Geezer

There are 380 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 30 of 38).

To My Third Grade Class

It’s posts like this that make me wonder what it would be like to be a teacher:

To My Third Grade Class
We have 30 days left together. You don’t realize this yet – You are just eight years old and the only thing you count down to is Christmas. You are living for Soccer at recess, Spelling games, and Art on Fridays. You live for computer class free time and the moment you can multiply 6×7. That’s one one of my favorite things about you- you are too busy filling up today to worry about tomorrow.

This was written by an online acquaintance whom I’ve never really met but I read her blog because I love her writing. The post also reminds me of how quickly our own kids are growing, and how fleeting childhood (and life) really is.

Walter Breuing, world’s oldest man

I salute the late Mr. Breuing. What an amazing life he lived – all 114 years of it!

Walter Breuning, the world’s oldest man and second-oldest person, died Thursday. He was 114.

Breuning was born Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minn., and spent his early years in De Smet, S.D. That first decade of the 1900s was literally a dark age for his family. They had no electricity or running water. A bath for young Walter would require his mother to fetch water from the well outside and heat it on the coal-burning stove.

via Walter Breuing, world’s oldest man.

Ignoring the have-nots in a digital society

Want to use a computer? Take a number

We took the kids to the Cameron Village library last Sunday and loaded up on the kids’ books. As I usually do (being the curious sort) I took note of the crowd making use of the library’s computers. I always like to see what kind of folks are depending on the library’s computers. Like many of my visits there, I found a crowd at the computers. There wasn’t even a single workstation available.

As my kids were checking out their books, I listened as a mom and her 10-year-old son pleaded with the librarian to get a computer. I guessed that he had a school assignment he needed to complete.

“What if they’re not doing anything important – playing games or something?” the mom asked. “Could they give it up then?”

The librarian shook her head. “As long as they’ve got time left on their reservation, they can use it however they like. Now, if they get up and walk away, leaving it unattended, then you could step up and use it.”
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Free Pool of IPv4 Address Space Depleted

The Internet’s growth reached a major milestone today when its original IP address space, IPv4, assigned the last of its free addresses. That means the Internet’s growth will now depend on the new IP addresses, IPv6.

IPv4 provided for a mere 4 billion (or 4,000,000,000) addresses. The new IPv6 provides for 340 undecillion (or 3,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) addresses. Hopefully that will last us for a while!

The Number Resource Organization NRO announced today that the free pool of available IPv4 addresses is now fully depleted. On Monday, January 31, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA allocated two blocks of IPv4 address space to APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry RIR for the Asia Pacific region, which triggered a global policy to allocate the remaining IANA pool equally between the five RIRs. Today IANA allocated those blocks. This means that there are no longer any IPv4 addresses available for allocation from the IANA to the five RIRs.

via Free Pool of IPv4 Address Space Depleted | The Number Resource Organization.

Highlights of 2010: Gerry

Gerry Reid

Gerry Reid

This is the entry that I’ve been dreading to write because it’s anything but a highlight. Amazing how busy I can make myself with other things when there’s something I don’t want to do.

March 2010 was when my good friend Gerry Reid passed away. He was one of my closest friends, more like a brother, even. They say a good friend is one you’d be willing to hide from the cops. They say a great friend is one who wakes up in jail with you the next day and says “wasn’t that great?” That describes Gerry perfectly.

The man was so full of life. Fearless and intensely curious. He was a best listener of anyone I’ve ever met. His way of striking up conversations with random people on the street is legendary. You could talk to him about anything and he could relate and offer sage advice.
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Highlights of 2010: changing jobs

The year 2010 was special in one very important way: I landed my dream job. It rescued me just in time from the slowly maddening existence I had at my last job.

First off, let me say that the company I used to work at wasn’t all bad. In fact, it’s one of the top-ranked places to work in the country. There were bagels and fruit on weekday mornings and beer Friday afternoons. The benefits were good, too. All of that would’ve been great had I not been in the department I was in, where sweatshop-like schedules were the norm.
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Inaugural address of John F. Kennedy

Fifty years ago today, almost to the minute, John F. Kennedy was wrapping up his famous inaugural speech. I listened to it again today and it still inspires.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy delivered his only inaugural address at 12:51 (ET) Friday, January 20, 1961, immediately after taking the presidential oath of office administered by Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Kennedy began his speech at 12:51 (ET) Friday, 20 January 1961, immediately after taking the presidential oath of office.

The address is 1364 words and took 13 minutes and 59 seconds to deliver, from the first word to the last word, not including applause at the end, making it the fourth-shortest inaugural address ever delivered. It is widely considered to be among the best presidential inauguration speeches in American history.

via Inaugural address of John F. Kennedy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Desert Storm 20 years later

USS Elliot (DD-967) in North Arabian Gulf, circa 1998


Sunday was the 20th anniversary of the start of Operation Desert Storm. Hard to believe it’s been that long.

When Desert Storm started, I was in the Navy and spending a week in training at NSGA Imperial Beach, which was far closer to vacation than war. My ship, the USS Elliot (DD-967), had just come out of the yards for long-needed maintenance so the ship was pierside at the time and the crew was taking advantage of the time ashore to do some training. Like a lot of Americans, my experience of the fighting came from CNN, though I had the advantage of being able to read classified intelligence reports as the war raged.
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Highlights of 2010: politics

The year 2010 was one full of more political stuff for me, and by that I mean the stuff outside of my Parks board and East CAC activities. With these two Raleigh civic activities I do my best not to lobby or persuade for one decision or another. I simply try my best to represent my “constituents.” There were a few notable legislative issues where I was an active proponent or opponent last year: all of them above the city level.

First up was a trip to Washington, DC to the Clean Energy, Jobs, and Security Forum as part of the Operation Free group of veterans who are pushing for changes in America’s energy policy. In January I flew into DC with other vets for a day of media training. I spent the following day in the Dirksen Senate building, starting off with speeches by Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other leading clean-energy advocates.
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