Just another quick note to update after yesterday’s note about my schedule. The real problem with trying to update regularly at the moment is that I realized while on vacation that there were an awful lot of things that I was feeling obligated to do every day, blogging included, that were no longer feeling especially fun. They’d taken on the feeling of work, and it just ain’t right when hobbies start feeling like work.
So I expect things around here will be lighter for a while. As you can see by this posting, even when I intend to take some time off, there will be times when I have something to say, and it’ll end up here, but I’m going to do it when I feel the need to post, rather than on some calendar-based schedule.
- It’s like Claire says in her Grasshopper answers Ant (read the earlier post, too) posting. I’ve been doing things that haven’t been as rewarding to me as they should have been, and while I’m not ditching all my responsibilities and playing grasshopper, I’m also taking some time to identify which responsibilities and obligations are important, and which are hobbies I’ve let get out of hand. I think getting my priorities corrected is probably my top priority at the moment. [claire]
- Meanwhile, if you want more news than I’m providing, over the Metroblogging Minneapolis, they’ve been keeping up on local stories like the 35W/Crosstown Construction Delayed Indefinitely and how Hennepin County has been Taking the “Service” out of “County Service Center”. [metro mpls]
Yeah, I took a vacation during my break from posting. Spent a week in Austria dodging heat-waves and GWBush’s Secret Service while just trying to be a tourist. I’m sure there are a lot of stories I want to tell about it, but not just today. Heck, I haven’t even pulled the pictures out of the camera yet, so it’s going to be a while before the words that go with them start to flow.
I’m still not sure about my schedule around here. I’m expecting “sporadic, at best” is not an inaccurate description, though. Sorry if that bothers you. But I don’t really know what I’m going to feel like posting and when. Heck, I spent eight days without touching a computer during my vacation, and I liked it. I’m not even sure when I’m going to bother powering up my home computer again.
- Oh man. Doctor Fun is over. He did his 520 weeks of comics (it only took thirteen years), and that’s what he’d promised and now he’s finished. Drag.
- Brian had a pretty good PeTA picture of the whole gang that was out that night, plus another one that summed up the way were felt early in the day. Those are both from PeTA day, back on June 10th. My pictures? The ones from that night were a bust. I had somehow kicked the camera into manual mode with a 5 second exposure as I pulled it out of the bag (a leftover from fireworks night?) and as such the photos were not especially usable.
- This Animated YYZ video made the Rush fan in me smile, even as I noticed a few little glitches (feet? I hear the bass drum, but don’t see the leg bounce). And hey, it’s cool enough that it’s on Neil’s site, so it must be okay. And it’s pretty cool that computer animation has gotten to the point that some guy can basically do this at home in his spare time. [flutterby]
- There are a lot of things on we hates software that I agree with. [flutterby]
Still busy. Still tired. The weekend was as full as expected, and most of it was fun. No rainbow photos, and only a few from PeTA night that I haven’t even pulled into the computer yet. But yesterday turned into a beautiful day, in spite of the forecasts and a bit of noon-time rain, so that was happy-making.
I managed to pull a bunch of weeds from the new grass yesterday morning before heading out to the game. And the sprinklers are in and cover the tomato and pepper plants with their life-giving spray of treated river water. There’s mulch down in between the plants so I hopefully won’t have to weed (or water) quite as often, thanks to my efforts yesterday evening. And the grass has been mowed, so I don’t have the longest grass on the block. The yard, it’s almost in good shape, I think. Mostly watering and mowing from here out, which is where I want to be when the weather heats up.
Inside the house, things are more of a wreck, but that only bugs me, so I figure I can let things slide a bit more. And if the extra cardboard boxes piled up for recycling that have been sitting around since Christmas sit for a few weeks more, they won’t die like the plants would. And I can tackle those indoor tasks while basking in air-conditioned splendor later in the summer, right? Right.
Yes, I’m definitely committing adulthood here. And homeownership. And probably a few other sins. It disappoints me a bit, but I guess being responsible isn’t all bad. There’s some satisfaction when things are done, and hey, it’s keeping me out of trouble. Right?
Have a great week.
- It was back in April that Bernard ‘Buddy Blue’ Seigal died, and I just found out about it recently. How out of touch am I?
- Woo? I’ve got a photo credit it CourtTV’s Crime library now.
- Jim Harper, a member of DHS’s privacy advisory committee took John Gilmore’s Great No-ID Airport Challenge and managed to get through security quicker than if he’d presented ID. It might have helped that he was well dressed, polite, and had a reporter taking notes, though. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. [endwar]
- The Saints drop second in a row to Sioux Falls, who have the worst record in the American Association, in spite of taking two of three from the Saints. I’m not sure what’s up this year, but this is the second time I’ve watched the Saints lose games to a team they should be able to handle pretty easily. As Yogi Berra said,
Ninety percent of this game is half mental,
and the Saints seem to be leaving their brains behind when they face an “easy” opponent. [press-patch]
It’s been a busy week around here. I spent most of the evenings this week playing with plants. And sprinklers. And mulch. But the landscaping out front is in pretty good condition for the summer, and as long as I remember to turn on the hose periodically (and move it before mowing the lawn), I should be in good shape there. Tomatoes and peppers are in the vegetable garden, and there are sprinklers and mulch for that in the garage, but I have no idea when I’ll get that set up. The plan was to do that yesterday evening, but I just collapsed on the couch for an hour before going to bed early, instead.
Maybe I’ll get to it on Sunday evening. You see, this is another busy summer weekend. The Saints are back in town after a long road-trip, and I’ll be spending some time in St. Paul this weekend. Plus there’s a trip to Mom’s and other miscellany. After losing most of my couch-time during the week to gardening, I’m almost hoping tonight’s game will be a rain-out, so I can reacquaint my couch cushions with my backside. But it’s very likely I’ll be in St. Paul.
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| after the rain |
| (image on flickr) |
Had another Mark Stenglein sighting last night. We were both at UPS waiting for packages. Weird. I don’t think I’d ever seen the guy in person before, but suddenly twice in one week he’s been somewhere I was. It’s almost like a politician was trying to insinuate himself into my consciousness. How weird is that?
And I think that’s going to do it for the week. I’ve got to go pack the cooler full of beer and food for tonight’s game, haul it out to the truck, and then head off to work for the day. Maybe I’ll have some neat rain and rainbow pictures from the game, but for now, I’ll leave you with one from three weeks ago. Have a swell weekend, and I’ll probably see you on Monday with tales of how little I did during my busy weekend.
- What if your corner bar operated like a stock exchange? Well now it can, thanks to The Unstabalizer.
- Wanna play a cool trick on your brain? Go look at this Big Spanish Castle. [fark!]
- Tired of cooking? Think you could live on pellets? Well, follow The Monkey Chow Diaries and see how a guy with those thoughts is doing. Note that the American Council on Science and Health does not endorse the monkey-chow diet. But hey, it’s being done by AngryMan, so you gotta figure there’ll be something worth reading. [boing boing]
- If you haven’t seen the EepyBird.com–Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment, you should probably take a look. Think Bellagio but with Diet Coke. And two guys in lab-coats.
- Apparently there’s a meat glut in the US right now. Good thing it’s PeTA day at the ballpark this Saturday. With any luck, we’ll solve that problem. [fark!]
- Really really need a cheap stuffed animal? Here’s a tutorial on How To Win Something In A Claw Machine that you might find useful. [boing boing]
- I don’t think there’s a single thing in this gallery of balloon critters that I could make. But they were awfully cool to look at. [flutterby]
- Claire points to a story about a government contract to study building internment camps and says that The paranoids are usually right when it comes to government abuses of power. Geez, I sure hope she’s wrong in this case. [claire]
On Saturday, Jim & I headed out for adventures. First on the list was the Midtown Global Market. We both took cameras, but when we got there a few minutes to eleven, the market wasn’t actually open yet, since the politicians were still yammering on about something or other as part of the grand opening celebration. So we headed across the street to visit Mark at his gun shop. It was a fairly short visit, but Mark Stenglein was there talking to Mark and we got introduced. Seems like a nice enough guy, even though we disagree on the baseball stadium. I really need to work on my tyrant-confrontation skills, though. Rather than ask him What gives you the right to steal money from me to give it to Carl Pohlad?
or even a simple Sic semper tyrannis!
I made a lame and easily refuted comment about the sales tax. Tsk.
Then it was in to the market. We’d been hoping for some photo opportunities, but with the big crowds, we figured it was better to come back some other time. Instead we walked across Lake Street to lunch at Carne Asada (which claimed to have their own website, but I can’t find it now). The food was tasty and it was nice to have a beer while we pondered our next step.
And that next step was a run out to Blue Max Liquors in Burnsville. Was it a long way to go for beer? Yes it was. Was it worth it? Well, I bought $65 worth of goodies (four six-packs, a case of Leinie, and a bottle of brandy for mom), and Jim bought two fancy beers (it’s worth the $6 per bottle
) and a six-pack. And yes, they truly do have a stunning number of beers. They even carry the hard-to-find Tusker, but given the high price, I passed on that. For this visit.
I had planned to do some work on the garden and terrace in front of my house on Saturday afternoon, but the weather had heated up enough that I decided against it. Instead I got a few smaller tasks done around the house. The evening was taken up by the monthly card session, which saw the last of the guests leaving after sun-up. For some reason Sunday wasn’t terribly productive after that, and that finds me here.
Today, rather than heading in to the office, there’s a Photoshop for Photographers seminar downtown I’m going to be attending. I’m told it should be interesting and useful to me, but I’ve also got bunches of stuff to do at work, and feel vaguely guilty about not heading in to the office.
- Claire is taking Baby steps in artwork, and I like the results so far. She also talks about how it’s not too late to start trying to produce art. Nice work in pastels, and some interesting bits to think about, especially as I spend more time with my camera trying to produce images that make me happy. [claire]
- The Minneapolis City Council is pondering A back-alley approach to fight crime in Minneapolis, looking to pass a law prohibiting you from walking in an alley unless you live there. Last I checked, alleys are just as much public property as streets and sidewalks (when I got my lot surveyed, I found that I’ve actually paved about 2 feet of city property back there–which is probably fine since they don’t), and I almost wish they would pass this law. I haven’t walked through enough of the city’s alleys yet, and it would be just the kind of encouragement I’d need. [strib]
- They don’t like when they’re asked for information, but Congress is considering laws requiring ISPs to retain records for two years. U.S., Internet companies meet to decide how much privacy we need. [claire]
- Would you like to Downsize DC, too? It’s an interesting idea, but I think the odds of getting those in power to give up some of that power, rather than accreting more are very slim.
- The GNU Radio Opens an Unseen World. It’s a hardware USB radio that plugs into your computer, and costs $550, but it’s programmable, so you can have software do everything from capture FM radio to listening to cell-phone traffic with the same hardware. Sounds like a fun platform to tinker with. [boing boing]
Short week this week. Felt longer than it was, mostly because of a problem I was fighting at work. I reorganized some code, making no changes that should have changed its behavior (aka refactoring), and suddenly the code quit working. After a couple of days of pounding my head against that, I discovered that there was a field in a structure that hadn’t ever been initialized, and by setting it up correctly, everything worked fine again. But it had never been set up correctly, so I’m still not sure how the old code ever worked.
Imagine coming out to start your car some morning after you’d washed it, only to discover that it won’t start and you’re late for work. When the mechanic finally arrives, he points out that the problem is that you’re missing a wheel, and when he puts on the spare, your car suddenly starts and runs fine. That’s the kind of thing I deal with far too often.
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| fireworks |
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The photo? Last Sunday’s fireworks at the Saints game. I shot around 80 photos, and four turned out well enough that I posted them to flickr. This is the most popular of the lot.
I find myself somewhat confused by the popularity thing on flickr. Most of my photos don’t really get a lot of attention, but I tell myself that’s as much due to the fact that I don’t send them to a zillion groups and generally attention-whore myself as anything. But I’m still surprised that some of the ones I like most are not the ones that other folks seem to like. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep taking pictures I like, and if they happen to be popular, great. And if not, I guess I’ll learn to live with obscurity, much like I’ve done with this website. I’m hardly a member of the “A-list”, but I still keep plugging along.
And that, plus a quick reminder that this evening is the Pratt Ice Cream Social, which is the one time of the year when the witches hat tower in Prospect Park is open to the public, will do it for this week, I think. Have a great weekend.
- I guess I’ll get the bad news out of the way first: Former Saint Jody Friedman Passes Away in a boating accident. The funeral was yesterday. My condolences to Carl & Carol.
- Looking for a vacation destination this summer? The World’s first beer health spa opens in Czech Republic. The brewery
offers beer baths, beer massages and beer cosmetics.
Mmmm. Beer. [fark!] - Once again, Red Meat’s Bug-Eyed Earl offers some valuable advice.
- A 5-month Minnesota 36 closure to save money, time over keeping the road partially open. It’s an interesting idea, and lots of people will be watching to see how it works. [press-patch]
- Here’s a spiffy gallery of Ballonmoleküle (Balloon Molecules). [boing boing]
- Claire talks about Tiny Temptations to Tyranny, and visits the airport. The spookiest part is how people are getting used to such things. [claire]