Snow stopped short

In spite of the massive snowfall predicted we wound up getting two inches last night – and even that stopped after 9 PM. After that the precipitation switched to sleet which pounded the house until mid-morning. The snow was only 1 1/4″ deep when the sleet hit it.

We woke up with snow-crazy kids, so when we had stuffed them with as much breakfast as we could (which wasn’t much), we turned them loose outside. After a while I wandered out and shoveled the back steps but quickly opted not to shovel the driveway as it looked like a losing effort.

Instead, we headed to our local Lions Park with our sled in tow, picking up a few neighbors along the way. We spent the next few hours sliding down the hill near the tennis courts, outlasting all of our friends.

After some lunch and naps, we hung out inside as the snow and sleet on the ground turned to ice. Then it was dinner and bed. Overall, a pretty fun day.

Artist in the making

A few weeks ago, Kelly sold Hallie’s ice skates through a Craigslist ad. The mother who picked them up from our porch left us an envelope with the money inside. On the outside of the envelope was the sketch you see above.

The sketch, it turns out, was drawn by her 14-year-old daughter, perhaps as a way to say thanks for the skates. Hallie has named the puppy Icey.

I think it shows quite a bit of drawing talent!

Snow proves need for better broadband

The snow has already begun falling here in East Raleigh and it may continue for another 24 hours. This is shaping up to be an insane amount of snow and any hopes of hitting the road for work Monday morning may be pure fantasy.

That may leave many Triangle workers stuck at home when they could be working. While some will play in the snow with their families others will try to work from home, firing up their connections to the office. This is when many of them will realize just how pathetic their so-called high speed Internet service is when it comes to upload speed. Those web conferences will crawl. That videoconferencing you hoped to do? It’s buffering … buffering … buffering.

While the major ISPs want to treat their Internet service like a one-way pipe, in reality it takes a speedy connection in both directions to bring the Internet to its full potential. Collaboration suffers when one side has its hand tied behind its back.

Yes, municipal broadband may seem expensive but consider the cost of hundreds of thousands of workers stranded at home, unable to work properly because of 1990s-era Internet policies.

Irrational exuberance


I was attending a climate change forum in DC Wednesday and walked out of the Dirkson Senate Building for a walk during a break. As I’m waiting at the intersection for the walk signal, I notice I’m standing near a limo. Crossing towards the limo from my left walks Andrea Mitchell, whom I try to ignore. I have a pretty low opinion of national news media figures and certainly don’t look up to them (not after Walt passed, anyway).

In spite of my clear indifference to her, she offers a cheery hello. In fact, it was overly cheery, to the point of being … um, a little creepy. I could swear the wife of hall of fame former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was hitting on me.

Now I don’t consider myself to be dazzlingly handsome and my man AG’s got more bank, but Greenspan makes me look like Tom Cruise. Regardless if her intention, though, it was a little disconcerting.

Winter weather on the way

The weather this weekend promises to be exciting. Anytime forecasters face the chance of snow there’s a mad scramble to determine the amount and where it will fall. Too often the forecast is wildly off the mark, but the storm predicted for Friday evening will affect such a wide portion of the state it appears a sure thing that most everyone will experience something.

Greg Fishel said it’s highly unusual for a winter storm watch to be announced so far in advance. Precipitation estimates range from 3 to a whopping 11 inches! It will all come down to the wire Friday evening, but it seems certain that something will happen.

Here’s the latest winter storm warning message from the NWS:

URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE RALEIGH NC
937 PM EST THU JAN 28 2010

.A WINTER STORM WILL PRODUCE FROZEN PRECIPITATION ACROSS MOST OF CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA FRIDAY EVENING THROUGH SATURDAY.

NCZ007>011-021>027-038>041-291000-
/O.CON.KRAH.WS.W.0001.100129T2300Z-100131T0500Z/
PERSON-GRANVILLE-VANCE-WARREN-HALIFAX-FORSYTH-GUILFORD-ALAMANCE-
ORANGE-DURHAM-FRANKLIN-NASH-DAVIDSON-RANDOLPH-CHATHAM-WAKE-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…ROXBORO…OXFORD…HENDERSON…
WARRENTON…ROANOKE RAPIDS…WINSTON-SALEM…GREENSBORO…
HIGH POINT…BURLINGTON…CHAPEL HILL…DURHAM…LOUISBURG…
NASHVILLE…LEXINGTON…ASHEBORO…PITTSBORO…RALEIGH
937 PM EST THU JAN 28 2010

…WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM FRIDAY TO MIDNIGHT EST SATURDAY NIGHT…

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM FRIDAY TO MIDNIGHT EST SATURDAY NIGHT.
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Weekend (and week) recap

Let’s see. I had a birthday this week, turning 41. Had an after-hours meeting every day except Friday, when I took Travis to his piano lesson. Monday evening it was a meeting with the head of a major local institution. Tuesday it was a city council meeting. Wednesday it was the Raleigh CAC meeting. Thursday it was a contentious Parks Board meeting.

Saturday morning I had a conference to work in Durham, but cut it short to watch the end of the kids’ basketball games. Kelly’s parents arrived around that time and we spent some time visiting with them. Travis and his grandfather built a dinosaur out of the trash can and parts found around the garage. Kelly’s parents took the kids to dinner while we headed out to Papa Mojo’s for Cajun dinner and dancing. We got back late but had fun doing it.
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Linux’s networking stack gets confused

I just saw this unusual response when I pinged my local server:

root@sundowner:/etc/network# ping maestro
PING maestro (192.168.3.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2091 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2094 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2077 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2040 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=2043 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=2051 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=2046 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=1065 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=63.8 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=1.39 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=1.35 ms
64 bytes from maestro (192.168.3.1): icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=1.53 ms

The odd thing about this is that the first 8 responses actually returned in less than one second, in spite of ping reporting times over 2000 ms. For the math-impaired out there, 2000 ms equals two seconds.

I don’t know why Linux was reporting a ping response returning in two seconds when it actually returned in less than one second (and most likely a fraction of a second). It’s very strange.

Looks like we’re in for nasty weather

Yesterday afternoon I had just sat down in the recliner when my weather radio began sounding. I found this quite odd as a glance out the window showed calm winds and sunny skies. As soon as I’d reset my radio and sit down again, it would sound again! It turns out it was a flash flood warning – for today. I guess the NWS wasn’t taking any chances in alerting the public.

The forecast calls for up to three inches of rain to fall tonight:

* FROM THIS EVENING THROUGH MONDAY MORNING
* WIDESPREAD RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF ONE TO TWO INCHES ARE EXPECTED ACROSS THE PIEDMONT OF NORTH CAROLINA THIS EVENING THROUGH MONDAY MORNING… WITH ISOLATED HIGHER AMOUNTS UP TO 3 INCHES POSSIBLE IN ANY EMBEDDED CONVECTION.
* THESE RAINFALL AMOUNTS ARE LIKELY TO PRODUCE RAPID RISES ON AREA CREEKS AND STREAMS. IN PARTICULAR… CREEKS THAT TEND TO RISE QUICKLY WITH HEAVY RAIN… INCLUDING CRABTREE CREEK IN THE TRIANGLE… BUFFALO CREEK IN THE TRIAD… AND CROSS CREEK IN FAYETTEVILLE… MAY EXPERIENCE FLOODING. HIGH WATER IS ALSO POSSIBLE IN URBAN AND POOR DRAINAGE AREAS. MAINSTEM RIVERS INCLUDING THE HAW… TAR… NEUSE… AND ROCKY RIVER ARE ALSO LIKELY TO SEE RISES OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

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Unwanted birthday present

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that corporations can meddle all they want in elections. This is in spite of the fact that they aren’t real persons and cannot vote. If you had any illusions that your political representative would listen to you rather than the big corporation happily polluting your neighborhood, you can forget about it. Hamilton’s vision for America was at odds with Jefferson’s and now Hamilton’s is firmly in control.

It’s nice to think that America is the land of the free. When you look at it closely, however, you begin to see that the cards are stacked mightily against the individual. As Joe Strummer of The Clash said in the song Know Your Rights:“you have the right to free speech … as long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.” That is, you have the right to be counted … as long as Exxon, General Electric, and other corporations are free to count more.
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Good rebate policy


I bought a Samsung Bluetooth headset from Woot.Com last month with a rebate deal that made it practically free. When the headset and its rebate arrived, I saw that the rebate program ended January 15th. Thinking I had plenty of time to fill out the paperwork, I let it slide until about a week days ago.

That’s when I was surprised to read the fine print which said the rebate needed to be mailed within 30 days of purchase. It was now roughly 45 days since I bought it. I filled out the paperwork and mailed it in anyway, taking a chance that it would get honored.

Now, all my previous rebate experience told me that rebate companies use the slightest technicality to avoid honoring a rebate. That saves their clients money. I suppose that’s their right: the fine print is the fine print. Legally speaking, I was no longer entitled to a rebate check.

In spite of my gaffe, it looks like they’re sending me one, anyway! I got an email this morning with a message saying my rebate request is valid! Kudos for Samsung’s rebate fulfillment company, Parago for putting the customer first!