After a two-day outage, from what I’m told was a bad cable, I’m back. Email will reach me again, so fire away.
Hint #471 that Politics Suck (and yet another reason I don’t like Robert Erlich). From the Baltimore Sun: Ehrlich associate targeted O’Malley.
“The governor had no idea,” Steffen said. “I don’t even think he knows where the Web site is. If anyone is guilty, it is me. There was no outside influence. It was all me.”
Yeah, right.
Gerry Brewster, a Towson Democrat who ran against Ehrlich in the governor’s first congressional election in 1994, said Steffen was well known as “the dirty tricks operative” of Ehrlich’s campaign.
It kinda makes me think of another dirty-tricks operative in the news today.
Romesick. You’ll need QuicktimeVR to view this shot of the Spanish Steps in Rome. (If that link doesn’t work, go here, look for the PANORAMS 2004 pulldown on the upper right side of the page, and open the Spanish Steps link under 2005.) We ate dinner to the immediate left of the Samsung advertisement/monument on the right side of the steps. Our hotel was a mere three blocks up the steps and almost directly as the crow flies behind Ghandi’s head.
In the sad news department, I read this afternoon that Incredible Jimmy Smith passed away today. If you’re not aquainted with Jimmy Smith, he was the absolute tip-top MACK on the Hammond B-3 organ, recording such excellent tracks as “Organ Grinder’s Swing” and “Root Down” (Sampled by the Beastie Boys, who always knew quality when they heard it). Recommended listening from the Dugan archive: Organ Grinder’s Swing, The Blue Note Years, and Back at the Chicken Shack. RIP, Jimmy.
Heh, heh. This is funny. (via matt)
Gulp. As you’ve read here earlier, Jen’s Mom has been recovering from the side effects of chemotherapy for the last couple of months. Having walked right up to the edge of death a few months ago, she’s not up to cooking, cleaning and getting ready for all five children to descend on the house in December. Jen’s brother none-too-subtly suggested our house as an alternative, which was the unspoken understanding between Jen and I since July. Last night we got the official endorsement from the Boss, which means we’re hosting the dysfunction on our own turf.
This is a good thing, because even though we will be running around like mental patients for the two weeks surrounding Christmas, we will be able to crush any dissent among the rabble, make other people do the dishes, and sleep in our own bed. (The time to upgrade the Full to a Queen is upon us.)
This weekend I took advantage of the freakish warm weather and mowed the lawn for the first time in about two months. It was looking like a shag rug under a spilled box of Wheaties after the tulip tree lost its leaves, and I was ignoring it for as long as I could. After I bagged up a bunch of next year’s mulch, I grabbed a paint can and climbed out onto the roof above the atrium to paint the last street-viewable portion of white siding. Now, as far as you can tell, the whole house is blue. Meanwhile, Jen is making welcome additions to the guest bedroom—the whitewash has been covered by a cheery new color, we have designs on a rug, and it’s beginning to come together. Meanwhile, the medicine cabinet door is still in progress. After deciding that the first placement of the hinges was wrong (the door opened only about 80°, which was less than optimal), I pulled them off, filled the mortises with wood filler, and got it ready for Plan B. Stay tuned.
“There is no underwater camera system that is right for everybody.”
SSI Guide To Underwater Photography. Courtesy XLT. (I would have left this as a comment on his site, but Blogger’s comment system sucks ass.)
Having found the use of my 2nd-gen Kodak DC-3400 rough going, Jen left it at home to sit on the shelf. I decided that she’d take the G3 and I’d soldier on with the Kodak until we can muster the cash for a second prosumer-level camera. One drawback to this camera is its voracious battery appetite, which means that I need to invest in better rechargable batteries or buy stock in Duracell.
By the way, Avoid the Ritz Camera on Rt. 40 in Ellicott City, where they overexposed three of four rolls Jen dropped off there, effectively ruining 72 beautiful photographs of Italy she took. Worse, the bitch behind the counter claimed that Jen’s camera was bad (a nearly new Nikon N-65), we’d run them through the X-ray machine (we hadn’t), and the film was bad (all four rolls were from the same pack, bought three days before we boarded the plane.) At no time did she offer a refund or try to make us happy. Fuck Ritz Camera.
Success? After one solid year of the run-around by BG&E, it appears our problems are solved. I got a turn-off notice for an unpaid bill of $250, and called to straighten it out. After one call to their bill pay computer (which helpfully told me the balance due was $350, I called the CSR back and had her hunt the problem down. As it turned out, I have a credit of $350 on the other account—the one I kept telling them about. Oh, and the bills still weren’t merged. Of course, now that I’ve jinxed myself, I’ll probably wind up owing them money again, or the electricity will get shut off.
That’s Wrong. Did anybody happen to see the Olympics last night where they were showing Women’s Gymnastics? There was some Russian chick there who was absolutely frightening: She was about two feet taller and 50 lbs. lighter than the other women on her team, and it looked like she was going to snap in half. I had to turn my head when she landed her vault routine, because I thought she was going to break. Have a Big Mac or three, honey. (I realize I’m not the best person to be telling somebody else to gain weight, but I’m not an Olympic athlete.)
The final 15 or so wedding pictures have been scanned and posted, so all of you who know where to look can scroll to the bottom of that page to see ’em. *whew*.
(Almost) One Month Jeep Report. My experience with the Chrysler company’s flagship brand has been a pretty smooth one so far; I’ve enjoyed a month of smooth, seamless driving, peace of mind, and general happiness. The steering on the Jeep is smooth, unlike the jerky, nerve-wracking motion of the Taurus—a sustained turn to either side brought on strange pulls and slips in the steering wheel, like the belt was going bad. The radio has a funny habit of losing its stations on hot days, but the buttons aren’t obscured by the cupholder, and overall it’s a better unit than the Delco model from the Ford. The driver’s window tends to rattle when it’s rolled partially down and the door is shut—I’ll have to pull the door apart and tighten the channels inside at some point. Average MPG is around 21 highway, which is better than the 16 I was told. Finally, the fluids are all still very clean after 3,000 miles, unlike the chocolate soup the Taurus used to make. All in all, I’m very, very pleased. (Added on 7/22: The rear liftgate seems to randomly choose whether to lock itself when the switch on the door is thrown; it’s about a 50/50 shot. Curious.)
Not that I’m that kind of person, but I took about four hours last night scanning and sharpening forty more wedding photos to post for our scattered family members. Because there are so many of them, ( 82 at last count, 5.8MB worth, and I ain’t done yet) I can’t post them here for fear of the server getting hammered, so if you’re dying to see some, leave me a comment below and I’ll email you the link offline.
New Music. I’ve recently become aware of, and addicted to, a number of audioblogs—sites dedicated to semi-obscure music not given lots of mainstream attention; there are a few favorites so far. I also found the audio secion of the Internet Archive, which has a pile of good live recordings by favorite bands such as Soul Coughing and Lake Trout. Check it out.
Random Car Junk. This morning there was a beautiful wine and gold colored Citro‘n 2CV parked in our neighborhood; I didn’t have my camera with me, unfortunately. There was also a blue MGB parked further down the road with a “For Sale” sign in the window—not that we could afford one, but it’s sure nice to dream. Also, our neighbor gave me his folder of records for the Jeep, and something even more valuable: the Haynes repair guide for the Cherokee. Where the Chilton’s books are Cliff’s Notes, the Haynes books are the Expanded Annotated Illustrated King James Bible of repair books (unless you shell out the big bucks for the Chilton’s shop manual.) I read through the first chapter of the Jeep book last night and learned more in five minutes than a week of puzzling over the alternative.
On the list for purchasing this payday: Web Standards Solutions. I’ve been looking for a good book to dive into for getting further into CSS page design (this site will be redesigned soon), and it looks like this might be the one. (via dominey)
- I have a nagging, insistent pain in my right wrist, the hand I make my living from, which really started bugging me after returning from Rome. Looks like I’ve got some kind of carpal issue happening, which is just great.
- I spent about two hours compiling photographs for the show-and-tell this weekend and dropping them into iDVD for a slideshow presentation. Apparently does some kind of Ken Burns thing with photos but I haven’t been able to test that out—too many hassles with “Buffer underrun” errors in the non-Panther friendly initial release of version 6.
- I’m using the iPod a lot more now that I have the Jeep; the first vehicle quirk on record is the radio’s interesting habit of losing its mind when it gets very hot. In that event, I just plug the iPod in and relax.
- The towing company came and took the Tortoise on tuesday without either the keys or the title, and without leaving a receipt, so technically my car is stolen and being stripped for parts. (They’re sending me an envelope to place the title and keys in for mailing.) WYPR had better send me a tote bag or something.
- A nice lady at the doctor’s office took care of the insurance thing for me, so I have to go back to the store tonight and get my $100 back. That should be fun.
For cold A/C that doesn’t overheat the engine. For working electrical components that don’t flake out randomly. For a tape deck that works. For two cupholders that don’t block the radio. For four working speakers. For comfortable bucket seats that don’t lean. For a hatchback. For a trailer hitch, and the wiring to support it. For a full-sized spare. For a center console. For a factory roof rack. For peace of mind.
At the risk of totally maxing out my bandwidth this month, I’m going to post a bunch of wedding pictures for everyone to look at. This is the first batch—I’m on the eighth envelope out of twenty-six, so there will be more to come.
Accessories. Now that I have a new vehicle with a working tape deck, I need to pick up a few things for the iPod: An auto adapter ($19.95), so that I don’t run the batteries down (and there’s two power jacks in the Jeep!) as well as a new protector ($20) and dock ($30) so that the iPod stays off the floor. Will I be buying any of this anytime soon? Not likely, but that’s why it’s called a wish list. (While I’m at it, let’s just add this to the list.)
The happy couple (Hi Shelly!), 5.22.04 ©2004 Shannon Bishop
Last night I started the process of scanning in the cream of the crop of the weddin’ pictures last night to show you good folks. At some point, when I get some free time, I’ll put them up honemoon-style, but for now here’s a preview. (Dang. Am I really losing that much hair?)
I loaded iDVD last night and played around with it last night for a few hours—I’m going to burn a DVD and send it up to my folks. It takes some time to get used to the UI, but once I began to grasp the concept behind the layout, it made sense. One nifty feature is the drag-and-drop flexibility between iTunes, iPhoto and iDVD. I created an iPhoto album of all the honeymoon shots, a song playlist in iTunes, and dragged them both into iDVD: Bam. Instant slideshow on DVD, with all the image source files included so that my parents can pull them off the disc and print them if they like. I also re-encoded a Quicktime movie and included that on the disc, but I haven’t tried re-encoding the video clips from my camera yet. Another good resource to look at (if you have four zillion photos, like me) is this article on O’Reilly, which covers backing up your iPhoto library with optical media.
As I wander through the house a mere month before the wedding, I make a mental list of stuff that I’d like to do or have done. Besides the obviously huge projects (central air, adding that wing off the back for the wine cellar, putting the second floor studio on the garage, fencing the yard, bulldozing the neighbors’ yard for our hedge maze), there’s a pile of smaller things I’d like to do when we get back from Italy:
- Keyed locksets for the doors. (We have more keys for this house than the Home Depot.)
- A bird feeder. (All of the feeders I’ve seen so far are crap—thin plastic, cheap-ass poles, or pitifully ugly. I want to feed the birds, not run a squirrel soup kitchen.)
- A ladder. (Our gutters are full of more gunk than a restauraunt sink drain, and we have a house’s worth of windows crying for paint. Nevermind the rest of the house.)
- A dishwasher. (Cheap by itself, but the reconfiguring of our door-tastic kitchen is going to take a lot of work.)
- Shelving for the basement. (Getting all the crap off the front porch into the basement is simply moving one mess to another location; organization is in order here.)
- A new dryer. (The Brady Bunch-era unit we use now is both useless and small, and we need some serious commercial drying muscle—as well as better energy efficiency.)
- A gas range. (Oh, my HELL, to borrow a phrase from the P.S.D.F., does our electric oven suck donkeys. I’m sure we bring down the power grid in Catonsville every time we turn on the damned thing, and it cooks as well as a heroin addict.)
Spurred on by a comment from Lis, I posted a bunch of pictures of our garden I took this weekend. For the tech-heads, I’m using a Canon G3 with a 58mm close-up lens (thanks Dad) in natural sunlight. The one on the home page is the only one I lit additionally—just a mini-maglight from underneath to brighten the center.
I also got off my ass and started up the picture-a-week thing I’ve been threatening for years; I’m going to try to post a new illustration on varying topics, and I’m going to involve you, my four loyal readers. Each Monday, I’ll take suggestions from you for an interesting editorial story, article, or biography, and choose one for an illustration, and then post it (gulp) by Friday. So, send me an interesting article you’ve seen online (please keep it under 2-3 pages) that could make for an interesting illustration, and I’ll draw you a drawering.