft coding guidelines are NOT that hard. The biggest tips are probably in their book Writing Secure Code.

And that's both the GOOD and the BAD thing.

There is a LOT of software out there, mostly from smaller niche market vendors that "Doesn't Work" or "Doesn't Work Right" under Vista. Now, I won't address the problems of Drivers under Vista 64. Let's face it, you don't have a driver, you have problems, but let's look at some of the OTHER issues that I hear about.

Help Files: One of the big complaints that hit the day Vista shipped was "I'm getting a message my help file won't work". Back around 1995 (yes, 12-13 years ago) Microsoft said "Stop using the *.hlp file format, in the future we will drop support for it". At that same time, they came out with html based help files, and compiled html help files. Over a decade later, Microsoft actually dropped support, and people yelled. Now the question is, why didn't the developers update to the new format? I'll give you part of the answer. The old stuff continued to work, PLUS most of the best tools for making help files, well, still made *.HLP files...

The Annoying Security Popups:
Believe it or not, this problem has been around since XP Service Pack 2, but only in the Corporate Environment, and if it was turned on.
Microsoft told developers "DON'T write to 'random' spots on the hard drive, you should make the API call to find out were the Users/All Users (I'll just use the term Users for short from now on) directory is, and install the program under that, and use a DIFFERENT API call to find out were the users data and settings should be stored" Anyway, to make a long story short - if an application tries to write outside the returned data directory, you are going to get prompted. In addition, if you "assumed" it was going to be "C:\program files\etc etc etc" or "C:\documents and Settings\ etc etc etc", the app WILL continue to work, but it's actually going to stuff the data in a virtual directory that is almost hidden, it's buried so deep

So, it sounds like I'm blaming the developers, right? WRONG

Tyner Blaine had an interesting Post about Microsoft ignoring the customer the other day. I posted a long comment, but it basically was "Microsoft is not only ignoring the customer, they are ignoring the small developer"

Back, oh, say 15 years ago (maybe even a bit more), Microsoft was in a pitched battle with IBM on "Windows VS OS/2". One of the reasons Windows (which was a technically inferior product) won that battle was that there was a LOT of small developer shops, developing small applications in a tool called Visual Basic. There was no small cheap simple tool for OS/2. I'd bet that 90% of the applications that people used were programs that Microsoft never heard of, BUT they were the small things that the user wanted

As windows took off, Microsoft really shifted their developer support from support the 1-4 man shop to "let's take care of the Fortune 500 developers". Lets face it, in many ways, this makes a lot of sense. Examples of this are thing like - .NET produces a P-code that can be decompiled. Who cares, if you are a developer for Megagcorp. The thing is, if you're a 1 man shop selling your product, giving your competitors a way to look at your code is not such a good thing. Look at what the cost of a full up copy of Visual Studio now costs. Yeah, you can get a 'lite' version for free, but to go and get one with source control, and all the stuff you really need? Figure on a $3000+ MSDN subscription (oh, and this way you get the news of 'don't write to the application directory'). Microsoft has also said "The web is the future, and our development efforts will be on developing web application". They really are NOT working on the "I install the application, and I don't need to write the data back to Corp HQ". Again, why? Because 90% of their users are big companies, where they can give you a slick UI, and you are talking to say, Amazon's order entry system, of the CBS Olympic site. Of course, this doesn't do much good say, for a Ham Radio Logging Program, but then again, we no longer are even a blip on the radar.

The thing is: OK, you install Vista, You install Office, You install Money. They all work Great. You install Quicken - and it almost works great (don't try to run the updater unless you tell it to run with Admin Privs)

But then you go to install DxBase, or N1MM, or CWGet, or some other niche program. And you have problems. The developers come up with a way to get it to work, and there becomes a FAQ on how to make the program work under Vista. And you know what? People say "Vista sucks, because look what I have to do to make XXX program work" (or even worse, I can't get XXX to work, because they haven't looked around for how to make it work)

Microsoft blew it - BIG time, and left a BAD taste in a lot of peoples mouth. How? By not helping the small one man shop, that MIGHT sell $10-20K a year in software (and maybe less) get their products ready for Vista - at a reasonable cost

Kitchenaid Lemon

My wife and I closed on our home back in August 2001, and the dishwasher that was there failed before Thanksgiving.

Buying a new dishwasher was a "no brain" decision. My parents had 2 kitchenaids at that point (they are still on the 2nd), and in my old house, I had a Kitchenaid the last 4-5 years I lived there. None of them ever gave us a problem - not a moment.

We went to the store, ordered the top of the line Kitchenaid, without a thought of buying a "lesser" unit

Well I'll tell you, the thing has been a lemon since day 1. When the unit showed up, a lead had fallen off the starter cap on the motor. The door seals kept falling off the unit. About 2 years in, the clips holding the top rack in place started failing. Last year, the disposer inside the unit clogged, requiring the unit to be taken apart. Then about 6 months later (still in warrantie) the pump failed altogether - this is with pre rinsing every dish going into the unit. Well, on Thursday, the control panel started blinking - yep it needs to be replaced, a $300 dollar job. Now as the soap dispenser latch requires fiddling, the top basket still is falling apart, you can guess what we chose to do. Yep, buy a new dishwasher - and you can BET it's not a Kitchenaid/Whirlpool/Kenmore (all the same dishwasher).

Open note to Kitchenaid - you had serious brand loyalty in my family. We never even thought of buying anything else. Now we will never think of buying one again...

9/11

Today, on another blog, they were asking about what you remember most about 9/11

To me, it's a long answer. I work in IT supporting the News Division of one of the "big 3" networks. I was at my desk, and is usual for ME, the TV in my office was off. A co-worker called down the hall "Hey Charlie, a plane just hit the World Trade Center". Like most people, I figured it was some small plane. I reached over, and turned on the TV. One glance, and I KNEW this was not a small plane.

By the time the 2nd plane hit, the whole department was in the main conference room, with the bank of TV sets on various channels

Things I remember... Not necessarly in order, from the next 2-3 days

My son's Nanny calling - her Future Father-in-Law worked in 2 WTC - and she had not heard from him (he got lucky - he was on the 48th floor getting a cup of coffee - if he had been at his desk, he would have been killed) - it was 2pm before he was able to get through to say he was OK.

Me being sent home fairly early, to come back in by 6:00am the next day for a 24 hour shift, and my wife (who worked in Port Washington and was also sent home early) asking me "what's that smell?" and telling her "that's the smell of the WTC burning" (we live about 12 miles away from ground zero)

An out of town firefighter on the 12th - walking past our office - in his gear, carrying a Scott pack, walking north away from ground zero - and EVERYONE offering to help him carry his gear - he refused, but...

Getting a black car home on either the 12th or 13th, and going past one of the Missions to the UN here in NYC, and there being a Humvee outside, with a M2 mounted - and yeah - it was locked and loaded.

Did I mention the smell? (yeah I did) - the smell went on a LONG time - it changed over time, and after the first month or so, you could no longer smell the burning flesh as much.

The silence of no airplanes (except for the fighters) overhead

I remember the 3 ex-coworkers I lost that day

I remember being really thankful that I had NOT taken that job in the WTC

I remember going home, and hugging my family.

AND I remember the people who did this to us - and I won't forget - they are dammed lucky I was not in charge of the Nuclear football that day...

(edited May 23rd, 2008 to fix some spelling errors, and one or two grammer errors)

Best Blonde Joke EVER

This has to be The Best Blonde Joke Ever.

Equipped to Survive: A trip to the ER

With all apologies to the folks over at Equipped, here are some thoughts on "surviving" a trip to your hospitals Emergency Room. Not necessarily YOUR trip, but a trip of a loved one.

As many of you know, my Mom just died after a long illness (lung cancer), and my Dad is not in the greatest of health. Over the last 18 months or so, I've probably been in the ER with one or the other nearly a dozen times. (Latest was yesterday - Dad is OK).

First - BE PREPARED to take them to the ER, or have them taken to the ER. By prepared, the Ambulance crew is going to want a few things: Their Name, Birth date (age), what medications they are taking, and known illnesses. Having this information written down ahead of time is going to save the crew a LOT of time, and they will be real happy to get it. Also, on the list - put down the names and phone numbers of their doctors (BTW, do this for yourself, your spouse and kids too).

Sometimes a simple "Oh - he has a pacemaker" can prevent them from scheduling an MRI. Or a "Hey, he has Paget's syndrome" can prevent days of worry over shadows found on his bones during a cat scan (No - it's NOT bone cancer)

So, where do you KEEP this information? Mom's Hospice folks as well as the NYC EMS crews ALL have said the same thing - put it in an envelope, and stick it to their refrigerator - with BIG letters. If they call 911, and can't tell the crew what is going on, the crew is going to check the kitchen for medicines - particularly the refrigerator for drugs that need to be kept cold. When they see the envelope - they WILL check it. It's SOP for the crews. IF there is a DNR - keep it outside the envelope, in plain site. (BTW in NY state, DNR orders have to be renewed I think it's every 30 days, and approved by an MD)

You should also keep a copy of this information where YOU can get at it. Towards the end with Mom, I actually kept copies with me at ALL times. You could get the call that they need you at the ER when you're NOT at home.

I hope all of you keep your basic medical information with you - in your wallet - your MD, your drug list, and any known problems. It can save some real problems if YOU end up in the hospital, and can make life easier even if it's just a visit to a new MD - just hand him the paper.

mbUnitForms

Today, mbUnitForms was announced. It's a port of nUnitForms. Might be a reason to switch to mbUnit

SQL Server Monitor Gadget

Conchango today has released a SQL Server Sidebar widget. That should be fairly cool

Now if they would only let us use Vista at work

New Software - Get them while they're hot

Oooh - some new software for the development world:
NUint 2.4.2 - the defacto standard in .NET unit testing software
Code-Rush and Refactor! Pro

Barriers to Agile Development

I just ran across an interesting blog post RE the Barriers to Agile development at

barrier to agile development

Personally, I can see how Agile and TDD work. MY personal biggest barrier is that MOST of my development time these days is spent porting REAL legacy code - VB 6.0 stuff (some of which were ported to VB6 from VB3!)

I've read
Michael Feather's Working Effectively with Legacy Code and Joshua Kerievsky's Refactoring to Patterns.

The BIG problem is that there are very few tools to get VB6 fat client NON DLL applications under test before you try a port, and if you have seriously UGLY code (and some of this stuff belongs on the daily WTF) you are basically FORCED to do the port, do hundreds of minor repairs to try and get your code running, and THEN instrumenting your code. Distinctly NON optimal.

How to increase your blogging output

I saw this interesting post by Andrew Garrett on how to increase your blogging output

http://redemption.co.nz/2007/08/08/11-ways-to-increase-your-blogging-output/

Mom - RIP

Well, what we knew was going to happen happened. Last week, my Mom passed away after a long battle with lung cancer.

That's about all I want to say on the blog.

My Health

As some of you may know, I have a very slowly healing wound on my right leg. Basically it's exactly what a diabetic gets, but without me being a diabetic (yes, I've been tested a bunch of times over the last month). In my case, it was cause by residual scaring left over from a bout of cellulitus about 5 years ago.

Besides the stuff to try and heal the wound, the specialist has me on some fairly serious pain killers. Man it sucks. You can't think right, and despite all that, sometimes you are still in pain (like right now)

Blog overload

Ever have one of those days (weeks?) when you see interesting blog entries, that you really want ot read, and are (gasp) even work related, but you just don't have the energy to read them?

That's been me lately - Jeff Flowers blog has what looks to be an interesting video entry this AM, but I just do have enough mental "energy" to watch it

Queens Crap

For those of you who don't know, I live in the Borough of Queens in New York City.

To say that many sections of Queens are going downhill is an understatement. Nice single family homes being replace with Multi Family homes - many illegally

Here is a blog that covers it:

http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/

WAS and New Mexico

Well, one of my big goals for FD didn't happen AGAIN this year. The ONLY state I have NOT worked - EVER, is New Mexico.

I often hear stations working New Mexico, but I've NEVER even heard a station out of New Mexico

The only other state I don't have confirmed is CT - Mostly because I still have not sent out the card from LAST Field Day

Contesting and CW

This year, during FD, I tried contesting a bit on CW. Now I'll admit my CW stinks. I'm slow, and VERY rusty, so I was using CWGet to back me up, which basiclly means I only got to work strong stations.

I liked it - I liked it a LOT. The QSOs went a LOT faster. Stations actually sent their call sign every QSO! I'll tell you, it's a real incentive to actually sit down and practive my morse code. 5wpm doesn't cut it for contests - contest CW is 25-30wpm, but is VERY stylized - you KNOW what is coming - call sign, and exchange.

Well, it's time to break out g4fon's program, and get back to it

Field Day

This year, Field day has not been so much fun. I've got some health issues, so I'm running class 1D with my lousy antennas. On top of that, I went to bed early. I figure my health is a heck of a lot more important than Field Day.

I probably should be on the air right now, but the way I feel, probably better off relaxing

Bloomberg Changes Party Registration - Again

Mayor Blooming Idiot of NYC "left the Republican Party" yesterday. What I want to know is, when did he ever join the Republican Party. Yes, I know he changed his party registration to Republican, and was elected Mayor twice on the Republican Party line, but he was never a Republican.

Let's look at a bit of the history - in 2001, Bloomberg, then a registered Democrat, decided he wanted to run for Mayor. Realizing that the way the Democratic Party machine works in NYC, he knew he could NOT win the primary. The Republican Party had no strong candidate to replace outgoing Mayor Gulianni, so Bloomberg changed his party registration to Republican, and ran. I guess the NYC Republican party figured better a RINO than Mark Green in office

So, now Bloomburg wants to run for President, as an independent. He KNOWS he can't win either the Republican OR Democratic party nod, so he drops both parties, and figures he can self finance, after all, he can easly spend $1 BILLION to win

Bloomie, don't let the door hit you in the back on the way out...

Merged Post III

Friday, June 1, 2007
IS Code our enemy? (Computers - not Morse)
This Morning, Jeff Atwood over at "Coding Horror" wrote an article The Best Code is No Code Commenting on Code is our enemy over at Skrentablog

I happen to think BOTH posters are right and wrong. I'll agree with Jeff that Brevity is extremely important, BUT not at the expense of robustness.

Of course, code that does NOT exist is the most robust code there is.

Rich says that there are 3 kinds of code. Stable (aka code that doesn't change over time), Code that gets worse, and Code that gets better. I feel that there are really 4 kinds. The addition is code that RARELY changes

I see a lot of this RARELY change code, but the joke is, this is where I see some of the worst code, because when it does change, it may be a decade since it last changed, and NO one really knows the code anymore, and it often has lots of dependencies hung off of it. THIS is the code that probably needs both the best decoupling and DRY - even though it rarely changes

Merged Post II

Thursday, May 24, 2007
Batteries
I was reading a blog the other day where the blogger mentioned a friend who had batteries that were going dead in a fairly low power device - but critical use, and when they went to switch batteries, the spares were dead too.

This is a common problem. In many LOW power devices, the effective battery life is not really limited by the use of the device, but by the shelf life of the battery in question!

The moral of the story is - don't buy your spare batteries at the same time as your primary batteries. If you want to be really safe, figure out how long a set of batteries last for you in the use in question - and change them at say, 1/2 to 3/4 of that time. Assuming you are going on the 1/2 life change, buy your spares 1/2 way to the change time (aka 1/4) - at 1/2, put the spares in, and buy fresh batteries

Merged Post 1

Programmer Productivity
Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror has a great post on the relative speed of various CPUs when doing common programming tasks at .

I wish I could get my bosses to understand this. I work on an old 530 Mhz single core PC, with 1 gig of Memory, and that's because I begged for an upgrade.

Silly, huh?

I think I'm going to wrap the two blogs together

I really think I'm going to wrap the 2 blogs togther - no sense keeping them apart

New Blog

I've avoided posting Non Ham stuff here at this blog, as I didn't want to get either political, or too much into programming.

To that end, I've created a second blog http://kg2vslife.blogspot.com/ Feel free to drop on by

Alpha Delta DX-EE - and the Rotor

Yesterday, I ended up having to take the day of to take Dad to the MD (HE has cancer now too), so I did some work on the antennas

I took down my Mini-G5RV, and replaced it with a Alpha Delta DX-EE. Based upon some testing, it seems like a LOT better antenna, so I'm pleased. That antenna is going to be my 40m primary antenna when I get the beam up.

Speaking of the beam, I repaired the rotor yesterday - the sender pot was bad, and I had ordered a replacement a few weeks back. I installed that, and now the rotor is working fine.

I intend to close up the rotor tonight, and then, once I make a run to the hardware store for some "stuff", I'll be ready for the antenna party! Don't think it'll be ready for BS7H, and even if it is, it's a small beam. I think I'm going to have to run to a friends place (Hi W2IRT) to try and work them

I am John Doe

Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,

You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.
I am John Doe.

I am traveling on your plane.

I am riding on your train.

I am at your bus stop.

I am on your street.

I am in your subway car.

I am on your lift.

I am your neighbor.

I am your customer.

I am your classmate.

I am your boss.

I am John Doe.

I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.

I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.

I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."

I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."

I am John Doe.

I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."

I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.

I am John Doe.

I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.

I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.

I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.

I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.

I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates' clothing.

I will not cringe when you shriek about "profiling" or "Islamophobia."

I will put my family's safety above sensitivity.

I will put my country above multiculturalism.

I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.

I am John Doe.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Been a while

Since the last time I posted, life has been busy with NON ham stuff - 20 or so QSOs this year!

I did wire up the Ham IV, and found that the position sender doesn't work, and I've been SO busy I have not had time to send it out to Norm's to be rebuilt

Sigh

I decided to play in WPX this weekend - ended up playing for 21 minutes - I checked my log

Well, MOST of the parts are here

So, the coax and rotor cables are here. I'm waiting on my Cal-Aero balun (should be here today - I hope - Tuesday at worst) and believe it or not, new pins for the AMP connector for my rotor. Yes, my Ham IV is old enough to have the AMP commector. Tomorrow, I'll probably put the elements for the antenna together, and store them

Antennas

Well, I've ordered the Glen Martin rooftop mount form my beam - a MP-33 which needs 2 parts (on order). The rotor (a Ham IV) is in the garage, and the mast and thrust bearing arrived today.

Next week, I'll order the coax, and the rotor cable, and I should be good to go

I think I'm going to use 9096-2a for coax

If we get some nice weather (like we have been getting) in a few weeks, I should have the beam up, the Mini - G5RV down, and a 40m Delta Loop in it's place, pluse the 17m/80m trapped dipole moved and up higher. Imagine that, a signal improvement on EVERY band I run (I can't run 12m, 30m, 60m, or 160m)

The eventual goal is still to replace the MP-33 with a Step-IR, but...

Field Day Result

I Never posted how I did on Field Day. As I predicted, I came in forst for class 1E in the NLI section. That turned out to be trivial, as I was the ONLY class 1E in NLI.

I did come in 4th in the Hudson Division for class 1E. Definately have to get the QSO count up. I had 203, where the winning effort (WA2EQF) had 561!. I guess the sleep and off hours killed me. That's the big problem with a 1 man effort

CQWW SSB

Didn't get much time to play in the contest this weekend, there is just too much going on in my life

Ended up running PARTS of 3 different hours - probably a total on the air time of 90 minutes or so

38 QSOs - all on 20m, all while the band was dieing at night, but what the heck

The Beam

Last night, I got a call from Pete (W2IRT) - "XF4 is on the air and LOUD". I get on the air - just a whisper - below ESP level. Man I HAVE to get my beam up. I talked with my XYL - she has given me the OK as my Christmas Gift. Yea! I can start ordering parts before then.

Miscellaneous Musings

It's been a LONG time since I posted. My ham radio life has been very slow, as I've been VERY busy. Mom was in and out of the hospital and rehab (Lung Cancer) etc

Anyway, one major problem I had in my station at home was NASTY 'birdies' all up and down the band from my LAN. This is a fairly common problem. I decided to try and fix the problem. Now, as I already HAD shielded Cat-6 cables in place, I knew that was not going to fix the problem. What I did was make up Cat-5e cables that had a type 43 ferrite at BOTH ends. (small ones - 1/2 hole, about 3/4" long). I had to cut off the connectors and put on new ones. I did it scientifically - one cable at a time, one end at a time. Interestingly, at least on MY LAN, the end near the PC was MUCH more important than the end at the router! I'll guess that the LAN circuits in the PC are less balanced than they are in my router (a Linksys). I lowered the noise at the 'birdie' points from about s-6 to about s-1, so I'd say I made a huge improvement.

This last weekend, I replaced my temporary coax to my 80m/17m dipole with it's permanent coax. Now I don't have to open my rear door to use the antenna. Make me a tad more likely to actually USE the antenna

I've had a bunch of cards come in, and I'd like to thank all the stations who sent me cards.

I'm seriously thinking I'm going to order an NMO mount saw. I have a few friends (Hi Pete (w2irt) and John (KB3MTK)) who need antennas put on their trucks (both Ford Rangers...). My old truck was a Ranger, so I know the tricks with that one.

Sometime this winter (actually next 2 months or so) I should be putting up a beam. Going with a Glen Martin 4ft rooftop tower, probably a 6ft mast. I have a MA-33 that I got from the old Knickerbocker Yacht Club station (Thanks Guys). I eventually want to put a SteppIR up there, but that'll wait. Still debating WHICH coax to use. I keep waffling on that.

Unfortunately, I won't get much contesting done this fall. It's an election year, and my job is related to the elections, so I'll be working 7 days/week until after the election.

73 de KG2V - and Good DX (sunspots? What's a sunspot)

Field Day 2006

Normally I go Upstate and do field Day at WA2GUG's place. This year, due to family commitments (had to watch the children, plus Mom in the hospital), I did Field Day as a class 1E from home

Had a good Field day - 978 points, which SHOULD put me in first for NLI section.

Butt in Chair was a BIG issue - ran frm the start to about 4:30pm, then had to cook dinner for Dad and the kids, so I lost 2 hours there (3 QSOs in 2 hours). Around 2:30am, I hit the wall, and had to sleep. The BIG issue was I set my alarm wrong, and instead of it waking me up at 5:30am, I slept until 7:30am.

My big battery died for tranmit use right around noon - pretty much all I did was get the bulletin. I did get a BUNCH of QSOs on Sunday AM

I'll admit going into the contest tired - with running to the hospital almost every night, I was averaging less than 6 hours of sleep a night

The GOOD news is that it allowed me to ALMOST finish my WAS - I'm still missing New Mexico

Weather Station Redux

The Cat-5 change of the weather station cables has worked VERY well. It has not hung up since the change