Wandering Week

Listening to the Dodgers lose five straight is never fun. Though there were moments of fun. Streak finally broken in Wisconsin this evening. One more game there on Thursday afternoon before moving on. Enough of baseball for today. Took mom out to a nice restaurant last Sunday afternoon and got current on family history. We are flung all over California, with some in Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and soon New Mexico. Arizona was so forty/fifty years ago for any of us. Southern California Electric is now billing a tiered system. If you use a nominal amount, which I do even with all these computers because no air conditioning, one stays in tier one. Use a lot of electricity in a month, and you could get a bill that includes tier five rates. Here in the LA basin it is not so bad. In the San Fernando Valley, it gets very hot, very quickly, and longer to get to tier two to make it 'fair'. Fair is a concept that eludes me. Whenever a large organization, like a utility, tries to be 'fair' someone is going to feel put upon. I haven't heard a major outcry yet, but this next month should be a good test as we start having triple digit days and very cool and breezy evenings. If I ever get my air conditioner rolled out of the closet and hooked up, I may jump straight to tier three rates and have a lot of fun figuring out my bill. It might even be over thirty bucks a month! Sure was lucky to find a place upstairs with windows on all four sides. If only it was closer to the beach, like fifteen miles closer. Or to the mountains. No, it would only add to my commute four point five days a week. And paying fifty bucks for twelve gallons of ninety one octane is about half-way to my point of consideration of an alternate method of transportation. In the mean time, the cooper is still my favorite toy.

Weekly Fun

Another fun week so far at Dodger Stadium. No more whining about being in last place as for the last two weeks they've been the hottest team in baseball and worked their way up to 2nd in the west. Just took two out of three from the Metropolitans and pushed them from tied for 2nd in the east to tied for 3rd. Poor Mets. They'll do better elsewhere. Today was a day game, so I took a vacation day from work and enjoyed sleeping in late, and being served my brunch and brew all game long. Fun, fun, fun. Until we lost the game, but hey, it's not what's happening, it's who you are with, and I was with folk whose company I value. Just a few snaps above, one is a railroad map that I finished working on and uploaded to hooked gamers railroad site, two of them are folk playing the baseball video games on the club level of the stadium. Yes, they play those while the real game is going on. The second machine from the left had the Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death blinking, so it wasn't working so well. Sometimes when I walkby, I may pull a trigger or two pitching and batting who knows who to who knows what. Today I snapped photos of those staying at it a bit longer than I do. The fourth picture shows last night in the parking lot where a helicopter with a search light [night sun] leading in a few police cars to break up twenty folk from having a post game tailgate. Too bad the story does not come out in my cheap little camera's attempt at capturing it. I would get a new camera, maybe one with an optical zoom, if I knew I was going to use it more than once a month like this one. I take it with me a lot of places now, just haven't been using it. Maybe I'll break down and buy a cell phone that would do the work too, and send it to this site. Nay, it's the old circle. No cell phone, no girlfriend, no girlfriend, no cell phone needed.

Well, thanks for writing back, finally.

Grrr, the longest reply so far. Going to be tough to get this internet restriction lifted. Prohibition is just wrong, some see it, my senators do not.

Dear Mr. Dragon:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Internet gambling. I appreciate you taking the time to contact me on this important topic and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

There is no doubt that the Internet and related technologies have had a remarkable effect on the U.S. economy in recent years. The flow of commerce on the Internet has enhanced American industry's ability to distribute goods economically and efficiently. The continuing development of this industry in California has provided hundreds of thousands of new, well-paying jobs, and I am committed to strengthening online commerce and preserving and expanding this vital job base.

While the advent of the Internet has been beneficial to American society, I believe the same cannot be said for Internet-based gambling. Internet gambling has become too easily accessible to minors, subject to fraud and criminal misuse, and too easily used as a tool to evade State gambling laws.

I understand your thoughts on internet gambling, and as you may be aware, I have supported legislation aimed at curbing Internet gambling during my tenure in the Senate. For example, I supported the SAFE Port Act, passed into law as Public Law 109-347, which included (as Title VIII) the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

Please know that I have read your letter with interest and value your thoughts. Additionally, I appreciate hearing your concerns that such restrictions are vague for poker players, and your support for legislation to exempt online poker from the Act. While we do not necessarily agree on this particular topic, be assured that I will certainly keep your thoughts in mind should this issue come before me during the 110th Congress.

Again, thank you for your letter. I hop you will continue to keep me informed on issues of importance to you. Best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

2GB memory limit crash when more RAM is available

This fix is for those of you that have applications that crash under Vista 32 or 64 a lot. The crashes are apparently due to a 32-bit application without LARGEADDRESSAWARE being able to see and use more then 2 GB on any Microsoft OS (32 or 64 bit). This doesn't mean the OS can't see more memory. The operating system sees it fine, the application runs into trouble when it sees it and freaks out. The program was designed to only see 2gb total, so it doesn't matter if it is in x32 or x64, the program is restricted. Since the OS and other resources eat up that same memory, it will crash. Why doesn't it happen under XP?It does, just not as often because XP uses less ram as a whole. Vista eats up more resources and exploits the problem better.Here is the fix. Hours of web trolling helped mad_boris find this. You actually have to manually patch your own software. Whichever primary executable you are using is the one to fix. Crashes are now very very rare after applying this fix. This method actually patches your main executable with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag so it will address more memory. Why application developers have not see this as a problem, I don't know.
Mad_Boris uploaded this:
http://files.filefront.com/3GB_enabler2zip/;6791818;/fileinfo.html
In this zip file, you should find editbin.exe
Don't forget to backup your original applicationName.exe file (for future patch compatibility)FOR VISTA 32 and 64 "Vista 32 users may have to apply second step as well."

1. Copy your applicationName.exe from your application folder to your editbin "3gb_enabler2 unzipped" folder.

2. Open an Elevated Command Prompt with Administrator Privileges.

3. Change to the folder where you unzipped editbin.exe.

4a. type "editbin.exe /LARGEADDRESSAWARE applicationName.exe" without the quotes and rename it to applicationName_copy.exe

EXTRA STEP VISTA 32: x64 users do not have to do this at all as x64 has no problems giving 4gb+ ram to 32 bit apps.. however.. Vista 32 users may.

4b. type "BCDEDIT /set increaseuserva 2900" without the quotes. NOTE: System boards vary. if 2900 does not work try 3072 bcdedit.exe is in thewindows\system32 folder.

5. Copy the patched applicationName_copy.exe back to your /bin directory.

6. You can either change existing shortcuts, or create a shortcut to point to the patched executable applicationName_copy.exe, or rename the original toapplicationName_orginal.exe and the copy to back to applicationName.exe Whichever method is better for you.

The clue is '32-bit applications' without LARGEADDRESSAWARE in their file header can't see and use more then 2 GB on any Microsoft OS (32 or 64 bit). Does not depend on how many GB you have installed. Some applications and games on max settings use more then 1.5 GB memory. Vista after starting up uses about 500 MB. 1.5 GB + 500 MB = 2 GB - max memory limit has been reached and will cause crash when your application tries to use more memory. With LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag your '32-bit application, can now use 3 GB on 32 bit Windows and 4 GB on 64 bit Windows. It is more then enough for most application max settings to handle in 2008.

Arise Cyrano!

I don't know who's idea this was, but I had this gift certificate from amazon so I decided to use it and did a DVD search for 'box sets'. I found a number of them from Mill Creek Entertainment whom I'd never heard of before. I bought a couple of fifty movie packs, some of you may be interested in them too. When will I have the time to watch all of these now?

Different Strokes

It's tough being a fan of a last place team. Having fifty thousand fellow fans about you helps. Friday night was Joe Torre Bobblehead night. This thing looks silly, yet brings a calm smile to my face. My camera is in the car, maybe I'll post a picture of it tomorrow or Sunday. After Wednesday night's game, I'm leaving early, fore I know that my alarm will go off in a few hours and I want to be at work as close to on time as possible, if not a bit early, and as I'm walking through the employee parking on my way to the lot where I park, a new white caddy creeps up behind me. I move out of the way and wait for it to pass in the narrow lane. I get a wave from the driver, Tommy Lasorda. I wave back and off he goes. Maybe he thought I might have been an employee walking through down this lane. Whatever, good to see him still at the games. The night before that Ron Howard walked right by me and I did not even recognize him until my buddy pointed him out to me. Then I saw his back heading for the exit. Tonight I stood in line to have Steve Garvey sign his new book for me, as he was doing for everyone who purchased one. He seemed in great spirits and it was good to see him again too. A buddy took my picture with the author on his cell phone. Hope he sends it in the next day or so. Too many things swirling in my head, must rest... cya.

Long Week

Since the Dodgers were home for a week of games, I spent most of my free time at the Stadium. Last Saturday and Sunday were triple digit hot and by Tuesday night I was shivering in sixty degree weather. Very strange weather from clear blue skies to foggy nights. A couple on their first date was sitting next to me at the bar one night and when their friends finally found them, the bartender had fun lying about all the drinks he served the couple and what was in them. One of my friends is job hunting. His kids are raised and his wife is still teaching and his last foriegn employer fired him for having a bad heart. Physically, not emotionally. Hard to sue a foriegn employer when he was actually contracting to sell their goods and not an office employee. I've learned a lot about the procedure to be inline for a heart transplant, not that I ever want to go through such a process. Amazing how a couple of other bar managers like to come in and be customer's at the stadium club. Fourth year coming in here and I still like it. Introduced my seat mates to it, and they are thinking of adding it on to their seats next year. The Dodger's themselves are hovering just above the last place Giants. It certainly won't be wire to wire first place this year, either. Fifty years in LA, the last twenty without a world series win. Dodger's are due. Found out I share a birthday with Roy Disney and the Pope. Cute. Now what party will I throw for my fiftieth next year? Hmmm, will have to start planning now.

Months of Laundry

Why do I do this? I waited almost three months before doing it this time. It is a good thing that February is a short month. Eighty of these, eighty pairs of those, hours and hours between the washer and the dryer and the video games and the music and the internet tv. It almost got to the point where I had to go out and buy new stuff. I have way too much stuff, especially clothes. Still have shirts I wore in high school, thirty years ago! Maybe I should start a donation hamper together. But I like all of this stuff. Maybe someone else will too....

Fifty First of One Hundred Seventy Eight

Wow, what a turnout today. I expected maybe ninety to a hundred players an ended up looking at nearly double that amount. Got there too early so I grabbed a poker magazine until sign up time. Walked the floor and glanced at all the cash games going on from one/two limit stud and hold'em up to three hundred buy in no limit mixed games. It was all too overwhelming, so I just concentrated on the tournament that I came to play. Am glad I dressed warm for they kept the room cold today. After a good read, went and signed up and then went to my assigned table and read some more. Talked with a few players I knew as they passed by, one of them pointing out the loud mouth at the next table that reached his first final table yesterday, and was now telling others how to play the game to be as good as him. I just chuckled. I don't even remember my first time reaching a final table, though it is probably in an old blog article from a couple of years ago. Cashing is good, winning is great, and I try to remember to check my ego at the door, so at least I don't sound as silly as loud mouth next door. We all start with two thousand in chips, with twenty minute rounds, starting blinds are twenty five and twenty five. Yes both big and small blinds are the same amount. They use to be five and ten with eight hundred in chips, but finally let us use the good chips, I only hope they threw out all those ugly five and ten chips.
About an hour in, near the end of the third level my stack has gone from the two thousand at start, to three grand, down to eighteen hundred, and back up to three grand. A lot of loose play at my table, and I am avoiding most of it. Had to raise with two kings when the board was low with a pair of fives. Got lucky when the guy calling my raises had a pair of sevens. It was a pair of sevens that did me in at the end when I went all in with only six tables of nine or less left at each table. Everyone else folded, and my ace rag did not improve. Fun afternoon, will have to do this again, for awhile longer and get to another final table.