Wed, 19 Mar 2014

Down and Down

Last week << Prism was down for about 4 days... My antiquated (oh I knew it was old) Dell 531s system just decided to go west.. either the powersupply or the mb decided it had had enough.

In either case, I got a new system, HP ENVY beatsaudio.. lots of memory and lots of drive space to fill up! No serial ports as is the norm these days.. and I've got to make some adjustments here to enable my U.S. Robotics Courier Modem... eventually.

Drives were unaffected so after dealing with built-in Win8, Linux was installed, drives put in place. After quite a bit of configuring various tools and software, the bbs was back up, following that, the ftp server and web server.. then my blog..

There is life after death after all

posted at: 17:40 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "

Wed, 24 Jul 2013

Cooking Echo Picnic

We waited for this year's Fidonet Cooking Echo picnic in anticipation of good food, good company and good beer - we were only slightly disappointed by the picnic's end <grin> The food was great! This was to be an "offal picnic" where the main features would be those meats that are not considered choice, but would be probably considered a guilty-favorite by a number of people.

Sauteed Duck breasts in orange and sherry sauce, Escargo in garlic, parsley and butter sauce, Faux Escargot made with chicken-hearts, and even squid in a white parmesan sauce were prepared by one of the attendees. Given the 90+F heat, my own offerings were minimal (an almond-flour cake with dairy-free lemon icing, and my own recipe for shake-n-bake hearts and gizzards) - normally not the way I host a picnic.. but this year, it had to be this way, and normally it's the way the people in the cooking echo like it (the host just stands back and lets others do the cooking).

Except for that one who did some cooking, but who decided that they were too good to do dishes, keeping up with the pile of cooking utensils, pots and silverware was accomplished throughout the picnic.. in other words, those of us who didn't mind cleaning up a little kept the flow going, pretty much as soon as something was used. That was a relief.. since our dishwasher stood in its place, unconnected as of yet because of basement-full-issues (kid related) <smile>

While most of the folks attending the picnic rented rooms at nearby B&B's in Ithaca, we had two guests staying in our home throughout the picnic, something we never mind. We understand that not everyone is as fortunate as we are, and since we don't mind sharing what room we have, our home has always been open to those who need a place to sleep.

This year was no different than other years we've hosted the picnic with those two guests this month, one who slept on our couch, and one who slept on a large recliner. The problem as these two noted later in the cooking echo (geez) was that either our cats or dogs decided that they would visit the room with a special present.. one that was a bit stinky! The curse of the pet-owner, you know.. just when you want your animals to be on their best behavior, they do something to mortify you, like pee on a spot close to where a guest is sleeping... probably to have the guest note that this is the cats' and dogs' home, not 'theirs'<laugh>.

I was probably brought up a bit strictly. In our house, when you had a guest, that guest was always treated like family, given the best towels, and so on. The guests reciprocated with a Thank You card, and I remember how wonderful it would be to get that short missive in the mail. It brought back good memories of their stay, and the enjoyment of all present. Not so with these guests this week though.. :( These two went on in Fidonet's cooking echo about the worst part of their stay, seemed to me. Not even an acknowlegement of what it was like for us, forced upstairs to watch a bit of TV in 90+F heat.

I think the next time I host a picnic I will make sure these two are made aware of other sleeping arrangements in the area. Who needs it.

Yes, I'm a bit bothered with their childish and selfish nature. Not to mention the fact as they complained about our animals so much afterwards. So as I said, last time for anyone like them staying here, that's it.

Oh bah.. here are some good recipes from the picnic. And I was totally happy and thankful for all the help and friendship of our other guests at the picnic!

Lemon Olive Oil Non-Dairy, Non-Gluten Cake

Preheat the oven to 350F

Ingredients

Equipment: a 9-inch (24-cm) springform pan; parchment paper, or brown paper<

Cut a large circle out of the parment paper, or brown paper to line the inside of the cake pan. The edges should reach the top of the pan, and fold over the the sides of the pan.

Beat the egg yolks at high speed until light in color, then add the sugar and continue beating. Add the lemon rind, and while still beating, add the olive oil. Fold in the flours quickly but gently. Beat the egg whites until fluffy, but not dry, and and fold in. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake at 350F for 25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Lemon Icing

  • 2 cups confectioner's sugar (I use conf. sugar with Tapica Starch, not cornstarch)
  • 1/2 cup non-gluten shortening
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon rind

    • Beat ingredients until smooth, adding for lemon juice if necessary

    posted at: 20:25 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 1 comments | "

    Wed, 24 Oct 2012

    Zone 5 Leaves Fidonet

    This week Zone Coordinator, Russell Tiedt, announced that as of the month of October's end, he would be removing Fidonet from Zone 5, the African continent.

    Yes, yes, we've known the number of sysops was small in that zone has been small for quite a long time, but the nature of events forcing the close of Zone 5 was more than sad.

    Criminals broke into Russell's home, and stole most all of his and even his children's hardware, as well as software CDs. Russell was able to close down the Zone gracefully by throwing together a temporary pile of odd-pieces of hardware.

    We're hoping that those in Zone 5 who are still running BBS systems will contact us so that we can continue to be somewhat connected there.

    posted at: 00:00 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "

    Tue, 11 Oct 2011

    Floods in Binghamton NY

    This pic shows some of the destruction from our "100 year" flood that came back to visit after only "5 years".

    Unicorn ElectronicsFlood






    One of the computer shops we visit often was located in this strip mall, and it's good to see that Unicorn Electronics is rebuilding.

    posted at: 21:57 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "

    Tue, 13 Sep 2011

    Gary Perkins, A Great Fellow!

    I wanted to share a message I posted in the FIDONEWS echo to Gary Perkins, who recently felt it was necessary to resign his position as FIDONEWS Editor.

    Gary's resignation, due to illness, was met with the most pathetic and sickening response, first from an idiot user name Lee Lofaso who is obviously Bjorn Felten's alternate mouth-piece... and then if that wasn't bad enough, one from Bjorn Felten himself.

    Gary's reply to Lee was understandable, given the accusations of Lee as to why Gary had to resign.

    Here's my text to Gary! 

    Hi Gary,

I am so sorry you happened upon Lee's obnoxious and uttlerly pathetic message.

Please know that the rest of us in Fidonet are NOT Lee Lafaso.  He's a user on
someone's bbs (Bjorn's I believe) and he has NO idea what he's talking about,
as you and I know.

I want to thank you again for all the time you gave us in the last month, even
knowing you had a scarce 5 minutes free in your daily activities, between
taking care of your kids, fighting the Educational system over there for your
daughter, and all that life throws at you.  We can hardly imagine how you can
deal with some of this.

You're a wonderful fellow, and I have to tell you, you were one of the best
guys I've worked with on getting things going, first with your fidonet node,
and then (amazing how you got things going with this!) the fidonews software.

Please give us another chance when you're feeling up to it.

Take care,
Janis

    SysOps really ought to lock Lee Lofaso out of all Fidonet echos IMO.

    posted at: 15:32 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "

    Wed, 07 Sep 2011

    Flooding in Windsor And Broome County

    Broome county NY is expected to flood tomorrow morning at 9AM at 2006 levels. The Susquehanna in Windsor is also expected to rise 25 feet by 9AM tomorrow, so once again we're happy that we're located a little higher than most in the village. As a matter of fact, the house we were going to buy some 8 years ago which is down the street was flooded badly in the flood zone in 2006.

    In the meantime, we've collected water just in case the village water supply floods again, making the drinking water unsafe. We've got about 12 gallons. We can boil more of course if we need to. We'll also get some bottled water tomorrow if we can get to the local BigM market here in Windsor before the deed is done..

    Rain has been really heavy, and non-stop for about 3 days now. The sound of constan rainfall can really get on your nerves!

    Weather Report from Weather Underground.

    Windsor at Weather Underground.

    posted at: 22:25 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "