cheap gas!

When I took this picture last March, we all though that gas was expensive. I also knew that years down the road I can pull this out and talk about how cheap gas was back in 2004. What I didn't realize was how fast it took. 33% increase in a year. Fantastic!

more destruction

So sometime around 2am Sunday night, half of the tree decided to fall down, missing the house (and my dad inside) by just a few feet.

Another angle...

View from the side of the house.

Yes, I'm standing on top of the thing looking down into it.

The "before" shot. The two branches and all the leaves were what fell.

want

If any of you are complaining about how you can't get a good view from the pics, I blame the camera. 35mm equivalent just doesn't cut it. So... next time I'll make sure that I'll have my DSLR so that I can get a nice shot at 28mm. Much wider angle... see more...

Then again, DSLR's don't exactly fit in my pocket when I travel. I *do* plan on getting some sort of bag/sack so I can use it when I hike. And yes, I will hike like crazy this summer. W. PA, WA, and Japan. Hell yeah. Er... might try to slip in VA, BC, and HI while I'm at it... HI only if I miss my flight and I get "stuck" there. That would actually suck a lot.

thanks bush

Knowing this, I'm happy I own a Nokia phone.

winter wonderland

My parents' backyard. Notice the limb(s) on top of the telephone lines. Nice!

Angle from camera 2.

Another limb. This one tried to take out the cable. Somehow our cable managed to survive the ordeal.

Some nice detail on this break.

aging gracefully

According to T-Mobile, this is how I'd look in 40 years. If you're curious to see how'd you look in 40 years (or after the sex change you've been saving up for), you can go check out their site.

overclock?

So after running my computer for about a year, I decided I should try to bring it back to spec...

A bit of background... here's what I bought originally:
AMD Athlon 2400+ Mobile (1.8GHz clock @ 1.45V)
1GB Mushkin RAM (400MHz DDR)

This is how I've been running it this past year:
1.4GHz @ 1.65V
RAM at 266MHz DDR

For those who don't know, that's just retarded, but remarkably stable. In other words, it's running way *slower* than it should be. CPU is 22% under it's prescribed speed, but using and extra 14% power (makes it more stable). RAM is running 33% under speed. It's like buying a sports car, driving under the speed limit, and putting in premium gas when regular would do just fine.

So today I'm fixing it. Back to spec. My computer should now be about 10-20% faster. Yay free upgrade. Boo being retarded.

At some point, I may even decide to overclock this thing (as I traditionally do). Maybe next year when I seek an additional free upgrade. I'm pretty sure I can get another 10-20% out of this (conservative estimate). Not out of line with the typical 40-50% that I've gotten in the past (Dual Pentium II 300MHz @ 450MHz, Duron 600MHz @ 858MHz).

i'm funny

I just found out today that I may have to add another destination to my 2005 travels. Penciling in St. Louis, Missouri for mid-June. That means...

Week 1: Trip to St. Louis (or maybe Chicago)
Week 2: Trip to Montreal
Week 3: Trip to Seattle
Week 4: Trip to Japan

Then maybe sometime in August go to India. And I'll somehow manage to miss elite status for my frequent flier program again... just because... And if I'm really greedy, I may get a random trip somewhere sometime in May? Which call center does Mississippi?

ipod = heart failure?

So I'm not sure what amazon.com is trying to say here. Are iPod owners more likely to suffer from heart failure? or is it just me?

another design

Not enough time to talk about the weekend (ask about 1040EZ and Zyng if you want details). But for your reading pleasure...

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/health/features/11700/index1.html

cops

At about 7:30pm tonight a cop rolled up across the street from our house. Me being me, I peeked out from behind the curtains to see if anything was up. The cop rolled down the window and sat there. Fine... I've got stuff to do. I'm not going to sit around and see what happens...

Now it's two hours later. I've seen at least two or three cars pulled over. I guess they're using tonight to enforce the infamous "double stop sign" that we have for our street.

An explanation...
Our street has a median. To go past it, you have to cross both sides of the street. Nothing special here, except for the fact that there's a stop sign in the middle. In other words, you'd stop twice while crossing. Keep in mind this is a side street with very little traffic... and the median is barely wide enough for you to stop without having part of your car sticking out.

But anyway, if you're ever driving by Washington on Cottage Grove, beware. You might get nailed.

neatness

Links compliments of the UPA.

HP researching new technique to save battery life while improving usability
For those of you who know Spanish - using your eyes to control the mouse

And for kicks, have any of you ever seen the Terminator movies? Thanks, DARPA!

get perpendicular

Does anyone have this song on MP3? I want to jam to it on my way to work. A step up from listening to recordings of people calling into our call center (yes, for quality assurance purposes).

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html

Thanks, Japan!