Mission log

I got up just after noon. No time for coffee. I got started. I got ready to mow the yard for the first time this year. By the time I made it outside, the day had warmed. It felt fantastic.

Before doing anything that qualifies as lawn work, I started organizing my tool box. It is one of those tool boxes that is open at the top with many drawers. The top was loaded with fifteen years of left over screws and bits that looked useful and small enough to not throw away. I grabbed a couple of coffee cans off my shelves and filled them with these screws, nails, and fasciner. I did leave much of the clutter in the top of the tool box. It doesn't look like much of an improvement, but I can close the box when I will.

At this moment, I cleaned up the shelves a bit. While doing all of this, I thought that I was using my strength for achieving something that was not my real goal. That is, I was spending time straightening up a bit while I should have been mowing or fixing the seed whacker. Still, it all needed doing. No better time than the present.

The highlights of yard work.

• Mowed
• We had gotten gas.
• Filled up mower.
• Primed carborator.
• Started on the first pull. Started every single time on the first pull except when it was sitting on top of an ant hill.
• Didn't get a single ant bite. God watches over me. I have high boots and keep moving after hitting the mound. The ants are not the kind that hold a grudge.
• Tried to weed whack
• Dumped the old two stroke gas from weed whacker and the drop left in the 1 gallon can.
• Mixed new 2 stroke gas.
• Examined the air filter. Needs replacing.
• Looked for 45 minutes for my large spark plug socket.
• My mother had to baring over Elle later this fin day. She also brought me a spark plug socket.
• Gave up on weed whacking for today.

Later in the day, I was watching some YouTube videos. These are the kind of video that people make as a quick statement of existing. They call themselves vloggers. Some have themes. Some have formulas. Some, like mine, just are.

Just a bit before posting the mission log I had to back out a stripped screw from my door frame. I strung up a pull up bar in a door frame. One of the crap screws that came with the bar stripped out, even with a pre-drilled hole. Crap. My father gave me some self tapping screws a couple days ago. In all the cleanup efforts I found some more. The self tapping screws worked like a champ. I should have done that in the first place. One potential catastrophe is the door frame. It looks like it is not stuck together strongly enough to support one of these pull up bars. I worry I may have dome some damage. Great.

The Oscars are on this evening. Thank goodness for the internet. Off to post the log.

Old school tow truck

It doesn't look like these horses are team broke (trained). I guess you do what you got to do when the money maker is stuck in the snow. The caption said this is an Amish milk truck being pulled out by a local.

Dinner at the park

Field	Data
Title	Dinner at the park
Description	We went to the park for dinner this evening after work. It was a nice sunset and quite duck free.
Tags	duck park sunset dinner supper family fun hornet nest canon 940is Houston Texas
Link	Link

Me and contacts

I videoed this at lunch on top of the parking garage. I may or may not start doing this. I don't know if it is a thing yet or not. I had the top of the garage to myself. However, the entire upper half of the building can sit there and watch me if they wish. If it starts to worry me, I'll put up a sign with my YouTube channel on it so they can watch the vlog. I'm going to call it advertising and move forward.

Field	Data
Title	Me and contacts
Description	Me and contacts. Just what can I see blog (years old) http://plastickelly.blogspot.com/2003/05/sunday-afternoon-what-pretty-day.html
Tags	contacts contact lenses eyes fit-over sunglasses doctor training story anecdote canon 940IS Houston Texas
Link	Link

Notes

Scientific fame is measured in Milli-Darwin units. Now you know.

They are working on methods to trick the human body in to keeping bone and muscle mass and effectiveness over long periods of inactivity. The same goes for brain activity. This would be great for people who have to be immobile for whatever reason for long periods of time. Things like illness and long term space travel come to mind. The scientists say this must be possible because bears do it every year.

There are some people who use the word "GEEEZUS!" to prevent themselves from having to spell out the name of God's son when writing things down. They know what they are doing. This is really an admission of guilt or perhaps the correct term is an admission of the knowing of wrong doing. Something like that.

Never use the hot air hand blower in a public bathroom. Even after a short time, they are teaming with bacteria. They blow said bacteria all over your hands as they dry. They are just a cost saving measure. Nothing more. Use your cloths if you have to.

Earth has mass of approximately 6 x 10⁶⁴ kilograms. Or 60,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms. -Dr. Karl. (Chris)

"Raining guns!"

Best YouTube video in a while.

What happened in the middle east?

Am I the only one who remembers Obama going to Egypt and showing solidarity with Mubarak last year?

"Mubarak is my boy! The U. S. has his back."

Basically, This pissed off a lot of people in the region. It turns out the entire middle east was waiting to find out if the U. S. or Europe would come save their golden lackeys or not. Turns out, not.

Now that the world knows we (the West) are full of crap on who we will and will not back up in a pinch, they are taking advantage. I cannot blame them. We are all, and I mean all, including Russia and possibly even China, sick of bailing out every po-dunk shit hole at great expense in life and treasure just to stop the fabric of society from falling to threads before us.

Gaddafi, Jr. and Sr. say they will fight to the last drop of blood. I watched a video of Gaddafi saying this and he reminded me of Bela Lugosi playing an old decrepit vampire. I bet despots round the planet are making sure they have censorship in place for the internet and that the knothole is wound tight.

People do not understand how delicate civil rest is.

People all over the world have looked at Iraq and mumbled that democracy seems to be working there. The despot is dead. People can get European cigarettes and make a buck when they have a talent for it. People hate old G. W., but he did one good thing. He planted the seeds of democracy in the middle east.

The British tried doing it at gunpoint over a century or so. It turns out the key was cameras on every mobile phone, Facebook and blogs.

I haven't been blogging much on the subject. It is so very hard to watch and read about what is going on. Doctors report pulling bullets the size of their fist out of protesters in Libya. Those are antiaircraft rounds. The government is throwing the kitchen since at their own people. Rumors tout millions displaced and many thousands killed. No idea who to trust on news.

Al Jazzier, the Jewel of the middle east journalism is now being seen in a bad light for the first time by even the liberal media because they will not talk about a vicious attack on a woman journalist in Egypt during the protests.

The word democracy hit the ground running. Five minutes after this, every news outlet turned to the price of oil and how that is going to affect people's wallets. "The oil will keep flowing." -OPEC. That is why so many people are being killed, is it not? I mean, hell with the people, you mean this is going to cost me money? How ironic. It isn't irony. It is cause and effect.

Notes

Used OpenOffice.org draw program. It let me import a PDF, that was a building map and over lay information pretty easily. Thank goodness it has layers and allows them to be switched on and off, and frozen when needed. It was fun.

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria Bahrain. There are crackdowns in China. People are blowing a gasket in The U. S. over unions. Why now?

Someone at work mentioned a sign at their kid's school that said "Promote your school ..." Something about participating in a fun run for charity. The sign also read "This is not an excused absence." Talk about something worthy of Fail Blog.

I heard the phrase "How many of you in the audience are under 40?" I nearly wept.

Windows 8 is on its way. Fantastic.

Twitter is great for forcing people to get to the point. It is wonderful for slicing off fluff. Some of the content is profound. Some is funny. Some is interesting. The VAST VAST VAST majority is just too stupid for 3 consecutive coherent complete sentences. Do I think Twitter and Twitter like products will last? People still raise carrier pidgins. There are not many working telegraphs.

Notes

KFC makes more money in China than the U. S.. Same goes for GM.

It's getting to the point I need to find some system for filtering the internet. Elle is getting to that age. I need help. What works? I'm looking at OpenDNS, but that just doesn't seem like the end all solution.

Listening to Mark Levin. I should know better. A teacher called in complaining about not getting a cost of living increase in several years. I hate to tell him, but I have not gotten one either.

"Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said he won't step down and wants to die as a martyr in his country." -CNN. The man has A) nowhere to go and B) balls. The phrase "Bring it!!!" pops in to my head. I do not admire him. I just can't help but think he is playing is hand to the end.

Dinner Party Download joke. "How do you get a song writer off your porch in Nashville? Pay for the pizza." Ouch.

Burnout cubed

"Ya baby!! Wooo Hooo!!!" Yup.

More shelves

Slowly but surely cleaning up the house. Getting organized anyway. At some point, it will be worth living here.

Field	Data
Title	Cleaning up the clutter. Long way to go.
Description	Slowly but surely cleaning up the house. Getting organized anyway. At some point, it will be worth living here.
Tags	horder hording shelves cleaning up house home canon 940is Houston Texas
Link	Link

Skype

A friend of mine finally placed a call with me over Skype. We verified that not only voice was working, but video as well. We also shared each other's desktops to make sure that worked. He is on a new fancy Windows 7 system I believe. I'm on Ubuntu Linux 10.10.

This is important to me for some reason. It reminds me of the whole passport thing. I don't know why I think it is important. I just think it is important to get my stuff together. Fortunately, it is not that big a deal. Neither costs that much. A passport is going to cost me around $200 and the Skype experience is more like $20. I've spent more on shelves in the last couple weeks.

There are worse things to blow some money on.

How hard can it be?

People wonder why movies cost hundreds of millions of dollars. I have a theory that it is 90% money laundering, but that is just me.

Live action Mario Cart.

The making of Live action Mario Cart.

TSA, know your rights

Good to know.

Vids

Haircut

Yee haw!

Vlogging on the bus

Vlogging on the bus fail. The sound is just too much for the camera to handle. I would need some kind of headset or professional noise cancellation mic to make it work. Not on my shoestring budget. Hey, it was worth a try.

Field	Data
Title	Commuting on the bus
Description	I work so dang much and do so dang little, that I thought I might as well try vlogging on the bus. The audio is ruined of course. Apologies for the subtitles.
Tags	bus noise commute ride home Westheimer 82 west bound canon 940is Houston Texas
Link	Link

Jet boat

This doesn't look real. It is. I've seen the races, but never from POV of the driver. Looking at the head of the driver in this video, I wonder how many careers are ended with neck trauma.

Smell

A woman walked in the elevator where I work the other day.
She smelled like the old fashioned permanent hair chemicals.
That smell always reminds me of teachers from grade school.
This thought swept me away for a moment. I needed that.

On the bus the other day, a man smelled like pipe tobacco.
He was waring a leather jacket that reminded me of New York.
He was an old man who still wore a dress hat while walking around.
He looked happy to be on the bus.

A homeless woman tried to talk to me a while back.
She stunk of garbage and rotten food from a dumpster.
She asked me a question about aliens or something I don't remember.
There was nothing I could have done to help her survive better.

A man in a business suite smelled of sweat and deodorant.
As I walked past him, I could feel the heat coming off him.
We were in an office building, the AC was blowing.
I didn't dare disturb him. I wanted to know his story.

A woman got on the bus with bags from a grocery.
When she sat down near me I could smell apple pie.
When I looked around, every one could smell her bounty.
It was near dinner time for most. Many bellies rumbled.

Video editing

I attempted to video the ride in yesterday morning on the bus for a time lapse. Failed.

The trouble was mounting. I stuck the camera to my backpack and left it recording out the window. Even though I tried to keep still, the bus was just doesn't have a good mount point that will not also make the camera stick out so much that it would draw attention to it. I'm not videoing any one on the bus, though, I don't think there is an expectation of privacy on the bus. Metro is videoing you.

There is a problem with the webm video codec tool in melt (the command) or MLT (the library) that causes the operation of speeding up a video in a form that basically turns it in to a time lapse to crater the system. The process jumps to 100% memory usage and the processors just sit there without getting much done. This action is reffed to as a memory leak. I bet it is a simple fix. I have only found some hints of an issue online in some KDENLive forums. I worry that I'm the only one running across the issue.

Something that came out of this that was pretty cool was the music. I went to one of my favorite sites these days for doing video, FreePD and listened to some really good free music. They will let me use this on my videos. There are other sites that do the same thing, but the names are not so memorable.

The video that went up last night was Elle doing the dishes. I really enjoyed making it. It was easy to edit. I enjoy editing video when it is something simple, yet I learn things. One of these days I'm going to attempt a blue/green screen type effect. It is looking increasingly simple to perform. I just need a background to practice with.

Now, if only I had some good easy ideas for shooting videos. It turns out that is the difficult bit. That is the difficult bit for the blog as well as the vlog. Content. That is the magic word. That is what keeps people coming back when it is good and what runs them off when it is something they don't like. This weekend is to be clear and warm. I need to get out there and just get some footage.

Notes

Chevron owns Texaco? When did this happen? I'm so out of the loop on such things.

The Chinese have an unemployment problem. A real number of unemployed people is 22% or about 200,000,000 people out of work in China. So many of these people are people who have degrees.

"How do you become a good shot?" If you have to ask, you don't "just have it". So, the solution from this point is to practice.

There is an old superstition about long straight roads. They are supposed to be dangerous and fraught with inhuman murders and all too human temptations.

300 km/s. I've heard that nothing can beat the speed of light. Quantum has a chance. That is, the answer to a question may be answered by quantum mechanics at two distant points with the same answer. The interpretation of the answer may take a bit longer.

I ordered a pull up bar for the doorway of the master bathroom. It is the cheapest piece of exercise equipment I could find. Wonder if I will use it much?

The Iranians have aborted the idea of sending warships to the gulf north of Egypt. The armada consisted of two boats.

The Twitter ap I use on Android was banned for violation of usage policy. I bet they didn't prevent people from hitting Twitter when the ping times grew or something along that line. Twitter says "Hey, no problem, go get the official Twitter ap." What they neglect to mention is their ap only works on Android 2.1 and above. I have an old crappy phone that only runs 1.5. Well, screw that. I'm not sure how many other aps there are for Twitter. Probably dozens. My phone is aging rapidly.

The kid and the dishes

Very proud parenting moment. This is Elle's first load of dishes as far as I know.

Field	Data
Title	The kid and the dishes.
Description	Very proud parenting moment. This is Elle's first load of dishes as far as I know.
Tags	kid dishes parenting teaching learning moment canon powershot 940is Houston Texas
Link	Link

Dead stick

This is part of learning to fly. Small planes typically fly pretty predictably even when there is no power. Of course, the idea is to hit land on the softest, most forgiving and cheapest thing possible when crashing making an emergency landing.

"I didn't end up in Turkish prision."

I'm so glad I don't have any stories like this.

Notes

My left shoulder is killing me. My left index finger hurts. My neck hurts from talking to so many people on the phone for a long time while trying to use the computer. Considering I'm using my left hand for the mouse, it might behoove me to lay off the computer for a bit. Too bad I know this will not happen. I did get a headset for work at my own expense.

I did my first SSL certificate today. It was more annoying than challenging.

Too nuts for the homeless guy

Man, I have been in a bad mood the last couple days. I nearly bit people's heads off yesterday afternoon at work. I was in the middle of working on someone's printers and someone else came up and asked in that annoying try not to piss you off kind of way that sales people are so apt at, "Is there something wrong with the network?" I Shouted "I don't know!" at him and kept working on the printers. I had just plane had it at that point with messing with people's wireless. They want wireless on computers that will never move. They want wireless on computers that are not portable. They would get more work done if they had that one extra wire that they are missing.

When I went home, I ranted loudly on the walk. I kind of helped. I passed by a place where a homeless guy has been camping. He looked at me like I was nuts. This morning, I walked by him again. Ranting even more loudly and telling off all fifteen of my bosses to no one. He pretended not to wake up. I fear I make him uncomfortable.

When I expressed this concern to a friend, he said (once he stopped laughing) that he sometimes does something similar. He will verbalize his side of an argument with no one on occasion. The reasons or sources of the conflict may not be the same, but the coping mechanism seems to be related. I'm sure this is just the brain's way of practicing for future contact or conflict. It may be a release where you can say the hurtful things that you don't really mean, but that are bubbling their way to the top. The ego wants to try them on before waring them out so to speak.

I'm not crazy, I'm coping. Dammit!

Rules for conquest

The way to make Communism and Socialism work. It is easy. Judging by past experiments in Communism and Socialism, these are the rules to follow to make things work.

• Kill or crush everyone who disagrees with yoy.
• Kill or crush everyone who challenges you and your ideals.
• Kill or crush everyone who is incapable of fitting in to the mold you have made.
• Kill or crush everyone who says or even thinks there is a better way than yours.
• Kill or crush everyone who makes things work outside of the mold you have made.
• Kill or crush everyone who asks if there is a better way.

Why does Capitalism work better? The answer to all the above questions is the same. "If you think you can do a better job, be my guest."

Testify!

So, I been needing a headset for my work phone. I help people do stuff and it helps many times to have a headset while I'm running round looking at stuff on the screen. It is even worse for me because I hve to run my whole boddy around my two screens to see what I need to see. I used to drop the phone as I had it pinched between my shoulder and head. This was killing my neck.

My office has headsets. They are $110. I asked for one and got a resounding "you don't need one Kelly." Well, I looked around online and found one on Amazon that would work. It was $19.95 pluss shipping. It came out to like $24 or so.

They had 1. I got it. The entry is gone. This was God looking out for me. Hallelujah!

Lunch conversation

• TV shows.
• American Office and how the British Office guy might come along and take the main guy's place.
• How identical all the British vs U. S. Office characters are. It is a one for one crossover.
• 24 and how similar all the shows and indeed seasons were. We pondered cutting all the seasons in to one show that was 24 hours long. You could do it without overlapping a single splice. Jack would always be a bad guy and prove himself a good guy by the end.
• How bad or not so bad the third season of Battlestar Galactica is or isn't.
• A highly successful British TV show has four seasons with six shows each.
• Work.
• Communication amongst employees.
• Communication between us and customers.
• Blah! Normal every day complaining.
• Video games, a tiny bit.
• Ganging up on a WoW foe this evening.
• Me blogging about computer games.
• How long it took us to get our food.
• How late each of us were going to have to stay to make up for it.
• There were only two women running the place. We speculated that one of the women helping us was also cooking in the back.

Discovered

Someone asked me if I put content on the internet in order to be "discovered" and thus become famous. The answer is no. Here are a couple of reasons this is the wrong way of doing things.

• I'm not nearly talented enough to make being discovered do me any good.
• There is gigatons of crap on the internet. What I'm putting up will never put my head above this sort of noise.
• All the people who make it work are all in co-hoots. They seem to pull each other up by the boot straps. It is the same old story. It isn't your talent, but your address book that gets you in the game.

There is a guy who goes by Shay Carl on YouTube who is making a go at becoming famous. He is doing the YouTube vlogging thing. However, he is also doing the getting discovered thing. He is doing acting in little bits of thing. He mentioned a bit part on "No Ordinary Family" soon. I hear that show is on the skids, but he might make it on the small screen before it is out the door.

There is another couple doing something similar. The guy is Charles Trippy. He has a major in communication and is the only person with that degree who is putting it to good use. They are in Florida at the moment, until his wife to be graduates. I'm confident they will high tail it for Calli or New York after that.

I don't really like Shay's vlog. I watch because I'm learning. I do like Charles' vlog while learning there as well. They both have gazillions of followers. I have 19.

Both of those folks are doing a more or less every day kind of vlog. That just seems like over kill to me.

There is another guy called Philip Defranco who does kind of a news show. He is not every day. I've noticed, he is not waiting around to be discovered. He appears to have opened his own studio. Honestly, with the exception that he appears to be killing himself with over work, this is the way to do it.

One thing all these folks have in common, none of them have a day job. They consider the vlog to be their day job. Some of them are making enough to call it a day job. More power to them.

Notes

Why didn't Hitler drink alcohol? Because it made him mean.

There was a soccer game in England that was the most expensive game in human history. The combined salaries of both teams players is something like $850,000,000. That is over twice any two given American football or baseball teams.

A bunch of people are getting bounced when trying to contact our work email. I hate this because I have no idea what is going on. It almost looks like there is a setting on their end that needs to be changed to allow more time for a connection.

I've thrown out my left shoulder. I'm pretty sure I had a nerves tick in both shoulders that has permanently ruined my shoulders. Now my left arm has places in the range of motion where I feel a stabbing pain. Not every time. Sometimes I can move my arm in a full circle (You know what I mean) and feel normal. Some days it is just agony. I've woken up trying to roll over or pull up the covers from a stabbing pain. Great. One more thing that is happening to me as I age.

Harrison Ford worked as a carpenter on George Lucas' house before getting in to acting.

Shelf trouble

Putting the shelves together was a snap. With these shelves, you don't need any tools. You screw a couple rods together and snap a few plastic bits together. The balancing act to get the first shelf started is not nearly as much a pain in the ass as the other shelves I've done several sets of. There are still a couple sets to put together. They should be fun at this rate.

There was this little vertical line down one of the tracks. It was a zero length clip. I'm not sore how it was created, but it was nearly impossible to get rid of. I had to open and close the program to get it to show up in a way I could get rid of it. This took about half an hour to figure out.

This was also related to a ghost clip that would not go away. At some point, I removed a clip from the time line and the rest of the project acted like it was still there. I couldn't move clips around the way I wanted and things were aching strangely.

It turns out you can't make a transition across a bunch of grouped clip. Thus, I had to learn how to set guides and rip those guides to a separate external clip. Then, add the clip and use it as my picture in picture clip. Lesson learned.

By the time I figured out how to make it work I was running so late that I didn't care much for making the length of the two clips match. I basically just gave up and stuck one to the other. Then, hit rip. I tried using webm for this project. The final is webm, but the intermediate clip had to be mp4. Not sure why, but the process ate all the memory of my computer and ground it to a halt. The final rip did no such thing. I bet it is just the speed setting that is throwing off the webm rip software. Not sure.

Glad it is done. Can't wait for the next one.

Polish WRC driver

Are these two married?

Shelves

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Title	Shelves
Description	Trying to clean up the house. Got some shelves to help organize.
Tags	shelves organize house home cleanup family Canon PowerShot SD940IS Houston Texas
Link	Link

They held on

What did you think was going to happen?

You know, these guys are Russian. I have to say, that sounded like quite a hit. Neither guy let go. Wonder if those gloves are sown on to the bar.

Oops

This is a mobile artillery piece. They are not known for their ... mobility or maneuverability. It almost looks like the trailer had a malfunction. The description was no help. I hope no one was hurt.

Truth

Saturday morning

Field	Data
Title	Just Another Saturday Morning
Description	Coffee, cats, sunshine. Life gets better, but not by that much.
Tags	Saturday morning cats scratch ears Community coffee making mess kitchen Canon SD940IS Houston Texas
Link	Link

Snap

When I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.10 the automatic snap to the side of the video and to other windows disappeared. I moaned and went on about my day.

For some reason, I decide to look in to it and find all these pages talking about switching window managers and modifying switches in the gnome-conf area (kind of like the windows registry) and such. It all looks far too complex to worry about.

Then, just as I'm about to say heck with it, one of the comments on one of the forums says something very complex about how to fix it and then says "or, you could hold down the shift key while dragging the window in Gnome."

Some of a bitch!!! It works. I hate it when the really simple answer is hidden by all the complex bullshit. Why is this not on the list of function keys in Gnome? Not on the list I found anyway. I tried alt and control. Why didn't I try shift?

I waisted a full fifteen minutes for research and another fifteen minuets of complaining in this blog on this subject. This is time I'll never get back. As a matter of fact, the annoying sound effects I make when the snap occurs inspired me to kill another hour making the following video for no good reason.

Field	Data
Title	Gnome window snap
Description	This is my first attempt at making a screen capture video. It actually works. Give me a break. I'm not good at it. How do you get the windows to snap to one another in Gnome? I used recordmydesktop with all default settings for this capture. Blog:
Tags	Linux Gnome X gnome-conf window snap stupid sound effects geek Canon SD940IS Houston Texas
Link	Link

Egypt

Hosni Mubarak May be a prick, but he is the best prick that the U. S. had in Egypt. He worked with the West on several fronts. Perhaps he was the one who recognized Israel. I can't remember. How funny is that to think about. One country basically say that another country does not exist because of the primary religion of that country.

I'm all for people standing up for their rights. I'm all about freedom. People should be aloud to have a chance at taking care of their own shit. They should have this right taken from them when their shit gets in the way of other people's shit. As long as people can keep their shit together and not hurt other people, they should be left alone and provided with support for the wrangling of said shit.

That said, the U. S. is headed down a road where our elected officials have taken advantage of their position to grease the groves for people to take care of themselves and they have decided that people should not be left to deal with their own devices. The mentality that says someone else should make your decisions for you is just wrong. When someone comes along and takes a position of power with the intent of making your decisions for you, that is abuse.

One tactic of taking your rights away is to change the definition of words. This is done to make things and thoughts and people who did not fit within the lines of a law, suddenly fit within the lines of a law that is already on the books.

Example. In some places in Europe, words are considered weapons. This means if you say something that someone else takes as an insult, it is similar to walking up and smacking them. Several people are on trial in Europe as I type over things they said about Islam. At the moment, if you read statistics about family abuse out loud, you can be charged with a crime.

Don't think this can't happen in the U. S.. It can and is on it's way.

Egypt cut the people off the internet. This was a huge mistake. This made the story larger than a bunch of people bitching about governmental rules. I wonder if it made the effort of toe people stronger because they had lost the ability to vent. What happens when you can't vent? Pressure builds up. What happens when you don't have intent? You get board and try to find something to do while in a pissed off mood. Eventually, the country is going to turn on the spigot back on.

Reasons not to cut your people off the internet

• People who were not really in to bitching about the government, are now in to bitching about the government, loudly, and have no outlet other than the streets.
• The rest of the world will sympathies with the people of your country because, hey, we all use the internet for everything and would be lost without. Now we sympathize with the big black hole in the internet.
• People will figure out ways to get around your block. People on the outside, as described above, will help, if only to eliminate the big black hole in the internet that makes their mouse hand itch.
• You are going to have to let the people back on at some point and the only thing on their minds will be bitching about the government and posting all the media they recorded during the outage.

The U. S. government would do well to consider these issues before obtaining an internet kill switch. I bet people in the U. S. would have the tech savvy and will to make the internet work in defiance of whatever the government said. How many companies and execs depend on the internet and constant access for everything. Yes, I've heard the excuse our government uses for wanting such a switch. I'm just not buying it.

An over all catastrophic kill switch will lead to the wont of a line item kill switch. First it will be things like child exploitation, then identity thieves. Next the gun will be leveled at spammers. First hard core porn then all pornography will be corralled to a place where viewer's fetishes can be tracked. From there, people who complain about the government or say that things have gone too far. Then, you will not be able to find some products online because lobby of one group have gotten another abolished from people's screens.

In the beginning of radio, a long time ago, any one could open up a station. Then, people said things that other people didn't like. Then the government stepped in. Now, one company controls the vast majority of all terrestrial radio. Everything sounds the same and the same opinion is spoken everywhere. Think you not that the exact same thing will not happen to the internet when the first domino falls.

Much better opinion than mine.

Yesterday

There was no Mission Log yesterday. I really should have written one. Allow me to sum up.

Got up early. Went to DPS (Department of Public Safety) in Richmond Rosenberg. We got there are around 08:00 to read the sign that said "opening at 10:00 weather permitting." Went and got breakfast at McDonald's. The coffee was more chicory than coffee. We went back to DPS and waited in the cold for about half an hour. By the time the doors opened, the line was about fifty people long. We were in and out in less time than I thought. It still took a bit. Nat made it go much faster. The print on those forms is like looking at a flea circus.

After that, I didn't write a blog entry. Not sure why. I also wanted to do a video response to a video about sunglasses. I was planning on talking about my fit 9over sunglasses. It just didn't happen.

Mission Log

This morning was cool and crisp. The air felt clean. I could see my breath five feet out of my mouth. It was light traffic and wonderful. It didn't feel like Houston at all. The wind was not blowing. My cheeks were very cold by the time I got on the bus, but I didn't care. The news was running a story about how Houston is one of the most angry cities in the U. S.. They spoke of traffic issues. I say every one should have to walk in to work and take the bus for a day. It should be a cold rainy day. One of those days that really suck. Not like today.

Lunch

Skipped it.

Afternoon

Ate $1 worth of junk from the snack bar. As junk goes, this was not so bad. At $0.25 a piece, I got one packet of vanilla cookies, one packet of cheese crackers, and two peanut bars that remind me of lighter versions of PayDay bars. All in all, the experience was not nearly as unhealthy as some past snacks.

Then came tea time. I really like tea time. We spoke of bread makers vs making it by hand. Tea, of course. Some work stuff came up. We mentioned some of the regulars who didn't show up. Nothing bad. We just missed them was all. To be honest, it is difficult to concentrate after teatime on a Friday. However, I defend tea time on the front that it used to be after lunch that held this distinction. Perhaps tea time whittles that logy period down to only a couple of hours in which to clean up after a busy week and leave things set up for Monday.

Evening

Boring. Ate at Fud Rudker's. Posted blog. Yadda.

Shaving helmet

No idea if this is a fake or real. Interesting idea. It looks difficult and messy to clean.

Honey strings

Caught this by accident. Really cool little production the guy has going on. He is quite the presenter. I hope he gets tons of sales off this.

Mission Log

Before lunch

The local news warned of a cold front with rain coming in to the Houston area around noon today. They reminisced to five days ago when the last freezing rain hit the area and warned of a something similar, but not nearly as intense. This morning I wore my jacket and rain slicker on the walk to the bus stop. The only moisture came from over spray off the road. It was almost too warm for both outer ware and yet too cool for just the slicker. I imagine this will not be a problem this afternoon.

Someone blew their nose all over the window next to the seat I sat in. Fortunately, I didn't have to get near it. Wander why no one rides the bus unless they have to in this town. The only other thing I can think of regarding the bus ride in this morning is that not one word was uttered except to the bus driver in a business sense. Not one chat. Not one how-do-you-do.

I actually went out to lunch with some of the guys. That is a rare thing for me to do because I'm trying to keep the expense to a minimum. Before we hit the door, we were saying we wanted to go about 300m away for lunch. Thirty seconds after exiting the building we decided to cut it to about 80m. Good food regardless.

Lunch Conversation

• How bad we had it back in the day on days off at work. These whippersnappers just don't know how bad it was back then.
• TV shows about cooking and cooks yelling at each other.
• Snow flakes and general weather related banter about how no one watches local news for the weather any more. That is all I watch any more.
• Putting down the pencil on your last final at collage and driving straight to your first day of work. Several people have done this at our company.
• I have a G1, the Edsel of smart phones.
• Someone doesn't like booths.
• Something about DnD having been boring or taking too long or something. I was munching by then.

Again, no discussion that I caught about video games. I wander if I'm just blocking it out.

After Lunch

I took off from work early to hit the locksmith. I got a funny key copied. Then, Nat and I went to Walgreen's for a passport photo. Funny how long that takes. I can't go straight to turn in the paperwork because I need to get my ID renewed. I just expired on my most recent birthday. When it rains it poors.

Ate some Chinese food. Nat says this white sauce that she got in place of soy sauce is great.

Taking at least the morning tomorrow to get my ID updated and take care of some paperwork. It is just one of those things you have to do to stay alive these days. I can't renew online for some reason. Wish me luck.

Ouch

That is a hard hit. It looks like the person driving was at least alive at the end of the video. I hope he had a ride home.

Camera

I keep looking at video cameras. I have adequate video cameras. The only thing that I do not have access to is an HD camera that will shot videos longer than about 50 minutes.

Requirements

Wide angle lens. I hate the external lens I got for the Flip. It is like a turd in the punch bowl. It is also blurry around the edges. Most of the cameras out there have a 35mm equivalent viewing angle. The camera I have, a Canon 940IS has a 28mm equivalent lens. Lower is wider. The GoPro Hero has a wide angle lens, but it has too many drawbacks.

Shooting time is a must. If I do get another camera any time soon, it will have an unlimited shooting time. I want to place it somewhere just shooting and come back in a couple hours and find out what I did or did not capture.

Audio that doesn't suck. I really like the GoPro cameras except the audio makes everything sound like it is sitting in the bottom of a toilet. Stereo would be nice. An external mic jack would be even better.

Other stuff

• Small.
• Good battery life.
• Water proof.
• Shock proof.
• Fits in a pocket.
• Maybe if it didn't look like a camera.
• Low light would be nice.
• Multiple mounting options.

Something I don't seem to give a rat's ass about is still picture quality.

Conclusion

You know, if it had better audio, I would be talking about the GoPro Hero. The audio kills it. It is a bit high priced. The GoPro cameras are worth it for all the go and do stuff types.

I need to get more and better use out of the cameras I have. There is nothing stopping me from getting more our of them than I am at the moment. I'm thinking I will start with "more" and then work on the "better".

Mission log

When I walked in to the bus stop this morning I noticed the smell of coffee and eggs from the local donut shot more than I would normally. It is torture. It is a evil habit getting used to buying breakfast. it leads to buying lunch. Which, leads to eating way too much junk and spending way too much money.

The job is stressful and getting to me. I'm in IT. The most stressful thing I do is deal with vendors outside the company. They are all out to screw you. They deliberately set their system up to make the laziest set of defaults the most expensive and the most annoying from a privacy standpoint. It is getting to the point you have to do extensive research on every little thing just to make sure you are getting what you asked for.

Cheryl brought homemade brownies. Heck of a gal.

I was supposed to go by the lock smith's today and get one of those barrel keys made. It turns out no one does those keys. They are specialty. They are common enough that you would think you could find them all over the place. Even bicycle locks have them. Oh, well.

Worked, hard, all day. No time for anything else.

Skipped lunch. Right about 14:45 or so I got a chance for a break, but I had to help someone with their password. It was the only time they could get away from their work. This is supposed to be break time. No such entity for the IT guy. Par for the course. I looked at my time card. It was the middle of last week since I took a lunch. Need to make a mends.

At 16:00 I heard myself say that I was leaving in an hour. It is normally bad luck to utter this out loud.

Test video

This was kind of fun. I learned how to do picture in picture with KDENLive today. It is pretty easy once you do it five or six times. This rings true with most special effects. One thing that kind of ticks me off is you can't place or size the videos with numbers. You can only place them by dragging them. Nor, can you keep aspect ration properly in the smaller videos. You basically have to eye-ball it. Perfect task for a legally blind videographer.

The second rotation would not work. It kept shoving the video off in the weeds and making it look like a broken windshield. So, I had to flip it vertically. This means it looks backwards. That is better than upside down. If it weren't for the flipping rotation issue, this would have gone much faster. Now I know not to try two timelapses in the same video.

What else do I have to do on a Super Bowl Sunday afternoon?

Field	Data
Title	Picture in picture timelapse
Description	I shot a couple of time lapses. The only way I can mount the camera is upside down from the visor. This means I have to do the following to get things to work. Speed up the videos. Rotate one of the videos, can't rotate both because the second one is all screwed up. Flip (vertically) the other video so it is at least discernible what it is. Add a transition for each video over the primary video.
Tags	2011 Family fun Super Bowl Sunday no football time laps Flip Mino HD Canon PowerShot SD940IS Houston Texas Missouri City Texas
Link	Link

Fun movie

Nat and I went to a show this afternoon. It was at Alamo. It was a sing along for The Princes Bride. I forget how much I love this movie. They had toy swords and bells to ring. They had good food, though I ate enough to make myself sick.

The rules we had were to quote as loudly as possible the lines we liked. Every time the scrawny guy said "inconceivable" we were supposed to slap our heads. This was the one I was good at. Every time someone kissed or they mentioned true love, we rang the little bells. It was a lot of fun.

Someone was crawling around in the walls just before the show. The sound was turned up loud. This was a good thing except for the shrieking eels. That one hurt a bit. It was better than having the sound cut out.

River crossing

My first thought was that this was an amphibious vehicle. Nope. Just a truck with a deep water kit on it. Russians are nuts.

Couldn't have said it better

Mistake!

Freezing rain in H-town

Field	Data
Title	Freezing rain in H-town
Description	Some random stuff that happened to me on the way to and from work. We had freezing rain in Houston. http://twitter.com/zhsy00001
Tags	ice rain freezing weather Housont Texas canon powershot sd940IS
Link	Link

Day

Nothing to say today. Every time I try to stop and jot down a note, I get sidetracked. It wasn't like I had people knocking my door down either. I left way too many things undone. I hate dates that feel unproductive.

To show what kind of day it was, here is an interesting bit of information. 34 out of 86 people at work today. That is a snapshot taken well after lunch. I spent most of my day setting up an XP machine. Again I rant about how much effect it takes to set up an XP box. I had to boot it under Ubuntu just to get the names of the devices that needed drivers. Pretty soon, there will be no drivers for these systems any more.

It wasn't easy to get in this morning. The curbs had ice on them so I had to avoid them. Most of the concrete in contact with the ground was fine. The exception was the parking lot across the street that always has thin layers of standing water. This is just asking to be turned in to a skating rink.

We did get a free lunch out of it. At least the heat was running. We got some snacks too. There was a little company get together over the Super Bowl hype. It was still fun. Less than half the company was there, but it appears the sports lovers made a good showing.

Annoying alerts

My work does this thing where they send out text messages every two hours to tell us whether or not to go in to work. Today is a horrible frozen rain kind of days. We get a text message at 07:00 telling us that the we are closed until 10:00. We will get another text at 09:00 for points after that.

First of all, I don't get the text messages. I tried telling them this yesterday because they sent out a test text. "Your number and phone company are on the list." No text messages. So I have to call someone. Bah!

That is nothing compared to the idea that I have to sit here ready at a moment's notice to head in to work and get half a day's work done. All I want to do is go back to bed and curl up under a pile of blankets.

They just reported that a lady gave birth in an ambulance after getting in to a wreck on the way to the hospital. Glad all are well. They can't get Life Flight in the air.

Flights are canaled all over the place. Nearly every freeway is closed in some place or other. The Galleria area looks creepy because the freeways are empty.

I'm craving donuts. No venturing out. Nothing resembling breakfast food in the house. I'm off to make something to eat and coffee. More to come, I'm sure. I'll just take vacation. It will crack my 4 wees, but what is it for if not for days like these.

Update

Field	Data
Title	What's up with Kelly?
Description	A quick update of what is going on in my life today.
Tags	skype covers camera Houston Texas canon powershot 940IS
Link	Link

Notes:

China has been blocking online content talking about Egypt. Someone said "the country next to Israel" and got in trouble. Basically China doesn't want their people to get any bright ideas or start comparing the two situations.

I didn't sleep worth a damn last night. I was up at 02:00 or so and never really went back to sleep. I wonder if the extra blankets that Nat put on the bed had anything to do with it. I'm just not used to being warm.

Wifi and mirrors

I would like to do some experimentation with mirrors and wifi access points. I have a friend who has a ton of mirrors in his home. He has gaping holes in his wifi coverage. I've read somewhere that you can cut wifi signal by using a small mirror right next to the antenna of your access point. I imagine the mirror needs to be just large enough to blank out the enter antenna.

This could come in handy at our work place. We have several wireless access points and some conflict. Even with channel shuffling, we have some issues. I wonder if there is something we could do with mirrors that would help or just get in the way. Honestly, most of the access points are near the outside of the building pointing inward. Any mirror play would simply cause holes of coverage.

Also, the mirror may just cause signal echoes. This would not help at all. The way my friend describes his wifi is "It comes and goes. You can watch the signal slowly climb, then slowly fall."

Wifi is a pain in the ass. I am IT at my work. Every five minutes I get a call that someone's wifi is on the blink. Typically, their computer has chosen to latch on to an access point miles away instead of the one sitting on their desk. There is no automatic roll like on mobile phones. With mobile phones, the tours have brains and tell the phone to switch to the next tour. I believe a signal is sent to the next tour to accept the phone as the transition happens.

Mission log

Morning commute

Walking in this morning was interesting. Our power went out while I was in the shower. Fortunately, we had enough hot water in the tank for me to finish. We have a gas water heater, but I don't think it works properly if the electricity is off. Finished my shower in the dark. I've done that for no good reason before so it was not a stretch for me. Kept right on shaving without missing a beat. I got dressed by flashlight. Kissed Nat and was out the door.

The traffic light up the street was out. It was not even blinking red. I had to wing it. I was happy to have my new brighter flashlight. I would have had to break out my Maglite and froze my hands off. The newer light is small enough to fit half way up my jacket sleeve and allow me to keep my hand mostly warm while using it.

Made it in to work just fine. The bus still had about the normal number of people on board. Most of the people from my neighborhood that was out of power do not ride the bus. It did smell like a wet dog. That is most likely a coincidence. The coldest part of the commute was waiting at the stop and crossing the street in front of the building. Not sure what is up with that.

Morning

Spent most of the morning with a pounding sinus headache. Dealt with user rights and connections to the network. Figured out who gets upgraded hardware. This kind of thing.

Then I get paged by the big boss. I'm at my desk. He just likes saying my name I suppose. I head over and hook up a computer for someone. This is normal. He wants things hooked up a specific way. This is not relay the most efficient way. I can't argue. I have to be very careful to choose my battles. This is normal, but highly desirable with my boss.

I need to verify that a wireless computer can still share printers. Access points may not allow two wireless devices to talk directly with one another.

Lunch

Skipped it.

Afternoon headache

The sinus headache has turned in to a full blown stumbling migraine quality cranial agony. I don't have anything to take for it except pain killers. They just don't do the trick on sinus headaches unless you follow them up with some kind of decongestant or the like. Why don't I carry these things with me? I have in the past. We were just at CVS, but they don't have the decongestants that do any good out on the shelves any more. You pick a card off the shelf and go ask about it and they say they don't have that in stock. Yes, that whole keeping people from supplying a meth-lab with cold medicine is really working out for the honest citizen with bad sinuses.

Oh, wait there are a couple pills in my bag. Score!. ... After about an hour, They are not really touching the dizziness, but they are helping the headache. Need to get some more. I hate to admit it, but this affected my productivity.

Afternoon

Spoke with a bunch of people about upgrading their work hardware. It never fails to crack me up how many people do not want to upgrade. It is a hassle. I do most of the work, but there is quite a bit on the victim's plate as well. Every one has files to move around. There is all kinds of software changes and possible hardware checks we need to do. Blah.

Someone came in to barrow a squirt of hand lotion. I'm a guy and have lotion in my office. If I don't have lotion available, my hands will crack to the point they bleed. This is bad for electronic equipment. So, I keep some on hand. News has gotten around. No big deal. It gives people an excuse to come by besides a problem with the network.

The rest of my afternoon was just IT crap. I couldn't tell you half the stuff that happened unless I go look at my log.

Tea time

I've discussed what tea time is at my work before. Recently, twenty or so people turn up. It is most of the software department. It is really cool to have a mass break where the primary point of being there is to drink something that I consider disgusting. I don't like real tea.

Conversation topics

• Tea, Brisk is blasphemous.
• Overalls/coveralls
• Warring two shirts
• Corduroy
• Who doesn't attend tea time
• Something about some TV shows
• I noticed how many people were on their phones.

I like the new tea time. I like the five different conversations going on. I like the fact that it lasts about fifteen minutes.

Going home

It was cold on the way home. I stopped at CVS to get some day time cold medicine. I shot some footage of me just complaining. I might put it up. I might not.

An amazing thing happened. When I walked in the bedroom to drop off my coat and bag I noticed the bed was made. I have to say that the bed hasn't been made more than a total of like five days since we moved in. Nat was concerned with my well being because of the rolling blackouts. How wonderful is this?

Wonder why they hate us

Yup. We do manufacture something in this country after all. This is a teargas can being used to oppress the Egyptian people. How many are used on Americans? How many will be used on Americans when the store shelves get a bit slight here in the States?

I got an angle

That Poor Camera FAIL - watch more funny videos

Ya, you have an angle in the middle of your nose.

Camera people go through this sort of crap all the time. They sarofice their own safety for the image. I've seen a guy take a really nasty tumble over a chair while following a politician through a hall way. I've seen a guy slide down a hill ass over elbow while filming a rare beast of some kind. This is small potatoes.

I found this on Fail Blot in case you couldn't tell.

Kid drives bike

This brings back memories. Ask my parents about it some time.