williamkaiser.com

Well, Amy won tickets to Vegas on a local radio station. I have been trying to be cool about it bit I’m getting pretty excited about it now. The laundry list of things to do is pretty long – I hope to catch as much as possible. Part of the prize package was tickets to the 48 hour rock fest – so that will probably take up a lot of our time. But Friday and Monday are mostly open days, so that will probably be “Vegas time”. This is my first time – feel free to post suggestions

The Washington Post’s Style Invitational once again invited readers to take any 13-letter word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating

I don’t talk about my boys much online, but the other day my older son played with oils for the first time.   This is his first creation

OK, so I get an email telling me to click here to see something cool. This happens fairly regularly, and it’s pain making that decision if it’s spam, and if my buddy hs been hacked, ect ect. It’s a good thing I decided to follow this link, because this camera seems amazing.

The people at Lytro have come up with a camera that captures the “light field” instead of focusing on one area. I believe what it means to 2D photography would be the equivilant to taking a thousand pictures at every focus level and letting you choose the focus you need later. But it seems like the light field technology means a lot more than refocusing 2D images.

http://www.lytro.com/

Go here and play around refocusing photographs – it’s pretty cool

http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery

From their website about how it works:

“The light field is a core concept in imaging science, representing fundamentally more powerful data than in regular photographs. The light field fully defines how a scene appears. It is the amount of light traveling in every direction through every point in space – it’s all the light rays in a scene. Conventional cameras cannot record the light field.”

THE MAN IN THE ARENA
Excerpt from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic”, delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910 – download PDF

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

“Living artfully, therefore,
might require something
as simple as pausing.
Some people are incapable
of being arrested by things
because they are always on the move.

A common symptom of modern life
is that there is no time for thought,
or even for letting impressions
of a day sink in.
Yet it is only when the world
enters the heart
that it can be made into soul.”

– Thomas Moore, “Care of the Soul”

from NHL.com:

Let the posturing for draft position begin.

Now that Detroit defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom and Carolina center Eric Staal have been named as the two captains for the 2011 NHL All-Star Game presented by Discover, they may be hearing from a lot of friends and making some new ones in the days leading up to the Jan. 28 NHL All-Star Player Fantasy Draft powered by Cisco where they, along with two alternates named a later date, will be in charge of filling out their rosters for the Jan. 30 game at RBC Center in Raleigh, N.C.

“I’ve had a few texts from my brother [Rangers defenseman Marc Staal, also an All-Star], and a fellow Thunder Bay, [Ontario], boy, Patrick Sharp up in Chicago, sent me a text saying he wanted to be picked early,” Staal said on NHL Network. “It has been some good ribbing, but it will be fun when it comes down to it on that Friday.”

Sharp told reporters in Chicago, “Staal is from my hometown, so he better be drafting me, but I have a feeling he’s going to make me wait it out.”

Staal will have some interesting decisions to make. Does he select his brother? What about his goaltender, Cam Ward, in a move that would put both of the hometown players on the same team?

Carolina’s captain was a member of Team Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics, so would he lean toward members of that gold-medal winning club?

“For me, I think [friendships] are going to play a pretty big part,” Staal said. “You want to enjoy the weekend together but there are obviously some guys I know on a personal level more than others, and when it comes down to it in the draft everyone here is an All-Star and a great player so there might be some leaning toward friendships, but we’ll see what happens.”

Lidstrom will have plenty of players from his native Sweden available if he decides to take a nationalistic approach. There are seven Swedes among the 42 players selected — the most of any nation other than Canada.

Detroit’s captain will also likely have to decide if he can stomach calling the name of one of the four Chicago Blackhawks available or Colorado’s Matt Duchene — just as Staal will have to weigh whether or not he wants to skate on the same team with Alex Ovechkin or Mike Green from rival Washington.

“I’m not looking at it that way,” Lidstrom said to NHL Network. “I’m looking at it like there are going to be some great players on both teams. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of the players you’re going to pick.”

Team Staal might have the favor of the home crowd, but Team Lidstrom boasts one of the game’s legendary players and someone other guys around the League definitely look up to.

“I wish I could play with [Lidstrom],” Letang told DetroitRedWings.com. “He’s a role model for me, I watched him a lot, and he’s a great example for every defenseman in this League.”

Both Staal and Lidstrom will eventually have two other voices to consider on draft day once the alternates are selected. For now, it appears they are taking different paths when it comes to preparation.

Staal said he doesn’t plan to think about it too much before the draft, while Lidstrom has already started to do some homework.

“Some of the guys in here have asked what I’m thinking and what I’ll try to do,” Lidstrom said. “I had a chance to talk to [Red Wings general manager] Ken Holland this morning, try to get some pointers from him, he should be a good guy to ask questions.”

Teammate Henrik Zetterberg told DetroitRedWings.com: “It’s going to be fun to see when Nick picks the team, and what kind of strategy he will have. We haven’t really had the chance to discuss it yet, but I think we will definitely do that, and I think we’ll have a lot of voices from here helping him choose the players.”

We live out lives in private shells
Ignore our senses and fool ourselves
To thinking that out there there’s someone else cares
Someone to answer all our prayers

Are we too far gone, are we so irresponsible
Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care
We’re terminal cases that keep talking medicine
Pretending the end isn’t quite that near

We make futile gestures, act to the cameras
With our made up faces and PR smiles
And when the angel comes down, down to deliver us
We’ll find out that after all, we’re only men of straw

But everything is still the same
Passing the time passing the blame
We carry on in the same old way
We’ll find out we left it too late one day to say what we meant to say

**********************************

a great great band – Marillion is still not widely known in this area

some lyrics from the song “Last straw”, on the disc “Clutching at Straws” (1987)

Here it all is in the current state.  The poor electrician is trying to work around my mess, I feel bad for the guy.  Today I am getting a bunch of contractor garbage bags and getting a lot of the tile, cement board, and other junk out of here.  I can’t even see what  I swinging the hammer at anymore

Still to have done:  install the fan (there wasn’t one before), install the canister light in the shower (again, nothing before), and he has to drop  new GFI down.

On my part I have to finished ripping the wall tile/cement down and pull up the existing cement sub-floor to get at the shower pan.

First the floor…

then the walls (thanks for the help, Tasha!)….

Remodelling the bathroom is a project the house has needed since the day we bought it 8 years ago.  So the time has ome to attack it.  This is already a lot more expensive that I would have thought, but it should be all worth it.  Still at the gutting phase, but also haveing the electrical work done at the same time.

FYI:  taking a sledgehammer to a wall may inflict damage to the wall on the other side.  Just a little advice from your friendly neighborhood klutz.  A klutz that needs to do a little repair work now

Not sure how often I can get the blog updated – will try to hit the major benchmarks.

Here are some “before” pics: