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Framing myself into a corner

Just trying to figure out how to frame the ductwork monstrosity into a simple but not prone-to-causing-head-injuries soffit. Steel framing really hurts my brain. I'm gonna sit here and eat a hot pocket and draw this.

Comfest 2008

I decided to replace quantity with quality this year for Comfest and ducked over with my Mom to watch El Jesus de Magico after abandoning my family for the Crew (2-1 over Colorado with Emmanuel Ekpo's first MLS goal) game. Here's video I took of their closing song with my camera. It was a beautiful thing, as my card ran out of space two seconds before they ended.

Summertime

It's summertime and free time is at a premium. Jane still isn't unemployed as scheduled, but CPA cramming has begun. The pool is open and we've been fighting over the AC. The power has been out six times in the last 24 hours (accompanied by transformer booms and other wild electrical sounds) and I haven't made much progress on the basement.

I was able to get the front gutters cleaned, the back gutters fixed, the upstairs faucet fixed and the bathroom door now can close (an increasingly important thing around here). We went to Scott's birthday cookout, dropped in on Chris' birthday at El Vaquero, had a Father's day brunch and finished the day with a picnic at the pool.

Bobby's glad that he doesn't know what day it is, Joey is memorizing jokes, Ellie has to be throttled back on her summer workbook, and Fin walked halfway down the street all by herself without telling anyone she'd left ("I didn't cross the street." she said through tears).

Ahh, summertime.

Good news is that Comfest is coming, and the music schedule is posted.

Weekend

More money is spent. Framing has begun. I've got one and 3/4 walls done at the moment, as I've hit the complex framing around the gas and water meters. It is entirely within reason that the stud walls will be finished next weekend, and then roughing in electric, insulation and finally drywall. 105" diagonal screen here we come.

Shrlee Joseph, this Energizer is for you

Dear Shirlee, and ya cheatn' bastard Dube. Count the salutes from the Nordecke. (Full res is a bit better, if you can get it)

BTW Shrils, Crewfighter has the video the MLS needs, along with more than enough proof the Nordecke needs to tone it down a bit.

Socio-Religious Dialogue at our house

Joey, "Dad what does ponchince mean?"

Me, "What?"

Joey, "Ponchince!"

Me, "What? Is that a word? Can you spell it?"

(repeat for about 5min)

Joey, "Mom! What does Ponchince mean?" (He's decided that I'm an idiot at this point.)

Jane, "Joey! Talk to your Dad!"

(minutes of discussion pass with various other kids adding their views)

Finally,

Me, "Joey, where did you read this?"

Joey, "Oh. In the Bible. Pontius Pilate"

Me, "OOOOh. That's a person's name."

Fin, "Yeah, like Krusty the Clown!"

Dandelion Season

This was from before the rain.

Long, busy, fun but not restful weekend. Soccer is over. A party was had. Mother's day came and went. I got Jane laundry baskets. We had a tornado warning.

Head filled with random crap

Four straight hours of play and I'm getting better at FIFA 08. My thumbs are paying the price though.

I'm still not entirely sure how to frame box soffits with steel studs.

Screens are up. Storm windows are put away.

Jane's bike needs one of these, and a more round back wheel.

3 c-forms in a year leads to one very in trouble boy.

The blonde tornado is now down to a 1/2" buzz cut.

The bus has trouble running cold. My first project. Gotta remember how carburetors work.

Crew on top of league. Celtic won and Huns drew, so hope is still alive.

Head exploding with ADD. Gotta do twelve things.

Pastors and Politics

So, why isn't this Presidential candidate being raked over the coals for actually pursuing, and advertising the endorsement of a preacher who compares the Catholic Church to Hitler and wants a "Holy war" with Iran? Why is it that McCain gets away with a few denouncements, and YouTube clips of Hagee aren't played over and over on CNN?

Can you say "media double-standard?"

[Frank Rich: The All-White Elephant in the Room - New York Times]

Jackass

[From Marc Dann admits to affair with staff member - OPENERS - Ohio Politics Blog by The Plain Dealer]

Resign already, and let someone with integrity run the AG's office.

And another Skybus letter

[From The Columbus Dispatch : 'Dispatch' betrayed trust of its readers]

Ouch.

[From The Columbus Dispatch : 'Dispatch' overlooked Skybus' difficulties]

More Dispatch and Skybus Reaction

Many of these are missing the ownership angle, probably because the Dispatch doesn't actively disclose it.

Two-Four.net

EdCone.com

Kayak4U.com

PapaGolf Chronicles

Mark Tatge's Journalism 411 Blog at E.W. Scripps (makes me proud to have dropped out of OhioU!)

BoardingArea.com

Romensko (HT to Zardo)

Some Random person at owujour350.blogspot.com (Ohio Wesleyan Journalism 350?) with a protected blog

Ten

We've been parents for ten years. It is such a clear before/after line in my life.

On a vaguely related note, Michael texted me to remind me that I took him to see Primus open for 24-7 Spyz on 7/26/1989, his 10th BD, and then abandoned him at the Newport to go to the mosh pit.

I just bought 4 tickets to see Flogging Molly in August, and what do you know! It's an all-ages show....

Calling Bullshit on the Dispatch and Skybus

Ben Marrison, editor of the Columbus Dispatch wrote in his column this weekend that the Dispatch knew in advance of Skybus' announcement that they were going to close immediately last Friday. As it turns out the Dispatch knew far enough in advance that they were able to place a reporter on the last outbound plane, knowing full well that the people on the plane who weren't flying home were going to be stranded.

Now, if this weren't bad enough, a subsidiary of Dispatch Printing Co. is an investor in the airline, a fact that the Dispatch simply got tired pointing out in their online content (electrons are costly, you know) and buried in this remote corner of their site.

The Dispatch, faced with this conflict of interest, took the easy road, writing softball stories on the airline, and even letting one of their business writers write a blog about airline travel. Through the process of the Skybus collapse, CEO resignation, COO resignation and all, it didn't seem like they were doing much hard work on reporting the state of the airline. Even afterward, their coverage sheds little light on what went wrong.

Strangely, they chose not to send the airline blogger on the mission to Florida, and have her blog her adventures purchasing tickets back to CMH.

Now, Marrison is posting some reader reactions to his Sunday column and the Dispatch's reporting in his blog. Of course, none of the hand-picked reactions deal with the fact that the Dispatch's parent company holds a financial interest in Skybus. Marrison keeps his focus on the Dispatch's upstanding decision to respect their anonymous source's insistence on a 9:30PM embargo on the story.

Too bad, so sad for the Dispatch though, as other local news sources broke the news long before the Dispatch was allowed. Hell, I got an email from my mom while sitting in DTW and Twittered it ~40min before the Dispatch's embargo was lifted.

The real question that I want to see answered by Marrison is whether their source had any connection to Wolfe Enterprises or the Dispatch Printing Company, and why on earth they agreed to let this story rot? Had they done harder work on covering Skybus they would have developed sources like those the TV stations obviously picked up to scoop the Dispatch.

UPDATE: Whomever is linking me from the protected blog at owujour350.blogspot.com, common courtesy demands that you open up for your link targets.

Weekend Wrapup

New favorite blog

PhotoshopDisasters

New Product Day at Archie McPhee

Check it out here.

Featuring their new Dog to Unicorn Transformation kit. Dremmel not included.

Damn

The Columbus Dispatch : Ohio soldier's remains found, father says.

Progress

Here's what we accomplished last evening. Yesterday morning was spent removing the shelves which were on the left.

The saws and WorkMate are in the driveway and Ellie's bugging me to start hammering pieces together.

Basement

Subfloor. It's the beginning.

Sometimes I wonder why...

...when I'm beat down from work and parenting and such, that I type all of this stuff.

Well, it's because I can look this up and put a smile on my face.

The kids were playing a game in the back yard today that Ellie is calling "Silent Green." I haven't figured out why yet, but it is somehow related to the haggis discussion at dinner.

Blizzard Sledding

I can't believe it's only 2PM. This is the most we've gotten done on a Saturday in a long time. Here's Ellie after an hour of sledding and tunneling and general rolling around in the snow. A ton more pictures are here, and I'll have some video up later today. All of our clothes are in the dryer now and we're thinking about naps and movies and such.

The snow on the other hand, is still coming.

Blizzard

Joey somehow managed to get some clothes on while tumbling down the stairs to run out the snow. We had to keep pulling him back into the house to put on a hat and gloves, and boots and other unnecessary things. He headed out with the yardstick to measure points of 10 and 15 inches. This was at 8AM. The snow is still pouring out of the sky, and is expected to keep going on all day.

Airborne, actually not proven to cure colds

And they are issuing refunds to people who bought their product.

Sorry Mom. Hillary says no yard sign for you

Well, in addition to voting today, which was pretty quick despite a constant crowd I went on a 45min odyssey to try to get a Hillary Clinton yard signs for myself, my Mom and my next-door neighbor.

After some quick searching, I was able to find HC's Ohio Headquarters on the south side of Downtown Columbus. Unfortunately, it wasn't really that easy to spot in the quick-moving traffic on 4th St., so I had to circle a few times to get there. Once I noticed all of the signs in the window and a clutch of young people taking a smoke break on the curb, all was well. Now, find a place to park during the no-parking 4-6PM window. No fun that.

The mood inside was busy. The place was crawling with 20-somethings running to and fro with Blackberries, but not less then five of them asked me if I needed anything. Too bad though, the one thing that I needed wasn't to be had. They were out of yard signs, or that's what they said initially. In the middle of the discussion I was having with a volunteer though, an obviously paid staffer stepped up and told us that they did have signs, but that they were being held for polling places and volunteers. He suggested that Mom could volunteer and get a sign.

So, no dice. I did leave our street addresses on a list for yard signs though, so we'll see if the Obama signs that Molly planted in my yard and Mom's yard are joined by Hillary signs.

70MPG TDI hybrid coming from VW

...but not soon to the US. Wired's Autotopia reports that the Golf-based model should be announced at next month's Geneva auto show. Amazingly, the car is said to meet both Euro V and Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions standards, emitting less CO2 than a Prius or Civic Hybrid.

Joey

As I'm leaving Joey's room last night after reading to him, he leans over in the top bunk and says earnestly, but softly, "Dad, when I get to college, I'm going to fill my room with booby traps."

(This photo was taken by one of the other parents in his class at their Valentine's Day party. I'm certain that he had all of two seconds to react to the camera.)

One for Grandma Martha

...Because of all the knitters I know, she's got seniority: HOWTO Knit a RD2 beanie, via BoingBoing.

2008 SxSW Showcasing Artists Torrent

Well, there is no official 2008 SxSW Showcasing Artists Torrent this year. Not a problem, you can download all 739 mp3 files individually from their site! Easy right?

Well, actually it was easy. As Steve Lacy figured out, SxSW made a CSS class for their mp3 files and he was able to generate a script to list the files. Feed the list to wget (wget -i sxsw.txt) and a few hours later you've got most (there are some errors in his list, due to bad site coding by SXSW) of the files. The files total ~3.4G. If you've got a Mac, Fink is your best route to all kinds of excellent tools like wget.

I was thinking of setting up a .torrent of the files myself (and still might) but it looks like someone has beat me to the punch. You can get the .torrent here (PirateBay link).

Update: There's a better torrent here.

TRD

I've been up since 4AM. 4 hours of driving and 8 on my feet. Cup-O-Joe Columbian French Roast in a press pot is one hell of a way to start the morning though.

Seems that there's no SXSW torrent this year. Working on an alternate plan though. I'll let you know how it works out in the morning.

Just bought one of these. It will win me friends and adulation in airports and other laptop-intensive, power-scarce places.

Oh, and BTW, Gary Caldwell is a slow, steaming pile.

Not much new

We're halfway through February though..

I dredged this photo up from the archives in my drive. Taken in the late 80's, scanned in 1997.

Whoops

Sorry about the RSS feed. I switched over to Feedburner because, well, um, the button was shiny or something.

Beats getting anything done around here.

Aberdeen 1-5 Celtic

Watch for Aiden McGeady starting at 2:54.

Can't see this with Microsoft in charge....

Photobooth: The second best parenting tool on the Mac

Joey and I did some Photoboothing today. It was the only thing that would cheer him up, and subsequently was the only thing that kept him from being sold to the Gypsies.

Power of the Internets, part 2,567,845: Photography

From what I can glean from this discussion thread on Flickr, someone from the Young Isaac agency went trolling Flickr for photos of Columbus. When asked what YI was going to pay, she either declined to answer, or told the photographer that she was unable to pay since the project was for non-proffit, in this case the Columbus Foundation.
About two days ago, the director of marketing communications at the Columbus Foundation stepped into the thread, apparently alerted by fellow Flickr users and has promised to look into it.

The incident raises an interesting issue. With the massive boom in advanced amateur photography and the advent of sites like Flickr, access to good photography has never been easier. From the content provider end, the temptation to use free images off the internet is almost irresistible. Popular sites such as BoingBoing and Consumerist commonly use Flickr photos with the Creative Commons share-alike licenses to illustrate stories on their sites. Consumerist got in a bit of trouble doing this, and after some Digg-driven enlightenment, got religion.
There has been some backlash to this. Photographer Lane Hartwell pulled all her photos from Flickr after she noticed one had been stolen for a viral video. She also (rightfully) had the video pulled and predictably caught a lot of flack for it, from the "It's on the Internet, it must be free" crowd.

On the other hand, the digital photography boom and the internet have led to a significant increase in low-entry-barrier outlets for photographers. Micro-stock sites like iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, etc. are full of newly-professional, former advanced-amateur photographers. While the pay is very low compared with traditional stock photo agencies, and some of their licensing terms aren't so good, they are much easier to get into, and do provide a manageable way to monetize your photography. I did a quick search for Columbus+Ohio on iStockphoto though, and the results were not very good (~60 hits). Perhaps that's why YI started hitting up Flickr users.

ecto says I'm listening to Lookin' For Me Somewhere from the album "Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams" by The BoDeans

Mmmmmmmm Coffee

Columbusite points us to a nice Google Map of Indie Coffee Shops in Columbus today.  I need to figure out a way to keep a permanent link to this on my iPhone.

While commenting on the map that they missed Crimson Cup's Beechwold shop, I found that Crimson, which is mainly a distributor, has a client shop locator map.  The Crimson map has even more shops, and has shops throughout Ohio.  Good for work travel.

Februray

Catching the mood?

I sense a great disturbance in the Force

One of the great, immutable Laws of the Universe, upon which I've based much of my sanity, was shattered on Sunday evening. At Colleen and Big Adam's (and Jonas') Superbowl party, my cousin Colleen presented Jane with not one, but two staple guns.

You see, there is a Law of the Universe that I am not allowed to posess a staple gun. (Brian just hit the comment button that his mouse broke). I've owned somewhere in the vacinity of 500 staple guns in my life, but don't have a single one in my house (except the one I borrowed from Brian). They just seem to wander out into the world of their own accord. Over the years, I've come to peace with this, and have neither mourned the loss of staple guns, nor sought for their return.

The return of one of my staple guns, along with the contribution of an additional staple gun has turned the world upside-down. I am now a man rich with staple guns (including those borrowed from others) and deeply tempted to brazenly display my riches.

Good thing that Lent is coming early. Perhaps I'll give up staple guns and return to my state of peace with the world. That, and that Brian should get over here and get his staple gun before the world collapses on itself.

No Magic for the Crew

Maciej “Magic” Żurawski heads to Greece instead. MLS, always the bridesmaid, never the bride

iPhone cases and such

Via Mark at BoingBoing, Bobby and I were drooling over this cork-covered iPhone case while waiting for an emergency Genius session today to replace my dead iPhone. The case is just as cool as it looks and sounds (and is $34.95 at the Apple Store, which is more than list). My iPhone doesn't live in a case during the week though, as I need it to be as thin as possible to slide into my suit pocket with my Moleskine notebook.
For workouts and weekends though, I bought a combination case from Marware, that will protect it from harder home/weekend use and has an armband for running. The fit and finish is a bit iffy, but most neoprene cases are like that. The worst features are the holes for the camera and headphones, which are never quite in the right place. On the same trip to the Apple Store (the first one) I also got a glare-reducing (and face-grease reducing) screen cover for the iPhone made by Power Support. The covers are nice (you get two), but Power Support wins the award for the most impossible to open packaging short of a blister pack. Their cardboard envelope was glued tight on both ends and I had to rip the hell out of it to get it open. A nice little perforation would have worked, but nooooo.

That's all for now. I'm off to shop for higher-power USB hubs, as I'm charging an iPhone, two iPods and powering an external drive, off of my current hub.

iBrick

Looks like my replacement phone didn't last too long. Crashes in Safari and in iPod point towards bad RAM or some other hardware issue.
I tried to restore it, and ended up with this.
Off to the Apple Store.

El Jesus on MTV2 On The Rise

Listen, all seven* of of you: El Jesus DeMagico is on MTV2 On The Rise They need a whopping 4,956 votes to go on to the next level, where they get to post some band info. So please do your part.

*I think that I've got one more reader than Suzi.

Nothing

... I got nothing. Lots of things that are out of bounds, but nothing in.

For future reference, I want a genuine Ed Kehoe ice cube cracker for the next major alcohol-related holiday.

Gotta go. Peter Grffin's fighting a chicken.

Maciej Żurawski to the Crew?

Shawn Mitchell reports today that Celtic forward Maciej Żurawski may be a designated player prospect for the Columbus Crew. I'm not entirely convinced that first-team time with the Crew benefits Żurawski international prospects more than his intermittent appearances with Celitc though.

Birthday Pizza at Bridie & Gordon's

As you can see, Katie was quite done with the photos and all the excitement at her house at this point. It is Ben Franklin's birthday, which means that Bridie is 35. Since Bridie is Katie's mom, we pumped her with all kinds of useful information like "Mom is 200 years old." and "Now that mommy is so old, she has to go to bed before you. So be sure to tuck her in."

Uncle Bob = Positive Influence

8 Hours in the car today

And I managed to take a picture, before I got out of the car at this Subway-equipped gas station to have my second structurally-unsound 6" Subway Club with no cheese and all the veggies of the day.

A Short One

Because I need to go to bed. I need to be on the road by 5:30AM tomorrow, and won't be home till 8 or 9PM.

Lookin' forward to tomorrow, yep. At least I'll be able to get some tweets about Macworld from those lucky enough to go.

Bathtime!

The fun thing about bathtime is that when the girls are both screaming, the tile walls and the glass door both reflect and amplify the sound enough to make adult ears bleed. Luckily, the only one that still really screams is Fin. Ellie just makes a bunch of noise to add to the screaming while I wash Fin's hair.

Fin here is modeling what the long-haired people in our house call the "hair towel." This is the original that Jane had. She made Fin and Ellie copies of it for Christmas

Much was accomplished today, but no one can tell exactly what.

Off to TV. I hope that the Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't suck.

Food

I wants it, but I can'ts have it, at least not a lot of it. Jane and I stopped at Aladdin's for take out after going out for a movie. She had a splitting headache from taking the dog for a huge walk and waiting till 9PM for dinner, but we got out for a bit which was nice.

It is amazing what the simple act of logging what you eat does to your habits. This is the brilliant part of the Weight Watcher's "Points" system. This is the third time I've put myself back on a system (using an amazing, but hugely illegal piece of software) and each time the "Boy, I would have just eaten that without thinking" moments have blown me away. Now to start exercising....

The Pollypocalypse

This, I believe, is a Polly Pocket cat. This is not the Barbie cat that Fin so desperately wanted (and got) for Christmas. Little Miss fine-motor-skills herself put four different Polly Pocket footwear items (I'd say shoes, but two are slippers) on this cat tonight and walked around showing them off.
In addition to the cat, which must have come with a set, we were blessed with the Polly Pocket Polly-Tastic Jumbo Jet (with built in fashion show) and a few thousand other incredibly small rubberized pieces of clothing. Amazingly, the girls are doing a good job managing to keep all of the pieces both together and organized.

The boys, on the other hand got ~600 Legos, which are coating every horizontal surface of their room.

The kitty warming rack

Sometimes this is what we get in the morning at our house, two cats warming themselves over the heater in the kitchen. This is actually preferable to their normal behavior which is sitting on top of the heaters in our room, blocking all of the warm air. Perhaps they are growing old, they used to pile up with Elmer the rabbit on the baseboard heater grate in our living room at our old apartment, further contributing to the freezing state of the place.

Nightcap for the King

Bailey's on ice to end the King's birthday. (and my Uncle's, and my other Uncle's, and my Sister's)

ecto says I'm listening to A.M. Slow Golden Hit from the album "SXSW 2006 Showcasing Artist" by Hotel Lights

Ellie's Library Card

Like most families of the 21st century, we have rules for our children based on random Arthur episodes. Today's example is that our kids can't get library cards until they can write their names on the card. Ellie, was struck with a schme today and while jumping up and down asked Jane "Mom, can you write my last name down on a piece of paper so I can copy it and get my library card?" As you can see, she was allowed to get away with Ellie O'S, written left to right, for those noticing such things.

ecto says I'm listening to California Über Alles from the album "Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables" by Dead Kennedys

Joey and Fin

Joey, "Mom! Fin said she could saw through my A-WORD!!"

Fin, "No I didn't! I said I would saw through your ASS!!" (This is punctuated by a full karate pose)

This entire exchange was accompanied by Ellie spinning around the room with her iPod and headphones singing My Favorite Things.

At 256, there is no context.

...In which Stewie (as Darth Vader) Siths his pants.

Family Guy - Blue Harvest Special Edition Available Jan 15th!

My camera has a 'Food' setting

On Epiphany we go to see Great Grandma Murtaugh in Ashland. Rhubarb Pie from Grandma Martha was for desert ("Dad!! It's a square pie!" said Joey, thrown by the square baking pan.).
This also turned out to be my one holiday PC service call, and we moved Grandma's PC upstairs from the basement and had to re-route the cable line to the cable modem.

On the ride back we listened to Ellie belt out "My Favorite Things" and "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" while she listened to Sound of Music on her iPod.

ecto says I'm listening to Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag ) from the album "Mary Poppins (Original Soundtrack)" by Julie Andrews

OSX Firefox and Flash, friends at last

Okay, playing with Flash-based widgets for Twitter got me pissed (again) that Flash content won't display in Firefox unless it is touching the edge of the window. This time I hit the Google jackpot though and I've found a fix on this page.

It seems that AdBlock, the one Firefox plugin that I can't live without on the Mac messes with Flash display, and that it is a known bug in AdBlock. The fix is to turn off object framing in AdBlock's preferences, or for the hardcore Mozilla types, go to http://about:config and change adblock:frameobjects or extensions:adblock:frameobjects to false.

Whohoo! Now Soccernet works right.

ecto says I'm listening to Slate: The Iowa Gabfest from the album "Slate Magazine Daily Podcast" by Slate Magazine

Good news!

It isn't about me, and I can't tell, but it's awesome.

ecto says I'm listening to Thumb from the album "Green Mind" by Dinosaur Jr.

And a picture

Jane and Grandpa John sort for edge pieces on New Year's Day.

ecto says I'm listening to The Other Way Of Stopping from the album "Zenyatta Mondatta" by The Police

2008: a slow start

Blog every day! Post a picture every d