by srhuston

Hooray For Kitbuilding

I’ve had some conversations with other hams recently, and decided that now is the time to get fully involved in APRS.  On Sunday evening I ordered a new Yaesu FT-2800 2m radio as well as the TNC-X kit with the USB option.  The TNC-X comes as a kit which you assemble, though you can also purchase an assembled and tested unit from John.  Since I used to love building electronics kits from Heathkit “back in the day,” I decided I’d save the cash and put it together myself.  The radio should arrive tomorrow, and the TNC-X is sitting on my desk at work right now – I’m debating taking up some space in one of the labs downstairs to start putting it together tonight :>

Once assembled, and combined with the radio and an old magmount antenna I already have, I hope to have a full time APRS station running at home.  Which will be nice, since right now half of my TS-2000 is being used for APRS, so not only can I free that up for other uses but I can shut it off at night when I’m done with it.  Probably sometime in the spring I’ll look at either getting a better antenna for APRS, or just a better mount for the antenna I already have (the magmount will have to come off of the grill some time…)

by srhuston

Forget About The Sandwich!

Heard a bit of sad news today. Denny Doherty, 1/4 of the Mamas and the Papas, passed away on Friday. His voice was the one most prominently heard on their recordings (not John Phillips, the primary songwriter, as most assumed). And while that bit of news was a downer, what followed in all the postings that I saw about it.. well, that’s what pissed me off the most. And what was that? This line, which I read over and over in various places (from the Associated Press):

The members re-formed in 1971 for the album “People Like Us,” but all hope for a reunion ended in 1974 when the 30-year-old Elliot choked and suffered a fatal heart attack while eating a sandwich in London.

Now, if you go look at the story on their site, which will only be available for a few days before you’ll have to pay to access it, you’ll see this line. Or will you? When I first loaded their site this evening looking for the original source (I’d read it from somewhere else, but saw the dateline was AP), that line read “Elliot suffered a fatal heart attack in London.” Now I go back, and it’s back to the sandwich. Half the news sites say there was a sandwich involved in Mama Cass’s death, the other half just say the heart attack. Now, I’m no expert, but when so many other places say the sandwich was just there and had nothing to do with her death, I have to wonder what moron does their fact checking, since this has been a known fact for quite some time now.

On a related note, since John died in 2001, that leaves Michelle Phillips as the only member of the group still alive.

by srhuston

I Wonder…

You ever wonder what happened to people you “used to know?” Every now and then I do. I thought I’d summarize a few of them, for the hell of it. Not necessarily because they’ll read this, but maybe they’ll do a little egosurfing and find their name here, then leave a comment and say, “Hey, this is what happened to me.” Might be fun. As a side note, when I started reading this off to my wife, I discovered that it sounds more humorous if read with an “Andy Rooney” voice.  Try it.  Now, in no particular order:

  • I wonder what happened to Randy Johannsen. He and I were pretty good friends from about 5th grade until high school. We drifted apart a bit then, but still were friendly (we just had different interests and didn’t hang out as much anymore).
  • I wonder what happened to Brian Salmon. He and I had fairly different interests from the start – he was always more athletic than I was. But he was always a good guy, and we got along very well.
  • I wonder what happened to my 10 year reunion. I don’t frequent those websites that gather all kinds of personal information about people and then send them spam every day, mostly because of the spam they send every day (which is why, though you may find me there, you won’t reach me through there – I bounce every message from them). So if it was planned through one of them, I never heard about it. I figure it’s not that hard to find me – any idiot with a web browser and my name could do it fairly quickly.
  • I wonder what happened to JoAnne Barlieb. Last I heard, she got married to a guy she’d been dating, I think her senior year, also named Steve. I seem to recall joking with her about the coincidence. I seem to recall she thought it was funny. I could be forgetting a patronizing tone, but it’s my memory, so there. She probably knew I had a crush on her, but at least wasn’t a bitch about it like some of the girls I knew in school (which is part of the reason they’re not mentioned here – I really don’t care what happened to them :> )
  • I wonder what happened to Darrel Wonderlin. We didn’t hang out much in school, though his sister was in my class. We did hang out a bit after I graduated, and for a while there we went bowling at Laurel Lanes on Rt 73 at least once a week. When my parents and I moved to North Jersey, I think he came up once, but we pretty much lost touch after that.
  • I wonder what happened to Ed, whose last name I don’t recall now and I’m too lazy to go find my yearbook, but who taught me to “always remember your ABC’s; but start with ‘A’ and end with ‘P’, otherwise you’ll break the rhythm.” If Ed’s reading this, he’ll probably remember that line. To anyone else, it’s a funny story. Really it is.
  • I wonder what happened to Jamie Hort, who was always a bully to me until he left for Catholic school and returned the following year, and then we got along great for some reason. I never figured out why, but since he was always the bigger kid in class (and our last names were close enough that we always ended up in the same homeroom) I didn’t question it much. We didn’t hang out very much outside of school – the occasional visit here or there, the occasional sleepover, the trip to his parents beach house when I laid on a surfboard for entirely too long and got sunburnt all over my back and his older sister Kim felt so bad for me that she tried to rub aloe on it or something (I didn’t care, I’d thought Kim was cute too). Last I’d heard, I think he also got married, and had at least one kid, maybe two or more.
  • I wonder what happened to Tyrone Crawley, who I also didn’t hang out with much outside of school, but got along famously with during our time there. I always had this feeling that I’d find him somewhere famous – not so much in a sports setting, he never seemed to care much for athletics though he wasn’t half bad. But a senator? I could see it.
  • I wonder what happened to James Boyte, who once went to the house of a “friend” to find my calculator sitting there which I’d mentioned was stolen earlier that day, and retrieved it for me. Of course, others figured he was the one who stole it, but we only crossed paths twice a day that particular time of year, and I had it after the first meeting and it was gone before the second. Funny that. James was another “good kid” that probably just grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Or the county. Or something.
  • I wonder what happened to Jasmine Marvin. Last I heard, I think she went out to UCLA or something. That girl was definitely going places. And if she happens to read this, I’m sure she’s glad that “me and those people” from the poster in Mr. Hartmann’s English class in 7th grade aren’t the only ones in the room anymore.
  • I wonder what happened to David Bainger and Adam DeFrank. Also guys I didn’t hang out with much, but I always had the feeling that if I were to knock on their doors and say, “Hey.. um.. can I crash here tonight?” that they would have given me the pillow from their respective beds if necessary.
  • I wonder what happened to the “Dynasty Crew”, or the “River Rats”, or whatever the hell you’d have called the group of us that would go to the diner, have coffee and breakfast at 10pm, then sit by the river and play guitars/bongos/whatever until the bugs bit us in the rear too much. Molly, Joe, Hacker.. well, Waryne, I know what happened to him.
  • I wonder what happened to Karen Kelly. Oh, wait.. Karen Crespo. I kinda know what happened to her. She got married (I was there). She came to our wedding. She took pictures, which I don’t think I ever saw. She had two kids. She emails my wife. Now and then I see an email from her too. But I haven’t seen her in years. So I wonder :>

So there you have it. A few people I wonder about now and then. If you know them (or are them), feel free to chime in. And if you’re someone who knew me some time ago, and your name isn’t there, fear not – it doesn’t mean I don’t wonder about you necessarily. Just that in the span of time I started writing this, I ran out of names to put down. Or ran out of energy to put them down. Or ran out of caffeine to remember them. Or all three. So leave a comment anyway.

by srhuston

Oh, What A ‘diff’erence

New WordPress updates available, so it’s time to upgrade again.  Nice thing is that Dreamhost knows there’s a lot of people that use it, so they tend to patch up their “one click installer” to upgrade the software within a few days – sure enough, I got the message today that they’d patched it up, and the new release was only a few days ago.  The down side is that I’m using one of the themes that they package with your install, so every time I upgrade, all the little changes to the theme that I made disappear (I get “Link buttons” on the top by the search bar, the photo disappears, and posts lose their author & timestamp information).

So finally this time, I did the upgrade, then made a backup copy.  This way, when I finished re-applying my finishing touches to the theme, I could run ‘diff’ on the two trees and generate a patch I can use in the future.  Since they’re fairly simple changes, and don’t affect a lot of the meat of the program, I’d imagine that patch will hold up for quite a few releases.  At least until the next major revision, which supposedly isn’t far away.  😛

by srhuston

Another One Down

Finished another step this evening, that being getting the electric run to the workbench.  Got plenty of outlets on there now, but at some point I’ll add more on the back wall – this way, power tools can be plugged into the front outlets, while the back ones can be used for more “permanent” things like battery chargers and other tools that aren’t hand-held.  Also took down the old light and installed two new ones; now I just have to replace the one set of tubes, since they’re a different color temperature and the wattage is a little different from the others.  As usual, there’s photographs as well.

by srhuston

That Went Well

So, as I mentioned, I received quite a few power tools for Christmas.  And my first order of business was to put them to use in building something where I could work on stuff – a workbench.  For one, there wasn’t nearly enough tool storage and work areas in the basement, and two.. well, I needed a project.  And a place to complete future projects.  So I built one.  Not as difficult as I’d thought – but then again, the last time I built anything with wood, was a spice rack; and I couldn’t tell you when the last time was I built anything significant (I’m not sure I ever really did).  So I was quite pleased with the end result.  Details below, if you care to read them.

Continue reading →

by srhuston

So Much For That

I guess trying to post daily during a holiday break, when I sometimes wasn’t near the computer all day, was a bad idea.  Oh well, not the end of the world.  On the bright side, I did get my workbench almost finished – I’ve got a couple more things to do, then I’ll post photos for all to see.

Power tools are a wonderful thing :>

by srhuston

Morse Madness

So I missed a post for yesterday.  I’ll try to do two tonight instead of just one :>

One thing is for certain, with the latest round of bitching that’s gone on in my radio club’s mailing list – proof of proficiency in understanding Morse Code has absolutely nothing to do with common sense, etiquitte or manners.  If you’re privy to the mails on the list, I’m sure you understand what I mean.  If not, ask me in a couple years.  Maybe by then I’ll be in a mood to chuckle about it – right now, all I can do is hang my head in shame that the likes of this guy are around.

by srhuston

Adieu!

Well, that was fun. I finally tracked down the bug in Adium that was causing problems with the Bonjour protocol. A little background I guess.. Bonjour (aka Rendezvous or ZeroConf) is a protocol that is done mostly with multicast packets. The idea is, you plug into a network, and have no idea who or what is around – but all the devices on the network send out these announcements now and then, saying “Hey, I’m a printer” or “I’ve got iChat running, so you can talk to me” and such. It’s a really neat idea, and makes setup for printers a snap; just show up on a network, search for network printers, and there they are. It’s also what allows multiple copies of iTunes on the same network to talk to each other and find the shared music without the computers otherwise talking to one another (or requiring a central server to say “here they are”). Ya know what? This is going to get long-winded and probably boring real quick. Better insert a story break before that happens…

Continue reading →

by srhuston

Bonjour!

Played around a bit today with Adium beta, and Gaim, to get Bonjour running.  It kinda works, moreso on the desktop than the laptop – mostly because of a bug in one of the libraries, which causes Adium to report that it’s listening on a port where it’s not listening for incoming connections.  I tried for a bit today to find the bug in the code, but haven’t so far.  Maybe if I’m feeling like it tomorrow, I’ll get the code to compile on the laptop, and then I can properly debug it.

What gets me is that this bug has apparently been known for awhile, but not fixed.  I think they’re waiting for the original maintainer of the library to swoop in with a new version, but .. the code is 2 years old, I don’t think it’s happening.  So maybe if I find it and submit a patch, they’ll fix the code before the final version comes out.  Or they’ll sit on it until the next major release, which at the rate they’re putting out new versions could be another year or so.