Work, Work, Work

As in the reason why I haven't blogged in almost two full weeks. I ended up going right back to Arizona the next week (for totally different and more time-consuming reasons) and this week, I've been out and about around San Antonio. But, don't worry. I managed to get a few photos done and they'll be some more posts this weekend.

Now, in the full post we have: "Arizona, The Sequel" and "Patterns I found while traveling around San Antonio for meetings"

Teaser: WARNING! This painting is NOT a hidden picture trick. Letting your eyes go out of focus will cause permanent damage.
From the baggage claim area of the Tucson Airport. It's called "Expanding Universe".

For this trip, we stayed on the Mexico side of the border. The hotel was cheap and had a fantastic restaurant in it. I greatly prefer Sonora style Mexican food to Monterrey style. For one thing there's more vegetables involved.

The rooms also possessed industrial strength heaters. These were unfortunately necessary. My last morning there is was 19F!

Another highlight of the hotel....Even with the relatively plain rooms, I still hit upholstery gold:

We didn't really have time to engage in any tourist activities this time around. But I managed to snap some pictures on the drive from AP to the airport.

Here's a much better picture of the mine entrances in Bisbee:
Last time, I drove through around sunset or sunrise so all my photos came out a bit dark.

One benefit of this trip is that I got to appreciate the view along I-10. Last time, I drove so I couldn't really gawk at the scenery, which is quite nice:
There's actually one bit that was much prettier but I didn't manage to get any good pictures of it because we were changing lanes so much. There were trains in the distance and everything...Darnit.

In the category of "I can't believe I missed THAT last trip", here's a sculpture from the Tucson airport:
Because, as sculptors have long known, nothing says "art" like a gignormous copper horse. Quite striking but those turquoise eyes were a bit freaky.

With the recent cold snap, I saw something surprising out my airplane window on the way back:
Actual snow-capped mountains! To a native Texan such as myself, these are a rare sight.

After the Arizona trip, I was all set for a nice relaxing week in the office. This was not to be. However, in addition to traipsing across town for meetings, I also made some interesting discoveries around San Antonio.

One day, we were out to lunch with a supplier and I noticed the carpet.
There was a valiant attempt to surreptitiously take this picture but the second it flashed, everyone at the table turned to me. One of the guys visiting from Mexico asked "What are you doing?". By the time I was done explaining, everyone was looking at me funny.

Also, after the meetings were done, we had to drive some visiting co-workers to their hotel. JACKPOT!

The second I walked in, before I even took my gloves off, I was digging for my camera. By this point, my co-workers had slipped into amused tolerance. Seriously, though aren't those patterns insane? And these were just the lobby.

Hopefully, I don't have to travel next week. My goal is to spend more than two days straight in the office for the first time since the New Year. We shall see.....

Link to full post.

Arizona - January 2008 part 2

Here's the second post on my recent Arizona trip. Unfortunately, most of the rest of my trip was spent engaging in (gasp) work. Most touristy type activities close before 5pm which is usually before I was off work. But I did manage to have a little bit of fun here and there.

Link to part one. (visits to Kratchner State Park & the Queen Mine Underground Tour)

Teaser picture: Arizona sunset....


In full post I discuss: The Lavender Pit Mine in Bisbee, On the Road to Agua Prieta, La Frontera, Tombstone, and Tucson Hotel Decoration.

I had to drive through Bisbee a couple more times when going to the border and back to my hotel. Totally aside from the mines, there's some fabulous scenery. North of Bisbee the hills aren't as colorful but at sunset, the exposed rock practically glows.

There's also a short tunnel through a hill:

Back in Bisbee, on the other side of the mountain from the mine tours, there’s the old pit mines. The mountains of either side of the road become Technicolor:

The pit mine is actually two pits. The largest is called “The Lavender Pit”. One cool thing: when you’re driving on 80-South, Bisbee has a scenic view on the side that looks over the main pit. Unfortunately, someone's vandalized the historical plaque:

Ugh, punks.

Aside from that, the scenic view is really nice. Whoever built it was considerate enough to have camera-sized holes cut into the chain link fence so you can get unobstructed pictures. And you do need that fence, less than 3ft past it the ground just drops away. I could only stop in the early morning on my way to the plant but it’s a truly majestic view:



Note the size of buildings in the last picture. Sorry about the last one being so dark; the sun was rising behind the mountains and it overwhelmed the view a bit. Also, if you look at the first two photos in full size, they are a little blurry. My camera wasn't able to focus on the other side of the pit because the other side was too far away.

Across the highway and just past the Lavender Pit, three large semi-circular structures loom over the road.


I think these are medium-old mine entrances, maybe from mid-1900s? They look too recent to be from the late 1800s and the style reminds me vaguely of WWII bunkers.

Also, in South Bisbee, there’s a round-about! These aren’t very common in the US and certainly not in rural areas so I was a bit surprised to see it.

On the way to Douglas after you get clear of the mountains around Bisbee, there’s a gravel production facility of some kind. They are basically grinding up one of the hills out there. Right now, the hill appears like a real-world section view:

Right off SH80 where I took the above photo, there's a historical marker:


As a Texan, it’s difficult for me to adjust to the fact that there is no natural boundary, like the Rio Grande between the USA and Mexico. When I crossed into AP, I reflexively had my money out for a toll bridge that does not exist in Arizona. There’s just a little light for Mexican Customs Inspections.

Honestly, would you believe this fence keeps people out?

Yeah, me neither...The lack of natural boundrary makes waiting in line at the border a bit surreal:


On the way back to Tucson, you can drive through the famous Tombstone. I wanted to get a picture of the OK Corral but it was dark by the time I drove through. Besides, the OK Corral is walled off.

Yep, the OK Corral is completely enclosed. My first thought was “They fenced in the OK Corral?! Blasphemy!” My second thought (imagine in a know-it-all tone): “Technically, it’s always been enclosed. That’s why it was called a corral.” And there’s a reason for the walls. There’s a reenactment show that reproduces the famous shoot-out inside the corral for tourists. I don't suppose they either want people injured or watching without paying.

Tired and a little bit sick of Arizona, my hotel in Tucson was a wonderful surprise. The patterns were just the sort of out-of-control madness I love. It was a nice pick-me-up. Here's the hallway carpet:

Even the elevators got in the action with a wild combination of textures:

The hotel room had two different kinds of chairs. Easy chairs:

And the desk chairs:

And finally, the bedspread

Needless to say, my collection of upholstery patterns is delightfully larger after this trip.

My flight out of Tucson was too early Friday morning for me to be snapping pictures. But, while waiting for my connecting flight in Dallas, I noticed something across the aisle:

This sucker's huge. You can literally walk through it!

An hour later, I was back in San Antonio. All in all, the trip was quite enjoyable as far as work-required travel goes.

Link to full post.

Arizona – January 2008 part 1

As promised, here's the first of two posts on my trip to Arizona this week. I actually went to visit our plant in Agua Prieta, Mexico but it’s absolutely beautiful country and I don’t get to go out there very often so I made a special effort to enjoy and document it. In between work stuff, I did a couple touristy activities. Warning! There are a LOT of pictures in the full post. I went a little bit crazy.

But first as a teaser, here’s the San Antonio Airport at O’Dark-Thirty in the morning.


Full post discusses Kratchner Caverns/StatePark and Queen Mine Tour in Bisbee AZ OR “Things to do in Cochise County When You Have a Day to Kill”.

I’ll admit I was a bit concerned when I first boarded the plane for AZ. The flight used the same type of aircraft (Embraer Emb145) we use to go to Monterrey Mexico and those suckers are always really noisy (in an “I can’t sleep b/c it sounds like the plane will fall out of the sky any minute” kinda way). However, ExpressJet apparently keeps them in a bit better condition because it was a nice, quiet flight.

Unfortunately, I got to Arizona a little early. I couldn’t check into my hotel until at least 11am. So I stopped on the way to Sierra Vista at Kratchner State Park and took a tour of the caves there. They have two cave tours (The Big Room & The Throne Room/Rotunda). I did the first one available, the Throne Room/Rotunda.

Kratchner caverns are apparently quite special because they are still “growing” (ie - wet). You have to travel through 3 sets of steel doors just to get in. In one of these sections you have to remove your glasses off so they don’t fog up due to the moisture added to the air. They also did something interesting in that lights were only turned on for very short stretches at a time in order to minimize their impact on the cave. And, for the Throne Room, instead of just pointing and lecturing, this tour had some rows of benches built in and they just played music while the lights went on and off all around the cave. This gave you a real appreciation for the structures without being preachy. In a couple of spots, all the lights were out for brief moments which I found a little disconcerting. Overall, the tour was very cool and the tour guide managed to be interesting, funny and knowledgeable. However, they don’t allow cameras in the caves so you’re just going to have to trust me.

To make up for the lack of cave pictures, I drove around the park for about 10-15 minutes getting pictures of the scenery. Most of the park is only accessible via hiking trail. I actually considered hiking a bit until I came to the bulletin board at the trail base. “How to Survive In Mountain Lion Country” was all the convincing I needed to snap pictures within sight of the parking lot. From a little past the trail base, you can look into the main mountains of the park:


Along the trail, there were tons of rather large prickly pear cacti. We have these in Texas but the “leaves” don’t get quite so big. Here’s one with my hand for scale:

As is typical the hiking trail was lined with rocks. But someone (perhaps intentionally) included several rocks with flecks of mica. These sparkled wonderfully in the sunlight and I expect it would make them easier to find in the dark.


From the park to Sierra Vista, there’s a panoramic dream of scenery. I snapped a few photos while driving (which I in no way recommend and only should do it when there’s not another car in sight). Arizona State Highway 90, going South:



In a weird change of pace, the upholstery in my hotel room was pretty tame. Perhaps Southwestern aesthetics lean toward some restraint in this area? The only potential candidate for my pattern collection was this golden bedspread:

Even the drapes were drab. I can usually count on those for absolute interior decorating insanity.

After checking in with the plant, I had a whole afternoon to kill. So I decided to drive about half-way to the US border which just happened to be the town of Bisbee which just happened to have a tour of the historic Queen Mine which just happened to be starting about the time that I got to Bisbee. Yep, that’s my story...

Bisbee is a former mining boom-town that now makes its bread and butter in tourism. It’s certainly picturesque.

And due to the ores present, the surrounding hills are all the colors of the rainbow.


The Queen Mine Underground Tours is in Bisbee right off the Hwy 80 (less than 50 yards from the road). The visitor’s center is the embodiment of rustic inside-&-out. It doesn’t even have restrooms inside; they’re in a separate building (and when I say “building” I mean “unheated brick construction of indeterminate age”).

They do have some historical markers and old-school prospecting equipment lying around outside if you want to wander the parking lot.

This is not a tour for the faint of heart. You have to sign a safety waiver when you purchase your ticket and they hand out equipment for you to wear during the tour. You don’t even get to put it on yourself; they do it for you! For example:

I’m really glad they give you hard hats. I hit my head twice. No damage or anything but those things are 100% necessary (no matter how dorky they make you look).

The railway you ride into the mine isn’t your typical tourist set-up either. It’s on rails but you have to straddle a padded bench seat that runs the length of each car. Why? Because the tunnels aren’t wide enough for a regular-sized tram. Going into the mine, you can definitely understand why the railcars are so thin:

There’s 3 stops inside the mine. Each is at a deeper point. The first isn’t that impressive to look at:

It’s just a side tunnel. But what makes it interesting is the tour guide's explanation. This is a type of tunnel called a "mildred"; it is a hand-made tunnel of quite specific dimensions. Very rough cut looking and it goes back a good distance.

The second stop involved getting off the tram something like a lo-tech subway station (all wooden timbers and rock walls). You go up a flight of stairs to enter into a “stope”. These openings are man-made, where ore was removed over the years until it forms a huge room. The guide pointed out different types of rock and explained how the miners worked. Here he is explaining a type of drilling device:

This is a close-up of the rock formation you see behind him in the above picture.

The center gray material is something called galena, a lead-rich ore. The outer layers are hematite, an iron-rich rock (I think). I couldn’t get a picture but they also had some beautiful streaks of green malachite in the ceiling. Here’s the stairs back to the tram:

Along the tracks, there were occasional side tunnels or shafts leading down.

The final stop was at a large branching off point. Our guide pointed out one tunnel labeled “for tour guides only”. He said it was the evacuation/ventilation tunnel in case something caved in while we were down there which was..good to know. Several other side tunnels were roped off:

I’m not quite sure they needed signs to tell them that there was no track in a tunnel? Also, at various points they had signs up reading “Surface This Way” (just in case you get lost).

At the last stop, we walked down a side tunnel with tons of different kinds of equipment which the guide explained how was used when the mine was operational. Here’s him explaining how they set charges to blast out a new tunnel:

And here’s a picture of the cage elevator used to lower 8 men at a time down almost half-a-mile!

There’s a side room to the left of the cage which had different kinds of loading equipment and something that got a real laugh. Here’s an early 1900’s version of the porta-potty:

Seriously, if you were in a freezing cold mine would you really want to use a metal toilet? That could not be comfortable. Off to the side was another tunnel which had caved in about 80 ft in. Then our guide asked us to all turn out lights off so we could understand how someone could go blind working down there. We were in total darkness for about a minute with the guide talking and then we all quickly turned our Edison lamps back on.

On the ride out, I noticed lots of streaks of yellow (sulfur) in the walls of the tunnels but I couldn’t get a good photo because we were going too fast.

I would just like to that the Queen Mine tour-guide was exceptional. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t get his name. At first he was a little hard to understand but once he got going, WOW. He had worked for 30yrs as a miner so in addition to the required knowledge about the older equipment and the history of this mine, he made a lot of comparisons between older versus modern practices and provided lots of historical context for this particular mine’s history. He also handled questions very well.

Overall this tour was just a little bit scary but well worth it. While the Kratchner caverns were perfectly satisfactory, this tour was easily the best experience of my trip (and less expensive at $13 with tax).

So ended my first day in Arizona...

In my next post for this trip: La Frontera, Bisbee’s Lavender Pit Mine, Scenic Arizona and Wacky Hotel Patterns from Tucson (jackpot!).
Link to part 2.

Link to full post.

WORD!

Because very few things annoy me more than 9/11 conspiracy theorists....

Link to full post.

Back from Traveling *is tired*

Sorry for disappearing all week....I've been out of town for work. There's a gignormous photo essay in development on "Things To Do In Arizona When You're Not In Mexico." Until that post is ready, here's a weird animal story to tide you over.

Mr. Potato Head, even invertebrates love him!

This makes me feel slightly guilty for the sting ray soup I had while in Mexico this week.

Link to full post.

2008 Personal Enrichment Goals

After last year’s trial run, I have high hopes for this year’s list. These build on some of the goals from 2007 but it’s a much more challenging list. Frankly, there’s one or two goals that flat-out terrify me. But, that’s what personal growth is all about, right? *nervous smile*

Full post has list of goals and brief descriptions. Total in list is 21. (Yikes!)
There’s three categories of goals: Work, Study & Self-Improvement

I. Work

1) Attend "Basic PM" Short Course by MPIF: The MPIF has an excellent 3 day course on powdered metal (PM) parts for people who purchase or design them. I’m really excited about this as PM isn’t a material category that was really focused on in my Engineering Material courses.

2) Attend at least 1 class through Company University: It depends on my schedule but there are several classes offered that interest me. I’ll probably do this toward the end of the year.

II. Study

3) Study Command Line And Scripting: While Ubuntu is perfectly functional without command-line knowledge, I think it would be good to learn for several reasons. It would make me less susceptible to someone recommending a malicious command to me. And this type of interface is common to all Linux distributions even if there’s variation in some of the commands. Knowing the CL broadens the places I can apply my knowledge.

4) Take NISD Class “Intro to HTML”: This is to help me get some basic knowledge. I’m really just looking for enough to interpret and possibly tweak my weblog template.

5) Must read 20 Non-fiction Books: This is under study because (I hope) reading more non-fiction will expose me to a variety of topics. My parents were kind enough to get me several books for Christmas so I have enough reading material to get through over half of this requirement.

6) Begin Process of Linux-Professional Certification: This is a maybe. If I can take the first exam ("101") over the web, I definitely will go that far at least. This would be a good way to test the studying I do for Goals 3 and 8. My eventual goal would be for a Junior Level Certification so I'd only need one more test to do that.

7) How do I Set-up A Charitable Endowment?: I have a number of long-term charity goals so I’d like to have a bit more understanding of how to structure my finances for those goals.

8) How do you build an (GUI?) application in Ubuntu?: Not really a goal so much as a question. There’s two or three applications I’d like for Ubuntu and no one appears to be developing them. If I can answer this, perhaps next year I’ll add creating those applications to my PE list.

9) Take a First Aid / Emergency Aid Class: This didn't get done in 2007. It strikes me as a hugely important skill so it stays on the list until it gets done. At the very least, I’d like to get CPR certification.

10) Teach Myself: Controls Engineering: Note how vague this is. Controls was the one engineering course I did incredibly poorly in. No amount of studying helped me very much. So, I bought a different textbook because the old one makes me freeze in terror. I don’t plan to go through the whole thing this year but if I get through about 1/3 of the chapters, I’ll be quite satisfied.

III. Self-Improvement

11) Take First-Level Test for Krav Maga: Must be done before end of the year. This is in service to my longer-term self-defense goals. I’ll have to start attending more classes. But hopefully, I’ll be able to give it a shot.

12) Make At Home & On-the-Go Disaster Kits: Last year in my area, there was an ice storm and record-level rains due to hurricanes disintegrating over San Antonio. While I have some of the expected disaster survival materials, they are scattered throughout my apartment. I’d like to have everything in one, easy-to-locate bag.

13) Update to Gutsy Gibbon Ubuntu: Currently I'm at Feisty Fawn. This will likely be the first thing I complete. I’m already reading through update threads in the Ubuntu forums to get see what the typical problems are. Once I feel OK to handle typical problems, I’ll back-up my install and update.

14) Develop Better Financial Tracking: Specifically to track non-salary income (like from interest, etc). I do put it into my budget (somewhere) but I plan to do some financial restructuring this year and I’d like to keep a better eye on things.

15) Get Laser Eye Treatments: Kinda terrifying. Even though not wearing glasses would be great, I have trouble picturing my face without glasses on it. They've been a key feature since I was six. I’m going to have to spend a couple months talking myself into this.

16) New Plants for Patio Garden: I tend to plant the same seven or eight plants every spring. So, this year I’m going to mix it up a bit. Try some new things. I need to go browsing in Home Depot to get some ideas.

17) Maintain Weblog: And not just maintain. I have a tentative list of improvements I’d like to make as well as a goal of 20+ posts each month. I think the minimum posting will be straightforward, but the improvements will require some preparation.

18) Go Skydiving: GULP. Exceptionally terrifying. This is my “OMG-Am-I-Crazy?!” goal. A friend did this recently after swearing never to and she had a ball. At some point in my life, I would really like to travel into outer space. This would pretty tame in comparison with that.

19) Be Sociable: Wildly general, isn’t it? But I really do have trouble interacting with people especially those I don’t know very well. Even doing something as simple as commenting on someone else’s blog results in some anxiety. So, I’m hoping I can make more of an effort to engage in activities which require interaction with people outside my circle of friends/coworkers.

20) Support the WGA Strike: Since the strike probably going to be a long-haul, I’m going to do what I can to support it. I’ll maintain my original strike prohibitions AND, if possible, I may additionally support it financially through donations/purchases of Strike Swag. Also, if there’s enough warning, I’d seriously consider attending a Fan Picket Day for either “Bones” or “Supernatural”.

21) Purchase Google OS Phone: This is of course dependent on availability. Due to the horror stories surrounding contracts and phones, I’ve purposely avoided any cell phone beyond the plain old pay-as-you-go kind. My current cell had no camera, music playback or other fancy features. I figure learning a more complicated phone would be good for me and I like the idea of using an Open-Source phone that I can change as I like.

Dear God, this list is intimidating! But if I can have just one or two experiences as fun, educational and fulfilling as my switch to Ubuntu in 2007, I’ll consider it a good year.

Link to full post.

(Slightly Belated Post) On Holiday Reading

Although I took a couple non-fiction books to my parents’ house and received some more as gifts, I only read sci-fi over the holiday. Based on this and my Thanksgiving reading I apparently have some kind of mental block toward reading non-fiction while on vacation. Anyway, in the full post are my reviews of the following:

“Deep-Six” & “Omega” by Jack McDevitt
“Accelerando” by Charles Stross

1) “Deep-Six” & “Omega” by Jack McDevitt. I think I have a new favorite sci-fi writer. I loved both of these books immensely. These are set in the same Universe as “The Engines of God” and “Chindi”. McDevitt always has a great plot with solid characters. I especially like how many strong (and varied) female characters there have been in this Universe. As always, the conflicts are presented in such a way that their complexities, resolutions and explanations are deeply engrossing. For ‘”Deep Six”, even though I knew the main character would survive (this is set before “Chindi”) I was on the edge of my seat in the final pages. How is this guy not better known? Definitely worth reading.

2) “Accelerando” by Charles Stross. I’m not sure how to describe this book, but here goes...It’s like watching a horror movie in a fun-house mirror while on LSD. Somewhat loosely structured, it's more like a collection of related (and set in chronological order) short stories showing one possible future for humanity. The plot centered around the much-talked about Singularity and how it all could go horribly wrong. The characters are all unique but appear as coherent, viable personalties (as opposed to loose collections of eccentricities in lieu of characterization). It was especially effective in demonstrating how overwhelming "future shock" can be. As something of a technophile and sci-fi fan, I like to think myself immune to such an emotional reaction. Mr. Stross clearly demonstrates even the most happening, up-to-the-minute gadget junkie can get swamped in something like a singularity. I enjoyed it but it was a deeply unsettling read. I waited on this post specifically to let it sink in a little.

Link to full post.

The Debate Over Active SETI

Recently, Centauri Dreams has hosted some absolutely fascinating discussion about how to determine the threat to Earth from broadcasting messages to the cosmos. Check it out: “Active SETI & The Public” and “San Marino: Assessing Active SETI’s Risk” (don't skip the comments for either post).

One particularly eloquent commenter summed the problem:

It is arrogant in the extreme, for a small group of scientists to take upon themselves the responsibility of representing all 6 billion of humankind. Nobody has ever asked the citizens of the world whether they agree to their presence being broadcast far and wide. Regardless of whether contact with ETIs is completely benign or a profound discontinuity in our history, it is a step which should not be made unilaterally by a small group without the consent of a majority of our global civilization.

The great thing about Centauri Dreams is that often the actual scientists participate in the conversation. In this case, a Dr. Alexander Zaitsev actively responds to commenters (especially in the first post). Several others mentioned his “arrogant” tone but, based on my experiences with people speaking English as a Second Language, sometimes the informality of English is hard for non-native speakers even when they may be very articulate on technical matters. However, I very much agree that he has done an incomplete job of addressing with the political and social ramifications of Active SETI. The general response has been to say “Well, there’s no agreed way to choose someone to speak for all of Earth, so we’re not going to do it.” This seems to me a somewhat circular argument. At the very least, more effort could be made to start that conversation about how we go about choosing someone to speak “for all mankind”.

One thing I was quite surprised about (but when I thought about it made sense), it appears even our radar transmissions to track asteroids and comets could tip off an alien civilization that we're here. But I guess if our wayward radio signals can leak into space, then I should expect signals actually sent into space would be detectable as well. These radar signals would be unlikely to provide repeating or message-like signals but they would nevertheless be quite distinctive.

This has been an issue that bothered me for some time (see here and here) so I’m thrilled that someone is finally started to ask questions and have a conversation about how we, as a planet, would want to pursue this. Consider how once upon a time asteroid impacts were just a topic for scientists but are now discussed widely by people in a variety of professions and governments. I can only hope this discussion also successfully transforms into a wider debate.

Link to full post.

Music Overload

Between Christmas gifts and my own purchases, my music collection grew a great deal in the last half of December. Here’s a list of recent acquisitions:

I. CDS:
Cosmic Game by Thievery Corporation : AWESOME. Buy this CD!
Lemonade by G.Love : WOW. Interesting modern rockabilly blues.
Live from Austin Tx by Neko Case : Excellent. The world would be infinitely poorer without Austin City Limits.
Funeral by Arcade Fire : Also Excellent. As my brother would say “good chillin' music”.
Slash & Burn: The Best of the BoDeans by The BoDeans : Great. I’ve been a fan of these guys ever since discovering “Good Things” in college. Great group with a surprising number of songs I forgot I liked.
Harpo’s Ghost by Thea Gilmore : Very Good. Britain has been producing a lot more quality indie-pop lately. Ms. Gilmore is one of my favorties in the new crowd.
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case : Good. Not quite as good as the live album but a solid addition to my music collection.

At the rate I’ve been going I’m going to have to buy a bigger CD case soon.

II. MP3s (From Amazon)
"Already Gone" by The Eagles
"Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing" by Chris Isaak
"Blitzkreig Bop" & "Oh Oh I Love Her So" by The Ramones
"Genius of Love" by The Tom Tom Club
"Lonely No More" by Rob Thomas
"Snow (Hey Oh)" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
"You Get What You Give" by The New Radicals
"Around the World" by Daft Punk
"Fins" by Jimmy Buffet
"Life Is A Highway" by Chris Ledoux
"Black Horse & A Cherry Tree" & "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall
"Have Love Will Travel" by The Black Keys
"One Night In Bangkok" by Murray Head
"The Sinister Minister" by Bela Fleck & The Flecktones
"House Of The Rising Sun" by The Animals
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly
"Free And Easy (Down The The Road I Go)" by Dierks Bentley
"Knights of Cydonia" by Muse
"Mr. Tamborine Man" by The Byrds
"Yeh Yeh Yeh" by Melanie C
"Burning Down The House" by The Talking Heads

I think my music library might cross the 3000 song mark sometime this year. Whoa.

Link to full post.

Awesome Music Video

A couple years ago, I thought the music video may die out. MTV didn't play videos much anymore and VH-1 was more interested in music-documentaries. However, the medium is instead undergoing a bit of a revival. For example:

Link to full post.

2007 Personal Enrichment Goals

I decided to take a blogging break pretty much the last half of December. Now that 2007 is over and done...How did I do with my personal enrichment goals for the year (listed here)? Here’s the run down.

1) More Charity Work – FAIL. The point of this was to perform charity work in addition to financial donations. While my donations increased this year, I only performed one act of charity and that was the 5K Susan G. Komen Walk back in April.

2) Switch to Ubuntu – DONE. Very successful and a really enjoyable experience. I’ll be building on this further in 2008.

3) Take a Self-Defense Class – DONE (plus bonus). I completed a 6-week Krav-Maga course. Posts on the classes are here, here, here and here. In addition, I joined the gym that provides the classes.

4) UnClutter Apartment – DONE (partial). Most progress has been made in cleaning out my closet, re-organizing my physical/computer files, keeping my desk(s) tidy and cleaning (slightly) more frequently. I even managed at some point to dust (well, vacuum) my baseboards. Unfortunately, I ended the year behind on my cleaning so no full credit.

5) Start a Weblog – DONE. In addition to creating the blog, I’ve actually managed to do a few minor improvements and get pretty consistent at posting. I’m especially proud of the recent reduction in link-posts. I generally do these when I don’t have anything else to write about so a reduction means I’m generating more of my own content.

6) Be More Sociable – FAIL. This was an effort to be more social. Options were either an Astronomy or a shooting club. A visit to the SA area astro-group did not inspire and I’m not really ready for a shooting group. I get some partial credit for joining a gym and commenting more often on other people’s weblogs.

7) Take 1-2 Classes – FAIL. I signed up for a First Aid class. Unfortunately, it got postponed and rescheduled to conflict with my self-defense class. This will be on the 2008 list.

8) Re-plant Patio Garden – DONE. After months of neglect, I replanted last Spring. The garden is currently in extreme under-watering mode to avoid frost damage. I found that skipping watering or doing it very little helps protect some plants during a freeze. But I just did a litte bit of pulling and rearranging the patio.

9) Digital Photo Improvement – DONE. This was my sole add-on goal (added after writing the list). I’ve been taking a great deal more pictures (evidence in my PhotoBucket page). Also, they’re getting better. Still room for improvement.

The 2007 list was about half-completed (some items I didn’t list on this blog). Some of the incomplete items were due to too general/specific or discovered they weren't feasible (for instance – I had “teach myself Matlab” until I learned how friggin expensive a Matlab license was). Honestly, I consider 2007 a practice year. Part of this year’s list was convincing myself that a list of personal enrichment goals was feasible and something I would do. Both points are well-proven. The 2008 goals will be much more ambitious and (hopefully) with less flaws than the 2007 list.

Sometime in the next couple days, I'll post my (much more ambitious and kinda scary) 2008 Personal Enrichment Goals.

Link to full post.