Category Archives: General Comments

Posted some more images to the ‘daily’ image page here.

Nothing too exciting.  I don’t know why, but I like taking pictures of churches.  I don’t like what goes on in there, but the buildings are quite beautiful and very well made, compared to most.

They Glenn monster is finally asleep. I really don’t like teething all that much. He is one unhappy camper.

I am glad the week is almost done. I could use a little together time with the wifey this weekend.
Though I have not seen any postings, I assume my brothers did okay on the camping trip they took.

I know one thing, I really don’t care for camping unless it involves a fully equipped cabin with a hot tub. I know all the survival crap in case the sh*t really hits the fan, but I don’t really want to use those skills unless I have to. For fun, not so much. But, to each his own.

The new William Gibson book is out. Haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, but I am sure it will be a good read when I get a chance.

In other news, is it ironic that American flags are made in China, and Manchurian Ramen Noodles are made in the U.S.A.?

Finally Friday, and I am beat.
Glenn is almost certainly teething now.  He was up from 1:00 A.M to **shudder** 4:00 A.M. last night.  That was not fun.  I have learned something.  Before I could rock him to sleep and he would be okay.  Now I have to just leave him there to scream it out for 3 to 5 minutes, then he goes to sleep just fine.
It is hard to listen to him scream and do nothing, but that’s what you have to do now so he will get back to sleep.
But, at 4:00 A.M., you just don’t care anymore, and it’s not that hard to let him scream it out.

Glenn, July 2007 is up.
657 photos for your viewing pleasure.

In other news, really raining here. It is good to get a nice soaking. The grass and trees will appreciate it.

Special thanks to the people at http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/ for the DVD writer firmware updates for my DVD burner. Without them, I would not be able to burn to the new generation of DVD 16x disks.

There is an article in today’s Chicago Tribune about how the cell phone network failed when that bridge collapsed.
Back in College (I am an electronics engineer) we were taught about how cellular and regular phone lines work.

Did you know the phone networks are only designed to carry, at best, 10% of its subscribers at any given time?  This means if they have 100,000,000 users, only 10,000,000 can make a call at the same time.  This is true for land lines and cell phones equally.  The problem with cells is exacerbated because each cell tower can handle so many calls.  If too many people call from one cell, which covers about 1 square mile, the system can take no more calls. 

Why is the system designed that way?  For one, it would be insanely expensive to build that has 100% coverage.  Secondly, you would have to have a cell tower on virtually every corner and you would have to run 10 times as many wires and build 10 times as many central offices to run it all.  Pus, at any give time, only 3 or 4% of your network is being used.  96% of your infrastructure is standing idle.  We could do it, but your cell phone bill would be $600 a month and your home phone bill would be about $450, even if you made no calls.  So, if an emergency strikes, don’t always expect your phone to work, be it a cell or land line.  At least you are not paying out a grand a month to make sure your calls go through.