Excavator & Optiplex

I spent most of the day working on the Dell Optiplex 2.7.  I found out that the Dell Service Number does not match to one on the case.  I guess this is no surprise since I bought it off eBay. The other ones I purchase off eBay did have the correct service numbers though.  It is slowing down with all the services I am adding.  Still it is faster than anything else I have.

The excavator came to find the septic tank #1 that has been lost for 25 years.  When we checked it we found the water was flowing through with no apparent restrictions.  Thsi si good.  While he was here we did accurate measurements and found the #1 clean out that was near the house.  He is putting extensions and risers so all will be accessible from now on.

After lunch I applied the third coat of Cetol to the Young Sun sailboat boom gallows.  It is a very pretty piece of Teak.  Now it looks great.  The final coat is clear coat but I may put two coats on because it gets plenty of abuse from weather.

WLAN is Intermittant

I spoke too soon.  The WLAN is not reliably up.  I wonder why?  Help.  I know it used to work fine.  Maybe it only worked fine with DLink wireless cards.  Maybe I should get the N router.

Slideshow: Sign of the Times

This speaks for itself.  It is a slideshow that takes a few seconds per slide.

[slideshow=5]

Heavenly Man

I am reading the book called Heavenly Man by Brother Yun.  Our pastor recommended it so I bought both of the series.  The pastor is reading the second in the series now.  

The first book documents Brother Yun’s trials as a Christian in PRC China during the 1980’s.  It is a pretty gruesome picture he paints.  Not at all like we were lead to believe – especially since I was there in the late 1980’s.  Nice guys those Communists.  An easily read book worth the effort for Christians. 

WLAN up again

I ordered a power supply through eBay and it arrived this morning in the mail.  It came from guess where – Hong Kong.  Price $5.99 Shipping $6.99.  Anyway, the DLINK WLAN is working again.

I had to fiddle with it for some time to get the thing going.  I use a 8 port DLINK Router A for the front-end and the WLAN B is behind the firewall: router A is agood one with a lot of features.  I hooked the LAN side of switch B to the  router A.  I could ping anything behind the fire wall but not outside on the Internet.  I scratched my head for a while and then decided to try to change the routing table to connect all traffice from LAN B address  to Router A address.  Bingo everything worked like a champ.

I then added WEP 128 bit strength to just put a little of a challenge to someone wanting access.  There is no way anyone can park close enough to hack into the network unless they sit in my driveway.  The neighbors are sufficiently far to make it difficult to hack in without having a yagi or panel pointed at me & I would see that eventually anyway.

I am sitting at the kitchen table writing this blogline.  Jess will appreciate the wireless part when she comes home for Christmas.  Actually, this was the router used at Purdue for several years.  I am thinking about a “N” router:  I am favoring the Linksys 54 as it is a cheap way to get N speeds.  The Pcmcia cards are only $20, so I could be up and running at N speeds for $75.  I really do not need the speed but would like the 5X distance you get with MIMO.

Snow Blowing

This morning there was a nice two inch coverage of snow with light winds.  I got out before church to clean the driveway.  After church I finished the driveway and did the service drive all the way down to the building.  By late afternoon the house driveway was pretty much clear due to the bright sun.  After repair the snow blower was running well.

 Tonight the service was spirit filled but shorter than usual and we were home before 2000 hrs.  Prior we stopped at Jon Alaura to deliver the Christmas gift SAM has picked out and prepared.  Jon was appreciative.

Final Draft: Christmas Letter

Sam & I spent about two hours this morning and half an hour tonight putting finishing touches on the Christmas Letter 2008.  SAM thinks there is one item to be added so I cannot send it out until that item is remembered. 

We went to the Grocery Store and I returned home with the groceries and SAM went to Fairview Missionary for the Christmas program.  I had to work on the snowblower and clean the carburator.  At the same time I removed the old gasoline and put new in.  It started pretty well but kept hunting so I took the carburetor off and put the governor in a different position and it seemed to help.  It still does not run correctly so it may be time for a professional makeover.  We have come to depend on that little machine but tonight the strong westerly wind precluded using the machine except to throw snow down wind.  I finished the driveway by hand.

Christmas Letter 2008

I awoke with a start this morning, rolled out of bed at 0400 and started on the our Christmas Letter 2008.  By 0700 the first draft of words was complete.  The new feature of our letter will be that Jessica is no longer featured.  She has flown the nest and I believe she is writing her own letters.  We did not receive one last year but family said they received one.  Such an ungrateful child.  I will not reveal what the letter said but I believe it was sufficient.  No SAM has to review and it will be good to go via email.  We print very few these days.

The remainder of the day was spent stripping the varnish off the boom gallows for our sailboat, getting the mail and other domestic chores SAM no longer has the time to complete, completing some website content activities and eating lunch and dinner.  Gas was $1.559 at Walmart this evening:  I filled up the Honda and purchased some more kerosene for the space heater in the garage.  The kerosene is more than twice as expensive as the gasoline.

Saugatuck & The Boat

Today the wind is down, lake is open and the ground snow covered but it is overcast.  I have an Aviation Board meeting to attend this afternoon at 1730.  Nothing controversial but a normal sit in meeting.

I took a friend, JIM V, with me yesterday and we went up to the boat in Saugatuck.  On arrival we boarded the boat that is laying in heated storage.  The first order of business was to connect the 120VAC power to the boat and connect the batteries.  We flipped the main power on the boat and it started to charge.  After a while, I noticed that something looked amiss as the battery two group was reading 12.45 volts.  This level should have been 14.1 VDC for the Acceptance Charge stage.  After cleaning terminals all was well with the charger and we watched to make sure all was OK and we went for lunch at Oval Beach.  The waves were large at 10-12 ft and the surf was up as was the NW wind.  Jim enjoyed high seas and the crashing surf.

After lunch we removed smoke alarm/CO batteries, drained the bilge, removed the doger, cleaned the sea water intake screen and removed the binoculars and EPIRB (PLB)and took them with us.  We departed the boat at 1600 hrs for the long, slow, icy trip back to Indiana.  It was a 3.5 hr trip (usually 2.5 hrs) and we counted over 6 cars in the ditch over a distance of 60 miles.