I really should change this.

My prompt to post something today was due to Askimet (my spam protection system) failing - at about 10AM this morning something went awry with it’s setup and suddenly I was getting hammered with “Comment Notifications” every few minutes, except 100% of it was spam. It was an effective way of getting me to focus my attention here again as I tackled it’s repair tonight.

2012 was an utter blogging failure, so I’ll try harder in 2013.

Regardless, I’ll follow up for the few family members and friends who may still be following.

In late November/early December we cruised on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas, the largest cruise ship afloat. My friends on Facebook would have seen plenty of pictures of the trip during the last few weeks, or you can check out Royal Caribbean’s website for details.

It was our first cruise, and there was only one way to explain it - 7 days of an altered state of reality.

First off, Royal Caribbean has service down to a science - it was simply amazing to watch the ship and it’s staff run like clockwork all day, every day, ensuring that the guests are pampered, catered to, and made to feel like, well…Royalty. Even though we were in one of the lowest stateroom classifications we were treated no differently than guests in other staterooms short of those in the upper echelon suites, for whom the “royalty” status takes on a whole new level, one which I’ll surely never experience.

The ship is impossible to ever explain without physically sailing aboard her. Amazing doesn’t begin to explain it, and despite the fact that there were over 6000 guests on our particular cruise (significantly above the normal amount due to many staterooms having more than 2 occupants) it’s rare that you are ever aware of the fact - the ship is so massive that there was no issues finding a quiet place to sit quietly…or even alone if you wanted to. On the flipside, if you want activity and entertainment you need not look far - everything from 3D movies to zip lining, rock climbing, a real wooden carousel, countless pools and hot tubs (many in the adults-only solarium on the bow), 2 Flow-Rider artificial wave machines, thousands upon thousands of deck-chairs in the sun, bands, the royal promenade, shopping, restaurants, bistros and bars, and one of my favorite areas aboard the ship, the unique Central Park, which is (for lack of a better description) like a real park aboard the ship. Yes - real plants, real trees, and even real birds that live aboard the ship by choice, since the park is open to air. It was my “go-to” place where I would sit, listen to the birds (or the crickets at night) and unwind.

My only two “issues” with the cruise?

1/ Food is so plentiful (and of course, free) that unless you have an iron constitution and can either walk right on by and ignore the reality it’s tempting you every few minutes, you should plan on gaining weight during the cruise. I gained almost 8 pounds, which given how hard I worked last winter to get all the weight off, was a bit of a personal disappointment to me.

2/ Tours of the ships behind-the-scenes areas were hard to come by, expensive, and reserved to the more elite (aforementioned suite) guests. I was first put off when I was told that there was a $150 charge for the “All access pass” tour, which admittedly was 3.5 hours long, covered interesting areas such as the bridge, engine room, galleys, and many staff areas, but having it monetized to that extent was surprising. Secondly, as a non-suite guest I was told that I was effectively out of luck since it was limited to a small number of people, and only on one day. Despite my willingness to pay, and attempts to get on the tour, I was never successful.

In the grand scheme of things, my above issues were but mere annoyances - the whole experience was otherwise simply amazing.

Will we sail aboard Allure (or it’s sister, Oasis) again? Absolutely - we are already in the initial planning stages for the same cruise next November. It’s going to be a long year - perhaps we’ll have another cruise in the meantime. ;)

Yes, we are hooked.

So, here’s the crib note version of the last few months.

- No flying since my last blog entry on the topic. I still miss it, but saw some powered paragliders in Maine that piqued my interest in perhaps looking into that option. The per-hour cost is surely but a small fraction of certified flight.

- Busy at work. Sometimes too busy. Frustrating at times.

- I came off my diet around May after loosing a grand total of 60 pounds. I’ve since put about 10 back on after a carefree and enjoyable summer, but want to clamp down again soon and take that (plus another 20 or so) off as well. Having a hard time getting motivated again, and working long hours is not helping.

- Our vacation this year took us camping in NJ/New York City, Boston, Bar Harbor Maine, and lots of places in between. We camped through the east coast earthquake (in Manhattan when it hit), and Hurricane Irene which went over top of us in Connecticut.

- My Windfields Farm pet project (see here if you’ve missed my posts on it) got some very big mainstream media attention. Unfortunately all of this happened while we were on vacation so I missed the opportunity to take the best possible advantage of it, and I haven’t had time to leverage it any further since then, but it DID get some very important action taken on the property. More details to come.

- We’ve booked another vacation in November on the worlds largest cruise ship, the Allure Of the Seas. This is the first cruise for all 4 of us and we can’t wait.

I’ll be making a flurry of blog entries in the coming days catching up in a little more detail on all these subjects, so stay tuned.

Since that time we have become a much more energy conscious household. The simple reality of being able to see (on a second by second basis) how much electricity the house is consuming has a way of making you think about your consumption, and what can be done to lower it.

Part of the package was the ability to upload the data (every 10 minutes) to the Google Powermeter service which provided a good method of tracking and logging our consumption data. With the site having a mobile version as well we were also able to access the data remotely.

However, a few days ago Google announced Powermeter was being shut down. Apparently it attracted too little interest to justify it’s continued existance. Arguably, Google themselves were at the biggest fault for this - in the furor that has since erupted online after the announcement, a common comment has been “Cool service, I would have used it if I had knew it existed!”.

Regardless, with the impending doom of the service I’m now left with few options. Pachube offers a service which is compatible with my hardware (and most importantly, includes OSX/Mac support software) but the website is neither friendly to the non-geek, nor mobile friendly. The interface software is functional, but also lacking from a feature and reliability standpoint. They were quick to put up a blog post welcoming defecting Google Powermeter users (and even offering up a free Premium account to those who import their GPM data), but they don’t seem interested in following through with their offer of free premium accounts, which ironically you need BEFORE trying to import more than 30 days of GPM data anyways. It’s a vicious circle made worse by a total lack fo response or attention to technical support emails, or posts made in their support forums.

Not good.

PlotWatt looked like it had potential, even noting on their main page “If you’ve come looking for an alternative to Google PowerMeter, you’re in luck”, but after looking further, they don’t even support the CurrentCost ENVI monitor I own. When I tried to signup for their “Notify me when my hardware is supported” alert the website kicks out an error, over and over again.

Not good, either.

I would consider running a standalone local monitoring program with a webserver component, but all the options for OSX are absolutely terrible.

So, it looks like my data will be orphaned very soon, or at least inaccessible remotely, and not logged.

Curse you, Google….

I went flying today. Looking back to my log book, that’s the first time since May of 2007 (!!) that I’ve been up. I can’t believe that amount of time has passed.

I had a voucher for Durham Flight Center at Oshawa airport. It was not the usual facility that I used to rent from (and trained at) but it was a deal that I couldn’t pass up. Upgrading to the 172 added a bit of additional cost, but it was quite reasonable in the end.

I was impressed with the aircraft, and even more so, the rates - I was quite surprised to see that their posted hourly rental rate for the C150/C152 fleet was still only $110 per hour - very surprising given I was paying more than that in 2007 for the Cessna 152’s at Canadian Flight Academy.

For the flight I brought along my 11 year old daughter as well as a long time friend, Mike.

For not having flown left-seat for nearly 4 years I was quite pleased how fast everything came back - the takeoff was smooth (although the crosswind did catch me slightly off guard as we got light on the wheels) and we were soon climbing out. I even maintained Vy within 5MPH, impressing even myself all things considered.

I decided that simply beelining it for CNF4 (Lindsay) to do a touch and go, and then heading back to Oshawa would be a fun flight for all involved. I used to fly into Lindsay quite often and it’s dead easy to find - something I was concerned about given I expected to be rusty.

Approach to Lindsay was uneventful and I actually pulled off a fairly respectable touchdown. Full power, let’s get outa here. Procedure whips through my head - Flaps up, full throttle, carb heat off, confirm mixture rich, confirm positive rate, maintain heading, radio calls.

We shot southbound back towards Oshawa at over 120MPH ground speed and enjoyed some more scenery. The skies were glassy calm to the point where flying the aircraft was almost effortless. Although I figured I’d be rusty, suffering heading and altitude deviations, the calm conditions meant that I virtually nailed everything +/- 100 feet for the entire flight with only two fingers on the yoke. It made me look downright good when in reality I think more challenging conditions would have made my rust show much more.

We were cleared left base for 12 and told to report established. A mile or so later we received our landing clearance before ever reporting established. I became aware of the fact that I was staying far enough ahead of the aircraft to be comfortable, but my situational awareness of traffic was lacking.

As has always been a occasional demon for me, I overshot my turn to final and ended up far past centerline, requiring a large correction. Then I realize I’m high on approach and needed to bleed altitude, only to remember exactly how fast a heavy C172 can sink as the VASI quickly went from 4 white to 3 red. Add power. Airspeed control sloppy. Getting buffeted around a little. Crosswind is yawing us, so I enter a sideslip, albeit a sloppy one, but passable. The rust is showing here now.

I transition to the flare and make another respectable touchdown, although I’m pretty sure I had some side loading on touchdown thanks to my sloppy sideslip control in the flare.

I remind myself I haven’t flown left seat in 4 years. I’ll take it.

We managed to keep the hobbs time at 0.9, which was surprising. A bill that was actually less than I anticipated was a pleasant result of such.

Overall, great fun, and it satisfied the craving to get airborne again. I was very surprised at how little rust I exhibited, although the glassy conditions made for an effortless flight, all things considered.

Following up on my blog from last week bemoaning the lack of care given to the historical property since it’s closure, I contacted the local newspaper to see if they’d follow up and print an article.

Must to my pleasure I received a call from a reporter a week ago Friday and was interviewed on the phone, and low and behold, look what appeared in yesterdays Oshawa This Week newspaper.

Click here to go directly to the much larger online digital print version (see page 5 specifically), or download/view the PDF version here.

The article touched on most of the points I wanted to make, and confirms that as of yet the college really has no plans (and apparently, even a idea) on how to proceed. Meanwhile, if the blatant neglect of something as prominent as the gates and signage is any indication, the property and other historical structures out of the public eye surely continue to decay as well.

Given that the college/university has both Carpentry and Masonry students learning their trades as part of their education, it would seem to me to be a perfect opportunity to provide some “hands on, real world” work for the students in repairing and maintaining what’s left of Windfields, either as part of their experience as a student, or even on a voluntary basis. What little is still visible to the public needs attention, and as of the liquidation auction last year (when the public was last able to view the status of the buildings) it was apparent that they were also decaying and falling into a state of disrepair. I doubt little (if anything) has been done since.

If nothing else, this article has brought the matter back into the public view and will put some pressure on the University to live up to their agreement to preserve the agreed upon portion of the property, and it’s history.

Durham College / Universisity of Ontario Instutite of Technology (UOIT), I’m looking directly at you. So are many others, despite what you may think.

However, like all computer hardware, what once seemed fast has slowly started to loose it’s lustre. As the years have passed the original 250 Gig hard drive has started to suffer from the typical situations that occur with old, small, and slow hard drives - it’s constantly near capacity, and it’s just not keeping up with the demands being put upon it any longer.

Yesterday I came across a good deal on a new (but refurbished) Seagate 750 gig HD, and today I picked it up for about $50. 7200 RPM, 32 Meg cache, and impressive benchmarks. Yes, it’s refurbished, but the reviews out there seemed to indicate a good track record, and besides, I keep two backups (onsite via Time Machine, and offsite via Twin) so if it craps out in a few years (assuming I still actually own the machine at that point) it won’t be the end of the world.

For a brief period I had contemplated getting a 10,000RPM model and going all-out for speed, but the concerns about heat (as well as noise, not to mention cost) steered me back to the 7200RPM models instead. I’m not sure my hardware could have effectively utilized it’s capabilities anyways.

I immediately headed straight to iFixit and brushed up on the process - it seemed pretty straightforward for anyone who is familiar with Apple hardware and isn’t afraid to dive in head first.

It was amusing reading some of the message forum posts elsewhere where people were freaking out about the prospects of even opening up Apple hardware. “OMG, replace the hard drive?! Just sell the iMac and buy a new one!” was the absolutely ridiculous response to one persons query about upgrading their own iMac hard drive.

So, with nearly 100 days of uptime on the OSX clock, I shut down the iMac and waited for everything to spin down before disconnecting everything and heading for the kitchen table.

Following the guides the job went incredibly smooth. I was most paranoid about removing the glass on the front of the display versus any other part of the job, but using the recommended suction cup method it was a complete non event.

Correct tools are absolutely necessary. In typical Apple fashion Torx screws of various sizes are used liberally throughout the machines internals.

Before long (and after several visits outdoors to blow out copious amounts of dust from various internal parts as I got to them) I had the bezel off, the LCD removed, and was staring at the hard drive.

Removing the actual drive was fairly easy - I pictured it mounted in a difficult to remove fashion, but to the contrary it was mounted on a “squeeze to remove” snap in structure that made it dead simple after removing the temperature sensor and connecting wires.

I swapped a few of the mounting parts to the new hard drive, and in mere minutes I was on the path to re-assembly. I nearly forgot to plug in the LCD display ribbon during the rebuilding process, only to be saved when it had folded up underneath the LCD preventing it from seating correctly. Whew, I would have been pissed to reassemble everything only to find the LCD dead.

I did end up having to remove the LCD again anyways as the cable as the microphone on the bezel ended up wound up underneath it. No big deal, a few extra minutes to fix that issue.

Getting the front bezel back on proved the most challenging part of the job - it seemed there was a very specific way it had to be placed, tilted, jiggled, teased and lowered in order to settle into it’s proper position. Eventually I managed to coax it back into place and tightened things down.

The iFixit guide was adamant to be careful to avoid getting dust on the LCD or display cover during the job, a task that was impossible given how much internal dust was encased inside the computer itself. I resorted to using a fine cotton cloth after the job was complete to carefully wipe the LCD and cover clean before “snapping” the magnet-retained front panel back into the bezel.

Done!

Well, almost. Time to restore from backup.

Earlier, in preparation for the job I burned an image of my Snow Leopard disk to an old 10Gig IDE hard drive I had kicking around in my “obsolete compute junk I might actually need again some day” box, making it bootable so I could utilize that for this (and any future) diagnostic requirements instead of my seemingly always lost (and easily damaged) OSX DVD’s. I hooked it up using a IDE/Sata to USB adapter I bought on eBay a year ago for $5.00.

With the machine put back together I plugged everything back in and pushed the power button. BONG, it came to life..all good. Within seconds it booted to the OSX install screen (hello fast HD versus slow DVD!) and I flipped right into disk utility. Within a minute I had the new hard drive recognized, partitioned, and formatted. So far, so good.

Flipping to Time Machine restore, I started the process. Unfortunately, courtesy of the terribly slow external HD I use for time machine (coupled with the restraints of USB itself) the backup process initially showed approximately 8.5 hours to completion. Now, about 2 hours in, it has reduced to only 2.5 hours remaining and is 38% complete. It’s turning into a bit of an agonizing process, but one that can’t be rushed, so no sense in complaining. I really should have used my Firewire drive for backups instead of one of my 2 USB drives - It’s significantly faster.

I’m anticipating that this will be a significant speed boost to my aging iMac. The factory hard drive was a bare-bones Seagate model that scored dismally on every benchmark test out there, and the new hard drive, albeit not the speed demon on the best-of-the-best on the market, scored respectfully, and seemed to garner lots of positive speed-related comments from those who reviewed it.

Now hurry up and restore, Time Machine…I want my iMac back!

The crumbling gates of the former Windfields Farms facility in Oshawa Ontario.

For those not familiar with it, suffice to say it was the birth (and now resting) place of Northern Dancer, the most influential horse in the history of thoroughbred racing.

The facility itself has a famed history, Norther Dancer aside, and for many in the horse community, it’s revered as hallowed ground. Much history happened there, and it was one of the things that put Oshawa on the global map.

I’ve came across many good blog articles over the last few days on both Windfields itself, as well as Northern Dancer, here, here (This post specifically dealing with Windfields closure), as well as the local newspapers coverage original coverage of the closure.

Sadly, starting in the early 2000’s Windfields started a downward spiral that eventually resulted in it’s shutdown. It appears to be a combination of the original owner(s) having passed away and the new owners lacking the will (or way) to continue the dynasty, eventually resulting in this unfortunate outcome. In 2008 it was reduced to a private facility, and in 2009, closed entirely. In the spring of 2010 the farm was liquidated and shuttered for good.

It was a sad day when such a huge part of the history of Oshawa (and Canada) effectively came to an end.

The vast majority of the property has been purchased primarily by property developers and the University of Ontario institute of Technology which is located just to the south of Windfields. Both the university and the housing developers are slowly but surely creeping north onto the property formerly occupied by the fields. Reportedly, the “core” of the property (as well as several of the significantly historic structures) were to be salvaged and transformed into a public park by the university, not only in respect to the historical values, but also due to the fact that nearly 20 horses, many of significant importance such as Northern Dancer, Vice Regent, and others, are interred there.

My concern is that the properly appears to have been effectively abandoned. I drive by the main gates (pictured above) several times per week and always longingly gaze down the main drive and onto the grounds as I pass by…but for over a year now I have not seen a soul on the property. Only this week did I see the main gate open and a single set of tire tracks (whch appeared to be several days old at the time) leading onto the property. Perhaps it was someone checking on the property, or perhaps it was someone driving in to take pictures or visit the graves.

The property is very clearly deteriorating. Look closely at the picture above and you can see the rock in the pillars falling apart. The sign is faded and weatherbeaten. The finely manicured flower beds and shrubbery that once adorned the gates are all gone. The fences are falling apart, paint peeling everywhere. The barns and outbuildings that are visible from the road are clearly in a full blown state of abandonment.

I was surprised to see the light on the south side of the sign still lit, but that was sadly the only sign of life left on the entire farm. Presumably, at least someone is still paying the electricity bills.

No matter what happens, something needs to be done to remind the new owners of this historic property that it has not been forgotten. Letting the property languish until there is nothing left to perserve will not be accepted.

And so, for the foreseeable future, I have a pet project. I’ve already started the process. :)

They have already reduced their own offerings to a selection of pittiful overpriced plans with small caps, but they were still forced to allow third party providers (who piggyback on their networks) to provide much more reasonable plans.

We are a digital household - every member of our family is connected to the internet in one fashion or another, we use Netflix, rent movies on our AppleTV, download Xbox games and content, send and receive video files, I backup huge amounts of data (such as my iPhoto library) offsite, and we also surf a lot. It’s not uncommon for us to exceed 100 gigs per month, occasionally more if I import a bunch of video into iPhoto which subsequently gets backed up offsite.

Currently, I currently pay about $40 per month for 200 Gigs of DSL on a dryloop connection through an independent DSL provider called Teksavvy.

However, the independents are the exception to the rule when it comes to the current realities of ISP’s in Canada. Not happy with allowing their customers to enjoy a reasonable amount of bandwidth for a set price, they have been on a mission for the last few years to castrate the internet by reducing bandwidth limits.

Their problem was that they were only doing it to themselves (and their own customers), while the independents still offered cheap and plentiful internet to their customers. If you were a savvy consumer, you soon ditched Bell, Rogers and Shaw and moved to an independent ISP who offered better service for less money.

Well, no more. The CRTC approved UBB (Usage Based Billing) this past week, and now we’re all screwed.

So, I currently pay ~$46 for 200 Gigs. Lets compare - for a similar amount of money, Bell Canada would provide me with 25 Gigs. For an extra $5 I can get a whole extra 40 gigs for a total of 65 gigs for MORE then I now pay for 200 Gigs. Rogers? $46.00 per month will get me 60 Gigs.

Both Bell and Rogers pride themselves on their blistering speeds (Rogers offers up to 50mbps on their top of the line plan, for example) - but what good is a huge pipe if you can use your entire bandwidth allowance in mere minutes if you actually utilize the service to it’s limits? Even Rogers 50 Megabit plan includes only 175 Gigs per month for a steep $99 per month price tag.

Today I received an email from the president of my ISP, Teksavvy.

As some of you know, the CRTC recently rendered a decision forcing all independent DSL and Cable Internet providers to substantially match incumbent (like Bell) usage rate caps. This will influence all of our internet service packages eventually, but DSL residential customers in Ontario and Quebec first, as of March 1. Along with you, we are not pleased with this, and our view is more fully expressed in our press release which you can find here: http://www.teksavvynews.com/

From March 1 on, users of the up to 5 Mbps packages in Ontario can expect a usage cap of 25GB (60GB in Quebec), substantially down from the 200GB or unlimited deals TekSavvy was able to offer before the CRTC’s decision to impose usage based billing. Users who were on unlimited package rates will be returned to $31.95 capped rates although larger blocks of bandwidth can be purchased.*

In order to facilitate this transition we have constructed a new easy-to-navigate portal at https://myworld.teksavvy.com where our customers can choose from the amended and new packages.
The details of our new rate plans and charges can be found there. You will be able to register using the account information found at the end of this email. More on the portal below. In addition, in order to accommodate these changes, we have amended our Terms of Service, primarily regarding implementation. The amended Terms form part of your Agreement with TekSavvy and can be viewed at https://secure.teksavvy.com/en/termspolicies.asp.

Please note if you do not choose a new service before March 1, 2011, your existing package will be transitioned into an amended package. Existing packages and the ones they will be replaced with in each case can be found at http://teksavvy.com/en/faq-ubb_on.asp for Ontario and http://teksavvy.com/en/faq-ubb_qc.asp for Quebec.

Content and data like Netflix, YouTube, IPTV, large file downloads or other streaming services can consume large amounts of bandwidth and place your cap limits in jeopardy very quickly. We encourage you to monitor your usage carefully, as the CRTC has imposed a very high overage rate, above your new monthly limit, of $1.90 per gigabyte ($2.35 per gigabyte in Quebec).

The CRTC did however provide an option for insurance usage blocks at $4.75 per 40GB block per month, which can be purchased if you want to reduce your cost for use above 25GB (60GB in Quebec).

Ontario and Quebec up to 5 Mbps users with a monthly limit of 25GB and 60GB respectively:

Insurance Blocks Offered:

* $4.75 - 40GB extra usage
* $9.50 - 80GB extra usage
* $14.25 - 120GB extra usage (maximum 3 blocks)
* $55.00 - 275GB extra usage (maximum 240GB extra usage in Quebec)

I feel bad for companies like Teksavvy (as well as many other small independent ISP’s) as this will KILL them. They survived on being not only the “Little guy”, but also by being able (and willing) to offer the consumer an excellent deal. Now they have been priced to fall lockstop with the big ISP’s and their competitive advantage is virtually gone.

Add to this the fact that the backbone providers are also refusing to allow them access to the higher speed offerings they themselves offer, the independents are being squeezed for all their worth. Squeezed right out of business, perhaps.

Oh wait, is that the plan, big guys?

The best option above will be for me to pay an extra $14.25 per month for an extra 120 Gigs, which will give me 145 gigs - less than what I received before, for $15 more.

Currently I pay $46 Per Month for 200 Gigs.
I’ll now pay about $63 Per month for 145 Gigs thanks to UBB.

This has incensed me. I don’t blame my ISP since they’ve made it clear since day one they are strongly against UBB, but I DO blame the CRTC, Bell Canada, Shaw, and Rogers - the big internet companies that were behind the push to put UBB in place.

And I’m not alone - Canadians everywhere are fuming.

Over 83,000 Canadians (and counting) have signed the Open Media Petition against UBB. If YOU haven’t, please do - the future of affordable internet in Canada depends on this!

I could go on for hours about this…but I’ll closed with this.

Dear CRTC - Canadians are pissed with this stupid decision you’ve made, and a groundswell of angry consumers is brewing. You’d best reconsider, before you’re TOLD to reconsider, because the shit is about to hit the fan.

- We had planned to get out for a winter camping excursion between Christmas and New Years to Pinery provincial park. Unfortunately while carefully contemplating the weather forecast on the day of our planned departure it was clear that we were going to have a few “tolerable” days at the outset of the trip, the latter half of the week was going to stink. In the interest of not spending 4 hours on the road (each way), not to mention the money for fuel and campsite fees, only to sit in the trailer and look at the rain and mud outside, we decided to scratch the entire trip. Me and the kids were disappointed, but my wife, I think, not so much.

- Christmas sabotaged my diet. Suffice to say I’m (now) no further behind versus my pre-Christmas weight, but I certainly didn’t make much progress either. Good news is that I’m approaching another major milestone…but am far from done.

- Still haven’t taken my flight. I’m almost reluctant to go now because I’m afraid that it’s going to make me realize exactly how much I’m missing flying, and getting back to it full time right now simply isn’t in the cards at this point in time.

Life goes on.