Woo hoo! We're getting closer. A week or two ago, this box was installed at the AT&T pad down the road. I've been able to confirm that it's a U-verse VRAD. I pass it every day, so I'm now watching for signs that it's being brought to life. Unfortunately, this pad doesn't directly serve our house, but things are looking promising. Now I'm watching the pad that does serve our house with eagle eyes. I can't wait to get rid of Comcast.
I continue to be blown away by the free software available from Microsoft as part of their Windows Live suite. One of the things I like to do when I'm somewhere that offers a stunning view is to take a series of photos that, when stitched together, makes a very nice panorama. It results in a photo that is much more striking than you could take with a single exposure.
After I took several such photo series at the Atlanta FRC championship a few weeks ago, I started looking around for current photo stitching software. "Free" was my goal, and after looking at a few hosted on SourceForge, I was starting to get disappointed. That's when I saw someone mention a feature of Windows Live Photo Gallery that does photo stitching.
I quickly downloaded and installed it and started poking around. With most stitching software, you have to manually assign some common points in two adjacent photos to give the software something to work with. With Photo Gallery, all you do is give it a list of photos and, bam, out pops a nearly perfect panorama. If you know where the edges are, you can find a few artifacts, but the results are better than I've ever seen, especially for software that requires no user tweaking. I haven't even looked at the other features of the program. Go download it and take a took. You may also find my photo set from the championship here.
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The 2008 FIRST FRC competition season has begun. Our team, RAGE 173, competed in Hartford this past weekend in a field of 62 teams and made it into the semifinals. The Hartford Courant had a nice writeup about it. Note that the team referenced in the first three paragraphs of the article is ours. Next is Boston in two weeks followed by the international championship in Atlanta in April. As all the FIRST e-mails end, Go Teams!
As most people with busy families, I rely on my calendar to try to make sense of all of our daily activities. I used to keep everything in a single Outlook calendar on my work laptop, but if I wanted to quickly check a date while at home and the computer was off, it was most inconvenient, to say the least.
Then I changed jobs and the laptop went away. That's when I started using Google Calendar in a big way. Now I use it for everything, and create separate calendars for different types of activities. For example, I've created public calendars for the UConn men's and women's basketball schedules, the upcoming Stafford Motor Speedway racing season, and even my son's Boy Scout troop and daughter's Venturing crew. Since they are public, others can benefit by including them in their own calendar display.
So it was with mixed feelings that I saw the announcement that Google Calendar could finally be synced with Outlook. It's something I would have killed for about six months ago, but now that I've weaned off Outlook, it's something I'm not particularly excited about. I toyed around with using Plaxo to sync Google Calendar, Outlook, and Thunderbird, but as the various pieces have evolved over the past few months, Plaxo has been getting more and more broken.
I'll probably give it a shot, because I'm now using Outlook 2007 on my new laptop, but I'm not straying far from the basic Google Calendar interface. What I really want is two-way syncing between Thunderbird and Gmail contacts. Oh well...
You have to check out this video. Lots of fun when you have nothing better to do. Down the program (it's free) from here.
It’s safe to say that the Digi-Comp was my first real computer. I used to love sticking bits of straws on the “programming” pegs, cycling the “clock,” and watching the results. I first learned binary on this thing. Now, version 2 of Digi-Comp is available. Rather than delicate plastic, this one is made from laser-cut paperboard. The reviews I’ve seen are glowing. I may just have to get one so my kids (who are now the same age that I was when I had one) can get a feel for what really goes on inside the box.
Last night, we happened to catch a show called “The Blitz: London’s Longest Night” on PBS. It was fascinating. I had never seen all the details surrounding this horrendous night in British history, and the show was extremely well done. Lindsey and Emily (12 and 11) were transfixed, and I just couldn’t bring myself to send them to bed with how interested they were in learning about history. Locally, it’s scheduled to be on again on Sunday, February 19, and I plan to record it. Well worth the time to watch.
Ever since we watched the kickoff of the NBC show “The Book of Daniel” the other day, I’ve been trying to figure out how to succinctly put down in words my feelings of utter disgust for the show. How refreshing it was to come across a blog entry that perfectly sums up my take on it. Check out “What NBC Thinks about Christianity.”
Here’s an excellent essay examining the leaked Via Media USA minutes. The document supposedly reveals this ECUSA-supported organization’s plans for doing damage control after General Convention 2006 should ECUSA not go far enough to heed the warnings in the Windsor Report. Well thought out and balanced.
Wow. Here’s a new twist. When Connecticut’s Episcopal bishop Drew Smith took over St. John’s Bristol claiming that their rector had abandoned the parish, he also dissolved the sitting vestry and assigned a new rector. The die-hard members of St. John’s started calling themselves “St. John’s in Exile” and are worshipping at nearby Trinity Bristol. When members of the “Connecticut Six” filed a lawsuit against Drew, the diocese, and the state, members of St. John’s in Exile were listed among the plaintiffs.
Now, the members of St. John’s who stayed behind have elected a new vestry that canonically speaks for the parish of St. John’s in all day-to-day matters. They have officially withdrawn from the AAC and the Anglican Communion Network, and have distanced themselves from the lawsuit. It should be interesting to see what happens now that you have two disparate groups claiming to represent the same parish. Many have claimed that Drew overstepped his authority in taking control of St. John’s. I’m sure similar charges will be levied claiming that he put a “puppet” vestry in place to do his bidding. I’m anxious to see what a court has to say.
Being involved with the vestry at my church, I’ve had a front-row seat watching what’s been happening in the Episcopal church since the approval of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. Things are starting to heat up again as some of the more conservative parishes and dioceses begin to push back against the church hierarchy. I figure I’ll post links here as I come across interesting articles.
The first is an interesting read about some larger parishes breaking away from ECUSA completely. The writer may be using a bit of hyperbole, though, since I know something of the six parishes involved in the Connecticut lawsuit, and I wouldn’t exactly call them powerful.
I spent the past week at Cub Scout day camp with Andrew and we had a blast. This was our second year there, and he keeps getting better at BB shooting. Next year he should be good enough to earn a patch. Both years I had a den of eight boys ranging in age from 7 to 9. At the end of the day, when the adults could barely move, these guys still enjoyed running around the field tossing balls and Frisbees. This is my favorite picture from the week.
I think this is the second July 4th that certain fireworks have been legal in Connecticut. Growing up, we occasionally had access to illicit fireworks, mostly small firecrackers and fountains, and I remember that the fountains were pretty tame. Just a calm stream of sparks shooting four or five feet into the air, and that was it. So when I saw that fountains and sparklers were now legal here, I wasn’t too excited.
Last night Cindy brought home a small assortment of fireworks that she got for half price at one of the many fireworks tents that pop up around here in parking lots each year. I wasn’t expecting much, and started setting up chairs about ten feet back from where I was going to light them. She wanted to err on the side of caution, so moved them back to about twenty-five feet. I lit the first one and moved back a bit. Imagine my surprise when large sparks of many colors began shooting 10–15 feet into the air and landing close to 15 feet away, accompanied by pops and bangs almost as loud as small firecrackers. These weren’t the fountains of my youth. These were actually fun to watch. And they were legal. Next year, I think we’ll be looking into one of the bigger multipacks that I’ve seen at Sam’s and other stores.
We took a day trip to New York on Wednesday to see The Gates and to visit Emily's polar bears at the Central Park Zoo. Aside from the $48 parking garage, all had a wonderful time. I'm not sure The Gates was worth $21 million, especially given its short display life, but I'm glad we went to see it. It really was something to see orange panels in all directions as we stood and looked around. I tried to take some photos, but a little point-and-shoot digital camera, no tripod, and an impatient crowd just don't do it justice. I did find some cool panoramas on-line, though. Very nicely done.
I all the terrible news about the recent tsunamis, it's neat to see a "good news" story related to the event. Check out how the actions of a vacationing 10-year-old saved many lives.
Always wanted to try this one... :o)
Update: I should have mentioned where you can get the pattern for this and many other designs. Check out www.pumpkinlady.com.