Girls’ Generation/SNSD - Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)

We use a DrayTek Vigor 2008 wireless ADSL 2 router at both The Frontier Group office and Berwick Manor. I was surprised and disappointed to see that at home my wireless network was performing especially poorly, with up to 40% packet loss and significant drop outs.

I investigated a few avenues, but because the MacBook Pro is so damn new there’s nothing I could find online to help me out. Coupled with the fact that things work fine at the office and you had one confused little gangster.

The first stop was to check out my old MacBook Pro, which is now Magdalena’s new MacBook Pro. Her wireless worked just fine and dandy, but at least that meant I could point the finger to my unibody badboy with confidence.

I upgraded the DrayTek’s firmware because the version I was using was from mid-2006. There have been numerous patches since then which claim to help with wireless connectivity. Magdalena’s laptop is almost 3 years old, so it was about the same age as the firmware - it made sense that it might play nicer, whilst mine was expecting something else.

The new firmware flashed fine but it did nothing to help my Mac. I fiddled around with the various wireless security options but even having no security didn’t change anything, and I was still dropping more packets than I could afford.

I did have success by locking the DrayTek to 802.11B only, instead of the B/G combo. I know, I know… the standard allows for a much slower throughput, but that’s not super important to me. I want nice, fast pings on my wireless network at home. When I transfer large files I jack into the wired network anyway, so it’s not going to be a limitation I can’t live with.

I went from this:

<snip>
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_seq=17 ttl=255 time=42.394 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_seq=18 ttl=255 time=44.301 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_seq=19 ttl=255 time=9.830 ms
^C
--- 192.168.10.254 ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 14 packets received, 30% packet loss

… to this:

<snip>
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_seq=454 ttl=255 time=4.426 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_seq=455 ttl=255 time=4.422 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.10.254: icmp_seq=456 ttl=255 time=3.667 ms
^C
--- 192.168.10.254 ping statistics ---
457 packets transmitted, 457 packets received, 0% packet loss

Boston Legal is a fantastic television show.

“Denny Crane.”

Today I chopped and stacked a tonne of wood for our fire. It was delivered this afternoon from a guy mum and dad have used in the hills for a while. $250 delivered with a smile and a wicked chopping block.

The pretty red-head at Bunnings is getting to know me now - she asks about the previous things I bought. She bent the rules and let me take cash out over two separate transactions so I didn’t have to hit an ATM.

It was good to get outside and get a bit of different exercise, even if I am still picking splinters out of my hands.

I’ll leave you with this one thought: if a man uses firelighters to start a fire, he’s not actually a man,

I’ve been doing jiu-jitsu for about 4 years now, though over the last 9 months I’ve probably been to training a half-dozen times. In all that time I’ve never had an interest in trying out any of the stand-up arts, like boxing, kick-boxing or Muay Thai. Considering that The Academy has classes covering these arts, and my membership facilitates unmetered access to them, I thought it might be good to expand my horizons and check them out.

I decided to check out the shoot class, which is a mixture of striking and grappling - it’s more commonly known as mixed martial arts, or MMA. I figured that my BJJ would count for something and that it’d be a nicer transition.

Aaron and I went to the club on Monday night and got to train with a bunch of new people (and a bunch of familiar faces). The class is more cardio-intensive than a straight-up grappling class. The mixture of striking, takedowns and grappling was a welcome change. It’s a different head-space to punch or knee someone, even if you’re only going light. I picked the guys to spar with a bit more carefully that Aaron did, and he wound up with an accidental knee to the groin. Ouch!

I think that I’ll hit the beginner class once a month for a bit of variety, but BJJ is still my preferred art. I will probably throw in a few shoot classes when I have my week of intensive training… stay tuned for more information on that experiment.