KC8DNE.com

OK, so here is what happened to cause the site to be off-line for so long. It suffered a severe system crash while I was attempting to upgrade the Content Management System (CMS) that I use to create this blog.

The needed repair proved to be more extensive that I originally anticipated. Naturally, this happened in the midst of way too many projects-in-progress. Thus, I had to wait until I had the free time to fix what broke.

The bottom line is that the system now seems to be back to normal. In the not too distant future I hope to re-vamp the site to better serve your information needs. I maintain the site so that my friends (both met and un-met) can get information that they might not otherwise see.

I am Sorry for any inconvenience caused by the site being dark. If you missed it, click on Comments below and tell me about it. That is how I will decide whether it will be worth the effort to bring it back up next time.

I am a happy man. Today is Peggy’s birthday.

It is one of those milestone birthdays that mark a decade. It got me thinking about how much she means to me.

For the record; over the last thirty-eight years Peggy has been my wife, best friend, lover, mother of my child, companion on various adventures, wise counselor, chauffeur, financial maven, Master Chef and trusted confidant.

Through the years she has patiently sat at my side in various doctor’s waiting rooms, hospital emergency rooms, nursing homes, funeral homes and bureaucrat’s offices. Her presence always gave me the strength to endure the situation.

Find a dictionary and look up all the words that describe a kind, loving, gentle, serene person and you will come closer to knowing the woman that I love more than life.

If you don’t see any new posts here for a day, or so, don’t worry. I will be migrating a bunch of data and apps over to a new system.

As you have probably noticed, that always takes about a week of your time longer than you originally budgeted.

If the headline above brings back memories, you probably once owned a Commodore 64 computer. On Monday, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, will celebrate the C64’s 25th anniversary. Computer pioneers will reflect on the “world’s best-selling single computer model“‘s achievements and contribution to the industry.

CNN, in a series of articles called Commodore 64: still loved after all these years waxed nostalgic over the little box.

Mixing the old and new, Hacked Gadgets Forum tells us about a Pocket Commodore 64 C64 emulator that runs on a Palm computer. It is way cool. There are C64 emelators for many other platforms available from other sources as well.

The Olsen family was an early adopter of the Commodore family of “personal computers”, starting with a VIC 20 that was hot rodded to have 32K of memory. We moved up to the newly introduced C64 when our daughter Erica was six years old. She immediately started programming in the Pilot (25 editing commands, 19 turtle graphics commands and 23 program commands) language. It must have had a positive effect on her as she is now a User Experience Designer for Second Life. (Read more)

I am sorry for the scarcity of posts over the last week. Blame some of it on Thanksgiving. Our daughter was back in Michigan from San Fransisco for the holiday. Also, my mother-in-law had some major surgury that required a lot of our attention for a few days and I am in the process of doing some library web development that is fun, but time consuming.

If you missed my almost daily posts, drop me an e-mail to give me some encouragement to continue. This stuff does take time and effort, you know. My address can be found on the “Contact” page that is accessible from the menu above.

I ran across a photo of a red 1968 Pontiac Firebird the other day. It brought back many pleasant memories of the first car Peggy and  I bought after we were married.

We were newlyweds in the fall of 1970. I was working the afternoon drive shift at WBCM AM/FM in Bay City, Michigan, when we decided to trade in our 1963 Chevrolet Impala that I referred to as “Peggy’s dowry”. (Read more)

This may prove to be my fifteen minutes of fame. Lifehacker featured my personal Winamp tweaks today in their Media Player Show and Tell.

Mine is the one on the right in the top row of the gallery. Click on the image for a description.

I grew up just down the beach from what was then called the US Coast Guard Ludington (Michigan) Lifeboat Station. I also spent my teen years listening to their radio traffic, which was on 2182 KHz AM at that time. Both experiences gave me a great appreciation for their bravery and dedication to duty.

I have seen them go out into Lake Michigan for night training in seas that rolled the 44 footer to the point that her radar mast spreader lights would disappear from sight into the waves. This video is a deserved tribute to those sailors and airmen.

Who knew that it would be someday be chic to be a geek. As you can see from the graphic on the left I seem to qualify for that description. My computer geek score is greater than 73% of all people in the world. How do you compare? Click the graphic to find out.

It was not always the case that geekyness was looked upon favorably, but times change. There are now even geek pretenders.

Yes, it’s come to this. The same people you raked on in high school now run the world and control every gizmo you own or want to own. And, as you hold your “normal” identity throughout your life, there are times when it may be advantageous to pose as a geek. Maybe to convince your first date that you have job prospects beyond “Walmart clerk”. …Read more on Penguin Pete’s Blog

We had a mini-vacation last week to celebrate Peggy’s birthday. We did the IKEA store Thursday, the Detroit Zoo Friday and Port Huron over the weekend.

IKEA will kill the best part of a day. It is huge. If you live in an environment that has less square footage than you need to hold all your stuff, then this is the place for you. The Scandinavians live in cramped spaces in cramped countries. They know how to fit lots of stuff into small spaces. I had a delicious shrimp and egg sandwich in the cafeteria. Very Scandinavian—very good.

When I mentioned to our friend Bob Byler, K8RWB that we were going to the Detroit Zoo, he inquired if it was for a family reunion. Funny, Bob. We missed having a kid with us to share the animals. While there, I wondered if two caribou was a cariboubou, or a pairabou. Guess I will never know.

We stayed overnight in Port Huron. Had to borrow some bandwidth from the hotel across the street (our hotel’s WiFi was down) to update Peggy’s new laptop. Hooray for hotspots.

We watched large and small boats all day Saturday. Not too many small ones were in evidence, probably due to the $3.65 a gallon that was being charged for gasoline at the local marinas. On Sunday we took the tour boat Huron Lady II’s three hour cruse downriver to Saint Clair and Stag Island. I highly recommend this as a great way to beat the heat on a sunny summer day and to see some interesting scenery. We ended the day with a return vist to the Raven.

I took over a hundred fifty pictures of boats, ships and other things that I found to be interesting. If there is any interest from others, I could post them on Flickr for all to see. Send me an e-mail if you like the idea. kc8dne(at)ARRL(dot)net