Wranglin' Monkeys since 1948

I must remember..

2011-01-29T19:36:00.001-05:00

mVertexBuffer.setPosition(0);

Weather? Yes, we have weather.

2010-11-22T22:29:00.000-05:00

Denver weather is weird. Yesterday morning's icy Northerly wind, bearing aloft the scent of Elk poo, foretold of a frigid day with possible snow or at least freezing rain, but by late morning the temperature was in the 70s with clear blue skies. Of course, by 4pm the clear blue skies had given themselves over to a full blanket of cloud, but no precipitation was to be experienced.

Google broke search

2010-09-27T13:13:00.000-04:00

I have to say I'm not a big fan of the new search-as-you-type feature, particularly when I get the following after typing in my query and hitting enter, as my fingers are hard-coded to do.

Alexei's World

2010-09-02T22:06:00.000-04:00

Things found on Alexei's walk tonight:

Two blue rectangles of some spongy material.
A medium-sized, but self-contained cactus, possibly a prickly pear.
Two dead rabbit's feet. Presumably, the luckless rabbit is also dead.
..and the grand prize, a rather nice golf club and ball, located about 60 yards from each other. Owner presumed frustrated with the game, or possibly just at trying to putt on a piece of land where the average grass height is "calf-high" and the average grass type is "coarse and prickly".

All but the golf equipment was left in situ; I played a few holes before retiring to the 19th for a few cocktails.

Powerless in userland (revisited)

2010-09-02T15:47:00.001-04:00

Much <3 to Brett for getting this issue resolved and the account re-enabled. In deference to Brett I cannot divulge too much about the cause of the disablement; suffice to say I sent an email from the account, next thing I knew it was disabled.

Powerless in userland

2010-08-31T22:20:00.001-04:00

While I would never say I had the power to fix a lot of stuff at Google, I always felt like we behaved ethically towards our users - Don't Be Evil wasn't just a motto, it infused everything I and my colleagues did:

"Let's put this in here, that way the user can.."
-"No, that's evil, well, slightly evil. How about instead we.."

..and I never gave much thought to what went on outside my sphere of influence, since I considered that whatever it was, it was being looked after by competent, capable, ethical folk who also wanted nothing more than the best experience for their users.

Until tonight.

I have had an internet domain registered in my name for the past nine or ten years. After moving to Denver, and having no 'net-facing servers any longer, I decided to put my domain in the (so I thought) capable hands of Google Apps For Your Domain (GAFYD) - a service provided for free by Google that allows a domain administrator to manage users with their own email, web sites, calendars etc.

Apparently, however, not content with the ad revenue generated by such domains, Google decides that it wants a piece of the management pie too.

One of my accounts was disabled tonight for the laughably inaccurate and misleading complaint of "abuse". I, as domain owner/ administrator, have exactly zero power to address this situation in any way - the relevant link from the administration page directs me to an external to Google support forum, of all things, which hardly seems like a professional, caring way to support your users - presumably the other forum members have little power to address such problems themselves. Indeed, the suggested fixes have failed to provide any sort of solution.

So I am now at the mercy of whoever it is at Google that watches the support forums, or who monitors the abuse@ and support@ addresses for my domain; hopefully, that person can restore the account, but I don't hold much hope at all. After all, there must be thousands if not tens of thousands or more such instances daily.

Presumably, the process by which my account was disabled was automated in large part, which means the algorithms being used are, well, suspect, but more importantly, the folk in charge of providing their users with the best possible experience have failed - forcing a reliance on external support forums to even register a complaint?

That's just evil.

Notes From A Sunburned Hotel Room

2010-08-26T01:06:00.001-04:00

Since embarking on my new career as a hotel-room-based contractor, I've noticed a few things despite it only being a couple of weeks:

I didn't notice how institutionalized I became at Google - the casual expectation of a comfortable life was too easy to get used to.
Google does a lot of stuff really well, and some other things, not so much.
"Don't be evil": evil has many grades.
I miss working with my friends :(
Seriously, the best thing about Google was the people, particularly the ones I worked with.
There's a whole world of stuff out there.
There's a lot of cool things being done in the real world.
A lot of folks are using Google stuff; I recently converted my domain over to GAFYD, and it's pretty neat.
Working from a hotel room is not as confining as I once thought.
But I still miss my friends.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on these (and other topics) as time goes by. For now, though, it's enough for me to know that the end of my Google career was possibly one of the best things to happen to me.

There Has To Be A Better Way

2010-08-19T19:41:00.004-04:00

I'm trying to track event durations stored in a Google spreadsheet as two timestamps - essentially a start datetime and end datetime that look like this:

2010/8/6 10:15:32 2010/8/7 11:33:09

Given two such cell values, I'd like to put the duration into a third column, formatted thusly:

HH:MM:SS

i.e. display the difference between the two timestamps as something nicely human-readable.

Should be simple, right? Something like

=$B1 - $A1

Of course, the world doesn't work that way.

Ok, let's try this:

=DATEDIFF($B1, $A1)

Wait a sec, this isn't MySQL. Ok, uh..

=DATE_AS_ABSOLUTE_SECONDS($B1) - DATE_AS_ABSOLUTE_SECONDS($A1)

Now we're just getting silly.

I ended up with the following mess, which works but strikes me as somewhat less than elegant.

=((DATEVALUE($E3) - DATEVALUE($D3)) * 86400) + ((TIME(VALUE(LEFT(RIGHT($E3, 8), 2)), VALUE(MID(RIGHT($E3, 8), 4, 2)), VALUE(RIGHT($E3, 2))) - (TIME(VALUE(LEFT(RIGHT($D3, 8), 2)), VALUE(MID(RIGHT($D3, 8), 4, 2)), VALUE(RIGHT($D3, 2))))) * 86400)

What's going on here?

Grab the date values (easy enough: DATEVALUE($B1)), subtract one from t'other, and multiply by number-of-seconds-in-a-day (86400 for those keeping score).
Grab the time values (easy enough: TIMEVALUE... oh wait, no it's not). Let's see here..

Parse out the time part of the datetime (all that RIGHT($E2, 8) nonsense)
Parse out the hour, minute, and second pieces of the time (all those LEFT(), MID(), RIGHT($x, 2) calls).
Convert these values to numbers (VALUE(...))
Convert H, M, S values into a TIME (TIME(...)). Note that a TIME value is fractional: 0.5 == noon.
Subtract the start time from the end time. Multiply by 86400 to account for fractional nature of TIME.
..and finally add that value (which is now in seconds) to the difference between the dates.
..and that's just to calculate the value IN SECONDS between two datetimes. Sheesh.

Formatting? Oh yes, I encountered that too.

=CONCATENATE(INT($E6/3600),":",INT(($E6 - INT($E6/3600) * 3600) / 60),":",INT(MOD($E6, 60)))

See that? Is it outside of the realms of reasonableness to expect a simple set of functions like:

=CONVERT_TO_HMS(DATEDIFF($B1, $A1))

I'd even settle for just the inner function at this point.

Update:

I ended up wrapping the convert-to-seconds formula in ROUND() to avoid the situation where the spreadsheet would calculate 1500 seconds (really, 1499.9999999...) as 0 hours, 24 minutes, and 60 seconds.

I have seen the future, and it is 3D.

2010-07-06T22:25:00.000-04:00

Tonight was the latest in a series of 'never though I'd do that' moments - I went to the movies (rare in itself) and watched a 3D movie. Initial impressions (of the tech, not the movie):

3D has come a looong way since the last 3D movie I saw (something at an IMAX theatre in 2000 or so).
Turning the glasses upside down doesn't make the movie turn inside out (sadly), but it does make it look weird.
The glasses make you look super-dorky.
Now that the studios have spent all that money, they are going to milk 3D to the last drop.
3D is not a saviour for a shitty movie; the best thing it can add to a good movie is to get out of the way.

The movie I saw? Toy Story 3, and it was pretty good.

Hey earbud manufacturers..

2010-06-03T14:07:00.000-04:00

How hard would it be to construct earbuds using magnets so I don't yank my ear off when I turn my head after accidentally catching the cord to my earbuds under my chair arm?

I'll take a free pair of the first run to come off the production line of whoever implements.

Death of a Salesbird

2010-04-10T12:09:00.001-04:00

Woke up this morning to a commotion in the kitchen - a small bird had flown in through an open window, and being unable to find its way out again, was being terrorized by my cat. Reaching for the cat-admonishment-device, I opened the deck door so the bird could find an easier way out. Unfortunately, the bird (whom I shall name Geoffrey) decided to fly full pelt across the kitchen and smack head first into a window, bouncing off to fall to the floor quite stunned.

Minkey thanking the Cat God for this miracle.

Brandishing the cat-admonishment-device once again, this time rather meaningfully, I ran to Geoffrey's aid, gently picked him up and laid him on the deck table, hoping he would recover and fly away. Five minutes later, though, he was still there, not having moved at all. He was laying on his back, breathing rather rapidly (even for a bird of Geoffrey's size), and seemed to have broken something, though with my limited knowledge of birds-like-Geoffrey anatomy, it was unclear what.

*schniff* yup, smells delicious.

Over the course of the next few minutes, Geoffrey seemed to recover somewhat, so I assisted him in standing. He was able to grasp my fingers with his tiny tiny feet, which was a good sign, but his attempts to fly away just had him falling once or twice or thrice more rather thumpily to the floor. Finally, in a brave attempt at self-preservation, Geoffrey flung himself over the deckrail to the forest canopy below, where he continues to lie, some 45 minutes later.

Minkey pretending suddenly not to care, after being told off.

Another 15 minutes later and poor Geoffrey still lays below, and Minkey is quite emphatically begging for the opportunity to go outside and "assist" with his "recovery". I think his flight feathers are disfunctional, since he has flapped his wings successfully. Maybe his back is broken. Whatever the situation, I fear if he is not predated soon, it will be a long slow starvation death for poor Geoffrey, but at this point there's still a chance he'll recover, so I have decided not to intervene for a while and let nature run its course. Either way, a sad start to an otherwise beautiful weekend.

So long, Geoffrey.

Update: took a look at him again later in the evening. There was no sign of the poor guy where he had fallen or within a two foot radius, so I'm assuming he either got eaten by a neighbourhood cat (Minkey was inside the whole time) or got mended and flew away.

Weekend Roundup

2010-03-15T21:11:00.000-04:00

And what a weekend. Today I finally (well, I say that, but see below) achieved closure from my irresponsible neighbour, by receiving payment for a window broken by his even less responsible son (yes, that one). This window had a neat little hole from a BB where the idiot son was in my yard shooting at squirrels - an abhorrent practice, especially so when it leads to MY broken window.

Anyway, the fucker finally paid for the repair after weeks of negotiation, police visits, etc. I've yet to see if the cheque clears, but assuming it does that's one more thing I can check off my DIDNT-REALLY-WANT-TODO list. That incident has led to rather more stress in my life than I think is good for me.

In other news, L's new job is working out well, although the schedule is tricky to get used to - mostly because it changes week-to-week. Things should settle down soon though.

I've also started a new photography project. It'll be public soon, I just need to find a home for it.

Work is going well. It's a little odd to have a work day with less stress than a weekend.

Hogmanay!

2010-01-01T00:10:00.002-05:00

Should ever haggis not be had
It's never made of meat
If you're lucky it might be tasty things
If not, it's just boiled feet.

(to the tune of Auld Lang Syne)

Fun w/ app Engine

2009-10-27T00:15:00.000-04:00

When referring to entitities via a reference property, this fails:

entity.reference_set[0].property = foo
entity.reference_set[0].put()

What must be done is instead:

ref = entity.reference_set[0]

ref.property = foo

ref.put()

Of Water Damage and Retards

2009-10-07T11:54:00.000-04:00

Had a little floodly problem over the weekend with an over-enthusiastic toilet float valve deciding to piss several hundred gallons of water down the back of the bathroom wall and into the basement. Our insurance company will cover it (well, except for the deductible, of course) and recommended we find a repair company to come in and assess the damage.

We put out feelers and got a recommendation from a friend. Called the guy (Alex Hennigar of Structure Drying), and he sounded pretty reasonable, we made an appointment and L sat home that day and waited for his arrival.

The day of the appointment and L gets a call from Alex saying he's forgotten about us and can he reschedule. Sorry, but that dog won't hunt, Monsignor. So now I have to re-schedule with another, insurance-appointed (read: lowest bidder, worst-quality work) water damage company, and deal with a whole different degree of bullshit.

Linux used to just work.. what happened?

2009-09-12T20:15:00.001-04:00

I was gonna make this a rant about how Linux used to be stable, reliable, and simple to use, but fuckit, I've wasted enough time on this issue. So here're the steps I had to follow (after much trial & error) to allow my debian-based laptop to re-associate to my home wifi following a power outage that knocked the AP offline for a brief second.

# ifdown wlan0        # shut down the network interface

# rmmod iwl3945  # remove wifi driver

# /etc/init.d/hal restart  # reboot hardware abstraction layer

# /etc/init.d/wpa-ifupdown restart # restart WPA (may not be needed) 

# modprobe iwl3945 # reload wifi driver

# ifup wlan0     # re-enable network interface

There may be more steps, as I said this followed a lot of T&E (not to mention blind alleys reached by various googling). Such things as:

# echo 0 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000\:0c\:00.0/rf_kill

which seemed unnecessary due to the existence of a 0 in this file.

# iwconfig wlan0 txpower on

I have no idea what this is even supposed to achieve, but I'm putting it here for completeness since it was one of the more popular proposed solutions in my search results.

There was also lots more un/reloading of related modules such as pcmcia, firmware etc, again I'm not sure if that did anything since the state did not change across such operations.

Anyway, I'm documenting this so that when it happens again (as it almost certainly will, GA power being particularly flaky, and I don't anticipate whatever bugs exist in the related components being fixed any time soon) I will have something to which I can refer.

Update (2009-9-18): Another power cut following two solid days of heavy rain (a total of 8" fell), and once again the laptop lost its wireless connection and refused to re-connect without the above set of commands. So yay, they work, but boo, they shouldn't be necessary.

The Legend of the A/C Repair Was Way Past Due - A Comedy of Errors

2009-08-10T12:28:00.000-04:00

Characters

Simon, being a Customerre in a shoppe; also, our hero.

Eric Ondishner, being a mischievous sprite.

Triple-M, being a powerful sorceror.

Mark Light-i'-the-Feet, being a talentless poltroon; also, a vendor of questionable goods and a cave troll.

Lin, a gilder of lilies.

Deb, a polisher of spittoons.

Trina, an ill-tempered wytch

Rite & Temp, being a lazy mountain-dwelling beast with two heads and no brain.

Herr O'Dynamicus, a paltry buffoon.

Angela, Tia, Christie, Darlene, Edwin, and Kathy (collectively: The Goblins), being mischievous goblins of ill character.

Daryl: a different mischievous goblin.

Our offering, dear reader, takes place in a dark forest full of troublesome beasts and sour portents.

ACT I

Scene: a path in the forest. Simon, our hero, is walking home.

Simon: 'Tis a lovely day for a walk in the forest! But happy shall I be to be home!

Eric Ondishner: BOO!

Simon: GAH! Heavens preserve me! What manner of troublesome menacery is this?

Eric Ondishner: BOO! and also FRIGHTEN!

Simon: O wails! 'Tis good fortune I purchased this Shield of Protection from Mark Light-i'-the-Feet just this very morn!

(cut-to scene: Mark Light-i'-the-Feet in a dank cave, laughing manically whilst counting piles of greasy money)

Eric Ondishner: BOO! and.. wait, what?

Simon: Yes! This Shield of Protection offers.. (reads back of shield) .. let me see here.. yes, here it is.. This Shield of Protection offers protection against all manner of nasty forest-dwelling imps. Oh, there's a tiny star by the word 'all'.. let me just find it.. oh. "May not cover all manner of imps. Check warranty for details". Well, which manner of forest-dwelling imp be ye?

Eric Ondishner: A fire-imp be what I, uh, be. Are what I be. Be what I are. Dammit. No matter, BOO! once more, and also BURN!

Simon: OUCH! (readies his shield)

Eric Ondishner: BURN! again.

Simon: OUCH! a further time. What is this? This Shield of Protection hath failed! Please wait here while I make a quick telephone call.

Eric Ondishner: Telephone? What ist a telephone?

Simon: Oh, er, what? I don't know. I don't know why I said that. Please wait here while I run to the village.

Eric Ondishner: Oh fine.

Scene: Outside of a dark, dank cave with the words "Magicke Shiulds" painted in fresh blood above the entrance.

Simon: Let me see now, yes this is the place.

The Goblins (blocking the cave entrance): GRAAAH! and SCRATCH! and MOAN! and also GIBBER!

Simon: Yes, yes, goblins, let me through, for I am to talk with Mark Light-i'-the-Feet about his defective product.

The Goblins: None shall pass!

Simon: Goblins! Let me pass!

The Goblins: None shall pass! Not evenst thou! Not untilst thou has performest a deed! Maybe not even then, we may change our minds at the last minute!

Simon: Very well. What deed?

Darlene: Thou must carry a single pebble to the top of the highest mountain in the land! There -

Tia: No! That's not it! He must swim to the bottom of the deepest river with just his -

Angela: That's not what I heard! I heard he must find the fairest damsel in all of -

(Goblins set to arguing amongst themselves, but remain blocking the entrance to the cave)

Simon: Great. (settles down to wait)

...some time later...

The Goblins: We have reached a decision! The deed you must performest is to defeat the mighty Rite & Temp in single combat!

Simon: Very well. Where might I find this mighty Rite & Temp?

Darlene: At the bottom of the deepest -

Angela: I heard it was at the foot of the tallest -

Tia! No! That's not it! It's at the far side of the widest -

(Goblins once more set to arguing)

Simon: Great. Well, I suppose I'd better go find this Rite & Temp by myself. (exit)

ACT II

Scene: A mountain lair.

Simon: Well, here I am, the fabled lair of the mythical Rite & Temp. Wonder if anyone's home? (knocks on rock)

Rite & Temp: (belching) Wot? Who ist? What be thy business?

Simon: Uh, yeah, I'm here to defeat you in single combat.

Rite: But there's two of us!

Temp: No there's not! There's just you!

Rite: Then who am I?

Temp: I'm me, of course! You're so stupid!

Rite: Yeah? Well so am I!

(Rite & Temp commences fighting itself)

Simon: (sighing) what is it with this kingdom?

..some time passes..

Rite & Temp: Right, what was it you wanted again?

Simon: Well, in order to get my Shield of Protection fixed I have to defeat you in sing- er, mortal combat, so, uh, yeah, prepare to die, I suppose, would be the order of the day.

Rite & Temp: Yeah? Well OOGITY BOOGITY! (throws large rocks at Simon)

Simon: Hey! cut that out!

(Rite & Temp drive Simon off with rock-throwing)

Simon: Dang. Well I suppose I'll have to leave, go and find some way of defeating this monster, and come back and try again. (exit)

Scene: Much later, back at the lair. Simon is now prepared with armour and sword.

Simon: Hey! Rite & Temp! I'm back!

Rite & Temp: What? What do you want?

Simon: I'm just here to, you know, sort of kill you and everything. Although the terms of the contract don't actually specify death, just defeat, but I figured since I'm here I might as well do a good job. I mean, I don't want to be wrong and have to come back, and all, it's a long way up that mountain, and -

Rite & Temp: Grarrr!! and also more rock-throwing!

Simon: With the sword-waving and the piercy stabbing action! And now you die!

Rite: (dying) Gurgle! Give me love to me mother!

Temp: (also dying) Gurgle from me too! And you never had a mother!

Rite: (still dying) Yes I did! It was me!

Temp: (also still dying) No you fool! You were *my* mother! I was yours! and your father's brother was my sister's me, and her - (fade out, still arguing)

Simon: Haha! Vanquished! And now to return with news of my conquest, get my shield fixed, and get through the forest! (exit)

ACT III

Scene: Outside of the cave once more. The sign now reads "Magikk Shilds", again in fresh blood.

The Goblins: None shall pa-! Oh it's you. Did you defeat Rite & Temp?

Simon: I certainly did! (holds up Rite & Temp's heads as proof). Now if you'll just step aside so I can go and find Mark Light-i'-the-Feet and talk to him about -

The Goblins: Not so fast!

Simon: Uh, yes so fast. I defeated the monster, just like you asked, and now I'll be going inside to talk to Mark Light-i'-the-Feet.

The Goblins: Well, we decided you need to kill another monster!

Simon: So it *is* killing now? Well that clears things up at least. Who is it this time?

The Goblins: We don't know, we'll have to think about it. We have a procedure, you know! (A goblin gets out a small lump of green something unidentifiable and proudly shows it to Simon). There!

Simon: Er.. very interesting, but right now I just need to get my Shield of Protection fixed, so if you could just help me out here that would be great. I mean, I paid a lot of money for this shield, and I kinda think it should work, so is there anything you can do? I mean, I'm not really sure how defeating mountain-dwelling monsters has anything to do with me getting my Shield fixed in the first place.

The Goblins: Well.. it's against procedure (shows Simon the green lump again), but I suppose just this once we could have you defeat a different monster. We'll get back to you in a few minutes. (Goblins go off into a huddle).

...much time passes, during which individual Goblins occasionally look over at Simon, then pull back into the huddle, muttering half-heard phrases...

Scene: next day, outside the same cave. Goblins are still in a huddle.

Simon: Er, excuse me, goblins, but have you come to a decision yet?

The Goblins: Oh! It's you! We've just been discussing the weather. Lovely weather, don't you think?

Simon: No, not really, it looks rather gloomy and I'm concerned that - Wait, what do you mean discussing the weather? You were supposed to be finding me a monster to defeat so that I can get my shield fixed!

The Goblins: Oh, were we? Oops (sniggering)! Ok, well we'll have to think about it. We'll get back to you in a few minutes.

...more time passes, as before...

Scene: later that day.

Simon: Hello-o! Goblins! Have you reached a decision yet? I need to get my shield fixed so I can get through the forest without being scorched!

The Goblins: Huh? What? Who are you?

Simon: *sighing* It's me, Simon, we've met before! I've been talking to you about getting my shield fixed, for which I apparently - and quite unconnectedly to the main task - need to defeat a monster. Another monster, since I've already dispatched one to the Great Beyond.

The Goblins: Huh? Really? Are you sure? Well, ok, but we have a procedure, you know (a Goblin proudly displays the green lump once more). You have to defeat a monster!

Simon: Yes, I know, can you tell me which one?

The Goblins: Which one what?

Simon: Which monster!

The Goblins: Oh, sure, one minute.

(Goblins return to huddle, as before).

Scene: later that evening.

Simon: Goblins! I need an answer! Which monster do I have to defeat so you will let me pass so I can go talk to Mark Light-i'-the-Feet to get my shield fixed so I can make it through the forest unscorched so I can go home!

The Goblins: Well..we have found one..

Simon: Yes? Who is it?

The Goblins: ..but before you can defeat this one, you have to kill Rite & Temp, who lives in the -

Simon: (yelling) I ALREADY DID! I SHOWED YOU THE PROOF EARLIER!

The Goblins: There's no need to shout, you know, we're only trying to help.

Simon: (calmer) Clearly, yes, that's all you're trying to do. Now please, if it's not too much trouble, tell me the name of this second monster, that I may dispatch it to the next world, and be on my way.

The Goblins: The name of this monster..

Simon: Yes?!

The Goblins: ..is..

Simon: Yes?!?!

The Goblins: ..is..

Simon: Yes?!??!?!?!?! Tell me!!!

The Goblins: Bob. But he goes by Herr O'Dynamicus, for reasons which escape us at the present time.

Simon: Great! Off I go to find this beast. No, don't worry, I'll find him on my own!

Scene: Outside a different mountain lair.

Simon: Hmmm.. this looks suspiciously like the other lair, but no matter. Onward to victory! (knocks on same rock as before)

Herr O'Dynamicus: Yes? Who are you?

Simon: My name is Simon, and I am here to dispatch you to the netherworld!

Herr O'Dynamicus: Where's that? Is that in Europe? I don't hold with fancy travelling and such. If you don't like it, leave it, that's my motto.

Simon: Really? What an odd motto. Anyway, I am here to kill you, so make whatever preparations you feel necessary.

Herr O'Dynamicus: O wails! It wasn't me! I never ate no kiddies! It was that evil Rite & Temp!

Simon: Wait, what? What kiddies? Who did what to the who now?

Herr O'Dynamicus: O yes, it was all over the news this morning, a bunch of kiddies were found eaten. Apparently it was Rite & Temp what done it. Yeah, I saw 'em.

Simon: But I just killed Rite & Temp yesterday!

Herr O'Dynamicus: Well, I'm just telling you what I know.

Simon: No matter, have at ye anyway! With the swording thrust! Perish all ye foes of.. of... just general foes!

Herr O'Dynamicus: (dying) It was Rite & Temp I tells ya! Rite & Temp! (fade out)

Simon: Ok, second monster done away with. let's hope there are no more - I really need to get home.

ACT IV

Scene: Outside the cave once more. The sign now reads "Mjaik Shulds".

Simon: Hello! Goblins! Let me through, for I have defeated yon second beastie, and now wish to conclude my business with Mark Light-i'-the-Feet!

The Goblins: Oh not you again. Didn't we tell you before? None shall -

Simon: Yes, yes, I got all that, but I've now defeated two of your monsters and I'm not willing to play your silly games any more. Let me through!

The Goblins: Oh very well. But first you must -

Simon: No! I've jumped through enough of your hoops. Now you're just being difficult. Let me through!

The Goblins: But Rite & Temp lives!

Simon: What? That hardly seems likely, I distinctly remember killing him and cutting off both his heads!

The Goblins: Nonetheless, look behind you!

Simon: (turning) WHA? Now how did that happen?

Rite & Temp: Graarr!!

Simon: But I killed you!

Rite & Temp: No, you only killed *me*. *You* are clearly still alive.

Simon: Your logic is impeccable. However, I make with the stabbity again! and once more you are defeated! For good this time!

Rite & Temp: Right you are. (dies)

Simon: (turning back to Goblins) Now Goblins, you have witnessed with thine own eyes the defeat of Rite & Temp at my hands. Let me pass!

The Goblins: Yes, 'twas the wytch Trina that brought Rite & Temp back to life..

Simon: Let me pass! I'll deal with Trina when I've concluded my business with Mark Light-i'-the-Feet.

The Goblins: Oh very well. (Goblins step aside)

ACT V

Scene: Inside the cave.

Simon: Hello-o! Mar-ark! Anyone here?

Simon: Mark Light-i'-the-Feet? Anyone?

(distant rumbling)

Simon: Hello? (walks towards the rumbling)

Scene: Deeper inside the cave. Mark Light-i'-the-Feet is caressing his piles of greasy money, and belching loudly.

Mark Light-i'-the-Feet: Gruh? Oog grah arg gruh! (licks money, appears pleased with the taste)

Simon: No doubt, but I'm here to talk to you about this shield you sold me, it appears to be defective and I'd like to know what you're going to do about it.

Mark Light-i'-the-Feet: Grah! Mark grah oog groh! Grah groh! (fondles his money lovingly)

Simon: Well, that certainly seems less than reasonable. After all I paid a lot of money for this shield, and it really needs to work correctly.

Mark Light-i'-the-Feet: GRAH!

Simon: Very well. I'll find someone with whom I can communicate.

Mark Light-i'-the-Feet: Gru-grye! (returns to loving his money)

Scene: Slightly less deep in the cave. Lin & Deb sit on opposite sites. Lin is blindfolded, and Deb has her hands tied.

Simon: Hello. Perhaps one of you can help me. I've just been talking to Mark Light-i'-the-Feet, and he says that you can assist me with getting my shield fixed.

Lin: I'd love to help you but I must leave now. (exit)

Deb: What can I do to help? Oh I have to go too. (exit)

Simon: Well that went splendidly. (sits briefly on a rock to consider his next move, then leaves, following Lin and Deb)

Scene: Later, in that same cave. Lin & Deb are back. This time, in addition to having her hands tied, Deb's feet are bound. Simon enters from a passage.

Simon: ..dammit, is there no way out of this cave? This is ridiculous!

Lin: Hello! Can I help you?

Simon: I certainly hope so. I'm trying to get my shield fixed. Can you help with that?

Lin: Of course! You just need to go see Rite & Temp, he is our local shield manufacturer. He'll be happy to help!

Simon: Unfortunately, your goblins made me kill Rite & Temp before I could get in to see you. Twice, in fact.

Deb: That _is_ unfortunate.

Simon: It certainly is. Is there anyone else who can help?

Lin: Well, there's Bob, who -

Simon: Let me guess, he goes by Herr O'Dynamicus -

Lin: - for reasons which escape us at the present time, yes, how did you know?

Simon: Your goblins also had me kill *him* before I could get in to see you.

Deb: Now that really is unfortunate!

Simon: So, is there anyone else who can help? Anyone at all?

Lin: I can't think of anyone.

Simon: I heard of a powerful sorceror called Triple-M. Perhaps I'll see if he can help me.

Lin: Well, you can ask him.

Simon: I believe I shall. Thanks anyway (exit).

Deb: Hope nothing "unfortunate" happens! (sniggering)

ACT VI

Scene: Triple-M the Sorceror's hut.

Simon: (knocking) Hello? Triple-M, are you there?

Triple-M: Yeah mon, what is it mon?

Simon: I'm wondering if you can help. I bought a shield, and it's malfunctioning. I need it to get through the forest unsinged. Can you repair it?

Triple-M: Sure mon! Who sole you de shiel', mon?

Simon: A troll named Mark Light-i'-the-Feet, he lives in -

Triple-M: OH! I know Mark Light-i'-the-Feet, mon. An' I don' deal wid 'im, 'e neva pay me!

Simon: Oh, well, you don't need to talk to him, I'll pay you, and then go after Mark Light-i'-the-Feet for the money.

Triple-M: Ok, soun' fair, but firs' you mus' get 'is word 'e pay you, cos if 'e don' pay you, you don' pay I. I know how de worl' work.

Simon: Well sure, I can do that (exit).

Scene: Outside Mark Light-i'-the-Feet's cave once more. The sign now reads "Makig Shedls". Daryl is blocking the entrance.

Daryl: Hey! What do you want?

Simon: I'm here to collect payment from Mark Light-i'-the-Feet for work I need doing on a defective shield he sold me. Let me through.

Daryl: I don't know nothin about no shields nor no payment.

Simon: Be that as it may, let me through and I will go talk to Lin, who does know nothin about many shields and lots of payment.

Daryl: What?

Simon: Stand aside I say!

Daryl: Shan't!

Simon: Stand aside! Oh! look over there! (points off-stage)

Daryl: Where? What?

(while Daryl is distracted, Simon darts into the cave)

Daryl: Fume! and rage!

Scene: Inner cave once more, Lin is here but Deb is nowhere to be seen. Lin's eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and feet are all variously covered or bound.

Simon: Lin! I need you to pay me so I can pay Triple-M to repair my shield! I'm not having him start work until you do, but I really want to go home and the only way is through the forest.

Lin: Mmmmf? Mmffff!

(Simon removes the gag from Lin's mouth and the covers from her ears, and repeats himself)

Lin: Oh sure, that's fine. Just take this enchanted parchment with you.

Simon: I'd rather have gold.

Lin: Well enchanted parchment is all we have.

Simon: (sotto voce) I hope it works better than your other enchanted products.

Scene: Back at Triple-M's hut.

Simon: Triple-M! I've returned with payment authorization!

Triple-M: That's great mon, I'll get to work shall I?

Simon: Hurray!

ACT VII

Scene: The forest path. Simon is gaily tripping home.

Simon: Tra-la-la! What a lovely day for a walk in the woods! Sure am glad to be going home though!

Eric Ondishner: BOO! and also FRIGHTEN!

Simon: Aha! I am prepared for your flames this time! Do your worst, fire-imp!

Eric Ondishner: AHAHA! I am no longer a fire-imp! I traded in my fire, um, wings for a set of laundry horns! (proceeds to chase now-defenceless Simon off stage with laundry horns).

FIN

What you have just read is a literal transcription of my attempts to get my air conditioner repaired as per a home warranty contract I have with American Home Shield.

Where possible, names have not been changed to protect the guilty.

Canon 430EX

2009-07-17T20:58:00.002-04:00

When repairing the Canon 430EX, remember that the longer screws hold the hotshoe attachment to the base; the shorter screws hold the base to the main body.

Catch-up

2009-07-13T21:23:00.004-04:00

Wow - middle of July already. Either I'm getting old(er) or the years are getting short(er). So San Diego vacation was awesome if a little short - the highlight was a photo safari around the Wild Animal Park. I learned a ton about the animals (darker == sexier), fed apples to a rhinopotamus (fun!), and took a few photos (of course).

Speaking of photos, I was asked to photograph a friend's charity event. Run Walk Bark took place at Brook Run Park in Dunwoody and was run by a local charity called The Bridge. The event was pretty successful, at least from my point of view. Basically a combined fun-run/ dog-walk, with plenty of sideshows and other attractions to raise money for troubled kids. I've got a couple of leads photographic-wise from it so we'll see what develops.

Also the Renegades are putting together a book of photos from the '09 season and finals, so I've put some together on a DVD for that. I don't expect to get anything tangible from it - the proceeds are going to the team - but at least I'll have some exposure. I really need to look into making this photography thing more of a paying gig at some point.

Got my new car on Saturday. That's her above. A *ton* of fun to drive, especially with the top down in this Atlanta heat. Mattie's not liking it too much but she'll get used to it once she finds a more comfortable position.

Back on Terra Firma

2009-06-01T17:47:00.003-04:00

Just got back from a week of travelling and I've never been so happy so be back in Atlanta. Not that the travel wasn't fun, but I'm getting too old for criss-crossing the country twice in a single day.

Last Tuesday saw me flying out to San Fran for the Google IO conference - I was invited to demo an Android app there, which was kinda cool. The conference itself was amazing - Google handed out 2nd Gen Android phones to all non-Googler attendees on the first day, then the possibly more valuable advance Wave accounts on the second. I'll write up a fuller report once I've caught up on some sleep. Photos are up at http://picasaweb.google.com/draebregnig/IO2009.

On Friday morning I flew back into Atlanta, assisted with the Google Atlanta Bring Your Kids To Work Day (specifically: photography, making ID badges for the kids, and general awesomeness), then flew out to Denver on Friday night for the National Men's Rugby Championships over the weekend. Denver is a great city, lots to do and see, and we were fortunately able to meet up with one of Lauren's friends for dinner and games. More on this trip also later.

50D is here!!

2009-04-24T20:07:00.002-04:00

More after I've played with 'er for a while, but first impressions are incredibly positive. Tomorrow will be a fairly good test, with the 'Gades vs. Palmer at 2pm.

And Then This Happened II - The Exciting Sequel

2009-04-22T23:23:00.001-04:00

In another exciting installment of Conflicts and Car-crashes, today saw what is likely to be the end of my beloved 2001 Celica.

Common sense being what it is - tragically uncommon - apparently some doofus (and I use the term advisedly) saw fit to attempt a left turn across an extremely busy 5-lane road during rush hour, without heed to the fact that other drivers may be quite legally utilising a turn lane.

Needless to say, my car ploughed into this muppet's vehicle in a classic t-bone impact. I took the worst of attempting to force two objects to occupy the same physical point in time and space. That's my car up there, leaking precious life-giving fluids all over the street. Jonny Careless's car is below - some slight bruising, but it'll probably see further action at the hands of Mr Waste-of-oxygen.

As if brains weren't in short enough supply, while I sat waiting for the police to show up, the brilliance of this idea occurred to another graduate of the Skool for the Gifted, who decided - notwithstanding the clear evidence that perhaps a different route should be sought - to perform the same manouevre. That's her, front-and-centre below. Yes, my car is clearly demonstrating the foolishness of her choice of exit from the car park. No, this did not slow her down one bit.

Two separate police officers arrived - the first just happened to be driving past - and both offered their opinions that what Mr Dumbfuck had done was not only stupid, but dangerous, dumb, idiotic, retarded, and brainless. In fact, the exact first words spoken by the second officer upon hearing Captain Cretin's side of the story were "well that's not safe". I couldn't agree more. Of course, the dumb retard didn't put his faith in either of the cops' assessment of the situation, insisting that due to the presence of skid marks where I had attempted to stop, he must have been in the right. As far as I know, he's still arguing the point.

Four and a half hours up a ladder

2009-04-12T14:22:00.002-04:00

So I finally got around to fixing the hole in my bathroom ceiling. As you can see, the hole is the exact shape and size of my right foot, for reasons which will become apparent.

Spent around four and a half hours fixing it, which was rather longer than I'd planned on - a lot of time running up and down three flights of stairs from the attic to the basement to grab a tool or some replacement sandpaper, then a whole lot more time spent pondering the difficulties of cutting through drywall without a) dropping the saw or b) cutting through a joist, plunging me to the depths below.

I'm pretty pleased with the results, considering I've not tackled a project quite like this before. As luck would have it, the hole was just a bit less than two feet square, and since the local hardware store sells 24"x24" sections of drywall, that turned out perfectly - a bit of trimming (alright, a lot of trimming.. and then some more.. and some more.. finally finishing up with some trimming.. what's the old saying about measure twice, cut once?) and I was able to line up the replacement piece into the hole, secure it with some nails, and fill in the cracks around the edges.

Apparently ISO is not just for poor light.

2009-04-07T16:52:00.004-04:00

So I finally figured out what I was doing wrong with my rugby photos - why I was experiencing so many blurred shots. The cause is obvious - movement relative to the camera - but my subjects just didn't appear to be running so fast.

Well, the ol' 1/f rule of thumb applies even if I ignore it. Shooting with a 300mm lens means I would need a shutter speed of 1/480 or faster (due to the 1.6 sensor -> 35mm conversion factor - practically 1/500 should be more than adequate). Shooting at ISO 100 (I figured I needed the extra quality - bad assumption) meant I was working with Av-mode shutter speeds of 1/125 or slower at the racked-out end of my lens. Not fast enough to capture runners in motion or fast action of any kind. Even in bright light, these were the speeds my camera was using, and it wasn't until I really understood the interaction between ISO and shutter speed that I realised what I was doing wrong.

For Sunday's game I set ISO to 400 (other settings the same), with vastly better results - only a few out-of-focus shots, maybe a half dozen out of 500 shots (about 1%, compared with about 25% when shooting at ISO 100). I also realised that anything that would cause my camera to compute a slower shutter speed for any reason should be removed - no ND filters, for example, unless it's so bright that the camera's max shutter speed would be exceeded (and then I might be better served by dialling down the exposure a stop or two). I could shoot in full manual, but with changing lighting conditions shutter speed is just one more thing to be fiddling with when I should be capturing the action.

Of course, this epiphany happens right at the end of the season, with possibly just one game in the play-offs to shoot. Hopefully the 'gades will make it to the sweet 16 and give me more opportunities to work on my technique.

Goodbye Marble

2009-03-25T18:59:00.000-04:00

The saddest thing about losing a pet is seeing Minkey running to the door to see if her sister has returned.

I almost decided not to blog about this yet - it's only been 14 days or so; there's still a chance Marble will show up and confound the odds. As a realist I am faced with the near-certain knowledge that she won't be coming home. However, that doesn't stop me jumping at shadows, listening for every plaintive mew, or hoping that one of the flyers I posted in the neighbourhood will prompt a phone call from someone who took Marble in thinking her a stray, and has been feeding and caring for her for two weeks.

Objectively, Marble's loss has provided me with a new perspective; has taught me that people I once considered trustworthy should be given no more responsibility than to tie their own shoes, and that activity supervised.

There's a tiny irrational part of me that believes writing these words will jinx hopes of Marble's safe return. The rational part of me knows that this is total hokum. However, I must face the reality that with every passing day, her odds of coming back diminish significantly.

Update:

Almost lost my other cat today. This is still such a bizarre circumstance that I have not yet fully processed it; suffice to say she (Minkey) came home safe, sound, and soggy (it's been raining all day), with no explanation of her whereabouts. If I lived in a world where that sort of thing is possible, I'd like to believe she was out looking for her sister.

Arrows? I didn't even see any Indians!

2009-02-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

Came home from my NY trip to find that my neighbour's JD son had taken it upon himself to improve the look of my house with a rather fetching arrow adornment.

Apparently this had happened last weekend, but I only found out about it last night. Since it had now been raining for approx. 12 hours, and the arrow had long since been removed, there was a good chance my house was rapidly shipping water and we'd pretty soon have to man the lifeboats. Actually, woman, dog and cat them too.

I attemped to reach said neighbour (G) via tellingbone, to no avail, so took the opportunity to pay him a little 10.30 friday night visit, only to find he was out with the boys, the chilluns were home alone and unsupervised, and he would not be back until late. I calmly and politely left a message with the chilluns to have their father call me at 8am this morning, and went home. Now, some might argue that 10.30pm on a Friday night is an unreasonable time to go seeking restitution, but I consider it unreasonable to have arrows sticking out of my house.

8am rolls around and the house, while half-submerged, is still afloat. However there is no sign of the erstwhile G. I fall back asleep for a while and wake to greet the day, and the siding contractor who Lauren has called over to assess the damage. His recommendation is that we replace three or four boards after inspecting behind to detemine the extent of any water contamination. This sounds like a plan, so I call G to inform him of the rough estimate of repair costs.

Naturally(?) G is none too pleased at being roused from a pleasant slumber at 11am on a Saturday morning, so instead of accepting his responsibilities he attacks me for scaring his kids on a Friday night. And why hadn't he fixed the problem during the week? I ask, not being diverted into defending my actions. He'd been sick. Break out the tiny violins. I am amazed he is still living, as clearly he was too sick to even pick up a phone, yet not so sick that he couldn't go out on a Friday night and whoop it up. Excellent parenting skills, G.

It became clear that our little telephone-based game was not going to yield a winner, so G, in a display of drama-queen-worthy pique, hung up on me. Enough is enough. I hated to do it, but had no option but to call the police.

A lengthy session with a local LEO followed, whereupon I explained my position, apologised for the rapidly submerging house, and invited said officer to inspect the damage. He left me with a case number, and the distinctly unnerving feeling that firing arrows around a residential neighbourhood is not actually illegal in the grand county of Cobb, perhaps even to the extent that said arrow might hit an animal or a pet or even a person.

As it stands now, I will likely be filing a civil case against G unless he agrees to make good all damages to my complete satisfaction. I am also considering investing in arrow-proof armour for the house.

I also somehow feel that this will not be the first brush with the law for the delinquent G-junior.

No good deed goes unpunished.

2009-02-28T12:10:00.002-05:00

Had an awesome day at work yesterday, fixing a showstopper bug in my shiny new feature, and implementing the final details of said feature, which led to at least one happy customer and a surprise peer bonus.

On the way to pick up Lauren, as I was negotiating the infamous I20/ I75N connector I happened to be right behind a lady in an SUV as she first locked her wheels (it had been raining solidly all day after a good few days of dry weather), then skidded into the right-hand barrier, bounced off, spun and skidded into the left-hand barrier, and finally came to rest pointing into the barrier and blocking half of one lane. For those familiar with that part of Atlanta, this is the freeway intersection by the Grady Curve.

Still not sure how I managed to avoid hitting or being hit by her, but I pulled over about 100 yards up and ran back to make sure she was ok. Thankfully, she (Amy) appeared unharmed, completely shaken up of course, and her car a total mess, but otherwise fine.

Another lady (Kim) had stopped and came on scene to help. As a trained first responder I made sure that the scene was safe then had Kim call 911 to report the accident, while I determined whether Amy was hurt. She was very shaken, and was trying to call her mum while not actually able to operate her phone, which made for some very interesting moments as she tried to figure things out. She was also far more concerned over the damage to her car than any possible injury she may have sustained, which is an odd trait I've noticed in other similar situations.

After a few long minutes a cop arrived and started to take details. Kim had long departed, so I gave the cop my information, a brief description of what had happened (it's still burned into my mind), and walked away thinking how easily that could have been me.

I also noticed that I seem to have suffered a minor ankle injury in all the excitement; whether this was sustained as I negotiated my way around Amy's violently careening car, or at some other point I'm not sure.

Sadly, due to a complete lack of presence of mind and forethought, I did not get any photos of the event. The only camera I had with me was on my phone, so they wouldn't have been great pics anyway, but it would have been nice to walk away from the event with more than a sprained ankle and an adrenaline rush.

2009.166666667

2009-02-25T20:41:00.001-05:00

Holy tittybiscuits! Here it is 2009 and nearly March already! I should probably think about some blog entries 'n' such, ya know, the important stuff. Anyhoozle, here's a quick update:

Just got back from a fantastic trip to see an old friend in upstate NY. I had a great time, Atlanta being devoid of that wonderful stuff called snow, with the high point (apart from catching up with Lee of course) being a trek through a frozen winter valley to an absolutely incredible waterfall. Pics will be available soon.

I also seem to have something of an active geek calendar right now, with the local hackers 101 (Hacklanta) group getting started, although I've been more of a slacker in that department, having missed the meetings and hardly contributed online. Tonight was also the first meeting of Droidlanta, a local group set up to share tips and ideas regarding coding for the Android platform. The meeting went pretty well, with the general outcome being that we will meet every couple of weeks, and share ideas and code via the website in the interim.

Of course, while I was out of town work has piled up with a vengeance, which does not bode well for the forthcoming European Vacation.

Oh and my file server just reported that it is out of space as I was backing up the NY photos. So I may need to go out and purchase some larger (or just additional) drives to store all the pictures I'll be taking in Europe.

Not bloody likely

2009-01-14T21:40:00.000-05:00

I signed up to give blood today as part of a work-sponsored blood drive. I was quite surprised to hear, upon giving the Red Cross nurse my details, that I would not be accepted as a donor due to my English heritage.

Specifically, the fact that I lived in England between 1980 and 1996 for more than three consecutive months ruled out my donation on the ground that I may have come into contact with Mad Cow disease.

Mad cow disease.

To my knowledge there's been exactly ONE recorded case of BSE in the US, and that was an already infected cow (or maybe a person, I don't remember and can't be bothered to research it right now) entering from Canada.

The blood drive itself was under-represented, largely due to many folks having recently travelled to tropical zones, or for similar reasons. So I have to think that if the ARC keeps on implementing such rules, they will eventually run out of volunteers - and what then? Will they relax the rules, or perhaps some sort of mandatory blood donation scheme will be implemented?

I also have to wonder at the reasoning behind the ban on English people.. I can only conclude that in a litigation-happy society, such a ban might be the result of a lawsuit (or simply the threat of one - "I received a blood transfusion and got BSE for my troubles"), which again raises my concern that the logical end-point of these regulations is a society entirely devoid of voluntary blood donation.

I have to say I felt quite miffed at being rejected. I know it was nothing personal, but as the circumstances were entirely beyond my control, I felt that I was being robbed of something.

I can only hope that eventually research into BSE shows that the incubation period is much much shorter than 12 years, and I am once again welcomed into the ranks of blood donors. Whether I'll be quite so willing next time, of course, remains to be seen.

Pizza Party

2008-12-10T09:59:00.004-05:00

On Monday evening Lauren and I had the opportunity to go see a master pizza chef at work. It was a great chance to meet a lot of new people, drink a whole bunch of red wine, and of course sample some excellent food.

Jeff is working on opening a restaurant in the Buckhead area, so was soliciting feedback on his various creations through the cunning use of dough, tomatoes, cheese and meats. Most of the pizzas we had were his own recipe, with a few standards (margarita etc) thrown in. There was even a dessert pizza - honey, walnuts etc - though I didn't sample that one.

All of the pies were of an exceptional standard, but I think my favourite was the sausage pizza which came out towards the end of the evening - delicious!

Jeff holds these parties regularly, so I'm hoping we'll be able to score invitations to the next one :)

Renegades Rugby

2008-12-06T19:30:00.000-05:00

I'm now the official photographer for the Atlanta Renegades rugby team - a friend of Lauren's plays on the team, so we've been to a couple of games to support him. Met some of the rest of the team on Saturday, and one of them offered me the position of photographer.

Good thing, cos I'm way too out of condition to play on the team, which was the other offer made. I have a feeling that I'm gonna have to get fit anyway in order to keep up with the team - running up and down the sidelines and such. Thankfully the next game is at the end of January so I've got a couple of weeks to get fit - can't be that hard, right?

Animated CAPCHAs?

2008-12-03T15:45:00.001-05:00

Why not?

Govt bailout - a random thought.

2008-11-28T19:35:00.000-05:00

I have no problem with my tax money bailing out these investment banks and other irresponsibly-run institutions, as long as those institutions pick up my taxes once they're back on their feet. After all, socialism cuts both ways.

Shipping Fail

2008-11-19T16:52:00.003-05:00

Looking online for a replacement sponge for my trusty Weller WES51 soldering iron station. These things weigh about 1/4 oz dry, aren't remotely fragile or breakable in any way, and are cheap to replace. So how on Earth can anybody justify charging more than FIVE TIMES the cost of the item to ship it? Screw you, C&S Sales.

Update: I've found these same sponges elsewhere for $1.07. Double screw you, C&S Sales!

Update: I just realised this image isn't clickable to make with the larger, and I can't be bothered to fix it, so: the item cost is $1.79, with $9.00 shipping.

How to make a Dreamcake

2008-11-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

You will need:

4 - 6 good quality beers, depending on your metabolism and tolerance for alcohol.
12 egg whites. Use the yolks for an omelette, or something else.
1 3/4 cups coarse sugar, food-processed to a fine powder or so.
1 cup ordinary flour.
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsps cream of tartar
1 1/2 tsps vanilla flavouring
1 tsp hazelnut flavouring
some other stuff I forget.
1/2 cup caster sugar
oh yeah, squirty chocolate stuff, the sort that forms a hard shell on ice cream.

Drink a couple of beers to prime the pump, then prepare your ingredients. Separate out the eggs, and leave to get to room temperature for 30 minutes or so. In the meantime, beat the sugar until it submits, then blend in the flour and continue to beat - 12 pulses or so should do it. Have another beer at this point since you've been working hard.

Pre-heat your oven to about 350 deg F. Have another beer if the kitchen gets hot.

Once the eggies are ready, stir in the salt, tartar sauce, and flavourings, and beat the crap out of 'em until stiff peaks appear - this is the soft meringue stage. Once you get here, gradually introduce the sugar/ flour mixture, beating all the way. Time for another beer. Stir in the caster sugar, also gradually, and continue beating until later. Glop the mixture into an (ungreased) baking pan - rectangular or round, but about 1 inch deep - and put it in the oven for 25 - 35 minutes, or until the cakey stuff pulls slightly away from the sides of the pan, and springs back when gently prodded a couple of times.

If you have any beers left, now would be a good time for another.

Take the cake out of the oven, invert the pan onto a cooling rack, and leave the cake in the pan to cool completely, inverted on the rack.

Once cool, drink another beer, and remove the cake from the pan. Cut into small (4 - 6" square) sections. Out of each section, slice the cake horizontally to form 4 - 5 layers, each one slightly smaller than the next. Stack the slices vertically, largest at the bottom, separating each slice with a thin layer of jam. Drink another beer, and liberally smother the cake/ jam stack in quick-harden chocolate sauce - you might need to refrigerate to achieve best results.

Once the chocolate shell has hardened, enjoy your cake with another beer.

In Ur Election

2008-11-05T18:35:00.004-05:00

On Tuesday night I hit up Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta with a few friends to watch the election results come in. I met a whole bunch of awesome new people (just about everyone there was on the same team), took a whole bunch of photos, and generally had a great time. The place was over-packed, taking around 20 minutes to get served at the bar (and I think I saw our waitress maybe twice the whole night), but the mood was amazing, with lots of cheering for Obama at every opportunity, and everyone had great energy.

Of course Obama has a hard job ahead of him, but given the support I saw last night and before the election, at least the country is with him - I don't think I've been able to say that about any
president I've seen yet since coming to the US.

Made me proud to be a near-Merkin. And I've never felt that way before.

BRAAAIINS...

2008-10-31T19:00:00.002-04:00

Reports are just filtering in of a protest outside the buildings of the CDC in north-east Atlanta. Details are sketchy but it appears a group of undead have gathered to protest the lack of Zombie rights at the national and local levels. Quite what the CDC's involvement is in all this is as yet unclear, but stay tuned for further updates.

Super Taranta!

2008-09-25T11:29:00.005-04:00

The band that doesn't know how to end a song.

Last night Lauren and I went to see the awesome Gogol Bordello at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse. This was our second live experience of the band, the former being about a year ago at the Roxy in Buckhead.

This was our first visit to the Playhouse, and to be honest I was not too impressed - another long, narrow venue like the Roxy (what's with these places? do they expect people to turn up with binoculars?). Places like the (admittedly much newer) Cobb Energy Centre are much more designed with the audience in mind. For a Gogol show you don't really want to be sitting down, which is fortunate given that the space is only about a third full of seats. Sound quality was about as good as the Roxy, too, i.e. a little muffled on the vocals. Not sure if this was due to the accoustics of the venue, or the sound engineer.

I was also a little perturbed by the discriminatory camera policy ("nothing with a detachable lens"), as if the fact I can put a 200mm telephoto lens on my camera automatically makes it a liability. And it's not as if a "detachable lens camera" would be be more of a problem as far as illegal taping is concerned, since many compacts have a movie mode whilst many SLRs don't, and sure enough youtube already has videos of the concert. I sometimes (often) think these policies are enacted without any real thought behind them.

That issue aside, the concert was amazing, with Eugene's Gypsy Punks putting on an energy-filled, though unfortunately short blast of manic craziness. There was sadly no new material, with the playlist being drawn from both Super Taranta! and Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike. The band did however give excellent treatment to a few of my favourites, including lying down on the stage and falling asleep in the slow part of American Wedding, and an incredible extended version of Tribal Connection.
On several of the songs the band would wind down at the end (as is typical) before launching into a new chorus with all the energy displayed at the beginning, often two or three times in the same song.

Here's the playlist as far as I can recall, in no particular order:

Zina-Marina
Not a Crime
Start wearing Purple
Alcohol
Supertaranta!
60 revolutions
Harem in Tuscany (Taranta)
Think locally fuck globally
American Wedding
Mishto
Sally
Dub the Frequencies of Love
Supertheory of Supereverything
Tribal Connection
Ultimate

If you're in the mood for an evening of unrelenting energy and craziness, check out this band. Their studio efforts really don't do them justice, they have to be seen live.

Cake the Third

2008-09-20T23:45:00.004-04:00

This third cake was baked for my mother-in-law's birthday. It turned out well, although I would have preferred the icing to set for a bit (sadly ran out of time due to having to transport the cake 200 miles and make the icing the morning before serving). It's yer basic chocolate mayonnaise cake. Pic of it in all its birthday glory after the jump.

For those following along at home, cake #2 (a delicious blueberry coffee cake) was et by ants. We had one slice!!! ONE SLICE!!!

On teh intarwebnets, no-one can hear you edit.

2008-09-08T19:35:00.005-04:00

I'm interviewing prospective accelerometers for an up-coming arduino project, when I ran across this from the otherwise excellent Parallax people.

Cake baking: not a piece of cake.

2008-09-06T23:06:00.003-04:00

Lauren and I recently decided (well, she decided, and I went along with it because I like a happy house) to take up the fine art of cake bakery. Lauren bought a book of southern cakes-from-around-the-world (really) and the plan is to bake one a week until we exhaust the book, or more likely get busy with other things.

So the first week I picked out a likely-looking suspect - a yeast-based number called babka. Being the judge-a-book-by-its-cover type that I am I chose the cake based on how it looked in the picture rather than reading the ingredients and instructions. What? Like you'd do anything different. The first bite is with the eyes, after all.

The cake took way longer to make than either of us had planned for - initial rising time, settling, finishing, and final baking lasted approximately three and a half weeks, by which point we'd not only forgotten why we started the whole project but also what cakes are for and how to eat.

Anyway, we followed the instructions to the very letter, along the way complaining that the book clearly suffered from a lack of editing (instructions that made no sense, appeared out of order, etc). My philosophy is that it's pointless to change someone else's process and then complain that the results are not as described, so I wanted to ensure that we took each step as laid out. Neither of us have attempted a cake of this type before, so we were eager to see how it turned out.

Eventually, of course, the cake - and I use the term loosely - was freed from its ovenly prison.

Oh dear.

Clearly the instructions missed a vital step. Ordinarily I might point the finger at the copious quantities of alcohol consumed (hey, we're in the kitchen, with the 'fridge not a million miles away, and thus the beer proximity approaching a maximum), but Lauren was mostly clear-headed. To be fair, the bottom of the cake (which turned out to be the top, due to the shape of the bundt pan used for cookment) came out pretty tasty. The bottom (top), however, largely resembled the contents of a bag of finest Portland cement. The yeast mixture was apparently (judging by the lack of any instructions to the contrary) supposed to infuse the flour & raisin base during the cook cycle, but either this didn't happen, or it's a load of hooey.

Needless to say, we both took one bite (the flavour was surprisingly good), and ditched the rest of the cake. Next week we'll try something simpler.

Kimberly & Pete at Kavarna

2008-08-30T23:11:00.010-04:00

As anyone who knows me is aware, Lauren often has to drag me out and away from my computer - the job is much easier now when I have a photography subject, but I'm still something of a homebody.

On Friday, however, I was priveleged to be invited to a perfect night out with friends old and new for an intimate yet energy-charged performance. A coffee house that serves Chimay and bakes their own pretzels? We are there! Lauren and I were lucky to have the opportunity to attend a free, no-cover show to hear a songstress that should be touring the country with her own band.

I had always heard that our friend Kimberly had an amazing voice but I've never heard her sing before. Back in her college days she was in a band. Friday night the guitarist, Pete and she brought the ol' magic back at a little joint called Kavarna, in Oakhurst.

So, Pete is an old hand on the geetar and apparently an accomplished songwriter. Kimberly kidded that all of his songs were sad but that wasn't the impression I went away with. They were deeply lyrical, poetic, and melodic, and clearly written with her voice in his head - and rightly so.

They also did covers - from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Cyndi Lauper via Kenny Rogers and Concrete Blonde among others. Kimberly sounded better and better as the night passed. Her voice is rich and bluesy but sweet and full of power, with an amazing ability to go from a gentle purr to a sexy, grungy, throaty roar in the space of a few notes, filling the room with sound and casting a musical spell over the audience. Imagine the sweetness of a smoky, more experienced Fiona Apple with the power of Johnette Napolitano melded with a Tori Amos-like clarity and you won't go far wrong.

Kimberly's musical talent could for the most part be experienced on CD, but seeing her performing live was another matter entirely, and one for which I will be forever grateful. Kimberly would talk to her audience as a friend - down to earth, full of jokes, self-effacing about herself and her performance (even when, or maybe particularly when she would fluff a lyric!). And she dedicated a song to Lauren! Teh awesomes!

In addition to hanging out with Kimberly and Pete, I also got to see some people Lauren's talked about but whom I've never met, f'r instance the infamous Wicki, who may still owe me an apology but is no less cool for all that. Kera and I shared tales of Mythbusters and self-loathing, and Linck bailed on me early despite my shaving specifically for him.

In other news, the evening saw my first ride on the Schlitz roller-coaster. Now I know why I tend to stick to the more expensive brews like Lauren did with the seven dollar Chimay. There's something about Schlitz that invokes for me damp evenings in a caravan in Wales with a lot of sweaty drunk English people smoking and carousing while I tried to sleep. Lauren says it puts her in mind of her Irish family sitting around their linoleum table at the Jersey shore, which I suppose is pretty close.

But back to the concert - Pete put on an incredible performance, and Kimberly showed what an incredible voice she still has even after years of lung-ravaging abuse. The audience had an awesome time, and I learned how NOT to take flash photographs in a joint with a black ceiling. All in all, an awesome night and I hope the band reforms and does tons more shows - I'm already forming my dream playlist!

Accident Report

2008-08-19T18:24:00.001-04:00

This is what an accident report looks like. I was driving vehicle 2 in this scenario. Current estimate stands at 2/3rds the value of the car :(

...and then this happened.

2008-08-14T19:08:00.004-04:00

This is the result of someone running a stop sign, and me failing to avoid him. The idiot was all "I thought you'd stop" (even though my road didn't have a stop sign) and then "I didn't see you" so I think he just panicked.

Preliminary cop report sez "you is teh fail" to the guy, so we'll see what we shall see.

No harm done to anyone involved, just the cars, and the neighbourhood kids got a big kick out of seeing a car crash live and up close.

England - The Long Goodbye

2008-08-09T22:22:00.001-04:00

I'm leaving Heathrow
With my wife by my side and
a ticket for home.

We got bumped - no duh
So we're Edinburgh bound
British Airways rules!

Much standing around
Scotland visit is waiting -
Ticket desk busy.

An airport hotel
and free tickets for dinner
Delta sets things right.

Evening in Scotland
Scotch; castles; the royal mile;
Then second dinner.

Edinburgh airport
Nice waiting room, with free drinks
And first class to U.S!

Hassle in New York
No transfer between airports
I kicked up a stink!

All flights are delayed
Atlanta shuts down from rain
Finally cancelled.

Full flight to Georgia
Where's luggage? Nobody knows!
2 a.m. drive home.

Finally sleeping
Have to skip work for today
Jet lag's a bummer.

England Holiday Part Two

2008-08-05T19:58:00.000-04:00

The morning of the second day of the mini-trip was spent in the town of Bath. Following a near-delicious breakfast at the hostel, we headed down the big hill and into the town centre.

Lauren could not come all this way without seeing the Jane Austen house, so while she was in there I slept on a park bench a few hundred yards away - my cold was getting worse.

A little later we met up with the kids again (they had been visiting the Roman Baths, and Bath Abbey while we were at the Baths), and had lunch at Sally Lunn's, where I sampled the famous Sally Lunn Bunn, which is about the size of a sofa cushion and tastes as you might imagine. It was then decided that I, as the only driver, would have to go and pick up the car so that we might continue our journey. Well, there was a bus running up the hill, but to wait for the next one and then ride it for however long seemed like a false economy - I could walk up the hill and still beat it. At least in theory.

The wolf in the fairy tale never huffed and puffed so much. Wheezing and sputtering I finally made it to the car, where I sat sweating for a good five minutes before driving off to pick up the others. That hill is l-o-n-g. Only half a mile in itself, but factoring in the trek across town and the fact I had a cold, I felt like an elephantless Hannibal having to make the trip across the Alps on foot.

Anyway, we left Bath for Stonehenge, arriving there a little before sunset so as to make use of the best light. Only.. it was a little before a little before sunset, and with the English Heritage people making free with their blackjacks and coshes, we had just over an hour to sample the delights of three thousand people wandering around the most mystical spot on Earth waiting for aliens to land. Dammit. Next time I go I'm going to apply for a special pass that will let me walk right up to the stones, and I'll make sure to go early so there's no-one else around. It's not that I mind other people visiting this spot, you understand, well, actually it is. Last time I went there were only about 30 people there and it made for a completely different experience.

After Stonehenge we visited the less-than-equally impressive Woodhenge, and then drove back to Kent.

The rest of the week was taken up with local sight-seeing at Leeds Castle (via Dover, of course), and for me a trip to Hatfield to catch up with some ol' college friends. A few beers and a comedy show on Friday night were followed by a walk round Cambridge on Saturday. I think I like Cambridge better than Oxford now - I could imagine being a student there, hanging out in Jesus Fields, boating down the Cam, a few pints in a riverside pub.. really rather idyllic.

On Sunday I drove back to Kent once more, and the family went out to Lullingstone to walk along the river, and to visit the spot where my parents used to walk their dog Deepha, and where her ashes were scattered. A nice walk, tinged with sadness at Deepha's passing.

On Monday Lauren and I were due to fly back to Atlanta. Upon arrival at Heathrow, we were checking our luggage when the desk clerk informed us that the flight was full, they would likely be bumping people, and if we cared to accept voluntary bumpment we could fly back to America the following day after spending the night in Edinburgh. Needless to say we jumped at the chance, and so got an extra day's vacation at Delta's expense. See the next exciting installment for more!

A comparison of HDR software

2008-08-05T08:59:00.061-04:00

I've been playing with creating HDR photographic images recently, and as part of this have auditioned a couple of software utilities intended to (at least partially) automate the process. My criteria for software selection were:

Free-as-in-beer. Not because I'm against paying for software, but because until I identify the short-comings of the free applications I won't know what I might be getting for my money.
Free-as-in-speech is a plus. This is purely for idealogical reasons, since I'm a big proponent of open-source.
Runs on OS X (this is my current image-manipulation platform, due to a number of factors).
Runs on linux is a plus, for when I move back to my linux laptop for image editing.

The Candidates

I narrowed down my initial choices to FDR Tools; the aptly-named qtpfsgui; and photosphere.

I chose a range of source images, both tripod-mount and hand-held. Each HDR was sourced from at least three base exposures, and each application was used to perform an automatic creation with no manual processing.

Each application was evaluated on the following factors:

Ease-of-use. A very subjective value of course, but based on such criteria as:

How many clicks are required to obtain a final HDR image with no manual editing.
How "far" from the main interface are editing controls (far here relates to how many levels deep in a menu, or how many buttons required to get to the controls).
How intuitive is the interface.

Output quality of fully-automated HDR creation, using criteria such as:

How much ghosting is present.
What is the full range covered by the final HDR image.
How saturated are the colours output.
How much contrast is present.

Speed. How long does a fully-automatic HDR take to create? I included source image loading and final saving times here, but not time taken to select controls or switch between windows. Where the application supports creation of multiple HDRs from set of source images in a single run, I have divided the total time by the number of HDRs being created. Where this feature is not present I have provided the average time across all HDRs.
Features & Quirks. Included for interest only. These are not factored into the final scoring since they do not affect overall performance or quality, and if, for example, an interface has noticeable oddities they will fade into insignificance with use.

Since I value quality and ease-of-use above speed & features, I have weighted the former factors higher when calculating the overall score for each application. All tests were performed on an Apple Macbook Pro dual-Intel CPU with 1Gb of memory running OS X 10.5.2, with no applications running other than those launched by the OS at boot-up, following a complete reboot.

The Procedure

Each application was tasked with creating an HDR from each of the following image groups (note: only the correctly-exposed image is shown for each group). These images were chosen to provide a good mix of initial dynamic ranges in terms of hue, saturation, and luminosity. Three images were used per group: one correctly exposed (as shown), one under-exposed, and one over-exposed.

Image	Tripod Used?
	N
	N
	N
	Y
	N

The Results

Each *-based score is out of a maximum possible 5. All times are averages, in seconds.

Application	Ease of Use	Quality	Render Time	Time to save LDR	Total Time
FDR Tools	****	****	66.43	45.67	112.10
qtpfsgui	**	*	106.68	~ 1	107.68
Photosphere	****	***	28.37	12.30	40.67

Ease of Use

FDR Tools has one of the simplest interfaces of any graphical application I've used - click 'One' to load images for an HDR, then 'Render', and off you go. You can also create multiple HDR projects at once with the 'Many' button - the software figures out which images go together automatically, which seems to work well enough when the image groups are markedly different, and not so well otherwise. Likewise, rendering of multiple projects is as simple as clicking a single button. However, in order to save rendered & tone-mapped images, it is necessary to edit each individual project, which seems to break from the natural rhythm somewhat.

Photosphere likewise has a simple UI, although not without a few quirks. For example, while loading of images is straightforward, the directory selector is some weird non-standard custom widget, instead of the familiar OS-standard folder tree. Also, once images are selected (a simple matter of choosing the desired images from the folder view), the actual HDR creation is tucked away as a menu option instead of being up-front as a button in the main interface. I suspect this is due to photosphere being aimed at more than just HDR creation. Additionally, in the main interface there is a toolbar of sorts which contains apparent file-selection options. However, this toolbar is placed vertically between the directory selector and folder view, leading me to wonder what it's purpose is and why such placement was chosen.

qtpfsgui's interface, however, is clunky to say the least. While many controls are reasonably placed, the whole interface takes the form of a wizard-style series of dialogs, with no real explanation as to what each step does or in fact why it needs to be a separate step. When timing HDR creation for this application, I have left out any UI manipulation time - having to click three or four buttons to advance to the next step is cumbersome, but does not affect overall rendering since someone more familiar will work faster through the dialogs.

Application	Source	Output	Notes
FDR Tools			Colours are a little muddy; poor alignment; some ghosting present.
			Good colour & contrast; some alignment problems.
			Great colour saturation; spot-on alignment.
			Good colour; some ghosting & mis-alignment.
			Good colour saturation & contrast; some alignment & ghosting problems.
qtpfsgui			Colours a little dark, good contrast;some ghosting & alignment problems.
			Colour, alignment, and ghosting problems.
			Colours dark, de-saturated and over-contrasty; alignment good.
			Colours dark, de-saturated, and over-contrasty; severe alignment problems.
			Colours went a little weird; some alignment problems.
Photosphere			Colours are ok but a little muddy; alignment is spot on; no ghosting.
			Colours muted; alignment is spot-on.
			Colours muted; perfect alignment, no ghosting.
			Colours muted & some bleeding; some ghosting.
			Colours a little muted; no alignment or ghosting problems.

For the purposes of this test, ghosting refers to shadows or other artefacts from mis-aligned images, where alignment refers to duplication of high-detail or high-contrast image areas.

Quality

Both FDR Tools and Photosphere produced images of similar quality, but for different reasons, and thus neither can be considered perfect (at least for automatic rendering). FDR Tools rendered nicely saturated and contrasting colours without being too strong in either category, however it suffered from a lot of alignment problems, leading to obvious ghosting. These problems were not surprisingly mitigated when working on tripod-mounted source images, but ranged from moderate to severe when working with hand-held shots (as could be expected, perhaps), and will affect overall rendering time due to the need for manual adjustment.

Photosphere, on the other hand, had the reverse problem. It was able to cope very well with hand-held shots, with little if any ghosting, but produced very muddy desaturated colours with little contrast. While this is something that be overcome with post-processing, it lets the application down in terms of automatic HDR production. However, photosphere has the fastest rendering of any of the tested applications, so post-processing time may not be such as burden as it would otherwise, and the application performed surprisingly well at aligning hand-held images, thus decreasing the required processing time still further.

Bringing up the rear once more is qtpfsgui. It produced colours that were generally muted while still being over-contrasty, and suffered from severe alignment and ghosting problems (although just like FDR Tools it benefited from tripod-mounted sources). Again, it is possible that with manual tweaking these problems can be overcome, but with the relatively long rendering times, this is not something I'd want to have to perform on a regular basis.

Side-by-side comparison

Source	FDR Tools	qtpfsgui	Photosphere

The Conclusions

It's important to remember that these tests used the default settings and were as automatic as possible - in other words, any given application may produce better results with some manual tweaking. Competing on quality alone, the honours are shared between FDR Tools and Photosphere - FDR Tools for colour, and Photosphere for alignment. However, since Photosphere has a much faster rendering time my conclusion is that for my needs, and based purely on the tests detailed above, Photosphere is the superior application.

The Summary

Application	Colour	Alignment	Speed	Simplicity
FDR Tools	Good	Manual alignment required for hand-held photos.	Slow	Good
qtpfsgui	Requires heavy manual adjustment.	Requires heavy manual adjustment	Slow	Poor
Photosphere	Satisfactory, but benefits from manual adjustment.	Near-perfect	Fast!	Good, but with some quirks.

A story in the form of a representation of a couple of internet memes.

2008-08-04T09:45:00.005-04:00

nom nom nom
nom nom nom
pew pew pew
nom nom *wha?*
pew pew pew
pad pad creak
PEW PEW PEW
SLAM
pad pad pad
pew pew pew
nom nom nom

England Holiday Part One

2008-08-02T11:03:00.000-04:00

In July Lauren and I took a few days to visit the ol' country with the little monkey and his girlfriend. For once, we had a fairly rigid itinerary, rather than just going wherever we felt like on a whim - we actually planned this trip out in pretty fine detail.

Despite threats of cold wet weather, we arrived to bright sunny skies which stayed with us for the rest of the trip - only one day did we experience any rain, and then only briefly.

The first couple of days were spent adjusting to the new time zone - for some reason Lauren and I both woke up before 4.30am on Friday, so we decided to go for a walk around my parents' village.

That afternoon we visited the local mall, ********* [0], where a stormtrooper aged about 12 demanded in a very squeaky voice that we (Lauren and I) stop taking photos of their art installations for the ubiquitously vague "security reasons" (i.e. we could be TERRARISTS!). Now I don't know about you, but if I ran a mall, particularly one with some rather nice sculptures and decorations around the place, I'd *want* people to take photos, especially if they came from out of the country, if only for the "where is this mall, you say? I must visit next time I'm in England!" aspect. As it is, is anyone still fooled by this security theatre? Obviously were a bomb to be set off in the mall, people would be pointing fingers at any manager stupid enough not to deny tourists their photos, right? That's certainly the first thing I'd think of. "Oh, a bomb went off at *********? I bet that's because some tourists took pictures inside! There should be a law against it!". For the hard of thinking, this is sarcasm - you'll experience more of this later.

[0] - Name redacted because I don't want to send any traffic there for security reasons.

That was the only Photography Is Not A Crime moment, however, in the entire trip. The rest of the time was good from a picture-taking perspective, and I focused my efforts on developing my collection of England shots, hoping for wider exposure in the belief that my photos will lens themselves to.. ok, I'll stop there.

After the mall, we took my parents to Rochester for the afternoon. This is a quaint little English town nestled in the heart of Kent, sullied only by being right next to Strood. As it was the last day of school term Lauren got to see some typical English LDOT behaviour, such as egging one's schoolmates, taunting the local police officers, and generally behaving with something of a scofflaw attitude. In England, the miscreants are known as "chavs", of which a close American approximation would be "white trash". But I digress. Rochester was quite lovely, and I accomplished my holiday mission of showing my parents something about England they had not noticed before.

This was the first time I'd been back to England with the feeling of being more of a tourist than a local, so it was quite satisfying to provide my parents - lifelong England residents - with a fresh perspective on their homeland.

At the beginning of the following week we (Lauren, myself, Josh and Kristen) took a mini-trip to a few places I haven't been in a long time. We hit the road early for the journey to Oxford, then after a few hours there headed over to Cheddar, arriving just in time for the whole town to close at 5pm. Lauren and I were able to walk round Gough's Cave, and the kids to climb Jacob's Ladder, just before everything closed for the evening. Lauren fell in love with the town of Cheddar. I could move there for the cheese.

After Cheddar closed we drove on to Bath, where it was apparent that I was getting sick with a cold :( We stayed in a very nice hostel converted from a faux Italian mansion, with a horde of screaming chilluns having a luau. Since we had not brought our hula skirts, we decided against joining them. A brief wander into town, with the best curry in the universe for dinner, followed by a couple of fortifying pints in a local watering hole, and it was back up the hill to the hostel with plans for the following day.

Merlin

2008-07-16T08:45:00.006-04:00

Over the past few weeks Lauren and I have been faced with the stark realisation that Merlin, our handsome 10 year old black cat, was not getting any better, and in fact was deteriorating rather rapidly.

Merlin was diagnosed with a rare skin condition in early 2004, following a wound of mysterious origin and six surgeries to treat the wound in the last few months of 2003. The condition boiled down to the fact that bacteria on his skin would not let the skin knit, thus any slight wound he might suffer would take an extremely long time to heal, if at all.

At the vet's recommendation we put Merlin on a full treatment plan consisting of three visits per week to the clinic for hydrotherapy, and twice-daily administrations of three different medicines. Over the past 4 years he has occasionally required additional medicines or treatments, which we and Merlin have all had to take in our stride, but the hardest thing for Merlin to live with was the fact that he was now confined to being an indoor cat. From being an active participant in his immediate environment, Merlin was restricted to being a spectator, yelling through the storm door at any neighbourhood cat who dared to trespass on his property, like an old man shouting impotently at the TV whenever a particularly mendacious politician is speaking.

Merlin adjusted eventually to his new life, and Lauren and I became well known at the vet's clinic, where Merlin was a firm favourite among the staff. He would yowl and holler of course at the indignity of being shoved into his travelling basket, and would call out to staff members at the clinic whenever they passed his cage.

Over the past few months it became apparent that the medicines were no longer having any effect. His wounds continued to increase in both size and number, he was shedding weight, and hardly had any energy for much besides sleeping in his favourite hiding spots. Towards the end, he seemed to not be able to even lift himself to the feeding area, which contributed even more towards his weight loss.

It's hard to know when a cat's in pain. Oh, sure, a cat will squeak if you tread on her, but prolonged pain doesn't register any complaint. We have no way of knowing if Merlin was in pain, but he was definitely suffering. He had open sores all over his back, sides, and belly, and he could not bear to be touched anywhere but his head. Walking, indeed any sort of activity, looked to be acutely uncomfortable, so most of the time he just slept.

On Friday therefore, after much deliberation, we decided to end his suffering and set him free. So long, little man.

Showdown at the ATT Corral

2008-06-25T21:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I happened to be in midtown Atlanta with my camera, so decided to spend some time taking a series of photos of a single city block. As I was about halfway round the block, I was accosted by a group of three apparent AT&T employees (they did not identify themselves as such), one of whom informed me that "[I] can't take pictures of the AT&T buildings".

Right.

I politely asked the lady for clarification. Did she perhaps believe I was physically incapable of taking pictures of AT&T buildings, while other buildings provided no such impediment? Or did she maybe mean that the AT&T buildings weren't really there, and would not show up once the negatives were processed? (Since I shoot digital, I figured I could discount the latter possibility, since the buildings showed up on the camera's LCD screen just fine). Or something else?

None of the above.

The fine representative of AT&T (assumed) was apparently under the impression that I *may* not take pictures of the AT&T buildings. I informed her that yes, indeed I may, at which point she offered to contact the local police department. I told her to go right ahead, but for some reason she put her radio away in response.

The two other (apparent) AT&T employees (both gentlemen) then became involved, one of whom informed me that it was AT&T's strict policy not to allow photographs of their buildings, the other chiming in to let me know it was "nothing personal". I responded that I have a strict policy not to listen to stupid braindead corporate monkeys, but that didn't mean squat, since here I was in this conversation.

Apparently this did not have the desired effect, since the first SBCM/ AT&T employee (assumed) repeated his position, with the added piece of information that the policy applied to people who were on the AT&T forecourt. Since I had been standing on the public sidewalk for the entire duration, I responded that their policy still did not apply to me, but if they would care to call the police ("we pay a cop to sit over there", the lady intimidated into the conversation) we could discuss the matter further.

Both gentlemen at this point became visibly less confrontational, almost placatory, with one telling me that they stand out here every day telling people not to take photographs of the AT&T buildings, as if said buildings were a major tourist attraction or photographer's ultimate delight, or perhaps a mixture of the two. I enquired whether they informed those people that it was not against the law, or if they simply assumed their bullying and intimidatory tactics would work 100% of the time.

At this time, I decided to end the conversation by telling the alleged AT&T employees that if they wished to call representatives of the local police department they were more than welcome to do so, but otherwise I should be in receipt of an apology (nothing fancy, a verbal one would suffice), and I would be about my business. In response, the lady made a very sour face indeed, and all three ostensible AT&T representatives left for the comfort and presumed safety of the interior of the nearest (AT&T) building.

For anyone wishing to see what all the fuss (terrists!!) is about, I have included a photograph of one of the AT&T buildings. Note that this is not the photograph that drew the ire of the aforementioned supposed AT&T employees; ironically that one was a shot of the Georgia Terrace hotel taken between (and not showing) the AT&T buildings.