03-13-02, 3:24pm   ("GREENL!")
You know what really ticks me off?

No one makes a portable CD player that has both MP3 capability and an AM/FM radio tuner. Not even from the shitty Taiwanese companies like Coby, Lennoxx, or GPX. Or the Chinese importers like Sorny.

There are a few with FM tuners, I know... but what's worthwhile on FM besides NPR and college radio? I like AM because of the longer range and higher chances of finding a "traffic 'n' weather together on the 8s" kind of station when I'm out travelling on the motorbike.

But who can stay angry for long when there are people in Japan doing things like this. (fairly high-bandwidth, streaming ASF) If you find this song as unbelievably catchy as my friends and I, be sure to check out the MP3... and the extended remix which sounds exactly like the 12" LP singles the Village People used to put out. (OK, so I had a campy disco phase in 1994 in high school... but it was for when I DJ'd various class events... I think. Or maybe it was the fascinating horn and string arrangements? ok... now I'm a little scared.)

Of course, there's always this perennial favorite. (2MB MPEG)

We really should nuke Iraq... if for nothing else, they'll entertain us with their quirky brand of offbeat pop culture about 50 years down the road.

Bored? Try Googlewhacking. My first try ("errant germanophiles") came back with only two entries... close enough.

03-11-02, 12:34pm   (crazy europeans)
I heard on NPR this morning that a primarily Native American college in the west has officially changed their name to "The Fighting Whiteys". I really, really, REALLY want a team sweatshirt.

While searching for more information, I came across this article about a guy who was ticked off about the quality of his Philips widescreen TV so he took hostages.

While we're at FOXnews... I always love this portion of their site (but still no mention of the Fighting Whiteys... at least not yet... might take a few hours for the rest of the press to catch up).

Got cursed at and flicked off at by a man in a Lexus SUV for passing him in a legal passing zone this weekend while riding one of these. So much fun. SO MUCH FUN.

Got a new printer. Epson 780. Closing out for $70. Best photo printer I have ever seen... beats ALL of the $2000+ printers we have here at work. Hightly recommended.

World Superbike, AMA Superbike, and World Rally Champoinship seasons have all begun in the last week. Why in the world does anyone think NASCAR is interesting? Surprisingly, the newly-taken-over Speed Channel (nee Speedvision) is covering all three things quite well so far. World Rally is the coolest thing in the entire world. Period. Why can't I be from Finland?

03-01-02, 11:20am   (synergize!)
Columbia's up after a beautiful early-morning launch today. That means I go back to doing boring web work for the next few weeks.

On that note, I love this site.

Blues, blues and more blues. Weekly jams, and a gig this coming Friday at Outta The Way Cafe in Gaithersburg. You can find 'em on Google if need be. Playing some big festivals this summer, too.

Still no suitable replacement handlebars found for the Nighthawk... but my jacket has been repaired by a little shoe-repair shop. He put huge patches of leather and heavy stiching wherever needed... ain't purty, but it works well.

Had a strange e-mail encounter with Jeff Balis, producer of "Stolen Summer" the film made possible by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's "Project Greenlight". Turns out he and I have the same e-mail alias registered (jeff@popstar.com). Somehow it's back in my hands, even though I still haven't paid for it. Odd, though... this guy's gonna be big news soon (the movie comes out in summer) and I've seen him in action in the HBO documentaries of "Stolen Summer"'s production. I mentioned my stalled film career and his response was, "NASA? You're doing real filmmaking... not the fluffy bullshit we do in Hollywood."

I guess he has a point there.

One last link : one of my favorite SNL skits of the last 5 years. The game show, "Who's More Grizzled?"

02-22-02, 6:20pm   (NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!)
My workday has been filled for the last two weeks with the task of capturing, rendering, editing, and recompressing video clips for the STS-109 Shuttle Crew to study before they begin work on Hubble Servicing Mission 3B next week.

This is a big one... sure, there's the addition of a new cooling system (designed and built by my company), and a high-resolution planetary camera, but the main focus is a complete power system overhaul which requires a full system shutdown... with the possibility of never properly restarting. The benefits will be great, but the potential loss could be catastrophic for the science community, space agency, and arguably mankind alike.

Anyway, I'm looking at all the latest developments on Space.com when I come across this article. I am disgusted. I am simply disgusted.

I know Russia's space program is hurting, and the cash injection by "space tourism" is probably a good quick fix (because they blow the billions that we give them every year on their government rather than on their space program)... but I knew it would be a matter of time before something like this happened. I'm shuddering.

It's one thing when a very rich person approaches MirCorp and all involved parties, presents the money, and arranges a Soyuz flight. Especially when that rich person is genuinely interested in space travel and doesn't make a big stink about it. But when "talent" agencies, "entertainment" networks, and the like all butt their 4 brain cells together and decide to trivialize mankind's greatest achievement ever... while obviously pandering for the most advertising $$ and ratings as well...

On the other hand... the ISS program sure could use the press. I mean, we have a F*ING internationally built, fully functional space station in orbit with a crew... up... in space... right now... it is the shining beacon of all that is possible when our civilization joins together... progress beyond anything remotely imaginable just 15 years ago. And no one really cares. And its budget and future are all in question as we speak.

Maybe this would help get the public more interested in space again. And maybe it will trivialize everything. Ugh, who knows. Time to go home.

02-21-02, 2:32pm   (news gleanings)
Not a whole lot going on here. Just trying to figure out my $800 tax dilemma. Interesting things picked from the web today :

From thetimes.co.uk: "Diabetes reaches Britain's fat white teenagers" (are there any other kinds? great band name)

From space.com: "Will ET Be Hostile? Alienated People Are More Likely to Say 'Yes'" (the criteria by which a person's "alienation" is tabulated is interesting)

From newscientist.com: "Japan plans tea room for ISS"
I picture this quote being given in an overly exaggerated, dubbed monster movie style: "While it is possible to boil water and make tea in space, 'we don't know how they are going to drink it,'says Nakamura. 'It is not possible to keep the tea in cups and we cant have tea floating around. This is one of the problems we are working on.'"

02-15-02, 12:26pm   (vday)
Happy belated Valentine's day.
I have a known habit of celebrating Valentine's day late. Just ask... oh, don't bother.

02-06-02, 4:40pm   (quote of the day, urban dynamics)
From the Washington Post :

"How did placid, progressive Montgomery County turn into a Coen brothers movie?"

The Post had two interesting articles today on the always-changing state of urban sociogeographic balance. Well... one interesting article, and one hilarious one about Montgomery County crime (did you know, for instance, that Montgomery County Police actually paid "informant" men - with taxpayer money - to have sex at massage parlors?) I've said it before, and I'll say it again : God bless Montgomery County.

02-05-02, 9:28pm   (not much...)
Things have been relatively quiet, I guess. Brief, 5 minute long blizzards yesterday have turned my thoughts back to gettin' my ski on.

Since Chicago, I've been looking to do more serious blues, and gave up on the 1st-wave ska band. Seems like it paid off, as I already have house-band positions at two new places, and will be sitting in with a lot of established acts over the next few months.

" Okay. I'm doing the whole 'click on random blog links' thing and looking at the majority of blogs out there.

I think I want to kill myself..."

01-28-02, 11:28am   (studio, skyline drive)
Thanks to the most f'd up weather we've had in years, it's been sunny and almost 70 all weekend. Went riding out around Skyline Drive with some friends. All thoughts of moving to Chicago or some other flat midwestern town grow dim after having the experience of flying through the twisting, snakelike roads that make their way across the ridgeline, with nothing but mountains, valleys, and wildlife to watch blur past you. Got a season pass, too... so more riding, hiking and camping this year than ever.

Was in the studio for most of this weekend with Mike/Roy (?) After two years of always saying things would come together, and trying without much victory, it is now officially on, and it's sounding amazing. Helps when you have a good engineer, an incredibly well-stocked studio, and a drum room that doubles as a cathedral... or vice versa. Pix available from link on left.

01-09-02, 3:54pm   (24 cont'd)
I love my mom to pieces. She just sent me an e-mail apologizing for the fact that she and my dad are sick and assumed I wouldn't want to spend my birthday with two sick parents. But, she says, we will get together soon, and caps it off with a phrase that might very well live on as my favorite inbox text of 2002...

"... and we'll have CAKE!!"

01-07-02, 6:06pm   (the rut)
Say goodbye to the rut. All of you. Don't know what I'm talking about? That doesn't matter. Just kiss that rut goodbye.

One of my best friends recently made me promise to hold him to a new line of thinking. A new non-rut-laden path of life. It's just too damn easy to admit defeat and sink back inside. I know I'm guilty (especially with this annoying pinched nerve in my neck). I know everyone is to some extent. But everyone also has those shining exceptions... those times when one gracefully moves on and seeks out a new course while not harping on the failures and shortcomings of the past. Well it's time to make every episode like that.

I hate to sound like an overly-caffeinated motivational speaker, but I'm just sayin'... we're all just sayin'... it's really not that hard to dust yourself off, assess what you learned, and take that forward (but not straight).

A hippie artist once told me from the passenger side of a Ford E250 full-size van filled with drunken improv comics whom I was piloting through the picturesque, snow-dusted upstate NY city of Saratoga Springs while listening to the Grateful Dead's 'Eyes of the World' on college radio... "Always forward, never straight," I don't know if the statement was followed by "dude", "man", or "bro"... but regardless, it was a beat.

The absurdity of the moment made me laugh... then the undescribable coolness of the moment stuck with me. He had a good point.

Heading to Chicago by car in a few days. I've spent some time with Garmin's MapSource GPS software trying to plot out an interesting course. Sure, I can get on three interstates and be there in less than a day, but what fun is that? I guess since I have a time crunch, that's probably what I'm going to have to do, but I will do so grudgingly. I wish I had a few weeks of vacation at my disposal right now...

My last few posts on here have been about the current state of the computer and personal electronics industries. Interesting stuff, but not really that important. So they're gone. The only thing worth leaving, though, is "Apple's new iMac matches its digital hub strategy, which in itself is a ploy to make people feel a little better about blowing thousands in digital cameras and camcorders in a figurative 'How high?' after the Best Buy commercials told them 'Jump!'

Anyway...

Good-bye, rut.

(now does anyone have good pain killers for this pinched nerve?)

12-28-01, 1:26pm   (Christmas, PDA)
Yesterday I had a whole lot of things I wanted to put up here, and today I can't remember a single one.

Well, Christmas has come and gone. Our family's holiday was low-key and high-calorie... the way it should be. Sadly, our local family has become smaller in the past few years, but the tight bond remains. I still want to get out west and meet the entire half of the family I don't know. Anyway, some pictures (along with a random selection of stuff from the last few weeks) are on the left.

For kicks, I picked up a cheap HP Jornada 525. My cheap Palm m100 was doing its job simply and flawlessly, but the temptation to acquire more gadgets is hard to resist. I'm up to at least 6 pocket-sized electronic things with LCD screens. If you're interested, I've got screenshots and a pretty unbiased review, of this little... thing... here.

12-21-01, 4:26pm   (telescope)
OK... so I couldn't resist. I have no willpower. "the IT" that I spoke of yesterday was supposed to be a Christmas gift. Kim and I are always talking about our love of astronomy, though we don't really do much about it. So I constructed, calibrated, and collimated something that would finally let us really become skygeeks last night. I mean, if you had a highly precise scientific instrument in your basement, could you just let it sit for the next few days without checking it out?

IT is a brand-schmackin' new, thoroughly revised 8" Dobsonian - Newtonian reflector telescope from Orion. 1200mm focal length, f5.9 aperture, and a big black boot for ass-kickin'. Geeks always wind up having the coolest phallic symbols, and this one definitely qualifies.

After calibrating and collimating, I took it outside and let it adjust to the cold. Then I spun it around at the obvious and took a close look at the moon. It was without a doubt a sacred moment. I've looked through telescopes before... and seen far too many false-color NASA images than anyone should be subjected to. But to peer through something that is mine... that I just built and tested... and see the surface of the moon with more clarity and precision than I see stop signs through my car's windshield... made me completely lost for words. (This picture doesn't do the scope any justice... I don't have a camera mount, so I just held the Nikon in front of the eyepiece on a 1/30s exposure)

I was in my neighborhood, in one of the more light-polluted areas of the US... so I wasn't expecting much... but I spun around, dropped in the 9mm eyepiece, and checked out Jupiter. The moons and bands of Jupiters were bright and clear.

The image of the giant planet isn't one that blows you away with beauty or detail. There's barely any color like we're trained to expect from NASA imagery. But when you think that the image you're looking at is real-time, as-it-happens light that's hitting your eye... it becomes far cooler than anything Hubble can do.

I aimed it even further back at Saturn and called Kim. She came over shortly therafter and I told her to close her eyes and brought her out to the deck. Positioning her just right so that when she opened her eyes, she'd be staring at a bright, well-defined image of Saturn and its rings. "OK, open your eyes..."

12-20-01, 4:52pm   (GIN, CREATIVITY, SURPRISES)
Heavy whipping cream + Bombay Sapphire + Mountain Dew "Code Red" = a truth serum of sorts. I don't wanna go into details, but if the stories I've heard are true, it could be an incredible tool used by law enforcement.

Frank's in Chicago by way of a rude woman at U-Haul, a 4-day extended stay, and a bunch of Frappucinos.

Bob's back, and in full effect. Recording for Sonnet64 went swimmingly. OK, so I've been pretty anti-Sony lately, and I still feel that's justified (talking to professionals in the video industry only confirm my view). But man, their little MD recorder and stereo mic combo kicks tail. Much better sound than my AKG, sadly. You can make NPR audio stories with ease.

In the mood for some fine dining in Baltimore? Go here. Just do it. Then head across the street to the historic Belvedere Hotel and up to the 13th floor for some chill-out post-meal ambiance, overlooking they Baltimore skyline and feeling all that smooth trend/yup/vibe.

Christmas is coming... (I was half-tempted to write "the holidays" in a gesture of multiculturalism, then I remembered that Chanuka is over, Kwanzaa isn't a real holiday, and I am Christian... so in this case, it is ok to mention "Christmas"). Any, it still doesn't feel like it. At least it's cold out now.

With Christmas, comes "IT". What is "IT"? Well, you'll just have to wait and see, now, won't you? Muhahahahaa...

12-4-01, 10:59am   (PHOTOGRAPHY)
So I finally got the Nikon CP950 I've been drooling about for the last three years. Ebay. Pawn shop. $270. Wouldn't be at all surprised if it was stolen (the original CF card had some California landscapes on it). But... I had my whole AE-1 outfit stolen about two years ago, and I'm sure some lucky bastard has it and is enjoying it now. The circle of life...

Anyway, it always sucks being home alone at night for the first time with a new piece of photo equipment. All you can do is take self portraits and pictures of stuff around the house. Well... this camera makes even those things look good. Images are on the left.

I'm giddy.

12-3-01, 1:48pm
Any news article from a respectable source that can contain the phrases "anal attack" "big swirly poops" and "PantsCam" has to be worth reading. God bless Asia.

11-26-01, 11:07am
Some nice local riding this weekend... Kim's first time truly out on the road. We went back among the secret NASA antenna test sites and USDA research farms. Lotsa fun. And no, she didn't set out to look like such a hooligan... but it doesn't hurt.

11-21-01, 12:15pm
So MS Outlook's built-in spell checker has the same feelings about my alma mater as I do...

11-19-01, 1:21pm
What 1985 computer had a color GUI, 4-channel stereo sound, highly specialized subsystems designed to handle multimedia tasks without bogging the CPU, and could perform true preemptive 32-bit multitasking with only 100k of system software loaded? Oh yeah, it also was the first PC to be able to handle NTSC video, raytracing, and cd-quality audio sampling...

THE AMIGA! That's what.

I'm feeling anger towards the general state of the PC industry today and feel the need to prosthelytize a bit on behalf of Commodore.

Not quite a Ridley Scott-directed Super Bowl commercial

Andy Warhol had great things to say (interesting to read and put in the context of the art/computer relationship in general, but all the better for the Amiga fan)

The famous "Juggler" demo (first ever raytraced 3D animation created and rendered entirely on a home PC)

Wait, don't you need WinXP to do this stuff?!?!

Celebrities need your Amiga's help! (audio)

Boy-next-door hacks the girl-next-door's cable (audio)

What's sad is that while these computers were probably the most advanced machines available to the public in the mid-80s, they didn't catch on as quickly as Mac did because of gross mismanagement and weak marketing. "We don't need to spend money on advertising. The computers are good enough, people will talk about them."

Right. That works.

But it was amazing while it lasted. I have fond memories of working at the Multivision/BCTV cable studio as a punk kid using A2000 machines to do screen grabs, 3D title overlays, etc. 'Course, it was also a very capable gaming machine, and while my friends were captivated with Super Mario Bros, I was playing a very disturbing post-nuclear-disaster real-time 3D strategy game (Midwinter by Rainbird), or a gorgeous cinematic WWI flight simulator (Wings by Cinemaware) all with stereo sound and music to boot.

My 40MHz 486 running Win3.1 wasn't nearly as adept at multimedia production as my 7MHz A500. My 100Mhz Pentium running Win95 was the first machine I had that could reliably handle full-motion video capture and playback. My current 533MHz Celeron running Win95C (same install as the 100, then 166, then 200, then now 533 machine... rock-solid as ever) handles a lot of things well. But with 76x the clock speed, 256x the memory, and over 1500x the storage capacity, it should be teleporting me to moon colonies and solving world hunger.

11-15-01, 4:43pm
Saw Nelson Mandela speak at UMCP last night. Interesting. No new ground covered, but always good hearing commentary on the actions of our great country from an international perspective. Oh, it's also pretty humbling standing before one of the greatest men of the 20th century.

My favorite moments involved Maryland's tool of a governor, Parris Glendening inserting his foot way down into his esophagus. "Dr. Mandela, I was a teacher at this university for 27 years, just as you were a political prisoner locked off the coast of your contry for 27 years." WTF?? "We both have fought hard for freedom and equality..." Huh? Glendening also made President Mandela an "honorary citizen" of Maryland.

5 minutes into his speech, Mandela lambasted the US political system's penchant for letting only the rich play the politics game, and saying that although it is a beautiful democracy, there is still a lot of work we can do. "Only the rich can run for office, be it mayor, governor, or president... the common man still can not attain such positions."

It was fun watching Parris squirm, though in all fairness, his website does claim he was born into a poverty-stricken family in a house with no plumbing or electricity.

1. Waiting... for Matt to drop off the bike. It was very nice of him to deliver it, but that just added to the suspense.

2. Finally, it arrives... looking better than I even imagined it to. We took his word on the condition because he's a stand-up kind of guy, but still... ya never really know until you see it.

3. Love at first rev.

4. The smile. Oh, the smile.