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Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 10:44 PM
On April 29th, 2008 BMW announced a new concept model, the M1 Homage, which is a tribute to the original BMW M1 super-sports car that began production 30 years ago and ended in 1981. Anybody who knows me, knows that I'm a big fan of BMW. I even drive a BMW 335i.
So this may come as a bit of a shock. Holy Crap, if this isn't a full size Hot Wheel car, I don't know what is. It's interesting, but I don't find it inspiring. This car looks like the engineering team was trying too hard. It doesn't seem to have the graceful elegance of some of their Italian brethren or the brute lines of an American muscle car. It's like the car isn't quite sure what it wants to be and ultimately fails at captivating the me.
Spring time rain is good for my lawn, flowers, and the trees in my yard. It makes everything lush and green (see photo above), and keeps me from running my sprinkler system. Normally I would welcome April showers because I wouldn't have to run my sprinkler system and add to the water bill. But, it has been raining consistently for almost a week and being cooped up in the house tends to get boring! To top it all off, yesterday we were fortunate enough to endure not only thunderstorms but tornadoes as well.
However, today was different. Sure it started out a little suspect, a few sprinkles and clouds. But this afternoon's weather was perfect, sixty-nine degrees, partly sunny, and (most importantly) dry! A perfect spring time afternoon? I think so. So with the rain, rain gone away, little Nevey went out and played. Even Nina got into the action.
My blog has seen some changes over this past weekend. It started with me moving all my videos to Viddyou, and ended with me uploading all my digital photos onto Flickr.
I wouldn't have moved my photos over to Flickr if I didn't find a way to integrate the Flickr Uploader with Picasa, my desktop photo management software. Having the ability to upload directly from Picasa to my Web Albums was why I initially decided to go Picasa Web Albums as my online photo hosting site.
So why move from Picasa Web Albums to Flickr? Simple. Picasa Web has far fewer features than Flickr. There are no groups, there's no sharing or discussion beyond photo commenting. Flickr's strength comes from its thriving Web 2.0 community and collaboration.
Well, I've started the process of moving my photos over to Flickr. So for the next couple of days (where have I heard that before?), I'll be uploading my photos to Flickr as well as updating any previous posts that reference my Picasa Web Albums.
I've finished moving all my videos from Vimeo to my new video hosting site Viddyou. All in all, the move went pretty smoothly and the updates to my previous posts and the site itself were fairly minor. Updating HTML is always minor. So, why did I move to Viddyou, a $35 per year service, after singing praises for Vimeo, a free service, in a previous post? Vimeo is a great service, no doubt there. But, I needed something which allowed unlimited uploads. Vimeo capped my uploads at 500 MB per week. Also, although Vimeo did support videos at 1280 x 720 (720p), videos do not run at 30 fps. So, with Vimeo I would have a great looking video, but playback would look a little choppy. Not the case with Viddyou. Viddyou supports videos at 720p running at 30 fps. This is definitely worth the $35 per year for my premium Viddyou account.
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 12:43 PM
Just to give an update, it's going to be a couple more days before I post anything meaningful. If you haven't noticed, I like to post video and slideshows of the Noodle, and truthfully, videos count for a good portion of the content you find on my blog. With that said, I have taken the time to clean up and re-encode some videos and move them from my current video hosting site Vimeo to Viddyou. As a consequence, I'll need to update all of my previous posts that references my Vimeo videos. This all screams GEEK!. But in the long run, it's worth the effort.
Does it really make sense to boycott the Beijing Olympic Games? Nowadays, politics and the Olympic Games go hand in hand. Is this truly how the Olympic Games should be used?
A couple of thousand of years ago, the Greeks used to call a truce whenever their athletes were competing in the ancient Olympic Games. This really demonstrated the "Olympic Spirit" ideal - fair play, competition, sportsmanship, and peace. Why can't the politicians of today, take their cue from the Olympic founders of the past?
A boycott now simply puts an incredibly unfair burden squarely onto the shoulders of athletes, their coaches and support organizations, and their families. Athletes are sportsmen, not politicians. They will be there for athletic competition and not for policy and decision-making. How easy it is for the rest of us to sacrifice the lifelong efforts and dreams of someone else to express our personal displeasure over some issue, no matter how important that issue.
Honestly, I think boycotts are a misguided use of the Olympic Games in order to exercise minimal political clout and they have no place in the context of athletic competition.
Showers and scattered thunderstorms. Chance of rain 100 percent. Is that any way to start a week? No one wants to start their Mondays on a dreary note. Rainy days are not my favorite unless I'm going to be staying inside and snuggle under a cozy blanket with a good book or some good cartoons and plenty of nap time. It would have been a good day to stay in bed and listen to the rain against the skylights! Wish I could have, but I slowly got out of bed and started my day. During the course of my morning ambling, it occurred to me that rainy weather is often associated with dark, cold, lonely times. I don't know about lonely times, but this morning wasn't dispelling the notion of dark and cold, especially when you're awake at 5:30 AM.
Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.
What do you do when the weather man calls for showers with isolated thunderstorms, highs in the upper 60s, southeast winds 10 to 15 mph, chance of rain near 100 percent? You hunker down inside and do your chores (clean house). It's definitely not the most glamorous way to spend a Sunday nor the most exciting topic to blog about, but hey, it's my life.
These are the moments Neve will remember for the rest of her life. Going to St. Stephen's Preschool has brought a lot of happiness and friends into the kiddo's life. And on this day, the Noodle was able to share in Abby's special day.
Neve is currently enrolled in a Music Together class. You're asking yourself, what is Music Together? Well, Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music program. The program is based on the premise that all children are inherently musical.
Basically, it's 45 minutes of fun, informal music-making and creating. Adults and children together sing and dance to songs, play instruments, make up silly rhymes for songs, sing tonal and rhythmic patterns, and experience a wide range of rhythmic and melodic musical variety. It's a pretty nice diversion for the Noodle.
The NFL season has only been over for two months and still has four more until meaningful games, but Patriots fans all over New England got a glimpse of the season to come as the NFL has released the schedule for the 2008 season. Here’s the Patriots schedule (Home Games in bold):
Week 1: Chiefs, 1pm, CBS Week 2: @Jets, 4:15pm, CBS Week 3: Dolphins, 1pm, CBS Week 4: BYE WEEK Week 5: @49ers, 4:15pm, CBS Week 6: @Chargers, 8:15pm, NBC Week 7: Broncos, 8:30pm, ESPN Week 8: Rams, 1pm, Fox Week 9: @Colts, 8:15pm, NBC Week 10: Bills, 1pm, CBS Week 11: Jets, 8:15pm, NFL Network Week 12: @Dolphins, 1pm, CBS Week 13: Steelers, 4:15pm, CBS Week 14: @Seahawks, 8:15pm, NBC Week 15: @Raiders, 4:15pm, CBS Week 16: Cardinals, 1pm, Fox Week 17: @Bills, 1pm, CBS
The Patriots have endured very tough schedules over the past few seasons, due in large part to their success and the NFL rules regarding the best teams playing the best opponents. This year it looks like the Pats have a pretty favorable schedule (statistically the easiest schedule in the NFL).
What's the deal with speed bumps? I understand they're supposed to slow you down while driving through shopping centers, office parks, schools, and quiet neighborhoods; but they only work if the person driving is paying attention.
If you're driving down a street and you don't see the speed bump but notice it as you thunk over it, it only slightly slows down the vehicle and it may cause the vehicle to go wild momentarily. That's not safe at all, and that's exactly what I saw today in a shopping mall parking lot.
If the vehicle is now suddenly flying out of control towards the sidewalk, it completely defeats the purpose of the speed bump to slow people down and make the streets safe for pedestrians. Wouldn't it be better to scatter some of those hockey puck little bumps so you don't actually lose control but you get an almost constant reminder if you're driving too fast?
Driving slowly over the little bumps doesn't feel much different from regular driving. That way you don't risk losing control of the vehicle but you accomplish your purpose of reminding people, along with well placed signs, that they need to slow down in this area because of "slow children playing" or whatever.
What is Google Earth? It is a virtual globe program. It maps the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery and aerial photography. To put it simply, Google Earth is a 3D globe that sits inside your PC. You can point, zoom, and glide over stitched together satellite photos to any place on the planet that you want to explore.
Google Earth opens with a view of the world from space. Clicking and dragging on the planet will gently spin the globe. The middle scroll wheel or right-click dragging will zoom in and out for close-up views. In some areas the close-ups are detailed enough to make out buildings, cars and even people.
Anyway, for those of you who have Google Earth installed, you can download my KML file
A guru? Hardly. Honestly, I've never used or have written any VBScript (a sorely outdated and lacking programming language) until three weeks ago. I figured I would post and brag about my technical prowess and how productive I was today at work. Hmph...if only that were true.
Anyway, the code itself is pretty well commented. So for those technically inclined, read away and marvel at the wonder that is VBScript. For those not so technically inclined, the code simply creates a cookie to test if the web browser accepts first party cookies.
Option Explicit
' We need buffering to be able to redirect.
Response.Buffer = True
' Retrieve our own script name for the cookie test.
Dim strThisScriptName
strThisScriptName = Request.ServerVariables("URL")
' Declare a variable to pass the referring page path
' from the set to the read and then to redirect to.
Dim strFrom
' Check if we've already set a cookie to check.
If Request.QueryString("action") <> "checkcookie" Then
' We haven't set the test cookie yet.
' Get the info from the sending script about
' where to send the user when we're done. If
' we don't find anything we try and get it
' ourselves or if that fails just send them to
' the root of the site so they end up somewhere.
strFrom = Request.QueryString("from")
If strFrom = "" Then
strFrom = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
End If
If strFrom = "" Then
strFrom = "/"
End If
' Set a test cookie with a value and an expiration date.
Response.Cookies("cookie_test") = "true"
Response.Cookies("cookie_test").Expires = Date + 1
' Send the browser to the read back phase of the test.
' Notice the action attribute we check for above.
' We also continue to pass the from attribute.
Response.Redirect strThisScriptName & "?from=" _
& Server.URLEncode(strFrom) & "&action=checkcookie"
Else
' Boolean indicating cookie enablement.
Dim bCookiesEnabled
' Read back our values during second request.
bCookiesEnabled = Request.Cookies("cookie_test")
bCookiesEnabled = (bCookiesEnabled = "true")
' Read in the referring script path.
strFrom = Request.QueryString("from")
' Append appropriate QS character
If InStr(1, strFrom, "?", 1) = 0 Then
strFrom = strFrom & "?"
Else
strFrom = strFrom & "&"
End If
' Send the browser back to the start with a QueryString
' variable named cookie set to either true of false.
Response.Redirect strFrom
& "cookies=" & bCookiesEnabled
End If
Yesterday, I was foolish enough to say this weekend "should make for a relaxing, catching up on some sleep weekend." Sure, Saturday turned out to be the carefree, nap when I want day I so badly needed, but Sunday...ARGH! My first mistake was waking up at 6:30 AM to go to Home Depot to grab some weed killer and two-cycle oil. Who wakes up so early on the weekend when they don't have kid duty?!?
My second mistake was mowing the lawn. You see, mowing the lawn on this beautiful Sunday, meant trimming the edges along the house, driveway, walkway, and street. It meant clearing the dead leaves around the house and blowing off the walkway and driveway. Last but not least, it meant weeding the mulch beds and the lawn itself. The picture shows the fruits of my labor.
My third mistake was heading to Wal-Mart to do my grocery shopping. Do you know how crowded Wal-Mart is on the weekend? It's jam packed! Not only did I have to buy a month's worth of groceries (which I had to put away when I got home, UGH!), I had to fight my way through crowds on almost every aisle in the store. The bright side, my wait in the checkout line was short.
I need a vacation from my vacation. Trekking twelve hours a day for five days through Walt Disney World (Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios) and then heading out to Busch Gardens when Neve and I got back has definitely taken its toll on my body, more specifically, "Oh, my aching back!" Gosh, I sound like an old man! Anyway, the house is reasonably clean, the dog is groomed and happy, and the kiddo is spending the weekend with her mother. This should make for a relaxing, catching up on some sleep weekend. Maybe I'll even be productive. Maybe I'll mow the lawn.
Walt Disney World is definitely the "Happiest Place on Earth." Where else would get the Noodle jumping up and down in excitement for Piglet's autograph? Where else could Neve giggle at Eeyore for continually dropping the autograph pen? No where but Disney World.
Words cannot describe how much Neve loves her Papa. I'm pretty sure it's mutual! The Noodle definitely has her Papa wrapped around her little finger. Maybe that is why Papa got into the pool in sub 80 degree temperature at 5:30 PM. Brrrr...
What can you say? The pictures of Neve at Walt Disney World says it better and more eloquently than anything I could ever write myself. Enjoy the slideshow and the Disney song A Whole New World.
Anyone who is anybody knows the Noodle is absolutely smitten with the Disney Princesses. So, what better place to go and meet Princess Aurora, Cinderella, and Belle than Walt Disney World? Did you notice who Neve wanted to be? Jasmine, of course.
Do you know what? I don't think the Noodle knows who Garby is. But, that didn't stop Neve from getting Garby's autograph though. The precious moment here is watching the Noodle dance with Tigger. Priceless.
By now everyone should know Neve loves playing in the water. Why would Walt Disney World be any different? By now everyone should know Neve loves being hyper. Why should Walt Disney World being different?
I think it's official. The world has gone mad. Some of you may have seen this on television or on the internet. A pregnant man! No, it's not an experiment like the movie Junior with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's more of a switch-a-roo. Do not be misled by news headlines and all the hype.
Thomas Beatie was born as a woman, but it's no secret or scam. He is very open about it and the media is all over it. For example, yesterday Oprah Winfrey had Thomas Beatie on her show to tell us the tale of his "miracle" pregnancy.
Miracle?!? Give me a break. This is NOT a miracle. Thomas Beatie was born a woman but opted to become a man yet keep the reproductive organs he/she was born with. So, it would seem that this is a rather nonsense story as Thomas is still very much a woman that lives as a man with female sex organs.
Oprah Winfrey said it's "a new definition of what diversity means for everybody." I don't know what that means. It's all really weird to me. The world has indeed gone mad.
Like all amusement parks, Walt Disney World has rides and attractions which have height requirements. I've also seen a couple Walt Disney World attractions that have an age requirement, three and up. So in anticipation of our impending trip to Disney (two more days, yay!), I've compiled a list of all the rides and attractions the Noodle will be able to do. To be honest, it is a lot more than I previously imagined.
Magic Kingdom - Splash Mountain - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - Goofy’s Barnstormer - Stitch "the Escape" - Pirates of the Caribbean - Haunted Mansion - Mad Tea Party
Animal Kingdom - Dinosaur - It's Tough to be a Bug - Kilimanjaro Safaris - Kali River Rapids - Triceratop Spin
Epcot - Body Wars - Test Track - Soarin' - Spaceship Earth - Honey I Shrunk the Audience
Hollywood Studios - The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - Star Tours - The Great Movie Ride
I've purposely left out Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach because, as water parks, most of the attractions at those two places only require adult supervision.
If you haven't already heard, Neve and I will be going to Walt Disney World from April 5th to April 9th. Needless to say, the Noodle is so excited about the park, rides, food, etc, but you hear it in her voice...the kiddo is not looking forward to the plane ride. So, what is a parent to do? Well, I've come up with a few things I think can help me make this plane ride as smooth as possible:
1. Share the load. I'm going to have Neve carry her own toys, coloring books, etc in her own pull along pink Barbie toy luggage. This will encourage good traveling habits.
2. Travel with a tired Noodle. If I tucker Neve out before getting on the airplane, she will probably fall asleep. A sleeping child is an easy to deal with child.
3. Be prepared for take-off. Children's ears are super-sensitive to air pressure changes. I need to make sure Neve has something to drink or to suck on during take-off but be prepared for screaming anyway.
4. Ration out the entertainment. Have a new toy or coloring book ready to surprise the kiddo when her inevitable boredom begins.
5. Ask for help. I need to identify the flight attendants who think the Noodle is cute, and passengers around me who will have sympathy for my plight. I might need their help, and I am not afraid to ask.
I totally forgot about Amazon's DRM-Free MP3 store until Mike Monte mentioned it to me yesterday. For those who don't know, after only six months after opening, Amazon's MP3 store has become the second largest online music retailer.
To differentiate themselves from the iTunes Music Store, Amazon only sells DRM-Free music which comes in MP3 format that you can easily play anywhere and share with anyone. While Apple is moving in that direction, as of yet, only about a third of their catalog is DRM-Free, and Amazon has more than twice the amount of DRM-free songs available.
For those of you who use BitTorrent to download music, take the time to browse through Bit-Tunes.
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If you haven't already heard, Neve and I will be going to 
