Sarah's pre-birthday weekend

We had a semi busy, but nice weekend. On Friday we had Mike and Renee over again, and had dinner and talked. We played the wii again and had a good time watching Liz go nuts with boxing again. I had a few bad games of bowling, but I think we were tied at the end. Everyone got tired around 11 something but we stayed up talking until just about midnight when our guests left. Abby went ot bed on Friday almost normal time, and Sarah stayed up until midnight with us. Michael would have stayed up if we would have let him, he seems to have unlimited energy and does not “konk out” at all.

Friday night, Abby woke up a few times and caused Liz and I to only get a very few hours of sleep. Michael woke up early and we needed to get up a little early anyway as we planned to go to the Rec Center for the Family Fun day. So we got up, ate breakfast and got ready to go. I think we got to the Rec Center by 11 or so. I got the kids to the pool and when they were all set, I left them with Liz and went to hit around in the racquetball courts a bit before Mike and Renee got there to warm up a little. Well I ended up hitting my only ball out of the court into the parking lot, so I had to leave and go to Wal-Mart to get a new can of balls. It took what seemed like forever, and I didn’t get back until almost 12:30. At that point, Mike and Renee just got there, but the Rec Center had run out of food, so Mike went to Wendy’s to get something. When he got back, I was back out on the court hitting around a little more, and shortly thereafter it started to rain. At first, it felt nice, cool water hitting my hot head out in the sun. Then a few minutes later it was pouring! I walked back into the pool area to find the family and they were closing down the pool area, forcing all the people inside because of the thunder storm moving over. So we stood under a walkway for a while talking but decided just to go home. It rained hard and we got soaked getting out to the van. Mike drove me to our van from his, and it was coming down the hardest right about the time we made a run for it. We had a nice relaxing day indoors after that due to the rain which makes a lovely sound on the play room roof, and is ideal for napping on the couch.

On Sunday, I took Abby out on a daddy date to the Brandon mall. I’ve never been but had heard it was a nice mall. We went in the miata together, and had a nice ride, but left the top up and used the A/C as it was very warm! We got to the mall and went to a cookie shop and got a small bag of cookies. Abby rode a small train ride before we left for the food court to sit down and eat our cookies. We found that just like the Citrus park mall, they also have a large indoor merry-go-round and so Abby just had to ride that too. We got on and rode around for a while and then headed back to the car. It is a nice mall, but not as nice as Citrus Park. I did find some stores in there that I’ll keep in mind the next time I need to go shopping…

Vacation Summary

We are finally back from Vacation (actually got back on Tuesday evening). We had a nice relaxing time (mostly) and it was nice to see family and friends and places we haven’t seen in a few years. Now lets see if I can remember a few highlights…

My favorite part was playing badminton for over 6 hours straight. I think it was Saturday we had a family get togther and a cookout, after everyone ate, we started playing and it was a lot of fun. It was a little disappointing at how easy it was to beat Ray and Jeremy, I expected more competition than what I saw out there. Liz got some great shots of me playing, and they are available in the picture gallery.

We went blueberry picking (actually I took the kids to the field) and we picked over 13 pounds of blue berries. They were $1.50 a pound, so I spent almost $20, but boy were they good!!! I probably ate about 6 pounds by myself the first day we got them.

The kids played in a stream down a dirt road, and rode bikes through it. My kids loved it and enjoyed getting wet and muddy. At one point Abby had to go to the bathroom while we were all at the stream, so I carried her on my back all the way back to the house and helped her, and then we drove back to the stream in Uncle Jam’s car. I stuck Abby up through the sunroof so thats the first thing they’d see as we drove up. Then on the way back, I had Michael ride with me, I drove Jam’s car in reverse all the way back to the house with Michael in my lap, I had to hold the steering wheel tightly as Michael was trying to “steer” with me.

Overall our flights up and back were very good, no bumps or problems. When we got to the Tampa airport, our main bag was 3 pounds over weight. They made us take out 3 pounds. So Liz took her purse out and shoved some shoes in there to get through check-in. The girls were great on the flights, only bugged me a bit about pushing the seat’s recline button, they really wanted to push it bad, so I told them it was to push if you wanted to take a nap, then they weren’t really interested anymore. They watched a movie on my laptop on the way there.

We forgot Michael’s stroller on the way back, so Liz used the snug carrier thing that straps onto you, and carried Michael that way, which worked out good on the plane.

We rented a van from Budget on the way from Dover to Newark to visit my Aunt and Uncle. We got a nice Dodge Grand Caravan which was very comfortable. We had a nice visit with them as well and I ended up staying up really late talking “tech” with David.

Leaving Philly on Tuesday, our plane was delayed a little getting in, and had to wait in line for about 30 minutes before we could leave. So there was a little delay getting back home. Mike picked us up in their van and brought us home, which was nice.

While staying with my mom, we basically had no cell service, so it was a little disturbing to be so disconnected for the first day or two. After that I got used to it and it was actually nice not to be glued to my phone all day. I almost forgot how relaxing that is. I was joking around telling people that we have these nice GSM quad band world phones that will work in Austrailia, the UK and abroad, but we can’t even use them in Delaware! Cingular has good signal in the major areas, but service in the rural areas is really bad. Verizon by far is the better carrier in the north east. Now that Cingular is the new at&t, maybe that will improve over time.

Overall our trip was good, it was good to see old faces and places and catch up with people. We got lots of good pictures and had a relaxing time. However, it is still a difficult thing to travel with small kids, so I hope not to have to travel like that again for at least 5 years!!! 🙂

Liz's new phone

For the first time in our cell phone history, we were able to take advantage of a cell phone upgrade offer from Cingular. Liz’s line was now ellibible for a new cell phone upgrade. We went online and checked out the various models and both picked out the LG CU400. It was totally free aside from an $18 activation fee. Its a nice little phone, a bit thicker than the RAZR but had most of the same features and was actually lighter with more talk time. We’ve had some quality issues with her RAZR and the battery was going bad. So it was the perfect time for an upgrade. I received the package from Cingular yesterday and got it all charged and setup. When I got home from work she had me transfer her custom ringtone and display picture to the new phone. I was able to transfer all her contacts from her RAZR to her new 3G SIM and then put it back in the new phone and transferred the contacts from the SIM to the phone. I gave her a quick tutorial on how to use it and she was set. While the RAZR is a cool phone, it was time to make a change. My phone is elligible for an upgrade at the end of the month, I wonder if I’ll get to pickup a new device? 🙂

Past due oil changes

Both of our vehicles need an oil change, but I’ve been lazy and haven’t taken care of it yet. I hate the thought of doing it tomorrow (Sunday) but might not have a choice. If we don’t have anything planned for tomorrow, I may go to an auto parts store and buy my special oil for my car and take care of it. With Liz’s van, its more convenient to take it to a quick lube place, and a similar expense. I like to change my car’s oil because I use a special weight oil. 0W-30, which I don’t think you can get at the quick lube places. It takes a while in my car as the oil filter is poorly places, maybe one day I’ll get a filter relocation kit. I enjoy doing routine maintenance on my car, and its cheaper in some cases.

Miata door speaker

Noticed recently that the driver side door speaker in my Miata is on its last leg. I started to look into the options to replace it, thought about going to Circuit city or sound advice, but thought I’d ask around. A friend suggested I try the miata.net forums/classifieds, which I should have thought of right away. I went online to miata.net and didn’t find any of the Bose speakers I need, so I posted a wanted ad. Within 2 hours or so, I had several e-mail replies, and one guy offered to mail me a few of his spares (since he said he had at least 6 spares), then I could just reimburse him for the shipping. Basically he is giving me a few of his spare bose speakers so I can fix my Miata. All it will cost me is shipping. I was excited to read that e-mail and Liz was happy too because it means we don’t have to spend much money to get this fixed. The guy said he would mail them today, so I should have them by this weekend. I also have someone who can help me install the replacement which is also nice. Now if I could just get a CD player for the van!

Near perfect weekend

This past week and especially this weekend, we’ve had several really nice days. On Wednesday when I had off, we went to the park and played and spent time together as a family, it was just awesome. This Saturday, I took the girls to a new park we’d never been to before thats right on the Hillsborough river. It was very quiet and secluded and had a small boardwalk that stretched along the bank of the river. They had a nice playground for the kids who thoroughy enjoyed the the tall slide. I pulled them around in their wagon a bit and then all 4 of us (Sarah, Abby, Michael and me) walked up and down the boardwalk. Abby is terrified of squirrels and made me hold her when they came near. There were ducks and places to feed the animals. After about an hour of that, we headed back home for some lunch. Later on we got back in the van and headed to Bonnie Brae park again. We plopped the kids down in the sand at the volleyball net and Liz and I tried to hit the ball back and forth a few times. The kids quickly got tired of that and we then went over to the playground to let them play. Liz keps seeing other MOPS moms there and had a nice time chatting. I got a lot of pushing in on the swings, as two of my kids need to be pushed if they want to swing. My arms felt like they were going to fall off when I was done. Sunday we had lunch at Wendy’s with Amanda, Lizzie and Lina (and Catherine). After that we went home to let Michael take a nap and around 4 we headed back to Bonnie Brae park for more play time. This time more of our friends met up with us and we let our kids play together and relaxed in the shade at the park. I chased Michael around a bit and kept my eyes on a few other kids while we walked around. We didn’t leave the park until after 6, it was such a beautiful day, low 80s and a nice breeze with low humidity. It was as close to perfect as one could ask for. The whole entire weekend was absolutely beautiful and we had a great time together. It was so refreshing and relaxing, I loved every minute. Although the time did go quickly as always, it does in a way seem like we lived a lifetime this weekend. It is hard to get back into our normal routine now that Sarah’s spring break is over and we are back to the normal grind.

Details on DST patches, Goodlink issues and resulting patch problems.

This post is going to be very technical in nature and hopefully someone will find it useful. This all started because of the patches for Exchange 2003 due to Daylight Saving time updates. Below you will find detailed information on the DST patches, resulting problems I had with Goodlink, permissions issues I encountered, and resulting side effects of a supported fix from Microsoft. I’ll break it down into sections, relating to each type of issue I encountered.

Daylight Saving Patches

After installing DST patches on Exchange 2003, I found myself unable to mount the stores on all of my Exchange 2003 servers. The information store service would start, but none of the stores would mount from ESM. After some researching I found this article from Microsoft that was supposed to fix the problems I encountered. After the 930241 patch was installed, my stores would mount and everything seemed to be working fine. After applying these updates, Exchange seemed to be working fine at the time, all my message tests were good and I didn’t see any obvious signs of a problem.

Goodlink and the Send-As permission

After applying the DST patches and the update from MS KB 930241, I found that my Goodlink devices were not working. At first it was affecting everyone, no one was sending or receiving goodlink messages from their handhelds. I did some checking and found this article on the good.com website. Now on a previous case with Good support, we went through and modified the correct permissions for the Goodadmin account in advance, so that we wouldn’t have this issue. It turned out that some of our Exchange objects were not inherriting permissions correctly, so when we applied the DST patches along with 930241, our goodlink system lost the send as permission required to operate properly. I got on the phone with Good support and we went through and manually reset the permissions again, ensuring that all Exchange objects were inherriting the proper permissions. I had to restart the Exchange services on all 4 servers to make the changes effective, and once done, Goodlink resumed working normally. This all happened between a Firday night and a Saturday morning. So not only do you need to ensure you grant the send-as right in AD to the GoodAdmin account, but I’d strongly recommend making sure you have all the inheritance setup properly for all Exchange objects as well. I think our permission issues were remnants of our setup of a mixed environment with Exchange 5.5 and 2003.

Road dangers

Its becomming more and more evident to me that people who drive larger vehicles are a bit careless. I can’t tell you how many times now, someone in a large vehicle has nearly run me off the road because they cut in front of me and don’t even look. I realize I dirve a small car, but a little common sense would do a world of good before you take a swift turn into another lane on a highway. Again this morning, on the interstate on the way to work, someone in a large van swerves into my line while I’m right next to them. I put on my horn and they backed into the previous lane and no harm done. But serious, people are so careless and only self-aware on the roads, I bet a large portion of accidents are due to this very issue. And I don’t even want to think of how many beautiful Miata’s are sent to the junk yard because someone in a large vehicle wasn’t paying attention and merged themselves into an accident.

Holiday Weekend

We had a nice long weekend, since I had President’s day off. Friday night started out I spent most of the night reloading our main computer. I did something dumb (yes I admit it), and had to reload it. I spent Saturday morning continuing to re-install software and re-configure on my home network. Everything is back in place and working fine now by the way.

Saturday we had Dave (previous co-worker) and his wife over for dinner and games. We had grilled chicken and played catch phrase (don’t care for that game too much). It was a nice time and we all had fun.

Sunday, we had more friends over, food and games again. This time they brought over Pizza (was Westshore pizza and very good!). Then we played catch phrase with them and this time I enjoyed it a little more, they were giving me better words. We (the guys) won big time 3 to 1.

Today (Monday), I took Sarah to school in the Miata which is always fun. Its nice riding with my girl in the car! I spent the day taking care of Liz and Abby and Michael as we are all sick to some degree. I also picked up Sarah from school in the Miata and this was even better this time because I could put the top down. It got to be about 60 something today, so it was just right with the sun shining to ride with the top down. Upon getting to her School, someone behind me backed into another car in car-line. Also when we were leaving her school Mr. Twiggs (short for something else which we don’t really know yet), said something funny. As we were pulling out, there was a minivan ahead of us. The lady in the van stopped to say something to Mr. Twiggs who was directing traffic. (Mr. Twiggs is a young guy). As we drove past, he said “this lady said she has Miata envy). Sarah and I both thought that was funny and laughed about it a bit on our way home.

We then went to WalMart to get a few things. I spent a little more than I should have which is my habbit. We didn’t get home till after 4. I heated up some left over pizza for dinner and we just relaxed most of the day. Hopefully we will all get over our illnesses soon. I have to go back to work tomorrow so I really hope this sinus junk goes away.

Reforming Daylight Savings Time

I came across this amusing article a long time ago actually, it has an interesting take on Daylight Savings time:

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It happens every spring: crocuses, baseball (with any luck), and the switch to Daylight Savings Time (DST).

Coming off DST is not hard. In the Fall, we set our clocks back one hour. We all get an extra hour to sleep, and those who forget find themselves at church, or the airport, or wherever an hour early. Embarassing, but not catastrophic.

But in the Spring we set the clocks forward, and the trouble begins. We lose an hour of sleep. Forgetful people miss Mass, planes, breakfast, and the big game on TV. Some are thrown into disarray for up to a full week. Annual losses due to DST confusion have been estimated (by me) at over a million dollars. I myself have missed a flight to Washington and a showing of The Seven Samurai because of DST.

There is no need for such tragic waste. We can – we should and must – urge our lawmakers to reform Daylight Savings Time as follows: Setting clocks back is easy; setting them forward is difficult. Therefore, let us keep the fall ritual as it is. However, one Sunday each Spring, let us set our clocks not one hour forward, but TWENTY-THREE HOURS BACKWARD.

Think of all the advantages. We will not lose an hour of sleep; we will gain (almost) a day of rest. It will be Saturday all over again. You will never again miss Confession, or an airplane, or the Redskins game.

Naturally, if this were the whole plan, our calendars would fall behind one day in each year. However, the second part of the Revised DST Plan deals with this. Every four years, instead of adding a day, let us SUBTRACT THREE DAYS. Furthermore, let these be Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which according to recent polls are the least popular days.

If done in February, which seems reasonable considering what a miserable month it is, this would have the beneficial side effect of shortening the excruciating presidential primary season by an effective four days.

The advantages of this plan are clear. Let us waste no time. With a determined effort we can have Reformed Daylight Savings Time by Spring of next year.

Write your congressperson today!