Ok, so I know that it has been a while since my last post (for those who are actually reading this blog, you know who you are). Several things have happened since I made my last post including yet another attempt at doing a rope walking practice session which included a transition from ascension to rappelling, a very vital skill to have. I will blog about that later. What I wanted to mention today is something that I find interesting and more than anything funny. As you may have read in popular news syndication sites the city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania has come up with the idea to place fake three dimensional paintings of speed bumps on the road. Now while this might seem like a good idea at the time, and will probably work in the short term. I have found that the human species is in fact intelligent, despite some evidence on the contrary, and will begin to associate these paintings with flat road surfaces. This becomes a repeat of the popular moral tale of the little boy who cried wolf. How long before somebody encounters a real speed bump but just assumes that it is flat road.
As an aside, lets check out the future of speed bumps. It seems that German inventors are working hard to keep all of our roads safe… |-)
A while back I finally got into using iTunes as my way to get music. While I had an iPod much earlier I had been able to successfully use Amarok to transfer music between my computer and the iPod. This of course meant that I had to use less than noble ways of acquiring the music files to begin with. The purchase of my iPhone (which I love and am addicted to) I made the transition. I find that using iTunes in conjunction with the apple devices that I have to be a pleasure and bordering on addictive. Here comes my grip and the real reason for this post. Numerous times I have gone to download (and purchase of course) a song and not been able to find it. After doing some research on these artists I find out that they oppose the use of iTunes. Now my friends know that I am no stranger to standing up to the “Man”, I run Linux and basically shun Microsoft products based only on principle. But lets look at what an artist would want. I would think that he would want his message and music spread to as many open ears that were possible. I understand that there are other download services, but, we all know that they all have their own different issues. I am taken aback that there are artists that would refuse to allow their music to be sold though iTunes.
I do realize that there are also a lot of copyright issues and the such along with a large variety of other things that complicate the whole situation. But look at the end result, I wanted a song, looked for legal ways to acquire that song and was left wanting. So until those artists (yes, that is you Bob Seger) finally allow their music to be sold on iTunes I will just have to listen to them on the radio. Come on people! It is 2008, I should not have to get in my car to get music anymore.
The world moves so fast on the internet. If you are not careful you can find yourself lost checking 4, 5, or even more web sites at a time to see what is new in the world. You wouldn’t want the world pass you by now would you. So, enter the News Aggregator. Many of the internet new sites, blogs, and even search engines offer what is called an RSS feed. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and you can read up on it in Wikipedia for a detailed explanation. A news aggregator allows you to combine RSS feeds from many different sites at once allowing you to get a good overview of what has been added to the web sites that you frequent.
I have used several different native application aggregators in the past, one of my favorites under KDE in Linux was aKregator. I have recently fallen in love with Google Reader. This web application seems to have it all. Mimicking the wonderful GMail interface for RSS feeds. Below is an example screenshoot from my google reader screen. As you can see I can have everything categorized into nice sections for a great overview.
RSS feeds can be great for your work also. An example realted to me is the need to keep up on current publications and pre-prints in High Energy Physics. A site that people frequent to do this is the SPIRES system from SLAC. A nice feature of this system is built-in RSS feeds. So, if I would like to see what articles came out under the field code of HEP-EX then I can have a RSS feed just for that. Then I can go to the google reader and it will show me all new papers that I have not seen. What a great tool. There are many other features of google reader that I have not mentioned and are definitely worth exploring, but I will leave that up to you, where would the fun be if I told you about it ahead of time.
So if you find yourself browsing many different web sites, looking at the same stuff over and over, I suggest that you look into using a new aggregator such as google reader. You might be surprised at how handy it becomes.
It is easy to move though the day and the night without interaction. No illusion of being connected to the world around us. In a lifetime, a brief moment of solitude and loneliness dominate. It is then that something reaches out to you and pulls you back, and it is then you realize that you were never really gone, just drifting silently past whisping threads of interaction. Something pulls you full circle and makes you realize that everything is connected. Your actions, my actions, and the people outside of you and me all affect each other. I author a post on my blog which somebody uses to fix a problem or link to the next person. A comment here, a comment there… And then for me, an artist which I find on the internet. The music which is surprisingly full of feeling, something lyrics could not convey. This artist who could seem untouchable and separated by both physical and social boundaries I find is based right here in the wonderful town of Lawrence, KS. His music, connected to me through the finely woven threads of the internet help me to see how we are all connected. This artist has unknowingly reached out to me and pulled me back. When you walk down the street you see the person that walks past you. Which one of you are drifting silently. Each of us has the ability to reach out and pull somebody back. How will you do it? I leave you with the wonderful sounds of this artist, Ehren Starks.
So, from time to time I ask myself, “what can I blog about?” I mean I like to think that my day to day activities are interesting enough, but lets face it, sometimes you go through a rut. Well, I am definitely out of the rut as of last night. The following is what ensued…
[This story is 100% accurate and I have presented no names on purpose]
The lights had dimmed and the crowd had shuffled out, the evening was coming to a close. (it was like 1:00 in the morning) I had been at the bar working on my research for quite some time now when a girl stumbles in and sits down at the table next to me cycling though emotions like an out of control Rolodex. Out of these she seems like she is distressed the most. So I reach out to her to see if she is ok, to see if there is something I can do to help. In astonishment she grabs my hand and pulls me up dragging me to the bar insisting on buying me a drink. (of course I go if there was any question). I end up meandering back to the table where she joins me for a toast (I cant even remember what the toast was for). After a short amount of time passes she makes her way back to the bar looking for her keys, her wallet, and I think part of her sanity. 1:30 finally reads the clock… I should pack up and get out of the bar before they kick me out I realize. The bar keep has been trying to get rid of the girl for a while now and she just will not leave. As I approach the bar to take care of the meager tab I had acquired she barks out at me, “WHEre ARe YOU going.” Where I calmly responded, “Home, which is what you should do.” She reaches over and grabs a fist full of my shirt and pulls me down on top of her (Yhea, this could be in a crazy romance novel from the sounds of this sentence). To satisfy my curiosity as to what was going to happen next I feel her teeth sink into my cheek. Then it dawns on me, this girl is biting me! Then I realized that it hurt. I reached up a grabbed her face and pulled her chin down in an effort to pry free. Stepping back from her I make my way to the door replaying in my mind the events of the evening realizing at the same time that I think she broke my skin. I start my walk down the quite street and say to myself…
Well, we have received quite the amount of rain this year. Just yesterday my fathers house, which is down in Strafford, Mo. received 7 inches of rain in one day. Now, this is just unheard of in that area. I mean a storm that drops 3 inches during the whole storm is considered bad. Now, we all know that words will just not work here, so, I will include some pictures that my father took for me. (I love storms and was largely disappointed that I could not be there during this one. Yes I am crazy)
Ok, so one of the things that I like to pretend to do from time to time is cook. Now baking has never been an issue for me but cooking a real dinner is a chore for me. Well, I have decided to attempt a beef pot pie. This came from inspiration from my brothers girlfriend, Christina, who made a chicken pot pie for my grandmother. So, I scoured the internet for information and finally landed on the following recipe:
I must say that things went great. I did have to modify the instructions just a bit and instead of using one large pie crust I used small what seem to be 3″ pie pans that I found at Dillon’s. The following are a few pictures from my attempt.
These are really good…
Now you should notice that there are not vegies in there, and yes I do eat vegetables, just not many of them. I have included only beef (which was a diced tenderized sirloin) and potatoes which I had diced to about 1 to 1.5 cm dimensions. The one thing that I really found surprising (that I had never worked with) was the corn starch. Once I added this to the beef broth the magic happened. The mixture gelled just like it was supposed to! This was a fun dish to make (although long at just at 2.5 or 3 hours). I will definitly add this to my list of approved home cooked dinners.
If you had read my post yesterday you would know that I spent the day at Silver Dollar City. What you dont know from that post is that I dropped my iPhone. Now, I love my iPhone. It has been with me for a while now and we dont argue and fight (anymore, the jailbreaking caused some issues). Well, when it fell the power button got jammed and the phone would just power cycle repeatedly. This is a pain since you cant take the battery out of the iPhone easily. Doing this requires a deep breath some special tools and a soldering iron. I have really customized the software on the phone so taking it in to apple or AT&T is just out of the question for me. This left my only option as a self repair. The hardest thing to do on the iPhone I think is get the back cover off without the “special tool”. This took me several hours of using a feeler gauge, a putty knife, and a flat head screwdriver. Now there is obviously some disassembly before that which requires a Philips screwdriver (and a super small one at that) but that is not what made this experience memorable. Once I did get the back cover off I saw what was stopping me. This is the primary reason for this post. When taking off this back cover there are three places on each side of the iPhone where the frame has a small protrusion acting as a tab. The “special tool”, which is not related to the “special purpose” for those who have seen the Jerk, raises the outside cover off of these small tabs. So that is what you are contending with when taking this cover off. Make sure that you follow instructions on line about the dissassembly (which dont mention these tabs). I would also state that if you do take you phone to a bench grinder to remove burrs that you are very careful (and yes, I did this). If you are curious about whether I was able to get the jammed power button fixed, of course. Many small screws and shouted obscenities later I had a working power button assembly (not as good as factory though). All this might be for not though. The new iPhone should be coming out on Monday, and I will very strongly lean toward getting one. Increased memory, GPS, 3G… It would be amazing if Garmin ported their software to the iPhone, and TomTom also….
Well, it comes down to that time when you visit a theme park that you have been to and are not quite as physicked as you could be since you have ridden all the rides before, there is just nothing new, and that is what I thought was going to happen when I went to Silver Dollar City near Branson, Missouri… But wait, what is this, two new rides! (and kind of rainy so there are no lines!) The first is the new Giant Barn Swing. Now I must say this is not just your neighbors barn swing, this is a monster! I usually skip rides like this but I felt compelled to get on and ride. The arm swings you 7 stories up into the air and gives you a feeling like you are weightless at the crest of its swing. What a great ride. I do feel sorry for the poor child whose parents were forcing him to ride. He did not end up riding it but I do hope that one day he will dig into adventurous things. The second new ride that I saw at the park was the new Power Keg roller coaster. I have ridden many different coasters in my day but this one I walked away from and said, “I am blogging about this ride”. How many times do you walk away from a ride and say that. Just after boarding the ride the cars move forward and then laterally to the real track. Here the coaster launches you with what seems to be high pressure air from 0 to 60 in less than 3 seconds. The drops were great! They gave you the feeling that you were going to fly off the track which made it all the better when sitting up in fount. I did ride this twice in a row cause lets face it, once is just not enough for a ride like this. So, if you are in the Branson Missouri area and feel adventurous, go to Silver Dollar City and check out these rides along with the other cool stuff one might find there.
The sun is flirting with the horizon, the birds are starting their morning ritual, and I am in the car with the windows down music setting the mood. I am heading not to the University of Kansas to work, but to the MudHouse in Springfield Missouri. This is my workplace away from work. I have been coming here for quite some time now and I must say that after a shaky start with me many years ago, the MudHouse has turned into a very reliable and friendly place to either hangout or work. The network access has greatly improved and the presented atmosphere is very comfortable.
The MudHouse is not without its pit falls like most places. However these shortcomings are certainly silly and not the fault of the establishment at all. Every now and then a strange person finds you to talk about his or her view on life whether you have time for it or not. It is a good place to meet people (but better be ready for religion…). For some reason the MudHouse seems to have a large amount of religious clientele. Well, off to the real reason that I am here. To work and prepare for a meeting with my adviser…
