Monday, September 22, 2008

Fixed, sort of

I'm not sure I'd trust it as I used to, but I'm getting the data off. Here it is, in process:

Why I don't like Dongles

What is a Dongle? A dongle is a small piece of hardware that connects to a computer.

Dongles stick out in places where they can get broken. Like when you put your foot down near a computer on the floor.



This was my main Thumb drive, where I kept all the little utilities I could carry from PC to PC. It had data files, and all sorts of other goodies I used frequently.

Of course, we Montoya's, er, I mean Kenyon's, have never taken defeat easily. Let's see what we will have to work with:


Hmm... I don't think anything got shorted, I think it just snapped cleanly off. Nothing was being read/written, so we should be good. Not a lot to solder back together, but I may be able to make do. I may also be able to pick up another connector with good terminals.

Anybody ever attempt this before?

This is a broken 2Gb Kingston DataTraveler if anybody's googling for it. I'll report my results.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Our camping trip, or Surviving Hurricane Hanna!

Well, we got to promised land Thursday afternoon, and got right away setting up. All was well, we set up our tent, our food tent, and then my brother got there with his wife, and we helped them set up.

2AM, my wife’s brother and his wife got there, so I gave them the extension cord and fell back to sleep.

Friday was a beautiful day. The sun was out, and Chloe was having a good time.


We hadn't staked down our tents yet, so we took care of that. The ground there was especially hard, so our arms got tired. But we did it.

After that we decided to go for a bike ride and swimming.


Steph stayed at camp with Chloe.


It was 4 miles each way, and uphill both ways as well.

We made it home, got something to eat and did some fishing. Finally got back to camp, and toasted some marshmallows. Generally, a pretty good day.

Saturday started with no rain, so we had a nice breakfast.


And then the rains started.


Chloe did not like it.



We tried our best to keep dry.


Another joyous event of the trip, the power to the park went out, knocking out our power, and the bath-house power for several hours. Thankfully that came back.

Later, we took Chloe down to the bath-house to clean her up. Along the way, she discovered a toad. When we looked away, she tried for a taste. We saved the toad, and gave her a nice bath. We took her back to camp, and put her in the tent to keep her clean and dry. That’s when she found out that toads don’t agree with her. She was sick in the tent several times before we found it. So, it was a late night in the rain, cleaning up the tent and putting our gear away for the night. Yech.

And then, the wind started… rattling the tents, and making a generally loud noise.

Sunday was better. We made breakfast and packed up.






Chloe was even happy again.


We went fishing and everybody had a good time, even if Steph was the only one who caught a fish.






So, overall it was a good trip. We learned a lot, and look forward to making the next camping trip much easier, especially by avoiding any hurricanes.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

What are criminals thinking?

I'd say something, but that doesn't fit.

Take this, a guy wants to rob a house while the people are sleeping. But that's not enough, he wants to make it more challenging, so he wakes them up. How to do that? Well, a trip to the kitchen and you've got... the kitchen bandit:
http://www.fresnobee.com/384/story/849202.html