Archive for July, 2007
27 Jul
Yup; that’s me. Or at least my amateur radio call sign. It occurred to me last night that I hadn’t posted any info about my foray into ham radio, so here I go: I earned my tech ticket this spring at the Head of the Lakes Ham Fest in Superior. I’m currently running one radio — a Yaesu FT7800 2m/440 mobile rig with a 5/8s dual-band antenna — from the car, and just getting into EchoLink.
I’ve been taking things slow, and doing a lot of listening for a while, but now I’m starting to do a little chatting, too. I took a Skywarn class this spring and act as an official spotter — that’s one of the reasons I wanted my ham license in the first place.
I also want to get involved with emergency communications, but I feel like I need a lot more learning and experience before I really get into that. But I’ll get there. I think the next big things for me to do are:
- Setup an operating station (shack) at home
- Build and install an antenna
- Get a computer going through the radio for some digital modes
- Study for my General license
With all the other stuff going on in my world, I figure that oughtta keep me out of trouble for a while.
24 Jul
Got out of work today feeling nausous, headachy, and generally crappy. Went home to a pizza oven of a house. Got convinced (not much of a job there, lemme tell ya) to go to Bayview Beach (where The Wife and I got hitched; remember?). And then life got waaaay better.
The water was *perfect.* The temperature was *perfect.* The white sand beach was uncrowded. The breeze kept the bugs (almost) away and brought little waves up for about two straight hours of “toddler surfing.” Man, life is good.
24 Jul
“You’re all number one; just in the wrong order.”
24 Jul
I’m just beating the crap out of my computer right now. I’m rebuilding a web directory, streaming music, building a couple virtual machines, blogging, surfing, and bringing down about a gig-and-a-half of PDFs and maps. Can I get a “hell-yeah?”
24 Jul
Me thinks we’ll be livin’ at the beach this week. It’s hot (highs in the mid 90s) and humid, and supposed to stay that way for at least the rest of the week. Last night, we went swimming after dinner, and I think The Wife and Boy are planning to meet up with a friend and hit the water again this morning. And golly gosh, after work, you know what would feel really good? I’ll give you a hint: it ain’t cooking.
Last night, The Boy learned all about “going underwater.” He charged right out from shore, headed to the middle of the bay (which is really no big deal, since you can easily go for an eighth of a mile with no appreciable depth change), and promptly tripped over a pile of rocks. He went under. He came back up. He kept right on going out until he was taking little waves in the face. Then he turned to me and said, “Daddy, jump slow-fast.” (In case you didn’t know, that’s Toddler Code for, “You there, Parental Unit. Lift me slowly above your head with a big, stupid grin on your face. Once you reach the point of isokinetic muscular fatigue, hurl me into the sky, then catch me just before I impact the surface of your small planet. Hurry along, now.”) We jumped our way along the bay, with The Boy landing a little deeper each time until he was mostly underwater. Each time he went under, he’d come up spluttering and coughing, then point up and say, “jump gain, pleeze.”
19 Jul
The Boy, The Wife, and I all piled into Merlot this evening and headed to the playground and the beach. What a great way to end a pretty decent day! Check out more photos of our excursion at our Flickr account. Oh, and I’ll get a few more pics posted tomorrow, once I have a chance to do a little RAW conversion.
19 Jul
- Create some static pages to back header links
- Change header links to something that reflects reality
- Remove the “About” box from the top of the sidebar
- Add a Flickr badge (maybe something subtle this time…)
- Update Flickr with a year’s worth of “evidence”
- Put “real” writing up at ajvanbeest.com; link to it
- Expand this list
- Have a beer
18 Jul
Life is good! After I sent out my mass e-mail to all my family and friends yesterday, I received immediate responses from a couple of folks whom I haven’t seen for a while. One person was looking a little help in wading through the morass of learning web development; the other floated an idea for a web-related collaboration.
It’s cool how, when you’re in the right head space, it’s easy to see the ebb and flow of the universe, the give and take that happens with every breath. Now if only I could find my keys so I could get into my office…
17 Jul
Some day, I swear to dog, I’m going to update one of my web apps without killing it, or the database it depends on first.
*sigh*
I’m trying to update Drupal (a CMS that I’d like to learn more about, and that I’m trying to use to manage ajvanbeest.com), and I’ve managed to kill the database connection.
So that’s great. I’d call tech support, but really, why? I mean, who needs a lousy database connection, anyway? I figure I’ll just turn up Nickleback and grin, since right now, I’m my own biggest PITA.
17 Jul
A stuffed rabbit saves Earth-that-will-be. A strange premise for a smallishly beautiful movie. Give it a watch – especially since you can go rent it.
