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Jason Stadtlander
  • Jason Stadtlander

Missing Child – A Parent’s Worst Nightmare
Missing Child – A Parent’s Worst Nightmare 1024 576 Jason Stadtlander

The Fear

It was September 19th in Carver, Massachusetts. The air had that cool damp feeling and the smell of autumn was strong as the colored leaves blew at our feet. My oldest son was dressed in his ninja costume and I was dressed in my Scottish warrior getup – kilt included, both in the spirit of the renaissance festival we were going to at King Richard’s Faire. My youngest son chose not to dress up as he though it drew attention to him. Little did he know that not dressing up drew more attention than dressing up. However, my sweet boy had been through enough over the last year with my divorce and the stresses of my moving out, so I wasn’t about to press him to ‘get into the spirit’. I just wanted us to have a good time.

We spent a few hours going from vendor to vendor and watching the amazing acts of the magician, the tiger trainers and the jousting all the while munching kettle corn and cotton candy as we walked. At one point we stopped so that my boys could get onto a swing ride operated by a couple medieval carnies hand cranking the contraption that accommodated about fifteen children. I took photos as the boys swung around in circles rotating in their chairs. Then they got off and stepped around the side of the fence to me. My oldest saw a cross bow game next to the swing that he wanted to show me and possibly play. So we walked over toward it. Out of the corner of my eye I was certain that my youngest was following. My oldest showed me how the pseudo arrows went into the chamber and at that point I glanced behind me to see what my youngest thought of it. The eight year old was no where in sight and I was instantly jolted to high alert. “Where’s your brother?” I asked. He looked around and shrugged.

“I thought he was right here.” he replied.

I looked at the swing ride which was less than fifteen feet from me and couldn’t see him anywhere. I then yelled for him. No answer. I had lost my son. My heart was racing as I told my oldest to stand by the crossbow stand and not move at all. I then began a spiral style sweep of the area widening as I went through the tree covered clearing. I couldn’t see him anywhere and I was fighting the desire to panic. I began yelling as loud as I could for him and fellow parents looked at me with concerned expressions, knowing the pain I was going through. Two other faire goers joined me in the search and I began to look at the perimeters.

I stopped a faire worker and notified them and just as they were radioing to the have the gates closed so no one could leave or come in my mobile phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but picked up to hear my son crying in the phone. “Daddy? Where are you? I can’t find you.”

He had followed someone wearing a similar shirt to mine near the swing ride and hadn’t looked carefully to make sure it was actually me, until it was too late. Fortunately he had only gone as far as the archery game which was about two hundred feet away, but it was far enough that he couldn’t see me anywhere. If I had not been so careful to ensure that my children always knew my mobile phone number, the situation could have been a lot worse than it turned out.

Missing ChildTips to Prevent Losing Your Child

  • Put one of your business cards  in their pocket, preferably with a mobile phone number on it.
  • Force your children to memorize your mobile phone number.
  • If you are in a public setting (such as a fair, store or movie theater) contact a management member immediately, most locations have protocols in place to close the entrances so that no one can escape with a child and scenarios setup to help parents find their child.
  • When you know you will be in a crowded place, have your children wear bright colors so you can quickly identify them from a distance.
  • If your children are very young, take a small length of rope and have them always hold onto the rope.
MBR System Recovery Partition
  • Jason Stadtlander

Adjusting the MBR (SRP) partition in Windows 7 to prepare for Windows 10 Upgrade
Adjusting the MBR (SRP) partition in Windows 7 to prepare for Windows 10 Upgrade 639 479 Jason Stadtlander

As many of you may be aware, I am in IT by trade and recently many people have been trying to perform the free upgrade to Windows 10 that is being offered by Microsoft until July 1, 2016.

One problem many people run into is not having enough space on the System Recovery Partition (SRP) which is a special little 100MB space on your hard drive that Windows uses for storing special boot files in case your operating system has problems.

The following will show you how to free up space on your SRP so that you can perform the operating system upgrade to Windows 10. Keep in mind, this is a sensitive partition, so be sure to follow exactly as I have outlined below and you should be fine. I have tested this and it works perfectly. Usually it will free up an additional 40-50MB of space.

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

This makes a permanent, but small, increase in the available space of the SRP (system recovery partition).

Prepare the Recovery Partition and Backup Permissions

  1. Press the Windows key + R. In the Run window that comes up, type msc and press Enter.
  2. Select the partition marked System Reserve. Press-and-hold or right-click on it.
  3. Select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
  4. Choose Add.
  5. Enter Y for the drive letter.
  6. Tap or click OK.
  7. From the Start menu, search for cmd. Right-click Command Prompt from the search results, and select Run as administrator.
  8. In the command prompt, type Y: and hit enter to switch to that drive.
  9. Type the following and press enter: takeown /d y /r /f .
    Note:     You must include the space and the period after the “f”, or the command will not work properly.
  10. Type icacls Y:\ /save %systemdrive%\SysResrvBU.txt /t to back up the current permissions.
  11. Type whoami and press Enter, and then record the user name.
  12. Type the following command:
    icacls . /grant <username you got from whoami>:F /t and press Enter.
    Note: Do not put a space between the username and “:F”, or the command won’t work.

Truncate the NTFS Log

  1. Check the size of the NTFS Log first. From the Command Prompt, type the following and press Enter: chkdsk /L Y:
    1. If the size is less than 5000KB, you do not need to truncate the file.
  2. To truncate the file, type the following and press Enter: chkdsk /L:5000 /X /F

Restore permissions

  1. Press the Windows Key (windows key) + R
  2. Enter the %systemdrive%\SysResrvBU.txt file and press Enter.
  3. A notepad or other text editor application should open with the contents of the file. On the first line you will notice that it’s blank. Enter a single “.” (without the quotes) and save the file.
    NOTE: Because it’s on the system drive, you might have to save it elsewhere and then copy and paste it to the system drive location manually.
  4. Close the text editor and go back to the command prompt that you have open.
  5. Type the following command: icacls Y:\ /restore %systemdrive%\SysResrvBU.txt /c /t and press Enter.
    1. A message may display indicating some files failed while processing – this is normal as these files have been deleted subsequent to backing them up.
    2. If the amount of successful files is none, then the command was executed incorrectly; you must have some files successfully processed before continuing.
  6. Adjust the ACL back to System by typing the following:
    icacls . /grant system:f /t and press Enter.
  7. Set the owner of the drive back to System by typing the following command:
    icacls Y: /setowner SYSTEM /t /c and press Enter.
  8. Go back to Disk Management and Refresh the data to confirm if the SRP now has a greater percentage of free space. If so, the drive letter can be removed at this point.
  9. Right-click the System Reserved Partition.
  10. Select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
  11. Choose the Y:
  12. Select Remove.
  13. Click OK.

 
  • Jason Stadtlander

The Greatest Gift I Ever Received
The Greatest Gift I Ever Received 958 960 Jason Stadtlander

Tomorrow is my birthday and as I do with every birthday, I take a look around my world and think about what makes my life amazing, what inspires me and what a blessing it is to be another year older.

My 4th Birthday

This year I’m thinking about the greatest gift I have ever received. The first birthday I can remember was my fourth birthday when I received a rake, hoe and shovel set from my paternal grandmother. I spent hours digging up our yard – which I’m sure my parents loved. On my twelfth birthday I got a Trek mountain bike which I used for my newspaper route and did several TOSRV bike tours with my father.

 

The Birth of my First Son

My two greatest gifts however weren’t really birthday gifts, though one was around my birthday. The first I received almost eleven years ago and the second I received almost two years later; my two boys.

I had no experience with children at all before I had them, but always knew I wanted kids. I had never so much as changed a diaper prior to my first son. By the time my second son rolled in the door, I asked myself what I was so stressed about with the first. Then came the amazing little moments, such as the one below where my youngest son made “alphabet soup” for the family.

 

I can’t remember how many times I went into my children’s room to hear them having “little conversations” about stuffed animals, dinosaurs and Legos. Conversations so innocent they are the purest form of communication. Love so unfiltered and honest that it is touched directly from Heaven. There is a purity in their statements “I love you, daddy.”, even now, that drives deeper into me than anyone else has ever done.

There may be an unspoken “civic responsibility” about having children, the idea that you are replacing your generation with a new one, but being a parent is so much more than that. Seeing their minds grow from only recognizing a human face, to playing with danging toys, to splashing in the tub, to drawing, to telling stories and now my children are creating their worlds with their writings and their stories. They are slowly becoming self-functioning members of society.

They are the greatest, most amazing gifts I have ever received and the most breathtaking experience I have ever had. I may be a writer, an IT professional, a voiceover artist, and an artist, but the one thing I am the proudest of – is being a father.

 
  • Jason Stadtlander

Farm Fresh Mexican for Cinco De Mayo at Vida Cantina in Portsmouth, NH
Farm Fresh Mexican for Cinco De Mayo at Vida Cantina in Portsmouth, NH 1833 2091 Jason Stadtlander

The key difference that you will notice in any farm to table restaurant when compared to more traditional restaurant fare is the freshness. I never would have imagined that I could actually tell the difference between fresh food from a farm and food from a distributor — at least not until I began seeking out dining locations for my Farm to Table series.

2016-05-02-1462212030-3503855-image3.JPG

Driving down from Kittery, ME where I frequent the outlet malls, I often prefer to take the more scenic Route 1, which wiggles its way down through Maine, New Hampshire and eventually leads down to the North Shore of Boston where I live. One evening not long ago, on one of my drives down I was looking for a margarita to end my weekend with and stumbled upon Vida Cantina on the right hand side of the southbound road. Pulling in and walking through the door, I was immediately enraptured with warm pleasant aromas of the tacos, enchiladas and fresh meat that was grilling. Despite these amazing aromas, I was on a mission to find a good margarita, and a good margarita I did find. With the freshest squeezed key limes and splash of tequila and a tinge of salt, the drink was nothing short of amazing. It was at that point that I actually took a moment to take in my surroundings.

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to sit down in the home of a Mexican family, then Vida Cantina on is definitely the place to go. Chef David Vargas explains that “…its those traditional flavors and the fresh ingredients combined in a modern technique that continues to drive Vida Cantina.” He went on to explain that traditional Mexican food gets its authentic taste from the freshest ingredients which is what really inspired the Farm to Table concept within the establishment. No one knows authentic Mexican food like Vargas, who grew up in an American-Mexican home with parents from the Guadalajara and Jalisco area. Cooking was a passion in the home as was the ‘family’ element to the meal. He further went on to receive professional culinary education from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.

Vargas explains that “Vida Cantina tries to step away from the norm that many Americans might perceive as Mexican food…” something that I feel provides a more authentic and vibrant Mexican experience. You won’t find the traditional burritos and quesadillas that you might see at other ‘Mexican’ restaurants. Instead you will find mouthwatering dishes such as the NH Mushroom “Chorizo” Tacos, grounded in fresh ingredients from start to finish. Vida Cantina has even made arrangements with local Tuckaway Farm in Lee, NH to provide them with fresh Indian corn. “I decided last year that this year we would start making our tortillas for our tacos completely from scratch. I showed my staff how to hand mill the corn into flour to make all homemade ingredients for our tortillas that we use for our tacos.” Vargas states. “I will admit that I got an interesting look from my staff when I proposed that we would be hand grinding 60 pounds of corn.”

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Owner and Chef: David Vargas

Not only has Vida Cantina made a strong effort to mold their growers and suppliers to provide the perfect ingredients, they put the same effort into their staff training. “We do get some pushback here and there, when people come into a Mexican restaurant and they expect a more traditional style, what they come to expect with burritos and such. Our servers are very well educated and they basically tell the story of what we’re doing here and why do it on a daily basis.” says Vargas. “We intentionally don’t offer burritos so that we can change their perception – steer people away from that image when they sit down at a Mexican restaurant and see at the same time all the farms that we are promoting and what we are doing with the fresh ingredients.”

Here are some of the other farms they work with:
Breezy Hill Farm – South Berwick, Maine – providing meat
PT Farm – North Haverhill, NH – providing meat

One other benefit that Vargas enjoys implementing into his seacoast restaurant, is the proximity to fresh fish. Vida Cantina belongs to a local fish cooperative that they pay into and then every Friday local fisherman provide whatever fresh catch they happen to get that day.

You can’t get fresher ingredients in your food than a farm to table restaurant like Vida Cantina and the effort and dedication that not only their owners, but their staff as well – put into the establishment truly is exemplified in their dishes, their atmosphere and their quality of service. I would highly recommend stopping by and tasting Vida Cantina for yourself this Cinco De Mayo (or any other day of the year). When you do stop in, don’t forget to try one of their margaritas with a choice of over forty different tequilas!

You can find them at:
Vida Cantina
www.vidacantinanh.com
2456 Lafayette Road
Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 501-0648
  • Jason Stadtlander

Loneliness is…
Loneliness is… 609 419 Jason Stadtlander

Loneliness is something that many of us cope with on a daily basis. Sometimes we can be more lonely in a crowded room that we are standing next to a single person.

Webster’s Dictionary defines loneliness as:

1a : being without company : lone
b : cut off from others : solitary

not frequented by human beings : desolate

sad from being alone : lonesome

producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation

lone·li·ness \ˈlōn-lē-nəs\noun

However, rarely does a definition convey what loneliness or any other emotion really is.

The reality is.. loneliness is a chasm deeper than the eye can see.
Loneliness can take you from the highest perch and cast you into the deepest hell.
Loneliness is a cold metal table in a dark room.
Loneliness is a yearning for human touch, even a hug.
Loneliness is an empty bench where you used to sit next to your mother and talk.
Loneliness is a need to tell your deceased loved one how much you miss them.
Loneliness is a fresh snowfall without children to play in it.
Loneliness is a photograph in your hand that you can’t let go of.
Loneliness is feeling cold on a warm summer day as the waves crash on the beach.
Loneliness is rain, so cold it seeps through to your bones.
Loneliness is… a singular soul among billions.
  • Jason Stadtlander

What is leap year all about?
What is leap year all about? 1320 720 Jason Stadtlander

Today is Leap Day 2016, but what does that mean exactly? Why do we even add a day every four years?

Well, here’s the nitty-gritty on Leap Year and Leap Day.

Why is there a Leap Year?

Our lovely little planet does not orbit the sun exactly every 365 days. We actually make a complete 584 million mile cycle around the sun once ever 365.256 days. So we need to account for that extra .256 days, because believe it or not, they add up.

What would happen if there was no Leap Year?

If we didn’t have a leap year, then the months would actually cycle through the seasons and the Northern Hemisphere would experience winter in July about every 800 years.

The history behind Leap Year

Leap year occurs in every year that is divisible by four and only in century years that are evenly divided by 400. For example, 1200 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700 and 1900 were not.

The Romans were the ones that started adding the extra day in 46 B.C., decreed by Julius Caesar creating the Julian calendar. However the Julian calendar doesn’t follow the ‘century divisible by 400’ rule so there is still and extra 11 minutes, 14 second discrepancy every year.

Pope Gregory XIII discovered that by the year 1582 A.D. the Julian calendar had added ten days, so he created the Gregorian calendar and dropped ten days from the month of October that year. Gregory also established February 29 as the officially added leap day. An interesting fact to the Gregorian calendar is that the solar year is about 26 seconds shorter than the Gregorian year.

If you are born on leap day, when do you celebrate your birthday?

Most people born on leap day celebrate their birthdays (in the ‘off years’) on February 28th, because after all… they were born on the last day of February.
  • Jason Stadtlander

Engrossed in Insanity
Engrossed in Insanity 2560 1638 Jason Stadtlander

I am not insane, not irrational or particularly fatuous. For here, I can look at myself in this dirty mirror, my naked chest, my bosom, the very skin that binds my body and keeps me together. There is dirt and blood and dust upon it, but that does not mean that I am insane. The mirror portrays me this way, the bending of the light in an unnatural way, different from the way the rest of the world should see me. I do not look like those wide, hollow eyes that are staring back at me, that I know do not belong to me, bloodshot. Mine is the mind of a calm, collected, even philosophical intellect.

I know, I too have glanced down at the knife on the vanity, its serrated edge with fragments of flesh upon it, dripping of blood. Mistakes happen. They happen to everyone. That’s all this was, it was a mistake. Mistakes can be fixed.

He did me no wrong, no real wrong. All he did was scream at me, but that was his fault. He never should have screamed at me. He knows what I’m like when I lose my temper. I had told him that I had a bad day. I told him about losing my job, but he ignored my words. They were mere wisps upon the air to him and he did not care to let them in. If anyone is to blame, it is he that should be blamed. I can’t take my eyes off the blade, the blade that still has pieces of him in its teeth. Teeth that not long ago and chewed and torn deep into that chest which I had kissed so many times. I could not kiss it now. There is no breath within it. What was inside, is now outside.

Would you not feel the same? Would you not have simply wanted to silence him?

I reach down and sip the steaming coffee I brewed but minutes ago and took a bite of the fresh toast, smeared with orange marmalade, its chucks of fleshy orange remind me of his own pieces still in the jagged edge of the blade. But these are so much sweeter than he ever was. Homemade goodness upon my crispy bread.

Toast in hand, savoring the bite, I look again toward the mirror and pause. My face. My dear, dirty face. I approach the mirror and can see the smears of his DNA upon it, but I can wash that clean. I can wash that clean just as I can fix this mistake.

Upon washing my hands and my arms and my face, I pause. I stare once again at the face in the mirror. I have washed it. I have cleansed it. Yet it still appears so dirty, so filthy. It can be washed a thousand times, until there is no skin remaining and yet, it will still be dirty. Is this guilt I feel? Now that is insane. How can I possibly feel guilt for something that was not my fault. Not I, I who was not the instigator of this treachery. I am merely a tool, as a hammer is to a carpenter. As an attack dog is to its master.

True, attack dogs are put down when they make a mistake. They are not given a chance to make a mistake again.

The blade in my hand is still dirty, heavy, still disgustingly offensive. It too can be cleaned a thousand times and it too will still remain dirty. Not because it contains particles upon it, but because of the actions that it had performed. Why then do I see myself as dirty? Was it not the blade that did this? Not I. Because I did something just? Because I quieted a beast that had for so long tortured me? Tortured me with love? Tortured me with his endless pleas to hold me? Tormented me with desires to have a family? Do I look  like I want a family?

This blade. This singular blade. It has a strange shape when you look directly at the blade. I shall correct the mistake, I shall rid the filth from my beautiful body, cut it out like a tumor is excised from an otherwise healthy body. My tumor lies within my mind, but it too can be excised. Placing the blade upon the vanity counter, angled up at myself, I thrust my head forward bringing my full weight down upon it and briefly hear a crunch, a strange popcorn sound but no pain. Falling, I’m falling.

Laying upon the floor I have a fleeting thought of how he and I are now laying under the same roof, at rest.
  • Jason Stadtlander

Listen Up Chicks!
Listen Up Chicks! 1024 773 Jason Stadtlander

There’s is nothing like rolling over at 4:30 A.M. to three girls screaming at you at the top of their lungs. I throw my pillow over my head and try to ignore them but they scream louder and louder.

“Bawk! Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!”

That’s right, I’m not talking about female humans, I’m talking about my God forsaken chickens. I only have three, I had six but ended up killing three because they wouldn’t shut the hell up.

Okay, actually I gave three away because they were just too crowded in my earlier coop. But I think the idea of sacrificing them to the Screaming Chicken gods sounds better.

The reality is, I love my chickens. They’re the only girls I’ve ever had that never really complained to me. Until recently.

I had the brilliant idea of expanding the coop so that they’d have a lot more room (nearly three times as much) to roam around and peck the dirt and perch on walls. I’m actually quite happy with the expansion, as are they. Then for the winter, I wrapped their custom made water dispenser that I built in heat tape, set up a thermostat that will kick on any time the temperature drops below 34F and have started to wrap the coop in plastic. I also set up a fluorescent light that turns on for “summer hours”. This generally keeps egg production going during the dark winter months (yeah, chickens are a few fries short of a happy meal).

Then two days ago my girls started squawking profusely around 4:30 A.M.

I knew that they didn’t lay until around 5:30-6:00 (yeah, I’m that weird). So I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.

Then I did some research and found that many chickens do what’s called the “Egg song”. They basically are singing about the fact that they are going to lay an egg and oh what a wonderful egg it is. I finally found some translation guides and was able to translate most of Esther’s song (the real loudmouth of my coop) as follows:

TRANSLATION: “Listen up girls, I got an egg. I got an egg. Oh what a marvelous egg! It’s better than yours, oh so much better than yours. In fact your eggs suck. They are tiny and [censored] and pathetic but mine or so big! So amazing!”

Anyway, the song goes on to state how wonderful her eggs are and how much better of a hen she is than Gertie or Sassy (my other two hens). There’s also some expletives in there that I would prefer not to censor… dirty bird.

The point is, it’s completely normal behavior and I guess if I want fresh eggs, I just need to make sure I also have earplugs.
  • Jason Stadtlander

Fantastic Friday – Feature Film – Star Wars Awakens Trailer Redo
Fantastic Friday – Feature Film – Star Wars Awakens Trailer Redo Jason Stadtlander

I just learned of a trailer that a supernerd (like me) just created. He basically took every bit of footage that has been released for the new Star Wars Awakens and has created a new trailer which tells more of the story, but I think also maintains the mystery of the real film quite well.

Check it out here:
  • Jason Stadtlander

Pain is…
Pain is… Jason Stadtlander

PainPain is a tempest.

It is a raging storm that can carry us or drown us as we drift among the seas.

It comes in physical, emotional and psychological forms.

Some of us may never feel true pain. May never know true loss of one’s sanity, one’s loved one, one’s limb, or of stress that can induce tremendous pain that can deadlock the psyche.

For others they are trapped in the pain, trapped in the hurricane, just wading in and out of the eye of the hurricane as the waves increase to a crescendo that crushes the human soul.

The question is, the ever lasting question… Can we as humans cope with the pain with which we are dealt? Is it of the heart, the soul, God, or some other underlying strength that enable us to deal with the pain with which we are trapped within. And if we find this strength, what is it that can pull us from it’s grasp? What is it that can breach our tempest and quite literally save our lives?

 

Copyright © Jason Stadtlander - All Rights Reserved

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