The Packers looked great in preseason, fair in their first game against the Bears, and lousy against the Bengals. If they don't get that O-line fixed they will be in for another long season.

Charles Woodson is one hell of a player.

Hooray For Herbert!

Herbert Dow, the founder of the Dow Chemical Company started his legacy as the chemist who invented a cost effective means of extracting bromine(a chemical used in photography, among other things) from brine. Backing brains with hard work, he was known to work eighteen hour days and slept at his factory.

Dow wanted to expand his sales into Europe at a time when the market was dominated by a German cartel not wanting an upstart American breaking into their business. They threatened Dow that they would flood the American market with cheap chemicals, ruining his company, if he followed through with his plan to sell in Europe.

Not one to be intimidated, Dow began to sell bromine in England for thirty-six cents a pound, a good bit less than the German's rate of forty-nine cents. Infuriated, the Germans sent a representive to confront Dow. Their attempt to disuade him had no effect. Soon after, the cartel began their attack by dumping bromine in the US, at a loss, for fifteen cents per pound.

Did Herbert cry uncle and pull out of England? Hell no. And this is the funny part-he sent a buyer to New York with instructions to purchase hundreds of thousands of pounds of bromine for fifteen cents a pound. He then shipped it back to Europe where he sold it for twenty-seven cents a pound! Kind of like catching hand grenades and throwing them back in a business way.

Unable to sustain the cost of the chemical war, the German cartel made a deal with Dow. He would not sell in Germany, they would not sell in the US and the rest of the world would be open to free competition.

Do you do torrents? Are they running slow, if at all? Think that maybe your ISP is blocking them? Try this site to test if you're being throttled.

Another mockup for a DVD cover.

Matt took the suggestion from a neighbor to get some spending money this summer vacation by starting a car wash. I made this flyer for the budding entrepreneur.

Billy and Aristotle

Cover Your Eyes and They'll Never See Us!

Two new additions to the household in June. These baby guinea pigs(Aristotle on left, Billy on right) are cool critters that do a lot of vocalizing. Never play a recording of a guinea pig making the alarm shriek from the internet in earshot of your pigs because they'll start doing the alarm themselves. They also have various types of rumbling and chirping in their repertoire.

Made this DVD slip cover for a video scrapbook for Matt, so the right side is the front and the left is the back. The goal was to make it look like a movie poster. Don't have the font commonly seen on movie posters, univers, I think it's called, so I substituted this standard one.

Time To Say Goodbye

She went missing last Sunday after slipping out the door and unfortunately never made it back home. A man called Wednesday with news that he had found our rabbit and said that she had a broken leg. This was great news after Matt spent the previous five days searching bushes and posting reward signs and he was very excited when he called to tell me.

The man was asked to bring her over(he wouldn't say where he lived or leave his phone number, which was private). He agreed but called back later saying he was going to keep her. There was the sound of driving at the time of the second call which leads me to believe he was bringing her to us(he was very interested in cash), but after all the stress, combined with her fear of vehicles, it caused her to die enroute. Even so, it would have been a nice gesture to bring her home to a saddened family.

She was a house rabbit and had the run of the house, although in the day she usually stayed behind the sofa with her legs stretched out behind her. She would pop out to get her ears tickled and she loved treats.

So-long and happy trails to the sweetest and most gentle pet we've had.

UP

The first Disney 3D movie I have seen and my impressions are Disney/Pixar have combined a great animated story with special effects.

Following the standard movie formula of having the main character go on an adventure while collecting goofy sidekicks along the way to eventually battle against the evildoer, the story is well written and original enough to make it worth while. Very funny and technically superb, it's happy and sad by turns.

The voice of the old man is that of Ed Asner, aka Lou Grant and Socialist Leftnut. I could have sworn he was dead and gone, but apparently he's stuck around long enough to do an excellent job here.

Glad to see the anaglyph(red/blue) 3D glasses are being used less. This film uses the polarized glasses which don't give me headaches and are big enough to fit over my regular glasses.

The opening short film about the stork and the cloud was hillarious and also in 3D, as were the previews. Disney seems to be putting a lot of emphasis on the goggle wearing crowd and that's fine for me seeing as how most movies need something extra to get me into the theater (at a premium in ticket price!).

Now if only they would start doing the 3D bit with real, live humans. The superhero and sci-fi pictures would be a perfect fit.

The Good: Moving story, good characters, funniest animation yet, well done technically and artistically.

The Bad: Still have to wear goofy glasses. Expensive tickets.

In Conclusion: Great movie for 2D, even greater for 3D!

Rating 4

Saw a car with a large sticker that read, "Vote NO on everything. We've paid enough already!"

My sentiment exactly.

They may be slow, but they speed up when they see me coming!

Matthew in stone. This is one of the lessons from the Photoshop Top Secret training dvds. It took three cups of coffee to do and has plenty of obvious errors - the hair is too detailed, the crack isn't wrapped and blended correctly on the neck, the shadow under the chin doesn't match the light circle on the platform - to name a few- but even so it was a fun effect to try. 

Portable computing has come a long way in the last year. The monitor for my work machine tends to remain stationary, for obvious reasons. The Acer Aspire One is great for stuffing in a daypack or case and the Viliv S5 which features an adult size Windows XP can be carried in my pocket. jkkmobile takes a look at it on YouTube.

At first I thought this building in Corona Del Mar was some sort of temple, but was told that it is a real estate company. Obviously the dramatic bronze eagle is targeting a buyer. 

Red flower thingies at Laguna Beach

A melancholy Matthew walks along the lake at Central Park in Huntington Beach. 

Actually he was eager to get to a hive, swarming with bees, he had just heard about. I made him slow down for the photo. 

Found two more hard drives today, a 30 GB WD and a 150 GB Samsung. Using the Wiebetech Drivedock V4, I managed to salvage a few stock photos and, much more importantly, a wav file of Matt singing a few words of Alice Cooper's "Gimme" when he was three years old.  

 That brings the total of old HDs I found lying around up to eight. 

Television is something I normally don't spend time on. 

But when you find a TV series you haven't seen before, it's like it just came fresh from the studio. A show that's been around since the 1950's is still new to me, having only watched it with any attention about a year ago and the "new" episodes are still streaming along. 

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

 Reruns of those shows aired when I was a kid. Then I happened to see a couple of episodes on the LA indie station, KDOC.

I watched a few and was hooked. 

 Unlike the Twilight Zone, which spotlights sci-fi and some supernatural elements, Hitchcock eschewed the flying saucers and time machines and paid homage to situations that were a painful twist to real life. Most dealt with the murder mystery, a genre I normally have zero interest in, but Hitchcock Presents tells the stories that are out of the ordinary, to say the least.

 Hitchcock's first run of the series utilized the half-hour format and it's in this shorter frame that the stories shine. The later hour long series had weaker plots and a lot more dialogue that, for the most part, just seemed to be filler. Regardless, a few were standouts. One of my favorite episodes of either length was, "An Unlocked Window" which happens to be an hour. 

If you decide to check them out, here are some favorites from the "Presents" series: 

A Man With a Problem

Revenge

Breakdown

One More Mile To Go

The Cream of the Jest

De Mortuis

The Right Kind of House

Lamb to the Slaughter

The Crooked Road

Mrs Herman and Mrs Fenimore

The Last Dark Step

4/3/09: If you're interested in the later hourly series, don't miss these:

An Unlocked Window

Final Escape

Lonely Place

The Jar

Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale

Home Away From Home

The first three seasons are available on DVD. You can also watch them for free (if your IP is up to it) on Hulu.com

Last month I snapped this pic of people queued up outside Denny's in Huntington Beach to get a free breakfast. The line has dwindled some, at other times it stretched to the end of the building. Standing in a line for a free breakfast didn't interest me, but some of the staff told me it went smoothly. 

 On Tuesday night the sliding glass door next to my work computer started to rattle like someone was knocking on it. That's what I thought it was at first, but a quick look proved no one was outside. Then I thought it must be an episode of California weather, commonly known as an earthquake. It only lasted for a few seconds and then no more. 

 Today I read in the local news that it wasn't an earthquake. The people who are supposed to know these things said it wasn't. It wasn't a sonic boom either. 

They don't know what it was. 

Aloe garden on Beach Blvd.

Photo of an old sawmill.

RHB with the new lineup:

Rodney Wing - rhythm guitar

Charlie Carr - lead guitar

Richard Hill - vocals

Bob Delongchamp - keyboards

Who's playing bass and drums?

      Congratulations Mr. Hill on your latest compilation. Working on anything new for the Grammy's next year?

  

With all the real-estate on the dashboard of the Volkswagen New Beetle, it's a shame to see it go to waste. Hate waste? Me too, so here's what to do! Mount a corkboard in that vast plain between the steering wheel and the windshield so you can keep track of your missed appointments, sticky notes, etc. 

 Imagine how impressive it would be if you got pulled over by the police and instead of having to fumble through the used Kleenix collection in the glove box, you just glanced at the Dash-Corkboard Organizer and said, "Yes officer, I have my registration right here...under the grocery list." 

 In fact, I think the Dash-Corkboard Organizer is such a good idea that I'm going to market it on Ebay using a fake company name and address. The Dash-Corkboard Organizer will be sold as a kit which you could install in seconds, using your neighbor's tools or even your own fingers. Included in the kit will be duct tape, push pins(single color- multicolor are available for an extra fee) and a sturdy preowned cardboard box for shipping.  Use the duct tape to secure the Dash-Corkboard Organizer to the dash and, VOILA!, you're ready to display with pride your proof of residency, traffic violations and warrants. 

Complete kit starting at $49. Corkboard extra.

                                          Cash only, no refunds!. 

  If you have unused, nonworking computers lying around or old hard drives stacked in boxes in the closet, behold this invaluable piece of equipment.  

  The Wiebetech Drivedock V4 lets you connect old IDE and newer SATA drives and see them with Windows Explorer(also connects to Mac) via USB connector as an external drive. Great for rescuing files from junked machines or putting their HDs back into service as auxillary storage.

  After taking about a minute to set up,  I tested it on six old (late ninety's) and not so old(2003-2005) drives. Four of them, including one with files from the year 1999, worked great. A 120 MB Conner drive, wouldn't spin, and a 40 MB Seagate wouldn't transfer data after making an ugly grinding noise. 

  There may be a couple of more HDs hiding in a dark corner of the closet left to find. I'm still hoping to recover some old photos that were lost. 

The next project for this gadget is to image my main drive to a backup with Acronis True Image.

Don't ask to borrow mine, just get your own for $53 + change from Amazon. 

Leg 22

View of Learjet on the tarmak at Bangor, Maine airport.