sean's place

Update – Dish Network

I’m happy to report that my Dish Network service is functioning again! A few days after my prior post, one of the guys from the prior repair team came out. He pulled my ViP 622 receiver and replaced it with a ViP 722 (free upgrade). He also replaced the diplexers and separators. It’s been going strong for 3 weeks now.

I hope this is the end of the road with these problems. I’m not sure what I’d do without the 3 hours of House I record every day or Galactica Friday.

After the Dish Network guy left, I went out and picked up a new wire fish and some other pieces and parts to install my DTV Antenna in the attic. After all, the Dish tech had to get into the coax distribution wall (I would like to, some day, call it a “distribution panel”) in order to replace the diplexer. Might as well make use of it while it was open…

I strung a fresh line of RG-6 (which also what’s run through my house) from the wall-to-be-panel into the attic and attached my antenna to one of the beams. The Dish receiver can mux satellite input and DTV input (and record off the air). I’m hoping that some of the stations in Denver (I’m looking at you KUSA) are not broadcasting at full strength now, because signal acquisition is uncharacteristically spotty (some Denver channels come in fine, though).

That brings me to a final mini-rant, I disagree with the position taken by the Democratic congress to extend the DTV transition date. I like that they softened the date (in that they did not require continuous analog transmission to continue past 17 February), but I think that pushing out the mandatory cut-off will just delay the inevitable pain when the mandatory cut-off does come. I think that, with a big dose of confusion and additional cost in marketing, will outweigh any gains in transition uptake.

That’s all for now folks.

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Dish Network Receiver Failure?

I have another Dish Network appointment scheduled. This is the 3rd in the last month (or two) or so.

In late November, I inexplicably lost all signal. I had a guy come out and replace the LNB on my Dish and all was well again.

In mid-December, I again lost all signal one morning and it was back in the evening. I lost it again for longer period the next day. Another technician came out and replaced the “barrel” (that’s tech slang for a coax coupler) with a “high-frequency” model and all was well again.

That is, until today.

I lost signal this morning and ‘lo and behold, it was back this afternoon. I lost it again tonight. The last time the techs were here, they pulled perfect signal out of the wall plate. Unfortunately, whatever they did fixed my receiver. To their credit, they didn’t think it was fixed either, but they couldn’t justify a receiver replacement until it went out again (because they actually did something — replaced the barrel).

This is when the red flag went off in my head that it might be my receiver. You see, the receiver has a handy signal measurement tool in its menu. It registered a strong signal level from the 110 satellite despite its connection to the Dish antenna being unplugged.

I called into Dish tonight and got “Ashley” (with a detectable Indian accent) who ran me through every painstaking step of the script — the very same script I’ve been through twice before. I wish Dish Network would be a bit more proactive in training their reps and had her just schedule a truck roll without having me bother running through the steps again. It would have been even better if she had looked at the account notes and been able to setup an advance receiver replacement.

Oh well. The last guy left his business card, so I’ll be giving him a call tomorrow. Maybe he can save us all the hassle.

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A Tale of Two Saturdays

The longest Saturday I can remember just came to a close. It all started with the 0738 beep of my alarm to rouse me from a very restful sleep. By 0810, I was showered, dressed, and driving to breakfast.

0830 – Breakfast at McCoy’s with Myles, Kim, David, and Shane. I had the breakfast enchilada.

I think breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I just love breakfast food, I love breakfast conversation, and I love coffee. This morning was no different. There was good food, amicable banter, and the carafe of coffee kept magically getting refilled. If I could describe heaven, it would certainly be in terms of hash browns and coffee.

At breakfast, we decided on the plan for the day. Myles and I would drive Shane back to the airport for his return flight to Seattle. Kim and David would enjoy the sites and sounds of Fort Collins while we made the 120 mile round-trip. After breakfast, around 1000, we executed the plan. Upon our return from the airport, we would take a (as yet undetermined length) bike ride around Fort Collins then trek down to Colorado Springs to visit with David’s parents who were coincidentally also visiting the Centennial State.

As a bit of background: Myles, Kim, and I were graced for the New Years holiday by our good friends David and Shane. They hail from Los Angeles (Van Nuys), CA and Seattle (Bellevue), WA respectively.

The plan went flawlessly. Shane was safely delivered to the East Terminal of Denver International Airport and the bike ride commenced at 1300. We did several (Myles says 4) miles up and down the Cathy Fromme Prairie trail. It turned out to be perfect (if not a little chilly) riding weather; and I got to try out my new cycling jacket. After weeks of inconsistent activity and several days of “poor” dietary choices, my body very much welcomed the ride.

We made for lunch at around 1500 at Cafe Athens. Yum. By 1600, we were on the road for The Springs.

We allocated 3 hours for the drive, just in case. Figuring we had some time, we made a stop at the Microcenter in the Denver Tech Center. We spent 30 minutes oogling computer parts and high-definition TV’s before setting out again. This is when we started getting off the rails — seriously.

The plan was to visit with David’s family and then leave him down there, so he could have more time. We would return to Fort Collins, and David would eventually return to LA when he was ready. So, we drove 2 cars from Fort Collins. As a bit of additional backstory: David drove his car from LA to Colorado. Kim joined David in his car for the trip, and I rode with Myles.

Along I-25 South, just below the Tech Center, we ran into a rather unfortunate sounding sign: “EXPECT LONG DELAYS.” It turns out, they were quite serious.

Myles, deft in hand and in mind, quickly pressed the detour button on his GPS navigation device. Within seconds, we were exiting the freeway to make a crazy-looking detour. We jumped off of I-25 south onto the city streets in Denver, found our way to E-470 North (which really travels West), caught up with Highway 83 South up through Parker. The windshield wiper blades on the Bostwick Honda were smearing road grime to the point of total blindness, so we stopped at an Autozone in Parker to pick up and install new blades. We continued along Highway 83 to Highway 86 through Castle Rock on our way back to I-25. The detour was an extra ~25ish miles.

At this point, Myles and I were running a good hour late. We communicated, via text message, to our co-travelers in the other car that we would be pretty late. As we’re about to turn onto I-25 South, I get a call from David that I’ll paraphrase:

Sean> Yep, we’re in Castle Rock.

David> You’re in Castle Rock already!?

As it happens, the “EXPECT LONG DELAYS” was quite accurate. By this point, we had gained 20 miles on David and Kim.

The next message I got from David:

David> 25 MOVING?

It turns out that the combination of snow, ice, and some unusually parked cars stalled out I-25 South for an hour just below Denver. By the time Myles and I arrived at our destination, Phantom Canyon Brewing and 40 minutes late, we had gained about 36 miles on our friends. This after a 25 mile detour and stop for wiper blades.

Staggered meals and beer ensued. In addition, good conversation was had by all. I got to meet David’s grandmother and chat again with David’s parents. I also had a pretty good bit of pot roast.

We made our goodbyes and well-wishes at around 2230 and began our return trip through blowing snow, ice, and snowpack along I-25 North — luckily, to no appreciable delays.

We arrived back in Fort Collins, safe and sound, at around 0030 Sunday and I made it home around 0045. Indeed a good day: good friends, good times, and a good amount of travel.

With that, good night.

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The Family is Here

We’re testing out the practical limits of human storage at my townhouse today. My parents and brother all arrived here in Colorado yesterday to hang out and do a little early family Thanksgiving.

So far so good.

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A Tale in Customer Service

A few months ago, I purchased 2 MinkaAire Concept I ceiling fans from The Light Center in Fort Collins. Recently, I’ve been noticing that one of those fans has been making a very irregular and annoying hum/whine as the motor runs.

So, I called The Light Center to ask what to do about it. Do you know what they did?

They sent out a repairman today to look at the fan. After inspecting the fan and hearing the problem, he went back out to his truck and pulled out a replacement unit. Instead of just replacing the unit for me, he took down the old unit and installed the new one — all free of charge.

That’s customer service. Kudos to The Light Center. You can expect more business from me in the future.

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IPv6

I’ve started to play around again with IPv6; this time with tunnels from Hurricane Electric!

My setup includes 2 tunnels: one tunnel from the LAX tunnel server with a /48 to my home networks. The other tunnel terminates in Chicago and is for my colocated server down in Morrison. I’m looking forward to the day when I can get native IPv6 down the wire from both my ISPs.

As I learn more and experiment with IPv6 (will hopefully have full dual-stack networks at home soon), I’m becoming more and more convinced that IPv6 is the Linux of this decade. It has the hallmarks: it’s new (but not too new), it’s challenging to learn and implement, and it’s more or less targeted at a niche community trying to build it out towards critical mass. Moreover, there are no immediate rewards (short of the know-how) to setting it up.

I really have to give kudos to Hurricane Electric for evangelizing as they do. They’re helping to enable a whole new generation of the internet — free of such perversions like NAT and rich with address space for anything and everything you can conceive of. Cheers.

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Running for Congress a Privilege

As many know, I’m a supporter and off-and-on volunteer for Betsy Markey’s campaign for Congress for the 4th District in Colorado. As the people of the 4th District know, both campaigns for the 4th District seat have taken a decidedly negative tone. So negative, in fact, that the local newspaper (Fort Collins Coloradoan) refused to endorse either candidate until they came clean about their advertising.

Today, in the opinion section, the Coloradoan posted a soapbox written by Mrs. Markey that I thought was well written. It was reflective, constructively critical (mostly of her opponent and her opponent’s continued attacks on her business),  and optimistic for the future:

My mother was a Catholic and a Republican.

She raised seven children, kept up with the stock market, helped me buy my first condo and set up the books in our first business.

I talk about fiscal responsibility on the campaign trail because it was a value instilled in me by my mother from the time I started baby-sitting for spending change.

Read more »

I encourage you to read the rest of the letter. It’s really very good.

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Network Reorganization

(warning, below contains palpable geekery and some thinking aloud. proceed with caution)

As I become more network aware (filling in the blanks with my Cisco course), I’m starting to rethink how my network at home is structured. Specifically, these things concern me:

1. Uncontrolled devices. These are devices that need internet access but no resources on my private network, but live on my private network anyway. These devices include my Dish DVR, the Wii, the VoIP ATA, and “unknown” wireless clients (guests, et. al).
2. Internet-only public network hosts. So far, I only have 1 of these. It’s my backup name and mail server. It lives on the public internet (it has a public and routable IP) primarily and aside from a NFS mount to my file server, requires no private network access.

So far, I am making progress towards segregating these devices. I plan on creating 4 VLANs (I already have 3 of these setup):

1. The “red” network. My private network; my workstations and development servers go here.
2. The “green” network. This is the public internet-facing network.
3. The “yellow” network. This is a mirror for the “green” network and serves up content between “green” servers on a private subnet and away from prying eyes.
4. The “blue” network. This network is for uncontrolled devices. It lives in RFC1918 space and has access to the internet and to each other, but never the “red” network (exception in the next sentence). Conversely, the “red” network should be able to see and access the “blue” network for configuring devices on it.

I need a router with a relatively sophisticated packet filter to make the blue network possible. I’m thinking about picking up a late-model Cisco on eBay or something, so I can set this up and toy with IOS. We’ll see. I’d also like a wireless access point that’s intelligent enough to tag packets onto the “red” network from specific devices and onto the “blue” network otherwise. That might be wishful thinking.

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“The Plan” Update

I’m back from Clovis. I’m afraid that Blue Pride failed to seduce me into a repeat of my gluttonous ways of old. My two trips to Blue Pride yielded 2 Clif Bars and 2 bananas. To make matters worse (read: better), I made sure to get a 30 minute cardio workout in every morning of my stay before work at the hotel gym. I think Colorado may have broken my “prosperous” spirit.

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The Plan

Did you know that Colorado has the lowest obesity rate of any state in the nation, hovering around 18-19%? It’s easy to see why.

I, for one, became much more active in the months and now year since moving here from California. I’ve been riding my bike to work most days and enjoying the lovely outdoors we have here. I’ve also, probably with the help of my bicycle and a more sensible diet, have put off around 30 pounds.

I’ve hit a weight loss plateau as of late, but I’ve felt myself continuing to get trimmer. It’s really a remarkable thing.

Now, if I may be facetious for just a moment, it’s all about to come to a crashing halt. I am flying out to Clovis next week, at which point, I shall subject myself to the buttery and greasy missives of our chefs at the Blue Pride Cafe. I imagine I’ll come back having found those 30 pounds.

Or not.

Posted in Silly Stuff, Travel, Work | 2 Comments »