TooMuchBlue

Satek Swinery??

2008-08-16T14:49:00.001-05:00

Quality in labelling

2008-06-29T10:37:00.001-05:00

Valentine's day presents should always be red

2008-02-18T11:41:00.000-06:00

BBQ smile

2007-11-16T21:47:00.001-06:00

Hope you can see this dark picture.

In which I note a blog you can't post to isn't much of a blog.

2007-10-29T21:12:00.000-05:00

Judging by recent activity, you might think I've abandoned this blog. While I haven't exactly been writing weekly essays, the complete lack of activity is not my fault.

Sometime in late August or early September, something seems to have happened on Blogger that now prevents them from posting updates to my website. Hopefully, this post will make it through anyway.

I'm trying to work with Blogger on the issues, but at the same time I'm starting to investigate other platforms. Perhaps something that can handle my whole website.

Here's my feature list:

Required
- Offline composing
- RSS/Atom feeds
- Fully customizable look and feel using CSS (not having to format every paragraph)
- No unreasonable limits on size or types of media (large ZIP, PNG, MPEG).
Preferred
- Mobile blogging, including posting pictures from my cell. (I necessary, I may build this myself if the platform permits.)
- Support for static (non-dated) pages for the rest of my site
- Widely supported platform.
- Served from my own domain on the same server as my website (FreeBSD, Apache, PHP/Perl/Python, PgSql/MySql).

Smiles

2007-10-12T09:42:00.000-05:00

Finally caught one on camera. The onesie says I <3 Daddy but her face says Mommy is her favorite.

Good? Bad?

2007-10-08T05:25:00.000-05:00

As long as I'm just posting to myself, I might as well post this joke.

There's an old Chinese legend about a farmer whose horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit him. "Sorry about your horse," they said, full of sympathy for his misfortune.

"How do you know it's bad luck?" the farmer asked.

Next morning, the horse returned, bringing with it three wild mares. "Oh, this is wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.

"Wait and see," replied the farmer.

The next day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses and was thrown off, breaking his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy. "What terrible news," they said.

"Well, we're not sure it's really negative," answered the farmer.

The following afternoon, military officials visited the village to draft young men into the army, which was losing many soldiers in a drawn-out war. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

"Maybe," said the farmer...

[via The Snoozeletter]

Missing the boat

2007-10-01T14:32:00.000-05:00

Yes, life has been just a bit busier since Eliza arrived. I'm finally starting to call her Eliza more than Emma.

What finally prompted me to post again has nothing to do with Eliza, but it really grabbed my attention. I've read before that what makes blogs work is passion. Since I'm overdue for an update, the place to begin is with something I can't get off my mind.

I've written about Joel Spolsky before... or at least I've thought about it many times. Joel is one of those shining stars in the commercial programming business. His recent book "Smart and Gets Things Done" is highly relevant these days, as I'm interviewing people for a new web developer position.

Just recently, Joel wrote a short piece about Lotus Symphony. No, not the classic failure from the DOS days, but a new package Lotus is releasing soon, and, according to Joel, with probably the same end result. Specifically, he talks about the three stages of desktop software development that arrived at where we are today with Windows, and compares this with a revolution happening on the web with technologies like AJAX.

The trouble with the second stage was that there were no clear UI standards... the programmers almost had too much flexibility, so everybody did things in different ways, which made it hard, if you knew how to use program X, to also use program Y. WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 had completely different menu systems, keyboard interfaces, and command structures. And copying data between them was out of the question.

And that’s exactly where we are with Ajax development today. Sure, yeah, the usability is much better than the first generation DOS apps, because we’ve learned some things since then. But Ajax apps can be inconsistent, and have a lot of trouble working together — you can’t really cut and paste objects from one Ajax app to another, for example, so I’m not sure how you get a picture from Gmail to Flickr. Come on guys, Cut and Paste was invented 25 years ago.

Update: Problems on the server where I host my website caused this post to be even more delayed than expected.

Eliza Michelle Wilson

2007-08-03T19:31:00.000-05:00

It's official: Eliza Michelle Wilson, born 6:29 am Aug 3, 7 lbs 12 oz, 19 inches. Mother is doing fine, baby is doing exceptionally well. Ethan and Emma both adore her.

And so it begins. A

2007-08-03T03:47:00.001-05:00

And so it begins. A week early and Tricia's water broke at 149 this morning.

Let's just hope there is no number two. (Updated)

2007-07-16T18:54:00.000-05:00

This looks like it must be real--who would paint all that if it wasn't? I bet his parents are so proud.

Update: I made at least three mistakes with this post.

I wrote the original post while driving.
My camera phone was set to a resolution of 160x120 instead of the usual 1280x1024.
XXXChurch.com (subtitled "#1 Christian Porn Site") is actually a reputable site. Their mission is helping people resist pornography.

It's kind of strange to look around their site. You don't often see the words "Bible" and "porn industry" together. One page has a video entitled "Jesus loves porn stars" along with this blurb:

Jesus commanded us to go, He did not say to discriminate people or place, He said go.

XXXchurch began its ministry in January of 2002 at the AVN porn show in Las Vegas. X3church porn show outreaches are designed to touch the lives of those who surround the porn industry and those who call porn a career. We are bold in our approach; believing the best place for XXXchurch is inside the walls of the many porn conventions throughout the year. XXXchurch rents booth space inside the shows and mans these booths with a team of men and women with the common goal of sharing hope with everyone in attendance. Every show has it's own unique outreach. From our Bible giveaways to our professional women stylists who minister directly to the ladies of the porn industry, we try to meet the physical and spiritual needs at every show.

My apologies to the folks from X3. They're reaching out to a group of people others might write off as lost.

2007-06-29T16:38:00.001-05:00

The view from '5F'. Total seating 23 including pilots. There is no space under the seat in front of me.

Two 'tired' kids

2007-06-09T18:52:00.000-05:00

Here we go again.

2007-06-07T16:27:00.000-05:00

High winds? Check. Working from home? Check. Deadline? Check. Power out? Check.
This is me shortly before giving up and going to Starbucks.

Gore loses by a handful yet again

2007-05-31T06:40:00.000-05:00

Ah, timesheets. Such a long and painful process. Just thinking about them gives me the inspiration to blog.

I saw this news flash on Drudge Report and couldn't pass it up:

**EXCLUSIVE**

'THE REAGAN DIARIES' OUTSOLD AL GORE'S 'ASSAULT ON REASON' IN OPENING WEEK ACTION, BOOKSCAN WILL REPORT.

REAGAN WON THE RACE BY SELLING JUST 5 MORE BOOKS THAN GORE! [RECOUNT! RECOUNT!]

'DIARIES' MOVED 49,626 COPIES TO GORE'S 49,621, INDUSTRY SOURCES TELL THE DRUDGE REPORT.

Talk about being doomed to second place. At least Gore seems to be stepping back from the Global Warming hooey. Yes, I said hooey. It's incredible how many people have been and are currently being pressured to line up behind Global Warming, and how much ridicule is heaped upon those who bring up evidence to the contrary. It's the Emperor's New Clothes all over again.

[via Drudge Report]

Boxing and shopping

2007-05-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

Hello again, fellow people around the world. I am back to blog and as my stories have been told and told, I have found some new stories that might interest you.

First, I would like to tell you the day that I boxed my mom and dad with empty soda can boxes, which I also did today to my dad. Emma was also helping me, too. She had two empty boxes and I had the other two. We pounded and pounded on Daddy and Mommy until they couldn't take another pound. Today while I was boxing my dad, I had four empty soda boxes instead of two, and I kept pounding him with them. I laughed and laughed.

While we were baby shopping for Baby the other day, we had to find a bumper set we liked for the baby's crib. I hope you know this, but I do know this for sure, that yesterday you might have seen me shopping in Babies R Us. We also took some pictures there of the different bumper sets we liked.

One was called "Bright Hopes, Sweet Dreams".

The other one was called "Lady Bugs".

They both had different types of bugs on them, but they looked cute the way they matched with themselves.

I liked the Bright Hopes, Sweet Dreams one better, because it was so colorful, I thought it would be just right for Baby.

I know some of you have seen the picture from my Dad's blog post, below. I liked the picture because I was having fun. I like making grins, having smiles, and I especially like shopping for Baby.

Goodbye everyone around the world. I hope that you will log on to my dad's blog, because it is so special to me, since he is so special to me. I think you should log onto his blog to see my paragraphs that I made and have been making.

Bye!

EJW/btw

Proof that I break rules

2007-05-27T15:44:00.001-05:00

The cart has one of those pictures that shows you shouldn't put your kids in the basket, but who could resist taking a picture of such cute kids behaving so well. The threat/promise of ice cream when we're done baby shopping helps a bit.

That look is pretty darned scary!

2007-05-18T20:16:00.001-05:00

Two headed tortilla monster slightly chilled

2007-05-18T20:13:00.001-05:00

I can't decide which is more fun: thinking up strange titles for my posts, or imagining what readers will think I wrote about when view see it in the archive later. Tweedle Dee decided she was cold and Tweedle Dum couldn't imagine being left out in the, uh, cold. Apparently, the words "hold still while I take your picture" sound exactly the same as "squint your eyes and growl" when crunching chips and guac with one arm inside a coat sleeve. Check it out for yourself!

Truly equal rights

2007-05-01T00:42:00.001-05:00

The 2008 race for the Presidency is barely underway, but there's already two pieces of information which, in combination, have me concerned.

Mitt Romney, a very qualified and conservative Republican candidate, is being eyed with suspicion primarily because he's a Mormon.
The very liberal Senator Barack Obama had a recent upswell of support since revealing that he's a born-again Christian.

In short, I'm worried that many Christians will vote for Obama because he's a Christian ("Rah, rah, we got another Christian in the White House!") over Romney because he isn't, without thinking about the real consequences.

Most people, when asked about Romney say, "I like him, but I'm not sure about him being a Mormon." Make no mistake: this is illegal discrimination, just as if they had said "I like him, but I'm not sure about him being Black", or "I like him, but I'm not sure about him being Gay". Religion, race, and sexual preference are all protected class, and none of them directly affect his ability to serve as President.

Sidebar: discrimination is not illegal, only discrimination on the basis of a protected class. Discrimination on the basis of other factors (i.e. past history, evidence, a person's stated point of view) is very legal, and more commonly known as "thinking".

Not electing Romney on account of his religion, or electing Obama because of his -- either way, it's discrimination on the basis of religion and it's illegal. If Christians want the protections against discrimination on the basis of religion, then we must stand up for that same freedom for all religions. Yes, even the nut jobs. (Though of course, I'm not referring to your particular religion, gentle reader.) God himself gives us all the right to make wrong choices - we know that right as "free will" and the result of exercising that right as "sin". And yes, I think this means we have to make it a point to stand up for a person's right to be homosexual or Moslem without being persecuted.

However, it's equally important that as Christians we don't confuse standing up for rights with agreeing with their position. This is not a call for unbounded ecumenism. Absolute truth still exists, Jesus is still the Way, the Truth and the Life, and we have the same obligations as before to share that with those who don't have a personal relationship with Him. I also make a big distinction between the freedom to believe and the freedom to blow up onesself in a crowded marketplace based on that belief.

As election day gets closer, it'll be tempting to go the easy way out and just pick the person who "identifies with our team" the most. Don't fall for it. The wrong Christian in the White House can do a lot more damage than a candidate who is a good leader with good policies and respect on the world stage, but who happens to be an atheist.

What does USPS stand for?

2007-04-28T07:28:00.001-05:00

First, a joke:

Q: Do you know the real reason the USPS needs to raise stamp prices?

A: Because the cost of storage keeps going up.

This joke would be funnier except that I'm currently waiting for a shipment.  It always seems I'm waiting for a package to arrive just before I'm out of town, so this time I ordered as soon as I could.  I chose what looked like a UPS option, but turned out to be a hybrid UPS + USPS.

So here's how it's gone so far:

Monday evening (4/24): Package ordered
Tuesday: UPS received shipping information and the package, Carol Stream IL
Wednesday: Package was handed off to the USPS, postage paid.  USPS tracking shows the info was received 12:37 PM, and the package itself accepted in Forest Park, IL at 5:09 PM.
Thursday: Nothing happening
Friday: Nothing happening
Saturday: ???

I know we've received packages in the mail 48 hours after they were posted, so what's the hold up?

I guess I didn't need to listen to that music on my trip anyway.

So what does USPS stand for? Seems like US Package Storage is appropriate.

Update: Yay, the post office came through! Murphy's Law still applied: the package came while we were away from the house for a showing. I checked the tracking site, and it still hasn't been updated.

Technorati Tags: USPS, Ghost in the Shell

Technorati...

2007-04-26T08:33:00.000-05:00

Looks like Technorati has picked me up without my knowledge. I've heard a lot about it, but never investigated. Since I'm interested in increasing traffic, this seems like a good way to get started.

If you already use Technorati, you can check my Technorati Profile. Looks like I've got about 4 pages of links, but mostly internal.

Grand Canyon Skywalk revisited

2007-04-24T12:10:00.001-05:00

The Grand Canyon Skywalk I had previously written about turns out to be a major ripoff. Tyler took his family and found out.

The whole experience was quite disappointing. While the views were spectacular, the cost was just far too high, especially because they were not clearly advertised anywhere. $25 might have been worth it, $75 was far too high. Additionally, none of the infrastructure was able to support the number of visitors and all of the buildings in the advertisements are not built yet. We spent most of our time waiting in line, a lot of it out in the cold, even avoiding the one really long line. My suggestion is to wait until they at least have the buildings built and hopefully have realized that most people do not want to pay that much for that little.

That's right, $75 dollars to go out on the Skywalk, no discounts for children, and they won't even let you take your camera.

A commenter on the blog goes into greater detail:

The 2 roads in (1 40 miles unpaved, the other 21 miles unpaved) are in very bad condition. We almost needed a 4 wheel drive. Had it started raining, (and it almost did) we would have definitely needed 4 wheel drive to negotiate it.

The outhouses were deplorable. They had never been pumped. "Material" was piled up ABOVE THE RIM of the seat. I can not imagine what it would be like in warm weather. FILTHY.

The tribe member who gave me my tickets (I had ordered ahead online, and went to will-call) was very rude. She rolled her eyes, and acted as though I was a bother to her. (I encounter this often at tribe-run facilities. I have been told by many, they do not like non-native Americans, which is their right. But if they feel this way, they should get out of the tourist business!!)

If you did not get your ticket online, the wait was very long; in some cases, over an hour.

After getting on the bus, and getting to the Skywalk, there was another long line to check in your bags, and ANOTHER long line to get your wristband, and get through the metal scanner.

On the side of the Skywalk bridge was a huge white banner that said "grandcanyonskywalk.com" with big blue letters. Really ugly. It not only took away from the beauty of the bridge and the canyon, but made it all look that much more commercial.

Once on the bridge, you could have your picture taken for $14.95. I did, but the quality of the picture was terrible; very dark and blurry. It also took an hour to get that picture... yes ANOTHER long line.

The Indian Village part of the tour that you paid the $50.00 for was an almost non-existent, newly built hogan, and another small "tepee-like" structure. No one was there to explain anything. Basically, there was nothing there to see.

For the included lunch at the ranch, you had to ride the bus back to the gift shop, and catch another shuttle. The Ranch itself was a facade in the middle of the desert; very un-authentic, and sort of "hokey". The "cowboys" referred to themselves as actors. It may be an ok show for very small children. Lunch was OK, but again, another long line.

The term "Indian giver" has strong racial overtones, but it seems quite appropriate in this context.

[via Joel Spolsky]

Red Hot Chilli Pipers

2007-04-21T20:06:00.000-05:00

Here at TooMuchBlue, we take great pride in searching the net for only the best and classiest videos for your entertainment. Only the highest quality videos will do.

It is therefore a rare pleasure to recommend this fine video of Red Hot Chilli Pipers, performing a medley including Queen's We Will Rock You and Survivor's Eye of the Tiger. It's definitely not what you'd expect.

[via Dave Barry's blog]

One of a kind!

2007-04-21T14:52:00.000-05:00

Seen at a local pizza place. It's amazing to me that people will put a grammatical error in print like this and leave it there long enough to wear out. It's not like the rules of grammar are some big secret -- Ethan is learning about There, Their and They're in first grade. Worse yet, if the customer didn't spot it, how about the company who printed it for them? Dave Barry was right.

Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?

Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S.

Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.