So trying to work at home today was made a bit more difficult by our cat Sophia. Constantly trying to get on my lap. Like many cats, she seeks heat. So I placed towel on the floor for her to sit on next to the heat register. That seems to work most of the time. Then I noticed something. Every time the furnace kicked on, Sophia would jump of my lap and go back to the towel next to the heat register. She was getting her cue from the sound of the furnace turning on. So I stepped it up one notch. I took the flap from a cardboard box headed for the recycle bin curved it, and pinned it to the floor with some tape. So now when the furnace kicks on, it redirects some of the air right at her towel. As you can see in the video, she likes it, and she is not leaving her towel as much. Plus I am getting work done, as soon as I finish this post that is!
Playing with Arduino
So I am playing with the Arduino UNO board that Robin got me for Christmas. The first example in the book was to make an LED blink once per second. Success. But not with some struggle. Don’t you hate it when the first exams in a book has a very important omission? Like a define statement? Thank goodness these days I can go to the authors web page and and find the needed corrections. So here is my first working program.
So after that hello world program, let’s add a button and check its state. If button is pressed, turn on LED.
OK. So it’s been a while…
OK, OK, so it’s been a while since I’ve ridden. I know this. I was taking the bike out of the locker in Tukwila tonight. Was planning to tune it up and get ready for riding next week. What I was not planning on was freaking mold on the helmet and horns. This is what I get for procrastinating.
Should I be Insulted?
So when we came back from our trip to Hawaii last November, I brought a hula doll for the office cafeteria. It was placed with other small dashboard dolls from other locations that customers had been too. Well, this afternoon when I went to lunch the ladies behind the counter showed me how the hula doll I brought back was the only one standing. Someone took all the others.
So did they just not want it? Did they find the adhesive too strong? Was my hula doll just not worthy of their crime? We will never know the answers to these questions. I am relieved and puzzled at the same time that my gift remained untouched.
Posted in Weird Stuff
Leave a comment
Timing is Everything
So at 10:29 I get a breaking news alert from CNN that the NTSB want to ban cell phone/texting on the road. One minute later I get an email from AT&T reminding me that they have the iPhone 4S available.
Posted in Humor
Leave a comment
Hacksugar: Send URLs from your PC to your Phone
Hacksugar: Send URLs from your PC to your iPhone | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog.
This is a cleaver use of QR Codes. So the next time I want to quickly send a link to my phone it’s as easy as pointing my camera at it. Like this.
Posted in All
Leave a comment
No joke: Baconlube massage oil now for sale | KING5.com Seattle
Posted in Cool Stuff, Humor
Leave a comment
The Dracula Chair
We recently had hardwood floors installed in the house while we were on vacation. We moved all the furniture into the garage ourselves. After coming back from a relaxing 8 days on Maui we hired movers to bring all the furniture back in. The movers were fascinated by what they called the “Dracula Chair”. An old family chair we have always called the “Spooky Chair” pictured below with our cat Sofia. So during the last few days of vacation before returning to work I decided to see what I could find out about the chair.
The family oral history of the chair says it came to my Great Grandmother from a hotel in South Dakota that was going out of business in the late 1800′s. All I had to go on was a partial label under the seat of the chair. That lead me to the “Michigan Chair Co.“. During my search I found a similar chair. So the family oral history may be a bit off on the time frame and the chair may really be more 1930′s than late 1800′s. Now if I could only convince my mothers cousin’s family to part with the matching chair!!
Also, I think that those movers have forever renamed the spooky chair to the Dracula chair.
-
- Spooky Chair with our cat Sofia
-
- Label under spooky chair
So a personal story about this chair, my grandmother used to keep this chair in the guest bedroom at her home in Wyoming. A a kid when visiting I would “try” to sleep in that room. As you can imagine this chair is the stuff of a child’s nightmare. Some crazy ancestor of mine had also added red rhinestone’s to the eyes. Just imagine trying to close your eyes and sleep at age 7 with this thing in the corner, with long shadows and the moonlight catching the blood red eyes. Did I mention that my grandmother passed away October 31, 2000? Yes, Halloween night…
Posted in All
Leave a comment
Condit Dam Coming Down Today
Condit Dam Coming Down Today « White Salmon Restored: A Timelapse Project.
My brother in-law who works at the State Department of Ecology alerted me to this just moments ago. The project to remove the Condit Damn explodes today at noon PST. Really. They are blowing tunnel at the base today Wed Oct 26 at Noon PST to drain the lake behind it. The cool part? They have cameras set up to live stream it.
Watch it live here http://www.msilive.net/condit.html
They expect the lake behind the dam to drain in about 6 hours.
Posted in All, news
Leave a comment
Pi enthusiast calculates its ten trillionth digit
Pi enthusiast calculates its ten trillionth digit.
Who is checking their work?
Posted in All
Leave a comment
