I didn’t mean to leave you all hanging. Belle’s injured tail is almost healed now. The stiches are out and the wound is now dry — it weeped blood for a long time. The fur is even starting to grow back. She is also wagging it again. I’m curious as to how it will look when the hair finishes growing back. The vet didn’t think the “poof” she had at the end of her tail previously would grow back. She thought it would look blunt. I guess we’ll wait and see. One of the days I have to remember to take a picture and post it here for you.

–Pete

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went riding and enjoyed a bright, but cool April Sunday. There were three of us riding. Our friend Steve was riding his horse Mariah, my wife was riding her horse Sioux, and I was riding our newest horse Maggie. We didn’t know very much about how well Maggie was going to do, but Steve had ridden her once and I had ridden her once. She seemed reasonably well trained and we figured it was time to find out.

Now let me state publicly that I am NOT an experienced rider. I’ve ridden horses less than a dozen times in my whole life. Fortunately, Steve IS an experienced rider and whenever I got in over my head, he was quick to shout advice to me before I got into too much trouble — and we did manage to find a bit of trouble on our ride.

The first bit of trouble was when we were more than a mile from the farm. We were riding on a gravel country road when we noticed that a farmer with an extremely LARGE tractor was creeping up behind us. The tractor was so large that it took the entire width of the road. Clearly he wanted to get by us, but we were in a section of road that had no driveways for several hundred yards so we needed to exit the road in order for him to get past us. To do this, meant coaxing the horses into the ditch beside the road. None of the horses were excited to do this, but after a bit of coaxing, they all did manage to get into the ditch and stand nicely while the tractor passed. When we rode back out, Maggie decided that this was a good opportunity to head for home. She went back towards the farm and the other two went towards the Luce Line Trail, which was our next destination. It took some coaching from Steve to get her to turn back around as she was totally ignoring my signals that I was giving.

Once on the trail, things went smoothly until we got fairly close to the farm again. About three feet from us, a pheasant, scared by our presence, immediately took flight. None of us saw it until it flew away — including the horses. Both Maggie and Sioux were badly spooked by the sudden departure of the pheasant and nearly dropped to their bellies out of fear. I somehow managed to hold on for dear life and calm Maggie down before she threw me. My wife, unfortunately, was pitched right off of Sioux and landed on her butt. She literally bounced back to her feet and before she was able get back to Sioux, Steve had managed to grab her reins and keep her from running off. All of this happened in a split second and I’m amazed that none of us got more than a few bruises.

The last adventure happened just a few hundred yards from Steve’s driveway. A pickup truck was approaching from behind us on the gravel road and throwing up quite a lot of dust and making a lot of noise. Concerned that Maggie would be spooked, I road her off into the grass and asked her to stand while the truck passed us. As the truck approached she became more nervous and wanted to move and I tried to hold her at a stand. As the truck was practically upon us, Maggie made it apparent that she REALLY wanted to move and reared up on her back legs as I held on for dear life. I heard Steve yell from behind me, “Let her go!” and I immediately slackened the reins. Maggie responded by immediately dropping back onto all four legs and broke into a leisurely walk. Steve’s only comment was a nonchalant, “Nice Hi Ho Silver there Pete.” I wish I could have seen it!

All in all, I thought the ride went well, despite the adventure. You’re probably thinking that we have a bunch of untrained horses to ride. Actually, I think the bigger problem is that I’m a very inexperience rider! We probably road four miles total. Oh — and if you’re wondering — Yes. I am sore today!

–Pete

Belle’s tail is healing. Last night my wife and I removed the elaborate bandage that was covering it to check the progress of the healing and to make sure there was no sign of infection. Things look as good as can be expected. They completely shaved about 4 inches of her tail and at the tip of is three sutures that are holding the “stump” closed. We re-bandaged the wound and gave her lots more love and a few treats. She was thoroughly unhappy that we were messing with her sore tail, but after a few treats, she did forgive us.

–Pete

Tonight, in a freak accident, our oldest dog Belle got her tail slammed in a screen door. The end result was that she lost the fur and skin off of the last two inches of her tail. The bare bone was literally sticking out. We rushed her to the emergency vet and the vet on call tonight matter-of-factly said, “Well we can’t have that bone sticking out.” She then proceeded to tell us that the only solution was to amputate the two inches of bone that is sticking out and then sew the wound closed. Bummer. The net result is Belle will have a shorter tail then she used to, but she’ll be fine otherwise.

As I’m writing this, I’m waiting for a call back from the vet. I talked to them about 45 minutes ago and the procedure went fine. We are just waiting for her to wake up so I can take her home. Poor thing!

–Pete

Looking around the web tonight I ran across several other sites that had excellent video and still photos of the USCGC Mackinaw launch.

Check out these links:

http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/special/macklaunch/default.htm

http://www.mightymac.org/mackinawlaunch1.htm

http://dlund.20m.com/dick7.html

–Pete

In a previous post I mentioned I was headed out to see the launch of the new USCGC Mackinaw. The launch was AWESOME!! I was probably 100 feet from the bow of the ship when they dropped it into the water and it was quite a site to behold. My friend and former co-worker Steve Warner shot this excellent video of the launch and I’ve got a few stills right here as well. I did take more stills, but I took them with my expensive SLR camera. We’ll see if any of them turned out.

–Pete

Those of you who know me pretty well know that I have a fascination for ships and boats. I’ve even written previously about the decommissioning ceremony of the USCGC Sundew that I attended a year ago in May. Next weekend my friend Steve W. and I are making the trip to Marinette, WI to watch the launch of the USCGC Mackinaw. The Mackinaw is the replacement for the — get this — USCGC Mackinaw. The current Mackinaw is a legend on the Great Lakes. She is the only heavy, purpose built ice breaker on the Great Lakes. Her mission is simple — break ice on the lakes to keep the ships moving as long as possible in the Fall and as early as possible in the Spring. She has done her job well, and after 61 years of continuous service, she is finally being replaced.

The new Mackinaw is also designed to be a heavy ice breaker. She is being named Mackinaw because of the legendary success of the current Mackinaw. The new Mackinaw is an interesting design departure from the current one. The new Mack is smaller than her predecessor. She is only 280 feet in length, in contrast to the current one, which is 300 feet in length. In addition, the new Mack is the first US ice breaker to use a Z-Drive propulsion pod instead of a traditional shaft and screw setup. The Z-Drive will make her very maneuverable and will make it easier for her to be used for other jobs like buoy tending when she is not breaking ice.

The launch should be a blast. It will be a dramatic side launch into the Menominee River which will create a huge splash. I’ve seen video of the smaller Hollyhock Class 240 Cutters being launched this way. Very impressive. I’m also expecting the ceremony to be cool as well.

I know what you are thinking. I’m such a nerd…..

–Pete

Synopsis: Mr. Incredible, a comic book style super hero, marries his sweetheart and fellow super hero Elastigirl. After saving the world again, they are sued for the damage they caused while saving it. In an effort to save them from the general public, the government relocates them in a Witness Protection like program and they try to lead normal lives in suburban America. This life doesn’t sit well with Mr. Incredible, who longs for his life as a super hero.

The good: As usual, Pixar has done a great job of telling a cool story. The characters are fun, have depth, and are quite believable. Interestingly, the animation seems almost like a step backward from previous Pixar films, but I get the feeling that this was an intentional effect — perhaps trying to make it look a little more “retro”.

The Bad: The movie ends up being quite long and as a result would have less of an appeal for the younger audience.

The Ugly: None!

The Final Word: I give this flick a five out of five starts. Very enjoyable. I highly recommend it.

As promised, now that I have closed down the K-12 Tech Guy blog that I had at my work, I’ve imported the entries into my blog here on MinnesotaGeek. Incidentally, WordPress makes it EXTREMELY easy to import MoveableType blogs. It took my about 2 minutes to suck in all of those old posts, comments and all. Very cool!

–Pete

This evening I went bowling with a few of the guys from work. We had a great time and I bowled four really lousy games.

The low point of the evening was when I went to use the restroom and saw “the new thing” in restroom advertising: Commercials — full motion video with sound — being played on 9″ LCD panels 12 inches from my face while I was using the urinal. Do the advertising companies really think that I’m going to buy something because I saw a commercial for it while I was peeing in a public restroom?

–Pete

Anybody who knows me knows how much I love dogs. One of the problems with having dogs, or any animal for that matter, is dealing with the losing them. The last two weeks have been difficult for many of the “dog” folks in my life.

Last week, my sister lost her beloved dog Buffy, who died at the young age of eight. Buffy meant everything to my sister. She loved that dog with all of her heart and that dog loved her right back.

Just a few days before, my friend (and veterinarian) Brek, lost his Great Dane mix named Harriet. Harriet was a special dog for many reasons and it broke his heart to lose her. I was touched by the email he sent out that said simply, “She died on her favorite bed, on the deck in the warm sunshine, with her head in my wife’s lap.”

I’ve lost one dog in my adult life, my Chocolate Labrador named Gordy. I had to have him put to sleep when he was only three due to a problem with his brain. It was the most heart-wrenching thing I’ve ever had to do. I dread the day that I have to go through it again.

I’m always amazed at the bond between people and their dogs. They really do wrap themselves around your heart.

–Pete

You may or may not know that I write another blog called “The K-12 Tech Guy”. This is a blog that I wrote as part of my job in the Hopkins School District. The big news is that my last day in Hopkins is Friday, March 25, which means that the K-12 Tech Guy will come to an end as a separate blog. I’m going to import the entries I wrote as part of that blog into this blog.

I plan to continue to post “geek stuff” from time to time as part of this blog.

Speaking of “geek stuff”, we’ve had a tough couple of days at work with one of our servers. We run an issue tracking (or “ticketing”) system called Request Tracker. Up until two days ago, RT was running on server class hardware running the testing version of Debian Linux. I wasn’t involved with setting up the box originally, but at the time Debian was chosen because we had some “extra” x86 hardware sitting idle and the guy who set it up had a good amount of Debian.experience.

Over the last year, the server has run pretty well, but in the last month or so we started noticing intermittent problems with it. On Wednesday afternoon it finally died. When I went to check on what was going on with the server I discovered it was kernel panicked and waiting to be rebooted. I rebooted it, and as expected, it complained that it hadn’t done a clean shutdown and automatically ran fsck on the drives. Keep in mind that the root file system partition was not set up on a journaled file system because a stable one wasn’t available a the time we originally set it up. Initially fsck found errors, but it was able to repair them. The problem was, that after it repaired the problems and we rebooted it, it still failed to start. UGH! We did lots of Googling and posted some messages to the Twin Cities Linux Users Group mailing list, but came up with no resolution to fix the software. The general feeling was that one or more of the config files got munched up when the kernel panic happened and there was no easy way to figure out which one.

So we bit the bullet, backed up our data (which was on a journaled partition), and began the process of rebuilding the server. It has been two days since we started and we are still working on it. We made the switch from Debian to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because several of the utilities, such as backup daemons and UPS software are better supported on Redhat. We also made sure we are using a journaled file system for the boot partition this time.

The basic server software is rebuilt, and we are now in the process of installing Request Tracker. This has proven to be challenging as well. RT is very particular about which versions Perl and Perl modules it uses and the stock set that comes with RHEL is not what RT is optimized around. We’ve decided to “roll our own” Perl and install in /opt and then we’ll point RT to that instead. This creates a bit more work, but she make RT rock solid. Sound like fun yet?

–Pete

You may or may not know that one of the things I do with my free time is volunteer for an outstanding organization called Helping Paws. Helping Paws is a registered 501( c)(3) non-profit corporation whose mission is to further the independence of individuals with disabilities through the use of service dogs. What does that mean? First, let me define what a service dog is for you. A service dog is a type of assistance dog. If you know what a guide dog (or seeing-eye dog) is, then you are part way there to knowing what a service dog is. A service dog is specially trained dog that is used by someone who has a disability other than vision or hearing problems. Typically, this individual would be someone who uses a wheel chair. They might have a spinal cord injury, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, or some other disease or injury that causes mobility impairment. This is where the service dog comes in to play — no pun intended. Service dogs are trained to help them. They can open doors, turn on or off lights, pick up a dropped object, retrieve a specific object — like a phone or your shoes, and even go get help in an emergency. Sounds pretty cool, right? I can tell you from personal experience, it is more than just cool. It is nothing short of amazing.

You’re probably wondering, “What does Helping Paws have to do with Pete?” Excellent question. The answer is a story all by itself. I got involved with Helping Paws eight years ago. I can thank my wife for introducing me to this wonderful organization. She had just finished training Daisy Mae, a black Labrador, when I met her. our second date was going to Helping Paws to meet some of her friends there and to meet some of these dogs. I was instantly hooked. Helping Paws is filled with warm, caring, compassionate people and lots of warm, snuggly, and talented dogs. It was easy to see that this organization changes lives by giving the incredible gift of a well trained dog. It didn’t take much to convince me to volunteer. Here I am, eight years later, the President of the Board of Directors of this fine organization.

Here’s where you come in. Helping Paws exists because of the family foundations, corporate grants, and most importantly, the generosity of people like you. We get no federal funding and no state funding. Without you, we can’t exists. I need your help! Our big spring fundraiser, an event we call Run & Romp is coming up in April. We call this a “six-legged race”, but it is really three different run/walks all held the same day. We encourage everyone who participates to bring their dog and to get some pledges to help us raise money for this wonderful organization. I have set a personal goal of $5000 for this event. What does this money go towards? Simple. It pays the costs of raising and training these wonderful dogs for people that need them. The more money we can raise as an organization, the more dogs we can train.

Please help me make my goal. This year, we are taking pledges for the event online. Follow this link: http://www.active.com/donations/fundraise_public.cfm?key=pmarkham

If you live in Minnesota, please consider get some pledges and joining us for the event. It is great fun.

Thanks!

–Pete

About once a year I got ice fishing with my good friend Jay. Jay is an engineer, and like all good engineers, he loves gadgets. Fishing is no exception. I went fishing with Jay on Saturday and he surprised me by bringing out one of the geekiest fishing gadgets I’d ever seen — an underwater camera so you could watch the fish. I immediately loved it. It was even shaped and painted to look like a fish! I’m not sure I even want to know what this little gem cost him.

We were only fishing in about 15 feet of water so there was plenty of light for us to drop down the camera and see if there were any fish down at the bottom. The camera confirmed it. There were fish. Lots of them…..if you like small panfish. We spent the afternoon watching the fish swim by the camera and occasionally catching one or two of them. I didn’t say we were good at it, did I?

–Pete

Yesterday I had the opportunity to drive through the neighborhood that I grew up in so I could see what had changed. My parents moved to a new house when I was a freshman in college and so I’ve only had a the opportunity to drive through the old neighborhood a few times since then. I can’t believe how much has changed!

The Old House
So many things have been changed on our old house. Here are a few of the highlights:

The Old School

The Old Neighborhood

All of the changes are both cool….and sad. It is hard to watch the memories of my youth slowly get replaced, but at the same time it is exciting to see things be improved and fixed up. One thing is for sure. I need to drive through there more often.

–Pete

Okay. I hate to admit it, but I’m a fan of the show Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel. I was watching Episode 25 “Brown Note” of the show the other night and one section was about the so-called “Chinese Water Torture”. You know the one….they tie you down and drip water on your head until you go crazy and confess everything.

Jamie and Adam decide to give this one to their “Mythterns”, their younger, less experienced counterparts. This group actual builds a device to do the torture and then tests it on Kari, one of the mythterns. They shackled her to the device and then brought in a paramedic to monitor her. I have to say that I was a bit surprised by the result. I thought it would just be annoying to her, but nothing really painful. Instead, they had her reduced to tears and begging to be let out after a little over an hour of the “torture”. Who’d have thought?

Incidentally, if you haven’t watched Myth Busters, you are really missing out! Do yourself a favor and watch it sometime.

–Pete

A colleague of mine from the office recently left to pursue a new job at Atomic Learning. As a going away present, one of the techs I work with built her a Mac Aquarium out of an old Mac Classic. I absolutely love it! I’m going to have to scrounge around our scrap pile at work and see if there is an appropriate shell left that I can make one for myself. What geek office would be complete without one?

–Pete

I write a blog about techy stuff that I run across at work that might interest other folks in my line of work. The system we’ve been using for over a year is MoveableType. At the time we started using it, MT was the best blogging software available and was priced right for our use. Since then, Six Apart, the makers of MT have released newer, more robust versions of their software, but they have also changed their licensing scheme, which now makes it very expensive for the school district to upgrade. The end result: We haven’t upgraded. We’ve stuck with an older version of MT for our older blogs and for any new ones, we’ve switched to WordPress. I haven’t gotten around to migrating my work blog to WordPress yet, but I can see after tonight that I’m going to need to do it this week. I just spent the last half an hour deleting the latest type of blog spam: Trackback spam. How incredibly annoying. At least with WordPress I can turn on comment moderation and be able to delete them all at once before they ever show up on my blog.

–Pete

The last two weeks have been filled with the scourge of a new type of spam. Trackback spam. This is where the spammer links to you website with trackback pings. Unfortunately, with the version of Six Apart’s new licensing scheme.

That means one thing: I’m switching to WordPress. I’ll be making the switch some time this week. Keep in mind that this will break my RSS feeds, so you’ll have to re-subscribe if you are reading my blog via RSS.

–Pete

I rarely write about politics, but in this case I feel compelled.

President Bush is working hard to convince the American people that we need to reform Social Security. It seems indisputable by everyone that by 2040, Social Security will be unable to fund 100% of what has been promised in benefits. Something must be done to fix that so people can receive the benefits they have been promised.

Here’s the part I don’t understand. President Bush is proposing that we allow younger workers, those under 54 years old, to take up to 4% of the money that they normally would be paying into Social Security as payroll taxes and invest it in personal accounts. How does that fix the problem with Social Security? By some estimates that will take away trillions of dollars from Social Security. How does taking even more money away from Social Security balance the income versus expense problem for Social Security? It seems to me that it simply makes the problem worse — not better. Am I missing something? Is there some kind of “new math” at work here or what?

–Pete