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Wednesday, April 30, 2003
The catbirds are back! Every year at this time catbirds appear in our backyard to eat the currants we place there anticipating their return. The robins help themselves to the treats in the meantime, but they are mostly for the catbirds. Today was the day. They appeared in the yard, and at the same time I spotted several on the bike trail on the way to class. Also spotted a great blue heron. (0) comments
Here's an article on hailing the closest available cab using a cellphone. There's a huge, untapped market for this kind of location based service. It's the wave of the future. (0) comments
Rode to class in Alexandria again today, 45 miles round trip in about 3 hours. Tiring but fun, and since there are trails nearly the entire route, it's like being on vacation for the morning and afternoon commute. Also preparing for Bike to Work Day in Reston on Friday, May 2. Anxious about the logistics, and about the forecast of rain. (0) comments
Life drawing can be sort of addictive. It's a classic case of positive feedback. After a while you can really see the figure and the way light helps define the various subtle shapes of the body. Putting what is seen on paper is an act of creation, creating a version of the figure in two dimensions. The better you get, the more you want to indulge in this act, the better the result. (0) comments Monday, April 28, 2003
It wasn't Lance, but his former teammateTyler Hamilton, who was the first American to ever win Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest classic cycling race. Hamilton, now racing for the CSC team, has been plagued with bad luck throughout his career. Maybe this will be his year. (0) comments Saturday, April 26, 2003
Lance plans to race in Liège-Bastogne-Liège this year, hoping for a win: Only four Tour de France winners have won Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Eddy Merckx (a record five times), Bernard Hinault and Ferdi Kubler (both twice), and Jacques Anquetil (once). Lance Armstrong would like to be the fifth. (0) comments
The Windows 2000 upgrade seems to be working well with one small glitch. After shutdown the computer seems to hang. It's probably related to the power management functionality not working on my older BIOS. Now I finally have access to USB devices. (0) comments
Finally, a handheld PC that is a full-fledged computer with an integrated keyboard. The Vulcan Mini-PC was developed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's company Vulcan. The release date of the infamous OQO ultra-personal computer continues to slip and I wonder if it will ever be released. (0) comments Tuesday, April 22, 2003
After living with Windows NT for about 5 years, I finally decided to upgrade to Windows 2000 Pro. I was tired of juggling parallel devices and not being able to use the USB ports that NT didn't support. The upgrade seems to have worked; I was even able to get onto the net without too much hassle. (0) comments Sunday, April 20, 2003
Another good article in the Post on the changing nature of traffic in this area, In the Car for Life. More and more of the traffic is caused by people driving 5 or fewer miles to run errands. So many of those trips could be taken by either walking or cycling. It seems so obvious that people could incorporate some exercise into their lives by reducing the trips they take by car. “I suspect a long time ago, people didn't go running for exercise or go to the health club,” Saelens said. “They just had activity in their day. One reason we're struggling with obesity might be because we've taken out those opportunities” to walk [or bike]. (0) comments
It was a great day for a ride to Leesburg on the W&OD Trail, cool and slightly overcast. Sat in the Courthouse front yard while eating lunch and watching the motorcycle crowd in front of Payne's Biker Bar. (0) comments
The Post has a review of the Frederic Remington show at the National Gallery, Remington, Painting by The Light of the Moon. It's great to see artists like Remington finally getting the respect they are due. (0) comments Friday, April 18, 2003
The book “Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” sounds interesting. You don't hear much these days of the concept of voluntary simplicity. For most people their simple lifestyle isn't voluntary. For some of us, it's a challenge to get by on less. (0) comments Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Riding to Alexandria for art classes is one way to keep in shape. The round trip is about 50 miles, 95% on paved trails. But lately I've been crossing the Potomac to visit some galleries. There is an excellent show at the National Gallery, Frederic Remington: The Color of Night, a collection of night paintings that are very captivating. Today I stopped by the Library of Congress and saw a collection of prints produced in the workshop ofMaster Printmaker Robert Blackburn. It was good inspiration for my etching class. (0) comments Monday, April 14, 2003
Finally saw Bend it Like Beckham, a fun film that brought back memories of my years playing soccer every week. It's an inspiring film for all those young female athletes. The film was crowded on a Monday night. It's great to see good, low budget films making it these days. The film was so crowded on Saturday that we saw Laurel Canyon instead, which was also crowded. It seems that our favorite, struggling movie theater has been discovered. Laurel Canyon was also good although a little uneven. It's about a not quite burned out 60's mother trying to connect with her uptight son and girlfriend. (0) comments Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Print that I found at the Print Fair, View of Flanders by Paul Verrees:
(0) comments Monday, April 07, 2003
Attended the Washington International Print Fair over the weekend. There were some excellent prints, and it was great to be able to see examples from artists I have long admired, such as Paul Cadmus, Stow Wengenroth, Whistler, Benton, and others. Here is a list of the dealers present at the fair. (0) comments
It looks like the release date for the OQO handheld computer has slipped again, until sometime in September. (0) comments Tuesday, April 01, 2003
On a related note, Megnut discovered an application called IndyJunior that will easily create a map of ones travels (using the dreaded Flash, i.e. it will take forever to load on a slow connection). (0) comments
As a geographer, I enjoyed the article on the importance of knowing the location of a website or person navigating the web, The revenge of geography in the Economist. I've long had the vision of being able to discover information about an area by sending location information (via GPS) to a website that retrieves relevant information based on that location. With geotags embedded in web pages, this becomes possible. There are even applications available that will analyze a site and derive a possible geotag based on the content. (0) comments |
