Due to some technical issues, I’ve upgraded to Gallery 2. Bookmark http://gallery.ejinnovations.com.
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Early Autumn
It looks like we’re getting an early Fall this year, and I love it. I’ve come to realize that my favorite time of the year is autumn, and I don’t really know why. The most tangible part is the cool, crisp air that just seems relaxing; but there’s something else that I just can’t put my finger on.
Here’s a list of things that might contribute, if you have other suggestions then leave a comment. I’d really like to be able to pinpoint this if possible, so please help:
* cool, crisp air
* bonfires/campfires
* playoff baseball (..come on Cardinals, get your act together)
* colorful leaves
* tailgating
* lack of bugs (great for astronomy)
* lower humidity
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Phood Phenomena
I just purchased Sugar Free Maple and Brown Sugar oatmeal. There are no Splenda logos on the box and nothing to indicate what type of sweetener was used. My only guess is one of the long scientific words on the back indicates “sugar substitute”. Its not all that bad and actually pretty good for you nutrition wise. I will just have to put the mystery behind me and eat it.
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Is it really Monday?
Where did the weekend go?
Yesterday David and Libby Rasch stopped in for a visit. I can’t believe it has been over 2 years since last seeing them, we need to make sure another 2 doesn’t go by before the next time. It was great seeing you two!
Sunday evening took us to the Peoria Civic Center to see a Brian Regan performance. The ride to Peoria was a little stressful – I wasn’t allowed to bring my laptop and we were running (in my opinion) late. In liu of coding in the car, I had to resort to hosting a rousing game of “Name that Price” of items in the Sunday newspaper ads. Everyone enjoyed it (I think) and it kept me from going insane without something to do for an hour. After much distress over the time, we arrived a whopping 8 minutes before the start. It turned out to be hilarious and worth every penny – I’d definitely go to another one. -
Smoking Ban
A smoking ban went into effect this past Sunday for public facilities in Springfield. A lot of people are up in arms about not being able to exercise their freedom and fill the air with toxic chemicals that harm people, but a lot more are happy that they can go to a restaurant without having to breathe toxic chemicals that harm people 🙂
A co-worker (and friend… I guesss) of mine, Justin Long, said that his home away from home, Spammy’s Tavern is having a rough go of it without all of the smoke. So rough, in fact, that they just purchased a large flat panel television to show how much money they’ll be losing because of the ban. What a shame. I feel for them. Really, I do.
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Mozilla Thunderbird Gripe
Every time I install Thunderbird on a new machine I have a hard time finding the option to have my replies begin before the quoted text in an email. I can never remember that it’s under Account Settings…Composition and Addressing and not under, oh.. Tools..Options with other composition-related options. Really pisses me off, but hopefully by writing this out I’ll somehow magically remember in the future.
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Programming Languages for Beginners
This article appeared on Slashdot this morning, definitely worth a read. It’s something I have thought about on more than one occasion.
In grade school, every once in a while my math class would have a computer lab day where we would sit and type in those commands found in the math books (and other exercises). That was on an Apple II, and I remember going home and asking my dad if there was a way to do the same on our PC. After a little poking around on the hard drive, I found qbasic. I also recall saving up $40 to buy… this book. I read every page and did almost every question/exercise at the end of each chapter. I have tossed many of my old programming books, but this one still sits on my shelf.
I agree with the author that it’s a shame there aren’t accessible languages/tools for curious kids to explore with. I think Microsoft may be starting to realize how important this is, with their attempt with Visual Studio Express. But I think the kids still could benefit from something as simple as the old qbasic to ease them into the programming mindset.
I cringe when I hear younger relatives and those their age not even considering a use for their computers other than MySpace (more on that in another post), IM, and games. I know that it’s not for everyone, and that that generation has grown up around computers like my generation has grown up around toasters. But it still bothers me that none seem to take any deeper interest in this stuff.I guess I’ll shut up now. Hopefully that made some sense.
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Uniform Look
Using my new Photoshop Elements, I changed the style of the Chef website(no content there yet) to match the application:
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New laptop
It has been long, long overdue. I bought a new laptop at Sam’s Club of all places last night. It’s the HP DV2047CL which has an AMD Turion 64 X2 (64-bit, dual core) HP DV2047CL.
Jay created an OS CD for me last night so I could wipe all the preinstall crap off of it, and I spent the next couple hours getting all the drivers reinstalled.It’s a fast machine, I hope it lasts the 4.5 years my Sony has.
The Johnson Blog 