New Office...temporarily....

The last few weeks have been buzzing with activity...not so much buzzing as sputtering...and coughing and wheezing.. Yeah, the last couple of weeks were pathetic and grim...

North on the Fourth
4th of July went quietly, except for the occasional pops and whizzes, which sent the dogs scampering for shelter - Jada under the computer desk and Lily under the kitchen table. The cat was aware of the noise and greeted it with the appropriate level of enthusiasm befitting a cat -- she licked herself and then sat on the top of the computer chair and napped.

Kris and I had dinner at Tacos Juanita on Thursday. It was lovely. On the fourth, we had something tasty, I just can't remember what it was. Saturday, we had a picnic in Chippewa Falls; Irvine Park. Kris got Fried Fish from her favorite place in Chippewa -- Bresina's. It was nice and cool and breezy. The fish was hot, crispy and tasty. The cat greeted it with the appropriate level of enthusiasm befitting a cat - she licked herself.

Later that evening, Kris decided she need more Hot and Sour Soup for supper, so she phoned in an order and I went to pick it up. On my way home, I stopped off at Taco Hell for there quite tasty grilled chicken stuft Burrito.

I don't know how to explain it, but I'll try. Its like a chicken quesedilla with rice, refried beans, and queso dip cheese. only wrapped and closed up on both ends like a burrito that has no where else to go. Then they toss it on the grill and brown both sides. Its one of the precious few things on their menu that doesn't make me sick. And its actually quite good. Sometimes
I order a very cold Dr. Pepper. Hmmmmm, yeah.

Bottle Sheep Doon...
Jacob and I went to this year's Battleship Down airsoft game at ABZ. Unfortunately, the game was a victim of being undermanned. Fortunately, like the greedy airsoft addicts that ABZ players are, we postponed the BSD game and just had a regular game. It was alot of fun and Jacob enjoyed himself.

I played through most of the game, but when Jake's battery went down, I gave him my rifle to let him finish. He was having a ball and was a little disappointed when it was over. Then we made a hasty retreat to Augusta for dinner at "Teps," an old style drive in place that serves your regular fast food items, but also a few nontraditional things like a steak or ribs. Excelletn food, though - Jacob ate a burger that was almost too big for him, and I ate a very tasty Homemade Corndog....hmmmm. They also make homemade root beer and have a soft serve ice cream machine.

I managed to pick up a new JG G36c, which was immediately upgraded to a G36E and is awaiting a few parts to enhance its blatant awesomeness. I will be posting pics later if I can, but currently, the AEG portion of my new Hk collection is almost complete.

7th floor office
when we prepare the individual wireless modules for installation, we have to do something called provisioning - setting up the wireless antenna, detecting it on the wireless network, and giving it access to the network. From there, the installer installs the antenna and enters the user's credentials, allowing the wireless system to assign them an IP and giving them access tot he internet. The idea being the installer would simply have to point the antenna and connect up once the user provided their Credentials.

In order to provision the wireless subscriber modules (SM), I must have a reasonably clear line of sight from my location to the tower (the tower? Rapunzel...Rapunzel...). Previously we had done this by removing the metallic tint coating from an office window with a line of sight to our tower. Then I would connect the module to the power, detect it on the Network, and assign it rights to access the network

This was done in the Fall and Winter, so the tree line that somewhat obstructs the view was not an issue. In the middle of the summer, these trees are in full bloom, with a most beautiful layering of leaves and young branches, which feisty little squirrels bound from tree to tree in a spectacular display of nature and beauty... They completely cover our line of sight, thus meaning no signal. Bad.

Now the way the system works is Our Internet connection travels up tot he roof to our Uplink module. This transmits a wireless radio signal to our tower, which then shares the connection via 4 Access Points (AP). When a customer connects, the connection bounces from his computer, up an Ethernet cable to the wireless module and out via an antenna. The signal then travels to the Access Point, which then beams his request 4 miles away to our Uplink, then down to our authentication server and back out.... Yeah, tiring.

So to have some gorgeous trees standing right int he way of that process you can imagine the trouble thrown into the mix. We can't have the trees trimmed as they belong to the city. Second problem is that even if we do go to an area which has a line of sight to the tower, we then have to have access to our network to provision the units. Third problem making matters worse is that the modules would be needed fairly soon.

I spent the weekend thinking about the problem, already having an idea, but not quite sure if it would work. I would haul all of the gear up to the roof, establish a wifi AP into our network using our Linksys Router, then build a mount to hold the antenna so that I could set the antenna down, point it and then provision the module on a laptop. The only thing remaining was powering the module and finding a place to work.

A little sneak and peak revealed I could utilize an outdoor power plug and would simply need an extension cord. To work, I would use our folding work table. I borrowed a chair from the 7th floor storage area and had my office. The final step was fabricating a mount for the Module's Antenna. I used two old 2x4 piece we had, a Mounting bracket and heavy duty drywall screws. After about 20 minutes, I had a everything mounted.

I wasn't able to provision all 20 of the modules due to rain interrupting me. I also had bouts with wireless signal loss, resulting in me having to call it quits. Finally, the laptop battery was in its final stages of conking out, so I had to quickly move everything back out of the oncoming storm. Out of the entire lot, the only thing that wasn't waterproof was the laptop and I wasn't about to push it when the battery was kicking out.

I managed to finish 8 out of the initial 12 I took up there. I plan to finish the remaining four and then leave the remaining 8 as-is for now. Still, I got myself a nice office with a spectacular view of the river. I am definitely brining a camera next time I go up, which may be in a day or two.

New Games
Yeah, I've been picking up some classics from Amazon. I bought a second copy of UT2k4 for Jacobs ($12 shipped); at Ben's advice, Act of War ($4 shipped); and for Gamecube, Hitman 2.

UT2k4 I already have a copy of, but decided to get a second so Jacob could play - damned Licensing. I thought about using a key generator as I had done with UT2K3, which did not come with a key - the rotten bastards. But as cheap as it was, I decided to splurge. I installed it onto jacob's machine by sharing my computer's DVD drive. The installation was successful!

Act of War - I really wanted to like this game, but immediately out of the box, I had to upgrade my graphics card driver. As soon as that happened I booted and the game lags horribly. My system nearly doubles the spec required on the game, so it should run fine. Even on the lowest detail setting, the game sucks. I am very disappointed. IT looks cool, so I'll have to wait until my next system is operational to even play it.

Hitman 2 - I loved the first game, even though I beat it all in one night - the first night Ben had it, I might add. :D I had wanted a copy of the sequel when I got my Gamecube and found out it was out. But I could never find a copy when I had money. I picked this one up from Game Star ( locally) for $12. Awesome find in awesome condition!

Nice!