Monthly Archives: August 2009

I’m climbing the rock wall

Posted on August 6, 2009 | 1 comment

One of the activities at the Detroit Science Center tonight was a rock wall. I’ve never done one of these and I’ve always wanted to try it! They wouldn’t let me wear my sandals, but fortunately I had some other shoes in the car. This was a blast and I’d definitely do it again some time!

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I figured I better wave right away just in case I fell.

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This was the point where I yelled down to check that
this was just going to let me gently fall (if I fell).
I was getting a little high and the holds were a little farther apart.

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At the top there’s a button to press to ring the bell.
Can you see it up where the wire comes out?

rockwall-onthewaydown.png
This is me on the way down.
It was actually a pretty fast/smooth process.


And this is me all the way down, the woman running it says that happens to the “big kids” a lot.

I almost did it again so I could get it all on video to see how it looked. Maybe next time…..

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Posted in activities + sports, me + myself + i

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Defying Gravity – Free Pilot (plus my tiny-review)

Posted on August 4, 2009 | Leave a comment

So iTunes has the Defying Gravity pilot for free! And it’s available in HD! It’s probably only free for a few more days (but who knows). (UPDATE: Defying Gravity is on Hulu in 480p.)

defygrav.jpgI forgot this was going to be on this week, I set the TiVo up a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure where it’s going to go. I think it’s only on for six weeks, so don’t fall too much in love with it.

It’s in 2052. It’s not a super high-tech 2052, they’ve got cooler TVs and while the spaceship is great, the rest isn’t that science fiction-ish. But you mostly forget about it. What really caught my eye was that we don’t have a Space Elevator yet!?! They had to launch to get up to get in to orbit (to get on the big space ship).


Direct link to the preview.

So they astronauts (think) they’re on a mission to all the planets in the solar system. But there is some mysterious (alien?) intelligence guiding their way, so who knows what the mission actually is.

It’s got an A Fine Frenzy song (Last of Days) in it too! About 30 minutes in if you have commercials, probably bout 22 minutes in without. She’s awesome!

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Manic Monday – Meme

Posted on August 4, 2009 | 1 comment

Here’s this week’s Manic Monday questions:

Both were really easy to answer, at least there were to me.

Would you rather go a week without bathing, but be able to change your clothes, or a week without a change of clothes, but be able to bathe?
Even though I like to take showers, I think I’d go with the clean clothes. There really is some magic in “the magical powers of a new shirt” (a reference from The West Wing), getting rid of the dirty sweaty shirt can make you feel much better about the day.

If you had to be trapped in a TV show for a month, which show would you choose?
Doctor Who. Preferably the 2006 season. Traveling places and times (and saving people).
Torchwood would have been a good choice but they way they keep killing characters, I wouldn’t last a month.

From Manic Monday #178.

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I’ve been having weird dreams lately…

Posted on August 3, 2009 | 4 comments

I’ve been having some odd dreams lately, I wish I’d been writing them down. Since my mind is blank from the ones from a few days ago. They weren’t all as strange as this one but this is the only one I can remember.

In this dream I’m staying with Heather or her father but it wasn’t a place I recognized. I don’t even want to say it was in MIchigan, but where ever I was, Dave (also known as Dave2) from Blogography was in the area and I was hanging around with him.

Dave and I are driving down a divided highway, Heather didn’t come but she’s always busy with stuff so not coming didn’t seem so odd at the time (even though she was passing up a chance to meet Dave), I’m not sure where we’re headed (the Apple store? a blogger meet-up?) but I’m pretty sure we’re not in Atlanta. Then all of a sudden some car is flipping over and I grab the wheel to swerve us out of the way (you’re welcome, Dave) and while we can’t see what’s going on, it’s like traffic is blocked by the authorities ahead of us. But we don’t really see them, so we don’t know what’s up. Dave turns us around and heads down the shoulder back to some country road that we had just passed. But we once we get there we can see traffic is halted down the side roads too.

I get out of the car to see if I can get closer to see what’s up, there were flashers so something is going on. It’s like “they” were there to block off the road before there was even an accident. As I’m cutting across a strip of field to see what’s going on, something clears up and the cars start moving and I lose Dave. Then I’m moving very fast as I’m alternating between busy roads and empty roads as I try to catch back up…

And that’s about it. I’m not sure why it ended, I didn’t feel like I woke up from the dream. Maybe it really happened and “they” wiped my mind after and they just didn’t go back far enough!

I didn’t feel so much chased as I felt in a rush or something like that. Still feel a little anxious as I think about it. Something was going on. Something conspiracy-ish.

But that’s all I have for this story, it’s been running through my head today so I thought I’d share…

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You can now use 12seconds.tv to send Video from your iPhone 3gs

Posted on August 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

They’ve now released 12cast to record and post video to 12seconds.tv for the iPhone 3gs. And it’s free! This lets you shoot video and upload directly or upload video that you’ve already shot. It’s interface is very simple (see below) although I think it could use a few more features (see below).


12cast test on my iPhone on 12seconds.tv

I’ll probably be testing this a bit this weekend so keep an eye on my 12seconds.tv channel http://12seconds.tv/channel/garylapointe/ and feel free to subscribe.

If this seems fun to you, you better go get 12cast before Apple pulls it from the store for some reason!

FYI – If your iPhone doesn’t do video you can still use the original 12seconds which lets you narrate 3 photos to make a 12secons.tv video. Here’s a sample I did.

12cast.pngNeeds a few really quick features:

  • Show me today’s 12seconds.tv challenge!
  • Needs to give me an option to upload it to 12seconds without going to Twitter.
  • Needs to let me type tags (and remember tags from previous upload!).
  • Needs to let me use update location (and autofill with GPS!).
  • This one probably isn’t so quick: Need a way to trim the video. Mostly if I’m trying to record myself it’s always jumpy at the begin and end. (Apple needs a way to set the API so you can click a button to “start recording in 3 seconds” and have it countdown.)

I really wish they had combined it with the older three photos application, I’ve got so much crap on my iPhone I really don’t need an additional application, but I can see some use of the other app too.

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Posted in App Store

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Michigan Central Station – The Train Station of Detroit.

Posted on August 1, 2009 | 3 comments

I’ve never even heard of the Michigan Central Station before today. I happened to see a photo of it in the (overly-dramatic titled) The Remains of Detroit photo essay on Time.com (which got mention on one of The Economist blogs) yesterday.

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Opened in 1913, the terminal was designed by the architects Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stern, the same firm that designed New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. “It’s staggering,” says Hemmerle, “that such a phenomenal piece of architecture could stand empty for twenty years.”

– From Time.com

I did a little more looking and found this six minute video.


Direct link to Michigan Central Station video.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard mention of such a huge train station in Detroit; at the time it was built it was the tallest train station in the world. I can’t even picture it, so I might have to take a ride this week to see where it is.

I guess the city was looking to demolish earlier this year and I never heard a peep (someone is suing Detroit since it’s a historical landmark). And they filmed some scenes for the Transformers movie here a few years ago, never heard anything about that either.

The video mentioned 75 trains in and out a day. I felt like those were mostly passenger trains, but maybe I was wrong. I’ve mentioned many times before that I love the train but now the Detroit station has six passenger trains a day (see page 2), three going west and the same going east from a small building near the Fisher building. These are the same trains that hit the Dearborn station a mile from my house which makes it very convenient when I want to head towards Chicago.

Photo courtesy of WikiPedia.

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