AmateurRadio.com

Hello fellow hams,

Based on the amount of emails I’ve received with both questions and encouragement, I know many have been inspired by my blog updates on my own progress to better health.  Since my amateur radio blog is picked up by a few different blog sites I don’t want to post material which is off-topic to amateur radio.  If you are interested in learning more about my quest for better health through diet and exercise, please follow my personal blog.   You can subscribe to the RSS feed via this link. 

Now I return you to your normal amateur radio blog content already in progress.

73 de KDØBIK (Jerry)

As mentioned in my previous blog posting, I’ve taken a serious approach to my health.  Much of what I accomplished in losing over 30 pounds was just done by following the Atkins diet and casual exercise.  Much of this exercise has been in the form of walking as my wife and I are trying to get in better shape for our trip to Europe.  In previous years, we didn’t prepare ourselves in advance for all the walking we end up doing.  We suffer for the first week as a result.  I believe this year will be different. 

My goal of reaching 200 pounds prior to 15 August was in an effort to verify that diet and exercise will help improve my cholesterol levels.  I will have a checkup next week and my ultimate goal of those results is just to verify that the needles are moving in the right directions.  I know I have more work to do…but I am looking for proof that what I’ve accomplished in the past four months is the right thing.

Part of vacation is enjoying life and I don’t plan to follow the Atkins plan while in Europe.  If you are familiar with Atkins or the Low Carb diet, you know that carbs are avoided like the plague.  The national dish of Belgium is Belgian Frietjes or Belgian Fries.  These are the best fried potatoes (can’t refer to them as French) that I have ever tasted and I’ve enjoyed more than my share of fries.  In addition to the Belgian fries, I’ll also enjoy a few Belgian Waffles and many other delicacies which I just can’t get here in the US.  I figure many of the carbs I consume while on vacation will be offset with the tremendous amount of walking we do. 

Anyway…..10,000 Steps for Health is how I plan to tackle the next phase of my goal.  I’ve heard people talk about losing weight just simply making sure they walk 10,000 steps daily.  But just how many steps does an average person….or more importantly, how many steps do I take on an average day?  A friend of mine has had incredible success with this this program and uses a little device called a Fitbit.  A Fitbit is a small electronic gadget (fancy pedometer) which is worn to track the number of steps you take, the number of floors you’ve  climbed, distance in miles or kilometers and calories burned.  You basically wear this little device and sync the data to a free Fitbit account where you can view your results.

What I found by just wearing the device each day was without even trying I was averaging about ~6000 steps each day.  So by adding an additional daily walk to my schedule (and taking the stairs more at work) has proven successful at pushing me over the 10K mark each day. 

For now, my focus remains on the final 4.5 pounds which I plan to lose by 15 August, then enjoying a fantastic vacation with my wife.  Once I return home and return to work, I will begin working on the next phase of my plan to reach 180 pounds by Christmas.  At this point, I really don’t plan to go any lower than 180 pounds.  I’m 6 foot tall and at 180 pounds, this places my BMI in the normal weight range.  But of course, I’ll consult with my doctor and most importantly perform another blood test to check my overall cholesterol numbers. 

Until next time…

Jerry

P.S.  I realize this blog post has nothing to do with amateur radio.  However, my getting in better shape, getting healthy and staying healthy will most certainly allow me to continue to enjoy the hobby for many years to come.  Plus I just want to share this info with others who might be interested in shedding a few extra pounds.   73 de KD0BIK

Distracted.

That’s the best word that I can think of to describe my effort for Flight of the Bumblebees 2013.

The weather was certainly a distraction. With the forecast (all week long) calling for a 60% chance of rain on Sunday, I was not surprised to find that it was raining when I left Mass yesterday morning. That sealed the deal for me regarding my operating position. Right then and there, I decided that I would be a home station this year, and would forgo using my Bee number. As it turned out, it ended up being sunny, then rainy, then sunny, then rainy in small cycles just about all afternoon. Thunderstorms and torrential downpours waited until the 5:00 PM hour, just when I would have been tearing down.

Operating from home has its conveniences and creature comforts, but it also comes with its share of distractions. The phone rings when you don’t need it to, spouses and children ask for things like they always do …. it’s just a bit different than an evening Sprint, which are generally shorter and occur when things have already pretty much settled down for the night.

But the biggest distraction of all was this little guy (and I am definitely NOT complaining!). Meet Harold, the newest member of the W2LJ family, who came to live with us on Saturday.

We met Harold last Sunday, when we went to the local Petco store to pick up a bag of cat food for Sandy. Happy Paws Rescue was there with a full compliment of dogs looking for homes. Harold was not down on the floor with the other dogs, he was sitting in one of the volunteer’s laps. We didn’t even see him at first.

The first dog we were interested in was a retriever mix named Tia. She was a very playful and friendly little girl, and most importantly, I was informed that she was cat friendly. But it turned out that someone was already filling out papers for her while we were looking at her. There was another retriever mix there, a little older and a little bigger, named Hershey. However, the volunteers weren’t able to tell me if he was good around cats, or not.

Disappointed, we were about to head to the checkout with our cat food, when I decided to ask if they had any dogs that were cat friendly. They immediately told us that Harold was being fostered in a house that had cats and that there were no problems. Interested, they put Harold on a lead for us, and allowed us to take him for a walk around the store. That’s when the volunteer told me about Harold’s background.

Harold is a nine month old beagle pup who was bred to be used as a test animal at either a pharmaceutical or cosmetics company. The inside of his ears are tattooed with a serial number, as a testament to this fact. Lab dogs like him are never really “named”. It turned out that Harold was never used for testing, and was just an extra dog that was going to be offered for adoption. A secretary at the company found out about this and got him put into the custody of Happy Paws.

And now, he’s with us. He’s a very friendly little fellow, who like Jesse before him, seems “to not have a mean bone in his body”. He loves to be held and played with, and right now, is a bit of a “nose and stomach on four legs”. While he’s a tad underweight, this little guy eats his meals so thoroughly, and with such gusto, that we briefly kidded about changing his name to Hoover. He loves to join you in whatever chair you’re sitting in and totally relax next to you, in essence becoming a “puppy puddle”.

So far, Sandy our cat, has made a few wary attempts at getting familar with Harold. With Jesse, she was used to an older dog who really paid her no mind. She is not quite sure what to make of this little brown, black and white furball of energy. They have been getting closer and closer to each other (nose to nose at one point, in fact) without any bouts of barking, hissing or chasing. If they don’t end up becoming best friends, I am fully confident that at the very least, they will become quite comfortable with each other’s presence.

So while I was making a few paltry contacts on 20 and 40 Meters yesterday afternoon, my head just wasn’t in the game this year. My head and my heart were more fixed upon Harold, and also Jesse, whom I think would approve of his successor, very much. Even though he is a totally different breed and a much smaller dog, each time I look at Harold, I can see Jesse shining through him. And that’s a very good thing, because now it really does feel like Jesse is still right here with me.

As for the news about the Skeeter Hunt – Brady AC0XR wrote a logging program specifically for the Skeeter Hunt this year.  It can be found at http://www.qsl.net/ac0xr/skeeterhuntlogger.html  Some of you may remember Brady from last year’s hunt.  He was one of the few entrants who built a homebrew key for the event for bonus points.

I feel like we’ve hit the big time!  Our own logging program – thanks, Brady!

By the way, as of tonight, we’re up to 94 entries.  I’ll be issuing Skeeter numbers right up until the morning of the event – but don’t wait for the last minute.  And remember, this year SSB has been added as a mode. So if Morse Code’s not your thing?  You can join us anyway and get in on the fun!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Today was a strange day.  It was my last day at my current job at Goldman Sachs. I’ve been there just over six years, managing all the Technology Department inventory (servers and networking and storage equipment) for the offices of the NY/NJ Campus.  I was the manager of the department responsible for receiving, inventorying, warehousing, and prepping for install a multi-billion dollar cache of equipment. I was also responsible for shipping re-purposed equipment both domestically and internationally. Believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve been tasked with shipping millions of dollars of used equipment to places like Seoul, Sao Paolo, and Kuala Lumpur, and you were told it had to arrived undamaged (even though the original shipping containers had since long been discarded) and it had to arrive “yesterday”. I can proudly attest that in the six years that I was there, my department oversaw that inventory with a shrinkage percentage (loss due to theft, damage or mis-shipping) of less than 0.001%.

Last summer, Goldman felt that they had too many vendors, so they decided to downsize the number that they have on board. Our contract was farmed out to another vendor, and while my team was RIF’ed (reduction in force) I stayed on for six months to basically teach my replacements how to do the job.  My actual employer is Pitney Bowes Management Services, and through them, I will be starting at a new, non-management (actually glad for that, for a change) position with IBM next week.

My co-workers, the other outside vendors (IPC, Scholes, EMC, CBRE) who also serve Goldman Sachs are the best.  Totally unexpected, I walked into work this morning to find this waiting for me on my desk.

If you’ve listened to the news or picked up a newspaper in the past week, you’ve probably heard about the forest fires in Colorado.  There are several popping up across the state as our temperatures continue to soar and very little to no moisture is falling.  The immediate weather forecast doesn’t look promising. 

The High Park Fire is the big one which is grabbing the most media attention.  At the present time the High Park Fire has burned more than 59,500 acres, destroyed 189 homes and there has been one fatality.  The over 1800 personnel have done an outstanding job to get this fire 50% contained.  Below is a current map of the burn area.  This fire has earned the title of most destructive fire in the history of Colorado.

Many Colorado Hams are assisting to fill in communication gaps and this was recently recognized by the Denver Post.  It’s great to read about amateur radio participating in such activities. 

I’m proud to call Colorado my home.  I’ve lived here for almost 14 years and the beautiful Rocky Mountains have become my playground for all sorts of activities, even including many related to amateur radio.   We all know Mother Nature has a way of healing and in time the forest will return.  However, this destructive fire has taken a toll on those living in the area. 

The various media outlets in the Greater Denver area are advertising the following link to iGivefirst.  Through the iGivefirst website, you can donate to either the Larimer County Humane Society (currently housing over 200 animals displaced by the fire) or the Salvation Army and  American Red Cross.  This link will take you to the iGivefirst website. 

On behalf of all the residents of Colorful Colorado,  Jerry Taylor – KD0BIK thanks you for your prayers and any help you can provide.

Until next time…

73 de KD0BIK

There have been events in history where individuals will always remember where they were, who they were with and what they were doing when the event happened.  For the generation of my grandparents, that day was December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  For the generation of my parents, that day was November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  As I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster unfold on January 28, 1986 I was certain this would be the day which I would clearly remember for the rest of my life and certainly hoped none other would ever prove to be greater.  After all, I was only 19 years old, in my first year of college and grew up in small town Texas.  By the way, I still do remember very much what I was doing, who I was with and where I was on that tragic day.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 began just like every other day for me.  I woke up early (around 6 AM MT) I had showered, dressed and was downstairs drinking a cup of coffee and watching Fox News by 6:20 AM.  This was pretty much a morning ritual for me.  Because my commute was less than five minutes, I typically wouldn’t leave my apartment until around 6:45 or so.  On this day, I wasn’t in that big of a hurry.  I had been working long hours as I was planning to fly to London later that week.  It was shaping up to be a beautiful day in the mile high city and from what I could see while watching Fox News, New York City was also looking beautiful.

My apartment was relatively small.  From my kitchen I could hear the TV in the living room and heard the initial report of a plane hitting the World Trade Center.  The time was 6:46 AM MT (8:46 AM ET).  I stepped into the living room and watched/listened for updated news.  Initial reports was it was a small airplane (perhaps a sightseeing plane) which hit the WTC.  The Fox anchors talked about how clear the sky was overhead in NYC.  Thoughts of perhaps the pilot suffered a heart attack or aircraft malfunction were more or less what most believed had happened. 

As the time approached the top of the hour, I was really intrigued in what had happened.  I remember at the top of the hour Fox and Friends passed it off to Jon Scott who happens to be a pilot.  Again for several minutes the speculation into what had happened to the pilot or to the airplane was the topic of discussion.  Fox had switched to an anchor outside the studios and I was just about ready to turn the TV off and drive to the office.  Again, it looked like an accident and I would follow up with what happened once I got to the office.

As I was reaching for the remote, what I saw next on TV will forever be in my memory.  It was 7:03 AM MT (9:03 AM ET) when the outside live shot showed a second plane flying into the second tower of the World Trade Center. It became clear to me and to the entire nation that we were under attack.  Yes, one aircraft could accidentally hit the WTC, but two?  Absolutely not. It was also very clear the second plane was not a small sightseeing plane, but a large airliner. For the next 15 minutes or so I sat on the edge of my sofa watching the events unfold in New York City.  I (and certainly like many Americans) was in total dis-belief at what I had just watched happen. 

Part of my job responsibilities (both then and now) was/is to manage our business continuity and disaster recovery processes for the customer support organization at my company.  While we (at the time) didn’t have an office in the NYC area, I wanted to get into my office so that I could be prepared for what ever else might happen on this day.  At this time, only the two WTC towers had been attacked.  I was not aware there were two other planes.

I quickly drove to the office and of course most everyone had already heard about the attacks in NYC.  I’m asked by a colleague if I had heard of the events and said yes, I had watched the information regarding New York.  He said, but have you heard about Washington DC?  It soon became very clear this was not just an attack on New York and the World Trade Center.  This was much, much larger.

Internet access from the office became really slow with employees checking the various news sites, emailing friends and family.  We had small TV’s in the lobby of the building connected to a DirecTV feed and I went down to try to get more information.  I was not only concerned about what other attacks might be planned, but also on the WTC attack which I had watched earlier from my apartment.  I wanted to see what progress had been made on extinguishing the fires and of course get updates on the rescue efforts. 

I made it downstairs to one of the TV’s.  Smoke was still pouring from the top of both towers, within seconds  the south tower began to collapse. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was watching.  It wasn’t long after the south tower collapsed that we heard word of United Flight 93 crashing near Shanksville, PA.  I had already went back upstairs to make a few phone calls.  I remember hearing some employees talking about the north tower collapse.  Again…I just couldn’t believe it. 

At some point in the day, an announcement was made or perhaps there was a company email.  But what ever the delivery mechanism, the message was to let us all know that all employees had been accounted for.  I doubt very seriously if much work got done that day.  As I said, I was scheduled to fly to London in a few days.  After hearing about all flights being grounded for possibly a few days, I spoke to my boss and determined I would not be traveling as scheduled. 

I remember going home and making myself a fairly stiff drink.  Sometime around 9 PM I went out to the hot tub.  It was a cool evening and I remember looking up in the sky and seeing and hearing nothing.  This was odd as I lived near the flight path for Centennial Airport (KAPA) and Denver International (KDEN) is only about 25-30 miles and at just about any time of the day and evening you can see the planes coming in for landings and departing.  I do recall hearing a few jet fighters and seeing various types of military aircraft.  I’m sure this was the case over most every major metropolitan city. 

Like many Americans, I did a lot of praying and in doing so asked God a lot of questions.  I have tried to pray for peace each and every day since the attacks and pray for the those who are making sacrifices and sometimes the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our freedoms both at home and abroad. 

In 2005 through the course of two acquisitions, Oracle acquired Peoplesoft who had acquired JD Edwards in 2003.  On the four year anniversary of 9/11 I learned something I didn’t know previous.  While JD Edwards didn’t lose any employees in the attacks, Oracle had lost eight employees that day.  Most will know the name of one employee in particular.  This employee, along with many other brave individuals fought back in what possibly should be considered the first battle won over terrorism and that employee was Todd Beamer.  Todd and many other brave individuals fought back on United Flight 93.  While they gave their life, they did it so many others could live.  Of course we now suspect that Flight 93 was headed for the US Capitol Building or the White House. 

In 2007 I realized a childhood dream to get my amateur radio license.  I remembered the speech which President George W. Bush made in January 2002 when he announced the creation of the USA Freedom Corps.  During that State of the Union address, President Bush asked Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves.  I answered that call by joining the Denver Police Depts. Volunteers in Policing Unit and DAREC, Denver Amateur Radio Emergency Communications.  In the course of just 3 years I had volunteered over 250 hours in that program. 

Yes it is easy to say “I’ll never forget”.  Through illness or old age there may come a time when I just don’t remember.  But for now, I will remember and each year on September 11th (as I have done for the past 9 years), I’ll wake up early and I’ll go downstairs, make a cup of coffee, turn on the TV (yes Fox News Channel) and I’ll say a little prayer and prepare myself to watch, to remember and even cry a little. I hope all American’s will remember, I hope all American’s will pray and I hope all American’s will cry a little. 

Thank you for reading and for allowing me to cross post this across my different blogs.

God Bless the United States of America.

Jerry