Tag Archives: Weather

I’m in Chicago (Finally!)

Posted on August 25, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I made it to Chicago, even with the traffic reports not helping me any (actually I had two ways to go and choose the one that I hadn’t heard any numbers mentioned so maybe it did help). The weather is awesome right now and looks like it will be great.

SRO_ChicagoOn the way in, I was starving and I headed straight for Standing Room Only to get some ribs. It was the last meal I had the last time in Chicago and they were delicious, so I made it my first meal this time around. Google maps on my phone helped me get here, I sure wish it had GPS to figure out where I am so that when I want directions and I’m don’t have an exact location that it could figure it out for me!

I think I might take a short walk, and then go check in. I’ve got to get this car into the hotel parking so I don’t need to deal with driving/parking any more today, then I’ll see if I can hook up early with some of the people I’m meeting later on. I had planned on being in town hours and hours ago but yesterdays delays resulted in my not getting enough sleep and flooding delays encouraged me to do some shopping in Michigan City before getting too close to Chicago in hopes flooding would die down..

Leave a comment

Posted in food + drink, general

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Drummond Island, Michigan

Posted on August 24, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I spent some time on Drummond Island (in Michigan just off the east side of the upper peninsula) a few weeks ago. You can see a better perspective of where this is by checking out this map. Note the solid line that zig-zags around it, that’s the Canadian international border. You have to take a ferry (from DeTour on the Michigan Upper Peninsula side) to get over to the island, it was great both times, didn’t have to wait for the next ferry (only once and hour) although we just made the ferry and I had to part at a 45 degree angle to fit! But at least I didn’t have to wait an extra hour. Since there is only one ferry you only have to pay to go there, there ride back is free.

Drummond-DetourI’ve been there before but only when it was very cold. It was beautiful weather the whole time, it was great to bicycle around. The stars were so clear and I had an excellent view of the Perseids Meteor shower.

The internet access was lacking though. They offer hi-speed free wireless at the chamber of commerce but the DSL was down for the whole weekend, , I was starting to get the shakes!!! FYI, the Chamber of Commerce is kind of the Visitor’s Center and is located at “The Four Corners”, everyone knows that’s the intersection with both the blinking red-light and a stop sign :) Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in holidays + events

Tagged , , , , , ,

AppleTV is Awesome!!!

Posted on July 22, 2007 | 2 comments

My AppleTV is awesome! An “iPod for your TV” is a accurate description. I ran the software update (painless!) and it gave me YouTube videos and fixed “enhanced podcasts”.

It mirrors one of your computer’s iTunes just like an iPod does (and allows you exceptions) and will stream from any other computers running iTunes (platform independent) and I don’t think there is a limit. I can’t believe how fast it pulls hi-res movie previews from Apple down to the unit, it’s very very fast. It’s actually much faster than pulling down YouTube videos (many which are low-res).

It really streams full-scren video from other computers really efficiently. Very rarely does it need a moment to catch up. It has no problem with steaming audio. It almost makes no sense to download podcasts, I bet you could stream them live if you had a way to just get the RSS feeds onto the AppleTV.

With “enhanced podcasts” it now properly advances the embedded images to follow along with the audio. The problem is that it just shows them to the side like the album artwork, some images are much larger so it really cheats you by scaling them down. Since you don’t use the up/down keys on the remote during this process “up” would be a great way to enlarge the images.

I have the same image size concern when viewing slideshows with the “Ken Burns effect”, sometimes I want to view the whole image. Once again this would be another great use for the up button. The down button could be used for viewing filenames, date, time and other info about the images. Actually, this would be a good use for the down button while viewing videos or audio.

A few more features (like on the TiVo) like weather, movie listings and maybe Flickr photo viewing and it’d be even better… Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in reviews

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sleep Machine

Posted on May 27, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I’ve certainly been catching up on sleep the last few days, I think I’ve had about 23 hours since Friday evening. This is excellent since I really haven’t been sleeping all that well these days. I haven’t gotten much accomplished this weekend but that’s okay…

What I did get accomplished was that I went out to the cemetery where my grandparents and great-grandparents (Mom’s side) are buried today. I usually get out there a few times a year (sprint/fall) just to clean up and edge where the grass is growing over the stones, but it’s been so crazy lately (life and the weather) I’m getting out much later than usual. It’s been raining/drizzling all day but it pretty much stopped when I got out there so that worked out nice.

I need to take Mom with me some time because I always come up with questions about dates, middle initials or something else about family history that I don’t know the answer to…

Leave a comment

Posted in friends + family, me + myself + i

Tagged , ,

So So Busy Lately…

Posted on May 16, 2007 | 1 comment

It’s been extra cRaZy lately:

  • We’re nearing the end of the school year and it just plain gets hectic around then (even though I work year-round).
  • The superintendent just retired, he’s been in the district 44 years(!!!), so there has been work to wrap up and a variety of celebratory events (admin building, district-wide, just administrators, etc.). He sure knew a lot of people, many whom came back for some of the celebrations.
  • I just starting teaching a class at a local university and getting everything started always takes time (even though I’ve done this same class before); plus I’m trying to do more on-line with this group.
  • Life in general has been a little busier lately from Mother’s day to days off and other things.
  • I think I’ve missed at least an extra day a week at work for some meeting and/or conference every week since before Easter and had to take a few vacation days here and there too so it’s been busy for those reasons too.
  • I’ve got a new boss, which is great(!), but it’s stressful figuring out how they want things (what things I should ask about and what things to just do) there’s no problems, it’s just I figured all that out with the old boss and had a good grip on these things.
  • I’ve been having sleep problems too, but I bet that’s partially due to the above and the crazy weather changes affecting my allergies.

    Hmm… Putting them all in a list I realize there are more work related items than life in general, have to think about that…

    I go have good stuff going on, most (all?) of the busy personal stuff has been good, it’s just been making life busier. I haven’t spent as much “fun” time on the computer as usual, certainly not much time blogging lately, but I think things will calm down soon, but we are still getting into the end of the year crunches at work. That’s all for now, just a life in general update, not too exciting but you know I’m alive…

    • 1 Comment

    Posted in general, me + myself + i

    Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

    What a great day!!!! Super Sunny

    Posted on April 13, 2007 | Leave a comment

    It’s a great sunny day out!!! I’ve got to run around to all the buildings in the school district for work today and it’s just perfect for those kinds of errands. I’m not sure what the rest of the weekend will be like but today is awesome! I wish I had solar panels on my head to store up the sunshine for the cloudy days…

    Leave a comment

    Posted in general

    Tagged , ,

    Roswell

    Posted on February 21, 2007 | 1 comment

    So some different things got me thinking about Roswell: Quite often Grey’s Anatomy does since Katherine Heigl was one of the stars. So that started me thinking about the TV series Roswell and I started surfing around stumbled along THE video clip (to set this clip up, you need to know that Max and Liz didn’t know each other well but secretly had crushes, two men get in an argument in the Crashdown Cafe, a gun goes off, Liz falls to the ground and Max runs to her side) where it all started . It was a great series but it only made it three seasons, which is actually pretty good for sci-fi.
    Roswell60Th
    And then I remembered that the Roswell UFO Festival is this summer (as always) but this year is 60 years since the aliens crashed there. The biggest coverup since well, since anything else. This is the reason as to why they always dismiss UFO sightings as ‘weather balloons’ because that’s what they accused the Air Force guy of doing, of confusing a weather balloon with a spaceship…

    I’m really thinking of going to the festival this summer, has ever anyone gone? Any tips? Anything from someone whose been there but not during a festival? Maybe a not-to-miss place (museum or restaurant)? Or an alien-theme hotel or maybe just a good but cheap hotel?

    1 Comment

    Posted in holidays + events

    Tagged , , , , , ,

    So I should have kept my mouth shut…

    Posted on January 4, 2007 | Leave a comment

    So after talking about the wonderful weather this morning, this afternoon the last few hours of daylight were the cloudiest I’ve ever seen while I was in Costa Rica. I actually thought it might storm. It was still gorgeous (and the lack of sun did make it more comfortable), I just thought it was weird after I mentioned it this morning.

    Leave a comment

    Posted in holidays + events

    Tagged , ,