Here is an interesting site on the rock balancing art of Bill Dan. Talk about patience and creative uses of rocks! The item I found most intriguing on the site was the film clip on un-balancing by Danny Brown. It's a 5+ minute clip with a size of over 22 Mb. If you have the fortitude to do the download, you'll see some interesting effects they achieve by reversing the destruction of rock balancing sculpture. I thought it was very creative and well done.
I don't have much opportunity to use mass transit. However, from my germ-o-phobe perspective, this would be a must have product if I did. It would save a lot of hand washing.
I really like Flickr -- and it's amazing what stories some of the photo sets can tell. Check out this movie job.
I haven't been writing much lately. I've been a slug. I'm going to post some interesting items I've bookmarked.
Seems like there have been a lot of solar bags and other charging options for all the gadgets everyone is carrying these days. There is a solar messenger bag, another messenger bag, a solar panel in a briefcase form, and a pocket sized panel. These aren't the only options I've seen. Has anyone had good lucks with these types of charging solutions?
The Yamaha site has a lot of interesting papercraft items. If you haven't been to the site it's worth checking it out. They've added some new rare animals to that section of the site and also some new items in the seasons area.
Here is a blog devoted to paper that has lots of great pictures and links to interesting sites.
If you've seen the Wall Street Journal (as well as other sources), you've seen the characteristic pen/ink portraits on the page. The artist is Noli Novak and this website has examples of her work. I liked the collage area. If you go to the information area, among other things you'll find this link that shows how the portraits are made.
This site has a graphical depiction of some guy's "what if..." scenario. Interesting idea.
I'm always interested in panorama photos. This site has some amazing panorama photos taken from kites.
I liked playing with Legos when I was a kid. Legos then were pretty simple. I remember how cool it was when Lego came out with wheels. This site has a very nice Flash piece that shows how Legos are made. A pretty intricate process given all the types of pieces available.
Check out this site showing a new, secure mailbox. It's so secure it's called the mail vault. There is just one flaw in their design. It requires the postal service deliver the mail to the correct box. In the last year or so, there have been many instances where we received our neighbor's mail -- and vice versa. So much for security.
...The Eagle has landed. There is a lot of buzz today regarding the anniversary of the first landing on the moon. Google has a nice map of the moon that is annotated with the locations of the various US moon landings. This site has an excellent moon panorama (requires Quicktime) created by stitching together pictures taken by Gene Cernan during the Apollo 17 landing. The site has many other panoramas -- very well done.
Of course there will always be folks wondering why the big fuss since the moon landings were all a big hoax.
On Saturday Dianne and I went to Target World. We took their basic handgun safety class. There were six of us in the class. It was a good class that covered safety basics and provided some good information on revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. We talked for approximately one and a half hours and then had time on their range. We tried various calibers from .22 to .357 magnum and used pistols and revolvers. Dianne had never shot before. When we were going to start shooting one at a time, she moved over to see a little better and she got volunteered to go first. She put her shot right thru the bullseye. She did the same with the .38 and the 9 mm. Later, when we were taking turns shooting, Dianne was on the firing line with a Glock 9 mm and I was standing back with the instructor. She put 2 shots through the bullseye at about 12 yards and the instructor leans over to me and says don't get her angry. It was a fun morning and we learned a lot.
Last weekend I attended the Wings Weekend held at the Butler County airport. The FAA Wings Program helps pilots maintain or gain proficiency. For each phase of the program, you attend an FAA sponsored aviation seminar and fly with an instructor for at least 3 hours. Every year in the Cincinnati area, flight instructors volunteer their time for a "Wings Weekend". Pilots just show up at the designated times, get paired with an instructor, and fly. There are also seminars held all three days. It makes it easy to complete a phase of the Wings program. I completed phase II this year.
It's an interesting exhibit to see. There is quite a wide variety of displays due to the breadth of the college. In general, I enjoyed the architecture, graphic, and industrial design areas the most. I'm sure all the students worked hard and they were all reasonably good. But when you view the displays side by side, you can really see differences in the skill levels between students. I also snapped a couple pictures in the Fine Art gallery. This piece consisting of papers suspended from the ceiling was interesting. Here is Dianne next to a recycled art pieces made out of plastic grocery bags and styrofoam packing material.
One evening I had a chance to look around Norwich a bit. Driving around I had some feelings that things hadn't changed much since I left. There are a few new buildings and stores (e.g. Walmart) and some stores had closed. But basically the standard local merchants like McLaughlin's clothing, the Corner Cigar newstand, Garf's deli, Nina's pizza, etc. were status quo. That brought back memories.
On the other hand, there were times when it seemed like I hadn't lived there at all. I drove out to see the place I used to rent. It's about ten miles out of town near Chenango Lake (shown at right). 
I drove past the old place and it looked terrible. There wasn't anyone home, although it seemed like someone was still living there. The grass was about 2 feet high, no flowers, tree branches down in the yard, and very little up keep. Just down the road some of land had been turned over to loggers. There were piles of large tree trunks and the side of the hill was torn up by the logging roads. As a whole, it was sad considering how pretty the place was with the large pond for fishing and swimming, tennis court, ski trails, garden, etc. Although my memory isn't great, I'll have to remember the place the way it used to be.
It's been some time since I've made a blog post. Seems like my work life is busy and there just isn't time on the summer weekends.
On June 4th, Dianne and I went to the annual Summerfair art celebration held at Coney Island. It is fun to walk around and see the wide variety of items displayed by the invited artists. Dianne bought a bracelet this year -- quite a surprise for her. It's silver and has two intertwined strands that give it a Celtic knot sort of appearance. It was a very hot and humid day, but there was a good crowd.
We also went for a walk along the north side of the field along the pedestrian/bike path. We got caught in a passing shower, but it was a light rain. A good day for a walk as it wasn't too hot (around 75) and there was a nice breeze blowing. Many years ago we walked around the whole field on what seemed like the hottest and most humid day we had in August. Wow…that was a hike!
I was a couple months outside of the 6 month clock for recent flight experience requirements for instrument flying. Yesterday I took an instrument proficiency check with an instrument instructor to get back up to speed. It was a good flight. It was a nice day with only a few high clouds. I had to wear a view limiting device so the only thing I could see were the instruments (Click on the Pilot Training Foggles link at this site).
We did two GPS approaches (one coupled with the autopilot). Because the Dayton approach controller was very busy, we had to fly the first one as a full approach (he didn’t have time to give radar vectors). That worked out well and was good practice doing a procedure turn. After the second approach, we followed the published missed approach instructions and entered a holding pattern. Personally, I don't find holds that difficult. After the first circuit, and often through the entry, you can detect how to compensate for the wind in order to stay on course. After a few turns in the hold, we headed back home and did a VOR approach opposite to the prevailing wind so it included a circle to land maneuver. A good IPC is a confidence builder, helps make sure I haven’t developed any bad habits and know how to use the system, and alerts me to any problem areas. Fortunately, I don’t have any problem areas. I just need to keep up on the instrument flying to stay current.
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