Monday, March 10, 2008

Warehouse Ramp...

I held off going to the warehouse ramp until I had been skating the mini enough to be confidant about what i was doing again. Well last night I made the jump.

We had a warm up session at the garage-mini and then I piled into a car and we headed down. From the outside you would never suspect what is inside. The warehouse was rented and maintained by a core group of people. i think about 6 people pay a "rent" to have a key and then can sublet keys to other people who pay them. Guests are asked to donate $5 in a box with a bumper sticker on it that says "No Money, No Friend".

The only thing remotely close to this ramp that I have skated was FDR, and I have only skated that once. I stayed below the coping for the most part, coming up here and there for a 50-50 and some little grinds. Riding this kind of ramp with curves is very different than the back and forth of a regular ramp. one thing you can do though is get going very fast once you figure out how to pump through the pockets and up the walls.

It was a great time and I cant wait to get back there.

The video here is not of me. Also, I happened to take the video when people were falling so don't judge them on this video, it was mainly shot for to get the ramp.









Friday, March 07, 2008

Jedi Master Piggy Pumpkin...

 




I caught our Guinea Pig in the act of levitating his house again...

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Nu to me laptop...



One of our trainers stoped in last week and said that her laptop kept shutting down and was missing some keys. I started the laptop up and in a couple minutes it went to sleep. Before I did any other trouble shooting I called our desktop person over and he decided to just give her one of the newer smaller HPs that we issue.

Later in the week I heard they were going to be getting rid of some of the equipment that was broken or not worth trying to fix. I sent a quick email to see if I could get the laptop and help it to the trash :o) That turned out to be a good idea. I got the OK to take it away as they were not planning on trying to fix it or give it to another trainer. I started it up and it did go to sleep. It turned out that the setting for the laptop to go to sleep was set to 5 minutes.

When I got home I changed that setting and since it was a DELL and I had helped my dad with his DELL a couple times, I new that there was a recovery partition. I accessed the recovery and wiped the laptop back to a fresh install of XP Pro :o) The laptop other than the two missing keys (F5 and F6) was perfect. Seeing that We have the desktop and the other HP laptop (I dont think i blogged that one yet) I decided to make this laptop my own.

It is a DELL Inspiron 1150. It has a Intel P4 2.8 ghz and I think 512mg of RAM. It is probably better than my desktop PC except for the RAM but i think it can be upgraded to a gig of RAM. I installed Ubuntu linux on it with the Gnome desktop. It's a pretty cool machine. I think the next time I have to actually buy a PC I'll just skip the desktop and go with a nice laptop...

Paine's Park Project

Paine's Park Project

I think this is one of the coolest if not the coolest web site I have seen.

Just check it out. Even if you don't care about the subject matter the site is amazing.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Frick'n huge statue...

statue.jpg (JPEG Image, 2828x1879 pixels) - Scaled (44%)


Check out he image above its a Frick'n huge statue in Russia. read about it below:

e Motherland Calls!
from Google Sightseeing by Alex

The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the turning points of the war in Europe and with casualties above 1.5 million, arguably the bloodiest battle in all of human history.

One of the most heavily contested sites within Stalingrad was Mamayev Kurgan, a hill overlooking the city. It is here where the USSR dedicated a memorial to the Soviet victory, the centrepiece of which is an absolutely enormous statue - “The Motherland Calls!” (”Rodina Mat’ Zovyot!”), which at the time of its dedication in 1967 was the largest sculpture in the world.

Since then Stalingrad, USSR, has become Volgograd, Russia, but this monumental memorial still dominates the skyline. The 52 metre figure is made of concrete, and her 33 metre sword is stainless-steel, making the sculpture 85 metres from tip to toe (not including the plinth, which adds another 16 metres). Here’s a ground-level shot which you absolutely have to see to believe!

The Motherland Calls! was designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich (who also designed Berlin’s Soviet War Memorial) and she was erected as part of a series of sculptures commemorating the Soviet victory in the Eastern Front of World War II (another of which, Kiev’s Mother Motherland, we’ve previously featured1).

This massive engineering task was orchestrated by Nikolai Nikitin who was also responsible for the previously featured Moscow State University, Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science and Ostankino Tower) - which are all ridiculously enormous too!

More info about the Battle of Stalingrad, Volgograd, Mamayev Kurgan and The Motherland Calls!, as always, at Wikipedia. Or check out a tour of Mamayev Kurgan at the official site (in English).

1.

At the time, I got a lot of stick for pointing out any of the similarities between these statues and America’s Statue of Liberty. So I’ve decided not to mention it this time. ↩

Locations: Russia / Categories: Monuments

Friday, February 29, 2008

Me skating the Garage Mini ramp...

Joe and I were both riding kind of sketchy tonight. I hadn't been at the ramp for about 2 weeks and could not seem to keep a serious line together.

So for my first ever skating appearance on the web, you get to see me at the end of our session put together a mediocre run... I promise it will be better next time. The main thing I wanted to get on this video was the ollie to the vert wall in the middle of the run. Again it was sort of week and I'll get you a better one next time...

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

You know you want to...


If you click that bubble over my head, you will be able to chat with me...

Friday, February 22, 2008

Since you asked...


So anyway. The previous post about Jacen and Vergere happened in books about 4 to 5 years ago. Jacen sort of apprenticed himself to Vergere and he learned to pull from the light and the dark side and questioned if there really was a seperation.

As it turns out Vergere died during that 20 book story arch (This amount of books was also created to sort of bring all of the writers to the same time line. For many years the books were all over the place and the time line was hard to follow). She was recently reveled to have been a Sith and what she was teaching to Jacen was a step toward the darkside.

Now in his 30s he learned the truth about Vergere and since he trusted and beleived in what he was tought by her, he was convinced to learn more about the Sith and started his path toward being a Sith Lord. He thought he would be able to control his power and like his Grandfather (Anakin Skywalker/ Darth Vader) bring piece to the Galaxy. Yhea, well He got the Dark Lord part down. In the recent story arc of 9 books he has become Darth Caedus. Along the way he has killed Luke's wife, Mara Jade, and tried to turn Luke's son Ben to the Darkside.

Wow, how nerdy of me :o)

Gritty talk about the Force...


This comes from two characters in the Star Wars universe that you have never heard of. I love when they get into this stuff though.

It's between a 20 something Jacen Solo(one of Han and Lea's children) and Vergere (a non-human Jedi that had escaped the Jedi Purge (You know from revenge of the Sith, when Darth Vader started killing Jedi) when she was captured/ went with a race from outside of the galaxy (We learn from other books that Palpatine/ Darth Sidious, was trying to gain power and organize the galaxy so that he could defend the galaxy against this invasion which he saw in a force vision some 60 yeard before it happened. So many Sith were born with this vision of uniting the galaxy to bring about peace.). She returned when those beings then invaded the galaxy and captured Jacen.)

So Read on or just skip it...

I took this from here http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Vergere

To convince Jacen that there was no dark side, Vergere showed him a species of Yuuzhan'tar predator that had just successfully brought down its prey. She told him that the predator's adopted home was filled with what Jacen would call "the dark side." Jacen responded by telling her that what the animal did was not "the dark side," since it was merely following its nature, killing to get food to keep itself alive. Vergere then said to him "I thought the danger of the dark side was that it is natural; that's why it's easier than the light, yes?"

Jacen told her that the "real" dark side would be if the predator killed not just one animal, but an entire herd, and did so not out of hunger but just for fun, for the joy of killing. This prompted Vergere to ask Jacen if he believed the predator took no joy in its accomplishment of successfully killing its prey. Looking closer at the animal, it seemed to Jacen that the animal was pleased with itself.

As Jacen considered this and became more uncertain, Vergere asked more questions. "Kill one, it's nature, kill them all, it's the dark side? Is the line between nature and dark side only one of degree? Is it the dark side if that predator kills only half the herd? A quarter?"

Becoming frustrated, Jacen asserted that it was a matter of "need." That if the predator killed more animals than it needed to for its survival, those actions would be of the dark side. Vergere then launched a new series of questions, asking how "need" was defined. Was "need" the line of starvation or simple malnutrition? Would it be wrong of the animal to kill its prey and eat only half the carcass, wasting the other half? Would the animal's hunting be of the dark side if it and its family were a few pounds overweight and could survive without food for a time?

Jacen's protests that it wasn't about that made Vergere ask what it was about. She asked if intention always trumped action. What if, she asked, the predator slaughtered an entire herd thinking it needed them for food, then realized that it didn't need them after all and left them to rot? Would its intentions matter?

In an earlier conversation, Vergere had asked Jacen if he believed what he (and other Jedi) did was irrelevant, if he believed that the only relevant thing was why they did it.

Friday, February 15, 2008

It's Friday...

I thought it was Thrusday!  Wahoo I skipped a day...

--
-=Chris Faulkner=-
cfaulkner@gmail.com
ossus.blogspot.com
"Peace, it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

48blocks.com...

THE BLOCK IS HOT!!!


I didn't get to check out everything on this site but, it looks pretty cool. I want to go back and that is why I am posting it here.

New OTHER BLOG widget to the left...

Check it out. now you can see other peoples blogs and a snippet of the most recent post...

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Teletubbies: Behind the Scenes

Teletubbies: Behind the Scenes


If it were not for the internet you would never know about this kind of utterly unimportant stuff... still it's worth a look.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Artwork by Tracey Lane


Coda Gallery - New York, Palm Desert and Park City


There is art up on the walls here at work of these cool looking trees. I finally got around to looking up the artist, Tracey Lane.

I like these enough to actually want one..

Monday, January 14, 2008

Build my city, NVR A Dull Mmnt...

So first click here http://nvr.myminicity.com.

OK, now that you have come back from becoming a part of my city. I'm still not sure what the deal is. They don't give much info on the site. Basiclly you start a city, kind of like Sim City and when people visit certain links they add new people/money/other resources... So I'll add some links here and just visit my city once in a while.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoniex...


I was really exited to see this. The book was really good and exciting with lots of action...

I feel bad for those of you who did not read the book. As I watched the movie with Sarah, I almost had no idea what was going on. I did read the book a while ago now but I still remember the basic things. At first I though they were skipping, well lots of stuff so that they could spend more time at the end , nope. It was odd. They didn't really explain to much of anything. I think they did a great job on all of the other movies so far. Hopefully they can reign it back in for the last two movies. Granted the book was huge, 700+ pages. I wish that more people would go the Lord of the Rings way and break the normal time for a movie and really tell the story as it needs to be told.

I'll have to read the reviews for this one but I can't imagine Im the only one that feels this way about the movie... Read the book, it s worth it.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Half...


So... I still weigh the same. Not that expected to drop the weight like crazy. The good thing is that I am keeping up with the exercise. I have skated twice and have been trying to Play Dance Dance Revolution at least an hour a night. It has a exercise selection to it. When you are done each level it will tell you how many calories you worked off. Most of the levels are about 9calories. I have started hitting 300 calories for the whole session. Thats 30 songs. It also keeps a record so you can look back and weigh your self before each session (the game does not weight you but you can record your data.)

The part that hasn't kicked in full force is my force of will not to eat bread things. i think that was major part the last time around. Well its only been a week and a half so its early yet.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

First Weight In... 180


Just a quick weighin... I may just put this in the side bar somewhere...

Monday, December 31, 2007

HaPpy NeW YEarS aNd stUfF...

Ahh... New Years Eve and my Birth Day, 37. You would think that having on a birthday on New Years Eve would be a big party, at least once in your life. The most exciting thing that happened on my birthday was meeting Sarah. It's odd I never partied during the typical partying years. Tonight Sarah and Ruby have crashed out and Gryphon and I have been rocking the new Eye Toy for the Playstation 2. It gives your arms a big work out and you can really work up a sweat.

I went to the Willow Grove Mall during my lunch break today and bought new skateboard trucks. The ones that I have were bought almost years ago. I got some Tensor trucks, the Rodney Mullen pro models if you want to know. I also picked up some Bones RED bearings and Element hardware. It was $65 which is better than I could find online for all three( trucks are $19 each, bearings are $15. So this year my xmas money doesnt go for some sort of electric thing. At some point I'll have a new board from my buddy whom had a 100 or so FDR benefit boards made up. That should be about $25.

And some New Years resolutions:
- for the family we want to be more on time for things. Small things like being at places at the right time and big things like being prepared for holidays, birthdays and such...
- for me I am going back on a diet. Its the Chris diet. I had gotten under 170 a couple years ago. Daily exercise and cutting out breads, butter and cheese were a major part. I do let my self eat what ever on Fridays and have to be better about eating lunch. I think I am pushing 185 right now, but Ill start weighing in tomorrow. Ill do a two day detox type of thing and probably skip the first friday of free eating. So tonight I drink all of my beer and eat lots of chips and stuff... I plan on doing some sort of exercise at work. the skatepark (if you can call it that)near work is kind of far for a lunch time session but what I did to loose the weight last time was walking and there are many good walking places near work. I also hope to add a mini-ramp to our yards soon along with skateing at joes once a week if possible. Another thing is DDR that I will try to do for a half hour everyday. Im also going to cut out coffee. I dont really like it but its something that I seem to get every morning at work. Im going to try replaing it with Green Tea that they have at work.

So i think Ill try to find some sort of count down thing on the web since we dont have the cable TV and dont get very good over the air reception...

Have a good one...

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Torn...


This week the company I am with had their Holiday Party. I had planned to hit the party at 5:30, have a few drinks, dinner and then head to out to skate the mini-ramp at Joe's around 7:30.

I almost left as soon as I got to the party. It was a lot of outgoing type people and I am just not that kind of person. I saw that they had Guiness on draft so I found a corner of the bar and thought I would a drink and maybe I could get over the anxiety. Ive come to appritiate Guiness draft. Getting a Guiness from a bottle or can is just not the same. I watched the bartenders make there drinks and hopped that more people would start arriving so they would start dinner. By the time I had hit drink #2 lots of people were there including my coworker. One of the other people that I had been in the new hire training had started talking to me to. They had some killer seafood type appetizers. It was getting to be like 6:30 and they had not hinted at dinner yet. The bar was flowing though, it turned out to be open bar all night... Finnally at about 7is they seated everybody... I drank down the last of my beer and made the choice to head out just before they came out to take orders. Getting the change to skate rarley loses out to anything even a very , very nice office party.

The skate session was my first since before we moved. So that was the week before Thanksgiving. i thought i would be way off and would have to spend most of the night just getting my basics back. It was so much the opposite as I had a great night and was able to pull some stuff off that I had not done since my teenage skating days. I can't wait to get a ramp set up in my yard and to get back to Joes. Ill have to get some video one of these days...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Rember Christmas is about the first 6 letters...

... was on a sign that I saw today. Now, the first 6 letters are: a,b,c,d,e,f, and g. hmmm...that doesnt make sense... Oh wait, drr, that was 7. So we have abcdef. is this some secret code? Are they trying to be like Google and only have smart people attend the church?
Maybe it's an Acronym? Here is what I found:
1. American Boys Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn
2. Abstinence, Be Faithful, Correct and Consistent Condom Use and Circumcision, Diaphragm for HIV Prevention, Exposure Prophylaxis, Female-Controlled Microbicide's (approach to prevention of AIDS virus)

Hmm... I don't know if either one of those says Christmas to me.

Maybe it's an Anagram. let see:
Abc Fed
Cab Fed

Ehh.. nothing there.

Maybe it has something to do with the first 6 letters ever. Man, you have do a research paper to figure this stuff out. i think I'm, done.

Happy Holidays to you...

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 5 :: We've Moved


Ah yes, here is something that can take some blogging time away, moving. After being in North Wales for about 9 years...wow, we have moved to a little house with a big yard in Souderton. The move wasn't to bad and we got it done in a week. We had to clean the new place pretty good and ran into massive issues with u-haul (coming to a post soon will be a rant on uhaul). I had some good help from a couple friends and we got the big stuff over. Then we shuffled stuff over in the cars and then finnally today we jumped started our 'extra car' and drove it to the new place where the battery promptly died again. if your up to it, look up the location of a 1996 plymouth breezes battery... funny huh. So now the kids can run outside and I have my first place that does not have anybody attached to one or more of our walls... very nice.

Our verizon DSL speed here is only the 1.5 teir instead of the 3 that we were used to but i guess will make due or get Comcast at some point. Maybe there run FIOS near here at some point...

Thats all for now.

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 4 :: New Job for me


So I prettied up my resume and went full on a job hunt. I got some small hits here and there. Then I get a call from a "head hunter". She's got a job in Horsham, 9 miles from my house... Wyeth was 24 miles. I had a great interview and I really felt like I would fit in. After sweating out the next couple days I finally get the call that I got the job. It is working in the IT dept of LA Weightloss Franchise inc. I mainly support the Point of Sale software that the centers use. The salary is more than what my raise at CAI would have been plus I get to have payed vacation, Sick days and Holidays and all the good stuff that comes with working for a strong small company. I started Oct 26th. While we were living in North Wales it only took me 25 to35 minutes to get to work... Which leads to the next post.

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 3 :: Our shows are back on.

Ah yes. Line them up and BitTorrent them down. Family Guy, American Dad, Ghost Hunters, The Office, Project Runway, Curb you Enthusiasm, and My Name is Earl (Jason Lee AKA Earl is a long time ProSkater).

So the shows take me away from Blogging and PlaneShift...

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 2 :: Skateboarding

So skateboarding came back to my life in a big way as I helped a friend build a mini-ramp in his garage. It's 19ft wide about 3 or so feet high and fun as all-get-out. I started skating the ramp and skating with alot of people in there late 20s and 30s, awesome. I also learned that Pabst Blue Ribbon is this weird skater choice of beer when skating. I never had the opportunity to drink beer and skate... odd thing.

Any way I can skate the mini better than I ever could and am learning new things every time I go. I looking to add a ramp to my new yard... but thats for a latter post.

So Skating has been dragging me from posting and PlaneShift...

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 1::PlaneShift

So in August when my classes ended I started playing PlaneShift when I had a spare minute. It's a free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, like World of WarCraft. It's great because it is still in development and you get to see changes in the game. Plus you don't feel guilt that you are paying a monthly fee and not playing it if you dont feel like it.

Check it out, PlaneShift: Crystal Blue.

So that pulled me away from blogging...

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

iPAQ Filestore and how to fix it.

What is the iPAQ filestore you might ask? Well the iPAQ is a pocket pc. I am writing this from it now. It has 64 mb of RAM (like the memory in a PC) and 128 mb ROM (like a SD flash memory card). You try to keep the RAM pretty empty as the iPAQ uses that to do stuff. You install the programs you use alot on the ROM. The OS uses up some of the ROM and leaves you about 96 mb free. This is more than enough. Its best to put music and media onto SD Card. Anyway, Ive had the iPAQ for a couple years and have heard of this bug but I never ran into, till now. Aparently when you put to much on this filestore,as its called, you lock up the memory. You can use whats there but you can not delete it, or save anything else to it. Not even flashing the ROM (re-installing the OS and the very basics of what makes the device work) would clear it out. I chatted with HP, they said to send it in for repairs. Yea, no, I'll fix it my self. I did lots of surfing and reading through message boards. I tried a couple things but was coming up empty. On the fun side I am going to get mobile phone soon an considered this to be good time to get PoketPc Phone. I found one last thing to try... and it worked. I'll give you the basics and then the whole thing for anyone who might actually be looking for this fix.

It involves flashing the device with a ROM for another language then flashing it back to your own language. you also have to trick the flash program into thinking you have the correct language... For those who need it and for anyone else, enjoi.


1. Download the latest English and German ROMs.
2. Unpack both.
3. Make copies of the unpacked English and German ROMs.
4. With the original German ROMfolder, rename "d2b10111go.nbf" to "d2b10111uo.nbf ".
5. Run "ROMUpdateUtility.exe" in the original English ROM folder.
6. On the screen just before proceeding with the ROM update (After the checks) copy the renamed "d2b10111uo.nbf" from the original German ROM and overwrite the " d2b10111uo.nbf" in the original English ROM.
7. Proceed with the ROM update.
8. It will take a very long time to start and longer than normal at 90% but be patient.
9. Now you have a German pda. Check that the filestore is now fixed by deleteting the backup folder in the filestore and/or running the format filestore found under sttings (use the icons to direct you if you can't read German).
10. If it works you now need to install the English ROM back again we need to trick the ROM update again.

11. You can now delete the two original unpacked English and German ROMs just leaving the copies of them. (This is purely to make it easier and I will refer to them as just the English and German ROMs).
12. With the English ROM, rename "d2b10111uo.nbf" to "d2b10111go.nbf".
13. Run "ROMUpdateUtility.exe" under the German ROM folder.
14. After all of the checks and just before proceeding with the update copy the " d2b10111go.nbf" from the English ROM and overwrite the "d2b10111go.nbf" in the German ROM.
15. Proceed with the ROM update. Again, it will take a very long time but be patient.
16. Run the format filestore program found under settings just to make sure it is fixed.
17. Now you are back in English with a fixed filestore.
18. Enjoy!






Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Short Timer...

... Sniff, sniff. Do you smell that?

It smells like a new job to me...

Sniff... 10+ miles closer to home.

Sniff, sniff... More money, full benifits...

Sniff... regular hours and paid time off...

Yhea... thats what it is...

Next Thursday I start, nice.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Finished the garage mini-ramp

Here are some final construction photos. I got to joes about 2:30. We got the top layer finished at around 9:30 and pulling the garage door tracks down took another half hour or so. We skated till about 1am. That was a bit late but it was the opening night. But its just like riding a bike... great little ramp.
 
 
 
 
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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Scarred For Life...


Scarred For Life... Eleven Stories about Skateboarders
I just finished this book. It's a good one that really hits at the mind and motivations of a true skateboarder. They all managed to make skating be a part of their life. We (Kyle and I) had a plan to save up and buy a car. We were going to drive that car to California after we graduated. We were going to skate where ever we could and then once in CA we would find some kind of jobs and skate...

Click here to check it out at Amazon.

Cure Lyrics Fun...

I love this line...

Remember the last time I told you I love you -
It was warm and safe in our perfect world -
You yawned and I had to say it over

Now the full lyrics.


"There Is No If..."

Remember the first time I told you I love you -
It was raining hard and you never heard -
You sneezed! and I had to say it over
"I said I love you" I said... you didn't say a word
Just held your hands to my shining eyes
And I watched as the rain ran through your fingers
Held your hands to my shining eyes and smiled as you kissed me...

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said...
And it starts the day you make the sign
"tell me I'm forever yours and you're forever mine
Forever mine... "

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said...
And it starts the day you cross that line
"swear I will always be yours and you'll always be mine
You'll always be mine
Always be mine... "

Remember the last time I told you I love you -
It was warm and safe in our perfect world -
You yawned and I had to say it over
"I said I love you" I said... you didn't say a word
Just held your hands to your shining eyes
And I watched as the tears ran through your fingers
Held your hands to your shining eyes and cried...

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said...
But it ends the day you see how it is
There is no always forever... just this...
Just this...

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said
But it ends the day you understand
There is no if... just and

There is no if... just and

There is no if...

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

random stuff...

 
 
 
 
Enjoy!
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Nu Jetta Getting old..

 

The Nu-To-Us Jetta is getting old. It still gets 350 or so miles on a 12 gallon fill up... The clutch is holding in there, but for how long... dun, Dun, DUN...
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To CapeCode we went...

 
 
 
 

Quick pics of some of the CapeCod trip...
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Building a Ramp...

 
 
 

Here is something I have been doing. Helping a friend build a mini-ramp in his garage... I can't wait to help put the final layer on this baby and get skating again.
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

oh, hello there...

Hey look a blog... hmm. Looks like i need to sweep out the spiders and do something here...

Thursday, August 16, 2007

skatedaily.net gets a RSS Feed...




A site I visit often ,http://skatedaily.net/, has finally given in and created a RSS Feed! Thanks Bryce!

What's an RSS Feed, check it out here.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Gryphon in the Deep End...


Gryphon took the leap into the deep end of the pool this weekend. When he got to the pool he was able to swim under water. He was swimming around with a tube to the deep end and also jumping in the showler end with out the tube. I got him to jump off the diving board with the tube on. Later he showed me that he could swim accross the shallow end with out touching. I convinced him to do the same in the deep end. He can do it all under water or come up for air when he needs to. Then I had him jumping off the side and swimming and then we got to the diving board. Boing he went flying off, hit the water and started simming to the ladder. Needless to say once he got that down he was unstopable. Its' also good to see that if he falls in to water that he will be able to swim to safty. Now we need to work on treading water and then he will be set.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Self-Sustainable Chair :: J o o Y o u n ::

WHen I first read about this I though it was pretty dumb. The picture looked kind of cool though and it had the promise of a video. So I finnally watched the video... I'll let you decide what you think.

Self-Sustainable Chair :: J o o Y o u n ::

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

HTC Advantage- If I were getting a phone, I think this would be it.

 
 

Sent to you by tagar via Google Reader:

 
 

via Engadget Mobile by Chris Ziegler on Aug 07, 2007

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HTC today announced official US availability of its mobile monster (and we do mean "monster"), the Advantage. Known alternately as the Athena and X7501, the sucker rocks pretty much every feature one could want in a pocketable device: 256MB of onboard storage, 128MB of RAM, HSDPA 850 / 1900 alongside quadband GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, 3 megapixel autofocus cam, integrated GPS, and an incredible 5 inches of VGA display madness sitting atop Windows Mobile 6 Professional. Coming in at a hefty 134 x 98 x 16mm (20mm with keyboard attached), the term "svelte" doesn't exactly apply here -- but for folks who think power trumps pocketability, this may just be their soulmate. Find it now at CompUSA and Amazon for a buck under $900.

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Thursday, August 02, 2007

The FireWall is now blocking Google's Picasa Web...



I guess that webmail and blogger could soon fall under the "Online Storage;Personal Pages" rules...

...Access Denied (content_filter_denied)


The following URL is blocked by Wyeth policy because of its content categorization by our subscription service: "Online Storage;Personal Pages"
http://picasaweb.google.com/home

Monday, July 30, 2007

Work's FireWall blocks off another Google application...


I use Google's online documents to do and organize my homework. This worked well as I could also work on things during lunch at work... No more though, well I can just email myself with the updates, like Google Talk the firewall here at work has stopped access
****
Access Denied (content_filter_denied)


The following URL is blocked by Wyeth policy because of its content categorization by our subscription service: "Online Storage;Computing/Internet;Personal Network Storage;Interactive Web Applications"
****

I guess Googles news reader could be next. i dont think they would stop gmail or other web based email...

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Tenth Anniversary...

EDIT :: Yea... well. he he. I was going to clean this one up but it's more fun this way... I'll just take out my one semi-curse, cause I don't roll like that he he... I really was OK to drive I guess I was still just feeling it a bit when i wrote this though. Enjoy


We had a GREAT date night for our anniversary. We hit Tokyo in Skipback for sushi and sushi on the deck. We drove around a bit scouting for Karaoke spots(didn't find any). We went to 99 for a drink at the bar ( wont go back there. The tall bass ale was nice but the two drink Sarah got (apple martini and something else green) were only enough to give her a sugar high. We were going to go in to Bertucci for a drink bu they were packed. The Comedy club at the beef and ale in Audubon was next up and we had a great time there. We ended up being the only ones dancing after wards at the bar and had allot fun. Sarah sat and chatted with a guy for a bunch of songs but I just said !@#$ it and danced by myself though all of the bad songs and the songs we requested. I asked for Jr/Sr Rhythm Bandits... he played don't stop your feet. We asked for jamiriqui canned heat and he got that one. We asked for Will smiths if you cant dance to this... we got that one. We asked for crystal method... He didn't have it. I asked for Rage against the machine... he had bring the funk. I rocked out to that one by myself pretty hard. I think he was digging my dancing. Not that I was dancing well but I pulled out my old break dancing foot work an i heard him wooing to something one he knew at the bar... ROCK!!! I just kept dancing to everything my god it was fun. Dana, my cousin happened to come online and i relied what was being played to her and danced till he was done at 1ish. Sarah joined back in for the last group of songs. He played allot of junk rap but there was enough of what we asked for with some other good choices to keep me jamming...We will have to go dancing next time we get to go out.

I tried to tip the DJ but he just said to keep it... ROCK!!!

I was OK to get the kids from my parents and get home...

Pictures later...

Friday, July 27, 2007

Wyeth catches up with Google Chat


Wyeth BNS (Border Network Security) blocks all the fun stuff: any streaming video or audio, social networking sites, game sites and any sort of chat services. One that they did not get right away was Gtalk. I didn't use alot but I would chat with Kyle and Brendon from time to time. Today I see that they caught up with it and disabled it for all network users... oh well.

Monday, July 23, 2007

4WinMobile.com's Xda Flame Mini-Review

Here is a phone that I would get if ya know, I had the money for the phone and a cell plan...

 
 

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via Pocket PC Thoughts by undisclosed@thoughtsmedia.com (Darius Wey) on Jul 24, 2007

"Before I start this mini-review of the XDA Flame I have to explain that most of my usage is data and that by far the best mobile signal available to me at home is from Vodafone - who also offer some of the most expensive data rates. Also, I'll say now that I'm pleased with the Flame but it has shortcomings (as you'll find out). I've worked my way through numerous PDA's - both Pocket PC / Windows Mobile and Palm - starting with a Philips Velo 1 and ending up with an HTC Hermes. Along the way I had an Exec which I had to retire when I found I needed more data than Vodafone could offer at a sensible price - so I switched to T-mobile. The Exec wouldn't hold a signal with them but the Hermes would so that was the end of the Exec - but I really missed the VGA screen. When the Flame was announced it came with, what is for me, the perfect spec. This included infra-red - something that is vital for me but no longer available on the new HTC offerings. Because of this I decided to take the plunge and order one from Australia. Five days after spending £527 and placing my order (and that included a weekend) the Flame was in my hand. A couple of weeks after I received the Flame I also received an import duty / VAT bill - which I was expecting - of £110 making a total cost of £637, a lot for a PDA but the perfect spec doesn't come along every day!"



4WinMobile.com has an O2 Xda Flame in their hands, and aside from a couple of shortcomings, they like what they see! Check out their thoughts here.


 
 

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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Got our Harry Potter Book...


We were number 310 and it only took till 12:45 to get the book. The BN party was wild and long but we had a good time. Pictures to follow...

Friday, July 20, 2007

July 2007 updates


i hurt my lower back last sunday. not sure how it happened but it was the first time I have hurt my back. It had me on the floor trying to find just the right position as to not be in sever pain. Its getting better day by day now... Im scarred of what this means for any skating that I may have had coming to me...

I got back on track with my online courses. I am trying to plow through one Author a day and answer the questions associated. I am going through my math homeworks at work. I really dislike the Eng. Lit. I don't enjoy enturperating what people wrote about and comparing them against other writers. These writers always over describe things without actually saying what they were talking about. Add that to the old or proper english and terms of the day plus they seem drunk or on drugs and you ended up guessing at what they are refering to... blah.

Gryphon is hyped on the Hogwarts summer corospondince course that he is taking and Ruby is working through some rough 2 year old issus. Ruby is also pretty much potty trained, diapers be gone with thee! She is also very scarely unafraid of the water and I think now that she sees Gryphon swimming under water and jumping all around she is trying to imatate that.

Sarah and I have a new PS2 game that we are gunning for Guitar Hero, check it out.

We got our first working laptop from Sarahs dad. It got rattled around abit on the trip out and the harddrive popped out. i just pushed it back in and it runs really good for being older with 600 or 700 mhz CPU and 256k of ram and still running WinXP with no lag. It found and connected up to the wireless network with out a hitch. So far i was able to get the desktop to get into the laptop but didnt have time to work it the other way.

Thats it for now... going to the harry potter book release party tonight too...

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

urnx by tmbg

urnx
urnx, ni, imnx
ictv
ictv, nicu
icu, icu, nurok
urnx
urnx, ni, iw
icatv, icadvd, nicu
icu, icu, nurok
icu, icu, nurok

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Nice article i want to finish reading...


http://www.webdelsol.com/Topic/articles/04/howell.html
--
-=Chris Faulkner=-
cfaulkner@gmail.com
ossus.blogspot.com
"Peace, it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

Monday, July 09, 2007

iPhone nano

Now you know what would be cool... An iPhone Shuffle... Hehehe...

You just press the call button and it shuffles your contacts and calls a random person. Ha!

 
 

Sent to you by tagar via Google Reader:

 
 

via Engadget by Darren Murph on Jul 10, 2007

Filed under:

While analysts have been speculating that Apple may unleash a smaller (and cheaper) handset in the not too distant future in order to grab a sect of market share not interested in the relatively pricey iPhone, the rumors are seeming to gain traction. According to Kevin Chang, a JP Morgan analyst based in Taiwan, Apple is actually looking to "launch a cheaper version of the iPhone in the fourth quarter that could be based on its iPod nano music player." The report cited anonymous sources "in the supply channel" and also referenced the now-famed patent that suggests such a device could be materializing. Still, we'd highly recommend taking all of this in with a healthy heap of salt for the time being, but don't be incredibly shocked if your next iPod nano unexpectedly rings while you're stereotypically browsing through Gorillaz tracks.

[Thanks, Matt]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


 
 

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Playing at Castle Park

I took these pics with the iPaq while tailing Ruby around the park.



Friday, June 29, 2007

Note to me to check this out...

 
http://sergiosereno.blogspot.com/2007/06/my-mobiler-10.html

--
-=Chris Faulkner=-
cfaulkner@gmail.com
ossus.blogspot.com
"Peace, it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

FDA recalls Veggie Booty snacks - Reuters

 
 

Sent to you by tagar via Google Reader:

 
 

via Google News on Jun 29, 2007


FDA recalls Veggie Booty snacks
Reuters - 6 hours ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Veggie Booty, a snack particularly popular among small children, may carry Salmonella food poisoning and should be thrown out, the Food and Drug Administration said.
Salmonella reported in four kids Seattle Times
Snack Food Recall FOX News
Seattle Post Intelligencer - Los Angeles Times - Dog Flu Diet and Diseases - WETM-TV
all 265 news articles

 
 

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Sputtr... A cool looking site to start a search from...

Take a look its neat!

 
 

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via Google Blogoscoped by Philipp Lenssen on Jun 11, 2007

There are more meta search engines out there than stars in the sky, I reckon, but this one is quite good-looking: Sputtr.com* collects a variety of search engines under a single search box. There's Google News, Google blog search, Google Video and so on for the Google-lover; there's Snap, Live.com and Ask for those who like to see how search underdogs perform; there's a lot of social news sites, like Digg or Reddit, and there's a lot of miscellaneous engines. All of this is laid out with a large-font & icons design screaming "2.0" (and though the icons are large, you can hover over them if in doubt). Search-Engines-Web.com, who pointed to this site in the forum, says Sputtr makes "a damn good browser homepage."

Also see my multi search gadget for iGoogle (and feel free to clone that gadget to adjust to your needs).

*"Sputter" means "To spit out words or sounds in an excited or confused manner."

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]



[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more... [Advertise here]

 
 

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Looks like a MAC...

I got a new MAC... Just kidding. It looks like MAC's OS X desktop though. It actually works like like a MAC too. What it is a free application called Object Dock. I like the eye candy of apple computers so this was a pretty cool find for me.







Neutral Milk Hotel...

As I was cleaning up mess that iTunes made of my music folders I came across this group, Neutral Milk Hotel. Did anybody lend me this or listen to this on the PC? Somehow I have the whole album and I like it, I was just wondering where it came from.

I also found Broken Social Scene, again I have no idea where it came from but I like it...

"How Does A Duck Know?" by CRASH TEST DUMMIES

"How Does A Duck Know?"

How does a duck know what direction south is?
And how to tell his wife from all the other ducks?
You can cut a chicken's head offand it will keep on running and twitching

[CHORUS]When everything seems planned outwhen everything seems nicely planned outwell the human race will come and smack your face

How come all my body parts so nicely fit together?
All my organs doing their jobs, no help from me!A person pulls a spider's leg out
To watch it keep on moving and twitching.

Satan lives here: on grain and earth, rain and air.

How come I just smoke and smoke and smoke and curse every butt I spit out?
All night long I grind my teeth and I wake up when I cough
You can put me in and iron lungand I will keep on breathing and twitching.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Eastern Exposure 3, circa 1996

danwolfe.tv

This video has some places that I have skated. If you watch the whole thing you will see:

- Love Park, of course.
- Cheap Skates
- Spinning wheels skatepark.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Wierd...


So I was helping a person at work with an Adobe Acrobat problem. I connected to their computer and proceeded to pick a random PDF that was on the computer.


I couldn't believe what I saw open up in the PDF... I though for a second that I was at home. It was the Intake Form that I had created for a local Chiropractor 5 or so years ago...

I just happened to get her call, I just happened to by pass all of the other PDFs that i could have opened and picked one labeled INTAKE_FORM.


She is going there tomorrow, She said she would say Hi for us... weird.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Saturday, June 09, 2007

At work on a Saturday...

So, I am at work making up for taking last Monday (see Blown Away at Assateauqe...).


I took a hand full of calls from other people try to work while at their 'Lake Homes' or Vacation homes... I managed to finish another of the homework assignments that I am late on for my math course.

I can hear somebody watching Cocktail... great movie.

2o minutes left...

...Gett'n kind of hungry...

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Blown Away at Assateaque...

We thought we were ready for everything. Heat and humidity- we had the gazebo, sun block, and the ocean. Bugs- we had the gazebo, bug repellent, and citronella candles. Rain- we had a gazebo.

The wind blew almost everything away...
(one of the photos below is a video of the blowing tents and the wind, i think you can click it to see it.)




We packed the car very tightly. I was surprised that we fit everything. Gryphon and Ruby were belted in and then packed around. After a stop for gas and ice we were on our way. We had the AC on the whole time as it was pretty hot. As we drove through the campsite we noticed that it was not very hot at all. we did see a couple ponies on the way in.

We pulled up to our spot and noticed that what was probably my cousin's tent was already up but their car was not there. We got out and then got hit by the WIND! It wasn't just a gust of wind but a non-stop gale force wind. Their tent seemed pretty sturdy so we set about getting our stuff ready.

As soon as we got ruby out she started to cry from the wind and just sat on the picnic table and cried for a couple of minutes until she got used to the wind.

We were getting ready to set up the gazebo first when my cousin pulled up. After the hellos, he mentioned that the gazebo may just blow over. We decided to go with the tents first. Jeff had gotten some advise about holding down tents in windy weather. He had some plastic plates with holes in them. You put a rope through the holes and bury the plates in the sand. You then just tie the ropes to the same spots that you would put the steaks in. So we did this and fought the wind to get the tent somewhat standing. The whole side of the tent was just bent in and the poles were bowing in a bad way. We repositioned the tent so that it had a edge cutting into the wind. That seemed to be a small help. As you can see from some of the pictures it was still falling in even with a ton of anchor ropes. It was standing though so we put up Gryphons smaller tent in back of the big tent so it would not get as much wind.

Renee and Adam rolled up and after the hellos again we helped get there tent up. It was a bit stronger but still leaning with the wind. We also watched a lot of other people struggling with their tents. They also managed to get there stronger gazebo up as well.

So we walked down to the beach to check it out. Water was cold, very cold. No ponies here.

Back at the camp I broke out the camping stove that we got from freecycle. i got it set up and was trying to light it when i noticed that a pipe was leaking fuel... I stopped trying to light it. So now we had to try to get a fire going. Adam had some kindling and we had some logs still at our site from the last campers. We did get a week fire going and were able to warm up our veggie dogs and burgers. i was able to keep the fire smoldering and burning until we could add some more big stuff to give us a fire to sit around. we had a beach umbrella laying down in front of it to break some of the wind at this point to. The kids loved the sand dune next to us and it kept them busy. The wind died down a bit at night and it got chilly. We did catch a guy walking around oddly at like 1am and even stealing wood from our neighbor. When Jeff talked to the ranger the next day he said that wood is like gold here and if we could identify the guy to let him know. We also saw 2 ponies walking down the street late at night too. I had no problem sleeping once My feet were warm (I'm sure the beer didn't hurt too).

In the morning the wind was still blowing but not as hard at first but it back to roaring by midday. we contemplated putting up our gazeebo but as the wind was keeping us cool and blowing the bugs away we kept it down. The birds were having a hard time flying too. You could see them a stream lined as possible to fly in the wind. we used Adams stove to cook up some breakfast... I think. We spent the day at the beach and hanging at the camp sight. I think Sarah took a nap and I sat and played with my GPS and read some of my book. I had a change to try Jeff's Trick Kite. that was cool. It almost pulled you off of the sand! Gryphon and i headed to Food Lion to get s'mores supplies and some veggies. I noticed that it was blazing hot in town which made the wind easier to bare with when we got back to camp. We got another fire going for the night as the darker clouds started to roll in. Sarah and I decided to pull our blankets out and sleep on the dune. To bad the sky wasn't clear but it was still nice.

I woke up at one point and heard rain. Pulled the blankets back and mentioned the rain to Sarah. It was just a drizzle so we pulled the blankets back up and went back to sleep. A little later we woke to a more steady rain. we got up and saw the clouds were pretty thick and the rain didn't seem like it was going to stop. Jeff had gotten coffee and some donuts and then had left overs so we had some of that. Still hoping to make another day we put up the gazebo. we had the same problems with the wind and the one side of the gazebo was being pushed in by the wind. Jeff and carol packed up and took off before it started to get bad. We decided to go for a geocache, do the nature center and then comeback to make our decision. Adam and Renee headed out to get some better rain gear. They were here for the week so they would not be leaving because of the rain.

I sure up the little tent and through a tarp over the bigger tent and the gazebo. Then we scooted out and stopped at the camp store and got the kids some rain slickers, a pony pin and pony magnets. Then we headed off for a geoCache called 'Don't Rock the Boat'. The cache was a mini, which ment that it the size of a film canister. We have yet to find one of these mini caches and this would not be the first. It was pouring down rain as we found the spot. There were a bunch of old little boats set on small rocks along the parking lot of a bar. i guess the cache was around the rocks or just off in the woods. It sounds like not everyone looking for this finds it and it has had some problems with not being there in the past. On the way back we hit the nature center and watched a video on the ponies and got to "pet" some live water creatures and long dead remnants of creatures. We took a ride down the road to the State Park and saw some ponies by the road. Going back to our camp we noticed that even more people had left. people with RV's were hanging but there were very few tents left. When we got back to our site we noticed that the little tent was gone with the wind... We jumped back in the car to see if we could find it. the tent made it accross the road and got stuck in some bushes. Sarah rained it in and pulled it back to camp risking being blown away as she did so. We broke that tent down and saw that our other neighbor who was not back yet was now missing their gazebo( the same one we have by-the-way). A quick look around and we saw that it too was stuck in some bushes. They arrived shortly after we did and pulled it back and were packed up and out of there before we where. We checked out the inside of our tent and found that water had made its way in and the blankets were wet. We decided to pack it in. If we were staying for the week or a couple more days I may have wanted to stick it out. So we quickly broke everything down as the wind seemed to pick up... We said our good-byes to Renee, Adam, and Conner. Connor was hanging in their jeep as they tried to water proof there tent and gazebo.

The ride home was long, 4hours, and cold and sandy. it was nice to get home and get showered and dried off.

So was it a bust? hmmm... we did have a nice Friday night, Saturday day and Night. we did do a couple things on Sunday. It would have been nice to be able to do the beach and campfire again on Sunday and we did have a cache that would have given us a nice beach walk. The high winds did make it exciting but the rain+Wind made it blahhh. So I would say it was a 1/3 bust.

I hope we can do it again next year...

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Some Cure videos...

Such a cool think that you can do on youTube. You can watch those videos that you may have only caught once on MTV or Friday Night Videos so very long ago...


Check this one from the cure (Robert Smith with short hair). Remember though if you want to see the videos that Robert Smith liked search for his favorite directors name... Tim Pope.


Another cool one. I dont know who directed it... The 13th.