BoomFlag

My latest desktop wallpaper: the Horsehead Nebula. It’s cool to program atop that.

Mmm… bonbons.

I’ve had a hankerin’ for some homemade bonbons for a while, but they’re really tedious to make (compared to, say, chocolate-chip cookies). The other day I was at the grocery store and decided to pick up some Rice Krispies and Skippy, and finally commit to make them. And today I did. Kyra was a big help, although to be honest I think her motivation was more about licking the chocolate-covered spoon than actually doing any work.

Regardless, now I’ve got a couple containers full of them, and can enjoy them with my popcorn tonight when Laralee and I watch our next episode of Heroes.

The library is having their annual book sale, which is a great opportunity to look through thousands of books– most in very good condition– and buy them really cheap. Hardcovers sell for two dollars, paperbacks for fifty cents. So Laralee and I headed over there at the start of the sale and spent a couple of hours wading through boxes and tables stacked high with books.

Of course you can get any John Grisham book you’d ever want, or Michael Crichton, or Robert Ludlum, even Danielle Steele. There always seem to be piles upon piles of those authors. But you can also get obscure stuff; I found a copy of Godel Escher Bach which I first read back in the late 80’s, and I figured what the heck. (I’m reading it now but it doesn’t seem as interesting as I remembered. Oh well.)

Anyway, our bookshelves continue to expand beyond capacity; we’ve got two-deep paperbacks and stacks of recently-purchased books (from the book fair or Amazon gift cards) just waiting to be read. I think we’re covered for a while.

Alex was supposed to have a track meet last Friday but given the cold drizzle they cancelled the event and moved it to today. Good call– it was a beautiful 65-degree sunny day today.

He competed in three events and did really well in all of them…

Long jump:

400-meter run:

And the 100-meter hurdles:

Considering he was competing against sixth, seventh, and eighth graders and this was only his second meet, he did great. When he’s a little taller (and has longer legs) he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with.

For the past three years I’ve been scanning every piece of paper that seems important enough to keep: utility bills, bank statements, credit card statements, contracts, checks from clients, and so forth. It sure keeps the clutter level down around the house, and makes it really easy to find old records (no more paging through huge ring binders or boxes).

But it’s been kind of a drag because I have a flatbed scanner and that means I have to slip in each page, hit ‘scan’, wait about 30 seconds while it does its thing, and then save the file. Slip in the next page and repeat. Let me tell you, that’s not really a fun way to spend an afternoon. So I’ve got binder after binder of old statements and bills and whatever, and they just stay on the bookshelves in Laralee’s office because I don’t really feel like messing with them.

Anyway, I saw someone mention the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 sheet-fed scanner, and I immediately perked up. This little puppy has a feed tray where you can slip in a stack of paper and it cranks through them, creating image files (or PDF’s) as it goes.

I read a lot of reviews and people said it was the greatest thing for office automation ever. After some hesitation (it’s not cheap) I decided to buy one. It showed up yesterday, so I was playing around with it a bit this afternoon. I can only think of one word for it.

WOW.

This thing is awesome. Not only can it crunch through a stack of paper, each individual scan takes about three seconds (admittedly at a fairly low resolution, but since these are ten-year-old bills I don’t really care that much). Put in the stack, set the initial filename, and click ‘scan’. Less than a minute later you’ve got a series of sequentially-numbered files and you’re ready to feed in the next stack. I literally went through two one-inch ring binders in about fifteen minutes. It can also duplex, create PDF’s on the fly, and use OCR to index those PDF’s so they’re searchable.

It’s still going to take some time to digitize all of my old paper records, but I suspect I could finish the job in a single day instead of a month.

The next mission for this thing will be to process all of my old photo albums. I’ve got a few thousand pictures I’d really like digital, but again didn’t relish the thought of scanning them one at a time. Now I can drop in a stack, set the resolution nice and high, and watch them churn.

Sweet.

Laralee and I always have fun teaching the second-grade science classes on Fridays. We make up topics that are “science-y” and come up with experiments and demonstrations that teach the principles while also providing a bit of fun for the kids.

Of course it’s great to see the kids light up and ooh and ahh over the things we do. They get so excited about baking-soda volcanoes and slimy liquids and 3D solar system simulations.

Fun aside, it’s also very rewarding to get feedback from the kids’ parents. Yesterday Laralee received an e-mail from one of them:

Notes like that make it all worthwhile.

With five terabytes at my disposal, I have to begin the task of filling all that space. It started with about half a terabyte of shared data used by me and Laralee. That’s our music collection, digital photo album, fifteen years of e-mail, hundreds of television shows, and a metric ton of software thrown in for good measure. Then I mixed in a generous serving of backup files from my web hosting company and some other clients who pay me to store offsite backups of everything.

And yet I still find myself with a few terabytes empty. I suppose it’s only a matter of time… today I wonder how I can possibly fill all that space, and in six months I’ll be shopping for another hard drive enclosure.

Ahh, technology.

I read an interesting article yesterday about a guy who decided to accept a challenge to go for 21 days without complaining.

I suspect most of us don’t even realize how much we complain in our everyday lives. There’s always something that bothers us, something that didn’t go right, or someone who’s getting on our nerves. And we almost can’t help but say something about it. But I think in doing so– in giving in to the temptation to gripe– we become just that much more negative.

So I’ve decided to follow this guy’s example, and work to not complain at all for the next 21 days.

Note that constructive criticism is okay. For example, the following would be a complaint:

But making it constructive or positive would be okay:

Hopefully the result of this “experiment” will be a more positive outlook on… well, everything.

My friend Michael is on a volleyball league team and they needed a sub, so he asked me to join them for their games tonight. It’s been about two years since I even touched a volleyball, but I guess it’s somewhat like riding a bike because I jumped in and actually did a decent job. My serves could use a little work, and a few of my bump passes were more like shanks, but overall I can’t complain. Hopefully they’ll need a sub again soon– I miss playing.

Mmm… five terabytes of storage sitting on my desk.

Just a few years ago that kind of data required a refrigerator-sized rack of hard drives with massive cooling and cables everywhere. Now it fits into a box smaller than a six-pack. Amazing.