01.12.2009 - Palm Reborn?

So I saw something last week about the Palm Pre, which is a new Palm device running a new Palm proprietary OS called webOS.

I found out today that it's a Linux-based OS, and the APIs are some sort of Javascript runtime that uses CSS for the UI development. It sounds a lot like what Apple tried (and failed) to do with the iPhone before releasing a real API.

My immediate thought was, who cares enough to develop for this? Right now in the smartphone market, you have several big players: Apple (iPhone), RIM (Blackberry), Google (Android), and Nokia (Symbian). Of those, Apple has the "it" factor, Google has geek buzz and a nice Java API, RIM has business mindshare and Nokia has massive marketshare.

If you agree that right now, developers are the key to the success of your smartphone platform, what would allow Palm to compete for developers? Who would want to develop for the Palm platform over the Android platform? Nokia sells more phones than anyone, and I have a lot of concern over the long term viability of Symbian because developing for it sucks. I don't have any insider knowledge at all, but I do know that there is a Linux-based OS called maemo that Nokia works on, so that may be their answer to that problem.

But Palm, why? Palm has a history of being awful to code for, and I don't see anything about this platform that's more compelling than any of the others I mentioned. Who cares?

12.16.2008 - Didn't Break My Foot

Yesterday, as I was bounding upstairs carrying Jack, my foot gave way underneath me.  I fell down in excruciating pain.  I could barely walk on it.  Today we went to the Orthopedist.  It's not broken.   Apparently I strained or ripped some odd things that aren't normally strained or ripped.  I was given a space boot and told to take it easy for a few weeks.

The boot to the left is the one on my right foot.  I have serious doubts that I can drive with it on, but I'm off from work until January, so hopefully I can take it off by then.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.  Foot incident aside, we did.  

10.01.2008 - Harvest Time

Summer's over.    Fall is here.  It's the time of the harvest.  Farmers are bringing in the fall crops before the freeze, including tasty things like squash, pumpkins, corn, and others. 

At this time of year, it can be fun to celebrate All Hallows Eve and prepare for Thanksgiving in November.  My wife found a recipe in a magazine, and we made it.  It was a lot of fun, and it looked great when we were done.

As you can see, we made cupcakes.  We topped them with pale yellow icing followed by yellow, white, and orange Jelly Belly beans.  We finished it off with yellow starburst smashed with the side of a knife to look like butter, and black and white decorator sugars to look like the salt and pepper.

It was a big hit with the kids and the other neighborhood parents.  It was fun to make and didn't take very long either.

09.12.2008 - Michelada esto bueno

So I was a Publix last night picking up some groceries and supplies, and I stopped on the beer aisle to replenish my supply.  I've been liking the new Bud Light Lime, which is unusual for me since I despise regular Budweiser.  I saw Miller Chill, which is marketed as a "Chelada-style" beer, basically beer with salt and lime.

I tried it, and it's decent.  Not amazing, but good enough that I'll drink the rest of them in the coming days.  I got curious though, and looked up the Chelada, a.k.a. the Michelada, or "My little cold one" en Espanol.  There are some bizarre concoctions that fall into this genre of beer, including the Budweiser one, which is a mix of V8, clam juice, and beer.  Ugh.

I think the more promising ones are true recipes that consist of:

1) Dark beer like Negra Modelo

2) Salted glass

3) Lime

4) Dash of Tabasco and/or Worcestershire sauce

I'll have to get some salt and limes and try it, but that sounds pretty tasty.

08.29.2008 - Snakebit!

So I got bit by a snake today.  Not everyone can say that.  We have some painters out at the house doing touch-up on the basement, so I worked from home today to keep an eye on them.

My wife calls me out to the garage because there's a snake in the garage.  As I have mentioned before, we have all manner of creatures around our house because of the national forest next door.  We routinely see lizards, skinks, toads, frogs, and a wide variety of spiders that I have covered previously.  We even have deer show up every week or so.  While I had little doubt that we had snakes around, I'd not seen one until today.

When I went out to see it, it was a small snake.  He was probably 2 feet in length.  He was mostly black, with wide dark brown "stripes".  The pattern looked a little like a copperhead, but the colors were a lot darker, the snake was too thin, and his head was not viper-shaped.  We got him out of the garage, and he immediately began crawling under our hose reel.  That wasn't going to work, so I grabbed his tail to try to pull him back out.  He did an instant 180 and bit me on the hand.  The head wasn't a lot bigger than my thumb, so the bite wasn't bad, but I was surprised that he could strike while the back half of his body was in a straight line up in the air.

I dumped over the hose reel, and he was coiled up to strike underneath.   My wife put down the recycling bin, which we coaxed him to crawl into.  I took him down to the woods and set him free.

My hand and arm hurt a little where I got bit, but I suspect it's psychosomatic. I don't think it was anything venomous. I did some research on the internet, and I am pretty sure he was a juvenile grey rat snake (pictured above).  He rattled his tail like a rattler, and when he bit me he expressed some sort of stinky musk.  He also had the classic "kinked" body when he was in the garage that a rat snake displays.

08.23.2008 - Home Theater Part Deux

As the basement winds down (we have only paint touchup left), I am looking further into the components for my home theater.

I was looking at some 3-seat seating sets, like these:

That set goes for about $1100 for the set.  I could in theory put in two rows of those.   

My friend John, who is helping me with his expertise, recommends the Lutron GRAFIK Eye lighting control.  It will let me do all the cool lighting things I have in mind.

The last question is the remote.  John is leaning toward something like a Pronto TSU9400, but that may be overkill for me.  I do like the macro functionality though.

08.06.2008 -- Basement progress!

The basement finishing project is coming along quickly now.  They started painting in earnest on Monday, and by Wednesday it's 90% painted.  The doors are hung, and even the trim is painted.  I'm pretty amazed how quickly it is coming together

This room is the main room, which will someday be my bar and pool room.  In the short term, it's a big room for the kids to play in.

Ultimately, I'd like to have a tile floor around the bar area, a solid wood bar with columns up to some cabinetry.  I had them stub out plumbing for a sink behind the bar, so that's on the agenda too.  

This next picture is the platform in my media room.  I had them stain the oak nosing on the platform cherry, rather than the dark color of the bathroom vanity.  I think it's going to look great, and the nosing acts as cover for some rope lighting for the media room.  I had them do some crazy stuff with my wiring so that I can control it all via remote-controlled dimmer switches.  I hope it was worth the added expense, but I won't know until I get the wiring in.

This last picture is the tile in the bathroom shower.  We went with a pretty cheap tile (about $2 each) but we did add some small metal accent tiles to make it look a little fancier.  I can't say if it was worth the extra money or not yet, but I think it'll be nice to have something in there to break the monotony of the pattern.