Tempus Fugit

Latin (tem-pu̇s-ˈfü-git): Time Flies

Category: Grab Bag

Stuff about stuff

  • Time consuming

    I’m at home, alone. Shirley is working, Scott is gone. It’s quiet, and the morning is almost gone. I’ve had many cups of coffee as I work on a building a presentation for Monday.

    I have the bulk of the presentation material and I’m just creating two custom slides. How long can it take? Longer that I’d like. One slide has a lot of animation. Yeah, I know, not a good move for a presentation, but it should work and be a lot of fun.

    The harder one has been lifting a mySpace video in FLV format and converting it to something I can put into Powerpoint. Well, after 3 hrs of hacking around and getting video with no audio, audio with no video and video with audio that sounds like the chipmunks, and getting some help from a friend I bought some FLV to AVI software. Free is not always better and the demo version worked for me quick & easy. So, it’s a company expense because this was all about a company presentations.

    Technorati Tags: mySpace, FLV, AVI, FLV to AVI

  • Birthday Surprise


    Mandi & Scott
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

    Scott’s birthday weekend had an extra special surprise when Mandi, her sisters and parents arrived at the lake to celebrate with us. We all had a great time chatting, eating, walking the trail and relaxing around the fireplace.

  • Fireworks :Lake

    After a very nice afternoon with Mandi, her sisters and parents we had supper and birthday cake and then Scott opened his presents. It was a wonderful day. After dark Eric, Dez, Scott, Mom & I headed over to the neighbors on the west side of the point where it was less windy to launch some fireworks.
    This was a first for all of us, and a first for us at the lake and we all had a great time. I think a new tradition has been born, fireworks at the lake to celebrate your birthday, There are already plans for the next “event”.
    Fireworks #4

  • Changes in Kenora

    It’s the first summer weekend at the lake and we stopped in at Safeway to pick up a couple of things that were forgotten at home and some things are changing.

    For many years not too much wold change in Kenora from year to year, but then things started to happen. A new Canadian Tire on the waterfront, Tim Hortons, and then a Wallmart and a bigger Canadian Tire. This year it seems to be Safeway’s turn.

    As we pull into the parking lot the outside of the store is getting a make over and it seems to be pushing out a little farther. On the inside, they are getting the same Safeway look that came to stores in Winnipeg last year. But the best change is just in side the door, it’s the Starbucks kiosk!

    That’s right, thanks to Safeway, Starbucks hits the little town of Kenora. A couple of years ago a place called HoJoes

    HoJoes
    HoJoes
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

    opened on the main drag, and we thought a good cup of coffee had finally come to Kenora, after all Tim Hortons can’t really be called coffee. But despite the free internet access and the nice atmosphere the HoJo coffee is still awful. Granted, Safeway ambience is lacking quite a bit but you can step out side and across the road and gaze out over beautiful Lake of the Woods.

    I think I’ll need to do more grocery shopping this year, and Safeway makes a nice biking destination for a 20km round trip for a cup of jo

  • What’s in a name?

    Find out how your name ranks over at The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager. “Garry” was a big hit in the ’50s, how appropriate.

    In February 2005, IBM researcher Martin Wattenberg created a Web-based visualization applet, the NameVoyager, to help call attention to his wife’s first book, The Baby Name Wizard, a guide to American baby names. This effort to support his wife’s project swept the Web and became a hot topic of conversation – for those searching for the perfect baby name and for others. Without any advertising, the applet drew more than 500,000 site visits in its first two weeks. It has been downloaded more than 900,000 times as of mid-April. Also in April, Google found more than 11,000 references to the NameVoyager.

  • Hot Wheels for Rent

    You can rent one of these from Hertz in Las Vegas for a mere $150-175USD/day. Not bad for getting an opportunity to drive a legendary car.

    Shelby Automobiles, Inc. – NEWS

    Palm Beach, Fla. – April 1, 2007 – Lightning has struck again, the Ford Shelby GT-H “Rent-A-Racer” program from Ford Motor Company, Shelby Automobiles and The Hertz Corporation has returned with a special run of convertible versions of the performance-modified Ford Mustang GTs for rent exclusively through Hertz. Unveiled and sold for $250,000 on the block at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in West Palm Beach, Fla.,., the companies announced that approximately 500 convertibles, a first for the GT-H program, will be available through the Hertz Fun Collection at select airport locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Hawaii, later this year. Proceeds of the sale will benefit the Carroll Shelby Children’s Foundation and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

  • Famous?

    You be the judge.

  • Smells

    Smells can really trigger strong memories. Occasionally I’ll catch a wiff of something and it will instantly take me back 30 years to a very specific time and place. Sometime, I’ll smell the perfume my mom used to wear and a flood of memories will instantly come back to me. It’s quite an experience.

    Wow, that was a little of track from how I thought this would go. A couple of days ago while riding to work in the morning I was really hit by how much closer to life you are on a bike vs. a car when moving around the city and it was the smells on the ride that gave me this thought. As I went up the street there was a freshness in the air, a smell that would be hard to describe, a spring quality. To me it was as if I could smell the “green” of the grass.

    Well, at the top of the street the relaxing and refreshing scent of spring was quickly swept away by a VW TDI diesel exhaust stream. We’ve been looking at a new vehicle and the TDI has caught my attention mainly because of it’s incredible mileage, but I’d forgotten about the exhaust and diesel smell and the clanking of the engine. This car was almost out of site and I was still sucking in the fumes.

    From there it was back into a brief reprieve of fresh air on a bike path and then into the fragrant mix of heavy rush hour traffic downtown. Actually, this is the most fun part of the ride as I get to pass most of the cars, weave in and out of traffic and try not to get hit or be too obnoxious, but it is a bit of a rush. I’m certainly awake when I roll into the office.

    Technorati Tags: smell, cycling, spring

  • Running Water


    Reflections
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

    We’re at the lake this weekend and the weather is great. We’ve actually been suntanning on the dock! As you can see from the photo, there is no running water yet, just me, running for water.

    After fetching some water, it was breakfast and then a couple of cup of coffee while I tried to make a router think it was a wireless router. Then some reading on the deck. I’m reading The DNA of Relationships, which I’d highly recommend for anyone. It’s all about taking responsibility for your self and how you think and feel.

    Only a couple of time in the history of the cottage have we conducted a pre-opening before the May long weekend. May long weekend has always been in my family the weekend that we made the first trip of the year to the cottage and “opened up”. This mean things like getting the water running, putting in the boats, and doing a little spring cleaning. This year, while it’s quite warm this weekend, I won’t be turning on the water just yet. There is still lots of ice on the lake

    Reflections
    Reflections
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

    and temperatures are still going below zero over night. But, I’ve prepped the boats, re-connected most of the water system components, re-assembled the septic system where possible (the holding tanks are still frozen), and set out the chairs and loungers on the dock. Whew, all that work called for some lazing around on the dock, and lovely snack prepared by Shirley and a small cat nap.

    It’s too nice to sleep the day away so I grab the camera and head out to the point to check out my trail and take some photos. As I emerged from the trail back on to the road I was greeted by two guys leaning on an ATV, and it seems like they were waiting to talk to me. It was quite interesting, ask me about it sometime.

    Back at the ranch, somebody is sleeping. Zzzzzz,  Zzzzz, Zzzzz. The lake has a tendency to slow you down a little and make it seem quite exceptable to nap the late afternoon away.

  • Disturba or disturbing?

    I have not seen this movie so I have no idea just how disturbing it probably is, but here is what is really a little disturbing. We, that’s the royal “we” as in Canadians and Americans spent well over $92.4 million dollars in a single weekend, as this is just the top 10 at the box office, viewing mindless entertainment that well soon be forgotten.

    So let’s round it up as bit to $100M/weekend, so that would be about $5.2 billion dollars a year. I wonder what else we could do with that kind of money?

    ‘Disturbia’ grabs movie-goers’ attention

    1. “Disturbia,” $23 million. 2. “Blades of Glory,” $14.1 million. 3. “Meet the Robinsons,” $12.1 million. 4. “Perfect Stranger,” $11.5 million. 5. “Are We Done Yet?”, $9.2 million. 6. “Pathfinder,” $4.8 million. 7. “Wild Hogs,” $4.6 million. 8. “The Reaping,” $4.6 million. 9. “300,” $4.3 million. 10. “Grindhouse,” $4.2 million.

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