Webb Family Blog

On Sunday, my little sister Terri threw a first birthday party for her daughter Rachel. At one point, I counted 24 people in their small apartment… kind of crowded. It was fun and Rachel got many presents. Most of the presents were either clothes or toys that make noise. With a musical mom and all the noise making toys, Rachel is sure to be stimulated with sounds.

While the party was going on, it started snowing quite hard. I was thankful we had rented an all-wheel drive vehicle for the drive home. As we left Terri’s apartment and started heading south on US-395, there was heavy winds and near white-out conditions. It wasn’t so bad once we hit I-80, heading west, but it started getting bad again as we were nearing Verdi, NV. The weather started becoming more tame the closer we got to Truckee, CA. We made a quick pitstop in Truckee and it was peacefully snowing there. All was going fine until we past the off-ramp for Highway 20, a mile before Yuba Gap… all of a sudden, traffic was stopped. It was about 7:30 PM when we came to the stop. We sat for just over an hour. During that time, a California Highway Patrol pickup, a CalTrans pickup and a flat-bed tow truck drove past on the shoulder of the road. Around 8:40 PM, traffic started moving again. The pavement went from white to black around Baxter.

One new toy I was playing with during this trip was a software package for my phone. I have an HTC|Fuze from AT&T which runs Windows Mobile 6.1 on it. This phone has 802.11g wireless technology (WiFi) built-in, as well as GPS satellite technology built-in. GPS is cool but unfortunately, sometimes conditions occur when a satellite cannot be reached, like when indoors. I found a program from Mexens called Navizon. This software combines all the communication technologies of my phone to build and support a better positioning system. People that have this combination of hardware provide much of the backbone of the positioning system information. I travel around with my phone knowing where it is via GPS, and it detects cellphone towers and wireless access points. It only records wireless access points that have security enable, so it isn’t mapping out security weak-points. It triangulates where everything is, allowing people without GPS to find out where they are based on what WiFi access points are around compared to what cellphone towers they can pick-up. I leave my phone in a mode to automatically grab this information and then I send it to a database. I get points for every wireless access point and cell tower that I was the first to report to the database and a few less points for the first time I detected acces points and cell towers someone else discovered first. As a point of reference, in one week, I have reported on 1370 wireless access points and 55 cell towers that had not been previously discovered, as well as reporting on 1291 access points and 365 cell towers other people had reported first. I have so far achieved 6956 points… at 10,000 points, I get $10. There is a free version and a $10 version of the software; I chose the $10 version as it is needed for reporting back to make money. If anyone reading this is interested in this, follow THIS LINK for signing up for the software, doing so will give me added rewards. The software is available for more than just Windows Mobile, but is also available for the Apple iPhone. The biggest downside is it really drains the battery fast, so I basically need to leave my phone plugged in while in the car.

I have had a hard time going to sleep, so that is why I’m writing this entry at 1 AM… it has been helpful in making me sleepy though. Good night (good morning actually) all.

I’m relieved to say that Kellie and I are finished with our next-to-last course from the University of Phoenix. It was a very difficult course, and I’m not referring to a difficult to understand concepts, but rather reading between the lines of what the instructor was looking for; I’m afraid my GPA is going to suffer because of it (my cumulative at the University of Phoenix has been 3.87.) This past week, I have been in somewhat of a stress-release funk. I have not been productive, but it feels great to do next to nothing after being heavily stressed with schoolwork.

My little niece, Rachel, has her first birthday on Monday, February 16. My little sister invited Kellie and I up to Reno for the weekend to celebrate her birthday. As the trip between Roseville and Reno has us going over Interstate 80, through the snowiest location of the continental United States (Blue Canyon, CA averages 240 inches of snow a year according to the National Climatic Data Center), I have been watching weather reports. Up until Friday morning, the weather report was showing that it would be clear Friday night, so the plan was for us to drive up Friday after I got off work. On Friday morning, it was raining when I woke up, so I checked the weather report and prediction. At that moment, it was snowing in Auburn, which has a relatively low elevation… not looking good for a drive over the mountains. I had no desire to drive with chains on, so I thought I’d try to get a 4-wheel drive vehicle. I called around and found a 4WD 2008 Toyota Highlander from Hertz. Kellie picked up the vehicle on her way home from work.

Once I got home, we loaded up and left Roseville around 10 PM. It was raining when we left. When we got just to the south edge of Auburn, I could tell that some of the rain was frozen. On the north end of Auburn, snow was beginning to stick to the ground. Traffic started narrowing down to one lane as we approached Applegate Rd; this was a California Highway Patrol-enforced CalTrans checkpoint. The road was closed to big rigs, who were turned around to the fairgrounds in Auburn. Other vehicles were checked to determine whether they were 4-wheel drive or not; if not, they were checked to make sure they had chains. Since we had a 4-wheel drive, the check person raised four fingers; I raised four fingers, then we waved us past. We then saw “chain monkeys” offering their services to the side of the road; we continued on. Speeds varied from 20-40 MPH through most of the way. We past another checkpoint where chains were strictly enforced; I again just reached my hand out the window with four fingers raised and was waved through. It snowed the entire trip through Truckee. There was snow and ice on the road for at least 85 miles. We finally pulled in to Reno, NV around 1:45 AM. We arrived to our timeshare and checked in quickly.

Today, we’ve done very little… and loving it. As I’m typing this, Terri and Christina (one of Terri and Patrick’s good friend) are icing birthday cakes while Kellie is watching Rachel.