Happy Thanksgiving

Tanner and I took a quick walk before dinner. It was cool and pleasant
walking along the Saline river. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

Insurance Hell

Tanner Shares My feeling of dread...

Knowing full well that here, on the eve of Thanksgiving, we are about to enter the official holiday shopping season.
I weep for us all.

Mondays finally over

Why do Mondays always feel like lifes way of bitch slapping you for
the week?

Shop Update: crunch time

What can I say, more shop therapy was in order after the Michigan game.

You can see here the bottom trim to a wood project I needed to knock out before Christmas. The Girl wanted a trash can, like the one we have, for her sister.

Tanner and Kitty were in the shop all day with me making sure to get in my way. Below you can see Kitty hiding between tool boxes waiting for a chance to pounce outside.









So I made some progress, here you can see the project 3/4 of the way through. The top needs to be completed, but you can see how its working out.

Football Fever

MGOBLUE: Michigan vs. Ohio State

I am just a glutton for punishment. No more words just put up or shut
up and go home. See you tomorow at the game.

Go Blue!

This Morning at the Drowsy

This Morning at the Drowsy

Fall inspired cookies graced the counter, they were cool enough for me to buy some for the office.

So I was the stupid one....

So I was the stupid one when I stood on the roof with the weed trimmer to trim the large hedge on the side of the house.

Thanks to this guy, I look like a fricken genius.

Thanks to Giz for this.

So This Is why I let others work out the bugs first

I had said this before. So the dPhone super phone has had some camera glitch. It seems that for some reason the camera would not focus right, then it automagicly fixed itself. Everyone thought it was fixed overnight with some secret OTA firmware update.

Turns out, this is not the case. The real reason Per Giz:

There's a rounding-error bug in the camera driver's autofocus routine (which uses a timestamp) that causes autofocus to behave poorly on a 24.5-day cycle. That is, it'll work for 24.5 days, then have poor performance for 24.5 days, then work again.

A commenter explained it this way:

It's not the DATE that it's relying on so much as the TIME. And on any modern OS, the same variable holds both the date and time, stored as one huge number, such as the number of milliseconds since zero-date. The date is actually calculated by dividing that number lots of times.

When you write routines that are time-dependent (such as "move the lens forward for 1/1000 of a second and re-sample the image"), you often write a loop that looks for a specific amount of time that's passed, then exit the loop.

You might end up with a routine that looks like this:

start the lens moving

startTime=Now

while Now <>

wait...

loop

stop the lens moving

sample the picture. If it's not focused, repeat the loop

If rounding occurs, TimePassed could get rounded down or up... if it's rounded down, then the loop will execute too long.

In the previous example, a rounding error could cause the camera to move the lens further than expected, causing the camera to move the lens all the way to its stop trying to focus. It'll then start moving the other way, but the rounding error STILL causes the lens to overshoot, causing the camera to hit the stop going the other way...

So what we end up with is a pattern of the lens moving back and forth, trying to focus and skipping the "sweet spot" as it goes.

OK so I am glad it was a simple explanation.

Get It?

Why does everyone I talk to fall into ONE CATEGORY???

Shop Update: Bonus time

These channeled out 2x2 poplar pieces make a cool pattern when I cut them to length.

Shop time during the week is rare, so I relish it when I can get some in.

Overheard Last Night on the Couch.....

(after messing up the admittedly over complicated TV set up)

Sitting down to dinner, in front of TV:

Me: There I fixed it, you just had the wrong input. You almost had it back to correct.

The Girl: I tried to change the input.

Me: I know, you almost had it.

The Girl: Its a pain in the butt.

Me: Its just the curse of your gender, you just don't understand math or TV's. (kidding)

The Girl: I understand Knife! (holding steak knife, seriously)

Me: Touche'

Its hunting season

Yesterday was the first official day of Deer rifle season here in Michigan and that means many people are up north this week sitting in the woods.

I must admit I am a little jealous, not because I want to shoot a deer, but there is something cathartic about sitting in the woods in the early morning cold when the light is just starting to come through the trees.

I guess someone has to stay back to work.

Lego philosophy

Thanks to Gizmodo for this one.

M Go Blue: Michigan Vs Winsonsin

This week the Wolverines travel to Wisconsin to take on the Badgers in what can only be described as a must win for the Rodriguez and the boys and more than bowl eligibly is on the at this point. The inevitable rumbles of discontent can be heard throughout Ann Arbor as the Wolverines have lost 5 of the last 6 games the fast start to the season is all but forgotten as the fickle fans voice their .

But we have out work cut or for us. A lousy 1-5 big ten record this year, and out seeming difficulty to win on the road are not helping. Throw in our poor second half performance and you get a recipe for disaster.

Yet there is hope.

Wisconsin has shown chinks in its armor, winning but allowing teams a chance in the second half. No to mention that there similar playing style better matches up with what we bring to the table then say… Purdue (not to bring up last weeks disaster). Finally you have to believe that the Michigan program is hungry, and will com prepared.

I am not going to predict a score since I got slapped last week… but I will say this:

I remain hopeful and truly believe that this is a winnable game.

GOBLUE!

Final note: I think out best chance of winning is to stick with Tate Forcier, and leave Denard Robison for third quarter victory rotation. Just my opinion.

At dinner

No not in Paris but at cafe Felix for some Tapas.

Ann Arbor Town Homes

One of the four town homes here was on a list of properties I had to work out some insurance for this week. These homes, while still down in price due to the market, are withing walking distance from down town (two blocks) and seem to be holding there value well.

This gives me some hope for the housing market.

Today was conflicting in many ways, but the Eris was the biggest suprise.

It was a testament to the fact that not all of our clients are as decent and kind as the others… and I had a lot of face time with unhappy people. One thing I spent a great deal of time helping BY update her archaic phone to a Blackberry Curve a sturdy and proven phone. While I was at the wireless store, however, I came face to face with the Droid phone. I have to tell you it was not as impressive as I had thought, mostly I believe because at the store they could not show me a working model stating that you had to activate it to make it work and the cheesy fake screen sticker on it. It felt awkward in my hand and I was not really happy.

I did, however, see the Verizon branded HTC Droid Eris, and I have to tell you this thing was nice. For one I could begin to see the Android software was nice, even though I could not get it past the second “ activation” screen. The best part was it felt nice in the hand. It had a lot, but not all of, what the bigger droid had to offer and was sporting a $100 less price tag.

5 mp camera as well… I think I’m a little smitten.

I am not likely to switch, yet, but this phone more than the droid, is making me think twice.

A suprising act of Kindness

About once a year, some of our clients make the trip to Japan to visit family, and unfailingly bring us back a little trinket of sorts. In this case it was cookies from Sheseido Parlour.

It so kind of them and they are so nice with the formality of gift, fancy wrapping and always a kind note attached. Bowing as they leave with a formal air about them, they seem to dispel any objection to their unsolicited generosity with a smile and a oddly comfortable attitude. To them, it seems, the act is its own reward. They leave and I read the note:
"We are appreciating your excellent supports."
Refreshing after dealing with rude people on the phone all day.