Desultory Thoughts

Last weekend a friend of mine and I went wardriving [wikipedia.org], although we didn’t actually access the open networks we found and we won’t be publishing our findings as others who do this do. The reason we did it is so that we could test out the cool GPS Visualizer [gpsvisualizer.com] website that allows you to upload a text file with GPS coordinates and convert it to a KML file that can be opened in Google Earth [earth.google.com].

We hooked up a GPS to a laptop and used NetStumbler [stumbler.net] to collect the data. The final result was a file that when opened in Google Earth gave us a detailed visual map of all the networks that we detected in our neighborhood. We could see which ones were protected and which were unprotected. Just as a point of interest, we discovered 64 access points on our short drive and 31 of them were open, meaning they had no apparent security in place. It’s possible that some were securing their network by only allowing specific MAC addresses access to their network, but I doubt that’s the case for too many.

As a side note, Google Earth made a brief appearance on Fox’s “24” [fox.com/24] TV series tonight.

I wonder if anybody else in Tooele has experienced what my wife and I have experienced at the new Home Depot. The employees don’t seem to be catching on very fast and every time we go there we have people helping us that don’t know where anything is. Still! I wrote a letter to Home Depot about my concerns. (This is what I do when I have other things that I should be doing but as the procrastinator that I am I always find something else to do.)

Dear Home Depot,

All of Tooele was quite excited at the news that we would be getting our very own Home Depot! Finally the day arrived and the doors were opened. I have already been there several times as has my wife. This leads me to my complaint.

The first time I went to the Tooele Home Depot, it had only been open for a day or two. So when I asked one of your employees where something was, it was somewhat expected (although still unacceptable) that they might not know yet. When a new restaurant is opened, they hire the employees well in advance of the opening and the servers are required to know their job on opening day. That may include memorizing the menu and being able to tell people the ingredients of a dish when asked. I would think that the same mentality would apply to a business such as yours.

Of course, it wasn’t just one incident of asking an employee where something was and having no clue, but another incident a week after and another two weeks after and another three weeks after! When will your Tooele employees know how to help us find something? Am I setting my expectations too high? Perhaps some further training is in order?

Last night my wife stopped by the store to pick up a new swamp cooler cover. We knew that you carried them because we had looked online. My wife asked an employee who evidently didn’t know 1) where they were and 2) that they were out of stock. He led my wife up and down the aisles until he finally relented and asked somebody else who then informed him that they were out-of-stock.

We’re still happy that you decided to open shop in Tooele, but we’re even more excited for the day that your employees know what they’re doing.

Tyler Slack

So we didn’t end up getting a new swamp cooler cover, but we did get some shingles to replace a patch that blew off due to extremely high winds the other day. It was my first opportunity to patch shingles on a roof. I’ve never been much of a handyman, but things have changed since I moved into a house. I surprised myself and did quite a good job if I do say so myself. I also got around to caulking the remaining baseboards and door frame in the laundry room. What I didn’t get around to is the video I’m supposed to be working on right now (due on Sunday). I guess I’ll be up really late tonight and probably up late Saturday night, too. I wonder if I’ll be able to find something else to deter me from what I should be doing? Maybe I’ll add a spell-check tool to my blog.

Ever since we moved to Tooele, we’ve been using a wireless broadband service called Wireless Beehive [wirelessbeehive.com].  We only pay $30/month for the 512 Kbps service and coupled with Vonage [vonage.com] for our home phone, we’re saving quite a bit of money.

The cool thing about Wireless Beehive is their awesome service!  We really didn’t expect much by way of service from them at all after reading their self-titled “What We Won’t do for you” document.  My favorite is number six:

6) We will probably not respond to trouble reports as soon as you wish.  All of our employees are on this system at home and we monitor it constantly.  System wide troubles are detected and resolved in what we believe to be a timely manner.  But for certain critical uses and critical users we are probably too slow.  This is the reason we do not offer a Service Level Agreement.  We only agree to give you the best service we can. Sometimes, for some people, our best is not good enough. Again, we will be happy to direct those users to our competition.

I have never had to wait more than an hour or two from a response AND immediate action from Wireless Beehive.  Based on their disclaimer, I would expect to wait days if not weeks.  But they really rock!  They have always had an answer and they are always super fast!

If you live in the Tooele area then I would highly recommend these folks.  With burst speeds up to 10.2 Mbps, built-in optional web filter (we have ours turned on and it works great!), and customer support that rivals any I’ve ever experienced, it’s worth a go!  For all the rest of you that are stuck with Comcast, Qwest or some other horrible company who say they care but could actually give a rats butt, sorry.  Be jealous.

One more thing that I thought was very funny and that I’m now borrowing from Wireless Beehive is the message I got once when I incorrectly accessed the Subscriber Module on my roof and which is now the text of my 403 page (the page you see when you access a file on my server that you don’t have permission to access).  I hope they don’t mind!

In the last seven months I haven’t seen too much by the way of nasty storms, although there have been some stronger winds than I’m used to. Last night what I’ve been waiting for finally came.

We got clobbered with more than a foot of snow! I nearly didn’t make it out of our neighborhood. The further north I drove, the better it got. When I got to Salt Lake where I work, there was nothing. The difference, as described in a Tooele Transcript Bulletin article, was not lake effect. The storm that rolled through just decided to linger over our fine city of Tooele. We’re supposed to be getting some more snow tomorrow night and into Saturday. How exciting!

The kids had fun in the snow today. They made snow angels, waded through the deep stuff and slid down the driveway on sleds. It’s the most snow Griffin or Sami have ever played in. They had fun playing with their friend, Logan. They also “helped” shovel the driveway, but the true heroes of shoveling were the Barths (our fine neighbors to the west of us) with their monster snow blower! They saved us all a lot of work.

I should note, however, that when the snowplows came by, they covered the sidewalk and the driveway again, and Heather (my awesome wife) did second clean-up.  And if you’ve ever shoveled the snowplow crud, you know it’s extra heavy.  So good job, Heather!