Kudos - 25 November 2013

Deb Aitkin - I so very much appreciate your comments.  I heartily agree that Amy is a great asset to our company!  I know that MCTP has always been one of those "moving target" types of contracts and it really keeps her on her toes.  THanks again.

Norm Greczyn - I am the PM for the Cubic portion (as a sub) of the MCTP contract. Recently we went through the development of a proposal for OY 2 of this contract and then, a little over a week out from the start of the OY, we had to embark upon an extensive revision. I would like to command Amy Hunter for outstanding work on this endeavor, which was far from easy. I have now worked with Amy for two years as the PM here, and she has always been a tremendous asset: very precise, always willing to take the time to explain things to me, and tireless in her pursuit of excellence. I am very happy to have her working this contract. She takes great care of Cubic and its employees!

Disable the Similar Items Pop Up

I started getting a pop up window on shopping websites that would show me similar type items.  Turns out it was part of the Pinterest extension that I added to Chrome.  Easy enough to turn off, just go to Chrome's Settings>Extensions>Pinterest Options>Disable "Visual Deals"

Remove Extra Spaces From Excel

http://theapptimes.com/excel-2010-how-to-remove-extra-spaces-in-cells/

Add comments to excel formulas

lifehacker.com-add-comments-to-a-formula-in-excel

Coconut Pound Cake

Coconut Pound Cake

2 sticks butter (1/2 pound)
½ cup Crisco shortening (sticks are easier to measure)
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
½ teaspoon almond flavoring
1 teaspoon coconut flavoring
3 cups flour (sifted)
1 cup milk
7 – 8 ounces flaked coconut

Thoroughly mix butter, shortening, and sugar until well blended. Add eggs one at a time mixing well after each. Add flavoring, mix well. Sift flour, then measure. Add flour and milk in small amounts alternating each and mix well after each addition of flour and each addition of milk (last addition should be flour). Stir in coconut.
Spoon into a greased and floured 10” bundt pan.
Bake 1 hour and 30 minutes at 325°. Freezes very well.

Allowable mileage per day

C5060 ALLOWABLE PER DIEM (FTR §302-4.200)
A. Travel of 12 or fewer hours (12 Hour Rule). A per diem
allowance must not be paid when the official travel
period is 12 or fewer hours (FTR §302-11.2).
B. POC Use to the GOV'T's Advantage. When POC use for PDT is
authorized, the per diem allowance is the
lesser of the:
1. Result of allowing 1 day of travel time for each 350
miles of official distance between the old and new PDSs
or authorized points. If the excess is 51 miles or more after dividing
the total number of miles by 350, one
additional day of travel time is allowed. When the total official
distance is 400 miles or less, 1 day's travel time
is allowed (par. C5060-C), or
2. Actual travel time in full days (e.g., 9 days and 3
hours is 10 days).

Source: Joint Travel Regulations - current as of 18 March 2013

Kudos - Jan 2013

1/29/13 - Ron Abney

I'm writing to tell you about the extraordinary job Amy has done since
she has been working in our Orlando office. Having worked with Amy
when she operated from the Lacey office during my first year as MTSS
PM, I was well aware of her comprehensive and insightful knowledge of
the MTSS contract in particular and of contracting procedures and
regulations in general. Consequently, I was very happy when she
decided to come to Orlando because I believed that having in-office
access to her knowledge, experience and insight would be immensely
beneficial to my entire team. Amy, however, has exceeded my
expectations of the benefits she would provide. As I had anticipated,
she has been a remarkable resource for contract advice and she has
fostered an environment of increased trust, respect and confidence
between my office personnel and the government contracts personnel
they deal with. But she has also been a superb team player who has
gone above and beyond to provide team members with explanations,
background and guidance about contractual processes and resolution of
contract issues. Her unremitting commitment to excellence and her
exacting attention to detail have been positive and motivating
influences for all of my employees. She has been a leader and a
mentor and in both roles, she has been the epitome of professionalism.
It is indeed a pleasure working with someone of her caliber.
Sincerely,
Charles R. Abney

Dash passed his Anise ORT

This past Saturday, Feb 16th, I drove an hour and a half to Lakeland, Florida so Dash could test for the K9 NoseWork 2 Anise Odor Recognition Test.  And he passed!  However, not without some shenanigans.  You see, Dash has been giving some "false alerts" when we practice containers set up in an ORT pattern.  When we are practicing containers that are just strewn about with no pattern, he will periodically false alert, but most of the time he is spot on.  Containers in an ORT pattern have been another story with him consistently false alerting, then if I ease him off the incorrect box and get him hunting again he will indicate the correct box.  Luckily for me, his false alert, although adamant, is pretty easy to differentiate from his correct alert.  His false alert (so far!) has been smacking the box with his feet and looking directly at me (with a big doofy dog grin that says Where is my treat???) and he is incredibly insistent, however, he does not really look at the box at all.  When he correctly alerts he will first hit the box with his nose and push it a little bit, then smack it with his feet and look back and forth from me to the box.  I am so glad that we ran into this during practice sessions so I was able to recognize his false alert during the ORT.  I bet he stuck to that wrong box for 5 to 10 seconds (which seemed like ages at the time) until I asked him to work the line of boxes again.  Then he hit on a box in the next row, which I believe was directly across from the one that he'd false alerted on.  I do not necessarily believe his original alert was a "fringe" alert.  I think he knew full well that he was not on the correct box simply due to the fact that his body language and behavior were completely different from when he gives correct alerts.  When he indicated on the correct box it was a definite push with the nose, then paw whack, then look between me and the box.  I called Alert and was correct.  And I got a "great job reading your dog" from the judge!  All that in 53 seconds.  Now onto NW2 trials!

Setting up Foscam FI8910W with Netgear router

These instructions may be inaccurate, incomplete, and out of date.  But these were the steps that I followed to connect my Foscam FI8910W camera to my Netgear wireless router.

1. Connect your camera to your wireless router with an ethernet cable
2. Log into your router
1. open web browser and enter the IP address associated with your wireless router, which is probably something like 192.168.1.1
2. Under the "Maintenance" click on "Attached Devices" and write down the information listed for your camera, particularly the IP address
3. You will also need to look under "Setup" and "Wireless Settings" to get your security settings for your router (ie. SSID, WEP type, Authentication type, Encription Strength & WEP Key, making sure to note the one that is selected).
4. I did not need to make any changes to my router set up.  I did not need to set up port forwarding/triggering.
3. Enter the camera's IP address into your web browser
1. This took me to a Foscam page
2. Click on Wireless LAN settings
3. delete the information in the SSID box
4. click SCAN, then select your SSID from the Wireless Network List
5. this should poplulate the SSID box with the correct SSID
6. verify the other settings for your router settings
7. enter your WEP Key (note, you only need to enter one of the WEP keys - whichever one is selected under your router settings (step 2 above)
8. Click "submit"
4. Now, after I clicked submit, the Foscam page said it wouldn't load
1. I went back to my router settings to verify my camera IP address (step 2 above) and it had changed.  I have no idea why.
2. So I entered the new camera IP address into the web browser and everything worked.
5. You may also want to change your camera password under "User Settings"
6. Somewhere in this process I did resort to using the Foscam installation CD, but I spent so much time trying different things that I don't remember exactly what role that played and am not sure it was necessary.  But I think I did it after step 2
7. NOTE, if the green light on the back of the camera is flashing rapidly, this is GOOD and means that the camera is connected to your wireless network.

UPDATE - in order to view your cameras remotely you do have to set up port forwarding.  Instructions are here http://foscam.us/blog/foscamipcameras/guide-to-port-forwarding-netgear-router/

UPDATE - if for some reason your cameras quit streaming you should check to see if your router changed their IP address and if you so you will have to update your port forwarding address.  If your camera IP address hasn't changed, or it did but you've updated your port forwarding and the cameras still aren't streaming then check to see if your External IP address has changed (type WhatIsMyIP in the search bar of your web browser).  If your External IP address has changed you will have to update the settings on the device where you are remotely viewing your the streaming video from your camera.

UPDATE - if you want to set up sound and motion detection this video is excellent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz7F7Vyf-EQ