Being one of those kind of people who tries to ready for any little thing, I usually have on my belt a Gerber multitool (which I use at least a dozen times a day), and a MiniMag double A flashlight in its own little holster. This is great for college, when you’re digging under desks trying to fix other people’s computers, traipsing across campus after dark after closing the lab, or fixing the car in the parking lot at Walmart after the rear bearing goes out on the ALTERNATOR, of all things.

Well, the cool tool above is an UPGRADE kit to any AA minimag flashlight, that allows you to LED based light, with a greatly increased lifespan of your batteries.

Takes only minutes to change out a couple of parts, with NO tools needed, and the light seems to be ever so much brighter, at least what I’ve seen under the desks I’ve worked on lately. Give it a try!

Aa Mini Maglite LED Conversion Kit, You Save $3.02 - Use keycode SPRINGFLING at checkout, Expires 05/10/2006

Once a year, Central Wyoming College has a yard sale…a computer yard sale…a VERY LARGE computer yard sale.

It’s becoming very popular. I got up very early, as I always used to (for the First Saturday Flea market in downtown Dallas many years ago). I’ve been to the last two sales before this one, and bought a couple of old systems, but this year was something to behold.

The annual sale is held to clean out old systems as the new computers come on campus. The current process is to have 1/4 of all campus systems upgraded and replaced each year, so that every four years, there is a complete replacement of EVERY computer on campus. Some of the systems may be older than four years, but all are at least usable for the most part…except for that one I saw with the melted case…not sure about THAT one.

I arrived at 5:45am, since I live on campus, and work on campus at the radio station. I’d heard rumors of lines forming at 5am, but thought I would show up fashionably late. I was….third in line. One of my old cohorts at Wyoming Public TV, Pete, beat me there by 20 minutes.

I brought my new Dell Inspiron 6000 to keep me awake, and get some things done (I just *luv* wireless access here on campus), since the doors didn’t open until 9am. Sort of like what happened last week at retailers across the nation on Black Friday, where tens of thousands waited outside stores in the wee hours to be the first to get the new xbox 360’s, $17 dvd players, and untold amounts of bargains…and fist-fights.

As the morning progressed, more and more folks showed up. So many in fact, that the line reached from the gym door (locked by chain from the inside) to the entry by the food court, a good 150 to 200 feet. Not bad for a tiny town of only 10,000 souls in the middle of Rural Wyoming. I’d guess there were over 200 folks in line.

What was the big crowd for? Used computers…1 gigahertz desktops for $60 each…laptops for $20 to $50 each…digital computer projecters for $15 each…camcorders for $20…and literally tons (yes, real tons) of computer gadgets, hardware, drives, cases, servers, monitors, cables, desks, chairs, and more.

One of the bigger events of the year here in Riverton, I truly think.

As I learned last year, get there early, and know EXACTLY what you want to get, and get to it as fast as humanly possible. Hence, the very early alarm clock. I got what I wanted, but no thanks to a young upstart whippersnapper named (Mr. Smarmy…name changed to protect the guilty)…a smarmy guy, who looks nice as can be when you talk to him, until you find out he thinks he knows everything.

His true colors showed when the doors opened at 9am. The “Mr. S” man was a few dozen folks back in line, but raced in and pushed a couple folks out of the way as he got his grubby paws on the best few of a dozen or so good laptops. Several folks made mention to me of his actions, including a neighbor from the dorms who was an assistant to the sale (meaning he was inside from the get go, helping folks, and trying to keep things in order). “Mr. Smarmy” me no likey now.

Being the old fart that I am, I did shuffle over to the laptops faster then most of the older old guys, and got two Toshiba Satellite 366mh laptops ($20 each) into my mitts before someone could knock me down and take them away from me. I also picked up a Samsung Camcorder ($20) in the first mad rush, and then headed over to the office furniture section of the gym floor and found a nice comfy office chair ($8) to stash the current pile of stuff in to roll around and shop at my leisure now.

My next find was a large, very heavy Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) for only $5…granted it needs a battery, but it will let me shut down the system instead of a cold boot in a power out situation, meaning no corrupted files.

Finally, in this first visit I also picked up a huge 4 drawer filing cabinet, with 18″ wide by 30″ deep drawers, for $20. I borrowed one of the furniture dollies and proceeded to get in line, behind 50 other folks with STACKS of stuff.

My neighbor’s son gave me a hand for a few minutes, and watched the chair/file cabinet stash while I went to the back row of the desktop systems area, to check on server towers. Glad I did. I wound up adding a Dell dual processor server tower (5 full size disk bays, PLUS 6 SCSI bays, 1 gig of RAM, and two CD drives, WITH a 19″ CRT monitor…for a measly $15. As I was dragging this behemoth back to my rolling pile, I also picked up a new, never used tower case (just the case, no motherboard or P/S) for another$5. Finally, add a 6 gig drive and a boxed set of never used Altec Lansing speakers($2), and you have my first run through the checkout line.

Total cost in this FIRST pass? $92.00…

For roughly 800 pounds of file cabinet, server, laptops, etc. I’m feeling giddy with anticipation.

I get neighbor and son to help me load the hardware into a van and run it over to the dorms, stashing most overthing but the file cabinet in the living room, on the sofa, and head back over to the classroom wing to show up “a little late” for Digital Photography class. It gets over early, and I head back to the sale, since last year gave me the inside info to know that stuff starts getter REALLY cheap after 10am.

This time, I pick up MORE computer stuff…an amazing amount of parts, almost unbelievable to me.

A very nice HP Net Server blade type server with two 18 gig SCSI drives ($10)…two 17 inch monitors (free)…a huge box of CAT-5 ethernet cable…mixed from 6 feet to 35 feet lengths…at least 1000 feet of it (free)…two small boxes of hard drives, zip drives, DVD hardware decoder cards (never used), more hard drives, an HP flatbed scanner with 35mm film slide light source for scanning transparencies, and lots of extra computer cards, including 10 modem cards, 3 SCSI cards, and more …just…parts.

Total spent on the second pass? $15.00.

Fellow computer geek and web major student Charlie Palmer picked up 5 more monitors and the other three boxes of CAT-5 for absolutely nothing. This next stash of goodies completely filled up the back seat of my 92 Lincoln Towncar, as well as the trunk to the point it couldn’t be closed (the Lincoln trunk for this year model is known to be able to stor 6 to 10 bodies, according to Mob drivers on the web). Thankfully, I had my two wheel dolly waiting at home, and we got everything off loaded and into our respective dorms.

So, in all, $117 bucks… not bad for a day of shopping for Geek Toys. The two servers are workable gadgets for me to experiment with for a family file server, video server, and music server, and the laptops go to my two college student kids Laurie and Ken for their school work here. I’ve already ordered two 40 gig drives and RAM chips from TigerDirect.com to upgrade them for actual school usage.

What about the rest of the stuff? All those drives, cards, gadgets, and more? Well, being the campus geek for lots of fellow students, I get asked to help fix a LOT of systems during the year. The stash will help provide a lot of cheap repair parts, troubleshooting devices, and more…and help lots of folks the coming year or more.

The extra towers I got are destined for (a) a hardware, linux based firewall, running Smoothwall firewall software, and (b) a dedicated video editing system with a high end motherboard, gigs of RAM, and other cool toys, with the 19 inch screen ( which will be replaced by LCD screens when I become wealthy).

All this was done Friday before noon.

Guess who got to clean out a closet, move around bookshelves, empty boxes of stuff, and basically reorganize and reappropriate MY half of my bedroom, where all the REST of my computer work area is, for the REST of the weekend?

Yep. Me. Or I’d be sleeping with the fishies, acording to Annie…the keeper of the Funds.

The haul o’goodies basically filled the sofa, and the floor immediately in front of it, to the point of creating a narrow pathway into the apartment. By midnite Saturday (including a break to go see Shooting Stars, a play given by our theater department this weekend [last show] AND going out to dinner afterwards), I had everything moved, cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, sorted, put away, and more, and had half the filing cabinent now full of computer hardware, and research material.

The bad news is, today, Sunday, daughter Laurie celebrated her 23rd birthday, and after the play last night (she’s a theater major) they did their set tear down, a regular feature of putting on a show…everyone stays to strike the set, paint the floors, toss the trash, and go wind down for a few hours afterwards. When they got home at 2am this morning, they were still having fun, and I finally had to shoo them out of the apartment at 4am so *I* could get some sleep.

This afternoon, her party went off great, with lots of standard college student nutritional fare (7 pizzas at last count), presents, silly string, pictures, and laughter.

All in all, a good weekend.

And, Laurie likes her new laptop.

Ken likes his new laptop…and the camcorder.

Annie didn’t kill me for bringing home 800 pounds of “computer crap”…her words, not mine…she can’t see the inherent value of having EXTRA computer components safely stashed away in a good, solid, slighly scratched EMP-proof Faraday cage, right next to the bed…of course, I need to ground the file cabinet for it to work effectively this way.

I’ll also be putting all my civil defense documents inside the filing cabinet as well, with a little extra fire proofing, for safe storage.

Have a great week this week, and Happy Holidays to everyone!!

Source from KUTV

Plans Being Developed To Avoid Asteroid Collisions
Nov 4, 2005 3:45 pm US/Mountain

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Imagine last year’s tsunami, last month’s earthquake in Pakistan, and Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma all rolled into one – and then some. If nations can’t handle those calamities, what’s going to happen when an asteroid collides with Earth?

In 30 years, there is a 1-in-5,500 chance that a smallish asteroid will land a bull’s eye on our planet. At 360 yards wide, it could take out New York City and much of the surrounding area.

Fortunately, experts believe further observations of the asteroid, 99942 Apophis, will almost certainly rule out an impact in 2036. Nevertheless, it’s precisely that kind of predictable and preventable threat – and the thought of being ill-prepared for it – that alarms the world’s normally intrepid spacefarers who are calling for action.

They issued an open letter at the Association of Space Explorers’ annual congress last month in Salt Lake City, making a rare, united push for strategies and spacecraft to prevent a cosmic pileup.

Two of the astronauts – Apollo 9’s Rusty Schweickart and shuttle and space station veteran Ed Lu – have even helped establish a foundation to spotlight the issue.

“There are always natural disasters and it always seems as though the preparation is somewhat less than adequate. But we have had a series of quite substantial ones here in the last year,” Schweickart said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hollywood’s depiction of cosmic collisions – think “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” – has heightened public awareness, “but regrettably with the wrong solutions and overdramatization,” Schweickart said.

“You don’t want to send up Bruce Willis and others to save us. That’s Hollywood silliness,” he said, chuckling. Instead, technology is far enough along that an asteroid could be deflected before hitting Earth, he said.

For now, the astronauts are being cautious – some say too cautious – in their approach.

“A lot of the folks working in this area are really attuned to not being Chicken Little, saying, ‘Hey, this is going to kill us, it’s going to kill us,’ “ Lu said. “That’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying that you need to start thinking about it ahead of time because afterward is way too late.

“The possible consequences are way worse than your run-of-the-mill natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes. As bad as they may be, this can dwarf them.”

Astronauts know better than most just how small and fragile and vulnerable the planet is.

“When you go around it in an hour and a half, again and again and again and again, day after day, in some cases now, month after month after month, the Earth becomes a pretty small place,” Schweickart said. “And then, of course … most astronauts tend to be aware of things like asteroids and their impacts. I mean, we romped around the moon after spending years in preparation by looking at every impact crater and volcano here on the Earth.”

It’s time, the space explorers say, for NASA to step up to the plate.

The association wants NASA to expand its Spaceguard Survey, a program that discovers and tracks near-Earth objects – asteroids and comets – that are at least two-thirds of a mile across. So far, 807 of an estimated 1,100 of these big rocky asteroids have been discovered in the inner solar system along with 57 comets; California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is plotting their future tracks.

An asteroid two-thirds of a mile wide, at impact, would be enough to easily take out a good-sized European country. By comparison, an asteroid or comet believed to be six to seven miles across wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

The space explorers want the many smaller, but still dangerous asteroids tracked as well. Altogether, 3,611 near-Earth asteroids of all sizes have been discovered, with an estimated 100,000 more capable of setting off a tsunami the size of the one that shook the Indian Ocean last December.

Scientists are carefully watching Apophis, which will whiz by Earth in 2029, passing within an unnerving 18,640 miles. That’s a few thousand miles closer than many communications satellites and 220,000 miles closer than the moon. In 2036, the concern is that it will move in even closer, leading to the 1-in-5,500 chance it will strike.

For a few hundred million dollars, the astronauts say, NASA could launch a scouting mission to Apophis in the next decade or two to place a radio transponder on the surface and thereby plot its course. But Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s near-Earth object program, contends that mostly likely, radar and telescope observations will ultimately rule out any risk of impact.

Schweickart agrees that based on the current odds, a deflection mission for Apophis would be a waste of money. “But the question is, do I agree with it when it’s 1-in-100, when it’s 1-in-50, if it’s 1-in-20. That is a policy question. At what probability do you begin to spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in order to do something?”

That’s not the only sticky policy question.

Are some places on the planet more dispensable than others? The point of impact, for instance, could be inadvertently shifted from one part of the world to another by an intervening spacecraft, jeopardizing one country instead of another. Who’s liable if an asteroid-deflecting mission goes awry? Indeed, who decides if such a mission is needed and how far in advance should that decision be made?

Nuclear electric propulsion would be ideal for quickly getting spacecraft to potential killer asteroids and nudging them out of Earth’s way, the astronauts say. But the technology for such an “asteroid tugboat” is on hold, a recent casualty of budget cuts.

Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, is sympathetic to the astronauts’ concerns and has asked NASA to see what might be needed to protect Earth from asteroid impacts.

Nuclear-powered spacecraft could either land on the asteroid and apply a small but continuous force over months in order to alter its Earth-smashing course, or hover above the asteroid and use its gravity to push it aside. Forget about any sensational last-minute asteroid crackups, “Armageddon” style; the pieces could wind up on a collision course with Earth.

Schweickart and Lu’s B612 Foundation – named after the home asteroid of the Earth-visiting prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s “Le Petit Prince” – is pushing for an orbit-altering demonstration by 2015 on a harmless, way-out-of-the-way asteroid.

The European Space Agency also is proposing a practice mission called Don Quixote to alter an asteroid’s course, but it’s yet to be formally approved. NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft smashed into a comet for scientific reasons in July; by design, it barely altered the comet’s path.

“We’re sitting in a shooting gallery, with hundreds of thousands of these things whizzing around in the inner solar system. So it’s just a matter of time,” said Schweickart, board chairman of the B612 Foundation.

Fortunately, the technology to protect us is ready for the task, he said, and that’s “the beauty of it.”

Summer is winding down…many projects of mine are in final work…and college classes start in about 30 hours from now…on Monday 08/29/01.

Overall, it’s been a good summer break. However, NOTHING could have put a better topping on the entire season than what happened Thursday.

First, around 10:30am, I joined the other Student Senators for an afternoon of helping many new freshman in the Rustlers Roundup, a day of new student orientation, tours, free food, and grab bags of cool stuff, and then joined the other senators on the stage of the Little Theater, which was completely full, in a “student panel discussion” of surviving and thriving how-to tips and q&a for all the new folks there, in learning how to deal with Becoming A Successful College Student.

It went REALLY good, and I felt this was one of my most non-nervous times to be on stage and helping a few hundred folks begin their college career, by sharing the ways that each of we senators had been successful so far in our academic careers. I actually ENJOYED this panel discussion!

Up to this point, I had worried about it for a couple of weeks, but it went off without a hitch.

Later in the evening, here at Central Wyoming College, the Student Success Center had an End Of Summer party for TRIO grant recipients, of which my wife and I are thankfully part of, because it helps pay for a portion of our college careers.

The party went from 5p to 7p, and there were many door prizes, lots of cheesy (yet fun) games for the entire family, over 60 pizza pies from the local Dominoes franchise, and something very cool to end the evening. Someone was going to take home a brand new laptop computer at the end of the evening.

My wife Annie, myself, and fellow student senator Regina showed up around 5:10 at the CWC gym where the party was held, as I had to work at the radio station until 5, then headed home to get Annie.

We got back to the door and got in line. Those folks who were the TRIO recipients had to get their pre-semester meetings with Ed Hill, the TRIO counselor, done before they could get their “Official” laptop door prize ticket stub and be entered to get their chance.

Annie was in front of me, but had not had her meeting with Ed yet, and so had to head over a few tables to visit Ed before full check in. I was next, and having met with Ed the day before, got handed the ticket that WOULD have been Annie’s ticket stub.

After signing the checkin sheet, I was handed some neat goodies, another stub for OTHER door prizes, and went to grab a table for Annie, Regina, and I. I put some pizza together on the table for us, got some cold drinks, and went back to sit with Annie until she was done. After about 5 minutes, she and Ed finished, and she went back to the signin table, got her stuff, and ticket stub, and we went back to our table to munch and visit with everyone else.

During the evening, there were all kinds of kiddie and family games, including cake walks, facepainting, Twister, a tots fishing derbie for trinkets, and more. Every 15 minutes or so, a door prize was handed out to some lucky visitor.

During this time, Annie and I ribbed each other to try to convince ourselves to join in the fun, and after a while, I did the cake walk a few times (no free food for me), the Limbo Dance contest (at 40 inches high, and my third pass, I lost my balance and wound up on the other side of the bar on my face), and a few other things.

Overall, a pleasant and mostly harmless evening seeing lots of folks and their kids have fun with each other.

Finally, around 6:50pm, it was announced that the ticket was going to be called to see who won the fabulous door prize…a brand spanking new Dell laptop system, with all the bells and whistles.

I was hoping as much as everyone else, and THIS was the reason I was here for the evening, and had convinced Annie to come (she really didn’t want to).

The first number was pulled. 863390. No one spoke up. It was called out again…several times…everyone looked REALLY hard at their tickets…total silence in a room of 200 or so folks. Finally…last chance for 863390….no takers..someone had left early.

Susanna Lawson, one of the MC’s for the evening (and one of my tutor advisors) picked up another ticket from the hat, after no response to the first number.

863466.

Holy Crap.

I look again REALLY hard at my ticket….

Sweet Mother of God.

863466.

Staring right back up at me…those numbers on MY little blue ticket with a nice red border.

HOLY CRAP!

It was MY number.

Annie looked at me. I looked at her…I whispered to her…”I Got It!”

I stood up…and said, “Can you repeat that number again?, PLEASE?”

Susanna repeated 863466.

Yep…I WON!

A brand new, freshly purchased, never used DELL Inspiron 6000 Laptop computer, with 80 gig hard drive, DVD RW burner, 512 megs of RAM, and MS Office…and a HUGE screen…and WIRELESS access…which is really great, as this campus is slowly going wireless bit by bit through most of the buildings *except* for the dorms where we live…they MAY get wired next summer.

I could not believe it.

After getting up and walking over to the middle of the room where Susanna, Ed, and Marilu Duncan all verified the number, I said a little speech of THANK YOU! to the crowd. I then followed Carol W. over to the table where the computer was, signed off on the “permission slip to use your likeness” (marketing stuff) form, posed with my new ‘puter for a few digital pics, and and put it all back in the box, and went back to sit down with Annie and try to absorb what had just happened.

Annie let me purchase a brand new (yet recertified) hi end computer last year with a portion of our tax refund, and as I was sitting there thinking, I thought this would be a VERY good time to offer her this computer, as her laptop (purchased used last year from a family friend…333mh IBM Thinkpad) was slow, tiny, and usable for her needs, but just barely.

So, I did…thinking long term about if I give her THIS one, she’ll give me her old one, and I’ll still have a laptop to use for my web stuff, writing, and so forth. After all, this new one didn’t cost me a dime.

She didn’t want it! Her old one was JUST fine…she knew how to make it do what she needed, and that was ALL that she needed. However, most of the OTHER folks in the gym this very evening (who didn’t hear me offer it to her), were VERY interested in this machine, and I chatted with MANY of them, showing them the cool tools it had, and being very happy.

So, she said “it’s yours…you use it…I know you want it…(grin)…”

I guess I will….might as well…(bigger grin!!)

It’s a great computer. I went to Dell late, late, late in the evening, and configured a ‘puter just the same as what this one came with, and the bottom line for this machine was around $1400….AMAZING!

First time EVER in my life I won something (as compared to something like the Telly Award I was ‘recognized’ with for my video work back in June). A very timely tool too, as it will be used VERY heavily this coming year in my classes.

A bit after 7pm, we headed home, and I showed it off to my kids, their friends, and a couple of neighbors. All were a bit impressed, and happy to see it won by someone who could REALLY use it to help others ( as I have been the past two years as a tutor here on campus).

Spent an hour or so seeing what the system software was, checking specs and reading the online manual, and then put it away. Again, Annie was amazed.

“Not going to play with it tonight?”

“Nope” was the answer. I have to put it down, and think about what I’m going to use it for, how I’m going to organize the software tools, and just what I’m now going to have to get to make the most of this NEW electronic gadget that just entered my life.

After all, 80 gigs ain’t much when you think about it, and I have over 300 gigs of data on my desktop rig…and SOME of that will have to get mirrored on the new laptop.

The biggest “Cool” of the whole thing is that this new system will let me do video editing anywhere, anytime. My Sony HC 20 handicam DV camera will hook up via firewire directly to this monster, and after editing, I can burn the final production DVD the moment I’ve done…..yes…VERY cool….

This new system will be used for audio work as well, and I can record, edit, and even broadcast directly from this laptop once everything is set up and tuned. THAT is awesome as well.

Hope I didn’t bore you with all the above…as you might notice, at least *I* am quite excited about it. And, even 3 days later…walking on air…it’s a WONDERFUL summer after all.

Rich