Category Archives: Musings

Hopefully a little more thought-out than the ramblings.

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My home network

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Last week was my birthday. From my eldest son, Timmy, I received a new wireless router! Yay! This upgrade will allow me to improve the wireless network in my home by increasing the bandwidth, increasing the range, and also beefing up the security.

So why didn’t I upgrade sooner? To put it simply, my home network has become so complicated as to make it somewhat scary to make any changes to it. Let me elaborate.

Wireless devices

The following devices have access to and use my home wireless network on a regular basis:

  • 2 cell phones: Marlene’s and mine
  • My laptop (both the Ubuntu and the Windows OS; I dual-boot)
  • Marlene’s chromebook
  • Marlene’s old laptop
  • 4 security cameras
  • 2 Android devices for Timmy and Nora
  • The Wii
  • The XBox 360
  • Marlene’s Kindle
  • The downstairs TV

And then there are various devices that access the wireless network less frequently:

  • My old laptop
  • Nora’s (somewhat dead) Kindle Fire
  • The Android device for our TV
  • Jacob’s Nintendo 2DS
  • Nora’s Nintendo 3DS
  • My Dad’s laptop
  • My sister’s laptop and phone
  • Various devices (phones, tablets, and laptops) that the Skidmores have configured to use our network when they visit us

Not including “guest” devices, I count 21 devices that will need to be reconfigured before I can say “goodbye” to the old wireless network. Have I forgotten anything? That’s the tricky thing with wireless networks. You tend to forget about all the devices that are using it until the network goes away and things stop working properly.

Wired devices

The wired devices aren’t typically as much of a problem. I can find them all. Just follow the patch cables from the cable modem to each device, and keep a list of what I encounter.  However, due to the complex workings of my LAN, my wired devices may actually require more reconfiguration than my wireless ones if the basic structure of my wired network were ever to change. More on that later. For now, here is a list of the devices that make up my wired network.

  • The cable modem (a router in its own right)
  • 5 routers, including the new one I just got for my birthday
  • 2 switches
  • My server with 6 virtual machines running on it
  • The server IPMI controller
  • My main PC with 2 virtual machines running on it
  • Our “home” phone system
  • Marlene’s “Purple” video phone
  • The Roku
  • The Blu-Ray player
  • 2 media player PCs, one for each TV
  • The HD-Homerun (a TV recording device)
  • The upstairs TV
  • The laser printer

That’s 26 devices (including virtual machines) that rely on the current configuration of our wired network. So how do they all talk to each other?

Network structure

network3

A picture is worth a thousand words. This diagram shows how my home network is structured. The green box labeled “Modem” is my cable modem, and is the connection between my entire house and the outside world. As I mentioned before, this modem is actually a wireless router, but I have disabled all the capabilities of the box, and it is now just operating strictly as a modem.

I consider the blue box labeled “Router 1” to be the “brain” of my network. It is the DHCP server for the entire house, and also handles routing all traffic between my LAN and the internet. The other blue “Routers” are all configured to be simple 100 Mb/s switches, and perform no actual logic, though Router 2 is also configured to host my old wireless network until I can switch all my wireless devices over to the new wireless router: the orange box labeled “Router 5”.

The blue lines in the diagram represent 100 Mb/s connections, and the red lines represent 1000 Mb/s connections. The two red “Switch” boxes are both 1000 Mb/s switches. I consider the long red line between the basement and ground floor to be the “backbone” of my LAN. Most devices (other than my server and main computer) access the Internet over this line. This is also the only means of access to the server for most devices on the LAN.

Network functions

So I mentioned that my network harbors enough complexity to make me wary about making configuration changes. What services do all these various devices provide? Here is a list of some of the functions:

  • Host all our media:
    • More than 700 home videos
    • More than 3,500 anime episodes
    • More than 3,000 TV show episodes
    • More than 800 movies
    • More than 30,000 photos
    • More than 10,000 music tracks
  • Host our web site (in fact, this blog is hosted from the server in my basement)
  • Provide instant access to all that media on both TVs
  • Host our family photo album
  • Provide access to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime on both TVs
  • Provide access to all our documents on all PCs in our house
  • Keep a history of all past versions of our documents and files (including all media) so they can be retrieved in the event of an undesired change or deletion
  • Backup all documents and files (including all media) to “the cloud”
  • Filter all internet access from all devices connected through my network to prevent connections to undesirable web sites
  • Host two phone systems, with two separate phone numbers: our main home phone, and Marlene’s video phone
  • Provide access to 4 video surveillance cameras on 2 TVs, and 4 Android devices
  • Record all 4 surveillance cameras 24×7 and provide access to the recorded video on both TVs
  • Synchronize all 4 Android devices with our server so that any pictures taken with any device are instantly and automatically added to our family photo album
  • Record specific broadcast TV shows on a specified schedule and make the recordings available on both TVs
  • Provide me access to the server, main PC, and two media PCs from any computer in the house (or from any computer outside the house via the internet) so that I can perform maintenance when necessary

That’s quite the busy network, with quite an array of custom capabilities. It can be a bit challenging sometimes to keep all that in flight, hence my resistance to making arbitrary changes.

– danBhentschel

 

All Things Dad

The face game

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I over-think things. I’m well aware of this. I have even put quite a bit of thought into the games I play with my babies. Scary, I know, but with more than six babies living in my house across a span of 11 years, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to analyze. My favorite game is one I call “the face game”. The face game goes like this:

  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose
  • <point to my nose>
  • Daddy’s nose
  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose
  • <point to my nose>
  • Daddy’s nose
  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose

And that’s pretty much it. I repeat the procedure for various parts of the face: ears, mouth, eyes (carefully), cheek, chin, neck, etc. I always do hair last, and when we do the hair, I always help them to tousle my hair a bit. For each body part, I do baby first, then me, then baby, then me again, then baby again. After hair I end with:

  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth
  • <pat my chest>
  • Daddy
  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth
  • <pat my chest>
  • Daddy
  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth

What makes this game so special?

  • The face game works for a wide variety of ages. I can start playing the game with a baby immediately after birth, but kids continue to get enjoyment from the game up through age 3 or 4.
  • The face game encourages face-to-face time. We are looking at each other, studying each other’s faces while playing. It’s quite intimate.
  • The face game is very relaxing. I play at a very deliberate, unhurried pace. I use voice inflection, rather than bouncing and tickling, to maintain interest. It is almost hypnotic.
  • The face game is repetitive. It encourages pattern recognition. As baby gets older, she learns to anticipate what’s going to happen next. Inevitably, she starts to take control, and tries to run the game herself, and that’s just fine.
  • The face game encourages basic classification. Toss in a finger or an elbow. Sounds simple, but at a certain age, baby starts to recognize that these are not face body parts, and it’s a funny joke to her.
  • The face game is science. Baby is learning basic anatomy while she plays.
  • The face game teaches identity. Daddy is Daddy, and I am me. We are separate individuals, and yet we have a lot in common too.
  • The face game is calming and reassuring. Once baby is used to the procedure, that familiarity can have a comforting effect in confusing or upsetting situations.
  • The face game easily expands to multiple participants. I currently have a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a four-year-old in my house. If I start playing with my youngest, the other two will frequently want to join in. Even my kindergartner occasionally wants to be part of the action.

Maybe this particular game is not for you, and that’s just fine, but I encourage you to put some thought into the activities that you do with your baby. What are the games teaching? What behaviors do they promote? What other benefits do they provide? Be deliberate about your parenting.

– danBhentschel

Moral Issues

The case for teetotalism

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This can be a touchy subject. Alcohol is very popular in our culture. It is seen as a privilege, a hobby, an entertainment, and a form of expression. Some people take a great deal of pride in what they drink, when and how they drink it, and with whom. Schools offer classes on proper alcohol consumption. Support groups offer sessions on how to avoid improper alcohol consumption.

Before anyone gets all riled up, I have no intention of judging another’s philosophy on drinking. I have many friends and family who drink, and the question comes up occasionally. Why don’t I drink any alcohol?

Given my professed relationship with Christ, some might assume that I avoid alcoholic beverages because of some conviction that drinking is a sinful activity. That’s actually not quite true. I’ve heard the topic argued backwards and forwards by Christians and non-Christians alike. “Jesus turned water into wine…The disciples drank wine at the last supper…That wasn’t really wine, it was grape juice…The Bible says wine is good for your health…Blah, blah, blah.”

I have come to the conclusion that the Bible is pretty vague on the topic of alcoholic consumption. It very definitely instructs to avoid over-indulging, but otherwise I believe that this is more an issue of personal conviction than of Biblical doctrine.

So why then have I decided to completely eradicate alcohol from my diet? Let me lay it out in a logical progression:

  1. Alcoholism causes all manner of societal problems. Every year, thousands of people are injured or killed in DWI car accidents. Families are physically and emotionally abused. Brawling, rape, and even murder are often initiated or exacerbated by alcohol abuse.
  2. Many people have problems with alcoholism. I have never personally had any symptoms of the disease, and I have no concerns that I am particularly susceptible. However, it is a very common problem. There is even evidence that some people are genetically predisposed to alcohol abuse.
  3. There are many people who look up to me as an example. This may sound conceited, but it’s a fact. The most obvious example is my children, but it goes beyond that. People at my church, people in the workplace, in the community… I am aware of some of my spheres of influence, but I’m sure that there are others that I don’t even know about.
  4. So if I drink alcohol, even just one drink, and someone sees me doing it and decides “well, if it’s okay for Dan…” You can see where this is going.

Oh the hubris! To think that I can have that effect on someone else! “What’s the likelihood that will happen,” you may ask. Good point. It may very well not be all that likely. On the other hand, I don’t want to tolerate even the smallest possibility that I could be, however indirectly, responsible for someone heading down the path of alcoholism and all the evil that can potentially bring.

In these type of debates, I frequently like to look at an extreme example to illustrate my point. Let’s say that everyone currently living in the whole world stopped drinking alcohol overnight. How many new cases of alcoholism do you think would occur after that point? What effect would that have on the overall global quality of life? To put it another way, I propose the theory that pretty close to 100% of alcoholics were introduced to drinking because of peer pressure in one form or another.

So then, what is the surest way to abolish alcoholism? In my opinion the best solution is to prevent the spread of alcohol consumption, and hence I have resolved to do my part towards this goal and completely abstain.

– danBhentschel