There are many times in life when you just want to give up. It seems no matter what you try, nothing works. It is very frustrating to try, try, try and have your efforts result in failure.
However, let me suggest something, always give it one more try, it may be the one that succeeds, you only fail when you have stopped trying.

Let me tell you a little story. I was diving in a local lake looking to take some underwater shots of the remains of a forest that had been flooded when the dam that created the lake was built. Unfortunately I was violating a basic tenant of diving, never dive alone. After taking a couple of shots I found a fishing rod and reel lying on the bottom. Securing the camera housing to my dive harness with its carabineer I grabbed the rod and made for shore. After a couple of kick cycles I realized the camera, housing and strobe set up, worth about $3000.00, was no longer attached to my harness. I planted the rod and reel butt end into the mud as a marker and then retraced my path to try and find the camera. I feel sick to my stomach as I realize that I have effectively traded a $3000.00 camera setup for a broken $70.00 rod and reel. If I had been diving with a buddy I can’t help but think he (or she) probably would have seen me lose the camera. You can guess what happens next.

The lake bottom where I dive is covered with a foot thick (or more) layer of fine silt, the slightest movement of the water drives the silt into an all-obscuring cloud. Even at the best times visibility only ranges from 5-10 feet. My previous movement through the area had raised a cloud of silt effectively covering my back trail, I could have passed within a foot of the camera and I wouldn’t have seen it. In fact, on that dive, and on two others that day I didn’t find the camera. I have also promised my wife I will never dive alone again after I confess when she delivers more tanks that I was single diving.

I returned to lake whenever I was able, diving with whatever buddies I could find and searching the area where I first thought the camera to be. It turned out I had miss-identified a buoy I used to mark the location, thus I was not able to locate the fishing rod marker or any other underwater landmark I remembered from the dive when I lost the camera. The area had several lines run along the bottom to help divers to navigate to various structures, the lower lake levels had resulted in boat anchors, or maybe malicious divers, cutting some of the lines leaving entanglement hazards in many locations. It was very frustrating diving.

I prayed that God would help me in my search. On my seventh return dive I got completely turned around (with limited visibility and presbyopia making compass headings at times difficult to see) and ended up many yards east of where I thought the camera was located, I came upon a submerged tree top I recognized, then some saplings arranged in a familiar pattern and finally the fishing rod! I immediately surfaced and retook the bearings on two points. Finally I felt I was close. I submerged and searched the area around the pole, unfortunately I didn’t find the camera on that dive, I couldn’t even relocate the rod once again.

In fact, I didn’t find any sign of the camera or the fishing pole during over 5 more attempts in spite of having the coordinates. Needless to say I was getting discouraged. I was checking Ebay for prices for replacements and had asked for quotes on a new system from online merchants. Even a local county’s search and rescue diver unit couldn’t find the camera or the rod. After helping out several times by acting as a surface watcher when I couldn’t get a buddy, my wife had basically given up, I can’t say I blamed her, I was near giving up myself and every time I wanted to go back out to the lake to search it was getting to be more and more of a struggle. A voice inside my head insisted I keep trying, just one more time.

Plagued with doubts I wondered if someone had already found the camera rig, maybe a fisherman had snagged it and really got a catch of the day, maybe a boat anchor had drug it out to deeper water or maybe it was buried in the silt. Still, I had to keep trying, at least one more time. I set a limit on time, if I didn’t find the camera by the 15th of the next month I would give up.

On the way to the lake I ask God for guidance one more time. I waited at the dive site for two hours for my dive buddy to show, finally he arrived and we donned our gear for the dive. While he tried to get his buoyancy adjusted and worked with some new equipment configurations I searched the final area where I felt the camera could be.

Equipped with magnifying lenses inserted into my mask to make reading the compass easier and a sonar transponder/receiver set (one on the dive flag which I had attached at the coordinate point to a log on the bottom and one on my dive harness) to help me stay oriented underwater in the limited visibility I began another search dive. From the best coordinates I had, the ones from the rod and reel when I found it the second time, I began doing sweeps from 30 feet depth down to 50 feet depth working from east to west from the coordinates. I worked slowly and carefully trying to stir up as little silt as possible. 30 down to 50 and back up to 30 each time only moving west enough to just overlap the previous swath of bottom I could see within the beam of my 10 watt HID light. At 25 minutes into the dive, halfway through the fourth cycle (the second return from 50 feet) I see the camera, it is just sitting there on top of the silt, waiting.

Even though I was under water I said through my regulator “Thank you God” over and over again. I grabbed the camera with my right hand in a death grip and using the transponder headed back to the dive flag. After a safety stop at 15 feet I surfaced less than 15 feet from the dive flag. I carefully carried the camera back to shore, handing it to my dive buddy just long enough to remove my fins. A quick inspection on shore showed that in spite of being submerged at a depth of 43-50 feet (the lake has dropped almost a foot a week) for nearly 8 weeks the Ikelite housing has not leaked a drop of water and the sealed battery chambers on the DS51 strobes appear water tight.

After I got the camera, housing and strobes home I carefully rinsed the silt and slime off of the gear and wiped it dry with a soft cloth towel. Opening the back of the housing I found it was dry as a bone inside, no leakage in over 8 weeks of submergence to 50 feet deep. I removed the camera and touched the shutter button, activating the camera that has been sleeping for 56 days, it wakes up and complains its battery is critically low, I pointed it at my wife and took a picture, the sound of the mirror cycling was the sweetest thing I have heard in a long time. I dried the strobes and carefully removed the battery compartment doors, while the batteries themselves where dead (after trying to keep the strobes active for 8 weeks it was no wonder) the compartments are dry and clean. A quick check with new batteries showed the strobes are both fully operational.

Everyone is amazed that the camera was found, most had given up hope.

If I had given up at 5 search dives, or 10 search dives I wouldn’t have found my camera, it took 13 dives over 8 weeks. It also took many prayers and the help of several friends and acquaintances to eliminate areas until the final area where I found the camera was isolated. All told there where over 20 dives that I know of to search for my camera by 5-6 other divers and myself. There may have been many more that I didn’t know of, I was offering a $200-$300 reward for its safe return. Since I found the camera, I am donating the reward to a charity.

Always give it one more try, don’t allow what others say to discourage you.

Mind over Mussels

Well, lake Lanier, Georgia is heading for historic low levels while building continues unabated for new home, condos and businesses in and around Atlanta. For those of you who may not understand the connection, Lake Lanier is the main (read only) source of water for most of the Metro-Atlanta area. Of course as Paul Harvey likes to say, there is a rest of the story.

It seems there are two species of nearly extinct mussel and one species of fish that are on the endangered species list. These nearly extinct critters are why the Corps of Engineers says they need to maintain the high flow rates out of Buford Dam on Lake Lanier, flows so high that they are releasing nearly twice as much water as is coming into the lake from other sources. And the hard science these flow rates were based on? It doesn’t exist, but of course the fact that the flow helps keep a small coal fired power plant operating that provides power that the Corps would have to buy somewhere else might have a bit to do with it.

Of course the Corps has not been known for wise management decisions, it seems every year they plan on a huge storm season which never quite develops. In the Corps managed resources in central Florida where my father and brother live, lakes are also at an all time low, thanks to Corps mismanagement and over releasing.

Finally, now that it may be too late to prevent draconian measures, a study is being done to determine if those pesky mussels and fish really need all that water. Of course Atlanta and Georgia aren’t blameless. As I said above the governments of the various communities seem hell bent on cutting down every possible tree and growing houses, businesses and apartment complexes even though they strain already maxed out infrastructures and resources. Commute times of 2-3 hours to go less than 30 miles are becoming common place and water rationing is just around the corner.

I am afraid without a moratorium on new construction, more oversight on the Corps of Engineers and a lot more common sense Atlanta and points south down river are in for a rough, and dry, ride.

The Writers Group

I recently visited my Father and Step Mother in Inverness, Florida. One of the things I enjoy doing with my father is attending his writer’s group with him when I am able to. The group meets once a week at a community theater and center on the way to Crystal River. The group leader and organizer, a younger lady named Elissa, scours the web to find topics and then she places the topics on slips of paper and places the slips into a small cloth bag. A the group waits she selects a topic at random and everyone gets a chance to write a short essay, story or just their thoughts on the topic. As Elissa’s tastes are rather eclectic, so of course are the topics that catch her eye and make into her little cloth sack.

This weeks Writer’s Group topics where:

“My Workspace” (assigned the week before)
“A Century Old Symbol of Rebirth”
“On Top of the Sky Scraper”
And
“Gold Plated Diapers”

I don’t just sit and watch when I visit the group, I also take part in the writing and critique. I guess my favorite topic from the four above was “On Top of the Sky Scraper” for some reason this brought up an interesting vision for me so I thought I would share what I wrote with you.

“On Top of the Sky Scraper”

The water is calm this morning. You can see the torch of the statue of Liberty through the morning mists. The air is still fairly cool, not like it will be later in the day as the temperature and humidity rise to a crescendo of hot, wet heat that steals your breath and energy, only dying back to livable levels after dark.

The morning sun plays on the water, glittering and dancing as the only breeze f the day runs across the surface far below chasing itself into oblivion. The sky is a hard blue bowl with just the wisp of a cloud here and there.

You can hear the water lap against the stone, slowly eating it. Eventually the water will wear it all away. Over the side I look far down to the water, if you fell you wouldn’t survive more than likely.

“It used to be a lot taller.” The words interrupt my thoughts. “Several stories infact.” My father comes up behind me, old before his time, his face showing the lines of thousands of drifting miles of ocean and the leather of his skin, years of sun. “Then the ice up north and down south melted, of course it was the ice down south that mattered.” He rambles sometimes now, we used to listen, but now it has become part of the background.

We turn and go back to the stairwell, out of the sun which is already getting intense. In the last month the water had climbed another floor down below us and at night the building moans and rattles. Soon we will have to move again.

“People used to pay millions for that view.”

“Millions of what?” I ask, not really caring about the answer. Our footsteps echo from the musty depths of the stairs.

“Never mind, it isn’t important” he answers.


Until next entry, have fun and stay safe!

Mike

A Mazatlan Vacation Review

Mazatlan as a vacation spot doesn’t offer the same level of options as other Mexican destinations such as Cancun or Cozumel. I would roughly compare it to the Cabo San Lucas area.

The tours in Mazatlan available to the tourist aren’t really very interesting to tell the truth, we took the City tour which ended up being a thinly disguised attempt to get you to buy things from selected merchants, at least in Cancun they call it the shopping tour, we also took the country tour to Coppela. The Coppela tour stopped at a couple of small villages but mostly tried to get you to buy things. The villages weren’t very scenic and overall pretty run down. The traditional bakery in one village was good and seeing tiles made was interesting, but I don’t know if you can build a tour around them. With the large number of abandoned gold, silver, copper and platinum mines in the area I am surprised they didn’t have a mine tour, now that might have been more interesting.

I am afraid the best part of the vacation was at the resort with the pool and beaches and the scuba diving. We didn’t take the third tour we had for free, the Stone Island tour, due to time constraints so I can’t address that one. They also had a Jungle and Bird watching tour available but they took over 8-10 hours each and again, we just didn’t have the time.

In places like Cancun and Cozumel there are numerous family oriented tours available and other tourist attractions including clear water (100 foot visibility is common) diving and snorkeling, tours of archeological sites, cenote’ diving and a better market area for shopping. Mazatlan offers good sport fishing and a relaxing atmosphere that is not as frenetic as its Caribbean cousins and if all you want to do is lay around the pool or at the beach sipping your favorite beverage then Mazatlan may be perfect for you.

The scuba diving in Mazatlan is totally different than the Caribbean style diving in Cancun and Cozumel in that on a good day in Mazatlan the visibility is 30 feet, on a good day in the Caribbean it is over 100. While we were there the best visibility was about 20 feet which dropped to 5-10 feet in the afternoons. There is plenty of sea life and the dives are mostly shallow (less than 30 feet) if you are in to Much Diving (taking macro photographic shots of small reef and bottom dwelling critters) then Mazatlan is the place. If you want wide open underwater vistas with lots of pretty coral and fish, then you will be disappointed. On thing they could do to add some interest to the diving would be to sink a couple of old fishing or shrimp boats out on the deeper sand flats and create an artificial reef area, the problem with the shallow sites was that they were to prone to losing visibility with the shift of the wind or current. The other item that you need to be aware of, at least with the dive operator I used, they had only a small open boat as a dive boat which did not have a dive ladder so you had to alley-oop it over the gunwale to get back on board.

There were several night clubs and many yuppie style bars near the Resorts so there was nightlife for the more swinging individual but having gone beyond that stage I really didn’t try them out, however, they didn’t seem to be quite as crazy as their Cancun counterparts. There were also a couple of nice restaurants one called Espanola even had some great paella I heard but didn’t get a chance to test it out.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Mazatlan, I enjoyed the challenges of diving and photography there, but that might not be for you. So again, if you want to lay by the pool and go to the beach and don’t mind low visibility snorkeling and diving, then by all means consider Mazatlan as a low cost alternative to Cancun and Cozumel.

For my dive report with pictures go to:

http://www.scubamage.com/files/Diving_Mazatlan.pdf

Mike

Tokyo

I had the opportunity to spend some time in Tokyo, Japan on business recently. I found the people to be freindly and very business oriented. Of course you must wear a suit and tie for any business there luckily I still have a couple. No doubt you have also heard about their business card ceremony.

In Japan you must have a bunch of business cards with you. Each contact you make will present you his card, writing facing you. You take it, carefully examine both sides and place it somewhere safe, you then hand him your card in the same way. You never write on their cards or treat them with disrespect as the card represents the person.

While I was there I noticed a definate disparity between the generations, maybe more than we see anywhere else, here is a shot I took which probably best exemplifies what I mean:



The youth in Japan seem to be rebelling in dress and mannerisms, I hate to see this happen as I think the culture of respect for others and the concept of "face" are very valuable and I wish more folks ascribed to them.

Of course there is still beauty all over Japan, even in the middle of downtown Tokyo:



If you get a chance, I do suggest a trip to Japan.

Mike

Anyone up for Lake Meade?

Like I said in my last blog I will be in Las Vegas for Collaborate 07 (April 15th - 19th) following Collaborate I am going to try and do a dive in Lake Meade and am looking for a dive buddy (or two or three) anyone interested? Just drop me an email.

Mike

Collaborate 2007 - Shameless Plug

Well, Collaborate 2007 is just around the bend (April 15th - 19th) in Las Vegas, Nevada. I hope I can see many of you there. I will be giving a Full-Day University Seminar, U6: “Testing to Destruction – Benchmarking Oracle” on Sunday, April 14th for anyone interested in learning about the latest benchmarks and how Benchmark Factory can help you with doing capacity planning and SLA management. We will be giving away a free copy of our Benchmarking Book and a fully functional demo copy of the Benchmark Factory product to all participants. The seminar will cover the benchmarks that are currently in use and the new TPC-E and TPC-App benchmarks and will provide demonstrations of TPC-C and TPC-H benchmarks and present case studies of actual client benchmarks including custom scalability testing.

I will also be doing a one-hour presentation on “Beefing up Oracle10g memory” at 09:45 on Thursday, April 19th. In this presentation I discuss the management of memory when you use the new Oracle10g features such as ASSM, ASM and automated PGA management.

I really want to encourage you to attend Collaborate 2007 as it tends to be a very good conference with loads of good technical content from folks who have been there and done that, with real in-the-trenches presentations on real world Oracle issues and topics. Besides, who doesn’t want to go to Las Vegas on expenses?

I hope to see you all there and let’s all have a great learning experience at Collaborate 2007!

Down with the New!

I live in a nice neighborhood, swimming pool and tennis courts, large lots, established yards and nice trees and shrubs. All-in-all the neighborhood is about 20 years old but has been well maintained, the houses are all in great shape, none are in need of paint, none have old cars in the yards or odd pieces of machinery in the front yards on blocks.

The median price for a house is about $300K in my neighborhood (I got mine 10 years ago when prices were much less) not bad for the Atlanta area, I should be quite pleased. However, I have a gripe (imagine that!).

Within easy driving (or even walking distance) of my neighborhood are several new developments, they may or may not be swim/tennis, none of course have established yards or landscaping and for the most part the houses are so close you can hear your neighbors hair growing (or falling out, whatever the case may be.) In these new houses the square footage is usually less or equal to mine with some that have more of course. What really chaps my rear end is that almost to the last one, all start at prices that are higher than a majority of the homes in my neighborhood. The only thing going for these homes with higher price tags is they are new.

Next home owners meeting I think I will call for a general price increase by 100K across the board in my neighborhood. Instead of being tied to a pricing system that lock steps older homes forcing them to lower prices than inferior new homes. Why do I say inferior? I guess I like a bit of privacy with my house, I don’t like to be able to reach out and touch my neighbors from my window. I like to be able to look at mature trees and not worry if my sod is going to die next time it doesn’t rain for a bit.

In an older home I know my foundation isn’t going to crack, that the pipes that are supposed to carry hot, carry hot and those that carry cold, carry cold. I had a new house where they plumbed the toilet to use hot water, believe me it doesn’t work very well. Usually an older home will have gone through its troubled youth and will not have many problems as long as it is maintained properly.

Anyway enough of ranting I guess. I am sure that the home owners will reject my proposal no matter how eloquently phrased, after all the real estate agents wouldn’t mislead us would they?

Help! I'm Writing and Can't Stop!

Things have a way of taking on a life of their own. At one time I had a life, I really did. I camped with my kids, did some hunting with my buddies, went on fishing trips, I even spent quiet nights at home with the wife on occasion. I had a dream of writing fiction, even had a couple of short stories published in some regional magazines and had a few rejection slips from my novels. Then I began writing technical.

It started out with just an article now and then, free stuff to magazines like Radiation protection Management. Then I started getting paid for doing product reviews and for documenting things I had done with Oracle and the long slippery side into writing servitude began. Before I knew it I was writing books, I had no weekends, I did no camping, hunting or fishing. I carried a laptop with me everywhere and snuck in a few words whenever I could. I was even writing at work!

Soon I was doing articles, presentations, books and now blogs (I have 3 of them including this one) I can't sit down and feel comfortable without having a laptop in my lap, my hands curl naturally into writing position (or is it arthritis from too much writing?)

I was pulled over the other day, the officer said I was driving erratically, I explained about a deadline and how I had to finish an article, he saw the laptop sitting beside me, how embarrassing, he let me go with a warning and plea that I get help.

I checked my resume, 7 pages of writing credits, this has got to stop I told myself. Is there a 12 step program for writers? "Hello, I am Mike and I am a writer...."

Prime Vendors Take Prime Cuts

In the February 2007 Readers Digest, Sacha Zimmerman has penned the article Your Money for This? In this article Sacha delineates the outrages allowed to occur within the defense Prime Vendor program. The Prime Vendor program was initiated by the Defense Logistics Agency in response to the abuses reported in the previous spending programs in the defense agencies that resulted in the infamous $600 toilet seats and $400 hammers of yesteryear.

In this article such outrages as $20 plastic ice trays (99 cents for you and I), $1,000 hotplates (last years $450 specials, less than $200 for you and I) and $22,797 mini-refrigerators (similar if not exact matches to the $99 Kmart specials), and these are just a few examples of the outrageous prices charged by the vendors in the Prime Vendor program. It seems whenever one of these defense vendors gets a monopoly they can’t resist bilking the government out of everything they can, and the government allows it! If they are overcharging this much for minor items one has to wonder how much we are being raped for the guns, bombs and other “real” defense hardware. Perhaps we should put the controls in the hands of Walmart with bonuses designated by how much they save us on these bulk purchases based on amount paid below an average retail price.

I believe it is time for a civilian oversight committee, appointed by a lottery system, who is charged with periodic, random overviews of non-security defense purchases. Participants would serve for a term of a year during which time they would be paid the same salary with the same benefits of their civilian job and their civilian job would be guaranteed during that time period to be held for them. All reasonable expenses to perform the required audits would be covered.

If the oversight committee finds that these prime vendors have charged more than a specified amount above the average price for the items they provide, the prime vendors are immediately dropped from the program and are prohibited from participating in government contracts for a period of years, say 5. In addition, if any member of the oversight committee is found to be taking kick-backs, payoffs or bribes of any sort from any prime vendor or prime vendor alternate, then both the committee member and the CEO or president of the company that bribed or otherwise enticed them would be sentenced to a prison sentence of at least 5 years with no chance of parole.

It is time the congressmen and senators that allow and condone these billing practices have the controls removed from their well greased hands and us poor dumb civilians given more of a say into how our money is spent.

Glue

Mike Ault, Copyright Jan 4, 2007

A recent happening at a local university got me thinking. You see, they had a very expensive sculpture, entitled “Spaceship Earth” that collapsed because it was created with the wrong kind of glue. Seems almost a parallel to our current situation on Earth doesn’t it? Have we created the world community with the wrong kind of glue?

What have we tried to glue our world community together with? In the past, we used the glue of conflict and conquest, of course many would argue we are still using the same glue today, but I would have to disagree. Today we use the glue of economics and only resort to force when economics and its sister glue diplomacy, fail. Is economics the proper glue to hold our world together?

No one would disagree that economics (the ebb and flow of money and resources) is powerful glue, it will force dire enemies to the bargaining table. Unfortunately economics can also destabilize and dissolve bonds just as easily if it is not applied correctly. So economics requires an expert craftsman to produce the desired bonding, as we have seen in the current world, these are few and far between.

So what would a proper glue for a world be? A glue that doesn’t dissolve as many bonds as it makes? How about glue composed of equal parts of compassion and tolerance? Any creed or belief that says it is better or has more right to exist, or that it is the only proper one is not binding glue, it drives disunity, stifles compassion and promotes intolerance.

Of course there are obviously creeds and beliefs that by their very nature are intolerable to society (those promoting human sacrifice, cannibalism or exploitation of the weak for example) must be expunged in civilized society, compassion and tolerance must also be tempered with wisdom and have boundaries. Of course one could argue that if everyone embraced the concepts of compassion and tolerance, such atrocities would not be allowed to occur anyway.

If we don’t find binding glue for the world I am afraid we will meet the same fate as the sculpture “Spaceship Earth”, a pile of ruble in the early morning rain.

Diving a Backplate and Wing with Double Tanks

By Mike Ault, Copyright 2006

If you have been following my material on scuba diving you know I have been writing about diving, diving dry suits and diving back inflate BCDs (buoyancy compensation device) a natural follow-on is diving what are known as backplate with wing type BCDs and the configuration of tanks, regulators and hoses known as the DIR (Doing It Right) configuration. The main purpose of double tanks is to extend the amount of time one can remain underwater and to provide for redundancies in your air supply.

In normal configuration for an open water certified diver the diver has a single air tank, a primary and backup regulator (known as an “Octo” or “Octopus”) a gauge console, usually including a submersible pressure gauge (SPG), a air pressure gage, a compass and in advanced configurations, a dive computer. The dive computer may or may not be air-integrated, which means it is able to sense and record changes in your air tank volume. The normal configuration may also include one or more low pressure inflator hoses; one for your BCD and one for a dry suit. In a DIR configuration using double tanks, the tanks are connected through a three-valve manifold assembly with a right and left tank isolator valves (called the right and left posts) and a cross connect valve. This configuration utilizes two-primary regulator stages with the various hoses logically configured across the two primaries.

Usually the right hand tank valve has the main primary regulator attached, the main primary has the primary-secondary stage (the one you breath through, normally called the primary) and the fill line for the wing. On the left tank valve (or “post” you attach the secondary-primary regulator you attach the backup secondary regulator (taking the place of the octopus) however now it is simply called the backup. On this left hand regulator you also have (in a “pure” configuration) a single, small SPG (usually what is known as a brass and glass SPG) and the fill line for your dry suit, if needed, since actually in a “pure” setup you would have a small bottle of compressed argon with its own regulator that would fill your dry suit.

Let me explain about this backplate and wing I keep talking about. The backplate is just what its name implies, an aluminum or stainless steel (I guess there may some titanium ones out there, but I haven’t seen any) plate that is specially drilled and milled to hold a single continuous length of nylon webbing that forms the shoulder straps and waist belt. This continuous piece of nylon webbing makes for a simple, easy to maintain, method of wearing the backplate for a diver. Being a continuous piece of webbing this eliminates points of failure present in standard BCDs. There is usually a second strap, called the crotch strap, coming off of the bottom of the backplate. The crotch strap prevents the backplate from riding up and provides a point of attachment for a pull line from a scooter, relieving your arms from having to provide not only steering control but a grip on the scooter itself.

A wing is a flotation bladder with an inflation hose (called a “corrugated hose”) and usually a dump valve (on the back side of the one pictured below.) The buoyancy bladder is encased in a protective covering usually of a rugged nylon fabric. Some wings, Like the Oxycheq Signature 50 pound, have a double layer of fabric for added protection of the inner bladder.

The metal backplate provides a rigid mounting point for either a single tank or a set of doubles. When a single tank is utilized it is more stable to use a special metal bracket called a single tank adapter or STA. STAs are usually made from the same metal as the backplate to reduce the possibility of galvanic corrosion, likewise the attachment posts or bolts should be of the same material, either aluminum or stainless steel.

As its name implies a set of doubles consists of two air tanks connected through a manifold assembly and rigidly mounted to each other through a set of stainless steel tank bands. The tank bands have the attachment fasteners (bolts) that attach the tanks to the backplate and are usually mounted on the tanks with 11 inch centers to allow mounting to the standard backplate.. Using an STA when using a single tank allows for rapid conversion between diving a single tank and diving a set of doubles as it only requires removing two wing or butterfly nuts and swapping out the doubles for a single tank mounted to an STA.

One major difference between a backplate and wing assembly and a BCD is that many modern BCDs have built-in or “integrated” weight pockets, some fixed, some removable, while, generally speaking, backplates with wings do not. This lack of weight pockets requires either mounting weight pouches on your tanks or your harness, wearing a weight belt, or, utilizing a weight harness. Most advanced divers seem to prefer the weight harness over the other options usually with placement of “trim” weights either on the tank or harness straps. Below is a picture of the DUI weight harness I use. The DUI harness has threaded weight packets (see the yellow handles?) you simply pull the yellow handles and it unthreads a heavy nylon cord that holds the pouch in place allowing dropping the weight pouches if needed. The use of the harness removes the weight pouches from the BP/W or tanks unless trim weights are needed.

I purchased a stainless steel backplate from Kraken Forge (a custom backplate provider) and using the DIR guidelines from http://www.gue.com/Projects/WKPP/Equipment/index.html, configured my webbing, buckles and D-rings as specified. I then had my local dive shop (LDS), Sea Sports Scuba, http://www.seasports.com/, configure a set of dual 80 cubic foot air bottles with a DiveRite 300 bar manifold. A bar is a single unit of pressure equivalent to the pressure of the air at sea level (not exactly, but close enough) therefore a 300 bar manifold can withstand internal pressures of 300 times that of the air at sea level ( 4350 PSI, your car tire has about 35 PSI.) I also had them O2 clean and certify the tanks and manifolds so I can utilize Nitrox (air with increased levels of Oxygen.)

I also purchased an Oxycheq 50 pound lift wing and a DiveRite TrekWing 35 pound lift wing with an aluminum backplate. To provide single tank use capability I purchased both a aluminum and a stainless steel STA. Once I had all of the required components, I had the LDS assemble the stainless steel backplate, the Oxycheq wing and the set of doubles. I assembled the aluminum backplate with the DiveRite TrekWing wing and aluminum STA for use with single tanks.

Meanwhile I purchased two Oceanic Alpha 8 PX3 Piston Regulators, a seven foot hose for my primary and a set of inflator hoses and a Sherwood Compact Navigational 3 Gauge Console with Compass from http://www.leisurepro.com/. I realize that a three gauge console with a SPG, depth gauge and compass is not true DIR but I like it simple and having the three in one place makes it easier for me. I then configured the dual regulators as shown on the GUE website.

So, what does it feel like to dive this contraption? Now as you can imagine, dual tanks, a manifold, and a stainless steel backplate are all heavy, to the tune of around 100 pounds with the tanks fully loaded with air. Add to that the needed lead weights to ensure you are neutrally buoyant if you breathed the tanks down to 500 pounds of pressure (where they become positively buoyant) and to offset the possible positive buoyancy of the wet or dry suit you are using for thermal protection, in my case an additional 14 pounds of lead. So all told, about 114 pounds of equipment not counting the weight of the exposure suit, fins, mask, gloves, hood and other paraphernalia. All told, diving a dry suit with a backplate and wing using double aluminum 80 tanks, a diver probably weighs at least 120 pounds more than their normal weight when out of the water.

Lifting the backplate and wing with the doubles from the ground up to your back could result in a hernia, it is much simpler to don it from the back of a SUV or pickup truck tailgate. Once it is in place, and the straps of the webbing are properly adjusted, it actually is not difficult to walk around with, as long as you aren’t climbing stairs or navigating difficult terrain.

Once you get in the water, you must inject some air into your wing to provide flotation, usually you carry your fins and then lay back in waist deep water to put them on, if you don’t inject some air into your wing you could get pulled under by the heavy gear, this nearly happened to me when I lost my balance. Once you are in the water the weight of the equipment becomes negligible due to the buoyancy of the air tanks (a Catalina aluminum 80 is listed at 31.6 pounds with 4.1 pounds positive buoyancy empty. So its real weight is 35.7 pounds, however in water the apparent weight will be about 2 pounds for each tank when full.)

Once I got my buoyancy nearly sorted out (I started out nearly 12 pounds over-weighted at 26 pounds of lead additional weight) the actual diving with the backplate and wing was comfortable and easy. Of course viewing me underwater when I was over weighted you would have thought I was a rototiller. I also had some issues with hose creep with some of the hoses, but as I learn to position them better and clip some of them to the harness assembly that will be reduced. There have been comments about the 7 foot primary being difficult to deal with, I found no such issues when I rigged it as suggested (down the back, under the right arm, across the chest, around the back of the neck to the mouth). The secondary has a bungee necklace attached that is used to hang it directly below your chin so it is available immediately for use. In this configuration you donate the 7 foot primary hose to a dive buddy who has an out-of-air (OOA) situation and then breath off the backup yourself.

The original idea behind the 7 foot hose on the primary is that in situations where there may be restrictions, such as in a cave or wreck dive, you would not be able to share air with an OOA buddy if you were tandem with a short hose. A long hose used in an OOA allows for two divers to swim in tandem formation (one in front of the other.) If the diver never does cave or wreck a 5 foot hose on the primary should be sufficient.

Another question asked usually goes something like “In my open water class we were taught to give the octopus (backup regulator) to an OOA diver, why do you give the primary?” The answer to this is simple, many times an OOA diver will be near panic, he or she will grab your primary as it is usually the most readily visible air source. It is also easy to just take the primary and pass it properly oriented and you know it works, so it just makes sense to pass the primary, dip and grab the backup that is bungeed around your neck and resolve the OOA divers problem, then assist him or her to exit the water.

Once the buoyancy weighting is determined and proper trim weights (if needed) are mounted, diving a backplate and wing is just as comfortable, if not more, than a vest or back inflate BCD. In fact I am finding it takes less weight to get me neutral with the backplate and wing with doubles (about 14 pounds) than it did diving a back inflate BCD with a single tank (18 pounds) while offering more freedom of movement and more secure tank mounting.

So the main downside to the BP/W with doubles is that it is more bulky and heavy on land. With proper planning you can overcome the cumbersome nature of the BP/W with doubles and once you are in the water will really enjoy this configuration.

It should be stressed that before you use a set of doubles with a manifold that you be properly trained in the manipulation of the three valves in emergencies such as a free flowing primary or backup, rupture disk rupture, or ruptured hose. These “valve drills” as they are called usually involve switching to the backup regulator (if the primary was the one that failed) then isolating the free flowing hose or tank by use of the tank valve and isolator valve (the one in the middle). Reaching the valves in a dry suit or thick wetsuit can be tough and you should practice stretching exercises to ensure you are limber enough to reach them.

For the compete article with photos go to:

http://www.authorsden.com/ArticlesUpload/26132.pdf

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years! Happy Holidays!

Personal Responsibility

Mike Ault, Copyright 2006 (Edited on 11/21/2006 to add a seventh item to list, thanks Robert!)

Since taking up scuba diving as a hobby I pay a lot of attention to diving accidents and near misses, always striving to improve my dive skills so I don’t become a statistic. Many of these accidents begin with typical behavior I would expect from teenagers; dares, trying to do things beyond your skill level, just doing dumb things. The scuba accidents that happen because of equipment failure are few and far between and can usually be traced back to improper maintenance or knowledge of operation. Of course accidents caused by health issues also occur, but that is beyond the scope of this blog.

In many of the follow up posts abut these accidents and incidents people are quick to jump on the instructors, dive masters and other professionals, blaming them for the people who are with them’s mistakes. Many folks seem to believe that unless someone tells you don’t do something stupid, they are responsible for you doing something stupid. Many times it seems our whole tort system is based on that premise.

For those not familiar with the Scuba certification process, the process involves classroom, self study and practical factors. All of the certification agencies provide training materials that are a part of this certification process. There are also many third-party books available for diving.

Let’s examine two divers:

Diver A:

Took a quick Resort Dive cert, decided he loved it. Upon getting home from vacation Diver A enrolled in a full certification class, went to the local library and bookstore and picked up several diving instructional books. Diver A read all that he could and visited many online sources to find out everything he could before class. Diver A read all of the manual, answered all of the questions and participated in class as much as possible.

During the water certification phase Diver A practiced as much as possible and asked questions, even dumb ones.

Diver B:

Took a quick Resort Dive cert, decided he loved it. Upon getting home from vacation Diver B enrolled in a full certification class. Being a very busy person diver B didn’t have time to read the materials or do the questions, he got his answers from folks he knew had taken the class before. Diver B did the minimum needed to get certified. Knowing that questions only delayed the class, he didn’t ask any questions and often made others in the class feel stupid for asking them.

During the water certification phase Diver B did the minimum required, never feeling totally comfortable during the sessions but figured he could pick it up later.

Ok, which diver would you want as a buddy?

Diver A takes responsibility for his actions and his life, he posts his mistakes to his favorite scuba board and asks for criticisms so he can improve. On dives he does his best to be self-reliant and watch out for his buddies. He carefully monitors his air and depth and pays attention to his dive computer. If the dive starts feeling wrong, he aborts it.

Diver B is rude and arrogant hiding his lack of knowledge by being condescending and belittling those around him. In the water Diver B has poor buoyancy control, sucks down air like he has an unlimited supply and expects everyone to help him. He never checks his air pressure or depth figuring that the dive master will take care of that. Diver B depends on the DM for making sure he doesn’t exceed limits, doesn’t have a dive computer and barely remembers where he put the recreational dive planner charts, let alone how to use them.

Which diver do you think will immediately think of suing someone if they get bent or have an accident? We all need to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. I would say more than half of the problems facing the USA, and the World, today are because we don’t practice self-responsibility. It is always some one else’s fault.

Students don’t learn, we blame the teachers, kids misbehave, we blame video games. No one wants to say Johnny can’t read because Johnny didn’t apply himself to learning to read. Sure, children learn from their parents, however, after a certain age, they have to take responsibility for their actions. We spend too much time finding others to blame for our problems when the person we need to point the finger at is right in the mirror in front of us.

So, what do I believe needs to be taught? These seven basic values:

1. Everyone cannot be a winner
2. Win and lose gracefully
3. Nobody owes you anything
4. Accept criticism
5. Take responsibility for your actions
6. Treat others like you want to be treated, even when they don’t
7. Life isn't fair, don't expect it to be

If these seven things were taught to everyone at an early age more than half of the problems in our society would disappear. The only way to build true character is through both winning and losing. We seem to concentrate on nobody ever having to face defeat, we mustn’t harm Johnny’s self-esteem. Some of my most valuable lessons came from my defeats, not my victories. We have games where no one is allowed to win and everyone gets a trophy, we have to promote students who don’t earn it and we reward benefits to those who have never worked to earn them. And we wonder why society is going to hell in a hand basket? You can’t give someone self-esteem, it has to be earned from both winning and losing and dealing with both.

An old saw says that when you point at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you. You have to take responsibility for whatever you do. You are responsible for your life, your learning and your safety, no one else.

Ebay Comments

I do a lot of buying and some selling on Ebay. One facet of Ebay is the comments section where you can enter a comment and rating for a buyer or seller with whom you have had a transaction.

About a month ago I bought some hard drives for my Nexstor 18fc array from an Ebay seller. According to his listing these were Seagate model ST118202FC hard drives. The SAN array I use for my real work (believe it or not I do have a real job) uses this model of drive and I needed to increase my storage space (well, actually I wanted to increase my input/output rate and the increase in storage space is a side-effect.) I found a companion drive to the ones currently in the array (I thought) so I put in my bid, got the drive for a very good price and when I received it, it installed just fine in my array and spun up with green lights across the control panel.

So from the previous paragraph it would seem all was right with the world correct? Well, then I tried to access the drive to format it and make it useful for the system. I am afraid the drive would not respond to any of the low level format or high level commands I issued. I looked carefully at the startup file log, sure enough, was a ST118202FC hard drive, but wait, there was a CLAR18 following the designation. What this means was that the firmware for the drive was modified by a SAN provider (in this case I believe EMC) to be specific for a particular SAN, in this case a CLARIION system. No biggie I thought to myself, I’ll just reburn the firmware, well, you can’t do that with EMC firmware unless you go to another version of EMC firmware, which kind of defeated the purpose for me. Here is how the listing described the drive:

You are bidding on a Seagate Cheetah 18.2GB Fibre Channel 10,000 RPM Hard Drive with a Dell Tray.
Seagate Model #: Cheetah / ST118202FC
Technical Features:

External Data transfer Rate: 100MBps
Seek Time: 6 ms
Average Latency: 3ms
Buffer Size : 1MB
Interface: Fibre Channel

Happy Bidding!

Manufacturer: SEAGATE
Model: ST118202FC
CHEETAH 18GB HARD DRIVE

As you can see, no mention of the CLAR18 designation that would be critical to determine compatibility.

Ok, obviously these EMC drives were not going to work for my Nexstor array.

On their shipping receipt they put:

“If, for any reason, you are unsatisfied with your purchase, please contact me at ebaysales@threesalegroup.com with your order number 12551 and the reason for your dissatisfaction. I will make all reasonable efforts to resolve the issue.”

I emailed the representative from the company I purchased them from, explained the situation and asked to return the drive. Here is the email trail:

Subject: eBay Item #170024231254
This disk appears to be a pull from an EMC Clariion or related architecture. Unfortunately that means that it has EMC proprietary microcode burned into its firmware rendering it useless in anything but another array of a similar type. It identifies itself as ST118202 CLAR18 on spin up and won't allow format commands or partitioning commands (reports its size as zero) afraid this is just so much spinning rust and DOA as far as I am concerned. If you don't have something that you know can be accessed by normal arrays then I will return it for my money back. Thanks.

Their Customer Service wrote:
This item only has a DOA warranty. The auction states: This item is represented as accurately as possible; we do not guarantee compatibility please check your part numbers.

(Right, like deliberately leaving off the CLAR18)

To which I responded:
You did not provide the complete part number, the other drives in the array have the same part number except that they do not have the CLAR18 add on which indicates yours were pulled from a Clarion array and which you left off of the description. Had I known the full part number (which I assumed you had provided) I wouldn't have bought them. You did not provide accurate information.

Their Customer Service wrote:
Why didn't you ask? That is what the terms tell you in the auction that you should do. It also states that you should not assume anything.

(So I assume I would need to have a complete list of all incompatible possible microcodes and SANs and call them with a detailed question about this…like their order taker on the other end would know…)

To Which I responded:
You know what? Forget it, I'll just note this in my feedback on Ebay and then resell it, properly labeled and probably get more for it than you did. Thanks for nada.

Their Customer Service wrote:
No problem, just remember that the feedback goes both ways. Thanks...

So, basically I was told that I should have foreseen that the drive might have had its firmware overwritten by a vendor and I should have asked before I bought it. I explained there was no way of knowing this without seeing the full model number (which they hadn’t provided) which required me to install the drives before I could see the serial numbers. Essentially I was told to pack sand and they wouldn’t take the drives back or refund my money.

Being a man of my word I entered the following comment for them on Ebay:

“Was not satisfied, didn't give complete description of item, would not take back”

And here is how they responded:

“BEWARE - ATTEMPTED EXTORTION BY FEEDBACK - BLOCK THIS USER - SELLERS BEWARE”

Extortion? Asking them to stand by their product or I would tell people they didn’t, extortion? A bit of an over reaction I felt. Who was extorting who? Oh, and what was the transaction final amount?

$14.99

This company, Three Sale Group LTD, I will never have dealings with again, nor will I recommend them.

I also purchased 6 additional drives from a second source on Ebay, unfortunately they also were CLAR18, which also wasn’t indicated in the description, but, when I pointed that out, they handled it as a DOA and fully refunded my money, this company, Online Data Solutions, Inc., I will recommend to others and will use again in a heartbeat.

However, this all has a happy ending, I found 18-72 gb drives for my array on Ebay from Morgen Industries, Inc., they were professional, courteous and knowledgeable and I would buy from them in a heartbeat and recommend them to others.

So remember, Caveat Emptor and ask every possible question you can think of from Ebay sellers unless their description of the object being bought is detailed and precise.

Anyone need some Clariion compatible 18 gb drives? Cheap! I also have some 18 gb Nexstor comaptible drives and a complete Nexstor 8s array....if anyone is interested

The Housing Market

Mike Ault, copyright 2006

I read how the home market is imploding, the bubble has burst, home prices have peaked. It seems to me the home industry really shot themselves in the foot. Have you looked at what they call a home these days? There was a time when a home meant a yard, a garage you could park in (maybe twice) and enough room to move around a bit once you got inside. It wasn’t a re-labeled apartment, it wasn’t within arms length of its neighbor and prices made sense.

Call them town homes, condo’s or whatever else, they are still apartments. You can still hear the person beside you, under you or over you. In these re-labeled apartments you can’t run a router in your living room if you want or knock out a wall and add a room. Yet at least here in Atlanta they want to charge you for the privilege of living in these ant farms at the same rate as if you where in a real house. Less than a mile from my house (on a corner lot, about a quarter acre, two and half car garage and 2700 square foot of space) they want to charge you the same price as for my house for an apartment.

Even when they build a house they now all build them what I call “California” style, seven to an acre. One right up next to another the 300K houses line up all in a row. Again, if I wanted to be that close to my neighbor I would invite them to live with me.

It seems here they prepare the land by raping it down to the bare soil, planting a few small trees and running sod over the exposed red clay (the sold all the top soil when they cleared the land.) I guess I am old fashioned, I like a tree to be a tree before I am ready to retire, not long afterwards.

I guess what I am trying to say with all the above is that if they were really giving people what they wanted, then they probably wouldn’t have had a bubble, but a nice steady growth. People are waking up to the fact that they are spending more and getting less. The builders will need to get smart and go back to what really makes a house a home.

On Becoming a Grandfather

At the tender age of 50 I have become a Grandfather. After a diligent effort of several years my youngest daughter and her husband have given birth to a wonder known as a Grandson. Michael Caleb Bojczuk took his first breath on 29 October, 2006 and came into the world at 7 pounds 6 oz. and was 20 inches long.


Mikie (as he will be called I am told) is coming into a world full of both great conflict and great hope. In many parts of the world deliberate ignorance and intolerance are causing untold strife, ecological ruin and untold suffering. Yet with all of this there is still great hope for mankind. We have more, greater scientists and doctors alive today than we have ever had in all of history.

In the next few years more inventions and progress will be made than in any previous equivalent time frame in history. We are solving medical problems, finding alternative energy sources, finding new ways to grow and distribute food. Remember that the problem with starvation in the world today is not one of food production, it is one of food distribution. We have decoded the human genome and seen to the end of the universe as well as glimpsed its beginnings.

It is sad that a few (in the entire count of humans on the planet) people are causing so much trouble in the World. The majority of us just want to be left alone to raise our families, worship as we see fit and just enjoy this great gift called life. As I look down on the sleeping face of my Grandson I see the future. I prefer the future where men treat others as equals regardless of skin or belief. I prefer a future where a person is judged by who they are and what they do, not by their religion or skin color. I hope Mikie lives to see it.

We stand on the brink of either the abyss, where a continuing cycle of violence, intolerance and ignorance drags us down to the apocalypse, or the edge of paradise where we provide for the needs of everyone and practice tolerance. It is our choice.

I know it sounds to be a contradiction but we cannot allow those who make intolerance a mainstay of their belief structure to flourish, we must be intolerant of those who preach ignorance as the way of salvation. Anyone who proposes to treat men as 13 year olds and women as slaves has no place in modern society. Anyone who takes away choice and substitutes blind faith where human life is devalued to the point that the worth of innocent lives is measured in how many headlines you can receive from taking them must be exiled to the damnation they deserve.

Holy books are not hammers to beat men into submission, but tools of persuasion. Too many clutch the holy books in fevered hope that mere contact will save them, but neglect to read what is truly inside them. Many believe that the words written inside are intractable, immutable and unchangeable when even a short look at the history of the books will show this is simply not true. The context is what is important, not the words. Many of the words have come down the ages through many minds and hands, going from one language into another, into another, to get to the original words you would have to see the original works and understand the original language and context in which they were written.

I see ignorance and fear driving people to blind faith. Blind faith is easy, it requires no thought. It is the questioning, seeking, thoughtful faith that is hard. The world is filled with infinite wonders that God in his wisdom guided and formed though the crucible of evolution. He provided all of the needed clues for us to decipher his work throughout the billions of years this universe has been in existence and provided us the tools through intellect and curiosity to begin to understand them. We stand on the threshold of wonders.

I intend to see to it that Mikie is raised as a thinking, feeling and loving person who looks beneath the surface of things for only when you are armed with truth and knowledge can you truely believe and are you truly free.

Jobs and Degrees

Mike Ault, Copyright 2006

I read an article in the Atlanta paper recently by a young, recent (within the last 5-6 year) graduate who had been let go from their job as a magazine editor and hadn’t been able to find a position in six weeks of effort. This young person is now taking unemployment as they look for a position. It reminded me of another article in a women’s magazine a year or two ago about a young person who decided to take six months off after getting their soft degree in college and sail the Great Lakes rather then pursue a job, they complained that all the good ones where taken when they got back and how unfair it was.

I guess I am lucky in that the longest I have ever been out of work in 34 years was 2 days, over a weekend. Of course I also believe you make your own luck by hard work and planning. I have had over a dozen different jobs and each paid more than its predecessor. Up until 1991 I didn’t have a degree. Of course I had the benefit of military training from the US Navy in the Nuclear Field which some viewed as equivalent to a BS in Nuclear Technology. However, when I left the shelter of the Nuclear Industry in 1990 I realized I would need a degree to validate my skill set and got a BS in Computer Science.

So many young people today are getting essentially low-worth degrees, I call them feel-good degrees. Degrees in the Arts, English, Communication, Biology, many of the sciences and many other “soft” subjects have limited market appeal and unless you can find a job in publishing, teaching or a museum, especially at the Bachelor level they aren’t going to do you a lot of good unless you have some real experience to back them up. I’m afraid the days where there were jobs as tutors for the idle rich are mostly gone.

In order to make it in today’s world you need a marketable skill or degree, something with some meat on it. Degrees in Engineering, Computers, Management or advanced degrees in the Sciences (Doctorate level) are most marketable. However, you also have to be careful about overloading your degree.

An example of an overloaded degree is a PHD chemist applying for a lab position at a power plant chemistry lab. Most of the chemistry done in industry is cook-book chemistry where you follow a recipe and get a result. This is where many of the BS in Biology folks end up. When I worked in Nuclear Power Plant labs we passed over Doctorate level folks for interviews because we felt they would get bored and leave as soon as something better came along.

You also need to show a bit of good old fashioned gumption. You probably need to consider leaving the comfortable nest of places and people you know and go where the work is. I have moved over 20 times if you count cross-town type moves. I hear of well qualified people who “can’t” get a job, later to find out they couldn’t get one because they wouldn’t move to find it. In today’s mobile society I am afraid living, growing up and working all within 5 miles of your childhood home is a rarer and rarer thing.

You need to get a degree in something marketable and minor in something you enjoy. I pursue my interest in writing by writing part time and make a pretty good second income from it, without a degree in English. I make a majority of my income in computers, right where my degree sits. Of course, I enjoy working with computers and databases and problem solving, I also enjoy writing.

In the Navy (back in 1973-79) I made about $500/mo take home to start, after six years I was maybe up to $1000/mo. I guess that was my “trench” time. You have to put in your trench time, earn your dues, whatever you want to call it. You can’t expect to make 60K out of the gate, if you start at the top, there is only one way to go.

Many times it is not a case of not being able to find a job, it is not being able to find a job a person likes. Bills don’t care whether you like your job. Feeding your family (or just yourself) doesn’t mean you are in rapture at work. That’s why they call it work, if it was fun, they would call it play and charge you for it.

There was a show on TV called “Night Court”, in it a young lawyer got appointed to be the Judge for Night Court simply because he was the only one who was home to answer the call. Similar to that I got my first position as an Oracle DBA (at least I believe it to be so) simply because I was willing to show up, in Iuka, Mississippi, for the interview and was willing to relocate there (well, actually to Florence, Alabama and a 45 mile commute.) What I am trying to say is, sometimes just by showing up, dressed properly and ready for the interview, will carry you a long way towards a job. It isn’t selling-out, it’s showing your intelligence to take the time to figure out what the job requires and meeting those requirements.

Am I saying don’t get a degree in English or Biology or something you love? No, but be aware you may not be able to work in that field unless you have an advanced level degree, want to teach, or already have something lined up. College is to prepare you to take your place in society, not to make you better at your hobbies.

That's a Secret, Agent Man!

Mike Ault, Copyright 2006

And if I told you I would have to kill you…well…probably not so I will any way. After my fun with getting Grid Control for Oracle10gR2 re-installed and working I needed to get the new and improved more stable more reliable, able to fix your coffee and press your suit intelligent agents running on my RAC nodes so I could monitor them. With their usual aplomb Oracle has provided almost enough documentation to achieve this, almost.

I downloaded the agent install files for Linux and then unzipped them on both of my Linux nodes. I also downloaded the proper install files for my XP server where the Grid Control was installed. First, I attempted the “silent” install which involves using the:
“agentDownload.linux –b /home/oracle/linux –c “aultlinux3,aultlinux4” –n crs –m rem208742 –r 4889” command (-b is for the home for the agent, -c is the nodelist for the cluster, -n is cluster name, -m is the master node for the OMS and –r is the port to attach to on the OMS node). It started like gangbusters then stalled complaining that the “linux\oui\oui_linux.jar” file was missing. I checked on the XP box and sure enough it was missing, however, guess what, it was on the Linux platform where I started the command from! So, I copied the file and directory over to the XP box and reran the command, then it complained about the agent directory and its contents being missing, notice a pattern here? Yep, it was on the Linux platform. So, being of almost sound mind I decided that I needed to copy the entire directory structure that the instructions seemed to indicate belonged on the Linux side over to the XP side.

Once the directories where copied the command was quite happy to recopy and uncompress all of the files back to the Linux side and then attempt to start the universal installer in silent mode, which it did, however…it insisted it needed a new inventory location (why it couldn’t just add its entries to the existing inventory is beyond my ken. Anyway, no matter what I fed it, for example it has a –i option to provide a file containing a pointer to an alternate inventory, however, as usual, the instructions say “file containing pointer to inventory location” but no directions on formatting the entry. After several unsuccessful attempts I decided I had beat the dead horse enough and fired off the “runInstaller” command to install in real time. I am pleased to say other than requiring a different inventory location it worked fine and soon my “intelligent” agent was running happily along.

However, a word about the emctl program is in order, there will be at least two versions of the program on a machine running the agent and Oracle database software; one will be for the database control and will reside in the ORACLE_HOME/bin and the other will be for the Grid Control and will reside in the ORACLE_OMSHOME/bin location, they are not interchangeable. You must use the ORACLE_OMSHOME/bin version to control the agent for the Grid Control. Ok, back to the “intelligent agent”, a quick check of its status using the “emctl status agent” command on each node showed that while the agent was indeed up and running, it had no clue how to talk to the OMS host, couldn’t exchange heartbeats and couldn’t upload its various XML delicacies to the host.

It seems the OMS host (the XP box) had a full domain specification (it is a work machine and came configured that way) so when the agent installation asked for the host, it merrily supplied the host and full domain. Since my home office, while it is my domain, doesn’t have a domain of its own, the agent got a bogus address. In addition, while it started the agent, it didn’t start it as a secure agent. Another problem was that the XP host starts up the network connections with a firewall enabled that blocks all attempt so cuddle up to the machine from all comers.

So, first I turned off the firewalls on the network connections for the XP host, that at least let me communicate with the box (I could now ping it from both Linux boxes and get a reply). Next, I looked in the ORACLE_OMSHOME/sysman/config/emd.properties file and adjusted the various URLs there to eliminate the bogus domain specifier and finally I made sure all of the time zone specifications where set according to the specifications in the ORACLE_OMSHOME/sysman/admin/nsuppertedtzs.lst file. So now I had the proper host address in the REPOSITORY_URL and the proper timezone in the agentTZRegion entry, it was time to secure start the agent.

I issued the following commands:

emctl stop agent
Then you cleanout all files relating to upload:
rm -r /sysman/emd/state/* rm -r /sysman/emd/collection/* rm -r /sysman/emd/upload/* rm /sysman/emd/lastupld.xml rm /sysman/emd/agntstmp.txt rm /sysman/emd/blackouts.xml rm /sysman/emd/protocol.ini

emctl secure agent (this reloaded connection data into the emd.properties file)
emctl clearstate agent
emctl upload

Well, the upload failed, notice the note in section 2 about reloading connection data? Well, when the emctl secure agent command executes it goes out an gets the new connection data and password encryption and writes it into the file, so, since I figured that it was going to do this in the future I placed an entry in my /etc/hosts file to point to the proper IP address with the fully qualified host and domain. I figured I finally had it licked, but a emctl status command quickly disabused me of this fallacy.

A light went on over my head, this was a secure connection and I hadn’t exchanged certificates with the XP and Linux hosts. I pulled the URL from the REPOSITORY_URL setting and plugged it into a normal browser session, it pulled the proper certificate from the XP machine and placed it into my Linux boxes wallets. After that…viola! Finally, after several hours of looking things up on Metalink, Google and plumbing the depths of my own somewhat poorly organized mind, I had a working Grid Control with remote agents monitoring my RAC cluster.

Some notes you may find useful from Metalink:

Note: 362199.1 – Concerns setting the hostnames properly
Note: 330932.1 – Concerns setting the REPOSITORY_URL and Time zone properly

Have fun!

Reinstalling Oracle10g Grid Control

I recently went on a very nice vacation to Curacao. Before I went on vacation the Oracle 10g Grid Control (10.2.0.2) I had installed on my Laptop for monitoring my home office systems was working. I took my laptop with me to allow offload of pictures from my cameras and to track email while I was away. When I returned home and hooked my laptop back up to my home network Grid Control wouldn’t start and of course even with the excellent (not!) troubleshooting capabilities Oracle has provided for when this happens I was unable to get it to restart leaving me up the creek as to Grid Control.

Ok, so Grid Control is down, simple, just deinstall using the Oracle Universal Installer and reinstall right? I ran OUI and selected the agent and OMS homes for deinstall, the OUI GUI puttered around a bit and then notified me it had successfully removed the selected product. Right, except for directories and registry entries. Ok, so I manually remove the remaining directories and the registry keys and reboot to eliminate the services that OUI didn’t deign to cleanup. Now finally, I can reinstall; no software, no registry entries, no directories and no services to cause me heartache.

So starting up OUI I begin the reinstall of the Grid Control. It gets all the way to the Configure the OMS Repository and then falls over dead with cryptic error screens pointing you to not one but two log files. Believe me the most important is located in: $ORACLE_OMSHOME$\oms10g\sysman\log and will be named something like:
“emca_repos_create.log”. Guess what? OUI also doesn’t remove the SYSMAN (the repository owner) user. Ok, no biggie, I just issue a “DROP USER SYSMAN CASCADE;” command and do a restart.

Oops…OUI now complains that there is a pesky ROLE it wants to recreate…MGMT_USER. Ok, I drop that and restart the repository build. Another 10-15 minutes later it complains about a public synonym that starts with MGMT…so I build a script to drop all public synonyms that begin with MGMT and then restart.

Oops…OUI now complains about another set of synonyms that begins with SMP, so I delete all of them. You guessed it, another restart, another 15 minutes and it complains about public synonym ECM_UTIL, so again I drop the synonyms (only 1 this time) beginning with ECM and restart…finally it completes and goes on to the end.

Here is the script I finally ended up with:

drop user sysman cascade;
drop public synonym MGMT_ADMIN;
drop public synonym MGMT_AS_ECM_UTIL;
drop public synonym MGMT_AVAILABILITY;
drop public synonym MGMT_COLLECTION_PROPERTIES;
drop public synonym MGMT_CREDENTIAL;
drop public synonym MGMT_CURRENT_AVAILABILITY;
drop public synonym MGMT_CURRENT_METRICS;
drop public synonym MGMT_CURRENT_METRIC_ERRORS;
drop public synonym MGMT_CURRENT_SEVERITY;
drop public synonym MGMT_DELTA;
drop public synonym MGMT_DELTA_ENTRY;
drop public synonym MGMT_DELTA_ENTRY_VALUES;
drop public synonym MGMT_DELTA_IDS;
drop public synonym MGMT_DELTA_ID_VALUES;
drop public synonym MGMT_DELTA_VALUE;
drop public synonym MGMT_DELTA_VALUES;
drop public synonym MGMT_GLOBAL;
drop public synonym MGMT_GUID_ARRAY;
drop public synonym MGMT_GUID_OBJ;
drop public synonym MGMT_IP_TGT_GUID_ARRAY;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOBS;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB_EXECPLAN;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB_EXECUTION;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB_EXEC_SUMMARY;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB_OUTPUT;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB_PARAMETER;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB_SCHEDULE;
drop public synonym MGMT_JOB_TARGET;
drop public synonym MGMT_LOG;
drop public synonym MGMT_LONG_TEXT;
drop public synonym MGMT_MESSAGES;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRICS;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRICS_1DAY;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRICS_1HOUR;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRICS_COMPOSITE_KEYS;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRICS_RAW;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRIC_COLLECTIONS;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRIC_ERRORS;
drop public synonym MGMT_METRIC_THRESHOLDS;
drop public synonym MGMT_NAME_VALUE;
drop public synonym MGMT_NAME_VALUES;
drop public synonym MGMT_PREFERENCES;
drop public synonym MGMT_SEVERITY;
drop public synonym MGMT_SEVERITY_ARRAY;
drop public synonym MGMT_SEVERITY_OBJ;
drop public synonym MGMT_STRING_METRIC_HISTORY;
drop public synonym MGMT_TARGET;
drop public synonym MGMT_TARGETS;
drop public synonym MGMT_TARGET_BLACKOUTS;
drop public synonym MGMT_TARGET_MEMBERSHIPS;
drop public synonym MGMT_TARGET_PROPERTIES;
drop public synonym MGMT_TYPE_PROPERTIES;
drop public synonym MGMT_USER;
drop public synonym MGMT_VIEW_UTIL;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_ORACLE_HOME;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_OS_COMPONENTS;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_OS_COMP_DETAILS;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_OS_KERNEL_PARAMS;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_PATCHSETS;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_PATCHSET_DETAILS;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_TABLESPACES;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_VENDOR_SW;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_VIEW;
drop public synonym MGMT$DELTA_VIEW_DETAILS;
drop public synonym MGMT$ECM_CURRENT_SNAPSHOTS;
drop public synonym MGMT$ECM_VISIBLE_SNAPSHOTS;
drop public synonym MGMT$GROUP_DERIVED_MEMBERSHIPS;
drop public synonym MGMT$GROUP_FLAT_MEMBERSHIPS;
drop public synonym MGMT$GROUP_MEMBERS;
drop public synonym MGMT$HA_BACKUP;
drop public synonym MGMT$HA_FILES;
drop public synonym MGMT$HA_INFO;
drop public synonym MGMT$HA_INIT_PARAMS;
drop public synonym MGMT$HA_MTTR;
drop public synonym MGMT$HA_RMAN_CONFIG;
drop public synonym MGMT$HW_NIC;
drop public synonym MGMT$METRIC_COLLECTION;
drop public synonym MGMT$METRIC_CURRENT;
drop public synonym MGMT$METRIC_DAILY;
drop public synonym MGMT$METRIC_DETAILS;
drop public synonym MGMT$METRIC_HOURLY;
drop public synonym MGMT$MISSING_TARGETS;
drop public synonym MGMT$MISSING_TARGETS_IN_GROUPS;
drop public synonym MGMT$OS_COMPONENTS;
drop public synonym MGMT$OS_FS_MOUNT;
drop public synonym MGMT$OS_HW_SUMMARY;
drop public synonym MGMT$OS_KERNEL_PARAMS;
drop public synonym MGMT$OS_PATCHES;
drop public synonym MGMT$OS_SUMMARY;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_COMPONENTS;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_COMPONENT_ONEOFF;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_COMP_PATCHSET;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_DEPENDENCIES;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_HOMES;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_ONEOFF_PATCHES;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_OTHERS;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_PATCHES_IN_HOMES;
drop public synonym MGMT$SOFTWARE_PATCHSETS;
drop public synonym MGMT$TARGET;
drop public synonym MGMT$TARGET_COMPONENTS;
drop public synonym MGMT$TARGET_COMPOSITE;
drop public synonym MGMT$TARGET_PROPERTIES;
drop public synonym MGMT$TARGET_TYPE;
drop PUBLIC SYNONYM SMP_EMD_AVAIL_OBJ;
drop public synonym EMD_MNTR;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_AVAIL_OBJ;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_DELETE_REC_ARRAY;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_INTEGER_ARRAY;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_INTEGER_ARRAY_ARRAY;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_NVPAIR;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_NVPAIR_ARRAY;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_STRING_ARRAY;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_STRING_ARRAY_ARRAY;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_TARGET_OBJ;
drop public synonym SMP_EMD_TARGET_OBJ_ARRAY;
drop public synonym ECM_UTIL;
drop role mgmt_user;

Now some of the drops may be not needed such as the MGMT$ synonym drops, but I left them in anyway.

So, hopefully if you run into the same issue I did with OEM this little script will help you to get it reinstalled.

Diving With a Camera

Ah, to capture all the wonderful underwater scenes to share with everyone! It is the dream that many divers who are just starting out seem to have. We rush out and buy a camera and underwater housing and strobes and arms and all the gadgets that can be found. Once we have all the equipment we are ready! Or are we?

The first and most important aspect of underwater photography has nothing to do with f-stops, focus, subject or lighting, the most important aspect is proper buoyancy control. Buoyancy control is the difference between photographing that delicate coral frond and smacking into it and breaking it, it is the difference between floating gently to a stop at depth and smashing into the bottom stirring up silt and destroying visibility. We must have proper control of ourselves before we can hope to take that perfect shot.

In order to have control underwater you must be properly weighted to maintain proper trim in the water. Proper trim is usually horizontal with the head slightly up and feet slightly down, not more than a 5-10 degree up angle. Having A feet up posture or a too-vertical heads up posture (the “Marching Through Georgia” posture I call it) results in too much effort, too large an air consumption rate and lack of proper depth control. Flailing arms, bicycling feet, bouncing like a yo-yo are all signs that you aren’t in control underwater.

So, first, if you have no clue as too how to get control, take a buoyancy control class and take control of yourself underwater.


The next thing that is critical is learning to take the time to smell the anemones …well... anyway look real close at them. If you are rushing underwater you will never take good photos. Find a dive buddy that doesn’t mind spending an entire dive on one coral head and relax and enjoy it.

Finally, take a long time to learn good technique. I took pictures on land for years before I took my first underwater pictures, yet I learn more each time I take a camera underwater. Learn good composition and it will help your underwater shots.

Once you take good photos on land then you can take good photos underwater, know your equipment.

I began with a manual Nikonos IV film camera. Knowing that I had a maximum of 24 or 36 shots forced me to be sure that a picture was the picture I wanted before I took it. I admit, now, using a digital camera, I tend to shotgun my shots, taking many more than I should in the hope that one will turn out, usually because I am rushed and can’t (or won’t) take the time to frame a good shot. Just because you can take 200 photos in a single dive doesn’t mean you should, if you want that many shots, shoot video.

Be careful, be courteous, be the type of diver you want to dive with. If you are meant to get the picture you will get it whether you push your way in to others shots or in on their view of that which you what you want to take a picture. Everyone hates the camera toting moron that thinks just because they have a camera they have an intrinsic right to barge all over the reef, latch onto delicate coral to anchor themselves for what usually turns out to be a mediocre shot at best. Be patient, take your time, if you wait, have good buoyancy and don’t disturb the water, guess what?...most shots will come back. Don’t chase shots, believe me all underwater life that is mobile can easily out run you.

Ok, so you got the shot (you hope) you put it on the computer, open the file and…wait!...it’s all blue! I am afraid that the human mind is a great fooler, it fills in color it “knows” is in there, unfortunately cameras do not. Unless you shoot with special filters and lights your shots will end up with more blue than you would like due to the absorbing of light frequencies like red, orange and yellow at depths of 20 FSW and greater. However, don’t despair, this can be fixed, you will need a program such as Photoshop. You use the color correction option to add in a bit of red (actually, what it does is increase the value for the red pixels already in the picture for digital shots) and turn down the green and blue values. Adjust them just until it reflects what you saw, resist trying to make it better. In some cases a picture may appear to be completely useless, however, try adjusting the levels to bring out the background details.

If you can get your buoyancy under control, be polite and patient and learn a bit of basic photography techniques your underwater photography work should be enjoyable, both for you and the people you dive with.

(For a PDF versions with pictures go to: http://www.authorsden.com/ArticlesUpload/24113.pdf)