Tag Archives: em

8943 – Thursday

Emily arrived safe and sound about an hour ago… she’s all tucked in – BHK and I will be turning in for the night shortly, too. Until tomorrow, dear journal, here’s some stuff.


METEORS THIS SUNDAY! Can’t Forget!


The Red Line has resumed normal service after a suspicious package closed the Dupont Circle, Woodley Park, and Cleveland Park stations for several hours.

Metro Transit Police bomb technicians X-rayed the box, then safely disrupted it with a water cannon. The box contained paper and cardboard. The train was taken to a nearby rail yard for further investigation.


Sad to hear that Dresden Files was canned – I was digging it. It didn’t look like it was too expensive to produce, but who knows what was going on under the hood.

Ah, well… The nice thing about one less good tv show is that it’s one less tv show, period. More time for me to focus on other things.


Found this on the Icehouse list –

A new video of SLorpedo: The Mixed Reality Game Of
Naval Warfare is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWw0_X7b79Y

SLorpedo is a mixed reality version of the icehouse
game torpedo played in both real life and Second Life.

The new video shows real life footage of the
installation, a video of SLorpedo footage captured in
Second Life is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd-MoN9d_Nw

Mixing Icehouse and Second Life? I’m lucky that I’ve got BHK and the lads to intervene or I’d be wasting hours fiddling with that. (If it were 2 years or so ago, I’d probably be in there right now, working on the code and looking at what was what.) I haven’t tried Regular ol’ Torpedo yet, but it looks like fun.


Speaking of Doodles (last entry) and Pyramids, here are some more random doodles drawn on the bus. I’m fiddling wit hthe idea of a multi-tiered gameboard – some standard chase-game variant like monopoly or sorry, with different abilities or events on each level. also thinking about a Rock/Paper/Scissors element to the nests/trees, as far as landing and capture are concerned – big beats middle, middle beats little, little beats big. I’d like to finish it in time for this year’s Ice Game Design Competition, but I doubt I’ll make it. Maybe next year!

pyra doodle

Heck, have a recent Newtcam pic, too, dear journal!

Allez-oop! He was playing while BHK and Pye napped.

newtcamallezoop


1 year ago – looking forward to Autumn, man who knew too much, pumpkins, que sera sera, florida health inspection resource,

2 years ago – teacher memories, bro, shogun warriors (including great mazinga), 1970s Spanish Adult Movie Posters, Pic of Danny and I as heroclix fight an oncoming zombie and lobster-man menace.

3 years ago – Alabama, chatty-newt, spiky moods, war ellies, world audit, hijabs, olympic torrents, fake beheading.

4 years ago – vampire monkey dream, programming, puzzle pirates, nicotini, quizzes and kama sutra safe sex, blunt truth, mehndi designs

5 years ago – istockphoto, emergency day at work early-arrive (I wonder what’d happen if Sappho and Kev were out at the same time, now?), escape from alcatraz w/bro, misc meter quizzes, looking for cave/sea piccies

6 years ago – scud, agon, evil news, Wally out of the loop (he’s still awaiting trial for some of his crimes), Thai din din, colon contents, just finding out about bubba-Ho tep

7 years ago – geophagyGeotarget Geotarget

8941 – Wednesday

One year until 08/08/08!


I found out today that the family across the street from us has lived in that house for the last 23 or so years. Adam, the youngest son at age 18 has lived in the same home his whole life. I wonder how often that happens anymore? I don’t think I’ve put more than five years of life in the same building – I didn’t even spend more than 2 years in the same school until I hit 9th grade as my folks moved around quite a bit.

I’m not sure I can even imagine how intimately familiar a person comes to be with that sort of environment… that kid must know every stone and fence within a 10-mile area. He must’ve seen some very significant changes over the last two decades.. North Beach was a bit of a biker town before it got an influx of bay front property money. There is quite a cultural microcosm these days, but the upper-middle class seems to be taking the lead.


Today’s weather is *evil* – Current Temperature is 100°F, “feels like” 109. And that’s at “partly cloudy”. How much hotter would it be with full-bore sun?


Totally random thought formed on the train – do the words cowherd (someone who herds cows) and coward (someone who shows fear in the face of danger) have a connection? I need to research that.

[edit – Well, I guess not. Word History: A coward is one who “turns tail.” The word comes from Old French couart, coart, “coward,” and is related to Italian codardo, “coward.” Couart is formed from coe, a northern French dialectal variant of cue, “tail” (from Latin cda), to which the derogatory suffix -ard was added. This suffix appears in bastard, laggard, and sluggard, to name a few. A coward may also be one with his tail between his legs. In heraldry a lion couard, “cowardly lion,” was depicted with his tail between his legs. So a coward may be one with his tail hidden between his legs or one who turns tail and runs like a rabbit, with his tail showing.]


BHK picks up Em tomorrow!
DSCN5614
She’ll be visiting from Thursday through Sunday. I expect a *lot* of fun and a probably a couple of interesting challenges. (She’s little, and will likely miss her folks on one or two nights.)


After thinking about it, I feel that a variant of Oshi might work well with the Icehouse pyramids. (Other possibilities at the World of Abstract Games )


1 year ago – priceline beats expedia, register to vote, Chinese Ghost Festival, exfoliate/defoliate, hangin’ round the ceiling, walkabout/geocache plans

2 years ago – meetings, school restarts, club shuffle, thank you – sim-sim-salabim, danny the street, vidcam hacks, google total, unf. kids books, How bona to vada your eek!, teacher, miami storm pic

3 years ago – Bro health care, lj post issues, losing some gentleness, scotto-flaws& nice things, vintage newspaper strips, no jack black as GL, funw/google searches, older archives, deep sea images, phone safe,keylogger, slowed chipmunks, JL cartoon, character makeups, europreart

4 years ago – Teen Titans, Antidepressants, narghile, steve burns, ebonics, red kryptonite poll, bro health

5 years ago – ZIM!, fun fact, fumbuckery, added newt pic to bio, after he shocked me, site reboot that didn’t come to fruition

6 years ago – some thoughts about gamers/negative side, including a dragon-con flashback (that caused some upset in the role-players community), who in a crowd?, Upside-down, RPG poll, caterwaul, Name Generator, dinos in your region, Wally Caught stealing, begins the end of the WDB era at IMT.

7 years ago – grumpy, in general and regarding TV Geotarget

8934 – Wednesday!

So, it’s August… only a couple of weeks until BHK’s birthday, Father in-laws birthday, and we’re looking to have Emily over in a weekend – and then the all of the Newsoms over perhaps two weeks after that. Emily is about 5 years old now, and she reminds me of little bit of Wendy, way back when 9even though Wendy was maybe twice that age. I still remember acting like a monkey with

 for her, over a decade ago. Ook ook, extend the upper lip, scratch the noggin and the armpits, do a bowlegged walk… still brings a giggle to the young ladies. I doubt the Wendy would as be amused these days… she’s got to be 21 by now? maybe 22? She’s probably into more “grown-up” pursuits. I wonder how she and Marty are doing?

Thoughts for Emily’s visit.. Baltimore Aquarium, Blink (maybe try Uno?), Walking on the Boardwalk / Beach, Playstation, Fireworks, and the Candy Store. None of those are set in stone and there are other possibilities, too.

Hey, it’s August first! Happy Lughnasadh, the holy day of Lludd!
(If you celebrate it… I don’t generally do so myself, but do like to say the word Lughnasadh. )

To celebrate, here’s an agricultural pic from our garden, taken just this week.

Pepper pic from the garden – looks better large-wallpaper size.
DSCN5893

No relation to the holiday, but also recently seen –

Also seen – Dump trucks while I was riding the subway at about 60mph
DSCN5895

Been busy, have some game and book links, dear journal!

New joystiq review of Icehouse (also Enemy Chocolatier ), and as a result, found a place to play games online in real time.

You’ve got to download a small Java app (gamut ) (though they are working on an HTML implementation), but it’s clean, quick and fun if you can find folks to play with.

Back to reading on my ride in the subway…until I find some tv show that BHK doesn’t want to watch to put on the PSP. just finished Red Nails – getting my pulp fix on. Plenty free and legal to read here. Just scroll down to Howard,( Robert E. )

via uncert

  • “Turning Heat Into Electricity Through Sound”: pretty much what it sounds like. A group in Utah has made a gadget where thermal gradients drive air currents that produce sound waves, which are turned into electrical signals by piezoelectric transducers.
  • “All-Optical Magnetic Recording: a Dutch group has written information onto a magnetic material using polarized light rather than the usual magnetic heads (like in a hard disk). This could potentially allow faster disk writing on smaller scales than can be done with magnets. Just think how small your next iPod could be…

1 year ago – sharks don’t have knees, boiled eggs, yoga, map issues, Dave nose-operation, 4-sec frenzy, Theoi project, FOLEDs, grammar rock, man tosses a car, hungry ghost month, TS Chris

2 years ago – peaceful Sunday, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla, PB-J time, Grizzly Golf Attack is true, “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”

3 years ago – Rob Shea Quote, appropriate for E-journals everywhere, I played with mercury, JL meme, music, Dave, Rain, Social entity, first hints at Mike-drama, search shortcuts, albinos of the 19th century, echolocation alarms

4 years ago – crazy dreams, Kate Bush, starmark poops but new gig, writing systems, non-castaways on gilligan’s isle

5 years ago – istockphoto, dead links, Shitou Xiqian, smiled at, fortune cookie, walkerbot, Liver Eatin’ Johnson

6 years ago – hungrybaby, New Apes movie lame, wiseacre, Champions stats for the Shadow, Dwayne Dibley?, Poul Anderson passes away, LJ moves in space

7 years ago – Everway character- wanders the storm pathGeotarget Geotarget

8903 – 4th of July!

Took Bugah & Co to Bob Evans for a farewell breakfast… MN was sneaky and footed the bill. We’re going to have to work out some sort of system of permissions for bill catching! Poor Boog didn’t want to head out, but Em seemed ready to head on home.

Relatively mellow after the fireworks on the 3rd. More grilling of hot dogs and veggie burgers (out of propane), Louise, Doug, Tina, Kendall, Adam and BHK all got together for some good eats and limited fireworks… every time we went somewhere to shoot off some airborne pretties, the police or a homeowner came out and said no sir, no sir. The fountains were quite pretty, anyhow. Areas we were blocked include the back yard, the private beach opposite the buildings, and “forbidden beach” which is public, but right next to some big homes. A fellow came out and took down the plate numbers of everyone parked there… sort of jerky behavior for the 4th. I can understand not wanting stuff too close to your house, but we were shooting the beach and it was just 9:30pm… not too late by any one’s estimation. Ah well, the food was good and we all got to hang out a bit, and enjoy a midweek day off.

There was a tornado watch in DC – just as well that we didn’t head to that mob scene. The National Mall was briefly evacuated around 5 p.m., forcing the thousands gathered for 4th of July festivities to take shelter in nearby monuments and federal government buildings. By 7 p.m. the Mall was re-opened, though everyone had to pass back through security checkpoints set-up in the area again.

We headed home – BHK and I just enjoyed a little peace and quiet come the end of the day… not a bad thing at all.

adam and em
[attach 4th of july google video here]

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8901 – Monday

Restless night sleeping, accidentally booted Newt off the bed once, but he stuck with me throughout the night. BHK was restless too, but I didn’t leg-sweep her out. Pye visited briefly, but high-tailed it after the barest commotion. I dreamt that BHK and I were hunting animals, tagging them for reference, and re-releasing ’em into the wild. A side effect of geocaching, perhaps?

Bugah & Neil went fishing – to no avail, as the water was too choppy.

Half day tomorrow! North Beach Fireworks are going to be something else!

via jwz – Search for Lonesome George mate is long shot

While scientists search for a mate for “Lonesome George” — the last known survivor of a species of Galapagos tortoise — some say the effort to fend off extinction may be in vain. Even if a mate is found, George has not been interested in reproducing in the past and may not know how, former keepers and others who have worked with him said.

“He has problems … he probably never saw a female and male of his own species reproducing,” said Swiss biologist Sveva Grigioni, who worked with George 13 years ago.

Grigioni, now back in Switzerland, said she could normally get tortoises to ejaculate within minutes, but spent months manually stimulating George and never extracted semen from him.


Age is not George’s problem. He is estimated at between 60 and 90 years old, and could live to be 200 and still reproduce, scientists say.

The visual differences in tortoises from different islands were among the features of the Galapagos that helped 19th Century British naturalist Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution. Since then, the tortoises have been hunted by pirates for their meat and their habitat eaten away by goats introduced onto the islands. George, who weighs 198 pounds, was found on Pinta in 1971.

Reviewing Openads for the company’s ad server for the web. it seems pretty reputable and reliable, thus far.

Fire drill this morning was a welcome break in the day – cool outside, everyone seemed laid back and calm – helped move the rest of the time that much more rapidly. the 2pm meeting went well… lots of good information for me to ruminate over the next few projects. I really dig that I’m in an environment that will allow me to use the skills I have! (Last gig wasn’t bad, but a lot of repetition. This time, there’s a lot of room for creative thought along with brute force.

Day closed with S’mores over a fire pit, some preview fireworks, and then Bugah and I played a bit of “Destroy All Humans”. Not a bad thing.

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8899 – Sunday

We spent most of the day out and about, Geocaching with the Newsoms. They’re really into it, with a little over 100 finds in recent memory. It was fun tooling around a bit and seeing what’s what. I also dropped off tinkle pig in a cache… time for her to see the world. I retrieved a toy soldier cast from civil war bullets, who will ride with Bruce Moose and Gaytor until a suitable resting ground is found for him. The cemetary caches are almost always my fave – the woods were a hoot too, but ticks are a real fear for the kids, especially since Em was out sick just recently. (Heck, nobody wants lyme disease.)

A brief synopsis of Cache visits-

Dropped off placed Hula Wyvern (Travel Bug Dog Tag) in Little Southern Maryland School [visit log]
Dropped off placed “Wajima, Japan” Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug (Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug) in Little Southern Maryland School [visit log]
Found it found Little Southern Maryland School (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Parkkin Cache (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Flashover (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Can you see the ghost?! Again! (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Relaxation for Redlights (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Book Worm (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Time is the key (Traditional Cache) [visit log]

Aftwerwards, we took a quick pitstop at Aardvarks, had an ice cream and picked up kanoodle for BHK (I’m sure I’ll be playing it too.)

Spent a little more time puttering around Solomon’s Island, went to Stoneys for dinner. (their treat! yum!)

On the road between points, I got a call from my Mom, and it turns out that Bro isn’t in a work crew, but just a rehabilitation center. Taking classes, etc. Hopefully some of the lessons will stick, but if not, at least he’s out of circulation for a while.

After that, we paused at the Barker’s to water the Mom-in-Law’s plants, and to do a little dock-walking. I paused for a breather upstairs, but before I could get my nap on, Adam and Kendall showed up to say hi and to drop off some fireworks.

Man pummels vampire peacock

NEW YORK (AP) — A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a Burger King in New York City was beaten by a man who insisted it was a vampire.

Animal control officials in Staten Island say the bird was beaten so fiercely that most of its tail feathers fell out and it had to be euthanized.

The seven-year-old male peacock wandered into the restaurant parking lot and perched on a car hood last week. Charmed employees had been feeding it bread when the man appeared.

A restaurant worker says the man grabbed the bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started stomping it. She says when he was asked what he was doing, he responded, “‘I’m killing a vampire!”‘

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them.

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8666 –

went with misti, bhk and em to see buga and neil tote a balloon in the richmond christmas parade – had a great time – aside from the obvious perq of bugah, there were also tiny shriner cars, a really overweight darth vader, cowboys, balloons of odd things blowing like the hindenberg, and more sousaphones than even john phillips could ask for. Odd thing, since the giant balloons were being hoisted through downtown richmond, they had to be lowered to duck under the street lights every few blocks.

misc pictures from road trip to md (including newt in lockdown, south of the border, and electric palm trees, as well as the parade) click here.


bro still is where he is… writing him a letter tomorrow or first thing monday.


after the parade and a quick trip to target to look for some xmas lights, we visited with misti, neil & co, bfore heading to the in-laws for dinner. long day, but a solid one… on the way back, we drove through DC, and I got to eyeball the washington monument and nation’a capital from the potomac bridge. more photos from that neck of the woods soon.

with that, I’m hitting the sack. until later, dear journal.

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