Below is a quick bullet list of my hobbies. Some I'm doing currently, others I've not done in a long time, but hope to do again, and a few I hope to do some day (such as get pilot's license to fly a lot). ;-)

List of hobbies.

Martial Arts:

• Kungfu (current though intermittent. first started in '74. been on and off over the years. now on 4th style)
• Aikido (been a while, first started in '74. intermittent over the years. last class in '01)
• Karate ('06)
• T'ai Chi (integrated with Kungfu sometimes)
• Meditation (intermittently)

Visual Arts:

• Photography (intermittent. I don't know if I'm going to get the darkroom setup after all)
  • Black & White / Archival (intermittently. have not done since not had dark room, have all the equipment, but need to either finish setting up darkroom or give it up with the hassle of chemistry and paper acquisition an issue now. last used around '01)
  • outdoors/wildlife/landscape (intermittently)
  • fashion/commercial/catalog/promotional (last did professionally in '01)
• Computer Graphics (intermittent)
• Computer Animation  (been a while)

Music:

Composition (been a while, desperately want to take a few days and crank out a few pieces I have in my head and lay down some tracks).

Listening & Broadcasting  (stopped broadcasting Summer 2007)

Broadcasting:

• News & Commentary (stopped in Summer '07, considering podcasting again sometimes with co-host)
• Technology Discussion  (ditto)
• Disc Jockeying (music) (stopped in Summer '07)
• Interviews (stopped in Summer '07)
• Live performances (self, and others) (stopped in Summer '07)

Role playing gaming:

• Game Mastering (Gming)  (intermittently, sometimes months in between)
• Playing (about once every month or two)
• Creating (rules systems, modules, adventures, maps, etc.)  (intermittent)
• Modifying/converting game systems  (intermittent)
• Creating and running gaming conventions  (annually, each July, coming up on 4th year)
• Most interested in Middle-earth based settings, but enjoy others
RPG Game Systems/Settings:
Ea RPGS (Ea (Middle-earth) Role Playing Game System)
ICE MERPS (Iron Crown Enterprises Middle-earth Role Playing System)
ICE RM (Rolemaster)
Decipher LOTR (Lord of the Rings) – minimally
D&D (original)
AD&D
Oriental Adventures
Dragonlance
Greyhawk
Imagica
D&D 3.5
Thieves World (not d20)
Thieves World (d20)
Wheel of Time (d20)
Ea d20 (Middle-earth) (d20)
GURPS
Harnmaster
Twilight 2000
Stormbringer
Elric
Paranoia
Pendragon
Top Secret/S.I.
Mechwarrior
Robotech
Call of the Cthulu (NOT d20)
Star Wars (NOT d20)
Star Trek (fasa)
Car Wars (modified as a role playing game)

Sports & Outdoors activities:

Travel:

Motorcycling/Touring (every chance I get. last trip was a few weeks ago)
Flying/piloting (aspiring, flew gliders for a while around '81, want to get pilot's license some day. last held a stick waaay back around '81 or so)  I do NOT like flying on passenger planes. they are all too small and crowded now. They have made it next to impossible for me to physically sit down (39.5" inseam).

Video (last performed in '91)
Audio/Voice-overs (see "broadcasting. last performed in Summer '07)

Acting: Theater (love this, totally natural for me, wish I could do more. last perfomed in '02).
Theatrical Styles:

Shakesperean (last performed in '90)
Contemporary (last performed in '02)
Classical (last performed in '90)
Greek (last performed in '89)
Vaudville (last performed in '82)
Musicals (last performed in '81)
Comedy (last performed in '90)
Horror (last performed in '90)
Drama (last performed in '02)
Mystery (last performed in '89)
Interactive/participatory (last performed in '90)
Outdoor theater (last performed in '90)  

 

Languages:

• Spanish (3 years from '83 to '86)
• Russian ('86 to '87, and in '93)
• Japanese ('92 to '93)
• Mandarin ('94, briefly '07, will be starting a year of classes in Fall '08)
• Cantonese ('94)
• Finnish ('95)
• ASL (American Sign Language) ('06 to '08 and continuing)

 

Computer Programming (Langauges):

• BASIC/QBASIC/GWBASIC/VBASIC (utility language. used from '81 through '01 on and over the years)
• Pascal ('84 to '86)
• C ('89, then '96, then intermittently since. last used in '04)
• C++ ('96 to '00)
• Assembly/Assembler ('96 to '98)
• Perl (the utility language. '96 to '02, still comes up once in a great while).
• PHP (blech) ('00 to '04. I hope this language dies off some day, but as long as there are sloppy programmers around..... :-(  ).
• Fortran (ouch!)  (nothing wrong with the language, just had a rough assignment with it. last used in '97)
• Java (intermittent and currently)
• Python (early stages currently and intermittently)

 

Reading voraciously

Writting occasionally (poems, lyrics, memoirs, modules, essays, reviews, etc.).

Cooking, many cultures and styles of food. If I were to become a cook/chef for a living, I would want to be a saucier (master of sauces), it is what turns a "nice" dish, into "a taste of heaven".  ;-)

 

Originally posted on 2006/11/15.

Back when I was in Malad, I auditioned for a town theater role in "A Christmas Carol", and was accepted as Scrooge. I have video tape, that one of these days I need to edit together, but here's a pic from back then. I'm cowering from the ghost of Jacob Marley. ;-)

That's me as scrooge (in the white) cringing from Jacob Marley.

One interesting challenge to this performance was that, even though Marley was reasonably tall fellow, I was still a rather tall and rather well fed Scrooge (though George C. Scott's was rather considerably more well fed).
So, I would spend the entire play attempting to shrink myself (and succeeded in shrinking myself from around 6'8" (pre-injury) to 6'2" or so). At the end of each performance it would take me a while to painfully "unfold". ;-)

The whole production was a lot of fun, if I recall correctly we had 3 performances, I have always loved doing theater, and I hope in time to get chances to do some acting here in Spokane. I have three performances on video tape, that I keep intended to capture to my hard drive and then merge together into a nice single video. Some day... ;-)

 

Originally posted 2006/10/26.

Some VERY interesting dialogue that was on Slashdot this week (all quotes from others, no commentary from me right now):

Commentator1: "...the MPAA hasn't provided legitimate alternatives for what consumers want..."

Commentator2: "...this statement is almost laughable. What's the purpose of it? To justify theft? That's a very, very slippery slope indeed..."

Commentator3: "Here" (referring to Commentator2's statement) " is the misconception, copyright violations are not theft. Copyright ownership is not an absolute right like property ownership is. Copyright is a comprimise struck by society with artists and writers. The purpose of compulsory licensing was to modify the compromise to maintain it's fairness. The MPAA and RIAA have no absolute right to control their members' creations. Neither do their members for that matter. If the MPAA does not live up to it's side of the compromise, we the people reserve the right to renegotiate. No slippery slope, no theft. If we give in to the MPAA and RIAA or any of those extremists that say intellectual propery is the same as real property, then we are giving up our rights and heading down a slippery slope."

"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine;
as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.  That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them,
like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody... '
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson, 1813"

I'm getting lazy in my "old age" using GUI too much.
I am still setting up my HP (moving back over from the Dell), and I wanted to move all my various and custom fonts over.
Well, each font is stored in a separate subdirectory, and sometimes sub-sub-sub-directories.
The GUI way would be to tediously go through each directory one at a time (or run the GUi search) and then copy the files over.
But I _knew_ there was an easier way from the command line, but I couldn't remember the syntax.... Had something to do with using find...... Now if i can just _find_ what that was... ;-)

This should work for any/most/all UNIX, Linux, BSD variants. Of course, you must have working versions of "find" and "cp" installed, but that's (almost) certainly the case.

I didn't find the exact answer online, but found enough similar examples to piece together and refresh my memory.

I'm posting it up here in case I forget again (INCONCEIVABLE!), and/or maybe help others out.

(Edit: 2008-05-25)

Sheesh, I forgot to post the actual code when I first posted this blog entry. Here it is:

find . -type f -name '*.TTF' -exec cp {} ../All-Fonts/ \;

 

 

I'm very tired, so please pardon the brevity of this posting.
Brennan had his final Mead Beginner Orchestra performance tonight.
He has been working hard on his cello playing, even when he was sick, making the effort to put in some good practice time.
He's obviously having a great time with it, and his (private) teacher, Nina Petersen does a great job teaching and inspiring him.
You can see from this photo what a great time he was having:



And here the concentration and focus:


They are coming along very nicely. Each group, Advanced, onwards, were very impressive, and had a fun selection.
We all especially enjoyed the mor senior groups renditions of Orange Jam and The Lord of the Rings.
Brennan was "rockin'" to the music.

On a side tangent, the lead violinist  (Concert Master?) for the high school group, was Michael Mortier, the son of my voice teacher. He received numerous awards, and his violiln playing was wonderful. It was great to talk briefly with Steve (his dad) as well.
The audience actually gave a standing ovation for the final piece (which had the violin players scattered throughout the audience for a nice "surround sound" effect.

All very nicely done. Way to go Mead Orchestra!
Way to go Brennan!

G'night all.

For several weeks a friend and I have been planning a motorcycle ride on Tuesday, May 20th.
After a great (hot) week prior, of course, on this day, the entire northwest was covered with rainstorms.

We went for it anyway. Taking a slow, winding route on Waikiki, to Rutter Parkway (BEAUTIFUL area btw, and one of the few roads deserving the title "Parkway"), finally to highway 231, going north by Nine Mile Falls, and continuing up to Long Lake, past Tum Tum, and finally stopping at the Long Lake dam. The vibration from the water coming from the spillway on the opposite side of the canyone could be felt through my boots on the rocks. It was gorgeous.

The ride back became increasingly wet and cold.

It was however well worth it. I got in some zen-riding-restorative time, and had a nice short adventure. It was approximately 80 miles round trip. Stopped a lot to read markers, look at inidian paintings, stop at a cafee/saloon that had decent mexican food, and chat with the postal worker at the Tum Tum (micro) post office.

I'm very tired (had kid's concert to go to afterwards), so these blog posts might be a little disjointed, sorry about that.

Some pics below....

Hawke's 2001 Suzuki Bandit 1200 on lookout platform opposite Long Lake reservoir spillway.
May 20th, 2008.


Hawke on lower lookout area opposite Long Lake Reservoir spillway (with helmet still on warding off the rain). Already quite soaked, even through the leather jacket. But enjoying very much. ;-)


Hawke and Bandit in front of Tum Tum Post Office that has apparently been there for over 100 years.
According to the postal worker, they used to do delivery by lake long ago. You can't tell from this shot, but it's probably only a 20'x30'x structure. Long Lake is in the background beyond the trees.

I debated whether to take the time to jot these thoughts down, and obviously decided to give in.

In about a 15 minute period today, I my visual and auditory senses were assaulted with facist and facist nanny messages.

I ran out to drop off one of my kids to his early orchestra class, and then get the tags renewed on my motorcycle trip (of course it's raining today), and get a new tirevalve stem valve for my motorcycle as well.

In the 15-20 minutes or so it took to run those errands, I saw 1 bilboard, and listened to multiple ads covering the following:

• Billboard: "We're watching for literrers. Are you?" "Litter and it will hurt". - With a zoom in picture on someone's eyes peering sideways while on a cell phone.
• Radio ad: "Click it or ticket". "Whether you are in the city or the countryside, we'll catch you if you do'nt buckle up". "...you think you're safe? Think again."
• Radio ad: "All your pets must be licensed..." ".. the amnesty period is right now...."

There were one or two others, but my memory is already failing me on those.
I'm not against littering, but I am painfully reminded of the Nazi (and other Facist countries) messages to turn in your fellow citizens.

I'm not against requirements to HAVE a sealt belt in a car, but for the government to mandate I wear it? That has always irked me.

If I want to earn a "Darwin Award" for studpidity, and remove myself from the gene pool, that should be my choice. The issue gets a little trickier with children, it might be considered neglectful if parents don't enforce it with their kids, but there is such a thing as the government getting far too involved in a families decision making process. "Education programs" about the risks. Fine.

Pet licensing? I'm reminded of the Monty Python routine "Hello, I'd like to purchase a fish license". Pretty soon I'll be taxed for my amount of air I breathe, and oh wait, my "carbon footprint". That has to be just around the corner. At least in this state.


The whole seat belt issue, many could see from miles away. This is a perfect model of incremental facist implementation. I always wore my seat belt long before there were any laws on the books. I had an incident when I was 4 years old and the car door opened on  the highway while I was leaning against it and my mother was taking a turn. I barely held on. That encouraged me to keep the door locked, seat belt on, and not lean much on the door. Fortunately (or not, depending on your perspective), i survived that potential Darwinian-potential-elimination moment. Neither I, nor my parents would have tried to sue anyone (car manufacturer, highway, parents, whatever). Nowadays, it seems that is exactly what too many people would do. That's a whole other topic of course. I digress.

First they made it a "secondary" ticket (offense) to not have your seat belt on when pulled over for something else. Of course, a few years later, it's now a primary offense. And now they have this gravel-voiced commercial saying "if you think you're safe from our patrols, think again". Are you kidding me?

I am certainly for the "rule of law", but there is a balance. And it really feels like in the past 15-20 years that balanced has slipped over the line.

Worse yet, it seems the "Average" people are just fine with it. The whole "boiled frog" approach works all to well. <sigh>
Anyhow, I needed to vent. At least I'm (for now) allolwed to do so (in this country), without having to worry about getting fined (yet) or taxed (yet) for it. Of course, that is exactly why services like TOR (The Onion Router) to anonymize and re-route and obfuscate your location, exist.  Just a shame it's headed so quickly in that direction. It's like being in a bus stuck on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. I can see the other oncoming train, and am yelling to the driver an dthe people to move the bus off the tracks, or get out of the bus ASAP, but everyone is just smiling and saying "the bus driver knows what's best for us". meanwhile all the exists are blocked by these "sheep-people" (sheeple? sheople?). <Sigh>

Ok, enough of the rant for now. Let's see if i can get out and ride the motorcycle for the day for some taste of freedom.  ;-)

Ciao for now.

Just finished (binge) reading a book called "The Cucko's Egg" by Cliff Stoll. He would have preferred to rename it to match his paper "To Catch The Wily Hacker", aka "Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage".

It's a true, very detailed story.

If I were (once again) teaching courses in information security, and it was a 101 introduction style class, this would definitely be the book I would recommend they read to start things rolling.  If nothing else, it would at least lay the groundwork for some awareness of what's really going on out in the (cyber) world that most are blissfully ignorant of. It would quickly determine if the reader has the mindset and interest for that world, and where they stand on the spectrum from white hat, grey hat, or black hat in the information security and espionage world.

If interested in such things, I think most readers won't be able to put the book down. It's a "whodunnit" page turner for techie and security geeks.

I have not read a novel that put me into "binge-reading" mode, in I don't know how many years.

It wasn't that very much of it was new to me, in fact it brought back a LOT of memories from the mid-80's. And I kind of knew (just because of my background) roughly who did do it, but the detailed, step by step progression was just addictive.

If anyone is wondering what technology and the (ARPAnet) Internet and computers were like circa mid-80's and the complete apathetic view of information security by people, government, NGO's, etc. This would be the single best introduction I've ever read.

If talking about astrophysics, UNIX, VAX, VMS, software development, ethernet, networking, information security, and other science and technology interests you, you definitely may want to check out this book.

Of course, if you're not into such things. You'll probably be bored out of your gourd.

Cheers for now!

This article and these photos are originally posted September 1st, 2004 or so. The date stamp on this article has changed from server moves and edits made later.

Finally, after all these years, and so many moves, we're at last settling in.

Before marriage, I moved over 30-40 times from when I moved out of my mothers home at 18, until marriage at 25. At one point I moved 21 times in a little over 2 years. Boy my furniture took a beating. :(
And since marriage, we've moved 8 times in 9 years of marriage. We plan to stay here for at least 5-10 years, if not forever. ;)



  The wonderful view from the living room/deck.

It's hard to really appreciate how great this view is with this cheesy old 1998 Sony Mavica Digital camera, but it'll give you a little idea of what a great view we have from up here on the edge of the plateau facing the hills and mountains to the north, all covered with so many trees, most of which are evergreens, so it's beautiful year round. ;)

The deck has two parts, long and skinny north part, and wide 16' wide, by 32' long east covered deck. The north deck is about 4.5' wide and 72' long! This shot is from the East side of the north deck. facing northwest.

 

This is from the north deck looking at the back yard to the northwest side of the yard.

click "Read More" link for more pics and descriptions....

Well today I finally broke out my motorcycle from storage in my garage.
I cleaned it up, topped off the battery charge, and started her up.
Cleaned and freshly lubed the chain, and washed the bike, including braking out a toothbrush to get some built up grit and such off the chainbars and frames.
Rode it around for a little while on my local streets (lots of grit/gravel alas), so rode very carefully.
I still need to change the oil, plugs, and adjust the chain, then get the Corbin beetle bags remounted (the Givi tail bag is currently on there just fine, it's the mix of trying to make them both mount at the same time that's been challenge).
I hope in the next week or two to get out on the open road for real. Maybe just a few hours at first. Anyone else in the area want to join in on a ride? I'm still relatively new to the area, to any suggestions around here (Spokane area) for the best back roads and sights to see, would be appreciated.
Oh, my bike is a "rice burner" sport touring 2001 Suzuki Bandit 1200. It's been a great bike since I bought it brand new back in California for commuting and "lane splitting", I have ridden it in 13 states and just under 20,000 miles so far, and most of that was from 2001 to 2004.
So far I have ridden completely solo, I hope to finally find friends to ride with now that I've settled down in Spokane.

Here is a link to the various adventures I've had on this bike in many states and weather ranging from -20f (with snow and ice) to over 100f.


My bike near a lake in Oklahoma, circa Fall 2002)

Well, I just "liked" my Prius previously, now I think I "love" it (only in the way one can care about an inanimate object of course, completely different). ;-)

It saved me from my own foolish self.

I have started working over in Post Falls, about 30 miles from where I live. This is not so bad with my 2006 Toyota Prius because it only uses a little over 1 gallon of gas round trip (60 miles). I typically get between 48-52 mpg driving moderately aggressively between half city and half hwy, that's the overall average. The worst I have ever gotten is around 40-42 mpg in the winters. That is a combination of the winter formula they put in, and putting on my studded tires with the heavier rims too. Also when my ex drove it, she has a nasty lead foot, and would get around 40-42 in the Summer driving like she thought she was Mario Andretti.

I have milked it in the city all day running errands, keeping it below 35 and lots of stop and go, and made it up 75 mpg average.

On a round trip from Spokane to Salt Lake City, Utah and back (using the I-90 route through Missoula Montana and all the passes), driving 65 mph, I ended up for the whole round trip getting 65 mpg!

So, I like the car for that, especially with the gas prices. And the fact that I can fit my tall frame comfortably even on long road trips is mind boggling some times.

But now, it has yet another "protect the user from himself" feature.
Since I'm working in Post Falls, I usually hold off on getting gas for when I'm over there, rather than in Washington. This is because Post Falls is 15 cents cheaper per gallon than in Spokane. That adds up.
So, I left work the previous week on Friday, and forgot to stop in, because I was in a hurry to get home for my kids. The "low fuel" warning went off about midway home. I figured I'd be ok. I then ran some errands over the weekend.

In the morning I was thinking I should probably stop and get gas, but I was  a little late leaving, and didn't want to be late for work, and figured I'd be ok.

I hopped on the freeway, and after a few miles, all of a sudden the engine stopped, a big red exclamation mark showed in my dash, and I was uttering various expletives.

I had completely run out of gas!

During Monday morning rush hour. Ack!

So I quickly maneuvered coasting through traffic to take an off ramp (which went up hill unfortunately). I coasted to the end of the ramp and stopped at the red light, figuring I would have to get out and push when the light changed. There was no gas station in sight.

When the light changed, I figured I'd just try pushing the gas pedal, in the wild hope that maybe the electric mode might kick in (though I've heard people tell me horror stories about running out of gas or battery power with a Prius). I stepped on it, and to my wonderful relief the car took off in pure electric mode no problem, and had no trouble keeping up with traffic (I quickly turned off the heater/blower and radio to conserve power)!

I drove 1.2 miles in pure electric mode to a gas station with still about 1/5th battery power remaining.

Now I was concerned that supposedly once you run it out of gas, you have to have the dealership make it work again. I filled up while crossing my fingers.

I hit the POWER button (that's how you start these cars), and voila! It started right up and immediately started recharging the battery.

I made it to work 5 minutes early too.

Thank you Prius for saving me from my own foolishness!

So, yet another sample of my space cadetness, not exactly impressive, but shows I'm all to human and flawed a mortal being. <sigh> For better or worse. ;-)

Ciao for now!

I figure I need to explain what the heck my "Got Root?" shirt is all about. Some of you may get it right away, but most will probably not. Plus, I have found there is an unintended double entendre for those from "down under".

First off, it's a nod towards the old 80's commercials of "Got Milk?".
Secondly, it's a techie (and hacker) joke in reference to "root" user. This is the administrator account on a computer system, usually a UNIX type (UNIX/AIX/HPUX, Solaris, Linux, Net/Free/Open BSD, etc.).

What I found out a few months ago, was that in Australia, these shirts have caught on for a completely different reason than oddball tech/geek humor.

Apparently "root" is more a reference to "a roll in hay" so to speak, So these shirts are now selling like hot cakes for a completely different reason than they were originally created for. Which, for anyone who knows the old school "hacker" and 2600 mentality (before the media perverted the term to be synonymous with computer criminal), which is trying to understand how things work and finding new uses for, and way to modify, technologies (also for "hacking" away at code to optimize it in the old PDP and mainframe days). So in a way an apropo irony that this "technical shirt" has found a new "use". Maybe I'm the only one who really appreciates that added twist?

Now just to be clear, I bought (and wear) the shirt because of the second (technical) reason. But the third certainly adds as a conversation piece.

Admittedly, I am now a little sheepish about wearing it sometimes (especially at work, though I do it anyway) in public, for fear I might cause someone visiting from Australia, with their child, to suddenly gasp in horror and dismay, and cover their child's eyes.

But then again, maybe I'm being overly imaginative there? And of course, most of the Aussies I've met are no where near as prudish as we tend to be in the "states".

;-P

Cheers!

Well. from my previous posting about my middle son, nicknamed by someone "The Mad Scientist", to his progenitor (me), that some have said I should become a professor, so that I better fit the cliche of "The Absent Minded Professor".

I have a very odd memory. Some things stick very well, especially complex concepts and ideas and how many pieces fit together (especially "big picture" and long term "vision"). As well as the 20-30 changing passwords I use for different levels of security (and which I completely replace most over time), or certain tcp/ip addresses and such. But I'm the kind of person who forgets my glasses all the time (even hanging in my shirt or once in my own hand), or my keys, or left the car running in the driveway all morning, or any number of "spacey" things. I get quite perturbed with myself, while most others are rather amused.

Prior to usable PDA's I was frequently completely forgetting appointments. I had a dayplanner, but kept forgetting it, or forgetting to look inside it to check my schedule periodically, since it would not beep at me to remind me. I don't think I would have ever made it to the executive levels in my career building days if it had not been for effective PDA technologies.. but I digress...

Well. today I "did it again". In a new form.

I wanted to take time to prep my motorcycle for the upcoming season, but I decided to be more "responsible" and take a load of odds and ends that accumulated during the winter, and piled up on my hauling trailer, to the dump. So I fired up the ol' '86 Bronco, hooked up the trailer and battened down the load.

I confirmed online that the North side solid waste transfer station on Elk-Chattaroy was open until 4:30 pm. I was ready to go around 3:30 pm, figuring I had plenty of time.

I made it there just a few minutes before 4:00 pm, and what to my wondering eyes should I see?

The gate was closed! And even a sign on it saying they close at 4:30 pm.
I was quite befuddled. I was about to turn around and leave, and thought to myself, "Now wait a minute, if they closed early, maybe they'll open up if I'm honking my horn." I didn't do that right away, First I grabbed my Treo and hopped online, and verified on their website the time. And so then I called the number only to get voicemail. So I left a message saying who I was, my phone number, and the time of day.

So then I started honking (albeit timidly at first, feeling rather rude to be doing so, but really not wanting to waste such a long trip in the 4 barrel V8 Bronco, not exactly the mileage of my Prius or my motorcyle, or even my minivan).

Well, I was about to leave when a small fleet of large black SUVs came speeding up from the closed side of the gate (I kid you not on the vehicles). I spoke to a person opening the gate to leave, and inquired as to why they closed early. He stated "Sir, it's 5:30 pm".

It then hit me. Oh crud! daylight savings time! DOH!!!!!

I felt like a total schmuck.

As they passed on, I called back the answering system on my phone, and left a short, but clearly apologetic message (I wasn't especially rude or anything, but just felt very foolish, and didn't want someone wasting their time calling me to reaffirm my error).

I then drove back with the full load to park it in front of my house until the next time I can find time to do another run.

DOH! (slaps forehead).

Worse yet, I looked then at the little time indicator in the upper right corner of my phone, and of course IT was correct due to the auto updating of the network.

Anyhow, I am fervently changing the times on my various devices that did not auto adjust (especially with the congressional change implemented last year).

Anyhow, I thought I would just share a little flawed human experience there. ;-)

Cheers!

Wow, bio logging more in the past couple of days than I do in months usually.
Just had a funny phone call. My middle son, Brennan, spent the night at his friend's house. His dad just called me to get the approval for something.
Apparently Brennan and his friend Connor dug up his father's (Paul) old laptop that was "Dead". and were managing to breathe some new life into it. So my son asked if he could take the laptop home to try to get it fully recovered (including recovering old data on the flaky hard drive). So his Paul asked if "The Mad Scientist can take the laptop home to work on it". LOL!
Fitting title in some ways though. My middle son loves astronomy and biology and computers. He's 9 and teaching himself Java and C++ programming languages, and teaching himself German as well.
That's why, when I was buying "techie/geeky" humorous t-shirts for my kids, I bought him the "Science is Fun" shirt from jinx.com:
http://www.jinx.com/men/shirts/geek/science_is_fun.html?catid=1#bigdesign



Note they two children ore genetically modifying a rat (see the ear on it's back?). LOL!
Very apropo. ;-)


School is waaaaaaay too easy for him, even now with him in the most advanced classes they can offer him. It's good that he's not totally bored with school (yet), and finds ways to stay engaged.
Anyhow, that was the first I had heard someone refer to him with such a title, and thought it funny enough to share. Maybe not of interest to anyone though?
Cheers!

W. A. Hawke Robinson (c) 2007-2008

Recreation Programming

RCLS-385-01 (2007-01-17)

Creative Program Ideas & Trends

Virtual Reality for the Disabled.

Goal

    Use Virtual Reality technologies to help those with various disabilities (except blindness) to engage, in a 'virtual' way in activities that would normal