Category: work

03/14/06 07:03 - 32ºF - ID#32521

restaurant and breaks

I totally get absorbed in the form maker API I was making at work and forgot to take a break. I am so angry with myself because I promised I wouldn't do that anymore after 5 years of virtually no breaks at Canisius.

This was all my fault I just forgot to go until 6:59. I get out at 7PM. The thing is I always wait for terry till 8. I f his stupid phone wasn't broken I could have just called to say I am walking home, but as I have to wait anyways - I decided I would spend $11 on a fancy dinner at the hotel next door to roswell. Their food is amazing.

The guy next to me if freaking about about how he has some paycut and won't be able to afford the $500 trips to toronto on the weekends. His attorney says this and that. Blah, blah,blah Ans his property value need to be re-evaluated Thank god he has no debt, he says to some woman he is with.

In the end he decided it wuld be okay because his lower salary is still higher than most people in Buffalo.

This is a chicken focaccia sandwich. Nothing about this type of bread says focaccia to me. At least it tastes really, really good.

Permalink: restaurant_and_breaks.html
Words: 217
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

03/13/06 10:21 - 57ºF - ID#32520

Google Mars

Has anyone else seen google mars ? It is a new mars mapping interface based on the googlemaps interface. I cannot wait till they have the 3d version. You can see the data in elevation, visible image, and infrared image maps.

Permalink: Google_Mars.html
Words: 49
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: pets

03/12/06 08:55 - 49ºF - ID#32519

Sugar Gliders

The sugar glider found an organic crunchy cheese stick.



And then spent the next half hour nibbling it.










Eventually, the other sugar glider came to investigate and snuggle

Permalink: Sugar_Gliders.html
Words: 42
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: gps

03/12/06 08:06 - 49ºF - ID#32518

GPS comes so far

I remember when (e:jacob) stole my first Delorme Earthmate GPS for my iBook. I loved it. The maps it used were so innaccurate and Arizona was developing so fast . that it often showed us simply driving through the desert. Using it was the utmost complicated endeavor as it required a serial to USB converter, batteries, plenty of sky view and like ten minutes of setup before it was ready. No tto mention the software and iBook itself were flaky.

Then when I worked on Public Transphere we had some 2000 serial GPS unit that was a little more sophisticated but the interface was just as bad.

Recently I ordered a bluetooth gps for my phone and today I started actually playing wiht it. It is so incredible. It is tiny, like the size of a pack of gum, fully rechargable via usb and even works in the house. Furthmore, it is so accurate that it can detect me lifting up and putting down the phone or the speed at which I walk down the driveway. The potential is incredible and it output fully standard compliant NMEA sentences.

Look at the data mapped to google earth as I drive down elmwood. It's really great because my phone is also a 700k-1MB/s modem for my laptop.



Before I even used it I ordered another GPS but this time just the little chip which can record to a SD card. The advantage of this setup is that it can be standalone and tiny, not much bigger than a quarter. I can attach it to anywhing and it will reocrd its position for up to two weeks.

Soon enough, I want to make my journal track me as I move around the city. To bad I sit at a desk for 8 hours a day. It might be kind of boring.

Permalink: GPS_comes_so_far.html
Words: 310
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: last

03/12/06 06:18 - 52ºF - ID#32517

Last Glimpses

This journal is dedicated to last glimpses

The last glimpse of being sick


The last glimpse of snow in the sun


the last glimpse of my chicago burger at Jimmy Macs


the last glimpse of my beard that got shaved

Permalink: Last_Glimpses.html
Words: 48
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: energy

03/11/06 08:59 - 48ºF - ID#32516

Daylight Savings Time

Has anyone really thought about daylight savings time? I never really thought about it much. (e:robin) cam eover and her and (e:matthew) were talking about when it begins this year. I looked it up an dfound ou that it begins the first sunday in April but starting in 2007, it is extended a month an begins in march.

The reason is that it saves a ton of energy. According to this site

Daylight Saving Time Saves Energy

Spring Graphic One of the biggest reasons we change our clocks to Daylight Saving Time (DST) is that it saves energy. Energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting our homes is directly connected to when we go to bed and when we get up. Bedtime for most of us is late evening through the year. When we go to bed, we turn off the lights and TV.

In the average home, 25 percent of all the electricity we use is for lighting and small appliances, such as TVs, VCRs and stereos. A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, we can cut the amount of electricity we consume each day.

Studies done in the 1970s by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that we trim the entire country's electricity usage by about one percent EACH DAY with Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time "makes" the sun "set" one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day.

Permalink: Daylight_Savings_Time.html
Words: 284
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: weather

03/11/06 11:48 - ID#32515

Outside but warm

My friend chris is visiting from San Francisco this weekend. Luckily, he is sick too. Pretty much everyone is.



We went to his mom's house to surprise her. she was having an openhouse and didn't know she was in town. Unfortunately, she has cats so I couldn't hang out otuside but it is 60 out today!

It's so nice to sit in the sun.

One of chris's relatives is an electrician who specializes in people with RF and EMT sensitivity. I never knew there was such a thing. Those poor people are not going to make the next evolutionary jump. Imagine being "alergic" to RF. You might as well move to a commune in the middle of the desert and line your house in aluminum foil.

Permalink: Outside_but_warm.html
Words: 131
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: family

03/10/06 03:51 - 39ºF - ID#32514

Logins and Pictures

Today (e:hodown) sent me a link to some pictures of her mom. The studio that took them required thsi complicated login and then when I trie dto save one for (e:lilho) it wouldn't let me. They tried to make it so that you can download the image by putting some lame transparent gif over the top. I hate pretend secuirty. I am a big fan of no security rather than pretend security.

The real problem is that although they require a login to see your picture you can easy circumvent the entire system by just going to the images directly. What's really insane is that the image increment sequentially so if you really wanted all the images from the you could just quickly loop through and save them. Not just the images of mother ho but every image on they site.

Needless to say I managed to get (e:hodown) all the glamour shots of her and (e:lilho)'s mother.



You can start there and just keep incremeting the number in the url

Search engines are bound to grab them all.

Permalink: Logins_and_Pictures.html
Words: 193
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: cute

03/09/06 04:29 - 50ºF - ID#32513

Holy Cuteness

I was checking out the cute things site on (e:hodown)'s journal [inlink]hodown,223[/inlink] and found this squirrel. I want to know if it is someones pet. I hope (e:mathew) posts the sugargliders on there.

Permalink: Holy_Cuteness.html
Words: 41
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: sick

03/09/06 09:14 - 50ºF - ID#32512

Sick Day Number Two

Well the sick days are running out so I better get well soon. I seriously cannot go to work when I am this gross. I am sniffly, sneezy, coughing gross.

I spent the morning touching up some of my old portfolio. It is a relic because it is the only web thing I have going on where ethe data and the markup are all mixed together into an actual static document. It's been that way for about three years. Every other thing I have on the web is some sort of content admin based system where the data is stored in neat little database tables. I supposed I could easily convert it, but there is some sense of nostalgia to an actual web page. At least having one of them. I mean even it is divided up into server side includes but still.

I still have to deal with the content itself but for now this is the new style.



Last night I finally figured out how to make GPS and my phone play good together. Sometime soon something good will come out of my obsession with GPS. I am just trying to decide what. I think a part of the Remember BUffalo Porject will be based on it.

[size=m]Paul's Sick Soup Recipe[/size]
I have eaten this soup each day I am sick, it makes me feel better. Once again the proportions are probably not very helpful but it tastes good.



1 box of chicken broth
some salt
lots of group pepper
a bunch of olive oil
some greens or brocolli florrets (escarole, spinich, whatever)
about 6 cloves of garlic sliced
a lot of shrimp
some pastina

boil it all togther accept the pastina. Once it smells good, very soon after beginning and the water is boiling well, just throw in some pastina and let them cook. Then eat it.

Sprinkle liberally with grated parmesean chesse (hint: conservatively == bad even with parmesean cheese)

Permalink: Sick_Day_Number_Two.html
Words: 326
Location: Buffalo, NY