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Out with the old wifi

Had to replace the wifi router (a D-Link DIR-655). It had been crashing intermittently for a while now. All of a sudden, the wifi would just disappear and the router was inaccessible even from the wired connection. Power cycling would bring it back to life though. Last night after the router dropped out several times in a 10 minute span, I decided it was time to replace it.

Fortunately we still had Connie’s wifi router on hand (a D-Link DIR-615). A slight downgrade from the DIR-655, but it works and I didn’t have to go out and buy a new one. The only significant things lost are the gigabit wired ports that the desktop is connected to, but that’s not a huge deal. I can live without those for a while.

I noticed that when I was taking the old wifi router off the pegboard that it was feeling pretty warm, so I suspect that the crashing was due to overheating.

Now I have a wifi router to play with on the workbench… 🙂

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Hops Tower Dedication

The dedication ceremony for Theresa’s hops tower happened this afternoon. I made sure to get there early before there were too many people around and got some more pictures. The hops vines grew even more over the weekend. Before the weekend (on June 4) some of the vines had reached the top.

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Today, it looked like this

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The dedication ceremony was a very nice event with some words and memories shared by Theresa’s family and some of the people she worked with and for. There was a pretty good crowd in attendance, a testament to the number of people Theresa touched and the people she inspired.

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The plaque at the base of the tower is fabulous.

Hops tower dedication plaque
Hops tower dedication plaque

A very nice reception followed after the dedication ceremony and after that a nice gathering of family and friends at Tommy Condon’s where I got to meet some more of Theresa’s friends and shared some stories.

Everybody seemed to agree that this was a very fitting way to remember Theresa, and I’d have to agree.

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Memorial Hops Tower

It’s been a little over a year since my friend Theresa died.

A few months ago, one of the people she worked for at MUSC arranged to have a hops tower put up in the MUSC Porcher Medicinal Garden (if you’re on campus, you’ll find it located between the library, the Basic Science Building and the Drug Discovery Building).

The tower was installed in April, the hops planted and over the past few weeks they’ve been growing pretty quickly.

I took this one on April 21, shortly after the hops tower and hops were planted. The little bit of green vine-y type stuff directly below are the hops plants.

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New hops tower

This was a couple weeks later, on May 5.

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New hops!

Here it is yesterday, May 26. The vines are climbing up pretty quickly to the top and every time I walk past it, they seem to have gone a little higher.

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There’s even a little Carolina Anole that likes to hang out on the tower.

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On June 9 at 3PM, there will be a dedication ceremony for the tower with a reception afterwards. From Theresa’s dad,

The Medical University of South Carolina will be dedicating the Hops Tower in the Medicinal garden on the campus of MUSC in memory of Theresa Peters on Mon 6/9 at 3:00PM. There will be a reception immediately following in Colcock Hall.
Thank you Bart Yancey, Marcia Higaki, Dr. Lanier and all at MUSC.

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Southeast Linuxfest 2014 registration now open

After much anticipation, registration for Southeast Linuxfest 2014 is now open!

As usual, SELF is free to attend (registration recommended). There’s also the supporting attendee package for $65 which gets you lunch, a shirt, drink tickets for the parties and the undying gratitude of the organizers.

There will also be ARRL VEs administering the amateur radio license tests (I’ll be one of them) so if you’ve been thinking about getting or upgrading your license, now’s your chance. You still have a month to study!

This year’s schedule includes Puppet training, an information security track put on by BSides Charlotte, BSDA and LPI certification exams in addition to the regular SELF tracks.

Book your hotel soon, because the $99/night SELF rate expires May 29.

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Moar copper clad

An order of 20lb of copper clad PCB arrived, getting me closer to my goal of having the workshop stocked well enough so that I can build and experiment without triggering that “can’t use it because I’m running low” instinct.

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Box of copper-clad PCB

(Banana for scale)

This is my second order from Copper Clad Laminates on ebay, and so far I’ve been pretty pleased with the product. This was one of his bulk items containing boards that maybe aren’t the right size, have some light scratches or other imperfections that wouldn’t qualify them for a regular batch, but are more than suitable for my purposes. It’s all double sided and there’s a nice variety of sizes too. At $1.05/lb, it’s a pretty good deal.