Lewies Blog

A few weeks ago, our television started changing colors. I stuck with it for a while, but it just became unbearable. To get the colors back, I swapped it with the small television that the kids use for there video games when they come and visit. It was a much needed improvement. Unfortunately, I still can’t handle it. The quality of my television life is bad. I have to set up close on the floor to see the picture or else it is blurry.

Actually, today was the first time that I checked on my finances for this pay period and was surprised to see a positive balance of about two hundred, fifty dollars. I would love to go out and buy a television with it, but part of that money needs to stay in there for budgeted bills that haven’t come out yet. My mother in-law has been helping me get control over everything. Usually I have been down by six hundred dollars around this time - mostly due to phenomenal bank charges on small withdrawals.

I’ve been considering an investment into an HDTV for a while now, and I am trying to save up. I am approaching a point where I may give in and just buy a regular television. I do not want a regular television though. I have seen HDTV popping up in places where I frequent. Even our conference room has six plasma high definition televisions on one of our walls where I work. My coworker showed me his refurbished HDTV when I took him home once and the quality is nice.

I’m starting to consider Rent-A-Center. I understand that you can rent to own. I’m concerned that the equipment is used and I would be paying retail for it (if not more for financing changes). I headed on over to the site and spent a good hour just gathering information that they were asking for. In the end, they said that I should be expecting a call from a store local to me. I tried calling that very store earlier to see what the hours were in case I could check them out first. At least all of the paperwork is mostly done.

Tags: HDTV, Television, Renting, Paperwork

I had started browsing through a few old data CD’s last night that I had made about six years ago. I had burned most of my artwork and projects that I had worked on as well as everything on my desktop and document folders.

It is funny how one can go through old data and get enjoyment reminiscing about past projects and triggering old memories. It is almost like going through an old photo album. While I’m doing this, a little voice keeps popping up in the back of my head - “You’re a dork“.

One of the images that kept popping up was variations of my own personal trademark. I came up with a sketch of it back when I was getting my higher education. I had partially forgotten about it. Here is a sample of those images along with a few others that I’ve had on my flickr account for a while now.

I also found a few variations of some of my websites as they had been changed over the past years. It was interesting to look at the source code and browse the databases. Back then, blogs were known as news applications. I remember being confused trying to figure out what the difference was between the two when I first started noticing the term. Today blogging has evolved and news sites are starting to adapt and merge with the trend.

Tags: Backups, Data Recovery, Artwork, Trademarks, Blogging, News

I checked my mailbox today and saw an envelope from Ticketmaster. Inside was two tickets for Dead Can Dance. Angel turned down the offer to come with me. I introduced a coworker to the music samples from them on Amazon.com. She may be interested in coming with me to the show. I just have to remember to bring in one of my albums for her to listen to tomorrow.

They have such a large variety of styles. It is perhaps like dark ethnic folk music with astounding vocals. There music is just mesmeric and beautiful. If you haven’t heard of Dead Can Dance, I suggest that you check out a few music samples with Amazon.com or iTunes.

I am really excited about the show. I’ve been reading a few blogs about it as they move from one town to the next. Practically everyone is agreeing that the show is over the top. Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry have really out done themselves.

Tags: Mail, Tickets, Dead Can Dance, Music, Concerts, Excited

Aurora from the Atomic Bombshell told me about a site called Blog in Space. I keep thinking of a skit on the muppets about Pigs in Space. The idea is that your blog can be broadcasted into outer-space so that extra-terrestrial beings could read it - free of charge. Just make sure that you don’t provoke any of our friendly aliens into hostile reactions to our mother planet.

If your blog is worthy enough, the nice folks might even rate you as “Most Likely to be Contacted“. Aurora informed me that her own blog was picked to be featured tomorrow. She claims it was picked for its outstanding ability to potentially provoke alien responses back to planet Earth. I think there are many conspiracy theories behind closed doors in the government regarding how she is singled out among many. Either way, Kudos to her because she really deserves it.

Tags: Aliens, Alien Contact, Broadcasting, Space, Extra-Terrestial, Blogging

Early this month, I started toying around with the idea of making photographic mosaics from all of the images that I’ve uploaded to my flickr account. I made a montage generator program that was simple enough to make something, but the quality was just not good enough. Sure, I could make out the photomosaic, but I kept feeling that it could be better.

I’ve searched the internet before untertaking this project. I couldn’t find anything within my budget of “free”. Now since I’ve sort of abandoned the project, I stumbled upon the very program that would have given me great satisfaction if I knew about it in the first place. It is called AndreaMosaic. My favorite part is that this is a freeware program!

I first tried it out on a picture of one of my paintings since it had many colors accross the spectrum. Check out the results!

I can make out the image very well here. Rather then counting each photo as a picture element, it has split them down further to match a section of pixels. It has so many different options too. I can put in black borders between the images or specify how many images to use per row. I was even able to tell it not to duplicate any photographs. I am in awe.

Tags: Mosaics, Photagraphy, Freeware, Programming

My coworker invited me into her office today and presented me with a few t-shirts and a cap that she got from the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference 2005 (a.k.a. PDC). I still need to catch up on some PDC blogs about what went on this year.

Angel took a look at the shirts when I got home and took to the Intel 64 sports sweater. There was another shirt advertising Automated QA and one for the PDC conference itself. I love wearing these shirts around the house. I can get messy and not have to worry about ruining the shirt since it’s just a promotional item.

Today I’ve done a lot of mucking around in Crystal Reports. I dealt with exporting as Word and Excel files and emailing them as attachments. I also got the html version to print without our sites template when the end-user prints it out. As always, there were tons of formatting issues and troubleshooting with the report. I’m just glad that it isn’t like the old days where I would spend days hunting down dll’s, hot fixes, and patches on the Crystal Reports website. It’s been a few years, but I’m doing ok with them.

Tags: PDC, Developers, Conferences, T-Shirts, Free, Crystal Reports, Work, Angel, Shirts, Clothing

My manager and co-worker went out to the west to attend some conferences that introduce upcoming Microsoft technologies. I would have gone, but I have this insane fear of flying. I came into work this morning and found a cap on my desk with the emblem “C#”. It is supposed to be a spoof off of the Superman logo of the big “S”.

The back of the hat says “Save the day with C#”. I’ve saved plenty of days with C#, but I could have done the same with VB.Net. These days, the language you code in is more of a preference rather then a requirement of what the application that you are creating needs to be capable of.

I may be a C# guru, but I doubt I’ll be wearing this hat into work. Angel tried the cap on when I arrived at home and she looked great. I don’t know why, but women in baseball caps can be attractive at times. Unfortunately, my own mug doesn’t go well with caps.

Angels mother was here when I got home. It seems that another kitten has had an unfortunate demise, but did not have to go through as much suffering as the other kittens. Angel is strong and is hopeful that the other two will make it. Every hour that passes makes the situation more optimistic.

After her mom left, we tuned into our Video on Demand cable channel. Although we have digital cable, it was very slow loading up and navigating through the movies. After watching a preview, we choose to watch
Are we there yet? The movie was funny and cute. It reminds me of
Johnson Family Vacation
. Here is a quick summary of both movies:

A man buys a brand new Ford Escalade complete with spinning rims. On a long trip across the country, the vehicle is ruined by multiple synchronized unfortunate events that are beyond extraordinary. The fate of his most prized material possession doesn’t matter because at the end, the kids respect him, he gets the girl, and most of all - he has insurance.

Tags: Hats, C#, Are we there yet?, Johnson Family Vacation, Movies, Kittens

Five kittens were in a tree that did not yet have there eyes open. A little girl told our friend Lisa about some kittens falling from a tree near an abandoned house in our neighborhood. The place is well known as a safe-house for ferrel cats. Lisa took the abandoned kittens and worked with my wife to nurse them.

Today I woke up and Angel asked me to take her back over to Lisa’s house. One of the kittens was having a tough time breathing. We came back as there wasn’t anything we could do but wait. Later in the day, he died and one of his siblings was starting to have the same problems.

Angels sister came over and took the kittens to the vet to have them checked out and see if anything could be determined. We are all just hoping that everything turns out ok.

Update

The second kitten has also passed away. The vet was able to see the four kittens before the last one died. It turns out that they all have respiratory problems. Angel told me that the two that have died so far are the same ones that had fallen out of the tree that there mother dragged them up into. The three remaining kittens are now on medicine and quarantined.

Tags: Kittens, Emergencies, Abandoned, Pets, Fostering, Nursing, Death