Two Book Reviews, One Real, One Audio

Imagined Worlds


Anansi Boys

New AudioBook Review: Lazy B

Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest***

Merry Christmas and all that...

I've posted this year's Xmas Note and photos!

2006 Xmas Note

Baby Bunny in my Garden

Last night this young rabbit was inside my fence and under my tomato plants.

Apparently he chewed a hole in the fence; it's only plastic.

A Green Spider...

on my tomato plants. I refused to photograph the 3 large hornworms I pulled off today, then I Sevin dusted. Unfortunately the spider probably got caught in the dust, too. But the horn worms are miserable blighters, I refused to take their picture.

Vincent Wood

Added some scanned image links to signed trading cards and a print. The artist, Vincent Wood, signed our cards at a dinner and later sent us the print: The Charles R. Patton Jr. and Family Page. His twin brother custom painted us a willow tree some years earlier, also shown on this page.

Tree Damage

A couple days our neighborhood had some wind damage during a thunderstorm. We lost the big half of the only tree that wasn't planted by us or the builder, a persimmon that was 6 or 7 feet tall when we moved in. It was probably 16 or 17 feet before the break:

More from Caralyn on the Other Art Page

I added three things from Caralyn to the Other Art page:
Houses under the Moon
Comic Girl
Do You Want To Dance?

Neverwhere Reviewed

I posted a short review of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

the show: 07-11-06 - zefrank

Ze Frank continues his amazing run of one man videos: the show: 07-11-06 (Warning: Contains bad words !)
This show is a classic !

IT Conversations: Retooling Developers for Geospatial - Where 2005

I received my first byline today for my volunteer work on The Conversations Network. It was on the IT Conversations "channel" for Retooling Developers for Geospatial - Where 2005.

They have been publishing audio content from conferences, lectures, interviews, etc. for a couple years now; some of it is pretty interesting -- if you have an interest in the subject matter.

As a website editor I write the short description (for the front page) and the longer description here. Find and tailor the bios and put a picture together. That's about it, but they have some pretty high standards for form and content.

Other Art Page Updated

Added Caralyn's "Vacums" drawing

Nathaniel Gets Award

May 2006: Nathaniel gets the Madison Mayor's Scholarship!

David Rawson Best of 2005's added

The Chipster Zone Reviews Page

Good Guys at Grass Gator

We had put one of those plastic blade attachments on our "weed eater" a couple years back and it finally wore down to the nubs at the end of last summer. We had replacement blades but I couldn't get the housing off. I finally called the 800 number at CMD Products for the Home and Garden: Grass Gator, Xcalibur, pestNOmore, and BagClips. I expected no help or to talk to a sleepy person in India, but a very suburban america sounding man answered the phone at 7:00 PM my time. "Hold the line spool housing and turn the grass gator to unscrew the set nut," I was told. "Tried that," I said, "The plastic Grass Gator spins around the nut rather than turning it." "Okay, spray it with some WD-40 and try again." I let him know I'd tried that a couple weeks ago, twice. "Okay, I don't want you to mess up your trimmer -- cut the plastic on the Grass Gator, I'll send you a new one, no charge."

Sure enough a new one was in my mailbox 3 days later from California. I used a Dremel type cutter wheel to get rid of the plastic, then a standard socket wrench and 2 people's worth of torque to remove the screw. This new 'Gator is made of a harder plastic so hopefully it will do better at removal when the time comes. But they sent new blades on the new Gator so I'm all set for now. Thanks.

Smoke and Mirrors Reviewed

Smoke and Mirrors Reviewed

Commented On: Pay per click boosts domain name registrations | News.blog | CNET News.com

Pay per click boosts domain name registrations | News.blog | CNET News.com
Maybe URL's shouldn't be hoarded, but rather used or given back? Just a thought....

Commented On: Pay per click boosts domain name registrations | News.blog | CNET News.com

Pay per click boosts domain name registrations | News.blog | CNET News.com
Maybe URL's shouldn't be hoarded, but rather used or given back? Just a thought....

Review of Geoffrey Moore talk on Open Source

Geoffrey Moore talk on Open Source Reviewed

A short review of "The Tipping Point" Audio Book

The Tipping Point

Posted a Review of "Free Agent Nation"

Free Agent Nation by Daniel Pink reviewed.

Impending Demand and HyperActive Technologies

Another novel application of impending demand measurement appeared in last Monday’s Cincinnati Enquirer:

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060116/BIZ01/601160321/1076/BIZ

(Thanks to Slashdot for the reference: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/17/1617245&from=rss)

The first commercial gauge for impending demand is being deployed by HyperActive Technologies at fast food restaurants (see http://www.gohyper.com) where they are using robotic cameras to watch customer flow and control production in the kitchen.

This latest impending demand handler controls elevators in busy high rise office buildings.

(Staten) Island Girl Weblog

My (wife's) niece posts a nice web log at the Staten Island Advance newspaper's on line site: SILive.com: Island Girl.
Enjoy.