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OK, this is stupid, so feel free to ignore it. I just like the remix.

steve :: Apr.30.2007 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

Photos

I saw an Indy Race today at the Kansas Speedway (thanks Bentley!). It was a beautiful day and the race was a lot of fun.

I took a bunch of photos and a few videos. I put some of the best in the gallery linked above. Below are a couple of the videos. One is a full lap of the race (less than 30 seconds), and the other is a skydiver making a hard landing before the race.

steve :: Apr.29.2007 :: Kansas City :: 1 Comment »

I went out to Boston last week to look at a bunch of water pumping/treatment/etc facilities. We were looking at the potential of installing one or more wind turbines at one of these sites. We had what was pretty much the perfect site lined up a couple years ago, where the load was high enough that there would never be a need to rely on power sales back to the utility, but it was too close to the airport, which has basically killed it.

A lot of the places we looked didn’t have enough room. I mean, we could have put a turbine in but the blades would overhang other people’s property, etc. I think there are a few sites that have good potential though. It would be cool to get another turbine at a water facility. We have one already, at the Palmdale, CA water treatment plant, that we are very proud of.

Boston itself was pretty cool, and the Harbor area was nice. I liked looking across the water and seeing various parts of the city. We took a field trip to Hull, which has two large wind turbines producing power for the town.

That said, I don’t think I could live there. I’m probably just too midwestern to understand the draw; when I got home (via Dallas, of all places) and drove down 435 I felt much happier than when I was driving around the Boston area.

TomTom was a big hit out there, and allowed me to get to and from the various facilities easily. I’m sure that there were more efficient routes to some places, but it always got me there when I had the address correct. It also found me some decent local places to eat. Yay.

steve :: Apr.29.2007 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

The map collection DVD that TomTom sent out a few weeks ago included many maps for the US and Canada. One was the about 900 MB US and Canada map, designed to fit on a 1 GB SD card along with the TomTom application, voices, etc. Another was the 1.4 GB North America map, which is installed on the Go 910 with its 20 GB hard drive. There were also a bunch of other regional and state maps.

Although I don’t really know what the differences between the 1.4 GB and 900 MB maps are, the fact that the bigger set is installed on the most expensive nav unit made me want it. Silly, I know.

I figured that since the system basically just ran off of an SD card that it might be possible to put a larger card in and use the extra space to install the North America map. A little poking around on the internet seemed to confirm that, so I went down to Microcenter and picked up a 2 GB SD card for $25.

I made a back up of my original card onto the computer using TomTom Home, then shut everything down and swapped cards. When I turned the nav unit on it looked sad, but happily connected to the computer anyways. I restored my backup onto the new card and restarted the unit. It seemed to work fine, though it forgot my favorites again (not a big deal, there wasn’t anything amazing in there).

I then deleted the US and Canada map and installed and activated the North America map from the map update DVD. When that was finished, I reset the unit and it worked! Yay. The only problem I could see was that it didn’t show my hand programmed Points of Interest (family, friends, denver light rail stations, etc). The Home program claimed they were on the unit, but it wouldn’t show them. I looked at the files on the drive itself and realized that they were in the US and Canada folder, but that with the new map they should be in the North America folder. I moved the POI files over, rebooted it again, and then everything worked.

Hooray.

I put the original 1 GB card in its case and put that with my other navigator stuff just in case there are any problems with the new card, but it seems to work perfectly.

steve :: Apr.21.2007 :: Uncategorized :: 5 Comments »

It’s easy to make fun of UPS, or just be frustrated with them, but I have to call out a little bit of credit they deserve.

I recently had something shipped to me, and I made a typo on my apartment number (3074 instead of 3704). The shipment made it all the way to the apartment complex, had a delivery exception because the number didn’t exist, but said that UPS would try to fix it and deliver it again. Later that night there was a noticed that the address had been corrected and they delivered it the next day.

So even though it is easy to get mad at shipping carriers, they did good this time.

steve :: Apr.06.2007 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

In the spirit of the recent post on celestial bodies, here is a link to a Nikon page about scale in the universe. It goes from unfathomably huge (the universe) down to unfathomably small (subatomic particles). Worth clicking around, and the music is like something from a funky science center presentation.

steve :: Apr.03.2007 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

After weeks of rain (hey, it’s spring) we got a nice sunny day today. I took the opportunity to head off to the arboretum again for a walk. The temperature was perfect.

I took a few pictures while I was there, which you can see in the latest gallery. I also took a short video of the creek, which was being very pleasant today.

steve :: Apr.01.2007 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »