Cantenna search, ‘Corner Gas’, soot-duty, ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’
(posted from home)
(This post covers 7 – 13 January, 2009)
---------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 13 January-
I spent the morning looking for some items for my upcoming winter trip, wasting prodigious amounts of time and not solving my problems. But I did learn today that Orat is going to join me for part of the trip. Very cool!
Late in the day I walked-four, then spent the evening on the web, doing some family history stuff and updating the blog.
---------------------------------------------
Monday, 12 January-
I worked hard this morning paying taxes and other bills so I could get to the library and back in time for a walk. I then took good ol’ Cherry Larry into town and the library. My local branch is closed for renovations so I go into the main one in York now. I turned in the David Baldacci book ‘Simple Truth’ and an anthology of mystery stories which turned out to be boring. And it looks like I’m not a fan of the Baldacci mysteries. They’re just too unbelievable. Consider this scene, for example. Two guys are in a car, racing from killers chasing them. One of the guys in front has a gun. He looks ahead and sees a large branch hanging down. As the two vehicles approach the branch, this guy starts shooting at it and breaks off the branch with perfect timing. The branch falls, missing their car but so close to the car behind that the car can’t stop and crashes into it, bringing the chase to an end. Yeah, right. Why didn’t he just use the laser sight/light saber on his gun to cut through the branch?
Anyway, I made a quick stop at Starbucks and then hit the library. I’ve decided to forget crime novels. I picked up a new William Least Heat Moon travel book (I loved ‘Blue Highways’ years ago), a biography of Benjamin Franklin (we saw the author on PCN), and a history of the Seven Years (Indian) War in backcountry Pennsylvania and Virginia.
That afternoon I walked-four, then we watched the extras on ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ before going to bed to read.
---------------------------------------------
Sunday, 11 January-
Today was a decent day—about 40 degrees and not quite so windy. We spent the morning on the web and I had a long Skype video chat with Orat. He’s coming down to Florida this year! We made some preliminary plans and that got me thinking about all the things we’ll want to do for the ten days he’ll be down.
That afternoon I walked the six-mile loop and then we watched ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ that evening. ‘Parrots’ is a very pleasant little documentary about red-headed parrots which have taken up residency on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill neighborhood. Recommended.
---------------------------------------------
Saturday, 10 January-
We spent the day in Chambersburg again, this time helping clean up a bit of a mess. My nephew found his house becoming sooty inside and it turned out to be a furnace problem. The furnace has been replaced and arrangements made for someone to come in to clean the duct work and walls but we had to get all his personal stuff out of the house. We cleaned and moved all the hard furniture, cleaned up all the non-cloth personal possessions, packed them and moved the boxes to the garage, and took all the clothing to Maypo’s for washing. Professionals will do the soft furniture and rugs, then we’ll put it all back! Actually, it wasn’t too bad. We didn’t start until mid-morning and had the house cleared by 1700.
Labashi and I then headed for home in an icy rain. As we approached Newville exit on I-81 we started seeing a few cars and trucks off the road, some of them spun out, some of them just so freaked by the ice that they had pulled off. Once past the rest areas, though, the road was apparently better; we were no longer seeing vehicles off the road.
I was a little concerned about icing on the secondary road (PA 74) we took to cross toward home. Everything was fine until Dillsburg. And there it wasn’t fine. An oncoming vehicle had flashed its lights so we slowed way down as we came upon two vehicles off the road. One was a large Sprinter van. It had slid across the oncoming lane, down an embankment, and onto its side. And halfway into our lane was a Jeep spun into the bank and its door was off. At that point we were starting up a small hill and our tires started spinning. Fortunately, I had the new, aggressive-tread tires I had bought for the Alaska trip on Mocha Joe and we made it up the hill fine. At the top we passed two cars which had either slid or pulled off the road and it was clear this was no place to be. There were cars coming fast from the other direction and some behind us. I flashed the lights and waved at the oncoming drivers and they slowed a bit but it may have gotten interesting after they crested the hill; we couldn’t see them and continued on.
In Dillsburg we got lucky. As we headed out of town, a salt truck pulled out in front of us and led us for a few miles. And then, magically, we were out of the icy area and the rest of our drive home was uneventful.
That evening we watched the extras on the ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ disk.
I didn’t walk my course today but put in a few miles clearing out my nephew’s house.
---------------------------------------------
Friday, 9 January –
I spent the morning and early afternoon catching up on mail, paying bills, and logging the estate tasks from yesterday.
In the afternoon I walked the six-mile loop from home.
That evening we watched ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, a documentary about photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work. Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer who does large-format photos of landscapes. These are not the beautiful landscapes of nature but rather landscapes left over from Man’s mining and extraction activities and massive construction projects. He’s a master at finding unique and stunning angles and overviews which amaze us with their scale and detail. Photography doesn’t translate all that well to movie film and video tape but this documentary offers a grand introduction to Burtynsky’s work. I see he has a show coming up next Fall at the Corcoran.
---------------------------------------------
Thursday, 8 January –
Labashi and I spent the day in Chambersburg. We went to the courthouse to find and copy some estate and tax-related documents and had some other estate-related tasks to finish up. We visited with Maypo and family before heading home.
No walk today.
---------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 7 January –
I spent the morning on the web looking for a wi-fi ‘signal getter’. Last year in Florida I talked with a guy who uses a ‘cantenna’--- a home-made antenna based on a Pirouettes cookie can – and it enables him to pick up a wi-fi signal from much longer distances. The normal internal antenna on a laptop is supposed to pick up wi-fi signals from up to 300 feet away under optimum conditions but it’s often much less. But with a cantenna, the distances are much greater- generally three times as much or nearly 1000 feet. I could really use this, particularly for Skype calls (and now video calls) while sitting in the van outside a library. It’s tough to find a place in the library where you can make calls and speak aloud without bothering someone.
The problem with a home-built cantenna is you have to have a place to plug it in. Some wireless cards have an antenna port but most don’t (and mine doesn’t). The guy I spoke with had pulled his wireless card and soldered a pigtail connection onto it for the cantenna connection. But I’m not interested in doing that—too much can go wrong.
But there are now interesting devices which essentially connect a new wireless card and directional antenna to your laptop via a USB connection. I spent the morning looking at hField’s “Wi-Fire”, Hawking’s USB Wireless Dish Adapter, and C. Crane’s Super USB Wi-Fi Antenna. But it’s tough to find decent info on these on the web. The reviews are mixed and testing is sparse. Most of the tests are between the device and the tester’s internal card, not USB-device-against-USB-device. One test did compare the Wi-Fire to the Hawking and found the Hawking better for some distances but the Wi-Fire better for another distance.
There are also some form-factor considerations. The Hawking antenna looks like a kid’s toy but is the only one to do wireless-N networking. Wireless-N isn’t that critical at this point but as it’s more widely adopted I’d like to use it. So maybe it’s the Hawking. Then again, maybe it’s the Wi-Fire. I couldn’t find any reviews of the third one so it’s still a little early to buy.
That afternoon I walked-four and that evening we watched the entire first disk of ‘Corner Gas’, the Canadian sit-com shot near Regina, Saskatchewan. You can’t get this one in your local video store but it is available after a long wait (I had it on my list since last April) on Netflix. We saw the first few episodes of the season when we rented it while in Canada this past summer so we only had a few to go to see the rest of the first disk. Now we have a long wait for the second disk.
========= END OF POST =============
(posted from home)
(This post covers 7 – 13 January, 2009)
---------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 13 January-
I spent the morning looking for some items for my upcoming winter trip, wasting prodigious amounts of time and not solving my problems. But I did learn today that Orat is going to join me for part of the trip. Very cool!
Late in the day I walked-four, then spent the evening on the web, doing some family history stuff and updating the blog.
---------------------------------------------
Monday, 12 January-
I worked hard this morning paying taxes and other bills so I could get to the library and back in time for a walk. I then took good ol’ Cherry Larry into town and the library. My local branch is closed for renovations so I go into the main one in York now. I turned in the David Baldacci book ‘Simple Truth’ and an anthology of mystery stories which turned out to be boring. And it looks like I’m not a fan of the Baldacci mysteries. They’re just too unbelievable. Consider this scene, for example. Two guys are in a car, racing from killers chasing them. One of the guys in front has a gun. He looks ahead and sees a large branch hanging down. As the two vehicles approach the branch, this guy starts shooting at it and breaks off the branch with perfect timing. The branch falls, missing their car but so close to the car behind that the car can’t stop and crashes into it, bringing the chase to an end. Yeah, right. Why didn’t he just use the laser sight/light saber on his gun to cut through the branch?
Anyway, I made a quick stop at Starbucks and then hit the library. I’ve decided to forget crime novels. I picked up a new William Least Heat Moon travel book (I loved ‘Blue Highways’ years ago), a biography of Benjamin Franklin (we saw the author on PCN), and a history of the Seven Years (Indian) War in backcountry Pennsylvania and Virginia.
That afternoon I walked-four, then we watched the extras on ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ before going to bed to read.
---------------------------------------------
Sunday, 11 January-
Today was a decent day—about 40 degrees and not quite so windy. We spent the morning on the web and I had a long Skype video chat with Orat. He’s coming down to Florida this year! We made some preliminary plans and that got me thinking about all the things we’ll want to do for the ten days he’ll be down.
That afternoon I walked the six-mile loop and then we watched ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ that evening. ‘Parrots’ is a very pleasant little documentary about red-headed parrots which have taken up residency on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill neighborhood. Recommended.
---------------------------------------------
Saturday, 10 January-
We spent the day in Chambersburg again, this time helping clean up a bit of a mess. My nephew found his house becoming sooty inside and it turned out to be a furnace problem. The furnace has been replaced and arrangements made for someone to come in to clean the duct work and walls but we had to get all his personal stuff out of the house. We cleaned and moved all the hard furniture, cleaned up all the non-cloth personal possessions, packed them and moved the boxes to the garage, and took all the clothing to Maypo’s for washing. Professionals will do the soft furniture and rugs, then we’ll put it all back! Actually, it wasn’t too bad. We didn’t start until mid-morning and had the house cleared by 1700.
Labashi and I then headed for home in an icy rain. As we approached Newville exit on I-81 we started seeing a few cars and trucks off the road, some of them spun out, some of them just so freaked by the ice that they had pulled off. Once past the rest areas, though, the road was apparently better; we were no longer seeing vehicles off the road.
I was a little concerned about icing on the secondary road (PA 74) we took to cross toward home. Everything was fine until Dillsburg. And there it wasn’t fine. An oncoming vehicle had flashed its lights so we slowed way down as we came upon two vehicles off the road. One was a large Sprinter van. It had slid across the oncoming lane, down an embankment, and onto its side. And halfway into our lane was a Jeep spun into the bank and its door was off. At that point we were starting up a small hill and our tires started spinning. Fortunately, I had the new, aggressive-tread tires I had bought for the Alaska trip on Mocha Joe and we made it up the hill fine. At the top we passed two cars which had either slid or pulled off the road and it was clear this was no place to be. There were cars coming fast from the other direction and some behind us. I flashed the lights and waved at the oncoming drivers and they slowed a bit but it may have gotten interesting after they crested the hill; we couldn’t see them and continued on.
In Dillsburg we got lucky. As we headed out of town, a salt truck pulled out in front of us and led us for a few miles. And then, magically, we were out of the icy area and the rest of our drive home was uneventful.
That evening we watched the extras on the ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ disk.
I didn’t walk my course today but put in a few miles clearing out my nephew’s house.
---------------------------------------------
Friday, 9 January –
I spent the morning and early afternoon catching up on mail, paying bills, and logging the estate tasks from yesterday.
In the afternoon I walked the six-mile loop from home.
That evening we watched ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, a documentary about photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work. Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer who does large-format photos of landscapes. These are not the beautiful landscapes of nature but rather landscapes left over from Man’s mining and extraction activities and massive construction projects. He’s a master at finding unique and stunning angles and overviews which amaze us with their scale and detail. Photography doesn’t translate all that well to movie film and video tape but this documentary offers a grand introduction to Burtynsky’s work. I see he has a show coming up next Fall at the Corcoran.
---------------------------------------------
Thursday, 8 January –
Labashi and I spent the day in Chambersburg. We went to the courthouse to find and copy some estate and tax-related documents and had some other estate-related tasks to finish up. We visited with Maypo and family before heading home.
No walk today.
---------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 7 January –
I spent the morning on the web looking for a wi-fi ‘signal getter’. Last year in Florida I talked with a guy who uses a ‘cantenna’--- a home-made antenna based on a Pirouettes cookie can – and it enables him to pick up a wi-fi signal from much longer distances. The normal internal antenna on a laptop is supposed to pick up wi-fi signals from up to 300 feet away under optimum conditions but it’s often much less. But with a cantenna, the distances are much greater- generally three times as much or nearly 1000 feet. I could really use this, particularly for Skype calls (and now video calls) while sitting in the van outside a library. It’s tough to find a place in the library where you can make calls and speak aloud without bothering someone.
The problem with a home-built cantenna is you have to have a place to plug it in. Some wireless cards have an antenna port but most don’t (and mine doesn’t). The guy I spoke with had pulled his wireless card and soldered a pigtail connection onto it for the cantenna connection. But I’m not interested in doing that—too much can go wrong.
But there are now interesting devices which essentially connect a new wireless card and directional antenna to your laptop via a USB connection. I spent the morning looking at hField’s “Wi-Fire”, Hawking’s USB Wireless Dish Adapter, and C. Crane’s Super USB Wi-Fi Antenna. But it’s tough to find decent info on these on the web. The reviews are mixed and testing is sparse. Most of the tests are between the device and the tester’s internal card, not USB-device-against-USB-device. One test did compare the Wi-Fire to the Hawking and found the Hawking better for some distances but the Wi-Fire better for another distance.
There are also some form-factor considerations. The Hawking antenna looks like a kid’s toy but is the only one to do wireless-N networking. Wireless-N isn’t that critical at this point but as it’s more widely adopted I’d like to use it. So maybe it’s the Hawking. Then again, maybe it’s the Wi-Fire. I couldn’t find any reviews of the third one so it’s still a little early to buy.
That afternoon I walked-four and that evening we watched the entire first disk of ‘Corner Gas’, the Canadian sit-com shot near Regina, Saskatchewan. You can’t get this one in your local video store but it is available after a long wait (I had it on my list since last April) on Netflix. We saw the first few episodes of the season when we rented it while in Canada this past summer so we only had a few to go to see the rest of the first disk. Now we have a long wait for the second disk.
========= END OF POST =============
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 22:25
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