Recently we went to Australia, we did plenty of cool things but one of the definite highlights was going to the Tangaroa Zoo in Sydney. When we got there and it was amazing we were first in line so we got in really quickly and immediately got lost. We wanted to make to the bird show at 11 and we were in the zoo at about 10:45 so that didn't give us very much time. We rushed and ended up by the elephants but eventually we found our way to the bird show. The bird show was pretty cool we had parakeets chirping and doing tricks, hawks swooping right over our heads and a naughty owl that refused to do it's trick but eventually it was done and we had to move on. Dean soon realised that he was hungry so we had to stop to stop him from extensively complaining. After a 30 minute break we found our selves watching the gorillas, which was by far the most interesting they were fighting each other, running around and pounding there chests we spent around an hour there. we then explored all around the zoo seeing things like wombats, kangaroos, red pandas, crocodiles and even a platypus after spending the bulk of our day there (It was now about 5:30) we had to leave we really enjoyed our time there. here are some pictures of the animals. By Andrew

Auckland Skytower

Recently my family and I went on a trip to Auckland . We did many interesting things but by far the funnest was on the first day when we went to the sky tower. It was dizzying to look up at let alone look down from epecially for mum who was very tentative...

I had to hold her hand before she would really walk across the glass

panels.

But it was understandable when you see what type of  height we were at.

 

Then when we were done with the mesmerizing heights we went up one more level to the buffet where we all ate about a million deserts.

The food was nice but the views were even better. he sky tower is definitely one of the best places to go in New Zealand and maybe even one of the best places to in the world. It was awesome.

Andrew

 

They say that NZ never left the 60's...

But you! You in Wa state have legalised! What up with that?

On Democracy

After reading the outcome of the election in Venezuela, I am again struck by the comparison of democracy for that much vilified country/leader and our own in the United States.

Hugo Chavez won reelection with an 80% voter turnout, amidst an absence of reported fraud or any other measures of disenfranchisement. The election was held on a Sunday, and alcohol sales were banned on the day, a measure which seems to promote the sober consideration and conduct of one's civic duty.

Meanwhile the U.S. mainstream press was enjoying the possibility of a Chavez upset, and it was widely reported that Henrique Capriles was a strong contender with a chance of winning. The most common explanation offered by the legion of Chavez detractors is that Chavez buys off his citizens with the country's oil wealth, and he uses this money and media time to his own advantage during the election.

I don't know how true or untrue this is in the case of Venezuela. Chavez has certainly poured oil money into programs for the poor, and not just at election time. Really, is the United States able point the finger at anyone else regarding the influence of money in elections?

Allow me to point out an unpleasant fact about elections in the city where I used to live: Houston, TX. The mayor of Houston is often elected with voting totals below 10% of the voting population. Let me repeat that, or let me be specific, in the most recent election in which Anise Parker won reelection, Parker won the election with between 5 and 10 percent of the vote - but closer to 5!

Now it will be reported that she received 50%, or just over. But that is a percentage of the people who voted. And this is nothing new. In her first election she won with 81,743 votes in a city of 4 million people and some 1.3 million eligible voters.

I am not picking on Anise Parker. Houston has a long history of electing its mayors with less than 10% of the eligible vote. Look back to the 1990's and the days of Bob Lanier up through Bill White in the 2000's. Bill White won in 2007 with 20,000 more votes than Parker, but one shouldn't be elected Mayor of a city of 4 million people with only 100,000 votes!

Now you can blame this on voter turnout - it's the peoples' own fault. But I put forth that you could start by not holding the election on a weekday, where people have to sandwich a vote into their before-work-rush, or maybe their lunch hour? What is the practical reality of someone who commutes for an hour to the office, making it back to their home polling station to vote at lunch, or after work before the polling stations close? Hmmm.... maybe if the election were held on a non-workday... and I can bet you this: if no alcohol sales were allowed on the day - you'd get a higher turnout of citizens eager to vote about something!

One last comment while we're discussing voting. Prior to the Houston mayoral election the 11 News/KUHF poll was reporting that Peter Brown was ahead of Parker by a commanding 8% (margin of error + - 4%) . Yet Brown finished a distant third. So polling is not always what it seems, nor is an election win, and nor is the much vaunted term democracy.

Fifa 13 is out!

And Onyx wants to play. Unfortunely he is being a bit.... piggy with the controller.

Congrats homies

Beyond the generic stuff mentioned, there is a long list of cool.

It's been a while and I guess it's time for a geeky post, so ya'll will just have to bear with me. Want to get some notes out there for those in need--

The problem of the day was how to clone Server 2008 R2 at minimal cost. This is a dev workstation and the unfortunate part of using the server OS is that everyone's imaging tools wind up costing an arm and a leg. Take Acronis for example. True Image is maybe $50 for Windows 7, but for 2008 you get to use the server product for $859. We find that a little steep to clone a workstation.

I also have a copy of EZ-GIG which I have used to great effect to clone laptop drives with Win XP thru Win 7 but they too take a pass on 2008.

Well as I repeatedly struck out, I did actually give it a go with DriveImage XML to be sure that it didn't "just work" w Server 2008, and guess what? It didn't go well. What to do... what to do... and I realized I had a couple of 500 GB drives sitting around, and several available SATA connectors inside the trusty Dell T3400. And this is what worked:

1. Put in a spare drive
2. Fire up Windows Server Backup and make a one-time, custom backup. WSB offers a System State option, and a Bare metal recovery option. I chose Bare metal, which as you see in the pic includes System state and the entire C: drive. You could back up and include additional drives at this step, or not, as you wish. This backup operation took about 20 min, for those who are worried about efficiency, but I'm sure time will vary greatly depending on how big your C: drive is, hardware, and the other usual variables.

 

3. This was the fun bit, that originally did not occur to me but became very obvious as I went along: unplug the original C: drive and substitute my second spare drive. Slap in the original Server 2008 boot DVD. Boot to DVD and choose Repair, then select the option to restore from a WSB backup.

Note that at this point I have two drives connected, one empty and one with my WSB backup from step two. Allow the restore operation to complete, which will take about as long as the backup took to begin with.

 

When done, move the restored drive over to its new home. Boot without attaching to the network. This final step is important if you're going to be using both machines on the same network, want to change the computer name and personalize your new clone -

 

4. At the command prompt navigate to C:\windows\system32\sysprep and run the sysprep tool with the Generalize option. This looks like the following:

 

 

 

Reboot a final time and you have a generic cloned image of your Server 2008 machine. I guess the drawback over a true cloning operation is that cloning disk to disk is one operation, whereas this method requires two operations, and therefore twice the time. But here's the advantage - it works and it's free.

 

We were over in Wellington this weekend as B was on display at the NZ Art Show. The NZ film festival is also on, and we were lucky enough to throw a dart at the guide and take in Searching for Sugar Man. Highly Recommended *****. It's docos like this that will keep us going back and willing to take a chance, more than making up for last year's debacle The Tree of Life. 

Each trip over we explore the fabulous Welly a bit more - this time a side trip over to Lyall Bay and a quick bite at the yummy Elements Cafe. Here are a couple of updated pics of the boys.

When the house is burnin', who ya gonna call?

A couple of nights ago a big 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck around 170km northwest of wellington. We all rushed downstairs wondering what to do. We decided that in case of an earthquake that was near us the safest things to do would be to go under the dining room table or to go outside. Luckily nobody was harmed in Nelson and it was 230km deep so it wasn't nearly as bad as anything that happened in Christchurch, no damage was done apart from the occasional item falling off the shelves in the grocery store. With the big 7.0 nobody even realized that there was an aftershock, it was a measly 4.6 magnitude at the same depth 70km south of Opunake. To find out more visit
                                                                                                                                                       http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/7214948/7-0-earthquake-felt-in-Wellington

By Andrew

This term break we fairly spur-of-the-moment took off for the Otago rail trail. Again. Last time was a couple of years ago in the spring. We got hit by some fierce wind and, well, we didn't make it. This time we are older, wiser, fitter? and we are going the full monty from Clyde to Middlemarch. Highly recommended outing for kiwis and visitors alike.

Otago rail trail

First night at the Lauder Hotel. Good to get day one under our belts, saddles, whatever, and practice our cup stacking in the local pub where Andrew holds the record for holding his hands on the frozen beer tap. He's a polar bear. And it's a good thing, because the mornings are a bit cold.

That be frost on those saddlebags. It's all good. We'll warm up pedaling, and before long Mr. Sun will be along. Here are a few pics of the local wildlife.

Glad this one was off the trail and on the wall at the Chatto Creek tavern.

Now it's back to school, work, basketball, soccer, and this term we'll be leading the contingent for FPS at Broadgreen intermediate.

hello.
Last week we went up mount Arthur with Aunt Sue and Uncle Lee. It was a four day tramp and we stayed at a couple of huts. I got sick on the second night so it wasn't great for me but it was a really nice place to go and here are some photos.There was some tough climbing
We saw some keas for the first time.

Going to School in New Zealand

Yesterday I dropped Dean off for a week long "ropes styled" sailing trip where he'll learn to sail, gain some leadership skills and hopefully have an awesome time in the Marlborough Sounds. Last week I had the pleasure of joining Andrew's class as they spent the week at Abel Tasman Park. And, a month ago Dean spent a week in the Nelson Lakes District hiking and really roughing it in the backcountry where they practically slept under the starts. School in New Zealand is fun.

I am ambivalent about a lot of things as far as living in New Zealand goes. But, I have no doubt that Dean and Andrew are having an amazing school experience. I am loath to compare the US system with NZ. It's just not fair; it's apples to oranges. The mantra I always invoke is 4.3 versus 311 million people - that pretty much explains everything. Nonetheless, here I live on this little island in the middle of nowhere. And, because of the numbers and the natural beauty of this country, our kids get a school experience very different from the one they would have had in America.

Every other year New Zealand school children go on a camp. This begins as early as Year 4 (which is third grade) and continues through their "college" (high school) years. Andrew's camp was at a hut abutting Abel Tasman Park. Kids sleep in bunks, 4 to a room (probably a lot like US summer camp). The teacher, an administrator and some volunteer parents join the trip – we're in a separate bunkhouse and we even got our own rooms!

I had the pleasure of spending two nights with Andrew's class. Once we settled at Marahau the first thing the kids did was change into their togs (swimsuits) and throw themselves into the sea. It doesn't matter that the water is in the low 60s, air temperature mid 60s maybe. That's what they do. We spent the day swimming (even me) collecting sea creatures, building sand castles and just having fun. At night we played games, had a bonfire and made s'mores. Everyone went to bed happy and tired.

Next day we took the kids on a 14k hike (that's 8.4 miles). Not bad for 9 – 11 year olds. Now, don't think they are all gunning to go. Even though sport is a major focus here, for some kids this was the farthest they'd ever had to walk and it was hard work. It didn't help that it was raining. But, I thought it was really cool that we did it despite the rain. We took a water taxi back from Anchorage which made it all worth it, even for the most reluctant trampers.

What I saw in this camp was amazing. While there's lots of fun and games, there's also work and a building of personal responsibility and community. The kids help prepare meals, clean bathrooms, sweep floors and do their own dishes. They are expected to keep their rooms tidy. But, they also get to laugh and run around freely. They see their teacher, their principal and some lucky parents in a new environment. I had the pleasure of getting to know kids I might not otherwise meet (especially the girls).

As I reflect on school here, I sometimes worry that it's not rigorous enough, that there's not enough homework. Too much play and not enough work! I wonder whether our boys will be adequately prepared for university and the big, bad world. I am assured that capable Kiwis leave the system and thrive as adults. And, when I go to Andrew's school and see all the kids outside laughing and playing; when I think maybe they are getting to be kids just a little bit longer than they would have in Texas, when I have the assurance that they are happy, I feel good. I know that they will be just fine.

Go Dynamo!!!!!

Remember these beds prepped here on June 26:

The soil could have used longer to set up, but we had a trip planned so I went ahead and popped in seed potatoes on Sept 4. Here we are Nov 20, some 2.5 months later.

I have added dirt twice to keep decent mounds, but that's about all the care and feeding these guys get. I'm thinking we're going to be fetching a lot of spuds, and we may not wait till xmas to start. I went with Ilam Hardy, which are supposed to be early growing. We'll post on taste and yields in the future. Fishing season looms, and here's looking forward to some homemade fish n chips.

At Knott's Berry Farm we rode a range of rides. At the start we didn't want to go on a lot of the rides so we decided to ride one of the less scary ''coasters'' called the Sierra Sidewinder which is where you spin on a roller coaster, It was quick and easy.
After that all the rides were closed off until 11:00 so mum and I rode the screamin' swing one of the scariest we rode.Then we
rode the classic log flume.After that I can't really remember what we did but I will explain some pictures below.
Sierra Sidewinder

Screamin' Swing

The ultimate rocket powered swing
''Life as a hotdog''

Andrew Franklet

we also rode the following Pony express, Silver bullet, Dragon swing, La Revolucion, Waveswinger, Bigfoot rapids, Boomerang, Windseeker, Jaguar and we watched a cowboy stunt show.
Andrew

Quick trip to the LA county museum. Beautiful day and large crowds. The museum is alive and well. We saw lamp posts

billiards




turtles



dishes

Burton people

and my favorite, the big blue dog

what does it all mean?

Me riding on a tiny bike at a cafe in Wellington





Also for school I did a project on Japanese school lunches, or bentos. I had to find a lot of information about them and I even had to make one myself that looked like a Japanese cartoon character.
Here is the information:

1. Where does the word bento come from?

The word bento originated from the people who lived at the castle of 16^th century military commander Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582). He fed the people at his castle by handing out individual meals to each person. People began to call these small meals bentos.

2. What is an ekiben? Where are they sold?

An ekiben is a bento sold at a train station, usually containing the specialty foods of the region the ekibens are being sold in.

3. What is an umeboshi and what is its purpose in the bento?

An umeboshi is a pickled Japanese apricot and its purpose in the bento is that it was believed to keep rice from going bad.

4. When were the first bentos made and who were they made for?

The first bentos (though not called bento at the time) were made in around the fifth century in Japan and they were made for people going out to hunt, farm, or battle.

5. What kind of people like bento?

Basically everyone in Japan likes bento.

6. What is a makunochi bento?

Makunochi bentos contain small rice balls sprinkled with sesame seeds and an assortment of side dishes.

7. What are some of the most important considerations that the maker of the bento must keep in mind when making the bento?

They are visual presentation, making sure that the cooked foods are well done to prevent changes in the flavour or color, items that go bad easily should not be used, excess liquid should be eliminated, rice and side dishes should be in a 1:1 ratio, and the ratio of meat dishes to vegetables should be 1:2.

8. What sort of food was used in early bento?

The earliest bentos were made of primarily dried rice, but in the 15^th century they were made of white rice, the rice mixed with millet, or potatoes, depending on the region.

9. What is in a typical modern bento?

The first thing is that the person who makes the bento, such as the mother, often prepares the bentos as she is cooking the side dishes for the family's regular meals. She decides what foods will not spoil and sets them aside for the next days bentos. Meals are often planned around what food would be good for the next day's bentos. Another thing typical of a modern bento is that it will often contain sausages. Many Japanese people very much enjoy the taste of sausages. The sausages can be interestingly cut to make little creatures or other creations, making the meal fun and enjoyable.

10. Name six places/shops where you can purchase a bento these days.

Places you can purchase bentos these days are department stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, shops specializing in bentos, restaurants, and train stations.

11. From the above six place, choose three to write in Japanese.

(I wrote them in pen)

12. How have bento boxes (the containers) changed over time? What sort of boxes are used today?

In the beginning of bento, the lunches were wrapped in different leaves or plant material. Then wooden boxes evolved, followed by crafted bento boxes, woven or made of bent wood. Now bento coxes can be traditionally shaped as things such as a half-moon. The most modern bentos are made out of wood, metal, or plastic. They can be rectangular, oval, or circular in shape. They can also have popular characters on them, such as Mrs. Arai's favorite, Hello Kitty

Here is my bento, based off of snorlax:

Expanding the potato patch

What have we been up to over the past month? ... rain. Rain and more rain. Every weekend has been incredibly wet. We've played soccer in the rain, like wet rats on the field and the sideline. We've canceled soccer. We've gone to the indoor swimming pool. We've played cards, mostly hearts, with a little 500 mixed in. But today the SUN came out and we got out in the garden.

We have previously posted about our potato patch, which was first planted this past September, with Snippy Ritchie the resident potato sage declaring "potatoes by Christmas!" Well we got them, and they were marvelous. I have been asked (by my mother) why go to such effort - preparing the bed, composting, planting - in order to grow potatotes?

But the fact is, it's exceptionally nice to not worry about whether or not there are potatoes in the pantry, to wander out to the yard and dig up a few and roast them up in the oven. Easy, tasty and no tending for the few months they are incubating. Plus, if you're not ready for them, you just leave 'em in the ground until you are.

So here is an aerial shot of the original fifty square feet or so we carved out at the top of the hill that slopes down below our car park. In fact the plant in the middle is a re-growth of some baby spuds that must have been left in after harvesting. It's winter, and slow growing, so we'll just have to see what happens.

The day's project, two days really, has been to clear the adjoining raised bed which was producing all manner of growth going about eight feet up to the parking area. First clearing, then a bit of prep for next planting season. The contents of one disc from the worm farm went in, along with many families of worms and some kitchen compost, grass clippings from the lawn, and sheep pellets scattered about like (the icing on the cake?).

Hard to see at this angle, but the new bed is considerably higher than the first, which is at ground level. So the end of the top bed required some shoring up (new post and retaining plank), and you really have to climb up in it to work over the whole area. Note to self: plan the rows of plants with a path down the middle for easy access.

Close to ready. Because we happen to have a bale of hay for the guinea pig, I'll spread a layer of hay over the whole area. Most of this plan by the way came from a local "no-dig" garden workshop. All the ingredients go onto the soil, cover it up, and wait for a few months. We'll be waiting about 3 months, till mid September.

Here's what it looks like at ground level. Yes I'll do a better job of spreading. On the ground below the bed is a section of scrap carpeting. That'll go over the bed for the next 3 months, to keep everyone underneath warm, dark and happy.

That's all folks. Come round in six months for fresh potatoes.

Time for a geeky post, just because we wound up getting experimental and had a bit of fun with copying files around, though I admit that probably doesn't sound like much fun.

So you've got a bunch of digital pictures to transfer from one computer to another, movies, a pile of music, anything like that. In our case it was 21.7GB and so the question arose of whether to transfer via hard wired ethernet or via file copy to USB external drive. If you like a trivia game, you can answer now ____ and then read on for the result. My initial thought was USB, except that we would need to copy twice, once to get it onto the external HD and then again to get it off, and the two operations combined might exceed ethernet speed.

First up was to try via the network, and in this case that is with fast ethernet or 100Mbit/s. We will also have a go with gigabit because a spare switch happens to be at hand.100Mbit ethernet we took 32 Minutes at a transfer speed that fluctuated very little between 11.1-11.2 MB/sec.

Next up we snapped in a gigabit switch and did it again. This time we copied the files across in 8 min! at a speed that fluctuated between 40.9 - 47.6 Mbit/sec. It was interesting that the speed varied so much more over gigabit. I put this down to the hardware being fully able to keep up with the fast ethernet connection, so the ethernet speed itself was the limiting factor. Whereas with gigabit, there is enough capacity that the transfer is affected by other hardware components inside the PC. Dell Precision workstation on both ends, btw. Notice that the fast ethernet transfer takes place very close to the theoretical maximum transfer speed of approx 12 MB/sec whereas the gigabit transfer is considerably lower than than its max transfer speed of some 120MB/sec.

And then for the USB...

While the initial file copy dialog popped up with an eye popping 105MB/sec this would prove well too optimistic. After the transfer settled down, this would eventually decline to a much steadier 26.7MB/sec and we would finish out with all files copied at the 15 min mark. That's copied once, with a duplicate needed on the other end.

During this 15 min I had enough time to consider that not all USB ports are equal, and I learned something here, and that is that by drilling down into the device manager, you can go into the Properties on each USB port, on the Advanced tab, and actually see if you are transferring at "high speed" or the not-so-delightful "full speed." Indeed this PC has an abundance of ports both front and back, and it did have some of each. But the one I was using was in fact high speed.




So the moral of this story, reader, if you have made it this far, is with gigabit ethernet you can dispense with the USB drive and just transfer your files across the network. And with fast ethernet it is going to be a close race, enter lots of caveats about network contention and YMMV, etc, but this was our outcome, on this day.