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November 24, 2006
November 20, 2006
It's been a long Fall
My house is a mess. This post can be skipped by most, nothing technical or creative or “fun” here. Just a journal on the war zone which is my home.
We’re doing a bunch of work now; work that we’ve put off for years. Last month we had our entire heating system redone. This work involved the removal of 1940’s era radiators and placing baseboard heating in their place. We also got a new boiler.
Next up is the kid’s bedrooms. We’re tearing up the carpets and sanding and finishing the hardwood floors below. I spent the weekend moving all of the furniture and knick-knacks out of their room.
For the past month, I’ve also been clearing out our entire basement. First just enough to allow the plumber to come in and work on the boiler. But now it’s completely devoid of anything; ready to be finished off for good.
I have a large-sized PODS in my driveway full of so much crap I can’t even begin to describe. We threw out a lot but I’m hoping we throw even more out when it comes time to unload that behemoth.
After the basement is finished, my family will move down there while the bathroom, kitchen, and rear extension get a major overhaul. Then, in the Spring when all of the inside work should be done, my backyard will get torn to ribbons as I have a pool installed. Goodbye grass, hello pavers. I’ll need a fence between the pool and my house, too, to keep my young ones from falling in.
I started playing with room layouts. I’m thinking about where I want ethernet jacks; where I might want power outlets; and more. Here is one of the layouts:
Notice the Wii in the corner ;-)
Wii - Do you want a hug?
This was a priceless comic that a colleague sent to me and I just had to reproduce it here since I was on one of these console lines yesterday and I was myself turned away (no hugs, but a lot of sad faces).
It seems like stores in New York City are chock full of extra consoles; they line the walls from floor to ceiling. I was pleasantly surprised when another colleague walked up to my office today and said, “Want a Wii?”
He bought an extra one. I wanted to give him a hug but there were lots of people around so I just said, “Thank you, yes. That would be lovely.”
November 15, 2006
Superman Laptop
From Alienware. Cool.
November 13, 2006
Kiwi
Via haha.nu. You will laugh, you will cry. Quicktime version, here.
by Dony Permedi
November 12, 2006
Tae Kwon Do Tournament
Yesterday, my Tae Kwon Do school hosted the 2006 Champions Tae Kwon Do Open at Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows, NY.
Since my school was hosting, I volunteered to help set up on the day of. So armed with a early-morning Starbuck’s Americano, I headed out to Queens on a traffic-less road.
In this picture, you can see the gymnasium at Francis Lewis High School. The mats are just about set up. I wish I had thought of taking a picture a few hours later when the gym was chock full of people.
After helping with the registration, I was volunteered to be a corner judge. A corner judge records points, negative points (Kam Jum), and warnings (Kyung Go) on a piece of scratch paper. There are usually 3–4 corner judges. The referee uses these sheets to make a final decision on the score based on consensus. This was the first time I had ever done this so I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Later, after scoring at least 30 matches, I started to get the hang of it.
Later, it was time for me to spar. I fought in three matches. The first one was against a young red belt but they stopped that match before the first period ended. My master wanted me to fight someone at least my own age. I thought I was doing well, but so it went.
My second match was against a bodan belt, which is basically the belt before black. He was big and muscular and mean-looking, but I beat him since he didn’t seem to have a lot of sparring experience. His attacks were fairly predictable. Like many students, this guy kept trying to throw a back-kick and I kept countering it by using a quick cut kick to the small of his back as he turned around. Doing this totally throws off their balance and they go down like a sack of potatoes.
My third match was against a red belt and my master told me to take it easy on him. Ok, I thought. This will be good experience for me to work on some of my textbook moves (as opposed to the panic moves I use when I’m overmatched).
Things were going well until I got an elbow on my neck when the red belt botched a back kick. It didn’t hurt since the blow glanced my jaw, but that didn’t stop the referee from giving him a Kyung Go (a warning) since head strikes were not allowed in this exhibition match.
When the match continued, the red belt and I got into close quarters again and again he botched a back kick. This time, he hit me so hard in the throat that I lurched backwards in pain. I took off my helmet and was like, “You have to be kidding me!” Could I breath? Could I speak?
The EMT guys, the ref, and my master all came over to see if I was ok. It hurt but I didn’t have any trouble breathing. In my last tournament, I got back-kicked in the face and my courage washed away at the thought of what had happened. Later, it turned out to be nothing but I had lost the match since my will to go on simply left me.
This time, I remembered that experience and when I was asked if I wanted to continue, I said hell yes. When we restarted the match I decided that I wasn’t going to take it easy anymore. I won the match easily, hit him good a few times (legally) and I was pretty satisfied to deny him any more points.
The guy was very apologetic. It was simply a bad habit since his arm basically swung around like that without his thinking. Since I was shorter, my neck was simply in-line with his wildly swinging limb.
In the end, I got two first-place trophies. Today, I can’t speak too well and it hurts to swallow. As I said before, I really need to lose some weight so I’ll get matched up with people my own height. I’m getting too old for this.
November 7, 2006
The Earth - Our Blue Marble
Image Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group Additional data: USGS EROS Data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights).
(Link)
Here are the wallpapers, all the standard sizes. Click to enlarge.
globe_east_1024x768_full.jpg
globe_east_1280x1024_full.jpg
globe_east_1600x1200_full.jpg
globe_east_1920x1280_full.jpg
globe_west_1024x768.jpg
globe_west_1280x1024.jpg
globe_west_1280x1024_full.jpg
globe_west_1600x1200.jpg
globe_west_1600x1200_full.jpg
globe_west_1920x1280.jpg
globe_west_1920x1280_full.jpg
I took this stunning vista of the Earth found on the Nasa "Visible Earth" page, and made a bunch of wallpapers out of them.