Digital Choke Daynotes

Paul H sent me a quick note. Apparently, he reads this stuff a bit closer than I do. The cabin at Strawberry is on the South fork of the American River, not the Sacramento River. As Paul knows (and I should have, having lived in this area all but three years of my life), the Sacramento River runs roughly north/south in the upper Sacramento valley (until it heads west towards the San Francisco Bay. The American River runs roughly east-west, with it's headwaters in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The American River ends at the Sacramento River, right in Sacramento, CA.

The American River has some great whitewater rafting areas a bit east of Sacramento. There are actually three forks of the American River. The three forks have rapids rated Class II to IV+. As I understand it, the Class II rapids are good for beginners, with the Class IV rivers are a bit harder (actually, a lot rougher). You can find more information about at the American-Rivers site.

So, thanks to Paul for keeping me honest. In any case, the river outside the cabin is about 25-35 feet wide, so it's not really good for more than an innertube. Which we've done once or twice. And there are some small trout in there, so you can try drowning worms or flies. A bit above our cabin is a nice big and deep (and cold) 'swimming hole'. The water is a bit cold (it comes from melted snow, of course) this time of year.

If you are into hiking, just up the road is Twin Bridges, which has a nice trail along Pyramid Creek to Horsetail Falls. It's an fairly easy hike, good for a day hike, and not too hard that you can't take your children with your. That is a popular place, as it is one access point into the Desolation Wilderness area. There is a nice parking area (although there now is a $3 parking fee), and I think there is a little snack shop there now. Part of the trail is over giant granite boulders, and part is through thin forested areas next to the creek.

The Strawberry Lodge is available if you want to spend the night. There is a restaurant there (last time I looked), and some cabin-like rooms across the road. Here's a good place to start, if you are interested. It's a weather page, with links to other information about the area, including a map, and the fact that it's right on the South Fork of the American River.

Some pictures for you today.

	This is the cabin at Strawberry. It's a small one, just a living room, a bedroom and small bathroom downstairs, and a loft bedroom upstairs. But a nice big deck overlooking the river (to the left in this picture).
	This is a view 'up-river' (that would be the South Fork of the American River, as previously discussed). You can see that the river is right off the deck.
	This is a closer shot of the river, looking upstream. Lots of rocks in the river, so there is a quite pleasant 'noise' from the river, which makes sitting on the deck quite pleasant.
	This is a view of the big granite mountain that is just across the river and slightly downstream. With a pair of binoculars, you can watch the climbers inch up the mountain. You can hike up the left side of the mountain, it's about a 20-30% slope, and a bit narrow at the top.
	Another view of the cabin.
	This is in our backyard at home. There is a roll-up bamboo-type shade, and a small bird has taken up residence there. There were four eggs, not much bigger than a quarter. The 'mom' has been patiently sitting on the eggs for quite a while. Today was our first glimpse of one of the hatchlings. It was sitting up, mouth wide open, waiting for dinner. I am not sure what kind of bird it is; the parents are about the size of half a fist (if that much). But the baby seems to be all mouth.

A nice restful holiday, with some thinking about the reason for it. Have been watching a lot of old war movies, tonight is the "Ike" movie with Tom Selleck. But we did get a few things accomplished. A trip to the dump, then over to Sears where we found a four-chair outdoor set with glass-topped table, and some new cushions for the other four chairs from Lowe's.

Pam and I watched "Miracle", the story of the 1980 Olympic Hockey Team. Pretty good movie, even though you knew the ending. Then a nice BBQ steak dinner, and now relaxing watching "Ike". But back to work tomorrow.

Back to work. I spent some more time with vmWare, setting up a Win2K Pro operating system. Someone was having problems with our VPN software, so I wanted to prove that it was unique to his computer (heavily modified, I suspect). It all went as planned, the installation worked just fine.

So then I made a copy of that vmWare installation, which is just a matter of copying a few files. Then I updated that Win2K Pro to WinXP Pro. The upgrade took a while and finished just before I left for the day.

I also tried an installation of Red Hat Linux Enterprise Workstation in another vmWare partition. I chose the GUI install process, and it progressed through the first CD. When it got to the second CD, the installation couldn't find a file that it needed, and there was no way to abort the installation other than forcing a 'power off' (which is slightly different when using vmWare). Then I got involved in a few other things, so wasn't able to finish figuring out why the installation got stuck. The plan for tomorrow is to try it again, but first do a CD verification. The CD's came from Red Hat (I ordered the media in addition to the license). And I can see the file on another computer, so the CD seems good. I also sent a support email to see what Red Hat has to say.

After work, we barbequed some chicken breasts that had been marinating all day. That was good, although it was a bit hot outside while it was cooking. The weather is starting to get into 'summer' mode; temps today were in the 90's. But the humidity around here is typically low, and it cooled off nicely this evening.

This was one of those days that went fast. Not sure where the time went, but it went.

I started out with some security scans of some newer servers. Found some interesting things that need follow-up. (Sorry, no details.) I also started the CD verification process on the Red Hat CD's I got last week. DIsks 2 and 3 had intermittant problems; a few times the CDs were OK, and a few times they weren't. So I started a download of those CD image files. That took a couple of hours, even on our high-speed pipe. By the time the download was complete, it was time for the monthly network managers meeting, which was at another location. That meeting took almost two hours, then it was back to the office for the weekly Security meeting. And then it was 4:45 pm, and time to go home.

Where we found Christine and her family. Well, we knew they were going to be there. Jared (husband) picked up a new laptop, so he and I spent some time installing some software and configuring it securely for wireless access. Then it was after 8pm, and they went home. And now it's almost 10pm.

As I've said here before: Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like bananas.

A busy two days, and two nights.

Thursday work was the usual stuff. I'm working on getting all the current security policies into a common format for reissuing as a complete package. Some editing, some formatting, etc.

Thursday night was grandkid-sitting duty. Christine (who is due almost any day now) had a baby shower, so Pam went over there and I got the kid-sitting job. (Jared was at school.) We had a good time playing, reading books, and giggling (mostly on their part). Pam and Christine stopped at the grocery store on the way home from their party, so Pam and I didn't get home until just before 11pm, too late for posting anything here.

Friday at work was more of the word-smithing, along with a few security checks. Then it was more grandkid-sitting duty; Jared and Christine went to the new Harry Potter movie. We went shopping at WalMart for a few thing (including a fresh toy for each of them). Then home, where we all played outside, went to the park for a bit, then back for bath, a story or two, and bedtime.

On the security front, some people have reported that WinXP can sometimes randomly 'lose' your active wireless connection. This seems to happen if you have enabled 802.1x authentication, but that is not supported by your wireless hardware. You'll find that setting on the Properties page of the Wireless connection. Authentication tab. It is less likely if you have enabled WEP encryption.a

Some reports about this also indicate that the 815485 Microsoft patch (especially on older wireless cards/drivers) can cause the problem; you can test that by removing the patch via the Add/Remove Programs. See the Microsoft article here.

... more later ...
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