Resources:

• RHEL RPMs from http://people.redhat.com/atkac/bind/5.6-test/ – if someone finds a better source for BIND 9.7+ RHEL RPMs, I’d like to know.  I had no luck building from the Fedora SRPMs.
• http://www.isc.org/community/blog/201007/using-root-dnssec-key-bind-9-resolvers – instructions for setting up BIND to use the root key.
• http://fanf.livejournal.com/107310.html – A more thorough walk-through of setup.

One resource I would have liked to find and could not was a deliberately unvalidatable non-root zone/record that could be used to see a validation failure.  If anyone knows of or finds such a thing, please pass it along.  Now we get to wait for .com, .net, etc, to catch up to .bg and .uk in the publishing of DS glue for deeper validation.

UPDATE 7/22/10:  Just found the following site which makes available bad records for testing purposes: http://dnssec-tools.org/testzone/index.html

Then it becomes apparent that the SS13As are not that great.  The adhesive backing would refuse to stick to the garage wall for extended periods of time, necessitating the addition of some screws to provide a slight ledge for them to sit upon.  They are also battery powered, and the stock batteries were nearly useless in cold weather.  Naturally, the colder times of year require the use of lights in the garage more often, and it became incredibly annoying to have to warm the switch with your hand and make multiple attempts to turn on the light… when the pullstring that otherwise would work is in reach.  My suggestion is to never use SS13As in anything but warm environments, and probably just avoid them altogether.  The one I had used inside would “forget” its code assignments and the coldness of the window sill was enough to keep it from working well.

To fix these issues, I revisited the idea of wiring regular three-way switches in the garage.  With the layout of the existing wiring, even the most creative ideas would require two new wires run the length of the garage, with one of them likely needing to be a 3-conductor that I don’t happen to have laying around.  And copper isn’t really cheap right now.  So, X10 was again looked at for a solution.

I decided to go with hard-wired X10 controllers, specifically the XPT4-W.  I installed these near existing wire locations with a minimal of effort – maybe 3 hours total. So, now I have fully functional control of my garage lights (probably even in cold weather), and didn’t need to run crazy amounts of cable for three-way switches.

Wednesday. The PA turnpike had next to no traffic from Blue Mountain to Harrisburg East, though had ludicrous 40 mph speed limits posted for much of the distance.  Airport security at Harrisburg was relatively speedy, though they did decide to perform some kind of chemical test on my shoes.  We had an expensive and slow lunch before our flight to Charlotte, NC.   We were a bit late arriving in CLT, it was raining, and there wasn’t much waiting around for the next flight.  The flight to Orlando was uneventful.  We were above the cloud deck much of the time during both flights.  I was only able to get GPS lock very briefly after leaving MDT.  I’d very much like it if GPS worked better inside of aircraft.  The shuttle to the off-site Hertz location was speedy, we got our car, and made our way on the Beachline Express to Cocoa Beach at which point it was dark.  Checked in, got food, and walked the beach a bit.

Atlantis with the STS-129 stack, viewed from Cape Canaveral National Seashore

Thursday.  It was only in the 60s today, and after just having had some Indian Summer in PA, it didn’t feel like we were anywhere tropical.  We walked Cocoa Beach from the pier to Jetty Park in the morning.  We then drove around the Merrit Island Wildlife Refuge.  Had our first view of the shuttle on the pad from the Cape Canaveral Seashore.

Atlantis with the STS-129 stack and pad 39B viewed from camera tracking station

Friday. We were at the KSC visitors complex when it opened, walked around the shuttle Explorer and then boarded our bus for the “NASA Close Up” tour.  The tour took us to the causeway where the lucky 3000 people with the best tickets can watch a launch from the closest allowed distance.  We drove past one of the massive crawler transporters and approached pad 39B which is undergoing modifications to accommodate the Ares rockets.  We parked at a camera tracking station which provided the closest view of the shuttle we had the entire trip.  I was able to get some closer though less clear pictures via binoculars.

Saturn V - S-IC-T

Our next stop was the Apollo / Saturn V Center where we walked under and around a real Saturn V rocket laid over horizontally.  It’s crazy huge – really amazing to see the thing in person.  We then took the bus to the ISS building and were able to look down on the clean room used for processing space station modules – though it was difficult to tell what one was looking at.  Back to the main visitors center, we watched a 3D IMAX film, “rode” the Space Shuttle Launch Experience, and called it a day.

Friday night we drove out to Port Canaveral and parked along the road (where many others were also parked) to see the launch of an Atlas V rocket containing a commercial satellite payload.  I had my radio scanner with me, listening to the Coast Guard announcing the area restricted from boats, and also aircraft dispatched to patrol the area.  We heard that the launch was scrubbed via the scanner, due to technical issues with the rocket.  We headed back to the hotel, not sure how this scrub would affect our chances of seeing a shuttle launch.  The shuttle launch had already been moved from Thursday to Monday because of this rocket, and if this rocket would be ready for another attempt on Saturday or Sunday, the shuttle would again wait.  Fortunately, this launch was put off for more than a week as announced the next day.

Blockhouse Console

Saturday. We returned to the KSC visitor’s center touring more of the exhibits there and watching the other 3D IMAX movie, and had the launch experience again.  After lunch we again boarded a bus for the “Cape Canaveral: Then & Now” tour, for which we had to have our photo IDs checked and recorded, presumably since the tour is largely on the US Air Force’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  We walked through the blockhouse used to control some of the early manned flights, complete with its Burroughs computer, wiring, consoles, blast doors, etc.  This was the one facility we toured that had the appearance of being frozen in time and not a reconstructed prop from a museum.

We also walked around the site of the launch tower where the Apollo 1 fire occurred.  The memorial was very simple compared with the elaborate displays elsewhere, and the tower is gone, with only concrete remaining.

We then went to the Astronaut Hall of Fame and toured its exhibits.  Katelyn and I took a ride on the centrifuge flight simulator.  I wondered why they opened the doors with the ride still spinning, but later figured out it wasn’t.  Pretty cool though.

Kayak Trail

Sunday. We went kayaking on the waters of the Banana River.  We could see dolphins and manatees, but no alligators as it was salt water.  The most interesting part were the “kayak trails” that were essentially tunnels of foliage that you pulled your kayak through by hand.  Really cool, and nothing like we have around home.  In the afternoon we stayed around the hotel, getting in the ocean for a bit (long enough for me to lose my glasses, go figure, but at least I had packed spares).

Launch of STS-129, viewed from Titusville

Monday. This was launch and return trip day.  After escalating concerns about traffic, especially around the visitors center (it sounded as if they would hold us for an hour after launch… by which time who knows how many of the 3k causeway viewers would have been brought back to jam things up) we elected to view the launch from another location.  We checked out and went to the Space View Park in Titusville.  After fooling around with finding a non-towed place to park we waited while the park filled up and then the launch.  It was distant, but very cool to see Atlantis rolling after it left the tower by binoculars.  The pictures don’t do it justice.  After about a minute we could hear the tremendous noise of the launch.

We waited around a few minutes then dashed for the car, and made excellent time without traffic on a highway that is less impacted by launch traffic.  We were able to get home without incident.

Overall, it was an excellent trip.  I’m glad to have had the opportunity to see a Space Shuttle launch before the impending retirement.  I really do want to see one of the real shuttles in person some day, but it may take awhile before they are turned into museum exhibits.

Update:  My seeking problem was due to a crashed “recordingseek” table.  I repaired it and then ran mythcommflag –rebuild to regenerate the information for the recordings that wouldn’t seek.

I had my four wisdom teeth removed at the end of September. I chose to be Xanex’d instead of having general anesthesia. I’m not a big fan of the idea of being put under, but I liked the idea of not caring what was happening. It’s hard to gauge how effective it was, though. I was fairly tense at the start of the operation, but was a bit happier than I maybe should have been for some time afterwards. One notable part of the operation was that I could smell the tooth being drilled apart. I recognized it as the scent of ground bone. I thought it was kind of unique that I recognized it, but I guess a lot of people know that smell. There was less pain and less bleeding afterwards than I was expecting. The 800mg motrin horsepills combined with ice were good for the first two days, and then more typical does of motrin for the next few days kept things mostly painless. I did get the hydrocodone-based prescription filled, but didn’t end up using it. Eating was fairly constrained for the first few days but was back to normal shortly thereafter. But at least my dentist doesn’t have anything to complain about now.

I bought a truck this past weekend. I had been looking since the beginning of September. A truck has been on the radar for awhile, but finally became actionable. The justification was to get up my driveway in the winter (even after my drive is plowed, it generally takes a few days before the car is able to traverse it) and to haul things (I’m tremendously annoyed that my bike has to be laboriously coaxed into my car even with its front wheel removed). I had been looking at used Ford Rangers and Chevy S10s. The other makes of small pickups seemed far less common. I really didn’t like the interior of the S10s. I finally bought a white 2005 Ranger with a good many miles (93k) but at a decent price. Chris had the misfortune of volunteering to drive me to Ephrata to test drive and eventually buy one of two Rangers at a used car dealer. I had decided to keep my car for the time being, and of course during its inspection on Monday, it got new front brakes and needed new tires and is also due for a tune-up. Right now it looks like the truck will be in the garage, and the car will be available for squirrel target practice outside, until the snow comes and they switch places. My current annoyance is that the radio in the truck is almost but not quite 2 DINs in height. I’m not sure that amateur radios are DIN-able anyway, but it would have been nice, if I can ever justify buying a mobile rig.