Archive for October, 2006
- Is Mediocre the New Excellent? - October 31st, 2006
- Cat Bowling - October 30th, 2006
- you know you’re getting old… - October 29th, 2006
- ironic - October 28th, 2006
- WARM! and a bird update… - October 28th, 2006
- Windows! - October 27th, 2006
- CMPG Meeting - October 25th, 2006
- End of an Era - October 25th, 2006
- HoJo’s Back! - October 24th, 2006
- Image Popups - October 23rd, 2006
- Home Again - October 23rd, 2006
- Maine Vacation Day 5 — The Epilogue - October 23rd, 2006
- Maine Vacation Day 4 — Acadia and Bar Harbor - October 22nd, 2006
- Maine Vacation Day 4 — Missed it by That Much! - October 22nd, 2006
- Maine Vacation Day 3 — Donna’s a Goober! - October 21st, 2006
- Maine Vacation Day 2 — Bathing in Bath - October 20th, 2006
- Maine Vacation Day 2 - Room With a View - October 20th, 2006
- Maine Vacation Day 1 - October 19th, 2006
- Underway — sorta… - October 19th, 2006
- We’re Going to Maine! - October 19th, 2006
- AcoustiSoundâ„¢ - October 17th, 2006
- Smokey update - October 16th, 2006
- A Blast from Columbia Past - October 16th, 2006
- Aha! - October 16th, 2006
- Comments Broken - October 16th, 2006
- I Can’t Wait to Get Here - October 13th, 2006
- Songs From Sunday Morning CD Release - October 13th, 2006
- Man, I Wish I’d've Thought of That! - October 12th, 2006
- The New Heat Pump (After the Install) - October 11th, 2006
- The New Heat Pump - October 11th, 2006
- Stuff on eBay … - October 11th, 2006
- Who Loves Ya, Baby? - October 10th, 2006
- Smokey update - October 10th, 2006
- Birds - the sequel - October 8th, 2006
- Seeking Inspiration - October 8th, 2006
- Good News for Babylon 5 Junkies - October 8th, 2006
- iMac + Ikea = Ideal? - October 7th, 2006
- Birds! (part 2) - October 7th, 2006
- Fuel To The Fire - October 7th, 2006
- Battlestar Galactica Season Premiere - October 6th, 2006
- Birds! - October 6th, 2006
- How To Kill The Church - October 6th, 2006
- Battlestar Friday — The New Season Begins (wink) - October 6th, 2006
- An Open Comment to Events Coordinators - October 6th, 2006
- HDR / Tone Mapping Tutorial - October 5th, 2006
- Why? Because it Works - October 5th, 2006
- Not “Alleged” - October 4th, 2006
- Misled - October 4th, 2006
- This anti-Muslim email is circulating again… - October 3rd, 2006
- DIY Ring Light - October 3rd, 2006
- Cleaning Your Sensor - October 3rd, 2006
- Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme - October 2nd, 2006
- Tonight’s Garbage Night … - October 1st, 2006
- Renaissance Festival - October 1st, 2006
I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who owns a music production company in the DC area. This is the fellow for whom I do a lot of engineering work, and helped design is production facility. We spent a lot of time, not to mention money, putting together a small facility [...]
via e-mail
Addictive and fun!
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when you buy sympathy cards in bulk-pack.
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we’ve been seeing a black cat in our yard lately. pretty little cat. don’t know if it belongs to anyone. but we’re finding cat poop on our deck. so the cat’ll soon belong to the animal shelter. it’s enough to have to clean the litter box after our own three cats, who all came from [...]
WARM!
The new heat pump went in a couple of weeks ago. The new windows were installed yesterday. I am about to do something that I’m not sure I’ve ever done before: turn DOWN the thermostat. It’s too warm in here! YAY! I hope this is a sign of things to [...]
The folks came out today and installed our windows and storm door this afternoon. There was the easy part, and then the hard part.
The easy part was getting the old windows out, and the new windows set in place. All seven were done in about 40 minutes. I could have done that myself, though it [...]
Regular CMPG meeting. See http://www.cmpg.org for details.
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CNN Headline reports that the company that makes the original pink flamingo, Union Products, will be closing its factory next week. Pink flamingos had been made in the same factory for 50 years! The designer and owner of Union Products plans to sell the molds, but your ability to obtain a true original will be [...]
Well, look who’s back! And, an interview from this morning…
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I’ve installed a goodie that will cause most of the linked images to pop-up in a new little JavaScript window. It seems, however, that some of the links created with the Microsoft Live Writer program behave … oddly. Ah, well. Time to tweak.
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Well, we’re home again. BAH! Now comes the joy of getting caught up on all the mail, crap that has to be mailed out, client work, etc. I’m not liking it.
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This morning we got up at oh-dark-thirty (actually, it was oh-dark-fifteen, but who’s counting?) and left the Tradewinds in Rockland in the dark and rain to return home. The trip by car back to Logan airport in Boston was largely uneventful, which is a good thing when you’re in a rented car.
We chose to avoid [...]
That’s Bah Hahbah in localspeak.
We set out relatively early this morning to head up to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor. We really could spend an entire week just in that area — 3-4 days for Acadia and 1-2 days for Bar Harbor — and still not see everything. To see our glimpse of Acadia [...]
Sorry about that, Chief.
The cheap little hotel-supplied alarm clock failed to go off this morning. I had it set to scream at us about 15 minutes before my cell phone alarm. Unfortunately, that 15 minutes was enough to miss an absolutely gorgeous sunrise over the Penobscot Bay. BAH! It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, but hopefully, [...]
This morning we bade a sad farewell to Larry and Jim at the Galen Moses B&B in Bath, and headed back towards Rockland. We’d planned to get away right after breakfast, but that just doesn’t seem to be the B&B way. We spent a more leisurely morning than we planned, having a great conversation with [...]
According to the song, it never rains in California, it pours. The same should be said about Bath, Maine.
We drove back to Bath to check out their Arts Walk. Unfortunately, by the time evening rolled around, there was more water coming from the sky than there is in the river that runs past the [...]
Our room has a view of the Rockland harbor, which I assume would be beautiful, if it weren’t raining.
The Rain in Maine Doesn’t Fall Mainly on the Plain
It falls on the entire state! Rainy days in Maine have their own sort of beauty, though. Here are some pictures from the balcony of our room:
I watched [...]
This is the story of Day 1, in which we flew into Boston, rented a car and headed north to Maine…you already read about the guitar, which had its own travel story…a few observations and events from the drive:
Curves - These little gyms for women have been popping up on the landscape at home, too, [...]
So far, we’re not thrilled with Delta.
I spent two-and-a-half hours on the phone yesterday, talking to people halfway ’round the world to find out if I could gate check my guitar on our flight up to Boston. The TSA indicates that I can opt to carry on a stringed instrument, and that I may have [...]
We’re off to Maine for a few days. The cat / house sitters are lined up, and the neighbors are keeping an eye on the place, too. Watch for pictures from the trip as they happen!
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I mentioned recently that Donna and I went back to the Reniassance Festival to hear the Mediaeval Baebes. What I may not have mentioned is that the sound company did a great job of absolutely butchering the sound.
I’ve heard the Mediaeval Baebes before, and have a couple of their CD’s, and they’re incredible. I also know that [...]
Smokey (you remember, the balding cat?) doesn’t have FIP. That’s the good news. That bad news is we don’t yet know what he does have. The skin biopsies should be back by the end of this week. In the meantime, his personality has returned to very close to normal. I guess the 2x/day dropper of [...]
This site has some neat old pictures of the Columbia Mall — back in the day ….
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Okay. I’ve finally figured out how to do something I’ve wanted to do for some time now — have newly updated or edited posts pop back to the top of the blog, effectively refreshing posts when they’re edited. Cool beans. Now, if I can only figure out how to have new comments cause the modified [...]
For some reason, comments broke. I don’t know what changed. Actually, I do. I tried a new comments form, and it didn’t work. I switched back to the old one, but now it doesn’t work, either. Very odd. I’ll get it working again … eventually.
[UPDATE: Comments are fixed.]
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We’ve got vacation coming up soon, and not just our usual trip to the Eastern Shore.
Yes, we’re going over there tomorrow and Sunday, as we look at an exciting opportunity to grow our business. But, as I said, that’s not what I’m talking about.
The picture is of the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway, a [...]
After several months of exhausting work, Holy Mountain Music’s inaugural CD release, Songs From Sunday Morning is finally ready! Full details can be found here.
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I’ve always had some sort of fascination with Neil Young’s Cinnimon Girl, but I never would’ve come up with this version.
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So, this is what a new Carrier Heat Pump system looks like. Nothing special, really. Except that it’s big. Really big.
There used to be room to get around the unit outside. Now, there’s about six inches clearance between the deck and the condenser unit. And less that a foot between the unit and the neighbor’s fence.
Likewise, [...]
The folks from the heating and air conditioning company are here today installing our new heat pump, and I thought I’d wander out and take a look at how things are going. Well, it only took them a short time to get the old units out.
As you can see, they’re already sitting in a [...]
I’ve finally gotten off my duff and entered a bunch of auctions on eBay. Items include a couple of lenses, some antique camera goodies and a couple of model train related items.
You can see what I have for sale here.
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Must be Telly Savalas day today, or something. Kojak has come up twice around the office today!
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In case anyone’s been wondering what the current scoop is on the amazing stupendous balding cat:
He went to the vet yesterday for a follow-up and went back in today for skin biopsies. While there, the vet checked the elevated liver enzyme. It’s no longer in the mid-400s but at 260 it’s still twice [...]
more avian activity…these little guys often fight over who gets to be at the feeder at any given time.
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Matt at 37signals has this great article on finding new sources of inspiration.
I don’t have a lot to add, but I’ll list his bullet points:
Look to the past
Look to a foreign culture
Look to nature
Look to a different medium
His biggest point, though, is to seek to be an individual. When everyone else is looking one way [...]
[via Wil Wheaton]
JMS is writing/producing/directing a series of direct to DVD Babylon 5 movies. Called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, the first one, Voices in the Dark starts shooting in Vancouver in November
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At least 116 pictures of iMacs perched on Ikea furniture.
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— from donnacnd - (?)
Here’s a sample of the avian activity in our backyard early this afternoon
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Oil prices have fallen lately. We include this news for the benefit of gas stations, which otherwise wouldn’t learn of it for six months.
- Bill Tammeus
So, if it takes gas stations 6 months to figure out that oil prices have dropped, how come they learn about increases over night?
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Battlestar Galactica Season Premiere on SciFi, 9PM Eastern time.
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We have a bird feeder in our backyard. It was quite a project that Geren had to go through to get the thing hung up where it woudl be both sturdily supported (it holds up to 10lbs of seed) and in our range of sight from the kitchen table.
Three weeks and a fortune in [...]
Pope Benedict XVI prayed for the victims of severe weather in Europe
Uploaded by Directions to Orthodoxy.
The Pope has demanded an end to electric guitars and modern music in church and a return to traditional choirs.
The Catholic Church has been experimenting with new ways of holding Mass to try to attract more people. The recital of [...]
Okay, so I promised Donna that I wasn’t going to go into full geek mode and blog about every little thing that’s Battlestar Gallactica related on an every Friday basis like Friend Will has done in the past. However, season three starts tonight, and it promises to be exciting. 9PM Eastern time on SciFi. I [...]
If you’re planning to hold some sort of event that involves bringing in guest speakers from outside your own organization, please take the following hints:
When your guest speaker(s) leave voice mail messages requesting a call back, call them back.
When your guest speaker(s) send e-mail messages requesting a call or reply, call them back or reply [...]
– from gerenm - (?)
I’ve written about HDR and Tone Mapped images in the past, and today stumbled across an excellent tutorial on the subject, for those interested in giving it a try.
Tutorial (on flickr)
Previous Posting on HDR
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Maybe a better title for this would be, “Why? Because it doesn’t work.”Â
Last night was a clincher. I’m phasing out the desktop PCs. We’ll hang on to the laptops, though.
As I mentioned the other day, for some reason, most of the Windows machines are being junk lately, particularly my relatively new HP and Donna’s old A-Open. [...]
While I’m on the topic of a news media that does a fantastic job of distorting the news, let me just say that Charles Carl Roberts IV is not an “alleged gunman.”
al·leged (É™-lÄ•jd’, É™-lÄ•j’Äd) adj. Represented as existing or as being as described but not so proved; supposed.
alleged. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the [...]
And, no. I’m not talking about the song by Cool and the Gang.
The various industry associations like the BSA, RIAA and MPAA really enjoy publishing bogus stats about piracy as if they’re factual, but that’s their job as industry associations/lobbying groups. What’s worse is when those bogus numbers are cited as being factual by the [...]
Rec’d this from a co-worker again today:
CHRISTMAS STAMP
How ironic is this??!! They don’t even believe in Christ and they’re getting their own Christmas stamp, but don’t dream of posting the ten commandments on federal property?
And it goes on…so that you don’t have to read the entire diatribe, here’s the link to get the facts: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/eidstamp.asp
It’s [...]
Have you always wanted a ring-light, but couldn’t afford one? Here’s an article at The Strobist that shows how to make your own and not break the bank. In fact, there are so many great lighting tips there that I’ve added a big ‘ol link to the sidebar, so you can’t miss it!
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[via e-mail]
There are lots and lots of opinions on how best to clean the sensor of a dSLR. Most suggest that serious cleaning be left to the professionals. However, Nikon appear to believe that any competent photog should be able to do it — at least in Japan.
Japanese video explaining the use of Nikon’s sensor [...]
One of my favorite songs has always been Scarborough Fair, and most people are very familiar with the version recorded and performed by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. I say version, because, although the song is credited to Paul Simon on the album, it’s really a very old English folk song, dating back to medieval [...]
This is garbage night in our neighborhood. And, along with the various and sundry things that normal people throw away (cleanings from the cats’ litter boxes, chicken bones, microwave dinner trays, empty containers that Howard County doesn’t recycle, etc.), I’m very tempted to add a couple of PCs.
One is a fairly recent HP P4 2.8GHz [...]
Geren & Donna visit the ren fest to see the Medieval Baebes.
I wasn’t too happy with many of my pictures from the Ren Fest this past weekend — Donna’s were much better — and the sound guys really butchered the Medieval Baebes sound. But otherwise, we had a really good time.
Donna’s pictures are here. Mine [...]
