Back to school

Monday was back to school day for Thing1. God decided to bless us with a little bit of rain to wash away any dust there might have been - well anywhere.

This was the retention pond outside his dorm when we got there. It had been raining for an hour or so. Not real heavy.


After a couple of hours of incredibly heavy rain (it's really fun moving computers and guitar amps in the rain) the pond had a bit more water.



According to the news we got 2.5 inches of rain.

It took a while to get his stuff unpacked and organzied. I stayed around and helped him get his computer on the campus network. Had to install .net 2.0, deinstall AVG, install McAffee (campus license), and do a full HD scan before we could get a routable address. What a PITA. After a couple of hours of scanning he was online. I realize that colleges have to be careful but this is ridiculous.

Funny thing about being a college student - he still retains his inner child. Look at what he brought along to protect his room.



Unlike the first year there were no tears this time. Just a hug and I was off. He's becoming quite the fine young man.

Cheap Gas?

A Visitor

My sister Maggie was in town over the weekend for a CEU class. She had time to have dinner with us on Friday. Twas nice to catch up.

If you compared Maggie's high school graduation picture to Thing2 today - well they could be sisters. Separated by 34 years...

And the answer is

I like this answer to the question,

"How many guns do you have?"

More than I need, fewer than I want.

via a comment at Tam's View from the Porch

Hot Apples

They are on fire!

2996

All of the victims of 9/11 have someone remembering them.

Well done DC and my fellow bloggers!

Father and Son Reunion - In Iraq

But when his father recognized other members of his son’s B Company while walking to Camp Victory’s dining facility, he started frantically looking for his own son.

Within minutes the two were united with the help of an officer who intervened.

“All he said was, ‘Oh, my God,’ and he hugged me for what seemed like five minutes,” the elder Peter Joyce wrote.

They wound up spending the next five hours together, including sharing a meal together and shopping at the military base store.

More here

Best Drama - 24

Hell Yeah!

After giving the pile of crap known as The Office an award the Academy redeemed themselves by recognizing a truly excellent show.

I've been a fan since the first 5 minutes of season 1. Can't wait for January and Season #6.

Best Comedy - The Office?

What a craptacular show. The best comedy on TV is Scrubs.

WooHoo

Keifer Sutherland - Best Actor in a drama series.

24 just plain rocks as a show. Keifer makes it so.

And remember - Jack Bauer for Senate! Not only can he save the world but he can handle an award speech.

Designer dresses

Anyone else think that Julie Louis Dreyfuss' dress, with the black line/strap under the breasts, looks really stupid?

Thing2 Abducted

In a good way.

Our churches senior high youth group starts off every school year by 'kidnapping' the freshman and introducing them to the youth group - the high school way. Thing1 was McDucted when he was a freshman. They went off to McDonalds for breakfast before school.

Today a group of girls showed up on our doorstep at 6:15AM and woke Thing2 up with pots and pans and cymbals. She bounced right up and off they went. Fun and games and breakfast at Church and then bowling in their jams.

Picked her up 5 hours later. The whole group had a good time. So good that right now she's fighting off sleep as we watch a movie.

We sleep in tomorrow...

The Dew House

I know the guy who owns the house

It's a dogs life

The wife has a friend who's pug Elway just might like this.

 

 

 

More here

Invincible to Viruses

Thats what I just heard about OSX based Macs. It must be true. It was on TV.

hahahahahahahahaha

Profiled

Cox and Forkum nail it.

Brother Jesse

Living near Chicago means we get to see Jesse Jackson on tv a lot. Tonight he was on as he's heading to the middle east to attempt to get Steve Centani and Olaf Wiig released. While it's a noble effort something he said bothered me.

He stated that his mission was one religious man talking to another. Terrorists as religious figures? I know that they think they are doing Allah's biding but should Jesse should know better than to refer to these scumbags as religious.

Vista and Cygwin

I'm a huge fan of the Cygwin *nix environment for Windows. I've been using it at home for a couple of years with Windows XP. With my new system at work I skipped installing our standard X server Reflection and decided to use the Cygwin X server. The main reason for this was that Reflection insisted that my dual monitor setup was backwards. I prefer monitor #1 to the right and #2 to the left. Reflection wants monitor #1 to the left and complains every time and doesn't want to work right. Cygwin just works. My way. I like that.

 

So I have Vista Beta 2 running on a spare beater laptop. It's ok and for a slow machine it works ok. A faster machine would make it more usable. So today during class (Windows Security Event Log Secrets) I decided to download the latest Cygwin installer to the Vista box and install it. 99% of the install went just fine. The post-install scripts fail. Doing a bit of searching on the web and this is a known bug. Something changed in Vista to break Cygwin.

Nice move Microsoft.

High School - Day 2

She made it through. Still having a bit of a problem finding classes but it's getting better.

There is hope...

High School - Day 1

Thing 2 survived.

Her day started on Wednesday at 5:30 am. Way early for her but she got up and moving pretty quickly. When I got home from work yesterday she was all smiles. She had a bit of trouble finding a few classes but the upperclassman were very friendly and quite helpful.

We'll see how Day 2 goes today...

A One Dollar iPod

the cohPOD. I love it!

Post like Yoda

The Yoda Speak Generator

Here is Yoda's version of my post about Todd Agnew

So of my favorite songs begins one. Like rain by todd agnew not amazing grace but grace. It is one of those songs that one would hear at a church like willow creek but at my home church not.

Youth led service with testimony about the various trips that the middle and high schoolers went on, today was. And grace like rain, in between testimony there was. While our church, sing it like todd it was a welcome change, cannot.

Of this our church needs more. Yeesssssss.

World Trade Center

The four of us went to see this movie after church today. We had planned to go last weekend but someone (me) managed to get sick.

WTC is a powerful movie. For those who can remember exactly where you were that day (I know) this movie may be a bit disturbing but it tells a story of hope, of love, and the selfless bravery of not only the NYPD, FDNY, the Port Authority Police but of the two Marines who just showed up and started searching.

All of the actors did respectful portrayals of their characters. I semi-expected Oliver Stone to go a little nuts with the days events but he did an excellent jobs letting the story be told.

Favorite line -

Whats your name?
Staff Sargent Karnes
Is there something shorter I can use?
Staff Sargent.

WTC is a movie worth your time and money.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

So begins one of my favorite songs. Not Amazing Grace but Grace like Rain by Todd Agnew. It's one of those songs that one would hear at a church like Willow Creek but not at my home church.

Today was a youth led service with testimony about the various trips that the middle and high schoolers went on. And in between testimony there was Grace like Rain. While our church can't sing it like Todd it was a welcome change.

Our church needs more of this.

Speedtest from home

Not too bad. This is exactly what I'm paying for.

Bandwidth testing

Thats from work. Seems a bit slow...

I'll have to try it from home tonight.

Ewww

Hi. This is Samuel L. Jackson

Really!

One way to use a M-60

A better day

Try #2 for the dc promotion. It worked a lot better with the firewall off. Amazing. According to the experts on the ActiveDir list starting the promotion with the machine not in the domain isn't a big deal. Learn something new every day.

There goes a blood vessel

So sayeth Thing1.

Let me explain. The kids and I went to Willow Creek tonight for worship with Barlow Girl. It was what I needed to recharge. Modern praise and worship music just gets me going and it's something the three of us can share. The wife, well her idea of praise and worship music comes from the Lutheran Book of Worship. We don't agree so when I need my fix I take the kids to Willow. Plus Barlow Girl is just phenominal.

After the music was a baptism. Willow usually baptizes in their lake but tonight was a small pool on stage. 50 people professed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and were baptized. Each had their own little story and groups of friends there sharing this experience with them. One of the girls had a large group of friends there - complete with banners and a air horn. When the air horn went off Thing1 leaned over and said:

"If Mom had been here - well there goes a blood vessel"

I couldn't agree more!

Listen to Barlow Girl. See them if you get the opportunity - worship or concert. Open your heart and mind and let their words in.

You'll love it.

One of those days

It started out nicely. One of my projects at work is the upgrade of our Active Directory forest. We started the upgrade last week when we did the forestprep and domainprep of the root domain to accomodate the Windows Server 2000 r2 servers we were replacing the w2k servers with. Today we were going to start replacing servers.

First I wanted to put an extra DC in place - just in case. So we added a w2k3 server to the domain and used dcpromo to promote it to a DC. No problems at all. Well none I didn't expect. Time to replace a w2k server.

Logged into one of the root DCs and moved the fsmo roles. Smooth. Too many gui's to use but it went as planned. Logged into the DC I was replacing and demoted it to a simple server, removed it from the domain, and shut it down. We removed it from the rack and slid the replacement machine in. Brought it up and I let the junior admins run on their own. They had done the first server earlier in the day and I expected the same results.

Wrong. Tried promoting the server with the firewall enabled (ntfrs doesn't work well when it can't talk to the other DCs) - bad. Restarted with firewall disabled and the process which had taken ~3 minutes earlier in the day was going on 45 minutes. Started investigating and the network was gone. The datacom guys investigated and the spigot was live. Hmmm. Ended up canceling the process and rebooting the server. Grr Argg!

Turns out the dcpromo process was started with the machine running as a non-domain member. I've never done it that way so it's my first thought as to the problem. I've also got a AD object to delete as canceling the promotion left it behind.

Oh - the network connection was fine after the reboot. Hmmmmmmm

Too long a day to end this way. I need to recharge.



`

Smile

Froggy style

You had to be there

I was out in my garden today before work picking some fresh tomatoes and zuchini. For some reason the emergency response vehicles at work decided to turn on their sirens. Since the garden area is ~3/4 of a mile from the main road through the site the sirens were pretty loud. Not that unusual.

In response to the sirens the coyotes decided to howl back. I heard at least 5 and maybe as many as 10 different voices. One as close as 50 yards.

Very cool!

Carnival of Cordite #69

Gullyborg has it for your reading pleasure.

About time

"...this nation is at war with Islamic fascists..." - President Bush

It's been that way for a long time Mr. President. While I have no doubt that the whiners at CAIR will be calling on you to apologize - please don't do that. You are speaking the truth!

Now I'm hungry

There is room for all of God's creatures.

Right next to the mashed potatoes

Great way to end a show

From Blade - The Series last night

"FBI! Hold it"

"Oh Sh!t"

Yeah - I know the show isn't as good as the orginal movie but it's still fun to watch.

Jack Bauer for Senate

Jack Bauer is running and Bauer06 is the "netroots" effort to elect him to represent both Connecticut and New York in the US Senate. That's right both Connecticut and New York as a write-in candidate for Senate.

Jack has my full support and he deserves your support. Who else has saved so many in only 4 days?

Personally I want him to represent Illinois as well. Preferably both seats...

America - Your support cripples me

Last Comic Standing -Josh Blue.

What a excellent choice! While Ty was funny Josh just seems to enjoy life and making people laugh.

Way to go Josh!

Garden Time

My employer sits on a fairly large chunk of land. One of the benefits is a Garden Club that rents out 800 square foot lots for next to nothing. I get out there 2 to 3 times a week before work and putter around for awhile. Playing with the earth and my plants for an hour or so just starts the day right.

This morning was a bit cool and the field behind the garden lots looked cool.



The sunrise was, well, just nice. The clouds and the sun peaking through were beautiful.



My sunflowers agree!



This is the first time I've worked in a vegtable garden since I was 16. Never thought I'd enjoy it as much as I do.

Eternally Cool

From the sign in front of Grace Lutheran Church in Streamwood, Illinois:

Grace now has AC

Stay cool for ever!

An Atheist in the Woods

An atheist was walking through the woods.

"What majestic trees"!

"What powerful rivers"!

"What beautiful animals"! He said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.

He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer.

He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"

Time Stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.

"You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident." "Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer"?

The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask You to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps You could make the BEAR a Christian"?

"Very Well," said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:

"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive. Amen."

I'm a God crazy hick

From Thing1:

"Someone remembered to take their crazy pills today! I nearly shot ice cream out my nose reading this."

Some firefighters were making a documentary on 9/11 and got the first plane hitting the WTC on tape.

On the videotape, you can clearly see one of the firefighters *scratch his ass.*

That was obviousy a ground to air signal to the drone pilot planted by the CIA in the missle laden fighter jet that was using optical imaging and sensory gas throughout the entire city of NY to make it "appear" like a commercial plane that the coast was clear to initiate the thermite explosion device thingamagigee to take down the WTC and to drop passports onto the crowd like confetti.

If you don't believe it then you are just a Bushie, Neo-Con, Repuke, War mongering Nazi, Anti-Semite, Red State, God crazy hick.

Carnival of Cordite #68

Gullyborg has it.

Barrett fans (and who isn't?) should go and read now.

A Special Place in Hell

Has been reserved for these perps -
Double Amputee Marine Mugged Outside Restaurant

The Fudge Report

Really. Via Drudge.

From a comment on From The Roots:

From the Merriam Webster Dictionary

Main Entry: fudge
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): fudged; fudg ing

transitive verb
1 a : to devise as a substitute : FAKE b : FALSIFY
2 : to fail to come to grips with : DODGE

intransitive verb
1 : to exceed the proper bounds or limits of something ; also : CHEAT
2 : to fail to perform as expected
3 : to avoid commitment : HEDGE <the government's tendency to fudge on delicate matters of policy -- Claire Sterling>

This is the best the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee can do? Rip off Drudge's style sheet and practice smear politices? What a bunch of losers.

The Cavern

SarahK warned me. Did I listen? Nah. I got The Cavern from Netflix and watched it. Does it make my worse movies ever list? Close but not quite.

A perfect example of a movie whose director spent too much time watching The Blair Witch Project. Lots of shakey cameras, flash lighting, and crying. Toss in a monster (or something like it) and you get this movie.

It could have been much better. Just a bit more plot development and less of the stupid effects and this could have been a decent movie. Well - except the ending stunk.

2996

This the name of D.Challener Roe's project to honor the victims of 9/11. He needs volunteers to help. 2996 of them to be exact.

Please go visit and volunteer. Join me and over a thousand others in this worthwhile project.

Dumb Crooks

Waitress Shown Own License When Asking For ID

Now this is a gun