Mark Wilkinson

Miranda Fern Ley - Historic Costumes

2007-09-03T01:10:00.000-05:00

The co-worker who introduced me to Pete (from the band Pete Simple), is Miranda Ley. In her spare time, Miranda creates historically accurate clothing. Think of the Texas Renaissance Festival, Dickens on the Strand, or theatrical productions, and you'll be in the ball-park of the type of work Miranda creates.

Her website, mirandafern.com, can put you in touch with Miranda. I'll be attending the TRF at some point this year, and I'll definitly be looking for Miranda. She said she'll be there every weekend. Apparently, it's one of her favorite times of the year.

If you're interested in her work, you should consider attending the TRF or Dickens. If you can't make it to those events, you can always visit her website. If all else fails, let me know. I see her every day at work...

Pete Simple

2007-09-03T00:57:00.000-05:00

I have a co-worker who showed me her boyfriend's website. He's a member of a band called Pete Simple. I've heard a few of the songs on the website, and liked the song called "Here". I wasn't fond of the beat-box on several other songs, but I've heard the beat-box is no longer with the band.

If you listen to the songs on their site, you should understand Pete Simple is a part-time band. The members can't afford to pursue their passion full-time. Check out the site, and let me know what you think. I'll pass on any constructive comments or criticisms...

New Texas Laws Starting September 2007

2007-09-03T00:50:00.000-05:00

By now, you've probably heard of all the new laws going into effect on September 1st, 2007. Most news organizations pull a few of the laws out, and tell you about them.

I've always found it interesting to see all of the laws going on the books. Many times, there are several additional laws affecting my life. Here are a few laws I have not seen listed by the news organizations which are somehow related to my life:

Red light cameras must have warning signs posted within 100 feet of the intersection.
Commercial vehicles restricted from parking in sub-divisions are now prevented from parking on adjacent streets to the sub-division.

There are many others, but it's getting late, and I'd rather just give you the link to read any that might apply to you. Remember, what's important to some, are not important to others. Don't think you have the full story by hearing it on the sound-byte referred to as news.

Here you go: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?LegSess=80R&ID=effectivesept1

Site Crash

2007-09-03T00:47:00.001-05:00

Wouldn't you know it, I had a hard drive crash. When I went to retrieve my backup, I found backups made for a friend, a neighbor, my wife, but not my own! I did manage to find my header graphics, and blogger made it simple to re-publish my site. My main loss was time, and the photos and files I linked to in my blog.

Oh well, it's not the first time I've lost everything, and I'm sure it's not the last. Now, all I have to do is find out where I stored my backup... I know it's around here somewhere!

Router and firewall troubleshooting

2007-07-02T14:28:00.000-05:00

There are many items to look for when troubleshooting router issues. The best tool for troubleshooting is to use a network sniffer like www.wireshark.org to determine where information is being routed to, versus thinking the configuration is actually correct.

If you see the router passing data through the firewall, then you know your firewall is configured correctly. If the firewall blocks the routed packets, then you have some additional troubleshooting to perform.

Just remember, that when you troubleshoot routers and firewalls, you must look at each router in the path, verify traffic is passing through the firewall, and you have the proper tools and knowledge to correctly troubleshoot your router and firewall.

Yo Gentlemont

2007-05-18T17:17:00.001-05:00

I work with Lamont, and he has a site at www.gentlemont.net... go check it out right now!

Tri-Cities Mortgage Loan Officer: Carol Bevers

2007-03-13T13:18:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine just created her webpage, so I thought I would let the world know about it.

Carol Bevers provides commercial and residential loans for the Houston, Baytown, and surrounding areas. She is licensed to provide loans anywhere in the state of Texas. So if you are looking for a loan, check out her site at https://www.cdbeversloans.com. You can pre-qualify for the loan and she will always give you the best rate.

Mardi Gras 2007 Parade

2007-03-06T17:12:00.000-06:00

Jared participated in the Galveston Mardi Gras parade. He's the one in the jester hat. Click the player below to view this clip online (thanks, youtube). If you would like to save a copy for yourself, right-click here and save the video to your computer (12MB).

Peanut Butter and Jelly Song

2007-02-02T16:00:00.000-06:00

I remember singing a version of this song as a kid. For some unknown reason, I started singing it again the other day... I didn't think much about it until I ran across this version on the internet today. I had to share it with the rest of the world, so here you go: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Song...

Click Here

JC's Wanderlodge Motor Home

2006-10-27T15:49:00.000-05:00

Here are the pictures of JC Wilkinson's 1978 36 ft Bluebird Wanderlodge motor home with a 3208 Caterpillar diesel V8 engine & 4-speed Allison automatic transmission. The generator is a 15kW gas powered. It has power steering, airbrakes, aluminum wheels and good tires. It also has a built-in combination safe. It has been driven all around the United States for the last few years. There are 16 pictures total (including a 12' trailer). Contact JC if you want more information, or fill out the contact me form on this page to talk to me.

Front view of Bluebird

Side view with awning

Another front view

Rear view

Gas generator (15000 watts)

View from front door looking towards driver's seat. Two couches are used as twin beds and are comfortable for adults. Driver's side couch has built-in cabinet with storage behind driver's seat. Other side has cabinet at foot of couch and has storage.

View from driver's seat showing couches and looks to the back of the RV.

View of kitchen with sink and microwave. The stove is on the right of the sink. It has four burners and an oven. Across from the sink is where the table goes. It can also be a bed. We used it for storage while at craft shows.

Looking from front, left side shows table space, right side the kitchen.

Bathroom has under sink cabinets, a new toilet, three mirrors and medicine cabinet storage

Sink with storage cubes. Window opens for ventilation. Cubes are easily removed.

View of kitchen from back of trailer shows big table at door, closer to the front of the picture shows where additional cubes were placed for storage. This was originally another small table, but is perfect to install a closet.

View of kitchen from back showing all automatic gas/electric refridgerator with wooden door. Ice maker (not connected) is in lower left corner.

Picture of both twin beds with stand for TV in the middle. Storage underneath beds and cabinets overhead. For Queen bed put plywood across the width of RV.

Better view of single bed.

Side view of trailer

Side view of trailer

Spammers are Morons

2006-10-24T14:58:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know.... tell you something you don't know.

This is more of a rant than anything. I provide a quick contact form to communicate with me without providing my email address for bots to illegally harvest. Due to the increase in popularity of this site, the spammers have now started using my contact form to submit spam to my email account.

There are several ways to prevent this type of spam. The best method would be to implement a graphical verification system which cannot be interpreted by the spammer without human intervention. These systems work well, and they are easy to implement, but I do not have the desire to implement this type of protection at this time.

My comment related to this type of spam is simply to ask the spammer what they expect to achieve by spamming my account in this way. Obviously there is money involved in annoying the general populous, and one spammer even attempted to relay from my contact form. Such tactics do not work, and they simply waste everyone's time.

Played as a game of tag, I can create a quick filter to prevent the spammers from submitting information through my form. This process takes less than a minute to filter anything I find inappropriate. The spammers can attempt to circumvent my filters, but it certainly takes more time to verify the spam was accepted than it does for me to filter it out. In the end, I win!

The best part of this type of anti-spam process is the wasted time (manual tar-pitting if you will) spammers consume trying to send a single spam message to little ol' me... I'll bet there are much easier methods to make a buck. Standing on a street corner with a bucket would produce more money based on the time involved.

I will admit, I do enjoy the game a little. It becomes my own personal battle with spammers, in my own little world. The most satisfying part of the game is knowing I always have a trump card waiting to be played...

Logon problems over VPN

2006-09-23T15:49:00.000-05:00

When I set up a VPN connection using two Linksys BEFSX41 routers, and attempted a domain logon across the VPN, I received inconsistent results. Logon times were slow (over 10 minutes), the logon script would not run, and other odd errors. The logon was perfect with some accounts (most likely using a cached copy). But these slow logon times were horrible. After the logon timed out, I could still ping the other end of the VPN, and the computers on the other subnet. Name resolution worked fine, and from the other end of the VPN (the side where the domain controller resides), logon times were perfect. I could also access all the computers giving me problems from the other side of the VPN.

After searching for a resolution, and finding this as an issue for many others, no solid solutions were suggested. Some workaround solutions included creating a local user account with the same credentials. I couldn't use that as a solution, so I kept looking. I finally found a post in the Microsoft knowledge base related to the use of UDP in Kerberos logons creating slow logon times due to UDP being a non-guaranteed delivery protocol. If only Kerberos used TCP! Well, Microsoft was also kind enough to provide a solution allowing a computer to use TCP instead of UDP for Kerberos authentication to the domain.

The text of the article includes the following:
--------------------------------------------
By default, the maximum size of datagram packets for which Windows Server 2003 uses UDP is 1,465 bytes. For Windows XP and for Windows 2000, this maximum is 2,000 bytes. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is used for any datagram packet that is larger than this maximum. The maximum size of datagram packets for which UDP is used can be changed by modifying a registry key and value.

By default, Kerberos uses connectionless UDP datagram packets. Depending on a variety of factors including security identifier (SID) history and group membership, some accounts will have larger Kerberos authentication packet sizes. Depending on the virtual private network (VPN) hardware configuration, these larger packets have to be fragmented when going through a VPN. The problem is caused by fragmentation of these large UDP Kerberos packets. Because UDP is a connectionless protocol, fragmented UDP packets will be dropped if they arrive at the destination out of order.

If you change MaxPacketSize to a value of 1, you force the client to use TCP to send Kerberos traffic through the VPN tunnel. Because TCP is connection oriented, it is a more reliable means of transport across the VPN tunnel. Even if the packets are dropped, the server will re-request the missing data packet.

You can change MaxPacketSize to 1 to force the clients to use Kerberos traffic over TCP. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Start Registry Editor.2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\Kerberos\Parameters
Note If the Parameters key does not exist, create it now.3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.4. Type MaxPacketSize, and then press ENTER.5. Double-click MaxPacketSize, type 1 in the Value data box, click to select the Decimal option, and then click OK.6. Quit Registry Editor.7. Restart your computer.
--------------------------------------------
It even provides a template for using a Group Policy to apply these settings:

--------------------------------------------
CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY !!KRB_PARAMS

KEYNAME "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\Kerberos\Parameters"

POLICY !!SET_MAXPACKETSIZE
EXPLAIN !!MAXPACKETSIZE_HELP
PART !!MAXPACKETSIZE NUMERIC REQUIRED
VALUENAME "MaxPacketSize"
MIN 1 MAX 2000 DEFAULT 2000
END PART

PART !!MAXPACKETSIZE_TIP TEXT
END PART
END POLICY

POLICY !!LOGLEVEL
EXPLAIN !!LOGLEVEL_HELP
VALUENAME "LogLevel"
END POLICY
END CATEGORY

[strings]
KRB_PARAMS="Kerberos Parameters"
SET_MAXPACKETSIZE="Set MaxPacketSize"
MAXPACKETSIZE_HELP="The Windows 2000 Kerberos Authentication package is the default in Windows 2000. It coexists with challenge/response (NTLM) and is used in instances in which both a client and server can negotiate Kerberos. Request for Comments (RFC) 1510 states that when a client contacts the Key Distribution Center (KDC), it should send a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) datagram to port 88 at the KDC's IP address. The KDC should respond with a reply datagram to the sending port at thesender's IP address.\n\nWindows 2000, by default, uses UDP when the datacan be fit in packets under 2,000 bytes. Any data above this value usesTCP to carry the packets. The value of 2,000 bytes is configurable via this policy."
MAXPACKETSIZE="Bytes: "
MAXPACKETSIZE_TIP="Range is from 1 to 2000. Use 1 to force Kerberos to use TCP."
LOGLEVEL="Kerberos Event Logging"
LOGLEVEL_HELP="Windows 2000offers the capability of tracing detailed Kerberos events through the event log mechanism. You can use this information when you troubleshoot Kerberos. All Kerberos errors are logged to the System log."
--------------------------------------------

After making these changes, the logon time over the 384kbs VPN to the domain is less than 30 seconds (a great improvement over the 10 minutes or longer). The bandwidth consistently peaks throughout the logon process as expected, and the users are happier. If you are having slow logon issues over a VPN to a windows domain, I suggest giving this a try. The results are immediate, and are easier to reverse than other suggestions I've read.

Classic Guitar Backing Tracks

2006-08-23T00:14:00.000-05:00

I recently downloaded a few backing tracks for the guitar from guitarbt.com. These are some classics I know a few friends would enjoy, so I put all of them into a single data CD. The CD doesn't play in a CD player, it's a data CD! So download the .iso, and burn it to a CD using your favorite software. Then play any of the following tracks using your computer.

NOTE: I believe all of these files are free from copyright, as they have been released into the public domain. They are not original works from the artists. They are MIDI tracked files converted to .mp3 by various contributors at guitarbt.com. If you are aware of any copyright infringement, please contact me and explain how the file(s) are copyright material.

Beatles, The - All You Need Is Love - Full track without lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - All You Need Is Love - track without guitar or lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - All You Need Is Love wvocal.mp3
Beatles, The - Help - Full track minus lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - Help - Track minus guitar and lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - Help wvocal.mp3
Beatles, The - Hey Jude - Backing track without guitar or lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - Hey Jude - Full backing track without lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - Hey Jude wvocal.mp3
Beatles, The - I Saw Her Standing There - Full track without lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - I Saw Her Standing There - track without guitar and lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - I Saw Her Standing There wvocal.mp3
Beatles, The - I Want To Hold Your Hand - backing track minus guitar and lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - I Want To Hold Your Hand - Full backing track without lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - I Want To Hold Your Hand wvocal.mp3
Beatles, The - Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da - Full track without lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da - Track without guitar or lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da wvocal.mp3
Beatles, The - Yesterday - Full backing track without lead vocals.mp3
Beatles, The - Yesterday wvocal.mp3
Deep Purple - Flight Of The Rat.mp3
Deep Purple - Love Conquers All.mp3
Deep Purple - Mistreated.mp3
Deep Purple - Soldier of Fortune.mp3
Deep Purple - The Cut Runs Deep.mp3
Deep Purple - Anya (Live Version - By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Black Knight(3).mp3
Deep Purple - Black Night (2).mp3
Deep Purple - Black Night (By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Black Night.mp3
Deep Purple - Bloodsucker (By GNL).mp3
Deep Purple - Cascades I-m Not Your Lover.mp3
Deep Purple - Child In Time(2).mp3
Deep Purple - Child In Time(By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Child In Time.mp3
Deep Purple - Demons Eye(2).mp3
Deep Purple - Demons Eye.MP3
Deep Purple - Fireball (by Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Fools (Live Version - By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Gypsys Kiss(By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Highway Star (By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Highway Star(2).mp3
Deep Purple - Highway Star(3).mp3
Deep Purple - Highway Star(4).mp3
Deep Purple - Highway Star.mp3
Deep Purple - Hush.mp3
Deep Purple - Into The Fire(By GNL).mp3
Deep Purple - King Of Dreams (By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Knocking At Your Back Door(Live Version - By Avalon).mp3
Deep Purple - Knocking At Your Back Door.mp3
Deep Purple - Lazy(2).mp3
Deep Purple - Lazy(3).mp3
Deep Purple - Lazy(4).mp3
Rainbow - Anybody There(By Avalon).mp3
Rainbow - Hall Of The Mountain King(By Avalon).mp3
Rainbow - I Surrender.mp3
Rainbow - Jealous Lover (By GNL).mp3
Rainbow - Kill The King.MP3
Rainbow - Maybe Next Time.mp3
Rainbow - Power (By GNL).mp3
Rainbow - Since Youve Been Gone(2).mp3
Rainbow - Since Youve Been Gone.mp3
Rainbow - Spotlight Kid.mp3
Rainbow - Street Of Dreams(By Avalon).mp3
Rainbow - Vielleicht Das Nachste Mal (Maybe Next Time) (By Avalon).mp3
Rainbow - Weiss Heim(By Avalon).mp3
The Animals - House of the Rising Sun.mp3
The Beatles - Back In The USSR.mp3
The Beatles - Come Together.mp3
The Beatles - Day Tripper.mp3
The Beatles - Feel Fine.mp3
The Beatles - Get Back.mp3
The Beatles - Here Comes The Sun.mp3
The Beatles - Let It Be.mp3
The Beatles - Revolution.mp3
The Beatles - Something.mp3
The Beatles - Till There Was You.mp3
The Beatles - Twist And Shout.mp3
The Beatles - We Can Work It Out.mp3
The Beatles - While my guitar gently weeps.mp3
The Beatles - Yesterday.MP3

Copying a DVD made in a standalone DVD recorder

2006-08-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

FixVTS Home Page

I recently purchased a DVD recorder to copy the shows from my DVR to a separate DVD. The problem is, once you create the DVD, you cannot copy it on your PC. Well, apparently it has to do with the video format called DVD-VR. After a quick google search, I ran across a program called FixVTS which corrects the DVD-VR format and allows your PC to makes copies of the DVD. If you are having problems copying your DVD-VR disks, you may want to try this program.

Return of the Troy

2006-08-14T18:04:00.000-05:00

An old friend of mine, Troy Sedatole, stopped by to visit. The last time I saw Troy was about 3 years ago. He's doing good, and has returned to the great state of Texas. Hopefully, I'll get to see him more often, now that he's only 300 miles away.

MOVIE: Dick Pickle

2006-06-03T02:10:00.000-05:00

Here is a short trailer put together by myself and a friend. We thought it was funny, so I decided to share it with everyone. Feel free to comment about the video.

Watch Dick Pickle

Toys R Us Reads My Papers

2006-05-24T14:56:00.000-05:00

In my last semester of school, I had to write papers covering recent news events. One of the papers I wrote involved Toys R Us hiring a rival executive. In the paper, I had to offer suggestions for Toys R Us to resolve their issues and maintain or increase their market share. You can read my Toys R Us paper for more details, but I basically suggested Toys R Us should drop their Amazon.com ecommerce partnership and build a site similar to the Nickelodeon site by making it entertaining for kids.

Well, Toys R Us dropped Amazon.com for GSI Commerce, and it turns out GSI Commerce partnered with Nickelodeon created the site for The Nickelodeon Shop.

So Toys R Us must be reading my papers for ideas on how to run their company. I have other sugggestions in the paper, and I look forward to Toys R Us implementing more of my suggestions. I will add one final suggestion which was not in my original paper. Don't pay your CEO all that money, because you could hire me for the same job at half the cost! :)

Oh Oh! It's Magic...

2006-05-17T17:12:00.000-05:00

Here is a video of myself performing a little magic trick for the camera. The card is a 10 of Clubs, and I place a bottlecap on top of the card to prevent it from moving. While covered with the bottlecap, I wave my hands over the card and POOF! The 10 of Clubs is magically transformed into an Ace of Diamonds!

See if you can figure out how the trick was performed. If I get enough requests asking me how it was done, I'll consider posting a video of the solution.

I submitted this trick to a website (I forgot the website name, I don't even know if it's still around) as a unique solution to the challenge of transforming cards using no hands.

Click here to get the video.

UPDATE: I found the website. It's called CardMSG. Here is a link to my submission. Just as a warning, they offer the solution video on the site as well. So only watch the performance video if you don't want to see how it's done.

Baytown Sterling vs Clear Lake

2006-05-13T00:33:00.000-05:00

Here are the pictures I consider the best of what I took of the game. I'll post the rest of them when I get a chance. Most of the others are burry :(

My Graduation

2006-05-10T12:59:00.000-05:00

In case you couldn't make it to my Graduation, here are some goodies for you to check out. I graduated summa cum laude with a 3.93 out of 4.0 GPA. Approx 192 Business School Graduates 20 of which gradudated with honors, about 5 of those made summa cum laude (latin for "with highest praise") with a required GPA over 3.8.

If you want to read the Program, I've converted it to an Adobe PDF file. I'm listed in three places in the program: on Page 6 under the Business Bachelor's Degree, and Page 11 under Alpha Chi National College Honor Society and Beta Gamma Sigma International Honor Society. The PDF is about 2 Meg in size, so it may take some time to download. Click here for the program. If you need the acrobat reader to read the PDF file, you can get it here.

Next, I've added some pictures of the ceremony. We'll get the "official" video & pictures once they are offered. Click on the picture to see the larger version.

Graduation Ceremony Information

2006-05-08T23:36:00.000-05:00

In case you are interested... I'm graduating tomorrow. Here's all the information of how to get there. Be sure to scream when they call my name, and let me know you saw it on the website!

Here is a consolidated explaination of the information sent to me:

----------------
The graduation ceremony is Tuesday May 9th starting 7:00pm at Reliant Stadium (next to the Astrodome). The doors to Reliant Stadium will open at 5:00pm for candidates and guests.

Parking:

From Kirby Drive, turn west on Westridge, then turn onto Lantern Point. Enter at Gate 13 and park in Green Lots 28 and 29 (view the attached images of Reliant Park for the lot locations). The cost for parking will be $8 per vehicle. Walk across the bridge to Reliant Stadium. The Gallery Furniture Gate will be the entrance.

Mark's further explaination: You can get to Kirby Drive by going I-10 to 610 South, continue on 610 to 610 West (heading towards Astroworld). The Kirby exit should be on your right as you get closer to Astroworld.

Ceremony:

All candidates will be led from the stadium floor at 6:30 in preparation for the processional. Processional will be formed in two lines in the tunnels behind the stadium floor, led by the Student Marshals. The official ceremony begins at 7:00pm sharp!!!

After the Ceremony:

All candidates can meet their family and guests in the Budweiser Plaza after the recessional.
----------------
I've attached two images which were sent to me. One is the Reliant Park map. The two lots they talk about for parking is known as the Westridge Lot on the map. I think you might get better parking with less of a walk, but you'll have to take your chances for that. Crossing the bridge to Reliant Stadium shouldn't be too bad if you park close to the bridge.

The other image I've attached is the Candidate Seating. I will be in the BUS section (business). Since I'm a W, I'll be towards the back. It looks like section 129-127 would be the best locations. It looks like the closest entrance gate at the stadium is the Gallery Furniture Gate.

Bonnie & I will leave around 4:00pm to try and beat any traffic. I have to be there at 5:00pm. You can get there anywhere from 5:00 to 6:30 and not miss anything. Bonnie will be sitting in the stands while I'm getting ready.

The ceremony may take several hours. We may not get out of there until 10pm. Afterwards, we're going to Applebee's just north of I-10E on Beltway 8 (if there is time, they close at 11:00pm). It's at Beltway 8 & Wallisville (I think). Close to the place Dad dropped off the junk a month ago. Our treat! If we can't make Applebees, then it's Taco Bell... still on us!

I'll be home all day tomorrow (until 4:00pm), Bonnie will be home after 1:00pm. If you have any questions, call me or Bonnie. I'll have to turn off my phone at the stadium, but Bonnie will still have her phone.

Click on the picture for a larger version

UHCL Student Message Forum

2006-03-04T15:02:00.000-06:00

Recently, I worked to re-establish the MIS Student Organization (MISO) at the Univeristy of Houston - Clear Lake. We now have representation, and our faculty advisor provided us with the uhcl.org domain name. So we installed the phpBB message system, and created a location for UHCL students to discuss issues, classes, assignments, etc. It is our goal to allow all UHCL student organizations access to a private forum on this system to discuss their organizational issues. Currently, most student organizations at UHCL use yahoo groups to communicate. Because each group is separate, there is no collaboration area for all students to enjoy. Hopefully, this new system will allow a common location for all UHCL students to discuss issues which concern them.

Max Visits the Vet

2006-02-21T02:22:00.000-06:00

Bonnie took Max to the vet today. The vet said Max is the perfect weight, and has very little body fat. We've had Max for a little over a year, and he's gained two pounds since we got him.

But the bad news is, he has heartworms. They didn't show up last year when we had him checked, and we've had him on a preventative. The vet believes the worms had not matured during the first test, and the preventative doesn't help him once he's infected.

Heartworms are passed to dogs via mosquito bites. Once infected, a dog may show signs of fatigue, coughing, weight gain, etc. If left untreated, congestive heart failure is the result. Treatment from our vet will run $300, but how can you put a price on the friendship.

Our options are simple: We either spend the $300 and treat Max, or don't treat him and wait for him to die (life expectancy of about 5 years). So we are starting the treatment in about a month.

The treatment consists of arsenic shots to kill the worms, but the hardest part for us will be keeping Max inactive once the worms are killed. Any exersion once the worms are dead in the blood stream could result in instant death. So we'll have to find a way to keep our normally hyper-active Boston Terrier under bedrest.

The goal will be to start getting him use to the inactivity a few weeks before the shots. This way, if he won't settle down for us, we can correct the action before it kills him. We'll try and keep him in his crate most of the time. The biggest problems will be people knocking at the front door, the cat running around, and his excitement when we finally make it home.

We'll have to do this for about 6 weeks once the treatment starts. So it seems like it will be an eternity. I've read the survival rate for heartworms is around 90%, so statistically we're on the good side. But we've recently beaten the statistics on the bad side for other medical conditions, so overall we're on borrowed time.

We're expecting the best from Max, and hope everything works out fine.

The U.S. press is a bunch of whining babies!

2006-02-13T11:46:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting here watching the President's press secretary get bombarded with questions related to the Vice President's accidental shooting of another hunter while quail hunting in Corpus Christie. The press secretary, Mr. McClellan, gave his vague statement on the incident and is dodging any specifics related to the timeline of who knew what, and when. Although I don't agree with the amount of time it has taken to release the information ( the shooting occurred around 5:30pm Saturday, and the press conference started Monday around 11:30am ), but I understand why they waited until they had the full story before speaking with the press.

Had they released a quick statement saying, "the vice president shot a man", the news would have twisted the story into horrible speculation similar to the situations we saw during Katrina, Rita, the Koran flushing, etc. Instead, by the time the major news medias were aware of the incident, enough of the story was released for the news media to report it as an accidental shooting, but the victim was stable.

But to top it off, the press is whining about the way they learned about the incident. The story broke because the owner of the ranch issued a statement to a local Corpus paper. The major press is acting like a two year old because they were not immediately contacted, and allowed to break the story. And how do they throw their tantrum? By asking for such specifics related to the timeline that they could write stories calling the white house administration a bunch of dolts who do not have their act together. According to the press, immediately after the shooting, the Vice President should have contacted the White House to release a statement. However, history has shown that such actions have always backfired on this administration because of the horrible biased the media has against this administration.

I know what the story will be for the rest of the week, so I'll save you a lot of time by summarizing it right now: The Vice President shot a man, who is recovering fine, but this administration was so disconnected that the facts were not disclosed until 2 days later. Oh, and it's President Bush's fault. So save the money you would have spent on the paper, and don't bother watching the televised news.

The only suggestion I have for the press is to stop whining! You are not the only people in the world with the ability to repeat a story. In fact, you do such a poor job of repeating a story, I understand why you were the last to be informed of such an incident. If you keep up the style of mis-information you refer to as "reporting", then I have no doubts you will be left out of other breaking news reports.

Briggs Made the Sun

2006-02-07T15:39:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine, Larry Briggs, has made it in The Baytown Sun newspaper. To everyone's surprise, it's not bad news. :) In fact, he's supporting Kinky Friedman for Texas Governor. He made the paper because he's trying to spread the word about Kinky's campaign, and what voters must do to help Kinky make it on the ballot. Personally, I would like Kinky to make it on the ballot. The main issue I would support is his stance on teacher pay raises. :) I don't mind the idea of casinos in Texas either (not that I have any money to gamble).

But there are a few issues which I disagree with, but I think it will do the state a lot of good by having an independent run on the ballot. And for this election, it looks like we might have two independents! Carole Keeton Strayhorn is also preparing for an independent run. She is currently the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. She also wants an increase in teacher pay, and like I said, that is my biggest issue right now. :)