Car wreck

I wrecked our minivan this morning as I was returning to our home towing a trailer of mulch. Travis was with me and fortunately neither one of us was hurt. The minivan, however, might not make it through. I think the frame got bent.

More details later today.

Yard work and a special guest

We spent a good deal of time this weekend putting down weed block and spreading mulch in our flowerbeds. I can feel every shovel-full of mulch in my tired muscles. The flowerbeds look damn good, however.

Saturday we took a break from shoveling to go to the fall festival at Hallie’s school. It was fun watching the kids play, though Kelly had to work at a table for most of our visit.

After the festival we were happy to host an old friend of ours: C.O. Green, the CSX train driver who would always wave to us as he passed by our Hobhouse home every morning. This was the first time C.O. has had to meet the kids he had only previously seen from the cab of his train as he rode by. The kids enjoyed his visit, too, as you can see by the picture.

We enjoyed pizza and chatting with C.O., whom we discovered will be getting married next summer. We hope we get a chance to meet C.O.’s wife someday. Tar Heel or no Tar Heel, we think he’s pretty cool!

HDTV vs. cable

So not only did I establish that my HDTV picture is far better than cable, I found out that Time Warner’s basic cable doesn’t carry WTVD2 (11.2), the secondary channel of Raleigh’s ABC affiliate. I’m a little ticked that if it weren’t for me checking out the non-cable offerings I would’ve never found this channel.

Thus we get more channels without basic cable than we do with basic cable. Yet another reason to jettison cable service in favor of pure HDTV.

Chalkman

On my walk around downtown yesterday I found a message on the sidewalk on the east side of the Capitol. Written in neat pink chalk were the words “Hi from Chalkman.” A smaller “good morning” was written on the northern sidewalk, too.

I look forward to more messages from Chalkman, whoever he is.

Barack Obama can lost President’s Chair!

Got this spam in the ol’ Inbox today. Its so convincing!

From: “Election News”
To:
Subject: Video: Obama post-resignation speech

McCain Lawyer Impeach Obama!
McCain has reached an agreement with the Obama lawyers that makes Obama
resignation effective November 11.
Barack Obama can lost President’s Chair.
McCain video report 7 November:

Proceed to the election results news page>>

2008 USA Government Official Web Site.

Suddenly, it may be cool to be an American again

VIENNA, Austria – She was a stranger, and she kissed me. Just for being an American.

It happened on the bus on my way to work Wednesday morning, a few hours after compatriots clamoring for change swept Barack Obama to his historic victory. I was on the phone, and the 20-something Austrian woman seated in front of me overheard me speaking English.

Without a word, she turned, pecked me on the cheek and stepped off at the next stop.

Nothing was said, but the message was clear: Today, we are all Americans.

Read more

Channel Master CM-7000: Stunning digital TV

I hooked up our new Channel Master CM-7000 digital TV converter last night and was I amazed. The picture is stunning! It makes the picture we got with analog cable look like total crap! In fact, it may even be better than digital cable as digital cable takes an already-compressed MPEG signal (the ATSC broadcast signal) and recompresses it with QAM. Compressing the same data with two different algorithms always diminishes the quality of the data.

Setup was a snap, too. I simply hooked up the antenna cable, the SVGA cable, and a patch cable for stereo audio. Then a few clicks on the on-screen display and it automatically searched for and added all the available digital channels. It was a total breeze. The antenna I used was an old “rabbit-ears” antenna, too. I haven’t even hooked up the big honking attic antenna to it yet.
Continue reading →

Update on jazz musician Mark Turner

Aaron Parks passes along info that jazz musician Mark Turner’s hand surgery went as well as could be hoped for:

Hey everyone,

The show of support for Mark over the last few days has been incredible. Please keep the positivity flowing in.

A lot of people have been asking for an update, so I wanted to pass along the little bit of information that I know. The surgery was this morning, with one of the best hand surgeons in the country, and it apparently went as well as could be hoped for. It’ll take some time to know whether the procedure will ultimately be successful in restoring the full use of his hand, but everyone is hoping for the best. Mark is, of course, inspiringly Zen about the whole thing, already accepting things however they turn out. We’ll just have to wait: time will tell, I guess.

In the meantime, keep all the support coming. Many people have asked if there’s a way they could help financially, since he’s basically lost his main source of income for the next 6 months at least. I’ll look into it to see if he’s receptive to that kind of thing. Will let you know.

Thanks again for all the love you’ve shown towards him and his family…

Again, I hope he has a speedy recovery.

[Update 19 Jan 2009]: Good news! Mark’s apparently healing well.

Speaking of commercials

I just saw Janet Cowell’s “new” TV ad, posted to YouTube on Oct 17th. In it you can see Hallie at 17-19 seconds. She’s the girl on the far right as Janet reads on the front steps. Incidentally, I think we’re still missing that library book, which we had brought to the shoot.

The previous ad only had us in it for a half-second or so, at best. So that’s progress.