Month: June 2007

Garage Sale

Still waiting for my laptop to get repaired, which explains my slow blogging. I’ve been stupidly busy at work, going a bit crazy and getting really frustrated with my workload and my slow laptop. So what did we decide to do on top of all this? We’re having a garage sale.

It’s a multi-family garage sale. My bro/sis-in-law have a ton of stuff to get rid of, as do we, so it’s all getting sold. Toys, computer desk, changing table, book shelf, clothes, large fish tank setup, stereo, jungle gym, hunting bow, sandbox, jungle gym, and much more! It’ll be going on tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday, 9AM to whenever we feel like it (earlybirds have to not only help setup but have to pay triple).

Where do I live? Using the contact form to the right or comment below and I’ll reply with my address (don’t really want it posted here, though I’m pretty easy to find). Or just look in the paper for the Watson Dr. garage sale.

June 7, 2007

My Commute To Work Is About 396,000 Human Tongues

My approximately 25-mile (one-way) commute to work equals about 396,000 tongues, 4888 Weinermobiles, 6729 small intestines, or well over a million cockroaches. Thanks Neil for the link.

June 6, 2007

One Stop Paranoia

If you’re a conspiracy theorist or want to live in fear all the time, this Google Maps-powered incident map is for you. Thanks Barn for the link.

June 6, 2007

Movable Type Goes Open Source

This is a good thing and will only strengthen what is already great software.

June 6, 2007

Does Anybody Have Illustrator CS and a Meaty Computer?

Man, I cannot wait until I get my laptop back. Working on this old cludgy piece of junk is killing me when working with processor-intensive applications.

I’m developing some new exterior signage, and need to have a photo converted from bitmap to vector format while losing as little detail as possible. I’ve used Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace functionality with good success in the past. The laptop I had to send back for repairs (which I’ve since upgraded to 2gigs of RAM), could easily have processed the image, but the laptop I’m currently working on — a P4 1.6ghz with 512 MB of shared RAM and a 4200 RPM hard drive — just cannot cut it. I let the thing run for an hour and it didn’t finish.

I tried using other available raster to vector software, but most of it was either expensive or the freeware stuff was built more for line drawings than photos. The one I managed to get to work was able to convert it to an SVG format (it wouldn’t do an EPS, it said, because my graphic card wouldn’t support it), but Illustrator puked trying to import and render it.

Does anybody have access to Illustrator or another good conversion program along with a meaty computer and can convert this to vector?

Update: Thanks Kevin for helping me out here and sending me some great files! Thanks a bunch!

June 5, 2007

No, I’m Not Dead

Just really busy with work, personal life and concerts. I haven’t been sleeping all that great, either, because of the heat and just insomnia in general so finding motivation to do much of anything is a bit difficult. That, and I’m still working on my old cludgy laptop that doesn’t work as fast as I do.

Just the same, there is one more Cascade Winds concert tonight at 7:30 at the Tower Theatre. Remember, these are free concerts, tickets given away at the door just for our own inventory purposes, and this is also the last band concert that Michael Gesme will be conducting, so I encourage you to come out and watch the show! And come find me during intermission or afterwards and say “Hi.”

June 4, 2007