Dell Comes Through

We had a laptop hard drive bite the dust this weekend so I called Dell on Sunday for a replacement.

The new hard drive arrived today (Tuesday) and now the computer is as good as new. It takes about 30 seconds to remove and install a hard drive on this Dell Inspiron 600M, then a couple of hours to reload the various programs and drivers.

I put the broken hard drive in the box the new one came in, using the shipping tag Dell included, and called DLH Airborne Express to come and pick it up at my house.

It really couldn't have been easier.

I just wanted to say how pleased I with with Dell's service.

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Fremont and Bick's Greenwood Grill

We celebrated my wife's birthday with our daughters in Fremont Saturday afternoon. Did the usual fun stuff - went to Peet's Coffee, the girls browsed in some shops, I did some browsing with them - but I started hyperventilating outside some of the more girly shops so I spent some time looking at the bottom of the rocket...looking for stuff on the sidewalk etc., before we got together and visited the troll under the Fremont Bridge.

In my wandering I learned that if you happen to have some Birkenstocks or good hiking boots that need repairing - Fremont has an authorized Birkenstock repair place run by Dave Page, Cobbler who at one time was a professor of History at the U.W. You can read more about the shop and the owner in this article from the Seattle Weekly.



One of the stores had a live potted palm tree that was a little over 12 feet tall. The owner is selling it because it's outgrowing her shop. The palm tree has a nice bending shape and big green leaves. It would be perfect if you had a room with a tall ceiling and wanted a tropical motif. The owner is only asking 130 bucks for it, all you need is to figure out a way to move it and where to keep it.

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We had dinner at Bick's Broadview Grill. I had the fry bread with tomato habanero salsa, a black bean salad and a drink made with pomegranate and lime juice (the drink was the best part of the meal). They have a big selection of hot sauces that are fun to try. It's a nice family friendly place - I only wish the server would have been a little less stern.


Amazon has a scanned copy of the menu. Bick's is located in Seattle's Greenwood Neighborhood.

Rachael Ray, from the Food Network visited Bick's Broadview Grill and shared their recipe for Ginger-Lemongrass Portobello Mushroom Caps.

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Computer Repair - Laptop Hard Drive

I went to bed at 9 o-clock today. Nine in the morning...

I love fiddling with computers and got a chance to troubleshoot the failing hard-drive on a Dell Inspiron 600M laptop, that is not quite a year old. We couldn't get the computer to boot from the Window's disk. I ended up having to format the hard drive (which wipes all your files) and had the laptop working this morning and all the software reloaded.

Then...the dreaded "DST Short Test Fail Error Code 1000-0146" showed up again on the diagnostics about 7 am. I like to play with computers and found this exercise educational and fun in a way...granted not like "I'm going to Disneyland fun"...but still fun. It would have been nice to have a fully functional laptop after 10 or 12 hours of reading, loading, reloading, diagnosing etc. but the laptop is still under warranty and I know what's wrong with it now.

I called Dell and after about half an hour of talking to a robot got through to a nice guy named Sylvester. We agreed he will ship me a new 60 gig hard drive this week.

Three lessons from that experience -

(a) don't buy a computer unless the seller includes the operating system and other program disks. Some stores will sell you a computer without the OS or program disks. That doesn't work so good if your hard drive flakes out. It's probably okay if you are the sort who would bring a computer to a technician for repair anyway, but if you have any intention of do-it-yourself repair, make sure you get the disks.

(b) hard drives are really easy to take out of a Dell Inspiron 600M laptop. The HD is a module held by a single screw and is easy to remove (no disassembly of the computer required), it just slides out from the side.

The time consuming thing about putting the new HD in won't be the hardware installation...but rather the software installation - finding the right drivers, program disks and various software programs we all download from the internet and depend on...plus a half hour or so to load Windows.

(c) if you are into do-it-yourself computer repair it's best to have at least two computers in your home. It really helps to have a working model for dipping into the internet knowledge bases while you are working on the broken one.

I'm looking forward to getting that new hard drive in the mail - installing, formatting and reloading it will give me something to play around with next weekend.

Wishing you a great beginning to this week.

What I Learned From Leonardo

"In the master's secret mirror even at the moment of highest renown and accomplishment there is an image of the newest student in the class, eager for knowledge, willing to play the fool."

Author and Aikidoest George Leonard on Curiosita'

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I finished my book club / class on "How to Think Like Leonardo" by Michael J. Gelb yesterday.

It's a good book. Not a how-to, step by step guide to become like Leonardo Da Vinci but some good advice about methods you might use to expand your intelectual and creative horizons a bit. It's the sort of book you could take time (and would need to) in order to practice the exercises. We got the book and the workbook for the class. They are both useful and they sort of thing you world sketch in, doodle, write notes, underline...in other words a book you can use.

Besides the quote above, which I really like, here's a few other tidbits -

Dimostrazione is a Leonardo biggie - it means learning by doing, by making mistakes and making corrections.

Uoma Senza Lettere - this is a term Leonardo like to be known by. It means "man without letters". Leonardo was happy to be a self-taught learner and didn't assume the PHD, BS, MS, JD, had much meaning in and of themselves.

Leonardo was a discepelo della experienza or a disciple of experience.

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For those of us who like things in groups of seven, the seven Da Vincian Principles, according to Michael J. Gelb, are -

"Curiosita - An insatibly curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.

Dimostrazione - A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.

Sensazione - The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.

Sfumato - (literally "going up in smoke") - A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

Arte/Scienza - The development of the balance between science and art, logic, and imagination. "Whole-brain" thinking.

Corporalita - The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise.

Connessione - A recognition and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. Systems thinking."

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I have to make a little editorial comment about the how to think like Leonardo that people have asked me about or I've heard people talk about in the class.

The question/comment centers on hmmmm....

What is art? or maybe How could anyone (as untalented as you/me) paint like Leonardo?

My answers in order would be (a) whatever moves you and (b) why would anyone want to?

Not to put Leonardo down, he could paint a heck of a detailed horse or human. Today we would use a camera to get that realistic look. My point is that art/painting is as you know - HUGE. It's diverse it's amazing - Leonardo was a realist, I tend to like impressionists, folk artists, children's art, some abstract or other modern art - or basically like anyone else - I like what I like. I'm not sure I could tell you why - or for that matter why I'd want to or why you would care. Suffice it to say art moves us somehow - it might be beauty or upsetting or ?

I walked throught the National Museum in London once and just stopped and looked at the paintings that appealed to me. I found some of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings to be very appealing, but Vincent's sunflowers aren't a detailed "accurate" representation of a sunflower that Leonardo might have painted. That doesn't mean one is a better artist. Just different.

Finally when it comes to composition, theme, color, light..techniques. I'm not that interested either in learning or studying those topics. If you want to take a class in mechanical drawing those are available and certainly the ability to provide perspective and composition in a sketch or drawing can be a requirement (depends on what you are trying to do).

Wassily Kandinsky a Russian born abstract impressionist is only one example of an artist who's style is far removed from Leonardo's realism - but for some, quite appealing. Art scholars say that Kandinsky combines color/sound/spirituality in painting...all I know is I like the colors and form. Here are a couple of examples of Kandinsky's work -























I was playing with this idea back in September when I wrote my little Blog essay - Paint or Draw like Anybody.

May you occasionally find artistry, grace, and beauty, in whatever it is you do.

Who's In Charge Here?

Thinking about the question Who's In Charge Here? and what happens if it happens to be nobody?

tete-a-tete

Is it just me or does anyone else miss the word tete-a-tete?

You hardly ever hear it anymore. I'm going to say it today - a lot.

I prefer the second pronounciation in Websters, and then modify it by dropping the hard t at the end...so it ends up being tay da tay.

I haven't heard anyone say soiree lately either. I think I'll save that word for Saturday.

Life Is Too Precious To Be Enjoyed

The Onion - America's Finest News Source reports, "Life Is Too Precious To Be Enjoyed" and provides a variable plethora of tips on how to stay safe and more or less alive.

Sketch Swap and Question Swap

Sketch Swap is fun to play with. You submit a sketch and get one back.

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Question Swap is interesting too.

I really liked this answer....

"Q. Lately, I have come to the personal conclusion that I can not find true happiness in my life. I am making more money then any other person I know at my age, I just got out of a horrible relationship that lasted three years, and I am living on my own for the first time in my life. despite all these things, I still feel...empty, hollow. The only things that seem to make me happy is when I am spending money. I used to take much joy in programming, spending time with friends, etc. I suppose I am just doing self reflection and I am not happy with what I have become. I look at friends, and they enjoy most of what they do with their time. I want to be able to do that...I want to be able to be happy. I suppose spending this money is simply filling a void that should be filled with something else. I don't know what to do.

A. Well, my friend. I shall start by saying that I'm only 16, and therefore probably not very well qualified to give you a respectable answer due to lack of experience/life knowledge. All the same, I think I can understand what it is you are getting out. What you need to take into account is that, while you have money when you need it, and enjoy spending it, the only things you'll ever really need in life to be happy (apart from food/water etc) are small things money can't buy - Good friends, a loving relationship, an affectionate kiss, the feeling of well-being you get when you do something selfless and know it. So my advice to you would be to re-assess your life, ask yourself what the single most important thing is to you at the moment... This will lead you ultimately to what it is that makes you feel so hollow and empty. What, or who, in this life, would you be willing to die for? Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I wish you the very best of luck, and I hope you find happiness in everything you do in life. "

We Love Katamari Damacy

Boing Boing has a link to something called the We Love Katamari Damacy Minigame

The game is a little hard to understand but still oddly fun to play with.

From what I gather...You're that little gray faced guy with the crown. Your job is to get stuff to stick to you. Eventually you are part of a big ball of stuff that clears the screen to reveal a pretty picture. I think that might be level 1 but since it's in Japanese it's just a guess on my part - but you'll figure it out.

I pulled this off the Amazon review by J. Roberts aka R.P. Madman -

"For those who don't know, in Katamari games you control a super-sticky orb (a katamari) that rolls throughout a world packed with stuff. Roll up enough caramels and you'll be big enough to roll up a mouse. Roll up enough mice and you can roll up cats. And so on, until you're rolling up clouds, islands and thunder gods. All this is built up over the course of a few levels, but it can be disorienting to roll up cookies under a car at the beginning of a level and roll up the car itself in the end.

With each level a new star is added to the sky (replacing the ones your monolithic and rather drunken father, the King of All Cosmos, accidentally destroyed)."

Snow Then Daffodils

On Tuesday we had one of our only bits of snow this winter. About a 1/2 inch or so. I saw a raccoon's tracks on the back deck that morning. I think the space under our deck makes for a pretty good home for him.

Today was sunny and clear.

We have signs of spring and what's left of our winter so far - The daffodil's are blooming and a couple of red-mittened snow people are still hanging in there.


Daffodil and Sun Today

Tracks on the deck

Small paws

Still hanging in there 

Franciscan Radio

Franciscan Radio - includes American Catholic Radio, Saint of the Day and Sunday Sound Bites.

The Franciscan's also have a Lenten Radio Retreat for 2006 with U.S. Catholic Bishops encouraging you to put aside today’s cares and worries, and take a “Radio Retreat” — online.

MSN Offers $1 Million in Prizes

MSN Offers $1 Million in Prizes and Charitable Donations With Search and Win: Promotion gives Web surfers the chance to win big, simply by searching on MSN.

This isn't the first time a search engine has tried to attract users with cash and prizes.

Blingo Search gives you a chance to win a prize by searching.

Amazon gives you a 1.57 percent discount on purchases for using their search engine at A9.com

Diet Coke and Tab

Diet Coke has had many incarnations.

According to the Wikipedia article on Diet Coke, we've had -

1. Diet Coke ('plain') (1982)
2. Caffeine-Free Diet Coke (1983)
3. Diet Cherry Coke (1986)
4. Diet Coke with Lemon (2001); in some countries, it's known as Coca-Cola Light Lemon.
5. Diet Vanilla Coke (2002)
6. Diet Coke with Lime (2004)
7. Diet Raspberry Coke (was only available in New Zealand from late 2005, but is already being 'deleted' from their range as of Jan-06).
8. Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda (2005)
9. Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke (2006)

I have to admit I'm confused over Coke Zero and the Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda. They both taste better than plain old Diet Coke to me, so I guess it's not really important what the formula is...

The Wiki article, doesn't really help explain things -

Diet Coke does not utilize a modified form of the Coca-Cola recipe but is instead an entirely different formula.

Fans of Diet Coke often express a strong preference for the continental European formula over the British-American version, as it tastes far closer to regular Coke. This is because the Diet Coke formula is based upon the New Coke formulation and Coca-Cola Light, now being sold in the U.S. as Coca-Cola Zero, is based on the Coca-Cola Classic formula.

Maybe I should try mixing up my own batch using this purported Coca-Cola Recipe.

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Speaking of diet soda (or diet pop as some of us call it), Tab is an interesting drink. It came out in 1963 after the first diet soda - Diet Rite Cola (introduced in 1958 for diabetics and then marketed to the general public in 1962).

The first two versions of Tab had a strange lingering artificial sweetener aftertaste. It was originally sweetened with cyclamate and then saccharine and, after various cancer scares - switched to aspartame in the 1980's. It is still produced and popular with some soda aficianados.

Tab also has a place in popular media; as described in the Wikipedia article -

# In the Steve Martin comedy The Jerk his character's favorite beverage is Tab.
# On an episode of Futurama, Bender and Fry find a giant Tab can on Planet Amazonia.
# In one episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, a live-action dream sequence shows Harvey strolling the beach with a human-sized, ambulatory can of Tab.
# On an episode of The Simpsons, Homer confuses the tab button on the computer with the soft drink, and expected the computer to dispense the drink when he pressed the button.
# Bill Pullman's character in the film Zero Effect consumes nothing but tuna fish straight from the can and Tab.
# According to America (The Book), the last remaining Tab machine in the US is located in the White House.
# Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy are shown drinking Tab in the movie WarGames.
# In the movie Scrooged, Bill Murray drinks a mixture of Tab and vodka.
# In the movie Austin Powers, Austin can be seen drinking Tab while learning about the years he had been cryogenically frozen.
# In another episode of "The Simpsons" Bart is seen drinking a can of Tab after doing a ballet recital.

The article also mentions, Tab is not an acronym for Totally Artificial Beverage but rather a name intended to appeal to people that keep tab of their calorie intake.

Safety First - Rules for Safe Hunting

In the state of Texas you have to be at least 12 years old, and if you were born on or after September 2, 1971 you need to take a Hunter's Safety Class, before going hunting.

One of the rules for safe hunting is -

Be Sure of Your Target and what lies beyond it!

* Avoid hill top shots, or shots with an obscure background.
* Best backgrounds are hillsides or dirt banks free of big rocks.
* Identify your animal from tip (nose) to tail before you shoot. Never shoot at a sound or   movement.

A sample question -

When taking a shot:

(a) do not worry about what lies beyond your target, the bullet will not travel through the     game animal or target
(b) take shots at game when on a hill or ridge, for the bullet will be traveling upward
(c) be sure of your target and what lies in front of and beyond it
(d) always shoot at the nearest sound in the brush

Safety First - Four Rules for Safety

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There's been a fair amount of confusion about the circumstances that led to Dick Cheney shooting his hunting partner Harry Whittington.

I figured ESPN would be fairly unbiased in their report so I checked out ESPN Outdoors -- VP Cheney accidentally shoots fellow hunter. What I learned from ESPN -

Harry came up behind Dick Cheney. This isn't quite the same as saying Harry snuck into the line of fire, as some are reporting.

Harry didn't announce or otherwise signal his presence behind Dick Cheney. Birds are pretty easy to spook, being quiet would seem to be a reasonable approach when hunting them.

Texas law does not require a hunting party to report an accident unless a fatality is involved. In other words it's not against the law to shoot someone, as long as you make it a hunting expedition and just wing them.

Dick Cheney shows a great deal of deference to the rights of property owners. He didn't report the shooting for over 24 hours because he was "deferring" to the ranch owner the right to report what happened on her property.

Dick shot Harry at 30 yards. The 28 Gauge Shotgun that Dick Cheney was using is "good" to 35 yards as reported in the Progressive Farmer Great Outdoors, it's referred to as the Ideal Upland Game Gun. The article says -

"While the 28-gauge is not considered a good waterfowl, deer or wild-turkey shotgun, it does deliver small-game harvesting energy loads out to 35 yards. And it compares favorably with the 23/4-inch 20- and 12-gauges. For example, the 12-gauge energy load per pellet at 30 yards is 1.77 foot-pounds of energy, the 20-gauge is 1.58 foot-pounds and the 28-gauge is 1.47 foot-pounds. The 28-gauge is well within the necessary energy load to take small game at that range, and it's not too far under the 20- and 12-gauge shotguns."

I heard on the news last night that Harry may have to live with some buckshot embedded in him. Gonna be tough getting through those metal detectors.

A Little Snow This Valentine's Day

We got a little bit of snow this morning in Everett.



First Snow of 06

del.icio.us

del.icio.us, owned by Yahoo, is intended to be used as an organizing tool for storing bookmarks to your favorite websites, music, and books and also to share them with family and friends.

In my case it's more like a dis-organizing tool.

I look at the front page links and end up reading about bearskin rug designs, or how accordians are made, or where zirconium comes from...the kind of stuff I need to know ;-)

In other words it's also an interesting place to browse around and discover interesting things.

Computing History

This is a picture of the ENIAC computer at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania. It is available at Historic Computer Images.

History of Computing Information has a wealth of links to pictures and stories related to the development of the ENIAC and other computers.

The ENIAC was developed in the 1940's to compute firing and bombing tables for use by the U.S. in World War II.

From The ENIAC Story -

"By today's standards for electronic computers the ENIAC was a grotesque monster. Its thirty separate units, plus power supply and forced-air cooling, weighed over thirty tons. Its 19,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors consumed almost 200 kilowatts of electrical power.

But ENIAC was the prototype from which most other modern computers evolved. It embodied almost all the components and concepts of today's high- speed, electronic digital computers. Its designers conceived what has now become standard circuitry such as the gate (logical "and" element), buffer (logical "or" element) and used a modified Eccles-Jordan flip-flop as a logical, high-speed storage-and-control device. The machine's counters and accumulators, with more sophisticated innovations, were made up of combinations of these basic elements.

ENIAC could discriminate the sign of a number, compare quantities for equality, add, subtract, multiply, divide, and extract square roots. ENIAC stored a maximum of twenty 10-digit decimal numbers. Its accumulators combined the functions of an adding machine and storage unit. No central memory unit existed, per se. Storage was localized within the functioning units of the computer."

Pretty amazing how much progress has been made in 60 years.

First BBQ of 2006

We've had a few days of sun so we mowed the lawn, washed cars and broke out the barbeque yesterday. Cooked a vegetable medley on the grill using mesquite charcoal chunks. It was fun and tasty.

Yellow, red and green peppers, fresh mushrooms, small potatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, Boca burgers, asparagus, and a fresh baguette. Sea salt, pepper and garlic powder for some extra garlicy zing and, I almost forgot...lots of tinfoil.


First BBQ of 2006 

Learning About Living and Dying Well

These are two good books written by thoughtful people with lot's of experience in the field of palliative care and hospice.

"Dying Well" is written by Ira Byock M.D.

"Final Gifts" is written by Maggie Callahan and Patricia Kelley who are hospice nurses.

The books are filled with stories of the people who were preparing to die; finishing up unfinished business, surrounded by loving caregivers. The dying, their families and caregivers find meaning, beauty and the healing power of love in the midst of sadness.

Puerto Rico's Coqui - The Singing Frog

The official mascot of Puerto Rico is a tiny tree frog known as the the Coquí. The name comes from the "co-qui" sound the male frogs make when the sun goes down. From the website -

"The coquíes begin to sing when the sun goes down at dusk. Their melody serenades islanders to sleep. Coquíes sing all night long until dawn when they stop singing and head for the nest. Puerto Ricans love their coquíes and have written poems, stories, and Aguinaldos about them.

During the time of the Taíno Indians trillions of coquíes serenated our ancestral home. Many Taíno Indian myths surround the coquí. Coquíes are found in much of the Taíno art like pictographs and pottery."

You can click on the picture of the coqui to hear this little critter sing.