Stuff from January, 2006
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on January, 2006.
Wet Snow
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on January, 2006.
Awesome photography intro - Covering some great basics like lens, cameras, definitions. Helped me better understand my Canon setup.
Our first new couch in a long time (well, this is the ottoman). It’s extremely comfortable.
A long exposure test, showing that I have dust on my sensor. Time to clean it! The dust marks are cropped out.
Welcome to the first post of 2006. So many things have happened to me in this year, that I’ll toss them out in random order, maybe they’ll be funny, and maybe you’ll get bored. Who knows. First, Nils is in Norway - he’s overseas along with many people I know (for example: Emily, Emily, others). He called the experience “once in a lifetime” complete with backpacking Europe later in his 7 month stay, and total immersal in Norwegian culture and general Norwegianess. This type of horizon and world-view-expanding activity strikes me as extremely desirable for the complete college experience. While I am unable to partake at this point in my existence and for the forseeable future, I plan at some point to do some real traveling. It would break my routine-building tendencies, show me things I’ve never seen before, and make me a more interesting life-experiency type father. “Let me tell you what the Cathedrals of France look like at sunset” is generally more interesting than “let me tell you about the Saint Paul skyline at sunset” but not necessarily as practical as “if you use the correct attachment on the wrench, removing the oil filter doesn’t have to be that difficult.”
Walked the camera around on the tripod to give this effect - like a blurry 360 degrees.
Doesn’t really narrow down my identity.
One-eyed cat - This cat was born with only one eye, and was named Cy which is short for Cyclops. Amazing.
Really great New York Times article about facebook - Consider the kid who had a party that he suspected was busted because campus security read about it on facebook. So, he plans a party centered on beer that really just involves a cake that says “Beer!” on it. Campus police get there, they are nonplussed, hilarity ensues.
Awesome pop can jewlery - She takes the sides of pop cans and converts them to aluminum backed bracelets.
The Book of Cool - Actually videos, but an unbelievable collection of how to do cool things.
Thank you for putting up with my picture-taking, Mykala.
Unbelievable magnet train - A Japanese magnetically levitated train moving at 500 kilometers per hour - 311 miles per hour. Unbelievably fast - check out the train fly-by about midway through this 6 minute clip.
The big switch to Intel chips.
Chuck Norris Facts - It was time to finally link the official page.
Why oh why oh why is there not just one simple little feature for cell phones: a skip-to-leave-a-voicemail function/key sequence? Lovely as my girlfriend’s voice is, I already know she is going to tell me to leave a message and that she will get back to me. I already know she is not available. And goodness, I already know (if I’m listening to a Verizon-serviced phone) how to leave a voicemail. Is this a money-making move? I suspect it is. Keeping customers on the phone longer (the call begins when voicemail picks up) allows phone companies to make good money in very small increments. Consider this: Cingular features a direct to web button on most of their phones which, if pushed, almost always transfers web data before the user can mash enough buttons to stop the transfer (or in my case, try to rip the battery out) before charges are incurred.
Huge drink recipe repository - Extremely well designed, and tagged for your convenience. Good resource for when I turn 21.
I tape the important stuff to my wall so I can look up at it as a reference.
Backing up on your home network - This will be applicable to me when I have a house and am thinking about backing up my computers over the network. It will be incredibly out of date then. Crap.
Mykala’s christmas present to me is wonderful!
Tweak OS X - Mental note for when I get an Apple.
Cleaning grapes Mykala’s way.
Well, if I was in the police force, this is most definitely what I would drive. I heard the car was taken in some sort of bust by the police, and subsequently incorporated into the force. Love the mini light bar up top.
She’s 20: Happy Birthday! Check out that cake (and her horns).
On Mykala’s birthday, I invented a new way to insult someone. Rather than calling them an “a-hole,” go with the new and improved “j-hole.” It’ll make your victim stop and consider your insult, and cause the sting of your words to striker deeper into the person’s psyche. The J, of course, stands for “jerk” and calling someone a jerk-hole, regardless of how angry you are, is pretty offensive. For this reason, I would recommend reserving this insult for times you are really really, extremely, angry.
My current AIM profile reads (with screen names changed to protect the innocent):
Mykala (11:46:48 PM): maybe eskimos don’t know how to love
Mykala (11:47:01 PM): maybe, since all they can do is rub noses, they can’t fall in love
And because I read it recently, I realized that was my profile, so Mikaela’s comments (not Mykala who is my girlfriend, but Mikaela with whom I suffered through science classes in high school with) finally made sense. They are as follows:
Freestyle walking - An insane sport I would love to partake in … it’s called parkour/freestyle walking and it is unbelievable. These guys essentially do flips and jumps off of anything available, or simply while standing on the ground. Thanks, Matt!
Old wine bottles make great decorations.
Coolest. Factory. Ever. - This BMW factory in Leipzig has the cars roll above the heads of the office workers. So … cubicles on the bottom, BMW’s rolling by up top.
Ryan: Yeah, I guess things are going pretty well between the two of them, he went to visit her down in Iowa last time I went.
Me: Oh, so he went down to Cedar Rapids?
Ryan: Uh, no.
Mykala: You know, all of Iowa is not Cedar Rapids.
Me: That may be true, but all I’ve ever heard of is cheap gas and Cedar Rapids down there. So, I am lead to believe otherwise: whenever my dad goes down to Iowa, he goes to Cedar Rapids, and the last time I was there, it was a lot of corn, and 93 cent-a-gallon-gas in the middle of the corn’ness.
R/Mykala: …
Juggling fruit is essentially the coolest thing ever.
Grills Grills Grills - Inspired by the classic Motley Crue song.
… the secret of great photography is large amounts of bad photography.
— Daniel Rutter
Turkish Van: a cat breed that loves water - “This brings us to another interesting feature of this breed - they love water and in their native region they have been termed ‘the Swimming Cats.’”
As per Ryan’s thoughts, the idea is to guess what this is … donut holes with sprinkles on them, of course!
The Black by Ralph Lauren box. Like the way this smells.
40 Minute Conan O’Brien Interview - Fresh Air plus Conan equals wonderful radio. On the occasion of Conan O’Brien’s 10th anniversary show.
Me: I got off the phone with you after leaving the gym and started jogging across Lot H … you know sometimes you just get that feeling where you want to start running suddenly?
Mykala: … No, not really.
Me: Well, I got that feeling, so I started running and immediately almost fell over on recently-frozen ice.
My: laughs
Me: Yeah but it gets better. I continued to run more cautiously and then got owned by another patch of ice just before the edge of the parking lot.
My: So you fell over?
Me: No, if I had been in the NFL, the play would still be going.
My: disappointed Oh.
Great humor t-shirts - Almost identical (and an imitation of) bustedtees.
If I remember correctly (well, if my digging up the files surrounding this event yielded the correct results), it was early fall of 2001 when I did a very small part to help the process of bringing together two people who were meant to be together. Had I been there or not, I am convinced Matt and Shayla would still have come together, but I like to think I helped two good friends in a small way.
Mykala bought the Mary at a thrift store.
An improvement on the basic weight glove - These cover only the parts of your hands that get callusses and therefore breathe better. I am considering getting a pair: great price!
