Monthly Archives: November 2004

An Okay Shot

Last night after the movies, Becky and I took a chilly but refreshing stroll down to ***Independence Park|http://gallery.prwdot.org/independence_park***. I had hoped to capture some nice night shots, but most of them were disappointing. The area is lit by very bright floodlights at night, which is nice from a pedestrian safety perspective, but is horrible for photography. Anyway, I did manage to get one shot which looks pretty decent, after having been cropped to fit as a banner for our site. See if you can guess which one it is!

Life Affirming

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Becky and I saw ***The Incredibles|http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/incredibles/index.html*** tonight at ***Chunky’s|http://www.chunkys.com/***. It’s really great to watch a terrific, life-affirming family-friendly animated adventure, especially one that also happens to be wicked cool. Four thumbs up from The Woods.

voice jr.

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I’ll set the scene for you: I was home, multi-tasking my morning away. At this particular moment I was on the couch, checking my email, writing my previous blog post, and watching ER reruns. While looking at the computer screen I heard a familiar voice… “who’s voice is that?” I thought to myself. “Why do I know that voice?” Looking up to the tv the scene had changed. I would have to wait through several scenes in order to identify my mystery voice.

It was none other than Joe Fusco, Jr.

Now, if he had said, “I love black underwears!” I would have identified him immediately!

Walk on

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Colin Fletcher has recently become one of my idols. A self confessed “compulsive walker,” he has walked and recorded his trips, the most widely known being a 1000 mile summer walk through California from Mexico to Oregon, and his journey from one end of the Grand Canyon to the other.

The latter trip has been immortalized in his 1967 book, aaa|The Man Who Walked Through Time|0679723064|aaa. I found this book fascinating. Having just grabbed it from the shelf at the Library I had no idea exactly what to expect from it. What I found was a little bit Backpacking guide, a little bit geological/environmental guide, and a lot of personal philosophy.

Fletcher’s writing evokes Thoreau, page after page. He writes of his desire to esacpe civilization and his excitement to seek meaning in the Canyon. While in the canyon he hikes, swims, writes and attempts to connect with those who had gone before him. Stories of Native Americans and early explorers bring the reader into the ‘recent’ past while explanations of rock history bring us millions of years into the past. Although Thoreau and Fletcher were anxious to escape society, by the time their adventures were nearing an end they were both ready to reenter the civilized world.

I hope that someday I have the opportunity and the stamina to embark on such a journey. Until then I will have to be content to keep reading.

The Spice Of Life

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Never mind the MSG, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, or the rest of the laundry list of ingredients… I think it’s the “spices” that make Chex Mix Stop and Shop Brand Original Squares Mix taste so great. Yum.

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It Pays To Stay

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I’ve been a customer of ***SprintPCS|http://www.sprintpcs.com/*** since May 12, 2000 – over four and a half years. Because of my loyalty, Sprint has offered me 10% off of all of my recurring monthly fees for the life of my contract if I renew for another two years. Considering that I’ve been happy with them for a while now, I think I’ll bite. Sweet!

First Class

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I needed to send a package today, so I headed over to the Post Office. I was about to go in to the counter to conduct my business, when I passed a curious looking machine – an “Automated Postal Center”. Nobody was using it, so I checked it out and used it to send my package. It has an ATM-like kiosk, which is connected to a scale. You can use it to look up ZIP codes, print postage labels, even sign up for things like delivery confirmation. Within a few minutes I had weighed my package, selected the destination, printed labels with Priority Mail postage and delivery confirmation, paid with a debit card, and deposited into the adjacent collection bin. The machine was remarkably easy to use, though if you’re accustomed to working with an ATM, there will be a few differences. So if you’re in the US, look for an “APC” at a Post Office near you. It’s pretty cool! Here are a few photos from the adventure:

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A full view of the APC|ppp

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A closer view of the APC screen and keypad|ppp

Banner Waving

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I hope you’re all enjoying the banners here at World Wide Wood. We currently have 31 unique photographic banner images, and one of them is selected at random each time you load a page on our site. Collect ’em all!

This Old Computer

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Sure, lots of people claim to have pretty old computers in their homes. But many of those folks actually have a fairly late-model computer that they use for their main day-to-day tasks, and just keep those old computers around for kicks. Our main computers, on the other hand, really are old – relatively speaking. I really started thinking about this when I saw that RAM for our laptop had showed up on Apple’s ***clearance hot deals|http://hotdeals.apple.com/clearance/index.php*** page. So here’s a look at our old-but-still-kicking computers:

* ***PowerBook G3/400 Pismo|http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g3/stats/powerbook_g3_400_fw.html***. Manufactured in August 2000, purchased by me in January 2001.

The Pismo has had numerous upgrades and replacements over the years: a new power adapter, new LiIon batteries, new power/sound board, maxed out RAM, upgraded hard drive. I think the hard drive may be on its last legs, but I still have one month left in its three year warranty. I’d love to replace the Pismo with a newer PowerBook or iBook, but I’m not about to take on an additional $1000+ in debt right now. Not when we’re trying (successfully) to pay down our debt. Besides, we (Becky mostly) get a lot of use out of it. Becky uses it to play a mean game of Freecell at ***Pogo.com|http://www.pogo.com/***.

* ***PowerMac G4/450 Sawtooth|http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_450.html***. Manufactured in December 1999, purchased by me in September 2003.

It’s got a decent graphics card (nVidia GeForce4 MX) which helps out with Quartz rendering in Mac OS X. This is the machine I mainly use at home.

* ***HP Pavillion 6730|product=58757&lang=en&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=bph05747***. Purchased some time between 1998 and 1999.

The Pavillion, well… it is used when we need Microsoft Word for some reason, and occasionally I boot it up to make sure it still works, but other than that, it is left alone.

Sun Rise

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It may be most appropriate that my first experience with the writings of Ernest Hemingway should be aaa|The Sun Also Rises|0684800713|aaa as it was the first novel that he published. Hemingway’s writings fall into the catagory of “books I probably should have read by now, but haven’t” and I’m glad that I have delved into them at last.

‘SUN’ is the story of several expatriots living, writing and drinking in Paris in the 1920’s. Throughout their travels and romances and experiences we can see them struggling to deal with the changes in their lives in post-war Europe.

While the stories of the main characters were intriguing, what I enjoyed most was the narrative style of the book. Hemingway writes in the first person in quick declarative sentences. Throught the voice of Jake Barnes one almost feels as if they are right there drinking by the Seine, fishing in the Irati, or watching the Torreadors in Pamplona. “Maybe Jake is a friend of mine, telling of his travels,” I thought.

I guess I expected Hemingway to be a much more difficult read than it was. There are certainly themes of existentialism, change and unrequited love throughout, but none of the high falouting prose found in other books of the sort.