Jury duty, again?

I have to start playing the lottery. I have been called up for jury duty 3 times since 1999. I served on 9/9/99, was called again in April of 2004 and I asked for a delay until October because of our Anniversary cruise. So I had to report on 10/15/04, but the pool was cancelled. Now I had to report again on 12/5/06. I was going to try to get out but decided to go ahead with it. I guess a cancelled pool does not count as having served.

I was called to talk to the lawyers for one trial but I had an out, because they were going to go until the 22nd before breaking for the holidays and we are going on vacation before that. I had my laptop with me but they have no Internet access. I was able to get a week signal from Meeker Hardware (ssid=meeker), but it was encrypted (smart). I had some data to work with so I was able to keep myself busy, but the clerk said something about techs being able to "work from here" and "use their cellphones" but with no Internet connection the first was out and I you cannot bring in a cellphone with a camera in it.

After we were released I asked the clerk who I should send a note to about the possibility of getting Internet access installed there. I think that business people would be more willing to serve if they knew they could get access to email and other work resources while waiting in the jury room for 8 hours. Maybe CM/IT could get the contract.

Suckin' up the backyard leaves.

Geotagging Revisited

I have discovered that you can automatically tag a photo if you have a GPS receiver turned on while you are taking your photos and the time signatures on the photos and the GPS track are in synch, and then have an application which can match them up and put the longitude and latitude into the EXIF data. Then, when the photo is posted on an online service like Flickr, it can be located on a map.

I am using the USPhotoMaps program to download the GPS data and create the .gpx file and the WWMX Location Stamper to match up the track data and the photos and stamp the geotag data into them.

End of an Era?

I really can't believe it myself but I think I may be reaching the end of my fanatic ways with NASCAR. I decided this year that I would not be as diligent in watching every race, every lap, and instead watch whole races only when I had the time. As it turned out, toward the end of the season, I had very little time. I missed the second Talladega race, I totally forgot about the second Charlotte race being at night, and I nearly missed the Homestead finale. I saw only about the last 40 laps when I caught the fact that it was still on when in Stew Leonards.

I guess that when I wrenched myself away from it, I found it somewhat liberating and I started to lose interest, believe it or not. I guess with Mark Martin retiring, I have finally lost most of the people who were in it when I started getting really interested back in 1989. I watched the races I could see with relish when I was a kid, lost touch during the Navy and college years, when I really watched very little TV, and did not pursue it when I had the time, in the 80's until I discovered that they carried nearly every race of the season on cable.


The first one I remember seeing was the finale race of 1989, when Rusty Wallace won the Cup. I started in watching the races regularly the next season, when Dale Earnhardt started his rise, winning in '90, '91, '93, and '94. Then Jeff Gordon came along and started his streak, winning 3 of the last 4 in the 90's. In the 2000's, Winston went away and Nextel came into the picture. Next year, Toyota enters the series and in 2008 the "Car of Tomorrow" will be used.


I will probably not stop watching completely, and might even change my mind completely by next February, but I think it may really be the end of an era.

More political cartoon high-jinks

These showed up back-to-back in on my cartoon page this morning.

Filmloop

This is pretty cool.

I gave out a Flickr Minicard

I gave out one of my Flickr cards yesterday to a customer who was considering getting a digital camera. I pointed out how digital photography is so much fun and how you can post your photos online for friends and family to see. I am carrying them with me now. I missed a chance last week to give one out. When my free ones are gone, I will probably order some.

Political cartoon update

Tom Toles posted the first cartoon on 10/29 and the second one today, 11/9. Pretty funny. (Click on image to enlarge)

Nerd comics

Would anyone other than a complete computer nerd get this comic? (Click on it to see it bigger)

Katamari Ball!

I just saw this Traveler's Insurance ad on TV and thought "Katamari". I love what they can do these days with computer generated images.

Cannibal pumpkin

Cannibal pumpkin
Originally uploaded by Plutor.

Our daughter-in-law came up with this excellent Jack O' Lantern for this Halloween. Very creative.

(Update, 11/9/06) Maureen 'fessed up that she had gotten the idea for this jack'o'lantern from this pic she saw online.

I'm syncing over Bluetooth

I finally got my Tungsten T3 syncing with Palm Desktop on my Win XP laptop over Bluetooth. I had been trying to do it and finally found a post on the web about creating a profile on the PDA for the Bluetooth which worked and to select "Modem" on the PC and to select a pseudo COM port created to use the Bluetooth connection. Now if I could just charge the battery wirelessly, I'd be all set.

I've found geotagging

Pretty punkins all in a row
Originally uploaded by GeoffNascar.

I have found that you can geotag a photo in Flickr to show where it was taken. I love this. I was actually thinking recently that putting GPS into a digital camera would allow you to do this automatically. I also see that Flickr will detect geotagging data in EXIF data in a photo which was tagged somewhere else. So it makes sense that a camera should be able to do this.

Breakfast in Ogunquit

Breakfast
Originally uploaded by GeoffNascar.

Pieter and Nicole came to America this week and we went on a tour of New England with them. We had great weather until the last day, when it clouded up and rained a bit. Ellyn and I got to do some kayaking and the kayaks were great storage for bringing back the loot from shopping.

Conservatives only think with half their brains.

Find the money? For crying out loud, we HAD the money before the numb-nuts Republicans got into office and tossed it to the four winds with rebates and tax cuts. We had the budget and the deficit under control under Clinton and all that was shit-canned in 2000. We would also have a lot more money if we were not throwing it by the truck-loads down the rathole known as "Bushes Dirty War". If we want to "vote all these things in", we have to first vote all the Republicans OUT!

(Update: 11/9/06) DONE! YAY!

Yom Kippur in Boston

We are spending the High Holy Days in the Boston area at Temple Shir Tikva. Rabbi Gold is much more inspiring to us than anything we could get in Danbury. Plus, we get to worship with Brian.

History Lesson?

Not a good post title but here goes. On Thursday I was working at the home of one of our business clients who owns an insurance agency. We had done some work on his office machines and he hired us (CM/IT, specifically me) to fix his daughter's laptop (severely hijacked) and his Vaio minitower. I was sitting at the kitchen table and his two younger kids were getting ready to go outside and I commented to his youngest daughter about the logo on her shirt, which had the shape of a famous ice cream company but it said "Frozen-Assets" with to dots (a german umlaut) over the "o". She said it was the name of her Nanna's boat. I mentioned how it looked like the Haagen-Dazs logo and she and her brother both said "Yeah, our Great-grandfather founded Haagen-Dazs". "Eh?", I retorted. "Yeah and I was named after him", said the brother, Reuben. "But he sold it to Pillsbury". "For a lot of money, I bet". "Yeah".

I mentioned it to their Mother later and it was her Grandfather, Reuben Mattus, who founded Haagen-Dazs. I meet some interesting people in this job.

Job crisis

So I suddenly got a job offer from a company I interviewed with last winter called and offered me a fulltime, 2 month contract job at Praxair in Danbury. Although the hourly rate was less than I was getting at CM/IT, it would be a guaranteed 40 hours/week for 2 months with a possibility of an extension beyond that, and, if it was not extended, there was an 80% chance the hiring company would pull me back into their organization. I would have a choice of full or part time then. Sounded pretty good, especially since I had not been getting very many hours with CM/IT lately.

When I talked with Sandra about it, she started talking about different projects she could put me into and started offering not only more hours, but a guaranteed 20 hours/week. Guess she thought I was valuable. Truth is, I like working for CM/IT and have created a relationship with my clientele so I decided to stay. Pretty dumb, huh?

I also wanted to keep some flexibility in my daily schedule. I will have to book some office time when I am not scheduled for any clients to make up the 20 weekly hours but I don't mind that.

T. M. X. Elmo

Ten years after "Tickle-me Elmo", the latest incarnation does acrobatics. We saw this guy on GMA this morning and everyone was really laughing at him. He sits down, bangs his hand on the floor, lies on his back, lies on his stomach, and, at the end of his fit, stands back up on his feet.

Star Trek TOS Updated!

Wow! They are returning TOS to TV with new digitally mastered special effects. I have got to see this. I checked it out on the TiVo and found two episodes on G4 on Saturday but not sure if they are the updated ones. Guess I will find out.