My sweet blog

Texans for Truthful Textbooks rally

2010-05-19T13:14:00.001-05:00

My lady went out of town last weekend, so I was going to take the boys to see some politics in action! After a bit of explaining to a nine-year-old and five-year-old about us having rights to assembly and free speech, our Constitution, and other countries, I told them about a rally on the Capitol steps where some groups were proposing changes to textbooks based on their agendas. My youngest cut to the chase:

“Is this rally going to be cool?”

Ouch.

Needless to say, a hot day plus political speakers makes for a time that no amount of climbing on cannons will make fun. They tolerated being there, but couldn’t stand more than one speaker due to “dying of hunger and boredom.”

On the way back to the car we got sidetracked by the Capitol – all of a sudden energy levels were high enough to run up the stairs and look down the rotunda!

Technorati Tags: Austin,TX,textbooks,rally,Texans,Truthful,Textbooks,American,Atheists,Ed Buckner,revisionism

Peek-a-boo!

2009-07-24T14:04:00.001-05:00

My family and I are driving down Lamar on the way to a combo Anthropologie/Book People run. Just a normal day, right? I guess we happened to be at the right place at the right time.

So the first time we passed this brave soul I saw him and pointed him out to my wife just as we passed him. We had to turn around and check him out a second time. Of course by this time I need to take a picture for my blog, so we go by him a third time, but the picture didn't turn out. We ended up parking so we could get a good shot the fourth time he passed us, the cheeky bastard.

Allow me to ask you a question, gentle reader. When wearing a thong and flip-flops, where would one carry their keys? Observant readers may have picked up on this guy's ingenuity.

Keys? Check. The wallet, though....

Technorati Tags: Thong,Austin,TX

Movie updates

2009-06-12T13:36:00.001-05:00

We don't get to see many movies, so when we make it to the theater, it's a bigger deal than normally. So, in order of appearance...

Wolverine

A buddy and I saw it on opening night at Alamo Drafthouse. Hugh Jackman IS Wolverine, but Liev Schrieber is the better actor, but both of these guys are good. Sabertooth is MUCH better and more accurate to the comics in this movie than the original X-Men. Daddy likes!

Star Trek

I convinced our managers to take us to Alamo Drafthouse for our quarterly offsite to see Star Trek in opening week. I figured I would like it going in, and it didn't disappoint. Space being actually silent and ships not all aligned on z-axis made up for any questionable parts about drilling to a planet's actual core, and creating a black hole at said core rather than just near the planet. I heard a lot about the lens flares on the bridge, but I didn't notice them in a negative sense.

Angels & Demons

My wife and I had a date and this time, she just wouldn't go for seeing Terminator: Salvation, so we saw Angels & Demons...at Alamo Drafthouse. Entertaining and interesting, and I thought I had it figured out but it got me.

We saw Up in 3D at a local theater, strangely not the Alamo. We all really enjoyed it. I saw some 3D movie content earlier, and this time the glasses were smaller and not obviously red-green like the Dolby ones. I'll have to do some research to find out the differences - this was our first 3D movie experience, and four adults, two eight-year-olds, and two four-year-olds managed to keep the glasses on, which I thought was quite a feat for the kids.

The 3D was really well done, and I had no eye problems/headaches wearing these glasses over my prescription glasses. A lot of the kids were trying to grab stuff coming out of the screen. They had bins to recycle the glasses upon exit, but we kept ours. Pics to follow.

Technorati Tags: Movies,3D,Alamo Drafthouse,Wolverine,Star Trek,Angels & Demons,Up

One hundred pushups

2009-06-10T12:36:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine and I have started the workout plan from hundredpushups.com.

It's a program that in six weeks or so hopes to have you completing one hundred consecutive pushups. The program is three days a week, and very simple and straightforward.

We're still in the first week, but I'll be updating my progress. My initial test netted me 20, so we'll see how it goes from there.

Technorati Tags: Exercise,working out,pushups,hundredpushups.com

The Lonely Island

2009-04-23T11:09:00.001-05:00

I'm an occasional SNL watcher, and I like all the SNL Digital Shorts, like this one:

I did some looking around, and the guys that do the Digital Shorts are the guys from The Lonely Island.

They have an album out called Incredibad, and it is amazing. It's one of those albums that you and like-minded-individuals can quote all the time. My wife can't stand it!

They have made videos of some of their songs from the album, and a few of these have made their way onto SNL, and while Andy Samberg is on SNL, the other two dudes (Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone) work behind the scenes as writers.

Technorati Tags: Incredibad,The Lonely Island,Saturday Night Live,SNL Digital Shorts

Pandora and the Music Genome Project

2009-04-09T13:57:00.001-05:00

I know what your thinking, and no, that's not the name of my latest story.

I've heard about the web music app Pandora for a long time, but never checked it out. Recently I remembered it and pulled it up. Going to the website presents a front end that lets you specify an artist (or a song) that you like, and Pandora starts playing something by that artist.

Pandora builds a queue of music based off of your initial selection and the Music Genome Project. Basically, it analyzes your selection and assigns the song certain attributes that it matches against songs in its database. Subsequent songs are automatically queued up and played.

I've started with various musicians I like and also tried some obscure ones. The vast majority of times I've enjoyed what I've heard, with some obvious matching selections but also some bands that are new to me. It's great for parties or just hanging around if you are tired of your current media selection or don't want to create a custom playlist (or are too lazy to hit Shuffle).

There is also a Pandora app for mobile devices, but I'm not sure how great this is due to it always being on and streaming data/music. I could see your battery draining due to the Pandora app, but as I don't have a phone with that kind of capability I'm basically talking out of my Napster. I'm sure it works - why offer it otherwise.

Technorati Tags: Pandora,Music Genome Project,MP3,streaming music

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-04-09T13:35:00.001-05:00

We had a rare double-date night a few days ago and ended up (as planned) at the (two) dollar show to see Slumdog Millionaire.

I loved it. The actors were great, the music was great, the story was great. I had heard a lot of high praise for the movie, and I'm glad I was able to finally see it in the theater.

Oh yeah, Space Chimps sucks.

Technorati Tags: Slumdog Millionaire,Space Chimps

Interesting recommendation from Netflix

2009-04-06T09:38:00.001-05:00

So we use Netflix, and we love it. With kids and a full schedule, it's nice to cut out an errand whenever possible. I check the mail every day on my commute, so it's win-win. Commercial over.

We are pretty slow in our movie-watching, though, as we are on the two-movie-at-a-time plan, and one of the movies is always earmarked for Friday's movie night. One grown-up movie at a time and you can see why our queue is 285 movies long.

Anyway, somewhat recently I added Hancock (Peter Berg + Jason Bateman FTW)to our queue, and Netflix has a handy feature that shows you a list of movies that, based on you just clicking Movie A, here are Movies B - G that you also might enjoy due to their similarity. I'm not exactly sure about this one, though.

Hmm....Hancock is a superhero. Fantastic Four and Spiderman 3? Check. I Am Legend? Obvious. Uh, Brokeback Mountain?

We saw Brokeback Mountain, and it is a really good movie. I don't recall superheroes in it, though. No Will Smith connection either.

Am I missing an obvious connection? Are cowboys really that super? Is there some submessage in Hancock? Is it just and unfortunate naming mismatch?

Technorati Tags: Netflix,Hancock,Brokeback Mountain

Sweet tools for the impending Zombie Apocalypse

2009-03-26T14:26:00.001-05:00

I'm behind in catching up with my RSS feeds, so I just saw this thing from CoolTools:

For all the firefighters out there that read my blog, this is nothing new. Just your standard multipurpose tool for prying. And chopping. And slicing. And wedging. And busting various things open.

I guess if you have to have the very best to kill zombies, spring for the titanium version at $550. Your children's children will thank you for it.

Technorati Tags: CoolTools,Halligan bar,zombies

We watched the Watchmen

2009-03-26T13:39:00.001-05:00

My wife and I had some time to ourselves the other day so we figured we would catch Slumdog Millionaire at the Alamo Drafthouse.

It was a great plan, except everyone else had the same idea. It was sold out almost an hour before showtime. Oh well. How about Gran Torino? Sold out. There was only one alternative.

I thought it was great. I loved the intro credits, the fighting, the gore, and the story. My wife thought it was good, but long. Favorite character? Rorschach (no surprise) hands down.

Why Alamo Drafthouse? Fried pickles - they really know how to make them there. I also tried the Drafthouse Amber beer. Pretty good! I can't remember what the entree was called, but we shared the fish and chips special, and it was fantastic.

Technorati Tags: Alamo Drafthouse,Watchmen

Sudden hailstorm

2009-03-26T12:21:00.001-05:00

After assuring my wife it was too warm to hail (what do you mean hail comes from the atmosphere...which is colder...), we had a freak hailstorm for about five minutes last night. It was coming down pretty hard, and the largest segment dumped pieces sized between a quarter and a golf ball.

Luckily there seems to be no major damage except for some window pane gasket things, but I'm sure we'll have someone out to inspect our roof.

After it stopped the accumulated hailstones looked more like snow.

Technorati Tags: hail,Leander,Hill Country

Feed the Pod!

2009-02-09T11:02:00.001-06:00

So I've got a fairly long commute...about thirty minutes one way. Long for me, that is. I don't like much on the radio, so I've started just MP3'ing it, or listening to audiobooks.

Lately, I've been checking out a lot of podcasts, and one I've been thoroughly enjoying is Pseudopod - a horror fiction podcast.

It has some really good stories, and various people have stepped in to read the stories, from authors to other podcast hosts to the site's own Ben and Alistair, my favorite narrators.

The authors are supported by donations - the aforementioned "Feed the Pod."

What I really like is the variety of the stories - some mainstream horror from faithful genres (zombie, vampire (my favorite), Cthulhu, etc), but it also has plenty of surprises waiting for the gentle listener.

Spurling's Virus was my first, and I was hooked since then.

Pseudopod is the horror branch of a trifecta of podcasts, the others being Escape Pod (science fiction) and Podcastle (fantasy).

Check 'em out!

Technorati Tags: Pseudopod,horror,podcast,audiobook,Escape Pod,Podcastle,vampire,cthulhu

A new year...

2009-01-13T08:39:00.001-06:00

...and I've missed the first four hours of 24? Crapola! At least they have the full episodes on their website, and I'll try their "new player" to see no stuttering and no buffering.

I've got a lot of catching up to do, so grab your mantyhose and let's go!

NaNoWriMo kickoff

2008-11-11T08:25:00.001-06:00

Midnight on Halloween was the NaNoWriMo kick-off, what's called a Midnight Write. It was held at Dragon's Lair, and when I got there about 11:30pm, there were about 25-30 people already there at tables set up with laptops at the ready.

By the way, Dragon's Lair is a great games/gaming/comic book/book store. Very family-friendly, and a large selection. Nice people too!

Anyway, the Midnight Write was also a potluck, and I was planning on bringing some cookies but other Halloween stuff loomed over our horizon. There was quite a bit of food, though.

Luckily someone had set up both a donation pot as well as a coffee pot.

So here I am in Central Nerdistan, among my people of course, and at five minutes to midnight we get warned about a whistle that will shake us to our very foundations. I mean, it's supposed to be THAT loud.

We gird our loins.

Fifteen seconds until midnight, and the countdown begins. We think we hear a faint whistling sound, but nobody in the back (wargame table) room is certain if that was the Whistle of Doom or one of the store cats meowed. We spend a few seconds looking at each other, and then one of the moderators comes in and lets us know that, indeed, that was the whistle.

We write!

The store can only stay open until 2am, so at roughly 1:40am I break away from my keyboard, an almost wordless husk. Sort of. 50,000 words over 30 days is roughly 1667 words a day. I hit just over that number, which was my goal.

So how was the Mini 9? Basically, it was great. The only problem I had was with the placement of the apostrophe. It is on the row under the home row, so I usually hit enter instead of apostrophe when I was writing contractions. This led to a lot of "did nots" instead of "didn'ts," etc, which is a bonus when you are counting words!

The machine was much more solid than I expected, and at first I was hesitant about the screen size and resolution, but in practice I had no problems with it while using it.

It was getting a lot of attention though, and I probably could have sold a few had I had a box of them that night.

Back to word count, unfortunately I'm just over 2300 now, and the server is down so both my NaNoWriMo word count widget is down as well as the ability to upload my word count. Such is life! I'm pretty far behind both where I should be and where I wanted to be, but I'm not giving up yet.

Technorati Tags: Dell,Mini 9,Inspiron,NanoWriMo,Dragon's Lair,Austin

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and NaNoWriMo

2008-10-30T10:40:00.001-05:00

My good friends at Dell hooked me up with an Inspiron Mini 9 laptop/netbook to use for participating in and blogging about the National Novel Writing Month. It is a pretty sweet, tiny machine.

My wife wants to use it all the time! I'm going to have to distract her somehow during November. She seriously is crazy about it. It came with Ubuntu Linux on it, but I swapped out the 4GB flash disk for the 16GB flash disk that comes with the high-end XP Pro config. I also factory-installed XP and loaded Word. Nothing against Linux, per se, but I want to use Word for this project.

The Mini 9 is sturdier than I expected, and I like the fit and finish. It comes in black and white, and this one is white, which looks pretty nice.

The drawback? I'm a touch-typist, and I'm a little concerned about the keyboard. To get everything in a package that small, some of the keys had to be reduced. This may not be a problem for many, but I am using it in what amounts to a typing contest (of wills), and my large hands and I will soldier on and report back how it goes.

After a week of configuring it, hooking it up to wireless, browsing, and email, I like it. It feels solid and the keyboard is sturdy, albeit cramped on the sides. It is the smallest laptop I've ever used. Actually, I love that it is so small when I'm carrying it around, and I can use something other than my huge XPS backpack.

Technorati Tags: Dell,Inspiron,Mini 9,netbook,XP,Ubuntu,NaNoWriMo

RSS Feed for comments

2008-10-29T10:57:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure how I can merge these two feeds, if it's even possible, but by clicking here you can subscribe to my blog's comments feed.

If anybody has done this with blogspot, let me know.

Technorati Tags: Blogspot,comments,RSS Feed

Behind the scenes Autodesk meeting

2008-10-29T10:32:00.001-05:00

So Autodesk buying Softimage is already old news. What everybody wants to know is how they came to that decision. My secret sources have delivered!

The subtitles are great, and I loved every joke. This video has seen its share of resubtitling, too. The scene is from the movie Downfall.

Technorati Tags: Softimage,Autodesk,3D Studio MAX,Untergang,Downfall

Autodesk acquires Softimage??????

2008-10-24T00:59:00.005-05:00

I'm browsing around some random graphics sites, when I see a news item. It seems fake, but I follow it, look around, and it looks legit!

Autodesk Signs Agreement with Avid Technology to Acquire Softimage

Whoa! This may not be a big deal to you, but it is crazy in the 3D Graphics world.

In October 2005, Autodesk, home of AutoCAD and more important to this discussion, 3D Studio MAX (a 3D graphics package) acquired it's biggest competitor, Maya.

Now it looks like one more competitor is being pulled under the Autodesk umbrella - Softimage.

Who is left to compete against Autodesk products now? Newtek Lightwave? Luxology modo? Maxon Cinema 4D? Side Effects Houdini? Anybody?

I'll have to try and track down some people to talk to about this - it's crazy!

Technorati Tags: Autodesk,Softimage,3D Studio MAX,Maya

Krause Springs

2008-10-21T09:00:00.001-05:00

We've been trying to go camping now that the weather has gotten colder, and our first choice was Inks Lake State Park, as we've gone there for day trips and my parents have taken me there as a child.

As luck had it, Inks Lake was booked through the rest of the year! At least, campsites with a fire ring on the lake side were booked. If we wanted to hike in ~1.5 miles schlepping our gear to a primitive site, there were a few openings.

No thanks.

We had heard about Krause Springs and had wanted to check out the place just as a swimming hole, and found out they had campsites. I called them up and spoke with Elton Krause himself, and when I asked him about reservations, he said just come up, drive around until you find a spot you like and pitch your tent!

Sold!

We left later than we planned, and had to make a few stops on the way, and got to the campsite a few minutes before dark. We used our headlights to help us set the tent (thanks Erika and Ty!) up and managed to drain our battery. Some nice neighbors help us jump it the next day.

Our first night went without a hitch and we woke up to masses of Monarch butterflies gathered in the trees right over our heads.

One of the other campers mentioned that they were migrating, and I wasn't sure about this (but I had no reasonable explanation otherwise - I guess it is the skeptic in me), so when we returned, I consulted my pal Google. Armed with the knowledge that Spicewood, TX, is roughly at Latitude 30, I consulted this migration schedule. Zut alors! The time matched!

My wife found a Coleman cooking stove thing at a garage sale for $5 (normally ~$50) and it worked like a charm! It uses a small thermos-sized canister of propane, and we had a blast cooking outside. I had to go the instant coffee route, as I didn't have a chance to look around for a suitable camp coffeepot or get my French Press action going, but roughing it is roughing it!

Krause Springs has some amazing natural rock formations, with grottos, waterfalls, rockwalls teeming with squirrels, HUGE cypress trees, a natural spring that feeds into a lagoon/swimming hole, etc. We went exploring and ran out of space on our 1GB photo card.

I also took a panoramic shot of where we camped. We were in the middle spot - under the RV hookups and above the primitive area.

The right-most spot in the panorama was filled with Cub Scouts from Saturday to Sunday. We were there the weekend of the Red River Shootout (Texas vs OU) and one guy was camping in our area I noticed what I thought was football sounds coming from his area. I investigated and he had stretched over 200 feet of extension cord from a table outside his tent to a power outlet in the RV hookup area to watch the game. Roughing it indeed!

They also have a butterfly garden with some wind chimes bigger than I am, plus a swimming pool that is fed directly from the spring. Let me tell you - it was cold! I eased in to my waist before I took the plunge, but my wife was brave enough to dive in. It's brisk!

We had a fantastic time, and will definitely go back. In fact, we are trying to work out a November camp date. The kids loved it, we loved it, and it's cheaper and closer than Inks Lake. Win-win!

Technorati Tags: Spicewood,Austin,camping,Krause Springs,Monarch butterflies,panoramic

Speaking of gaming....

2008-10-20T13:29:00.001-05:00

You know what I like about gaming around Halloween?

Once the box of decorations come out, miniatures abound! I'm leading my son through an adventure, and when the goblins aren't around, he doesn't mind hacking and slashing through some seasonal creepy-crawlies.

Technorati Tags: Dungeons and Dragons,miniatures,Halloween

Superheroes from spam

2008-10-20T13:13:00.001-05:00

So I got an interesting sounding spam email a while back, and either these spammers are also trying to get me to run a Mutants & Masterminds supers campaign, or they are randomizing their subjects to try to sneak in under my radar!

I think it is the latter.

Technorati Tags: Spam,superheroes

New recipe for roasted stuffed jalapenos

2008-10-13T13:21:00.001-05:00

My parents got me a jalapeno roaster as a gift, and I have really been giving it a workout. You basically core jalapenos, stuff them with, uh, stuff, and roast them for an hour.

I usually try to take all the seeds and membranes out, as some people still think they are pretty hot without them, but feel free to leave an amount in that suits your tastebuds.

I've been known to top them with pieces of bacon but I've not been doing this lately.

My most recent recipe is to start stuffing them with (American) Neufchatel cheese, then shredded pork barbecue (from HEB), and topped with apple or pineapple chunks.

I'm still working on coming up with something for roasting dogs. I feel like it needs to be more complicated than just putting them on a grill!

Technorati Tags: Jalapeno,roaster

National Novel Writing Month

2008-10-07T12:54:00.001-05:00

I may have mentioned it here before, but next month, November, is National Novel Writing Month.

There is a large website and community dedicated to working on what I've wanted to do for a while - write.

What it boils down to is taking thirty days to write 50,000 words. While this might seem like a Herculean task, it's really more of a sprint than a marathon.

The goal isn't to have a finished, highly polished manuscript that will pop up on Oprah's radar on December 1. It's more about accomplishing a task that many, many people think and talk about, but don't do it. It's quantity over quality, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

What if you only make it halfway - 25,000 words of ridiculous characters, contrived settings, and a plot more reminiscent of an after-school special than the next great American novel?

Guess what? You just wrote 25,000 words you used to only talk about.

I put a NaNoWriMo widget (which will track my word count) above my profile, and I've joined the Austin region group, so expect more pictures and thrilling blog entries about my progress. I talked the talk last year, so I'm hoping to do a lot of walking this year. Drop me a line if you sign up!

Technorati Tags: NaNoWriMo,National Novel Writing Month,books

VP debates flubs

2008-10-02T20:36:00.002-05:00

I'm sure there will be a lot of this stuff on YouTube, but at ~8:35pm CST, Gov. Palin referenced "Senator Obama and Senator OBiden."

Ouch!

We had to rewind it just to make sure, but it's there.

Star Wars Holiday Special

2008-09-22T11:26:00.001-05:00

Wow. Where to begin?

Somehow I managed to acquire a copy of this...masterpiece...on DVD. It's a transfer from someone's VHS copy, but unfortunately it lacks the commercials, making for less of a time capsule but more of a study in the art of pain.

I mean, I knew this thing was bad, but I didn't realize how bad it really is until watching it.

It aired once in 1978, but that was enough to warrant a cult following. We get to see Chewbacca's family, which includes his son, Lumpy, and his father, Itchy, who has an intimidating underbite.

I could go on and on about this, but there is a lot of material out there already. I mean, Tony an Golden Globe winner Diahann Carroll as a holographic prostitute? Check. Emmy and Golden Globe winner Harvey Korman as a robotic, multi-armed cooking instructor (among three roles)? Check. Jefferson Starship as a holographic, uh, Jefferson Starship giving off purple energy waves and singing into a short lightsaber? Check. Bea Arthur even makes an appearance singing and dancing with Greedo! Wait - it couldn't be Greedo, as Han shot first. It must be some other Rodian. Upon further painful review, it seems like she is calling the Rodian "Ludlow."

Is there anything positive we can draw from this trainwreck? Yes! It marked the first appearance of Boba Fett!

If you can find a copy, pick it up! It's better if you can get one with the commercials, just for the late-Seventies references.

This thing is painful to watch, but at least one viewing should be necessary for Star Wars fans, completists or purists. I haven't shown my kids yet, as I just found my copy, but I'd be interested in what they thought, as they love anything even tangentially related to Star Wars, and Wookie Humor should get them going.

!! I forgot to add that there is a Rifftrax for the Star Wars Holiday Special. If you like Mystery Science Theater 3000, get it here. !!

Technorati Tags: Star Wars Holiday Special,Boba Fett,Diahann Carroll,Harvey Korman,Bea Arthur,Wookies

Security: FAIL

2008-09-19T14:22:00.001-05:00

At work we have these "secure document" shredding bins, where you drop stuff - dark, personal secret stuff, or technical documents - and it gets shredded so nobody can get to it.

It needs to be cleaned out, eventually, and presumably shredded.

Fail.

Technorati Tags: Iron Mountain,shred,fail

Hurricane Ike

2008-09-17T10:55:00.001-05:00

Recently Hurricane Ike hit Texas and we, outside of Austin, were in line to be part of the blast according to the news and the hurricane trackers. Then, Ike turned a little more and we thought we would get some good rain. Then a little rain. Then we were totally missed.

My friend Kelvin, on the other hand, had a somewhat closer encounter. Here is a great image from him:

Check the link for his account. Glad y'all are in one piece! Wait - two pieces. You know what I mean.

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Ike,Houston,Galveston,flag

7,413,359: Method and apparatus for printing

2008-09-15T13:28:00.001-05:00

My second US patent has been granted!

I'm not sure how it got through with that unfortunate name, but my idea was to have an Automatic Document Feeder that could double as a print duplexer.

I still haven't received my plaque from the first one, but maybe I'll get two in one shot at the next meeting.

Technorati Tags: USPTO,patent,printer,duplex

Most Humiliating Spam.

2008-09-15T12:26:00.001-05:00

So here I am, just minding my business when I notice some mail in my Junk/Spam folder. I try to scan them since the filter can be a little aggressive in shielding me from email it thinks is spam.

Most of the time it is pretty good. The emails follow spam trends (how many Nigerian princes are there really?), but this is one that I hadn't seen before.

Ouch! Is this supposed to shame me into getting a prescription, or turn me away from using it at all?

Technorati Tags: spam,Viagra

Windows Live Writer, finally!

2008-09-15T12:13:00.001-05:00

I begrudgingly tried Windows Live Writer while at SIGGRAPH. Think of Writer as a word processor that uploads to your blog. Before trying it, I was fine going online to my blog, writing updates and uploading pictures. If I couldn't get online, I just didn't blog. Connection taking too long? I got frustrated and didn't blog.

I didn't know what I was missing!

What I like: offline post creation, WYSIWYG, easy tags and formatting.

So far the only thing I don't like is that there seems to be a bug that un-centers images when I upload a post. I have to redownload the post, center the images again, and reupload.

I wasn't sure I could do this, but I just Alt-PrntScrn'ed the window and pasted it into the body text. Nice! I figured it would, but nice to know it works like expected.

I'm using it exclusively for blogging moving forward.

Thanks Dave!

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Writer,Microsoft,blog

SIGGRAPH miscellaneous

2008-09-03T14:16:00.001-05:00

Here is a smattering of stuff I saw at SIGGRAPH that I thought was interesting, in no particular order.

This is an "ultra-efficient" BRAMMO Motorsports Enertia Electric Motorcycle at the AMD / BOXX booth. It was a prize for the "Creativity for a Greener World" contest.

This is just a badass motorcycle! Tim Cameron is an artist as well as motorcycle rider, and this is his V-Rex creation, which was spawned from his Dreambike. Here is more information about him.

I started taking some pictures in the Art area before I was politely asked for my press pass. Whoops! I need to make cards for my blog! Pictures were for press only, but I got away with a nice shot of these mathematical sculptures from Bathsheba Sculpture. Very beautiful pieces!

I didn't think I'd get one but I was able to stand in the longest line at SIGGRAPH to get a wind-up walking teapot from Pixar's booth. This is my first, and it is number 58, whatever that means. Well, I know what it means...but not what it MEANS. This year the teapot celebrates Renderman's 20th anniversary. Here is an article from 2006 describing the differences between teapots from the Pixar booth and the teapots for the user group. Apparently someone is selling their Renderman teapot on craigslist...for $75! Good luck with that!

Technorati Tags: AMD,BOXX,BRAMMO,Enertia,Tim Cameron,V-Rex,motorcycles,Lightwave,math,Bathsheba Sculpture,Pixar,Renderman,teapot,SIGGRAPH

Rhythm & Hues & sushi

2008-09-03T13:04:00.001-05:00

On Saturday David hooked us up with a former ILM guy who now is at Rhythm & Hues.

We got a great tour, and the workspaces had a nice creative vibe that reminded me of school. I brought back some good ideas to help my poor cube back home.

Thanks, Ari!

After the studio we drove over to Marina Del Rey, I believe and had some outdoor sushi from sugarFISH. A little pricier than what I'm used to, but tasty and packaged in a nice box reminiscent of bento boxes, where everything is compartmentalized. The waiter said that the box helps keep the rice from getting soggy if you took it home with you.

We finally started home...back to San Francisco, I mean....

Whoops! No music! Slight detour to a couple of stores looking for blank CDs and then we are on our way. I had David's laptop in my, uh, lap, and thanks to him syncing up his MP3s I was able to burn them to CDs for the trip back.

Highlights? How about Terrorizing Telemarketers by Jim Florentine. Here is his site. I'm a big fan of prank phone calls, and David introduced me to The Jerky Boys as well. Great stuff!

Technorati Tags: Rhythm & Hues,sugarFISH,sushi,Marina Del Rey,Jim Florentine,prank calls,SIGGRAPH

Speedshape visit

2008-08-25T13:21:00.001-05:00

On Friday we made our way out to the Venice Beach area and checked out Speedshape, a studio where my friend Robert works.

We got to see some sweet demo reel action (the Norwegians were right - I really believed a plane could fly!) and a nice studio in what turned out to be the former Wachowski brothers studio.

If you want to see a car, real or virtual, these are the guys to call. Check out their reel!

Afterward we drove up the coast for a bit and then through Topanga Canyon to hang out at Rob's pad. Nice! And thanks to the fumes from the floor work I'm hearing colors I've never smelled before!

Thanks Rob!

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,Speedshape,Topanga Canyon,Venice Beach,Wachowski brothers

SIGGRAPH, day 5

2008-08-18T01:18:00.001-05:00

This was the last day of SIGGRAPH.

To complete what I started the previous day I attended a screening at Nokia Theatre of some of the best (?) Flash work out there. I question best, though some really was top-tier work, such as the Heavenly Sword backstory - my favorite hands-down. There was some other stuff that I might call interesting, but I don't think best of the best.

I also saw one of the competitive animation screenings, which showcased some work ranging from students to research to special effects houses. Not exactly a level playing field, but some very interesting stuff nonetheless.

The theater was powered by dual 4k projectors, with 5.1 surround sound, and this is what it looks like:

Convention Center food is always too expensive. $3 for a 20-ounce Pepsi? No thanks! I took a load of snack bars and assorted goods with me so I wouldn't have to go through highway robbery for food, but that got old by the end of the week. Today we had lunch just down the street a few minutes away in a little shop that was more than a convenience store. It was like some sort of bodega/coffee shop/snack bar kind of thing, and it was very reasonable, especially compared to what we had in the convention center.

We happened to both be interested in going to the last Technical Paper - Procedural Modeling and Design, with the following papers:

Automatic Generation of Tourist Maps - using rules about how buildings should be shaped, how streets should be widened and how users designate points of interest in maps.

Automated Generation of Interactive 3D Exploded-View Diagrams - more rules about how parts of models interact and envelop other parts and how these relationships govern what parts need to move away from others.

Interactive Visual Editing of Grammars for Procedural Architecture - describing a "grammar" for architecture allowing buildings to be scaled, for instance, and appropriately placed and scaled architectural features appear without modeling them by hand.

Interactive Procedural Street Mapping - using tensor fields to generate street maps, which also allowed modifying fields manually.

Wow. I can't believe SIGGRAPH is over. It was great to be back from a six year absence, I believe. I definitely learned a lot, and it was really good to recharge my batteries. I'm looking forward to working on a few creative personal projects as well as being energized for my regular work.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,procedural modeling,Flash,Heavenly Sword,Nokia Theatre

SIGGRAPH, day 4

2008-08-18T01:12:00.001-05:00

I started today with a panel called Games: Evolving on an Order of Magnitude: During initial development of Playstation games, development teams averaged 15 artists, designers, and programmers with three to four technical engineers. For PS2, average project requirements increased to 55 artists, designers, and programmers with a technology team of 20 engineers. Now, for next-generation platforms, developers are seeing asset and team growth of an order of magnitude, but not necessarily the same growth in budgets or timelines. The greatest challenge now for game developers is to create economies of scale and pipeline efficiencies to accommodate project teams that are currently averaging 100-120 artists, designers, and programmers with 30 technical directors, programmers, and engineers. How do these companies address the complexity of programming and increased demands for quality and quantity of art assets to achieve near-life visuals?

Wow, that's a long description. I heard some good stories, and something interesting I took out of was from Steve Theodore of Bungie. He said that they removed all instances of File Explorer, et al, from their systems and relied on Search for finding files, assets, etc. He said that they saved roughly a man-year by doing this, and I'm going to see if I can translate that to our office.

Next up was a class - Advanced Material Appearance Modeling: For many years, appearance models in computer graphics focused on general models for reflectance functions coupled with texture maps. Recently, it has been recognized that even very common materials such as hair, skin, fabric, and rusting metal require more sophisticated models to appear realistic. This class begins with a brief review of basic reflectance models and the use of texture maps. It describes common themes in advanced material models (combining the effects of layers, groups of particles, and/or fibers); surveys the detailed models needed for materials such as (but not limited to) skin (including pigmentation, pores, subsurface scattering), plants (including internal structure), and automotive paints (including color flop and sparkle); and summarizes modeling of complex appearance due to aging and weathering processes. The class includes a general taxonomy of effects, as well as methods to simulate and capture these effects.

I'm on the record for liking the latest incarnation of Speed Racer, so I was able to check out the last thirty minutes or so of the Production Session called "Speed Racer": How Digital Domain, ILM, and Sony Pictures Imageworks Transformed a Vintage Anime Into a Wild Ride for the 21st Century: As the numbers of visual effects shots per film soar into the thousands, a huge army of artists, technical directors, and managers collaborates to create dazzling spectacles. In this session, supervisors from three of the principal studios reveal the psychedelic design, elaborate car animation, and complexities of collaboration required to create a very wild cinematic ride.

I caught another panel under the Computer Animation Festival banner called Flash Forward: From the classroom to the desktop, from the gallery to the television, Flash makes animation accessible and entertaining. Here is a full hour of some of the best Flash work in the world.

I heard from Greg Araya, one of the artists that make Foster's House for Imaginary Friends on the Cartoon Network, saw some nice interface work from Ken Martin of Blitz Agency as well as heard from one of the creators of JibJab, who created the "This Land is Your Land" Flash piece.

Flash is one of the applications for which I'll be creating some consumer usage models, so it was good to see how some of these people worked.

Thursday night was also the SIGGRAPH reception, and we got our money's worth! All of right field was reserved at Dodgers Stadium for a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Underneath right field they had all kinds of free food. A Mexican food area, Asian Splendor, hamburgers and Dodger Dogs, ice cream bars, and they gave out a coupon for one free drink.

We left around the 8th inning with the Dodgers leading 3-1, and we got out right in time. We missed a whole lotta crowd.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,Bungie,search,Speed Racer,Digital Domain,ILM,Sony,Dodgers,Phillies,Dodger Stadium,Flash,JibJab,Cartoon Network,panoramic

Demoscene screening

2008-08-17T18:10:00.001-05:00

From wikipedia, a demo is a non-interactive multimedia presentation made within the computer subculture known as the demoscene.

What I knew about the demoscene I found out in college, so it's been a while since I've even thought about it. I was used to very small, early 90's era graphical programming examples that were cool, but I never got into it. What I saw at the screening blew my mind!

So what's the big deal? The animations below aren't rendered with some sort of animation package - they are done in a miniscule amount of memory, usually 64k, and done in realtime. These guys really know their stuff.

Oh yeah. I had been away from demoscene for so long that I was totally unaware of the advances that have been made. Once the demos started playing, I was convinced that they were showing the incorrect footage. I mean, this couldn't be real-time, right? I actually got up out of my chair and talked to two people asking them if they were playing the correct footage. All they could tell me was that Demoscene was listed as starting at 4pm, and we were currently in the allotted time. They asked me what I thought should be playing, and I said I didn't know but I thought what was playing was too good!

I went back to my seat stunned, totally caught off-guard.

Five demos were shown:

Metamorphosis, by Andromeda Software Development

Beyond the Walls of Eryx, also by ASD

Debris, by Farbrausch & Nero

Route 1066, by UKscene Allstars

Lifeforce, also by ASD

Technorati Tags: demoscene,demo,Andromeda Software Development,Farbrausch,UKscene Allstars,SIGGRAPH

SIGGRAPH, day 3

2008-08-17T15:37:00.000-05:00

Today began with some Nvidia Tech Sessions, the first of which was Next-Generation Hardware Rendering of Displaced Subdivision Surfaces - An overview of the next-generation tessellation pipeline and its motivation. The focus is on one of the primary applications: rendering of displaced subdivision surfaces, which dramatically increases the realism of animated characters. The talk also shows how to adapt production pipelines to create compelling content that takes advantage of this innovative rendering model.

The second was Real-Time Rendering of Realistic Hair - Until recently, simulating and rendering realistic hair with tens of thousands of strands was prohibitively expensive for real-time use. This session reviews how to render realistic hair with high geometric complexity in real time on the GPU. Topics include efficient creation and rendering of large amounts of geometry for hair (essential for creating realistic hair, especially when the hair is moving), shading, self-shadowing, level of detail, and important performance optimizations. The talk also shows how next-generation hardware tessellation can make creating and rendering hair much more intuitive and efficient.

Both of these were good and showed off a lot of work Nvidia is doing promoting their development tools and especially hardware. They have everything corralled in one place at developer.nvidia.com, and I'm going to start messing around with shaders, so I just downloaded FX Composer to start experimenting.

I got to see a little bit of the ILM Production Session for Iron Man, mostly on how they made some of metal materials.

I had a small break so I went to the Nokia Theatre for some Computer Animation Festival Invited Screenings.

The first screening was a lot of material from the Demoscene, uh, scene, and it's getting it's own post.

The second screening was the Studio Eye Candy, where they showed : Presto, from Pixar; Glago's Guest, by Disney; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man and Spiderwick Chronicles by ILM; a liquid Bacardi spot and something else by Digital Domain; Live Free or Die Hard F35 sequence, by The Orphanage; I am Legend alternate ending, by Sony Pictures Imageworks; Scrat montage, by Blue Sky; and The Fourth Magi, by Lightstream Animation.

Technorati Tags: Nvidia,shaders,FX Composer,Nokia Theatre,SIGGRAPH

Softimage Party

2008-08-15T17:35:00.001-05:00

Since we went to the Autodesk Users Group Monday night, we thought we could see what Softimage, the biggest competitor to Maya and 3D Studio MAX, had to say. Softimage has something new called ICE - Interactive Creative Environment.

We were expecting to get some info about the software, production houses talking about using it, demo reels, etc. Nope! Just a party at Club 740 in downtown LA. We met a Softimage reseller on the way to the party, and we thought we were close to getting VIP passes, but no such luck. They gave out one free drink coupon to everyone, but I didn't know what it was (I thought it was a raffle ticket), so I didn't use it for the first two drinks. Uh oh!

We weren't sure what to expect at a party with a company delivering a new product called ICE, but we soon found out.

Vanilla Ice! I'm not kidding. He came out along with Clint Eastwood on drums and DJ Dirty Chopstick on, uh, DJ. I'm still not kidding. It was actually a pretty good show! He started with some new music, downloadable for fee at his website, and then hit some of the classics.

The DJ brought out two cases of bottled water and put them at the front of the stage. I thought that someone is going to be performing for a loooooong time, but it seems like Vanilla's gimmick is to spray the crowd periodically with water, drink water and spit it out on the crowd, drop kick water bottles and douse the girls that jump up on the stage.

Oh yeah. I'm not sure how they got the signal, but all of a sudden Vanilla held his hand out and started pulling girls up on stage. Of course, they start dancing, and then start dancing with each other. Finally one of the girls decided that she really wasn't in to the other girl and was trying to keep it like regular dancing, but the other girl wouldn't hear of it. Hilarity ensues, and the girl jumps back down into the crowd just to be replaced by someone else.

Here is Softimage's coverage of the event. We're famous! Look for us in the pictures - David's wearing a green shirt and I'm wearing a yellow shirt, and we're in the first three rows. I got dissed, hard, for a fist bump. Twice.

Oh yeah. Ron Jeremy was there. The connection with Softimage? Unknown.

He's up there on the walkway. They never put a spotlight on him, but sharp-eyed viewers should be able to pick him out.

I thought that the Autodesk party had a lot more information about the applications, the business, etc. This was fun, but I was hoping to hear how Softimage is positioning itself in the industry and against its competitors.

Technorati Tags: Club 740,Softimage,Vanilla Ice,Ron Jeremy,SIGGRAPH

SIGGRAPH, day 2

2008-08-15T11:42:00.001-05:00

Today I started with Technical Paper: Image Collections & Video, which is definitely my favorite so far. The papers include some nice and novel techniques for image compression, image and video resizing and a technique for using large collections of photos (a la Flickr collections) to generate multiple views of content and finding paths through photos based on everyone else's photos.

Following that, I went to the technical paper on Parallelism, with a few tidbits on Larrabee, the upcoming Intel architecture.

Next I had a quick lunch and did a run-through on the exhibition Floor, where I talked to some Autodesk and Adobe guys about work-related stuff. A company called Point Grey Research had a Smart car with a camera called Ladybug 3, which was hooked up with a Dell XPS laptop for some 360 degree panoramic shots, and I got my picture on the display. I'm in the yellow shirt.

Later that day was a Tech Talk from Intel - Why 3D Application Development is Driving Graphics-Industry Convergence. This was okay, but I couldn't stay for long.

Technorati Tags: Noah Snavely,Phototourism,Point Grey,Smart car,Intel,SIGGRAPH,Parallelism,Larrabee

Autodesk Users Group and Party

2008-08-13T15:50:00.001-05:00

Monday night we went to the Autodesk Users Group and Party. It was at the Shrine Auditorium.

We sat through almost five hours of bladder controversy and demos of Maya, Mudbox, 3D Studio MAX, a lot of stereoscopic demos and industry tidbits. The stereoscopic demos were very nice and done using Dolby 3D Digital Cinema.

We looked totally hot. The glasses were really good. I had absolutely no problems wearing them over my glasses, and they worked flawlessly. They showed stereoscopic scenes from Star Wars, Coraline, Kung Fu Panda and many others. The announced versions of Maya, Motion Builder and Toxik supported stereoscopic in the viewport. Of course, you need a way to display stereoscopic images! A minor technicality, but they also supported the red-green anaglyph mode in the viewport just in case you weren't made out of money.

The meeting had some really great content, but waaaaaaay too long.

After the meeting everyone rushed out of the auditorium to another part of the building to a...party. Make that a semi-rave-like-performance-art-party-thing. Drinks were free, but crushing lines turned us away.

The party was put on by Massive Black, a studio full of really talented people and the force behind www.conceptart.org. Andrew (Android) Jones was there doing what he does best - a combination of live art performance mindbomb. I really like what he does, and his personally-industrialized wearable Wacom tablet is pretty nice too!

The food was a good mix of Asian flavor, but the teriyaki chicken kabob things went too quickly, especially when some dude walks by me and knocks my plate over. Dessert was endless chocolate-covered strawberries, pears with pomegranate (I think) and these fruit pastry things...I'm drawing a blank as to what they are named.

Technorati Tags: Autodesk,Maya,Mudbox,3D Studio MAX,Motion Builder,Toxik,stereoscopic,Massive Black,concept art,Android Jones,Andrew Jones,Wacom

First Day of SIGGRAPH!

2008-08-12T18:40:00.001-05:00

We finally get started! We were able to take the HOV lane in to the convention center, so we missed the traffic.

My first class is Massive Model Visualization Techniques. It has some good info, but a little dry at parts.

After a quick lunch we see Ed Catmull, president of Walt Disney Animation and Pixar, give the keynote.

His speech was entitled Managing the Creative Environment, and it had some details about the start of Pixar, ideas vs people, management style and more. It was really good!

Here is the room for the Ed Catmull speech earlier in the day:

Closer to the start of the speech we noticed a line forming down the hallway and snaking back onto itself. It turns out that the auditorium fills up quickly and everyone gets turned away. We go to the first overflow room, but it looks like the video feed won't show him. We end up at the Geek Bar watching another remote feed projected on the wall.

There was also some odd robots at the new tech demo.

After that I checked out the bookstore and caught the end of Advances in Real-Time Rendering in 3D Graphics and Games: Part 2 to see some details on how Blizzard rendered Starcraft 2. Looks nice!

The exhibition floor isn't open until Tuesday, so we take off and bolt to the Autodesk User's Group and Party.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,Ed Catmull,robots,Blizzard,Starcraft 2

Picking up our SIGGRAPH material

2008-08-11T15:03:00.001-05:00

The convention opened this afternoon to register, pick up the materials and check out the lay of the land. We headed over, but first had to pick up lunch...at In-N-Out burger!

So I think I had my first In-N-Out burger, and while it was pretty good, I'm not sure what the big deal is. Later tonight we find out that you need to order it "animal style" to get some extra stuff piled on the burger and fries. We'll check it out again now that we know the whole story.

This particular In-N-Out is next to LAX, and planes were constantly landing over our heads. We could see two on the horizon lining up and it was crazy hearing the planes so close to us.

We get to the convention center and browse a few conference rooms, and see The Geek Bar, which is a place to charge your batteries, check your email and watch a few live feeds from eight different presentations.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,In-N-Out Burger,LAX

First day in Hermosa Beach

2008-08-11T15:00:00.001-05:00

After crashing for a few hours we get up with David's grandmother and head to Scotty's, a Hermosa Beach staple, for breakfast. I had the Acapulco Omelette, which is an omelette with chorizo and guacamole, sourdough toast and coffee.

I passed on the White Croaker Special.

After breakfast we walked around the beach and the closest pier.

Technorati Tags: Hermosa Beach,Scotty's,White Croaker

Headed to Los Angeles

2008-08-11T14:57:00.001-05:00

We finally got ready and in the car. Our trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles will take about six hours! Instead of getting an early start, we hung out blogging, getting frustrated with a printer, watching the first fifteen minutes of Cloverfield and eating sushi.

FINALLY we take off, but it's like 6:00pm.

We start out through the city but after the Bay Bridge we run through a wind farm and a lot of desolate flat land.

We end up stopping a few times to get some drinks, jerky, etc, and end up at David's grandmother's house after 1:30am!

We spent most of the time reading about the SIGGRAPH conference schedule and I end up getting tired, delirious and inserting random words into the descriptions. I need a nap!

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,San Francisco

San Francisco and The Clone Wars, episode 2

2008-08-09T17:54:00.002-05:00

After lunch we walked through a few rooms of exhibits of concept art, maquettes and video, much of which was marked No Photos Please. There were a few photo opportunities, though.

The facilities are in the Presidio, which is a park open to the public. I took a quick panoramic shot outside the building, and a few other shots.

San Francisco and The Clone Wars, episode 1

2008-08-09T17:17:00.007-05:00

Boom! I'm in San Francisco, taxi to the Marina and wait for Dave to get out of work. We dumped my stuff, had a few beers and then Dave showed me "the REAL San Francisco" - we went to what may be the gayest dance club in the city. I mean, DAY-UMM! The good part was he and I got really good drink service at the bar.

Saturday we went to see the premiere of The Clone Wars. We were issued a movie ticket, a "Lunchbox" ticket and a badge.

We saw the show at the Metreon, and then cabbed over to Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio for the rest of the events.

There were tables set up with stacks of metal lunchboxes, as well as drinks for the over-21 crowd.

Tell you more about this lunchbox? No problem. The sticker on the front denoted vegetarian or regular, with the regular containing chicken strips, corn on the cob, potato salad, cherry tomatoes with mozzarella in pesto, and chocolate cake...all of which were good.

Luckily I was able to score an additional lunchbox so I don't return home causing a battle royale with my two boys over one lunchbox!

I also managed to catch a glimpse of George Lucas mingling with some people. It's still pretty surreal to actually see someone in person that I have only seen on TV.

Las Vegas, en route for SIGGRAPH

2008-08-08T15:48:00.005-05:00

So I'm in my layover in Las Vegas. I like to call it "Lost Wages."

I was finally able to get on the airport wireless, a feat I could not accomplish in Austin.

So far I've played almost $6 worth on $4 in the quarter slots. Hey, big spender!

Oh yeah, I had some coffee.

Next stop is San Francisco, where we'll see a sneak preview of The Clone Wars and drive down to LA for the conference.

SIGGRAPH 2008...finally!

2008-08-01T10:47:00.000-05:00

I'm going back to SIGGRAPH, after a loooooong absence of...six or seven years?

I have been out of the workstation and graphics markets for a while, and I'm starting to get involved once again. My main reasons for going are to take the classes and some work projects.

I've been tasked with generating usage models for various lines of businesses, basically figuring out how do users actually "use" our machines and develop some processes for either making the experience better, faster, both, etc. Almost like developing benchmarks based on actual customer usage. I'll be dabbling in everything from ultramobile to workstations.

I'm also working on a graphics benchmark that scales with graphics power, as some of our current benchmarks represent the 3D load with strictly cpu-based rendering, ie no benefit of mega-uber-graphics over integrated graphics.

This isn't just a work trip, though! I'm going early back to San Fran to meet with my friend Dave to catch some Star Wars action that I'm not sure I can mention yet (correct me if I'm wrong!), and then we'll be driving down to LA for SIGGRAPH.

This should be a great trip, great experience, and hopefully the return of my regular attendance to SIGGRAPH!

Posting with Blogger Buddy

2008-07-11T19:21:00.002-05:00

Every once in a while I check to see if there are any interesting Vista Sidebar gadgets available. I mean, how many clock utilities do we really need?

One I just found is Blogger Buddy, which lets you post from your Sidebar without having to load your browser or editing app.

Well, this might be the first and last post from Blogger Buddy for me! Clicking on the Image button has a space to fill in the image tag, but it wants an html link, and it won't let you browse your drive for images.

No thanks. For quick text-only posts, I can see the advantage, but I prefer show and tell. Another problem I just found - I tried to select the following text and click the Italics button, and instead of bookending the text with the italics tags, it just put the opening and closing tags after the end of the text. That's useful, said nobody.

This is actually my second attempt - I think I messed up the gadget trying to move it off the Sidebar.

Also, I had to post the text of the, uh, post, with Blogger Buddy, then open IE, log in, edit my post and manually upload and add the images.

Speed Racer

2008-07-11T14:04:00.003-05:00

Wow.

A few nights ago we caught Speed Racer at the dollar show.

Call us crazy, but we actually liked it!

I had heard that the reviews were terrible, so I went in to it not expecting it to be double-billed with The Shawshank Redemption, so perhaps our sights were lower than the average critic.

Psychedelic-trippy-more-than-exist colors? Totally. Sometimes there was just so much going on in the scene that I had no idea what was what, who was winning or if we had just gone plaid.

The acting was okay for this type of movie, and I actually laughed out loud a few times, which surprised me. Our kids definitely enjoyed the racing scenes and crazy stunts and tracks, but they got a little restless in the extended dialog scenes.

What's funny is I went through the whole thing thinking Val Kilmer played Rex Racer, but apparently it's this dude! Some people on the forums apparently also think that he looks like Val Kilmer, so I guess I'm not the only one.

I really like the car designs too.

McDonalds commercials

2008-07-02T11:11:00.003-05:00

Man, over a month off of blogging and I come back for my 250th post with some McDonalds commercials?

Yes!

The only thing we like about McDonalds is the ice cream cones. And an air-conditioned playscape. The two things we like about McDonalds are the ice cream cones and the air-conditioned playscapes. And RedBox drops. Okay, I see where this is going. While we don't eat there, I really liked their commercial featuring Line Rider, a great game that deserves some posts of its own.

I love the "music" on the first one.

I didn't know there was another one until I searched for the first one.

Last night my boys and I are watching a little SpongeBob...do we really need a link?...and I saw another commercial that has moved up in my favorites list.

These girls can dance! It looks like the motion has been sped up slightly in a few places, or some frames have been removed reminding me of some really old-school MTV VJ techniques. I made my boys sit through the commercial about five times before relinquishing control back to SpongeBob.

Besides their technique, which I'm trying to copy to perform at work, I love their facial expressions.

Weezer: Pork and Beans

2008-05-30T14:20:00.004-05:00

So Weezer, one of my favorite bands, is coming out with a new album next month, and you may have heard the first single, "Pork and Beans."

They've released a video chock-full of internet memes.

Here is one of many websites that start cataloging the memes.

No Rick-Rolling, though!

Edit: I almost forgot to give credit where credit is due - thanks for the heads-up Cobra!

World War Z

2008-05-27T12:57:00.002-05:00

I recently finished an audiobook as well - World War Z by Max Brooks.

It's by the same author that wrote the Zombie Survival Guide, which I've seen and flipped through, but never read.

World War Z was my first audiobook, and I listened to it on my ~20 minute commute. It was very well...written? Read? Both. I'm not sure how the dead tree version is, but this was made up of interviews from survivors of various nationalities and professions. I immediately recognized Henry Rollins and James Woods, but there are a few more that I new but couldn't place a face with the voice. I found the multiple actors a definite plus to the experience, but I wonder if that is due to the interview style of the book. I don't have any prior audiobook knowledge to compare.

If I didn't have 40 minutes per day alone, I probably wouldn't have even tried it.

I got it from emusic.com, for which I had a coupon for some free music and an audiobook.

24: 1994 Pilot

2008-05-27T12:27:00.002-05:00

So 24 got picked up by Fox again (duh), but it won't be until next year before we get some Bauer-licious action. What to do in the interim? Feast your eyes on this lost pilot recently unearthed from the archives.

Luckily it's posted to youtube.com and not just the Humor-Site-that-will-get-you-fired-and-in-hot-water-with-your-wife.

Thanks Shayne!

7,365,886: Method and apparatus for feeding a document to a device

2008-05-07T16:51:00.003-05:00

That's me, babies! One of my ideas finally made it through the near-interminable wait in the US Patent Office. Big Ups to Christa, too, my mentor when I got to the printer group.

It was submitted December 2004!! Normally it can take a long time to go through the US Patent Office as the clerks try to determine if there is prior art or if it actually is patentable.

At work, if someone submits an idea, it goes to the patent committee, which is a group of senior engineers from just about every area in technology. If it passes muster through a scan over email, the inventor gets to defend it in person at a weekly patent meeting. You better have your ducks in a row. If you successfully defend it here, it goes through Legal to our patent attorneys, with whom you work to create the actual disclosure. Then it goes to the Patent Office where you may or may not hear anything for some number of years, and all of a sudden, BOOM! You are a patent holder.

While your idea is at the patent office but before it is granted patent status, it is an application. I have more waiting in the wings, so hopefully this is just the start.

You get a plaque in a meeting, a similar plaque goes up on the wall at work, and you get a free certificate that you can frame (or buy a metal plaque). There are also other benefits for this process, but that's just money and stock options - BFD, right? Yes!

I don't know if getting on through the USPTO will open any doors, but I'll let you know.

Personalized gift cards

2008-05-07T13:23:00.004-05:00

We get occasional "On the Spot" instant bonuses at work, usually around $50, and you can pick what kind of gift you want - usually I select a Visa gift card. Once you log on and verify the code number, you have the option of adding a personalized message to the card face, which I did.

I got zero response from any vendor to whom I presented the card. My friends thought it was funny, but I guess all the merchants' sense of humor has been ground down to nothing.

I know what you're saying - "$48? I thought you said $50?!" Yes, it is a $50 gift minus a $2 processing fee for the privelige - nay, the honor! - of getting one of their cards. Lame.

Coffeeshop blogging

2008-04-30T20:43:00.002-05:00

So I have a new laptop and it comes with an integrated camera for all your photoblogging needs as well as potentially embarrassing coffee spills. I'm at a local coffeeshop working on some, uh, work.

Once I set another laptop up for my wife, we'll be able to try video chat using Sightspeed, which from what I understand is similar to Skype video chatting, but I could be totally wrong as I've never used Skype before!

A vintage Halloween pic

2008-04-24T12:42:00.003-05:00

Vintage? Really? Halloween was only what - six months ago? Is that my timeframe for blogging? Can there BE any more questions (or Chandler references)?

Anyway, we cut a pumpkin on Halloween. 2007 - please. Wait...does the act of cutting the pumpkin turn it in to a jack-o'-lantern? I think so, but let's see. Wikipedia to the rescue!

Yes, it does.

So we made this jack-o'-lantern, and I kind of forgot about it for a while. Maybe just a week, but the spirit of Don King...you know, that traditional apres-Halloween visitor...came by and, well, this is getting out of hand. Picture, please.

Wow, that's a lot of buildup. Hmmm...I meant buildup in terms of raising expectations, but I guess it works in the hair/mold sense as well.

Finally some action pics

2008-04-23T11:44:00.003-05:00

I know - playing a child's guitar in my jammies with a micro-Mariachi hat wasn't actioney enough. To satisfy my rabid fans, here you go.

Living on the Greenbelt is nice! Whenever we want to bust out the firepit, I just go outside the fence and find a big log. I tried using an axe, but I've had much better luck with my reciprocating saw from Harbor Freight.

I've gone through all my demolition blades and now I have a pretty scary specialty wood-cutting blade. Itsa nice! By nice, I mean it looks nice - I haven't actually cut anything with it. But believe me - it looks like it will do the job!

Here I am sanding our deck. We rented a huge industrial sander from Home Depot, and it pretty much drove us around the deck.

It was time for another treatment of stain, and we didn't want a repeat of the original stain job (oh, the humanity!) to happen again. Last time we waited too long after we had it built and then waited until the weather was as hot as possible. It was awful. The wood was so hot the stain would not be absorbed, and it never got a good lock, or set, or whatever the term is to indicate that stain has soaked in to your wood correctly.

Now we have to decide whether or not to keep the deck or take it down and build a stone patio!

My newest, cheapest guitar

2008-04-16T15:12:00.001-05:00

So I was in our local Goodw*ll the other day and saw a guitar in their auction pile. Hold on a second - it wasn't just a guitar. It was a child-scale classical guitar, with case, and the best part? Two Mariachi, uh, hats.

Unfortunately, the hats were child-scale too.

The auctions are held on Saturdays at high noon, and I had a few reminders to make sure I was going to be there. Throughout the week the items are in silent auction mode, with binders out with pages for each of the items. On Saturday, in an bid (ha!) to get more money, the items transition to traditional auction mode, with one of the employees doing the auctioneering. The bidding started out at $16 and there was some back and forth between me and someone else behind me. I wanted to play fair, so I didn't turn around and psych him out. I just kept my cool and kept bidding. I stepped up to $21 - a level he dared not follow, and I won the auction!

The smaller scale doesn't bother me, but it is very resonant at the bottom end, so most of my work on it sounds bass-heavy.

You don't get to touch some of the items beforehand, as they are in lockdown in a metal cage. Once I got it home and started playing with it I noticed that there is some fret buzz on the high E string. It looks like I'll have to build up the nut and file down a string slot (thanks for the baking soda/super glue tip, Louis!) or replace the nut.

All in all, it's a sweet deal, as the guitar is solidly made, and you can't beat the price. We've used one of the Mariachi hats for a White Elephant gift (along with playing La Cucaracha when it was opened), and I'll have to bring the other hat up to work for the serious times

RIP Gary Gygax

2008-03-05T14:19:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Cale for the tip - Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons and Dragons, died yesterday.

Wow. I've been playing D&D for over 20 years...probably closer to 25. I remember the Basic Set my parents got me for Christmas. Man, that came out in 1977! I can't remember how old I was when I got it - I'll have to find out.

I have D&D to thank for many of the friendships I still have, and many new ones I've made since holding those dice for the first time.

Here is a link to one of the many websites that mention his passing, and it has an email address that was set up to communicate any thoughts you may have to the Gygax family.

Cryptonomicon

2008-03-03T12:32:00.004-06:00

A few weeks ago I finished Cryptonomicon (more info here), by Neal Stephenson.

I really enjoyed it. Without giving too much away, it deals with cryptography, World War 2, Alan Turing, math, society, global finance, intrigue...I could go on, but I won't. If you have any interest in any of these topics, or none of these but you like a really good book, pick it up!

I've also read Stephenson's Snow Crash in college, and it was excellent as well.

3/4 update - we were in Goodwill last night and I picked up Snow Crash for $2.99!

Who's in charge here?

2008-02-11T10:54:00.000-06:00

I stumbled upon a cool website - Who's in charge here?

It takes a publicity photo and asks readers to determine who they think is the leader - based on the photo only. It doesn't matter if you know who is the "leader" of the group...this is an examination of the dynamic within the oh-so-important press materials.

There is some hilarious text and some great comments are sprinkled throughout.

Speaking of cheeseburgers....

2008-02-04T09:20:00.000-06:00

Okay, you're hiking. Somewhere remote...rugged terrain...carrying everything you need in your pack. The tent is pitched, campfire blazing, perimeter secure. What's this? Hunger pangs? What sounds good?

Trail mix?

No.

Can of beans?

No.

Granola bar?

No!

There's only one thing that can satisfy camping hunger. What do you turn to when you're sleeping on rocks and putting your food in a tree away from bears?

Cheeseburgers.

Specifically, cheeseburgers in a can.

Check out this website for all your shipped cheeseburger needs. Something tells me that what comes out of that tin when the seal breaks won't look exactly like the picture.

If they could combine those burgers with the self-heating coffee can technology, I think we would have a winner.

Thanks Cale!

I can has cheezburger?

2008-02-01T13:31:00.001-06:00

What do you get when you combine cats, cameras and bad grammar? I can has cheezburger!

This website contains photos of cats (and other animals) submitted by people on teh interwebs with captions, usually from the animal pictured. Some of them are so-so, but some are FUNNY! I showed my wife some the other day, and she was moderately amused, at best, but I couldn't stop laughing...and looking at more...and laughing...etc. She had to practically shake me off the computer. This is the picture that started the website:

This internet phenomenon was dubbed "lolcats" and originated on some message boards before the aforementioned website.

Check and mate! Finally something worth blogging about!

2008-01-30T10:11:00.000-06:00

My oldest son was accepted into his school's chess club yesterday!

So what's the big deal? Normally they don't allow first graders into the chess club. That's one smart cookie, and I'm one proud daddy!

I found this book of chess for kids at Half-Priced Books for some ridiculously low price, and it is a good one for a chess beginner or semi-beginner. It describes each of the pieces, has some basic strategy and one or two opening gambits.

Anything else about chess? Sure! One of the tattoos I've been preapproved for is a Knight's Tour, which is having a knight move according to the rules of chess and landing on every square exactly once.

Sort of like this, but I would have to use my rippling muscles to make it move.

I would love to find some sort of chess applet that I can put in the sidebar of my blog for ongoing games, but so far I've found some graphics that I can manually update only. Oh, the humanity! If anyone has found something else let me know!

Darth Vader Harmonica Bayou

2008-01-15T21:45:00.000-06:00

Really, I never knew he was so talented!

Thanks Louis!

Desktop Tower Defense

2008-01-14T15:00:00.000-06:00

I've been playing a lot of Desktop Tower Defense. It's a simple game, but very addictive. Your goal is trying to shoot all the "creeps" that are trying to get from one side of the screen to the other, and you do this by placing guns in what amounts to a maze-like configuration.

You are given all the time you want for the initial configuration, but once the game starts it doesn't stop! You spend most of your time frantically upgrading guns or placing new ones of different types. Some creeps are immune to certain guns.

It's fast and I'm addicted to it - check it out! It has gotten into a few game journalists' and reviewers' Game Of The Year lists as well.

We were dreaming of a White Christmas!

2008-01-14T13:56:00.000-06:00

I'm back!

We went to Copper Mountain, Colorado, for Christmas. The first leg was to Lubbock to spend the night with my brother and his family, and then we drove to Aurora, CO, to stay with some friends. Here is the view from their front yard.

We stayed in a condo, spent too much money and didn't ski enough. Here's another pano from the condo porch:

This is outside the condo, and you can see the dumpster.

We stayed in Silverthorn. Behind me is Lake Dillon, and we would drive over the dam to get from Silverthorn to Dillon.

These are icicles. Relax - it's just frozen water.

The morning we left it was 12 degrees below zero. That's not the wind chill! Including wind chill I think it was about 20 to 25 below zero.

We're on the road back!

We drove from Silverthorn to Denver where we stayed a few days with some friends of ours. Thanks Karen! Thanks Michelle!

We left Denver and decided to drive straight through the night just to have more time at home and not have to worry about finding a motel, carting in all the valuables, sleeping late, food, etc. It was 20+ caffeine-bombed hours.

I think this is Mt. Capulin that we passed on the way through New Mexico.

Presenting Data and Information course by Edward Tufte

2007-12-12T11:23:00.000-06:00

Monday I went to a seminar on how to effectively present data by one of the masters of visual information, Edward Tufte, with more info here.

It was in the Doubletree Hotel, and I parked in the parking garage and decided to walk down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. This corridor is straight out of the movies.

I figured if something was going to go down, this was the place. Luckily (for them), nothing happened.

The seminar was in a conference room, and they had some surprisingly good coffee.

Here is another "review" of his seminars by someone else that went - some great details that I left out.

ET, as he is known online and to the community, is a great presenter, and I liked his style. Most of it was him talking with a little bit of some multimedia stuff. He's a Mac guy, but he doesn't come off as pretentious.

Patrons of the seminar received four of his books, which I heartily recommend. They are fantastic references as well as just plain great reading.

I also picked up a copy of his mother's book, Artful Sentences.

So why did I take this course? I have to present a lot of data, the lion's share of it is performance data, and my customers are engineering, marketing and sales. Whatever I can use to make what I show more effective (and have them come back to me less) is a win!

Evolution of Netflix DVD shipping wrappers.

2007-12-07T10:00:00.000-06:00

I found a short article about how Netflix has changed the design of their DVD mailers over the years - check it out.

Here is a direct link to the gallery of mailers from the beginning. I think the earliest mailer I can remember is the 2001 era mailer, #9 on the list.

We're on our second run of Netflix memberships, and we have definitely been affected by their (in)famous DVD throttling plan. There seems to be a DVD distribution hub located in Austin, so delivery has gotten faster lately.

The mailers are famously red and can be picked out at a distance, as seen here. I've wondered about Netflix thieves watching the post offices for those telltale envelopes, but it turns out a lot of such scams exist. There is even what must be an upper echelon of discriminating DVD thieves, as seen here.

More 3d benchmark

2007-12-03T13:34:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to revamp my 3d city for the benchmark. I came up with some back of the envelope (literally) sketches, and I'm getting closer to something I like, but I'm not there yet.

I'm torn between a center landmark with streets radiating out from it and the basic city block layout. I also plan to have some elevated roadways as well as some flying vehicles.

You mean I can get a new rate...AND syphilis?

2007-11-29T10:30:00.000-06:00

I got a nice email the other day. Whoever this person is seems pretty helpful! Who wouldn't want a $200,000 loan for $626 per month?

Something tells me that the "gift that keeps on giving" isn't a good rate. If this person actually followed my blog they would know that I'm used to getting mail from unusual people. Something like this almost doesn't even show up on my radar!

Portal

2007-11-20T22:37:00.000-06:00

I just started playing Portal the other night, and I'm hooked! Portal is a game that also acts like a technology demo. If you've played any first-person-shooter computer game you instantly know how the control scheme, but the twist is the Portal device. This will let you create portals on different surfaces that allow you to solve puzzles and complete levels.

I was going to just "check it out" a little bit when I started and before I realized what was going on I was at level 15 and it was about 12:30am - an hour flew by!

If you must know more, check out the wikipedia article, but beware - it contains spoilers.

I'm not even going to attempt to create more of a mini-review than this, but I highly recommend this game! It is bundled in the Orange Box, which is a fantastic deal (if you haven't already played/own Half-Life 2) in that $37.99 (lowest price I've seen it at Circuit City) gets you Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 (the latest revision of the granddaddy of class-based shooters...this time with sublime art direction). That's alotta gaming bang for the buck!

As I mentioned in the previous post's comments, a 2D Flash version of Portal is here.

Stacks of games

2007-11-16T14:59:00.000-06:00

We just got to spend over $650 in games at lunch today. It's kind of surreal to be looking at a stack like this, but I don't mind!

New 3d benchmark work

2007-11-15T10:37:00.000-06:00

There is an industry standard benchmark for measuring overall system performance that we (as well as everyone in the, uh, industry) use for our own benchmarking, competitive analysis, etc.

It's made up of multiple suites, and one of the suites is a 3D subsystem test, but it is 3D in name only. It loads a scene in a popular 3D application...and renders it to a file. Basically, it is a CPU stress test. Great for processor scaling...not so great for 3D graphics, as the benchmark result scales with processor frequency and cache and not with the graphics chipset.

I'm working on developing a new 3D suite, and one of the subtest will be a cityscape with airships, roads, etc. It's in its infancy, but here are some preliminary shots. No lighting, no textures, and these are only four city "tiles."

My plan is to duplicate these tiles with rotation and some tweaking, as well as add some larger buildings and skyscrapers to break up the skyline.

Here is a shot from within 3D Studio MAX. I'm using the built-in Polygon Counter and I've highlighted one of the original tiles. Each tile is 27080 polygons, with the set of four reaching 108320 polygons.

I'm not sure how close I'll get to this level of buildings, but I definitely want to make an effort on texturing so they'll hold up to observation while the scene is playing.

Happy Thanksgiving from...THE VIOLATOR!

2007-11-14T08:19:00.000-06:00

I was flipping through a Bed, Bath and Beyond circular in the mail the other day. Imagine my horror and surprise when I stumbled upon this...product.

Luckily online viewers aren't treated to such a sight.

Harmonica Hero

2007-11-06T14:23:00.000-06:00

Someone sent this out today and I can't stop watching it!

Now I definitely need an Xbox 360!

Thanks Louis!

Don't Click It!

2007-11-05T10:44:00.000-06:00

So I thought I was done with a quick blog note (previous Moleskine entry), but somewhere along the way I found a link to a project called Don't Click It.

It's pretty interesting, and I like it but it seems like the click is ingrained into my right hand.

I especially liked the Autopilot feature where you can view the first 20 seconds of previous visitors to the site.

Moleskine Notebook

2007-11-05T10:05:00.000-06:00

My wife bought me a Moleskine notebook a while back, and I love it. It is the hard pocket-sized ruled notebook, and it is perfect for carrying everywhere and taking notes, ideas, drawings, etc.

I have all kinds of variants of the composition notebook, both softcover and hardback, for work, and that's great for work. When I'm on my own, though, I want something smaller. There is a pocket-sized composition notebook, and although I've seen a few friends use it I prefer the Moleskine, as did Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh and Ernest Hemingway!

Still want to learn more about Moleskine? Try The Moleskinerie. I'm like, whoa!

Already have a Moleskine and want two? Check out this hack (literally!).

Thanks again, honey!

San Francisco, Wrapping it up

2007-10-31T10:17:00.000-05:00

Next to the last day. We woke up and I had an omelet and a mocha at a place called Squat and Gobble.

We were headed to ILM for a tour but we took the long way and walked down to the Exploratorium. A lot of cool stuff that we didn't have time to see.

We continued to the bay to check out the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. I usually don't smile when I take self portraits, but I decided to buck my own system here.

Now this is a tailgate party! Wine, cheese, tablecloths?!? These Californians are really putting it to it! I have to assume that they are here watching the sailboat race and not gathering in my honor.

Now we are at ILM. I saw some pretty amazing concept art, incredibly detailed props and miniatures and Pee Wee Herman and Buzz Lightyear doing some truly awful things to each other. Unfortunately a lot of this stuff was in no-camera zones, but take my word for it - it was awesome.

After ILM we went across the Golden Gate Bridge through San Rafeal to try to get in to Big Rock Ranch, the Lucas animation company. Unfortunately there was some mix up, and while we could go in and have lunch in the common cafeteria, we couldn't really get a tour.

Some random Rolls Royce.

The terrain was really rugged and mountainous, and we were driving pretty sportily on a winding road great for spirited driving.

Lunch at Big Rock Ranch. We just barely made lunchtime, so I think they heaped our plates with what was left.

After Big Rock Ranch we drove around to Skywalker Sound, which was nestled in a secluded forest bowl surrounded by mountains and land that George Lucas owned. Seriously - he bought everything that you could see.

This should show both, with landmarks like Lake Ewok, etc.

So we get back to the Marina. It's not yet dinnertime, yet we need something to eat. What's a pair of hetero dudes to do that is both snacky AND hip?

Cupcakes!

I had my first car bomb that night, and we had some midnight pizza at our second choice. The first choice, Pizza Orgasmica, was so packed we couldn't get close to the door.

More pictures here.

I had a great time, did a little work and got to see some stuff that I may never have had a chance to see otherwise. Thanks Dave!

San Francisco, Day 5

2007-10-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

Is this thing on? Finally an update!

Day 5, my last day in the hotel and all work business is done. I had until noon to check out, so walked down to another local place, Tart to Tart, for breakfast, again checking out the mocha.

I got everything packed, held my bags at the hotel and walked down to the Metreon again to check out the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit. It was okay, but I should have read this review first. Goodbye, $20!

Lunch saw me at Sanraku again, but this time more miso soup, California rolls and Teriyaki chicken, which was great.

So I've got some time to kill, and I need to get closer to the Presidio. Cab? No way! I walked, after checking with the concierge about some places to check out. He suggested a route that took me through Chinatown, Little Italy (is it really called that?) and some parks.

Little did I know my route was going to be 3.7 miles, while carrying a stuffed backpack and my suitcase, which the airport told me weighed 40 pounds. Hopefully that took care of that breakfast's mocha! Here's what I walked. I wish I could show an interactive Google Map, but I'm getting no love from the pathfinding AI - it's making me look like I took all these weird side streets.

Here is the entrance gate to Chinatown. If I weren't so encumbered with my baggage I would have stepped into some stores. Plenty of samurai swords, by the way.

This is the Stinking Rose, which I walked by accidentally. I've eaten there once before when I worked at a different company, and it is AWESOME...if you like garlic. I LOVE garlic.

Street poles like this made sure I knew I was in the Italian district.

I'm on a little beach at the coast now, with Ghirardelli Square behind me, the Golden Gate Bridge to my left and Alcatraz to my right.

I finally meet up with David and we have dinner at a meat skewering place, Asqew Grill, where they actually call the non-meat items on the menu "Starches."

After dinner we head down to ILM, and outside one of the entrances is this Yoda Fountain.

We caught a screening of 3:10 to Yuma in a theater for Academy members to screen movies for consideration (Dave, correct me if I'm wrong), and it didn't disappoint. Picture and sound were top notch, and I really liked the movie as well.

More pictures here.

San Francisco, Day 4

2007-09-26T14:38:00.000-05:00

Last official day at "work" in San Fran. I took off to get some breakfast at a coffee shop - Specialty's Cafe and Bakery - around the corner from the hotel that I saw when we were looking for Indian food the night before. A great mocha and ham+egg+cheese breakfast sandwich thing.

After our last day of the press tour I went out again and picked up some cards (Spider Man) from a comics and art museum a few doors down from the hotel. I tried the balcony on one of the floors in the hotel to take a few more self-portraits and write some letters.

Lunchtime found me just taking off down Mission Street. I passed a spot between two office buildings with a slowly rotating structure and a large clump of bamboo.

I didn't see it on my way back, so I didn't get to investigate. What I did see was a huge flock of grey pigeons, with one brown one in their midst. Later on people would be hanging out at this park bench going, "What's up, pigeons?" "We're chill," reply the birds. Indeed!

I swing into Noah's Bagels, which looks like a nice New York style deli place, and have an Odwalla Superfood juice, a Reuben sandwich on marbled rye (great, and my only complaint is that I prefer my bread more toasted) and a chocolate chip cookie, which was huge and good, but can't compare to the best (my wife's).

Here is my route. A brisk 1.6 miles from my hotel to The Embarcadero and back, so I may have worked off the first sip of whipped cream from this morning's mocha!

That evening we went to Americano Restaurant & Bar, which happened to be one street away from The Embarcadero...right where I was a few hours earlier! I talked the group into walking instead of taking a cab.

I couldn't decide between two Syrahs for wine, so I took one with the appetizer and one with the meal, and I liked the first one better. Which ones were they? Data...lost. Wait, I found the wine menu, all thirteen pages! The one I liked was SYRAH, LOST CANYON STAGE GULCH VINEYARD, SONOMA COAST, 2004, at $12/glass, and the one I thought was just okay was SYRAH, D’ALESSANDRO, CORTONA, 2002, a bargain at $9/glass.

Here is there dinner menu. For appetizers we got the FRA’MANI HANDCRAFTED SALUMI, the MARIN SUN FARMS BEEF CARPACCIO, the “MARGARITA” PIZZETTA and another pizza that I can't find.

For dinner, I went out on a limb and chose the HERITAGE PORK DUO, which is described as slow roasted loin, seared belly, brussel sprouts, pickled shallots, carrot and jalepeno [sic] puree.

Yes, seared belly. The pig's belly. I guess that is the second part of the pork "duo" along with the loin. It was okay - not my favorite. The jalapeno (which was misspelled on the menu) puree was what originally intrigued me, but I'm not even sure I tasted it.

It was close to midnight by the time we got back to the hotel, and I needed some coffee. The only place around that was open was Mel's Drive-In, which was up a few blocks. I sat at the bar, had a few cups of coffee and struck up a conversation about math (pi, phi, Fibonacci), photography (rule of thirds) and philosophy with someone who happened to be from Austin (AMD) in town for a conference!

Here are a few more pics.

San Francisco, Day 3

2007-09-25T12:27:00.000-05:00

The third day in San Francisco, and the first day of meeting the press. It happened to be September 11, and hearing fire truck sirens in the morning made me a little nervous...especially the second and third sirens a few minutes apart, but apparently nothing newsworthy happened.

My greatest accomplishment so far...finding a free coffee bar at the hotel. They must want my business!

On our way out to lunch there happened to be another nice car waiting for someone...a Mercedes CL63 AMG. Snazzy, and starting only at $137k!

We mosey back to the Metreon where we're confounded by a Nintendo Wii mega-kiosk just steps outside the Sony Style store. I thought Sony managed the Metreon? What gives? If you read the Wiki article, Sony pulled out of Metreon management in 2006, due to low profitability. Oh, snap!

Fast forward to dinner time, and three of us decided to follow my stomach to a local Indian place. Outside the hotel we get another treat, a brand new Lamborghini Gallardo - it didn't even have its plates yet! I love this car!

On the way we happened across a Lotus Elise, which is still very nice, but I see a lot of these so the awesomeness has worn off a little bit. Don't get me wrong - I still like it, but if I had to pick a Lotus, it would probably be an Esprit.

We almost didn't find the Indian place, but after walking a few blocks in circles we finally stopped and asked a bellhop if there was an Indian place around here. He just looked at us, didn't stop taking a call on his cell phone and pointed across the street. Ah! We were (a lot) closer than we thought!

We had some sort of good appetizer and an Indian beer. Great stuff.

For the meal, we had rogan josh (awesome), chicken tikka masala (awesome), and some other chicken dish (very very good), and garlic, onion and another kind of naan (bread) (awesome). I asked them to make mine very spicy, but it didn't happen. Maybe next time.

How do you top off being stuffed with a great Indian meal and walking around in 60 degree weather? Margaritas, naturally! We found a Mexican joint a block or two from the hotel on our way back and got some "ultimate" margaritas...the ultimate being that they are large and have fresh-squeezed orange juice in them. I approved of the size but the orange juice didn't do much for me. It made it too sweet and I couldn't taste the tequila very much. I could have done just as well with a traditional one.

San Francisco, Day 2g: The end is in sight!

2007-09-24T11:33:00.000-05:00

I know, I know - how long was this day?

We met in the hotel lobby for dinner but found some sweet cars waiting outside in the bellhop area. The silver one is a Jaguar XK, possibly an XKR (I can't remember). The black one is a Bentley Continental GT. Both awesome looking cars.

We walked a few blocks from the hotel to what amounted to a line of restaurants with outdoor seating in an alley between the inside seating/kitchen/bar and another building. Based on the concierge's recommendation, we chose Cafe Tiramisu.

Actual Italians manning an Italian restaurant? I call that a good sign. We had to wait about ten minutes for an outdoor table, so out comes the wine list. I asked the waitress to surprise me with a good red wine. She did, and it was good, but I can't remember what it was!

We're seated...appetizer time! I wrote down my food selections for the trip on an old orthodontic appointment reminder I had in my wallet, but now I can't find it, so we'll have to go by memory. I started with garlic (I think) stuffed calamari on Italian bread. Another glass of wine? Sounds good to me!

One of the marketing guys had steamed clams (I think) for an appetizer, and a mountain of them came on the plate.

For dinner I had the tuna, which was excellent, and requested to be surprised again with a wine that would complement my entree. I get a chardonnay, and even though I'm not so much a white wine fan, it made a great pair. Delicate balance, magnificent bouquet, charming interaction between the wine and the tuna...all that jibber jabber.

How could we go to a place called Cafe Tiramisu and not try their tiramisu? I know! It's great, but I don't know why I don't have any coffee with it.

We walked back to the hotel, and it was a brisk walk with a cold breeze, but felt really nice.

San Francisco, Day 2f: Cream Puffs!

2007-09-21T10:42:00.000-05:00

One of the Marketing ladies had lived in San Francisco before, and she was raving about this place for cream puffs. This place, Beard Papa's, happened to be across the street from the Metreon, so we checked them out.

So basically they have all these pastries with some cream injectors. Word on the street is that the vanilla is their signature (and best) flavor of cream, but they also have chocolate and green tea. I chose vanilla so they stab the pastry with this big metal syringe emplacement and fill it up.

Here is before and after (actually closer to before and during):

It was good, but I don't think I'll be heading back to SF just to check out this place. I meant to go back and taste the chocolate, but forgot.

San Francisco, Day 2e

2007-09-21T08:58:00.001-05:00

The St. Regis Hotel is very close (a block away) from the Metreon and Yerba Buena Gardens. I walked to a Japanese restaurant in the Metreon, Sanraku, and had California Rolls and Unagi (eel), one of my favorites, with miso soup.

I hung out in the YB Gardens, which is a park/plaza/gathering place and took a few more pictures. The fountain was part of an MLK memorial.

San Francisco, Day 2d: In case of fire, or rappers...

2007-09-19T14:28:00.000-05:00

I happened to read this sign by the elevators as I was checking out the gym.

I think I see a problem - what if I'm at the hotel attending a rap album release party and a fire breaks out?

San Francisco, Day 2c

2007-09-19T12:57:00.000-05:00

I made it to my hotel, the St. Regis, and it was nice! At almost $500 a night, what would you expect, right?

Here is the web album with the rest of the pics, and I found the Edit Captions button this time!

San Francisco, Day 2b

2007-09-12T10:56:00.000-05:00

After breakfast I needed to get to my hotel, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go via taxi or walk. Google maps said it was a little over three miles, and it was cool weather, so I figured I'd start walking. Unfortunately I also had my suitcase and backpack full of stuff. Anyway, I set off.

My start was in the upper left, and hotel destination is in the circle at the lower right. It wasn't that bad, but it started to get a little hilly. I couldn't see an open cab though! Finally I caught one unloading at Broadway, so I had walked about 1.3 miles, according to Google maps.

I noticed that the gas prices were "only" $2.99 for unleaded! That's only $0.20 - $0.25 more than Austin. I thought gas was more expensive out here. I remember when I visited San Jose for previous ELSA job gas was at least 2x the TX price.

San Francisco trip, Day 1, Day 2a

2007-09-12T00:59:00.001-05:00

Sunday I flew out to San Francisco, CA, duh, to provide engineering support for a press tour for some of our upcoming products.

I LOVE San Francisco. The awesome weather is awesomely awesome enough, but there is a lot of stuff to do and a lot of great food.

I got a chance to see my friend Spaghetti, and I'll be seeing more of him later! When in Rome...! Wait - I mean What happens in San Francisco...uh, that doesn't work either. May the Force be with us?

I had breakfast the next day in his neck of the woods, and initially I had a hard time deciding on a place. Believe me, there were plenty of places for coffee and food. I finally ended up going to The Grove (link doesn't correspond to the same location I visited).

I ordered a mocha, which had some nice creme decoration, and huevos rancheros. The eggs were good, as was the rice, and the beans were real, but the guacamole was a little off to me, but I'm from Texas where we have the luxury of critiquing Mexican food rather than just having it. The mocha was very good in a great wide-mouthed mug. A very good balance of the grainy-bitter-sweet trifecta, closer to a Seattle's Best Mocha than Starbucks.

I chose to sit outside (see earlier reference to awesome weather) as it was roughly 9:30am and about mid 60-something degrees. Practically perfect.

Man, I really have my game face on!

Red Bull Flugtag 2007

2007-09-05T14:20:00.000-05:00

I had an idea to go to the Red Bull Flugtag (German for "flight day") as it was in Austin this year at Auditorium Shores (near Town Lake...whoops! I mean Lady Bird Lake).

It's called a flying contest, but it should be called a falling contest. Participants create these elaborate contraptions, perform skits and then push their creation, with a pilot, over a cliff to the roaring approval of the crowd.

My idea was to have a nice family outing with something cool, interesting and Austiny. It was definitely interesting, and totally Austiny, but waaaaay too many people. A lot of people were smoking, as well as smoking, if you catch my drift.

We only managed to stay for a few entries...Team Chupacabra had the...pilot...dressed as a, wait for it, chupacabra, and "he" attacked the rest of the group, who had rigged some sort of gushing blood apparatus around their necks. I mean these were arterial spouts a few feet higher than their heads. How was their craft going to get pushed off the cliff when only the pilot remained alive? Well, he resurrected his teammates to the sound of Van Halen's Jump and off they went. Some other team pushed a giant vacuum over the cliff. Good times? There was a giant video screen set up showing the teams, but we couldn't get very close. We never were able to see the water until we went back to the parking garage (no on-street parking, of course) and waited at the top level.

See more photos at my first Googletastic Picasa Web Album!

De Leon Peach and Melon Festival 2007

2007-09-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

Mid-August we travelled up to De Leon, TX, for the annual Peach and Melon Festival.

Wow - I didn't even know they had a website until now, and I've been going for years (we have family in De Leon).

There is a carnival and a parade, but what I like is the watermelon slicing. They have crates of watermelons that have been refrigerated and put onto trailers. The main drag is cordoned off and everyone gathers on the sidewalks. Trucks pull up and they start slicing and handing out halves and quarters of red and yellow watermelons.

I'm a red melon fan. Unsalted, naturally.

After everyone has had their fill they start handing out whole watermelons to anyone that wants them.

I prefer a fork, but at last year's festival I saw someone using their credit card to slice the watermelon and shovel it in their mouth. Whatever works!

We were eating some at our friends' house and noticed a visitor coming up to the back door to finish off our rinds.

Here is the truck of the family that had a pony-ride set up at the festival. Ingenious! The only downside is that it requires a very long extension cord.

New carpet

2007-08-28T06:10:00.000-05:00

We're finally getting our new carpet all over the house today.

I'm taking today off of work because the process may take all day. We had to move everything off the floors and out of the closets. Neither of us realized how much stuff we were storing (hoarding). This is giving us a great opportunity to collect items for a garage sale, as, literally, almost everything that used to be in carpeted rooms is now in our kitchen and garage.

So I like spicy stuff

2007-08-27T13:32:00.000-05:00

Friday nights we have pizza night, and we also happen to have a large bottle of jalapenos. It just doesn't get any prettier than this.

I would call this a medium load. For some reason we have found that the sliced jalapenos labeled "Nacho slices" seem to be slightly hotter than the ones marked as sliced jalapenos.

Model Fight: Maison de Roulement 005

2007-08-24T16:40:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to messing with the rolling house for a few minutes today, but most of the stuff was housekeeping and minor updates.

I've come to the conclusion that this project is over in its current incarnation. Why? Multiple reasons (for multiple stories (oh, delicious puns)):

1. Scale: I started out eyeballing the scale of all the objects and not using anywhere close to accurate measurements. If I ever try to do something with another prop or model I would be asking for some work getting everything scaled correctly. I'd like to start over using actual scale.

2. Organization: Currently my model is made up of groups of components of components of groups...you get the picture. This isn't exactly SketchUp's fault, as the grouping/componentization can be very useful, but as I started grouping halfway into the project, I didn't plan very well, and SketchUp isn't letting me back out of my decisions gracefully.

3. Rendering: I happen to like the SketchUp output, but there are times when I want more, or at least different, styles. What I have to do is export from SketchUp and import into some rendering package, assign/modify any textures I need and render. If I were working in another package, I could save a few steps. Granted, for my model at this stage, it isn't unbearable.

I'm planning on starting from scratch in either Modo or 3D Studio MAX, both of which we have at work. I'm torn about which package to use, so I might experiment with both and post the results.

Behold the mind...of a Mad Dog!

2007-08-24T16:37:00.000-05:00

My buddy Mike has caught TEH BLOGGING FEVER - check him out.

Katamari Damacy

2007-08-17T13:59:00.000-05:00

Another game (for the PS2) that I love is Katamari Damacy. It's very simplistic, very stylized, and definitely not a typical American game. I'll just cut and paste from the wikipedia article to describe the story:

The game's plot concerns a tiny prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations and Moon, which his father, the King of All Cosmos, has playfully destroyed. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to schoolchildren to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star. The game falls under both the puzzle and action game genres, since strategy as well as dexterity are needed to complete a mission.

You just use both the analog sticks to move the prince around collecting the objects. It's a great nonviolent game for kids, but it falls into the Japanese-absurdist-LSD-inspired categories, and some of the cutscenes and intros need some explaining.

I have not played any of the sequels, but hopefully they don't stray too far from what made the original so unique.

200 Posts!

2007-08-15T11:02:00.000-05:00

Wow - this is my 200th post! Here is my first post, for that trip down Memory Lane.

I started this blog because I was going to Singapore for business, and we finally decided that it would be too much trouble to bring my wife and kids with me. I wanted to document the trip for anyone that wanted to see.

Naturally, it's morphed into "my blog," where I document stuff that I think is interesting...for posterity? Kicks? Who knows, but I like it.

Hamilton Pool

2007-08-13T13:15:00.000-05:00

We recently went to Hamilton Pool, which I expected to be more of a pool like Deep Eddy, but I was happily surprised.

It is actually Hamilton Pool Preserve, which is basically a collapsed grotto with a waterfall about an hour or so south of our house. Here you can read more facts, such as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department noting it as Travis County's most significant natural area.

After a .25 mile (!) hike down some pretty rugged terrain you see a small beach and the pool stretches out from that. I'm not sure how deep it gets, but it is over my head at less than halfway across. Directly across from the beach is a waterfall that apparently never stops flowing, even in times of drought. What enchantment is this?

If you want to take a break from swimming, you can walk around the pool in the rock caverns, and there is a walkway that circles the pool. Pictures can't really do it justice - it's pretty amazing.

Be warned though - I wouldn't advise carrying a bunch of umbrellas, coolers or other stuff. It's quiet a hike down. A tired three-year-old was a pretty good workout!