I have Major League Baseball!!!

After 13 years I have finally got the perfect and affordable solution in house, Digital TV from @Home. They have a package that provides many channels, most of which are nice enough, but one that is awe inspiring! It is the North American Sports Network.

This is a satellite sender that has the rights to MLB, NFL and more. They show the games live and then replay them later in our timezone at decent hours without many commercials. Most of it is from ESPN and it includes the original announcers from the USA, just like when I was growing up in Oregon! This all comes at the perfect moment, just as the season is winding down and the playoffs are starting. Bring on the World Series!

It was as easy to arrange too, just the slight problem that the digital decoder and starters kit I needed was sold out in the local shops. I wanted the Philips DCR 2020/03, but that was unavailable. I searched a bit online and bought it from Wehkamp.nl (see below). Ordered it at 2100 hrs one night and had it in house by 1200 hrs the next day. Setup and running in about 10 minutes, with registration of the decoder card online!

I am so looking forward to the games while relaxing on my couch, just like in my youth!

I have MBL!

Another short ride today

Was not too bad, only did 16 km, but my hand was not bothering me and my wrist was OK too. I had to keep it short as I left around 1900 hrs and it is starting to get dark here earlier and I don’t like to bike in the dark.

I am going to wait another week before trying to get the cycle-gang (Marcel and Robert) back together for a weekend tour. Hang in there guys, I am almost back!

More data found on PFC Henry L. Hooper

A family friend back in the United States has been digging in the archives she can access (thanks a bunch Imogene!) and has come up with some new information on PFC Henry L. Hooper:

• Service Number - 39206277
• Awards:
• Bronze star
• Purple Heart
• European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
• World War II Victory Medal
• World War II Service Lapel Button

I will continue to dig, trying to find out more about his time between enlistment and up to his passing. If you have any information, please leave a comment.

Migrated to Ubuntu for amd64

So, finally had enough of my opensuse boxes (both amd64’s) failing to work correctly with the new Mono update software that Novell has decided to introduce. I have dropped it in favor of Ubuntu. I am not a big fan of Gnome but have just installed the various KDE tools I enjoy and it all works OK. Currently the only down side I can find is that FireFox does not have a flash plugin for x86_64, thus watching mbl.com is out of the question. Other than that, nice stuff.

Publication Management System is being adopted at RU!

I am currently working on a new release that will provide support for the entire Computer Science faculty, allowing for technical report submissions and reporting of departmental publications. I am not sure if all the departments will be using it as extensively as IRIS does, but it is a broader user base which should put it to the test!

I am about 50% finished with the changes needed to allow all departments to submit new technical reports, view them, edit them and generate overviews of their publications. Will announce the new version release soon I hope!

Back on the bike today!

My buddy Marcel and I took to the road again after 5 1/2 weeks, my broken hand has reached the point of testing it on a short ride. I only went about 20 km as the wrist and hand is still a bit weak so the bumpy cobble stone roads were a bit painful, but all in all not a bad start. Rehabilitation has begun!

For all my military buddies…

Here is one I could not help posting this one, it is not far off on my personal experiences from transitioning from the USMC to commercial ICT work. (I have linked the comic to the original site, hoping to provide enough credit where credit is due to prevent any infringement problems, this strip is copyrighted and property of United Media)

Cast off after three and half weeks

So, yesterday morning I was off to the hospital to get my cast off and check the progress of my broken hand. They removed the cast and it was not a very pretty sight due to the scratches I had obtained in my original fall, but it was nice to have the thing off!

The doctor checked me out and said that the cast had been a bit tight on my outer three fingers causing some rubbing blisters between the knuckles and some bruising (see the pics), but other than that I would have to take it easy for a week. The normal time is four weeks in a cast, so he made me promise to wait a week before I start working the hand to get strength back.

I spent the better part of an hour in a hot shower once I got home to loosen up the stiffness, remove some of the garbage from being in a cast and just because it was wonderful to have my hand back. After drying it off it was still pretty painful, from the blood starting to properly circulate through the fingers again. My knuckles swelled up a bit and I decided to wrap the hand up in a soft bandage for the day.

This morning I woke up and have kept the hand out of the bandage all morning. It is slowly getting better but you can see in the pictures that there is some serious swelling and bruising that needs to be a bit more healed before I start to work on mobility. But I am free!