Life and Times

I’m in Amsterdam. I decided not to get online (too expensive by far and it’s just now 9am (in Washington) as I prepare to leave Amsterdam). I bought some cheese instead. Some decent cheeses, I think. We are supposed to start boarding in about 20 minutes. Since I checked my camera in my duffle it’s not much that I have to carry, even with the cheese. Almost got some various packages of chocolate with individually wrapped bits that had blue windmills on them, very Holland, but decided against it. The dollar is just too weak against the Euro right now, while the prices would have been OK a few months ago (aka when I went through the other way) it’s pretty ridiculous now.

I had a New York Style Supreme pizza slice (about 1/6th of an 18″ pizza) from Sbarro’s, with a 750ml of fountain Sprite… with ice. I’ve had Sprite in Tanzania, but it just doesn’t have the same flavor. This was quite nice.

4:04am, generator came on at 3am so I’m getting last bits of laundry done, washing dishes, finalizing packing, etc.

14hours 50minutes to departure time.

It’s not that I’m not good at public speaking when I put my mind to it. It’s more an issue that it is something that makes me horribly nervous, _and_ I don’t like how my voice sounds. Doesn’t bother me in small groups, but it does if I hear myself on tape (as I did earlier today when I interviewed John Matthew) or when I know a lot of people are hearing it, when I speak to a larger group.

Anante asked me yesterday to talk to his class at some point about my time in Russia, this afternoon he set a time of the 7pm class and about 15 minutes. At 6:57pm he showed up to remind me (I’d told him I’d forget, and I did forget). Students here give a rhythmic applause as their instructors enter the room, and gave me the same as I stood up at 7:01. They also like to applaud points they think of interest, which is in itself rather interesting as I’ve made the comment, am working on my next comment and the applause comes at the end of the interpretation, right as I’m about to start in on my next statement.

Working with an interpreter is always interesting, but this was the longest bit of commentary I’d done with it to a group. There’s always the thought process of not wanting to go so long with a comment that the interpreter forgets the beginning, but not to be too short each time that he ends up having to make a comment that makes no sense in the language, or has to repeat the previous statement to clarify everything. There’s also the rather long amount of time it takes an interpreter to attempt to explain to an equatorial audience that far enough north it never gets dark in the summer. Or even explaining summer, for that matter.

Well, today started badly, power was still not overly functional, 24 hours now. 3 posts now ready to go up… just waiting on internet access. Generator was turned on at 6:30, but my carefully left on (and quiet) set of equipment was promptly turned off…

Disassembled the server I had sent (Cecil). The power supply was a desktop one and adapted to the server board. With some effort it fit in the Bishop’s computer (now named Golbez) which is now functional again. Without power I haven’t gotten printers installed or anything on it, but that’s 5 working computers here now… which is 67% more than were functional when I got here.

Attached the second backfire antenna, and permanently attached both of the Metrix routers with liquid nail. It worked amazingly well to the sandy concrete here. The concrete of Wyoming house that I drove 4 more tapcons into was far better than the concrete of the new office building. 3 of them went in perfectly, the 4th won’t pull out but didn’t feel solid.

The Bishop sorta took me into his wake while I was working in the new office, he wanted to know if the 110v power there was down. I don’t have any equipment plugged into 110v in the building so I didn’t know, but it was just the same outlet he _wants_ me to plug a computer in to. Neither the 110v or 220v there works and there are no other nearby outlets. The 110v and 220v are separate wires and outlets, so I still can’t explain that. He also pointed out many of the cracks forming in the building, which he thinks are getting bigger.

Trusty and Marilyn are heading home tomorrow night, so I won’t get the American dinners anymore. I have Mac & Cheese left, I guess. Unfortunately without internet access and with my phone out of minutes they have no way to request anyone to pick them up. I got a message through (the satellite is 100-250v and the 90v or so that was coming through the 220v mains was enough for it to sometimes go online when connected directly) to Luke to call Mathesons in Wyoming. Hopefully someone there will be able to contact the correct people to meet them at the airport.

So, that’s it for the day.

Well, today I am getting a lesson in how the brownouts affect the Linksys routers. One brownout doesn’t affect them, they either stay online or shut off. Right now we are getting brownouts that somewhat pulse. After 3 or 4 of these pulses the Linksys routers will go away, illuminating all of the LEDs, but not responding to data on wired ports or transmitting any wireless signal.

My laptop’s charging system is having similar problems. Apple power adapters switch between green when charged and orange when charging. Right now it is orange, the power is steady. When the brownouts happen sometimes it switches to green and the time remaining to full charge can display 30 minutes, 50 minutes, 90 minutes, 9 hours, or even be discharging.

The Metrix routers don’t seem to be affected, I tend to believe it is because of the higher voltage provided by the PoE injectors they are using. Even down a 50 foot cable I would imagine that they are still more than 4x their minimum voltage, while the Linksys are only twice their minimum. The Metrix use a 48v DC power supply for a minimum of somewhere around 12v, possibly even 5v. The Linksys are connected (mostly) to 12v DC and have a minimum of just a bit below 5v.

Adding UPSes to the system would, in theory, be sufficient. Or voltage regulators. Or, perhaps, bumping the Linksys up to 24v…

Anyway, next year there will be no Linksys here. Just Metrix/Soekris/Via. Oh well.