Durham Tornado pictures

I almost forgot - cell phone pictures of the August 27 Durham Tornado are up. Take a gander if you want. The rotation of the clouds and the impressions of said rotation upon lowly human witnesses cannot be communicated through still pictures. Sadly, no video of this event exists as I neglected to take my video camera to work even though I knew the chances of severe weather were very high. Be prepared. I was not. Worst yet I did not report this even to NC Skywarn. I'm still new to the HAM radio thing and was not sure of the proper reporting protocols. I should have just pressed the key and told Skywarn what I was seeing. Next time this happens I'll remember to bring my camera AND my confidence.

Call me crazy..

I used to have a vinyl copy of William Shatner's The Transformed Man back in the day (I now have this work of "art" on CD). Anybody that has ever heard Shatner on The Transformed Man, particularly Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds or Mr. Tambourine Man, has to have asked themselves "what in the HELL is THIS?" What the hell is it indeed. In fact I've always wondered if Shatner was recording himself as a joke or if he was indeed serious. I'm pretty sure he was playing a joke on everyone. I hope.

But then in 2004 Shatner released Has Been. The release of this CD escaped my attention when it was released but I heard a snippet of Shatner's version of the Pulp song Common People. I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you! Shatner's version wasn't only listenable, it was GOOD! It's weird, kind of like Phish's version of Snoop Dog's Gin and Juice, but a very good performance.

Give it a listen if you can.

IPv6

The more I learn about IPv6 the more I know I need to keep learning about IPv6. There is an UNBELIEVABLE amount of features buried in IPv6 that makes me wonder why more people have not yet adopted v6 as the native transport for their networks.

This week I study. Next week I implement something very cool using store-bought hardware. I'll document all the necessary steps and post them once I have tested and verified everything to be fully functional.

I think you're going to like it.

Vows of Silence

Could a modern day Monk, Priest or Holy Person use modern communication methods under the conditions of a Vow of Silence? Even under such a Vow, in the past, Holy Persons could communicate through written letters. But today with SMS messages, Instant Messages, blogs, e-mail, and, heck, even Morse Code, where are the lines drawn? Does anyone know?

Stayed home and Roku'ed quite a bit this weekend

Yes! A Linux documentary! This was a good, well made documentary featuring interviews and footage of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, and the list goes on and on. Even local Linux master Donnie Barnes was interviewed for the film. Cool stuff! One strange note: the song at the close of the show, penned by Stallman, was downright strange. Otherwise, good stuff!!

*** 1/2 out of *****

The Chicken vs. The Egg

I had a hard time falling asleep last night and I started to think about that age-old question "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" It seems obvious that the egg predates the chicken. Why? The first animals to pull themselves up onto the land reproduced with eggs. Birds lay eggs and they must have developed after the first amphibians. Ergo the egg must have predated the first chicken, which likely developed from a cross-species hybrid or simply mutated from the Grey Junglefowl to form a distinct species of bird.

If you go the religious route chickens were created on day five.

So either way chickens predate eggs.

Wait, what? This is what happens when you blog and talk on the phone at the same time. If chickens evolved the egg predates the chicken. Under creationism chickens would predate eggs (as eggs of any animal are not specifically mentioned as being created at the same time in Genesis).

Louis Vuitton weathers the storm

Why is it that most riders of Harley Davidsons you see wear wallets attached to their belts? (this is gross generalization, but please work with me) Yesterday I found out when I elected to drive my scooter to the local Chinese resturant for some delicious food. The ride to the store was uneventful. I paid for my food then realized I had not placed the "basket" on the rear "bed" of the scooter, hence no place to place the food. After some ingenious stuffing of the to-go bag I was off. About 1/2 way home I felt something slip and immediatly I knew I had not taken the greatest care in tucking my wallent in my pocket. I pulled off the road and a nice semaratin told me that my wallet had fallen out. I thanked her and made a U-turn.

Contents of my wallet were everywhere. In the street, in the ditches on both sides, you name it, something inside my wallet was in one of these places. The wallet itself had skidded to a stop in the street directly in the slightly depressed "tire ditch" you only notice when riding on two wheels. "KA-FLAP" was the sound my wallet made after being run over by three seperate vehciles. I won't reprint the sound I made after my wallet was driven over.

I collected my credit cards and other stuff and then my wallet which, by this point, had been shot to the side of the road and was sitting in some grass very close to a fine mountain of horse poo. I figured the wallet would have been torn asunder but no! Not only did my wallet weather the storm there is nary a scratch on it - anywhere! Well, that's not really true. There is a scratch in the fold of the wallet on the outside, but it's not noticiable unless you are inspecting it under very good light.

Looking back to the more-than-slightly-buzzed condition when I purchased my wallet during a trip to Belgium I could have not possibly thought the wallet, even as well made as it is, could have taken such a beating. In fact had Kelly and I not been out tasting fine Belgium beers that say and had the rain not started right when we were in front of the store perhaps I'd still have my OP wallet, or whatever it was I used to carry my belongings in.

Confessions of a Superhero

Add this to your Netflix Roku list immediately. A movie, even a documentary, should have a compelling story and interesting characters. This documentary has both plus excellent production qualities. The movie follows, primarily, four actors who are awaiting their "big break" in Hollywood and riding out the time posting as Superheros for tips "between gigs" on Hollywood Boulvard in front of Mann's Chinese Theater (though they are in no way associated with Mann's).

This movie explores the worlds of Christopher "Superman" Dennis, a Superman collector and fixture in front of Mann's theater for years. Dennis does not like superheros that smoke in costume. Maxwell "Batman" Allen, originally on the strip as a George Clooney look-alike claims a dark past in his native Texas, plus a slight rage problem. Are his stories all they are cracked up to be? Joesph "The Hulk" McQueen hawked his Nintendo for bus fare to L.A. and arrived on day #2 of the Rodney King riots. Will he ever get his big break? Jennifer "Wonder Woman" Wenger left college to presue acting in L.A. Did she make a good move?

Good stuff here, people. The best part is all you have to do is simply click "play now". So go do just that.

Charter as an ISP

Charter went off the deep and and really ticked me off this past weekend. Camp Hatteras, who pays monthly for three individual "high speed" Internet lines, was off-line for just over two days for their primary Internet connection. Why? Because Charter decided so. No, really, Charter just decided to block the Cable MAC address from their system. No reason, warning or justification was given.

I got on the phone with Charter and they were trying to tell me that the modem "wasn't seeing" the Charter cable system and had to be replaced. In short, they said it was broken. No so fast! I hooked my Mac right up to the Ethernet port and cranked up TCPDUMP and guess what I saw? Broadcasts, multicasts and DNS traffic just as I would have expected.

We ended up getting another tech on-site and I managed to get on the phone with the guy behind the scenes and this is when he told me the Cisco 815 ISR would have to come out. I fired back a salvo stating that the Cisco was purchased because I was told I could use any DOCSIS 2.0 compliant modem, and I was told this by Charter, and we placed the Cisco on the network *OVER TWO YEARS AGO* and it had been running fine up until this past Thursday when it suddenly stopped working.

No, my friendly yet firm voice on the other end of the phone told me. "It's got to come out, someone could hack into this and take control of all or Charter's IP Addresses." "Look", I told him, "I'm not new to netwokring, in fact I've been doing this over 20 years. The Cisco CAN ONLY BE ACCESSED locally through the cosole port, there are no ssh or telent ports, or any other ports, open on this unit."

It all fell on deaf ears. I was told some sad story about a network administrator who was placed in jail because his Cisco was hacked (????) but, in the end, they allowed the unit back onto their network because the tech did not have another business-class modem with him on his truck. "But make no mistake" he said "it's going to get replaced."

So now I have to take this up with our friendly sale manager. If there is some policy stating that Cisco gear is on the disavowed list I'm going to have to see that documentation for myself. And Charter is going to have to provide free service equivalent to the cost of the model (about $1000.00 if I recall).

If all this wasn't irritating enough my cable service in the condo was anything but "high speed" this weekend. I got, perhaps, twice as fast as dial-up with time-outs, high latency and more retransmissions than you could shake a stick at. Truly awful service. If Embarq sold "naked" DSL in the area I'd give it a try. I'm honestly that sick of dealing with Charter.

On deck.. The Riddler

This could be good. Let's hope it's a bit shorter than The Dark Knight. That was one long-ass movie.

Another day, another... something

Today started busy and has remained so. There's lots of important work to do today and I find myself in a sleep-deprived state in which to complete said work. Not a great combination.

Turning Olympics into The Special Olympics

"BEIJING (AP) -- With history about to slip away and Michael Phelps cheering him on, Jason Lezak pulled up next to the lane rope and set out after hulking Alain Bernard, like a NASCAR driver drafting down the backstretch at Daytona."

That is the single worst bit of writing I've had the displeasure to read relating to the 2008 summer games. The line "like a NASCAR driver drafting down the backstretch at Daytona" made me want to vomit. Comparing any Olympic athlete, in any sport, to a bunch of inbred hicks who can't turn right bent on destruction of the environment while attempting to entertain 50,000 drunkards is simply uncalled for. Shame on you, associated press. Never, ever compare a real athlete to NASCAR, not even in a passing joke.

Watched The Host.. again

I watched The Host again this weekend (I had to show Kelly).  The movie stands up to repeat viewings and does so easily.  While watching again I noticed that the subtitles were difficult to read at times.  I'd like to kid myself into thinking I had not noticed this because I was understanding what the actors were saying (HA! Not true).  

If you've got a Roku and a couple hours to burn give this one a try, I think you'll be pleased.  The ending is fantastic, I can't stress that enough.  The closing scene is ideal, I can't image how the movie could have ended better in any way.  

Today is Friday

I just thought I'd state the obvious to get the ball rolling. I was reading an excellent article about the filming of Cormac Mccarthy's Pulitzer Prize willing novel The Road. The director of the film did NOT want to go the CGI route (kudos to him for doing so) and decided to film in and around Pittsburgh to depect post-apocoliptic America. I would have chosen Detroit. USA Today printed a few pictures along with the article, take a look for yourself, they are pretty impressive.

This has left me to wonder how many accolades can be heaped upon a single work of fiction? Could a single book recieve the Pulizter and Nobel Prizes? Could the author also recieve a MacArthur Fellowship? What about a James Beard Award too? Ok, I know what you're saying: "He's gone off the rails! It's impossible for a single book to be this celebrated and the friggin' James Beard award is related to cuisine!!!!!!!"

Ok, I hear ya. But what if the book were edible? Say printed on turkey jerkey with a beef jerky cover? Or perhaps pressed soy for the vegetarians in the crowd. It would be far easier to just write a book directly related to food, that's true, but would that genre of book be a contender for a Pulitzer or Nobel?

It's impossible to say, really. A book printed edible materials would eventually get modly, right? Leather is edible and saved many a lonely cowboy from starvation in the Old West. It's not very nutritious but when you are in that dire of straights all you need is a full belly to feel better and it's always better to eat the saddle than the transportation.

I'm getting off-topic. What was my topic? What the hell am I talking about, anyway?

Listening to: So Much to Say (Dave Matthews Band)

I say my hell is the closet I'm stuck inside
Cant see the light
And my heaven is a nice house in the sky
Got central heating and I'm alright
Yeah yeah yeah
Can't see the light
Keep it locked up inside, don't talk about it
Talk about the weather
Yeah yeah yeah
Can't see the light
Open up my head and let me out little baby
Cause here we have been standing for a long long time
Treading trodden trails for a long long time

I find sometimes its easy to be myself
Sometimes I find better to be somebody else

I see you young and soft oh little baby
Little feet little hands little feet little baby
One year of crying and the words came up inside
Creep into mind yeah
So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say
So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say
Cause here we have been standing for a long long time
Treading trodden trails for a long long time

I find sometimes its easy to be myself
Sometimes I find better to be somebody else

So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say
So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say
So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say
So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say

Open up my head and let me out
little baby

Kwame Kilpatrick ordered to spend the night in jail

I have to admit a certain fascination with the goings-on of Detroit's mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. I began to follow Kilpatrick around 1991 when he was elected as the youngest mayor of Detroit at only 31 years old (he is also one of the youngest serving mayors of any major US city). Having traveled to Detroit in the past I wondered if he could revitalize the old city, get it back on track. Parts of Detroit are fantastic places, others are very much not so wonderful in any way. Detroit is odd in the first place as it is the only major US city to look SOUTH into Canada! Eh?

Over the last seven years Mayor Kilpatrick has not been able to right the wrongs of Detroit. In fact he played into a lot of "white fear" about having a mayor who referred to himself as "The Hip-Hop Mayor". Scandals were soon to follow the mayor including the 2002 Mayor's Mansion Stripper Party, the murder of Tamara Green, personal use of a Detroit PD motorcycle (is that really such a big deal?) and the list goes on.

What I find interesting is the scandal that might take him down was fairly minor: he sent elicity txt messages to a woman who was not his wife. Please join me in a collective yawn here. Are personal extramarrital affairs by elected officials even a story any longer? John Edwards is starting to feel the heat over the same kind of thing but, really people, can't we get past this?

Kilpatrick's undoing, however, might be the alleged hush money he paid to keep things quiet and his alleged rail-roading of those involved with the investigation into the matter. I'm willing to overlook the affair, after all that is between Kilpatrick, his wife and the "other woman". Some of his alleged actions during the investigation can't be overlooked and I think he's going to be in hot water because of it. Now CNN is reporting that the mayor is going to spend a night in jail over violations of his bond. I project things are going to go from bad to worse for the mayor in a very short period of time.

It's a shame it had to end like this. Kilpatrick could have been a hero of the black, white and hispanic communities for righting the very wayward city of Detroit thus providing a blueprint for other troubled cities to follow. Instead he's going to be remembered as another politicial brought down by scandal.

One other odd note: Kilpatrick and I share the same birthday. I suppose hundreded of thousands of other people do as well but I found that factoid interesting.

Kelly is coming home today

It suddenly hit me last night around 8 pm: Kelly is coming home tomorrow (now today) at 3:30 pm and the house looks like a bomb went off. How did I let my humble abode get so far off the rails and in so little time? I jumped into "cleaning" mode, stacking mail, cleaning bathrooms, straitening up piles of mail and so-forth and vacuuming the whole place. I should have mopped the kitchen floor but I was physically beat after getting all that done and then trying to revive all of Kelly's outdoor plants with a drink of water.

I'm sure I missed some things but at least it should be apparent that an effort to revitalize the home was made. Even I don't like the feeling of being gone, overseas in particular, and coming home to a trashed house.

On funny thing happen, though. The dogs are fed dry food, rather they have access to dry food during the day if they get hungry. At night they split a can of wet food (duck and potato). Boo (Dugan) eats his food in the kitchen as fast as he is able while Beep (Ricki) eats later and at her own pace away from the kitchen (oddly only under the dining room table.. I know, it's weird, but if her bowl isn't placed under the dining room table it may as well be on Mars. She just won't eat otherwise).

When the time came to pick tomatoes I picked Ricki's bowl of food up and placed it on the dining room table, just so Boo would not eat it himself. When I came back inside Ricki's bowl was empty. Somehow she got up on the table and at her food. There is NO WAY Boo, at nearly 12 years old with two bad knees, could have managed this. Quite honestly, I wish I could have seen the event for myself.

I really love NC eleven months out of the year

I've never been a fan of August in North Carolina and I feel I have to admit that and come clean on the subject. In late May of 1991 I arrived in North Carolina from Arizona just 20 years old and wondering what awaited me in my new state and at my new college. For the first two months NC felt like a new and strange land and I was unable to fully cope with the extreme differences between the two states. Take, for instance, the differences horizon. In AZ you have one and can look out as far as you like in nearly any direction before you run into a fairly large obstruction such as a mountain. AZ has a great feeling of "openess" and "vastness" that few other place can match. North Carolina, on the other had, is required to cram as many pine trees as closely together and nature can manage with no open spaces greater than 50 feet in any direction (save a shopping mall). The result is you feel like you're "in a hole" in NC when you arrive from AZ (or, as I put it more than once, "standing at the bottom of a pine tree trash can").

This story has a happy ending for NC. I grew to love what the state offered: stubby, smooth mountains to the West and the Atlantic Ocean to the East. In additon you could drive to New York City in six or so hours, or maybe it was seven, I don't remember. Anyway, while I felt trapped and smothered by pine treees and I was unable to see more than 50 feet ahead of me at any one time (or so it felt) I got used to it. Except for one thing.

My first August in Carolina I thought I was going to die. Literally. Haivng lived in Tucson for so long I was used to heat, but not 90 degree heat and 90% humidity. I've told many people this but I'll take 100-110 degress with low, Arizona-type humidity levels to Carolina's 90/90. There were days I could remember the destinct feeling that I should somehow "cut" my way through the air as opposed to walking threw it.

August has gotten easier to tolerate over the years but I still don't like it. In fact had my career in writing sprung to life (ha, yeah, right) I would collect the family for a month-long retreat. Where? Oh, I don't know. Maybe Orcas Island? Mark Turner visited this corner of the country a couple years ago and the weather sounds prefect as a retreat from the August heat of NC.

Kelly is in London, England right now and the weather sounds nice: 68 degrees and cloudy. But you can't take the dogs to the UK so somewhere like Oracs Island would win out.

This just in from Microsoft: we KNOW Vista has a reputation of suckage..

Why else would you tape consumer responses to "Microsoft Mojave" and get the people to say how great it is only to reveal that it was Vista all along. Wow, Microsoft, that is just pitiful.

The movie I'm currently watching

I'm watching the Korean movie The Host and, I have to say, it's pretty darn good! Until I had started the movie (and started to write this post) I had no idea that this is the number one all time blockbuster movie in South Korea. The movie is about a giant creature that lives in the Han River that catches and feeds off humans. The creature appears to live in the water but can also run on land not to mention hang upside down from bridges. As creatures go it's a good one, right up there with the Cloverfield monster. I should note The Host creature is much, much smaller than the Cloverfield monster, but no less frightening, probably moreso because this creature can move quietly and sneak up behind you, something the Cloverfiend monster never could.

I should note the movie is subtited (it is, after all, Korean and made for the Korean market). That said I have really forgotten how to speak and read Korean. So far of all the hangul I've seen on boxes, signs and so-forth I've not managed to read a single word. Worse yet is the only spoken word I've heard that I understad was "yobesayo" which is what the Korean's say when answering a telephone. That's just sad. At one point I had a respectable grasp on the Korean language but that is no longer the case. I suppose this kind of thing is bound to happen having not visited Korea in six years (or spoken the language in that amount of time or longer).

This movie can be viewed via the Roku player.

Adios Kelly. For 5 Days.

So Kelly is off to merry old England. She took off around 6:45 today. I dropped her off early, in fact we were too early at RDU arriving at 3:00 pm. It was too early for her to check in, and she was flying first class (bonus miles!) so she did not have to worry about long check-in lines and so forth. Having some time to burn we headed over to Raleigh's fantastic observation deck and we cranked up the HAM radio. I'm really getting to love this little radio with transmit/receive on 70 cm, 2 meter and 6 meter. We tuned into the RDU frequencies and listed to the planes land and take off for about 30 minutes.

30 minutes flew by, no pun intended, and I was off to send Kelly away. She boarded the plane without incident and following a short dely to accomodate passengers from another cancelled flight she took off for points East.

Kelly is traveling with our friend Richard who now lives in the US but grew up in London so she's got a local escort who knows the ins-and-outs of her destination. What could be better?

Caroline, Richard's girlfriend, and I are going to check out some sights and destinations around here while Kelly and Richard are checking out London. Tomorrow we're going to High Point to perhaps purchase a RV for Caroline and Richard, we'll see how that goes. We might even head out for a night on the town, perhaps take in a movie, perhaps dinner and a couple drinks. Before you wag your finger in my general direction, yes, we both have "premission". :) With any luck we'll run into someone we know while we're out and we'll get that "OH SCANDELOUS" look in misunderstanding. If we do, I'll be sure to play it up. :)