[insert witty title here]

The funniest things about Europe

2008-02-09T05:36:00.000-06:00

Vincent Vega: You know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
Jules Winnfield: What?
Vincent Vega: It's the little differences. I mean they got the same sh** over there that they got here, but it's just, just there it's a little different.
Jules Winnfield: Example.

So I've been in Germany for about three weeks now, and the little differences have taken some getting used to. I'll go over a few about them periodically, as I notice them.

First, Bathrooms. I've been to several places in search of housing, and noticed all of them share some interesting peculiarities. Even non-residential restrooms share these traits. They remind me of bathrooms in non-renovated US houses built prior to the 50's.

Toilets: When dropping your kids off at the pool, be wary that there is a mandatory water slide, only the water is off, and they will get stuck half way down. "Bottom" line is that you will feel like the stool examiner in "The Last Emperor" every time you have to go number two. On the plus side, your toilet will never get dirty, because you will be scrubbing the bowl after every visit.
Sinks: Usually they are small and functional only. They usually lack the pull stoppers, and opt for the old fashioned stopper on a chain. I have yet to see any sink vanity combinations in off base housing.
Showers: Very rudimentary with external plumbing, i.e. hand held shower head connected by hose to a faucet.
Vanities: None. Maybe the sink has some extra room to hold a bar of soap.

More to come.

What's been keeping me busy.

2007-11-30T22:12:00.001-06:00

I've been really busy with work lately, and I've been running out of time to finish a project I've been working on. I'll be getting ready for my assignment to Germany after Christmas week, So I only have 3 weeks left of real work.

The wars in the Middle East cost money, especially the Iraq war. Part of the cutbacks across the Air Force have been the discontinuation of a Towel service at our gyms, and a major Lean focus, looking for ways to save more money.

The USAF is moving towards putting desktops into S3 (standby) and S5 (off) at night, but will require Wake on LAN capabilities for after hours patching. WoL implementation by vendors have been spotty in the past, and thankfully, our largest vendors, HP and Dell, have some pretty neat tools to make all the required changes in the BIOS. Since we were going into the BIOS, we thought it would be a good idea to secure boot orders and radios as well. This is where my project comes in.

I created secure BIOS settings for each specific Dell and HP model ordered through our Quarterly Enterprise Buy, and developed the ways to implement them. I've even had a chance to work with the HP engineers at the old Compaq campus in Houston to implement the settings to all current and future production. We hit some snags along the way, such as HP's older dx5150 model, which runs a home use oriented Award BIOS with limited manageability. I've had to develop scripting, and recovery and implementation procedures, for a firmware upgrade that allow remote password settings. Like pushing a giant red button labeled "Do not press", the most fun part was testing the recovery procedures by yanking the power cord in the middle of a BIOS Upgrade. They didn't work, turns out, the 8k boot block bios would not boot from my bootable CD, and I had to find an internal floppy drive to hook up to it.

The biggest challenge I had was integrating all the Dell WMI sample scripts into one large Visual Basic script. With some help from our office VB guru, I put in some named variables to allow for command line parameters instead of just the ordinary %1 %2 %n variables that I normally use for my batch files. I also added an array to support multiple password variables, so that portable systems that may have missed a password change can still get the BIOS settings.

This has been really good insight on what it takes to prepare a releasable product to a massive organization. There was a lot of testing and double checking that went into it, as well as all the licensing headaches that prevented me from distributing a self extracting floppy image, or GPL'ed floppy image writing program.

When every thing is done, my little project will have three releases posted on the USAF software distribution site, and implemented globally, at least until the Altiris Client Management Suite gets fielded. I'm just surprised that as long as WoL and ACPI has been a standard, it has taken until now for Microsoft to really embrace it out of the box with SMSv4.

Learning to run

2007-11-30T21:39:00.000-06:00

I've been getting into running, with my most recent achievement being running 48 miles in 4 weeks. I've gotten faster, and I've even run non-stop for 60 minutes. What has helped is running on an empty stomach, the ability to track my progress, and Audio books. One of the problems I've been struggling with lately have been shin splints, but not where they normally occur, laterally to the tibia, but posterior and medial to the tibia. The Soleus muscle is responsible for foot flexion, and is located behind the tibia and fibula, and helps to pull the foot in. I kept on running toward my 48 mile goal while my shin splints were getting worse, until, the week after I finished, while attempting a 10k (6.2mi) run, the pain became so unbearable that I had to (painfully) walk back home after only 2.5 miles. The pain was so bad, that sticking rock solid ice packs directly on the area felt good. After taking a week off, and then only running sporadically for the 2 weeks after that, they have begun to feel better. During a follow up to the great Physical Therapist I see on base, I was given a run analysis. It turns out that I was running wrong, keeping my knee locked and projecting forward with my foot and toes. Instead, I have to teach myself another way to run, by using the hamstrings and thigh to push off. The problem is that it feels unnatural to me, and is really straining those muscles while they adjust to the extra work. While I did not have much shin pain from the 3 mile run today, I did feel like bigfoot while I was running.

Apple castoffs

2007-09-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

I've been needing to upgrade my mp3 player for a while now. I spend around $150 for an IRiver 256mb back in the day. It is still a good mp3 player, and it still has more features than an iPod, like FM tuner, line in and built in microphone with real time mp3 compression, but is a little lacking in the size department these days. After the Apple store came back on line following the Apple fanboy nerdgasm on September 5th, I picked up an now obsolete, "refurb" 2nd Gen iPod Nano for $90. I also got the Nike+ sensor that I've been wanting, and an armband. I am getting this primarily for running, so all the cool features that the iPod touch, or the other newer iPods are not really relevant. I still wish it had an integrated microphone & FM tuner, and maybe a standard Micro USB connector instead of the proprietary iPod connection. You would think that the company that makes laptops with all the extra's built in like a webcam, and all radios (except cellular), would do the same for their mp3 players.

I plan on having a real convergence device like the n95 to be my main portable media player / web browser / phone. The iPod Touch is cool and all, but without bluetooth and GPS, it wouldn't be able to tether to my phone when outside a hotspot.

body work

2007-07-19T11:02:00.000-05:00

I've been wrecked for a while. I've gradually put on 20 pounds since last Thanksgiving, and when I went back over 200 and started to develop a tertiary roll, I was compelled to take action. While googling for a calorie calculator, I came across this good site. Since I have to run at least 6 miles a week, and I am going back to the pool this summer, I decided to plug in some numbers. When I swim 2000m (20 laps), about 60minutes, at lunch, I burn 4000 calories for the day. When I run 2 miles, I burn around 3700. I am forcing myself to aim for a 4000 calorie per day average, and I'm still not quite there. This is the first week I am trying this out. Hopefully this will kick start my metabolism enough to get me back down to 180 soon.

Also, in related news, I have gone back to Troy University. I will be taking some Biology and Anatomy and Physiology classes, in order to meet some prerequisites for a Physicians Assistant program that the Military Offers. Even if I decide not to do it, I will enjoy the extra Science classes that I didn't take for my Business degree.

One of the things I've found out is that when the 36 mounths of GI Bill benefits run out, I will be covered under Texas' Hazelwood act, which waives all tuition to state public Universities for up to 150 hours.

Updates

2007-06-28T10:53:00.000-05:00

I've been really bad on updating my blog, even though a lot of things have been happening. This is to get Mom off my back, even though she already knows about all this.

In late May I had a spate of bad luck.

I over reacted to sudden breaking of all cars on I-85 by pulling the front brake too hard. This must have pulled the handlebar to the right, resulting in the bike laying down in front of me, and throwing me down on my left side. I escaped with some small but deep scrapes on my knee and foot, but my Jacket, gloves and boots were torn up.
The following week, when I was driving the Expedition through downtown, I was hit by someone that didn't stop for a stop sign, and caused me to roll over onto the drivers side.

All the money I had made from my deployment to Tyndall AFB was put into a 2003 Honda Odyssey minivan that we bought at auction in June.

A deaf man walks into a bar... stop me if you've heard this one.

2007-02-28T22:06:00.000-06:00

I just returned from a visit back home to Montgomery, and suffered from some ride related injuries. One of them was a persistent ringing in my ears that sounded like a low reverberating bell. This was probably a result of all the wind noise from the ride back combined with the recently installed helmet speakers that I got from Aerostich for $15. The other injury was some neck pain from the constant wind buffeting and leaning over the tank and highway speeds, forcing me to keep my head tilted upward.

To combat the potential for hearing loss, I purchased some 26dB ear plugs at The Walmart. They really do a good job of cutting down on the noise level, especially at above average highway speeds.

To fix the wind problem, I have two solutions. The first is to find a taller replacement windscreen for my bike, which shouldn't be hard to find, considering the popularity of the XJ600 globally. The 2nd solution would be to buy a motorcycle with a taller wind shield.

Insurgent IT departments, and how to really deal with them.

2007-02-20T21:10:00.000-06:00

Slashdot just recently posted a link to a great article that CIO magazine wrote about how unresponsive and/or repressive IT departments create insurgent shadow IT departments. CIO's advice to CIO's is to embrace and adopt the shadow IT departments. Out perform, or meet them halfway. The most important messages from the article are:
*Messy but Fertile beats Neat but Sterile
*No one jumps through hoops, they go around them.
*If the default answer is no, people will just stop asking.
*People who think outside of the box are not troublemakers, they may just know what they are talking about.

Why do I think this is important? Not too long ago, I got into trouble because apparently, I wan't supposed to have admin rights on my work computer, and got fussed at for syncing appointments between Outlook and my Sony Erisson P910. The only reason the PDA sync was bad was because there was a policy against non-government provided PDA's being connected to my laptop. I was doing things that made me work better and more efficiently, and the only thing I got was the riot act for violating policy, and creating potential security holes. No one cared that I was working better. Realizing the perils of going into details about work on a public blog, I will leave it at that.

All I will say is that this article is great advice for anyone in charge of a enterprise level information system. It will help them find a good balance between user efficiency, and complete lockdown.

My paid vacation just got better

2007-02-15T18:08:00.000-06:00

My wartime deployment has been to Panama City, Florida. I've been down here for a little of 30 days now, and I've been living out of a 2 star motel room with wifi slower than the GPRS on my cell phone. I've been moved on base to an old dorm room with a shared bathroom, and NO Internet access. I have to go to the main office to use their wireless router.

As far as my job goes, I just sit around and monitor a few conference calls on the old legacy phone system. This office is staffed around the clock, and uses around 8 personnel to essentially baby sit old telco equipment. This could easily be replaced with VOSIP phones, but then they wouldn't be able to waste money on all our paychecks. I basically sit around and watch TV, work out at the Gym, or, when the proxy server is down, surf the Internet. I am not being used for my abilities, or skills. I am being used for my security clearance, and it sucks, because I am not being challenged, and I do not have a chance to excel.

Now, this "deployment" is getting better because I have been allowed to move off base, provided I can find somewhere for $27/day. Along with another guy from my base, we are moving to West End Harbor condos in Mexico Beach. This is the floorplan, with 1791 square feet.

If anyone has a boat, they are welcome to come down and park it in our boat slip. We are a stones throw away from the beach.

Terrorist Conspiracy in Bean Town

2007-02-12T15:44:00.001-06:00

Ask A Ninja Question 30

2007-01-04T07:35:00.001-06:00

This has got to be one of the most funny Ask A Ninja's I've seen in a while. I spewed coffee on my monitor while watching it this morning.

You should be blogging

2006-12-22T23:10:00.001-06:00

Found on digg 3.0's video feed. Very hilarious, see what happens when MBA types try to be hip. Almost as funny as the old lady on Airplane that spoke jive.

Goldeneye: Source Beta Trailer

2006-11-23T11:17:00.001-06:00

Golden Eye for N64 was one of the best games released for the N64, besides Super Mario Brothers and Zelda Ocarina of Time. My brother and I used to spend countless hours playing each other split screen on the varios maps and game modes. I can't wait to try this out on HL:Source, and play multiplayer without the split screen.

Beta Trailer Released!
Blurb: A trailer for the upcoming Beta of Goldeneye Source has been released! Showcased in this trailer are the various maps of the mod. More videos to come, and check back later more information. Special thanks to everyone who helped make this possible. A very special thanks to xes garcia and vader02 for the gunbarrel, basstronix and rich douglas for the music.

Ride to B'ham

2006-11-18T17:44:00.000-06:00

I rode up to Birmingham with my supervisor this morning. He has a Victory Vegas chopper , and was getting saddle bags mounted on it at the dealership there. I rode along because that would be the longest ride to date, and I wanted to test drive a cruiser. I ended up riding a 2006 Vegas which is a 100ci => 1600cc+ V-twin. It sounded great, and had a lot of power, but I just didn't like the slouching feeling, and I couldn't get used to the feel of having my foot pegs so far forward.
After the Victory dealership, we went up to Bogart's Motorsports, the nearest BMW and Ducati dealership. They did not have any GS demo models available, but they had a R1200S which has the same flat twin motor. Unfortunately, they were out of gas, and their rescue truck was out. I ended up testing a Sportclassic GT1000 around their 6 mile test loop. It had a lot more power than my 600, but the exhaust was just too puny. It sounded like it was puttering the whole time, like a wannabe chopper.
I also saw the Victory Hammer S, and was impressed with it's looks, but I didn't get to ride one. I assume it feels much like the Vegas, and is as expensive. I just can't justify spending as much on a bike as we did on our last new vehicle.

What to do with 200GB of Hosting?

2006-11-10T20:33:00.000-06:00

I've found an offer from someone who gives back $90 of the dreamhost referral fee to the referee, making 1 year of basic hosting $30. It seems like a great deal, I just need to figure out if I could actually use it. I already host my pictures on Flicker, and I use blogger for blogging. I don't do a lot of web stuff, so I'm kind of at a loss to justify it.

Post nostalgia fun

2006-11-04T15:25:00.000-06:00

The Venture Bros - 07
Uploaded by bobnino

For anyone that liked Johnny Quest, there is a good follow up to it called The Venture Brothers. It is on Adult swim, and features snarky, tongue in cheek satire of that show, and other old pop-culture. The cartoon takes a look at what Johnny Quest would be like at 40 years old, washed out and living off of his father's legacy. It even features the voice of the Tick as Brock Samson, the analog to Race Bannon. Race even has a cameo appearance in one of the early episodes.

Link
The Adventures of Johnny Quest
The Venture Brothers

Why the internet is cool.

2006-11-04T15:04:00.000-06:00

For years now, when my mind wandered, I would sometimes think about a cartoon I used to watch, with music, and some Red and Yellow ship. Something in the show was called Master Blaster, and that is about all I remember from it, until today. I was googling around and I found that the show was called "Kidd Video" and it aired for 2 seasons in 1984 & 85, when I was just beginning Elementary School. I was able to find the lead-in on Youtube, but couldn't find any torrents of the seasons on popular torrent sites. Now if I could just find all the Robo-tech cartoons that used to play after school.

edit: Found a Youtube user that has uploaded several episodes and music videos. According to Wikipedia, these have not been broadcast since 1992, and are not in "print".
http://www.youtube.com/user/toolbot

Now I won't have to go to fairs to get anything deep fried

2006-11-03T08:28:00.000-06:00

I saw this on Gizmodo.com, and fell in love. Why is is better than a Fry Daddy? Built in fry cage, 175-370 degree thermostat. Short of actually trying it out, I can definitly say that this is more practical than either a Fry Daddy, or a built in Fryolator like you see on Emeril.

Guitar Hero

2006-10-31T08:51:00.000-06:00

I purchased a refurb PS2 a while back for the purpose of playing Taiko Drum master and Katamari Damacy. I've found another game that I like while picking up costume supplies at the Walmart, Guitar Hero. It comes with a Guitar Controller with 5 fret buttons, a whammy bar, and a paddle that you move to simulate strings.

Here is a dual controller pack and a dual controller bag.
http://www.redoctane.com/gh-multibundle.html
http://www.redoctane.com/gh2-bag.html

Site rewickering. Quiz results

2006-10-22T19:42:00.000-05:00

I've moved my blog over to the new beta version of blogger. There are some "new" features, and adds some visual template editing. I'm not sure if this is new, or just a way to catch up with what other blog sites have been doing for a year or two now.

Pure Nerd

73 % Nerd, 34% Geek, 26% Dork

For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.
Congratulations!
THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on nerdiness

You scored higher than 99% on geekosity

You scored higher than 99% on dork points

New killer app & taste of Home

2006-10-22T19:00:00.000-05:00

After reading about Democracy Player on boingboing I thought I'd check it out. It plays video, but it does even more than that. It promises to take internet video to the masses, but integrating RSS feeds of video, distributed through bittorrent. It means fast, TV resolution videos over the internet, with DVR functionality that can automatically download new videos, and watches your hard drive to keep it from becoming filled up.

I've found a couple of good channels to watch:
Channel Frederator, a podcast done by the guys that do Fairly Odd Parents and My Life as a Teenage Robot.

TeleMusicVision, Indie music videos.

Texas Country Reporter Which was broadcast locally in Houston, and in other Texas towns. I remember this guy from the Dairy Queen TV commercials.

There are still some bugs to be worked out with the player, but it definitly has promise, and provides another great example of the use of P2P technologies for something other than piracy.

Why I care about religion

2006-10-03T21:34:00.000-05:00

Found this video thru digg.com. Expresses my sentiments exactly.

Still don't know if I should be happy or disappointed

2006-10-02T20:14:00.000-05:00

I found out around 6pm tonight that I will be deploying to the Sunny shores of Panama City, Florida for four months beginning in early January 2007. I was disappointed when I found out because I had really wanted to go overseas. I am tired of being stopped in public when I am in uniform and thanked. I work on computers, I've checked ID cards at the gate. I don't feel like I have done anything that has had that great of an impact on this country to be deserving of thanks. Regardless of the fact that this country is on the verge of turning into something that is not worth protecting, I don't feel like I have really contributed. I was looking forward to going to the Middle East in January, to experience the war as a warrior, even if it is from an Air Conditioned Comm tent. Not to mention the Tax Free status and the hazardous duty pay I would receive.

I will still feel unworthy of thanks, but at least I will be within 3 hours of home.

Rome's 9/11

2006-10-01T11:16:00.000-05:00

Just about ever since I took Latin in 9th grade, I've held the opinion that the Roman emipre is the closest analog to the United States. This article in the NY Times gives another look at an event that lead to the destruction of the Roman Republic, and the creation of the Roman Empire. This is relevant now because of the passage of the Military Commisions Act of 2006, commonly referred to as the Torture Bill. This bill allows any American to be declared an enemy combatant suspending his civil rights, based soley on the determination of the President, not a judge. Even without me worrying about this as an American citizen, I worry about this as a service member. I have a good chance of going to the Middle East in January, and the way this bill pisses all over the rights the Geneva Convention affords, makes it more justifiable for our own Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen to be denied Geneva Convention protections by other signatories.
The article compares kneejerk legislation passed after a "Terrorist" attack which burned the Roman port to the USA PATRIOT act. Both legislative acts restricted rights, gave tremendous amounts of money to fight the threat, and metaphorically took dumps on their Constitutions.

Thoughts from the throne room 1

2006-09-24T20:17:00.000-05:00

I have a book I keep in my bathroom, and I read it when I am in there for a considerable amount of time. It is Sun Tzu's The Art of War (with commentaries) published by Barnes & Noble. Every time I read it, I seem to come across some principle that we do not seem to follow, or overlook in the prosecution of the current war, based on what media reports and press briefings tell us. I will try to record these on the blog, just so I have someplace to put them.

I read one quote in the commentary part by Thomas Paine that got me thinking.

Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defense. And history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the non-age of a nation.... The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.

Most people that volunteer for military service are not drawn out of patriotism, but out of a desire to climb out of poverty or other bad situations. These are the people of our society that have the least to lose, and they are losing their lives to protect the ones that have the most. I don't think it's a coincidence that Republicans are quite wealthy.

Since the beginning of the Cold war, we have been steadily moving towards a more consumerist society, where we are becoming more and more materialistic. To be absolutly free means to be entirely self sufficient and devoid of material attachments, much like Emerson tried to be. How does this jibe with Ben Franklin's oft quoted phrase "Those that would trade liberty for security deserve neither." Is Franklin's position too absolute? Will the US succumb to the same excesses that led to the fall of Rome , a sort of cultural malaise or ambivalence toward the well being of the state. Will this erosion of our libery in the name of security make our currently spaniel-like populace stop taking things for granted?

vista

2006-09-24T20:01:00.000-05:00

vista
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

I found out while reading slashdotthat Microsoft was opening up their latest build of Vista, a post RC1 called 5728. I installed it on an unused partition to try it out, and while there is some nice Eye candy, it is a little buggy, and very bothersome with all the security prompts. It would ask me if I meant to run every single program I clicked on. It would not permit me to drag a file from my file server into my C drive, instead telling me to put it in my documents folder, then copy it once it's local. Just after playing with it for an hour, and not getting to in depth with it, I can say this. If XGL starts working better on Ubuntu, and Cedega becomes free, then I'd have no reason to upgrade to vista, except for perhaps to play Crysis.

A hyperlinks route from a casual surf at work, or how the sun has set on the British empire.

2006-09-13T20:48:00.000-05:00

A while back, while reading boingboing I read about edit wars that go on in Wikipedia over the smallest of things, like the spelling of Aluminum/Aluminium. This reminded me of an edit war my friend Gabe tried to provoke about Corn because some Wikipedians seem to think that the British term, Maize is more authoritative on a staple that is native to the Americas. So after reading interesting topics on the wikipedia/paedia homepage, I read about the Goiânia accident where a radioactive "Caesium salt" was scavenged from an abandoned hospital. The only thing that threw me off about the article was that it was about something called caesium, which I mentally pronounce as caseium, I guess subconsciously like how I know the German Kaiser is a derivative of the Roman Caesar. Come to find out, that's how the British spell Cesium, even though googlestats prove that it is the more commonly used spelling.

Here is a funny cartoon from one of the sites I check every morning before I leave for work.

toothpastefordinner.com

A bad day for riding.

2006-09-12T19:48:00.001-05:00

I rode home today from work, as I have been doing for the last several weeks, but with a drenching rainstorm. I thought ahead, and brought my Gore-Tex jacket with me, but without the matching pants, It just channeled the rain onto and between my legs. I also discovered how much I don't like to ride the bike through puddles. All the water that gets splashed up goes onto you shoes and legs. I had ridden in drizzles, but that all evaporated in the wind. I want to get some rain gear, or just some BDU Gore-Tex pants, but I don't have any luggage to put it in.

Photo set from the wreck

2006-08-22T20:39:00.000-05:00

Brandi's bruised but OK.

2006-08-21T10:03:00.000-05:00

08-20-06_1706
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Crash on Hwy 80 in Montgomery. Brandi has spent over 5 years dodging the poorly trained natives, only to be taken down by a South Korean driver.

Traveling for work. Location: Roswell, GA

2006-08-18T18:03:00.000-05:00

So this 19 y.o. kid and his 18 y.o. wife are on their way down to Gunter for their first assignment, when they get rear-ended by some lady in Dalton, Georgia. Their car is totaled, and they have some back & neck pain, so we have to go pick them up. Not to get started on a completely unrelated rant on how stupid military contracting is, but our Government vehicles are Leased. There is a policy restricting them to a 75 mile radius around base, because otherwise the base would be competing with local businesses. EXCEPT they are LEASED, we are already renting them from a local dealership!!!! We had to provide justification to get a waiver so that we could take a van down to get them and their belongings, and by 3pm, we still hadn't gotten it. We just told the kid to get a hotel room, and we'll pick them up on Saturday. So, I'll probably be leaving with one of my co-workers around 830-900 tomorrow morning to go to Roswell or thereabouts to gather up our wayward chicks. I'm making sure to stop by Pappasito's for lunch, unfortunately, without margaritas or cervezas.

Red Light Runner

2006-08-17T21:19:00.000-05:00

One thing that most people take for granted is that sensor based traffic lights will turn green for you when it realizes that you are waiting. These sensors are based on induction fields that detect disruptions whenever a big piece of iron stops over it. Motorcycles are not flat enough pieces of iron to satisfy light sensors, frequently causing riders to run red lights or sit at an intersection forever until a car pulls up behind them. Here are a couple of tips on how to fix this.
1. Lower the kickstand.
2. Restart the engine.
3. Glue a magnet to you boots or underside of your bike.
4. Park and run the to pedestrian button and back.
5. Walk the bike back and forth over the sensor lines in the pavement.

I've found a couple of sites that sell the magnets mentioned in step 3, and went to my favorite amateur mad scientist supply house for a big list of N40 neodymium magnets.
http://www.unitednuclear.com/magnets.htm
Now I've just got to figure out where to put them without it interfering with the bikes electrical system, or erasing everything in my wallet.

Motorcycle follies

2006-08-16T19:35:00.000-05:00

I took the bike out Monday night when we got back in from Houston, so that I could pick up a few things I needed for the next day. On the way back, the motorcycle just stopped running, like it had run out of fuel. That wasn't really possible since I had only put 140 miles on the tank. I had to wait until 1145 before the flat bed wrecker could come by and tow me home. I finally got it back up and running (I think it was bad fuel), and took it out today to work. At about a quarter till 4, I heard thunder, and decided to leave a little early. I had just gotten the bike warmed up and underway when it started sprinkling, and by the time I left base, it had starting pouring down. I was a little wet when I got home, but otherwise ok with my first wet driving experience.

High School reunion

2006-08-16T19:31:00.000-05:00

I just got back from my 10 year high school reunion. I met up with a few of my friends that I hadn't seen or heard from in as long. Only about a quarter of the graduating class showed up, and it was mainly the popular and smart kids. Most people hadn't changed much at all, to my dismay ;). I was hoping I was the only one who lost weight and looked better. I will be posting my Prom video later on, once I recode it.

My kingdom for a 1HX-14565-00-00

2006-08-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

IMG_1362
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

I got the overpriced carb o-rings and other parts in, and had everything reassembled, until I got to the last carb. While tightening the last internal screw, I twisted the head off. This was a special screw that was hollow, and can only be purchased from a Yamaha dealer. I think it might cost around 6-8 bucks to replace, but it's the having to wait that really aggravates me. I've posted about 7 other photos of my bike in various states of dis-repair, check them out.

Swedish Chef a la Robot Chicken

2006-07-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

Swedish Chef - Hot Dogs

2006-07-29T22:26:00.000-05:00


The Swedish Chef cooks some hot-a doogies! Bork bork bork!

Swedish Chef-Coconut

2006-07-29T22:24:00.000-05:00


I've been looking through Google Video, because I've recently become addicted to Web Video. It all started with short stuff on youtube, like mentos & diet coke vids. I found a funny show called Hope Is Emo, produced by the same guys as Ask A Ninja. Now I just troll through the "mover & shakers" and top rated hoping for something besides meta-tag spam and clips from soccer games

Swedish Chef - Chicken in a Basket

2006-07-29T22:20:00.001-05:00


The Swedish Chef makes a Chiky in der Basky! Bork bork bork!

Swedish Chef - Hot Spicy Pepper Sauce

2006-07-29T22:20:00.000-05:00


Speecy Spicy Chilli Juice-a! Bork Bork Bork!

What I think of the Mac Ads

2006-07-25T19:25:00.000-05:00

A Series of Tubes

2006-07-23T20:49:00.000-05:00

I don't understand why they put politicians in charge of high tech things, when they don't even understand the basic fundamentals. Just like when you see quotes from law-makers about violent video games, they always just seem to call them videos. I'm not sure why.

BTW, if they guy looks familiar, it's because he is portrays a Windows Pc in those snarky Mac commercials. Funny how the scruffy Mac guy never mentions that all the cool games are released for PC.

The Widowmaker

2006-07-23T16:58:00.000-05:00

IMG_1353
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

New bike in, and now it's all shiny.

It has some problems that I need to get looked at when I get back. It seems to bog down, especially when it's cold, with just a little throttle. I have to run it with the choke wide open for a good 15-20 minutes before I can close it without the bike dieing in low gears.

Once it did warm up, I took it up some county road for about 7 miles, getting up to around 70mph. It was a thrill, and I can't wait until I get all the paperwork taken care of, so I can take it to work.

Ready to ride

2006-07-20T22:24:00.000-05:00

Ready to ride
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

All my safety gear came in. Now I just need Texas to send me my endorsement, and me to get some gloves, insurance, and motorcycle.

On the road again...

2006-07-13T17:02:00.000-05:00

I found out this morning that I'll be traveling to New Jersey in two weeks on a business trip. One of the things our new boss is particular about is saving money on travel... so much so that I have to depart from Atlanta instead of Montgomery. The good thing is that for $120 round trip, I can take a shuttle from my house to the airport. I also found $100 one way tickets on "not Delta grumble no skymiles" to Newark and back, so instead of $600 round trip tickets on Delta from Montgomery and $200 in mileage reimbursement and parking fees, I spend $320 tax dollars on "not Delta" tickets and a shuttle, but no skymiles. The sacrifices I make for my country. Now if only 100 million more government employees did the same thing, it might just make up for all the money lost to war profiteering done by Bectel and their no-bid Iraq contracts.

I also ordered the Helmet and Jacket online, saving over $70. The bike might be coming down next weekend.

This is a Motorcycle

2006-07-09T22:19:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting much. I don't know why, but I'm just not feeling it. A quick recap. I got back from 2 weeks at Biloxi MS, which was still pretty messed up from Katrina. I got back from a 4th of July 4 day weekend at the in-laws where we celebrated Brandi's paternal grandparent's 50th Anniversary. I also found out that my father-in-law wants to sell his '96 Yamaha XJ600S SECA II sportbike. It only has 3000 miles, and is in good condition with the optional lower fairing, and all the fruity decals removed. He's offered me a good deal on it, low enough to pay cash for it, and still pay off Brandi's car with money from my re-enlistment bonus. I just have to figure out how to get it down here, and what safety gear to get. Safe and Inexpensive are the most important factors.

I tried on gear at the local Honda dealership, and found a reasonably priced armored mesh jacket, and a flip face helmet. I found some gloves that I like, but after reading a recommendation about gel, had to pass on them. I also took my cousin's fiancé (interesting fact, fiancée is feminine) advice and tried Sentry insurance. I was quoted almost half of what GEICO or Progressive wanted.

2nd day of Basic Riders Course

2006-05-31T18:47:00.000-05:00

We started out early, and we had finished our range evals by 1230. I aced the 20ft u-turn box, and only lost 5 total points because I stopped in 16 ft on the fast stop. I also missed 1 question on the exam for a 98. I think that the biggest contributor to my success on the range was the Dual purpose KLX-250 . It sat really high, infact, even standing over the bike, I was in complete contact with the seat. The instructors recommended that because of my size, I should be able to easily handle a 400-650cc bike. Now if I can just make myself wait until I can afford one.

I've also found that TX DMV accepts the MSF BRC as a motorcycle course, and I should be able to get a Motorcycle endorsement.

1st day of Motorcycle class

2006-05-30T18:11:00.000-05:00

I attended the first day of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic Riders Course. After lunch we went out on the "Range" which was an area of old runway with lines painted on it. I had a Kawasaki enduro bike, which was the tallest one there. We ended up getting comfortable enough to take it up to third gear when we drove them back to the shed. It was damn hot out there, but it didn't feel so bad after getting used to the heat.

Emerging Meme - Banana, the Athiests nightmare.

2006-05-29T11:02:00.000-05:00

Thank god we have Kirk Cameron to add some credibility.

Circular reasoning anyone? If anything, taking this clown seriously, you could argue that since apes like Chimpanzees like banana's so much, we must share a common ancestor. Lets not even talk about the fact that the Cavendish banana is a result of hybridization (all are clones) that has rendered it so vulnerable to disease that it is on its way to extintion. And only humans open bananas by the stem, an easier way is by pinching the end, which is how primates eat them. Taking his logic in another equally absurd tangent, you could argue that the banana being the perfect fruit designed by God, represents the phallus so much, that god wanted all of us to be fellatious.

Clearly this guy must have scored high marks in the Presidents faith based science classes.

Chris' Wedding

2006-05-27T19:30:00.000-05:00

I've uploaded some Wedding pictures. Check them out on my Flickr photoset.

NAS Build progress

2006-05-27T18:54:00.001-05:00

IMG_1265
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

IMG_1262
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

I've found a solution to my space crunch, and it involves standing 5 drives up in a improvised IDE cage, similar to this. I used the metal blanks from unused 5.25 bays. Three would have been better, but I only had two. After running them for a while, I noticed that they got pretty hot. I ordered a 119cfm 92mm fan and some 36" rounded IDE cables to reach the top of the tower. I setup a 5 drive array through Windows 2003, but aborted the format after 3 hours, getting up to 27%. Perhaps the fan and new cables will help.

Building a NAS

2006-05-26T13:24:00.000-05:00

Last week, I purchased 6 refurb 250GB hdd's from Woot.com for $50 each. They only have 2MB cache, so they aren't that fast for main drives, but raided together, they should do the job for Network Attached Storage. For anyone that doesn't know, A NAS is just a fancy way of saying File Server. Anyhow, in addition to the 2 other 250gb drives I have, I will be able to build a 1.5TB RAID 5 array and still have a drive left over to upgrade my ReplayTV PVR to 250 hours of storage.

The cheapest way to implement a NAS is to use an existing older computer, and network it. I have a full tower chieftec style case with 6x3.5 bays and 4x5.25 bays. What I would like to do is set up 2 120GB drives as a Raid1 System Drive, and put the 7 250's as the Raid5 drive. This only leaves room for one extra device, A floppy, or the DVD-burner. The only reason I would need the floppy is for Firmware updates and OS installation. The HP DVD burner has a wonderfull 'feature' that prevents it from working in an external USB enclosure.

Besides how I'm going to fit all the drives and find enough power connections for 10 drives (I have a quality 450w PSU), I have to shuffle data around my existing hard drives across two machines, without much room to spare.

What seems like a simple install has consumed two days so far, and probably will take up the rest of the weekend. Hopefully, everything will workout, and I will have plenty of storage to last for the next 3-5 years.

Things and stuff

2006-05-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

I've just gotten back from Illinois. I'm finished with classes, so I've got more time to spend at work and at home. I've been really busy at work lately, having to standup an exchange 2003 site capable of handing x509 Fortezza encryption. All of this done from dense 10point font tech manuals written by an Aerospace company that gets paid by the page. Its really fun. At least I've been rocking out to all of Jack Johnson's albums while waiting around for the servers to reboot. I'm in a big hurry to get it operational so that I can play around with virtualizing it all onto one or two servers, instead of the four it currently runs. We have power constraints due to the glacially slow pace of the government procurement of a new Power Distribution box.

Super Sport

2006-04-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

Friday was our unit's Pre-Deployment BBQ and Family day. While not as many people turned out as they should have, it was still a good showing. We were able to muster up a good game of Ultimate, with a pretty balanced team of experienced players and newbies. The game lasted for an hour, during which we did pretty well. After that game, I joined a pickup Softball game that ended up lasting until around 3:30. I batted 5 times, reaching a plate all times, but got home only three. I also caught a great outfield pop that went out toward centerfield. I was so surprised that I caught it, I just stood there looking at the ball, forgetting to throw it back in time to catch a runner on his way home. Its been a long time since I had fun playing base/soft ball.

Coke Blak

2006-04-15T12:56:00.000-05:00

IMG_0999
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Walking through Target last night, I set my gaze upon this 4 pack of Coca-Cola Blak. I read about it last year as being test marketed in Europe or somewhere, and I couldn't wait to try it out. I can say that it incorporates C2's lower carb formulation with both HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), Equal (aspartame), and Sweet One(Acesulfame Potassium). Giving only 45 calories to the 8 oz bottle. The initial smell is like coke, but with a chocolaty smell. It tastes like coke, but then fades away to a sweet coffee flavor, kind of like a bottled or canned coffee drink. I think its pretty good. However, at 1.50 per 8oz. I don't think I'll be buying cases of it.

Igarts Flars!

2006-04-13T20:32:00.000-05:00

IMG_0969
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Finally got around to taking pictures of my flowers. I ended up taking more shots of the damn bees that fly around my mailbox, but I did get the blooms. I'll take some of the Azealeas later.
Speaking of flowers, I was remembering a Reading Rainbow episode where they read a book about the Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Here is a link.

IMG_0983
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

because I don't like talking on the phone

2006-04-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

I've been really busy with schoolin, with just one month left before I graduate. I'm having to really do a lot of reading to catch up on my Learning contract course. It's just two tests, like an extra long CLEP I guess. I've also been able to find something at work that makes me want to actually go there, and do actual work, instead of just hitting refresh on the 4 or so blogs I read every time I'm done reading the updates.

In case anyone is wondering, that is http://www.boingboing.net http://www.makezine.com/blog http://www.slashdot.org and http://www.digg.com

I'm also reading all the old comics from Dinette Set on the Houston Chronicles website. Something about making fun of ourselves.

Anyway, it's time for bed, I have to be at work by 7:30, probably work through lunch, and then go to the gym at 3:00. Go home, shower, and then go downtown for Differential Equations & International Marketing (really really boring BTW) from 6:30 until about 9:45. Sometimes, when Brandi and I are arguing, I joke and say that nightschool is the glue that holds our marriage together. I still haven't gotten a laugh out of her on that one.

Funny commentary

2006-03-29T17:18:00.000-06:00

I was sitting in my driveway, about to get out when I heard this hilarious commentary by Lori Gottlieb called NPR : Think Partnered Parenting Is Hard? Try Going Solo I think I am about half of the husbands described, yet Brandi still finds thing about me to gripe about. She just doesn't know how lucky she has it.

Neat DIY camera projects to try

2006-03-28T19:30:00.000-06:00

I've been wanting to get into Macro photography, and now that I have a tripod, all I need is a macro lens and a light source, like a ring flash. Through the magic of MAKE, i've found DIY guides for building an extension tube, and a LED ring light. One of the old school tricks to macro photography is to just reverse the lens, allowing for high magnification, depending on length from the sensor. The problem with such a long lens barrel is that your flash will be obscured, leaving all or most of the subject matter in a shadow.

LED ring light
Extension/Reversing tube

Put the Audi up for sale

2006-03-23T22:18:00.000-06:00

Listed the Audi. Also created a little home for the ad on blogger.
http://buymyaudi.blogspot.com

Another nifty project

2006-03-18T15:41:00.000-06:00

digg turned me on using my miniDV camcorder & ieee1394 connection to perform backups onto miniDV. According to the article 60min miniDV's can hold up 18GB compressed in LP mode, and take an hour or so to backup. I'm currently searching around for a cheap possibly broken miniDV camcorder on ebay. I looked around for a miniDV deck, but they are professional grade, and cost thousands. An old sony dcr-trv8 would do the same thing. With some tinkering, I could also utilize the LCD attached.

Working on a new diversion

2006-03-18T15:35:00.000-06:00

I'm currently working on a new project, part diversion, part yak-shaving. All the cool kids are doing it, so I thought I'd give it a try. While everyone is waiting, here is a cool program to check out. http://www.songbirdnest.com

Funny comics

2006-03-15T22:48:00.000-06:00

A site that I've been watching for awhile has some really funny comics, drawn one per day. I found the site from BoingBoing.
The artist's wife also does a comic, and together they have started a joint comic.

* of a Salesman

2006-03-14T19:50:00.000-06:00

Summary:
Willy Lowman goes to his boss to ask for a better job.
Boss turns him down.
All the hopes and dreams (or perhaps delusions) that Willy had of providing for his family are irrevocably lost.

The Mission

2006-03-10T19:37:00.000-06:00

The Mission
Originally uploaded by PGraphx.

Looks familiar

Chase & Dallas 4 yrs

2006-03-07T19:07:00.000-06:00

Chase & Dallas 4 yrs
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Found this pic while uploading stuff to my flickr.

New Old Baby pics

2006-03-02T21:34:00.000-06:00

Chase-Birth-15
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

My cousin Dane has been scanning photos at my grandmother's house, and he emailed me some of my baby pics. Click on the post title to see the photoset.

Announcing William Travis (Buzz) Presley

2006-02-28T12:43:00.000-06:00

IMG_0719
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

William was born on 27 Feb 2006 at 1641 by C-Section. He weighed 9lbs. 5ozs. and measured 20 inches long. He is currently doing well. In fact, he could probably leave the hospital today, ahead of Brandi, who is still recouperating. We will be in Baptist East Hospital room 210 until Thursday.
Click the title to go to the Photoset.

Status update

2006-02-26T15:22:00.000-06:00

IMG_0310
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Brandi still hasn't gone into labor, even though she is having contractions. On the 23rd, we ran to the Hospital because she had thought the water broke, but actually had just wet herself. Unless her water breaks tonight, we will be going to the hospital Monday morning to be induced. The doc is a little concerned about Buzz's size; the ultrasound measured him at 8 lbs 7 onces. Looks like this will be a February baby.

New show to watch

2006-01-30T00:35:00.000-06:00

I've been watching "Tribal Life" on the travel channel. It is about the Bunlap tribe on Pentecost island of the Vanuatu Islands. It is different than National Geographic shows that take an anthopomorphological view of indigenous peoples. This is more like a "The Real World" style documentary, but with out the phoniness of The Real World. The show demonstrates how so called natives can coexist with modern life, and retain old customs. I was surprised at how intelligent the tribesmen are. It is another reminder that people are really not all that different from one another, even our predecessors.

Definitely a show to TIVO

Babies and boxes

2006-01-30T00:33:00.000-06:00

Babies and boxes
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Dessert time

2006-01-30T00:24:00.000-06:00

Dessert time
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

New Pics

Needs Attention

2006-01-30T00:23:00.000-06:00

Needs Attention
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Stupid daffodils think it's spring

2006-01-26T18:27:00.000-06:00

Stupid daffodils think it's spring
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

New pic added. Taken with my EOS, and a combined +1 +2 & +4 set of magnifying filters. A lot of them are blooming right now. There has been some warm weeks here in Alabama, followed by really frigid ones.

Happy anniversary

2006-01-21T20:43:00.000-06:00

Seven years ago yesterday, I was on a bus shipping out to San Antonio Texas and Lackland Air Force base to begin what I thought would be 4 years of building up my resume, finding a sense of purpose, and getting my education. Now, seven years later, I've almost finished my degree and found a purpose. If things turn out the way I'd like them too, I could spend the rest of my working life with the Air Force.

We'll see.

New object of lust

2006-01-21T20:14:00.000-06:00

Shun + Alton Brown knife set. It is created in a similar process to Damascene & Samurai blades, sandwiching layers of Cro-Moly-Vanadium steel and high carbon steel to create both a strong and flexible blade that keeps a very sharp edge.

Instead of buying the set, I'd probably just start with one, and add on later. The coolest looking one, and probably the most useful would be the Ken Onion Chef's Knife.

PJ Robot and Material Girl

2006-01-16T22:44:00.000-06:00

PJ Robot and Material Girl
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

Sophie is rocking out to a podcast we were listening to called Zoe's radio. She is wearing her flower girl dress from her Aunt Brooke's wedding, that she accessorized with a hot pink boa. Jack Black is seen doing the robot, along with half of his little brother Max, in the background devouring his second candy cane.

You might also notice a different format to my picture posts. I forced myself to create a yahoo! account so that I could give flickr a try.

Self portrait

2006-01-16T22:42:00.000-06:00

Self portrait
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

This is from last night when we had the Blacks over for dinner. Bridget and her friend Kara also stopped by on their way back to Illinoise

Glam shots - is it the new camera or the subjects?

2006-01-15T15:37:00.000-06:00

The new camera is in! I ended up getting the EOS 350D aka Digital Rebel XT with the included 18-55mm EF-S kit lens. I also have my 35-80mm EF lens from my old 35mm EOS 620. All I need now is a Speedlite Flash, a tripod, and larger CF card. I'd also like to get the batterypack / vertical grip. It makes the camera look more like a professional Canon. And even more out there would be a nice macro lens with macro ring flash.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

2006-01-12T14:59:00.000-06:00

I've transcoded the 4d ultrasound and uploaded it to google video. I thought 4d was a little stupid, the extra d is for time. I guess technically, the plain old ultrasounds were already 3d then, because they were in realtime too. Anyways, movie below.

Cool things

2006-01-12T13:23:00.000-06:00

I've been surfing all day while i've been transitioning from swing to mid shifts as a Security Forces Augmentee. I've come across some cool things on the intarwebs that anyone reading this might like.

BoingBoing> I ran across this cool podcast called Zoe's Radio Show. It has a lot of cool non-mainstream music that is somewhat along the same taste in music I have. For those not hip enough to know what a podcast is, think of it as a radio program, but on the internet... THE INTERNET.... what will these crazy kids think up next?

Double Viking> I rediscovered a site I had visited a long time back called beautiful agony. It's mostly artistic, showing nothing but pictures of people's faces while having an orgasm. You can really begin to understand why the French call it "the little death" when you see the expressions on their faces.

Pulled the trigger

2006-01-11T21:37:00.000-06:00

I finally bought the new camera, a Canon Digital Rebel XT. I got it for 750 after rebate, from BeachCamera.com. I was initially going to initially buy it from Abes of Maine, but after reading about them at bizrate.com, and their bait and switch tactics with the call back upsale scam, I decided to spend a few bucks more and go with the better rated retailer. Beach camera has already shipped the camera, the same day I ordered it. Now I just need a tripod and a strobe with an AF illuminator.

Ungrateful Giftee & other things I did yesterday

2005-12-17T13:34:00.001-06:00

In order to appease my lovely wife and child, we opened one present each of the ones mailed in from my parents. I didn't really want to, but since we were going to be out of town during XMas, and I was facing a revolt, I decided to let them win. I opened Chris' present, and with much glee, discovered that he(or my parents) had included a gift reciept for the book from Barnes and Noble. I wasn't that interested in the cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, so I exchanged it for The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, and Ringworld by Larry Niven. Hopefully I can get around to reading them.

I also stopped by Circuit Shitty, since it was next door to check out digital camera's. They had the Canon Rebel XT that I've been lusting after, but they felt that a customer doesn't really need to see how the hands on demo actually worked, so they left the battery out, and didn't have it plugged in. This was also the same for the Panasonic Lumix FZ5 that they had on display.

I did manage to find a lithium battery for my old Canon EOS 620, which I haven't used for probably around 10 years. I'm particularly interested in what is on the half used roll that is inside.

Digital Camera safari pt 3

2005-12-15T23:02:00.000-06:00

Canon Rebel XT @ 1600 ISO
2.5 stdev at 400
4.5 stdev at 1600

Panasonic FZ30 @ 400 ISO
no StDev given

C-8080 at unknown ISO
4.3 StDev at 400

Above are some examples of photos taken at the maximum ISO’s of each respective cams. The noise present in the Canon is at 4 times the ISO of the Panasonic.

The Panasonic has a fixed 12x lens, and built in Image Stabilization.

The Canon uses the standard EF & EF-S mount for all kinds of lenses.

Finding the right Digital

2005-12-14T19:25:00.000-06:00

I've been looking around, and I thought I found the camera that I was really looking for, however, the Olympus C-7070 Wide Zoom is currently unattainable at reasonable prices.

I've done some research into some other makes, and I've found several other candidates.

$584
Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ30 8mpx with a Leica 35x420mm Image Stabilization lens & manual focus ring.

$579-799
Cannon EOS 300D Rebel 6mpx (EF mount) CMOS for upto 3200 ISO

$683-904
Cannon EOS 350D Rebel XT 8mpx (standard EF lens mount) CMOS 1600 ISO

unavail.
Olympus C-7070 Wide Zoom 7mpx

A Side by Side comparison.

I'm really getting tired of trying to find the best camera. I don't want the noise associated with inadequately sized sensors. Megapix now really just determines the detail, Noise is the real thing that I'm interested in, but I can't find a site that sorts camera's by a noise rating, unless you just go by sensor size. I'm thinking of just waiting until after the Holidays to buy.

Scary Pumpkin

2005-11-01T21:58:00.000-06:00

We spent Halloween at our friend Gabes house, and I brough over an extra pumpkin and carved a really scary face into it. Pics of Sophie to come

Thinking of a new digital camera

2005-10-25T22:34:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about getting a more hobbyist level digital camera (as opposed to the tourist level point and shoot). After finding a good Digital Camera website, dpreview.com from Dallas' blog, I did some looking for a sub $400 camera that had the best ratings and good macro capability. I found the Olympus C-7070, and has a really good price for the features. Around 340 shipped.

Music tools etc.

2005-10-24T19:32:00.000-05:00

I've been reorganizing and renaming all my music (almost 20 GB), and I'm having trouble finding a program that will organize them into folders based on Genre\Artist\Album. I had a program a long time ago that did this, but I don't remember the name. I've been using Music Match Jukebox to fix all the tagging, and add album art, but it just organizes playlists. I have Moodlogic, but it's organizing is limited to creating folders for artist name only.

In other news, I've bought 400lbs of topsoil for $12, 1lb of Winterizer for $13, 1lb of insecticide for $10, and 1lb of pre-emergent crabgrass killer for $13. I'm also waiting on packets of Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrushes, and Indian blankets to plant in the mailbox area. I've also finally found and planted 2 Natchez Crape Myrtles. They have a larger yellow leaf and white blossoms.

Status update for 16 October

2005-10-16T20:38:00.000-05:00

There are no pictures yet, I actually worked from about 11 to sunset today, getting all the plants in the ground. I spent about an hour digging up a big bunch of day lillys, and some other flower that's rhizome looks like ginger, and has a fan shaped cluster of bluish green grass blades. While doing that, a hawk landed on the ground about 20 feet from me, with a bird in its claws. It stayed there for awhile, I guess waiting for its lunch to stop flopping around. When it flew off with its meal, it left a big circle of downy feathers on the ground.

The weather was really nice today, and I got quite a bit accomplished, without much sweating. Now, all that is needed is pinestraw, a couple of white crape myrtles, and I'm also thinking about adding a Yoshino Cherry (pictured below) next to the tilting dogwood.

final Landscaping progress for 15 October

2005-10-15T18:41:00.000-05:00

I've gotten all the weed control fabric laid wherever there was bare soil. Tomorrow, I plant!!!

Pictures from the yard

2005-10-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

Azeleas, they are actually more red than this.

Azeleas in the ground

bed cleared and covered

Indian Hawthorn in the ground.

Bed covered with newpaper and dirt

Camoflaging the ugly utility box.

Yard work again.

2005-10-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

I rented a Sod Cutter, and have almost completely obliviated the turf that was growing in the designated flowerbed zone, henceforth to be referred to as the green zone. The green zone is not green, but brown. It will eventually be red from pinestraw, but this should not be confused with the red zone, which is were the grass is. Its all quite complicated, but try to keep up.

Pics will be posted tomorrow.

News Alert -- Brandi and Charles announce joint venture project, code-named Buzz, and sets tenative RTM date.

2005-10-11T22:10:00.000-05:00

Montgomery, Al., October 11 2005 -- Today Charles and Brandi announce a new joint venture, code-named Buzz.

Buzz beta
Buzz, short for Busby, is targeted as a companion product for the already successfull Sophie, formerly code-named Texanna. It's features and capabilities will be similar, but slightly different than Sophie. Expected release to market date for the yet-to-be-named project Buzz will be around March 3, 2006.

Action shots from Buzz's most recent build.

Click for high-res version link 1. (36 MB)
Click for high-res version link 2.
You might need DIVX to view this video.

About Presley Joint Venture
Buzz is the latest in a series of successful collaborations between Charles and Brandi. Charles provides the seed capital, and management, while Brandi provides the manufacturing and operations aspects.

For more information:
Charles Presley charles.presley ( at ) gmail com

internets radio love

2005-10-09T16:39:00.000-05:00

Following a suggestion from Thomas I thought I'd check out last.fm. I got turned on to a swedish group called Koop and their kind of retro jazz-electronica, and in searching for them, found a result on last.fm, with a good rating from the out-foxed plug-in, which I've written about previously. I've previously used netstreams from Heavy.com and LiquidGeneration.com for cool music, and I've tried to use Moodlogic to organize and recommend playlists from my local collection, but I'm really enamored with Last.fm's setup. If I just lived in a world where I had free and unrestricted access to their music, like my own MP3's, then there would be a true killer app.

DRM is a way to keep the old, analog ways of the world around, even in the face of the new digital paradigm of unlimitled flawless reproduction that can satisfy the economic problem of unlimited wants vs. limited resources. This all is propogated by the greed of a cartel of suits that are only interested in continued uninterupted funding of their lavish LA lifestyles.

Neat new program

2005-10-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

In my searchings for a Landscape CAD program, I ran across several lame ones, and another, that is more of a 3d Sketching software that is capable of producing Cell shaded renderings. I'm currently learning it to create a 3d version of the new landscaping. Its called SketchUp, and it ~~is written in Ruby~~ uses Ruby scripting for animations. I only mention that because my cousin's boyfriend Thomas has talked about an interest in Ruby on Rails. I think just the name sounds cool as hell, like some kind of Bose - Einstein condensate laser cooled mag-lev or something, but what do I know.

2005-10-05T11:44:00.000-05:00

Landscape Schematic with Electricity marked in Red, and Gas in Yellow. After trying several different freeware/shareware Landscape CAD programs, I finally settled for my old Standby, Microsoft Excel. By setting the Column and Row widths x heights to small squares, and mentally assigning them a scale of 1'^2, I was able to use the drawing tools and cell borders to do a rather good job, with no learning curve.

2005-09-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

The Euonymous (yellow and green shrub) are gone, donated to a neighbor. I've gotten the stump and most of the large roots from the dogwood that Ivan blew over. I've also taken down the Bartlett Pear that was growing beside the dogwood in the rear. The white lines are from the Landscape Designer, she recommended plants and a bed design to maximize curb appeal. The circles will be hawthorns, the crossed lines will be a grass, probably Pampas. The window boxes are just sitting there to get out of the way, they have 6 Dandelions each, and some other bulbs that I salvaged from the stump area.

2005-09-28T18:59:00.000-05:00

Today's work. It doesn't seem like much just looking at it, but moving those boxwoods and the Azelea was tough, it was surprising how heavy they were.

2005-09-28T18:56:00.000-05:00

More pre landscaping

2005-09-28T18:55:00.000-05:00

Pre-Landscaping, notice the area's under the windows, and the side of the house