Musings

Last weekend I bowed to a spousal request and we saw “Up” in 3D (at the theater, of course—too loud, as always). Very interesting, this: by half-way through I wasn’t even paying attention to the 3D-ness or the goofy ill-fitting specs. I found it a rather sad tale, although I think it was supposed to be positive and uplifting. Unexpected how many 3D trailers there were. Bonus: they played an animated short, too! (Pixar’s Partly Cloudy.)

Also, around noon, the USPS female-mailperson delivered our new Holux M-241 Wireless GPS logger. It’s a cute little thing, no map, just a simple display, which I wanted (me!, not The Guru—at least initially) as a high-tech digital-not-mechanical pedometer.

Posted at 3:34 PM | 1 Comment »

There’s a lively interest in certain circles in car stuff down here in the Deep South, although it’s not as pervasive as I’ve encountered in the Midwest. Remember, after all, that stock car racing is an outgrowth of prohibition-era moonshine deliveries to, among other places, Atlanta’s thirsty, from stills in the southern Appalachians….

This aging, bug-like British body has just had the paint removed by a process that sounded like sand-blasting, although with baking soda, not sand. It’s more delicate than sand, I hear.

This car’s driver is now known as “Matte Silver”—at least by those who know him well….

UPDATE: followup footnote with tomorrow’s post….

Posted at 5:13 PM | 2 Comments »

Sorry, light was flat; sky (not shown), on the other hand, was rather dramatic….

The claim is that this 700+ space six-story parking deck, which opened in May and provides spaces for visitors to Piedmont Park and (this is the headliner) the Botanical Garden, will be screened by vegetation etc. planted on a berm in front and on boxes attached to each level. We shall see. Certainly, when you’re on the upper deck, it looks pretty much like a hot place to be mid-day in mid-summer, just like most any other parking facility.

Upside: the ABG claims they will get 40% of the water for the plants (not flushing, etc. by visitors) from runoff from the deck (held in a cistern until needed).

CONCL: need more cisterns.

Posted at 10:15 AM | Comments Off on Parking variables

At dim sum today, which we decided is something like tapas in Chinese cuisine, we bought a new favorite iPhone app, the Ocarina (99¢). Somehow all the excitement of dining (thanks, J&R) and new-app buying did not distract me from the magic golden—and I’m sure lucky—pig in the display by the cash register.

Posted at 8:10 PM | 6 Comments »

Celebratory festivities tonight, and we got a chance to see the new Kindle 2, sold only by Amazon. Nice, tidy, little, easy-to-hold package.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Kindle = set afire

New-cam again. I’m getting used to using this aspect ratio. The big problem seems to be extraneous visual crap creeping in on the sides (as above). Still, these were gorgeous roses, on a section of street I think of as Rose Row, because three houses have front gardens with nice, well-maintained roses. We had a nice park-walk with the new-cam (its first!), despite overcast skies….

Posted at 9:55 AM | Comments Off on Pair of yellow roses

’Maters are bloomin’ now (and have been for a couple of weeks).

Hey, it’s really a cool camera…. Here’s a better still….

Posted at 8:34 PM | Comments Off on Better image

Big news: new toy tool…a small point-and-shoot still camera that shoots 720p high-res video, too, and at 16:9 if you want (I think—not really my knowledge realm). Well, if you have a big storage thingy-card-deal. And we do. Two of them. 16-gig each. I think the battery will run down before the hours of video that would fill each card are recorded.

And what is it? A Panasonic Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 that DPReview calls the first camera with AVCHD Lite HD recording. Does that make your heart beat faster?

Me, I’m groovin’ on the 25mm ultra wide angle lens. The pansy-heart-picture is from the new-cam, but it’s been thissed & thatted, so I doubt you can tell much. Just trust me! It’s a lovely camera!

Posted at 3:56 PM | 2 Comments »

I just discovered New Coke Bottles….

Ah, material culture change…. I guess I don’t get out much. Or when I do, I’m not in the soda aisle at the groc store….

Conference news: I missed seeing the lovely Oralia because she’s suffering tooth problems. I’m sad. But I did see her hubby and get caught up a bit.

Conference news: Overwhelmingly, across the Maya lowlands, the “collapse” (whatever that is) preceeded the Maya drought you hear about. It’s hard to evoke cause-and-effect, therefore. And, prime-movers are out. At least with this example of sociocultural change.

Posted at 5:02 PM | 4 Comments »

The spouse and I have been working on a collaboration. Actually, we’ve taken the extensive work already accomplished*, and built anew the website of the Society for Georgia Archaeology. BTW, JCB this morning discussed the technical angles on the technological heavy lifting he’s done.

* …with the previous version of the content, and the articles in The Profile, mostly….

Posted at 7:00 PM | 2 Comments »