More than I can handle.

Today I played organ and directed the choir for the 8:00 AM and 10:15 AM services at St. John's Episcopal Church, Stamford, CT. It went pretty well. It was one of the most complex services I've played in a while and I had to do some improvisation. I also lead the choir rehearsal after the services. It was the first service I've played since we moved to CT and joined St. John's. I've directed a few anthems, but had not played and directed the whole service. I had some "I didn't know you could play" comments.

I must say one of the most enjoyable things is directing the rehearsal. We're working on some parts of the Handel Messiah and I was pleased to use some of the rehearsal techniques I've learned from Garmon Ashby and Bill Roberts when we rehearsed the same music at St. Philip's, Tucson, AZ. I'm really pleased with my experiences there. I think it give me a better idea of what to do with most pieces and I was exposed to such a large library of music.

Emma took a picture of Dadda.

Emma and I were practicing our Cirque du Soleil act.

Tetris - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a very important piece of information.
(PS. My project codename at work is Tetris. We need a new name for a new version. Ideas?)

Sub-Zero PRO 48 Refrigerator/Freezer - A Monument to Food Preservation
I WANT THIS!

GasPriceWatch
I think it's getting to be time to start using this.

Google Maps - Delaware
I'm planning on trying to figure out how to avoid some of the steep tolls on our trips to MD. First stop - eliminate the Delaware Turnpike toll. Hmmm.... need to look at the map and try a few ideas.

This is a chair Daddy was "making" for Morgan. Note the UPC symbol. Suspicious?

--- actually he says that's from the dowl rod wood he used to build the chair, but it seems strange he would not remove that prior to varnishing? HA HA

Feed me better
We need to get something like this going in the America. With all the school budget cuts, I'm sure food intake is low on the priority. It's a real tragedy. Jamie Oliver is right on in his campaign.

Retalix Store and Retalix HQ Applications Now Available from StoreNext; Former TCI Products Provide New Opportunities for StoreNext Dealers: "StoreNext Retail Technologies LLC announces the immediate availability of key enterprise-level applications that were previously developed and marketed by TCI Solutions, Inc. [The apps have been] ... renamed Retalix Store and Retalix Headquarters."

Ha. Ha. I wrote a lot of that stuff. I remember when we had to change the name from HQPM2 (the 2 should be superscript) to TCI HQ. We also changed SSM to SM2 (same 2 in superscript) to TCI Store. I recall doing a bit of work to make the name changing easier for next time. I hope the Retalix folks gain the benefits of easier name changing.

Please note that making the 2 superscript in the dos file name was requested but never happened. Thank goodness for Windows Links.

Last nap before

Last nap before Emma's road.

Miso soup girl

Miso soup girl

Quechee covered

Quechee covered bridge

July 4.

July 4.

Emma in a

Emma in a bubble.

Butterflies.

Butterflies.

Solan was here.

Solan was here.

The Harvard

The Harvard Town Band in Ayer, MA. Fireworks next...

CPB - It gets worse

It gets worse.

http://www.npr.org/documents/2005/jun/cpb_pdfs/rehm.summary.pdf

6/7 Diane Rehm

Col D. McGregor and James Fallows are labeled "liberal". (Not liberal is not a bad term when used towards someone who is a liberal like me but) --- Why, you ask?

"Col. McGregor's viewpoint was that troop tour of duty extensions in Iraq is hurting morale. Col. McGregor stated that U.S. troups are trined [sic] for linear combat not to be policemen in post-war Iraq. According to McGregor, the U.S. soldiers have killed innocent civilians which has bred bitterness and hatred among Iraqis."

"Mr. Fallows viewpoint was the same as Col. McGregor; open-ended, repeat tours of duty damage morale."

HOW IS THIS LIBERAL? THESE ARE FACTS.

So if you don't agree that everything is peachy in Iraq and/or even report on the factual morale problems with troops in Iraq you are biased?

This makes me SOOOOO mad.

NPR : CPB Memos Indicate Level of Monitoring

NPR : CPB Memos Indicate Level of Monitoring
This stuff is really getting me angry. I regretfully wrote emails to both of my PBS stations telling them I can't give them money because of this sort of stuff. I also told them I am very unhappy that my money might end up in the hands of the Wall Street Journal, Fotune or other corporate entities. I'm not happy about the integration of commercial media into the titles of shows on PBS let alone any sort of big media "product placement" in PBS shows. They have enough influence.

At least she wiggled her toes.

Persecution of Christians

I was watching John Stewart the other night and they had more commentary about the members of congress complaining about the persecution of Christians in America. I got to thinking about that. They are correct - but the persecution is by the conservative Christian right. I am really getting tired of them defining my Christian values as being about 10 commandments in the courthouse, keeping alive brain dead people by artificial means and actions to force Christianity on the unbelievers. People are not going to become believers by those means. Their persecution continues by ignoring my Christian beliefs in feeding the hunger, caring for the sick, the friendless and the needy, and working to make society less stressful on the people at the bottom. If there is any voice not being heard, it is the Christians trying to follow in Christ's footsteps. I'm tired of them getting center stage and defining Christianity under their terms.

Look Out World

Signing up for my mobile blog. I can take now take photos with my camera and they appear in the blog. Look out world!

The Old New Thing : A simple story in pictures
Funny

Active RFID - What about the environment?

My response to InfoWorld's The case for active RFID - Ephraim Schwartz

I hope any issues with the disposal of RFID tags - passive, active or otherwise - is not going to be an afterthought. I can only assume that passive tags are harmless, but your opinion piece on active tags makes me scared for all of the batteries being thrown in the garbage or scattered all over the earth. Maybe the added expense of active tags will encourage reuse, but that will won't stop eventual or accidental disposal.

What is the environmental impact of all of these tags in our disposable packaging? I hope we don't find out too late as we've done with the millions of old PCs and and monitors. My fear on RFID is that as they take off, disposal of billions or trillions (keep going....) of tags will be a problem.

Google Earth

Google Earth
This is just about the most amaizing thing I've seen in a long time. Wow. Very impressive.

Instant Library

Amazon.com: Books: The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection
Just what I need once I build my new addition with a library.

Tonight I found a new bug. Each archive page has a footer that shows 5 random photos from elsewhere in the archive. On a page showing 5 random photos from the 25000+ photos in the archive, this picture appeared twice. Maybe I'm going to win the lottery? Maybe I should just fix the bug.

Old Photos

We need to get more older scanned stuff in the archive. Isn't this precious!

I copied a version of the Password Generator on Eric's Password Generator to Famous Family - http://www.famousfamily.com/password.html. This is a handy way to generate multiple passwords for site based on a single master password. I put a copy on FamousFamily so we will always have access to the generator. I also suggest going to the original sight and adding the bookmark. Luckily we use FireFox and Safari - so the fact it doesn't work on IE doesn't matter.

The hard part will be converting all those passwords over time.

Good news on the financial front. I bought some Cisco on Dec 30 2004 and it had lost money ever since. I bought it to keep an eye on my brother Tod's company. Today for the first time I've gained $2.30 on my 110 shares. Oh boy. Keep up the good work Tod.

Feed me better
We really need to get something like this started in the US. I really like his TV show, but I was meeting with some British coworkers last week and they mentioned this campaign. The point is to raise the issue of what our kids are being fed in the schools. I really like this.

moyers.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)
Good listening. I had to write an email to WNET & CPTV explaining why I can't continue to be a public television member until something is changed regarding Bill Moyer's speech. He is right on the money.

Emma seemed to pick up the idea of twirling her fork in pasta. I'm not sure where she figured this out, but she does. We went out to dinner with Auntie Heather after watching Zack play a ball game. Emma got her pasta and just started twirling. It was cute.

It's out. Version 6.0 of the archive. I reworked the XML translation to use castor. That's NICE. Should make things easier to manage and allow for more features in the future. Also fixed some bugs.

I'm saddened. Another thing I was thinking about earlier this week was the reality of the relationship after someone in the relationship dies. Mom and dad knew each other for 36 years. They had an intimate relationship. They loved each other. Now mom has died. When someone in a relationship like theirs dies, each day the other person continues to live, it seems that the intimacy of their relationship diminishes. It must diminish over time because someone that you loved is no longer here with you. It's like the longer you live, the more distant your relationship with the other becomes. Regardless of whether you meet after this world, one can ponder only ponder the pain of this separation. I got to thinking about it and it made me pretty unhappy. I can't imagine how my dad is thinking and I wonder how I would cope with that situation. It must be difficult.

I'm saddened: On March 22, 2005 my mom died. I've been sad through the whole thing. There's more to read about the details at Judith Lloyd Famous.
In order to help myself with some of my sadness, I may write about it from time to time, beginning with I'm saddened.
Tonight we went to a symphony concert. The music during the first half was rather uninteresting, so I got to thinking. That's not good. I'm finding that I prefer to do activities where I can't just sit there and think.
My thoughts tonight were maybe I should have spent less time answering the phone and worrying about the details and spent more time just sitting with mom. I don't recall doing a lot of sitting with her when she was sick, but not near the end. The last day I sat with her a lot of the day but it wasn't the same. I do remember the first weekend she was in the hospital when we drove down. I remember going in early one morning to the Bel Air hospital. I got to sit with her in the morning all be myself. We talked about a few things. It was nice. After she went home for the first time, I spent a lot of time downstairs herding people and answering the phone. I don't know.

SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator. This is way cool.

The next Famous. Kinda scary, staring at you, eh?

Yea. They just sold out. Retalix acquires TCI Solutions. Good bye TCI. Good luck to the people I enjoyed working with who don't have jobs anymore. I would say the acquisition is basically for TCI's customers and some POS drivers, but that's just my opinion. I have some stock. We'll see how my 36 shares of TCI do.

On the last day I worked at TCI, we were at lunch. I had been talking with my buddies about what to do about my stock options. I thought I might buy one just for the paperwork hassle. I had options to buy shares at twenty five cents a share. I took my drink cup from lunch (purchased for $1.50) and went around the table collecting pocket change. I then went back to the office and collected more pocket change. The CEO even gave me 55 cents. I boxed up the change and sent it to Irvine. They did not appreciate the money in Irvine (although I guess they no longer have job either, so there is no hard feelings on my part. I hope they do OK). When I later found out about this I asked them to give the change to Jim S. (he owe's me nine dollars) and sent them a check for nine dollars. They sent my this.

Note that Dave Auerbach has his signature on the document as the COO, but they fired him several years before I left. Kinda funny. Steve DeSantis also signed it. Ha. I'll post again when I see how much I get for it - if they even remember I have it.

Ah, the good times in Tucson. I think about that often. Nice pic.

Yesterday we had a 50th birthday party for my aunt Heather at our house. Lots of people came. Mom bought a bunch of over the hill and 50 year old birthday party favors.

This morning we were packing up and taking down decorations. I asked Mom & Dad if they wanted the decorations. Well.... "who would have the next 50 year old party?"

It's me. I will be first person in the immediate family to hit 50 in 14 years. Emma will be 16. AAAAAAAA!!!

Until 2019 then.

The driver side window in my car broke. Actually the mechanism that makes the window go up and down broke - the window is fine. I took apart the whole door and found the problem - a pastic slider that is used in the mechanism was broken. It is amaizing how complicated the mechanisms to lower and raise the window are. I found the part online, but then called up my my local BMW dealer and they had it. I drove over there and the guy just gave me the part. Back home and an hour later, things are back together and the window works. I'm very proud of this project and I think we probably saved a couple hundred dollars.

I fixed the slow drain in the shower today. It was really gross cleaning out the drain with a piece of wire. I disassembled the trap in the tub and tried to get things cleaned out. When I put it all back together, it did not leak. Now when you take a shower you do not end up standing in water. Yea. Mission accomplished.