26 November 2010: Winding-Up

In Louisiana right now as Gloria's dad in hospital. Praying for good outcome of heart surgery early next week.

Meantime went on BBC website and mildly surprised to see the story 'Plymouth Argyle Handed Winding-Up Order'. Mildly, because I thought it would happen after England fail to get the 2018 World Cup hosting spot next week. Also see that Peter Ridsdale was in talks, this after being spotted twice in a week in the director's box at consecutive Argyle matches (one home, one away) and the club stating that it was sheer coincidence and he was just attending games.

Why couldn't they just do NCND (neither confirm nor deny)? Why do the current board feel it's both acceptable and necessary to outright lie to the fans and media without even a hint of shame about it? We all knew there was stuff going on. But that's the current board - who last week moved from the original claim of takingf us to the Premiership and 'we don't do failure' down to 'committed to ensuring the survival of the club'. Naturally, no actions to back those words up and now we're up the Pompey creek. And after Pompey got away with it so brazenly earlier in the year, HMRC are after blood.

This won't be pretty.

23 November 2010: President

So after much kerfuffle and the usual Kokomo prospect of unannounced road closures, the day arrived.

The new Irish pub opened to the public at 11am today. Over-21s only, so no Hannah.

Oh, and at 11.30 the President and Vice-President were due to arrive. Rumour was that the VP will get here first (presumably so he can open the doors or something?) and they'd go for a nice downtown Kokomo lunch. Which, frankly, left their options limited since the Ice Cream place has closed for the winter: there's Jamie's Soda Fountain (traditional-style burger and hand-pumped Coca-Cola type place and the only downtown eaterie to survive the recession) along with newcomers Baja Burritos, 'Hoops' (kind of a bar/restaurant thing in the Chili's/Applebee's mould) and of course the new Irish pub, which opened 30 minutes prior to the President's supposed arrival time.

What a coincidence! Opening the same day the President arrives! I wonder which downtown establishment he was planning to go to ... ? Especially as O'Bama likes all things Irish.

In practice, what seemed to happen was that they arrived late, flashed past us (with Obama waving, which was nice of him), went to the Fire Station (where he had sandwiches and crisps for lunch) and headed straight back out of town. And we were all waiting for him to walk up to the downtown square for lunch.. but off they went with their flashing lights into the distance. And that was that.

Still, the streaming video seemed to work to some extent. Could benefit from stimulus funding, of course...

18 November 2010: Visit

President Obama and Vice-President Biden are to visit Kokomo next Tuesday.

Why? They looking for new jobs with Chrysler or something?

I'll see what I can do about live streaming these exciting events on here. Rumour of a downtown lunch, which will be interesting as most of the downtown eateries closed. Maybe he'll go to the new Irish pub, rumoured to be opening this week or next.

Shame he didn't come last year, he could have seen the Christmas lights. He'll be bummed when he finds out they're not going to be here this year.

13 October 2010: Grinch

The Grinch - partially me, in this case (it seems) - has stolen Christmas and ruined it for all of Kokomo's children.

Thus reports the Kokomo Perspective today that despite County Commissioner Dave Trine approaching the maker of the red-eyed T-Rex and the Loch Ness Monster, the maker refused to allow Trine to put up the same lights display as last year at the courthouse here in Kokomo. From that report:

"It wasn’t the kids complaining. Residents mocked the displays on film and posted them online They flamed Internet message boards with criticism. They called the commissioners and gave them an earful. The discord over the displays even made national news."

Mocked? I thought I was very supportive, even to the point of explaining everything to the viewer to avoid confusion.

From later in the report:

"The problem the county now faces if it wants to put lights on the lawn is finding something that the community won’t reject while also adhering to the law and avoiding unnecessary expense. As Trine explained last year, a religious display on public property could put the county in a legal battle. And there is no line-item in the budget for Christmas lights of the Santa Claus or Frosty the Snowman variety."

Despite the fact there is no legal basis for disputing any display on County property (next county along is Miami county and they do it every year: such legal restrictions on separation of church and state apply ONLY to Federal property), the reasoning appears to be: (1) we're not allowed to do religious stuff and (2) snowmen are expensive.

I leave a pause for you to add your own thoughts.

*Pause*

Commissioner Dave Trine is seeking re-election this November.

9 October 2010: Six weeks

Hannah's six weeks old now. Seven on Tuesday. Smiling sometimes (and not always due to relieving gas) and as the below photos show, she's changing.


Not sure what to make of the mat.

Trying out the baby front-pack.

That hat's a little too large.

'You going to make me go out like this?'

She'll grow into it...

Nap time...

Dreaming of Tunnock's Caramel bars.

Sleeping cutie.

Bath time - in a hammock!

Ooo, are you taking my photo?

I'd better smile, then...

Won't be long until I'm crawling...

Me and my giraffe buddy

Yeah, I can sit up.

Nice quilt! Has an Aylesbury feel to it.

OK, but if I have to wear it, where's lunch?

Well guarded at nap time.

This is actually Hannah's passport photo (they cropped it a bit).

Ella, the girl Gloria looks after, is fond of Hannah.

"Ha-NAH! Ha-NAH!"

Looking after two? No problem.

Hard to believe Ella used to be this small. (Actually, she wasn't).

Baby dedication at church last Sunday.

Six weeks old and happy to be here!

13 September 2010: Rollover

So much for giving Hannah her 'tummy time'. This morning she figured out how to roll over.





Age 20 days. According to pages like this and this, babies can sometimes do this trick as early as two to three months.

Sheesh. What have we got ourselves into?

7 September 2010: UVB-76

Baby photos continue at Gloria's Facebook! Hannah now up to 8lb 15oz, having lost 10% of birthweight she's now put it back on, and then some. Two weeks old today!

Meantime another three years has passed, and that means it's time for another William Gibson novel. My copy of 'Zero History' has been ordered from Amazon and is going by cheap-person super-saver might-arrive-this-year mail, so I haven't got it yet. But it certainly looks to be the completion of another unwitting trilogy from the man who doesn't like trilogies but keeps inadvertantly writing them. The completion of the 'Blue Ant' world - and a review of some description on this blog - to follow soon.

Meantime, of course, that brings me back to Spy Shortwave: those mysterious 'Number Stations' and the like. Last time we spoke, the legendary Lincolnshire Poacher appeared to have been pensioned off from the MI6 payroll, and it was followed shortly after by the disappearance of its far-east cousin, Cherry Ripe. So, what to listen to now? Well, out on the flat roof at the back of our place you can usually get the Cuban stations pretty clearly, even with a rubbishy portable radio that happens to have a SW dial such as that which I acquired in New Zealand. But that's not really interesting: just numbers, same as before, and I haven't heard any of the legendary gaffes.

But now attention around the internet seems to have turned to another long-standing favourite of the spy-numbers-listening community: The Buzzer, or UVB-76 to give it its (apparently real) title. This is a weird carrier wave on 4.625 Mhz that, since at least 1982, has broadcast buzzing noises of around a second each, then a short gap, then another buzz... about 30 times a minute on average. Triangulation has narrowed the broadcast down to a particularly large military installation in Russia, seemingly with its own power substation and backup system. The Buzzer has a wikipedia page, it has a fan-club, and now, due to certain surprising recent activity, it has someone relaying it live over the internet.

The history is this: it buzzes, except for a very small number of exceptional times, when some guy comes on and speaks Russian. First recorded instance on Christmas Eve 1997, when the cryptic message "Ya, UVB-76, 18008, BROMAL, Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa, 742, 799, 14" was given out: not by recorded, automated voice (as with normal number stations), this was live. Then five years later another, then another in 2006... then in August of this year, it all went a little crazy.

The buzzer stopped. That was the first thing. It appeared to be down for maintenance as the carrier wave - the radio signal - kept broadcasting. Then some Russian voices. Then some music. But mainly just empty carrier signal... dead air. And before you knew it, the internet rumour mill went into overdrive.

The main rumour surrounds the notion that the buzzer is a 'Dead Man's Handle' of some sort: it broadcasts this very strong, very simple signal that can be essentially heard anywhere in the world at any give time. So it's being used to control something, some massive attack, some spy cell, some nuclear device, some alien invasion... and when it goes off, all these years later, it's 'go go go' for whatever it was holding back. Some of this has even made it onto TV shows already (apparently there's some obscure cartoon named 'Adult Swim' where the behaviour of UVB-76 has been referenced as meaning the end of the world). The single biggest rumour surrounds the apparent forthcoming assassination of the Russian President during September of this year. Frankly I believe the 'Martin O'Neill for next Southampton manager' ahead of that, but if Medvedev doesn't make it to October, word is you should look to head to Australia and hang out in the outback until the heat is off.

I first came to the Missing Buzzer Thing via the Spooks mailing list, where most SW anomalies get picked up pretty quickly - and even traced sometimes - by the local spods on there. That led me to the streaming site and as I sit here working away today, putting together metadata documents and wondering how many nappies Hannah can get through in a day, I'm listening, curious to hear what's happening, live on the Buzzer frequency.

And I'm not the only one. And this is a problem: the last few days have seen pirate broadcasts on this frequency accelerate massively. As I listen I hear the empty carrier (although there clearly was a voice about three hours ago on the main Buzzer carrier), but also a repeating high-pitched morse code (I'm told it's just the question mark, repeated over and over) and various bits of voice, music and other nonsense. Even to my untrained ear I can tell it's different from the main broadcast - all shortwave fades in and out a bit, and the music, morse etc is fading in a different way from the main broadcast - but the Spooks folks reckon there are at least nine pirates out there in the last few days, trying to get our attention while the Buzzer is down and tensions are raised.

The most interesting of the pirate broadcasts appears to be the guy (well, it could be a girl, but you just know it's a guy, don't you?) who has figured out how to broadcast in such a way that it makes letters appear on the 'waterfall' spectrum-tracker they have on the live page. Here's the link... essentially this guy is putting up rude words in Russian for people to read on this page. But again, it's a pirate, and maybe the Russian authorities may not take too kindly to someone effectively jamming one of their (unofficial, of course) military frequencies.

Meantime I await the next Gibson book, and I'm currently re-reading Spook Country in between working, changing nappies (seriously, how does she turn milk into that stuff?) and listening in to UVB-76, the Buzzer that maybe, just maybe, is no more.

Update - Wednesday lunchtime: The Buzzer is back, came back around noon eastern, and then went off after about fifteen minutes to be replaced by some phonetics (Russian names whose initial letters spell the word of interest) read by a Russian lady who sounded angry or automated (couldn't tell which). Since then, silence, then very strong buzzer, then weaker buzzer, and as I write, the buzzer is pretty strong again. Very curious behaviour. Whatever this Buzzer is about, it's certainly weird. And another thing: the voice messages no longer identify it as UVB-76 - now it's named 'MDZB' instead, at least according to the messages, and they certainly don't seem to be pirates in this case. This is the real buzzing deal, and it's weird.