Toms Diary

Archive for December 25th, 2009

Today’s Business: 2009-12-25

Friday, December 25th, 2009

10:00 AM: I’m up. It’s a gray and rainy outside currently, with temperatures hovering at around 31 degrees.

11:00 AM: We’re listening to the Dusty Rhodes Christmas Day Special on station KBGO-FM 95.7 Waco, TX, once again, on the Internet radio.

02:00 PM: Salted the ramp and sidewalks. The temperature has risen to 34 degrees, but the sleet still falls.

02:05 PM: Another Dusty Rhodes Christmas show just started on KBGO-FM 95.7 Waco, TX. In this six-hour yearly classic, Rhodes plays the most popular Christmas songs, in chronological order, starting at year 1934, all the way up to the present day; the show is a countdown, or more precisely, a count-up, by year, rather than by song popularity. Plus, along with the hits themselves, he sets them into their original contexts by telling some big news stories of the time when each song was popular; quite entertaining and historically, very informative. I’ve caught this in past years and nowadays to me, Christmas just wouldn’t be complete without hearing at least a couple hours of the show. Unfortunately, we’ll miss the last couple hours of it this evening, when we visit sister Christine once more for dessert. Hmmmmm. Anyone know of a good Internet radio recording program?

03:00 PM: I gave [Emmy] a new bookshelf RCA stereo for Christmas, and presented it to her this afternoon. It has a dock for an iPod, which works very well, as we found out. I was relieved to find that the iPod could actually charge in this stereo; some of the initial units with iPod docs would not charge the newer, 4th generation iPods; but not so here. It charged fine. Played some music on it for Mom, who loved the sound.

04:30 PM: I’m succumbing to carb-induced drowsiness, and taking a nap for a bit.

05:40 PM: I’m back up, and Dusty Rhodes is playing the mid-sixties Christmas songs at present. We’re getting ready to go to sister Christine’s for the evening, and we’re taking our streams and iPods with us.

07:55 PM: Worked the WiFi Access Denied: 2009-12-25 issue at sister Christine’s place.

09:45 PM: We’re back home from Christine’s. We went the long way (through Tyrone, instead of driving over Skalp mountain), to avoid the ice and bad weather on the mountain top. So, the additional fifteen minutes of travel time, we spent enjoying some of the Christmas lights throughout Tyrone. Lots of reindeer, spiral trees, and vivid LEDs caught my eye, and I was grateful for this cruise because I haven’t been out to see the Christmas lights yet this year. I love doing it but don’t do it nearly enough each holiday season.

11:10 PM: We started off watching The Young and the Restlesss on the DVR. But both [Emmy] and myself fell asleep early on into the episode. So we’ll try and view it again tomorrow.

11:20 PM: Posted the list of today’s added or changed documents for this, the Tom’s Diary blog, here.

12:30 AM: Journaled for an hour or so.

01:40 AM: Worked the DJ Gig: 2009-12-31 project.

01:45 AM: Bed time. Hope everyone had a terrific Christmas day. Merry Christmas one last time for 2009, and tomorrow, I’ll kick into high gear to get ready for the grand finale of this holiday season; that is, New Years eve. Sweet dreams, and catch you later.

Tom Hesley

Posted in Computers, Emmy, Internet Radio, iPod, Journal, Networking, People, Portable Players, Radio, Today's Business, Victor Reader, Weather | 1 Comment »

Diary Revisions: 2009-12-25

Friday, December 25th, 2009

Today, I either added or modified the following posts in the Tom’s Diary blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, appearance, and search-ability:

WiFi Access Denied: 2009-12-25

Today’s Business: 2009-12-25

Mom’s Status: 2009-12-25

Today’s Business: 2009-12-24

Diary Revisions: 2009-12-24

Mom’s Status: 2009-12-24

Tom Hesley

Posted in Revisions | No Comments »

WiFi Access Denied: 2009-12-25

Friday, December 25th, 2009

07:55 PM: I’m now posting from sister Christine’s computer, at her house. Currently working a puzzling networking problem. They have Verizon DSL here, Westell modem, with WiFi capability. In fact, I’m accessing the blog through the wireless connection, and from all the computers that normally connect through this network, connectivity is fine.

However, nephew Trey brought his computer tonight, hoping to connect to the Internet through sister Christine’s network. He is able to connect, but only with limited connectivity; he cannot access the Internet, even though he has successfully logged into the Westell access point. Diagnostics on Trey’s computer say that the network to which he’s logged into, does not have a valid IP configuration.

At this, I speculated that the firewall on the Westell was only allowing Internet access to authorized computers, and that Trey’s machine is not authorized. Thus, I logged into Christine’s router (http://192.168.1.1/) to inspect the firewall settings. I discovered that she’s got the firewall turned off (no security setting). So, a blocking firewall is probably not the problem. Christine did say that her son, Garrett experienced similar difficulty, when he first connected his new laptop, and had to call Verizon to get the connection going. We may have to do likewise here; but not tonight.

Tom Hesley