Tue, 27 Sep 2005
The Gadget Maker is the name of a book I read recently. It's an unusual book, published in
1955. The category is science fiction (which I still read occasionally) but
it is basically a biography of a fictional aircraft engineer. The book
follows Stanley Brack from boyhood in Colorado, to school at MIT, to a job
as an engineer at an aircraft firm in Los Angeles. It describes each portion
of his life in detail, with plenty of editorial commentary. It does give a
really good account of the US aircraft industry from the pre-war to the
post-war period. The emergence of CAD drafting in the 70s and 80s must have
revolutionized the process. Throughout the book I kept waiting
for something exciting to happen, but the concluding event is
simply the launch of the guided missile project on which he is the program
director. In effect, the book is simply a series of aeronatic events.
By coincidence, I saw
"Lost In Translation" last night. I had heard great
things about it, but to me it was simply another series of events. Bob
Harris (Bill Murray) spends time in Tokyo with Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson).
They have some good times. Then he leaves. Fade to credits. Perhaps if I
watch it 10 or 15 more times I'll get it, but for now I still prefer his
classic "Meatballs".
posted at: 07:20 | permalink |
Thu, 22 Sep 2005
I have to find a hubcap for a Toyota Matrix. Not for me, for my mom. She lost one last week. I've been meaning to look
for one on eBay. I don't know if the Hubcap World store is still around here
anymore. I don't even want to know what the dealer would charge.
Update: Found it on
eBay
for $32.99
posted at: 16:42 | permalink |
Good hash last night, with lots of wooded shiggy trails. Yeast found an area that looked like it used to be motocross trails, but now
has trees felled across the trail every 100 feet or so. Mr. Bush brought out
three (3) hot virgins to the run. I don't know where these women are coming
from, but let's hope the supply holds up. One jarring note: the security
people at LA Fitness started yelling at us as the circle was ending. We were
just about finished anyway, but it gave the appearance that we left because
they ran us off.
The GPS track is below. You can see where I made a number of bad choices at
the checks. I was just not guessing right. There's also a picture of Mr.
Bush with one of his virgins. I've gotta get a better camera phone.
posted at: 07:09 | permalink |
Wed, 21 Sep 2005
Here's some really blurry photos of Kevin's band playing at Bonefish Creek last Sunday. They are called One Hit Wagon or
something like that. I have got to get a better camera phone. I sold my
Motorola V551 on eBay and am using a Nokia 3200. I like everything about it
except the resolution, which is 352x288. Now I'm looking at
the Nokia 6670, which is has a 1 megapixel camera. Anyway, the band was good.
We had an impromptu hash beforehand, behind the Kmart. It involved a quick
run to the Blue Boar, where Dribble met us for some pitchers, and then back to
the Kmart parking lot for quick down-downs. And then we walked over to
Bonefish Creek to see the band.
Update:I saw Kevin tonight. I think he said the band was called One
Way Wagon, but I was drinking Bootie Beer, so I may have it wrong.
posted at: 12:05 | permalink |
Mon, 19 Sep 2005
This piece of paper was attacking me, so I had to shoot it. That's 50 holes from a single box of 9mm. I was mostly shooting for
familiarity, although I was working on accuracy as well. This was one
magazine at each of roughly 10', 25' and 40'.
posted at: 21:52 | permalink |
I had a turtle shell on my head last Sunday. GH made a bike helmet out a turtle shell he found on a bike hash a couple
months ago. Outstanding workmanship, with an adjustable harness inside the
shell for your head. It's pop-riveted in place. We all told him to put it on
eBay, but he's keeping it. There's a shot of me wearing it, and a close-up.
There's also a couple shots of the women who came. I don't know why, but
we're getting attractive young women coming out to our bike hashes. Yay!
You can see Cathy preparing to drink out of a styrofoam bowl full of beer.
There's also a couple of shots of Itsy and Teflon mocking the "No Alcohol"
part of the sign at Kreusler park.
posted at: 21:47 | permalink |
Thu, 15 Sep 2005
I found this CSS while I was google'ing for something else, but it is just too cool not to post here. It was on the
Mandarin Design site.
Lots of other neat design tricks there as well. Now I need to find a way to
incorporate them into the design of my site.
...this will look like some of the
pullquotes or subtitles we see
in
magazinelayout...
posted at: 10:18 | permalink |
Wed, 14 Sep 2005
I created an index page for all the InterAm writeups, right here.
I'll send this index to the official InterAmerica's 2005 website, so H2Ho can
put it on their page links to everybody's pictures. posted at: 11:08 | permalink |
Come Again stepped up to the challenge of being the pick-up hare last night, and laid a good run. Even if some of it did look sort of familiar, as though
we had run there before. We are making good progress on reducing the sausage
factor, with equal turnout of male and female hashers (about 16 people total).
The GPS did its usual excellent job of recording the trail. You can see
where we ran by the Santa Lucias JV football game, and where Princess was
splashing in the fountain like a stripper in a giant glass of champagne.
Pictures to follow if I can get them off my phone (might be time to go back to
a Bluetooth phone).
Update: I got the photos! You can see TJ before he leaves for his date,
CA laying out the marks, Furry stretching, and Pubic keeping her shoes clean.
posted at: 09:09 | permalink |
Tue, 13 Sep 2005
Martha found a possum! Just a little baby one, hanging out by the trash can. Martha came to the
back door to alert us, and when we looked out the back window she was
stalking the trash can. The possum wasn't moving much. I think it was
playing possum. Linda took all of the photos except for the last one.
posted at: 20:59 | permalink |
Special Bonus InterAm Party Photos! Just discovered in the archives! Actually, they were in a misnamed directory.
Guys in dresses! Topless women! No credit card required! All available with
the click of a mouse, right
here.
posted at: 10:08 | permalink |
Mon, 12 Sep 2005
Here's the writeup for InterAm Day 2. Lots of pictures. That was a fun day. Complete writeup
here
posted at: 12:07 | permalink |
Fri, 09 Sep 2005
Pictures and write-up from InterAm Day1 are posted here. That was
a good day, and Okinawa did a nice prelude.
posted at: 10:26 | permalink |
Thu, 08 Sep 2005
The page for InterAm Day 4 is up. I'm posting the days in no particular order. This was a great trail with a
waterfall. Lots of pictures and a writeup
here
posted at: 15:14 | permalink |
Wed, 07 Sep 2005
Tonight's run was big and square with not a lot of flour or checks. But it beat watching whatever is on tv on
Wednesday nights. Plus I got to throw a full cup of water onto Itsy in the
circle. He was wearing a poncho, but it still startled him. Tonight I
figured out how to make the GPS map image a little larger. And I found a
3D tool that gives a perspective effect to the image. I posted both
versions of the image. Let me know which one you like better.
posted at: 23:25 | permalink |
Tue, 06 Sep 2005
Here's coverage of Day 3 of InterAm 2005. Okay, it's out of chronological order, but so what? This might have been
the best trail I did all weekend. Or not. Complete writeup
here
posted at: 21:15 | permalink |
Wed, 31 Aug 2005
The last hash before InterAm was Wednesday night. It was a nice run, with some rain, and a halfway at
KKBB's new house. And a section of woods, and we avoided the railroad bridge
that so often draws blood. And then we all went to Tree's for "just one
beer". GrouchyPus was really taken with one of the signs on the wall. You
can't really tell, but he's pointing at one that says "Bad Hare". Not the
most flattering photo, really.
posted at: 22:32 | permalink |
Sun, 28 Aug 2005
Good bike trail at Halpatiokee today as the concluding event of the TCH3 Red Dress. I think I spent more time
riding my bike than I did carrying it through mud and woods, but I'm not
entirely sure. The pack had to push the beer truck out of the mud at the
halfway. Then African stew and Natty Lite back at the end. I forgot to
turn the GPS on for the first 0.5 miles, and there seem to be a couple of
spurious data points that caused to to draw extra trail. I annotated the
map. Also, there's a shot of GBW just before he and H set out to lay trail.
posted at: 21:48 | permalink |
Sat, 27 Aug 2005
I found out why the camera phone pictures are blurry. Actually, Linda noticed it. The lens on the camera phone was really dirty.
It must be from me carrying it in my pocket all the time. So Linda cleaned
with with a Q-tip. Now it sparkles.
posted at: 21:52 | permalink |
I'm seeing more Cuban anoles. This one was on the roof of a car across the street. As I got closer to take
a picture, the neighbor who owned the car kept saying, "Watch out! They're
really agressive!". Come on, it's only a lizard. The photo is very blurry.
The lizard is the green blur in the middle.
posted at: 21:50 | permalink |
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