Archived News starting from 06-11-2004 and earlier
BlogAfter over 2 years of faithfully snapping webcam shots every 5 minutes, my
Snappy is finally showing it's age. For the fourth time in as many days the
GnomeCam is down due to what I believe is hardware failure. The capture software hangs during acquisition so hopefully a swap to a brand new Snappy will be the answer. What do I plan to do with the old Snappy? Well E-Bay it of course!
My
yearly trek to Florida concluded yesterday. This year I wanted people to think I was a rich snob so I rented a
convertable Mustang to drive around in. We started the week at
KSC where Melissa promptly
got her head stuck in a rocket engine. She told me she wouldn't come out until I proposed, so I had to
gave her a ring before her air ran out. That behind us, we went to visit
JOSEPH who thoughtfully
smashed the exit to his apartment complex so we could travel in and out without being traced by "the man." He and his wife Mrs. Lavonne Joseph joined us for
Midevil Times, now a dinner tradition for my yearly trek. Later in the week we visited
Universal Studios where Melissa was able to
grab Shaggy's butt, a lifelong dream of hers. After some
beach time, we decided to return to the Joseph's for some
DVR and
Bionicle entertainment. Later we went for some ice cream at Friendly's where Joseph began his daily
domestic abuse against Lavonne, which proved to be quite entertaining. Our vacation over, we said Farewell to the Josephs and to sunny Florida. We'll miss you both.
It's true, I proposed to my
girlfriend near the Saturn V rocket at Kennedy Space Center. Even though a total of four people on the planet knew, she still had enough monitoring devices planted throughout the country to pickup on the plan. The day of the proposal I made a fatal mistake and transferred the ring between bags in plain sight. Her laser vision immediately locked onto the box and concluded a proposal was imminent. Unaware of my slipup, we proceeded to the space center where I dragged her out of a gift shop to propose. Fortunately she had not calculated the exact time and place of the proposal so it was a moderate surprise but expected. Despite the slipup, she was still very pleased.
Every year, the first monday after Memorial day, there's a parade right down my street. I always wind up missing it and this year was no exception. While I'm sad I missed my last chance of witnissing it first hand (moving in 3 months), the
GnomeCam caught it from 2:00 - 3:00pm. A few associates from the area indicated it was nothing exceptional, but missing what is most likely my last chance to have a parade in front of my house made me a little sad.
Today was the storm that will forever be known as the "green cloud" storm. Major thunderstorm alerts were going off on every channel and supposedly this green cloud (which I never saw) made it more dangerous. So given the danger, I decided to
videotape some of it. It had a few high points, but wasn't all that spectacular in my opinion.
Here is the best shot from the
Gnome Cam, which was quickly covered with water after the shot was taken. As long as we get cool thunderstorms like this I don't mind the constant rain as much.
Lastnight, my
girlfriend and I went to rescue my motorcycle from the parking lot it broke down near. I brought along my portable power pack to use as a temporary battery and
hooked it up to the bike. With my girlfriend following, I balanced the power pack in my lap, passing a police car who looked at me funny. It's really quite difficult to ride a motorcycle with a 25lb 2'x3' power pack in front of you, but the extent of my cheapness that prevented me from hiring a towtruck also kept me going. Once I
got home, I disconnected the power pack, expecting the bike to die (which would mean the alternator was shot) but instead, it kept on going, and the power pack
registered 100% charge. Now I just need a $30 battery instead of a $100 alternator. There was much rejoicing, and I owe it all to my girlfriend.
The
GnomeCam caught me
leaving for work on my motorcycle today, unaware of the events that woud occur before I reached my destination. About 15 minutes from work, an old man pulled right in front of me oblivious to my existance. I decided not to honk since he'd most likely have had a heart attack. A fellow motorist pulled up at the light and said "That could have killed you, I hope you're alright!" to which I replied "Happens all the time, thanks." Once the light turned green the bike completely died! No power whatsoever. I had to push it off into a gas station where I was told "You can't leave that there, after 9/11 no abandoned vehicles are allowed on the property." At this point I felt like I was in the twilight zone, so I pushed it into an adjacent lot and had
Duane pick me up for work. Somehow the old man who cut me off was able to affect my timeline and force me into a parallell universe. If the bike starts right up after work I'll know it was his doing. If not, my battery most likely died.
After 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.
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