Friday on the 'Pod

The last 10 random offerings from the 40 gig 'Pod on a cool but sunny Friday afternoon, as I toil away inside the dank Photoshop cave, pushing pixels at the behest of The Man:

• We Will Worship the Lamb - Annie Herring


• El Paso - Marty Robbins


• Come Dancing - The Kinks


• Pike's Peak - Considering Lily


• Streets of Bakersfield - Dwight Yoakum & Buck Owens


• Born to Boogie - Bocephus


• Woodstock - CSN&Y


• When Did You Stop Loving Me? - George Strait


• RESPECT - Aretha


• Take Me to Your Leader - The Newsboys

Bonus track: Onda - Los Lonely Boys (They be from San Angelo, you know...)

Our saint can whip your saint

Long-distance Russian bombers armed with nuclear warheads now have their own patron saint, according to this article on Yahoo News.

I'm at a loss for a comment here, other than to say that I think I hear Saint Reagan snickering in the background.

Tip o'the Hat to North Sea Diaries, which you really ought to be visiting on a regular basis, if you're not already.

Photographic Advice

Here's my advice if you ever get hired to create a website for someone who makes gift baskets and you're asked to shoot photos of those gift baskets and you find yourself surrounded by little plates and serving dishes and bowls full of fudge and salsa and candied jalapeños and yogurt-covered pretzels and chocolate truffles and popcorn and ginger snaps and fudge: eat something before you go.

Otherwise, you're likely to come home after the photo shoot and binge on 47 (or 48, but who's counting?) almond M&Ms.

Or so I've been told.

Firefox 1.0.7 & 1.5 Beta 1 Available

I'm a bit late but I also realize that I'm not alone in sometimes being slow to discover software updates...so if you haven't yet heard, release 1.0.7 of Firefox is now available for free download. This release addresses a number of security flaws, some of which are deemed to be critical.

And, for the more adventurous among you, Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is now available for download. You can see what's new and improved in the release notes. As with any software in beta status, you should be prepared to deal with surprises, not all of them pleasant.

Technorati tag: Firefox

The Morgan Aero8: Back to the Future

One of the few network TV shows we set aside time to watch every week is CBS's "NCIS," which stars Mark Harmon along with a great ensemble cast. If you're familiar with the show, you may also know that one member of that cast is David McCallum, who plays the chief medical examiner, Dr. David Mallard (from whence cometh his rather ridiculous nickname, Ducky). You may also remember that Ducky drives a restored Morgan automobile. I don't recall the model, but it purportedly has the original wooden frame. It's a beautiful car and very British in demeanor, although it's obviously been modified in some fashion as it seems to run just fine in the rain, and we all know that British electrical systems don't do that in real life. ;-)

I don't think it's widely know that the Morgan Motor Company continues to build cars in the UK and the company's design philosophy hasn't departed much from those original roadster-style models. But that doesn't mean the company is allowing its designs to stagnate. The Aero 8 shown below is an example of how a classic can be updated while retaining the qualities that made it a classic to begin with.

As the name suggests, the car is powered by a 4.4L V8 engine making 325bhp and 330ft-lbs of torque. It weighs in at a relatively svelte 2,500 pounds and tops out at 162mph. (By the way, isn't it interesting that almost all the specs for this British car are given in non-metric measurements?) I didn't try very hard to find current pricing for the Aero 8; according to this article, the base price for the 2004 models was $95,000, but that's probably changed. I did note that one may choose from among 30,000 shades of colors for the car's exterior. That seems to be a bit overkillish, but that's just me.

On a related note, if you want to see what happens when you drop a Corvette V8 into a rather pedestrian Morgan Plus8, you can get your enlightenment here.

Technorati tags: Morgan Aero 8 | NCIS

US stays competitive; EU loses ground

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has released its Global Competitiveness Report, and Finland retains the top spot, followed by the US. Sweden, Denmark and Taiwan round out the top five, which was identical to last year's ranking (with the exception that Denmark and Taiwan swapped places).

The nations of western Europe continue to lose ground in these annual rankings. Here's what the Wall Street Journal has to say about this situation:

Italy trails powerhouse economies like Tunisia, and is barely ahead of Botswana. France and Spain rank 30 and 29, respectively, behind Chile (23), Estonia (20) and New Zealand (16). Interestingly, China and India rank only 49 and 50, with China dropping three spots since last year; India is up five spots. Full rankings including a comparison with last year's survey results are found here.

Here's how the study is described in the WEF's press release:

Here's what the study's Executive Summary has to say about the US performance:

Macroeconomic imbalances. That's econospeak for huge budget and trade deficits.

Very interesting reading. Given all the other problems in the world, it's also difficult to engage in any schadenfreude regarding the EU's continuing decline. Difficult, but not impossible. ;-)

Technorati tags: World Economic Forum | Global Competitiveness Report

How Napoleon Dynamite will help us get to the moon

Like a deceptively shallow pool of water, Napoleon Dynamite appears to be simply displaying his awesome tetherball skills, while actually providing the more perceptive with a demonstration of how mankind will eventually be able to routinely travel to the moon and beyond. I'm speaking, of course, about space elevators.

The concept of a space elevator has been around for half more than a century. It's progressed from a proposal in 1960 by a Russian scientist to the subject of science fiction, and now forms the current business model for a real live working for-profit corporation with a goal of building one within the next fifteen years.

The working of a space elevator is described on the How Stuff Works website:

In other words, the space vehicle would be slung outward along the "rope" until it escapes the earth's gravitational pull and is then released like a rock from a slinghot aimed -- accurately, one would hope -- at the moon or even Mars. Setting aside the immense cost of building the thing to begin with, the anticipated cost per pound of launching stuff into space via this method is predicted to be significantly smaller than with our current rocket technology.

The technology already exists to build a space elevator...in theory, anyway. The basic building block is the carbon nanotube. Nanotubes are much more than shipping containers for the new iPods. (That's a little engineering humor, there.) Here's the definition, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The diameter of a nanotube is 50,000 times smaller than a human hair, but is incredibly strong...100 times and more stronger than steel. The carbon atoms are connected by bonds which are stronger than those which bond the atoms in a diamond. These properties, along with the relative ease of connecting nanotubes to one another, yield the theoretical possibility of creating almost unbreakable ribbons or ropes or cables of unlimited length...such as the 62,000 mile long ribbon needed to build a functioning space elevator. And, incidentally, this ribbon is also amazingly lightweight; the LiftPort Group estimates it will weigh just 7.5kg/km, and that's for a ribbon built to twice the strength spec actually required for the job.

Incidentally, if you want to help the LiftPort Group get off the ground (ha!), it's accepting donations...via PayPal. Napoleon would be proud.

Tip o'the propeller beanie to the Responsible Nanotechnology blog. And, if you want to learn more about nanotubes, this site is the recommended starting point.

Technorati tags: Carbon Nanotube | Space Elevator | LiftPort Group

Playing an Expert

I spent ninety minutes this morning in a room with seven women, doing most of the talking, and it wore me out.

I had been asked to make a presentation about websites for nonprofit organizations as part of a monthly series of breakfast sessions sponsored by Midland College. These sessions are geared toward the training and development needs of local organizations, "local" being a relative term in that we had attendees from Big Spring and Odessa in addition to the Midland-based participants. Presenters are volunteers; attendees pay a nominal fee to Midland College to cover overhead. I chose as my topic "Extreme Website Makeovers: Nonprofit Edition," figuring that one more in the seemingly endless proliferation of makeover programs couldn't hurt.

Given that our group consisted of representatives from organizations which (a) had mature websites, (b) had new websites, (c) had no website but had a grant to build one, (d) had no website and no apparent means to get one, it was a little difficult to settle on one approach to the presumed topic of making over an existing site. So I stuck with the tried-and-true approach of giving tips for creating an effective website, existing or planned.

We used the facilities of MC's Advanced Technology Center, which is a wonderful resource for our area. The computer and video projector were ready to go, along with an internet connection so we could browse some actual websites and critique them in a hands-on manner. The women were interested in the subject matter, asked a number of perceptive questions (including one about "deep linking," although she didn't know that's what it was called) and overall made the experience an interesting and pleasant one.

I always feel a bit intimidated when called upon to act as an "expert" in a subject, particularly in front of an audience who has paid (a nominal amount, to be sure, but still...) to hear what I have to offer. I don't have a great fear of public speaking, but I do have a fear of wasting people's time. Fortunately, this morning's session seemed to be well received, and there were a number of times when I sensed that special moment when the mental light bulb goes on, as if the person's thinking, "oh...so that's how that works!" or "I always wondered about that..."

But, I gotta tell you, the attempt at being engaging and eloquent and presenting at least a glossy sheen of intelligence at 7:30 a.m. wears you down. Don't look for much more out of me for the rest of the day. Unless, of course, my current fascination with nanotubes yields some unexpected inspiration, in which case the sky's the limit.

ACLU: Showing a sense of humor?

If you've been reading the Gazette for a while, you may recall this post about a simple trip to the supermarket, sort of a dream sequence exploration of life in a universal database-driven society.

It seems that those lovable lugs over at the ACLU have been worrying over this kind of scenario, and have hired a crack ad team to alert us to the danger.

It's actually pretty funny, but parts of it make me wonder if someone at the ACLU has been reading the Gazette.

Tip o'the hat to Gerv over at Hacking for Christ, who goes on to point out that when you click the "Take Action" button on the Flash-based ad, you're taken to an online form on the ACLU's site in which you must opt-out in order to protect your own privacy.

Technorati tags: Privacy Protection

Presented as a public service for Windows users: CME

According to this article in eWeek, begininng next month US-CERT will issue uniform names for malware (which refers to viruses, worms and other software designed to cause harm). The new program will go by the appropriately geeky name of the "Computer Malware Enumeration Initiative," or CME for short.

It sounds like an impressive bureaucracy in the making:

I suppose there's a certain segment of the IT industry who welcomes this development, and for its sake, I wish it well. But, my reaction would be the same as this one quoted in the article:

Well, that would be my reaction if I didn't use a Mac and therefore view this whole exercise as academic.

Tip o'the hat to Schneier on Security

Technorati tags: CERT | CME

Head Squeegee

One of the unanticipated problems of riding a recumbent bicycle is that the relatively upright position allows sweat to more easily run into your eyes. On a traditional bike, you're leaning over the handlebars and sweat often drips off before affecting your vision.

This is a big problem for me, particularly during the spring and summer. And not only is it uncomfortable, it's potentially dangerous. Anything that promises to solve this problem is worth trying. Even so, I was skeptical when MLB ordered these Halo Headbands. Sweatbands had never been very effective for me and this seemed like just a gimmick to justify a higher price.

The concept is simple. The headband has a thin strip of what I assume is silicon rubber or some kind of elastomer bonded to the fabric so that it's positioned against the skin and just above the eyebrows. Sweat is channeled to the sides of your head, away from your eyes. The fabric itself is quick drying and helps to speed the evaporation of sweat.

How's it work? I'm here to tell you that this is one product that performs exactly as advertised. I've used the Halo during rides in some 90°+ days and during some high humidity mornings and haven't once had to wipe sweat out of my eyes. The fabric is thin enough to fit comfortably under a bicycle helmet.

There are a couple of downsides. The Halo II (pictured above) is "one size fits all," meaning that it might be a little tight for some people. There is a model that ties, and it would eliminate the sizing problem. Also, the waterproof strip will leave a temporary mark on your forehead, if you worry about things like that.

It's hard to get excited about something as basic as a sweatband, but if you deal with sweat in your eyes while running, cycling or even working in the yard, you might just find that this product is nothing less than amazing. I'll no longer ride without it!

Technorati tag: Halo Headband | Bicycling | Running

Somebody buy this guy a clue

Apparently still smarting over Apple's impending shift to Intel processors, Motorola CEO Ed Zander lashed out at a tiny inanimate object...

Who listens to 1,000 songs? Well, apparently, only those people who don't have the space to listen to 10,000 songs. And at last count, there were only about a bazillion of them. Which equates to a great many more than will buy Zander's underwhelming Rokr.

Intel is starting to look better all the time.

Tip of the earbuds to Macworld

Technorati tags: Ed Zander | iPod nano | Apple | Without a Clue

Weekend Debriefing

According to my charter, I have to maintain a certain proportion of Content Free™ postings (the exact percentage is proprietary, but I can tell you it's close to three significant digits). In reviewing the past few days worth of posts, I'm in little danger to missing this month's quota, but I always like to pad my numbers whenever possible. I take a lot of pride in my work, you know.

A few random observations ("It's What We Do") from the past weekend...

• We must be "morning people," judging by what we accomplished on Saturday. By noon we had eaten breakfast, read the newspaper while drinking our coffee, walked the dog, gone for a 22 mile bike ride and attended a funeral.


• We accomplished nothing the rest of the weekend, however.


• Yesterday's high temperature hit 102° (that's 38.8° for our friends of the Celsius persuasion). That tied a 30 year old record, but what I found more remarkable was the 41 degree swing in temps from morning to afternoon.


• Is it just me, or does anyone else find that the idea of eating at Long John Silver's is so much better before actually doing it than after?


• Moving from the ridiculous to the sublime, MLB whipped up a batch of rocky road ice cream on Saturday evening (I take back what I said about nothing significant being accomplished after Saturday morning), only she put a small twist on the recipe by injecting a healthy amount of mocha chocolate fudge topping. I can't even begin to tell you how good it is.


• Our new a/c system has finally hit its stride, to the point where we've had to dial it back a notch. It seemed a bit over the top to be sitting in the living room wrapped in a fleece throw and drinking hot tea at the end of a day in which the temperature broke 100.


• That high-pitched keening you hear is just TXU executives all over the country mourning their soon-to-be-diminished bonuses.


• When's the last time you used the word "keening"? Your assignment is to employ it at least once before the end of the day. You may report back here if you wish to get credit for the accomplishment.

Bible Knowledge Quiz

Via Bryan at Arguing With Signposts, a link to this 100-question quiz that purports to test your general knowledge about the Bible.

Bryan posted a very impressive score of 87; I managed to stumble across the finishing line with a 76...a passing grade, but hardly with honors. Unlike Bryan, my biggest stumbling block was the Gospels. I have difficulty remembering which content appears in which book. Always have; always will.

Aren't you glad that God doesn't grade us on how much we know...only on Who we know? ;-)

Do we really need bigger mythical beings?

I just caught this headline via a daily online publication devoted to the oil and gas industry:

I'm wondering if Frodo and company have caught wind of this disturbing development?

What goes around, comes around

We're planning a trip to climb Guadalupe Peak and then do some bicycling through the Davis Mountains next month. We like to stay at The Veranda Bed & Breakfast in Fort Davis, so MLB telephoned yesterday to make a reservation. As it turns out, the Native Plant Society of Texas is having its annual convention in the area, and everything is booked for our target weekend.

However, the owner of the B&B informed MLB that just before she called, someone canceled their reservation and we could therefore be accommodated.

Being the clueless fellow I often am, it wasn't until today that I recognized the pleasing symmetry of this situation.

File your "Flight Plan" ASAP

After a disappointing experience with "Lord of War," we were a little gunshy (ha!) about picking a movie for the weekend. So we closed our eyes and dropped a fingertip onto the listings and ended up at a matinee of "Flight Plan," Jodie Foster's new movie.

We may make that our method of selecting movies from now on, judging by the performance of today's selection.

"Flight Plan" is simply outstanding. Short, tight, suspenseful...everything has a purpose and the director doesn't play games with the audience (well, with one minor exception). This was, indeed, "Panic Room at 30,000 Feet" (as some are calling it). "Panic Room" was also a very good movie, and so that's not a slam at all.

There's nothing I need to say about the plot; too much potential for spoilers, anyway. The cast is excellent, with Sean Bean playing a very believable airline pilot and Peter Sarsgaard (who has a face that you know you've seen before...you're just not sure where) has a role that will likely land him a lot more work in the future. But, of course, it's Foster who carries the movie; she appears in almost every scene, and draws you into her character just like she always does.

(I must offer this aside: if you ever wake up one morning and find that you are actually Jodie Foster's young daughter, dial 911 immediately, because, dear, it's about to hit the fan.)

Some are comparing "Flight Plan" to something Hitchcock would have made. I think I'd agree with that, given the methodical way the movie built in suspense and focused on the characters almost to the exclusion of the action. But, never fear, there's plenty of the latter in the end.

Looking back, once the plot is fully revealed, there are a few holes in the logic big enough to fly that jumbo jet through. But it's a fun ride while it's going on. I recommend it.

Technorati tag: Flight Plan

Brother Ben's Traveling Salvation Show

Because of the veritable groundswell of demand (OK...two people, but that's a significant percentage of my regular readership), I'm going to complete the post that I began yesterday morning. It's better that I took a little time to think about it anyway. I've got a different perspective now than I did right after the event.

We attended Ben Stein's lecture Thursday night at Midland College, courtesy of the Davidson Distinguished Lecture Series. For those readers not in Midland, this program invites generally well-known speakers and provides free admission to the public.

You can read Stein's creds on his website if you're not already familiar with him. Given his success in a wide range of endeavors, labeling him a "Renaissance Man" is probably not hyperbole, at least with respect to the breadth of his intellectual achievements. But whatever it was that Ben once staked his claim to fame on, he's nowadays first and foremost an entertainer. Sure, he's got a background in law and economics and was a presidential speech-writer and was active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, and his conservative take on most* things political and economic give him a broad and enthusiastic base of support from those on the right of center...like, say, the typical audience in Midland, Texas.

What he provides is an entertaining and often humorous monologue, filled with easily digested sound bites and a lot of "motherhood and apple pie" homilies that we've heard many times before. I suppose that it's encouraging to hear such things from someone who rubs shoulders with the "elite" in Hollywood and Malibu (he and Babs apparently do their grocery shopping in the same store), but I can't help wondering if and why those things have any more relevance when coming from his lips than from the pulpits and coffee shops and cafés and living rooms all around our city and our part of the country. Really, the adage about preaching to the saved was never more appropriate than Thursday night.

Stein does know how to hook an audience. In our case, he began by referring to Midland as "the last refuge of the sane American" and the place "where I'm moving when I retire." Responding to the warnings he was given about Midland being a treeless landscape, he said "people are the trees; they give you shade and shelter."

I'm sure he was suitably impressed by the pre-lecture reception in his honor at The Racquet Club, a lovely venue that I suspect 90% of Midlanders have never set foot inside. And I'm sure he was gratified by the applause that frequently interrupted his talk, in response to comments like...

• Poverty does not yield to paternalism; it yields to free market capitalism and democracy.
• If the people who run the New York Times could see the peace of mind on your faces, it would drive them insane.
• Major media and Hollywood are having a negative effect on our determination to defeat the enemy that wants to destroy America.
• The US military can't save America by itself. Someone more than likely died for us today in Iraq or Afghanistan. What did we do today to deserve that honor?
• Tony Blair says that the simple measure of a country is by counting how many people want in, and how many want out. As far as I can tell, the only people who want out of America are Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin. I've offered to help Barbra move, but so far, she's ignored me.
• After Katrina, the media rioted...in it's hatred for Bush.

He paid a well-deserved tribute to those serving in America's military, to the "first responders," to school teachers, to Laura Bush and to her mom (who was in the audience). He contrasted the heroism of various well-known actors in WWII to the noticeable absence of similar stories today.

He devoted a few minutes to describing the dangers and life-threatening situations faced by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. His remarks were made uncomfortable by the fact that we were sitting next to a friend whose son was shipping out to Iraq -- and, specifically, to Baghdad -- as a combat soldier the very next morning.

Stein left us with the simple admonition that we should and could find meaning in life by doing things for other people. At the end, he got a standing ovation.

But, a couple of days after the event, I can't help wondering...what did we learn? What was accomplished? I guess I was hoping for more...more facts, more analogies, more historical perspective...to help us create a better and more satisfying context within which to view current events and economic trends. Perhaps he feels the need to "dumb down" his remarks for general audiences such as this. Or, perhaps, Ben Stein is just another actor -- albeit much better educated and informed than 99% of his fellows -- who happens to have a worldview and values that closely parallel those of the audiences in his chosen venues.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not criticizing Ben Stein for getting large sums of money to say things that his audience wants to hear. It's a basic matter of supply and demand, and as an economist he understands that as well as anyone on the planet. I simply want to make sure to remind myself that letting someone else do our thinking for us is a dangerous strategy, and while we need cheerleaders, the real action is on the playing field. Thursday night's pep talk was entertaining but I didn't leave better prepared for the game.

For additional, and differing, perspectives on his lecture, be sure to visit Wallace's post at Streams (if the permalink doesn't work, look for the 9/23/05 post), and the article in the Midland Reporter-Telegram. The one quibble I have with the latter article is in the use of "hundreds" to describe the number of people in attendance. That's technically correct, but conveys a different impression than if the more accurate "thousands" had been used.

*Perhaps the most interesting thing he revealed was during the Q&A that followed his prepared remarks, where he was asked about alternatives to the current income tax system. He espouses something like a VAT, but also specifically calls for the continuation of a progressive form of whatever tax system is used. In other words, he believes that the "rich" should pay proportionately more in taxes than the "poor." Given that many economists who hold political views similar to Stein's seem to agree that it's the wealthy who create the jobs and power the economic engine, I was somewhat surprised by his statement.

Technorati tag: Ben Stein

Another way to provide Katrina relief

My pal Larry Stephey has been working as a consultant for Habitat for Humanity in Georgia for the past five months and he's seen how that organization is positioned to help hurricane victims in a unique and particularly effective way. He's now participating in HFH's "Friends Asking Friends" program by setting up a website where one can make a donation on behalf of those who lost their homes to Katrina.

I like this idea; I've always like the HFH approach, for that matter. This is a great model for helping people by enlisting them to help themselves. The accumulation of "sweat equity" by participating in the construction of your own home has just got to be empowering and encouraging, even as it's challenging. I've made a contribution via Larry's site, and I hope you'll consider doing the same thing.

In fact, it struck me as being one way I can do something tangible in honor of a fellow blogger who lost his home to Katrina: Daniel Morris over at From Behind the Wall of Sleep. But even if you don't know someone directly impacted by Katrina, this is a worthwhile cause.

Technorati tags: "Hurricane Katrina Relief

Oy, what a day...

Well, it actually started last night, as we returned from Ben Stein's lecture to a house that seemed...well, awfully warm for one with a brand spankin' new (and darned expensive) air conditioning system. We decided that we had managed to mess up the high tech thermostat, so I fooled with it for a while, then MLB fooled with it for a while. The fan was blowing, but the air was not as cold as it should be.

We had a fitful night, and the temperature never dropped below 78°. This morning, I sat down with the thermostat's user guide and diligently followed the instructions to the letter, programming it for 70°. By 8:00 a.m., after two hours of non-stop running, the temperature had dropped one degree, to 77, and we'd had enough. I called the installers and got on the schedule for a service call.

We then went for a bike ride in what can be described as a flawless jewel of a morning...cool (cooler than inside our house!), calm and clear. The 22+ mile ride was quite enjoyable and even relaxing.

About thirty minutes after we returned, the service guys appeared at our front door. One of them greeted me with the words, "I was sure hoping I wouldn't see you again this soon!" The feeling was mutual, of course.

I explained the problem and he confirmed that we had, indeed, properly set the thermostat; they then went into diagnostic mode. After about ten minutes of investigation outside, they came back in and asked where our breaker box was located. A light started to come on in my mind.

We went into the garage and I opened the breaker panel door. Sure enough, the 50-amp breaker was tripped...and that was the whole problem. It didn't occur to me to check the breaker because the fan continued to run. I never considered that the condenser and the fan would be on different circuits (even though there's a very good reason -- which shall remain unshared -- for why I should have known). I think the service guys were as relieved as us that the problem was so easily solved.

They theorized that the breaker tripped when the condenser unit was unplugged and then plugged back in right after the final installation checkout. Because we were out most of the afternoon and evening, we never noticed that the cooling wasn't what it should have been until it was too late. We'll know better next time.

The a/c is working fine now. In fact, I can barely type this, as I'm shivering so badly. But we're not about to turn down that thermostat anytime soon!

Sacrifice Made...

Looks like my wife and her friend will be sticking close to Midland this weekend, after all. Even though they didn't get a hit from the intranet posting I mentioned previously, MLB called the booking agent for the B&B in Fredericksburg just to see if they were having to turn people away. She said that the agent she spoke with said that there was a couple from Houston at that very moment trying to find a place to stay. She offered up her reservation, and they waived the cancellation fee and will refund the deposit.

As I told her, this is probably a good weekend for folks to stick close to home and by family. I don't think either of them are too disappointed, all things considered.

Making the ultimate sacrifice for Rita evacuees

Note: Not that you care, but the category title has been updated to "Hurricanes Katrina & Rita" but the new title won't show up until I rebuild the database.

MLB's employer, headquartered in Houston, has posted a notice on the company intranet asking employees in other locations to indicate whether they'd be willing to open their homes to co-workers displaced by Rita. According to that notice, there are now virtually no vacant hotel rooms in the state of Texas.

MLB didn't figure anyone would be willing to travel all the way to Midland, but she has offered an alternative...and quite a generous one at that. She and a friend were planning a shopping trip to Fredericksburg this weekend, and they've booked a very nice two bedroom B&B in that Hill Country town. After consulting with her friend, they've decided to offer that reservation to any Houston co-worker who needs it.

If you understand how much those two like to shop, then you'll understand how great a sacrifice this is. OTOH, you may also understand why, from my perspective, the saying that every cloud has a silver lining seems to be especially relevant right now.

Keep your fingers crossed. (I'm not saying for what; I know who reads this blog!)

"Always an Adventure"

The post title is MLB's proposed motto for our home improvement projects. I think it fits.

The latest confirmation came this morning when the guys showed up to install our new HVAC system. Problem #1 cropped up immediately: the condenser is too big to go through either of the backyard gates. Problem #2: the condenser is too big to move through the narrow space between our house and the fence, at least with the current placement and size of our Lady Banks rosebushes.

They assure me that these things are mere bumps in the road, hardly reaching Category 1 on the Home Improvement Annoyance Scale. That may well be, but I'm still bracing myself for the inevitable Problem #3: "Your house is apparently constructed on just the wrong orientation with respect to the orbits of the smaller moons of Saturn, and we'll therefore have to rotate it slightly on its foundation. By the way, you might want to turn off the water, as this could be somewhat disruptive to your plumbing."

But, on the positive side of things, we just had a brief power outage and my UPS kept me online without a hitch. So, it's not all bad.

Just an adventure.

A Tribute to Texas

If I'd written this, I'd be accused of being a prideful chauvinist. But coming from a guy from Illinois, it has a certain objectivity that's hard to dispute.

Especially with respect to Molly Ivins. ;-)

Here's why I really like my webhost...

This email just arrived from ValueTech, where the Gazette (and many of my clients' sites) are hosted:

I blanked out the phone numbers. If you need to call them, you can go to their website.

These guys aren't a huge company...but they take their business -- and their clients -- seriously, and are committed to first-rate service. It's great that they've not only got a plan, but that they also understand the importance of keeping their clients up-to-date on what's happening. I recommend 'em. I also know of a couple of local and state governments that could learn some lessons in disaster planning from them.

Book Review: "One Ranger"

Few law enforcement organizations have achieved the almost mythical status of the Texas Rangers. Created in 1823 by Stephen F. Austin to protect new colonists in the Spanish province now known as Texas, the Rangers have played many roles through the decades, but they've always been considered to be the "best of the best" in terms of skill and honor.

A retired Ranger named H. Joaquin Jackson has set down his memoirs of his nearly three decades of service, and the resulting book -- with the heavy lifting writing chores handled by David Marion Wilkinson -- is entitled "One Ranger." The title alludes to one of the most famous, albeit made-up, quotes about the Texas Rangers. Without taking the time for the details, the idea is that if there's only one riot to quell, you need only one Ranger; he'll get the job done. The Texas DPS website has an interesting summary of the history of the Rangers, including the origin of the "One Riot, One Ranger" saying, if you're interested.

"One Ranger" is above all else an exercise in honesty. Jackson pulls no punches in describing the good and the bad of being an officer of the law in Texas during the mid-20th century. He's equally honest about the flaws of the men (there weren't any female Rangers, and very few in law enforcement in general, during his tenure) with whom he served. And he didn't spare himself or his family from this unflinching scrutiny.

I found many parts of the book to be fascinating if for no other reason than they contained descriptions of people, places and events with which I'm familiar. Jackson's primary area of service was in southwest Texas, and the Big Bend area in particular. I remember reading or watching on TV the news accounts of some of the bigger cases he describes, including the arrest and conviction of Presidio County sheriff Rick Thompson for possession of more than a ton of cocaine and the 1988 shootings of three Americans on a rafting trip through Colorado Canyon (Rio Grande) by some young Mexican nationals, for no discernible reason.

Then there are the stories that didn't make the headlines, such as the secret camp somewhere around Alpine where US military personnel provided special training for thirteen Afghani mujahedin to help them in their fight against their Russian occupiers. Jackson provided the security and civilian liaison for the camp. His descriptions of the ways in which the Afghan and West Texan cultures intersected makes for interesting and amusing reading.

In the end, this is a story about a man who found what he was born to do and to be, and who lived long enough and gained enough wisdom to realize his good fortune. As odd as it might seem, coming from a man standing 6' 5" tall and who carried an arsenal in the trunk of his car and never backed down from a fight, this book is a love story, and the objects of his affection are the state of Texas and the Rangers who served it.

Technorati tags: "One Ranger" | Joaquin Jackson

The Wire Ant Gazette?

I was feeling a little down about the air conditioner thing when MLB arrived at home for lunch bearing a large gift sack. "Here...this is from Janet and Chuck," she said, handing me the sack which was overflowing with tissue paper. I dug in and was delighted to find the critter pictured below:

Janet claims to be a frequent reader of the Gazette, which surprises me because she's normally quite level-headed and sensible. Anyway, while the "Wire Ant" is undeniably cool, I appreciate even more the fact that they thought about me while doing some shopping in the quaint little burg of Greune, down in the Texas Hill Country. In addition, the Wire Ant will provide excellent company to Spike Ant (shown at right), who was only recently rescued from some overly aggressive blue rug juniper in our backyard planter. Spike is in definite need of some bodywork, but, then, aren't we all?

Many thanks to mi amigos Janet and Chuck for the ferrous Formicdide!

And to those readers who feel that my obsession with fake insects is becoming borderline scary (that would include you, Gwynne!), all I can say is that it's liable to get worse before it gets better.

The Cost of Cool

I was not surprised to hear the technician inform me that he had, indeed, found a leak in the condenser of our air conditioning system. Nor was I surprised that it is non-repairable; the whole unit must be replaced. But I think he was pleasantly surprised when I suggested that we jack up the entire system and run a new one in under it.

We've been hassling with this for two summers and I'm tired of the service calls and skyrocketing electric bills. The new unit will be at least twice as efficient as the one it's replacing, and will also be more powerful -- better matched to the square footage of our house. The price? <cough> Well, let me put it this way. I won't have to worry about where to park that new Sportster for a while.

I did get them to throw in a slick new touch-screen programmable thermostat, so we've got that going for us.

I'll be sure to post photos when it arrives. If I'm going to have to buy it, you're darn well going to have to look at it!

Dang. I just realized I forgot to negotiate the inclusion of a UV flashlight in the deal. There goes my new career as a CSI officer.

Inexplicable

That's how I'd characterize the fact that, as of a few minutes ago, the Gazette was at #54 (out of a total of 4,125) in the list of blogs making up the "Blogdom of God," which is one of the "communities" assembled under The Truth Laid Bear umbrella. As you might guess, the Blogdom of God is comprised of "faithblogs," those which presumably have a significant number of posts related to faith, religion and similar topics.

That's where the inexplicableness (inexplicality? inexplicniciousness?) comes in. If asked to put the Gazette into a single category, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be one labeled "faith blogging." I hope that my Christian faith is apparent through what I write, and I do regularly post on explicitly religious topics, but such posts aren't frequent nor do they make up even a large minority of the material contained herein. Thus, I don't know how the Gazette came to be included in this list, a list which is all the more puzzling considering that confirmed atheist Dean Esmay's blog is listed at #8. Now, I'll admit that Dean is one of the most religion-friendly and even Christian-friendly atheists I've ever encountered, but to include his blog in a list of "faith blogs" seems to be a bit of a stretch.

I suppose that's one reason I pulled the Gazette out of the TTLB Ecosystem months ago (a fact that seems lost on the "Blogdom of God" organizers). It just doesn't seem to have much relevance or reliability anymore.

Of course, that's what many are saying about the Gazette.

Messianic Jews Harassed in Israel

According to this story from the ASSIST News Service, messianic Jews (who believe that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah) are being harassed and persecuted in their home country by their fellow Jews.

Note the bolded text (emphasis mine). Doesn't Israel and its citizens have enough violence to deal with without generating more against one another?

Source: Voice of the Martyrs

Technorati tags: Persecuted Church | Messianic Jews | Christianity

Impending Storm Naming Crisis

With Hurricane Rita about to move into the Gulf of Mexico and more than two months left in the Atlantic hurricane season, there seems to be an overwhelming chance that the list of 21 official tropical storm names for 2005 will be depleted. The last four names on the list are Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma.

I can't find any documentation about how such a situation is handled. Apparently, the annual names list has never been fully used since it was instituted. I don't know if the UN's World Meteorological Organization, which has the responsibility for coming up with and administering the list of names will declare an emergency draft of the last three letters of the alphabet (my votes go to Xavier, Yvonne and Zorp -- as far as I know, there's no rule against using a Betelgeusian name, as long as it's the proper gender), or if they'll start recycling the alphabet. I'm sure the answer is somewhere on the WMO's website, but it will take a better person than me to navigate that monstrosity. (This sounds like just the kind of challenge that my pal Mr. Freen excels at conquering.)

Technorati tag: Storm Names

Oil & Gas Stocks: Still good investments?

The numbers seem to say so. According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal:

It appears that the major oil companies are making up in margins what they're losing in volume as significant production and refinery runs continue to be shut in following Katrina. However, one must wonder just how much hammering their GOM investments can take before the market starts to write down their future prospects. With another hurricane apparently heading that way, I suppose we'll find out all too quickly.

More Google: It has a Blog Search now

Google has rolled out a beta version of its new Blog Search feature. This allows you to limit your searches to blogs (and, yes, they are indexing non-Blogger blogs).

I suppose that Google's entry into this part of the search business invites comparison to the previous big dog of blog searches, Technorati. Now, I realize that there are some who are underwhelmed with Technorati, but I, personally, don't have any complaints other than slow page loading. I still think that Technorati's tags have a useful place in organizing data on the web and, frankly, the Gazette is getting a lot of hits from the service.

Anyway, I did a quick and very unscientific comparison of Google's Blog Search and the similar function over at Technorati. I used the title of this recent post, containing the relatively uncommon term of "Hip Action," as my test case. Even though the post was loaded less than 24 hours ago, it shows up in the results of both searches. In Google, it's the sixth result listed, while in Technorati it's number two on the list. However, when you sort Google's results by date rather than relevance (Technorati's results are automatically sorted by date and there's no way to change it), the Gazette's post is #1.

As you would expect from Google, its blog search has some cool options, including the ability to search only in blogs with certain words in their titles, or to search for certain words in post titles, rather than in the body of the post itself. It also has Google's familiar "Safe Search" option if you want to keep the results family-friendly.

One thing I noticed but didn't attempt to quantify or investigate further is that Google's results appear to have more "spam blogs" or commercial blogs. I'm sure that's because it automatically includes every Blogger.com and Blogspot account in its database and I suspect they are the most frequently used and abused services for those types of sites.

I'm not sure that the world needs another blog search engine, but a little competition is good for everyone. If nothing else, it might cause Technorati to get serious about fixing some of the things that people are complaining about.

Technorati tags: Google Blog Search | Technorati

Google Maps + Demographic Data

Mapping technology company AnalyGIS has teamed up with market and demographic analysis company SRC to create a proof-of-concept demonstration of how Google's mapping technology can be combined with demographic data to provide meaningful visual presentations of that data.

To see it in action, visit this page (it's really slow to load, in my browser anyway). Select one of the two demographic data options from the dropdown menu, then click on the map in order to see how the data correlates to the point where you clicked. The data is presented in tabular form to the right of the map for the regions within 1, 3 and 5 miles of your selection, while on the map colored circles appear to visually represent those boundaries.

I have a feeling that we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg for such applications. (I also have a feeling that our ability to manipulate and present such data will far outstrip the timeliness, accuracy and reliability of that data, but that's another topic for another day.)

Tip o'the hat to Netvibes

Technorati tags: AnalyGIS | SRC | Google Maps

Bad Dye Job

No, I'm not referring to The Donald's hairdo.

This has been the Summer of Our Air Conditioning Discontent, as we've had the service folks out three times (and counting) to deal with ineffective a/c. Each time, they've diagnosed the problem as insufficient refrigerant and have recharged the system with a substance that's more valuable than premium unleaded gasoline. Each time, we enjoy a few weeks of indoor cooling and then the system returns to its previous state of disillusionment and despair (and TXU Energy shareholders rejoice).

So, at the second visit we agreed that we perhaps should seek to find the cause for the vanishing refrigerant, and the technician applied what's known as a "dye kit," which is simply an injection into the system of a substance that is visible only when exposed to ultraviolet light. The theory is that the dye will recreate the effect of a '70s stoner's college dorm room around the point of the refrigerant leak, and we'll then know if we're dealing in tens of thousands of dollars of repair or merely thousands.

The service dudes returned last Thursday at my request to check the system, which was laboring 24/7 to maintain 80 degrees in the house (and causing TXU Energy to declare a special celebratory dividend). They confirmed the obvious: we were low on coolant...but they didn't bring their special leak checking kit (which I later learned consisted of a black plastic sheeting and a flashlight with UV LEDs). But they went ahead and recharged the system, and vowed to return the next morning and ferret out the source of the problem.

They showed up as promised early the next day, with black plastic and portable black light (man, where was that technology in 1971?), and commenced to sleuthing. About thirty minutes later, the chief inspector came in, shaking his head. "We can't find the leak," he said.

To make a long story short, we had been the victim of a faulty dye kit. Our system had apparently been injected with slacker dye which refused to fluoresce on command. The manufacturer had sent out a recall notice for the bad dye, but by the time the service company had received it, the kits had already been dispersed among the service crews and they couldn't trace them back to the offending serial numbers. The technician told me that ours was the third house in which he'd encountered this problem.

The result was that they expended yet another dye kit -- one that presumably understands and accepts its role in life -- and will return later this week to try again to find the leak. We're still staying cool inside (and TXU Energy executives are booking their recreational moonflights), even as the outside temps continue to run 10-15 degrees above normal. The thing is, I can't decide on what the best outcome for all this should be. On the one hand, if it's an easily fixed leak (very doubtful, by the way), that's a good short term solution but it still leaves us with a relatively inefficient 20+ year old system...and electricity ain't gonna get any cheaper over, say, the next century or so (and TXU Energy will have purchased The Bahamas). But the alternative of installing a new energy-efficient system involves mucho dinero which could be better spent on movie tickets and ITMS downloads and other necessities of life.

But I'll tell you one thing. If we end up going the latter route, I'm going to insist that they throw in one of those UV flashlights!

What's this?

Update: It took a blogging runner from Singapore to identify this chart. Her answer, and an exceptionally boring elaboration by yours truly, are found in the comments. Next up: The secret lives of toothed washers.

Anybody know what the following is, and how it's used? (Yeah...it's a quiz.)

Click on the image to see the full sized version

Gimpy Dog? Maybe it just needs some "Hip Action"

Ever since Abbye's near fatal encounter with Rimadyl, an oft-prescribed canine anti-inflammatory and pain medication, we've been giving her a daily "serving" of something called "Hip Action," manufactured and sold by a Colorado company named Zuke's. This is essentially a dose of glucosamine and chondroitin, similar to what you may be taking for arthritis or other kinds of joint pain. (In fact, both I and MLB have been taking glucosamine on a daily basis for years.) And I have to admit that Abbye has responded remarkably well to it.

Even though we knew we would never again be able to give her Rimadyl on a regular basis, the vet said it would be fine to treat her with it if she experienced an acute flare-up of pain. She's been on Hip Action for about six months, and we have not had to resort to Rimadyl...or any other kind of pain meds, for that matter. In fact, she seems to have more energy now than she's had in years, and others have commented on that fact.

The last time we ordered a new supply, the company sent some additional samples in a different flavor, and my wife gave them to a co-worker who has two large dogs, both of which have chronic joint pain and/or hip problems. The co-worker is also reporting good results.

I have to admit that while I'm usually skeptical about the claims of nutritional supplements, my daily glucosamine would be the last one I'd be willing to part with. I don't know how it works, or why, but I can tell you that I'm able to run pain-free for as many days in a row as I want, and I never thought I'd be able to do that again, due to knee problems. I'm sure there's quite a bit of similar anecdotal evidence floating around, even as I'm sure that just as many people have tried it without seeing any benefit whatsoever.

The point is that if you have a dog with hip or joint pain, I recommend trying Hip Action to see if it makes a difference. It's the least you can do for your best friend, right?

And I probably should mention that Abbye really, really likes the taste. She certainly doesn't realize that it's medicine!

Technorati tag: Zuke's Hip Action

"Lord of War"

If you've seen the trailer for "Lord of War", it might be helpful to first talk about what this movie is not. It is not a "dark comedy." It is not an "action adventure." Nicolas Cage does not play a "quirky character with a heart of gold who rises above his circumstances."

"Lord of War" is, in fact, a "docu-drama" about the world of arms dealers, as narrated by Cage's character, Yuri Orlov, who rises to the top of this "profession." Orlov specializes in illegal arms sales to whatever government or pseudo-government or wannabe-government will do business with him. He is smart, confident, non-violent and absolutely amoral. His mantras: "Don't get shot with your own gun," and "It's not my fight." He sells arms because, well, he's good at it.

I've seen some comparisons of "The Lord of War" to "The Godfather," but the only similarity I saw was the ability of the main characters in each film to do whatever was necessary to survive. At least in "The Godfather," loyalty to and protection of The Family was deemed sufficient justification to commit horrible crimes. Orlov doesn't have even that excuse to which to give lip service.

This is not a "feel-good" film, and the preachiness that appears in superimposed text and a couple of throwaway lines of dialogue at the end serves no useful purpose. Those who view America as the Root of All Evil in the world don't need the reinforcement, and those who don't will just be ticked off. If you're a Nicholas Cage fan (and I am), you might find sufficient justification to see the movie just to watch his usual flawless performance. Otherwise, though, I can't recommend it.

Technorati tag: Lord of War

Firefox Tab Tips

If you're an experienced Firefox user, you've probably already discovered this tip, but if you're new to the browser you might find it helpful.

Tabbed browsing is one of Firefox's strengths, but depending on how you prefer to work, you might need to tweak it a bit to make it more efficient. For whatever reasons, I seem to click a lot of links in applications external to Firefox...links embedded in email messages, in Word documents and PDFs, in my GoLive files, and so on. In its default configuration, Firefox opens such links in the tab (or window) that's currently active.

That means that if you're in the middle of, say, an online article about the Norwegian Porridge Feud, and you get an email from a friend providing a link to a breaking story about Jen and Brad, when you click on the email link you'll lose your place in the porridge story because the Jen-and-Brad story will open in that same window or tab. Fortunately, Firefox has an option to change this behavior, so that when you click on a link in another application, the resulting webpage will open in a new tab (or window), thereby maintaining the current status of your open tabs.

To specify the desired behavior, open the Firefox preferences and find the Tabbed Browsing section (see screenshot below, from the Mac version of the program). The screenshot shows the setup to have a new tab opened when you click on that external link.

Now, there is a downside to this option, and that's the potential for an amazing proliferation of tabs. If you build webpages and do a lot of previewing of your work from your layout program, you could easily end up with dozens of new tabs as you work on your pages. You'll have to decide if this is something you're willing to live with.

One more option in this setup is worth noting. The meaning of "Select new tabs opened from links" option may not intuitive, but it simply means that when a page is opened in a new tab, Firefox should make that new tab active. Again, the value of this option depends on your personal preferences about how you like to work. Most of the time, when I open a new tab from a link within the current page, it's because I want to later look at that new page...but not right now. So, I've left the option unchecked.

Technorati tag: Firefox

Creature Faceoff

I suppose I have a thing for mantids. In my defense, they're the T-Rexes of the insect world, only greener. How can you not be fascinated by them? Plus, they're quite photogenic.

Late yesterday afternoon, I spied a praying mantis resting on a plastic stool on the patio. As I turned to go back inside, I caught a glance of something else and realized photos must be taken.

The really interesting thing is that two hours later, the live mantis was still staring down his much larger but no more stoic rival. At some point, I guess I need to remove the fake insect so the other one can get on with his life.

Unless...and this is a vaguely disturbing thought...there's some more basic, um, attraction at work.

Note to IE Users: Your whining has been noted

I've caught a bit of flack over the flaky behavior of the Gazette's blogroll when viewed in Microsoft's Inept Explorer™, so I've made it my burning quest to track down and delete every copy of IE on the planet. No, actually, I don't have that kind of time. What I've really done is tried a couple of experimental tweaks in the Gazette's style sheet and the results are somewhat promising.

If you're using IE (especially in Windows...as if there are any Mac users still in thrall to IE), take a gander at the blogroll and let me know if the psychedelic effect is still noticeable. It's gone on my little IBM running IE 6, but I'll feel better if I get some independent confirmation.

What did I do? I took out the negative bottom margin on the block-level link markup. I was using the negative margin to try to bring the links closer together, albeit without much success. Whatever coding Blogrolling.com serves up with the blogroll links, it doesn't respond well to CSS. There's probably something in the Blogrolling preferences that provides a better fix, but I haven't stumbled across it yet. Anyway, it appears that IE chokes on the negative margins, while most real browsers handle them without a hitch.

So, how about it (Shannon)? Any improvement?

His tractor is apparently not THAT sexy...

So, anybody know the straight scoop about Reneé and Kenny? Anullment due to "fraud." What's up with that? Did she not see what she thought she'd see when he finally took off his hat? Did he think she really had a British accent? Did Julia call her up and have a heart-to-heart about cowboy singers? Did Reneé think that when Kenny said that all his wealth was invested in a bull market, he didn't mean it literally?

And just how much money did Dr. Phil have riding on his prediction, anyway?

And, last but not least, what pharmaceuticals was Reneé ingesting when she said that she and the ex “hope to experience this transition as privately as possible.”? Yeah, like some hurricane or war or something is going to keep us from blogging about them.

Technorati tag: Who Cares?

Friday on the 'pod

Last 10...

• "Teenage Dope Fiend" - Flickerstick
• "Radar Love" - Golden Earring
• "Mambuloo" - Mo' Horizons
• "New Kid In Town" - Eagles
• "Manic Depression" - Jimi Hendrix
• "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (!?) - Iron Butterfly
• "Rock the Casbah" - The Clash
• "You Were Never Mine" - Delbert McClinton
• "Life's Been Good" - The Eagles (but really, it's all Joe Walsh)
• "Pleasant Valley Sunday" - The Monkees
• "Welcome to My Life" - Simple Plan

Thought you ought to know.

Blogging too little? Or too much?

Here's one way to tell when you've been blogging too much: when your mother calls long distance to see if you're OK, because, well, it's been days since you posted anything. (And I'll thank you to keep to yourself any suggestions that it might just mean that I'm not calling home enough.)

I doubt that most people noticed, but I did take a break from posting for a few days this week, due to an oversupply of "real" work and a deficit of inspiration. It was humbling (and, frankly, a little weird) to get the emails and phone calls about the lack of new material, proving, I suppose, that there really is a dearth of quality nonsense in the world. Not that my nonsense is particularly high in quality, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, here are a few things that I could have blogged about but didn't during those Missing Days. This should allay any fears that I was secretly doing something interesting or worthwhile and not telling you about it.

• I was approached by a friend about the possibility of writing a book. It seems that there are a few folks in town who have an idea and they're willing to bankroll someone to carry it out. After an intense period of thought lasting close to 12 seconds, I told my friend that I could think of very few things in life that would be less enjoyable than writing a book on commission. I do hope someone locally picks up the ball, however; the project could result in an entertaining book. I'll leave it at that.


• If you don't live in west Texas, you might have experienced your own weather problems this week, but I daresay they weren't as annoying as temperatures in the mid-90s in mid-September... with an air conditioner on the blink. More about the latter, later.


• The paradoxes of time travel have generated many fascinating book plots and many disappointing movie treatments. "A Sound of Thunder" falls into both categories. As a short story by Ray Bradbury, it left one with a gaping imagination; as a movie, it leaves one wondering why Hollywood has such a hard time resisting the urge to dumb down the underlying concept that made the plot worth making a movie about in the first place. My advice is to find one of the several collections of Bradbury's short stories that contain this gem. Read it first, and if you still want to see the movie...feel free, by all means. It wasn't horrible (despite the reviews), but it could have been so much better.


• Is John Williams the John Philip Sousa of our [high school band] generation? I've been wondering this all week as I listen to the early morning marching rehearsal coming from the high school practice field about a mile south of the park where Abbye and I walk. What would bands be playing nowadays if they didn't have the Star Wars theme? Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. I remember when I and a few of my fellow band geeks came up with an arrangement of the signature bars from "Sunshine of Your Love" to play during those frequent interludes when the other team was lining up to kick an extra point.

See. You didn't miss anything, after all. Still, I do appreciate those who pretended like there's something occasionally worthwhile going on here.

Gazette Housekeeping

I've been doing a little cleanup around the Gazette and while some of it isn't worth mentioning, a couple of items merit some explanation.

First, I've removed the Katrina-related missing persons link from the top of the home page sidebar. It seemed to be increasingly intrusive in terms of slowing things down (and even, occasionally, causing browsers freezes), and I figure that enough time has passed that the resource is adequately replicated in places where it will likely do more good.

Second, I've removed the link to the SSG. Will Fund, at Will's request. Will is now in his last few months of deployment to Iraq and feels that the fund has served its purpose. Thanks to the generosity of Gazette readers, almost $600 was sent to Will to purchase everyday necessities which aren't always available on the front lines.

Third, I've moved the Gazette's Category links to a separate page, rather than listing them in the sidebar. This serves a couple of purposes. It speeds up the loading of the page and conserves space in the sidebar. It also allows me to create more categories for posts, which I'm slowly working on. Now, I can't think of a single good reason why anyone would care about how these posts are categorized, but I like the idea of having more specific pigeonholes for my ramblings. Thus, for example, instead of lumping everything related to computers and the internet and cool gadgets into one "Tech" category, I can split them into "Apple/Mac," "Internet," "Cool Gadgets," etc. Note that I haven't actually done that...but I can, if I want to. The magnitude of taxonomic flexibility is exceeded only by its nerdiness.

Now, if I could only make the blogroll links behave better for those of you still anchored to IE for Windows...

Gatemouth Gone

You might have skipped past the notice a few days ago, the one announcing that Clarence Gatemouth Brown had died in Orange, Texas, at age 81. According to this article in Billboard, Brown had traveled to Texas from his home in Slidell, Louisiana (which is also home to blogger friend Daniel Morris) to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina. There's no direct indication that the trip contributed to Brown's death -- he had been ill for some time, battling lung cancer and heart disease -- one can't help wondering if the news of the destruction of his hometown made Brown yet another of Katrina's victims.

Photo of Gatemouth Brown taken on 4/28/05 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival by Gazette contributor Gwynne; used with permission.

Clarence Brown was an accomplished and versatile musician, with a long career that began in 1940, at age sixteen. He started out as a drummer, but quickly developed a reputation as "slashing Texas blues guitarist" (to quote the liner notes from one of his albums) in Houston. He played a number of instruments, including drums and the violin, and although he's probably most often thought of as a bluesman, his musical style spanned a wide range of genres, including big band and Zydeco. He won a Grammy in 1982.

I must admit that I hadn't thought about Brown in years, and even after hearing of his death, it took me a few days to pull out the lone album by him in my collection. "Alright Again!" was recorded in 1981, and it's an odd collection of blues set to full big band arrangements...Glen Miller meets John Lee Hooker, if you will. But, that was a style he was apparently comfortable with. Again from the liner notes...immediately after he landed his first recording contract, he was "fronting a 23-piece orchestra. Gate claims to have been the first guitarist in America to lead such a large ensemble."

I've ripped a 30-second sample of one of his songs ("Give Me Time to Explain," written by another blues legend, Percy Mayfield) and uploaded it here, if you'd like to get a taste of Gatemouth's style, or, to be more accurate, one of his styles. The full LP is going onto into my copy of iTunes, of course.

Technorati tag: Clarence Gatemouth Brown

Power Play, Pt. 2

My new Uninterruptible Power Supply arrived today [UPS delivered my UPS. Ha!] and I've just spent the past hour or so carefully unplugging power cords and rerouting them to accommodate the new box. I tried to do some cable management in the process, but it still resembles a rat's nest (whatever that looks like) behind my desk and utility table.

I also took the opportunity to change the layout of some of my peripherals. The scanner I use most often had been residing on the middle shelf of the utility table, the only available space at the time I installed it. This meant that I couldn't raise the lid completely, making for some off-kilter scans because I couldn't tell if smaller items were aligned properly. I pulled the scanner out, placed the cable modem, router and AirPort base station in its place, and reinstalled the scannner on the top shelf of my desk where those three devices had rested. Now I have full access to the scanner and life is somehow more complete.

I've never had a UPS. It's squat and heavy...all business. I've got six devices plugged into the power+surge protection outlets, and another six plugged into the surge protection only outlets. I can't wait for the next electrical outage. With my luck, we'll probably have clean, reliable power for the next two years. Bummer. Where's a suicidal squirrel when you need him/her?

Life in America, post 9/11

I'm not really a very contemplative guy. I tend not to dwell on the past, and I spend a lot more energy dealing with the "whats" in life than the "whys." Don't ask me why; I just told you that I'm not very contemplative.

So it came as a surprise to me when late yesterday I realized that the time I was happiest and most content to be an American was the period immediately following September 11, 2001. Even as I could scarcely bear to consider the vulnerabilities that had been exposed by the horrifying events of 9/11 and the pain that had been generated by the crimes of that date, I was never prouder of the unity and -- OK, I'll say it -- the love Americans showed for one another, beginning at Ground Zero and radiating outward, across state lines and socioeconomic categories and political alignments and religious barriers.

For one brief and shining moment, we truly were one nation, united and indivisible, with the collective will and ability and vision to accomplish whatever needed to be done.

How far we've fallen in four years. Even though we're again seeing the strength of the American spirit in the aftermath of Katrina, it's no longer the dominant voice. No, the dominant voice is now uglier, more strident. Whatever unity we once had has been shattered into a million agendas based on the petty need to prove that we're smarter, stronger, more perceptive, wittier or just plain better than everyone else who doesn't agree with every jot and tittle of our arbitrary tests of dogma.

It's not that I think we need to agree on everything. That would, in fact, probably be a terrible thing, because none of us has all the correct answers. What I'm growing weary of is how badly we treat one another while we're disagreeing.

I'm including myself in that indictment, by the way.

God help us as a nation and a people when even a 9/11-magnitude tragedy isn't enough reason to unite.

[By the way, Jim does a much better job than me at articulating the situation and the first steps to dealing with it.]

Oilfield Jobs for Katrina Evacuees

The Permian Basin Petroleum Association is working with the American Red Cross to establish a job bank for those who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The first job postings are now available via the PBPA's website.

Most of the jobs require some related oilfield experience, but some are entry level. There are some truck driving jobs that require only general experience and a CDL. Some of the listed jobs are located in east Texas and even in Louisiana.

If you're a blogger and would like to help publicize this new resource, please feel free to post about and link to the PBPA page linked above.

Technorati tag: Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts | Katrina Jobs | Oilfield Jobs

Nikon's WiFi Digicams

This is a couple of weeks old but I'm just now stumbling across it. Nikon has unveiled a couple of digital cameras with built-in support for WiFi (802.11b/g).

The CoolPix P1 is an 8 megapixel camera priced around $550 and the P2 has a resolution of 5 mp; it's priced by Nikon at $400. According to the MacWorld article linked above, it takes about eight seconds to wirelessly transfer a photo from the P1 to a WiFi device like a notebook computer and about four seconds for a transfer from the P2. These times are presumably for an 802.11g connection.

The cameras permit the wireless transmission of photos in batch mode after several have been accumulated, or the camera can be configured to automatically transfer each photo immediately after it's captured. This would be a real boon to anyone taking large numbers of photos in a controlled environment where a wireless connection to a storage device could be easily maintained. I've done product photo shoots where I've filled up all my storage cards and had to break until I could transfer them to my laptop and clear the cards. This capability would have eliminated that problem.

Technorati tag: Nikon WiFi

A Katrina evacuee speaks out

I'm really too busy to blog today, but I took a quick break and popped over to From Behind the Wall of Sleep to see how Daniel Morris is doing in the days following his confirmation that he lost his home when Katrina hit Slidell, LA. He's got two great posts that you need to read.

In fact, there are lots of people in places like Washington, D.C. and New York City who need to read them.

Technorati tag: Hurricane Katrina

Improv at Septemberfest

Just got a note from Phil Tytanic asking me to remind the local folks that The Venue will be appearing this weekend at Septemberfest...specifically, at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

They've had to modify their act somewhat because of the setting, and so they've promised to include a lot more sex and nudity. OK, that's not true; I was just seeing if you were paying attention. They will be performing more vaudeville and comedy sketches in place of their "improv games," but everything will definitely be kidsafe and family friendly.

But...does it come with an iPod nano?

MLB and I saw two movies last weekend, one of which was the critically-panned "Transporter 2." We found it to be a fun bit of fluff, with stunts and car scenes so over-the-top as to seem somehow right, like the hidden-wire magic of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." If you can wrap your mind around the concept that it's not only animated characters or people wearing funky costumes who can routinely defy the laws of physics, then you can sit back and enjoy "Transporter 2."

But enough about the movie; let's talk cars. After all, that's what the movie's hero is all about: making unbelievable cars do unbelievable things. Audi was prominently featured as the primary product placement provider, with the $118,000 12-cylinder A8 being the transporter's personal choice of vehicle. I've no doubt that it's a marvel of modern technology, but it was, frankly, a bit boring to behold.

But that definitely was not the case with the car that was featured -- and ultimately destroyed (heartbreaking!) -- in one of the climactic-if-clichéd chase scenes. If ever there was a car capable of chasing down a corporate jet prior to take-off, it's the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti (I think). This 12-cylinder, 540hp gem tops out around 200 mph, and you can have one for about $260,000. The Scaglietti sports a relatively low-key design compared to, say, a Lamborghini, but it's still a thing of beauty:

What caught my attention during the movie, though, was the shifter, an organically-designed piece of metal afixed to the steering column and operated via the driver's fingertips. It reminded me of something Campagnolo might design for its top-of-the-line bicycle component gruppo. I confess to ignorance as to the performance advantages of this shifter, other than its convenient placement and quick operation; perhaps I'd be better schooled if I had $260,000 laying around for "tuition." But, it's Italian and it looks cool (I know; that's redundant) and that's enough.

Oh, I almost forgot. In answer to the question posed in the post title...yes, it does. Or soon will.

Technorati tag: Transporter 2

What a disaster looks like

Daniel Morris over at From Behind the Wall of Sleep has posted some absolutely heartbreaking photos of his home in Slidell, LA. He's thinking that bulldozing it to the ground and starting from scratch is the only reasonable approach, and after seeing these photos, I can't help but agree.

I know that we've seen plenty of pictures of death and destruction over the past week, but this is somehow different. It's more personal.

Next up for him: dealing with the insurance company. Keep praying, folks...keep praying. And then let's think about some ways to help, 'k?