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April 26, 2006
The Black Darth Knight
Kudos to Tom White for pointing this out. You must be a Monty Python fan to fully appreciate it. And don't drink coffee or soda whilst watching! We warned you.
Posted by Steven at 01:25 AM | Comments (1)
April 24, 2006
Jury Duty
I have to report to Jury Duty today. I'm quite apprehensive ... I can't really afford the time that Linda Pope lost on the infant murder trial that came to town in a media circus last month, and which ended in a hung jury. On the other hand, it's unlikely I'd get picked for any jury.
Wish me luck.
Favorite quote about jury duty:
Any twelve people who can't get themselves out of jury duty are not my peers.
Can I go home now?
Posted by Steven at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2006
Jittlov Shorts
I was futzing around on YouTube last night and I stumbled across the Mike Jittlov short films (The Wizard of Speed and Time, Time Tripper, and Swing Shift). These shorts were the highlight of many a 1980's Boskone SciFi Convention.
Joe Bob strongly recommends you check them out.
Posted by Steven at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
Biodiesel Just Got a Little Closer
The Dallas Morning News has an article about a new biodiesel fuel station opening in Denton, TX. Denton is 25 miles west of McKinney on US-380, so it's not super convenient, but if I do find myself out there, I will seek out the biodiesel station for a tank of less smelly fuel.
Posted by Steven at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
Alanna's First Prom
Tonite Alanna is going to the MNHS Senior Prom with Junior Cedric Muoneke. She's got the dress, the shoes, and today, she'll have the hair-do and other girlie stuff. Allegedly, I'm driving her and Cedric to the prom, and will take some photos. I'll post them as an update to this entry later tonite.
Update
I did drive them to the Prom in Anne's Station Wagon. We got a great parking spot, but walked the long way around to the entrance. In the main hall of the Frisco Convention Center I took this photo of them:
The main ballroom was dark, with three or four food stations (including the "chocolate fountain"), ten or so craps tables, and the dance area. I sat with the kids at the first table near the entrance, and was able to photograph a few of the Band students when they came in.
Alanna was home at midnight -- she and Cedric didn't dance but rather just played Blackjack all night. I guess the Romance wasn't all there between them -- two friends going to the Prom. I still suspect Cedric cares more about her than she realizes.
Posted by Steven at 11:03 AM | Comments (1)
April 21, 2006
Hollywood Has Brought Shame to My Name
The new film American Dreamz opens today, starring Dennis Quaid as an obvious parody of Presdent Bush. His character's name is ... I'm not making this up ... Staton.
That's right. Staton.
Oi! Forever more, the parody of Bush will be "Staton".
Hollywood! My wrath upon thee!
God I hope they make Bush look like a freaking idiot (the Mainstream Press doesn't seem to have the balls to do this).
(Update) Googling "President Staton" now has 300K entries. Oi oi oi!
Posted by Steven at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)
Sweet Sixteen
Anne and I are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary today.
Sixteen.
Wow. Our parents weren't married that long, which makes us our own grandparents, in a sense (I know, it's my fuzzy logic again). We wouldn't have it any other way, actually. I'm very fortunate to have remained with Anne all these years; raising a family has been a real blessing (the diaper phase masked a large amount of that at the time) and while I have been all over the map, literally, to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads, I'm quite pleased with the outcome so far.
We're going to Chêz Gerard tonite to celebrate.
Posted by Steven at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
Catster?
Ok, apparently there's a whole website devoted to catblogging. Only this one goes too far and makes it seem like the cats are posting themselves. Yikes!
Have a looksie and tell me I'm wrong.
Posted by Steven at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2006
Leo's 11
Leo's 11th birthday is today. We celebrated last Friday at a new kid's indoor theme park that just opened in McKinney (they have an arcade, party rooms, a big bounce room, pizza parlor and coffee shop with Dad-friendly WiFi). He invited his Bennett Camping Trip buddies Grant and Chris, as well as Collin, Joey and a couple of other kids whom I don't know.
The Kid's Zone place was new, so everything worked well. They also did Laser Tag, which was very popular. Alanna and Alicia also participated in that. We retired to a party room, did pizza and cake, I took photos, and then everyone went to the bounce room. On the whole, a good party for Leo.
Today Anne bought him a small cake and some balloons, which the cats promptly took apart. I barely saw him thanks to a fiasco at work and the band executive meeting at MNHS.
Posted by Steven at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2006
It's Over!
We completed the 2nd MNHS Band Golf Tournament today at Stonebridge Country Club. It was weird being back in the building where Anne worked from 1990-2, especially since so little has changed. We had thirty-three golfers, which originally was not enough to show a profit, but some last minute re-negociating netted us a profit somewhere in the $1500 range.
It was a lot of work putting this thing together, and Victor Manuel and Marcella Gaughan were running full speed the last week (on the bus trip back from Copper Mountain Resort they were making calls to potential sponsors). I threw together the tournament program yesterday night, and even a gift certificate for a local dry cleaner at the last minute. This whole thing was just an impromptu nightmare, honestly!
I brought $800 in golfers and sponsors to the fund raiser, so I did my part. I really want nothing to do with golf tournaments in the future.
Posted by Steven at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2006
MacBook Pro
Today I joined the PowerBook Generation.
I bought a MacBook Pro today. (The 2.0 GHz, 100 Gb HD, 2 Gb model.) Believe it or not, I was waiting for the first round of bugs to get worked out (I got a Rev. D model) and a Windows solution (we have two, Boot Camp and Parallel's VM) to present itself.
I'm still moving stuff over to the new machine, getting used to its look and feel, and finding the somewhat elusive Universal Binaries (the Intel-native code). On the whole, it's a remarkable piece of engineering and a magnificent portable computer.
Posted by Steven at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2006
MNHS Band Trip (review, short)
We just got back into McKinney after an eighteen hour bus ride from Copper Mountain, Colorado. We were over two hours late, and over four hours behind the original schedule. Going up we took seventeen hours, and arrived an hour late due because we were detained at the Colorado border for an hour at a weigh station (our bus company's busses were not registered in Colorado).
We scrambled at the Vilar Center for the Arts in Beaver Creek Resort to get on stage and perform at the Rocky Mountain Music Festival. Our bands earned five trophies in the competition, and the Concert Band earned its first trophy.
The first afternoon of skiing was interesting. Over one hundred of the students were first time skiers (including Alanna), and many struggled just to stand up. I took many photos of the bunny slopers in ski class.
Dinner was at the Italian restaurant in the resort. I went with a group of twelve kids (including Monse, Alanna and Katie). It took over two hours to get food on our table, and we had several items served cold and uncooked. The manager indicated that it was the end of the season and that help was hard to find, but that didn't justify the awful service.
The next day's skiing was better. Alanna went up the lift and actually did the beginner's slope. Later in the day she went down the intermediate slope which took her from one end of the slopes to the middle.
For dinner I went to the Chinese restaurant in the resort. They were running a buffet that looked like it was on day #2, so I just ordered some pot stickers and soup. About half the adults who ate from the buffet were not doing so well later that evening, so I probably made the right choice.
We were up at 5am on Monday, and on the bus by 7am. We stopped three times (once at the NM border, twice for meals) and that added the two and one-half hour delay to the drive (it's as if we simply didn't account for the time to eat at all in the schedule). I bummed a ride home from one of the chaperones so Anne didn't have to get up at 2am to pick us up. I was in bed by 3:40am ... and had to get up at 7am for the election today :-(.
Trip photos are posted on the bottom of the MNHS Band Photos page.
Posted by Steven at 02:30 AM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2006
Band Trip to Colorado
It's almost upon us ... the MNHS Band trip to Copper Mountain, CO.
Starting at 4p on Friday, we embark on a sixteen-hour drive to the resort, where upon arrival we will have to suit up and perform in a music festival. Then the band gets to change (again, in the buses) to go skiing for the afternoon. Only after 4p will we be able to check into our cabins (please let there be heated showers).
I'm going as the official photographer chaperon, which means I'll not be tied down to any particular event but will be able to wander and take photos willy-nilly. Hopefully I'll get some great shots of the bandies doing their thing against the backdrop of Colorado's mountains.
If there is Internet service there, I'll try to post a photo or two Sat. night.
Posted by Steven at 06:07 PM | Comments (1)
Aaaarrg!
My photo archive hard disc went all plinky-zingy on me yesterday. I'm going to have to pay a small fortune to (hopefully) get the disc rebuilt and recover the images. This means that almost all the photos I've taken on the Nikon D70s are currently in limbo (I'm asking anyone I gave a DVD containing images to lend it back to me so I can at least recover those images).
To stem this problem from taking down my website, I added redundant hard disc to my Mac server and setup Backup to fully image the web site and other stuff. I sleep the backup discs so they are not running around the clock like the others, but I still don't trust big discs. There's just no other media to backup to that's as fast (its a circular argument).
Wish me luck recovering the year's photos; going with a cheaper disc recovery place is a risk (I've received quotes from $500+ to over $2400).
Posted by Steven at 04:03 PM | Comments (2)
Where Were You at 01:02:03 4/5/2006?
I was working on my iBook at the magic moment: 01:02:03 04-05-06.
Even the Dallas Morning News covered the un-event.
Posted by Steven at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2006
Alanna's Prom Dress
Check out Alanna's prom dress:
No Aprils Fooling!
Posted by Steven at 11:32 PM | Comments (1)