May 2008

There were 56 posts published in May 2008 (this is page 4 of 6).

Packt lss

Looks like my blog server is currently having packet loss issues. Don’t expect much from MT.Net until these issues get resolved.

More car warranty

A friend sent a link to an interesting thread about Automotive Warranty Solutions, one of the sketchy Florida-based warranty shops I’ve previously blogged about. Check it out if you get one of those pushy sales calls out of the blue trying to mislead you into parting with $2500.

Oh, and I got yet another email from a friend this morning with more information on the company. Thanks for your contributions, folks!

Incidentally, my blog gets a lot of traffic about this racket. Its probably the biggest search-engine referral I get right now. (Oh, if only one of my siblings had started a web-analytics company and then sold it to Google, I would have a way to track my site statistics.)

Bikes are everywhere

Wow, what a little pain at the gas pump can do for people’s health. And the environment! My bike and I rode the elevator this morning with a motorcyclist.

He grinned. “Looks like you get better gas mileage than I do!”

I nodded. “Yeah, but you take the hills a little faster!”
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PBS documentary on FDR

Kelly was out at a volunteer function last night, so for the first time in probably years I plopped down in front of the TV and channel-surfed. I was appalled at the crap that was on television: it was all just so dumb. Until I landed on PBS, that is.

The American Experience program The Presidents [self-playing Flash] was on and last night it featured Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For two hours I was captivated learning about his life from the time of his birth up to his becoming President.

I knew he was a great man but had no idea just how great he was until this documentary showed me. America was lucky to have a man like him during such troubling times in America.

View-Masters

I was wondering this weekend why in a world where HDTV is considered viewing state-of-the-art why designers still think people have only one eye. Imagine if we were all still listening to monaural music and stereo didn’t exist, for instance! Why don’t we exercise our wonderful depth of field perception and create three-dimensional images to watch?

That got me thinking about the old View-Master viewers which displayed discs of 7 stereoscopic images through the use of hand-held viewers. A simple concept – invented in 1939 – yet we’re still looking at a flat, two-dimensional screen for almost everything. It was so far ahead of its time, it seems.
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Middle Crabtree Trail: Raleigh greenways’ hidden gem

Saturday, the family and I decided to explore our world by bike, so we rode through the neighborhoods to the nearby Raleigh city greenway. Our destination was the section of greenway between Raleigh Boulevard and Capital Boulevard known as the Middle Crabtree Trail. Getting there wasn’t a problem, as we could ride on low-traffic streets all the way to Raleigh Boulevard. Once to Raleigh Boulevard, though, we had to stick to the sidewalks for a block as that street appears too dangerous for safe biking.
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Mouthpiece success!

Before bed last night I went through the “boil-and-bite” procedure to fit my ..uh, “anti-snoring” mouthpiece to my mouth. I popped the mouthpiece into my mouth right after turning out the light just like the prosthodontist said to do and I waited in the dark to see how long it would take before I hurled it across the room and slept without it.
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Blue Grosbeaks!

This morning we spotted the very first blue grosbeaks ever to grace our feeder! The male blue grosbeak is a stunning dark blue color. It looks similar to a cardinal – only blue. They seem to be a bit shy, too: flying away whenever anyone inside walked past the door. We’ve been birdwatching for years now. Hard to believe it took this long to see blue grosbeaks!

I’ve set up the camera in the hopes of capturing a photo or two. They are amazingly beautiful birds!