The snow mouse and the ice slide.

A Flickr photo set from this past winter popped up randomly on my igoogle page that I forgot to blog. I always build some type of ice luge in my backyard for the kids and every year some animal gets stuck in it and I have to free it and clean up the fecal matter or scrape off the pee they leave while in temporary captivity.

This year it was a small mouse who must have hit the slide at the top, slid all the way down and got trapped. He was doing a pretty good job of ice climbing (as you can see in the close up photos) but he couldn't quite make it all the way over the lip of the slide. My wife rescued him with a shovel and he scampered off into the bushes to do what mice do (poop and whiz over everything from the looks of it).

How To Measure the Speed of Light Using Chocolate and a Microwave.

Check this wicked article out! Try this at home!!!! Lenzspot told me about this awesome site a year ago and it's been awhile since I've paid a visit.

It's a how to make anything that someone else has already thought of on the cheap using ordinary household items. Need a bycycle powered tennis ball launcher? This place has you covered!

http://www.instructables.com

So back to the chocolate. What you do is melt it in your microwave, measure the distance between the two hotspots (showed by melted concave dips on either end of the bar) and this turns out to be half the wavelength emitted by the microwave oven. With the frequency your microwave operates at, which is supposedly 2.45 gigahertz, you do some fancy math and you get a number very close to the speed of light. Pretty frickin amazing!

Then you eat the chocolate after.

Firefox 3.0 download day!

Woohoo! Get your copy now! They're trying to set a world record for the most downloads in one day. I love this browser. I hope all my add-ins still work in 3.0.

Check out their world download map!

Geocaching in the Gatineau Hills 2008-06-07

On the hottest day of the year so far (also my birthday!) a bunch of us decided to hike up in the Gatineau Hills after some geocaches. It was a route I hadn't gone before and we went after La p'tite facile (it actually wasn't that easy). The bugs were the worst I have seen in eons. Not many mosquitoes, but lots of big black horseflies (or deer flies. I dunno the difference - they take chunks out of your skin but do not appear to have teeth). After you put your sun block and then bug spray, you sweat it all off in about five minutes and they would be on you again.

Check out this steamy jungle pic. It was like Jurassic park out there! I was just waiting for the Raptors to come and eat Tripper (or anyone else I could throw in front of them to save myself). Kenmore and Tripper found some kind of snake, and they played with that until it oozed it's stinky snake juice and they let it go. I swear animals and reptiles fall out of the sky on those two guys. Which reminds me of the weird conversation Tripper had on the ride over.

Tripper got a phone call and got all excited when he took it. It like one of those phone calls you get when you're dog is having puppies and you're not home. The conversation went like this:
"Oh yeah? it's happening now??" (pause)
"They say between 40 and 400.. can you take it outside it? I don't want that in the house. " (pause)
"No no, they gotta go outside. If they don't get outside and find food they start eatin' each other..."

And I am thinking, What the &^$% is Tripper growing in his basement? Is this some kind of insect warefare thing going on? Some ant farm? Sea Monkeys? Oh yeah.. Gotta be Sea Monkeys (I know all about those guys).

But he keeps talking..

"In an hour they should all be out. Hey, can you see if you can keep some inside in an aquarium for the kids? Find out what they eat, we'll have to catch some bugs or give 'em fruit flies or something.., Ok, bye!!" (click)

"Tripper".. I said
"What?" he says.
"You gotta 'splain that conversation.." So he does. Apparently he went and ordered some praying Mantis eggs online from Costco or someplace like that, and it all suddenly fell in place.

You see, last week he sent me a youtube video with the subject line "Check this out! Gnarly!" and it was a female praying Mantis being mated by the much smaller male, and when the little male Mantis was almost finished, she reached around, grabbed his head and bit if off, calmly eating it while the male's body continued the mating process albeit sans head. Now that says something about the female of the species, and also a little bit about the male(grin). So of course I have to send away for some of the little guys now. Personally I think Tripper wants his own mantis snuff film(grin).

And speaking of snuff films, we strolled upon a deer carcass in A1 condition. Skull picked clean but meat still on the hoof! I find it hard to take pictures of the live ones, but dead deer make excellent photographic subjects, not only because they hold still, but because they look cool!

We brought a newbie cacher with us and she did great, finding the first cache herself. She hadn't thought of a name yet but I see someone calling her Gazpacho in the logs. I think that may stick.


Oh yeah.. The Praying Mantis video..

Cracking the Code: The Secrets of Virtuoso Picking Technique

What a fantastic idea. Why didn't I think of this! There are tons of guitar players on the planet, but only a few who are truely viruoso speed picking demons! Why is this? Why has no one bothered to find this out? Well Troy Grady had an idea to place a high speed mini-cam right down in front of the picking hand, and then ask a pile of the who's who of shred guitar playing to let 'er rip in front of the thing. The results are VERY interesting.

It seems that no one has really analyzed the different picking techniques in this manner. Some hands float, some are anchored, some don't move at all. It will be very interesting to see the commparisons.

I have a pretty good alternate picking technique. When warmed up, I can play 12 notes a second cleanly, three notes per string scales. I got there using a metronome, playing at slower speeds and notching up when I could execute cleanly at the lower speeds. Every once and awhile it helped to push it though, play beyond your means albeit sloppy, kind of like jogging while wearing a backpack of bricks. When you slow down to where you were comfortable, it seemed much easier.

Well, it looks like he is trying to release a DVD. Frig, I'll line up to buy it. he has to get Yngwie and Gilbert on there though, although it looks like they have donated footage. Why not Eric Johnson!! Check out the guy's website here. I hope he manages to release this. In the meantime he's put some of his footage up on youtube. I wish he'd have taken footage of the fret hand too though!

Watch Steve morse fly in front of this thing!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Indy's still got it. At the ripe old age of 65 Harrison Ford still pulls off the Fedora and Leather jacket routine and makes Indy 4 an orgy of scenes to Indy fans everywhere. I was lucky enough to attend a sneak preview on a ticket from a guy who won the hot 89.9 Biggest boulder contest (he built a ten footer from PVC tubing and lots of tarps. How come I don't find out about these things? - probably because I don't listen to that crappy station! ). A fellow Indy connoisseur, Indiana Rob knew the boulder guy and got a ticket for me and he, Kirok and company all took it in last Wednesday at the Silver city.

In a nice little promo, they had Ray's Reptile's at the theater, and they brought with them all kinds of creepy crawlies Speilberg is known to feature in the Indy films. It actually explained the fact that we saw all these guys going into the theater dressed like the Crocidile Hunter ( I thought they were just confused about the Indy 4 look - not shorts long pants! where are your leather jackets! You need a fedora, not an Australian outback hat!). They said before the film started that anyone who wanted to could come up and handle the creepy crawlies. I was the first one down!

I'd never handled a scorpion or tarantula before! After signing a waiver (that basically said if any of these things bit me and I died it wasn't Ray's fault, my estate had to sue the arachnid I guess), I got to play with s big scorpion (bigger means less poisonous in their world), a big Boa Constrictor snake, and a palm sized tarantula (they are incredibly light for their size). None of them were in a biting mood.

Just before the feature got underway the very pretty Hot 89.9 radio DJ asked if there were any people dressed up as Indy in the crowd, and to come on down for some free movie posters and stuff. Indiana Rob was up and down in front of her in seconds flat, bullwhip in hand, which he cracked, almost taking the face off of another DJ who was standing in back of him (hey man, she was IN THE TRAIN TRACKS!). Luckily she was not hit and probably did not know how close she came to getting so(hehehe, Indiana Rob is lucky like that!).

The film was GREAT! Everyone has probably heard by now that it features space aliens, and it works beautifully! That kid from the Transformers movie does a great job and so did the cute elf from Lord of the rings as a dominatrix soviet agent. The neat thing about the flick is that they had Harrison Ford act his age. It kind of makes you wish he had done a few more films in his 40's and 50's though. The ending was very cool, and there were so many exciting scenes you were forgetting them by the time you got to the end. I'll have to see this one again soon. (and again, and again!)

The next day Rob was in the paper decked out in his Indy gear. Cool article, Kirok scanned it here, check it out!

Happy Birthday Bruce!

(Click below to enlarge)

Tommy Emmanuel Concert - Ottawa May 2nd 2008

I attended the Tommy Emmanuel concert Friday because the guy that made my new acoustic guitar, Tony Karol, called me up a few months back and wanted to know if I could bring it down to the show, work his booth and get a free ticket in the front row. I'm there! I was going to buy a ticket anyhow! Woohoo! So I packed it up and headed on over.

What a show Tommy put on! He said next year, he'll have been "spankin' the plank" (Australian for 'playing the guitar') for near 50 years! And it shows! He has an excellent Lenny Breau technique and can alternate pick with a thumb-pick (why can't I do this?) like most guys can with a flatpick. I definitely gotta learn how to do that and reap the benefits of electric guitar shredding I spent most of my early life doing. Crap, he even threw in one sweep picking lick in the middle of something. You hardly EVER see that on an acoustic. I took a pile of photos (click here for my flickr set). I've gone from trying to take a good photo to using the "1000 monkeys in a room with typewriters" method of taking pictures. If you take about 500, statistically speaking, you will get one or two good ones!

The guitars he was using were quite beat up. He seems to prefer an off-the shelf Australian model of some sort and the back top of each behind the bridge is worn down the the wood. Literally. There will be a hole soon. And I soon saw why. He scratches and rubs there to get an amazing array of sounds. He made his guitar sound like a thunderstorm at one point. He has a rubber feedback plug in each sound hole because his stage volume is so loud, he'd be screetching without them. He is literally one of the nicest sounding guys I've ever heard at a show. Australians and Canadians seem to have a lot in common (besides the love of beer).

The guitar booth (corner actually) was really busy and there were lots of people checking out Tony's latest guitar's (here's his website). He had a nice Baritone up, had a spin on it.. Someday! (I want a Harp guitar first and Tony'd probably be the guy to make it!). Personally, I like the guitar, 3rd from the left. It's a beauty! (ok.. it's also mine). It was a bit weird letting complete strangers play my guitar, but as someone there reminded me, "Hey, you're driving up the value of your investment by bringing it out here!). Actually, since I'll never sell the thing, I guess it doesn't really matter.

If you haven't ever seen Tommy play, check him out on youtube!

Grand Theft Auto 4 on Xbox 360

So, here's the latest Tardis in my life, GTA 4 which will consume any of my time left over from watching playoff hockey and the smooth running of my family and getting to work and stuff. The title is simply amazing. It's fun just to get out of your dingy Liberty City (New York) apartment and jog around the dirty neighborhood inhaling the sights, sounds, and smells (oh why oh why didn't the Creative labs smell blaster take off!) of the hyper realistic neighborhood. Heck, it's fun enough just to frig with the guy's cellphone!
You play Nico, fresh off the boat from Eastern Europe and trying to make his name in the seedy Liberty City underground. When your cousin picks you up you're treated to a blast of Vladivostok Radio (radio stations and music are such a big immersion factor in these games). I actually switch the radio station to that one now when I carjack in the game! It rocks! As usual if you carjack an elderly couple their radio will be tuned to Lawrence Welk, or a cabbie will be listening to Punjabi 105. It's such an easy way to add realism.
Not for the kiddies though. I scraped by a car downtown early on and the guy rolled down his window and screamed that he was going to "go to the bathroom" in my mouth. Gee. Remind me to be careful of that next time I'm in NYC (I mean Liberty City).
They have thought of pretty much everything in this game. If you manage to snag a police car, you get access to their state county municipal offender data system and you can look people up to find out their last know address etc. I can actually watch TV in my apartment (the Bas Rutten show is hilarious!). There are comedy clubs to take your date too and I have yet to see the same cheesy act twice! The RAGE engine they used is amazing and uses some new fangled technology to blur stuff at distance your brain doesn't care about so when you climb up really high and look around, the scenery seems to go on forever!

There's all kinds of realistic touches. One thing I noticed is how cars on the road swerve at the last minute to avoid killing you when you run out into traffic and throw your car door open to get in your car. There looks to be a fantastic "drunk" simulator that i've yet to play, but I've seen footage of it on the net. The voice acting is superb! My favorite character so far is the Jamacain guy, "Little Jon". It's weird. Yyou can hardly understand what he's saying half the time but about 10 seconds after he stops talking, it all makes sense. They added firing from cover in this one, so you can blind fire from doorways and such. You can aim from your car too, which is always fun. They came up with a free-aim mode where you hold the trigger down half-way and point whereever you want, combined with a full aim that selects the body and if you push the left stick up or down, will select the kneecaps/groin, or head or whatever specific body part you want (depending on what you're trying to do).

They have hit the ball out of the park on this one. I hear it's gonna do $400,000 in sales this week, which is like, more than folks spent on ticked for Spiderman 3 all summer when it was the biggest movie release in history. Check out this trailer. If it looks like the latest Hollywood blockbuster, it's because it kinda is. Times 100. In which you can decide how the plot goes. This is so far, the best video game ever written to date.

Gatineau Park cave-man fridge.

How to build a cave-man fridge

1. You need to find some snow outside in summer. Good luck!

2. Carry it over in sufficient abundance to the place where you've decided to laze around(may require more than one trip)

3. Place warm beverages in a small pile

4. cover with supply of snow

5. Wait (climb fire tower)

6. Come-back. Remove chilled beverage from pile. Drink and be merry!

Luskville Falls April 2008

Last Monday August 21st we went up to Luskville falls in Gatineau Parc. I joined Kenmore, Trip and Grizz for the 3rd or 4th semi-annual trek and we climbed to the fire tower and did a few caches along the way (and GrizzlyG celebrated his 500th!)

There was still plenty of snow and the water was moving fast but we reached the top eventually without issue. As usual I packed way too much and was sucking oxegen the last few 100 m of elevation or so.




We climbed the Fire Tower as is our tradition, and I can add that, after my recent french training, I now know that the french sign on that thing says "Stupid english people, do not climb!". Unfortunately we only noticed after we had made our climb because the hole in the fence someone had cut was way on the other side.

On the way up we heard this strange sound of banging metal and Tripper said "What is that, a retarded woodpcker?"
And as it turns out.. it was! I snapped it's picture. It was pecking the metal struts looking for a snack. I don't think it was going well because he flew off try try some other big structure also not made out of wood.

We took a break at the Tower, broke out the refreshments and the guys made what I can only describe as a caveman fridge for their warm beverages(see following post.)

All in all a splendid day.

Why I love audio books.

I recently figured out why I love audio books so much. About 11 years ago, I was talking to one of my neighbors who was going on about some new John Grisham audiobook she was listening to and I thought.. "What? Audio book? I'm not blind, why the hell would I listen to a book?". I read books. I used to read a lot. I like it!
Fast forward to 2002. I'm getting laser eye surgery. Apparently I'm gonna be legally blind for 2 or 3 days, and even then I'm not going to be able to really see anything for a week. I went to the local library and checked out a wack of books on CD. One of them was a Stephen King novel I hadn't had the chance to read yet. So, I'm there at home with my little blue pills an my Stevie Wonder glasses, lying in bed and I played these things all day, for about 3 days. They were GREAT! They get these great voice actors who actually ACT the book out for you. It rocked! It was pretty cool, a bit slower than reading the thing but equally entertaining. The next big solo car trip I went on, break out the audio books! I started listening to them on the drive to and from work and a funny thing happened. If I'd see a traffic jam, I'd get all excited! I'd maybe get through two chapters stuck in traffic instead of one!

Woohoo!

But I only realized this weekend after coming across a "scary" audio book why I feel such a sense of nostalgia when I listen to something like this. No it's not those old Disney 45 RPM records ("you'll know it's time to turn the page when Tinkerbell rings her little bell like this! - Dring!"). It was the country radio station CKBY, FM 105 or something, 11:00 PM on Monday nights. They would play old radio show horrors from the 60's until 11:30, usually two 15 minute ones. Sometimes a good 30 minute one. I would tune into these things every week on my new fangled clock radio because they'd creep me out! That's back when I used to share a room with my brother. He was always asleep before me, so it was never a problem.

If it was a particularly good one It'd keep me awake scared shitless until the wee hours of the morning and I'd go into school the next day like a zombie.

Ahh, those were the good old days.

Three cheers for audio books! Lately, I'd recommend any novels by Lee Child!

My director's retirement

My boss is retiring. I've been working for him or his division on and off since I've been here (1991). A heck of a long time. He was a great director, one of the best I've had. He'll be missed! At his good-bye luncheon the other day one of our AD's came over and asked if I wanted to say a few words, along with the other chiefs and unit heads. I said "Hell yeah!". After 10 minutes of thought it was my turn and I improvised on the true story of how I first met him when I was a co-op student. At that time I had no idea of the government hierarchy and was happily jawing away at him in the common computer area about the Beatles (he has a British accent) as people around us giggled to themselves. Later, I mentioned to my old boss at the time, "Who's that British fellow with the wild hair and glasses? He's cool!". My boss got worried.
"Who"?
"The british guy".
"Uhh, you didn't talk to him did you?" My boss started shaking his head.
"Yeah, I asked him about Bla Bla Bla and Bla Bla Bla...."
Silence from my boss.... He got out an org chart....

"That was the director. He is up here.. Here's you.." Pointing to an empty space on the bottom."
"But there's nothing there."
"Precisely."

Har har Har! Ok, I got it. I had almost made my first career limiting move. Be careful who you talk to, speak unless spoken to. On the org chart, I am an amoeba. Gotcha!

However, I've since learned that being in the field of IT, we're expected to be "a little off.." and can get away with bloody murder! So at the luncheon I ended up doing an impression of him near the end. Tripper came over after and said sarcastically.
"It's not fair". You fuckin' IT guys.. You can get away with stuff like that and it doesn't stick to you..."

It's true.

I only wish I would have had another 10 minutes to think of funny stuff to say. As soon as I sat down I had thought of 3 or 4 other things that would have made everyone pee themselves(literally). Most of this has to do with the fact that I do not work on a day to day basis with my director. We only come together when stuff goes bad. And when it goes bad, it's usually funny.

I wish I would have told them about the time I was in the elevator at work, going up to my floor, and these two guys behind me are talking about my director. I hear one say:

"Did you hear what happened to (my director)?"
"Yeah. The court thing? Did he win?"
.

What was this? My director went to court? WTF? The elevator opened on my floor and I was going to play dumb to ride up to 15 with these guys and hear more but someone was getting on in the lobby and said hi to me and waited for me to get out. So I got out.

So what was this court thing? I can't go ask him, depending on what it is, he might not want to talk about it. So I went to the spot where every guy goes when he needs to find out about gossip - The CAN. There I ran into a colleague who had heard, and he filled me in.

"His dog was outside his house and supposedly bit another dog who was being walked. The other guy is taking him to court."
Oh.. That's not too bad.
"But the thing is, the dog that got bit is a seeing eye dog. The owner who is taking him to court is visually impaired."
This is like a Seinfeld episode.

"But.." I asked "How does he blind fellow know what happened?"
"I dunno." my colleague said.

So my director went to court to defend his dog's honor and won. The big thing I'll remember about him is his gift of speech. No one wants to go after him at a speaking engagement, for good reason. He's got a silver tongue. I may go into court against a blind fellow who is a witness to my dog assaulting his dog AND LOSE! , but it won't happen to my director(grin).

Cheers to him and his new found free time!

I want a Hawaiian chair!

These Hawaiian chairs look cool! Exercise while finding it impossible to work!

Fred and Sharon's movies

This Gem comes to us courtesy of Bryce (where oh where does he find these things?)

Like Bryan Wilson contemplated after hearing The Beatles's Sgt Pepper Album. I'm probably going to quit making films because I'm obviously outclassed by these here folk.



Don't forget to visit http://www.fredandsharonsmovies.com/ !!!! And bring a dollar!!!

"My sister's the Devil!!"

My eldest kid told me straight out the other day that her sister's the Devil. I told her she was mistaken, and just because her little sister breaks her stuff sometimes, it doesn't mean she's the devil or anything.

"She is the Devil, I know it!" She said, unconvinced.

I tried logic.

"I don't see any horns on her head, and she doesn't have a little red pointy tail or goatskin pants.." I told her.

"SHE IS!!!!!!!" And she stomped off to draw stuff and cut up paper

A little while later I caught her trying to glue something onto her little sister's butt. Here is a photo of the first attempt. Apparently one of the wings looked more like a foot so she started over.

Her little sister didn't seem to mind having horns, red wings and a pointy tail glued onto her.

I'm going to teach the youngest to say:

"I'm the Devil!!!"

Playing guitar on the snowy front lawn

The weather's been really good lately. It was sunny on Saturday and I took my blue strat outside and practiced scales on it while the kids played on the front lawn in the Quinzhee. This one was built on the remains of the first one from a few months back (that didn't survive 4 days of freezing rain) and when digging it out we found a fissure in the floor and a 2 foot deep air pocket. It was the floor from the old one and it had 3 trapped plastic sand toys half-embedded in the ground.
The kids were excited, it was kind of an archaeological dig and kept them busy for two hours!

Woohoo!

Never cheat on your spouse

It's just not a good idea, as these photos will attest(grin). That's an amazing number of pick-axes embedded in this guy's car.







A dirty laundry billboard! What a great idea!









Notice it's all the guys doing the cheating in these photos?








Someone tossed a coke at my car once. It kinda looked like that on the outside (my windows were up though!)

The new Acoustic's almost ready!

About a week to go. Just the bridge to do. You can see the arm-rest in this shot, as well as the upper sound hole, a bit of the multiscale neck. Tony Karol's done a bang up job!

In the back pic, you see the rib rest cut-away. It's gonna be a beauty!

Now I just gotta name it! I think I'm gonna call it "Seven"

Oops! When Nikon 18-200mm's get dropped

And not even by me! My wife took it into the Nikon licensed facility and it got sent away to have the barrels re-calibrated. The cracked lens you see on the front is the safety lens, the actual optics are intact (hurray safety lens, I'm so glad I bought one!). This is like the best lens in the Nikon line. When I first got my hands on one two years ago (thanks to my friend Jim, who placed orders everywhere and ended up giving me his name when two stores called him saying they had a lens for him) I strapped it on the camera and never took it off. Except for low-light concert type settings where you need a fast lens, this is a great zoom and a wide angle with Anti-vibration all in the same package. Read all about it on Ken Rockwell's website. He gushes over them!

Along the same lines of my photo up there, he has a drop test report on the lenses. Apparently they fare quite well. The main competitor's lenses, Cannon are all made of plastic and the Nikon's are metal. The Nikon's hit the ground and leave a crater, the Cannon's hit the ground and bounce.
Take your pick(grin). It's best not to drop them at all!

Mine should be back from the shop soon!