Numechron Tele-Vision clock from 1966. Plastic burled wood case with gold trim. Meant for the top of a TV set with low wattage bulb to relieve eyestrain believed to be cause by television in the early days.

Look at those expressions!

The blue fleet is a term coined by Sir Alistair Hardy to describe a community of floating animals including the infamous bluebottle, blue dragon nudibranchs, violet snails and other associated organisms. a floating raft of monochrome drifters, the blue fleet sails the world's oceans at the whim of the tides, winds and currents. humans generally only become aware of them when they are blown onto beachs and become stranded en masse at the hightide line.

The First (Grade) Thanksgiving
Ricky and I had been assigned to do a project together in first grade. It was near Thanksgiving and in the spirit of the season, we were partnered up and given some modeling clay. All we had to do was to make some food from the First Thanksgiving. It wasn't truly difficult; we were in first grade, after all. I had all kinds of ideas about what we could make. I was actually excited about it and was eager to get started. The two of us went to Ricky's house, since it was closer from school. I had never been over to his house before, but his family was nice and his mom got us all situated with a table to work at, just for the two of us! This never happened at our house. We rarely had a room, let alone a table to ourselves to work on something. Ricky was an only child, so he didnt have to share. It was exhilarating! I spread out, ready to create some art.

Ricky wasn't used to sharing much, but he was polite enough at first. He just didn't care to share the responsibility of the project. We were both having fun with the clay, but he wasn't being serious about it. I was serious for the both of us, my sleeves rolled up

I loved working in the clay, especially art clay. It was different than Play-Doh, which is what I usually had to work with. I loved using Play-Doh, but I hated the smell that lingered on my hands. It would make me gag afterwards and I would scrub it with the most caustic soaps I could find in order to get rid of it. But modelling clay's smell was wonderful. It was soothing and more earthy. The colors blended better than Play-Doh, which almost glowed with its color, screaming "toy" versus "art".

I made a pumpkin right away. It was a bit browner than I intended, but you could still see what it was. I quickly made another, smoothing the grooves with my thumbs, a potter with his clay, forming life of the earth... the bountiful food spilling out of the cornucopia (which I could never remember the name of). I glanced over at Ricky to see what he had formed. "Look!" he giggled. "I made a butt!"

I was mortified! "We don't have much clay, Ricky! You should start with the other vegetables!" He wasn't listening to me.

"Ha ha! I made some yellow eyes!" He held them up in front of his own, leering at me. He was giddy with laughter and I knew that I couldn't depend on Ricky any more. He was like the guy on the desert island who ends up spilling all the water. His eyes were crazed as he started work on a foot. A red foot!

"Give me that!" I demanded, grabbing the rest of the yellow and starting on an ear of corn. I knew that I had to think for myself at this point. I tried to make some squash with the leftover yellow. I had to take some of the red, left over from the foot Ricky was making. In the end, I molded the foot he had started into a crude pepper. I smiled. It was looking rather brown.

Ricky had put me in a real mess, all right. I didn't know how we were getting out of this. I surveyed our horde... not much to speak of. We had two pumpkins, a few squash, an ear of corn. Courtesy of Ricky, we als had two poorly formed butts, a pair of yellow eyes and a foot. I formed the two butts Ricky had made into a another pumpkin, to Ricky's yells of protest. "Those butts are mine!" he howled. "Listen!" I screamed. "Your butts have to feed the pilgrims through the winter, stupid!" He had the grace to look ashamed and I continued to save our butts, finishing our project.

In the end, we displayed our harvest the next Monday morning at school, among all the other kids' projects. Dismayed, I saw more than a few questionably shaped fruits and vegetables. I'm sure I saw a car shaped tomato and a banana that looked like a rocket. I realized that the point of this was to think about Thanksgiving and about what we were all thankful for. I smiled as I gave thanks that I didn't have to survive the winter depending only on my fellow classmates.

A penguin goes to the local fish store in Japan. Unbelievable!

This is the funniest video I have ever seen. Try to not laugh while watching this!

Ryan Carson talks about trying to migrate the small team at Carson Systems from desktop software to web-based or open source software.

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My mother made us lunch every day before school and put it in a paper
bag for us to take with us. She'd take care to make our favorite
sandwiches, cut to perfection better than a deli, piled high with
lettuce, tomato and dressing. She'd wrap this up in plastic. Then my Mom
would take an apple, peach or pear and place it wrapped in a paper
towel. Invariably, we would grab this bag without looking and upend the
contents so that by the time lunch came, the sandwich would have an
exact crater made by the fruit. This was our own fault and we knew it.
We'd also get some homemade cookies and a personal note. I'd try to read
this note ahead of time and pocket it because a note from your Mom at
lunch was good for at least a few hours of good-natured teasing. I got
picked on a lot as it was... I didn't need to give them reasons.

One day, I was in a hurry to get to my ride. Sometimes my grandfather,
Pa, picked us up early to get to school. Other times we'd walk to a bus.
But invariably, we were late leaving the house, our shirts not tucked
in, our ties still not tied. We were trailing homework from our books
and had to grab various things on the way, a book, our coats, our shoes.
It was almost a reverse circuit of the house that we had made the
previous afternoon. Clever detectives could probably deduce how old each
child was and often how badly they had to go to the bathroom, because
the trail would end there.

In such a hurry, I grabbed the bag on the counter. "Don't forget your
lunch, my Mom called from the front door. She'd hold it open and kiss us
all good-bye on the way out. It was a safer way of making sure she'd
gotten each child, kissed them good-bye, wished them a good day, blessed
them with a sign of the cross on their forehead. My parents gave
communion each Sunday at church and it carried over through the week.
She could also quickly administer any first-aid on the way out, because
she was the resident doctor of the house, as well.

If anyone sneezed or coughed on the way out, it was also an excuse to
lift their heads and check down their throat for redness. My mother
would ask us to tilt our heads back and say, "Aaaaaah!" which was almost
automatic, because she'd tilt it for us and we'd react in stunned
surprise. It was almost as if she wanted to sneak up on the germs and
surprise them out of our bodies. It certainly caught us by surprise.
Finding nothing, she'd send us on our way, off to wreak havoc outside of
the house.

When I finally got to school, my friend, Kevin was there. He lived down
the street from me and his parents and mine were friends. I saw that he
had a lunch bag similar to mine. I said, "Did your Mom make your lunch,
too?"

He said, "No, Danny, this is your lunch. Your Mom gave it to me to give
to you."

"But I already have my lunch! See?" I held up my bag which had gotten
nice and soft at the top, very pliable, the way I liked it. Some people
like their lunch bags stiff and unblemished, but I think it's easier to
carry this way. And if you're a nervous kid, it's a great thing to grab
and crush when something uncertain wakes you up in the morning before
you're ready.

"Your Mom gave me yours. She said that you took a bag of peaches."

"I- what?" I opened the bag and started laughing with Kevin. Inside the
bag were five peaches... not my lunch, which I'd been expecting.

I thanked Kevin and laughed again as he ran to his locker. Then I stared
at the peaches in my hand. I thought about my Mom, not only making
lunch, saying goodbye, blessing me and checking my throat... but also
somehow getting my lunch to Kevin down the street before he went to
school. I thought about the note in my lunch bag, the real one. I wanted
to well up with tears and bawl. There were 5 peaches in this bag and
there were 5 of us besides my Mom. She bought peaches for everyone in
the house but her. I have to take these home. I'm going to fail the
family if I don't get these peaches home!

When I got home, my Mom and I had a long laugh over my taking the
peaches to school with me. Then we laughed even harder when I told her I
brought them home again. She said that I was silly that I should have
shared them with my friends. She pulled out another paper bag and there
were 5 more peaches in the bag. It took a long time to stop laughing
long enough to eat them!

I found this on Flickr and it was just too neat not to share!

Tivo and Monkey People
Indoctrinated into the cult of Tivo

Recently my wife Lisa and I have been indoctrinated into the cult of Tivo. Digital Video Recording is an amazing experience for us and has taken us off of network scheduling. It really is TV at the touch of a button and I've felt like George Jetson. We may watch more TV, but the TV that we do watch is on our time. Our life doesn’t revolve around the hour or half-hour any more. If we’re a little late after work and don’t get to the show when it starts, no matter. We can watch it from the beginning while it’s still recording. I feel like I’m in a time machine.

The last time I watched a DVD was weeks ago. I haven't sullied my hands with a tape or DVD in weeks. Because everything is digital, there's nothing to unwrap, open, misplace, degrade or scratch. It's all in the remote. I feel like a Roman emperor seated on a divan pointing a sceptre. Of course, this makes the remote an almost holy thing. It sits on a shrine. Lately I'm wondering if I'm paying enough attention to the remote.

But Tivo has changed our lives in more ways than that. Because of Tivo, we have to redecorate our entire living room. I'm glad that I'm saving money on renting and buying DVDs, because we need this money to buy new furniture. Let me explain.

When the service man came to install the unit, he was quick and knowledgable. I might be a little affected by all of those customer response surveys, but all of the Direct TV people get "five out of five" in satisfaction. Especially with their cleanliness and appearance. Before these surveys came after installations, I never thought to grade them on their appearance. As soon as they're not looking, though, I start making notes. I always check in the most flattering rating unless the installers actually smell or emit noxious fumes, neither of which has ever happened.

Installation of Tivo went fine, but there was a small problem in fitting the unit into our entertainment center. There was just not enough room in the cabinet to fit everything, so it had to go on top, along with two other units, a receiver and CD player. As much as we enjoy our new appliances, we now need a new entertainment center. We choose and purchase a new piece of furniture and are delighted when it arrives at our door, solid and made with sturdy wood. This is a terrific unit, about as solid a construction of wood that I’ve ever purchased. I feel proud as it comes all together.

There is surprisingly little swearing uttered as we move pieces from the old unit (which has started to sag) into the new piece. In the back of this excitingly solid amoire, there is a solid piece of wood. The existence of this solid piece of wood is captivating to me and I stare at it with a certain sense of awe. Most of this type of furniture in the past had cardboard or particle board backing or it was in two or more pieces. Not our amoire! This is solid wood, securely fastened with 27 small screws around its edges. In the center, looking like an afterthought is a round two-inch hole. This is where we need to thread all the wires, cables and power cords.

A few hours into the operation, I’m covered in sweat, holding a lamp since the flashlight broke. I’m stuffed like a Pillsbury crescent roll into the guts of the unit. I’m reaching towards this two-inch hole like a diver’s last source of air and light. As we attempt to thread all these black cords through the tiny holes, it occurs to me that this has been designed for human brains to assemble, but we are the wrong customers. This furniture can only be put together by monkey people. These are beings who I have surmised are of exceeding brightness and intelligence, but also possessing very long legs and arms to latch onto tiny places in shelves to hold ends of cords.

Neither of us had thought it would take very long, perhaps a half hour. I had taped and labeled all of the cords ahead of time and I knew where they should go. We hadn't figured on needing the agility of a spider monkey. It was the monkey people joke that kept us laughing instead of yelling at each other. We kept laughing after two hours only reverting to very short, hastily spoken answers sometimes barked. At one point some cords had to be replaced with longer ones, but we managed to fix that with a quick run to the basement.

Moving the TV was the hardest part. This TV has a 29 inch screen. It's very nice, but not the most expensive or even largest. Even so, there were some apparent handholds in unlikely places. Some of these looked more like places to get your hands stuck rather than actual grips. Some looked like mock handgrips, as if the manufacturers were taunting us, "Yes! Grip it HERE and watch it flip forwards onto its expensive TV screen!" There were no handgrips at the very bottom beneath the heavy and extremely fragile picture tube. Still we managed to lift it up onto the shelf without shattering the TV or any bones. I think that this part of the procedure would have also been easy for the monkey people to accomplish. They might even have laughed. I'm sure that none of them would have made the noises that my wife and I made. I couldn't decide if I should crush my fingers beneath the TV first, then wait for my wife to get her hand there or wait for her to yell, "Lift! My hand is getting crushed!" before I acted. The good news is that I don't think that we have to worry about anyone taking this TV. It is not moving from this spot.

As it neared midnight, we were just a few components away, but cords were still disconnected and the TV was sideways. We were both nearing the end of our patience and ability to answer in calm, non-swearing answers. I saw Lisa with a screwdriver in hand behind the amoire. "What are you doing?" I screamed, perhaps louder than I’d intended. I was like the guy who panics in the disaster films, the one who ends up losing all the water. I had to reign myself back.

"I'm going to remove these screws!" she yelled. She sounded like someone in a hostage situation on a TV crime drama. I moved in to talk her down.

"Don't do it! There's 27 of them!"

"We can take this entire back piece off!" Lisa moved in with the screwdriver and started to turn the first screw.

I gently grabbed her arms. "Really, we're almost there. Put the screwdriver down."

Lisa did put the screwdriver down and we started to place the last components in. “Monkey people,” I cried and we shared an uneasy laugh. We reconnected everything and started moving things back into place, checking all the cords, plugging everything back in. I was filled with an eager confidence. I didn’t have any parts left over and everything was lighting up the right way. I turned on the TV with a flourish and smiled as it flashed the lovely logos that let me know that these were the people I’d be paying to get all of this great stuff to work. I always think it’s funny that you can always tell the poofed up logos from the error messages telling you something’s wrong. So when I see the logos, I know I’m all right.

For about a week or so after installation, as I sat back to enjoy it all, I’d hear unsettling noises from around the house, as Lisa tended to the chain reaction of home decorating that the addition of one piece of furniture can cause. Things would be moving and I’d hear the sound of moving furniture, a pounding hammer… often in the same room that I was in. My wife doesn’t often tell me when things need to be moved. She just does it, often requiring my assistance only halfway through the process when something else is in the way. Sometimes it’s me that’s in the way. Lisa may be the kind of person who can move furniture right away, but I need a little notice. At least enough notice to get out of the way.

After we moved the other furniture back into place and settled in to watch an episode of our favorite show, Lisa realized that we needed a new couch. Tivo, this is all your fault!