The Impossible Dream

On this day, 683 days after we moved into our new house, we parked the Jeep inside the garage.

With the garage door closed.

It wasn't parked on top of anything.

There was even room to open doors and walk around three sides of it.

I can still work at the workbench.

The girls can still access all their outdoor toys.

I know there were a lot of naysayers out there. I had to include a picture so perhaps they would believe it. No Photoshopping there my friends. That is, in fact, our garage and our Jeep.

My garage is packed full of tools on a good day. Throw in a couple of bikes, several kids toys, and a full complement of gardening tools and equipment and you've just filled a small two car garage to its limit. On moving day, it was also packed full of everything that didn't have a place of its own. Sure, it's a "two car" garage, but you could really only get two cars in there when it was empty if one of them was a Cooper Mini.

There's still some organization to be done, but through some creative arranging and some very close tolerances, it all fits and is usable. It was much like putting together one of those tangram puzzles where you look at all the pieces and think to yourself, "There is NO way all these pieces fit inside that rectangle." But when you arrange them in the one and only correct way - SUCCESS!

So, in the immortal works of Jim Valvano, "Don't give up, don't ever give up." You, too, can dream the impossible dream. You can put your car in the garage. We did.

Many thanks to Melissa and Dave for all their work.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 4/19/2005 11:59:00 PM :: Permalink   

The Revenge of the Screen Savers

Finally, The Screen Savers returns! Well, sort of.

Leo, Patrick, Kevin, and Robert hooked up for a 34 minute podcast called ROTSS (Revenge of The Screen Savers). Due to legal concerns, you'll hear a half-hearted attempt at bleeping out "Screen Savers". The cool thing is that they all want to put real tech back in tech news. TechTV is dead, but podcasting gives them a wonderful distribution channel. And, no, you don't need an iPod to listen. There's a link directly to the 14MB MP3 file, so listen in while surfing at your computer.

It was really an interesting half hour and it was great to hear them back together when they obviously like working together and have the same goal in mind. I also learned that Kevin was responsible for www.digg.com which is a cool site where the most popular news stories float to the top (he had previously touted it as his "friend's" site). They're planning to do this weekly, so subscribe to the feed! Posted by Chris on 4/19/2005 01:07:00 PM :: Permalink   

My Two Year Old Baby

Fresh from the bath and wrapped in a towel

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 4/18/2005 04:45:00 PM :: Permalink   

Google's World Domination Continues

Google continues to add nifty little features to their products that you didn't know you needed until you try it. Now you can track any package from any shipper just by entering the number into Google. There are other numeric tips here as well, like searching on vehicle identification numbers, patent numbers, airline info, and product UPC codes. And if you haven't googled your telephone number yet, try it.

And just because they gave you RTF and double the space, don't think they're done with Gmail, either. Here's a post talking about an upcoming feature which integrates RSS feeds (albiet in a small way) with the Gmail interface. Surely, Google has more to say about RSS. I'd love for Gmail to handle my email and RSS feeds as well in one slick interface.

But the world is fighting back! Or at least the hacker community. HackaDay has a post about running Linux on Gmail. Yes, you basically have a 2GB virtual filesystem and can run basic unix commands to communicate with Gmail. Posted by Chris on 4/18/2005 04:24:00 PM :: Permalink   

$tarbuck$

I just don't get $tarbuck$. Let's put aside the fact that people plunk down $4 or more for a cup of coffee. I eat entire meals that cost less than that. They had the audacity to name the establishment StarBUCKS. But, as I said, let's put that aside for now. I have another gripe.

Apparently, $4 for the coffee doesn't allow them to pay their help very well, because the drive thru has a tip jar. A tip jar! At the drive thru?!? Come on. Just because your speaker actually works and you speak clearly when repeating my order correctly, don't think you're getting a tip from me. I mean, everyone knows that the drive thru was not created with your best interests in mind. Bad, bad things happen at the drive thru. Just because things work as they should, that's no reason for a tip. You barely moved your feet at all, you just leaned a little out the window to hand me change and a cup. That's it.

Alas, these tip jars are not empty. Surely the smart worker put some "seed money" in to get things started, but I have to believe that some customers actually leave tips. I would like to kindly request that these customers who choose to freely give away money for no real reason at all please forward it to me. If you feel the need to pay extra above the $4 you already spent for a cup of coffee just because someone handed it to you thru a window while you remained in your car, you might want to seek mental help, or at least financial counseling. If you don't agree, be aware that I also accept PayPal and credit cards. I can put it to good use. I have kids that will go to college one day and your "tips" can help.

I don't drink coffee. Never have. Probably never will. I tried what I'm sure must have been very bad coffee many, many years ago and didn't like it. I've never felt the need to try it again. I suppose I'm much richer for it. I only saw the tip jar while visiting the drive-thru from the passenger side of the vehicle. I did manage to hold back my laughter. Posted by Chris on 4/15/2005 09:38:00 AM :: Permalink   

A Bird's Eye View a la Google

Less than two months ago, I predicted that Google would integrate their acquisition of Keyhole with their new Google Maps service. Granted, you didn't need much of a crystal ball to come up with that one, but true to form, they did it.

Lookup any address on Google Maps and then click the 'Satellite' link on the right. Pretty cool. And you can still zoom and drag the image around to pan around the map!

Here's a view of Washington, DC. Posted by Chris on 4/05/2005 12:56:00 PM :: Permalink   

A $100 Laptop for the Masses

Well, it's taking the brainpower of MIT, but they might have finally come up with a laptop cheap enough that Dave might actually buy it. They've got an initiative to create a $100 Laptop. The laptops will be capable of doing just about everything a $1000 laptop can and have WiFi and USB and a color screen. It may also be used as the primary light source in some village homes. They've already got the backing of Google and AMD.

Wait a minute. $100? Dave will never go for that. Get back to work MIT. Posted by Chris on 4/04/2005 12:34:00 PM :: Permalink   

Happy Birthday Victoria!

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 4/03/2005 09:24:00 PM :: Permalink   
Want more? Visit the Archives or jump to current entries.