Category: Life

Posted on

I’m so proud of her

grad-plus-fam

It was three long years…

…but Heather got her Masters degree from the University of Denver last Friday. She worked hard and got straight A’s. (Sadly, there was no recognition of that in the ceremony.)

I can brag on her because I’m married to her.

One little story about that degree… She did about 80% of her courses on-line. The entire first year was completed while we lived in Nairobi, Kenya. Our connection to the internet there was extremely slow. She had to drop one of the courses because it was just impossible to download the needed materials.

Congratulations, Heather!

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on

Apple doesn’t hate you

apple-no-hate

Yes, even if you don’t have the new iPhone, you can upgrade your software so that your current iPhone has some of the advantages of the new one. For free.

Hardware-wise, the new iPhone has a camera that will take video. If you watch their demo, you can see some of the cool ways it works. (There are two models – the 3G at $99 and the 3GS at $199 and $299. The S model does video, has autofocus and 16gb memory.)

More significant to me is the new line of MacBook Pros. Now I am more behind. Sigh. If only there were a free software upgrade for my Mac that would make it speedier. (Update: a new OS, Snow Leopard, is coming out in October for just $29. It is supposed offer “speed improvements for Mail, Safari 4, Spotlight and more”. That’s not free, but I’m not complaining, since previous OS upgrades hit me to the tune of about $129.)

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on

What I learned from a mountain top

mtn-top

What goes up must come down.

It’s kind of a negative approach to this topic – but I think a little dose of healthy realism never hurts. You see, we always raise our expectations high. Often somehow in the back of our heads, we feel like that fun experience we’re looking forward to will last forever. It doesn’t. We all know that – but it’s good to remember that!

By the way, I took this photo on a backpacking weekend with my boys (and some friends) back in 2005. We had a great time. But driving back to suburbia wasn’t as fun as the drive to the trailhead.

Special thanks to Robert, who suggested this topic.

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on

An espresso machine for everyone?

stbx-email

I had to take issue with my friends over at Starbucks.

You see, I have some friends in Africa who don’t have electricity. And the nearest coffee beans are a day away. (Not a good situation in which they should start drinking espresso.)

Yes, I know – there are espresso pots that can be cooked over an open fire. But when was the last time you saw that done?

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on

The ultimate photographic project

m-obama-fam-tree

The cover of a recent Time magazine had a very striking photograph of Michelle Obama.

I started thinking – it would be amazing if a person was photographed in one setting with controlled lighting. Then, the person they married was photographed at the same age, in the same setting, with the same lighting and using the same camera. Then, their child was photographed with the same etc. – and the same was done for four generations. Wouldn’t it be incredible to compare those photos?

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on

I love Japan

hello_kitty_popcorn

I’ve written about Japan before. I’ve never been there but always wanted to go. (James Taylor sang that about Mexico once.)

Anyhow, the thing that fascinates me about Japan is how they think so differently than Americans. I mean, you would never see a Hello Kitty popcorn machine in the USA!

(I stole the pic from Tokyobling’s Blog. The author is an expat living there and often has some fascinating stuff to show us all.)

Maybe someday I’ll get to go! Until then, I’ll visit Japan via Tokyobling and Shift Magazine. Shift was what got me started into the Japan thing – though I haven’t cruised their site much in the last few years.

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on

You can’t get there from here

u-cant

When I was in Chicago a few weeks ago, I had a few hours between the end of my conference’s events and dinner. So I did some sight-seeing. Since I was so close to Lake Michigan (nearly an ocean), I thought it would be a crime to not go to the “sea”-front. On my return journey, I went up a stairwell to cross a major road. Maybe I should not have done that.

The stairwell was basically not meant to be used anymore. It exited right on the major road with no sidewalk!

But I went anyway. It was more adventurous – and direct.

Takeaway: sometimes – no, often – the less common path has greater rewards.

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on

Stupid Mac thing

stupid-mac-thing

This may be a first, in my entire blogging history – me saying something bad about anything Apple.

Time Machine is an excellent part of Mac OS Leopard. It has saved my rear many times. (This is a backup feature whereby it transparently backs up your internal hard drive to an external drive, so that you can grab a file you deleted a month ago – or get yesterday’s version of that file you changed a lot. Or go into your email program and retrieve that email you deleted.)

The bad thing? When you are done retrieving that file, the way to exit Time Machine and return to normal life is by hitting the “Cancel” button. That’s stupid. It sounds like you will undo the file retrieval – when you just want to exit.

Apple: change the wording to “Exit” please.

FacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail