(sarcasm) DaNece is so funny. (/sarcasm)

So yeah; I fall asleep and the woman takes advantage by taking pictures of it. Why, oh why?

I'm not very logical apparently. :)

Your IQ Is 115

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional Your General Knowledge is Above Average

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Post-Holiday Summary

- Too many Leftovers

- Not enough time off of work

- Growing Waistline

- Shrinking bank account as Christmas approaches

- Good Times

- Too lazy to post pictures and blogs about all the activities.

- Cute Nieces and Nephews

Thanksgiving: Early

So we decided to have a thanksgiving get-together this past Saturday so that people could come over without changing Family Thanksgiving plans.

There were 20-someodd people that came and it was a darn fun time! Me and DaNece supplied the Bird, ham, deviled eggs, gravy, and a pie. Everything else was brought pot-luck style, which worked out great. We actually ended up with tons of food for leftovers, so no eating out for a week or two. YAY!

Thanks everybody who came!

Pictures of Family and Friends:

FULL PHOTO SET

People are looking at me, wondering why I am giggling at work.

René Descartes is in a bar at closing time. The bartender asks him if he'd like another drink. Descartes says, "I think not," and he disappears.

 

 

GOD I'M A GEEK

It's Stickers!

For your toilet!!

Goldwater Lake Hike 2.0

After talking to Marciano about my Goldwater hike a few weeks ago he said that he wanted to check it out. So this past weekend we hit it up joined by Perry, his girlfriend, and their 2 dogs. It was a bit of a circus.

All in all it wasn't that much different than the solo trip. We followed the game trails down to Lower Goldwater, where we dicked around in the old processing area.

Like a moron, I got NuChar all over my new shoes, so now they have some character.

I also saw a really cool caterpillar, bright yellow and black.

After some posing on the dangerous damn we called it a day and headed home, so I could rebuild the 4Runner's power steering pump.

The one big downside to the day (other than rebuilding the PS pump) was that I found a decent sized wound on Scrappy's leg. He must have gotten snagged up on some barbed wire when he out chasing the other dogs. Not to worry though, Nurse Tombo was in the house. The wound was expertly cleaned, dressed, and bound with duct tape.

 

All in all - I call it a successful day; though next time it will probably just be Me and maybe Chris, 4 dogs is a bit much for me to handle.

Another Awesome HDR photoset

Yet another great HDR photoset

One of these days i will be patient enough to snag the tripod and take multiple exposures...

Cool software.

I really like applications that change the way we look at things.

Things like wikipedia which is an online encyclopedia, except for all articles are editable by users. So if you happen to be an expert on the history of your hometown, or the theory behind thermodynamics then you can enrich the listing for that so that other users benefit.  Of course there are going to be shortcomings - plenty of people think they know something when in fact they don't - but that's the beauty of it: it is a self correcting problem. For every person who goes into posts and puts up incorrect information, you have somebody else going through posts fixing those items.

 

Outsourcing the gruntwork to the people who use the end product can be found in other instances as well. Take Google Image Labeler for example. You are paired with another person and then you are each shown identical images. You input keyword labels that come to your mind about the subject of that image. Once you and your partner insert the same label, you go onto the next image. This continues for two minutes. It sounds silly: but I have a lot of fun pairing up with somebody and seeing how many images we can get in that two minutes, and I have spent many hours doing Google's gruntwork of labeling images so that when you type "Batman" into google image search you actually get pictures of the black knight.

 

And since I love finding new music, there are a couple of great and intuitive tools for finding new music. The first one is called MUSICOVERY, and allows you to select the genres of music you like, the mood, and the tempo. So if you like dark, slow, techno songs, just make 4 mouse clicks and now are listening to songs that fit in that range. You are also looking at a screen full of other songs that fit into that same search.

Another one that I just found is Pandora. Type in an artist or a song that you know you like and after a couple minutes of the software doing it's thing it matches that song or artist with others like it. As each song plays you have the option to tell them if you like the new song, or dislike it. This not only updates their software with information, but also removes that type of music from your playlist.

 

Viva la revolucion!

Sky pictures

Created a photo set of sky pictures.

Hiking with Chris

Well the plan had been to go to Goldwater lake to hike around upper and lower lakes there. Unfortunately for us, the lake was closed. Apparently  the lake's water was being used to assist in fighting the August wildfire that is burning south of Prescott in the Ash Creek ridge. So, after getting a bite to eat at Biff's Bagels, we changed plans and decided to hike around in the Hassayampa / Wolf Creek area. Chris brought his dog Huey, and of course my little hiking buddy Scrappy accompanied as well.

It was a nice hike, with lots of boulder hopping in the creek bed.

We saw a cool little lean-to made from tree branches. Not a bad spot, as long as there is no water running in the creek.

We ended up leaving the creek bed at what was apparently a mining claim, hit the forest service road 97, and followed that back to the truck. All told it was about 5 miles worth of hiking, in weather that couldn't have been better.

After hiking we took the 4runner up trail 97b until the trail just got too narrow for the truck to fit. There were a few off-camber areas. :)

FULL PHOTO SET

Nothing New

Well I haven't posted in a while because there really isn't anything new going on lately.

 

Saw a cool sunset last night, with the weirdest looking clouds:

 

I finally found the source of a very annoying rattle in my truck: turned out to be a broken sway-bar link bushing. So instead of rubber hitting my control arm, I have a washer and nut banging into it. I didn't have any spare bushings laying around so I ordered a full replacement link set from Rock Auto for $5, which arrived today. So now I can replace the busted bushing and have some extras!

 

Me and The Italian Kid are going over to Goldwater Lake tomorrow to hike Upper and Lower again, which should be fun.

 

Other than that: I am once again addicted to ebay; bidding on things I don't need (Such as this self sharpening pocket knife that I just won), my watch list is hovering near 30 items, most of which I have no chance in hell of affording. I love ebay...

Have a great weekend!