Category: Interests

Hurricane Lessons: Power

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Power

I like to think that I can live in a cave without all of the modern conveniences. IPads, Laptops, cell phones – they’re all just distractions and we can do without them, right? The truth is that we made multiple trips to a generator-powered friend’s house in order to charge our many “necessities.” Based on frequency, keeping these devices charged was seemingly more important than taking a shower. Harumph. To be fair, I can charge a laptop in my car. It is admittedly difficult to take a shower in there.

On day 12 of our 14-day adventure, I woke up to a house that was only 46 degrees Fahrenheit. That was the point that I said, “Screw this!”, and went out to buy a generator. Believe it or not, I found one too. I even got the transfer switch so that it could be properly wired into our service panel. We will never have to go through such an extended outage again. Or will we?

The generator is great. It runs for 10-12 hours on a tank of gas, is quieter than most of the generators out there, and it powers about 90% of our house. It rocks. It also has a six-gallon gas tank, which means while I’m used to buying two cans of gas every summer, those same two cans of gas would last only 16 hours while using the generator. Damn. Read More

Hurricane Lessons: Morale

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Morale

One of the biggest things I’d never considered in a disaster-type scenario was morale. Certainly our problems were minuscule compared to those who had lost everything, but we were not without some negative emotion creeping into our lives.

Information flow

We had no cell phone coverage for three days. Now I’ve always maintained that cell phones are a luxury, and that most people are far too dependent on them, but what I learned is that we all have come to assume that they pretty much always work. Many people (us included), keep them charged because they’re a great way of communicating in an emergency. Well, here we were in an (admittedly mild) emergency, and the cell phones were out. This made us all feel very isolated in a way that was unexpected. With no TV, no Internet, and no cell phones, we had no source of news. That may sound ridiculous, but remember that I’m a survivalist at heart, so I pulled out the AM/FM transistor radios, only to find that all of the local radio stations we normally listened to were off the air. We felt like we were in a zombie movie, but without the entertaining distraction of being able to snipe rogue walkers of the undead persuasion. Read More

Hurricane Lessons: Light

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Light

For millions of years, humans have sought to fight back the encroaching darkness. I’m no different than my ancestors, except that I fight off the darkness far more efficiently than they could have dreamed.

In my home office, I keep a plastic bin filled with chemical light sticks, numerous flashlights, small lanterns, batteries, and a new addition – a small AM/FM transistor radio. All of my gear takes one of two battery types: CR123, and AA. There is a stash of batteries in this bin that is only used for devices in the bin. The important lesson I learned regarding this bin was that we only had enough chem-lights for seven days, and that we really needed a AA-powered AM/FM radio (See the section on information flow in a previous post). Read More

Hurricane Lessons: Social, Security, and Final Thoughts

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Be Social

I am not a social person, but my wife sure is. Being cooped up in the house with me for two weeks would put anyone on edge, but more importantly, she needed a real community. We had a few hurricane parties at  friend’s houses, and they helped a great deal. Sitting around a table and sharing news was a welcome break from gathering wood and trying to stay warm. The fact that we all gathered at a friend’s house that had a working, hot shower didn’t hurt morale either.

Our local rescue squad also had a pasta night that was a huge hit. It was obvious to me that this was different than any other power failure when I commented that it felt strange to be in a room where I didn’t need to wear a coat. The hour or so we spent in the first aid squad building, with its industrial generator, heat, hot water, and food, was a vacation from the realities of a cold, dark life without power. The more time we spent around other people, the more we felt like the world was not ending. As it turns out, that’s good for morale. Who knew? Read More

One Man’s Quest for Gas Cans that Don’t Suck

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If you’ve had the pleasure of buying a gas can in the past few years, then you’ve likely come to the conclusion that all modern gas cans suck. After Hurricane Sandy prompted me to buy a generator and stockpile gasoline, I came to the same conclusion when looking for containers for my gas-hoarding pleasure. Not one to give into frustration, I solved the crappy gas can problem, and I’ll tell you how. But I think a bit of history is in order. Why do all these new cans suck anyway?

From what I can tell, this is pretty much an American problem. As of January of 2009, all new portable fuel containers in the US must meet new Mobile Source Air Toxic regulations based on the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) regulations, and they must meet the requirements of the Children’t Gasoline Burn Prevention Act. Now, clean air and children not being burned by gasoline seem like good things, but the these new rules have inflicted us with a plague of vile gas cans outfitted with maddening, useless spouts. Why? Read More

Building a Virtual Lab with Arista vEOS and VirtualBox

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It’s no secret that I love Arista switches. When I wrote Arista Warrior, I was lucky enough to have a loaner switch from Arista in my home lab, but sadly they made me give it back. Since Arista is a relative newcomer to the world of Networking, there isn’t a pile of used Arista gear on eBay, so I can’t build a killer lab at home without spending thousands of dollars. As much as I love Arista switches, I’d rather spend my spare cash on guitars my wife and kids.

Understanding the plight of cash-strapped networking guys the world over, Arista has released a virtual-machine-ready version of their fabulous switch operating system, EOS. Currently this is only available to existing Arista customers, so see your Arista sales rep to get a copy. Please don’t ask me for a copy, since I will not send you a copy no matter how much you beg. Arista has hinted that they may release this into the general population, in which case I may build a Virtual Box appliance to share. Until then, you’ll need to read on and build it yourself. Read More

Brian Setzer’s Rockabilly Riot! Live From the Planet – Review

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Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Riot! Live From The World Album CoverIt’s no secret to people who know me that Brian Setzer is my favorite guitarist. Aprently it’s no secret to Surfdog Records either, because out of the blue, I received an email inviting me to review an advanced copy of Brian’s latest album, Brian Setzer’s Rockabilliy Riot! Live From the Planet. Naturally I said, Hell Yes!, because as much as I like Brian Setzer’s music, I like free stuff even more. I guess they figured out that I was a fan after discovering my fairly well-documented obsession with Brian’s tone. Whatever the reason, I’m happy to write up my thoughts on this record.

This album is a collection of recordings from the recent (2011-2012) Rockabilly Riot tour. If you’re not up to date on Brian’s touring habits, he sometimes tours with the big brass band, and sometimes tours with a smaller rockabilly band. This time, he toured the smaller band comprised of two drummers and two standup bassists. Hell, I’m not going to explain all that when I can just quote the details from the official BrianSetzer.com website, so here is that quote which also explains the Live from the Planet title: Read More

Eulogy for my Mother

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My mother, Joyce A. Grier, recently died. As her son, I was honored to give the eulogy. I had so many requests for copies of what I wrote, that I decided to share it with the world. This eulogy was delivered by me at a small Catholic church in New Hampshire on Tuesday, July 24th, 2012.

As anyone who knows me will attest, I am not a people person, which is the polar opposite of my mother who was the most gregarious person I’ve ever met. I do love an audience though, so please indulge me a bit while I tell you of my mother from my point of view. My view may not be the same as anyone else’s, but I promise that it is an honest view from where I stand. In many ways, my mother helped define me as a person. I don’t think she set out to mold me in any way. I think she was simply who she was, and it was up to me to see the example. What follows, is nothing more than a small list of those examples.

My mother was a positive person. Now, there’s a joke in there about how my mother was always positive that she was right, but I figured that it wasn’t appropriate for a eulogy.

<laughter – ad-lib: “Judging from the laughter, I don’t think that I need to say anything more on that subject.”>

It has been said that the average person lies on their death bead, lamenting the things they’d wish they’d done. In fact, the average person (myself included, just ask my wife) likes to complain about a lot of things. Read More

Arista Warrior

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Arista Warrior BookI am proud to report that I have finished the first draft of my new book, Arista Warrior. With the tagline, A real-world guide to understanding Arista switches and EOS, this will be the first published book about Arista switches that contains all original information. It should be available for purchase by November of 2012. (Edit: now available for pre-order from Amazon.com!)

If you’re not familiar with Arista switches, I urge you to give them a look. I discovered them while doing a vendor comparison study for a client, and believe it or not, I only found about them because the other vendors kept mentioning them. After visiting their headquarters and meeting the people behind the technology, I was impressed. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’m not easily impressed, so I figured there was something special going on, but it seemed like the world hadn’t yet caught on. I immediately contacted my editor and proposed the idea that has become this book. Roughly a year later, here we are. Read More

Daddy and the G-Block

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I love my kids. I also used to work on Wall Street which, for those of you who don’t know, is approximately the same distance from my home that Saturn is from yours. Astronomically speaking, that equals two kids who never got to see their father. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me one day in 2002 while rushing down Wall Street in an effort to catch the Ferry.

As I was walking home from work with some extra cash in my pocket (an anomaly I assure you), I stopped at a street vendor to see what wares he was purveying. Mostly I spied the usual books, incense, imitation leather phone holsters, absolutely real Rolex watches and golf clubs (yes, really). As I was about to continue on my way, some bright colors caught my eye. Resting on the finely crafted folding card table, nestled between the books and the incense, were packaged sets of brightly colored blocks. Read More