Well, she sure is purdy.
Changing seasons
Yesterday’s cold front brought steady rain, cooler temperatures, and a reminder that fall is right around the corner. On yesterday’s bike ride home I found myself chasing the warm bus exhaust I usually avoid. I’m also shivering at my desk as the building AC cools the office down to 71 degrees.
I’ve still got 300+ gallons of rainwater, too, letting the recent rain go without collection. Its hard to feel superior about collecting rainwater when Falls Lake is four feet above normal, the drought is officially over, and the city has relaxed watering schedules. Kelly says the car is getting quite muddy during her business trip to the coast so we can use the water for washing cars!
On a similar note, I popped a bucket underneath our air conditioning’s condensation drain pipe Saturday afternoon and a day later it was full of 5 gallons of crystal-clear water! I toyed with the idea putting a faucet on that pipe before realizing what a dumb idea it is! But I’d like to make use of the water somehow. Maybe I’ll attach a soaker hose to it and use it in my garden. The water trickles out at the perfect rate for watering our tomato plants!
Hosting multiple networks on a WRT54G
I was looking for some hints on an issue I’m having with the company wireless access point. Googling, as it often does, turned up something else useful: a wireless-savvy geek has figured out how to host multiple wireless networks on his WRT54G.
Why is this useful? Say you’re a giving guy, you know you have more bandwidth than you typically use, and want to make that extra bandwidth available to the public while not exposing your internal network. OpenWRT and a Linksys WRT54G can do this.
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Somsak Saeku convicted
Somsak Saeku, the defendant in my jury duty case, was convicted last week of wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen goods.
I can’t say I’m surprised: he was acting as his own attorney and while I didn’t hear the evidence, from what I read in the news there was a lot of it. Had I been on the jury I think I would’ve found it very easy to render a verdict.
T-Mobile
For the longest time, AT&T/Cingular was the only GSM cellphone carrier available in North Carolina. The only other major GSM carrier in the U.S. is T-Mobile, but the only way you could use T-Mobile here was to order a phone (and phone number) in a neighboring state and use it in roaming mode here. I hoped for T-Mobile as their rates were significantly cheaper than Cingular’s.
A billboard told me T-Mobile now offers service here in North Carolina, which is great. I believe they bought SunCom when AT&T bought all of Cingular.
While I’m happy with my super-cheap pay-per-use mobile plan, I’m glad there is now some GSM competition here in North Carolina.
Most political city
Alongside the obligatory lose-your-gut articles, the latest issue of Men’s Health ranks Raleigh America’s Most Political City.
MT.Net readers will be happy to know that Raleigh beat out metropolises (metropoli?) like Montgomery, Alabama (#2) and Little Rock, Arkansas (#3) for this honor. It just doesn’t get more exciting than this, folks.
No IPv6 love – yet
I tried configuring my Hurricane Electric IPv6 tunnel last night but could not get out anywhere. Using ping6 to ping a site such as ipv6.google.com gave me a “network down” message, yet the sit interfaces are up and I can ping HE’s gateway.
I noticed when I configure the tunnel on the HE page that I get packets from their gateway of type PROTO=41. Anyone know what these are all about?
I’ll have to dig into things a bit further when I have more time (i.e., not this week).
Earthlink’s IPv6 project ending tomorrow!
No sooner do I get prepped to jump into Earthlnk’s IPv6 project that I learn that tomorrow the project comes to an end. The project’s sponsor was given notice of his impending layoff from Earthlnk in February and tomorrow is his last day.
Fortunately, I found another free source of IPv6 addresses, Hurricane Electric’s Tunnelbroker.Net. Tunnelbroker’s forums seem to be chock-full of good IPv6 information, too. It looks like Tunnelbroker will get me into IPv6 with the exception of not providing the low latency my tunnel would’ve had being on the native Earthlink network.
Raleigh and Gaston Railroad cornerstone
One of my Wikipedia projects is an entry for the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad: North Carolina’s first commissioned railroad. I’ve needed a photo to help illustrate the article but few if any physical remnants remain, the price of a state government that has traditionally shown little regard for Raleigh’s history.
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Anniversary recap
Kelly and I had a great anniversary. We exchanged gifts in the morning, chatted throughout the day, and spend the evening together … with our kids! Hallie had her very first soccer game after work and a Conn Elementary Open House right afterward.
Hallie seemed to take to soccer. She loves it! Her team scored five goals so there was the thrill of victory. Actually, one girl on Hallie’s team scored every goal, or at least she seemed to. Hallie told us at bedtime she wants to become an “Olympic soccer champion.”
The open house was fun, but PTA meetings are PTA meetings. Its tough keeping the kids busy while PTA work is being done.
Hallie drew a “family tree” picture yesterday in class. She wrote “today’s my Mom and Dad’s anniversary.” Last night Hallie’s teacher congratulated us on our anniversary. Its true there are no secrets that first grade teachers do not learn.
Hallie also wrote about her soccer game that night. “I hope my Daddy can come,” she wrote.
I’m so glad I could.