There's usually a small private airplane somewhere in the vicinity either sightseeing along the coast or arriving or departing from the local airport.

Every now and then, we get to see (and hear) military jets passing overhead.

Depending on the wind, sometimes we are near the approach for the commercial jets, although the flight path is far enough away that we don't tend to hear them.

We also apparently live close to a high altitude airway, so we see jets traversing overhead either by their contrails during the day, or navigation lights at night.

Both of us like planes, so we get a kick out of being able to see so many from the comfort of our home.

Today, we had a surprise visitor. I guess we were just lucky that Jeanie happened to be out in the back yard and noticed it, as it wasn't making any noise that we could hear.

Rather than describing it, here are some pictures: http://www.blogdom.org/gallery/album08

Cool, huh?

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Serene Solstice...

Or my new personal favorite: Chappy Chanumas

Whatever brings you comfort and joy at this time of the year, I wish you great happiness and hope that life is good for you.

After getting all the new cabling done, and posting the entry, I decided to up the refresh rate on my work notebook, an IBM T-30 from 85Hz to 100Hz.

Unfortunately, after upping the refresh rate, the refresh rate appeared to actually decrease. The properties said that the refresh rate was 100Hz, but it appeared to my ultra flicker sensitive eyes to be more like 60Hz. I fiddled and fiddled, reset this, reset that, rebooted, blah, blah, no luck. In fact, no matter what rate I configured, it looked to my eye to be "stuck" on 60Hz.

People look at me strangely when I tell them that I can see flicker at 60Hz, but, I have yet to be wrong when I see a screen flickering, say that the refresh rate is too slow, and then check the refresh rate. As an interesting little trick, if you want to "see" flicker, try setting your screen to 60Hz, and then "look" at the screen indirectly. By this I mean, rather than focusing on the screen with the central portion of your vision, look off slightly to the side or edge of the screen, and then "view" the screen with your peripheral vision.

Anyway, after doing some Googling, I found the answer...

It appears that if the notebook is connected to a KVM when you go to reconfigure the refresh rate, Windows (for some reason) decides that the monitor can only support 60Hz, and that's as fast as it will drive the video, regardless of what it says the refresh rate is configured at.

The resolution involved connecting the monitor directly to the video port on the T-30, reconfiguring the refresh rate to 100Hz, then rebooting the system. After Windows restarted, things looked right.

Ever since we moved, I suffered with a blurry monitor.

It's not the monitor's fault - it's a really nice Dell Ultrascan P991 19" flat screen monitor.

The problem was that my desk is about twelve feet away from the KVM switch I use to allow me to use one Keyboard, Video, and Mouse with the four PCs in my office. Well, actually, the distance wasn't even the problem. Truth be told, the problem was that I was cheap when I ordered the twelve foot (actually two six foot) monitor extension cables.

I did some research, and the consensus was that with anything over a 17" monitor, the display was going to be fraught with ghosting, blur, and other visual distortions without the use of high quality monitor extension cables. So, I decided to spend some of my Christmas money and get me some decent cables.

The primary extension cable I ordered was a Cables To Go part number CTG #28003 15FT extension from Provantage. This is about the mother of all monitor extension cables; it is double Ferrited and Double Shielded, constructed with UL2919 certified composite coaxial and twisted pair shielded cables. I couldn't find a twelve footer, thus the three excess feet. I also bought a 6FT CTG #14095 extension cable to replace the medium quality cable between my work notebook and the KVM. Unfortunately, Provantage was out of stock of the ferrited 6FT cables, so I had to settle for the unferrited version, although I think because it is so much shorter, it is not as big an issue. Just the addition of the new "main" cable provided a significant improvement on the work notebook, and the new extension cable for the notebook port provided even more improvement. I then took the medium quality cable from the notebook and used it to replace the really cheap Tripp-Lite cable going to one of the "servers." That improvement was the most dramatic of all. I went from a system display which was barely readable because of the multiple ghost images, to a system display which is only mildly ghosted (probably as much due to the cheap video driver on the system as to the quality of the extension cable).

Even on my "main" PC, the image is still not 100% perfect - there's still a hint of ghosting - but considering I've got a KVM with six feet of cable on one "side" and fifteen feet of extension cable plus six feet of the monitor's cable on the other, it's pretty amazing just how good the display is. I did also notice just a hint of flicker after installing the new cables that I hadn't seen before, but upping the refresh rate to 100 Hz appears to have fixed that issue (and the ability to support 100 Hz refresh rate is pretty amazing in its own right given my setup).

So, I guess, at least in this case, the old adage is true - you really do get what you pay for.

This was another excellent download from Audible. Audible has restructured its offerings, and they are now even more affordable, but the quality and ease of use continues to impress me.

The book was excellent.

Jonathan Davis' performance was fantastic. Not only did he give just the right amount of dramatic enhancement to the narration, but he even managed to provide different voices for the various characters, making it easier to follow who was saying what when. Given the number of male, American characters in the book, this was quite a feat. He also did a good job with the voices / accents of the non-male, non-American characters. This was another audio production that had some musical "embellishment," and even though I'd still prefer a lack thereof, this music did not approach the level of "annoying" that I have found in some other audio books.

The story was also really good. I have come to expect good character development and an interesting, but not frustratingly convoluted, plot from Balducci, and he once again delivered. And, unlike some other suspense books, this one maintained its intensity all the way to the end.

As with a number of other recent listens, this book had as a central focus, the conflict between radical Islam and America. I liked that this book had a number of other plot drivers and layers, and was not just another "Bad Muslim, Good American" story. While I understand that this conflict provides good substance for current novels, much as the cold war did for so many years, it does sadden me that this seems to be so much of our focus in this day and age. It also saddens me when I really think about the challenges we face as a world, and how difficult "solving" these problems is, and how unlikely it is that we will ever truly see peace throughout the earth. I know I am idealistic and naive, but I really don't understand why we can't all just get along.

If you want to view more in-depth reviews or ratings of the book, check out Amazon.com or
Barnes & Noble.com Home Page

To me, that just seems ungrateful at best.

If I had wanted to send more money, I would have when I made the contribution. Asking for more money in the acknowledgement is like them saying "um, you didn't really send enough - you should have sent more." It really detracts from the initial contribution and makes me want to scratch them off the list for future consideration.