We found this snake in my sisters house. Check out the link for more in-house pictures. A true and thrilling story!



http://old.themdg.org/gallery/snake

New brakes for everyone...

We're driving both cars from Kansas to Maryland in the next month. I've been doing some car updates before we go, to make sure we make it in one peice.

One thing that needed doing on both the car (93 Nissan Maxima) and the truck (96 Mazda B2300) was a break check. The breakes in the max were verrrry loud, but they've always been that way.

So, over a few weeks, I removed, inspected, replaced, or repaired the brakes on all 8 wheels. Here is the rundown of the work:

Maxima:
Turned Rotors
Turned Drums
Replaced Pads
Replaced Shoes
Adjustments

B2300
Turned Rotors
Replaced Drums
Repacked Bearings
Adjustments.

Man...they both drive like new cars. The Rotors in the truck were pretty warped. Now that they're newly turned, it stops perfectly. I think for the whole project I spent around $100. Not bad for a do-it-myself job. :)

Make a list, before your brain explodes...

Our country is just over two centuries old. That's pretty young compred to other countries in the world. Will our country make it to twice this age? Three time? Thirty times?

It's easy to think that...Yes...our country, even with it's problems, is doing pretty well. That's until you watch a few hours of Television. Watch one hour of anything marketed as "Reality Television" and you'll see what I mean. We're being fed a constant stream of mind-numbing trash! You can pick any "real" television show and watch it for an hour. You have just shortened your life by 14 hours. In my research, I found a story of a boy who watched SO much reality-television that he suddenly died of intelligence deficiency. Very sad.

What do you avoid, you ask? How can you reclaim you brain cells, you wonder? Here is a small list of criteria that you should avoid at ALL costs. A phrase which here means that when any of these scenarios comes on the television, you should act as if fire, spears, terrorists and strangers offering candy are pouring out of your television, into you living room.

1) Anything that involves any type of "Elimination." It's the show that should be eliminated, not the printer and fax machine repair man from Detroit.

2) Anything staring anyone that is famous for something other than starting in TV shows. This includes singers, rappers, artists, ex-convicts, business men, strippers, models, people who are famous for nothing, people who are not famous, people who murder other people, people who dare to eat rediculous things, or athletes.

3) Anything where people cry for "real."

4) Any show where there is a panel of judges.

5) Anything that will help choose Americas Next _anything_.

Also, I suggest making a list of people that you simply will not tolerate seeing in your home, or in your life. Act as if these peoples image causes you pain and burns your eyes. Because guess what? They do! When these people come on the television, RUN! For your life! Grab the remove and change it. Cover your ears and eyes and do that "La la la la" thing so you can't hear. Run from the room while screaming at the top of your lungs. If you don't, your brain will eventually explode.

I'm not going to list any actual names because that's JUST what they want. In fact, if I had listed names, and you had read them in this context, you'd be dumber than when you started. I just saved you 12.3 minutes of your life. You're welcome.

The Black Hole, by Jackson, age 5

Here is an artists depiction of the 1979 Disney movie, The Black Hole. Drawn by my 5 year old son.

::Things to notice::
--Bottom left corner: U.S.S. Cygnus
--At about 7-O-Clock: Old Bob, the robot
--At about 9-O-Clock: Another spaceship being sucked in
--At about 2-O-Clock: That other spaceships engine
--Dead center: The middle of the black whole which "Sucks the spaceship and the stuff in"

Bro gets Mission call...

My bro Andy received an LDS mission call this week. He's going to Wisconsin and will learn the Mong language.

I'm happy that he's going. He'll be a great asset in the work there. He's a good man. Hooray for Wisconsin.

Edit: Woa, I just realized the Madison Scouts are from Wisconsin. That makes Wisconsin one of the top places in the country to be.






















The Madison Scouts

Words of the day...

Here are the words I'd use to describe my day at work today:

Hoodwinked
Bamboozled
Horn Swoggled
Pummelled

Gotta love big corporations.

The other day Jack told my wife he wanted to write a Christmas song. She wrote some simple accompanyment, and Jack (who has just turned 5) composed and performed this song.

http://themdg.org/music/JackChristmasSong.mp3

In case you can't tell at first, the words main words are:

"I like Christmas"
"I like getting the toys" (which oftentimes comes out like "...getting the toyeeYooeeeYoooees")

Listen for the cute little-boy-type laugh at the very end.

It's pretty great. Have a listen, and leave a comment about what you think.

Narrowly Avoided Trouble...

It seem as though we have narrowly avoided trouble here at THEmdg.org. You see, our budget is small. As a result, our infrastructure is not what it should be. Rarely are backups done on data, and there are NO full backups done...ever. So, if a drive goes down, we curl and cry.

Well, it happened today.

Went to pull a few mp3's out for a slideshow and found 0 files. "Oh yeah, maybe the drive just needs to be remounted," We thought. No dice. Upon further investigation, we found that the drive that holds about 80GB's of MP3's was unaccessable. Scary I/O Error stuff. The actual error had something to do with a bad superblock. A superblock a bit like the card catalogue of a partition. Without it, the data is still there, but ou can't find any of it.

After mourning the loss of an 8 year collection of music and after scheming how to replace them (a daunting task!), We had the idea to put a little more faith in linux to see if the data was recoverable.

Check out this magic:

Step 1 - Find out where the backup superblocks are stored.
-------------------
avast:/tmp# mke2fs -n /dev/hdb1
mke2fs 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
14663680 inodes, 29304560 blocks
1465228 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
895 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872
----------------

Step 2 - Rebuild the jounral with a new (not corrupted) superblock
-------------------
fsck.ext3 -b 98304 /dev/hdb1
-------------------

After some bad block fixes etc etc
-------------------
/dev/hdb1: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/hdb1: 13333/14663680 files (21.3% non-contiguous), 15266103/29304560 blocks
------------------

What? That did it? We quickly remounted the drive:

avast:/mnt# mount butters

Woa...no errors...what now? It worked? Checking the mounted file system we were shocked to see all files intact! The MP3's are alive and well. Three cheers for linux magic.

The moral of the story? If you want to keep stuff you put on themdg.org...back it up. Chances are, we don't.

Staples for the boy...

My 5 years old son fell of the swings at the park today...perhaps because I pushed him too hard? (sigh.) 3 staples in the head later, he's back home. He was extremely brave during the ordeal. I've never seen a better patient.

May I suggest Winkys

A treat suggestion. I picked a 12 pack of Winky Brand Sugar Free Gelatin snack cups at the Wal-Marts the other day. They may be one of the best tasting thing on the whole dang planet. Go and get some. $2.50 for a 12 pack. 3 flavors.

Pictures from a life changing day....

Last month, my friend Trav and I were hired to photograph a wedding for an Indian friend of mine. Travis flew out from Salt Lake City, and we traveled to Pleasanton, Kansas to take the pictures. For 14 hours we snapped more than 2500 pictures.

It was an amazing experience from a photography point of view, but a life changing experience from a personal point of view. So much so in fact, that it's hard to portray in words.

But...the pictures turned out great. We narrowed them down quite a bit. Have a look:

http://amitandkalagee.themdg.org/main.php

Review: McCartneys Latest - Chaos and Creation in the Backyard

I gave this a bunch of listens, and have come to the conclusion that (no disrespect intended) you're wrong. You DO like this album.

I read a nice article about it in Time magazine about this album. On the advise of George Martin, Paul hired Nigel Godrich to produce this album. Nigel has produced groups like Beck and Radiohead. The first thing he did was tell Paul that most of his solo stuff is garbage. He also told Paul he needed to ditch his regular band for this album, and refused to do any 50's type rock and roll songs. Two words Nigel: Thank you! You've got to admit that the absence of the same-old-rock-and-roll we've been hearing from paul for a long time is a nice change.

Here is the bottom line. There are no Elvis songs. There are no songs about cows, or about how much you suck for wearing fur or leather. There are lots of background vocals that have been missing from Pauls songs for 20 years. Nice to hear them returning, finally.

1) Fine Line
Being the single, this is one of the most catchy tunes on the album. The sentiment is nice too. A sort of prodigal son story. Easy to relate the emotions to a wayward friend of family member.

2) How Kind of You
I like this song, but a bit less than the others. I can't place why. I guess any song that is based on " You... Me" is too simple. Nice ethereal feel near the end. But overall sub-par.

3) Jenny Wren
This is a cool balled that carries hints of songs such as Blackbird and albums such as Wings - Wild Life. We also get to hear that Pauls falsetto voice is still very much intact and pleasant. One more plus is the interesting sounds and instrumentation that's been missing from the last few albums which have been mostly simple rock. Like a good book, it's easy to get lost in the story of this song.

4) At The Mercy
Not much to love about this song at beginning. However, at around 1:10, paul brings in some strings (which have also been missing from his latest albums.) Your attention peaked, paul switches the song entirely with "If you take me up... I won't say no..." It's a nice bridge and saves the song, in my view.

5) Friends To Go
This is a nice sounding song. Starting simple, Paul brings some of his old tricks into the tune with nice harmonies during "Slowly burning rope...but the flame is getting low." Also, at around 2:15 we get some linda-style background "the other side the other side the other side....friends to go frienda to go friends to go..." Haven't heard that in a long time.

6) English Tea
String Quartet? Not since Give My Regards, I think. Clearly some sounds of "For No One" in this song. He paints a nice mental picture with this song, which is something we haven't had in a while. For that reason, this song might have been on Wings - London Town.

7) Too Much Rain
This is my favorite track on the album. The sentiment in it is touching. "It's not right. In one life. Too much rain." Sometimes I feel like there is too much rain. It's nice to be able to relate to a McCartney song again. I could see using this song on a compilation tape for someone I love. In short...it's a sad song that is indeed sad.

8) A Certain Softness
Not my favorite. Too much like elevator music. This should have been a B-side. I suspect this is about Pauls new child.

9) Riding to Vanity Fair
Is Paul mad here? Nice to hear a departure from the guitar-bass-drums-piano combo. Some eiry sounds in there that might have appreaed on Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon. However, too much "Friendship" in this one.

10) Follow Me
Paul wants to be best friends with everyone. NIce harmonies around 1:40. This sounds sounds a bit like a not-so-successful attempt at something like "Put it there" from Flowers in the Dirt.

11) Promise To You Girl
Nice harmonies at the beginning sounding a bit like "Flying to my home." A bit too optimistic and 50's-ish though. Pass.

12) This Never Happened Before
Another one you might have heard on Wild Life. I hear anthem type melodies like the Long And Winding Road or Hey Jude, but it never quite gets there. Almost seems like paul is writing about retirement?

13) Anyway
Sounds like something from the musical Rent. I like this some though. I could easilly see this fitting somewhere on a girlfriend tape, or in a movie soundtrack. You even hear some "Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooo" that makes you think of Pipes of Peace.

13.5) Hidden jam?
Starts out crappy. Ends up nice.

Mean Machinery...

My son and I like to take the change we earn from doing our "chores" and go to garage sales. A few weeks ago, we hit the jackpot when we bought a workbench organizer . . . the kind with 25 or so drawers full of screws, connecters, bolts, etc (and I MEAN etc.) This thing was packed full with 25 years worth of someones tiny treasures.

My son loves to play with the items in this box, and recently announced that we were going to build some "Mean Machinery" from the peices. Tonight we worked on it and here is the result.

A word of advise? Its mean man...don't mess with it.

22 miles in Johnson County

Took a nice long morning bike ride with my good friend from work. Johnson County Kansas has nice biking/walking trails that go for miles and miles and miles. We rode for a few good hours. Nice and cool...a good ride.

Hollywood, and computers.

This is nerdy, but pretty funny.

I found this here: http://nand.net/~demaria/hollywood.txt which I found using netStumble.

Without further ado, I present:

/************************************/
/* Guidelines to development */
/* on the */
/* HOLLYWOOD OPERATING SYSTEM */
/************************************/

1. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function.

2. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be
accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit
data at two gigabytes per second.

3. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the
control panels will explode, as will the entire building.



4. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file,
it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a
backup file -- and there are no undelete utilities.

5. If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for
a password when you try to access it.

6. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by
any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all
computer platforms.

7. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However,
everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren't labeled.

8. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional,
real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.

9. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time
video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY.

10. Whenever a character looks at a terminal, the image is so bright that it
projects itself onto his/her face.

11. Computers never crash during key, high-intensity activities. Humans
operating computers never make mistakes under stress.

12. (From Independence Day) No matter what kind of virus it is, any computer
can be infected with it -- even an alien spaceship's computer -- simply by
running a virus upload program on a laptop.

13. (From Jurassic Park) A custom system with millions of lines of code
controlling a multimillion dollar theme park can be operated by a 13 year
old who has seen a Unix system before. Seeing an operating system means you
know how to run any application on that system, even custom apps.
Note: What OS was it really running?
(1) "These are super computers". A CrayOS?
(2) "Quicktime movie, Apple logo, trash can." MacOS?
(3) "Reboot. System ready. C:" DOS?
(4) "Hey, this is Unix. I know this" Unix?
The computers in Jurassic Park were Cray supercomputers running the MacOS
as a graphical shell of DOS all layered on top of a Unix base.

14. You cannot stop a destructive program or virus by unplugging the computer.
Presumably the virus has it's own built-in power supply.

15. You cannot stop a destructive program downloading onto your system by
unplugging the phone line. You must figure out the mandatory "back door"
all evil virus programmers put in.

16. Computers only crash if a virus or a hacker is involved.

17. All text must be at least 72 point.

18. Word processors do not have an insert point.

19. The only way to reboot is to shut off the main power to the building.

20. Passwords can be guessed in three and exactly three tries. If you cannot
guess the password in three tries, you must give up immediately.

---

Reclaim your MP3 collection...

I recently acquired an ipod. From where? it's a long story that I'll add sometime. The ipod is large enough to fit all (and I mean ALL) of my mp3's that i've ripped and collected over the years. But as I started adding them to my ipod, I found a mess!

First, to use the ipod, you just about have to use iTunes. To be frank, iTunes is a steaming pile of code manure. If you ask any mac zealot, they'll fist-fight you for saying something like that. As a mac-type and they'll have you believe that ANYthing that goes wrong with an ipod or itunes is YOUR fault and not the fault of perfectly designed and executed software.

Give...me...a...break. iTunes is fine if you buy every song from the apple store...if not, brace yourself.

So, I started looking for programs that would let me edit my ID3 tags, which were a disaster. Editing them with iTunes takes forEVER and it doesn't support looking up info and art on the web. With thousands of files? Forgetaboutit.

There are a lot of programs to edit this type of info, but many come up short. One program that I found does a great job. It's called MediaMonkey. It automatically downloads the album into as well as download album art. And it's FAST! Try it out!

New Wheels Week...

For a few months, we've been looking for a new car (or truck), and for a few years, I've been looking for a new bike. This week they found me.

Scout Camp 2005...

Here are some pictures from scout camp at Camp Jayhawk in Perry, KS. We took 7 boys and 3 leaders. Overall, a great week. About a fillion cumulative bug bites, and 17 completed merit badges. Not a bad ratio. Check here for more pictures.

New Hard Drive for theMdg...

theMdg staff is pleased to announce that we have received a generous donation from one of it's patrons, Butters the Cajon. He has sent us a very nice hard drive with 120GB of space. We are humbled and thankful for this generous gift. You can see the redistribution of space on the system info page. Three cheers for the Cajon.
Hip hip...
Hip hip...
Hip hip...

DCI on the big screen - Aug 11th

Drum Corps International (DCI) may be one of the least understood or appreciated activities in our country. In recent years, the good people at DCI headquarters have taken steps to spread the word. One way they're doing this is to present the World Quarterfinals competition (top 21 corps) live in theaters all around the country.

If you haven't seem a drum corps show, this is your chance to get a taste of this exciting event. Believe me, you're in for a memorable day.

Or Click here to read more about this event, or to buy tickets.

Click here to read more about DCI.