state college admission criteria

I know I'm drawing attention away from Afton, but this is interesting, okay folks?

One of the concerns at GMU is balancing the duty to provide educational opportunities to this state's students with the desire to attract outstanding students from wherever they may be. Or, in other, more cynical, words: Is this school more concerned about the school or the state?

One of my co-workers/managers at BYU, Tom Gregory, was on the Utah Board of Education for a term or two, and posted this regarding issues that mesh nicely. I'm not saying that Texas' solution will work for Virginia, but I doubt it can hurt.

So here are some more pics of Afton and Cocoa, our first child. Cocoa seems to be adjusting well. My only problem is Cocoa now has this need to not only sleep on the bed with us every night, but sleep on me or right next to me. And then to make matters worst, when I'm up in the middle of the night feeding Afton, she steals my spot. How rude is that! Overall, Cocoa seems to be adjusting well to Afton. She watches her closely and tries to sneak in some licks here and there.

Afton has some major talents of projecting out of both ends. Its amazing how well she can do that at such a young age. I guess she got some of her talents early! :) I wonder how long its going to take to get over thinking everything she does is cute, like the first spit up, first vomit, etc.... probably the second time she does it, it may not be so cute. :) She is starting to fit into the newborn size a little better. Before, everything we had swallowed her whole. And yes, we do have other colors for her besides pink.

As for me, I've quit breaking down everyday so I think the hormone detox is almost done. We shall see. Afton likes to stay awake at night and sleep during the day so its been rough being able to function. I think it will be worse when Joe goes back to work, but we shall see how it goes. I am feeling more human now though, so that is a plus! All in all, we have decided to keep her! She's a pretty good deal. :)

Yes, she has eyes!

For all those people who doubted: Yes, Afton has eyes.

We also finally figured out how to get her to sleep in her bassinet: swaddle her tight. The yellow blanket isn't tight enough. You have to do it by hand.

Home sweet home

We're home from the hospital today, on Easter Sunday. We arrived home at about 3:30 this afternoon, since they let us stay pretty much as late as we wanted, and we figured we should eat lunch before we left.
Dinner was provided by the Relief Society, or at least, one sister from the RS, and another brought a meal for tomorrow's dinner. (I suspect the real reason for the dinners is to have an excuse to come over and ogle hold the baby.)
We're working on nursing, still. Tracy's milk has started to come in, and it looks like Afton is starting to get the hang of things here.
I'm working on getting the place organized, because it's a royal mess right now. I should rephrase that. The baby stuff is a royal mess. Our laundry's a disaster too, but it always was. This, however, is providing some motivation to clean up our laundry, since hers needs to be done right.
We just hadn't organized any of the baby stuff for when the baby came because we had started packing for our possible move, which, by the way, isn't happening. In case anyone hadn't heard, the seller was foreclosed on, after his bank dis-approved the offer we made. They aren't gonna get much more than we offered, but they're crazy if they think they're gonna get their money back. He paid like 350,000 for that house. The tax assessment, which is generally regarded as a little high, is 235,100. Last year's was 268500. The bank said they're gonna try to sell it for 220,000. Ha! not anymore.

Anyway, I'm back to organizing diapers, wipes, and toys.

More baby

Just one picture though. The hospital recommend that the baby lay on Mom's chest, and they encourage Dad to do it too; take your shirt off, lay on the pull out bed, and put her tummy-down on your chest. Cover her up with blankets, and let gravity hold her to you. She really does like it; she calms down no matter what, and goes to sleep. Apparently, she likes to be able to hear your heartbeat, and she won't argue about letting you generate heat for one side of her, either. It's almost like the nice cozy space she was in before she got unceremoniously kicked out.

For any statistic seekers out there (Mom), Afton, when born, weighed 7 pounds, ad was 20.5 inches. (Note that Matt and Amy's baby was also 20.5 inches!) Her ahd an APGAR score of 9, (out of a possible 10).

However, when she was weighed tonight at 5, she had lost 11 ounces. We're working on some feeding 'regulation', and we'll see how well we can get Tracy and Afton working together.

The camera's batteries are dead, and my contacts are getting tired, so I'm going to bed. Bye!

More pictures, straight from the source

You don't need the paparazzi when you've got the papa! Okay, so it's a bad play on words. Sheesh. Always demanding. More pictures, better puns, etc., etc. ;)

Last night's sleep was terrific, even though we got interrupted. We did the 10:00 feeding, but had the nursery handle the 2:00 feeding. Smart move, I think. Tracy and Afton have the nursing think fairly well handled, I think, but we'll see just how good it is after we leave the hospital.
I think last night was the best Tracy's slept in at least two weeks, perhaps even two months. Her bladder has more space, there's no baby pressing on internal organs, etc.
This morning's feeding went well, too. Tracy and Afton did well together.
I, today, am going to go home, clean up some, find a car seat, and crash for a few hours on our bed.

Live, from the Prince William County Hospital!

And do I mean live!

Afton Michelle Scoresby was born this morning at 7:31 AM, Eastern Time.

Tracy went into work yesterday complaining of cramping, and she assumed it was just Braxton-Hicks contractions. She called her doctor's office, and they asked her to come in for a quick look-see, and they said she and the baby were fine. The "cramps" got worse through the day, and as night fell, they started getting worse. She didn't sleep (well? no.) at all because of them, and at 3:30, woke me up, saying that we needed to go to the hospital. The contractions had gotten much worse, andshe said that they only felt better if she bore down. (yeah, that's a sign, a BIG one.) We took care of the preliminaries, and headed in. We arrived at the hospital at 3:45 AM. When we walked in, the labor and delivery nurse, who was one of the ones on duty when Tracy went in in December, recognized us, and looked at her, and was kind of skeptical, right up until a contraction hit, and she said, "That's the face of labor." We went into an L&D room, and when she got Tracy on the bed and took a look, lo and behold, Tracy was dilated to a 7. By the time her doctor arrived and checked her, about 4:30, she was a 9. She got an epidural at about 5-5:30ish, and 10 minutes later, the doc broke her water. At about 7:15-7:20, they decided it was time to start pushing, and so Tracy really pushed, and Afton was out at 7:31, weighing 3175 grams, 6.999 pounds.
Tracy was terrific. Even through the pain before the epidural, she was great, once she had the epidural, she was calm and collected, and when the time came, she pushed the baby right out. The nurse said she was kind of skepticall when Tracy came in because women who are at a 7 normally don't look happy, even between contractions.

Afton has been a happy girl so far, although she's really just slept most of the time, and only really wakes up when we move her.

Thanks to everyone for the support we've got, everyone who's helping us out right now, and anyone else who's been praying for us.

Manual Subnetting Arithmatic

Continuing in the network administration vein that I began last post, I'll mention my latest struggle. For one of my certification exams (one I took and failed), I have to manual perform the math to figure out what subnet a computer is in, how many subnets are on a given network, and how many computers can be on those subnets.


Computers are identified on a network by an address. Every public address is unique. Under the most commonly used addressing scheme, the address is designated as follows: (I'll use BYU's web server for the example:)
The name we call www.byu.edu translates to an address. In this case, it's 128.187.16.242. All addresses have four octets of 8 bits. That's why address can never go above 255. You can't count above 255 in binary with 8 digits. So, you could have up to 255.255.255.255, but you can't that address is reserved. Addresses have been further divided into classes. ISPs (and entities acting as their own ISP) are assigned address blocks belonging to either a Class A, B or C address.

1. Class A networks range from 0.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255. The network is defined by the first octet in the address, and the individual host (computer) is defined after (like 15.X.X.X).
2. Class B networks range from 128.0.0.0 to 191.255.255.255. a Class B network is defined by the first two octets (128.187.X.X in our case)
3. Class C networks go from 192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.255. They take the first three octets to define their network address (208.154.32.X is a class C network)
4. There are several special reserved address: 10.X.X.X is reserved as a private Class A that anyone can use internally only, 192.168.X.X is a private Class B, etc.
   

From this example, you should be able to see BYU is a Class B network, because it is a 129.187 network. This basic definition creates one network with 65,534 possible addresses on it.
You don't want a single network with sixty-five thousand hosts (computers) on it. It's a BAD thing. In fact, such a network probably wouldn't even work at modern speeds due to the way ethernet (the current networking technique) is designed. Instead, you divide your network up into several subnets.

These subnets are logical divisions of your network. and are represented by a subnet mask. Subnet masks designate which part of the address are part of the host address, and which are part of the network. For example: 128.187.16.242, with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, would be a member of the 128.187.16.0 subnet, which reaches from 128.187.16.1 to 128.187.16.254 (255 is reserved in all cases). 128.187.25.247 with the 255.255.255.0 subnet mask would be part of the 128.187.25.0 subnet, which reaches from 128.187.25.0 to 128.187.25.254. Everyone with me here? Good

Up to this point, it's been rather simple. Sort of all or nothing. An octet is either entirely part of the network ID or the host ID. Beginning here is where it gets confusing:
Taking our imaginary computer with the address 128.187.25.247, if we change the subnet mask to 255.255.254.0, we've created a MAJOR change. We have now created a subnet that spans two of the third octets. The address is now a member of 128.187.24.0, which spans from 128.187.24.1 to 128.187.25.254. So, you have one subnet with space for 508 (254*2) computers. Now things aren't so clear, are they?
Actually, they (kind of) are. What we've done is created a decimal
representation of a binary object. The subnet mask that WAS 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000 is now 11111111.11111111.11111110.00000000. See that? We changed one byte, and made two networks! this happens because the bytes in the subnet mask aren't really there as numbers, they're a binary yes/no for whether that digit is part of the mask or not.
If you can count in binary, you can figure out what the next subnet mask is. We subtracted one, so the next digit is worth, yes! 2!, creating 255.255.252.0.
This sort of hilarity can continue, in BYU's case, up to 255.255.0.0, with a binary representation of 11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000 which is the default designation for their Class B network. Beyond that, they have no authority. However, what if I have a Class C network, or I've run out of subnets, and want to divide something even smaller that my standard three octet subnets? I simply go into the fourth octet. 255.255.255.128 will create two subnetworks. I'll leave the binary representation of this one as homework for you.

Now for the truly tricky third part of this post.
Let's go back to my imaginary BYU computer, the one with the address 128.187.25.247. Let's give it a new subnet mask: 255.255.240.0. Now, give the computer name and subnet mask, you have to tell what subnet it is on. here's wher things get fun. Step one: convert the subnet mask and address to binary:
11111111.11111111.11110000.00000000. Step two: convert the address to binary: 10000000.10111011.00011001.11110111 Step Three, AND the whole thing:10000000.10111011.00010000.00000000. Step four, convert it back to decimal: 128.187.16.0.

There it is, 128.187.25.247/255.255.240.0 belongs to the subnet 128.187.16.0

There's one more requirement in the test. Be able to tell how many hosts can be in a subnet. Some of it is simple. A subnet mask 255.255.255.0 can have 254 computers. how do I know? Well, because I know; but really it's (2^8)-2 computers. The entire thing is (2^x)-2 where x is the number of bits in the host ID of the network. Okay, technically, it's 2^(32-n)-2 where n is the number of network bits instead of host bits.

simple, huh? And I was worried for when I retake the test.

Completely automating Windows installation with Sysprep and Ghost

So I've been working on this particular gem all day, and I finally got it. Using Microsoft's Sysprep tool, you can remove all the unique identifiers of a machine prior to imaging it using Symantec Ghost. The tricky part is that we wanted to do it completely automated, on a scheduled task, with no human interaction, which meant that we had to created an answer file for Sysprep to use in the image preparation that would automatically generate a quasi-random computer name. I spent 4 hours trying to get it to work, and not getting it to work.
Finally I found that all you have to do is include the "ComputerName=" line in the [UnattendedGUI] field, and set it to "ComputerName=*". Otherwise, it wants confirmation of the random name before it continues.
Now that I've got this completed, it means we can completely automate our computer lab to re-image as often as we want with no worries about name or SID conflicts.

???????

So, my best friend who was supposed to be due 2 days after me had an emergency c-section Thursday night. She had gestational diabetes and couldn't get her blood pressure under control. They were going to induce her, but when they gave her potossum (labor inducing medication) as a test to see how the baby will handle it, his heart rate dropped dramatically. So they decided to do the c-section. Baby Noah and mom are doing great! Everyone is healthy and once Noah isg weaned off the insulin, they should be good to go. Noah is about 5 lbs. 9 oz, which is good sized for being a month early. I have to say I am really jealous. She got out of being pregnant a whole month! Our plans for being in labor the same time are ruined, but somethings aren't meant to be, I guess. Although, I must say Dena has definitely inspired me to get the bag packed, and get on the ball with finishing getting ready for the baby.

Anyways, that's all my exciting news. Not much is going on here. We still haven't heard if we got the house or not, but it will work out however its meant to be. I'm feeling pretty good, with the exception of not sleeping well and back aches. I feel I really lucked out with this pregnancy--no swelling, diabetes, etc.... just a huge stomach.

Our YW basketball team is undefeated so far this season. Today, we go up against the only other team in the stake who is also undefeated. It should promise to be a great game. Wish us luck!!

No shaving for me!

I've decided that I'm not going to shave until we either:

1. Get into the house we're trying to buy.
2. Have our baby.

Tracy isn't terribly fond of the idea, but I think she'll let it go, since it has a definite end date. I think I'll explain it as some modern adaptation of the nazarite vows. That ought to get people confused! If you don't remember what nazarites are, go read your Old Testament Study manual again. Yeah, I think when I'm done, I'm going to shave so I can look nice for the pictures, then after the baby's born, and we get good pictures, I'm gonna shave my head, too.

I'll get some pictures so everyone can see where I'm at now, but I have to tell you, this isn't going to be a cool beard. I know I can't grow a good beard, so I don't. Well, until now. There always has to be a first time. Except for Dad, I guess. I've never seen him anything more than 4 or 5 days' stubble.

Of course, not shaving for 3 or 4 weeks also gives me instant dirtbag climber cred. In California: "Yeah, so I like, spent my last 5 bucks on this carabiner, so I totally can't afford to shave, man." Or the ever-so-slightly more mature: "I've been in a bivy on top of Mount Hood for the past week, rescue climber who weren't as hardcore/lucky as me." Or the East Coast Old Man and the Rock: "I don't shave so I can use the hair on my face as insulation while I'm climbing Mount Washington, and I can cut it, braid and splice it together, and rappel off my hair down a cliff if I lose my rope." (Wait, Hemingway didn't write something titled that? Oops.)


Anyway, I'll try to get you pictures of the event.