The Hub

More NYC Birds

More NYC Birds, these taken Sunday, but probably the same bird

Egret in flight

Flare for landing (gear down, full flaps...)

Saturday in NYC

Yep, more from the "You would not believe you're in NYC" file

RIP Suiki

You were taken too soon
#Caturday

Floral Friday

 #FloralFriday

Ft Totten

 

This used to be the USCG Station at Ft Totten, now part of the FDNY/EMS water training.

When most people think of NYC, they think of Manhattan, the skyscrapers, the crowds (aka the Sex in the City/Woody Alan NYC) or Archie Bunker/The King of Queens NYC (the dense parts of the outer boroughs - or as we in NYC often abbreviate 'boro'),  People forget that parts of the North Bronx, Staten Island, or in this case, Queens (Ft Totten is NE Queens) are quite suburban

Cowards Falls

Cowards Falls are little known outside of the locals.  They are just off Hurley Mountain Road near Kingston NY

Cowards Falls

I just found out today that it is Cowards Falls (with an S) aka Hurley Falls.  These falls are NOT in the book Catskill Region Waterfall Guide

Mister T

Mister T is a tug that works here in NYC.  In the background is SUNY Maratime.  Photo taken from the jetty by Ft Totten, Bayside, Queens.  The bridge is the Throgs Neck

Monochrome Monday at Grant's Tomb

Believe it or not, despite living here in NYC my entire life (well, 14 months away while Mary was in Grad School), I had never been to Grant's Tomb.  It happens to be a whopping two blocks from my current contract, so I went last Friday

Haven't posted in a while

Hey Gang (for the 1-2 followers I do have) Think I'm going to be posting more photos here - just because

Sussex Hamfest

Went to the Sussex hamfest yesterday. They seemed to have a nice sized crowd (I'd say larger than the last couple of years)

Came home with a 5 port rig runner, an aluminum project box, and the loan of an MFJ 1026 from W2IRT

What I forgot to do was stock up the parts bin - I have no power connector for said MFJ Unit, I don't think I have any 1/8" or 1/4" phone plugs in the house, etc - when did I remember? Just after I left the grounds, and of course I was hot (it was extremely sunny), tired, and my leg hurt (too much walking around on it, and I refuse to use a ham-about.

The connector/parts vendors seem to skip the LIMARC indoor hamfest, so I'm hoping for something at HOSARC

It is almost not fair

It's almost not fair

Back when I had low wires, and a 600 watt amp (on a good day), a station from say Brazil would come on the air, and it would take me 10-20 minutes of hard work to get a QSO, if I was lucky

Tonight PY6KY pops up on 40m ssb. Now he's on LOTW, and I don't have Brazil confirmed on 40m. Turn on the rig, turn on the amp, tune the antenna, turn it and one call, and we're done

I'm actually starting to do a lot more work withthe amp off

Field Day

Now, I've never been much of a contester, and I'll never have enough of a station to be a 'Big Gun', but I do enjoy it when I do contest, and with the big station upgrade, I can actually play a bit more.

This weekend was Field Day, which was the first contest I ever played in, with WA2GUG and gang (they now contest under WW2FD)

This year, I was running at home for the first time in a long time (last year I went to W2IRT's place). I ran class 1E (One transmitter, on Emergency Power)

I think I did OK, but when I went to switch over to 80m at around 10pm, I found my 80m antenna would NOT tune, which totally killed the hours between midnight and 6:30am or so, to the point I shut the radio off around 1:30am, and went to bed till 5:45ish (BTW, the antenna tuned FINE post contest - don't ask me)

That said, if you remove the W2IRT score from the Hudson class 1E database (Pete's in Germany), I had an effort that still should bring me a 2nd place, if the scores are the same as last year (1228 QSO points, plus the bulletin, plus 10 battery powered QSOs, plus solar power recharge, plus the 50 points for submitting online - If I do the math off the top of my head right, that's 1578 points - but I have to check the rule book)

(Edit - I eventually found the problem - after Field Day 2012!  Turns out that the barrel connector between the feed line and the riser to the 80m antenna had a thermal intermittent!  Not from RF, but from the daily change in temps.)

Poor Planning

One of those logistics/planning things that makes me NUTS
Anna's graduation is tomorrow - We have to drop her off at 8:00 in the tent next to the auditorium, with graduation starting at 9:00am.

OK, that's fine, can understand that - BUT THEY WON'T LET YOU INTO THE AUDITORIUM UNTIL 8:30!!!!! OK - so now you have a BUNCH of people who have to stand around outside for 30 mins.

WHO designed this? Really? If the people have to be there at 8:00 - let them IN at 8:00 to sit down

More Beastie photos

Two taken this weekend
Suiki


And Saci (Anna took this photo)

QRO - Alpha 78

The shack upgrade is basically complete

About 2 weeks ago, I purchased a freshly retubed Alpha-78, which I installed today in place of my SB-230

Now, there are some things I actually LIKE about my SB-230, and I think I'm going to keep it around, as it's still outputting rated power from it's admittedly rare tube. It's SMALL, it's silent, as the tube is conduction cooled to the heatsink - oh, and did I mention it's small?

The Alpha is actually a BIT too large for where it has to go, and I'm having to put a fan on the airspace on top of the amp to make SURE things stay cool there as I don't have the recommended 4 inches

Other worries is that it can actually put out more watts (WAY more watts) than my LDG AT-1000 is rated to handle (1000w SSB, 750 CW, 500 RTTY/Digital), but I switched the MkV Field over to 'Class A' drive, and I'm finding that 30-40 watts or so drives the amp to 800watts peak or so in 'bandpass' tuning mode (heck, I'm lazy - yes, the amp is less efficient, and you can't get max power out that way, but, as I said, I can't push it anyway)

I made my first 2 'QRO' (sort of - The SB-230 could, in theory put out 600 Watts CW - on a good day, plus I only pushed to 800 or so watts) today, and busted 2 pileups on the first call - Kinda nice, Chile and Haiti both on 40ssb

The big thing I DON'T like about the Alpha? It's physically LARGE - a tad larger than is really 'comfortable' for my desk (might have to build some new stuff)

Big things left to do in the shack? Get the Digital wattmeter (vs the tuners built in analog meter set for peak mode) setup, and get RTTY/PSK31 setup (it's been setup in the past, just isn't right now)

It's been an interesting month, to think I went from an Alpha Delta DX-EE at 30ft to a Force 12 C3SS and D-140 at circa 40ft, and from 400-600 watts to "how much wattage to I dare dump through the tuner" (I guess I could totally bypass the tuner for 10-15 and 20, but it's needed on 12,17 and 40)

It's the economy, stupid

There is one lesson our President really needs to take from Bill Clinton

"It's the economy, stupid"

Back when Bill was in office, I never thought I'd say this, but I miss him. There were things I hated (his gun control stance for instance, and his wife's med plan stuff), but...

GWB was no great shakes (trust me, I'm a Republican, and I had no real love for him), but the bunch of folks we have running the place now...

I would have voted for Hillary over McCain - but this Bozo? (Actually, that's insulting to Bozo)

New Ones for today

Well, yesterday and today
Had a nice QSO with OX3KQ on 20 SSB for a band fill. I remember when I was trying and trying and trying, and just could not be heard by stations up there, and now I'm able to have a nice QSO (not a bang/bang, but actually chatting - nice to do sometimes)

Today, so far, it's been V51GB for a band fill - 1 call

Today's QSO

Yesterday/Today, I got 4 band fills
RW2A - 20m SSB
ZL1BD - 17m SSB - still not confirmed, even though I have more than one worked
YO3HKW - 17 SSB
DL5GA - 17 SSB

Won't play in WPX CW - my CW is NOT good enough to contest - yet

A92GR Received

QSL Request sent 2011-05-13 via email, with return postage via paypal

No QSOs yesterday

Yesterday was the first time since I put up the antennas that I went a day without a QSO. Bands were dead.

Another all time new one

After last night's post, I stayed up for a while, and ended up working another all time new one

FO5QB 17 SSB

Brings me to 193 without deleteds - Guess I'd better start sending out QSL cards

New Ones for 5/11

Had a nice QSO with MI0MVP on 15 SSB. Yes, I worked him last week, but he was calling CQ with no one answering so I figured I'd say 'Hi'. It's nice to have a real QSO once in a while. Towards the end, the signal started to fade, but

Worked
OE9MON 15SSB
VP2VQ 20SSB
HP1/IQ6CC 17SSB
ON7CD 17SSB
YL2GB 40SSB
V31XB 17SSB
for bandfills

IS0RXF on 20SSB for a mode fill! I'm NOT much of a CW guy (understatement of the year there) but I had Sardinia on CW, and not phone. Nice to fi;; in the phone, even if it is a band I already had (actually the ONLY band I have)


Brings my DXCC stats (with deleteds) to
10m 33w/27cfm
15m 65/49
17m 57/41
20m 175/159
40m 78/63
80m 24/15 (hey, it's a low wire that makes up for it by being short)
160m 1/1 - QSO from a friends place (not sure which Pete)

and
194/182 overall (2 are deleted, so have to work at least 8 more this year to hit 200, and then get them confirmed - 200 is my goal for the year)

Some more new ones

Had some fun on the radio this weekend. There are advantages to having aluminum up in the air

I worked East Kiribati and India for all time new ones. I also got South Cook Islands on 20m and FJ/O1ST on 15m for band fills (That brings my band totals to 3 on FJ/O1ST - 10, 15 and 20 - all SSB)

On my list of chores - record my files for Field Day, and get RTTY and PSK31 working, and work on re-learning my CW

The Mets

Let's see - they need some pitching, relief pitching, fielding, and some hitting. Aside from that, they're pretty good

Even Mama has her limits

Books I'm reading

I received the book Fuzzy Nation written by John Scalzi

So Far, I'm really enjoying this book, just like I did his entire "Old Man's War" series

New Antennas

Well, the Alpha Delta DX-EE is gone. Oh, it wasn't a BAD antenna, (in fact I liked it), but I got the chance to put up a beam and a rotary dipole

I now have a Force12 C3SS and a D140.

No, the neighbors are NOT happy

In the last 5 days, I've worked SIX all time new DXCC entities, plus an additional 5 band fills

The State of the Union speech I'd like to see

President says to the media ahead of time "It's going to be a short speech"

Back when this tradition started, it was important for the President to give an annual State of the Union address, because, well frankly, it was hard to gather up all the information about the state of the union.

Today, with 24/7 media, organizations like the Government Printing office, and all the press secretaries out there, you already KNOW the state of the Union.

The State of the Union address has become a Pep rally/Campaign speech, which I do not feel is necessary, so I bid you all a Good Night

exits stage

My Review of DOBSON CAP TOE

Originally submitted at Johnston & Murphy

Extra-supple nappa leather upper and sheepskin lining offer an incredibly comfortable fit and feel. Highly cushioned insole, padded tongue and collar for athletic-shoe comfort. Combination leather and rubber sole and stacked leather heel for a dressier look.

DOBSON CAP TOE

Very Comfortable

By KG2V from Bayside, NY on 12/22/2010

 

4out of 5

Sizing: Feels true to size

Width: Feels true to width

Pros: Lightweight, Comfortable, Flexible

Best Uses: Wear To Work, Dress Up or Down

Describe Yourself: Style Driven, Comfort Driven

I actually have the BROWN version of this shoe (20-7510), and they are extrememly comfortable

Some folks talk about them needing maintainence. Guys, leather shoes are supposed to be maintained - brush them down every time you wear them, polish every 3rd time or so, put shoe trees in them every time, and guess what, your shoes will last longer

(legalese)

9/11

Woke up this morning, clear, blue skys, crip, cool, and rememberd another 9/11 just like this

We shall never forget

From Robert Heinlein:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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