Tag: stillwater

Posted on

Stillwater St Croix Backyard Black Bear aka Yogi Images

Stillwater St Croix Backyard Black Bear aka Yogis

Updated 5/7/2018

Various images from the Stillwater Minnesota St Croix River area of backyard black bear aka yogis.

If you are wondering what yogi and black bears have to do with server storage I/O networking, data infrastructure or other technology, well, it is not directly related, at least yet ;)

Update 5/7/18 DNR launches bear sightings app for Minnesota

The DNR has added an app to their website where you can enter black bear (aka Yogis) seen in southern (including twin cities metro area) as well as western Minnesota. Visit the DNR site here and check out the app where you can enter where you have seen Yogis, as well as see where they are being seen.

Some Backyard Black Bear Yogi Images

First we see a short video of Mamma Bear and her cubs


Via KarenofArcola.com

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Enjoy the Stillwater St Croix Backyard Black Bear aka Yogis.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

Posted on

3rd of July fireworks grand finale video

Last week here in the U.S. was the independence day holiday also known as the 4th of July which means vacations, out side fun, backyard parties and barbeques, time in and around the water and other forms of fun. It also means fireworks which tend to be on the evening of the 4th, however some towns host their fireworks shows and events the day after or the day before.

One such town is Marine on St. Croix Minnesota which if you saw Grumpy Old Men when Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon (aka Putz and Moron) where racing to the wedding, you saw main street (hint, if you blinked you might have missed it). Sometimes we go the few miles to Marine by land and watch the 3rd of July fireworks from main street, sometimes as we did this year we go up the St. Croix River a few miles to watch fireworks via water. As a reference for, the St. Croix flows to the Mississippi which in turns flows to the Gulf of Mexico for those of you who are not geography majors or navigators.

3rd of July fireworks video via greg schulz storageio

Anyway, as the saying goes a picture or video is worth a 1,000 words.

While not one of the major metropolitan areas, check out part of the Marine on St. Croix fireworks grand finale video here for what IMHO is a great event.

Ok, nuff said for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

Posted on

Happy 100th birthday or anniversary wishes

I would like to take a moment to wish a happy 100th birthday (or anniversary) to entities (or items) that Im involved with in one form or another.

Both are technology and infrastructure related, both facilitate commerce and transportation and in active service.

One is a company known to many as IBM or International Business Machine Corporation that recently celebrated its 100th birthday. For anyone working or involved in some shape or form with computing or high technology, at some point in your life you most likely have directly or indirectly used something provided by IBM.

The other is the Arcola High Bridge aka Soo line railroad bridge that crosses the St. Croix River north of Stillwater (click here to see some old photos). The Arcola High Bridge (or here) is still in use where trains cross it several times a day (and night) as well as where legends and ghost stories permeate. Keep in mind that even though IBM was in business when this bridge was designed and built, the sophisticated computers and software that enables structures to be efficiently built today did not exist. You could say that this old bridge was built to last which it has, particularly in an era where much younger infrastructure items either wear out or fail.

Happy 100th anniversary Arcola High Bridge on St. Croix River

Best wishes to both and hopefully many more.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

Posted on

Happy Holidays 2010

Here in the Stillwater Minnesota area we are on the verge of being the snowiest December on record, enough to even challenge SANta.

With the snow we have been accumulating you can a) complain about it, b) go elsewhere, c) do nothing or d) enjoy it.

Having the right technology and tools to address the various snow challenges also helps.

Taking a break between projects including chapters for a new book among other items, following are some videos of enjoying and having some fun snow sledding in the back yard here in the St. Croix river valley.

Click on the following images to see some videos we recorded today using a flip camera including action shots while out on the hill. Fun was had by both the kids and the big kids aka adults!

Click here, here or here to view smaller (e.g. shorter more compact .wmv versions)

Refer to this link (and video in the post) to see how much more snow we have accumulated in the past month since thanksgiving and how the sleeding conditions have evolved.

Rest assured there will be more tech related blog posts coming soon.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

Posted on

Happy Thanks giving 2010

Taking a break from industry trends and perspectives activity, here is using some technology to show how even in the snow and cold, for those who are bold, they wont grow old, as kids of all ages enjoy snow sled sliding in the scenic St. Croix River Valley.

Here is a video (.MPG) (and smaller .wmv version) that I put together this afternoon of the neighbor kids and their crew enjoying the snow during the first sled runs of the year.

For those enjoying the thanksgiving holidays in the U.S. try not to eat to much and thus avoid the sleep to much syndrome. However for everyone else, enjoy, have fun and best wishes.

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

Posted on

Getting Caught Up and Holiday Shopping

Its a busy time of the year as things wind down and wrap up, including holiday shopping and applicable gift wrapping unless you outsource the wrapping to the likes of Amazon.com when shopping on-line in a cloud enabled world.

For me this was a busy week with a quick trip out to New York City (NYC) for some meetings and to do another dinner keynote event, in addition to wrapping up some other projects as well as getting a jump on some up-coming projects and adding some additional events to the 2009 calendar (more on those soon).

Speaking of holiday shopping, Beth Pariseau over at SearchStorage has put out her annual what to get a geek for the holidays piece with this edition titled "Jingle bell storage: What to buy a geek for the holidays".

In addition to Beth’s great list, here are some additional considerations.

  • For those who might forget their heads if not attached to their shoulders, or late for their own wake, how about a wrist watch with USB flash drive built in (encrypted preferred)
  • Speaking of encryption, to support increased data growth, replace that too small 8GB encrypted USB flash with a new 16GB encrypted version (My 8GB version I bought a while ago works great).
  • Oh, and upgrade the DVR (add more and bigger disk drives) to support more editions of “Friday Night Lights“, “How its Made”, “Worlds Toughest Fixes”, “Sunday Night Football”, "Factory Floor" and anything on “HDnet” or “HDnet Movies”, a larger capacity external SAS or SATA attached disk with software to copy what I already have saved.
  • For those who enjoy Wine and I/O, check out the Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator (Bought one of these after seeing them in Sonoma on a recent trip)
  • For those who like removable storage media and want to compliment their EMC Retrospect (I have been a Retrospect since well before EMC bought them, I guess that makes me an EMC customer?) or other backups, the Imation Odyssey portable USB adapter (I bought an Odyssey over a year ago) is great for larger backups (beyond a flash drive) when traveling.
  • In order to track those lost tapes to avoid getting on next years Santa naughty or nice list, how about FujiFind (FujiFilm) Tape tracker
  • On the software and tools front, Xobni (a form of eDiscovery and search for Microsoft Outlook) along with OutTwit (twitter interface where you can also find myself) if you are using Microsoft Outlook (have been using both of these, great productivity tools).
  • Still not sure, how about my new book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (Auerbach) or my other book "Resilient Storage Networks" (Elseiver) both available at Amazon.com and other fine venues around the world (I bought a copy of both to see how on-line sale worked ;).

    • That’s it for now as I need to get a few more things done including more holiday shopping and chores not to mention get ready for the snowstorm that is forecasted to dump several inches of new snow tomorrow here in the Stillwater area.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved