Month: November 2003

Technical Difficulties ,,,

I’ve been offline for a good deal of time since coming back from the baby brother’s house, mostly because our DSL broadband connection has been out more often than its been on.


DSL Download Speed Test

Our house is right at the maximum distance one can be and still have a working DSL connection, and this has always meant that even in the best of times, our network speeds have been far less than the stated average for such a connection. This, combine with the number of times within the last year that poor telephone lines in the area have killed our connection for days at a time have contributed to my looking into alternatives.

Fortunately, we do have cable broadband available in our area, and we just received the equipment today to be able to connect.


Cable Download Speed Test

Obviously there’s a large difference in speed, and stability in our connectivity. The only downside, of course, are the blocks cable broadband providers have towards running email and web servers through your connection, something that I’m currently looking into, with the possibility of moving them off-site again.

Island in the Storm …

Several weeks of dread over recent casualties over in the Iraq region were wiped out, at least temporarily, this last weekend as the baby brother Nick, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter pilot for the 101st Airborne, arrived in the States for his two weeks R&R.

The Meisters

This actually marks the first time our complete family has been together in one place in the last three years, and the above picture actually means far more to us than it might seem, as we were given a brief moment in a time free of uncertainty over the safety of family members scattered across the world, a time to reflect, celebrate and even just relax with our family which has been separated for such a long time.

The weekend was filled with the family members, myself included, making numerous connections by plane and car to come together for this last weekend in my brother’s place down in Kentucky. We celebrated an impromptu Christmas, as well as my brother’s birthday, which will pass as his last two have, in the middle of a combat zone.

I was sad to step onto the little jet that would speed me away from the family, just as the others who had to leave at the end of the weekend, but I was still happy for that bubble of time we got to spend together.

You NEED this book …

From Publishers Weekly:

In this outrageous parody of a survival guide, Saturday Night Live staff writer Brooks prepares humanity for its eventual battle with zombies. One would expect the son of Mel Brooks to have a genetic predisposition to humor, and indeed, he does, and he exhibits it relentlessly here: he outlines virtually every possible zombie-human encounter, drafts detailed plans for defense and attack and outlines past recorded attacks dating from 60,000 B.C. to 2002. In planning for that catastrophic day when “the dead rise,” Brooks urges readers to get to know themselves, their bodies, their weaponry, their surroundings and, just in case, their escape routes. Some of the book’s more amusing aspects are the laughable analyses Brooks proposes on all aspects of zombiehood, and the specificity with which he enumerates the necessary actions for survival-i.e., a member of an anti-zombie team must be sure to have with him at all times two emergency flares, a signaling mirror, daily rations, a personal mess kit and two pairs of socks. Comic, though unnecessarily exhaustive, this is a good bet for Halloween gag gifts and fans of Bored of the Rings-esque humor. 100 line drawings.