Old Scanner beats Combo

My old HP 5300C Scanjet long bed scanner always had a bit of a haze on the inside of the glass plate, that I swore that I would find a way to clean someday. Then I got a new HP C4200 "all-in-one" print/scan/faxer, and put the old Scanjet away. After a few scanning tries with the C4200, and: waiting at least 4 minutes for it to start to scan, another 4 minutes to render the image, and trying to locate the scanned image, I decided to go back to the old Scanjet and clean it up. The Scanjet takes about 10 seconds to scan, and gives great images once it is cleaned!

I have a lot of old images that need to be digitized, so I wanted to see what the best image dpi tradeoff would be. What I found out from the tests are as follows:

1.There is no noticeable quality difference between (300 dpi) .bmp and (300dpi) .jpg files. They are equally quiet, and both get jaggy at the same magnigfication, so the jpeg compression doesn't seem to add any artifacts and has a whole lot smaller file size.

2. (300dpi) .jpg images really beat (150dpi) images for low noise and high resolution, and average out at about 1 megabyte per file. (which is not a big deal these days)

3. (150dpi) files seem noisy and jaggy with no magnification, and are unsatisfactory for quality archiving.

Well there you have it! Old beats new! Combination products (scan/print/fax) have to cut so many corners to be profitable, that they end up being slower and less efficient than older single purpose products.

This time I got to see the ending

Well... I went back to see "The Soloist" again, just to see the ending and the credits, after the projector malfunctioned yesterday. I'm a big sucker for movie credits. I'm always the one, standing in the aisle watching the credits to the very end, as the theater janitors are sweeping up. I also got a better perspective on the story this time. That's the way it is with me. Music and Effects have such a "Shock and Awe" effect on me, that some plot elements get lost in the shuffle, until I see the movie the second time. Everybody did such a great job on this one. But then again, I am a big sucker for L.A. movie stories.

A big dry spot

Well..... I hit a big dry spot in my writing , lasting seven whole days! A lot of it was caused by trying to finish installation of a vanity sink and medicine cabinet in a bathroom in the house. This was a real ugly job that involved crawling under the house many times on my knees and elbows wiith only a one to two foot clearance. After this job, I am retiring from home do-it-yourself construction work. If I can't afford to hire someone to do it, it won't get done.

I did get to do something positive though during this period and that was to post my first Youtube video http://tinyurl.com/gumboboogie. It took close to an hour to render and then upload a five minute video to Youtube. Once it was up, it looked a lot better than I thought it would. I have two more clips to upload tomorrow. Then I have to shoot some more media, and post it.

Last night I went to see the film "The Soloist. What a great film! Near the end, the projector stopped, and they gave us all free passes. I'll probably go back and see it again. I'm so lonely for Los Angeles, and my home, and my friends. Besides the great acting, The Soloist was just one big commercial for Los Angeles, The Los Angeles Times, and Arts in L.A.. I'm a big sucker for anything about L.A.. The Los Angeles Times is my home page.

The Other Side Of The Room

This is the other side of the room that I spoke about in the previous post. The Cockpit is off to the right, out of the picture. You might wonder why I would show this picture or talk about it. I don't know. It just seemed like an interesting still life. Artists in the 1800-1900's used to paint images like this. Actually the private rooms of humans are their temples. They fill them with things that have meaning to them, and bring comfort. Teens are especially skilful at decorating their rooms. Older people fill them with pictures of their children, and their parents. But in all cases, admittance to these rooms is by invitation only. That is probably why in most houses, they are in the rear and out of public vue. Probably the only other place that is more private in any home is the bathroom, and that usually has a lock on the door.

In this room: the large lithograph over the bed came from one of my offices. The Toucan bird drawing over the bed traveled in a book for about 10 years before I got it framed. The bear at the end of the bed was given to me over 35 years ago. The moose at the other end of the bed jumped into my arms at Macy's about 10 years ago, and insists on being at the head of the bed. The bed and the end table came from my Dad's house. The dresser from Ikea. etc...

I guess the reason for talking about this is: home appreciation. Without places like this, out of the elements, humans have trouble making sense of their lives.

The Cockpit

It's probably strange I would call it that. It's the room where I work and live mostly now. It reminds me of when I visited the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Az., and I got to sit in the cockpit of a Boeing 707. I had no idea that there was so little room to work in that space. Everything was within finger tip reach. Well, my current space is like that. 8 ft by 10 ft. I have access to other areas of the building, and some storage in the back, but mostly I live and work here when I'm not out making video or audio, photographing, building things, or going shopping. It's a bit different than when I was in Los Angeles. I had a work room there too, but it was in the back of the house and I lived in the house. Looking back on all my jobs I seemed to create spaces like this. They were all small spaces with everything at fingers reach, where I could get away, and think. Soon this room will join the others in the anals of history, and I will move on. Once all the paper images, films, video tapes, and audio tapes are digitized, there will be no need for it, and it will belong to someone else. What will they do with it?

Be careful of Crusades

I have to be careful about going on crusades with email, or in person. Well.... after all, I am MacGyver in all respects. I can see what's wrong with anything or anybody and I know what to do to fix things. I can get annoyed and impatient when I can't get answers. Like today: I was tracking down an internet problem. Everytime I went to a particular website that was supposed to be in service, it redirected to another website with an infomercial on it. So rather than just move on and find another source, I dragged myself into this four hour thing to see why this site got redirected, and got invloved in offering free advice. I haven't done this for a while. I used to do it a lot in my last job. I can see that the best advice is: if it doesn't work, let it be, and move on. Leave the Crusades to the middle ages.

Airborne really works

Well.... if last weekend (and once about a month ago) is any indication, Airborne (dietary suplement) immune booster fizzy tabs, really work to stop the onset of the flu. (at least for me) What I do at the first sign of a sore throat, or that yucky coughing flu discomfort feeling, is: disolve one Airborne fizzy tab in a mug of water and drink twice daily for two days, and the symptoms are gone. I also swallow a teaspoon of listerine twice daily during this period to kill the sore throat. The Listerine tastes yucky, but it really kicks out the sore throat. My former technique was to wait until I got really sick, and then crawl into the doctor and beg for a prescription for Zithromax Antibiotic, and be sick for an additional week. Since I have been using the Airborne and Listerine at the onset of symptoms, the flu has stopped before it got serious, and I have not been to a doctor in over a year, or had a flu shot this year.

Disclaimer: This is just my experience. You have to check out this claim for yourself and make your own judgements on my technique. Any warantee that it will work for you is denied. If you are taking medications or combinations of medications for any reason, you should consult your doctor before trying this, or any holistic or homeopathic flu remedy.

Happy Easter

Well... Happy Easter to all. Easter and Christmas both started out being celebrations or observances of events regarding the life of Jesus. In our complex modern soceity, Christmas has been taken over by Santa Claus, and Easter by the Easter Bunny! Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny do similar things, but the Easter Bunny has a more focused business plan. He gets by, stuffing baskets with candy and several types chocolate goodies. Whereas Santa has a huge inventory of thousands of manufactured items that have to be stored and delivered at a high cost. The Easter Bunny also has more name recogniton than Santa, is trusted more, never asks anything in return, does not speak, avoids publicity, and does not go down chimneys. Definitely a higher quality of life, if you ask me.

Nothing great lasts for more than about 18 months

A few years ago, I noticed an effect in discussion and support groups that met regularly. At that time (before kids, Facebook, Twitter, etc..) I was a lonely guy, and used support groups as my social activity. "The 18 month effect" goes sort of like this: You join a group. You make friends, and look forward to showing up and seeing them. You think that this great feeling will go on forever, and you will all walk linked arms into the sunset. After a few months....a few stop showing up. Then new members show up and leave. Then the charasmatic leader (that calls everybody once a week to remind them to come): gets sick, or looses interest. On and on it goes. Then one day, you get bored, and stop showing up. This cycle seems to take about 18 months to run out. If human group activities go on much longer, they either have to change, renew, or die. Those that do not see the need for change, usually don't die. They just stay where they are year after year, trying to keep the same old thing going, while others move on. That job that you just got that will solve all your problems, will change or disappear in about 18 months, just as you become the master of your craft. One day when you show up for work, you will have a letdown feeling. Boredom and conflict will set in. That's the signal that you will have to grow or move on. What will it be for you?

Never sell your tools

Well.....I was just about to start archiving some old audio tapes. I have had these tapes for years, but never did anything with them. In order to start doing something with them, I have to record them into Sound Forge as .wav files. But before I can start recording to hard drive, I have to prove the performance of the audio chain for: level, noise, distortion, and frequency response. Since I had sold a lot of my audio test equipment pieces a few years ago, (thinking I wouldn't need them anymore) I thought I could trust some free digital tools I had downloaded. Wrong! When I set this stuff up, the frequency response of these tools was so bad as to be unusable! So, now I've got to stop for a few weeks, until I can get a new set of audio tools whose calibration I can believe. If I can't believe the calibration of the signal chain, I will not be able trust that anything I record to hard drive, is exactly the same as on the original tape. The moral of the story is: once you have a set of tools that you trust, never sell them. If necessary store them. Sooner or later you will need them again. Also, never be tempted to compromise quality. If it doesn't fit, you must quit.

Excuse me, I need a Break!

The past few days have been one overload after another. By this morning it was like: I need a break! So off I went - to Best Buy to scope out new electronics, and get away from the work day grind. I really wanted to see the Flip Mino camcorder. Alas, I was a bit disappointed. The Flip Mino HD sells for $279.00 with only an hour of recording time, and when the cam is full, you have to unload it before you can use it again. It also looks like a cheap toy. Even the sales person I talked to was down-selling it! In comparison: for $600.00, you can get a Sony HDR-CX12 AVCHD HD Handicam, with up to 5.5 hours of recording onto removable memory stick hard drives, zoom optics, and image stabilization, in a package that is not that much bigger than the Flip Mino HD! I mean, if you are going to spring for the bucks, wouldn't ya want something 10 times better for twice the price, that will last a while and not become obsolete tomorrow! Such a deal! That's how I think. If I'm going to get a tool, I'm going to get a TOOL, not a toy.

The other thing I noticed at Best Buy was how cheap laptops have become. For $600.00, I can get a laptop of any major brand with a Pentium Core 2 Duo processor, monster memory, and monster hard drive. Three years ago, I paid that ammount for my lumbering Dell Celleron D desk top.

Not the nicest two days

Well..... it all started yesterday morning, and ran through today. Basically I was setting up the finances for the coming month. This coming month is a five week month, because of the day I normally get paid for my regular job. Five week months is a lot more stressful than four week months. How we deal with this is to economize as much as possible. I have this whole complicated thing about how much we can spend each week. About 50% of the time, contingencies blow the budget, and we have to resort to unusual techniques to get by.

I'd like to find more work, but based on the experience with my last "second job", I really don't want to go back to "retail", just to get by. It would be selling myself short, eat up all my spare time, and leave me exhausted. I need to concentrate on getting back to what I am best at, and that is Audio and Video.

Thursday night at the Wiregrass Mall

Well.... I went over to the Wiregrass Mall tonight to check out the bands. The ad promised bands on three stages, 6 pm to 9 pm Thursdays. It was just that. The Wiregrass Mall is BIG and is outdoors. Probably a half mile wide, and semicircular. The stages were far enough from each other that you could not hear competing music from the other stages. There were lots of benches and rocking chairs near the stages, and those that could not find chairs just sat on the curbs. Each band was different. One band played smooth jazz, another disco hits, and the third sort of techno-rock. They were all really good and very professional. In the Center Court were food and drink vendors. Kids and adults were dancing to the music or just sitting around, in this our "sort of" town square. For a long time, our town never had a town square. It was a collection of roads in search of a city, and everything friendly or necessary was a half hour away. Now it's nice to have a place to go to connect with locals and have a good time.

Kids Change your Plans (Part 2)

Since we had our kid later in life, we had no grandparents to help out, or take the kid for the weekend. Therefore we were "IT" when it came to child care. Since we could not afford sitters, and there were all these child kidnapping and shaken baby stories going around, we decided to do all the care ourselves. At first this was a big problem, but after a while we settled down into our routine. Someone was always at home, or shopping with the kid. The kid slept in my room for the first two years, so Mom could get sleep at night. Then as she got bigger, our routines changed again, and again, and again! When she was three, we moved to another state, Mom went back to College, and I got a night job. Through all this, we somehow kept being flexible, even though there were a lot of stepped on toes in the process. Maybe the reason for all this acceptance and continuity is that: we had nothing to loose by being parents. No extended family to fight with, and tell us what to do. No "party 'til you puke" social life, no fickle friends, no boy friend/girl friend angst. Just us and the kid.

Which brings me to the next question. Why have kids anyway? Well, you might say: after all your hard work raising them, if you treat your kids in a loving manner, they may want to have you stay close, and care for you as you grow older. Why would anyone want to grow old alone? Well, that sounds nice, but how about doing it just for doing it? For Love, with nothing expected in return? For the fun of it.

Kids Change Your Plans (part 1)

Kids definitely change your plans. Everybody that has children can recall the second that the first child arived. Before, they could pretty much do what they pleased. After, they constantly had to think about and include their children in their plans. Kids want to be included in everything. They need to be snuggled often during the day and reassured that they are loved.
They have very short memory spans. They ask the same questions over and over. You have to repeat the same phrases over and over. For instance:

Things that I say most to my daughter
1. I love you. You are a great kid.
2. I love you too dear. (when she says: "I love you Daddy")
3. Eat the food! (repeated several times)
4. Out of the room (with a finger pointed in that direction)
5. EXCUSE ME!!!! (When she is standing in my way and won't move)
6. The computer mouse is not a toy!
7. Watch Disney Channel in here with me for a while. Mommy needs some private time.
8. Do as Mommy says!
9. Lower your voice! I can hear you very well.
10. I'm not going to find your mermaid's comb again! You have to find it this time.

I also found that once my daughter started walking, I developed kid radar. If I didn't see where she was, I started searching. Then I had to develop plans for how we would handle a lot of things I never thought of before.

Tto be continued......

College Transcript (Round 1)

Well...I wrote off for my college transcript about a week ago and had to pay $5 to get it. What I got today was totally unacceptable. It came in an envelope that said on the outside that it was not official unless the envelope arived with no evidence of tampering. What was inside was a copy of an old microfilm, that had handwritten changes on a lot of the grades, two different student numbers, and all my grades for my first two years were missing! Back then Fairleigh Dickinson University had the nick name of "Fairly Rediculous", because the students recognized that it was a University of mostly form without substance, ruled by a short fat guy with a big ego (Peter Samartino). (Three campuses in support of a Dental college) Back then, a college credit there cost $20 (16 credits/semester= $320). Today, that same credit costs $821 (16 credits/semester= $13,136)! That puts it in the cost range of Ivy League Schools, but still they can't deliver a computer generated transcript! I call them tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for further developments.

Storm's a Comin'

Well...yesterday it seemed to be turbulently windy all day, with a clear sky. Tree tops were being thrown around like some some giant was running his fingers over them. I was trying to get some fence posts put in the back yard, and by 5 pm I was finished. The sky was still mostly clear, but clouds with dark bottoms were starting to appear and race toward the northwest. Then the sky got a lot darker, and the mother of all storm clouds settled over our land. It was like one of those scenes out of the film "Independence Day", when the alien ships move in. Then the rain started and was at full intensity in a what seemed like a few seconds. Then the thunder and lightning started, and rolled on through the night, with more intense rain squalls. In the morning, as the cold front passed, the temperature dropped, and it stayed cold and windy throught the day. These rain splats seem to happen here in Tampa in the spring and summer, and are usually surprises when they appear. Other than Cape Canaveral, Tampa seems to have the most intense lightning storms. The name "Tampa" is supposed to mean "big sky lighting" in Seminole. We don't get a lot of violent cold front storms like this one. The storms we do get are mostly the type that build slowly with dark skies, sometimes for days before starting to rain. Sometimes the rain never starts. We call those fooley-bear storms.

More on Virgin Mobile

Well, after doing some searches, I found out that Virgin Mobile is doing the same double top-up tricks to a lot of other people, and in ways much worse than happened to me. Follow this link to read more personal anguish. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/cel_phones/virgin.html

If you want to read reviews of other cel phone providers, go to: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/cel_phones

Well, other than complaining, what can you do to stop cel phone abuse?
1. Take the cel phones away from your children, and give them pagers, and pocket change for payphones. You need to reach them. They don't need to call their friends between or in classes. Children got along just fine without cel phones until recently.

2. Close your Cel account, get an compact laptop computer with a Verizon or AT&T air card. Get rid of your home high speed fiber and surf the web on your laptop computer. Make all your personal phone calls from anywhere on your laptop computer using Skype VOIP. Skype most of the time costs nothing.

3. Do some hard thinking about what your real communications needs are, not what you need to do to keep up with your friends, or please your kids.

Virgin Mobile Money Leak

About six months ago, I bought a Virgin Mobile Cel Phone at a 7-11 store for $19.95. I was tired of paying $90/month for an Cingular/AT&T cel phone that I only used for emergencies. The Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go deal was that: you put up $20 to start the service. As you used the service, you give them the right to top up your account $15 from your checking account as needed, so that you always have $20 in your Virgin Mobile account. As the months rolled by the phone worked really well, but I noticed I was being topped up $15 every 90 days whether I needed it or not. Last week they topped me up $15 twice in the same day. My balance was now $60! I called them and they, appologized for the error, and refunded the second $15. I then told them that they could no longer automatically top up my account, and would have to email me a link when they wanted me to top up, and I would do it manually.

My theory is that: In these tough times, when Virgin Mobile runs low on cash, they think that they can just go and top up all their accounts randomly whether they need it or not. Since Virgin Mobile's marketing is targeted at teens, who use the phone a lot, their parents probably wouldn't notice the hit to their bank account. If they did, Virgin Mobile would just appologize and return the money. For every 1 million customers, that's an extra $15 million in their bank that they don't have to pay interest on. Virgin Mobile probably doesn't think it's wrong to do this, but it is, and they should be held accountable.

The Grocery Clone Wars

I was out grocery shopping a few hours ago, and I noticed again something that I had been watching since the recession started. In the Cerial section, the local generic store brand of toasted oat cerial was totally empty, while the "Cheerios" and all the other name brand cerials had full shelf positions. The generic brand called "Toasted Oats" was priced at $2.49, and the same size box of "Cheerios" was priced at $4.99! For each type of cerial, there were twice as many shelf positions for name brand cerials than for the generic store brands, and from what a clerk told me: the store brands are only stocked once a week, and when they run out, they stay empty until the next week. When you properly interpret the Swahili, this means that: the name brand products, that have to pay for shelf space in the stores, fight and threaten the stores if they sell more than the minimum ammount of the generic store brands, which are usually 1/3 to 1/2 less than the Name Brand price. Thus forcing the consumer to pay higher prices. On top of this, wholesale comodity prices have been falling as the name brand products continue to increase in price. The empty generic brand shelves send a message to the name brands (we can't afford your products), but maybe nobody at the name brands is listening.

Problems with saying NO

That Montana plane crash last weekend still haunts me. The thing that sticks out is the problem with saying NO. The prominent dentist that owned the plane wanted to give his relatives a nice skiing weekend. So he got his 65 year old pilot to plan the trip and make several flying stops to pick everybody up. After: takeoff and land, takeoff and land, and takeoff, he was probably heavily fatigued, and made several bad judgement calls, because he was afraid to tell his passengers and his boss that he was tired, and couldn't get that many people into the plane safely. My hunch as to why he decided to change the flight plan, may be that: he was having physical problems, and couldn't bring himself tell anyone about it, or declare an emergency!

Several years ago, the Chairman, President, and a few Vice-Presidents of In-And-Out Burger were making a multistop tour of Orange County, California in a small executive jet aircraft, scouting for new store locations. After many short stops at regional airports in the area, they setup to land at John Wayne Airport. They were following a Boeing 757 on landing approach, slipped down into its wake turbulence and crashed, wiping out the top management of that company. Why was a car not good enough to get them to their scouting locations? Was the pilot afraid to say "no, this is a bad plan", or " hey, I'm getting fatigued, we better stop, and take a car home".

Not to leave myself out of this, I have a problem with this also. This past weekend, I got talked into driving my family up to northern Florida for my wife's high school reunion. I really didn't want to do it, but I didn't want her driving up there alone. So....I put on my "NO Armor", and reminded myself to: constantly check myself and when I got tired, that I needed to ask for help, and not to try to be the hero.

Another Turboprop bites the dust

The Bute, Montana Pilatus Turboprop crash this past weekend, and the Buffalo, New York, Bombardier Turboprop crash a few weeks ago, seem to have a common thread. Basically either going into adverse conditions (like icing), or operating outside the aircraft specifications (overloading, or outside the center of gravity), seems to make these aircraft prone to flipping over or diving straight for the ground. In the 1950's a series of Lockheed Electra aircraft dove for the ground also. Having long turbojet engines and big propellers stuck far out in front of the lifting surfaces, contributes to wing and fusilage stress, and controllability problems when trying to make turns in rough weather. Both the Pilatus and the Bombardier aircraft were made in Europe, and have supposedly have great safety records. So why did they crash? Maybe not enough pilot training, or FAA pilot certification, for the aircraft type. Maybe thinking that you can fly a turboprop like you can fly a turbojet. Maybe getting fatigued at the end of the day, and catching "get-home-itis" (disregarding fatigue warnings and proceding any way just to get home). I think it was fatigue at the end of a long day that may be the ultimate cause of both crashes.