Hotlanta III; Odds and Ends

Odds: Sometimes I see an image of myself (In this case I was playing around with the camera last night) and I am surprised at how old I look. I fully expect (for no good reason) to see a 29-year-0ld in the image not this old guy :-)

Ends: First thanks to JamesF for some HTML code that improved the Filmstrip of Images from yesterday's post. Above is a frame of reference f0r the rather unusual photo from yesterday.

Hotlanta Part II

Hotlanta

Yesterday morning I was walking the dogs on a 65 F foggy morning nearly overtaken by the great smell of japanese honeysuckle on quiet Sesame Street. Today Hotlanta and 10 hours of meetings. I have a camera, but being downtown I figured you had all seen business districts, construction, and urban blight before :-) There are some cool things in Atlanta, but don't expect to get to any of them on this trip.

Remember...

I try to take out a few minutes this weekend every year to think about the folks that have made the ultimate sacrifice. I really can't wait for the day when I go to Wikipedia and there is an entry that says something like 'John or Jane Doe was the final American soldier to die in the line of duty during wartime'. Maybe human nature and war go hand in hand, but I hope for a better day while honoring those who gave everything. Those people who won't ever again get a chance play with their kids or visit with family and friends. Activities that I will enjoy this weekend thanks to their priceless gift to the people of the United States.
Title of Photograph: Season of Remembrance Begins
Photograph Taken By: Kathleen T. Rhem
Date of Photograph Taken: April 30, 2007
Description: The gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery are graced by U.S. flags on Memorial Day.

This image is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

Can you read this?

Blurry Anther

Asiatic Lily Anther. I (Seamus actually, he owes me $50.00) got Christine some flowers for Mother's Day. I tried this new company (new to me anyway) called Proflowers.com I had read an article somewhere about how flowers went almost straight from the field to the final consumer. This business model I really like as potentially (I don't know about actually) it could mean more money for the grower. Well the bouquet (it came early, Seamus isn't too good with the calendar yet) is pushing 2 weeks old and it is still decent looking. We removed the flowers as they were spent, but there were lots of unopened ones to take their place. Using such fresh flowers really eliminated the normal postharvest physiological challenges.

Mad Mods

A little update on the good ole eMachines. The video card upgrade went well initially, but turns out that the minimum recommendation for the Power supply was 350W for that card and the standard issue PS was only 300W...so occasionally there were some blips. Well last night I installed a new 550W PS ($39.00) and a Corsair RAM tachometer controlled cooling rack (it was only $17.00 so I couldn't resist) So am into the upgrade now about a total of $124. Now truly VISTA ready and hopefully good for a couple more years...knock on wood. I am out of fan headers on the Mother Board and maxed out on RAM (2 GB) so this is about all I can do under the hood for this box.

Obviously, I won't win any awards for my wire routing :-)

Future Rock Star

Frogs and Petrified Mastodon Butts

I really liked this frog sculpture on the wall at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The really cool thing was that the frogs were at a height that adults and children alike could get up close examine and touch them.

This view would have been a lot more intimidating when this Mastodon was alive! Interestingly, they lived in North America until fairly recently. They only became extinct about 11,000 years ago.

Butterfly Wonder

Had sometime before meetings this morning to checkout the Butterfly Rainforest exhibit in Gainesville. Truly an awesome experience...easily could have spent all day in the display if we had more time.

Weekend Odds and Ends

Sometimes I just can't resist a little Photoshop fun. This started its life as a picture of a water main at Lake Junaluska. I actually kind of like this one. An hour or so more and I could probably even get consistent light and shadows...but Seamus probably needs a diaper change or something :-)

And this was one of those million bland duck pictures I have taken...what can I say I like ducks and water ripples :-) I can waste hours on this stuff; making a subpar picture almost average. Tomorrow I am off to the University of Florida to tour the new Genetics Institute, and some large plant micropropagation facilities (Agristarts) in Apopka. I am told to be prepared for smoke. The miracle is I can now get a direct flight from Asheville, NC into Orlando.

Springtime Baby

Slowly digging out!

Well it has been a busy couple of weeks. We had a major freeze (series of freezes actually) here that zapped everything that was blooming. Then there was wrapping up 5 courses and lets not forget Seamus who is now 3 months old, weighs 13 lbs, and is elongating as we speak. Imagine if an adult doubled in size in three months...wouldn't be pretty...but it works for an infant. He looks like he will be tall which is kind of a shocker if you know that there really aren't too many tall people in my family or Christine's for that matter.

Also decided to squeeze a few more years out of my good old e-machine. We are going Vista at work soon and I wanted to play around with it. Turns out the processor, 1.5 GB RAM, and HD space were all good to go...but I did need a new video card to get the cool Aero effects :-)

So now I have a PNY GeForce 6600 AGP 8X card with 256MB...only $68 at TigerDirect...not to shabby. Unfortunately my Motherboard is too old to have the PCI Express slot.