Historic Maps

There is a lot of good information available on the Library of Congress web site. I was looking around there and found a nice set of old maps and panorama views of various cities. At the right is part of a panorama of Brainerd, MN from around 1914. Click here or on the image to see a larger view. Better yet, go to the Library of Congress site and look at the whole thing.

You can get to the city and town maps here and to the panorama views here. I don’t care much for the interface. After picking a map, click on the thumbnail image to open the map viewer. Scroll down to the options below the map, set the size and zoom level, and click on the map to refresh the image. The directions are given above the images. Although the viewer is a bit crude, it’s fun to see how places have changed in the last hundred years or so.

You can see part of a drawing of downtown Cincinnati in 1900 here. Compare that to the Google map satellite view of the same area here. The suspension bridge, finished in 1866, is visible in both. However, except for special events, the riverboats have nearly disappeared and the area has been transformed by the new football and baseball stadiums.

Too Cold for the Robins

At the beginning of January I wondered if there would be a winter. It was exceptionally warm here and we had so much rain there were flood watches issued regularly. The photo to the right is of berries on the tree outside our place during a rain shower. The ground was warm and after a rain you’d see worms on the surface. There was a robin hanging around our place too. He had plenty to eat.

Then the temperatures started getting more seasonable and in the last couple weeks it has been cooler-than normal. The robin stuck it out though. I heard the robin’s song in the morning when loading up the car. I’d see him going to our tree every now and then to pluck a berry for lunch. He was searching for food to tide him over until things warmed up again.

The last few days have been very cold here. The high today was about 30 degrees less than normal. This morning it was 3 degrees outside. A little wind made it feel very cold when I was brushing the snow off the cars. And it was quiet outside. Mr. Robin wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I think he finally went south to find some greener pastures until the warmer temperatures are here to stay.

Let’s hope Punxsutawney Phil is correct and we’ll have an early spring this year. I'm listening for the robins.

Movie Musings - Part 1

Between our Netflix service and the movies shown on the Turner Classic Movies channel, I’ve been watching some old films I’ve never seen or catching up on those I haven’t seen for many years. We’ve been watching a lot of old black and white films – Dianne groans when I start a DVD and the color “goes out” on the TV. Nevertheless, even the silent movie comedy classics are good for a laugh. Here are few I highly recommend.

The Gold Rush with Charlie Chaplin has to rank up there as one of his best. Chaplin’s tramp character goes to the Klondike to search for gold. We saw a re-mastered version that had a narration done by Chaplin and music composed by Chaplin. It was very well done and eliminated the need to read (see this earlier post).

The General is a Civil War era picture that puts Buster Keaton in the role of a locomotive engineer trying to thwart some Union spies. It’s a classic action and romance movie. Another Buster Keaton flick, a short called One Week, is also very good. He plays a newlywed that receives a do-it-yourself house building kit as a wedding gift from his uncle. A lot happens while building that house in the first week of marriage!

Finally, I also recommend the Harold Lloyd full length film called The Kid Brother. Lloyd plays the youngest of 3 sons of the town sheriff. He’s sheltered as the youngest son, but steps up when his dad needs help. It is also a romantic comedy with lots of action. The short film by Lloyd called Number Please is also good. It features Lloyd as one of two suitors of a woman which eventually became his actual wife. Lloyd’s efforts to lose a purse to avoid being accused of purse snatching are hilarious.

There are two common elements that make these silent films stand out for me. First, I’m amazed at the stunts and sight gags in these films. Long before computer generated imagery and sophisticated camera tricks were available, these folks captured some amazing scenes on film. The visual effects they created add levity but also enhance the story. It’s a lot of creative effort to come up with these ideas, scout appropriate locations in some cases, and plan the camera angles and timing to produce the desired effect. Second, the full length films not only allow time to show stunts and sight gags but also let the characters develop and give time to showcase the acting talent of the stars. Body language and facial expressions are key to convey emotion and make the connection with the audience. The action and romance aspects in these films demanded a wide range of acting ability. Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd handle it very well in these films.

Lentils and Ham

I like Alton Brown’s show Good Eats on the Food Network. He puts a light-hearted spin on culinary topics that makes the show educational and fun to watch. Along the way he gives lots of interesting tips.

His recent show on lentils got me inspired. He took lentils out of their traditional soup role and into other dishes – including lentil cookies. Well…I wan’t THAT inspired. But I took his basic guidance and came up with a nice ham and lentil creation.

I used his approach to preparing the lentils described towards the bottom of this page (minus onions for Dianne). While the lentils were boiling, I fried up a package of small diced ham cubes in some grapeseed oil. When they were cooked through, I deglazed the pan with some white wine and seasoned the mix with thyme (~1+ tsp), one fresh ground clove, parsley, ground pepper, and a dash of lemon juice. After the lentils were drained and the bay leaves removed, I tossed about 2/3 of the lentils together with the seasoned ham and served with some corn on the side. I thought it turned out pretty well for a first try.

My Next Cell Phone

In all the media blitz surrounding Apple's announcement of the new iPhone, I almost missed the real news about new cell phones! Check out this link to see my next cell phone. It even comes with a toilet charging dock. For more on the character, check out this earlier post.

High Tech Flashcards

When I was teaching chemistry, there were many occasions when I saw students making flashcards to help them memorize things such as cation and anion names. It's a good idea, but it's a bit labor intensive to make one set of cards. It's hard to share that set with classmates.

That's where the Quizlet site excels. Quizlet is an online flashcard system. You enter terms (or import from a file) and their definitions. You can look through the cards in different modes with various display options: familiarization, learn, and test. Quizlet keeps track of your progress and only retests you on terms you don't know. You can share your cards and collaborate with classmates. A neat idea. Here is an example set of cards covering state capitals.

Tastespotting

I stumbled on the Tastespotting website today. It's a photo based site showing pictures of food and food related gadgets. The photos are links that take you to blogs or websites showing recipes or describing the kitchen gadget. It's not an efficient way to find a recipe, but it's a great site to browse. The photos show some awesome creations.

An example of a gadget item is the Mr. and Mrs. Bento Box shown at right. A set of stackable trays (4 for Mr. and 2 for Mrs.) that fit inside the insulated jar. It's rare I pack a lunch, but these are pretty cool.

Data Visualization

This link already has meme status, but I'm posting it anyway. This site summarizes data visualization options in a periodic table format. It appeals to the chemist in all of us, even though the groupings aren't as meaningful as those in the chemistry periodic table. If you hover over the squares, you'll see an example of each. A cute idea.

Tarot Cards

I took a quiz to find out which Tarot card I am. Here is the result. After I shared with Dianne, she wanted to take the quiz too. I pasted her result below my Hermit card.

You are The Hermit

Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.

The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.

The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.

The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

The Big Chicken

The recent issue of Food Processing magazine also had an interesting article about chicken wings and chicken consumption in the US. I was amazed at the increase in chicken consumption over the last few decades. The average American ate 28.0 pounds of chicken in the year 1960. That grew to 78.0 pounds in 2000 and the USDA estimates it was 88.6 pounds in 2006. That's a lot of chicken wings and McNuggets.

One thing in the article struck me as odd. The article had a table showing "Favorite Chicken Parts" with the following data from the National Chicken Council.

Part	2001	2006
Breast	59%	65%
Whole Bird	17%	28%
Leg Quarter	21%	25%
Bone in/skin on breast	20%	24%
Thighs	16%	21%
Drumstick	8%	18%
Wing	12%	17%

I started looking at the table by rows. Breast went up, whole bird went up, leg quarters went up....hey, wait a minute. All entries went up. And within a year, the percents add up to something way bigger than 100. Wow! That's a big chicken to go over 100% -- kind of like The Big Chicken shown on the right.

Since the data came from the National Chicken Council, I went to their site to see if the numbers were right and find out what was being shown. The answer was simple. When shoppers were polled, they were asked what cuts of chicken meat they were buying that day. They could choose multiple cuts. That's why the values don't add up to 100%. That didn't come across in the article and made the table hard to interpret.

I found some interesting information while looking around the National Chicken Council website. They have a lot of chicken market stats, facts about chicken, etc. Check it out and meet me at The Big Chicken.

Do Kids Read Anymore?

The recent issue of Food Processing magazine has a nice article on Hamburger Helper and a new extension for the line. Apparently the Betty Crocker folks want to fill the fast snack niche for kids by creating a Hamburger Helper "singles" pouch that contains everything for a good snack except water - freeze dried meat, sauce, and starch. All you do is add water and microwave for about 5 minutes. Yum?

The article shared comments from test users. This one made me laugh. "...many preteens and teenage boys wanted the instructions printed as images with fewer words."

Okay... let's see. Open pouch and put contents in a microwave safe bowl. Add a half cup of water. Microwave on high for 5-6 minutes. That takes all of ten seconds to read! C'mon...you need that in pictures!?! That's a sad commentary on how much teenage boys like to read. I dare say even Cheap Thrills Cuisine has too many words for them. It's safe to say they aren't reading top food blogs like Simply Recipes or 101 Cookbooks - even though both have great pictures.

First Life or Second Life

I've been a blog slug the last few weeks. I just haven't had time to come up with anything coherent or interesting. It's just been a busy few weeks. That inspired this post.

I don't understand the attraction of Second Life. I'm too busy in the real Earl World to have time to support a second, parallel Earl World in the virtual Second Life universe. But it seems you can't surf around without reading something about Second Life. Reuters has a virtual news bureau there. I can understand why Wired would want to be there. Our government is starting a presence there. You can go to museums. A lot of education venues are popping up there. Businesses are showing up in Second Life too. These are just a few of the Second Life announcements I've collected in the last few months. For most of these, I question whether or not the virtual front end of Second Life is the best platform to use - especially for a company meeting or a class. Perhaps a Second Lifer who reads this can explain the fascination.

My feelings about Second Life are well defined in this parody website called First Life. I think it's hilarious.

Janus & NOW

I received a word origin-a-day desk calendar in our office gift exchange. I opened it today and the first page mentions that the name of the first month of the year comes from the Latin ‘janua’, or door. The god who protects doorways is Janus. Janus has two faces – one looking from the door into the future and the other looking into the past. That description of Janus accurately captures all the talk and blog posts reviewing 2006 and making predictions or resolutions for 2007 at this time of year. I suppose it’s time for me to do the Janus thing.

One item I didn’t post about in 2006 was the Phil Keoghan appearance I attended last November. He was here for a company event where he spoke, answered questions and stayed after to meet folks and chat. I went because I like Phil as the host of The Amazing Race (TAR). He answered questions about the show and described the grueling travel schedule, the racers, the challenges, etc. It was interesting. However, what I didn’t know about was his motivational work in the NOW (No Opportunity Wasted) context and his work with the NOW television show. In short, the series challenges and helps folks accomplish something they’ve always dreamed about – e.g. overcoming a fear, changing their community, realizing an idea, etc. We saw a couple clips from the NOW show. It looked like a good series. Phil told the audience how his near-death experience while younger caused him to reflect on his life and think about what he wanted to do in the future. This reflection evolved into a new philosophy for his life that is based on living each day to the fullest and seizing opportunities. He urged everyone to create a “life list” of things to do before you die – and to act on that list by creating and seizing opportunities to accomplish your goals. This life list and NOW philosophy is described in the book he co-authored as a result of the NOW series.

Phil was surprised that very few folks in the audience had written a life list – although many had ideas. He mentioned the first step in making those dreams a reality is getting that list down on paper. Perhaps I should prepare a list. I’ve seen a couple blogs with life list entries, but not many. Do folks reading this keep a life list?

If you have a chance to meet and talk with Phil, don’t pass it up. He’s a high energy guy with a zest for life that is infectious.

Tony Registration

It's time to renew the Tiger registration for another year. I didn't receive a notice in the mail, so I went to the State of Ohio website to print the form. I found there are two changes to the aircraft registration process this year. One change seems reasonable and the other is ridiculous.

The first change is that the exorbitant registration fee (relative to a couple years ago) is now earmarked for the Ohio airport fund. That seems reasonable. User fees go to support the facilities used.

The other change to the aircraft registration process is the result of a new Ohio law that went into effect last April. The new law requires applicants to submit a “declaration regarding material assistance/nonassistance to a terrorist organization” (DMA) form along with your normal registration form and fee. The fundamental purpose of the law is to identify terrorism suspects and/or provide additional avenues for prosecution of terrorists. The State of Ohio won’t issue your aircraft registration if your DMA isn’t answered appropriately.

For those not wanting to read the form, it’s basically a list of six questions to establish whether or not someone is a member of or has provided support for a terrorist organization. They provide a 4 page list of organizations. I’m no legal eagle or politician, but I’m astonished at how stupid this exercise is. It seems there are three options for the form: 1 – You’re not a terrorist and this is just extra red tape; 2 – You are a terrorist and you lie on the form. If they catch it, a false entry is a fifth degree felony (I don’t know what penalty is associated with that degree of crime, but it’s probably minimal compared to the sentence you’d get for something on the 9/11 scale); 3 – You are a terrorist and you tell the truth (and so, being an honest but stupid terrorist, your registration is denied).

I suppose there is a fourth option – just ignore the form and don’t register. However, there’s a $500 fine associated with that. Clearly someone supporting terrorism wouldn’t want to risk such a hefty fine.

Ohio lawmakers, in their infinite wisdom, think the threat of being convicted for a fifth degree felony or the denial of an aircraft registration is an effective deterrent for aircraft terrorism. Hmmmm…I’ve only thought about this for all of 5 minutes, but I’m not aware that any of the folks involved in the 9/11 plot were responsible for aircraft registration. Is this honor system burden of paperwork the best solution they could come up with to thwart terrorists? I don’t think we should put on blinders to potential terrorism, however laws such as this are ridiculous and create a false sense of security.

Sorry to get off on a rant, but I feel better now that I’ve vented -- until I have to register Tony again in 2008.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all!

Exciting Day Downtown

Dianne had to go to work for a bit today. Since she was operating on a couple hours of sleep, I took her downtown. I can surf there as well, just not as comfortably. But it turned out to be an exciting day in downtown Cincinnati - as exciting as Cincinnati can be.

We had lunch at Skyline Chili with a few of her colleagues. Afterwards, we walked to the Carew Tower to visit Churchill’s Tea Room. Along the way we saw quite a few things. We walked by the Duke Energy holiday model train exhibit. If you can’t make it, their site has photos and a short video. We also walked past John Matarese (the WCPO-TV reporter who does the “Don’t Waste Your Money” segments) who was conducting an on the street interview. I’m not a huge fan, but nevertheless a brush with a 2 time Emmy award winner (according to his bio). Finally, I was looking ahead and the back of a jacket with the Full Metal Corsets logo of the Cincinnati Rollergirls caught my eye. I’m pretty sure it was The Librarian, but it was a bit hard to tell as she wasn’t wearing skates and making her trademark shooshing pose.

What a day, huh!?!

Cooking with Monkey

I stumbled across a creative website called Cooking With Monkey. The site has collections of photographs that follow a stuffed monkey making various dishes from start to finish. The idea of a stuffed animal holding kitchen utensils and operating appliances to cook something struck me as very funny. The picture at the right shows Monkey making cupcakes. You can see Monkey making all kinds of recipes. I think it’s a cute, clever idea for a website – although a lot of work.

I must be in the target audience, because when I showed it to Dianne she didn’t think it was that cute. I thought the stuffed animal would enhance her interest, but it didn’t work. Maybe if the monkey rides a motorcycle she’ll get sucked in.

By the way, the cooking area is just a small part of the photo documentary of Monkey. Go here to see him doing all kinds of things like going to the dentist (getting teeth x-rays is the funniest pic in that series), going to the eye doctor, doing origami, and traveling in Chicago.

Puzzle Box

My mother- and father-in-law gave me this puzzle/treasure box for Christmas. It's all wood and looks like a sealed, secure box. The joints are very tight. See another view here. However, the bands move in sequence to release the ends of the box and reveal two hidden compartments. One end is relatively easy to open and gives access to the large compartment. See that end open here. You might think that is all there is. But a series of steps lets you open a smaller compartment on the other end. A very unique gift!

Prince of Wales

A few weeks ago, Dianne and I made a rare trip downtown to the Carew Tower. We went to the Tower Place mall to visit Appointments - a nice pen and accessory store. We were walking around and I noticed Churchill's Tea Room, but we didn't stop in since it was lunch time. Dianne went back a couple weeks ago over lunch and found out they sell bulk loose leaf tea. She said it is similar to the Lupicia Fresh Tea store (formerly L'Epicier) in the Ala Moana Shopping Center.

I'm a big tea drinker - black or green mostly, not herbal teas. There's nothing like a good loose leaf tea. So while at Churchill's, she bought a few different kinds for me to try. All the tea was very fresh and the flavors were wonderful. One sample she bought was the Prince of Wales tea. That is one of my favorite everyday black teas. It's a little hard to find, but a few stores in the area carry the Twinings version. However, the flavor of Twinings version doesn't even come close to the fresh stuff from Churchill's. If you're a tea drinker and are downtown in Cincinnati, stop by Churchill's. You'll be glad you did.

It's probably no Teaism, but I'll bet Kyle could get some of his favorite white tea there.

Mouse Cookie

Carla found the cutest little mouse cookies today. The body was a chocolate covered cherry - the cherry stem was the tail. The head and nose were a chocolate kiss and the ears were sliced almonds. The mouse was sitting on half an Oreo cookie. A little red and green decoration gave the cookie a nice touch. A very clever combination of common items made a nice cookie.

Street Art & Anamorphosis

Thanks to the Dragonfly (whose Adventures you can read about here), I found the street art of Julian Beever. He uses chalk on sidewalks to draw images that, when viewed from a certain direction, show an object or scene in perfect proportion. The illusion leverages our eye/brain knowledge of perspective, object size, and relative distance and the viewer’s perspective to correct the “distorted” image he draws on the angled sidewalk. It’s easier to see than to explain in words. Looking from one direction, this image appears stretched out and you don’t immediately recognize the object. However, in the correct view the object pops out in perfect proportion. The illusion is striking on some of his art here and here where people seem to fit in perfectly with the drawing.

A quick search on the web pointed out the technique is called anamorphosis. Here is one nice site that discusses the technique that has a nice bibliography and list of links. An early example of the technique is a skull put in the oil painting shown here. I also discovered another street artist, Kurt Wenner, with similar work.

Tune Glue

Tune glue is a fun little Flash site that lets you create a music map where you can explore relationships between bands and musicians. Enter a name as a starting point. Each artist or group is shown as a node. Click on the node to expand or delete it from your diagram. You can drag nodes or lock their positions in the diagram. Some artists have news, links, etc. as well. When you expand a node, connections are made to neighbors. At the right is a diagram I made starting with one of my favorites, ZZ Top. You can see their node near the center (click on the image to see a larger view). The logic seemed pretty good as I also like the neighboring groups within a couple degrees of separation.

The diagrams aren't always perfect. Sometimes an artist will show up in 2 places and band names can be tricky (e.g. The Doors and Doors were separate nodes). Nevertheless, it's clever and worth a look.

Updated Blog Roll

I've been a blogging slug lately, but I've been reading a lot of sites. I've updated my reading list on the right side of the page. I've mentioned all of these in previous posts except for the update to my photoblog list -- The HOV Lane. It's a great collection of photos taken by Josh Lane on his road trip. The photos capture the beauty as well as the wacky observations he makes on the journey. Check it out!

More Holiday Gift Ideas

Thanks to the swissmiss site, I found a site called Generate that has lots of nice items for the home that have an innovative design. One example is the hugging salt and pepper shakers shown at the right. There's another interesting salt and pepper shaker here. I'm not into sushi, but the sushi dipping plate here and the chopstick holder and rest here are nice. Finally, these plates are funky. They keep things from mixing on the plate and can be stored vertically in the cupboard.

Swiss Miss

It's been cold here, but this entry isn't about hot chocolate. Thanks to 101 cookbooks, I ran across the swissmiss blog written by a Swiss designer living in NYC. She posts on all sorts of items that have a design flair. An example is the oil lamp shown at the right. The wick holder is a brass match that gives the illusion of a half used wooden match that keeps on burning. It's an interesting read for gift ideas.

Curious Cook

Thanks to the Blogger Buzz post on the Blogger dashboard, I found the News for Curious Cooks blog written by Harold McGee. He provides an interesting look at the interface between food, cooking, and science. His book as well as the blog explains the "why" behind cooking methods and food transforms. For example, this post gives some background as to why black teas should be brewed in very hot water whereas green teas need more gentle brewing.

National Toy Hall of Fame

The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY has a National Toy Hall of Fame. Check out an online version of the items here. I was fortunate to have many of these toys while growing up. Tonka toys, Legos, Slinky, Etch-a-sketch (although I never made sketches like these), Lincoln Logs, etc. The list brought back a lot of memories. I was pleasantly surprised to see the cardboard box on the list--Dianne didn't get it. I got lots of boxes when my dad received orders for his shop. A little imagination and a box can be hours of entertainment.

9 out of 10

A colleague pointed out the Rough Type blog by Nicholas Carr. It's an interesting blog about various web, technology, information, and web business related items. I read several of the recent posts and liked the style. He introduces topics succinctly and then adds his own insight. A very good read.

Ben Franklin could have written the title for one of Nicholas' recent posts -- Death, Taxes, and Spam. In that post he cites a study saying nine out of every ten emails are spam. That is sobering. I've been getting a lot of spam with "stock tips" lately. It boggles my mind that folks can make money doing that! If his 5-7% return on investment information is correct, it's no wonder spammers keep sending junk. As Susan Powter used to say, "Stop the Insanity!"

Early Kodachrome Images

I'm not a political blog reader. However, the Daily Kos site departed from their usual political theme with this nice post today on early kodachrome images -- color photos taken all across America prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Each photo has a brief comment. I like the first photo in the Modernization section of some locomotives. An interesting collection.

First Snow of the Season

My normal 15-20 minute commute to work took one hour and fifty minutes today. Why? It was the first snowfall in the area. The 1/4 to 1/2 inches of snow throughout the area put Cincinnati drivers into a tizzy. The roads were slippery in spots, but they really weren't that bad. People just aren't used to driving in that and so they were sliding all over. I saw two cars in the ditch in the Mason area and a few fender benders on the way to work. As shown in the Borgman cartoon from last Friday, some areas had the salt trucks out in full force. That helped a lot, but my black car was mostly white with salt by the time I got home. I can't wait for the next snowstorm during rush hour.

First House on the Moon

...I'd like to someday be the owner of the first house on the moon.
there would be no neighbors, and no population boom.
You might say that all I do is dream my life away.
I guess it's true, 'cause I'm stone in love with you...

These lyrics came to mind today. Russell Thompkins, Jr. of the Stylistics might live on the moon if the plans announced by NASA come true. Of course some people will think the moon colony is a hoax.

Pillows for Christmas

Need some unique pillows as accents around the house? There are several options I've seen recently on the web. At the right is one of many sushi pillows available here. If sushi isn't your thing, you could decorate with rock pillows. Finally, there are some drug product pillow options.

Holiday Havoc

On Saturday evening, Dianne and I went to Dayton for Holiday Havoc - a charity event scrimmage between the Cincinnati Rollergirls and the Gem City Rollergirls. We went up early and had dinner at bd's Mongolian Grill (thanks to Carla for the tip). It's a good, albeit Americanized, place for Mongolian bbq food.

The Holiday Havoc wasn't far away at the SkateWorld Kettering. The event had two scrimmages each lasting 40 minutes. The Gem City group has two teams (with some girls skating both events due to injuries) and the Cinci girls formed two teams as well. In both bouts, the Gem City girls edged out the Cinci girls by a few points.

It was a tough match with some hard blocking by the Gem City team. I happened to sit next to Ruff'n the Passer's mom. She is very nice and proud of her daughter - and rightly so! Ruff'n the Passer is a very good all around skater. She is good at jamming and a good blocker too. The best Gem City blocker was Fonda la Boom who gave hard shoulder blocks that knocked several Cinci girls off their feet. Another Gem City jammer of note was I Candye. She is light, but really sprints around the track.

Overall, the Cincinnati Rollergirls didn't look as sharp with their blocking as in past matches. We were sitting with a Cincinnati group and there were several times where folks couldn't believe how easily the Gem City jammer made it through the pack. As usual, Collier Mama was doing a good job blocking. Unfortunately, she got ejected after going down hard with a Gem City skater. I thought it was a very bad call as Collier Mama was crawling away from her opponent as the Gem City girl was kicking Collier with her skates. Go figure! Pantera....er, Kathy Killzone...was also doing well with blocking. By the way, I found the name change confusing. :^) Sk8 Crime went all out as usual with some hard blocks and take downs. Polly Rocket is hurting today after Sk8 Crime's tackle.

On the jamming side, even Ruff'n the Passer's mom was impressed with Sadistic Sadie's skill. She really kept the team in it during the second bout. In one jam, the Gem City jammer got an early jump on Sadie and she was waving her fist in the air through the turn to excite the crowd. However, she didn't have much of a jump and wasn't watching Sadie. Sadie caught up to her at full speed while the Gem City girl was waving and Sadie gave her a hard shoulder block that sent her into the crowd. That electrified the Cinci crowd.

A lot of Cinci skaters contributed as jammers as there was a lot of rotation. Emolition, one of the newer skaters, showed a lot of promise as a jammer. The Cincinnati crowd wasn't always sure of the scoring. There was one jam in particular where Gummilove was against the Gem City jammer in the penalty box for 3/4 of the time. The jam ended up Gem City 3 and Cinci 2. A Cincinnati fan behind me shouted "how is that possible?" We all agreed!

Despite the Cincinnati Rollergirl losses, it was a nice event. Thanks to all the Roller Girls from both cities for volunteering their time to put on the charity event.

First Lego League Competition

On Saturday morning, Dianne and I went to the Cincinnati area First Lego League competition at the Loveland middle school. For those not familiar with the FLL, check out their website. The league is a means to get kids thinking about math, science, and engineering in a fun way by using Lego robots to perform tasks. But it goes beyond the Lego toys aspect by evaluating teamwork, requiring background research, and looking at communication and understanding. It's a neat program. The theme this year was nanotechnology.

We went especially to see the Teeny Tiny Techno Team participate in the table top, robot aspect of the event. The team is coached by Kyle (who Dianne works with) and Tresha. In this aspect of the competition, the robot tries to complete as many pre-defined tasks as possible in 2 1/2 minutes. The tasks have varying degrees of difficulty and so have different point values. They had three rounds of competition and the TTTT improved each round! I posted a few photos from the event in this Flickr set. You can read more about the other parts of the event and the outcome here and here. The team should be very proud of themselves!

Kent Pietsch Animated GIF

One of the regular performers at the Reno Air Show is Kent Pietsch in his Interstate Cadet. You can read more about Kent and his brother at their website. He does several different performances including a comedy act and a dead stick performance to a spot landing. However, my favorite is the stunt where he lands his plane on a moving RV. The platform on the RV has two shallow depressions near the front that match the footprint of the main landing gear. Kent touches down and gets the gear in the depressions and stops on the RV. By the time the RV gets up to speed, he only has a few seconds to land and there isn't much room for error. It is amazing to watch.

Last September at Reno, I took several photos during one of his attempts to land on a very windy day. The winds were gusting so bad even one of the biplane races was cancelled. I didn't think he'd try it with such a light plane. I put them together into the animated GIF below. I know, a video camera would be better. I just felt like playing with the series of still photos. In one of the early frames you see the wind sock straight out. It was close, but he didn't make it on this attempt. In fact on the last frame you see the tail go down and the front wheels come up as he pulled away to set up for another try.

Ketchup with French Fries

In my last post I mentioned Dianne and I had lunch at the Portsmouth airport. Here is a picture of our lunches after we added ketchup to our respective plates. Note the difference in how the ketchup is applied. It was classic! When you have a platter of fries, do you drizzle your ketchup or make a pool and dip the fries? Can you guess which platter was Dianne's and which was mine? Leave a comment with your answers.

Weekend Flying Destinations

On Friday, Dianne and I flew to the greater Portsmouth airport for lunch at the Skyline restaurant on the field. For Cincinnati folks, it's not a chili parlor. That's just the name of the restaurant. It's just a simple, old sit down spot in the terminal building. It's about a 45 minute flight and it was a beautiful, warm day. Dianne took a picture of me in front of the Tiger with the cell phone -- I forgot the big camera. On the way we flew over the Kenwood mall and the Eastgate mall areas and both were packed with cars. I was glad we were in the air and not looking for parking and dealing with the holiday shoppers.

The airport has a captured Iraqi personnel carrier on the field as a veterans memorial. You can read more about it (sort of) in this picture of the stone near the apc. You can see Dianne (just barely) behind the Iraqi personnel carrier.

On Sunday, I flew south to Middlesboro, KY. It was another beautiful day to fly. The winds were light and the few clouds in the Cincinnati area were very high. I think this is the first airport I've ever flown to that doesn't have an instrument approach. The reason for that is the Middlesboro airport is located in a roughly bowl shaped valley in the low Appalachian mountains near the Tennessee border. Some of the mountains are about 2000 feet above the airport and are only a few miles away. You have to make a steep, non-standard approach to land at the airport. It was the first time I've flown into an airport in the mountains. It was good experience since the winds were light. You can see some of the mountains in the background of this picture of the Tiger on the ramp at Middlesboro.

The reason I flew there is the airport is the home to the Lost Squadron museum. The museum was established to display the Glacier Girl -- a P-38 the group recovered from the icecap in Greenland. Read more about the history and the recovery story at their website. They removed the plane in pieces through a tunnel in the ice, brought it back here, and restored it to flying condition. Unfortunately, the plane wasn't at the museum today! The Glacier Girl made a trip to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas for the air show and is spending the winter in California. That was disappointing. She should be back for a couple weeks in May or June before recreating the flight to England that it never completed in 1942. Even though I didn't see the lightning, it was a nice trip to Middlesboro. Your can see the set of pictures I took at the field and in the museum.

All-TIME 100

Time magazine has put together a list of the 100 best albums. This is nothing new to those who read Time, but I read about it on the Neverending Rainbow site. You can see the list by decade here. It's fun to review the list and see if your favorite artist or album made the cut. Some of the choices are compilations which are probably good, but not ones I would have included in such a list. Of course you'll notice some of your favorites that didn't make the list. For example, who in their right mind would leave out one of the top selling debut albums ever -- where is Boston in the 70's!?! Also, as Pat pointed out recently, reviewing a list like this brings back memories of people and places associated with the music. Check it out!

Squirrel Melt

VH1's show "Web Junk 20" is back for a new season that started last week. The weekly show is a countdown of and witty commentary on the latest strange stuff from the internet.

My favorite clip from the first show answered the eternal question of "what's for dinner?" It's a video of a woman taking her son squirrel hunting and then cooking squirrel melt. Here is the whole clip. They claimed it was a segment from an actual TV series. Mmm...mmm...good!

Apple Stuffed Chicken Breast

A few weeks ago I was on a business trip to upstate New York. I stayed at Fred's Inn and had a nice dinner there of an apple raisin stuffed chicken breast. Today I tried coming up with my own version that was veggie and raisin safe for Dianne. It turned out pretty well.

The key was Jack Lalanne's power juicer. I juiced three apples (two Braeburn and one Granny Smith). I took all the pulp (about 2 cups) and added about a cup of bread crumbs and a few tablespoons of the juice, some sage, thyme, and parsley. That was the stuffing. I made a pocket in each boneless, skinless chicken breast, filled it with stuffing, and tied it shut. Dianne browned the breasts and then we finished them in a 350 degree oven until the internal temp was well above 165. It took about 30 minutes.

I deglazed the pan with about 1 1/2 cups of the apple juice and some white wine. I also added a bit of thyme, sage, and pepper. I reduced that down and added just a bit of cornstarch to thicken slightly. To balance the sweet flavor, I added a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. I used that sauce on top of the chicken when plating.

With the chicken, we had sauteed green beans with lemon zest and a cheese hashbrown casserole. It was a good dinner -- the chicken had a nice, savory apple flavor. It was a pretty good imitation of the dinner I had at Fred's Inn.

Aqua Bouncer

I like watching Parental Control on MTV. Parents interview candidates and choose two new people for their son or daughter to date. The parents hope their kid will make a new connection in order to get rid of the bad person their kid is currently seeing. The parents and the current girlfriend or boyfriend watch the dates together and comment. It's hard to believe how obnoxious and disrespectful most of these kids are to the parents. It's fun to predict who the parents will choose and then predict if their son or daughter will stick with their current date or dump them and pick one of the new people.

On a recent episode, one of the new people arranged a water adventure with an aqua bouncer. It's a self propelled, hydrofoil like platform that moves forward as you bounce up and down. You can see a video of folks using it here. It looked like fun. However, it wasn't enough to make a connection on the date.

US City Data

Looking for information about a US city? I was looking up something and found the City-Data.com site today. The site has basic information (e.g. climate, population, housing costs, crime rates, radio/TV stations, maps, etc.) on many US cities. It reminds me of an almanac in many ways. I found it interesting to browse. For example, I knew Cincinnati didn't get as much sunshine as other places I've lived. However, we're well below the national average -- especially in the winter months. I also found out Cincinnati is the birthplace of Charles Manson and Steven Spielberg among other famous folks. It's fun to look up places you've lived or where you grew up.

Calling All Bengal Fans

Campbell's Chunky soup is running their Click for Cans campaign again this year. Visit chunky.com once a day from now through mid December and vote for your favorite NFL team. Campbell's will donate one can of soup to a local food bank for each pound of weight on the winning team. Right now the Packers are way out in first place.

But Campbell's will also donate 2006 cans of soup to a local food bank of the team that improves the most from last year. Right now the Bengals are in the lead for most improved. Click here to go to the voting page and vote for the Bengals. It's a quick and easy way to help the Freestore Food Bank aid needy folks in our area. And spread the word.

Thanks to the Foodie Report for pointing out the contest.

Cheap Thrills Cuisine

Planning a meal but tired of reading traditional cookbooks? Do you like comic books or graphic novels? Time to check out Cheap Thrills Cuisine. CTC is a syndicated comic strip that presents illustrated recipes. If you don’t have CTC in your newspaper, or you don’t read the paper, you can check out the strip online at the United Media site. Thanks to the Foo Logs for pointing out this strip.

Always Room for Innovation

Nails have been around for a long time. I would have thought that nail design would have been…well…nailed down by now. But I was wrong. Popular Science posted their picks for the best of what is new in 2006. In the Home Tech category, the top innovation is a new nail, designed by Bostitch, called the HurriQuake nail. It’s an improved design to better withstand nature’s fury during hurricanes and earthquakes. A neat innovation without adding much cost.

Another innovative item that caught my eye in the Home Tech category is the X-beam wrench. It’s another example of a simple twist on an old design that lets you push against the wide, flat portion of a wrench rather than along the narrow edge. Presumably it shouldn’t add much cost either. I would guess adding the twist has some strength implications for the wrench, but for everyday applications the added comfort seems like a good idea.

Check out the Popular Science site for picks in other categories.

The Foodie Report

Thanks to Lauren for pointing out The Foodie Report blog. From the title, folks in the Cincinnati area might think it's related to Jungle Jims (note the foodie poll on the lower right of the JJ page). If you've been to the store, you know what I mean. But that's not the case.

The Foodie Report is a collection of food, restaurant, and recipe related items posted by several members of the staff at the Cincinnati Enquirer. With multiple authors, there is a nice variety of posts so you're sure to find something of interest -- especially if you are in the Cincinnati area. Although interesting in a train wreck kind of way, I was kind of grossed out by this Foodie Report post about an alternative recipe for stuffing a turkey. I've never had a slider so I hadn't heard of that stuffing recipe.

Check it out and be sure to leave a comment. Jim Borgman mentioned a while back that the paper's Big Brother tracks comment numbers as one measure of success. If that were the case here, I'd have closed up shop along time ago.

Black Bean Cakes

Last night we made black bean cakes for dinner. We made them loosely based on this recipe from Emeril Lagasse on Food TV. However, we made some changes to ease preparation and to account for someone's issues with onions and other veggies. We used two 15 ounce cans of black beans (rinsed) for the main ingredient. About four seeded chipotles from a 7 ounce can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce is the main seasoning. We also added garlic, cumin, and ground red pepper. To coat the cakes before cooking, we seasoned panko rather than flour. Otherwise, the preparation is like that described in Emeril's recipe.

Dianne chopped the remaining chipotle peppers (with the seeds) and used them directly to top her bean cakes. That's way too much heat for me. I topped mine with salsa made using the adobo sauce, diced tomatoes, and some lime juice. We had roasted corn to go with it.

Week at a Glance

This Venn diagram gives a glimpse at my activities last week. Work was out of control with deadlines looming or things past due but out of my control. Not a good place to be. The one fun item was Wednesday evening. I had a meeting downtown in the late afternoon so afterwards I met Dianne at work. We walked across the Purple People Bridge to have dinner in Newport. I thought that was a nice walk until I heard this story about a couple walking in the same area just one day later. Yikes!

Playing With Photoshop

Time to Rake

Antimicrobial Gadgets

All you gadget loving germ-o-phobes will love these items. One will give you a clean exit from a restroom and the other will give you peace of mind when eating spinach.

T-Mail and E-Mail

There is a relatively new book out by Tom Wheeler called “Mr. Lincoln’s T-mails – The Untold Story of how Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War”. I haven’t read the book – I’m not a big Civil War buff. From the title I thought the book would be tied too heavily to Civil War events to be of interest. However, I stumbled across this site by the author where he shares his impressions of Lincoln’s communication style and its implications for our current age of emails and on-line social networks. I’ve experienced some of the situations he brings up (e.g. the value of a face to face meeting on occasion) and I agree with his comments. His insights and the parallels to communication modes of today are interesting. Check out the link. I guess there is a lot to learn from history.

TGIED!

Thank God It's Election Day!

I voted today - mostly because of the city income tax issue that is indirectly linked to the fate of the Blue Ash airport. But being able to vote on that issue isn't why I'm excited about election day. In fact the outcome of the issue is really secondary to me.

I'm happy for two reasons. First, there won't be back-to-back negative, mud slinging local campaign commercials on TV. It's been a media blitz the last couple weeks. The vast majority of ads here were bashing the opposition. I only saw a couple commercials where candidates said anything about their position on issues or what they would do if elected (like that comes true anyway). This mid-term election seemed like the worst for negative campaigning. Second, I'll stop getting voicemail messages from candidates or party organizations. Maybe I'm more sensitive since we dropped our landline, but I was getting two or more messages a day -- also mostly negative. Those campaign calls and pollsters far outweighed the annoying telemarketers this past month.

Hopefully I'll have a couple years of peace before the next presidential campaign.

Animal Crossing -- I Don't Get It

I get a lot of blog hits looking at this photo of the screen from my Animal Crossing Wild World game on the Nintendo DS. Here is a link to the original post. It's not a great photo. The light was low and the character was moving so it is blurred. Most of the hits come from overseas. Lately, this entry can account for almost 20% of the visits to Earl World. Perhaps there was a re-launch of the game in Europe? I'm not complaining, but I'd like to understand why folks are so interested. I'd appreciate it if someone viewing this post would leave a comment about what led them here.

Flying on Sunday Again

I took a local flight today in the Tiger. It was cloudy, but the cloud layer was pretty high so it was ok to fly visually. I flew southeast and circled East Fork Lake, went south to the Meldahl lock and dam and then followed the Ohio river east. I followed the river until I got to the tributary coming in near Higginsport. I followed this stream northeast to Georgetown. I had never been to the Brown county airport. After looking around there, I flew northwest toward home. Most of this area is rural and forested. About 75% of the trees have lost their leaves. There was just a bit of real and yellow left.

To set up for entry into the traffic pattern, I went a bit more north and flew over the new hotel and indoor water park (Great Wolf Lodge) at King's Island. The hotel has two large wings with what I guess is the indoor waterpark in the center. The waterpark has three large tubes coming out of and going back inside the building. They must be for water slides. It looks like there is still a lot of landscaping work to do before opening. From there I returned to Blue Ash.

I also want to pass along two interesting flying links. The first is a blog written by a guy taking flying lessons. He doesn't post too frequently, but they are interesting for student pilots and pilots alike. The second site is a flash piece that chronicles a long cross country flight made by two brothers from California. They have some amazing photos that give some insight into what you can see from the air.

Saturday in Bellevue

Saturday afternoon Dianne and I drove down to Bellevue Kentucky - just across the river from Cincinnati. Dianne wanted to get a pretzel sandwich for lunch from a place called Love Me Knots. She has been there for lunch several times, but I had never been. I had a Montgomery Inn BBQ sandwich on a pretzel roll. It was good. If you're in the Bellevue area and are looking for a sandwich, it's worth a try.

After lunch we stopped briefly at the Party Source that is just down the street from the pretzel place. We picked up a couple things and then drove to the river to walk a bit. Even though the temperature was 52, there was no direct sun and the wind was chilly so we didn't stay out long. Here is Dianne with a view of downtown Cincinnati through the Daniel Carter Beard bridge -- better known locally as the "Big Mac" bridge for obvious reasons.

More Fall Color

When I returned home yesterday after a 3 day trip to upstate New York, I was amazed at how fast the maple tree outside our place had changed color. I like the way the sunlight was filtered through the upper leaves. Click on the photo to see a larger version. I also added some other photos I took yesterday. Browse through the photostream or the leaf set on the right side of the Flickr window.

Pictures From SRS IV

Jason Bechtel has posted pictures from the fourth Cincinnati Rollergirl exhibition match on Flickr. There is a set for the Dames and Corset match and a set for the Riots and Sundae match. The photo at left is a nice shot of The Librarian sprinting hard at the start of a jam to beat Psycho Soy Nut through the first turn. Another photo in Jason's photo sets is the best "Where's Waldo" picture.

Also, Miss Print has asked for feedback on the Cincinnati Rollergirl exhibition season. As a blogger, I know how nice it is to get a comment on a post. If you attended a match, click on the link to go over and leave a comment.

Shoulder Update

I’ve noticed every now and then I get blog hits from people who searched for information on shoulder injuries, frozen shoulder, broken arm, physical therapy, and/or manipulation under anesthesia or MUA. That observation, and the fact that I saw my old physical therapist at the gym recently, prompted this post.

As background, I cracked my humerus last January in a fall that is best recapped by Dianne in this post. No cast was needed and there wasn’t major soft tissue damage, but the orthopedist didn’t want me using the arm until the crack started to heal. At that point (I should say after some delay due to workers comp paperwork) I started physical therapy. By then, my range of motion had decreased a lot. A common problem with a shoulder injury.

I went through a lot of painful stretching during physical therapy to get those muscles back to a normal range of motion. There are way too many muscles in a shoulder. I described a bit of the saga in this post. Early on, my therapist showed me an article on shoulder rehab that gave a mean time to regain strength and range of about 16 weeks. The standard deviation was quite large with some folks taking easily twice that time. Also, most people only recover about 90% of their original range (based on contralateral measurements).

When I was talking with her last week at the gym (just over 3 months since I stopped therapy), my old therapist was pleased that my range is nearly equal to the opposite shoulder and the strength is very good. She was happy that I’ve kept working at it and that I continued to improve after I left her care. She mentioned the hardest thing for her to do is to keep patients motivated. In this age she said everyone wants results immediately. In shoulder rehab, it doesn’t usually happen that way. However, she said there is a good payoff for folks that stick with a program and keep working at it.

So to those of you dealing with a shoulder injury that find this post through a Google search, I have two bits of advice. First, it can be a long road to recovery, but stick with it. Keep stretching and building your strength. The outcome can be good. Second, don’t pick a blog hit in your search results for detailed information. Go to WebMD or a credible site to get the real scoop on shoulder rehabilitation – or better yet ask your orthopedist or physical therapist.

Crispy Gnocchi

A few weeks ago, I saw a post on the 101 Cookbooks site describing a recipe that incorporated crispy gnocchi. The term crispy jumped out at me since I've experienced some starchy messes when boiling potato gnocchi. The concept of frying a gnocchi sounded intriguing, although I wasn't sold on the whole recipe.

A couple weeks ago I tried preparing crispy gnocchi. I used olive oil and had a lot of sticking problems in the pan. They weren't crisping up well as the crispy parts were sticking to the pan. I was almost done making them when I realized I didn't have the pan hot enough at the start.

I tried the experiment again recently. This time I used grapeseed oil. The higher smoking point of the grapeseed oil lets you get the pan hot without breaking down the oil. As soon as I tossed them in the pan, I gave a quick toss to coat the gnocchi with oil. After a few minutes they had a nice golden brown crust without sticking to the pan. It only requires a couple tablespoons of oil. Give it a try as a side.

Sucking the Fun Out

Dianne has a nice post about Google's beta image labeler. I was using it this weekend and thought it was fun. Sometimes you click with a partner and your labels match right away and you move on to the next image. However, I just couldn't match labels from some partners on straightforward pictures. The interface tells you how many labels your partner has assigned. In many cases my partner would assign three and then stop. Nice effort I thought. I'm busting my brain trying to figure out how they'd label an image and they're not adding labels. I'd put in a half dozen suggestions without any luck. Eventually I'd get them to pass and move on to the next image. With that poor effort, we might only see 3-4 images over the 90 seconds. Boring.

After reviewing a few sets of images, I saw one image of a group of people that had a label of 'diphosphonate'. That term caught my attention because of my work in the bone field. Originally, disphosphonates were used as corrosion inhibitors in closed, circulating water systems and also as water softening agents. In the '60s, folks realized that the attraction diphosphonates have for calcium could be leveraged for bone diseases. Today, many of the osteoporosis medications like Didronel, Actonel, Fosamax, Aredia, etc. are all in the bisphosphonate class (another word for diphosphonates). I thought that was an odd label for a group of smiling people. How could that happen?

After several more sets, I realized holding the cursor over the top of a classified image showed the labels entered by your partner. When I was having trouble matching a partner, I looked at their 3 labels on an image we passed on. I think the image was the portrait of a woman and their labels were diphosphonate, carcinoma, and beleaguered. There is no way I would have matched those labels. Then it dawned on me, some idiots were trying to Google bomb the image classification. They were using odd, unique terms that would cause certain types of images to show up when Google searching for that term.

Those Google bombers just sucked the fun out of the Labeler for me. When I was having trouble matching someone, I'd check their labels immediately after passing on an image. If they were odd terms, I'd leave and start a new set with a different partner. Once again I'm reminded of the kids who didn't play nice in grade school. Were these crappy partners the crazy drivers I described the other week? Can't we all just get along and enjoy a fun little web experiment on image labeling at face value?

Pumpkin Carving

Instead of the traditional scary pumpkin carving, we did some logos this year. Dianne did the logo on the very upper left of this webpage and I did the lightbulb logo in the lower left of the screenshot on the same page. We cut some areas completely through and other areas we shaved part way through the flesh from the outside to get a 2 tone effect. It was fun and we kept the seeds for the birds. You can see light and dark versions of both pumpkins on Flickr.

Super Roll Sunday IV -- Cincinnati Rollergirls

It was a packed house last night at Castle Skateland for the last set of matches of the Cincinnati Rollergirls exhibition season. Both matches were very exciting, seesaw battles.

In the first bout, the undefeated Dames took on the Corsets. Going in I thought it would be a good match….but it turned out to be a very exciting match! They were just a couple points apart one way or the other the whole match. The Corsets seemed to kick it up a notch to try and knock off the Dames. Although always strong defensively led by Collier Mama, there was a lot of blocking teamwork going on. They were not only trying to take out the Dames’ jammers, but also trying to box in the Dames’ blockers so the Corset jammers could get through the pack quicker. The Dames were doing the same thing however, so it made for a rough skate in the pack. Sk8 Crime had some great jams (which made her mom very proud), but Blu Bayou, Bex Pistol, and the Librarian (and others?) were all contributing jammers. The Librarian deserves a most improved skater award as it seemed she picked up her speed a lot since SRS III. She was really sprinting hard off the line and even from the outside position she beat some of the Dames jammers through the first and second turns. In the end, with Sadistic Sadie as jammer for the last two jams, the Dames edged out the Corsets by a couple points.

In the second bout, the Riots skated against the Sundaes. I’ve been pulling for the Riots all season, but they’ve had a tough time. I was hoping they could pull off a win and in another close match they edged out the Sundaes. Congratulations to the Riots for their first win! This was a high scoring match and also a close match most of the way. The first jam after the half, the Riot jammer was put in the penalty box (I missed the reason why). This put them behind. A couple jams later with some of the Sundae skaters in the penalty box, Gummilove had a 17 point jam that got the lead back for the Riots. With some tough jamming and hard takedowns in the later jams, the Riots held on to their lead to beat the Sundaes.

It was nice to see a full crowd in the stands. The crowd was into it which added to the fun. There was a lot of cheering during the jams (especially for the Dames) as well as collective gasping at some of the hard hits and falls. Some spectators dressed in costume (especially kids) and the Rollergirls were passing out candy and other items which was nice. Maybe it‘s an illusion because the Skateland venue is smaller than the other rinks, but it seems like you’re closer to the action there – I’m guessing their floor is more narrow than the other rinks. That’s nice. I also liked the new pair of announcers last night. Finally, Sk8 Crime and L’dia did a very nice a cappella version of the national anthem.

I didn’t talk to Miss Print, but I hope she continues providing Rollergirl updates on her blog during the off season and I hope the league continues. Thanks to all the Rollergirls for bringing some hard hitting roller derby action to the Cincinnati area!

This I Believe in Cincinnati

One of our local public radio stations, WVXU, is starting a Cincinnati version of "This I Believe" segments where people share core values and beliefs that guide their lives. The segment aired today on WVXU was written by Lisa Dunlap, a person I've worked with on several projects. It's a great essay on giving and receiving that is a true reflection of her character. You can read her essay here or click on the play button to hear Lisa read it.

Embed a Flickr Slideshow

I just read a post on the download squad site on how to embed a slideshow in a blog. Here is a test from my autumn leaf set of photos. For some reason I couldn't get the photoset option to works, but the tags option seems to work fine. I'm curious about the load time. Let me know what you think.

Interview with Omega 3

As Dianne pointed out in a recent post, the fourth and last exhibition season bout for the Cincinnati Rollergirls on October 29th is approaching fast. Tickets are now available through the Cincinnati Rollergirls site. The start time is a bit later so all the Bengals fans can watch the game and make the match. I just noticed the Roller Derby Diva’s blog had a link to an interview that Randomville did with Omega 3, the Rollergirls’ coach. It’s a short interview, but it explains her choice of Omega 3 as a nom de patinage a roulettes (OK…it’s not as catchy as nom de plume for a writer).

Flying on Sunday

I flew a bit this afternoon. It's nice flying when the temperature and humidity are lower. The performance of the plane improves a lot when the density of the air goes up. I notice it most on climbing. It was a bit cloudy so the light wasn't the best, but you can see from the photo below (taken about 2500 feet above the Caesar's Creek area) that the trees are looking very pretty after several cold mornings.

Bloglines and Google Reader

I read a lot of blogs – probably too many. I look at a wide range of topics such as news highlights, gadget/tech info, science, humor, and recipes as well as family and friend sites. To keep up with the posts, I use RSS feeds rather than visiting each blog. It’s a quick way to scan through all the posts and pick ones to read in detail or mark for further comment. My RSS aggregator of choice is Bloglines. I’ve had posts about Bloglines here and here. It’s been relatively stable, it's easy to set up, and has nice features. However, I’m always willing to try something new.

I was reading a post on Micro Persuasion that was downplaying Bloglines and talking about a new RSS aggregator product from Google called Google Reader. It praised the new product and included a link to a Lifehacker post that compared Bloglines to Google Reader. Again, it gave high praise and pointed out some interesting features of the Google Reader. The Lifehacker article did point out that it’s a Google Labs product, however it seemed to be very stable. The Google Labs page clearly says these aren't ready for primetime, but I was intrigued by the reviewer's experiences and I like Google Notebook that is also still in the Labs. I should have learned my lesson with my Writely beta experience, but I’m a Google fan, so I thought I’d try it out.

I can’t disagree more with the Google Reader satisfaction expressed in the posts from Micro Persuasion and Lifehacker. I’ve tried Google Reader with both Firefox and IE on two separate computers running Windows XP and have had problems with accessing feeds from both. It always messes up what is read and what is displayed when the feed list is updated – unlike Bloglines that now has a nice update procedure. The Google Reader badge of interesting items didn’t work with my blog either. The page link worked ok, but who wants to ‘pull’ items in this era of web 2.0? After a couple days of trying to look at feeds, I gave up. It was too frustrating. At this point, the bugs far outweigh the added features. I’m happy for those who have the right system to make it work, but I’m not in that list.

Bottom line is I'm sticking with Bloglines! Although the Google Reader features sound interesting, I’m going to wait until it’s out of Google Labs and stable before I even think about switching.

Fall Color

Click here for a few other leaf photos.

Dunbar Number Equals Zero

I posted about Dunbar's Number and the monkeysphere (or ape ball as Dianne likes to call it). Dunbar's theory says the size of the neocortex and it's processing capability limits the number of stable relationships a person can maintain. Since the roots of his theory come from observations of non-human primates, it's sometimes referred to as the monkeysphere. Folks outside of the monkeysphere may be ignored or even treated harshly – as observed with groups of monkeys. On a couple morning commutes last week, I realized that a person's Dunbar number isn't constant. While driving, I think my number went to zero.

My short commute to work usually takes about 15-20 minutes. Traffic is pretty heavy as the interstate exit I use feeds many companies that have large office buildings. When things get snarled, the travel time goes up a lot. Last Wednesday morning a bad accident on the interstate closed a couple lanes for awhile and I heard shut down the interstate briefly so air care could land and transport someone to the hospital. That day it took me about 50 minutes to get to work! Last Thursday morning traffic was slow due to a body found under the interstate bridge at my exit. That morning I almost hit a driver that was changing lanes right in front of me without signaling. He continued lane changing and cutting off others just so he could get a couple car lengths ahead by the time we got to the stoplight at the end of the exit ramp.

The traffic delays didn't bother me – that's an unfortunate side effect created by someone's misfortune. What bothers me is the way people handle the situation. Drivers will accelerate and brake excessively to tailgate in an attempt to block people from changing lanes. That makes folks who want to change lanes even more aggressive. They often don't use signals (that's just a sign of weakness) and will simply ease over and muscle their way in or make a dangerous, sudden move just to get a few feet ahead! When that happens, I can't help but think people driving like that were the people who cut in lines at school or didn't play well with others in the sandbox. The rough commute would go much smoother if everyone would take their turn when merging, drive steady to stay the course, and accept a couple minute delay.

As I was crawling along observing all the crazy driving behaviors, it occurred to me how cars are mostly faceless. When you're going really slow you can see drivers immediately around you, but not well. Instead, the car is the focus -- an unfamiliar object and not a person I have any relationship with. In effect, when I'm commuting by myself my Dunbar number is zero. Generally I have no relationship to other cars on the road as it's rare to recognize a car of someone I know. Without any commuter relationships, folks make sudden moves or cuts to get ahead without feeling bad. I see it as a form of harsh treatment of those outside the monkeysphere. It's every car for themselves in a traffic jam. All respect for others or courteous behavior goes out the window. And yet, I assume, when they arrive at their destination they have normal, civil interactions with coworkers and friends.

So although Dunbar's theory links number to brain size, I think there is also a contextual component as evidenced by the road rage/traffic jam behaviors we've all seen.

Picnic

It was another beautiful day today. It was perfect weather for an employee picnic for the company Dianne works for. It was held at Woodland Mound park. There was a catered lunch and lots of activities for the adults and kids. I have a few pictures of the cornhole games (a beanbag toss), the water balloon toss, and a couple examples of the pumpkin decorating by the kids. It was a nice picnic and it was nice to meet some of the new people in the company.

Tall Stacks

Dianne and I went to the Tall Stacks event today. For the out-of-towners, Tall Stacks is a riverboat and music celebration held every four years or so to remember Cincinnati's river heritage. Riverboats from all over the country come to Cincinnati for the event. We had never been and went this year thanks to getting tickets from our neighbors. There is a lot to see including riverboats, people dressed in period costumes, food, tents for businesses, a working dock for the period, music, etc. See all my pictures in my Tall Stacks set on Flickr.

We walked across the Purple People Bridge (we saw quite a few people doing the bridge climb) from Cincinnati to Newport and had something to eat and drink in Newport. We also went to see the movie Flyboys at the theatre in Newport. We walked back across the Taylor-Southgate bridge just as the sun was setting. Dianne was a trooper and stuck it out to see the hot air balloon glow. It was a beautiful day to walk around the event. Glad we got to take it in this year.