Daily Devotionals for Razorback Fans

One of the things the kids and I got Shan for Christmas was a daily devotional.  The twist is that each day connects a Razorbacks moment, thought, etc with the scripture for the day.  We actually got it on sale at Lane's Toys and Gifts in Texarkana, but you can find the book online at the link below.  Note: I get no proceeds or anything for mentioning the book.  No, I'm not the author or connected in anyway to the author.  I just think some of the stories in the book are worth sharing!

http://www.edmcminn.com/arra.html

RPC Error trying to renew IP address

While working on a computer this weekend, I came across a problem I had not encountered before.  The computer would not connect to my local wireless network.  The machine had been infected with a virus/malware but had been cleaned prior to coming to my possession.

I finally got it to connect to my network (it was an adapter setting), but the computer would still get online.  I dropped to a command prompt and saw the machine was using a self-assigned IP address.  That's no good.

When I tried to renew the IP, I got an error: "The RPC server is unavailable."  After searching for a while, I came across several back-up related forum posts about the error.  None of those applied. Start again.

I searched around some more, changing the terms a bit, and came across a post with people having the same problem.  Okay, getting warmer.

One suggestion was to run sfc /scannow.  That usually cures system file issues, but it did nothing for this situation.  However, one of the comments to the article had exactly what I needed!

I looked in SERVICES and saw that DHCP Client was not started.  When I tried to start it, I got another error: 1075 Dependency is not loaded.  The fix is actually pretty easy:

"Just delete the registry entry and reboot the system. It should work just fine. it worked for me. 

• Click Start, 

• click Run, 

• type regedit in the Open box, 

• and then click OK. 

• In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp 

• Right-click the DependOnService entry, 

• and then click delete. 

• Click OK enough times to get out. 

• Reboot the computer."

That worked!  Once I rebooted, the computer and it (eventually) found my network and connected. Whew!

Hope this helps someone else.

Black-Eyed Peas, who knew!?

I grew up "Yankee" as they say here in the South.  That means I grew up eating pork, sauerkraut, and hot dogs for New Year's.  But, in the South, they have a tradition of eating Black-Eyed Peas for luck.  My Aunt sent out a neat story about the tradition, and I started checking it out to get more info.  Well, that opened up a whole can of, er, well, peas I guess.  Here are several takes on the tradition of eating BEP:

From my Aunt:

"The Real Story is much more interesting and has gone untold in fear that feelings would be hurt. It’s a story of war, the most brutal and bloody war, military might and power pushed upon civilians, women, children and elderly. Never seen as a war crime, this was the policy of the greatest nation on earth trying to maintain that status at all costs. An unhealed wound remains in the hearts of some people of the southern states even today; on the other hand, the policy of slavery has been an open wound that has also been slow to heal but is okay to talk about. The story of THE BLACK EYED PEA being considered good luck relates directly back to Sherman 's Bloody March to the Sea in late 1864. It was called The Savannah Campaign and was lead by Major General William T. Sherman. The Civil War campaign began on 11/15/64 when Sherman 's troops marched from the captured city of Atlanta , Georgia , and ended at the port of Savannah on 12/22/1864. When the smoke cleared, the southerners who had survived the onslaught came out of hiding. They found that the blue belly aggressors that had looted and stolen everything of value and everything you could eat including all livestock - death and destruction were everywhere. While in hiding, few had enough to eat, and starvation was now upon the survivors. There was no international aid, no Red Cross meal trucks. The Northern army had taken everything they could carry and eaten everything they could eat. But they couldn’t take it all. The devastated people of the south found for some unknown reason that Sherman ’s bloodthirsty troops had left silos full of black eyed peas. At the time in the north, the lowly black eyed pea was only used to feed stock. The northern troops saw it as the thing of least value. Taking grain for their horses and livestock and other crops to feed themselves, they just couldn’t take everything. So they left the black eyed peas in great quantities assuming it would be of no use to the survivors, since all the livestock it could feed had either been taken or eaten. Southerners awoke to face a new year in this devastation and were facing massive starvation if not for the good luck of having the black eyed peas to eat. From New Years Day 1866 forward, the tradition grew to eat black eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck." (Source: email, unknown origin)

According to TexasScapes.com, the tradition was invented by Elmore Torn, Sr (who happens to be the dad of Rip Torn).  It is rather lengthy, so I'll just provide a link.  In essence though, he invented the story as a way to sell a product no one wanted.(http://www.texasescapes.com/CFEckhardt/The-Great-Blackeyed-Pea-Hoax.htm)

Still, someone else wrote the following on a discussion board about the subject:

Not true. The "good luck" traditions of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day are recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (compiled ~500 CE), Horayot 12A: "Abaye [d. 339 CE] said, now that you have established that good-luck symbols avail, you should make it a habit to see Qara (bottle gourd), Rubiya (black-eyed peas, Arabic Lubiya), Kartei (leeks), Silka (either beets or spinach), and Tamrei (dates) on your table on the New Year." A parallel text in Kritot 5B states that one should eat these symbols of good luck. The accepted custom (Shulhan Aruh Orah Hayim 583:1, 16th century, the standard code of Jewish law and practice) is to eat the symbols. This custom is followed by Sepharadi and Israeli Jews to this day. The first Sepharadi Jews arrived in Georgia in the 1730s and have lived there continuously since. The Jewish practice was apparently adopted by non-Jews around the time of the Civil War. (Posted by pippinsrosy on http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/584205)

Still, another person responded with the best reason anyone does anything because of "tradition:"

People invent traditions because they have hope... they believe and want future generations to carry on these things.
My Great Grandmother was born in 1901 and told me (before she recently passed) that EVERY New Year's in her life included blackeyed peas... for luck in the new year. One pea for every day of good luck in the New Year. Unless she didn't start getting lucky until '47 (and she had two teen daughters by then, so I'd say she got a bit lucky) then I'm sticking with her rendition. And I have at least two hundred blackeyed peas as leftovers to eat tomorrow. :-) Happy New Year, everyone! (Posted by Ideabaker on http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/584205)

  Well, whatever reason you have for doing it, I still think Black-Eyed Peas are nasty.  However, I did eat two over-sized spoonfuls. Just in case.  I also had my dawgs and kraut!

The "Un-Internet" and educational application

I posted this to a statewide edu-tech list to which I belong.  I thought I would post here for another avenue of discussion.  This is in response to (or rather, a sharing of) an article published yesterday (Jan 2, 2012).

This article (linked below) is mainly about business practices, but I can see some of the same discussions surfacing in education circles regarding content (bandwidth not withstanding and bandwidth quickly becoming a non-issue), blocked sites, etc.  Sure, we have CIPA and COPPA to contend with, but the days of "Network Nazism" are quickly coming to an end. As well they should be.  I enjoy seeing the emergence of actual Technology Committees at various districts: Administrators, teachers, community members all reviewing sites submitted by teachers and students to be reviewed for educational use.  This has worked very well in the district for which I am one of the "community members."  In fact, we recently blocked one site and opened another based on that group's input.  We have to protect our students, but we also have to realize that our teachers and students *ARE* the users/customers, and unless we work WITH them, they will find ways to work around or without us.

 

http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/01/the-un-internet/

Welcome to 2012

Happy New Year!

First, a look back and then a look ahead.

On January 9 (just a few days away), Commodore revealed the Commodore 64.  The computer cost $299, which was not horrid back then, but not exactly peanuts either.  The real downside was that EVERYTHING was extra - floppy storage was another $179 for the original 1541, if you could find one.  Most folks started off with the $99 tape drive.  Yes, kiddos, before games came on DVDs (or there was anything remotely referred to as 'the cloud,'), we had games that were stored on cassette tapes.  Oh, wait. You might not even know what cassette tapes are.  Yeesh.  Before MP3s and CDs, we had these plastic cases with a think ribbon of 'tape' that held our music.  Well, the same technology to store music was used to store data.

Aside from the affection Mac owners are known to have for their computers, Commodore owners probably 'loved' their computers the most.  No other company (again, aside from Apple) garnered such admiration for a line of computers as Commodore.  Even today, you can ask people about their old '64s and watch as their eyes glaze over, their head tilts slightly to one side and their mind wanders back to a time of 8-bit wonders.

Some time ago, several years actually, several groups/companies came up with C64 emulators that would run on PCs.  Now, you could have all the nostalgia running in a window on your computer while you surfed the web, played other games, or did just about anything else you wanted to.  The entire C64 collection of games fits on a series of DVDs.

And then, Commodore was reignited and a new company brought forth a C64 clone.  The new machine is a PC running the emulator.  It also costs over 3x as much as the original, listing for $999 from CommodoreUSA.  No thanks.  Even if I bought the emulator and the DVD series, I'd still have change left over for my card hobby.  So it wouldn't LOOK like a C64. Who cares. I digress.

---

As for looking ahead, I managed a paltry 80 posts in 2011.  I posted more than that during my first year of blogging when I really had no idea what I was doing or why.  I am not a "resolutions" kind of person, but I absolutely resolve to post more in 2012.  What accounts for the lack of posts?  I'm ashamed to admit it, but Facebook and Twitter have become my main outlet streams.  That's not a bad thing, really, but I am a huge proponent of blogging, especially in education, and so I need to champion that which I, er, champion.

Of course, the first round of solid postings will come from the annual "American Idol" rundown.  I also plan to post some of my more in-depth musings on here and let those take on a life of their own here and in the social networking realms.  For instance, my thoughts on public breastfeeding sparked quite a conversation on Facebook.  It would have been fun to start that here and then follow it in both circles, possibly cross-posting back here as to additional comments, etc.

I have been putting off two novels as well.  I don't mean reading them - I mean writing them.  So, the next "resolution" on my list: Write 'em.  I've actually decided that "Summer Breaks" will become a larger version of itself to be entitled, "Extended Summer Breaks."  It will be cleaned up and several elements expanded based on feedback I've received from friends and reviews.  The other novel, "Somewhere Main and Maple Meet," is already 2/3rds complete in first draft, so I'm looking to finish it up and get it published as well.  In fact, I plan to shop that one through Christian publishing circles to see if I can get a tradition publisher to pick it up.  I'll keep you posted.

My final "real" resolution relates to my bucket list.  I am picking one item to cross off the list and will focus my attention throughout the year to make it happen.  Not sure which item yet, but once I choose, that will be the one I try to knock off.

Thanks to everyone who comes by to read my ramblings and musings, and I hope to provide you much more entertainment in 2012 than in 2011.