Lobsters Claw Their Way Back

Last night was the Boston Lobster's first home match of the 2008 WTT Tennis season. Having lost the night before away in Albany, they were looking for a win. Since this isn't a sports blog, you can read about the game here. I was responsible for the IT infrastructure, the most important piece during a match is the scoring system. Typically, the hardest part is trying to provide a wired network jack court side. Not to many tennis facilities built their courts thinking people would need to be plugging in routers, switches, access points, and computers on their tennis court. Anyway, last Thursday I worked with a networking consultant to figure out a solution that involved a wireless bridge back to the pool house 150' away. Everything worked smoothly during our testing Thursday night, allowing me to enjoy the holiday weekend stress free. I made up for that last night. Starting the setup at 4PM, we soon discovered that the wireless bridge that worked perfectly on Thursday was suddenly 50ft beyond the edge of it's range. We spent 45 minutes testing different locations and needed to relocate the entire scoring table from court side to near the facility entrance at the last minute. We were using two brand new network cables that came with some of the equipment, but one of them seemed to have a bad connection and worked intermittently. I brought a spare, but on setup we realized we were short a cable and our spare was needed elsewhere. Throughout the evening the equipment in the pool house would get jostled and I would need to go re-adjust the cable to fix our connection. It was so hot and humid that my Dell laptop overheated disabling the touch pad and half the keyboard. This made troubleshooting our setup more difficult. Finally we got things connected and running and all looked good. Jill (a volunteer helping out) commented that we were finally set. That's when I realized we should verify with the scoring company to make sure there weren't any unseen problems lurking for game time. Sure enough, while things looked good on our end, the remote side of the system could not see us. Another 30 minutes of troubleshooting. It turns out we had obsolete scoring software on the machines sent from the league that needed to be updated 30 min before match was to start. At 6:45, we finally felt ready for the 7:00 match. Five minutes later they tried to turn on the court lights and we lost all power at the facility. Electricians were called, but Jill had to manually keep track of everything until power could be restored into the second round. We were able to get the data entered into the system and the umpire up and running on the hand held by half time. Things started to look up, but then you had to look out for the dead bugs if you did. We had moved the table directly underneath one of the high intensity court lights. Within a half hour of restoring power a rain of dead bugs began falling from the sky, jamming up the keys on the laptop (not to mention getting into our hair and clothing).
Things finally settled down around 9PM as we seemed to hit our stride. The rest of the night went smoothly - until the very end. After the umpire verified the electronic scoring for the match, the final verification submission never registered with the main office. By the time I got called, the network had been dismantled and the computers had been shut down. Venus Williams will be playing at the next match, so the crowds will be bigger, more press will be looking for internet access, and the pressure will be more intense. Should be fun!

Fourth of July

After making sure all my responsibilities for the start of the Boston Lobster's tennis season (July 7th) were in order Thursday evening, I headed up to the farm on Friday to meet family and friends. We watched our own fireworks display brought up by my father. I thought it was quite impressive for a private display. Saturday was spent in Montreal Canada, where we had lunch and did some shopping. That night I setup my 10" Meade SCT for the first time in over a year. We observed:

Jupiter (with moons Ganymede, Io, Europa, and Callisto)
M31 - Andromeda Galaxy
M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy
M57 - Ring Nebula
M27 - Dumbbell Nebula
M13 - The Great Globular Cluster or Hercules Globular Cluster
M4 - Globular Cluster in Scorpius

Unfortunately I didn't have the Deep Sky Imager software on my laptop, so I tried to get some photographs through the telescope with my point an shoot. No luck. However, I did get some pictures of the rest of the weekend.

Massachusetts State Aviation Sales Tax

As a member of AOPA, I have been receiving updates on different legislative activities in my area. One recent update alerted me to the effort underway by the Massachusetts legislature to repeal the aviation sales tax exemption. I sent an email to Senator Susan Tucker who represents our district. As a private pilot and aircraft owner this will clearly impact me substantially, but I also believe that it will also hurt Massachusetts and non aviation residents as well. I currently have some of my aircraft maintenance done in Worcester (in fact, I have a radio being repaired there as we speak). If this exemption is repealed, it will make it more difficult for these businesses to stay competitive and retain price sensitive customers such as myself. This will hurt not just pilots, but Massachusetts based businesses and their families. Last night Senator Tucker called and left me a message that she was on board with me and believed that the exemption would survive. It was great to hear from her, especially since she had good news. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Update from beyond

Interpretation of Gravestones at Glenwood Cemetery
Champlain, NY
Bill O’Halloran
May 21, 2008

On May 18, 2008, my son, Jeff, and I visited the Glenwood Cemetery in Champlain, NY, where we took photos of about 17 gravestones of the Dewey and Hamilton families. This memo attempts to show how our family is linked to these ancestors. I had been to this cemetery before, and I already had pictures of a couple of these stones, but most of these were new, and eight of them were people that I hadn’t yet entered into our family tree. Some of these stones were recently moved to this cemetery. I believe that many of them had been in storage for many years after the original Dewey Cemetery near the Dewey Tavern (Louis Bedard home) was plowed under. The names in bold capitals correspond to the gravestones we found in the Glenwood Cemetery.

I will start with the patriarch of this group, JOHN HAMILTON. John is my 4th great-grandfather. He was born in Brookfield, MA, the 3rd great-grandson of Resolved White, who came over on the Mayflower in 1620 with his father, William White. John Hamilton married SARAH STONE and had several children, including a daughter, Lovisa and a son, Elias. In 1790, Lovisa married Elias Dewey, who was born in Hebron, CT in 1768. Elias Dewey himself had quite a pedigree. He descended from John Drake on his father’s side, whom I have recently traced all the way back through the Royal Line of England to William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Brian Boru, and Alfred the Great, just to name a few. Furthermore, on his mother’s side, Elias was the 3rd great-grandson of William Bradford of the Mayflower with his second wife (and childhood sweetheart), Alice Carpenter, who came to Plymouth in 1623 after his first wife, Dorothea May “accidentally” fell off the Mayflower and drowned off Cape Cod in December 1620. But that’s another story.

The following excerpt is from my family tree notes on Elias Dewey: “According to the Dewey Genealogy, he arrived from Wethersfield, CT in 1797/8, took up a large tract of land and became pioneer at Champlain, NY; felled trees to make a road for two miles from Rouses Point (now called Prospect Hill Road), where they erected a log cabin with a blanket for a door (until a better could be substituted), and commenced pioneer life, with its attendant hardships. The 1798 Tax Assessment showed, "Elias Dewy, 80 acres on the Highway adjoining James Deans Land. One Log house ($10). In abt. 1800, the rude log cabin was exchanged for a commodious 15 room public house. Until recently, the original home was a pig sty on the farm. This house, known as the Dewey Tavern, was the scene of great excitement, and of danger as well, during the War of 1812. It was in the path of many skirmishes, and both British and American officers quartered there during the war. Important war conferences were held there, including two for making prisoner-of-war treaties. More than half of the fourteen thousand British soldiers camped on the Dewey farm on their march to the Battle of Plattsburgh in September, 1814, and on their retreat, many of the wounded were brought here. The Dewey Tavern was on the direct road from Montreal to Albany (now Rte 276), and in 1815, a stage route was established from Montreal to Plattsburgh, with a stage coach stop at the Dewey place. The Deweys prospered as the Tavern prospered, and it was the favorite place sought for rest and refreshment by those who traveled the North Country. According to folklore, this house also later played a key role as the last stop on the Underground Railroad, harboring fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. The hidden passages and secret hiding places are still there today.”

I am descended directly from Elias and Lovisa Dewey. Their daughter, Samantha Dewey, married Oliver Odell. Their son, Joseph Dewey Odell, had 15 children by three wives. My grandmother, Lucinda Mabel Odell, was the youngest of the 15 children by Joseph’s third wife, Susanna Grimshaw. Lucinda’s half sister, Mary Odell, married her mother’s brother, William Grimshaw, so the family relationships got complicated after that. As a matter of fact, it was about ten years ago, when I tried to understand how these relationships worked, that I got started on this whole genealogy kick.

Elias Dewey was therefore my 3rd great-grandfather. Unfortunately, the gravestones of Elias and Lovisa have never been located, although they were reputed to have been buried in the same Dewey Cemetery near the Dewey Tavern where the other stones we saw at Glenwood were originally located. Joseph Dewey Odell is buried in the Jackson cemetery in Odelltown, across from the golf course, next to his first wife, Jane Teskey (!).

Other children of Elias and Lovisa Dewey buried at Glenwood are DRUSILLA DEWEY, who never married, and SILAS HAMILTON DEWEY. Silas married Caroline Clark, and they had a daughter, CAROLINE CLARK DEWEY, who died in infancy. Silas inherited the Dewey Tavern and was living there in 1880. As a side note, another daughter of Elias and Lovisa, Maria Dewey Moore, is also buried Glenwood Cemetery, but at a different location. She married Charles S. Moore, nephew of Pliny Moore, the original settler of Champlain. I will try to find their gravestones on another visit. That could be tough, since half the cemetery consists of the Moore family.

The Hamiltons and Deweys remained close. About the same time that the Deweys arrived, John and Sarah (Stone) Hamilton, along with their son, ELIAS HAMILTON, and his wife, DORCAS HAYFORD, also came to Champlain. John Hamilton’s tract of land (Refugee Lot 102), consisted of the land now occupied by both houses across from our farm (the Bullis farm), as well as the southwest portion of the current farm. Elias Hamilton built the old house on the hill next to the current Duda house around 1805, where my mother, Mabel Lucinda Bullis, was born.
Another daughter of John and Sarah Hamilton, Elizabeth, came to New York as well, along with her husband, DEACON SAMUEL NEWELL. Elizabeth remarried after Samuel’s death and is buried in Chazy, NY, but Samuel, along with two of their children, RUBY NEWELL and SULLIVAN S. NEWELL, are buried together at Glenwood.

All of the other gravestones we saw were children or grandchildren of Elias and Dorcas Hamilton. These include JOEL HAMILTON, SIDNEY HAMILTON, Sidney’s son, SYLVESTER HAMILTON, HILA HAYFORD HAMILTON, ELIAS S. HAMILTON, MERRITT HAMILTON, EDWARD HAMILTON, Edward’s wife, EMILY J. CANFIELD, and their infant daughter EMILY A. HAMILTON.

Many of these names were new to me, including Caroline Dewey, and all the children of Elias and Dorcas Hamilton, except for Sidney and Edward. So all in all, it was a worthwhile endeavor to track down these gravestones.

One down, plenty to go

I made my first trip up to the farm this past weekend. Dad went up on Thursday to rub my face in the fact he is retired and can do whatever he likes whenever he likes. I guess he had great weather and a nice prime rib dinner at Butcher Block with the Arnos on Friday night - blah blah blah. I headed up after work Friday night, just escaping ahead of some intense rain showers. I was playing around with the Garmin 396 with the XM satellite weather feed watching the storm chase me out of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It was smooth sailing the rest of the way. The weekend forecast is for rain from that storm system to soak us all weekend long. I open my eyes Saturday morning to a blindingly bright room. I stagger into the kitchen to look for some caffeine but all I can see through my squinted eyes is sunlight. I glance at the 150 DVDs I brought up for some R&R and realize that we should probably take advantage of the nice break in the weather and tackle something from the growing Fix-It list Dad keeps. After a quick trip to McDonalds for some liquid energy Dad and I discuss the sagging porch. The windows don't open and the storm door is starting to get jammed in the frame. Since it had been dry for a couple days this is a good a chance as any to crawl under there and try to correct the situation. It turned out to be easier than expected and we have the porch raised up a couple inches in no time. This makes the front stairs, which have been sagging as well, look even worse. We tackle those next, raising them up and pushing them back into place as well. That leads to the door sill, which is in pretty bad shape. We head to Chazy Lumber to get a pressure treated board and decide to replace the entire storm door while we are at it. It has always annoyed me that the existing door was mounted incorrectly on the inside of the door frame and is mounted backwards making the outside of the door in the house and the inside of the door (with locking mechanism) exposed to the outdoors. This has also created the situation that requires us to keep the door from blowing open into the porch by attaching a bungee cord! Classy look. We borrowed some tools from Ed across the street and, as crooked as everything is in that house it is amazing how perfectly the new door fit. After cleaning up we return the tools to Ed. He is so thrilled that we returned them all in good working condition (he clearly had doubts when he handed them over :-) that he gave us some venison stakes to grill up for dinner that night. Dad throws in a big steak to make sure we have enough red meat and he concocts a great potato, onion, and cheese side dish to throw on the grill as our requisite "vegetable". The rain does eventually show up late afternoon, so we eat inside and watch a DVD. I guess bringing them up was a good idea after all. Getting up Sunday the weather is beautiful again. Dad called and got us a tee time for 11:30. It is perfect golf weather - sunny, mid 60s, and no bugs. Before we head out Dad and I take a ride down the trails in the ATV to check out the extension that Dick built. You can now get down to the stone wall right near the corner of the property where the skinny part of the land begins heading east. We proceed on foot hiking further east to locate the hunting shack and put up markers to plan the best route for extending the next leg of ATV trails. After a questionable (65), but fun round of golf and lunch at the club we head over to the Glenwood Cemetery in Champlain to look up some recently transplanted gravestones for some family members. (UPDATED: Dad posted an update of what was learned on his genealogy site. He also provided a more detailed report that I have added as a new entry in my blog.) All in all it was a very productive weekend. The irony is that of all the work we put in, only the door sill was on the official Fix-It list. I wouldn't want my little brother to feel left out on all the fun, so we'll make sure to save some projects for his return next year. Here are some photos from the trip.

Modern Software Development

I attended an interesting lecture tonight at MIT on the status of the Eclipse project. Vineet Sinha spoke at the session put on by Greater Boston Chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery. It was impressive to learn how far this platform has come and is a great example of the increasing influence and power of the open source community and the value that it can bring to businesses.

Flying in the Clouds

To cut to the chase, I got to fly in actual Instrument Meteorological Conditions tonight. It was an incredible experience. I am in the final weeks of getting my instrument rating added to my private ticket. I got a little IMC about a year ago out west, but tonight was the first time conditions were right during my regularly scheduled training. I filed for a short flight up to Concord NH. The ceiling was at 2500 ft with 10 mile visibility underneath. Shortly after departure, Air Traffic Control sent me and my instructor up to 4000 ft. We were routed the long way around Manchester air space so I got some good time in the clouds. Then we broke out on top in time to see the sunset across the vast stretch of clouds extending out to the west as far as you could see. As requested, I got the GPS approach to runway 12 (RNAV 12). Due to traffic, I was sent into a holding pattern until they cleared the approach. The flight back through the cloud layer was a bit bumpy and filled with rain, but I broke clear at 2000 ft with great visual conditions down to the missed approach point. I went back on top for the return to Nashua as ATC vectored me onto the ILS 14 approach. It started to get dark enough that I needed to light up the instruments. I had one of my best cross wind landings back at Nashua, gently touching the windward main gear down first just like I've read about. It was a thrilling experience and I look forward to more clouds and rain for the rest of April. Nights like this are why I fly!

Brian & Pam Depart for Switzerland

Just called Brian and Pam to wish them well on their trip. They are
moving to Bern Switzerland for 9 months. Busy with last minute
preparations, they depart tonight. I promise to take good care of
your Patriots season tickets Brian :-)

Morning IFR Lesson

The morning started with a clear blue sky and me arriving at the airport early. Ron had already put the plane in the hangar to defrost from yesterday's snow storm. Things were looking good for my IFR training flight. When Matt arrived we planned a flight out to Gardner for the VOR-A approach then up to Keene to do the ILS 2, returning to Nashua for the RNAV 32. I got the plane cleaned off, pre-flighted, and away we went. Heading out to Gardner. Since I was under the foggles I couldn't see out the windshield, but apparently things were turning sour out west faster than predicted. I had to descend to 2900 feet to stay below the building cloud layer. As we approached the Gardner VOR air traffic control sent us down to 2500 for traffic that was flying an approach at Orange, which utilized the Gardner VOR as well. I flew the full approach without an issue - until I missed the crossing of the VOR inbound. I had the GPS zoomed out too far and started my timer at the wrong point. This had me crossing the missed approach point at 2000 ft. It took my instructor to point out that I was way to far and now on a glide slope that intersected a hill on the other side of the airport. As I executed the missed approach, we could see snow squalls north of us towards Keene. We canceled our flight following and set a course back to Nashua. I had to descend to 2500 to stay VFR on the way back, as the cloud cover continued to get lower. Back at Nashua I could hear that the tower was busy handling a bunch of arrivals for a Daniel Webster safety seminar. However, Lenny got us in and down without a hitch, and even let me run all the way down the the Echo taxi way - right across from my tie down. Not quite the day of flying I was hoping for, but at least I got out there. I am just now realizing that I forgot to close the cowl flaps for the entire flight. Damn!!

Sensing Change

Sometimes you look back and realize something in the universe was trying to send you a message. It took a year after taking this photo to fully realize it, but the moment I saw this sign in Shanghai I knew something was up.

China Changes Everything

On a business trip to China in 2006 I came across a sign in Shanghai that would make quite an impact on me. I initially found the phrasing quite humorous and laughed out loud about it with a colleague I was with. I snapped a photo, as I am known to do, so I could remember the moment. I soon realized this little sign in an out of the way corner of a far flung location was a particularly appropriate metaphor for so much of what I was feeling about everything from politics to my personal life. Sometimes profound changes can come from the most unexpected places. I don't know what will come of this blog, but I needed somewhere to collect the seemingly trivial observations that I don't want to loose to the depths of my questionable long term memory.