45 posts from February 2008

In California, you apparently have a legal right to sunlight.

Thus, a man won a lawsuit against his neighbors that requires them to cut down their redwood trees. Why? The trees are blocking his solar panels.

Oh, the irony...

The cadence sensor is installed and functioning, so I now have distance and speed data for my indoor bike trainer workouts. Sadly, that's still not enough data to make MotionBased.com happy so that I can log my indoor workouts right alongside my outdoor workouts. We are anxiously awaiting the launch of Garmin Connect's new features since they acquired MotionBased.com. Until then, I think I'll resort to screenshots from Garmin Training Center (a desktop app) for sharing my indoor bike trainer rides --

In case the Larger View is unviewable:
10.4 miles, 30:06 min, 20.7mph avg. speed, 37.3mph max, ~819 cal, 158bpm average heartrate, 169 max heartrate, 62rpm cadence

The dip in the middle is the stop I had to make to tend to Sara because she was having a meltdown. She has a love-hate relationship with me on the trainer--she loves me, hates me on the trainer. ;)

Loving my brand new chumby from chumby.com. Like an iPod allowed us all to literally have a soundtrack for our lives, the chumby is our personal portal to the content we want to bring into our lives, delivered automatically when we want it. Sweet!

(Excuse the blurry photo... it's late so I just snapped a quick shot with my Blackberry in low light, and too close to the screen, so blurry is the name o' the game.)

Re: the chumby's featured Flickr app -- I just LOVE that unlike my eStarling (digital photo frame), this can automatically pull from protected collections/photos (with authorization of course) vs. relying strictly on unauthenticated RSS feeds.

My chumby arrived today. I haven't played with it much yet--LOVE the UI, the personality of the device, the thoughtful details (didn't expect the awesome carry satchel), but am enjoying listening to my iPod nano (pulled it out of my Ford Escape Hybrid long enough to use it here; I have a white nano that I was going to sell that I'll probably keep for my indoor bike trainer rides and for playing through the chumby).

Thanks for putting the chumby on my radar, JR (via your posts about yours, including your widgets.) Looking forward to enjoying this little beastie.

(Made this one public since I'm reposting it to GeekHabitat.com anyway.)

She said "Hi, Momma" (I had just said it, so she was mimicking me, but still... Awwwwwww!) It's not the first time she's said it, but it was just cute in the context of her sitting there "reading" her book.

She is not yet walking, but she can stand up and balance for nearly a minute even when she's flailing her arms or "bopping" to music (which she loves--we need to buy her more musical toys!)  She doesn't need any help getting to a standing position or picking up objects she's dropped while standing, and she's starting to get the hang of a single step up/down in my folks' house, although without baby gates installed at our house I've not yet introduced her to our stairs at all.

Her vocabulary, that we recognize so far anyway, includes: Mom (Mom, Momma, Ma, MomMomMo...); Dad (Da, Dada, Pa, and most recently, PaPa); cat (which usually comes out as "dat" or "datdat" or "keykat" said really quickly and followed by a happy shrieking yell, which sends all cats within a two-mile radius fleeing for cover); dog (we don't have many dogs around, nice ones anyway, but she has said "deeee" when I say "doggy" about a toy or doggy in a book); and "Hello" (though this one is the least frequent of all; usually she just waves, vs. verbalizing it.)

There are of course many words she cannot say yet that she understands, like "more?" If you ask her, "Where is your table?" or "Where is the cat/kitty cat?" she will scan her environs, and if she's able she will head on over (crawling) to the table or nearest cat. She also will come to me sometimes when I ask her to "Come to Momma."

She's gotten really cuddly this past week, although she's also gotten more quick to cry. I suspect more teething (evidenced by redder cheeks, more drooling and more hand and toy munching than usual), but perhaps also just a new stage in her development/expression.

I love technology as much as the next geek, but when my potted plants start having the capacity to call me and demand to be watered or provided with better light (more here; don't miss the newsreel and sample audio from an unhappy moss), I'm going to have to relocate them all to... a quiet porch somewhere.

Found on: Twitter.com (User Pothos, via Botanicalls)

Clearly, CNN is employing a former TheOnion wonk because lately their top headlines have read more like TheOnion stuff than Corporate News Network (er, well, yeah).  It was funny, at first, like the "Being Declared Dead Ruins Life" one I blogged last week...but now I feel dirty, like I'm being used. Why?

What in the hell is this headline doing on CNN's top news stories? The story itself is notable, I'm not discounting that, but who uses the word "teeny" except a child or a love-struck parent of a newborn?

CNN, apparently does:
Teeny fire starts Murphy's Law, darkens Florida 24 min

Clearly, CNN is employing a former TheOnion wonk because lately their top headlines have read more like TheOnion stuff than Corporate News Network (er, well, yeah).  It was funny, at first, like the "Being Declared Dead Ruins Life" one I blogged last week...but now I feel dirty, like I'm being used. Why?

What in the hell is this headline doing on CNN's top news stories? The story itself is notable, I'm not discounting that, but who uses the word "teeny" except a child or a love-struck parent of a newborn?

CNN, apparently does:
Teeny fire starts Murphy's Law, darkens Florida 24 min

It's bad enough to read what some parents and child care providers are doing, but to hear a "veteran teacher" talking this way to 4 and 5 year olds? Sigh.

And while a little different, in that the teens involved did bear a small bit of responsibility (skateboarding where they shouldn't have been), this 17-year-veteran of the Baltimore PD also needs a refresher course on proper conduct.