Posted by Dave Minor Tue, 04 Apr 2006 14:46:19 GMT
I read today that during the night tonight, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. That reminded me of a picture I took with my cell phone last week of the odometer on our 1996 Ford Contour (The Energizer Bunny).
Posted by Dave Minor Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:19:15 GMT
High Orbit #12 included song called Stress by Jim’s Big Ego. It was a really cool song. Then I found this flash music video of the song on JBE’s website and thought everyone should see it. Not quite as funny as the end of the world from last week, but stylistically very similar.
Posted by Dave Minor Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:37:13 GMT
a little flash to remind us that all your missles belong to us.
Not work or family safe.
Update: Due to some people being too slow to get it before the bandwidth attack, I updated the link to a google video archive. It’s not quite as clean and nice, but you’ll get the same effect.
Posted by Dave Minor Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:30:04 GMT
Listen. If you’ll press your ear against your display and listen very quietly, you’ll hear… me working and not listening to my boys “play” during spring break.
What am I going to do this summer??
Posted by Dave Minor Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:27:52 GMT
In the flying community, there is a term known as “the $100 hamburger” which references the cost to load some folks into an airplane and fly somewhere for a meal.
Last week was spring break and it rained most of the week. The kids played pretty well inside most of the week although my nerves were getting pretty sparse by the end of the week.
On Friday, the sun was out, the wind was fairly calm and we got an urge for an ice cream cone. Not just any ice cream would do though. We needed some Braum’s. So we took our first family flying trip to get some.
The closest Braum’s to us is in Poteau, OK which is a one hour flight takeoff to landing. I was most concerned about Kyle would deal with the noise, but he did fine. Slept on the way there and smiled all the way home.
BTW, this was my second Braum’s experience this month without having to drive hours to get it.
I was remiss in not getting any pictures of us at Braum’s. Here are a couple of shots of some of the family in the plane.
Posted by Dave Minor Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:29:38 GMT
I want preferences for Google. Specifically, I want google to remember that there are certain sites that I don’t want to see results from.
When searching for answers to technical questions, quite often (probably a majority of the time), I get a top 3 hit from experts-exchange.com (which I won’t link to so as not to increase their page rank). This is a service which allows google to index their questions, but the answers require a subscription. I have no interest in paying for an answer that a) I’m not sure will solve my problem and b) is probably available for free at the next search result.
I can always skip and not follow the result, but I don’t make a habit of scanning the URL of the result when I am glancing at the synopsis of the page. I typically see that it is a good fit in context and click through.
If only I could just ignore certain domains on a global basis….
Posted by Dave Minor Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:48:56 GMT
Tim Bray references NetNewsWire’s new feature of dinosaurs for blogs that haven’t been posted to in a while. I guess I would fall into that recently. and for that I am extremely sorry. Things have been… you know.
What made me chuckle (in that “ouch!” sort of way) about Bray’s post is that he references several people whose blogs are marked by NNW as dinosaurs. The he proceeds to say that when he found their new sites, he decided they weren’t worth it and deleted their feeds. Glad I wasn’t on that list.
He calls the feature “kind of cruel.” I kind of thought the same of him.
Posted by Dave Minor Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:19:15 GMT
Yesterday, we had a new parking space created near the side of our house. Our car rolled down the hill coming to rest against the side of the house but not before trampling into the gas meter and the two air conditioning compressors.
Thankfully no one was hurt, but it did take the gas company 2 hours to find a main and cut it off, meanwhile, natural gas was pouring out underneath the car with a large hiss. When they eventually got the backhoe to dig huge holes in my yard looking for the main, they cut the cable and telephone lines.
No wall damage to the house. The car isn’t running great, but I’m not sure why or what yet. We’ll have to have a new gas meter, new plumbing to and from the meter, and some sort of repair or replacement to the AC units.
We are staying with my folks last night and tonight. Some friends have offered the use of a condo on the lake for the rest of the week until we can get repairs made and gas restored.
Here are some pics to soothe your curious mind:
Posted by Dave Minor Sun, 22 Jan 2006 03:05:57 GMT
Today marks the completion of a dream that I’ve had since childhood. One in which I know I share with a lot of people. I feel very honored to be able to say that, as of today, I am a private pilot.
It may have taken 8 scheduled days to get the winds to cooperate, but today was a beautiful day finally!
I spent the morning taking the practical test and hanging around the airport hoping to find an instructor on the field who had time to check me out in a larger plane then the Cessna 152 I’ve been training in. My hopes were to take my boys up this afternoon in a Piper Cherokee 140, but the schedules didn’t work out today. Probably for the better.
After lunch, I gave short rides to very special people in my life. First, I got to take my dad flying. He is the man who I got the flying bug from when he went through this process years ago. He hasn’t flown in about 15 years, and I was almost as nervous with him flying with me as I was with the examiner!
Next, I took each of my older boys, one at a time for a short ride over our neighborhood and through a couple of landings. They all had a good time. Sarah was taking care of the Kyle, so I’ll have to steal her away soon to go with me on a special day trip.
I noticed that Weston immediately figured out what the yoke controlled and how that would affect the direction of the plane in the air—even while we were on the ground. He’s definitely got some engineering blood in him!
Hopefully one day soon, I’ll have the opportunity to take you on a ride in the sky!
Posted by Dave Minor Thu, 19 Jan 2006 16:53:54 GMT
So today is attempt #7 to finish my pilot’s license. and the winds are extremely high. surprise surprise.
Friends at the airport are starting to forecast the weather based on whether I have a checkride scheduled that day or not.
#8 scheduled for Saturday morning.
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