Steve's Current Notes

Updated: 12/11/99 06:19 PM

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Sunday, December 5, 1999

We thought we were having a good weekend until the kids and I ran into Andrew's Tae Kwon Do instructor after church today in the Chesapeake Bagel restaurant.

Tae Kwon Do requires that you attend at least 16 classes between testing cycles, which come every eight weeks. Andrew has been having trouble fitting in the necessary number of required classes, much less any additional class time, between his other extra-curricular activities and the Tae Kwon Do class schedule. Couple this with his somewhat loss of enthusiasm for the sport. The loss of enthusiasm started about a year ago this weekend when he failed to attain the black belt ranking on his first try. Then he missed again eight weeks later, then he had the green stick fracture to his arm and then finally at the next test (May) he whacked the boards and passed from a senior red belt to a probationary black belt. Then came the busy summer where he spent most of his days out of town. He finally started to get back into the swing of things this fall.

We determined last week that he had just enough classes to participate in the testing for 1st Degree Black Belt on Saturday, so off we went as a family (minus Katie who was at a Girl Scout function). Going into this test our level of confidence was not that high. Sure Andrew had enough classes. I guess we were just being cautious. In the previous tests breaking the boards had been his problem. However, he had been breaking his boards with confidence during the practice sessions. His trouble spot seemed to be more with making all of the right moves in the form or pattern.

When he was called to test, he confidently walked through his pattern and was dismissed immediately. Then came the sparring. Andrew has never liked to spar, but seems to go through the motions with confidence. I couldn't tell you if he's doing the sparring correctly or not. The kids seem to be out there having fun more than anything else, but this proved to be his trouble spot at this test. The kids normally go two three-minute rounds in sparring. Andrew was asked to step aside and then called back for a third round. I didn't catch on, because, like I said, I never knew that much about sparring. Sparring reminds me more of the Keystoen Cops or a Chinese fire drill.

And then it was time for the board breaking. Andrew confidently stepped up and broke both boards with a side-kick on his first attempt.

There was a huge sigh of relief. We assumed that he had progressed safely through the testing and would soon be awarded this First Degree Black Belt, complete with a new black belt including his rank and name embroidered on the belt.

Then we ran into Mr. Deese at the restaurant.

After the kids were seated and I was still waiting for my lunch, Mr. Deese came up to me and said, I need to call you this afternoon. I knew this could mean only one thing. I said to the instructor, "he didn't pass did he?" I knew there was no other reason he would be calling on the Sunday afternoon after testing.

Mr. Deese proceeded to tell me that his pattern was fine and of course his board breaking was great. The problem was in his sparring. He said Andrew would throw one kick and then resort to punches for the rest of round. He needed to use some combination kicks, Mr. Deese said. "I thought he might be getting tired, so I had him sit out and then come back, but he still didn't use any combinations." Mr. Deese added that he would call Andrew later that afternoon, but I knew as his father I needed to deliver the bad news. I wanted to soften Mr. Deese's blow.

My heart sank.

I sat there during lunch lost in space. I knew how disappointed Andrew would be. It was like this ton of bricks had come crashing down. One day we're walking high with confidence and then next we faced what I am sure to a seven year old seems like the end of the world. I knew his father had this big empty spot in his heart. I was already feeling the pain that was to come less than an hour later.

When we returned home I told Andrew I had some bad news. He had no idea what was coming. I told him that Mr. Deese had told me that he didn't pass the test. That his sparring was not up to grade. There was this look of shock, they eyes welled up and the tears followed. As disappointed as I was for him, there was no way I could imagine the hurt in his heart.

Mr. Deese called a few hours later and like a real trooper Andrew spoke to him on the phone. I have no idea how the conversation went. All I could hear were a few muted "Yes Sir's" from Andrew. He hung the phone up and turned to me with these big glassy eyes and sniffles.

I was dying.

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Monday,

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Tuesday, December 7, 1999

All things said, I think Wakeolda came through the switchover at pair.com yesterday very nicely. I had a couple of emails from family members with questions as to why they couldn't get to the site. They were grateful the trouble was not on their end. This was also a tell-tale sign they hadn't read last week's notes.

I checked my site early yesterday morning and was surprised that I still had connectivity until about 9 AM (0900). I continued to check throughout the day and was able to come back online around 5 PM (1700). In the meantime, the folks at pair were keeping us informed as to what was happening in the move, which I found quite interesting and read quite often during the day. This was a very aggressive move on the part of pair and I think they are to be commended that no more glitches were suffered. I have personally found out that when you are messing with computers nothing is as simple as it sounds or should be. More times than not, a hardware change I have planned on taking 10 minutes will take the better part of an hour...or sometimes the better part of a day. Seems like when you kill the power on one of these things that has been running forever, flaky things happen.

AND SPEAKING OF hardware. I think I have finally found a beta video driver for the IBM IntelliStation M Pro for Windows 2000 Professional. A driver suddenly appeared on the IBM site for the Intergraph card. It's not that good of a driver, but better than the vanilla 16 color VGA version I was forced to use. This driver is only offer the 24 bit true color option. I am sure when Windows 2000 Professional is finally released there will be a better driver to be had. It has been frustrating to say the least.

I had decided to scrap Windows 2000 Professional and reinstall Win NT 4.0 on this machine. But that wasn't as simple as it sounded either. I low level formatted the SCSI drive, set the machine to boot from the CD and popped the install CD in the machine and then my troubles started. This machine has an Adaptec 78xx SCSI controller built into the motherboard and the Win NT 4.0 install CD didn't have a driver for the adapter. At least I assumed there was no driver. You could specify the driver (the numbers even matched) from the drop down list in the install routine, but the installer would report back this hardware was not found. Frustration city. I then decided to look at IBM to see if I could find a driver diskette and that's when I saw the video driver. I then scrapped my plans to install 4.0 and brought the beta back.

The IBM is now on the network as Rubble. However, my lack of knowledge of the 2000 Professional package may lead me back to installing 4.0. As an example I must have done something incorrectly in the install because I no longer have the Administrative stuff on the tool bar. I am sure IBM must have a fatal recovery disk that would allow me to reinstall 4.0 easily and I may finally resort to taking a step back. However, for the short term I will play with 2000 Professional for a while, because I know I will eventually want to head there.

I'm going to tell on myself again here. I must have been punch drunk after the installation. After I installed 2000 and it was networking with the other machines okay I said to myself, "you've just installed NT. Run the latest service pack." So I fired up service pack 5 and then realized I must be some stupid #$^&#(^. You just installed Windows 2000 and you are trying to install a NT 4.0 service pack. Fortunately I was quick enough on my feet to cancel the service pack upgrade while it was still decompressing files.

I RECEIVED SEVERAL E-MAILS after I posted the bit Sunday about Andrew having what we thought was victory snapped away. You have been very encouraging and I appreciate your kind and supporting words.

I hope Jan Swijsen [qjsw@oce.nl] doesn't mind if I share his words here:

Tae Kwon Do is, like other contact fight sports, a matter of control and balance. Neither of which are easily acquired. While learning the basic moves and actions most lessons are skipping the interaction. Just when fighting is all about interaction. Of course the techniques must be learned, that is what the lesser belts are about. To get a black belt requires a good understanding and mastery of technique combined with initiative. A good balance of offensive and defensive attitude as well as variation and flexibility is required. To win a fight you must anticipate you opponents actions. In balance to that you must prevent him/her from anticipating yours.

It takes time, effort and perseverance to learn all these qualities. You don’t ‘get’ a black belt, you have to work for it.

Well, if it were too easy a black belt would not be worth much.

It is by losing that the true value of winning is learned. The best fighters are not those that always win, although they may think they are the best.

Life is easy?

I couldn't agree more with your words of wisdom. When "something" is hard to attain, you appreciate it that much more when you finally reach the pinnacle. To earn a black belt you have to be challenged, and actually Andrew has faced this challenge. He zoomed through the lower ranking belts, but hit a major wall when he first started to attempt to earn his probationary black belt. I really think he will appreciate the belt even more when he finally earn it because of his stumbles.

I am sure the single thing that made this stumble hard for him to swallow was that a problem with his sparring surfaced. He had never had any indication there was a sparring problem. I think I am probably repeating myself here. Anyway, when we told Andrew that Mr. Deese had said the problem was that he wasn't throwing any combination kicks, his response was: "but he had me spar against people that we bigger than me." Rationalization out of the mouths of babes.

I will admit there is a prejudice parent speaking here!

Thanks again for your kindness.

The plan now for Andrew to take a testing cycle off and maybe give it another shot this winter. The holidays would wreck havoc on trying to complete enough classes to be eligible to test at the end of this cycle, anyway. He has been mentioning wanting to try other sports. I don't look forward to him selecting baseball, which I am sure he will. Sitting out in the blazing sun watching him on a Saturday morning is not my idea of fun, but if he chooses to participate in one of those outdoor sports, we'll be there as a family in full force, I'm sure. Think of basketball Andrew. It's played inside.

I WAS ENJOYING A Day off yesterday, so Suzy and I took some time to complete some Christmas shopping. The day started as we went over her list and I decided to make was many of the purchases online as possible. UPS should be stopping at our house very soon with several boxes from Amazon.com. However, we did get in the fray a little and it looks like one of the hardest items to get this year will be the Nintendo GameBoy Color. We watched frustrated parents looking in desperation for said game device with no luck. Thankfully Andrew was ahead of the curve on this one and found the GameBoy Color under the tree last year.

It appears the Poekmon craze has caught Nintendo with their pants down. There are several Pokemon games out for the GameBoy and it appears the marketing managers didn't forecast the run Pokemon has put on these machines and GameBoys are in short supply. You'll be hearing about some fights over this one before the 25th.

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Wednesday, December 8, 1999

So now I am at a crossroads. I spoke with IBM tech support today for the IntelliStation M Pro and have made a set of installation floppies for Win NT 4.0. The one tip that he gave me when I format my drive and re-install Win NT is to specify the hardware myself and not let NT search for the components. I now also have the diskette for the Adaptec SCSI controller. I was told that my problem was starting the NT install from the CD ROM drive and allowing NT to find the SCSI device. Find everything manually was his advice and then I should also be able to install NT 4.0 with no problems.

While we were at it we talked about Windows 2000 Professional beta and video drivers for the Intergraph card. It was suggested that I use the drive on IBM's utility diskette for 4.0. Whether I use this driver or the fresh one that I downloaded over the weekend I am only getting the option for 32-bit color (I think I said 24-bit yesterday, but it's 32) and three screen sizes: 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. I am sure this will be a problem somewhere down the road. Don't like to have the options taken away.

Therefore, what's a nerd to do. Should I stick with the 2000 beta or drop back to more familiar territory? This machine is quite powerful and I eventually want to make it my main machine. Therefore, I think I should probably wait until early next year for the final 2000 release. In the meantime I guess I can migrate files and software over and then just install the new release of Windows 2000 Professional over this beta. I'll bet I perform a low level format before that time.

GOT A NOTE FROM Jan Swijsen [qjsw@oce.nl] ensuring me it was his intent for me to publish he words of wisdom and growth for Andrew. In fact, he added a few more perls (or should it be pearls), so here is today's version:

That was one of the reasons I sent them. To be shared.

Putting the emotion on (virtual) paper as you did is one way to cope with it. By bravely posting you share it. By sharing you spread the load.

It helps to put trouble into perspective. It helps others cope with their problem as well.

Share a tear and a laugh and they become a stream and a roar, pushing all obstacles away.

When posting responses to my novel on Andrew's Tae Kwon Do stumble I somehow overlooked a couple, one from Dr. Keyboard and another from his aunt.

From Dr. Keyboard, aka Chris Ward-Johnson [chriswj@mostxlnt.co.uk]:

I really felt for Andrew after reading your piece. The one thing in the world I really, really wanted to do when I was young was drive, but I failed my driving test 3 times. It wasn’t for lack of skill, I’d been driving cars, trucks and the diggers in my father’s quarry since I was 13. I failed because I didn’t do the things you have to do to pass a driving test which, as is probably the case where you live, is not designed to test your ability to drive but your ability to do what you’re told.

Tell Andrew that he will pass his test. I passed mine, and now I get to go VOOM! in my BMW every day.

Best wishes to you all.

...and from his aunt, [MNana8199@aol.com]

I know how disappointed you were that Andrew didn’t past. You are so very proud and such a good father to your children. You are always there for them. I am sure that Andrew’s little heart was just broken in half. I know that he will stand with his head high and the next time he can test will pass with flying colors. Tell him that Auntie is so very sorry but know that he is the best.

IT WAS ONLY A MATTER of time before actual Dick Tracy watches would hit the technical market. PC Magazine reports that wristwatches are in development with internet and cellular phone capabilities.

And from the sicko's. A new virus is reported to be out on the internet that will change your browser's homepage settings to porno sites on the dawn on the new century while wiping out hard drives. How is it going to change your homepage if it wipes out your hard drive? Anyway, they say the W32/Mypics.worm and is triggered by the date Jan. 1, 2000. And speaking browsers, Microsoft is supposedly ready to let you start beta testing Internet Explorer 5.5, whose main features supposedly much better and faster printing, including a print preview.

Here's a site you can not live without. Everything (NOT) that you wanted you know about the year 2000. www.everythng2000.com :-(

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Thursday December 9, 1999

Here's a spot I should think about placing on my favorites list -- The Windows 2000 Learning Center. And thanks for John Doucette [jhdoucette@home.com] for sending me a couple of tips on finding Windows 2000 Professional's Administrative Tools in the control panel. Actually I had stumbled over them there when I was changing the video driver. John also passed along a tip that I hadn't yet discovered, placing the tools on the start menu, right where they were in Win NT 4.0:

To make the administrative tools in Windows 2000 show up under programs do the following.

Start > Settings > Taskbar & Start Menu ... > Advanced - under Start Menu

Settings select Display Administrative Tools

Many thanks, John.

I am going to jinx myself by putting this line in my notes, but, what they hell, here goes. Is it me or is maybe my link to the server at pair faster after the move. At least I am hoping it is not me. My updates seem to go faster since there move and for the last two updates I haven't gotten that nasty bounce back message that my page didn't update when it actually did. Now that I have said this, I'll get the idiot message when I publish this page. Should leave well enough alone.

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Friday

Saturday, December 11, 1999

It's hard to believe Christmas is just two weeks away. Excitement is in the air in our household, especially with one certain 7-year old (Andrew). In fact, I believe he may be more excited about Christmas this year than any other I can remember.

We're pretty much ready for the big day in our house, expect for the decorating, wrapping, etc. That's pretty much everything isn't it? I guess that means the shopping is somewhat done...now let the bills start arriving :-(.

To get into the Christmas spirit, we spent the evening having pizza and watching a movie with a friend. The evening also included take a ride to look at some of the home decorations in our immediate area. These decorations are in both extremes. Some house have none and some look like like a commercial establishment. It does appear, however, that icicles (the electric light kind) are again popular.

However, it's still unseasonably warm here. We've had a few cool nights and mornings, but for the most part it's been in the 60's. High tempartures in mid-December should be somewhere around 40 or 50. We'll take these days and hope we do not have to pay later!

YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE how much old antiquated computer equipment I have. I am such a pack rat that I don't think I ever throw anything away. As an example I can see at least a half dozen old AT cases, most with some sort of 386 motherboard still attached, I suppose. I probably have about the same number of monitors if I include VGA and monochrome and then another closet full of paddle I/O cards. When looking for something else today I found a box full of old 10 and 20 meg hard drives, er, make that two boxes. One box had a handful of 3.5 inch floppies that I have no idea whether they work or not. What I really need to do is see if someone like the Boston Computer Exchange or whatever the name of the place is, would take some of these antiques off my hand. Heck, I think I may even still have a 300 baud modem in the closet. I know I have a 2400 baud and 14,400 baud version. Some of the hard drives seems like they weight 10 pounds. These are the 5.25 inch babies that look like they might be triple height. I should pull some of the stuff out and take some photos and post them on my site. I even ran across some Winchester controller cards with cables attached.

I HAVE STARTED PLAYING around with redirection for the notes page. Everything seemed to work ok (took me a while to remember how to turn on redirection) and except for leaving out the subdirectory on the path of the redirection it would have worked well the first time out of the box. Now I have to go in and fix the day of the week book marks. I hope I won't have to do this every week. That would be enough to make me go back to the old way of doing things with the main notes page being current_notes.htm.

Before I got a chance to play with this malfunction I received the following from Dan Bowman [DanBowman@worldnet.att.net]

<snip>
...and I see that you have your re-director page up and running (<sigh>; my turn tonight).

It's working a little too well perhaps: when I hit any of your "daily" links, they throw me to the re-director.

I REALLY WASN'T SURPRISED to learn that PC Magazine had given their Editor's Choice to Yahoo when they reviewed Search Engines earlier this year.

Like most, I'm sure, I started out on the net using Yahoo, but then for some reason I migrated over to AltaVista. I also used NorthernLight every once in a while, but I am bothered with the returns they want to charge you for. I believe all information on the internet should be free of charge. Recently I have been using All The Web, but I keep going back to AltaVista, which wasn't on the top of PC Magazine's list. I would have said that maybe I should take another look at Yahoo, but then I realized that PC Magazine didn't include AltaVista on their scorecard, which in my opinion is a big mistake. I also use AskJeeves quite a bit when I post my search in the form of a question.

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