Annual list of what I have read and listened to from the library. Hyperlinks will not work as this was copied from the library web page.
Favorites include "Who Killed the Electric Car?", "Happiness in Magazines", "Listening is an Act of Love", "Catch-22", "Cabin Pressure".
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Studebaker Day
Sunday October 26th Pop, Sam, Henry and I went to Studebaker Day at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline. The video shows a panoramic view of the show in the late morning. More cars arrived as the day went on.
The weather was perfect, close to 70 degrees, and sunny. There was a DJ booth playing music from the late 50's through the 70's to bring back that old-time feeling. Ah, when was the last time you heard Tiny Tim's Tiptoe Through the Tulips? Count yourself fortunate if it has been a very long time.
There was also a hot dog/hamburger concession stand which supplied us men with manly foods.
Entry to the museum was included in the admission to the Studebaker event. The museum is the castle building in the back of some of the photos. The main floor is currently an exhibit on Italian design, including Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ducati, and Maserati. The vehicles range from early 1900's to 1990. Also featured are Italian fashions and design for the same periods.
Henry skipped under the rope around the race car, announcing that he was going to sit in the driver's seat. We got him back on the safe side before the alarms went off, the security cage descended from the ceiling, and the museum goons arrived.
The lower floor of the museum houses a portion of the Anderson family collection of vehicles. The museum preserves the cars instead of restoring them, keeping them in the condition they were in when the Andersons last used them. The Studebakers were more pristine than these cars.
There is something fascinating in examining a 100 year old electric car that shows dents, scratches, and worn leather. Or their first car, an 1899 Winton, which has the tires worn off of it. BTW, the electric car could travel up to 100 miles on a charge at speeds of up to 30 mph. A hundred years and we haven't improved much!
The museum folks also thought of providing a play room for visiting kids, stocked with all things cars and trucks. Check out the big kid in the baseball cap playing in this photo.
Some more photos from the day, plus more on my Flickr pages.
The weather was perfect, close to 70 degrees, and sunny. There was a DJ booth playing music from the late 50's through the 70's to bring back that old-time feeling. Ah, when was the last time you heard Tiny Tim's Tiptoe Through the Tulips? Count yourself fortunate if it has been a very long time.
There was also a hot dog/hamburger concession stand which supplied us men with manly foods.
Entry to the museum was included in the admission to the Studebaker event. The museum is the castle building in the back of some of the photos. The main floor is currently an exhibit on Italian design, including Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ducati, and Maserati. The vehicles range from early 1900's to 1990. Also featured are Italian fashions and design for the same periods.Henry skipped under the rope around the race car, announcing that he was going to sit in the driver's seat. We got him back on the safe side before the alarms went off, the security cage descended from the ceiling, and the museum goons arrived.
The lower floor of the museum houses a portion of the Anderson family collection of vehicles. The museum preserves the cars instead of restoring them, keeping them in the condition they were in when the Andersons last used them. The Studebakers were more pristine than these cars.There is something fascinating in examining a 100 year old electric car that shows dents, scratches, and worn leather. Or their first car, an 1899 Winton, which has the tires worn off of it. BTW, the electric car could travel up to 100 miles on a charge at speeds of up to 30 mph. A hundred years and we haven't improved much!
The museum folks also thought of providing a play room for visiting kids, stocked with all things cars and trucks. Check out the big kid in the baseball cap playing in this photo.Some more photos from the day, plus more on my Flickr pages.
Monday, October 20, 2008
T-Ball
Henry started T-ball on Saturday mornings last week. There are about 25 kids from 3 to 5 years old with a VAST range of experience. Henry had never played before, but he was definitely neither the worst nor the best. This week he was the loudest - and enthusiasm counts a lot.He seems to have that jack-of-all trades skill set as you can see in this video.
He does his own hitting, fielding, and base running - all on the same play. He did the same thing this week, knocking the ball down the first-base line, chasing after it, and ending up in a pig-pile on the ball. He got the ball, gave it back to the coach, and then took his base.
Sam is finishing a course of erythromycin for conjunctivitis in one eye. As usual, it has not affected his happy demeanor at all. Yesterday during lunch he turned in his chair, waved at Henry and I and said "Hi". We waved back and said "Hi" and Sammy repeated it again! He has been extremely good at echoing and recalling tones and short music sequences (think Beethoven's 5th), but this is the first time I caught him repeating a word.
More photos and videos coming soon.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day
Yes it really is ITLAP day as it has been every September 19th since 1995!! In case you are not familiar with this day of recongition, check out the link at the top of the page. And for some interesting Pirate history, check out George Harrison's Pirate Song:
Here is another one from the guys who brought you ITLAP, Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers and John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur. This one is a song for kids:
Some quick updates:
I have 2 planned for today. Both are in Holliston: a multi-stage cache The Moon Tree and a puzzle cache Composite Real Estate. The moon tree is a sycamore tree planted from seeds carried by astronaut Stuart Roosa on Apollo 14 in 1971, (here is the NASA article and list of known trees - very interesting reading). The seed orbited the moon 34 times before returning to Earth. The NASA page on the Holliston moon tree history is also quite interesting. In other Holt-inhabited states, the moon trees are in Indianapolis, Asheville, and Pisgah NC. The NJ tree location are unkown.
Here is another one from the guys who brought you ITLAP, Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers and John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur. This one is a song for kids:
Some quick updates:
- Sammy was in the hospital again for cellulitis last week. On I-V antibiotics for 3 days. He is OK and now on a 21 day course of oral antibiotics. This is the 3rd incident.
- The car is out of the shop. I picked it up last night after 7 weeks. It has spent more time in the shop than in our driveway.
- We had a great vacation in Maine 3 weeks ago, spending a week in Ogunquit and Wells. Stopped by Uncle Agnes and Auntie Johnny's candy shop in York on the way back and ended up spending almost the whole day there.
- I started physical therapy last week for lower back pain (no doubt from picking up those heavy kids).
- Henry started 2 full days of pre-school this month. Loves it. He is signed up to start T-ball on Saturday mornings next month.
- Sam has is 1-year check-up today. He is closing in on 30 lbs. We flipped his car seats around so both of the kids are now forward-facing.
I have 2 planned for today. Both are in Holliston: a multi-stage cache The Moon Tree and a puzzle cache Composite Real Estate. The moon tree is a sycamore tree planted from seeds carried by astronaut Stuart Roosa on Apollo 14 in 1971, (here is the NASA article and list of known trees - very interesting reading). The seed orbited the moon 34 times before returning to Earth. The NASA page on the Holliston moon tree history is also quite interesting. In other Holt-inhabited states, the moon trees are in Indianapolis, Asheville, and Pisgah NC. The NJ tree location are unkown.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Saturnalia
The Saturn got clocked by a tree limb a few weeks ago and has been in the shop. In this digital age we can actually see the car being repaired at Woburn Foreign Auto.I am not sure how long the link will work, so I am posting some copies of the pictures. The first one is from the day we dropped the car off. It is a close-up of the dents in the roof and passenger door.
For some reason, they took the headlights and front bumper off. There was no visible damage there.
Another view with no front bumper, no windshield, and no sunroof. This was taken August 5th.
This was taken yesterday, August 7th. You can see the note to repair the door, and the roof is new. The rear sunroof is in place, but the front one and windshield are still out.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Latest Finds
Did a couple geocaches in the last week. On Sunday, in between thunder storms, Henry and I did one at the Reading Town Forest called "Dead Marshes". It is named after a passage in the J.R.R. Tolkien books where Frodo and Sam are walking through the marsh with the dead below the surface of the waters.This one was a bit more cheery than that, but it was definitely marshy. Check out the photos on Flickr in the August set.
Henry picked out a necklace with a gnome figurine on it, holding a milky stone.
After work on Monday I went to Cat Rock Hill in Weston. It is on the way home and I have passed by the area many time but never knew that there was a conservation area here. No signs, no hints. Even the road leading in looks just like any other residential side street.There are 4 geocaches at Cat Rock. Three of them are named in honor of dogs; the fourth is a multi-part cache that takes you past the other 3.
I was able to get through 2 out of the 3 dog caches and the 1st stage of the multi-part cache. It included a hike to the top of Cat Rock, of course. I hope to come back soon to finish it and get some more photos.
These photos were taken with my new Vivitar mini digital camera, a $10 purchase at Walgreens. You are seeing the "high" resolution photos - no reducing required to resize them to fit on a web page.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Photo Badge
I am experimenting with a tool from Flickr that lets you imbed a photo badge into your blog page:
Hopefully this works and looks really cool. If it does not work, I will beat on it until it does.
Hopefully this works and looks really cool. If it does not work, I will beat on it until it does.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
PING
Just a quick note to let readers know that we are all healthy and fine. Just busy.
Bought a new car yesterday, had a good chunk of the yard ripped up for "landscaping", Sammy had another internal infection around his ear and we spent 3 days at Children's Hospital (he is finishing a 21 day oral antibiotic course), Henry had his 3rd birthday, Ellie's birthday, Joni's birthday, Stephen's birthday, Nicole's birthday, Jake's birthday, 2 out of 6 people are leaving from my dept at work (3 birthdays too), Henry is signed up to start pre-school in the Fall and summer school next month (I took him to the orientation day this week).
Been enjoying the return of warm weather to New England as much as possible. Been geocaching at least once a week. Took a map and compass course at REI a couple weeks ago and have become quite proficient at orienteering and working with topographic maps.
A lot of the old photos on the blog will be missing for a while. I hosted most of them on the Town's website and we rolled out a new site last week. I'll get around to it.
Look for the May photos soon on Flickr including Henry's birthday photos and Sam's hospital stay.
BTW, "PING" is a computer network protocol that is used to identify the presence or absence of a computer on a network. You PING it and it will respond if the computer is live. Computer geek trivia often has the question "What does PING stand for?" The answer: Packet INternet Groper.
PING - I'm still alive.
Bought a new car yesterday, had a good chunk of the yard ripped up for "landscaping", Sammy had another internal infection around his ear and we spent 3 days at Children's Hospital (he is finishing a 21 day oral antibiotic course), Henry had his 3rd birthday, Ellie's birthday, Joni's birthday, Stephen's birthday, Nicole's birthday, Jake's birthday, 2 out of 6 people are leaving from my dept at work (3 birthdays too), Henry is signed up to start pre-school in the Fall and summer school next month (I took him to the orientation day this week).
Been enjoying the return of warm weather to New England as much as possible. Been geocaching at least once a week. Took a map and compass course at REI a couple weeks ago and have become quite proficient at orienteering and working with topographic maps.
A lot of the old photos on the blog will be missing for a while. I hosted most of them on the Town's website and we rolled out a new site last week. I'll get around to it.
Look for the May photos soon on Flickr including Henry's birthday photos and Sam's hospital stay.
BTW, "PING" is a computer network protocol that is used to identify the presence or absence of a computer on a network. You PING it and it will respond if the computer is live. Computer geek trivia often has the question "What does PING stand for?" The answer: Packet INternet Groper.
PING - I'm still alive.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Red Sox World Series is Here!
The 2004 and 2007 Baseball World Series trophies were here at the Framingham Town Hall today. We were hosting a community event, where you could come have your picture taken with the Red Sox trophies.No Manny, nor David, not even Theo from the Red Sox organization here. In fact, most of the representatives were actually from Volvo, the official car of the Red Sox (used to transport the trophies), and the Massachusetts Lottery, which just launched a new Red Sox scratch ticket series.
I stood briefly with the 2 trophies, with flash strobes going off. The trophies were just escorted out a few minutes ago, after spending a little over 4 hours on view.
We had our first day over 60 degrees. I did manage to get outside for a while, reading my new Idiots Guide to Geocaching while sitting under a tree at Cushing Park. Plenty of spots to hide a cache in that park - the first 2 I found were across the street at Farm Pond.
Monday was Sammy's follow up visit with the otolaryngologist. His exam was over in a couple minutes. All looked good. Just like last time, he had an optical scope fed through his nose and down his throat.
Dr. Rahbar told us to bring him back right before the next procedure, or in 3 to 4 months which ever comes first. We have the evaluation with the vascular anomalies team next Friday. Hopefully the exam will lead to another schlerotherapy treatment in the near future.Remember to keep check my Flickr account for more photos. I uploaded a bunch from Henry's camera this week. He took this one.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Calling Old Geeks
Slowly but surely we have been cleaning out the boxes and bins we moved from our old residences to our new house. The goal is to clear out enough of the clutter to remodel half of the basement into the hip media center and play room I have imagineered. Right now most of the area is filled 3-high with boxes and bins.As we clean them out, you make those anguished decisions about what stays and what goes. I schlepped a fair amount of stuff from Ashland to here. The trains are boxed up. The music CD's are boxed up. The old albums are boxed up [yes Dave, I have your Procol Harum Live with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra album] . I culled my books and brought just my 20 or so favorites - boxed up. And then there is the other stuff.
I cleaned out a bin last week and came across the game Cosmic Wimp-Out, the Atari 2600 game console, the Timex Sinclair personal computer (with 16K add-on memory), a bunch of cigarette holders (I collected them for a while), some Star Trek trading cards, and a scrap book.
I dutifully transferred the game, cards, and scrap book to the KEEP bin. I put the computer and Atari in the TRASH bin. Later I dumped the trash bin into a trash bag and carried it out to the garbage cans.
Nostalgia held my arm for a moment. I shook her, but that only caused the bag to drop NEXT to the can and not into the can. There it has sat for the last week.
So here is the message of this post. Does anyone want the Timex or the Atari before I junk them?
Disclaimer: I had already chucked all of the Atari cartridges (after checking on E-Bay to make sure they had no significant value) and I do not remember seeing the power adapter. Not sure if the joystick and paddles are there either. The Timex, however, was still boxed and intact, exactly as the photo above.
Special note to Pop: Procol Harum's bassist is Matt Pegg, son of Fairport Convention's Dave Pegg.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Geocaching II - The Gravity Network
So I got my Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS unit yesterday and found my first geocache today. I went out at lunch time, having barely learned how to download coordinates into the GPS unit, and drove to a nearby park to find my first cache.
The cache is called Peace Park, named for a small monument near the cache. It took me about 15 minutes to find it. If I had known more about how the GPS unit worked (no, I did not read the manual), I would have found it much quicker.
I felt pretty conspicuous while hunting. The cache is hidden on the edge of a grassy clearing, but I was quite visible from the main road walking back and forth by the tree line. The area is a former notorious hangout area for, um, men seeking the company of other men. That aspect of the park has been removed thanks to vigorous policing, but the stigma remains.
The cache was hidden in the split of a tree, about 4 feet off the ground. At the base of the split there there is a hollow that you cannot quite see from where you stand. Leaning in the crook of the split was a stick. I noticed a string on the end of the stick, dangling down into the hollow. I picked up the stick and Hola! there was a sealed container at the end of the string. It was barely larger than a pill bottle.
Inside was some sheets of note paper rolled around a pencil. I found the last entry in the notes, added the current date, my geocaching name "noresponse", and a note that it was sunny, quiet, and the swans were on the lake.
I replaced the notes, sealed the container, and put the stick back.
I then drove down the street to park in the lot of the larger (and less notorious) Tercentennial Park.
Right after I parked, I ran into my co-worker Nancy who is on vacation this week. She was walking the park and saw my distinctive purple car. I showed her my new mastery of the GPS. It indicated that there was another cache located across the street from where we were standing.
We both set off back to find the Farm Pond Trail cache. We found this one in about 10 minutes, after having to back-track around a swampy area.
This cache was the size of a quart Tupperware container. Also wedged into the crook of a spreading tree, it was located off the path, down in a depression with some standing water next to the tree. The container had the log book and pen sealed in a plastic baggie, along with LOTS of little tchatzkies. There were figurines, pens, laminated cards, and geo-coins. We signed the log book, carefully put the container back, and left.
When I got back to the office, I logged onto www.geocaching.com and recorded by first 2 finds!
I also noticed that the web site tracks the USGS markers - those round metal disks you find at the peak of mountains with the notation about the year of the survey and the exact altitude.
I looked up the location of the one closest to the office and found this interesting excerpt from the official USGS recording of the marker: "The modeled gravity was interpolated from observed gravity values. The observed gravity was obtained from relative gravimeter ties to the IGSN71 gravity network."
If you have not done so recently, don't forget to thank those good folks who keep our gravity network operating at peak efficiency.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Geocaching
About a year or so ago I heard about the hobby/sport called geocaching. I work a lot with map data from our GIS and found this hobby use of precision digital mapping tied to hiking to be quite fascinating.The short of it is this: Someone hides a prize and a log book in a weather-proof container (surplus ammo boxes are a favorite because they are already camouflaged) in a location off the beaten path (or near it). Then then records the precise latitude, longitude, and elevation of this cache of items. The location, a difficulty rating, and some optional clues are posted on the geocaching website, http://www.geocaching.com.
As searchers find the cache, they may take the prize and replace it with another, or just add their name to the log book. They usually also record the find on www.geocaching.com with notes about their search or what they left behind in the cache box.
I routinely check www.geocaching.com for caches in areas where I am traveling and to see if there are any new caches near work or home. You can look them up by zip code or city/state.
For you readers in Mendham, you may be surprised by the large number of hidden caches near you. One cacher has created a set of 23 caches dedicated to airplanes from WWII. The Grumman G-21 Goose sea plane cache is located along the Patriots Path.
According to the Spring Mendham Township newsletter, there is an Intro to Geocaching class at Schiff Reservation. Any takers?
The closest cache to me is located in our neighborhood park, less than a half mile away. Someone logged a successful find of the cache just a few hours ago!
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I continue to add to my Flickr page - it now has all of our photos from June 2007. That's over 500! Please stop by, take a look, and leave a comment or 3.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
100 and Counting
This marks my 100th posting on the blog! And what better way to celebrate than going to Disney World!This stock photo is actaully what I see when I look to my left. Even the guy in the courdoroy suite.
I am at a conference on web site design at the Coronado Springs Resort in Disney World this week. Today is the first day of the conference. The opening address on Web 2.0 was interrupted by the sudden arrival of a Disney character - Ann E. Venture, or something like that. She told bad jokes and made fun of her big hair. It turned out to be the best part of the session.
We have a social mixer tonight in France at EPCOT, followed by the light show.
The weather today is about 75, sunny, and just a touch of humidity. That's only about 30 degrees warmer and 100% sunnier than it was yesterday in Reading, MA.
Missing J, H, and S.
It was tough getting to sleep without Henry's snoring and Sam's foot stompings.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I am your new bicycle
For some reason I find this very funny:http://alan.isyournewbicycle.com
I put all of my photos from November, December, and February on Flickr.
Sam had his 6 month check-up yesterday. His chubby legs look asymmetrical The pediatrician wanted to make sure there was not a problem so Sam had an X-ray.
He was fine.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Closeted
Sunday Joni cleared all of the stuff out of the closet in the master bedroom, painted the walls, and I put in the closet organizer.I am impressed by how versatile the kit is. It is meant to configure a 5 to 8 foot closet. The configuration I made almost doubles the mount of hanging clothes space, with (2) 3-foot bars for shirts and blouses, and a 20 inch bar for full-length items. I was also able to fit in some 16 inch shelves.
The ceiling in the closet slopes down on one side. I could still run a shelf most of the way to the other side.
If I do another closet, I will probably skip the kit and custom design it. The kit only has shelves up to 3 feet long; I could have used a couple 4-1/2 foot long shelves to continue the run for the rods, carrying the shelf run into the stack of 16 inch shelves.
The sagging bar, sagging shelf, and doors will be tossed. I will replace the doors with bi-fold doors to maximize the size of the open area.
I put more photos up on Flickr - check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/noresponse/sets/. The tags feature is pretty cool - I started organizing photos according to who is in them. The larger the size of the tag, the more often it occurs in the photos.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Flickr'ing
I am experimenting with Flickr as a solution for posting photos. I put a set of photos from last week up on my new Flickr account.
Let me know how this works out.
If this does not link the photo, here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24053870@N04/sets/
Photo Sets
Let me know how this works out.
If this does not link the photo, here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24053870@N04/sets/
Photo Sets
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Lunar Eclipse
Here are some photos from last night's total lunar eclipse.Henry and I drove over to the park just before 9:00 PM. I opened the aptly named Moon Roof and took some photos over the course of an hour.
Note how the moon turns orange and red as it is eclipsed.
Henry was up for about 10 minutes and then crashed. Fortunately Diane was home when I called and we stared at the moon from 1,000 miles apart.
Speaking of Diane, a plug for her blog Between the Meetings. Check out her very active Weight Watchers groups.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Before and After Pictures
Here are some photos from Wednesday. The first group are the pre-op pictures taken in the prep room outside of the procedure area in interventional radiology.
The surgeon has marked his cheek in some of the later pictures. This was the initial treatment area. Using floroscopy, they could map the interaction of the cysts and then sclerose each candidate.
After the procedure, he recounted between 6 and 8 separate areas he treated.
A good shot of those lips that send the girls swooning:
OMG - what else can you say?
Here are the post-procedure pictures taken Wednesday evening:
We took the bandage off Thursday. He is more swollen than usual and his cheek has reddened. We were told to expect that the malformation would swell larger than usual. The results of the sclerotherapy will take a few weeks to manifest. Thursday was also Sam's half birthday and Valentine's day.
Today he looks similar to Thursday, but I think the color in cheek looks more natural. He seems to be experiencing less discomfort too.
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