Brian's Blog

 Nothing fancy, just the things that I think. 

DO  YOU WANT TO  SEND ME MAIL? THEN YOU MUST READ THIS! (UPDATED!)

This blog has evolved into a bunch of tech tips that I have found during my run as a systems administrator for a medium sized company. I put them here not only so I have an easy spot to find them but in the hopes that I can assist my fellow sysadmins with some of the weird & pesky errors that I have run across.

Keep in mind that these items have FOR ME. They may or may not work FOR YOU. Anytime you work on a computer you run the risk of damaging data.  This means you need to backup your system. and make sure the backup works. And possibly make another backup before you do anything you might regret later.

Bottom line: Check out a mirror. See that person staring back at you? That's the one responsible for your system.

That being said.....

February 22nd, 2010

Upgrading from Windows 7 BETA (or release candidate) to regular Windows 7:

Right about now several of my users are getting the warning that their Windows RC is at its end of life. It will be rebooting every two hours (without saving your work) and, as of March 2nd, will not work at all.

They've come to me in a panic because they have tried to upgrade and got an error that 'The current version cannot be upgraded'. If this sounds familiar...relax. It's a pretty easy fix.

Grab your retail Windows 7 CD. copy it to your hard drive. Browse to the directory where you just copied it, then go to the SOURCES subdirectory.

Find a file called cversion.ini and edit it with notepad. It should look something like this:

[HostBuild]
MinClient=7233.0
MinServer=7100.0

Change the MinCLient to 7000.0 so cversion.ini will now look like this:

[HostBuild]
MinClient=7000.0
MinServer=7100.0

Save the file. Burn a new CD (or use the instructions below to toss it onto a USB Thumb Drive), boot from it and upgrade your system.

December 3rd, 2009

Upgrading SQL 2005 from 32 bit to 64 bit. Not much on the web about this, but the bottom line is that there is no direct upgrade path.

Here's how I did it:

Detach the databases that you want to keep.

Remove SQL from the system.

Load the 64 bit SQL.

Create databases with the same name as the ones you detached.

Detach the new databases, attach the old databases.

October 27th, 2009

This one drove me a little batty for a while. Working with SQL in Linux, trying to automate the backup. I had a password with a character in it, specifically qwe$rty7

My backup script looked like this:

mysqldump -u root -p qwe$rty --all-databases > sqlbackup.sql

Kept getting the error:

mysqldump: Got error: 1045: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES) when trying to connect

After pounding my head against the wall for a long time, reading a huge pile of man pages & similar posts on the Internet I found a simple solution. I changed my MYSQL root password to eliminate the character, specifically to qwerty7 :

mysqldump -u root -p qwerty7 --all-databases > sqlbackup.sql

and everything ran perfectly.

October 8th, 2009

Loading Windows 7 from a USB drive.

Lots of research on this, most of which said the same thing but never said how to get around my major error. Whenever I tried to create a primary partition via diskpart I got the error 'there is insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset'.

Then I found a free program that does most of the work. And hey, I'm all about getting my computer to do my work for me.

A quick guide that works for me:

Download the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. You can Google it, or download it from here:

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

Install it on your system. Attach your USB drive and run the program, doing an NTFS format on your flash drive. [Make certain it's the correct drive you're formatting....]

This will format & partition the USB drive. A lot of guides tell you to use the diskpart program for this part, but I kept getting the aforementioned error when I tried it on larger USB drives. Using this tool avoided that.

Once it's formatted and partitioned click start and go to a command prompt. On XP this would be start-Run, cmd and click OK. On Vista you can type cmd into the search box and it will drop you to a DOS prompt. You'll need to run the administrative DOS prompt on Vista for this to work.

Once you're at the DOS prompt type diskpart ; this will begin the disk partitioning tool.

Type LIST DISKS at the prompt to see your disks. In this example my disk is Disk 1, a 2 GB USB drive. Please NOTE: The Windows 7 Professional requires more than 2 GB of free space. I am using the 2 GB drive only as an example of how to do it. You will need a larger USB drive if your DVD is over 2 GB.

Ok, once you've found your drive number select it by typing in select disk [drive number], where [drive number] = the number of your drive (yes, yes, I know....duh!)

Select partition 1 by typing 'select partition 1' (I know...'duh' again....):

Type active and press ENTER:

Type assign and press ENTER:

Type EXIT and press ENTER to exit to the regular command prompt. Change to your Windows 7 DVD drive letter (in my example it's E:) and cd into the boot directory with the command cd boot:

Type bootsect.exe /NT60 [drive letter], where [drive letter] is the LETTER of your USB drive (*NOT* the drive number used earlier):

Now, copy the entire contents of your Windows 7 DVD onto the USB drive. Remember, if you're going with Windows 7 Professional you're going to need a larger USB drive.

Once it's copied remove the USB drive, put it in your notebook & boot to it. Keep in mind that your BIOS must support booting from a USB drive; if it doesn't then this little how-to isn't going to help you.

July 20th, 2009

Lots of hits about the Dell USB Key problem. Hope the folks at Dell patch that soon...it's a great program and a silly error.

Slow USB on Server 2008?

We use Server 2008 for our virtual machines. and the USB drives you can buy now are dirt cheap... $99 for a Terabyte of storage? That's awesome! (Of course, ten years from now when folks read that they'll be laughing at the thought of spending almost $100 for a terabyte. They'll probably have thumb drives that size that they're giving away in happy meals or something)

Anyway, the storage was great but the speed was atrocious. It was taking 20-25 minutes to copy a 3 Gb VHD image, certainly not an acceptable rate.

A quick bit of poking around and I found an "Optimize for Performance" box. Since the default was "Optimize for quick removal" I figured I would give it a shot. The difference was immediate & remarkable. 2-3 minutes to copy the same file, and the performance of the virtual machines I had housed on that drive went up considerably.

To find this on Server 2008 open the server manager, got to Diagnostics->Device Manager, find the drive under 'Disk Drives' on the right hand side, right click it and choose Properties. Click the policies tab and you see the 'Write caching and safe remove' box; simply change it to 'Optimize for Performance'.

I am told this can work wonders on Vista as well but have not tested it on that OS.

April 30th, 2009

Two interesting tech items in two days. Coolness!

I use a lot of virtual images. Recently I used Hyper-V to add 30 Gb to a disk image, then went into Disk Manager on the virtual image to extend the hard drive.

I quickly discovered that you cannot extend a system disk on a Server 2003 box. I could make a 30 Gb D: drive, but could not extend the system partition.

I knew that, in Server 2008, you can extend the C: drive right onto the extra space.

So I got to thinking…Server 2008 is basically Vista that works. If I connected to a Server 2003 box via a Windows Vista disk manager (by going into computer management and choosing ‘manage another computer’), would the Vista disk manager be able to extend the C: drive onto my new partition?

Surprisingly enough, it does. It worked beautifully.

I have actually found a use for Vista.

April 29th, 2009

Windows Vista Blue Screen of Death at Startup.

This was an annoying one...couldn't even boot into safe mode. It would flash the BSOD and reboot.

Grrrrr.

After some poking around I discovered that Vista does not have a boot.ini file, but something called the BCD. The client had attempted to turn off Data Execution Prevention via the command prompt with the line:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

It seemed to work. but when they rebooted all the problems began.

Using the Vista installation DVD and (eventually) getting to the choice to drop to a command prompt we attempted to turn off DEP on with the command:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOn

But received an error something like:

Info: The selected entry could not be located because the application is missing or corrupt

Well, if that doesn't yell 'corrupted file' I don't know what does. So, from the command prompt (I did have to change to the C: drive first) I issued the following commands:

cd\boot

attrib bcd -s -h -r

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /RebuildBcd

It rebuilt the file. I rebooted and all was well.

April 23rd, 2009

I use Pidgin for all of my Instant Messaging needs.  Of late I have been getting an error when trying to connect to Yahoo messenger; something like "Connection Refused" or "Could not connect to server".

A quick sweep of the net showed me that Yahoo! uses a round-robin of messaging servers. Several of these apparently have issues with Pidgin, or have issues period. In any case I found an easy workaround; you just need to flush your DNS cache and then ping the servers to establish a new IP address.

I wrote a small .bat file and placed it on my desktop that contains these lines:

ping scs.msg.yahoo.com

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /flushdns

ping scs.msg.yahoo.com

 

The first ping gives me the IP number it's currently using. I check the last octet while it's pinging; after the flush I check the last octet again and make certain it doesn't match (since it's a round robin it might). Then I try connecting again.

A couple of times I've had to run the bat file more than once, but I've always been able to (eventually) reconnect to Yahoo messenger.

April 15th, 2009

"Cannot update database XXXXX because it is read-only"

A very frustrating error when I was trying to detach a database in SQL 2005, move it to a new SAN drive and reattach it. I knew the database was not read-only, but it showed up that way in Studio Manager after I tried to move it. Tried the alter database command to change it to read-write, only to have it execute the query for 15 minutes before I stopped it.

In a very brief moment of clear thinking I figured it might be permissions, since I'm moving it to a new drive. And since I'm doing it through SQL Management Studio I'm working as the SQL User, not as the logged in user. I checked services, found that the SQL server was running under a domain name....gave security permissions on my new directory to that user an *poof*, the move worked.

February 24th, 2009

"The name or security ID (SID) of the domain specified is inconsistent with the trust information for that domain"

Got this error when working with the Hyper-V virtual machines. Copied a machine, changed the name, tried to bring it into my test domain and got that error.

Luckily, there is an easy fix. NewSID from Sysinternals (currently located here ) will change the SID and allow you to bring the system into the domain.

Simply:

1.) Disjoin (if the system is already joined) the system from the domain

2.) Stop IIS Admin (if running)

3.) Run NewSid and choose a random SID

4.) Reboot. Join to Domain. Reboot again. Log into domain.

Simple, no?

February 10th, 2009

More tech stuff:

Setting up a Dell PowerEdge 2970 for Server 2008:

Real easy. Use the maintenance disk that ships with the system. Boot  and choose "load operating system". Skip the utility partition and choose your OS.

Boot to the hard drive. Put the OS DVD into the drive when it says "Please put a valid server 2008 DVD into the drive". Wait about 45 seconds for it to spin and read, then click OK. It should say "Valid disk found" and proceed with the install.

Exporting all email address from Exchange 2003:

dsquery user -limit 0 | dsget user -email > addresses.txt

That's a zero after the word limit, not an o

Removing the Temporary Internet Files from all users on a terminal server:

Do a search for ICSWEEP. As of this writing it is found in the CAD Freeware Utility Pack found HERE

Prevent outgoing Port 25 on IPCop for everything but Exchange

Recently had a problem with a user that was infected and spamming. This lovely piece of coding helped solve it.

Found it at http://www.subvs.co.uk/smtp_blocking_with_ipcop ; put here only for archive purposes since I'll probably be needing it again.

Edit your firewall.local file and add these numbers:

# allow smtp from some allowed ips
/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s x.x.x.x --dport 25 -j ACCEPT
/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s x.x.x.x --dport 465 -j ACCEPT

/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s z.z.z.z --dport 25 -j ACCEPT
/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s z.z.z.z --dport 465 -j ACCEPT

# x.x.x.x = Exchange Server

# z.z.z.z = Barracuda spam device

# If adding other IP numbers to allow port 25, be sure to add both ports. 

# i.e., you will need 2 lines per IP number.

# log stuff that is not the mail server
/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s ! y.y.y.y --dport 25 -j LOG --log-prefix "SMTP"
/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s ! y.y.y.y --dport 465 -j LOG --log-prefix "SMTP-SSL"

# block all other outgoing SMTP traffic
/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s ! y.y.y.y --dport 25 -j REJECT
/sbin/iptables -A CUSTOMFORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 -s ! y.y.y.y --dport 465 -j REJECT

January 14th, 2009

Setting up a Dell Poweredge server with Windows Server 2003 when the server doesn't have a floppy drive

My company recently bought several Dell servers that don't have floppy drives. When Server 2003 asks for a driver and looks only on drive A: this can be a problem.

The answer isn't well documented or easily found. Until now.

If you have a Poweredge 2950 and can't get the Windows OS installed, you're in luck. Here's a step by step guide.

If you have other OS's perhaps this will help as well.

Do a search on support.dell.com for the USBKeyPrepF6 utility. Download it. You need the latest version to work on OS's other than Windows 98 and XP, and for USB keys bigger than 1 GB.
 

Run the utility. This will create a directory with the utility that will format your USB key, as well as a few other directories. One of these directories is named FILES.
 

Download the hard drive driver you need and unzip it into the FILES directory of the USBKeyPrepF6 utility

Run the utility and format your flash drive. If you get the error "Error Processing Command Line Options" simply delete the volume label for the drive (default is DELLFLASH) (NOTE: Once the preparation is complete you will not be able to see the contents of this USB key in Windows.)

Plug the prepared USB key into your system

Boot the system. Press Ctrl-E, when prompted, to enter Remote Access Setup. (Not needed if you don't have a DRAC)

Within the Remote Access Configuration Utility, select Virtual Media -> Configuration.

    Select Virtual Media and select Detached.

    Select Virtual Flash and select Disabled.

    Save these changes and exit the Remote Access Configuration Utility.


Boot into the BIOS (with the prepared USB key connected) and set the "USB Flash Driver emulation Type" from AUTO to FLOPPY
(Note: This configuration is lost the first time the machine is turned on without the USB key attached)

Press F6 when booting windows Server 2003 CD so that you can load a file

Press s to install driver when prompted

Choose your drive (in my case it was the Dell Perc5 and PERC6/CERC6 RAID Controller Driver)

Press ENTER

Press ENTER

Continue to load Windows normally.

October 30th, 2008

Still here, believe it or not. Been writing in this blog before the word 'blog' was even coined. I think my first post was from 1996.

Drop me a line. Say hi.

June 11th, 2008

The latest round of claptrap that I've received in my inbox is a story about a father that had teenagers who wanted to see a movie. It's a long story, but the short version: The movie only had a little bit of swearing and mild violence, so they ask him to reconsider the ban on PG-13 and R rated movies jus this once. So he bakes them brownies and informs them that there's a small amount of dog poop in them, and if they can handle eating the brownies they can go to the movie. Of course the children lose and anytime they want to do something the father doesn't approve of he asks them "want me to whip up a batch of my brownies?"

Obviously this was written by someone who doesn't have children. Most teens would gobble down the brownies and laugh like crazy while doing so, if it got them what they wanted.

I'd hate to have been raised by someone with the attitude of the father in the story (a full rendition can be found at http://www.snopes.com/glurge/brownies.asp ). Because life would have kicked my ass as soon as I walked out the door.

March 25th, 2008

Deleting pesky "legacy" entries in the registry:

download the free pstools from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

Run the program to extract all the files

Create a folder in your Program Files folder and name it PsExec.

Copy psexec.exe into the folder.

Create a batch containing this line:

Start "" "c:\Program Files\PsExec\psexec" -i -d -s c:\windows\regedit.exe

When you click on the .bat file you've created it will open regedit & you can delete the legacy keys.

Feb 26, 2008

More tech stuff.

How to Disable the Shutdown Event Tracker in Windows Server 2003

Open the Group Policy Object Editor Console. Go to Start > Run…, type gpedit.msc and press OK.

Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System and in the right hand pane, select the “Display Shutdown Event Tracker” setting.

Double Click this setting to open the Properties page. Choose disabled. Click Apply.

That annoying shutdown tracker is now gone.

December 18, 2007

Dear Santa,

    This time of year I'm certain you get a lot of letters from people letting you know what they want for Christmas. You would think they wouldn't put it off to the last week, but that seems to be human nature.

    Well, this year has been a pretty good one for me. I'm in excellent health, the job goes well and I'm making a decent living. I have good friends and a warm house. While my two oldest kids aren't here I do have access to technology that keeps me in touch with them & I should be seeing them next Spring.

    So you know what Santa? I've got everything I need & I'm pretty happy. Save a bit of time this year and pass by the house....unless you want to stop in for some homemade cookies & to take a few minutes break. Save my place for last and I'll break out the good, grown-up stuff and we can chat.

    It's been a  good year Santa. Not a day goes by when I don't think about how fortunate I am.

December 4th, 2007

I wanted to add this not only because I think it's pretty cool, but for archival purposes. So I know where to look when I need this information again.

My task was a seemingly simple one: Add a reminder onto everyone's calendar (We use Exchange 2003) for timesheets & expense reports. But I didn't want to have any user interaction. It's far to easy to ignore the meeting requests, or form, or whatever other solution was offered.

I found this page, which seemed to have my answer:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Adding-Events-Multiple-Mailboxes-Exmerge.html

But using their method didn't work. I made a few changes and got everything flowing.

I ended up using the Exmerge utility (google is your friend). I used Administrator since it was a blank calendar, added all my recurring appointments/reminders/etc to that calendar, then used Exmerge to export the JUST calendar. Keep in mind you'll need to change the options in Exmerge.

(NOTE: Using the import/export function of Outlook 2007 resulted in a failure in the next step. you must use Exmerge to export the calendar)

This folder was called administrator.pst and was located in c:\pst

Opening notepad I put in the following text & saved it as 1.vbs:

Dim rootDSE, domainObject
Set rootDSE=GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
DomainContainer = rootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Set fs = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set conn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Provider = "ADSDSOObject"
conn.Open "ADs Provider"< br > ldapStr= "<LDAP://" &DomainContainer&">;(&(mailnickname=*)(|(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(homeMDB=*))(!(msExchHomeServerName=*)))(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(|(homeMDB=*)(msExchHomeServerName=*))) ));adspath;subtree"
Set rs = conn.Execute(ldapStr)
While Not rs.EOF
Set oUser = GetObject (rs.Fields(0).Value)
if Left (OUser.MailNickname,13) <> "SystemMailbox" Then
fs.CopyFile "c:\PST\administrator.pst","C:\PST\" & OUser.mailNickname & ".pst"
End If
rs.MoveNext
Wend

I ran that file which copied my administrator.pst to all the other .pst file names I would need. Ran exmerge, chose the correct user names and *poof*, everyone had a recurring reminder for their time sheets and expense reports.

June 20th, 2007

I'm baaaccckkk.....

I was never really gone, of course. As I've stated before I write elsewhere and this page is kept up more out of habit than anything else.

Since we moved offices my page moved as well and I had to update all the DNS and the like. So if you were coming here and getting a "page not found" error...now you know why.

The email was down for a bit but is up and running again. Drop me a line sometime.

September 27th, 2006

He lives!

Yes, I'm actually updating the web site. Hard to believe, I know. I think I maintain this site more out of habit than anything; I write elsewhere and keep in touch with people I know through other means. But the email is still valid; if you have anything you want to say drop my a line.

I've been through an awful lot in the past 9 months since I posted, but you know what? All of it is life stuff. How exciting is it to an outsider that we merged with another company? How many of you really care that my youngest has started playing the violin?

Most of my hits these days seem to concern Ohio State Waterproofing. Email me if you want the full story. Overall, if I had to do it over again I don't think I would. Or at least would have it done very, very differently.

Eventually I may turn this into a technology blog. As the lone sysadmin at my office I occasionally run across something very cool. Or I figure out something that is incredibly clever. But if I try and tell anyone about it I get that blank stare that we techies are so familiar with.

So yes, I'm still around and still kicking. Drop me a line and let me know that you are as well.

January 13th, 2006

Check out the partial transcript where Sylvia Browne screws up big time.

People are outraged at the media for reporting that the miners in Virginia were alive, then later discovering all but one had died. And people should be livid.

Yet people like this Sylvia Browne are ignored, given a free pass to make such ridiculous proclamations and never being held accountable.

Let me quote a bit from the article, then you can tell me if Sylvia is worth the $700 she carges for a 30 minute phone reading:

Not a whole lotta gray area there, kids.

July 27th, 2005

As I looked at the flag draping the coffin I was reminded of the Memorial Day flags my father-in-law had set out, back when he was the Commander of the Legion.

Every Memorial Day he would carry the flags out and put them on display, one flag for every member who had died. The first year it was 109 flags; the last year he was commander there were 114 flags on display.

It took six of us to carry the casket to the gravesite. I thought to myself that it would have made him happy to know it actually took some work for us to move him. He had told me about a friend of his that had died from cancer, and the disease had withered his body to almost nothing. "You could pick him up and put him anywhere you wanted" he had said.

The six of us carried the coffin a short way, no more than 30 feet. His grave was next to his son's, the victim of a motorcycle accident some 10 years earlier. The color guard saluted, the shots were fired. And the bugler played taps.

I'm not a sentimental person, mostly. But taps, when played at an actual funeral....it touches something deep inside. Through watery eyes I watched as they folded the flag and handed it to my mother-in-law.

114 flags on display.

Now, 115.

March 30th, 2005

I'm not going to get into a debate about the Terri Schiavo case, at least not about the particulars. I doubt anyone knows the full story of what's going on except the people involved & anything we hear is going to be naturally biased.

But I do have one question. Let's assume for the moment that Terri is brain dead, that she is in the "persistent vegetative state" we've heard so much about. With her feeding tubes disconnected she is essentially starving to death and dehydrating.

Even if we allow for the argument that she feels nothing because of her condition isn't this a rather unethical way to allow a person to pass?

She is alert enough that she has been given a morphine drip. I can only assume that's a pain alleviator.

Terri is going to die. A human cannot live without food and water. Why, then, are the doctors prolonging it?

Why is it not legal to open that morphine drip to the point where she dies peacefully?

We do that much for our pets, for pities sake.

March 2, 2005

Had a conversation with a family member the other day; I mentioned that there are a lot of people that want to move out of the United States because George Bush won the election.

"I can understand that" he said.

This is a very intelligent man, and he can understand why people would want to leave their country because their guy lost an election?

I can't, I honestly. can't. Even if you don't like the guy Bush in in office another 4 years & then he's out. And you're going to turn your back on your country because you don't like him?

Clinton was an *embarassment* as a President. Carter is a good human being but was a lousy Commander in Chief; Ford was, well, Ford. And we survived them all.

"He seems to be hated more than any other President" he said. But he doesn't seem to see that all that hate & bile is being spewed by the Democrats. His party of choice.

My family member went on on to attack several of Bush's ideas such as Social Security reform and the drug plan. Which seems to be the only thing Democrat's are doing these days, attacking the plans of the people that want to do something.

Show me a Democratic alternative.

Please.

(BTW, my hit tracker shows several searches have come to my site looking for "Ohio State Waterproofing". If you want the full saga I'll be happy to let you know if you drop me a line. If you want the quick & dirty version: It took a year and a half and three trips out (and concrete dust covered everything the last two times) for them to get our basement so that it doesn't leak. Apparently. We'll have to wait for the spring thaw for the big test.)

January 18th, 2005

Like most parents I often wonder if I'm doing things correctly. My kids are well behaved & are good students yet I often wonder if I'm having an affect, if they actually hear the things that I tell them.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. day. I asked my kids if they knew why he had a holiday and the youngest said "he changed the laws so that brown boys and white boys and brown girls and white girls could play together".

Not bad for a six year old. The oldest said "there were laws?"

"Yes, sweetheart" I told her. "At one time there were laws that people couldn't go into certain places because of the colour of their skin."

She looked at me like I was from outer space. "Well, that's just silly" she stated.

Ah, from the mouths of babes. A nine year old was able to figure it out. Guess I'm doing at least one thing right.

January 12, 2005

You may notice the site is slightly different; too much junk was starting to clutter up the place. If you're pulling your hair out trying to find something I've written (and we all know how often *that* happens) check out the archives. Or drop me line.

The ongoing saga of the basement waterproofing seems to have entered its last phase. Ohio State Waterproofing was out a few days before Christmas & reworked a large portion of the job. It has rained almost constantly since then & I see only a few damp spots, which may be attributable to the concrete drying. Hard to say.

But the large puddles are no longer there and things seem to be working. We'll see how it holds up.

Why the large lull in my journal? I've been busy. And I write elsewhere. And..well, no other and's. I've noticed that truly happy people don't write much, and I'm a truly happy person.

We'll see how that holds up with the van purchase this week.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Drop me a line sometime.

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