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visitors – The David Thuis Blog

New TSA Style Home Security Measures

I’ve been following the news about the new TSA security measures at airports with some interest.  It has both terrified and filled me with concern.  Since, I am now scared to death about my own and my families security, I have decided to implement the following “TSA Style” security measures for anyone who visits my home:

Since I doubt those fancy “back scatter” machines are available for home use, and I probably couldn’t afford one anyway, upon arriving at my home all visitors must disrobe completely and turn slowly in front of me while I photograph them with my digital camera.

If you are worried about privacy; those who do not wear eyeglasses may wear a pair, and those who do may take them off.  Clark Kent/Superman showed this as an effective way of protecting your identity.  If you feel this measure does not protect your privacy enough, you may opt to wear sunglasses or I have cut out a small rectangular piece of black construction paper you can hold in front of your eyes.

I will immediately delete these photos after the search is conducted, trust me!  You don’t have to worry about me storing these photos or posting them on the internet.  Everyone knows you can’t do that anyway with today’s technology.

If for whatever reason you do not want to go through this procedure you will be subject to a full body “pat down”.  As chief of my home security, I have authorized myself to use the front of my hands and to touch areas around your breasts, groin, and really “pat down” any part of your body I so desire, as long as I desire, in the name of security.  If I find anything I deem “suspicious”  you will be expected to disrobe anyway, so you might as well just go with the first choice.

Just so you know, I don’t profile, but inevitably some “attractive” people may have to partake in a more “thorough” screening process, and some “unattractive” people may be laughed at or have some inappropriate comments made about them.

Refusal to go through this process will result in denial of entry into my home and whatever fine I come up with (It depends on how many of my bills are due).

Almost everyone will be required to go through this security screening process, however there are a few exceptions:

I am not a TSA agent and federal, state and local child protection laws prohibit me from conducting this screening process on those under the age of 18  So, even though this will create a huge hole in my security, those under 18 are exempt.

Additionally, even though I know most violent domestic crime happens between family members, immediate family members are exempt from these procedures as doing this on family would just be gross.  Guess I’ll just have to trust you.

Sure, I know this process will cause some discomfort, and is probably illegal (I’m not a lawyer), but you have to understand I NEED do this.  This is for the safety and security of my family and any visitors to my home.  Actually, come to think of it, as a visitor you should thank me for these procedures as I am keeping you safe.  I am sure you understand that if I don’t do this the “terrorists have won”.

Before you beat me up this was written totally in jest and none of these procedures will actually take place.  Unless, of course, you want them to.

This Last Weekend

imageWow What a weekend!  We traveled some 680 miles and saw a lot of great sites.  Here’s just a little recap if you’re interested.

Friday, 24 September 2010

My son has no school today so he had a sleepover last night.  Not much work there.

3:45 pm – Head out the door enroot to Longmont, CO for my Brother In Laws Birthday Celebration at the Eagle’s Grill. O.K. Food and Cold beer.  Joe Cool was playing, we’ve seen them before and they never disappoint. We stayed a bit longer than expected, but it’s hard to leave when you are having a great time.

Full Gallery here

[lg_slideshow folder=”/2010_09_24″]

Saturday, 25 September 2010

Up way to early, 5:00am, and it’s off the Guernsey, WY. for a visit with Troop 199, Colorado Springs to work on the Longs Peak Council’s Old West Trails Award on the Oregon Trail Ruts.  We took a short hike, which left me wanting a bit more, but it was still pretty interesting.

Full Gallery Here

[lg_slideshow folder=”/Trail_Ruts”]

 

Second stop of the day was just a few miles up the road to the Register Cliff.  I was really looking forward to this stop.  I can’t tell you how many times I was just up the road training with the Air Force at Camp Guernsey or patrolling around the “old” F.E. Warren Missile Complex and never made it to this site.I was a bit disappointed that so many recent visitors had decided to scroll their name into the rock next to and on top of the old signatures, but it was still interesting none the less.

Full Gallery Here

[lg_slideshow folder=”/Register_Cliff”]

 

Last planned stop was another 12 miles or so to the Ft Laramie Historic Site.  This was my favorite stop of the day.  Not only because it Public Lands Day and the admission was free to the park, but as someone who live at F.E. Warren AFB (Formally Fort D.A. Russell)  for seven years you could really picture how parts of the base had changed very little since the beginning.

Full Gallery Here

[lg_slideshow folder=”/ft_laramie”]

 

After we finished at Ft Laramie, my son wanted to see some missile silos, so I decided to take the “scenic” ride home and rather than go North-West on US Route 26 to I-25, we headed South-East.  A short stop in Lingle, WY for cold drinks and a half a tank of gas, we then headed into Torrington, WY., where we began heading South on U.S. Route 85 towards Cheyenne, and into the missile fields of F.E. Warren. 

NOTE: I wasn’t aware that between 2002 and 2005 the AF had decommissioned all the Peacekeeper missiles and all the sites we were looking at were “mothballed”, otherwise I would have stopped and took a few pictures.  But at the time I thought they were still active and I didn’t really want to answer any question from AF Security forces so all the viewing was done from the road.

The first site we saw “well” was Sierra-2, right outside of Torrington, and my son couldn’t have been happier.  We drove for awhile and we didn’t see many more sites (not a lot on that stretch of 85), my son started asking about getting some Chugwater Chili.  My original plan of stopping in Chugwater , WY had been scrapped for this new route home, but I can’t say no to my son, so even though it added 20 minutes to our drive we diverted West onto Wyoming Highway 313 (which is in pretty bad shape).  We went past sites Sierra-7, (this was my first indication that maybe the missiles had been decommissioned as the weeds were pretty overgrown, turns out this was the first site “closed “ in 2002) Romeo-2, (site sign missing) and even past the Master Alert Facility R-1 (no vehicles, no U.S. flag flying (another indication this area might be “closed”)). 

After a short stop in Chugwater, WY for some delicious Chugwater Chili from Horton’s Corner we headed South on I-25 to F.E. Warren where we got some more cold drinks, topped off the tank with gas.  We then headed home, where we were met by my mother–in-law and father-in-law, who decided to make a last minute trip to visit us and join us in out planned Sunday activities.

Sunday, 26 September 2010

Since we moved to Colorado Springs in 2003 we’ve made an annual trip to Pueblo, CO for the annual Chile & Frijoles Festival, and even though this weekend was packed full of activities we weren’t going to let that stop our “new” family tradition.  So it was up early on Sunday, and off to the festival we went.  Joined this year with my Mother-in-Law and Father-in-Law in tow and later with our friends the Waller’s with a couple of their friends from Pueblo made this year one of the best we’ve attended.

Full Gallery Here

[lg_slideshow folder=”/chilifest”]

Free Fishing this weekend – Fishing Home – Colorado Division of Wildlife

Maybe I can find some time to take the boy this weekend.

Fish for Free!
June 5 & 6


Dad & son fishing.Colorado residents and visitors can fish without a license on Saturday, June 5th and Sunday, June 6th to mark Colorado’s annual Free Fishing Weekend!

The annual free fishing days are designated as the first full weekend in June. Licensing requirements are set aside for these days to make it as easy as possible for kids and their families to discover the enjoyment of fishing in Colorado’s great outdoors

Fishing Home – Colorado Division of Wildlife

Changes to thuis.us in 2010… maybe…

This posting is primarily to those few users who use the thuis.us name for web or e-mail hosting, but of course anyone who is interested can read along.

Since 1997 I’ve had a presence on the big old World Wide Web.  What started as a hobby of hand typing HTML code to create a simple web page has morphed many times… 6 volunteer webmaster “administrated” websites, a dedicated domain name, web and e-mail services, photo gallery, and a web portal (to name a few changes)… however, one thing has remained; this has never evolved from a simple hobby.

Coming in February 2010 I am anticipating some new and exciting changes to the website.  Most of you will not notice much difference (I hope), but for a few of you large changes will occur.

Dedicated home web server- Since 1997 Yahoo (formally Geocities Web Hosting) has provided stellar hosting for our sites, and up to now I’ve been content to allow them to do all the “heavy lifting” when it comes to running our services.  But I am no longer content with their service and want more!   Although Yahoo’s service is still excellent, I have been a bit disappointed in some of the services they provide.  Increased cost (I recently closed two sites cspack225.org and srespto.org, solely due to increased registration costs) and outdated software (some outdated by 4 years) have left me wanting to increase the sites potential but unable to do so.  I initially was going to close everything down, but my wife has talked me into doing more.  Therefore a home server, where I am not reliant on anyone else, has come into the picture.   So coming in early 2010 a new server will, hopefully, be in place which will initially provide the following.

  • Dedicated Server running Fedora Linux OS with:
  • Apache 2.2.xxx HTTP Server
  • MySQL 5.1 (or higher)
  • PHP 5.3.xxx (or higher)
  • FTP Server

E-Mail – It is still my plan to provide e-mail services to those who desire a thuis.us e-mail address (mostly family).   It is my hopes to provide e-mail with webmail, POP3, and IMAP support…However a dedicated e-mail server is, I think, further down the road than first quarter of 2010.  In the interim (and maybe permanently depending on service) the plan is to allow Google Apps to provide service for the time being.  Google Apps provides all the e-mail services I could want in addition to calendar, document storage, and basic individual website serving (with the thuis.us name), and they do it for FREE.  When this transition occurs all Thuis.US users will have to download all current messages and back them up.  I am hoping the actual transition to the new service will just entail users to change a few settings in their e-mail software, and the transition will be transparent to end users, but we’ll see.

 

Thuis.US Sub domains – There are currently 15 sub domains registered to the thuis.us site <name.thuis.us> and although I have plan to continue this service, again, it may have to wait.  Current users should back-up their sites using FTP < ftp://ftp.thuis.us > if they wish to save their sites.  If you desire to continue a thuis.us site you may do so using the Google Aps feature (once established) until this service is established on my home server.  It is my understanding that these sites will not disappear, remaining at http://thuis.us/name, however the sub domain will not continue until sub domains are established on this end.

There will be other changes to be announced later.  Check this blog for further details as they become available.

I know this will be a hassle to some, but this change will save me money in the long run (estimated $180 yr just for starters) and will allow me to further my knowledge in my “hobby” and raise the entertainment potential to my web visitors.

Any questions, suggestions or concerns???  Please leave them in the comments section.