The Red Brick Times

The military. Love it. Hate it. Ignore it. It is there, it is invasive, it is under the control of self-interested and venal politicians who have their own agendas all mixed up with short-term ideas about what is good for the world.

Well, tax dollars at work, and all that, but why can't we use it too?

There is a long-vilified group known as the US Army Corps of Engineers. Bulldozers. Huge dams and levees. Change the environment to serve humanity, and the hell with nature.

But, let's be sneaky for a moment. What if we could fool them into implementing a more nature-friendly agenda? What about turning the permit and development process on its head to make MORE wetlands, instead of draining and paving them. And all in the name of making more habitiat for people and development.

Marketing, my friends. It is all in how you spin it.

Go and look at WRAP, the Wetlands Regulatory Assistance Program, spawned by the Corps. Use it or lose it. Cowabunga, dude!
Posted 7:46 AM by Andy (0) comments

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Alice

What do you know about yourself or someone else until you are put to a test? Did I know how well I could manage a business, or teach until I took the plunge? It’s easy to talk the talk and imagine, but what do you learn about character when real life drama takes you to task?

I have learned a lot about Alice in the past few years that I never knew when we dated, fell in love and married. The things I love her for today have changed and keep our relationship strong.

When Alice was diagnosed with cancer four years ago I saw her strength and conviction displayed in ways that I had come to expect. She made life altering decisions very quickly. She is a strong and decisive woman. I knew that. Her mother became ill and soon passed away, even while Alice was treating her cancer. Still, she was fire and ice, taking care of the necessities while wrenching with emotion. She was able to sing a childhood song for her mother at graveside. I can barely type these words with composer. These are trials that have not tested me, as yet. I don’t know if I could do the same. I sure hope that I will show such strength when the time comes.

What I never anticipated was how Alice took her cancer and turned it into a campaign. She trained and participated in the Avon 3-day, walking from Bolder to Denver to raise funds (very successfully) for Breast Cancer research. She completed a 60 mile charity walk just a few months after concluding her treatment. Locally we completed the Susan B. Komen walk (fundraiser) in downtown Cleveland. This is where I am finding admiration for a woman that I love and keep finding more reasons for doing so.

Cancer is all around us. Everybody knows somebody that has been affected either directly or indirectly. Alice discovers new occurrences among her friends and colleagues on a regular basis. There seems to be an epidemic of breast cancer. I don’t have statistics but among women near and past middle age it is amazingly common. Alice seeks out close relationships with those others who face what she has faced. She is compassionate, knowledgeable, and… a survivor.

Tonight she has gotten another call from a friend, dropped all else and gone to counsel.
Posted 8:51 PM by Ray (1) comments

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Ray, that is one of the best love letters I have ever seen. I love you, too.

# posted by  Andy : June 30, 2005 7:18 AM
 
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Hmmm. This seems like it might be interesting. From The Washington Post:

Hard-to-Get Policy Briefings For Congress Are Now Online: "A Washington research group has created a Web site where the public can read, submit and download the difficult-to-find public policy briefs members of Congress use to get up to speed on issues."

The site they're talking about is called Open CRS.
Posted 8:39 PM by whatley (0) comments

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Hey, Andy. Ever get the feeling we're all alone here?

Spooky.
Posted 5:43 PM by whatley (3) comments

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I get that feeling in crowds

# posted by  A. O. : June 28, 2005 8:43 AM
 
We are watching, listening, lurking.

# posted by  jeichenlaub : June 28, 2005 1:43 PM
 
Huh? Who said that?

# posted by  Andy : June 30, 2005 7:13 AM
 
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Yet another virus warning. I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record about this but because the virus emails seem to come from the 7393 domain (and from the administrator no less, a technique called "spoofing") and because I'm getting four or five of these a week I feel a responsibility to make mention, yet again, about this type of worm. The email I got this morning had the following subject line: "Warning Message: your services near to be closed". It of course had an attachment I was to click on. Right. You can get a full description of this bad boy here. It's a variant of one I posted about on the 2nd.

I visited this place last Saturday. The museum was small but very nicely done. The hike to the top, though only a mile, was 700+ feet up and a bit of a trek. Lots of winded people along the way. I'm definitely ready to come home but have to remain a southern fried whatley for a few more days.
Posted 5:35 AM by whatley (0) comments

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Hellooooo from Atlanta. I've been here all week taking technician certification training for the complete line of equipment produced by these guys. They manufacture a line of wide format (36" x unlimited length) integrated printing/scanning/copy solutions. It's used primarily by companies in the construction industry (architects, engineers, construction companies, etc.). Blueprinters have used this equipment for a long time so I've been around it a lot but only from the user/networking end. Installation and maintenance is a new thing for me and, to be honest, more of a stretch than I anticipated. The others in class with me all have extensive experience repairing digital printers where I don't have that background to build on. I'm an old dog trying to learn a new trick. Woof woof.

The hotel I'm at (an extended-stay Marriott) has wireless networking, which is a cool thing, but means that like it or not, everyones computers are on the same network. It's virus central around here. In this situation all it takes is one well infected system to start an outbreak. Sheesh.
Posted 7:14 AM by whatley (4) comments

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I went to KIP website and saw, under products, KIP folding systems. Are you going to come back with one in your pocket? My brother visited once and pulled out the flimsiest excuse for a keyboard that I ever saw. It was rolled up plastic with rubber keypads. It tended to stay curled for a while and gave no tactile feedback. It was pretty funny. Are you going on the road with a case full of tools and isopropyl alcohol swabs? I cannot see the heads of the tiny little screws any more without some kind of bifocal. Makes it difficult to disassemble things that are best left assembled. But I always was curious.

# posted by  Andy : June 17, 2005 10:37 AM
 
God's own toolkit, yessireebob. I dunno about swabs though. Ya gotta draw a line somewhere.

There have been 6-8 people in each class so far. Youngest age: 20, Average: 35, Me: reading glasses. I'm here three more days next week covering two more devices.

# posted by  whatley : June 17, 2005 10:23 PM
 
What kind of Ether-prophylactic does the best-dressed wireless visitor wear these days to prevent the spread of viruses? It reminds me of the early days of inkeeping where people slept 6 to a bed and dozens to a room. Everybody got up in the morning with fleas and lice.

# posted by  Andy : June 18, 2005 2:13 AM
 
Lodgers sharing a bed is a pretty good metaphor. Wish I’d have thought of it.

To really understand the answer you’ll first have to know what all you’re trying to protect yourself from. This page is a good start but, sad to say, there’s lots more. Secondly let’s refine your question by adding “and I want the protection for free”.

Two pieces are needed for reasonably comprehensive protection. First you’ll need good anti-virus software that updates regularly and monitors email regardless of the email client you use. I like AVG by Grisoft. There’s a link to it on our “cool tools” page. Next comes a software firewall. ZoneAlarm by Zone Labs is well regarded. I activate it whenever I’m on any network that I don’t have control over, such as when I need to log my laptop into a clients network or, in this case, using the wireless of the hotel I’m staying at. I haven’t linked to it in “cool tools” because it’s more complicated to use and assumes an understanding of what a firewall is and does. Nothing you can’t handle but you will need to read the tutorial and get a basic familiarity of what’s going on.

Both of these utilities have enhanced versions you can purchase but I think the free ones are sufficient in most cases.

# posted by  whatley : June 18, 2005 8:26 AM
 
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In 1652 the first waterworks was built in Boston, using underground pipes made from hollowed out logs. The system was intended for fighting the constant fires that threatened the almost entirely wooden settlement. Firefighters would simply punch a hole in these primitive water mains and plug them up when finished—hence, the term “fireplug.”

Excerpt from "A History Of Plumbing Engineering" By Jim Olsztynski.
Posted 7:57 AM by Andy (0) comments

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"So, will this be a film with all the beauty of medieval Venice and the vast scope of the Gobi Desert? Or will it have all the beauty of medieval plumbing and the vast scope of medieval nuclear physics?"

I was looking into medieval plumbing ("Gardy loo!", cesspits, the river as ready-made sewer) and ran across the above evocation. Reference to a proposed movie in which Matt Damon plays Marco Polo.
Posted 7:41 AM by Andy (0) comments

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Friends just built a log house in Carslisle Township. They were required to construct a mound system to handle household effluent. The mound system replaces a traditional sub-surface leaching field by bringing the septic tank outflow higher where it has a better chance to evaporate and to be exposed to aerobic bacteria transported underground by plant roots.

A not-often-used alternative is constructed wetlands for outflow treatment. One couple in suburban Chicago built a fen in their back yard to take advantage of biodiversity to effectively remove up to 95% of the waste from the water (compared to 60-75% from traditional septic systems) including nitrogen, which is rarely mitigated by traditional methods.

One historical example of prairie wetlands are some of the buffalo wallows reported by the early settlers. Some can still be seen where farming has not too greatly modified the overall land contour.
Posted 6:46 AM by Andy (0) comments

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Join the Organic Rebellion Force. Watch Cuke Skywalker struggle to save Princess Lettuce from clutches of the evil Darth Tater. Grocery Store Wars. Coming soon to a store near you. May the Farm be with you.
Posted 11:06 PM by Andy (0) comments

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Did you know that the Vermilion River has white water sections? The riverfacts.com people show three sections. Vermilion River, Ohio, Upper ,class I(II), 9 miles long; Vermilion River, Ohio, Middle, class I(II), 8 miles long; and Vermilion River, Ohio, Below Mill Hollow, class I, 5.5 miles long. The Mill Hollow section in summer is really shallow for the most part. Haven't most of us waded there looking for crayfish and oddly-shaped rocks? Not the most death-defying challenge on the map, but fun nonetheless. Bring your canoe, kayak, inner tube or inflateable pig bladder to the FOWL picnic on June 18 to take the waters of the Huron, not the Vermilion, River (the Huron River doesn't show any white water sections, alas). Paddle at your own risk. No lifeguard will be on duty. PFD's are highly recommended. Not responsible. Park and Lock It.
Posted 8:11 AM by Andy (0) comments

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But wait! They have it wrong! Just ask the Journalism students at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Department of Journalism . They have known who "Deep Throat" was for the past two years. See "How students solved oneof America's top mysteries" . And who was this elusive chimera? Why, Fred Fielding, of course.
Posted 7:41 AM by Andy (0) comments

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Two items that I thought particularly interesting (and for some reason thought you would too). They both have "secret" in their titles. Everybody loves secrets.

How I got 'deep' into FBI secrets by Bob Woodward. How he met "deep throat".

And, from "The Nation", A Public Secret details some "new information that has come out in response to the "Downing Street memo" (if you don't already know about that memo there's info on it here).

(FYI: The links are both to Yahoo News to avoid registration hassles.)

P.S. (10:15am) Another interesting item you may want to be aware of:

Several Internet security sites are warning of some potentially serious new computer virus outbreaks. A new version of the Bagle worm always makes news because it has been so successful in the past. The latest variants -- there are at least three -- surfaced this morning, according to a writeup at the SANS Internet Storm Center. As noted before, the Bagle worm is the result of an unholy alliance between spammers and virus writers, designed to conscript your PC as a spam-spewing zombie.

The viruses arrive via e-mail in an attached ".zip" file, bearing a spoofed "from" address, meaning it's likely to appear to come from someone you know. According to SANS, if receive such an e-mail from a person you know today, it may be best to delete the file or wait until you can confirm its authenticity with the supposed sender. That's because at the time of this writing, several popular antivirus programs don't appear to have the latest updates that would allow the software to detect it as a threat if you open or scan the attachment, SANS reports.

A couple of other things to watch out for are two new versions of the MyTob worm. Mytob is one of this year's most successful (read: infectious) worms, spawning more than 125 new variants and infecting more than 65,000 computers worldwide, according to Internet security firm Trend Micro.

Posted 7:21 AM by whatley (0) comments

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