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.

 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.

 Microsoft’s maps.live.com – New “bird’s eye view” images make it addicting. 

  Winter driving – Bad weather really separates good drivers from bad. Unfortunately, the good drivers still have to deal with the bad.

  Red Sox – Virtually the whole team is back. Gagne is gone, but that’s a good thing. 🙂

  Winter - I’ve had enough.

 Radeberger Pilsner – Tried one at dinner last night. Excellent beer.

Ups and downs of the week.

 Snow Tires/AWD/DSC – Driving in a snowstorm is still evil, but it’s a lot easier with the right equipment. 

  Snow shoveling – My aching back.

  Overestimating meteorologists - We got maybe 6″ rather than the predicted 10″-12″. I’m not complaining.

  Faint praise – I got a post card from Friar Tucks advertising an “entry level” wine. Is that a good thing?

 Super Bowl Weekend – Here we go.

Ups and downs of the week.

  Boston Celtics – Hate to sound like a broken record, but 30-4? Unreal.

  Overreaction – I wish Sharpton would just shut up and go away.

 Technology – I had to draw something today for a class and it made me realize how computer technology has enable me, an otherwise artistic disaster area, to produce something approaching art. 

  Head Colds – Sarah’s is still hanging in there. Stubborn germs.

 NFL Playoffs – Here we go.

Here’s our updated and captioned photo album from our recent Christmas trip to Florida. The album was created using an amazing and free program called JAlbum.

Ups and downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Took it all. Who’da thunk it?

 DSL – What a pain the butt. Cable is a no-brainer to set up. DSL modems with built-in routers and firewalls are a royal pain. And a big thanks to SBC-Yahoo DSL for chasing all the plain vanilla DSL (read: simple) modems out of the stores. DSL will justifiably become extinct because it is such a pain. Good riddance.

 Chicago – Great city. So many really good restaurants all within walking distance of the river.

  Chicago – Is there ever a moment when you don’t hear sirens? They need to rename the place The Siren City.

 Verizon Wireless Data – Who needs the $10/day hotel wireless? Just hook the Verizon phone to the laptop and surf away. This post brought to you by Verizon Wireless.

 Boston Celtics – I’m not a big (or even small) basketball fan, but I did see the Celts kick royal butt tonight. Maybe they will have a great season. Is a championship in three major sports too much to ask in one year?