Digital Choke Daynotes

"Daynotes" are popularized by a Internet Web site called the "Daynotes Gang" (www.daynotes.com or www.daynotes.org), a collection of the daily technical and personal observations from the famous and others. That group started on September 29, 1999, and has grown to an interesting collection of individuals. Readers are invited and encouraged to visit those sites for other interesting daily journals. You can send your comments to us by clicking on any mailbox icon.

Actually, it was a bit busy. Started off by returning a few things to the local Home Depot. Since I have an "as-is" offer on the house, there were a few remodeling supplies that won't be needed. Then, so my truck wouldn't be empty, I picked up some empty boxes and plastic bins for packing.

Got home, and helped my son finish up the alternator and battery installation in his new-to-him 1989 VW Cabriolet. He got it from a friend-of-a-friend for about $800. It's a convertible, newer top, otherwise in good condition.

At about 5:00pm, got a call from the realtor representing the buyer of my house. Seems that they would like a few of their family to stop by to see the place. I said that was OK. Ten minutes later, they came.

All of them. Four vans and two cars worth. About 20-25 people: brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces/nephews, moms and dads. It was like a full-scale invasion, without the chips and dips. They wandered through the house, around the property, asking questions. The hard part was that English is not their primary language, so there was much translation going on at the same time. They stayed for about an hour, then piled into their cars and caravanned off.

After that, time for a simple dinner, then relaxed for the evening. And I forgot the post.

I did get some mail from one reader about the new design. He thought the font was too small, so I increased it a size. How's this look?

Tonight, I get to cook dinner. Looks like tacos is on the menu. Not hard to make, and quite tasty. Might make some spanish rice as a filling for some burritos.

I planned on going to work, as usual. Until the call from my daughter, who had left for school before me. She took a corner too sharp, and hit the side of the road a bit hard, and ended up with two flat tires on the right side of the car. No other damage to her or the car, although she hit the edge hard enough to put a small dent in the wheel.

So, I headed to her car with a jack and two jack stands, took the tires off the car, and headed down to America's Tire Store. They have good prices, and really good service.

And it was interesting to see how they had trained their workers and how they did their job. They have excellent customer service. I saw one worker notice a customer carrying a flat tire to be fixed, and the worker immediately ran over and carried the tire for the person. The workers continually help each other, such as guiding cars in and out of the service bays.

One of their rules is to beep the horn quickly when they back up a car. Sort of like you hear on delivery trucks. One guy driving the car wasn't doing it (perhaps it was a horn problem), so the other worker helping him back out the car made the beeping sounds for him.

It was an interesting display of teamwork and customer service. It shows off a good training program.

Anyhow, their tires come with a road hazard protection plan, so they replaced the tires for me. They didn't have the same tire in stock, so they replaced them with tires that were two grades higher than the ones I bought. And the total cost was only $30, and included mounting and balancing.

The whole experience was very positive, just like my previous experiences. Teamwork, speed, and excellent customer service. All the things that get customers to come back.

As I will, for all future tire purchases. And I will highly recommend them to my friends. They are called "America's Tire Store Company" and "Discount Tire Company". Their web site is here. Highly recommended.

A note about yesterday's post. Brian C reminds me that a dent in the tire wheel can be a problem. I didn't mention that America's Tire Store bent back the dent so it won't be a problem. It wasn't that big, so it was a good repair. And they don't try to repair a tire with sidewall damage, which is also a good practice. (And I fixed a couple of grammatical errors; I figure it is my site, so I can fix things if I want.)

Today I worked on the company's information security pages on our Intranet. I added a few things about the latest virus going around, and rearranged the main page for a small table that shows the new information.

Tomorrow looks to be 'meeting day'. Another department has put out a "Request for Proposal" (RFQ) for a new custom application they want. (A RFQ is a description of a desired product, in this case a software program/process. It is designed to get qualified companies to prepare a detailed proposal of how they would build the final product.)

I get to participate to help ensure the proper security of the application, and it's infrastructure. It is a daily class attendance program, that would allow the teachers to check in the students via handheld devices. Parents (or "caregivers") would also be checked out using a digital signature via the PDA (probably iPaqs). It will track attendance, issue alerts for no-shows, and prepare all sorts of reports. It replaces a cumbersome manual process.

The program, when finished (and done properly), should be a very useful tool for that department.

I also get to talk to another department about an equipment checkout program that currently uses employee social security numbers as the identifier. Not good, as you might expect. Our payroll/HR system is built on the SS# as the key employee ID number; that needs to change also. The first project will be pretty simple. Changing the HR system involves a bit of work.

And I am doing the final preparations for enabling the anti-spam filter on Thursday. Some training of the company mail administrator (not me) and help desk will also be involved.

There was an interesting article in the Wall St Journal today (no link to their site, since it is subscription-based, although you might find references to this story elsewhere) about the Direct Marketing Association -- the people who bring you all that junk postal mail -- deciding that there is too much spam mail out there. They are, after blocking it before, trying to get US federal legislation that will provide fines and penalties for mail spammers.

Anyway, I am going to try to turn over the spam server project to the company mailman and help desk by Wednesday of next week, as I leave for the "SANS 2003" conference the following day.

That conference and classes should be quite interesting. I have to bring a laptop with a wireless card. I also have to make sure my laptop is quite secure. You see, it is a computer security conference, and traditionally the attendees try to do a little hacking into each other's computers. There is also a network set up there that you can try to hack into as part of a contest. I am really looking forward to it; I hope to gain quite a bit of knowledge there. I will try to continue the posts from there.

Tuesday is "24" night. I better make sure the batteries are available for the LCD mini-TV. No storm tonight, so it should be OK.

A long day today with several meetings. The RFQ conference for the class registration program took up most of the day. It is an interesting application that will require some complex programming. Imagine keeping track of 150 students a day, in 8 different classes, tracking when they arrive and when they leave, ensuring the safety of the children so that you know where they are at all times, and tracking their daily/weekly/monthly attendance. Then add in a mass registration process to gather all the information about each student (all those information cards you fill out for your children at the beginning of each school yet). And try to automate that process to reduce paperwork, but make the new process friendly to all types of users that may not be comfortable with technology.

Then do the same thing for 38 other locations. And gather all that data into one central location. Oh, you must have it ready for training the users by July. This year. You go 'live' in September.

It should be an interesting project. I just need to help evaluate the security of the data and infrastructure. Others get to do the work of building and configuring things. But it seems like a very aggressive time schedule.

I also met with another department to discuss some needed security changes for their work order and vehicle tracking processes. They need to change the use of social security numbers (SS#) as the employee identification number. We came up with a new ID code of two digits plus the last four digits of their SS#. There will be a conversion process needed for existing data, plus converting the staff to use the new numbers. The result will be one less piece of confidential information (their SS#) in a computer system. And that is good.

It looks like bad news on the home-selling front. The buyers are trying to lower their purchase price by about 15% -- a significant amount when the price is in the $400K range. This area is very desirable, and there is a very strong and rising real estate market. It would seem that their realtor is not very knowledgeable about the real estate market up here. Median prices around here have gone up about 20% in the past year, and there is no indication that prices are softening at all. I did a web search of houses around here, and there is a limited supply with strong buying pressure. Most properties don't last too long before they get an offer.

Although we don't have the final word, it looks like the buyers will back out of the deal. So it looks like a bit more remodeling to increase the value and 'curb appeal' of the house. I will be the first to agree that there are some needed improvements to the house (new siding, exterior paint, and windows, for instance), but the price range we have set on the house takes that into consideration. And the more remodeling and fixing-up that we do, the higher the selling price will be. The buyers have lost out on a great opportunity to get a house/land at a bargain and very fair price. A little 'sweat equity' will be amply rewarded with an increase in the value of this place.

I talked to my contractor friend tonight, and we have a new plan for what needs to be done. We'll wait for the final word from the buyer before we start, of course. They may decide to go ahead with the deal, but I am not giving that a high probability.

No meetings tomorrow. Implementation of the mail (spam) filtering is the big priority. It will be a busy day.

When I was a child (in the middle-1950's), my mother won a brand new television set on some contest. My father had died in a motor scooter accident in 1953, so the guys giving the contest were pleased to give the set to a 'deserving widow'. I was only about 5 or 6 at the time, so I don't know the accuracy of that story. I just know that we had a nice TV then. (And a neato Lionel train set, but that's for another story.)

Televisions weren't widespread then, so I suspect that we had lots of the neighbor kids coming around to watch it. I don't recall much of that period of my life (I sometimes have difficulty with yesterday). But I did keep that TV for many years, up until about 1970.

It was an console tube-type (this was before transistors) black and white TV, with a rotary tuner that only got channels 2-13 -- those were the only ones available. And I vaguely recall watching "Howdy Doody" and "Lone Ranger", "Romper Room", and a local TV show called "Captain Sacto". (Most of those shows are so old you don't even see them on "TvLand" reruns.)

I'm a bit older than John Dominik. He grew up in during the time of "Mr. Rogers". And his children are growing up with it also. I did watch it a bit with my children as they grew up, but never appreciated it until I looked closely at the quality and tenderness of the show. Although Fred Rogers retired last year, PBS kept his shows going in reruns.

John wrote a nice tribute to Mr. Rogers (look at the Thursday post). I think that you might enjoy it.

Sorry about missing yesterday's post. After work, we went to dinner, then a bit of shopping, and then fell asleep in front of the TV.

But I made up for it today. The riding lawnmower (have I mentioned I have three acres?) needed a new battery, so off to the car parts store to get one ($20). I installed it, added gas, checked the oil, put on my hat and sunglasses, and put in the earplugs.

Yes, for those of you in far-off frigid places (like Tom and Bob), today in sunny Northern California it was about 65F, short-sleeve weather, so it is time to start mowing the lawn. Brian B, who moved from "Silicon Valley" (just south of San Francisco, CA) to the Washington DC area, has been shoveling snow all week long. Here, the sun is bright, the breeze light (a bit of a nip, but nice), and the weeds are growing. I think that I would much rather mow lawns than shovel snow.

So I spent about 3-4 hours riding around the yard, giving the newly energized grass (well, mostly weeds) their weekly cut. (The first cut of the season always takes a bit longer.) After that, I was going to do a bit of weeding with the gas trimmer, but the trimmer spool needs to be replaced. So that will have to wait.

A bit of house cleaning was also on the agenda today. While I was working outside, Pam (the lovely wife) did a major deep clean of two extra rooms, so they look a lot nicer. Plus, she cleaned both bathrooms. Even the youngest daughter (Stacy, 18) cleaned out her room. I took out the multitude of resulting trash bags. Pam celebrated the cleaning by going to the mall to meet our oldest daughter and her children. She then continued her cleaning by cleaning out my wallet.

Tonight, it's a bit chilly. The weather dweebs say it will get down to 40F tonight. So we fired up the pellet stove to keep comfy while watching "Broken Arrow" (with John Travolta) on HBO and having a bit of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (we shared a pint). Good stuff (the ice cream and the movie).

Tomorrow, we have two potential buyers coming to see the house. Our realtor tells us that one of them is quite motivated. They have sold their house, and they have done a 'drive-by' before and like the place. That was the incentive for our burst of cleaning. We're hoping for good news.

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