A Geek’s Think

When I signed up for the Navy back in 2005, I had a problem.  I was out of shape. I weighted about 200 lbs and wore size 36 pants - now that's not huge for a guy who's 6'2", but it's certainly not small.  I could do maybe one push-up and couldn't run for more than a few seconds at a time.  My strong point was sit-ups - I could do a whole 30!  I worked out on my own and finally got up to the Navy's minimum standards about 8 months later, but it was a hard push.

Fast forward to now.  I weigh under 175 and wear size 32 pants - the same size I wore in high school!  My ship had its semi-annual Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA) this week, so on Wednesday I had to run 1.5 miles and do as many push-ups and sit-ups as I could in a two minute period.  I guess the Navy's doing something right, because I made a new high in my push-ups and run and almost matched my high in sit-ups.  I did my run in 11:05, which is a full 70 seconds faster than my previous PFA this spring and roughly equivalent to the speed I ran/walked a mile back in my high school days.  I was able to do 62 push-ups and 78 sit-ups.  Now that's not exceptional by Navy standards - a bit less than that, actually - but by my standards, I'm in a whole new world of in-shape-ness.  I even ran a 5K race not too long ago and finished in a decent (for me) time of about 27 minutes. 

My next goal: run a 10K next spring.  Anyone else up for the challenge?

I think I've set a new record for time between posts!  To repeat a phrase found many times in my past blog entries (and journal entries, for that matter), I'll try to do better... :)

Since my last post, I had a blast in Boston for St. Patrick's day (my ship spent the week there), spent a few weeks at home visiting family and friends, and left on my second naval deployment.  Busy times.

We've now been deployed for about 2 1/2 weeks, in which time we've visited the beautiful Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras and passed through the Panama Canal.  Roatan Island's primary industry is tourism centered on its beautiful beaches and many diving opportunities.  While I didn't take advantage of either of those attractions, I did take the opportunity to have a "Dolphin Encounter" at the local marine institute.  For a small fee, we had a 30 minute presentation during which we were introduced to one of their dolphins and were able to interact with her a bit.  Afterwards, we were given another 30 minutes or so to snorkel around the dolphin enclosure with about 15 dolphins.  It was a great experience, even though my camera might not agree - it took a bit of a swim itself in the process...  :(  Hopefully my new Panasonic DMC-TZ5 gets here in time for the next port visit...

On a completely different note, you may not have noticed my blog looking much different lately, but for the last month it's been a completely different system under the hood.  My former blogging software, Wordpress, was becoming more and more difficult to use over my limited bandwidth out to sea, and tended to have security problems on a fairly regular basis.  Fortunately, my site was never compromised, but my inability to update the software while away from home made that a distinct possibility.  Therefore, I took it upon myself to write my own blogging software.  Now some of you may be thinking about what a masochist I must be, but it really wasn't that bad - the Python-based web framework I used known as Django made my job easy.  This is my first real Django application and I'm quite pleased with the power and ease of development the framework offers. Maybe someday I'll give a more detailed explanation of what's going on behind the scenes of the new blog, but for now I'm just enjoying my freedom from the bloated beast that is Wordpress.

I got some great news this week - I’m being advanced to Electronics Technician Second Class (aka ET2, pay grade E-5), the equivalent to a sergeant in the Army or Marine Corps. Having only been in the Navy for a little more than a year and a half (’since breakfast’ in Navy jargon), I’m quite pleased to be advanced as quickly as I have been.

In related news, my brother Jacob was recently advanced to the rank of Staff Sergeant in the Army (pay grade E-6).  Congratulations Jake!

The deployment is going well so far, and I’ll be home for Christmas, so I’m excited to see you all soon!

Due to my current work situation (see the picture on the right of the page), I’m currently stuck with an extremely-low-bandwidth connection to the Internet.  This can turn simple tasks, such as checking my bank account, into monumental exercises in patience.  I once spent more than two hours trying to pay a cell phone bill without success.

While I can’t do much to get web designers to stop eating up my bandwidth with useless flashy interfaces, I’ve found several Mozilla Firefox extensions that make my browsing significantly faster.  Here are a few of them, in no particular order:

Adblock

Adblock is without a doubt my #1 tool in saving bandwidth, and I’m not just talking about blocking ads. Large images (anything over 5 KB!) or unnecessary Javascript files get the Adblock treatment, too.  Slashdot, one of my favorite sites and a notorious slow loader, now loads in less than a minute versus 5+ minutes before being trimmed down by Adblock. To check for large images, use the Media tab under Tools -> Page Info in Firefox. For a whole-page view of bandwidth sucking files, check out websiteoptimization.com.

DownThemAll

Downloading a large file can be laborious over a satellite link, especially when the connection seems to die every minute or two.  DownThemAll will keep on chugging past interruptions, not stopping until the whole file is down. It’s saved me from many a headache.  DownThemAll also functions as a powerful download manager, with support for download queues and other standard features.

Flashblock

Flashblock replaces embedded Macromedia Flash objects with a clickable image that when clicked loads the blocked object. In my experience, there are very few times that Flash actually contributes positively to a web page, so rarely have any reason to click. For those few exceptions, Flashblock has a whitelist feature to allow Flash content to be displayed without interruption.

NoScript

I just installed NoScript this morning and am loving it already. It blocks Javascript content on pages, which, like Flash, is often superfluous and bandwidth intensive.  Again, for those sites where Javascript is necessary to access the content, a whitelist feature is provided.

ScribeFire

Another recent installation, ScribeFire allows me to post to my self-hosted WordPress blog without actually visiting the slow-loading blog administration page. I’m using it right now, in fact, to post this blog entry. ScribeFire also works with other blog hosts such as LiveJournal, Blogger, and Wordpress.

Others

Several other Firefox Extensions make my life easier, but aren’t specifically bandwidth oriented:

• CustomizeGoogle - Allows me to choose what I see (and don’t see) when searching via Google.
• Download Statusbar - Replaces the download window with an informative status bar at the bottom of my screen.  I like.
• MediaPlayerConnectivity - Allows me to download embedded videos instead of viewing them directly in the page.  Also makes my life easier as a Linux user when dealing with Quicktime or Windows Media Player files, which have no official Linux player.
• Tab Mix Plus - Ever want to customize how your Firefox tabs behave? Ever had 20 tabs open when your computer crashed, losing hours of research? Ever accidentally close a tab? Tab Mix Plus fixes all that and more.
• Web Developer - Developing a web page can be complicated business, especially when CSS or large table-based layouts are involved.  Web Developer provides countless tools to make that process easier. It is one of the most popular Firefox extensions for good reason.

I hope I’ve provided some light at the end of the slow-moving Internet tunnel for those who, like me, are stuck with low-bandwidth connections. Enjoy your new-found freedom!

I’ll bet you didn’t know that the first ice cream cone was created at the 1904 World’s Fair by Abe Doumar or that he was also the first to make an ice cream cone machine! Well, neither did I, until tonight, when I stumbled across Doumar’s Cones & Barbecue in Norfolk, Virginia. That first ice cream cone machine is still in use, in fact, and still creates a tasty ice cream cone!

Here it is, along with the product of its labors:



Doumar’s Barbeque was OK, but the Ice Cream was very good!

Note: Yes, I’m still in Norfolk. There were some paperwork issues that have delayed my departure for about a week. Just a few more days…