Ups and downs of the week.

  Veterinarians – Tough job with lots of sad duties, but when they can heal an injured animal, it must make it all worthwhile. Big thanks to Dr. Christie Stone at Crestline Veterinary Clinic for a job well done on our Max.

  Red Sox Season thus far – Although to be fair, no one was going to beat Chien-Ming Wang tonight. He was virtually perfect. 

  J.D Drew – Still hitting every game.

  American Airlines and the FAA – Two incompetent entities team up to screw thousands of travelers. This summer is going to be tough on all travelers thanks to the outrageous price of gas and the pathetic air travel system. Amtrak, anyone? 

 Gift cards – Bought a new lawn mower this past weekend for $37 out of pocket.

  Government stupidity – I know, that’s redundant. I had hoped Massachusetts was smarter than Illinois, but I was wrong. They also passed a really dumb booster seat law requiring children to ride in booster seats until they turn 8 years old.  It’s virtually impossible to enforce if a child is older than 6. How are you supposed to prove your kid is older than 8? Carry his or her birth certificate around? And what if your kid is short and still is not 4′ 9″ at 8 years old? Instead of booster seats, why isn’t the gummint forcing auto makers to install adjustable seat belt anchors?

Ups and downs of the week.

  MLB.TV – $20/month to watch all the Red Sox games full screen? I’ll take it.

  I am a jinx.- Tuned in MLB.TV tonight to catch the Red Sox. No score in the 6th. Just as I get the viewer up and running, the Blue Jays take Wakefield deep. Wakefield then proceeds to collapse. All of the sudden, it’s 3-0 Toronto.

  J.D Drew – Ties it up with a really sweet 3-run homer. Let’s hope that will be a habit for him this year.

  It has begun. – My grass needs mowing. Time for a new lawn mower.

 Springtime at last – The weather this weekend is supposed to be beautiful. Sunny and 60’s or even 70’s. ‘Bout time.

  Red Sox mid-game bullpen – Shades of the worst part of last year. Wakefield dies early and dramtically,  Aarsdsma and Wavy Lopez come in and give up a walk each (don’t they pay these guys to throw strikes?), and then Manny Del Carwreck comes in to give up the big hit. Sox are now down by 2. Let’s hope the Sox aren’t done hitting yet. UPDATE: Game over. Sox couldn’t do anything else and actually gave up another run. Not a total loss, though, as the Yankmees are getting spanked by Tampa Bay.

Ok, so I’m on a webcam kick lately. But here’s a very nice image of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It refreshes every 10 seconds. In the early evening in Paris, the tower is spectacularly lit. The website has links to other views of the tower and other landmarks around Paris.

Virtually the whole team from last year is back, so I’m hoping it’ll be another great year. Here we go.

Ups and downs of the week.

  Baseball Season – Here at last. Well, almost. The Red Sox have played two games in Japan, but now have to wait until the official opening day on Tuesday.

  Friday classes – Last one tonight. It’s good to finish up a course with only 6 meetings, but spending Friday night and all day Saturday in class is no fun.

   Open access spectrum – Finally the government does something right. Of course it remains to be seen if it really happens.

  Construction noise – It’s going to be a noisy summer as they dig up the street in front of my office. I’ve been listening to idling dump trucks and backup beepers all day.

  Earth Hour – The idea is for everyone to turn off their lights at 8PM on Saturday for one hour. What happens when the entire population of a timezone turns the lights on right at 9PM? I bet the power grid folks just love this idea. Luckily the promotion of the idea is practically non-existent, so it shouldn’t be a big deal in any respect.

Update: Now Google has picked up the Earth Hour flag and is running with it. It’ll be interesting to see how widespread the effort becomes in the U.S.

These days there are enough surveillance cameras around to scare George Orwell. In some places, like London, you can’t sneeze without someone on the other end of a camera seeing it. But webcams can be used for recreational purposes as well. A few weeks ago I posted about a Google search which yielded some cool webcams around Europe. One of them, of the ferry between Hailuoto Island in Finland and the Finnish mainland, has fascinated me for some odd reason.

 

You can see live images, updated every few seconds, from both the east and west ends of the ferry as it makes its way across the bay. There is also a camera at Marjeniementie on the western end of the island. Note the abundance of power generating windmills. The Finns are obviously way ahead of us in the wind power field. These cameras should be fun to watch this summer when the long Arctic summer gives them daylight for most of each day.  At this time, you’ll need to be watching during the morning hours in the U.S. in order to see anything.

Ups and downs of the week.

  Spring Break – Nice being on campus when no one’s around.

  Illinois Cornflake – Dumbest story of the year.

  Lack of material – Not much to write about this week.

Ups and downs of the week.

 Bermuda – Beautiful island. 

  Air travel – Still sucks.

  Formula One – Start of a new season. No traction control should make for some interesting racing this year.

  Head colds – Probably caught this one on the flight down to Bermuda. Airplanes are just giant Petri dishes anyway.

 Springtime – Here at last. I hope it stays mild for a bit before getting into the really hot weather.

Ups and downs of the week.

 European Webcams – Most of these webcams are in Europe, such as this one in Italy and this one on some ferry.

  File and Settings Transfer Wizard - This is supposed to save time?

  Vacation – Off to Bermuda tomorrow.

  Chicago traffic - Nuff said.

 Spring Break – I need it. And I get two in a row. This coming week for EIU, so no school for me, and the following week at UIUC, so all the students are gone.

Ups and downs of the week.

 New Haze Cam – Double-camera view of Acadia.

  CNN – Stories about gas prices reaching $4/gal are getting old. How about reporting it when it actually does happen.

  Formula One – New season is two weeks away. Can’t wait 

  “Unofficial” St. Patrick’s Day - A few bar owners make up a fake holiday so they can bring in more bucks. The fact that it involves getting thousands of students drunk before noon doesn’t seem to bother them.

 Irish Soda Bread – Good stuff.