Well my bags are packed and I'm ready to go.  Not really, but they will be soon.  Tomorrow is the big day, when I climb aboard the first plane at 2:30 PM to fly to LAX.  I then have to wait 7 hours, but I will be taking my laptop so I will have something to do, if I can find an electrical receptacle for public use.

This may be my last entry until I get to Laila's as I may not have time to post anything tomorrow before I leave.  I will write a few entries on the laptop and post them when I get a chance, after getting there.

Wow, I can't believe the 97 days have passed and the countdown is at 1.  Yesterday I took care of the last of the bills that will have to be paid before I get back.  I took the son grocery shopping for both him and the dogs.  My grocery bill is a little higher than normal because he did slide in several things I don't normally buy.  It is ok, as long as it is not wasted.  I also got a USB extension cable for Laila's headset, so when I get back here to the states and we are watching TV on web cam she can lay down and all while watching.

Today I just have to finish up a few things like get some cash from the bank, pick up something at Circuit City and mail the bills that are due at the end of the month.  I will pay them now rather have them be paid late.

Again, I hope to post before I leave, but if I don't get a chance I will blog from Laila's PC.  I am now off to pack and get those last couple of errands done.

Again the talk on the radio and all over the television set has been illegal immigration and the Mexican uprising.  Last night on the O'Reilly Factor, John Kasich sat in for O'Reilly and had Javier Rodriguez, Spokesperson, Great American Boycott of 2006: who has been in charge of sponsoring and organizing the movements here in southern California, and I guess their next big movement is to stage a walkout on May 1^st, where Mexicans will not go to work or school, and will not do any shopping.

Perhaps they will also not collect welfare, use our hospitals, and maybe their street gangs will not murder anyone that day.  Actually I am glad to see it happening, as it is starting to wake people up to the problem.

This talking head just didn't seem to see anything wrong with folks being here illegally.  Every time Kasich tried to ask him a few questions and all this guy did was keep talking about all the good they do and would not answer anything.  Text of the interview is here.

These organizers do not get it.  Their uneducated followers don't get it.  They are here illegally, they do not follow our laws, they do not respect our people, and now they are flaunting it in public.

I have a suggestion.  They are going to have a million or more people holding a peaceful protest.  Since they are here illegally they have no right to protest, but they do have the right to be detained and deported.  I say lets get law enforcement; border patrol, INS, and the National Guard to round all these folks up and then deport the illegals.  Think of all the money that will be saved as they are all in one localized area.  They could have special planes at the airport, or busses, or maybe even a train, but I say to my elected officials, do not waste this opportunity.

When we are banning the display of the flag in our public schools to keep from aggravating people who should not be here in the first place, then we have a problem.  Look at what has been going on in France and other European countries and ask yourself, do I want that to happen here? 

Well only two days to go now before Laila and I will be reunited.  I am so excited and am finishing up things with my current class.  Today is their last day of lab work, tomorrow they clean the classroom and Friday they start the next area.

I am so glad I finished everything on time and that the lab is operating great today.  I guess it is running smooth as I took the time yesterday to get everything checked out and fixed all the problems. 

As soon as these guys are done, then I have to make a parts run to Willy’s Electronics to look for a cable for our Smart board and I will also get a USB extension cable for Laila’s new headset, so she can lay flat in bed when talking to me on the net, after this visit.  I hope I can find the cable conversion for the Smart board.  I think it may be a special proprietary cable and if so, I may not be able to get it.  I guess we will see.

When I get home tonight I will start packing and I am also going to take my son grocery shopping for him and the dogs.  I want to make sure he has stuff to cook and that he likes when I am gone, and the easiest way is to take him and have him do the shopping.

I also have to buy a few things like more vitamins, toothpaste, cough drops and gum.  Oh and shampoo and conditioner, wow almost forgot those.  As I think that list is growing. 

Anyway as the hours pass I get more and more excited.  When I think of how much time I have left and the things I need to get done before I leave I know I will be busy enough to have the time pass quickly.

I did get up late today.  I woke up at five but I guess I was dreaming, because when I woke up I had it in my head that it was Saturday.  I then rolled over and went back to sleep.  I got up in time to shower, shave and get ready for work, but instead of having coffee and chatting with Laila, I had to skip the coffee and was only able to log on to chat long enough to say I was leaving for work.

I hope I don’t do that again, as I was lucky I still got up in time.  This is not the first time I have done that and probably will not be the last.  Somehow, my internal body clock always saves the day.  I just get that way when I am happy and content, and dreaming of good stuff.  I think the rainy weather may have played into it too.

So tomorrow will be my last entry from here in San Diego for a few weeks.  After that I will be blogging from Laila’s PC about our adventures there.  Maybe I we will just blog together in her blog, we will see.  Until tomorrow, I hope everyone has a great and prosperous day.

Occasionally I put things in my blog for my Navy guys to read, as they are technical in nature.  Anyway, here is one of those types of entries.

This morning while the class was taking the test I decided to get everything set up for the Tactical Data Processor (TDP) lab as I have learned from experience in the past, if it is not checked out in advance, I will have problems.  Wow, am I glad I checked it out today.

I got the computers all fired up with no hassle and I was able to get stations 25 and 26 to work intermittently, but something was definitely wrong today.  I was getting strange errors on station 24 that I have not seen in the past.  Stuff like OTC INTERFACE DOWN, and (V) 6 to (V) 6 INTERFACE DOWN and even a LINK FAULT, which is not even listed in the book.   I couldn’t get it to transmit anything from the TDP from either OTCIXS or TADIX.

Knowing how the DART cards get moved all over the lab as we troubleshoot and since the dart cards are interchangeable they get mixed up.  While the Crypto DART and the Black DART slots are the most critical, and the rest are not, we always concentrate on keeping the best DART cards in those slots.

When we do the TDP lab though, our configuration is such that we have to use the Vocoder DART slots, so the OTCIXS and TADIXS can talk to each other since we do not have a Generic Front end Communications Processor (GFCP).  Since Vocoders are obsolete and we do not have any we usually use the Vocoder DART cards as built in spares and so the weak DART cards migrate to the Vocoder Slots.

When I started getting the strange faults and all, I started swapping the Vocoder DART cards around, believing that I was have in a coprocessor communications problem.  I just by happenstance noticed that on unit 24 the TADIXS had the Read Only Memory (ROM) Cards for OTCIXS installed and the OTCIXS had the TADIXS ROM cards installed.

I know we put out that you can run OTCIXS on a TADIXS ON-143 and vice versa, but I am always careful to stress that you also have to reconfigure the rest of the equipment.  The programs (ROM) will support either operation, but the programs are not 100% the same.  After I swapped the ROM to the proper units 24 was up and running.  I then found that 26 had the TADIXS ROM installed in both the TADIXS and OTCIXS units.  I when ahead and installed the OTCIXS ROM in 26 and it was then up and running great.

So the lessons learned here is that the programs while able to run either mode of operation will not work properly unless the equipment is also reconfigured.  So if you have something like this come up make sure you have not somehow mixed up your ROM cards.  Also remember, if you switch 1 ROM card you have to swap all four as it is a computer program.

Before I blog about the lighter side of life I have to say something about what I heard this morning shortly after getting up.  I will post some links to this thing when I get home from work and getting a few things for my trip.

It seems that some school administrators have decided in light of the recent illegal alien uprising that it would be politically correct to ban the flag of the United States from being flown at their school.  May I point out that these schools are in the United States, and the taxpayers of the United States pay the school administrators.  I as a taxpayer and a veteran want anyone who bans the flag from being flown in this country to have their employment terminated.  This is so stupid, and I am so angry I can’t coherently comment about it any further. 

So on a lighter note and to get me calmed down I will have to relate to all you folks that know Laila, that she is very excitable, over the game show Deal or no Deal.  She screams and she moans and yells at the contestants, at me, and people watching it with her.

I think it would be awesome to get her on the show and see how she does.  It certainly would not be boring.

Anyway last night they had a special 2-hour version of the show.  I don’t know how she still has a voice after 2 hours of excitement.  I have also found that while I always try and take the safe bet she will take chances.  Maybe that is why she has so many more neopoints than I do, and seems to be a better gambler.  Anyway I was disappointed that Medium was taken off for the Apprentice. 

Oh well, as long as they do not take off House tonight for American Idol I will be happy.

Well I had another scare over the weekend with my car.  I ran a lot of little errands yesterday that involved me starting and stopping the car frequently.  I got home from my errands and then went in the house, made a few moves on blogshares, paid my bills and then decided to head to the supermarket.

For the second weekend in a row the car wouldn’t start.  I went ahead and thinking I might have a soft spot on my starter, let the car slide down the driveway while in gear, and unlike last weekend, it didn’t work yesterday.

I hooked up my battery charger to the battery and let it charge for several hours, then went and tried it again, and still no start.  I then spent a sleepless night wondering how long it would take me to get to work by bus and trolley, and of the long walk to even get to the bus stop.

After tossing and turning all night I woke up at five, slipped on some clothes and ran out to the car.  It started right up, so I let it run for about 15 minutes while I went in and started getting ready for work.  I was still a little apprehensive about it starting a second time, but it did and I made it to work on time.

I hope I am not having trouble with the alternator or starter.  I am not getting any malfunction lights or anything, so I figure I either have a short, a bad battery, a bad alternator, or maybe it overheated.  I did not have any problems with it during the week, but then I was not doing a lot of starting and stopping during the week. 

I think I will buy a new battery on the way home today, just to be safe.  They are not very expensive and at least I will have it as a backup in case it is the alternator.  I have a little stop and go driving to do before I take my trip on Friday.  I will try and keep the starting and stopping to a minimum until I am certain of what is wrong.  I just can’t afford to be without a car.

Well I talked to some of the guys that know about cars and they told me how to check and see if it is the alternator or the battery.  I found out that after starting the car, all I have to do is undo the black battery cable (ground side) and if everything dies it is the alternator.  If everything is good it is the battery.  Anyway, they also told me most car part places will check it for me so I may do that.  I just hope that if it is the alternator it will be easy to change.  I have been told it should not be too hard.  I guess I will ask when I am at Auto Zone.

I also learned some other stuff about it, like there is a high-speed diode and a low-speed diode.  Well now that I think about it I always drive with the radio on and the air conditioner or heater.  I have taken some long drives over both weekends and since I always have everything turned on if I do have an alternator problem then if I just leave some of this stuff turned off until I can get it scheduled for maintenance it would be cool.  I will just have to watch the use of electricity when I am driving and maybe charge it overnight one more time. 

Anyway, I will research how hard it is to change a Volkswagen alternator tonight when I get home.  I am so car stupid, but at least I know people who are car smart to ask.  If it is too hard I will take it to a shop.  I am sure they can fix it quick.