I’ve heard from my Merlefest-attending family members. They all tell me Elvis Costello was awesome.
Man am I wishing could’ve gone! I was lucky enough to temporarily claim the two tickets Paul Jones put up for grabs but had to decline them due to existing weekend activities. Someday I’ll go!
Surf over to my buddy Larry’s HickoryWind.Org site for what is bound to be the best Merlefest coverage on the net.
I know I said I was done with the Einstein bee thing, but I was checking out David Byrne’s website and was dismayed to see he is a victim of the bees.
When one of the smartest musicians on the planet gets tripped up, you might as well wave the white flag.
We spent yesterday at Hill Ridge Farms in Youngsville, where a friend of Hallie’s had her birthday party.
One of the attractions at Hill Ridge is their train rides, on a circular (and a bit dull) 16 gauge track that loops around the property.
I couldn’t help but think how if I owned a train I would do it so much better. Now I’m looking into what it would take to put one of these in the backyard. I mean, who wouldn’t want their own EMD locomotive?
Well, my wife, for one, but a guy can dream, can’t he? At least its smaller than the fire truck I’ve been threatening to buy.
The crepe myrtles that I worried has been wiped out from the late freeze are alive and kicking after all! All four plants have new growth on them this weekend. Two of them are even sprouting fresh new stems. Its good to see things recovering. I was worried I’d never see green on them.
Oddly, the runt of the landscaping, the Japanese maple tree, is thriving this season. It looks better than it ever has in fact. The first spring we were here, the stupid deer chewed it down to the ground. Now that its fenced (and being watered regularly) its doing fine. I think we may have it providing some decent shade in the next summer or two.
The stupid deer referred to above have enjoyed munching on the azaleas I once fetched from my grandmother’s yard. Our neighbor decided to divert attention from his roses by pouring a bag of corn in the back corner of his yard. This has provided a niced balanced meal for the deer: they get their greens from my azaleas and a good dose of carbs from the corn.
After nightfall Saturday night I heard a vicious growling coming from that area. A raccoon was enjoying a corn feast and obviously wanted to dine alone. The next morning two deer were snacking in the area. I tell ya, there’s no better way to attract wildlife than with a bag of corn.
My company recently moved into nice new digs in our existing office building. It ocurred to me that this is the second time that I was assigned a desk located as far as possible from the office entrance.
Hmm. What is the message here? Should I start wearing pants?
I recently went back over my huge collection of film photographs and realized just how many pictures I’ve got that should rightfully be scanned in. I’ve been taking pictures with my own camera for twenty years. Most of the photographs I took while in the Navy – of the cool stuff like Soviet TU-95 Bombers overflying me – wound up in the hands of another shipboard photographer. A truly spectacular photograph I took of three generations of warships sailing together graces my cruise book but again is in someone else’s hands.
I need to find time to add my film library to the digital library I already have. I’m looking for a good film scanner (i.e., negative scanner) to do the work. If y’all come across any good ones, I’d appreciate you letting me know.
I don’t trust Skype. I suspect its doing things to my Linux computer that I did not authorize. Far too often I’ve seen CPU usage spike on Skype for no apparent reason. Today that happened again. I clicked on the close button and Skype dutifully disappeared from my desktop, but the process itself kept running in the background!
I’ve read rumors of things Skype may be doing behind our backs, but didn’t treat them seriously until now. I’m starting to believe any peer-to-peer (or instant messaging) apps deserve close scrutiny, regardless of the reputations of the companies that create them. If a hacker hacked Skype’s main servers, for instance, she could potentially have access to millions of PCs running Skype clients. Don’t you think that’s an inviting target?
If I was in charge of a network with sensitive data, I’d ban Skype in a heartbeat.
Read these papers offering a technical security critique of Skype: Vanilla Skype 1, and Vanilla Skype 2. Also, the obligatory Wikipedia entry: Skype Protocol.
…already reading this guy’s blog?
I just got this note in from Jennifer Smith, who is active in my neighborhood’s events:
To: Windsor Forest Neighborhood
From: Jennifer Smith
Re: Meeting on Wed 5/2 6:00-8:00
re: the 40,000 sq ft gym proposed for Durant Nature ParkI wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the proposal for Durant Nature Park and the meeting for public comment. The City Council is proposing a 40,000 sq ft gym and multi-use courts (no tennis courts or basketball courts as were proposed earlier) be built south of the playground that backs up to Astwell Ct (off the bottom of Hobhouse Circle). The entrance will be from the south (I would assume the South Entrance for Durant Nature Park which comes off of Gresham Lake Road).
I talked with David Shouse, the City of Raleigh contact on the letter that was sent to some WF residents notifying them of the meeting. He stated that the building would be 600 feet (or two football fields) from the houses on Astwell Ct and the bottom of Hobhouse. If you are interested in commenting on this plan, the public meeting will be this Wednesday, May 2nd from 6:00-8:00 PM at Campbell Lodge. It’s an open house format, so you can stop in as you have time and they will show you the plans and answer your questions. If you can’t come, you can email your comments to richard dot lee at arcadis-us.com (the plan developers). Thanks!
When I first learned of the City’s plans, I was a bit concerned. I expected Jessie Taliaferro would be bulldozing over all the trees of our wonderful neighborhood nature park. Fortunately, the law keeps her from doing that: due to the federal and state grants used for its purchase, Durant Park must by law remain natural. However, an adjacent, 15-acre piece of city-owned property has no such restrictions. It is for this site that the proposed park is being discussed.
Folks in Windsor Forest have informally discussed among themselves adding possible common area amenities like a playground or a clubhouse, and this exact piece of city-owned property has been eyed for just this. The discussed plan was to purchase the property from the city and build the clubhouse using homeowners’ fees.
While I was opposed to putting a gym in the middle of our beloved nature park, when I found out that
…well, now, I’m much more interested in this proposal!
The only real question I have regards the North Wake Landfill. Its long been proposed as a site for recreational facilities once it closes (if it ever does, that is). Does Raleigh need two large recreational facilities right next to each other? Why can’t a Raleigh gym wait to be placed on landfill property? If building a gym at Durant makes a park at the North Wake Landfill redundant, how else will the landfill property be used once it closes?
I happened to see that a spammer went to my other websites and promptly posted spam. The spammer happened to use bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com to validate his accounts.
I would really hate it if his bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com email accounts began getting flooded with spam, because that would be poetic justice, y’know. I hear that by posting email addresses like bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com on a webpage tend to make those addresses available to email address harvesting programs that then add those addresses to spam lists.
Please, don’t become a spam victim like bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com will soon become. Never post your unobfuscated email address on the web or you, too, will receive “killerspm” in your inbox.
(What’s ironic is that the same changes Google implemented to defuse Googlebombs likely also negates the efforts of blog spammers.)
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