What is wrong with people?

I swear. Sometimes, I'm afraid to leave my house, or even to get out of bed.

Check this out. This link is the home page for information on a class action lawsuit against Nintendo. They're saying that the remotes that come with the new Nintendo Wii video game consoles are defective. Why? Because they come with a wrist strap that sometimes breaks when you swing the controller to hard. To use their words: "the wrist strap broke and caused the remote to leave the user’s hand."

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, check out www.wiihaveaproblem.com.
It shows some of the results of the breaking wrist straps. Broken TV's, dislocated knees, bruised heads, and damaged furniture are just some of the things you find there.

This leads me to my original question. What is wrong with people?

In this age of entitlement in which we live, when anything (read: ANYthing) goes wrong in our lives, we place the blame on whoever has the most money. "What? You threw you video game controller across the room? No problem, we'll sue the manufacturer and make millions!"

"What? You broke into someones house, and cut yourself on the glass from their window? We'll sue the owners."

"What? You drove your car into a river and then couldn't get the door open, and you almost died? We'll sue the car manufacturer, the city who runs the river, and the water cycle."

Give me a break. This law firm is a step below an ambulance chaser and should be laughed at by any judge that hears their case. And their clients?! Anyone that is participating in this lawsuit should be banned from playing video games ever again.

Take responsibility for your own actions. They're YOUR actions. Yours alone.

/me throws hands up and storms out.

Why Lead Trumpets aren't invited Christmas Caroling

Anyone who knows me pretty well knows that I am into Drum Corps in almost any form.

I ran across this recording a few years ago, and enjoy it every Christmas season.

This is the reason that lead trumpets (or lead sopranos) aren't invited Christmas Caroling. If you've ever been in a Drum Corps or College Marching Band, or even a zealous High School band, you'll know why this is funny. I think it's funny on it's own merits though.

Have a listen.

Part 2:

An open letter to lead trumpets/sops:

Hey Guys:

We know you can play high. We've all heard your lip trills and note bends that you were "practicing". We know that your chops are second to none. We allll wish we could be just like you. (/me rolls eyes.)

We, your adoring fans, want you to remember just two things. 1) There is more to music than being the highest, fastest, loudest, most obnoxious. 2) If everyone is special, no one is special.

So look around...and save the pomp for your solo, where it can be truly appreciated. (No sarcasm this time...we DO appreciate your skills...just at the right time. )

Sincerely,
Second and Third Trumpets, and the rest of the planet.

Gingerbread Village

Today we had a little family get together and decorated gingerbread housen.

It was totally fun complete, and the houses looked really cool. The kids (and KaCerton) added some great designs.

Check them out, in all their glory:


From right to left:
12 Oaks, by Jackson and Mom.
The White House, by Emily and KC.
Tatooine, by Jefferson, Cami and Jake.


An architect (or canditect as we call them here), hard at work.



"You mean this is ALL edible!?"

Is another Christmas tradition born? Only time will tell...dun dun dunnnnn...

Pettebone Farm - V 2

Thanks to everyone who gave advise about my photos, on and off-line. I took it from a wider angle from the fence, lowered the ISO setting to get more color depth, and did some more post-processing. I had to wait a few days to get the weather right, but a few shoots later I came up with one that I thought was an improvement.



I'd like to get this picture right, so please...any comments or suggestions are welcome! I'll take them positive, negative, neutral, straight up, round about, rhyming or even in the style of Dr. Seuss.

More from this shoot here.

This picture is only worth about 20 words. Can you help?

So, I've been shooting with a new camera. A Canon Rebel XT. It's quite an upgrade from the Fuji S5000, which I loved. (I put about 15000 photos on the Fuji.)

I'm working on a shot of a local farm. I can't seem to capture the same sense of easy-going comfort that I get when I view it from the road. Below are my first two attempts.

I need feedback! Please give me any criticism you can about this photo. Anything, really. Tell me what you like and don't like about it's composition, the subjects, the lighting, the developing, etc. I thought it would be a good exercise for me to get a picture really right...and since it's close, I can go back often to re-shoot. You can see a color version of the picture here.

See my notes on the first two tries below.


I took this one at about 4:00pm in November. So, the shadows are long, and there isn't much contrast due to the sun. My wife suggested (and I agree) that I get it when the barn isn't so drab and one-colored.

More from this shoot can be found here.



This is the next day, about 1pm. More sunlight on everything makes for better shadows etc. But it loses some of the mystique it has in the first. Right?

More from this shoot can be found here. A slightly different angle, which I like, is here.

Any ideas anyone?

"What's Red Dolphin?"

So, lately, my blog title has been "The Red Dolphin." What is that?

I've never actually seen a red dolphin. I have seen a dolphin though, and I'm not just talking about on TV. No. I've seen a dolphin in the flesh (scales?) and my own naked eyeballs. Ok, so it was at Sea World. But I also saw some in the Bahamas, but it cost about $150 to swim around with them. Who has the kind of money after getting to the Bahamas?! Not me, man.

No, "The Red Dolphin" isn't a real swimming mammal. Here is the story. It's short, but cute.

We were in Target a few weeks back, buying a few things. We like to cruise their clearance stuff (look for the red tags) as they sometimes have some good deals on stuff we need. In particular, they had their dollar section stuff marked down to $.25. Nice. (I love when they have draw-string-bags there...any size.) So, we had about $12 worth of target-stuff in the cart.

At checkout, all the prices were coming up wrong. The total bill ended up being over $60! The girl apologized and was very nice, but told us we had to go talk to customer service. Next thing we know, lots of people are going over there. Turns out they had a computer problem and all the prices were wrong. It took them a few minutes, but they sorted our stuff out correctly. As I waited in the line though, I watched people leaving the store and thought to myself. "They all just overpaid on all that junk. "

In the car, we were talking about it, and I said.. "Man, everyone is getting ripped off in there." Jack promptly asked "Dad, what's Red Dolphin?" After asking him to explain what he meant, he said: "You said everyone was getting red dolphin there." Haha. So there you have it. The mystery of the red dolphin.

All joking and sea creatures aside...you have to watch these retailers. Wal-Mart is the worst!! Every time we shop there, something shows up with the wrong price (in the stores favor, or course.) I really think they do it on purpose. Once, we were buying 6 things. 5(!) of them came up several dollars over the price on the shelf. Our choice was to either buy them at the crappy price, or go back and double check. Please. So, we just left everything there and bought the one thing. I really...really hate shopping there. I try to write prices down when I can, and check them as they are beeped.

You gotta watch out, or you'll get Red Dolphin there too!

You only get one shot...

Authors Note: It's been a few months since I wrote this, and I feel I should clarify a few things. I don't hate sports. I like them. My son is in Basketball and he loves it. I even act as the assistant coach! (As if I was qualified.) I love what Sports do for kids, unity, work-ethics, etc. I love to see family members coming together for sporting events. We have huge parties at my house for the Olympics, etc. My own personal version of sports is Drum Corps. We watch the DCI (dci.org) scores and seasons like many people watch sporting leagues.

What irks me is the praise that society puts on the sporting figures. Someone is talented with a ball, and so we pay them tens of millions of dollars a year as well as let them tell us how to vote? Thank you, no. (And yes, it's US paying them. Hundreds of dollars for one ticket to some pro football games. Rediculous.)

So, I should have followed up my question: "what are they good for...absolutely nothing?" With: "Heck no...they're great!! (in moderation.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sports. Uungh. What are they good for?...Absolutely Nothing?

Sports in our country serve as a false idol that people pray to, curse and trust in for happiness and guidance.

At some point in a child's life though, sports are nothing more than throwing a ball around for some simple fun. A bit later in the child's life, they start to like the challenge and competition that sports offer. At SOME point, this healthy appeal turns into fanaticism, which leads to obsession, which leads to overpriced season tickets and sports "heroes" making salaries enough to end world hunger. What's a father supposed to do? Catch 22.

For now though, my man likes to toss the ball, and run around. And I'm ok with that. We have an unfinished basement with lots of headroom and cement floors. He's been using a shelf for a "basket" to practice basketball. Today, we decided to build a proper hoop. We used a bucket, marker, jigsaw, drill, boondoggle and a few grabber screws. 30 minutes later, he was shooting baskets that actually went through! The boondoggle net that he designed provides a satisfying "swish" sound. It's good for him, and we enjoyed making it together.

He joined a basketball team this week. Coach Mitch is awesome, and the kids really like it. May the fun-ness of sports stay fun for a long...long time.

The Ubuntu 6.10 grub menu.lst file and you...

Did you recently upgrade your Ubuntu install to 6.10 (Edgy)?

If yes: After you upgraded, was your dual-boot windows option mysteriously missing from the grub boot list?

If yes: Did you fix it?

If no: Do the following.

Log into your Ubuntu system and add (as root) the following to your /boot/grub/menu.list file, at the bottom, then reboot:

title  Microsoft Windows
root  (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

Read more about this fix here.

This fixed mine. Phew.

Egg Salad Reunion...

I was recently reminded of the goodness that is Egg Salad Sandwiches.


I've been eating them for lunch a bit lately, and have been enjoying it very muchlalalalalaaaa.

I suggest you try it out. Here are some tips:

• Do not use too much mayonaise. Use just enough to hold the egg together.
• Do not smash the egg to finely. Chunks of egg make for a good texture.
• Be generous with salt and pepper.
• Experiment. Following Vigs lead today, I put spicy chips on my sandwich today. It was excellent!
• Remember that hard-boiled eggs take some time to make. Make a bunch, and keep them in the fridge for later use.
  

Enjoy.

Cool app and a new home for themdg's photos

The images found on themdg now have a new home. I use this machine for my file server as well as my web server. As a result, all of my photos can be found here. I used to add some of my photos to my Galleryas I took them, but it was getting too crowded. I had 4 or 5 thousand pictures in the gallery. It was so full in there that no one was looking at them. So, I removed them all, and started over on the gallery.

I decided to have two galleries. One that held my most favorite photos, and a little description of the picture. This would be my "Photo Gallery." The other would be a dynamic listing of all the pictures I've ever taken. That was the tricky part, actually. Finding some software that would do this, without messing up my photo repository. Since this is my file server, the photos are my master copy. I didn't want to mess them up with inline caches and scripts all over.

After a few weeks, I found one that works perfectly. Weatimages lives in the root of my photo directories, and creates one directory seperate from the other, to store it's caches. My photo directories remain untouched. It provides a dynamic, yet still cached listing of all my photos.

My Weatimages listing:


I also started over with the gallery, and am only putting my best pictures there.

Have a look:

Woot-off tonight at woot.com

POST WOOT-OFF EDIT:

I watched the woot-off closely for most of the nearly 48 hours it lasted.

I did buy a few thing, and it was fun to watch. But after a while, it started to get depressing. The users on Woot.com started to seem emotionally spent and were acting so disrespectful for each other and to woot.com. I felt like I was in the orphanage in Oliver...everyone out for himself, begging for food and taking advantage of others whenever possible.

The environment degraded fun to hostile...and that's when I started to check out. Maybe it was too long. Maybe people care too much about the rediculous "Bag of Crap." I mean, it would be fun to get one...but people get rediculously MAAAAAD when they don't...or when others do. Please. It's nothing.

I'm cured from woot.com obsession.


---------------------------------------------


There will be a woot-off tonight (10/11/2006). I can fell it. Check woot.com at Midnight CST.

This, from their newsletter today:

"OK, we're gonna let you go now, because we've got lots of product to write about before Thursday. Thanks for reading this far - hope you got plenty of sleep last night..."

Fun times.

Tongs and You're Welcome: A Fun Reunion

We had a good time at our little reunion. It was well attended and food was plentiful.




Here you'll find pictures of:

Jeff and Chelesta and kids
Fred and Julie
John and Liz
Josh and Kid
Matt

We talked and joked for a few hours, and kept the kids busy with Glow Sticks, trampoline and movies.

I can't speak for everyone, but this was an excellent and soul-satisfying reunion for me.

Thanks everyone who came, and to those who couldn't for responding.

The "manly" way to fix things...

What do these two things have in common:

A ceiling fan

My Scooter

Give up? I'll tell you. These are two things that I have recently disassembled to find out why they wouldn't start. In other words, I took them apart so I could fix them.

But that's not anything new. That happens all the time. Most things need some taking apart for a repair. So, that's not what really makes these similar.

But this is: The On Switch

First...the fan. We've just moved to MD, and have rented a cool little townhouse. After moving in, I noticed that the master bedroom ceiling fan didn't work. I have strong tendancy to perspire in all temperatures and all situations and I enjoy the breeze from a fan such as this one.

I removed the cover and replaced the switch. I also took the chance to examine all the other parts (as if I knew what I was looking at.) After all my work, nothing. Fan still didn't work.

The next day my wife calls and says "Guess what I'm watching? (what?) The ceiling fan...spinning like crazy. There was a seperate fan switch on the wall, behind the shade.

Ok. Lesson learned, right? Occoms Razor and all that. No. Not even close.

Now, the scooter. Thursday, after a rather embarassing incident that I'd rather not talk about, (but that involves my throttle, a womans VW Golf, and my scooter being on the ground), my scooter wouldn't start!

I arranged a ride home, put the scooter in my truck and brought it home. The next day, I removed a few parts to get to the engine. Nothing seemed wrong. So, I removed a few more parts to get to more of the engine. Still nothing. Finally, I removed most of the body. See picture below:

After cleaning everything and replacing the spark plug, I gave up for the day. I posted my dilemma to a newsgroup. The answer came pretty quickly. "Try the kill switch" they said. "Pffffpt," I thought, as I walked out to try it.

Sure enough...the Switch was set to "Not Run" instead of "Run." Turned it back on and Rrrruuunnndddnnndndndndd..she started right up. The Black Pearl rides again!

Why didn't I think of turning it on?

DCI 2006 Finals on ESPN2 - 9/5/06

This tuesday, you can see the 2006 Drum Corps International finals on ESPN2 at 8pm Eastern.

The Santa Clara Vanguard

Here is your chance to see some really amazing performances.

Even if you've never seen any Drum Corps, this will be a good watch. They produce it to be dramatic as well as interesting.

Check it out. It only comes around once a year. :)

Looking for other years of DCI shows or music? I might be able to help. Drop me a line.

Mattie Begins

This song is speaking to me today.

Counting Crows - Anna Begins (mp3 link)

This time when kindness falls like rain
It washes her away and anna begins to change her mind
These seconds when Im shaking leave me shuddering
For days she says.
And Im not ready for this sort of thing
But Im not gonna break
And Im not going to worry about it anymore
Im not gonna bend. and Im not gonna break and
Im not gonna worry about it anymore


It's like I heard it today, for the first time after listening to it for years.

Friggin Microsoft Restart Crap...

I should be used to this nonsence by now.

"You have pressed the space bar. Please restart for this change to take effect."

/me rolls eyes.

Today, about 10 minutes after logging into my laptop at work, I got this notice:

Do you want to restart your computer now? Yes, or Yes?

Oh, you don't want to restart? Well, that's ok, but this window will stay on top of all of your other windows unti you click it.

Instead of "Restart now", it could say something like "Sucker. We've got you right where we want you."

What would happen if I didn't restart? Really....probably nothing. Give me a break Microlame.
/me counts down the days when he can switch to GNU/Linux at work.

MeeboMe....does it work? Round Two

Not sure why the last one broke.




Try this one.

My 30 seconds of first-sucker-woot-fame...

Disclaimer: There is nothing in this article to do with any actual fame. It's just silly. But if you want an autograph, please email me, and I'll get you an address where you can send a SASE.

For those of you who don't regularly visit woot.com, here is a brief summary.

They sell one product per day, until it's sold out. Usually electronics, computer hardware, kitchen gadgets, etc. Items range in prices from $5 to $3000 and shipping is always $5 no matter the size of the item.

The only exception to the one-day-one-deal rule is when woot.com hosts a "wootoff." During a wootoff, a new item is presented directly after the previous one sells out. A meter is shown to give an idea of how many of a particular item is left. Items usually last between a few minutes to a few hours during a wootoff. "Wooters" tend to lose sleep during these events.

I've been watching woot.com for new items for a while now, but have never "wooted" (bought something.) That changed during the last woot off, which ended last night. I bought a few items including a new hard drive and a few wireless xbox controllers for my OG Xbox.

Here is where my woot-fame comes in.

When the logitec wireless xbox controllers came up, I was ready. I had been waiting for just this item. My xbox controllers are starting to short out, and they are...(ahem)...I'm embarassed to say... wired.

Anyway, when the woot came up, I bought two. After I completed my purchase, I went to see how many others had bought right away. Here is the screenshot:




Notice: First Sucker: themdg. That's me. I wooted first. I'm a hero. I'm on the woot site forever! My posterity will know that I was the kinda of guy who didn't mess around. When I wooted, I WOOTED.

Or so I thought.

A few minutes later, the site was updated, and another wooter was given the illustrious title of "First Sucker." I guess he was .5 seconds or so before me, so it was fixed.

At least I got the screenshot! And I hope the wireless controllers come soon.

Monopoly skills prevalent in sister...game ends badly...

My Sister and I played a full game of 1-on-1 Monopoly Sunday. Below you will see the board a few minutes before the game ended.

Notice highlights of her holdings in BLUE
Notice highlights of my holdings in RED



Notice that she owns every property, has 13 hotels, numerous bills of all sizes, three houses, and a 5 year old on her side (see feet.)

Notice that I own only a "Get out of Jail Free" card.

Needless to say, I had little bargaining power when I needed to pay over $1000 in rent on my next move.

Where did I go wrong, you ask? I traded Boardwalk for 3 railroads. This may be a great strategy when playing with 3 or more players, but in 1-on-1 monopoly play, it's tantemount to monopocide.

We have plans to meet for a rematch this weekend, but this time with 3-5 players. THIS time the railroads WILL be key.

Stay tuned.

DCI to move to Indy - Finals on a semi-perminant stay

A big announcement today by DCI. They're moving their national headquarters to Indianapolis, IN. Even more interesting is the announcement that they will hold the DCI World Championships at the yet-to-be-completed Lucas Oil stadium in Indianapolis, IN each year (with one exception) from 2008 until 2011.

Here are some pertinant facts:

• Lucas Oil Stadium is replacing the RCA Dome stadium, home of a annual Regional Competitino and many Bands of America competitions.
  
• Lucas Oil Stadium will feature a retractable roof.
• Indianapolis, IN is within one day driving distance from 75% of the country.
• Historically, DCI World Championships were held in a different stadium each year or two.

My reactions? Mixed.

While this may be a good business move for DCI Corporation, I think this is a blow for DCI fans and participants. There is something of a feeling of ownership and nostalgia to world championships performer. The show they present the night of finals of a culmination of months (and sometimes years!) of effort. There is a notion of "leaving it on the field" meaning, giving your all to perform your best. "The Field" becomes holy ground. After the closing ceremonies of a DCI World Championship, people depart, knowing that it may be 10 years before another World Champtionships will be held there. For those 10 years, that field belongs to those participants. No longer.

I believe this will also hurt the PR value that DCI gets from hosting it's finals in cities all around the country. Ask people around you if they know what DCI (or Drum Corps is). Most don't. Holding finals in Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, California etc, is extemely beneficial in spreading the word. The hoosiers will be intimate with DCI, but it will remain in obsecurity for most of the rest of the country.

Individual Corps traveling routes will chang as a result of this as well. Because finals are in a different place nearly every year, the mix of shows that a corps attends during the months leading to finals varies. Will we see a settling of routes and shows around the country? Will there still be as many small-town shows available as there are today?

I can't help but feel a little like DCI has sold out here. It seems that the Indy Chamber of Commerce has DCI in it's hip pocket. It was remarked during the Press Conference that this event should generate $10,000,000 for Indianapolis tourism each year.

No need to anticipate an announcement that finals will be held somewhere near you any longer (unless of course you live in the midwest.)

I did think of one positive thing that might result from this announcement. The midwest lacks a bit of interest when it comes to Drum Corp, Marching Band and Colorguard. Maybe we'll see a few more corps pop up in the midwest.

I love Indiana having lived there for a few years, and I think this is a great thing for Indy. But, I'm not sure it's the best thing for DCI.

Read some FAQ's about this announcement at DCI.org