Back on Facebook and some summer pictures. Oh yeah and GPS.

I am amazed at how difficult starting something like a new post on this blog can be at times.  I have had lots of ideas flow through my head but, when it comes to sitting in front of a keyboard and actually putting ideas to words in a manner that makes sense is more of a challenge that I give it credit for.  This post is breaking away from the genealogical bent that my blog has represented to this point.  There in lies the difficulty that I encounter.

Writing something about my past or that of my family seems easier than forming sentences around my current or day to day activities.  As I sit in front of a computer and consider this, I find that I am still wrestling with the privacy issue in my head.  The fact is that anything on the Internet is pretty much not private is something I understand.  This is the one reason why I took so long to get into blogging in the first place.  This is not a private blog.  This blog is in place so that others come to know what I, Kelly David Quocksister, do and think.

I am back on Facebook.  I was not surprised that the readership of my blog fell off last month because I didn't advertise a new post was available for reading as my Facebook account was deactivated.  Facebook has significant value in many ways.  That was never this issue or issues for me.  The issue for me has been and always will be Facebook security.  The thing that has me floored is that there are people who don't seem to worry about security on Facebook or any other web site or application that uses the Internet.  Why does this concern me?  I am friends with some of them on Facebook!

Parents with young kids on Facebook: Get on Facebook and watch what you kids are doing.  By young kids I mean children that live at home with their parent(s).  Kids need to be accountable to their parent(s) on Facebook or things could get out of hand in ways that will take years to get over if at all.  It's kind of a sad fact that I write "parent(s)" but, the fact is it's sadly the truth.  Facebook is cool, fun and potentially really dangerous for children.  Facebook is not a baby sitter.  You don't let your kids sleep on the road because that is just flat out foolish!  Common sense says that would put them in harm's way.  Don't let your kids be on a social network where you don't know what they are doing.  That, at least in my mind, is similar to letting your kids sleep on a road.

I'm done with my rant.  It's time to get to something way less heavy.  Well almost less heavy.  My wife and I decided to take my mother-in-law out for a bit of a tour of the southern Yukon July 6th.  I stopped on the hill and corner above Johnson's Crossing on the west side of the bridge because I thought it was a scenic location for taking pictures.  My mother-in-law asked my wife to take some pictures using her (digital - what else?) camera.  In the process of my wife doing so the camera froze and stopped operating.  Lens out and not moving and the images of the image viewer frozen.  My wife handed the camera to me and after minutes of attempting to get the camera functional again I was unable to.  I removed the batteries from my mother-in-law's camera to do a hard reset.  Upon returning the batteries to the camera and turning the camera on 300 images missing!  Yep, gone in the blink of an eye.  Should I have removed the SD card as well?  Probably but, I didn't.  My mother-in-law was terrified and my wife was giving me the "Your sleeping in the dog house tonight even though we don't have a dog house" look.  Remember the blog post I wrote January 31st, "Running with a sharp implement."?  The good news is that I back up all the pictures from my mother-in-law's camera July 4th.  She hadn't used the camera since then and the images my wife, mother-in-law and I took on July 6th were all intact.  Nanay's (word for mother in Tagalog) image data was and is safe!

I attempted to assured my wife and mother-in-law that no data images been lost as we have back ups at home.  This put them at ease and the remainder of the day went well.  The nagging question of what happened to cause the loss of the image data in the first was discussed several times the rest of the day.

The evening of July 6th I presented my mother-in-law with an SD card of the more than 400 images that she ad on her camera since her arrival in the Yukon April 28 with room for lots more.  The smile on her face and my wife's "Who said anything about the dog house?" look were well worth it.  Why my mother-in-law's camera and more particularly the SD card on board lost images is a mystery.  Again, the good news is all of the images were backed on multiple drives as well as the Windows Home Server.  Windows Home Server are really cool.  There appeared to be nothing wrong with the SD card I checked it out several times withe software specifically for the purpose.  I reformatted the SD card in my mother-in-law's camera and I'm going to keep an eye on it for future failure(s).

There are lots of wild strawberries in the Teslin River Valley in the vicinity of Johnson's Crossing and so my wife and mother-in-law enjoyed picking the abundant but, tiny strawberries.  My mother-in-law, being from the Philippines, was amazed that strawberries grow in the wild here in the Yukon.  She thought the strawberries tasted so good that they were poisonous.  My wife and I reassured her that she would not get sick and the all would be well in the morning.  It was kind of funny!

The image on the left is of the "Outer Sanctum".  This gazebo and the area it covers is where I do my outdoor computing when the weather is warm and dry enough.  We also use the area for eating but, that is a minor function of the Outer Sanctum.  The major function, of course, is for outdoor computing.  I could compute out in the Outer Sanctum in the rain as well because the gazebo doesn't leak.  The issue is warmth of one's fingers when one is using the Outer Sanctum during cooler temperatures.  I love sitting in the gazebo on warm summer days mainly in the later afternoon and evenings.



Remembering back to June briefly and Father's Day in particular: I sent my dad a GPS receiver (TomTom XL 330 if you were curious as to which GPS receiver it was exactly) for Father's Day.  Being a GPS-centric kind of guy myself I thought that, at my dad's age of 75, it was time I stopped letting he and his wife twist in the wind when it came to 21st century navigation.  The funny thing is the NavStar Global Positioning System is a U.S. Military navigation system that was conceived in the late 1970's.  The interesting thing is that this system is the only satellite navigation system that is fully operational at this time.  The uses for GPS are many and most of them are really well worth getting interested in.


So dad (and anybody else that is interested), the two YouTube video links that I have included here are for you.  The first YouTube link is from the U.S. Air Force Space Command unit that manages the NavStar Global Positioning System satellite constellation.  Lots of interesting information in a little more than 5 minutes.

The truth about GPS: How it works.

This next YouTube video link is specifically about the TomTom XL 300 GPS receiver.  I have one too, dad.  It works great.  When it comes to family and in car navigation one of the guys I work with put it this way: "The cost of a GPS receiver is cheaper than the cost of divorce."  If you plan on taking a trip to a city like Vancouver or Toronto having a GPS receiver makes navigating a way less stressful process for everyone in the vehicle.  If you follow the turn by turn navigation instruction faithfully without getting cocky it's a blast.  My wife likes GPS navigation so much she won't go to a big city without a GPS receiver.  It's easier to use than you think, dad.  Go for it!

TomTom XL 330 video.  You GPS receiver is new, Dad.  Not refurbished.  This was the best video on YouTube that talked about the feature set associated with the product.

Have a good month of July.  I may write again this month,  If not, you'll see something new here in August for sure.