The Doppler Effect

 

just kidding

I just read a fascinating article that describes astronomers observing the light echoes of a supernova that appeared in our night sky over 400 years ago. For a few days, the light from the supernova was so bright that it could even be seen in the blue daytime sky.

Recently, a group of astronomers witnessed reflections of this light bouncing off a dust cloud many light years to the side and rear of the site of the original supernova. As the light from that original event which was observed on Earth 436 years ago continues to travel in space-time, it will eventually reflect off of further-off clouds, and future generations will still bear witness to the after-effects of that supernova which Tycho Brahe witnessed and wrote about in the fall of 1572.

Read the article.

Tonight, I went over to Mom's for Christmas. One of the things she gave me was an envelope that contained some things I had made for my grandmother when I was a kid, that she'd kept and they found after she passed away last Christmas.

One of those items was a ( letter I wrote to my Grandmother when I was 10. )

Today, I read a blog entry which, at first, I thought was a cruel joke. David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of the wildly-popular Ruby on Rails web application development framework, announced that the widely-perceived-as-competetitor framework Merb codebase would be merged into Rails' codebase for Rail's next major release, version 3.0.

Only half believing this announcement, and being a savvy internet user, I did my research to see who else was talking about this huge development. The first evidence I stumbled upon was on the blog of Yehuda Katz, Merb project founder and lead developer. As the day progressed, I found more and more posts by core developers on both projects acknowledging the announcement.

For several reasons, the least of which is the pending new features coming in Rails 3.0, I'm very excited about this news. What makes me most excited about this development is the human factor. Two teams of developers, often perceived as competitors in their philosophy, product quality and mindshare, realized that competition in this case was less than ideal. By taking the best ideas from both projects, and merging them into one, the entire Ruby web-development community will benefit. Instead of continuing to take jabs at one another on their blogs and twitter and in conversation at Ruby conferences, they've agreed to pool their talent and create something great. They've recognized that their "enemies" should be their friends.

I've been developing on top of the Ruby on Rails framework since January of 2005, after watching the original 'Creating a weblog in 15 minutes with Ruby on Rails' screencast. I think it's great. I'm looking forward to it being made greater.

Yesterday at Dad's house in Oklahoma City, I was watching an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. Gordon had asked the chef of the failing restaurant to make a soup using as many or as few as ingredients as he wanted. The chef made a broccoli soup with fourteen ingredients including expensive oil and cream. Gordon then showed him how to make a much simpler and way less expensive broccoli soup.

Tonight, I decided to try Ramsay's simple broccoli soup for myself. I cut the florets off of a head of broccoli and boiled them in just enough salted water to cover them for about five minutes. Next, I put the broccoli and maybe about a cup of the cooking water into the blender and ran it on high until the puree was silky smooth. Finally, I poured it into a bowl and nommed. It was delicious.

Folks, I highly recommend giving this one a try. It's almost as easy as boiling water, and the results are simple, delicious, and nourishing.

This weekend I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Basic Course from local provider Moto Fun. My coworker, Denise, attended the course with me.

The MSF course is really quite fun, in my opinion. Our teachers from Moto Fun, Jude and Chuck, were great guys and great teachers. Jude was especially warm and humorous, as well as quick to compliment where appropriate. In seven hours of classroom time and ten hours on the driving range, we learned about the various motorcycle controls, how to get the bike going from a standstill, how to corner, stop, swerve safely, and so on.

Some of the exercises were substantially more difficult than others. The one I think most of us felt to be the most challenging was doing U-turns in a confined area. My first run though that exercise was nearly perfect, but as I watched everyone else botch it in varying degrees from not too bad to what-the-hell-that-sucked, I must have subconsciously convinced myself it was harder than it actually was. I was never able to pull it off perfectly after that first time through.

Overall, I felt that I did really well relative to the other students in my class, though i did make the occasional mistake. During my evaluation, I ran slightly outside the line in the U-turn exercise, and in the quick-stop evaluation, I forgot to downshift as I stopped. That last bit cost me 5 points off, so it was a really dumb mistake. 21 points off is the threshold for failure of the class. Everyone in my class passed the course with points to spare, and the mood at the end was one of excitement and relief.

I highly recommend this course. It is fun and informative. Even if you don't plan to own a motorcycle anytime soon, you will have fun, and you will gain a new respect for those bikers you see every day on the streets and highways. And you'll probably be inspired to join them.

Today, which turned out to be an historic day in America, with the election of the first African-American President, Barack Obama, is less significantly the day that my house got listed for sale. Today, I can quit crossing my fingers for Mr. Obama, and keep them crossed for change. Change of residence, in my case. In case you're interested, the MLS# is 6259301, though as of the time of this writing, it doesn't seem to have propagated to any of the real estate sites that I frequent.

That is all.

Many years ago, when I was working for my Dad at his shop, T.V. Doctor, in Westlake Hills, I got a call from an assistant of video game mogul Richard Garriott, a.k.a. Lord British. Garriott was well-known for his video game company, Origin Systems, but less well-known for the lavish Halloween parties he put on at his mansion off of City Park Road.

It was after one of these Halloween parties that the assistant called me. During the course of the party, three of his high-dollar VCRs had stopped working. I was invited to the estate in order to pick up the machines and take them back to our shop.

I pulled up to the gate and announced my presence to the voice on the other end of the intercom. When I pulled up to the house, I was greeted by Lord British himself. He led me inside, past the stairway that led to his rooftop, domed observatory, and into his huge bedroom. No no no... nothing weird happened. That's just where he happened to have placed the three dead machines. It's also where he had a huge rack of premium audio equipment and four Klipsch speaker cabinets built into the walls. And a bunch of trash from new CDs.

At the end of the day, (weeks later, actually) I was not able to bring any of his VCRs back to life. They were high-end Sony machines, the likes of which I'd never seen, and could not seem to find parts for. Consumer-grade VCRs had plastic gears and commonly-available parts. Richard's had metal gears, and we couldn't even get schematics for them without paying big money.

Oh. The astronaut part... Tonight, I read that Richard Garriott is on his way to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz rocket. He paid the Russian space program $35 million dollars for the privilege of spending ten days in orbit.

I wonder if he needs me to come up there and pick up a DVD player.

Two weekends ago on a Saturday, I was returning home from errands when I decided it was too nice a day to go straight home. In pondering where I'd like to drive, I decided that I'd head out east on MLK to check out this new neighborhood development people have been telling me about. It's called "Nine-Sixty-Nine", after the state farm-to-market road it's near. I've also heard it called "Agave."

( I wasn't planning on buying a house. I just wanted to see what everyone was excited about. )

But who knows, if pieces keep falling into place, maybe I'll be moving soon.

There's this dog in my 'hood, a block over from my house (on the parallel street), which constantly yelps. Not barks. Yelps. Like, 100 yelps per minute, with occasional pauses of two seconds to several minutes. The past few days, I've waked up and fallen asleep to this poor dog's plea. This has been going on for months now, with the occasional lapse of a few days where maybe I just fail to notice it. I haven't yet peered over the neighbor's fence to see what I suspect is a dog tied to a tree or a stake, but I know in my gut that the dog is not happy and is probably not mentally healthy.

I've considered calling 311 and reporting the situation, but I haven't done so. What if I call in, and the cops show up and nothing seems bad? In fact, as i write this sentence, the dog is silent, whereas when I wrote the first sentence, the dog was "yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep!. yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep! yeep!"

Of all the sentences I've ever read, the one I read in a KEYE web article tonight has got to be the worst sentence I've ever read, ever.

This article on Austin CBS affiliate KEYE's website, contains probably the worst-composed sentence I've ever seen in writing:

"Both Gregg and Pedro have each covered eight hurricanes each."

This year, several teams got to move in to the convention center a day earlier than in the past. The "tech team", as we're called, didn't have access to our normal space, but instead moved in to a room on the mezzanine level, along with about 70 rented iMacs.

These iMacs will be used at the badge pickup and wristband pickup areas, and must be preloaded with the software we use for these purposes. In the case of the badge pickup line computers, this process is quite detailed. Several plugins and scripts need to be installed, and each one has to be configured to run on that specific computer. There are many opportunities for error, and when you think you're done and go to test, it sucks when it doesn't work, because you basically have to start over and see what you missed or got wrong. It took us about eight hours to get 37 of the machines ready. Luckily, the wristband pickup line computers don't need to take and store photos in the database, so they'll be much easier to set up.

Tonight is my last "early" night, wherein I got to come home at a decent hour and get some last-minute housework done. Tomorrow night, we'll do a dry run on our badge pickup process, with SXSW staff and volunteer crew chiefs picking up their badges, and the Austin Chronicle staff getting their badges printed, to be delivered to them later. Traditionally, a large number of staff and crew chiefs gather at a club after this dry run, and have snacks and drinks, so a late night becomes a later, inebriated night. Good practice for what's to come, I suppose :-)

On my way home from work, I drove by my precinct's polling place, Winn Elementary, and was mildly surprised at how far into the neighborhood cars were parked. I decided to continue on home, and then take my scooter back to the school, so I could park right by the entrance rather than blocks away.

My neighborhood is mostly black and hispanic, with about maybe 15 percent being caucasian. Therefore, I wasn't too surprised that I was one of only a couple of dozen caucasian folks in the room. I was dismayed that I didn't notice a singe hispanic person, save for the guy on stage shouting instructions. Wonder what's up with that.

Looking for an empty seat near the rear of the room, I recognized one of the bartenders from my favorite local brewpub. It was Eric, from the Draught House! I sat down next to Eric and we had a bit of small talk. Then the guy on stage announced that Obama supporters should be on the right-hand side of the room, and Clinton supporters on the left. Eric and I were on the left, so we and most of the other people on that side of the room got up and moved to the right. Very few people moved in the other direction. I think it's safe to say that I live in an Obama-favoring 'hood :-)

It was somewhat exciting to partake in the democratic process at that level. I'd never been to an event like that. Also, it was cool to see so many people from my neighborhood all in one room, and even meet a few of them.

Tonight, I got a chance to work off some of the stress that's been building up by dancing my ass off at the Justice show at Stubb's. For about half of the show, I was relatively close to the stage, but more and more bodies kept cramming in, and eventually it got so crowded that I couldn't move my arms, much less dance. I moved to the back of the ampitheatre where I could feel the chilly night air and dance in freedom.

I'd heard that Justice puts on a great live show, which is rare for electronic acts. It's true. The show was impressive. No song was much like the version on the album. The duo sprinkled lots of teasers for upcoming songs into the set, and it drove the crowd wild. They didn't play my favorite song, which is the fourth track on the 'cross' album, but I still enjoyed the show muchly.

A coworker whom I trust to be in the know about these types of things has informed me that Justice is scheduled to play at a private party during SXSW. If I can manage to snag an invite and also eek out the time in my workday, I hope to attend. Wish me luck :-)

Most Sundays, I sleep way in. This being my last weekend before the SXSW event starts, I decided it best to get in practice of getting up at a reasonable time even on the weekend. Today, I woke up well before my alarm clock would have gone off an a weekday, but I still laid in bed for awhile. I hadn't eaten since about five o'clock on Saturday, so I was starving. My kitchen was mess, so I went to Hilbert's and got some tacos.

Next, I went by Karavel Shoes, because my boss Roland recommended them, saying they know their shit, and they take extra-special care to get you a good fit. They even have some foot-topography mapping device. Unfortunately, they were closed. Hopefully, I can eke out some lunch-break time to get by there on Monday or Tuesday.

I wanted to get some new jeans and slacks before SXSW starts, so I won't have to do laundry during the event, so I decided to hit up the outlet mall in Round Rock. I got a couple pair of black Levis, some dress shirts, tshirts and a pair of black chinos from Tommy Hilfiger (no billboard tshirts, mind you), and a ridiculously marked-down blazer from Banana Republic.

My next stop was my neighborhood Randall's, for tp, dog food, dog treats, juice, and a shower curtain liner.

Once home, I did four loads of laundry, including my new clothes. I also dusted, swept, vacuumed and mopped.

Dad and jasolater are coming to stay at my house for ten days to take care of Izzy (and attend SXSW) this Friday, so I've been slowly tidying things up. I decided to leave the mess that is my computer room, since they won't be occupying that room. My garage could use a day of tidying, too, but fuck it. It's a garage.

The last things on my homefront agenda are to clean my kitchen and sweep the back porch. The back lawn is looking pretty ugly, and the front lawn is a bit long, but I'm not gonna deal with that for now.

I'm really excited that my Dad has decided to attend SXSW. I think it will blow his mind. Hell, this will be my ninth one, and it still blows my mind. Hopefully, I can convince him to attend the NTN@SXSW party, and many of you will have a chance to meet him. He's a really great guy.

I went to the movies this evening, as did seemingly half of Austin. Luckily, the throngs weren't too interested in the movies I chose to watch this evening. In fact, when I entered the auditorium at 7:40 sharp for the second movie, right as the reels started rolling, I was the only person in the room. During the preview trailers, about seven more people trickled in though.

The first movie I saw was "National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets". I expected it to be hokey yet entertaining, based on my recollection of the previous installment. It was both. In one scene, Lyle Lovett is seen playing at an event hosted by the President.

The second movie of the evening was "Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story." It was one of the most absurd movies I've ever seen, but it was pretty funny. In one scene, Lyle Lovett is seen playing at an awards ceremony.

So there you have it. Lyle Lovett had a cameo in both movies I watched tonight. That's all I wanted to say.

"I hate this fuckin' traffic."

My Dad and brother Jason are visiting, and Dad told a story wherein I am 3 years old riding with my Grampa down South Congress, and made that comment.

If I could go back to that day, ~33 years ago, I might append "33 years from now."

I finally got around to cleaning jasolater's old bedroom this weekend. I bought new sheets, pillows and a comforter set for the bed in there. It was all so clean and cozy looking, that I decided to sleep there last night. I dozed off comfortably and quickly.

Later, in the wee hours of the morning, I awoke, and noticed that the comforter and sheets had been pushed aside. I reached over to pull them back over me, but they felt strange. Then I noticed the humming of my computer system's various devices. What the hell?!? I was in the bed that's in my computer room!

My mind started racing, looking for a memory of having moved into the computer room. There was none. I didn't drink much the night before, and even if I had, I would have lost the memory of going to bed. I have very strong recollection of the entire evening up until I fell asleep.

After getting up to use the bathroom, I returned to the bed in the guest bedroom and went back to sleep. When I awoke at about 9:20, I could hear the music from the alarm clock in my own bedroom, so I got up to start my day. At that time, I remember reviewing some pretty bizarre dreams I'd had during those early morning hours, but I didn't try to commit them to long-term memory. I wish I would have, though... maybe the answer was there.