PictureMail
Originally uploaded by Paul Timmins.

PictureMail
Originally uploaded by Paul Timmins.

Our house has crazy ass antennas now. We have in the last few days picked up texas, and today we picked up a photo sent over ham radio (20m SSTV for those in the know) from both Madrid, Spain and somewere in England.

Seriously we have serious gear now.

Also we got a ICOM 706MKIIG for our radioing now. It's most excellent. I've wanted one of these for years. They're excellent ham radios. It's our mutual early Christmas present to each other. (Last years was a DVD changer and a surround sound receiver)

	My desk at work, as seen from a convex mirror
	Close ups of our antennas
	Our house, from the corner of Dequindre and Fontaine. You can sorta tell we have some antenna stuff going on

Things done since the last post:

* Bonfire at brad and laura's.

* Migrated our network to have its numbers directly through our own facilities rather than through an intermediate carrier. We're now fully provider independent on the phone side, relying on no 3rd party to port numbers or make or receive calls in MI. Woo. This involved porting several thousand telephone numbers. Good times.

* Watched the debates with friends.

* Went to the Obama rally downtown. Got a lot of great pictures of secret service agents on rooftops. I've got Guy that stands up completely, Two guys on the really tall building, peeking over the roofline, The "wow, those are huge fucking binoculars" guy. Here is a good picture of Joe Biden, and here's a picture of the TSA people who ran the metal detectors, protecting the candidate from any stray outside food or beverages (at first I thought it was a ploy to force you to use the local vendors, until I found there were no vendors in the sterile zone (!)). They also took my wire cutters I forgot I was carrying, not that I blame them for that one at least. I've also got pictures of a huge contingent of Detroit's finest, though they were far less amused with my photography * than you are now, probably. 🙂
* (Look at that officer's face. He's clearly Not Amused (TM) )

* Last night we all went to a local establishment and consumed alcohol. Good times were had.

Courtesy of W8TVI's temporarily stolen (by me) cameraphone, here's photographic evidence of my continued existence:

I could use my own cameraphone, or any of my many cameras or image taking devices, but what's the fun in that?

No progress on the 1+1=3 front, but the project has at last passed doctoral muster once again. Becky gave her endocrinologist the boot after long last (In my opinion, the last one was a totally unqualified fucker and probably should find a different specialty), and found a new one that was previously part of the last one's practice, until she was evidently fed up with his shit, and started her own (across the parking lot, amusingly). She seems to actually monitor her sugars and stuff, between appointments, rather than just asking for ballpark averages and adjusting her insulin every 3 months, should he schedule the appointments that often. So hooray for that!

Sleeptime.

I read livejournal everyday, I rarely miss an entry. Of course, I rarely comment too.

I need to post more than once a month. Really, I do.

Anyway, here's what's happened in the last 30 days. I'll do the bullet point thing:

* Sister's baby shower, got to hang out with my Aunt from Texas, and we took her back to Detroit Metro from Dad's house in Grand Haven so that was cool. Becky had never been in an airport before, so I showed her around. (we had gate passes because my aunt needs assistance boarding the aircraft, so after she departed we had free run of the terminal for a bit.)

* We went to Dan M's birthday party in West Branch. Becky took a number of great pictures here. I have a few too, but they're not as good so I didn't post them. I had the higher megapixels and the stronger image processor on the camera but her zoom lens is slightly stronger than mine and she was actively pursuing photos so hers easily outpace my own.

* Had dinner or hung out a varying number of times with ninadiel, hollywoodpanic, niteshad, slash616 and Brad and Laura.

* Lots of work stuff, mostly dealing with the completion of our facilities network, and the migration of customers therof. It's really cool to start see it taking load, realizing that a year ago this didn't exist in even the most minor form. And it wasn't even something I expected to do for a couple of years when I started at my employer. All my personal numbers get ported onto the new network tomorrow, so that will be pretty cool as well.

* With the help of niteshad, Brad, Ben, and ladymace's masterful trap setting, we caught one of the squirrels that have been living in my chimney. (we have since caught one more, with one to go). Then I can pay lots of money to fix whatever damage has been done by the infestation. Here's a video of the first one we caught, that we had to let go because it was caught after hours and the animal control people weren't around. Here's video of the angry squirrel in its cage:

Here's the squirrel again, running like a bat out of hell into his new home, about 3-5 miles north of our place.

niteshad has a more exhaustive post on the happenings here. Any further elaboration by myself would result in a duplication of effort, and he's done an great job explaining what was up.

And if anyone here needs me to scan the contents of this envelope, let me know. I'm sure you all have it on lockdown though.

I'm alive, so is Becky.

We're doing well.

Last weekend, we played with virtual go karts on the wii with one set of friends, then drove real ones with a different set.

Please register to vote. Do it. Now. Yes, now. Procrastinating on this is not something you want to do, as most states have a requirement that you be registered for at least 30 days prior to the election. If you don't know how, visit the website of the candidate that interests you the most, they all have a link on their site to register to vote. If you don't want to do that, here's a lengthy form that is universal and contains the specific rules for all 50 states.

Felons can vote in most states once their sentence is complete. If you need to know more about felon disenfranchisement, and whether it applies to you, or someone you know, here's a good summary

No updates on 1+1=3.

We had a taco and meteor party last night. It was pretty sweet.

My sister's baby is cute. She had it over a month ago, but this is topical because Saturday is her baby shower.

My 10 meter rig needs to have its mic fixed, and then I'll be on HF. Still just a tech, but if I can find the interest, maybe I won't be for long. 🙂

I made a number of life simplifying accomplishments at work in the last week or two. Maybe later this year I can actually take some time off. That'd be awesome.

I thought this was interesting. I don't hate the guy, I just think he did something stupid. If he succeeds, more power to him. Either way, from everything I've heard, this makes sense. (I am not quoted, anonymously or otherwise, in that article, for the record)

http://www.nextel.com/en/services/airave/index.shtml

Guys, that's the coolest thing ever. Sprint's coming out with a CDMA picocell you can put in your house near a window (you need GPS reception for CDMA to work right, unless you have a stratum 1 primary reference source kicking around), slap onto your internet connection, and basically put your cell coverage anywhere you want. This is awesome. It even supports 1xRTT data.

I've been wanting something like this to come out for a while – it only makes sense. This blows away T Mobile's offering that uses 802.11b/g wireless, because this works with ANY sprint CDMA phone. You don't have to get a special phone to make it work.