Wilderness First Aid

Posted on January 8, 2010 by mjpete

In December I completed the Wilderness First Aid that is offered by Solo (Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities).  This was in preparation for the Philmont trip in June/July.  The adults needed to be certified in Wilderness First Aid, so we would have the background to handle any issues that occur while we are in the back-country.

What a fun course!  It has been a number of years since I took a first aid course.  Wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was not expecting the course to be so interesting.  With the focus being on the back-country, where medical services are typically hours away, the course covered topics that is normally left for medical professionals.  Restoring circulation for a broken limb, de-crumpling a person who has fallen  and learning about clearing a head-neck-spine injury were some of the topics we covered.

I have to say that the course really boosted my confidence to be able to handle the situations we may face while we’re in the back-country.  If you every have the opportunity to take a wilderness first aid course, even if you are not a outdoors type of person, there is a lot you can learn.

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Now We’re Talking Squid!!

Posted on October 24, 2009 by mjpete

Victory is mine!!!

I’ve been running the Squid proxy server in the house for the past two+ years. In our house if you want to get to the Internet, you have to point your browser to the Squid proxy. Otherwise, no dice on the Internet access. I set this up so that I could keep a liberal policy on computer usage in our house while at the same time keeping an eye on the kids. On top of Squid I’ve been using MySAR for the reporting and it has been doing a very nice job, although the MySAR interface is getting old.

For the Blog, I had the router forward all the port 80 inbound web traffic to the web server. As long as I could run everything off a common Apache server, this setup worked just fine. For this blog I’ve been running  WordPress. I’ve been very happy with WordPress so far.

Lately I’ve been help my good friend, Dave, with some web site work. Eventually the websites will be hosted at a still undetermined hosting provider. But for now I needed to bring them up on my home server. At first I just needed to resolve the domains to the single Apache server. No problem. The home network can easily handle this.

Then things got a little more complicated, I also needed to bring up a wiki. For the wiki I wanted to stay with Confluence. I like the Confluence wiki. Its easy to setup and maintain. Even in large installations it is quick and runs on minimal hardware.

We wanted to have the primary domain, www.agsaurora.com resolve to the Apache web server. But we wanted wiki.agsaurora.com to resolve to the Confluence server. Home routers, while they provide a lot of functionality that 98% of the people don’t even know exists, they can’t perform layer 7 content switching. Initially to get the wiki up and running I had the home router forward port 8080 to the server running Confluence. If you typed www or wiki.agsaurora.com:8080, it would redirect to the wiki. Problem with that is the URL’s are ugly. Who wants to see “:8080” in the URL. Second issue was that any sub-domain under “*.agsaurora.com:8080” would resolve to the wiki. Not clean and not elegant.

I looked on ebay for something that could provide the functionality that I needed, but the hardware was way to expensive. So I started to look for an Open Source software solution. The load balancing software solutions were complicated to setup and maintain. I was looking for a simple solution. Then I rediscovered Squid! The reverse proxy acceleration was exactly what we were looking for. All the traffic would be forwarded to the Squid server and I had to only open the single port 80 to the Internet. Squid would then proxy the requests to the correct backend server:port. This setup gave me an added bonus! It gave me positive control over the sub-domains and where they landed. It was relatively easy to get wiki.agsaurora.com to resolve to the Confluence server on port 8080 and all the other web traffic, like www.agsaurora.com or download.agsaurora.com, to resolve on the Apache web server on port 80.

Here is the snipet of the Squid Config that performs the magic:

# Squid normally listens to port 3128
http_port 80 accel vhost

acl myhost dstdomain .petersens.ws
acl myhost dstdomain .agsaurora.net .agsaurora.com
acl mywiki dstdomain wiki.agsaurora.net wiki.agsaurora.com

#setup cache peers for accelration
cache_peer 10.10.1.4 parent 80 0 no-query originserver name=xenweb login=PROXYPASS
cache_peer 10.10.1.5 parent 8080 0 no-query originserver name=xenshare

cache_peer_access xenweb deny mywiki
cache_peer_access xenweb allow myhost
cache_peer_access xenshare allow mywiki
always_direct deny myhost
always_direct deny mywiki

Eleven lines of configuration. It took the better part of three hours to get this config just right so that I can still use the Squid proxy to capture all the Internet bound traffic while at the same time perform the reverse proxy acceleration. The cache_peer and cache_peer_access lines setup the reverse proxy. The two last lines, always_direct, allows all the internally generated traffic to pass through the proxy to the outside world. I double checked the MySAR application after setting everything up and it was still processing all the logs just fine! So I can still monitor what the kids are up to on the Internet!!! VICTORY!!!

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Philmont Shakedown Hike

Posted on October 4, 2009 by mjpete

We had our first Philmont shakedown hike last weekend. The whole Monmouth Council Contingent of 90 scouts, 20 advisor’s and more than 20 staffers travelled up to Stokes State Forest on Friday evening. On Saturday the boys packed up all the tents and loaded up our backpacks. Our crew was somewhere in the middle of all the crews in getting out of camp in the morning. It took the boys an hour and 15 minutes to break camp.

We hiked 10 miles up to theAppalachian trail and over to the fire tower. The boys did well physically. Most of the backpacks were in the 40lb range weight wise. Although the packs were not balanced correctly and there was a lot of loose gear on the outside. So we do have to work on the skills to pack a backpack. One of the games Frank & I were playing is to guess who would lose a piece of gear next.  Along the trail we had to stop several times to re-strap on someone’s sleeping bag or tent.

The crew really enjoyed getting to the fire tower. At the fire tower we had our lunch and enjoyed the overlooks. We saw a single hawk riding the thermals while we ate.

Getting back to camp, we were the second crew in. Both Frank and I were amazed. We didn’t think we hiked at a breakneck speed. Being 2nd into camp gave us time to setup the tents and relax before we had to start cooking dinner. All the food we ate was Philmont style food. That is to say it was dehydrated backpacking meals. For the most part the food was good.

Saturday night it rained like hell. One tent the scouts pitched in a small depression. All the rain water collected in their tent. Suffice it to say this is a self correcting problem. The scouts whose tent is was will definitely take more care in setting up their tents in the future.

Overall the shakedown was a success. The boys got a good taste for backpacking and what will be expected of them in the coming months. Next Sunday, 10/11 we’re going to take a day hike to get the crew together and stretch the legs.

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AntiVirus Software

Posted on August 2, 2009 by mjpete

Anti-virus Software is universally accepted today as a necessity.  Anyone using a PC without an Anti-virus software package is thought to be foolish or reckless.  Most people are very good about installing Anti-virus software when hey first purchase a new PC.  The majority of people allow their annual subscription to run out after a year, so they no longer receive updates.  Having Anti-virus software that is out of dat is just as bad as not running with Anti-virus software.

If you’re like me and you have several machines in the house, the $40 to $60 subscription fee per machine can add up to be a significant yearly expense.  With the kids in the house, I can’t even think about running the risk of not having Anti-virus software.

Well, there is a very nice solution to my problem – AVG.  For the home PC’s AVG has a free version of Anti-virus software that is on par with Norton and McAfee.  Under the free version licensing, each owner can have a single copy installed for personal use.  Since MJ and Jill each has their own laptop that is strictly for their own use, I can have a copy on each of their PC’s.

If you’re tired of paying annual subscriptions, or if you have allowed your subscription to run out, I would encourage you to check out Free AVG version.

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Summer Camp

Posted on July 17, 2009 by mjpete

Last week we took the Boy Scout Troop up to Ten Mile River Scout Camp. What an amazing time! In addition to the boys working on the merit badges, we also did a lot of other activities such as the polar bear swim, high cope course, mountain biking, repelling and barbecuing. The kids had an amazing time. They earned a ton of merit badges.

If  you are involved in Scouting, but have not yet gone to Summer Camp, it is a very relaxing week. It was very nice to have a few hours each day where there was absolutely no demands and you could sit back, chill out. The fact that cell phones either didn’t work or were very spotty (depending upon your carrier) was an added bonus.

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10 Mile Hike in Stokes

Posted on June 29, 2009 by mjpete

Saturday I joined several other Adults for a 10 mile hike through Stokes State Forest.  This was part of a shake down hike for the adult leaders in preparation for Monmouth Council BSA going to Philmont Scout Ranch next year. Our goal was to make sure all the trail markers are clearly visible and that there are no surprises on the trail.  This fall we will be taking the Scouts over the same trails for their shake down hikes.

The hike was through some amazing scenery in the North Western part of New Jersey.  The wild blueberries are in season.  A few of us enjoyed an extra snack on the trail.  For lunch we decided to rest at the pavilion on Sunrise Mountain.  We even had some luck in our timing.  As we were enjoying a brief rest and lunch, we watch a heavy rainfall pass over us from the neighboring valley and move out into the next valley.

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Jill’s Communion

Posted on May 29, 2009 by mjpete

I was not ready to see Jill in a white dress for her First Holy Communion. My little girl is not so little anymore! The Communion was really nice. Our new pastor led the service. It was great to see the excitement in the kids.

Afterwards we had an afternoon party at with the family and some very close friends.  The DJ was the same person we used for Jill’s 2 year old birthday.  I got to have a Father Daughter dance, which was really nice.  I think I enjoyed the dance more than Jill!

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Grrrr – I was klutzy this weekend

Posted on March 8, 2009 by mjpete

Saturday it was beautiful here on the Jersey Shore.  The temp was in the 70’s with blue sky.  I decided to work on the one Jetski.  I still have the engine apart because of the cracked water jacket.  I have two new water jackets with the exhaust manifold all ready to go on.  Cylinders are all honed.  I cut the rave exhaust valves to clear the pistons.  Everything was all set.

As I was setting the water jackets on the lower half of the engine, I let one piston slip and hit the exhaust baffle.  Boop went a piece of the ring on  the one piston.  Damn.  Now I’m waiting until March 20th when the new rings should arrive.  After the incident I decided to replace all the rings in the engine.

After I messed up the piston ring, I decided to replace the VTS motor.  This is a small electric motor that raises and lowers the angle of the jet pump.  The old motor had died and the case was corroded.  It was easy to replace.  Now I have to wait to finish getting the engine back together before I can test the VTS motor.

I fully expect to have both machines back into the water before this month is over.  I’m just very frustrated with myself for being a damn klutz.

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The Home Network

Posted on March 8, 2009 by mjpete

Lately I’ve been on a kick upgrading the computers in the house.  Most of the machines are dual Xeons with 4Gb or 8Gb of ram.  I just added a 1.5Tb drive to one machine that was running out of space.  It had a 40gb drive in it and it was full.  I went through looking to dump what ever I could, but it only amounted to a few Gb free.

I also had to add a 8-port switch.  I have a 16-port switch downstairs where I have the server gear, but I need more ports in the den.  I’m wondering if it was a good idea to go with the 8-port switch and not the 16-port switch.  At the time the store I was in only had the 8-port switch and I didn’t feel like driving around.

The one purchase that I made that has just proven itself to be so valuable was a D-Link print server.  It can handle up to 4 printers.  I know, it was a simply thing to add, but what a difference to be able to print from anywhere.  I’ve got the laser printer and the Epson photo printer attach to it.  The only bummer is that I have to go into the den to turn the printers on if I want to print.  A lot of the times I’m in the family room with the laptop and have to walk to the other end of the house. Yes, on occasion I get lazy and yell for one of the kids to turn on the printer or retrieve the printouts for me.

The one box that I haven’t upgrade is the Apple G4.  I did add some ram to bump it to 4Gb.  That box has found some new life with my daughter.  She likes to play her games on it.  She likes the idea of having a machine that is basically only used by her.

That leads me to another thought.  I am amazed at the kids.  I have XP, Vista, Mac OS X and Fedora Linux in the house on various machines.  Majority of the boxes run Linux, from Fedora Core 5 to Fedora 10.  But it doesn’t matter to them.  They jump from box to box without thinking about the operating system.  Most adults I know have issues running a single operating system.  Not them.  Its seamless to them.  I cant help but wonder what the technology will be like when they are adults and start having difficulty adopting to it.

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White House Website

Posted on January 22, 2009 by mjpete

Have to say I am impressed with the new White House website. Each president has control over the website.  In the past this site has not been a significant source of information on what is occurring within our government.  The new website that President Obama has put up is very informative.  The new administration is utilizing technology to really provide transparency.  The full legislative agenda is on the site along with any executive orders and proclamations.  You can also see all the appointments he has made.  In the past I would not have know where to go to begin to find this information.

To provide full disclosure, I did not vote for President Obama.  I felt that he didn’t have enough experience to provide the leadership we needed.  Over the past few months, I have to admit, he has won me over.

Check out the new site.  It’s a very pleasant surprise.

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