a crook back

i've been waking up each morning this past week with a sore upper back - tense/tight muscles, spasmic sensations, sometimes just not being able to get comfortable whatever position i get myself in. the symptoms improve within a few hours, and i'm pretty much fine by the afternoon/evening, only to repeat the cycle the next day. there's also been possibly increased tiredness and some echoes of headaches.

all of which lead me to think for a while that maybe i've suffered some kind of whiplash like injury, but the only likely cause i can think of were the various bumpy rides during my recent SES deployment to roma/mitchell, which are more of an up and down movement than the typical back and forth of whiplash. moreover, my neck was about as good (or as bad) as it normally is. so, whilst i've discounted whiplash, i did come across a UQ site about the treatment for such injuries which i found of interest - the whiplash evidence based information resource. contrary to (some?) popular belief, the best treatment plans seems to be to basically get on with it - act as usual and keep exercising, in conjunction with seeking multi modes of treatment.

and given that i've not been able to find much info about "bumpy road" type injuries (although this was quite disturbing!) that's basically what i've tried to do... go to work, play my weekend games of social tennis, housework etc as usual, and seeking some additional treatment from my dad (a registered reflexologist and practitioner of various other alternative therapies). he says that part of my spine (upper back) is out of alignment, and this was likely to have been caused by the bumpy rides with the repeated bouncing/shock transferred from the seat/bum up the back...

i'm really hoping that this is a temporary thing and that it'll heal by itself in due course (a few weeks?). i'm trying to sleep more on my side so that i'm not putting as much pressure on my back (when lying down) for hours on end. it might be helping a bit...

now if only the vehicles we travelled in had suspension systems like these...!

alternative DNS server options

as with probably 99.5%* of the online population, i have for years used the default DNS servers that get assigned to me by my ISP as part of the DHCP process. i knew that other DNS servers existed, but never thought about using any alternatives. in recent months, i've found out about two such options, both free:

1. OpenDNS, which claims to be "the leading provider of Internet security and DNS services", featuring
• Industry leading malware and botnet protection 
• Award winning Web filtering 
• Faster, reliable, more secure DNS 
• Ultra-reliable, globally distributed cloud network 
• Simple, Smart, Easy
2. Google public DNS, which claims to give performance and security benefits

i haven't tried google's public DNS, but have been using the familyshield product from opendns, which comes preconfigured to block adult websites, on top of other standard opendns features. it's quite easy to setup, and seems to be working fairly well thus far, though i can't say i've really noticed much difference (performance wise) compared to my ISP default. well it is meant to be a set and forget thing, so here's hoping i don't need to remember it much.

* yes i totally made that up, but that doesn't mean it's wrong :p

how does orange suit me?

i finally got my SES uniform a few weeks ago, which means i now need to wear it to training every week. putting a high visibility vest over my (civilian) clothes was a much easier option, but at least i can look the part alongside the rest of the orange-clad membes, and not stick out as the non-uniformed new recruit.

it's still not all smooth sailing though - i'm missing a few items in the kit, and have no idea if/when these will come through. weirder yet was that my boots only came with one shoelace...

with no time to visit the shops to buy new laces, i stole the laces from an old and falling-apart pair of sneakers. but these were at most 60-70% of the length of the boot lace, so it was off to google for some inspiration on different lacing methods, and boy are there lots of ways of lacing a shoe!

i settled on the army lacing method, mostly because this method uses less lace length and is used for combat boots. it was pretty much just right for the old laces on the new boots.

so, i'm all geared up (more or less) and ready to be deployed.

and i just so happen to be going on my first deployment tomorrow! 5 days in st george (about 500km west of brisbane), helping with post flood efforts (the town has just been flooded for the third time in less than 2 years). i'm told the conditions will be rough, which is outside of the experiences of this urban creature... but this is what i signed up for, so it's time to finish packing, get a good night's sleep, and set out early in the morning.

- - - - -
related posts: joining the SES

getting more out of my NAS

funnily enough, not long after my last post on using a NAS for download automation and thinking it would just be interesting knowledge without a paid usenet account, i came across a free usenet service! so, with a bit of fiddling around, i installed sabnzbd+ and sick beard, and started using this to keep up with a few tv shows out of the states.

it was working pretty well, except for the post processing part which never worked. essentially this meant that the downloaded files remained in the sabnzbd area rather than getting moved (and renamed) to more organised folders under sick beard. it wasn't a major issue, since i could just look in the former location instead of the latter.

however, today i somewhat chanced upon the cause of the post processing problems and got it working - it was pretty simple: a config file needed to be updated with the actual login details for the NAS. i also recently enabled the twonky media server on the NAS, and installed BubbleUPnP on my phone to access the files using UPnP, which i'm told should be a better/more stable solution than the SMB mounts i was previously using for this purpose.

good times. except that the usenet service seems to have gone down about the same time i was getting all these wins with improving my home network setup! oh well... maybe i'll just have to wait for homeland to play out on australian tv, as i'm presently missing more than half the season!

joining the SES

about a year ago some major flooding hit my home city. there had been flooding to other parts of queensland prior to brisbane being affected, including some pretty serious flash flooding in toowoomba just a few hours drive away. whilst i personally did not see any damage to my property or livelihood, i had friends whose homes were flooded, and got to see first hand some of the devastation when i helped with some of the cleanup.

(it wasn't a day for photography, but i did take a few on my phone, including this "favourite", if such a term can be appropriate. pictured is a friend whose home had water about a foot past the second storey floor.)

probably like many others in the community who responded with aid in the days and weeks following the flood, i was left feeling mostly helpless - wanting to do something, but not really knowing where to start, what to do, or how to best give of my time and energy and convert the willingness into something worthwhile. this is part of the reason i decided to sign up as a volunteer with the SES (state emergency service).

that was in mid january last year, and probably the worst time to join. it wasn't until september that i eventually got into a recruit intake group and began my induction. some three months later, i'm about to finish my probation period and become a community member, which means i can officially take part in activations and call outs. it hasn't all been quite what i expected so far, but i plan on sticking with it for the time being and continue getting trained and better prepared to be able to help and respond to times of emergency. it's also a good opportunity for me to work at forming friendships (maybe) with people outside of my normal circles. and one day, i hope to turn out in my orange uniform and be a part of a well coordinated effort to help someone in need.

first wedding for the year

i have a few weddings to attend over the next few months, but another one came up last weekend on fairly short notice. i didn't even know this person was getting married, but since they took the trouble of inviting me and i wasn't already busy, i went along to the ceremony.

she's a friend of a friend from my uni days, so at best an acquaintance with whom i've had minimal contact over the years. having said that, we have had some deep-ish facebook/email conversations about church/faith related topics, and wifey and i had her over for dinner once.

anyways, i went along expecting to only really know the bride, however found that i knew/recognised a fair few other people:

• the celebrant (not that i really know him, and not that it's a total surprise given he's a pastor of the church where the ceremony was held)
• my elder sister's high school classmate/s
• my younger sister's uni coursemate and husband
• people from CCCB Coopers Plains
• people from a previous church i attended
• someone i know from my YF days
• someone i know from my uni course
• the photographer (a mutual friend who covered our wedding some 4 years ago)

i even found the groom familiar, though i have no idea where i might have seen him before.

hey jacaranda

so i was walking along on a breezy afternoon, approaching a jacaranda tree, seeing some of its flowers being blown off by the wind, thinking to myself that wouldn't it be cool if I reached out my hand and caught a falling flower (like some kind of super hand-eye coordination skills)... when suddenly a flower blew into my slightly cupped hand whilst my arm was swinging in the normal act of walking. just like that. ha!

i held into it a while longer as i continued walking and marveling about what just took place. then i stopped to take a picture, so that i could remember this moment.

NAS and download automation

i'm relatively new to the world of NAS ownership, so was somewhat amazed when i discovered how it's possible to set one up to act as a PVR of sorts, and to automate download of shows. there may be others, but this is one way i found from a bit of research:

• install SABnzbd - an Open Source Binary Newsreader written in Python
  SABnzbd makes Usenet as simple and streamlined as possible […] everything […] will be automatically downloaded, verified, repaired, extracted and filed away with zero human interaction.
  http://sabnzbd.org/
  http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=133&t=6752
  
• Use SABnzbd in conjunction with one or more of the following:
• Sick Beard - The ultimate PVR application that downloads and manages your TV shows
  NB does not download actual TV episodes, it only downloads .torrent/.nzb files. In order to automate your downloads you need to also configure SB to communicate with your favorite download program (eg can put torrents in a "watch folder")
  http://sickbeard.com/index.html
  http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=223&t=35015
• CouchPotato - automatic NZB and torrent downloader
  You can keep a "movie I want"-list and it will search for NZBs/torrents of these movies every X hours. Once a movie is found, it will send it to SABnzbd or download the .nzb or .torrent to a specified directory.
  http://couchpotatoapp.com/
  http://forums.sabnzbd.org/viewtopic.php?t=4636
• Headphones - sick beard for music albums and artists
  https://github.com/rembo10/headphones
  http://forums.sabnzbd.org/viewtopic.php?t=6486

of course i'm not suggesting or condoning piracy of movies and music etc, but i could definitely see a use for this sort of thing when it comes to keeping up with TV shows, particularly those from the other side of the pacific ocean. beats checking for torrents manually and/or scouring youtube.

anyway i started trying this out before realising that i'd probably need to pay for an account to access binary news groups, without which these tools won't be doing much downloading at all!

oh well, looks like it's back to an ad-hoc combination of regular PVR / torrents / youtube / local tv station websites for me...