Archived News starting from 05-18-2004 and earlier
BlogAfter 2½ years of flawless operation, my
Snappy Video Capture Device errored out. The software jammed while acquiring an image, shutting down the
GnomeCam from 7:00pm until I discovered it around 10:30pm. I restarted the server and reset the Snappy and all appears well again. I have 4 backup Snappy units ready to go if the hardware goes kaput. At $12.95 each, it's the only good thing that came out of Play, Inc. going out of business.
Melissa and I went to
Niagra Falls for the weekend for a
Cougar event. After the Cougar event was over, we went for a ride on the Maid of the Mist and Melissa helped a few people out of the water. Apparently 4-5 people jump into the falls a day and at least 50% survive and are picked up by tourists. We also went to see a wax museum and did some shopping.
With the
Gnome Cam approaching 2GB worth of archives (5 minute captures every day for the last 3 years) I rewrote the code to first search the local HDD for a requested date, then search the CD(soon to be DVD)-ROM. I've offloaded all of 2002 onto a CD in the drive, and it seems to work great. The initial and image loads are a little slower than normal, but I've saved 700MB on my hard drive. Once I put in the DVD-ROM I'll have all the archives off the hard drive and my weekly server backups should be lightning fast. Thousands of tiny image files are harder to backup than the same size in large files.
I'm putting my house up for sale, asking $129,000. I'm trying FSBO (For Sale By Owner) so if you know of a high traffic area,
download the flyer and post it all over. Cross your fingers for me, I hope to sell before I move into my new house.
Stavos and I finally broke in my
InstaPool tonight. Initially, the neighbors called the police fearing for their children at the sight of two grown men in a pool. After we cleared up the confusion (and assured the parents and police we were not on the Michigan sexual predators list) we discovered that a 15'x5' pool is alot of fun. The pool has "No Jumping, No Diving, and no Tipping" signs all around it, so the first thing we did was jump, dive, and attempt to tip it, but it was too heavy. Then, using the law of rhythmic sinusodal waves (and an inflatable doughnut), we were able to get the water to alternate between the center and outside ring of the pool. This made for waves higher than us, and a good chance that the pool was going to collapse. Our need for destruction partially satisfied, we ordered Fat Kats pizza and watched Harvey Birdman to celebrate. I've finally scored a point in my
battle against Michigan.
With the price of gas reaching almost $2 for regular unleaded this summer, gas prices have again become a hot topic to complain about. Last year I also
discussed gas prices so I'll safely assume this is now a trend for the summer months. As a premium gas consumer, I'm also guilty of complaining, but I don't, however, claim that cheap gas is my birthright. Watching the news this summer, like last summer, people have expressed how un-american these high prices are and that "something should be done about it." This year, the free press
actually wrote an article describing what exactly can be done about it. While I am guilty of complaining as well (I think it's become a regular pasttime) I also try to keep things in perspective. In Europe, a gallon of gas is $4 but instead of demanding "something" should be done, they buy cars with smaller engines to compensate (which also means they get really cool tiny turbo cars and we don't). I already
ranted about fuel economy in last years article, so this year I'll just ask that the next car you buy be a fun (fuel efficient) sport compact. That way when I'm ready to buy a new car the bean counters at the car companies will finally say "The people don't want trucks anymore, they want sport compacts, so let's make some really cool ones with turbos and nitrous!"
Today was the
Detroit SCCA season opener.
Duane and I raced in the event, Gina and
Melissa were camera crew. As tradition dictates, I again recieved a major sunburn, which continued my tradition of not going to work the day after the season opener. The sun was definately preferable to the predicted rain, and despite the sunburn it was a great event.
Well after my last depressing update I thought I'd change topics. Project: Flamingo has officially been cancelled. After 2 weeks I have not recieved a notice from the city, no curb squirrels have stolen any, and no angry fundamentalist has written a nasty letter to me. While longer exposure may have resulted in a success, they interfere with my weekly mowing and the shock value is gone.
Official Results: No Activity
Way back in 1995, while I was in high school, I started work at DataServ, an IT contractor for Novi schools. At that job I met Ryan who became a good friend of mine. We would eat lunch at Bates Burgers and use the subsequent digestive gas to knock each other out of the rooms we were assigned to run CAT5 cable through. We also made many road trips to other school districts, during one of which he decided to jerk my steering wheel causing us to 480 on the highway (entertaining after we stopped). We had alot of fun both at work and outside of it, but eventually he moved to California and we lost contact. Recently, he was at 5th Ave the same time I was there for
Jeremy's bachelor party. We talked for a long time about what each of us had done in the last 5 years since we had seen each other. We exchanged numbers and vowed to see each other again soon. That was three weeks ago. Tuesday night his sister called me and told me he had passed away. Apparently a blood disease with flu symptoms was caught too late and he died Tuesday evening. His viewing was today, and as sad as it was seeing him laying there I felt fortunate we were able to talk again once more before he was gone. I'll miss you Ryan, and I'm honored to have been your friend.
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