A Good Start....

....If you are an Indians fan. One game down, 161 to go. It was a good day for offense, not what one would expect when looking on paper at a pitching match up featuring CC Sabathia and Mark Buehrle. I rounded up some poor guys who could care less about baseball and we met at Champs, requested that they put on the game, and watched the whole thing--at least I did.

The two things that I don't care for are highlighted above. First, Victor pulled a hamstring (evidently) while running from 1st to 2nd on a wild pitch. Pulled up short and was tagged out. He's a force in the line up and you hate to see him go down. Something similar happened to him in game one last season when he pulled a quad while running to 1st.

The 2nd thing is "Progressive Field." I'm not a fan of that. It's nothing against Progressive, it's just hard to think of the place as anything other than Jacob's Field.

How did your team do on opening day?

A glimpse of my future

This will be me in 30 years....

My chat with Leo

The back story, for the two people reading that might be interested is this: When we bought our first house, I opted for Dish Network over cable. It was new-ish, it was 1998, and hey, we had a house! We had the basic packaging that at the time included this obscure but wonderful TV channel called Tech TV. This is where I'm losing most of you.

Well, on Tech TV there was this show called "The Screen Savers." It was hosted by Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton (among many other soon-to-become-well-known-in-the-tech-world contributors) where they would review new gear, various websites, tips, tools, etc, and would also take calls and answer questions.

I watched it regularly-- much to my wife's dismay, but Leo and Patrick became my buddies --sort of. It was a one way relationship.

Years went by, we moved, I dropped dish all together and went to "free" TV. No more Tech TV, but it turned out that once G4 bought it, it kinda became a shadow of it's former self, most of the cast either were fired or moved on and it became history.

But Leo Laporte began doing podcasts--a new medium he kind of became the pioneer of in some ways, developing this entire network of podcasts (which he actually calls "netcasts") around the central "This Week in Tech," or "TWiT" for short.

So anyway, one of his regular non-podcast gigs, (though he does make it into a podcast) is a "Tech Guy" radio call-in show. He recently started streaming video of himself while on the air (radio) answering questions for callers, then opening up a chat channel for comments of anyone who wants to watch and listen to him streaming. I happened to catch it today and I was quite interested. When the radio show went to commercial, Leo turned his attention to the chat screen and starts having conversations with all the one-liners.

So I throw my 2 cents in today and totally side tracks him--Here it is below:



He answers my question with a "because I'm totally loaded on caffeine, derjazzmeister," and the proceeds to get up our of his chair, walk across the room while he's still mumbling (of course, we can't really hear him) and talks about this great coffee he's been drinking. Here's a screen capture of him holding the product below.



He seems to take advantage of any chance he can to promote whatever product he likes, whether they support him or not. I think this is the key to why he does so well, if he likes your product or service, he'll promote it whether you're paying him to or not!

Anyway, the highlight of my Saturday. Pretty exciting, eh?

In the Nick of Time

I heard this might be coming, and I couldn't believe it. I have never heard of such a thing, but it looks like more and more municipalities are adopting measures to eliminate Garbage Disposals.

First, can we all please agree on what these things are called? Are they Garbage Disposals? Garbage Disposers? or, Erators?

We have one in our house. The imprint on the drain collar actually says "InsinkErator" on top and "Food Disposer" on the bottom. All this is fresh in my mind because I just installed it last weekend.

I hated the one that was in there--probably the original one and praise the Lord, it quit working a couple of weeks ago. A perfect excuse to get a new one. This thing was amazing. When you turned it on, it sounded like the whole kitchen was about to take off--or fall apart. And to make things even better, it didn't ever seem to want to do it's job. Usually when you turn these things on, they suck down whatever food is lying nearby. But with this one, you had to run the water AND shove the food scraps down in there!

So, it quit working. First, it made a terrible rattling noise. I shined a light inside. Couldn't really see anything--not that I knew what I was looking for--flipped the switch, more grating noise. A day or two later, nothing. Just a buzz. Wouldn't move. PERFECT!

I bought a new one a few days later. A Badger. A $100, 3/4 HP, 3 year in home warranty, "noise baffling" disposal (disposer). I spent last Saturday afternoon taking the old one out, putting the new one in and it works great! It's so quiet! It chops up the food. I never knew I could be so excited over a garbage disposal (disposer).

So now, there is this news item informing me that I squeaked it in under the wire. The city is banning disposals.

Under the ban, homeowners can continue to use existing disposals, but no new devices can be installed and existing ones can't be replaced when they quit working....Violators face fines of up to $25,000 per day.

Why pick on the lowly disposal (erator)?

City officials said putting food and grease through a disposal and into the municipal sewer system clogs the lines and frequently causes back-ups and overflows.

Raleigh has had almost 100 sewer overflows in the last three years, with raw sewage sometimes flowing into area streams. The state Division of Water Quality has threatened to fine the city for each overflow if it doesn't correct the problem.

Really? So this is going to cause people to put less down the drain? Grease will slide down with or without a disposal (disposer) and whatever food items can go down the drain will likely be larger than if they had first run through an erator (disposal, disposer). I just hope ours lasts for years and years, or until they alleviate the ban!

Wait, Wha.....?

I created a little space by emptying my trash and didn't see this message the rest of the day, but that still doesn't make me feel much better...

Eclipse

These are the best pictures I got of the eclipse from last week. Yes, their blurry. They were taken with my little Coolpix S200 digital camera, on a tripod. Full digital zoom in play (hence the blur) ISO at 800, I think and the exposure set to +20.



Now that I look at them again, I realize of the 20 or so that I took, at various exposures and settings, even these pretty much look the same.

It is funny to me that I was so drawn to it--not in a howling ware wolf kind of way, but in a "Ooo cool, look at that, watch it before it's all over for two years" kind of way. I guess the simple fact that it is a rare occurrence prompted me to take the pictures. That, and you don't see a red moon very often. Even less than a blue moon, I guess!

Streetview comes to Raleigh

This is really cool. And no, I'm not concerned about privace issues--not until they come into my house and start taking Panoramic pictures of my living room.

Google has updated their streetview maps in 12 new locations. Here is a screen shot of my house. Looks like I was probably at work when the Google video van came by.

Using RSS

If you haven't tried using an RSS reader, I would strongly suggest you look into it. There are a variety of readers available for free (just type "RSS reader" into a Google search and you'll be able to choose from many). Readers are frequently built into email apps like Thunderbird or Mac's Mail.app, or you can find online varieties, where you log into a single web service that catalogs all your feeds for you.

RSS has been around for a while. For the uninitiated, RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. It is a simple (oddly enough) and automated way for you to keep up with some of your most frequented sites.

I resisted using a reader for a long time. Part of this was because I enjoyed going to the various blogs I liked to read, or news sites, or fun sites, and browse through them. After a while, however, selecting "open all in tabs" when you have 30 bookmarks under one subject heading not only takes forever to load, but it can become cumbersome to go through each site, only to find that there is nothing new in half of them since the last time you looked.

The beauty of RSS is that once you subscribe to a page, the data comes to you. Whenever there's a new blog post, a new news story, or whatever it is your favorite site is pushing through, you know about it because it appears in your feed. No need to continually check web sites over and over.

I first gave RSS a try at home in our Thunderbird email client. More recently with the addition of RSS in Leopard's version of Mail, I tried it in there for a while. The cool thing about the mail client is that you can be offline and read the feeds because they are stored locally for a period of time.

I didn't explore using Mail for my reader for very long, because I lost my settings when my HD crashed and I just never brought it back. You can see below some of the feeds I had. The thing I never explored in Mail's reader is how if at all these feeds can be organized. I never got far enough to see if you can create folders to put these various feeds in.



In steps Google.

Google reader has become my RSS reader of choice. Not only does it allow for organization of feeds into user-specified subjects, it lets me share my favorites (in fact, if you haven't noticed, I've installed a widget on the top right column of this page that shows my recently shared RSS items), email the articles directly from the reader, and customize its interface through Firefox extensions such as Better Reader. By the way, you can subscribe to my shared items by following this link.

So, for all of you wondering how to set up and subscribe to your very own reader, let me show you! I recently set up my wife's Gmail account and took screen shots along the way.

How to set up Google Reader

First, you'll need to go to the Google home page. Once there click the "sign in" tab in the upper right.



If you don't have a Gmail address or a Google account already in place, you can create one here, otherwise, enter your Gmail address and password.



Once logged in, click on the "more" tab.



Click on "Reader" at the bottom of the list.



You'll need to set up your reader account by verifying your Google account info again.



At this point you can add some suggested subscriptions. These are sites that Google has thrown together by category that are of general interest. Add what you'd like.



Next, go to your favorite news site, blog, etc, and look either for text on the page that says "subscribe using RSS" or push this little button if your browser supports it in the right hand side of the location window.



If you are given a list of options from which program you would like to use to assign this feed, be sure to select Google Reader.

Click "Add to Google Reader"



Once added, you can decide if you'd like to keep it as is, unsubscribe or organize your feed into a folder you specify. If the folder you'd like isn't there, select "New Folder..."



Finally, label the folder name you'd like and your feed will live there.

Now whenever someone updates their blog, you'll know if it because it will appear in this folder.

There are many more options and tricks with Google reader, many of which are shown to you from the main Reader page. I think it's a snazzy reader.

If you set up an account and begin sharing your favorite posts, send me your subscription url so I can add that to my reader!

"It would be in good taste to stop the music now."

Really? Who does this guy think he is? Come on, the music means you shut up and sit down - just like everyone else. Way to make your momma proud. (Watch the whole video and you'll see what I'm talking about--in case you missed it!)

Tax Rip Off

If you are filing your taxes using Turbo Tax, be warned: The fees they are charging now for the convenience of having your returned wired to you has increased.

It was just a few years ago they charged about $10 for the federal return to be wired to you. Now, the states have evidently caught on. It's now going to cost a lot more to get your money back using Turbo Tax.

Sleep, Sleep, Sleep

Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.

Well THAT explains a few things. Here is a list or interesting random facts about sleep.

I must be sleep deprived since I routinely fall asleep within five minutes of laying down.

How to Read a Book

Last weekend I had a nice opportunity to run a few household errands and end my time with about an hour at Borders. I had a partially used gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket and needed to get...something. It's not that I don't enjoy being at home. I'm rather a bit of a homebody. It's just that sometime we introverts need to get recharged by getting away from the din of the home team. Even if it means going to a place where there is a crowd of people. At least they're strangers.

The decision to buy a book was a difficult one. I already have several books sitting on my shelf, waiting to be scanned by my eyeballs. Do I really need to get another one? If I do, will it just go to the end of the long line and finally get read some time next year?

As I approached the store, there were several boxes outside. There was the $6.99 set of books in boxes on tables on the left hand side of the door, and there was the $3.99 set of books in boxes on tables on the right hand side of the door. I started browsing the $6.99 books. I probably spent a whole half hour outside browsing through the selection.

The first book that grabbed my attention was Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season. I flipped through this book and thought it looked very interesting. A lot of two things I like in there: baseball, and history. I flipped through, looked at old photos of ball players in their baggy uniforms, with cigarettes hanging out of their months, either smirking at the camera, or looking oblivious to it all together. I held on to that book for a while. It was a hard back and $6.99 seemed pretty good, even though it would leave about $10 on my card. I kept looking.

Next I saw a very intriguing book. Capone: The Man and the Era. It too looked interesting. Also some history. Also old black and white photos of guys with hats on, cigarettes hanging from their mouths, and sometimes even smiling. I put down the Robinson book. I flipped through Capone and saw names I recognized: O'Hare, Ness, and the notorious Capone brothers. As I looked through the book I realized that all that I really knew about Capone I know from the 1987 movie (and one of my favorites), "The Untouchables." What a cast that movie had! Robert Di Nero as Capone, Kevin Costner as Ness, Andy Garcia and Sean Connery as part of the "Untouchable" gang. What a great movie! I put the book down. I was never going to really read it. I had already seen the movie.

I remembered the book I had come for--or at least to look for and hold in my hand and flip through and see if I really wanted it, see if I could really stomach it. It was Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation. The atheist manifesto of "how dumb can you Christians really be to believe there is a god" rhetoric. I found it, flipped through it, and then decided not to buy it. Not here. It's not that I didn't want to be seen carrying it, it was that I didn't want to pay full price for it thereby endorsing his creed. Much better to buy it used on half.com or something like that later.

I was running out of time. What am I going to get? Then--I remembered. The book I had heard of for some time and never purchased. The book that will undoubtedly become the subject of future blog posts. The book with the ironic title: How to Read a Book.

Mac and Cheese Sales Increase Equals Recession?

From one of my favorites, the Freakonomics blog, comes speculation from this story about how the sales of Mac and Cheese may be interpreted as an economic indicator. What do you think?

I recall buying Mac and Cheese for 25 cents a box during special sales in college. Yes, better than just about any other meal a college student living off campus could possibly afford, Mac and Cheese became at least a weekly staple.

Yeah, right!

I get invited to join all sorts of little groups and applications on Facebook, most of which I usually ignore. And his one? I don't think so. I don't want to see my rating...! And besides, what would it say about me if I accepted this invite? Alright, fess up all you out there who have added this...!

Lost Season 3, Episode 23

I just finished watching the last episode of the third season of Lost. We needed a little refresher it had been a long time! Thanks Sheri for loaning us the DVDs! Yes, it's late, it's 12:38 AM, yes I'm going to regret it later, but I have to get this out there while it's still fresh.

I have a problem with these two technical issues. First, Charlie volunteers to go down into the Looking Glass sub station to disable the jammer. This radio frequency jammer was designed (evidently) by Ben and his crew to prevent any transitions off the island. It is a thorough jammer that is supposed to cover a broad range of frequencies. So my question: How in the world can the "others" communicate via the walkie-talkies all over the island? Shouldn't they be jammed too? Surely they would require a repeater.

Second, the Satellite phone or whatever device it was that Naomi, the parachutist brought onto the island could not overcome Rousseau's transmission. Now her transmission would be on a specific frequency, the Sat phone was new and certainly would be digital, and would not be affected by her transmission. Further, when Jack and the French woman enter the transmitter station (whose message, by the way, is still picked up in previous episodes despite the jamming), all she does is walk over and stop the tape. OK--first really? That tape has been running undisturbed for the last 16 years 24/7 and it still works? And second, stopping the tape from playing, while creating a silence, does not open up the frequency. It only makes the frequency quiet. We see no one actually turn off the transmitter.

Alright, I feel better now. Looking forward to season 4 which we will not be home to watch so we'll have to record it using old VCR technology and watch it Friday night instead.

My Nohari Window

This is the one nobody wants to do. But I'll do it. I'll be vulnerable! This is the inverse of the Johari window below. Where as the Johari window generally is kind enough to use positive characteristics to describe one's self, this one uses negative terms. Yikes!

You can be anonymous on this one as well! (And thanks to the couple of you who clicked away on my Johari window!) If you haven't done that one, please start with the my Johari window first!

State of the Union

In case you missed it last night (as I did), here is a convenient way to catch up on what you missed. A condensed version of the State of the Union address. Very condensed. One minute long. I have a feeling I didn't miss a whole lot.

My Johari Window

Thanks to Emily for discovering this. Take a second if you will, go here and click on five or six words that describe me. Don't worry you can be anonymous!

Blogger Label Cloud

Find out how to make the label cloud in blogger (like the one the right hand column --->) here. It's an excellent article.

Tooble - for Mac

If you've ever watched a video on YouTube and wished you had a way to keep it locally on your computer, let me introduce you to Tooble. This is a new freeware piece of software that I first heard about through this podcast.


It has an integrated search engine, as well as it's own preset categories. Once you find what you want, put check marks by the videos and click download. It will then download and convert the Youtube streams into Quicktime files and if you want, it will even import the files directly into your iTunes movie folder. Enjoy!