Explorer Post 369

Earn money for your post treasury by selling popcorn! This year Chris Graves, the General Manager of Arrow 105.7, is our Popcorn Sales Chair. Through her wonderful efforts, she has been able to obtain free movie passes for every individual selling popcorn. The post that sells the most popcorn, will be able to have their won private movie screening. That means the winning post can invite their friends and enjoy snacks for free! what a fun way to earn money! To sign up, call the Exploring Division at 436-7200 or Chris Graves at 442-2000.

Council Launches New Internet Site

The Scouter

The Simon Kenton Council has also launched its own website. Through the generous contributions of Mills/James Productions Smart Pages and CompuServe, The Web Site is currently under construction. You will even be able to read the Scouter on the InterNet as well as check on program updates. The working title for the web site is:

http://www.skc-bsa.org

The Council is leading the way in the internet in the BSA. This is a great way to get information fast. You can even download Scouting clip art over the InterNet at our web page. Come and try this newest form of mass communications. Don't forget to try out:

http://www.venturingbsa.com

Post Rank

James D. Corder

I was asked about hour honor cords and how they are earned: Remember that the placement exams will most likely be in December. The awards banquet is in February.

White Primary Cord Member of Post 369

With Red Honoree Member of Post 369

With Black Member & an Eagle Scout

With Gold Member, & Eagle, & Trained

Secondary Cord

Red Scored 80, or better on Post Test

Blue Scored 170, or better on Post Test

Green Scored 240, or better on Post Test

Gold Scored 300, a perfect score

Collar Scout Sign

Bronze Project Leader

Silver System Administrator

Gold Senior System Administrator

Collar E Logo

Bronze Toddy

Silver Page

Toadies may where the White Primary Cord with no colors and may not take the Exam.

Our New Look:-)

Thoughts from the East: A Journey back to Russia 2 of 5

Andy P. Drake

However, I wasn't out of the woods yet. The entire trip depended on a couple of things. First, I needed to (and was able) to make arrangements to stay with my friends in Moscow, eliminating the cost of a hotel room for the last week. The second obstacle was someone had get me to the airport to make my plane on time, no mean feat considering that automobiles are a luxury and the airport is almost an hour by car outside of Moscow. I hesitated to give my friends a call until I had all my paperwork and knew exactly that I was coming, which took almost a month to complete, what with the processing of visas. Only three weeks from departure date, I was beginning to get nervous as I only had sent out airmail letters indicating vague dates and promises that I would be coming soon. I began questioning the whole thing -- could I pull this off? Live for a week in Moscow by myself? The Moscow of three years ago was one where bureaucracy ruled and nothing was in stone. Once I had my papers and phoned my friends, they allayed any fears about accommodations and assured me that something could be arranged on both the room and the ride to the airport. With that, I finally slept well and realized, hey, it was a vacation and I could roll with whatever came down the pike, I was there to visit, not to be a tourist!

Although I enjoyed St. Petersburg lot, the most remarkable thing that stands out in my mind about the city was simply getting through customs at the airport, a two and half hour procedure made complicated by the disembarking of about 8 internationally inbound airplanes. Other than living up to its name as "Venice of the North", I was simply waiting for my time in Moscow to arrive, and therefore took a minimal amount of pictures, bought a very small number of souvenirs, and bided my time for what was to come. Of my time spent there, I probably enjoyed most the hydrofoil boat ride we took one night down the Neva river into the Gulf of Finland, so as to see the views at night -- it was in a word, magnificent. I can highly recommend visiting St. Petersburg, as it truly is an international, European city with architecture that is almost second to none, not to mention the home of Peter the Great, the Czar that began the modernization of Russia by building the city in 1703.

Upon arriving in Moscow, I had to conquer an unanticipated nasty leviathan called the Moscow phone system. Although from all appearances the system works lot like the North American system of area codes and directories, RosTelikom, the state phone company, has a terrible habit of mixing up area codes and normal telephone exchanges to the place where you don't know if its even possible to dial the correct number until you try. For example, the city code for Moscow is 095 (much like an area code of 614 or 513 would be), but also a normal exchange within the city is 95X (like 431, 475, 292, etc.), where x is a number indicating a section of the city. Essentially in Moscow, you can have a number of 0959509595, and for someone who doesn't know the structure of the phone numbers, you get the distinct impression the system was designed to discourage its use by untrained people. Eventually, I got it and the long distance exchange system worked out, though Moscow, like many other eastern european cities, still has mechanical switches, which until they reset, can cause an otherwise free line to remain busy to callers, forcing you to try several times to make sure people are really off the phone. As an aside, local phone calls anywhere in Moscow are free, regardless of time spent talking. This means you can walk up to a pay phone, deposit a coin, and talk for hours. Although rude, it does happen and can be a really big annoyance.

Moscow, and my friends, lived up to the expectations I had set. I arrived with the attitude that I would relax, see what I could, and expect nothing except to be tired at the end of the day. With this in mind, my friends and I went an incredible number of places ranging from standard cultural and literary attractions, to out of the way spots where they liked to hang out with their friends. Sometimes I felt initially like the odd man out when we would go out with a group of people that they knew from school, but once the group understood that I knew passable Russian and was simply here on vacation, they too went out of their way to make things memorable, often suggesting sights that I had to see to really get the flavor of life. This was exactly what I was looking for -- the normal experience of life. Sure, I've got to admit that my view was tempered a bit by the notion that I was there for vacation, but I like to think that this experience was far more personal than riding around on a tour bus.

Part One, Three, Four, Five

A new year

RIGHT

DJ, Jim, Andy, & Karl set up the our data center for the new year.

Extreme Measures

James D. Corder

The movie Extreme Measures is about two doctors: One good, and one, well, Dr. Jekel & Mr. Hide come to mind. The bad Doctor takes healthy homeless people and cuts their spinal cord so he can repair it in illegal research. The good doctor finds out about it. Therefore, the story is based around what happens to the good guy in his search for the truth.

In short, this movie is dark and depressing. Don't waist your money.

Quote of the Month

Napoleon Hill

Freedom of body and mind, independence and economic security are the results of personal initiative expressed through self discipline

Perfmon

James D. Corder

Just a little shell script that I found enjoyable to make.

Perfmon takes system names from $1 or /vol/lib/.system.lists then starts a perfmeter for that remote system and simultaneously generates the screen geometry to place the meter on screen 0.0. Starting with the 23rd to 42nd meter perfmon automatically places the meters on screen 0.1. If you had the hardware you could modify the script for screen 0.2 also.

#!/bin/sh

#

# The perfmon program opens up to 42 perfmeter(s) on two screens

# under openwindows. perfmon either takes its list of systems [one

# per line in a flat file] from ${SYSTEMFILE} or a file named in ${1}.

SYSNUM=`expr 1`

LR=`expr 586`

UP=`expr 25`

if [ "x${1}" = "x" ]

then

SYSTEMFILE=/vol/lib/.system.lists

else

SYSTEMFILE=${1}

fi

if [ "x${1}" = "x-k" ]

then

for PERF in `ps -edaf | grep perf | grep -v console | cut -c9-15`

do

kill -9 $PERF

done

exit 0

fi

PERFIT(){

/usr/openwin/bin/perfmeter -Wp ${LR} ${UP} -Ws 578 66 -WP 81 833 +Wi \

-t cpu -t pkts -t page -t swap -t intr -t disk -t cntxt -t load -t errs \

-M cpu 100 100 100 -C cpu 75 \

-M pkts 32 32 2147483647 -C pkts 512 \

-M page 16 16 2147483647 -C page 64 \

-M swap 4 4 2147483647 -C swap 8 \

-M intr 100 100 2147483647 -C intr 1600 \

-M disk 40 40 2147483647 -C disk 160 \

-M cntxt 64 64 2147483647 -C cntxt 2048 \

-M load 4 4 2147483647 -C load 8 \

-M errs 4 4 2147483647 -C errs 1 \

-d -H -Wn -s 2 -h 20 -m 2 $SYSTEM &

}

DISPLAY="`uname -n`:0.0";export DISPLAY

for SYSTEM in `head -42 ${SYSTEMFILE} | sort -u`

do

SYSNUM=`expr ${SYSNUM} + 1 `

if [ ${SYSNUM} = 23 ]

then

DISPLAY="`uname -n`:0.1";export DISPLAY

LR=`expr 586`

UP=`expr 25`

fi

PERFIT

if [ ${LR} = 586 ]

then

LR=`expr 0`

UP=`expr ${UP} + 75`

else

LR=`expr 586`

fi

done



The ExpNews
The Editor
The ExpNews is a monthly newsletter for Boy Scouts of America Explorer Post 369. 369 is an Engineering Computer Information & Science youth mentor program that specializes in UNIX System Administration. The ExpNews is currently being distributed in four countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, and The United States of America. The actual number of copies is unknown to us since the recipients freely copy and re-distribute the ExpNews in its entirety.
You may copy and give your youth copies of the ExpNews.

Up-an-Coming Post Expenses

12/01/96 Post Charter $30.00

12/01/96 Post Insurance $85.00

Monthly ExpNews $25.00

Up-an-Coming Member Expenses

Registration 11/01/96 $15.00

Post Finances

Explorer Post 369 has -$530.00

This page has been accessed $pagecount"; ?> times. Since July 6th, 1997

Explorer Post 369

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