New Team, New Paintgun

At the MOUT site game in over Labor Day, two things happened that will have an impact on future games. First, my Automag failed me, again, to the point that I decided to replace it. I settled on a Tippmann A-5 with an E-Grip, which will give me a reliable marker with full-auto and burst fire capability, a big improvment over my mechanical 'Mag. It's been ordered, and should be in my hands shortly.

Second, I was invited to officially join AngerManagment. I accepted, and will play as part of the team twice in October, including a 12 hour game where our Captain will play the role of one of the generals. I'm excited by this, though I lament the fact that The Black Company never got fully off the ground. I'll resurrect it one day, I'm sure.

The AM crew are stand up players, and their style of mission-oriented paintball fits in well with how I want to play scenarios.

I still need to get the Automag looked at. It's never been this bad of a cuisinart before, and I'd like it functional as a backup/loaner gun.

Wired for Sound

I love it when one of my geeky things actually impresses my wife. Our new house is wired for speakers in the great room, the den and the master bath. The previous owner called the greatroom speakers 'surround sound', but since there are only two, that's not really accurate. Nonetheless I hooked everything up to my tuner last weekend. When it gets cooler and my attic isn't 140 degrees, I'm going to run wire to complete the surround speaker set in the living room, but for now, I have decent sound.

Once I had that done, I needed to come up with a way to connect the TiVo, TV, and VCR that wouldn't make my wife's life difficult. In the previous house, the tuner and surround system were in the basement, and she never used it. Now it's on the main TV, and I didn't want to confuse anyone. In the end, that wasn't too difficult. And the results were... frickin' fantastic.

Combined with TiVo's Home Media Options, my wife can now listen to music streaming from the PC in the den on the home stereo. She's enjoying it, and I think it's a hit with the kids as well. (My kids can identify Green Day within a few bars.) We still need to work out how to create playlists that are usuable, but we've got our entire library of CD's accessible on the network, and that's pretty awesome. Why did I not do this before?

A Walk in the Woods

I took my son out geocaching yesterday afternoon, something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. We found our first cache, and we had a real good time doing it. I think we'll be doing this some more in the future.

It's important to me that my son learn to enjoy himself in the outdoors, and this is a great way to teach him how to handle himself where people seldom go. I've got a few more caches picked out to go find, and then I might think about a longer hike trip to some more remote locations. We'll see.

For those of you that are interested here is my Geocaching.com profile info:

Belkin 2-Port KVM Switch

... with Audio Support and Built-In Cabling.

I picked up one of these at CompUSA today and I must say I'm very pleased with the design and functionality. Since we've moved, we are consolidating my old basement office and the family room computer into the new den. This meant two PC's, since I don't really feel like turning my game/work rig into the family PC, complete with Winnie the Pooh and Dora the Explorer. Since I also didn't want monitor's wall to wall, massive amounts of network gear, flashing lights... ahem.. strike that and edit to read, "Since my *wife* didn't want..."

My solution was a single monitor, wireless mouse and keyboard, and a KVM. The PC towers are cleanly hidden away, and the singe console can be used for either PC. I've used Belkin business class KVM's before, but I hated having to deal with cabling (that was often more expensive that the switch itself). I also wanted to use USB for mouse and keyboard, and speakers would be nice too.

This model does it all. Two USB ports, though I'm only using one - the wireless mouse/kb combo base unit - and excellent VGA signal quality. I don't see any degradation at all. And as an added bonus, the KVM comes with, that's right, built in cabling. That means the box has two 'tails' that connect to each PC, including a usb plug, VGA, microphone and speakers. You then plug the appropriate devices into the front of the KVM and you are good to go. One caveat - you must plug the USB portion of the tails into the PC's even if you aren't using them, since they supply power to the switch. That's right, no AC/DC brick either. That was a nice bonus.

Overall, this product is perfect for any SOHO user that needs an economical way to control two PC's.

Mike Brown Resigns

While I don't much care that Mike Brown resigned from FEMA - that's been a forgone conclusion since he was recalled/relieved from New Orleans. What did interest me was who was appointed to replace him. David Paulison has over 30 years of experience in Fire/Rescue, including a stint as Chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department.

His emergency management experience includes Hurricane Andrew and the crash of ValuJet Flight 592. He is also past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

This departure from the normal Bush Administration policy of appointing friends and supporters to key roles, despite thier prior experience (or lack thereof) hints to me that 'Brownie's' resignation was not entirely voluntary. I'd like to praise President Bush for appointing someone to the top slot at FEMA who has the experience to know how to get the job done.

That said, I want to be clear. In my mind, FEMA is far (far) from being solely culpable for the huge clusterfuck that followed Katrina. Agencies at every level were overwhelmed, undersupported, and generally lost amid chaos. That's what disasters tend to do. What I do find hard to swallow, especially as credible news starts to mount, is that FEMA, along with Louisiana state officials, were unable to act quickly to pick up the slack. This event will become a textbook case of "how not to do it" for emergency managers for decades.

It Must Be Monday

First off, I have strep. Again. The doctor belives that it may be the family pug that is the carrier. So now I have to take the dog the vet to get her tested. Part of me hopes that is the root cause. I'm sick and tired (no pun intended) of someone in the family getting strep every two months.

On other news, we finally got all our stuff moved on Saturday. A friend of mine helped me empty my storage unit out and deposit it all in my garage. So now, at least, everything we own is under our roof. We are doing pretty well on getting settled, and I'm starting to love the new house more and more. I didn't really understand how much bigger it is than the old place. At over 2100 square feet, it's 400 square feet larger, and that combined with a flowing, open floorplan makes itfeel much larger. All in all, we're very happy with the choice.

My son moved schools last Friday. We pulled him from the public magnet school he started at last month in favor of the (excellen) public school two blocks away. We decided it was best for him to start making friends in the neighborhood. So far, he's adjusting well, so that was probably the right call.

I've got a couple of more technical posts brewing, so I'll stick those under a separate cover.

Pass the shovel, please.

I'm digging out of a variety of situations this week, and have really been busier than I can recall in recent memory. I've got a bunch of fractured thoughts for this forum that I have not had the time to condense into decent entries, but I think I need to go ahead and post some of it now. If I can get back to these items later, so be it.

First. Katrina.

Oh my, oh my. My wife didn't really 'get it' when I told her before the storm hit that this was going to be very very bad. In fact, I'm sure that many folks didn't really understand the magnitude of what was about to happen. Four years ago, in the summer of 2001, FEMA conducted a study to determine what the 'worst-case' disaster scenarios in the United States were. The top three results: a terrorist attack on New York City, a Category Four or higher hurricane striking New Orleans, and a major earthquake (the 'Big One') in Southern California. That FEMA study indicated that possible casualties for the New Orleans hurricane scenario could reach 40,000. That's a lot of dead people, folks.

The threats facing New Orleans were not limited to esoteric FEMA studies, however. This National Geographic article, published October of 2004, is eerily prescient in its description of the then-hypothetical scenario of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane hitting southeast Louisiana. Reading that article now, you get the feeling that you could be reading a current news article.

So even with the knowledge that the city of New Orleans and its citizens were in mortal peril, folks still managed to not take Katrina seriously enough. Much criticism has been heaped upon FEMA and the Federal Government's response to the catastrophe, but that is only one facet of the many failures. Across the Gulf Coast, local, state and federal emergency response plans failed against the onslaught of Katrina's wind, surge, and waves. Why? Many academic papers will be written about that in the years to come.

From initial reports, the largest major failure was the lack of planning for a scenario (such as Katrina) where local authorities were completely overwhelmed in such a short time period. In the traditional emergency management scenario, everything is treated as a local problem. Local and county officials respond, then call for help from the state. When the state starts to get overwhelmed they either call for help from neighboring states or from FEMA. FEMA's role is to support local authorites with resources and expertise, but that calls for excellent communications, intelligence, and planning. Those three factors were missing in the hours and days following landfall.

I've got some more thoughts and observations, but I'm running out of time. I'm fairly certain I'll revisit this topic time and again.

In response to Katrina, my research center has successfully deployed two of our recovery programs to the impacted region. These programs were designed to assist people who suffered loss or damage of thier homes during disasters, and proved very effective in Florida during last year's active hurricane season. We've been staying very busy coordinating with agencies ranging from private associations, to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. It's satisfying work, and it's made better by the fact that my software is working well.

On a lighter note...

The scenario paintball game last weekend at Camp Blanding was a blast. I'll save some long-winded descriptions of the action for when I have more time. My Automag was wokring more like a blender than a paintgun - it was a mess. So much in fact, that I gave up on it, and played a lot of the game with my sidearms only. It was a lot of fun. This has gotten me thinking about the purchase of a new paintball gun, however. I'm leaning toward a Tippmann A-5, but I'm considering the Smart Parts Ion as well. Performance wise, both are a step forward from my older 'Mag. If I get the A-5, I'm going to splurge on the E-Grip, which would give me burst fire, full auto, and turbo modes. Personally, I think that this is my best choice for scenarioball. More on that as I make a decision.

Well, that's all the time I have.

Okay, So things haven't gone as planned

Yeah, I said I was going to be scarce this week, but I had no clue that I would be *this* scarce. Between selling/buying a house, and work's response to Hurricane Katrina, I've been swamped. I was hoping to take a half day off today to get down to Blanding, but haven't had any luck getting out of the office. I'll get caught up here after the holiday.