Primordial Ooze

I was having problems with WiFi at home. The most worrisome problem was not having a reliable connection from my backyard. This was useful because when I have parties I use AirPlay to play music over my outdoor speakers. People can connect to my WiFi network with the iOS devices and if they have the free “Remote” app installed, they can vote on songs like a JukeBox. Or, I just pass around my phone. But when the WiFi signal is weak, you keep getting disconnected and people just don’t bother. I also noticed weak signals inside the house, which was strange.

I have three WiFi access points in my house. One is an older AirPort express I use for the AirPlay/outdoor speakers. The other is a Time Capsule/AirPort Extreme. The AirPort Extreme one also sports a 5Ghz/N network. Finally, I have my Verizon home router which has a wireless feature.

I always figured things were not configured optimally and only recently did I do something about it.

I did three things:

• Physically reposition my AirPort Express from a floor socket where there was probably a lot of electrical interference and moved it to place on my cork board about chest level.
• Manually configured the channels both of my routers are on to make sure they were distinct and non-interfering and tried to also navigate away from neighboring networks in the vicinity of my house.
• I completely wiped away my Verizon routers config to eliminate any crazy routing rules, DNS settings, or DHCP madness I may have tweaked over  the years.

To help me see what’s going on, I searched for an iOS or Mac app which would help figure out what the situation was. I found a Mac app called WiFi Explorer I think it’s $3.99 on the Apple Mac Store. Here are some of the near graphs it produces.

You can also view signal strength, noise, and signal-to-noise ratio… but not all networks on one graph, for some reason.

And here is some tabular info that’s pretty interesting:

After all of this tuning, my WiFi signals are very strong and I have no issues maintaining a stable connection from my backyard.

My wife and I are nursing our wounds after yesterday’s torturous Spartan Sprint. It’s a 3.2 mile race filled with 19 obstacles. Some of the obstacles are pretty easy, some are extremely difficult. I only have pre-race photos in this gallery, as I was too busy getting slices open by barbed wire and rolling on my ankles as I navigated rocks and hills with a 50lbs. sandbag on  my back to take any shots during the race.

This kind of activity is just up my alley, and while I complain that I can’t move, I’m really glad I did it. It was a whole lot of fun. It was made easier since we were in a group of 8 and we helped each other and stayed together. I had a lot of opportunities to rest as a result. That said, by the last few obstacles, I was dogging it. My ankles were sore since I rolled on them three times, and I had numerous bleeding wounds from barbed wire and landing wrong on balancing posts.

There were only two challenges of the 19 that I failed. One was a horizontal climb across a 30 ft. wall with only small cuts of wood to keep you up. It was like a sideways rock climb. I got to the second-to-last block before I lost my grip and fell. When you fail challenges you need to do 30 burpies. Burpies are that exercise where you start upright, go down into push-up position, and then stand back up. Sometimes you jump at the end, but we weren’t required to do that so fuck that shit. The second obstacle I failed was the javelin throw. I had perfect form, but my javelin missed it’s mark by a few feet. No second try and another 30 burpies. I was mad at myself for missing that one.

Lisa said her proudest moment was climbing up the rope to ring the bell. It was about 30 feet up and she did this like a champ. Lisa was by far the most fit among us, making most obstacles look easy. She did all the wall challenges, too. She totally rocked the Spartan.

My proudest moment was during some of the wall obstacles. The wall obstacles are sheer walls. They started at 4 feet and went up to about 8 or 9 feet. I scaled all of them and without using hand-holds or climbing up the sides. Even for the tallest ones, I just lept up and pulled myself over. I had this technique of walking up the wall so that my hands were over the top edge and my feet were right by my hands, with my butt sticking out. Then I just put a lot of pressure on my right leg as I worked my left leg over. There were a group of actual Marines doing this one with us and only 2 out of 6 were able to do what I did. Not bad for an overweight 42-year old. Hoo hoo hoo!

The most grueling obstacle for just about everyone was the barbed wire crawl. This was a 150-yard up-hill (repeat: up-hill) crawl over wet rocks and mud all under the threat real barbed wire. I can’t describe just how far this is when you have no knee protection. As I am writing this and look at my knees, all I can say is that they are a bloody mess.

As for injuries, my ankles are not so bad today. My forearms are shot. I can barely grip things. I have a 5 inch gash on my back from the barbed wife. I have a nasty scrape on my inner thigh from slipping on a post I was balancing on. Lisa and I were so banged  up we collapsed in bed at midnight. What made the evening perfect was the 2am call from one of the sleepovers. Marco was throwing up and I had to go get him.

Of all the obstacles I endured during the race, getting up and out the door to pick him up was by far  the most difficult.

Seems like the trend on this blog is to write a monthly post about what’s been going on. I am here now to continue that trend, though I need to catch up since March. In this blog post I concentrate on boondoggles and adventures. First, let’s enjoy a gallery of photos taken while on boondoggles.

What do you see in these pictures? You see a delicious single-malt scotch known as Laphroaig. I had that in London where you can find a number of other pictures of The Metropolis. The streetside paella and the random happenchance on a Spanish Tapas restaurant were extremely fortunate. You’ll find a decanter of delicious scotch at the desk of my good friend and father of the Legendary Asshole Meme. You’ll find a late-night shot of the Tribeca tavern, a place where we retired after enjoying a delicious burger at Nancy’s Whiskey Pub in Tribeca. You’ll see a bottle of my new favorite scotch known as Ardbeg. This Islay aqua vitae has a strong peaty character that I fell in love with in April at Whiskey Live. Moving from whiskey, you’ll find a few shots of the Empire Hotel, where my company held their most recent launch anniversary. Bad things happened that night. You’ll find a few photos from the Secret Science Club in Brooklyn, where one can enjoy good beer and hear a real live scientist talk about their research. We have  few pictures of a biergarten named Loreley, named after the Brauhaus in Cologne. There is a church in Cologne that the allied forces could not—or perhaps would not—bring down despite a massive bombardment of the city in the latter part of WWII. The Empire State Building stands proud in one photo and the honorable Briggs is captured holding a magical green ball before we delve into the wonderful world of crawfish at the Brooklyn Brewery.

Besides the wonderful times recorded above, this spring saw the launch of The Boondogglers Club (of America). Everything else above I beg you to google the sources, but here I give you the link on a silver platter. Myself and my esteemed boondoggler colleagues have started a Podcast where we explore midtown Manhattan in search of unique lunchtime experiences. You have to listen. It’s simply awesome. Check out the podcast and honor me with your subscription.