Crockett and Tubbs

Not here or here. But here.

Its easy to think that the show would be just another teen drama but it is much more. I got hooked at the beginning of season 2 and had to buy season 1 just to see what I missed. Great writing with lots of pop culture tossed in.

Veronica Mars rocks!

Rangers lead the way

Sick child gets wish to train with Rangers

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — Weakened by his lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis, 14-year-old Riley Woina dreams of being strong like the war heroes he watches in movies.

The Army’s 6th Ranger Training Battalion on Eglin Air Force Base recently helped him realize this unusual dream.

Susan Woina joked that her son could have taken his Plymouth, Conn., family to Walt Disney World or gone on a shopping spree through the Make-A-Wish Foundation instead of spending a week crawling in the mud with soldiers in the Florida Panhandle.

“You always want what you cannot have and he’ll never be able to join the Army because of his cystic fibrosis, so of course he wants that more than anyone else would. He would join the Army today if he could,” she said.

Thing1 lives with CF. Just over 15 years since his diagnosis. After visiting the Air Force Academy on vacation when he was in high school he started emailing the admissions staff to get details on exactly what he needed to do to try for an appointment. I had to break the news to him that he was medically unfit to serve. Tis a shame as he would have made a great officer.

Kudos to the Army Rangers and Make-A-Wish for making this happen.

via Right Thinking

I'm an Enviro Nut?

Purely by accident it appears. As a huge Netflix fan it looks like I'm helping to save the planet.

Guns and

High speed cameras. Fun stuff



via HotAir

The Flag on Mt. Suribachi

Blackfive has a post up on the flag raising that occurred 62 years ago today.

Dad was a Marine during WWII. He never talked about what he did or saw. When I was young his Marine buddies would drop by and talk for a bit - usually in the garage. If I wandered out there to see what was going on they would get quiet as soon as I entered and start back up after I left. I guess it was something that only those who experienced it could share.

For all that you have done and all that you do -
Semper Gratus Marines

OCC, Airgas, and CF

An unlikely combination? Not really.

Two Airgas Chopper motorcycles, designed and built by Orange County Choppers (OCC) using Airgas gases and hardgoods, have begun their nationwide tour.
...
“The Airgas Chopper tour will do more than just excite Airgas employees and customers – it also will benefit a great cause,” said McCausland. At many of the Chopper appearances, tour attendees will be invited to make a $5 donation and have their picture taken with the Chopper as part of Airgas Puritan Medical's national partnership with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's GREAT STRIDES campaign.

OCC - cool bikes. Way out of my price range but very cool. Anything that attracts attention to Great Strides and the battle to cure CF is ok with me. More from Airgas here including the bike tour schedule.

A Better Greeting

Rather than I can't read email Thing2 greeted me with "I made the honor role!". Can I have 46 dollars to go on the cruise?

Money well spent.

You are Mighty

Assuming you are Jack Bauer

via Blogs4Bauer

Smart Boy

Thing1 called as I got home (just before the email problems) and had some interesting news. He's officially a senior. He has enough credits already so he can get a senior parking sticker and get a spot thats 1/2 mile closer to his dorm.

A Message from God

As we walked into the Ash Wednesday service tonight we were handled a couple of pieces of paper. The wife got two of these:



I leaned over and said that God knows you're getting together with the Montgomery Gentry 'Townies' next week and he wants you to know he's paying attention.

I can't read my email!

Those were Thing2's first words to me after I walked in the door today from work. No 'Hi Daddy' or anything pleasant. I can't read my email. Since I have a domain registered for the family I figured the provider had a problem. Sure enough - the admin web page had a 'unplanned outage' message up. A couple of minutes later everything was working and Thing2 was happy. Life was good.

Hopefully tomorrows greeting will be 'Hi Dad!'

This could explain things

Testing Garlic: A New Weapon in the Fight Against CF Lung Infections? February 2, 2007 A novel approach to fighting Pseudomonas infections in the lungs of people with CF is being tested in a new pilot study in the United Kingdom. Volunteers with CF will be given capsules of either garlic extract or a placebo (olive oil) for two months and the levels of bacteria in their sputum will be measured. The potential of garlic extract as an antipseudomonal agent was supported by the results of a study conducted in Denmark. In that study, exposure of Pseudomonas to garlic extract made the bacteria more sensitive to tobramycin and to immune defense system cells. The garlic extract also provided mice with significant protection from Pseudomonas lung infections. The new trial is being conducted at the University of Nottingham under the direction of Dr. Alan Smyth. Safety of the extract will be examined in addition to any potentially positive effects on weight and lung function.

Thing1 lives with CF. It's been 15 years since he was diagnosed and, thank God, he has no lung problems. On the other hand he is a big fan of garlic...

More here

Update from Thing1: "My wonder drugs: garlic and laughter"

6 Minutes 24 Seconds

This is not my time in the mile run (best - 5:25 about 30 years ago) but the amount of time it took to give a pint of blood this morning. The scales that the blood bank uses track the time of donation. Last year I got into a race with one of the engineers here at work. He finished in 5:05 - I have a 5:14. I guess with no competition it was hard to race...

Give blood.

Tonight Our Troops Dine In Hell!

Frank Miller’s stunning graphic novel “246” finally comes to film, as 246 brave congress members stand against 150,000 of the world’s greatest warriors.

via Blackfive

krbtgt and NO_AUTH_DATA_REQUIRED

These two should not be mixed.

NO_AUTH_DATA_REQUIRED is a flag that can be added to the UserAccountControl attribute for an Active Directory user object. This flag will keep Privilege Attribute Certificate(PAC) data from being added to service tickets. This can be useful when setting up cross realm trusts between AD and a MIT Kerberos realm.

We're working on setting up single sign on for the Windows clients in our AD forest so that upon logging in users will get credentials for the AD domain, the MIT realm, AFS, and a Kerberos based Certificate Authority (KCA). Everything was good except for the tickets AD was returning to the MIT KDC - they were too large to build AFS tickets. So the developer suggested implementing NO_AUTH_DATA_REQUIRED on the service accounts used for KCA and KDC access. No problem there. But I misread his note and also set the krbtgt account with this option.

Nothing bad happened at first. But overnight some systems stopped processing GPOs. And a couple of DCs started throwing logon errors. Nothing made sense till I read a bit more on the use of the krbtgt account and realized what a mistake I had made. Backed out the change and rebooted the two DCs that were having problems. A couple of other servers needed attention as well.

Some things just shouldn't be mixed.

I think Buffy misses Thing1

I found her on his bed today...




Or she felt like guarding the penguins...

Ultimate Signature Edition

Vista - signed by Bill Gates

Desktop Candy Art

Seen at work

Men and women

Jay Tea has an interesting post related to today over at WizBang.

Happy Valentines Day

Heard this on the radio (K-Love) this morning:

The priest Valentine was arrested and put into prison. He was incarcerated because he did not worship the Roman gods. After being in prison for many years, he was presented to Claudius II (known as Claudius the Cruel). Valentine stood by his convictions and still refused to worship any other but his God. Claudius II was outraged. The ruler sealed Valentine's fate and condemned him to die.

In the meantime, Valentine had become friends with one of the prison guard’s daughters who was blind. Valentine sent her a note before he was martyred. When the girl opened the note, her sight was restored. She could read the signature of the person who had signed the note. The note was signed "from your Valentine."

Saint Valentine was beheaded on February 14, 271. The execution took place on Rome’s Palatine Hill. In A.D. 496, Pope Gelasius I declared February 14 the feast day of Saint Valentine.

Snow Day - sorta

We had winter storm warnings. Big deal - here in Northern Illinois we get these all the time. When I left for work we had gotten maybe an inch of snow. Enough to cancel school for Thing2 (she was happy - after she got back from the bus stop...) We had the ok to stay home and take a day of vacation if we wanted to. The weather didn't seem so bad so off I went.

My normal 25 minute drive took 50. People were taking it easy - except for the 4WD trucks. For some reason they thought my bumper was a good place to hang out... Most people came in - except for the ones with fancy new 4WD trucks. Seemed strange to me.

Left a little early figuring I could clean up the driveway from the inch or so of snow real quick and have some time to relax. Hah! The driveway had anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow on it. Some drifts were deeper. Almost 2 hours later I had mine as well as my neighbors done.





Buffy, on the other hand, had the right idea for a snowy day!

.223 in a 10/22?

Yep. According to CSI Miami a Ruger 10/22 can fire a .223.

Poor Callie. A pretty blonde made to look bad by terrible writing.

22LR .ne. .223

2007 Chicago Auto Show

It was a family affair this year. Thing2, who is normally at Primetime, went to the show with us. Since she's in high school now Primetime is in March so off we went to pick Thing1 up at school and head into Chicago for the Auto Show.

I buy the tickets online and we tend to get there early so we can park inside the McCormick Place garage. While it's still cold you are usually only a few steps from being inside the building.

We wore our colors. Even though the Gross Rexmann (aptly named by a vendor we talked to) choked we are proud of the season the Bears had. The jerseys started a few conversations as well.



The wife doesn't have a jersey. Maybe next year.



We started at Ford. The Edge crossover is an interesting car. It rides a little higher (which the wife likes but isn't as thirsty as a truck. Still the wife has a thing for F150's. Someday... unless the Edge steals her away.





This is more my style of truck...



There were Cub Scouts everywhere. Pinewood Derby racing was happening. Great fun for all.

And we were off to Chevrolet.

I've been a fan of the Corvette for as long as I can remember. The Vette is the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 this year. It's a beauty.



The Ron Fellows edition Z06 is more my style. If only I had 80 grand burning a hole in my pocket...



Thing1 is thinking ahead to graduation. He's been thinking about a truck but for him something like the HHR is more his style. It's sharp looking, the price is right, and can haul larger items when necessary.



The new Camaro is a thing of beauty. I was never a huge fan of the Camaro but this just looks awesome! Hopefully Chevrolet will price it right.



The Volt is a pure electric car. 40 miles per charge. ComEd would love me!



We kept wandering. Lots of beautiful cars. Finally made it to the US Army exhibit. As usual it was full of people. The even brought along a couple of choppers.

One from OCC





And one from the Air Calvary.



Thing2 wanted a Army baseball cap. All they wanted in return was contact information. She was hesitant at first but the recruiter was polite and said that all it meant was that she would be contacted when she was a senior. That was ok with her.



We spent quite a bit of time there just looking at the toys the Army had brought along. One Sargent commented on the jerseys we were wearing so we ended up talking for 10 minutes. 17 year veteran. Airborne Ranger. Been there and done that. An incredibly nice guy. Every soldier we talked to was enjoyable to converse with. All had a little story. Thing2 was surprise by the female soldier who started telling us about being sent to journalism school while in the Army. I think Thing2 thought all the soldiers were shooters. It may have opened up her mind a bit.

The Air Force had a much smaller exhibit. But one of their Nextel cars was there.



International had some of their trucks on hand. Thing2 just had to have her picture taken with this one.



This Pontiac Solstice was just beautiful. You just wanted to take it for a ride.



Shell had one of it's race cars there.



And quite possibly the strangest race car. A Toyota Camry Nascar racer. I know Toyota has been in truck racing for awhile but it just seemed strange to me.



One other car jumped out at me. The Scion Xb. I think the current one is the ugliest thing out there. The 2008 model is a huge improvement. It looks like the roof line has been lowered and the doors brought up a bit. It doesn't look like a box anymore. Well done.

And then we were off. It started getting real crowded so we headed out to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings and then back to drop Thing1 at school. Almost 200 miles of driving. Time for a nap.

Yet another reason not to live in Illinois

I can't have a suppressor!

My new favorite bumper sticker

Happiness is a warm machinegun

via Instapundit

What happens when

you combine a Sherman Tank with a Ford Mustang?

This. Very cool.

via Pajamas Media

24 Noon to 1pm

The action finally picks up. Not enough that I get the Jack Bauer Kill Counter right this week but it was an improvement. It was nice to see that Graham Bauer got his just reward. I was expect Jack to do it. I had been thinking that Jack's dad was actually a good guy but, well, I was wrong.

I wonder what else Graham was hiding...

Favorite line of the night comes from Morris: "I know these guys...They write really good code when they are not serving time."

Can't wait for next week!

More proof I live in the wrong state

Lifetime hunting and fishing permit a popular baby gift - in Tennessee

Congrats Indy

My beloved Bears lost. Bad Rex showed up.

See ya at Super Bowl LXII.

Super Bowl Commercials

The best so far - Blockbuster Pet Store

Update: Thing1 tells me this is an old commercial. I had never seen it before and it had me rolling on the floor.

Super Bowl 41

Bears 31, Indy 28

How stupid can you be?

The NFL has sh*t for brains.

From Sports Illustrated/CNN online

NFL won't let church show game


The NFL has nixed a church's plans to use a wall projector to show the Colts-Bears Super Bowl game, saying it would violate copyright laws.

Via HotAir

My church has had these events in the past. Thing1 and I attended a few - the most memorable being the Super Bowl 34 where Tennessee came up inches short from a touchdown as the game ended.

This is a really bad public relations move by the NFL. Let them know how you feel - well you could if there was any contact information on nfl.com.

Another Reason not to use Vista

I like Vista. As I've stated before I doubt I'll ever use it at home as my main use is for video editing and time shifting TV. Microsoft's embrace of anti-consumer DRM for Vista made it unwelcome in my home.

Peter Gutmann has put together A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. If you're interested in Vista for home, especially for PVR or HD playback, go and read.

Carnival of Bauer

It's up at The Jack Sack.

All those who set aside 1 hour every Monday night to watch Jack save the world need to go visit.