MichaelDeM's Weblog

My 2010 Twitter Wordle

MichaelDeM — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 05:38:13 +0000

Looking over my blog, I realized that it would be a neat idea to do another Wordle and post results. Wordle doesn’t offer the easy ‘enter your twitter name’ generator anymore but I was able to enter my twitter RSS feed URL and generate a Wordle that way. Hence my twitter name ‘MichaelDeM’ appearing. In case you didn’t know, word size is dictated by frequency of use. Interesting that the words ‘Happy’ and ‘Thanksgiving’ appear as the 2nd and 3rd highest frequency of use words. And here it is:

My Thoughts On The No Baggage Challenge

MichaelDeM — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:06:27 +0000

I posted this originally on my Facebook page and would like to share it with the rest of the world.

I wanted to share this interesting adventure/blog that I learned about from Scott Jordan of SCOTTEVEST/SeV. The blog is the No Baggage Challenge at www.rtwblog.com. Rolf Potts is traveling around the world with only the clothes on his back. The ScotteVest tropical jacket/vest he is wearing has numerous pockets for which he can carry extra clothes and other necessaries. A funny thing is that I own several of the ScotteVest clothing items he has and I love them just for the same reasons.

Here is a man carrying only: a ScotteVest Tropical Jacket, 1 pair ScotteVest Ultimate Cargo Pants, a Q-Zip pullover shirt, 2 Performance t-shirts, travel underwear, 3 pair Smartwool socks, a pair Blundstone boots, a belt, and a TEC ballcap. In addition, packed into the jacket no less, are: deodorant, toothbrush & toothpaste, concentrated liquid detergent, All-in-one-soap, glasses, contact solution and case, sunscreen and lip balm, earplugs, iPod Touch, Bluetooth Foldable Keyboard, Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS camera, small flashlight, pen and notebook, Passport, Credit/ATM/debit card, sunglasses, and a few safety pins.

He has already traveled through Europe, South Africa, and is currently in Thailand. He is an interesting read and I love the videos.

Reading the blog makes me think about how I pack for my own trips. Ever the boy scout, I believe that I burden myself with carrying too many “just-in-cases.” My toiletries kit is one such place. Not only does it carry a myriad of hygiene tools and products, it also carries many extra medicines and first aid supplies – “just-in-case.” Need to darn a sock? I’m your man with my sewing kit. Although, I’ve never darned a sock on a trip and probably never will. On the clothing list there are the extra socks, underwear, pants, shirt, and shoes. There may also be a set of dressier clothes packed “just-in-case” I’m invited to a dinner where the wearing of jacket and tie are de rigueur. Depending on the year there may also be a bathing suit and of course we can’t forget our towel. By the way, swim wear styles being what they are, I’ve found a great set of trunks that double as shorts perfectly. With cold weather traveling, the list is practically doubled. And then, there is the other stuff. The phone, the laptop, the camera, the kindle, Molskine notebook, and the various batteries, cables, and chargers for all. This is by no means, a definitive list.

Typically though, if flying, I can pack all that into a checked bag and the electronic gear into a carry on. Traveling on duty assignments for the Army would get crazy sometimes as i would have to pack civilian clothes with uniforms and field gear. Kevlar helmets don’t pack very well in standard suitcases.

However, when traveling by car, you might find a kitchen sink in the trunk. You should see my wife and I when we travel home to South Georgia. We spend about two weeks visiting with my and her families and I think we both tend to bring enough clothes for any occasion. I find there are the extra clothes as well for in case I need a suit to go out for dinner. Also cold/temperate weather outer wear as it’s freezing when we depart Kentucky but in Georgia the weather can be just as freezing, raining, or warm.

It was like that in the Army too. We would bring so much to the field and packed in such a way to break out depending on the mission. Moving out to the field on the APC or truck, I would bring a map case, day (assault) bag, large rucksack, and two duffel bags of gear, not to mention the kit that is worn to carry ammo, water, etc. By nightfall, I could find myself on OP with just the day bag.

I’m starting to get back into back packing; I want to be as light as possible. There can be challenges there as well. Not only are there the 10 essentials, there are also the requirements of clothing, food, food preparation gear, sleeping gear, and shelter. It can be a lot depending on the time of year and days on the trail. Even there, I find there are lots of “just-in-cases” that may not be used while on the trip but if something should happen, damned glad to have on hand. I think the key is to separate the ‘must haves’ from the items that are there to provide comfort.

Could I do what Rolf is doing? I probably could & could eliminate a few things off his list as well. Still, I sure would like to at least have a ‘murse’, a sling/messenger bag or whatever, to carry some things in with me. It’s something to consider next time I travel. However, I think that the next Christmas trip home will be the same packing chaos.

My Wordle

MichaelDeM — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:08:34 +0000

I discovered Wordle today. It takes the cloud of your Twitter text and arranges it. You can then tweak it’s colors and look. I like to think of it as words as art. Leaving out my “@’s” I get a pretty interesting image.

Managing Your Digital Life Blog

MichaelDeM — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:04:41 +0000

One of the things I’ve been doing lately while going to college is getting more serious in my photography. My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic that my father gave me and I’ve been taking pictures ever since. Through school I took photography classes, learned darkroom techniques and was in the photo club taking pictures for the yearbook, etc. When I graduated High School in 1982, I began working for a camera store in Charleston S.C., got a Nikon F and specialized in architecture, scenic, and event photography. However, one day my kit was stolen out of my car and I wound up following my parents to Tampa Florida. There I worked as a bartender and did some serious work installing & maintaining satellite CATV systems. Having always a desire to serve my country, I joined the Army and wound out making a career out of it. Of course, wherever I went, be it field exercise or deployment, I had a camera with me to document my travels.

So, with that said, I’ve been getting up to speed with advanced digital techniques, building my networks, and surveying what’s new on the photography internet scene. One site I found today is Managing Your Digital Life MYDL is the creation of Scott Bourne and Andy Ihnatko, both digital pioneers. The foucus of the blog is currently on backup devices and policies. Readers of the blog can get a pretty good deal at the Drobo Store. Although I prefer the HP EX470 Homeserver, the Drobo is an easy to set up and maintain file server & backup system.

I’m telling you folks, with memory and storage as cheap as it is today, you need to have a backup plan. It can be so simple to to back up to a 16 Gig flash-drive and another backup set to a off site for added protection. Just the other day I was using Adobe Elements and went to delete a folder I no longer needed. That resulted in deleting over 3000 images in my photos directory. Once that would have been a major disaster but I’ve managed to have copies of my images on a flash-drive, my PowerBook, the homeserver, Picasa, and on Dell backup. I copied images from the flash-drive to the hard drive and rebuilt the Elements catalog. Disaster adverted. I’ve purchased a copy of Adobe’s Lightroom. I’m hoping that helps me to organize my images better but if not, I’m going to go all the way with a Mac solution and use Aperture 2.

Of Blue Cards and Razers…

MichaelDeM — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:29:57 +0000

Today was a special day. Thursday was the last day of my terminal leave and today, Friday was the 1st of August and my official day of retirement from the Army. As such, my active duty ID card expired and rather than put it off, my wife and I went to the ID card issue office first thing this morning to get our new ID’s. My wife’s card is still brown, the color of a “dependent.” My card is a light blue. The color of a retiree. Active duty cards used to be green but that changed when they went with the new smart cards. Army Reserve cards were a nice shade of pink but carried a negative connotation for most Reservist and Guardsmen and so when the Active component went to the smart card, they followed suit. So that is what made today special for me. I feel kinda weird though. I feel happy and relieved but more so I just feel kinda ‘off.’ I’ll be glad when school starts so I can put my energies into something.

To celebrate afterward, I took myself to Best Buy. I had it in my head to check out the Razer mice (or is it mouses?) I have a Logitech G5 mouse and a G15 keyboard but I felt I needed something more pro as it was. I decided on a Lachesis mouse (4000dpi! 9 programmable buttons!) I also talked myself into a Lycosa keyboard. I like the short stroke keys and it feels really good. The mouse is slick and I need to get used to its quickness but for FPS games, it should come in handy. I also talked myself into a Barracuda headset from Razer but I’ll probably return it to the store after this weekend’s LAN party because already I see that it has some issues with my system.

I’ll be sure to get some pictures of my rig and gear. With my luck, I’ll win some Razer gear as they are a major sponsor of the LAN party this weekend. Maybe they’ll ask me to sign onto Team Razer since I have all their gear now.

While I was at Wal-Mart today…

MichaelDeM — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:22:20 +0000

I paid a rare visit to Wal-Mart today to pick up some dish washer soap. Of course I have to make my way to the electronics department to check it out in case there is some rare, low priced gizmo that I have to have. This brings me past the toy department where I discover in the aisle a display of Star Wars toys. I noticed a couple blasters and a pile of ‘light sabers’. I also noticed that the cardboard display is upside down. I notice this because the end of the display was about four feet by three with the upside down Star Wars logo and words. Uh-huh, okay. And then I see them. At $149 each, two and one half feet in length, the Millennium Falcon, or rather several Millennium Falcons. Each with a miniature Action Figure of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Oh man, did this bring back memories…at least New and Improved memories. I think to myself. I should buy this. I should buy this and bring it home. Bring it home to the house that I share with my intellectually mature and sophisticated wife and have her try and figure out why I spent $149 plus tax for a ‘childs’ toy. However I know why. It’s because when I was young and these first came out, I couldn’t have one. Well, maybe not couldn’t, but didn’t have. It wasn’t because one day I went to my parents and said to them, in an English childs accent, “Mother, Father, may I have a Millennium Falcon?” and they didn’t get me one. I’m pretty sure though had I done so my father would have looked at me like a bug under glass and the result would be the same. I’m not sure but I believe that at the time this came out, I was probably at the age known as ‘too old.’ I was ‘too old’ for Star Wars figures. ‘Too old’ for Micronauts. ‘Too old’ for Legos. ::sigh:: But I could buy it now. Yes, I could take my discretionary funds and purchase that hunk of plastic made in China and take it home. Take it home and open the box, smell the fresh smell of plastic and marvel at the detail created through mass production. I’d take it out of the box and caress my hands over it. Place Han and Chewey in their rightful places at the cockpit and prepare it for its first flight. Running through the house with it over my head, making swooshing and swishing sounds, peppered with the pewpewpew of lasers, as the dogs leap and bark at my feet. My wife would note the pending symptoms of my early senility and question her decision to marry me. But no, I don’t do that. I take out my iPhone and take a picture of it so that I can blog about it later in the day. I sigh and shake my head at the thought that Star Wars is still relevant today. With all that done, I wander over to the TV sets to check them out because I keep having ideas of getting a HDTV for a couple hundred that I can play my Xbox 360 on instead of the living room TV all the time.

In addition to the dish washer soap, I remembered to pick up a box of Moon Pies. That was an adventure in itself as they certainly were not with the Little Debbie snacks so I figure that they must be in the cookie section Yes, down towards the end, close to the floor I find the Moon Pies. I get a box of the chocolate mini single as the doubles come in a much bigger box. After dinner, I place a couple pies on a plate and nuke them in the microwave. I think that 30 seconds is too much. However, with a glass of milk, it was pretty good. It sure beats a Moon Pie off the shelf washed down with a bottle of RC coke-cola.

Things I learned today….

MichaelDeM — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:44:08 +0000

I learned, but haven’t tried yet, that if you microwave a chocolate moon pie, it will taste pretty good. You might want to eat it with a fork though.

I learned by watching videos how to make biodiesel fuel. What do you do with the glycerin after the separation and the water after drying the fuel? Does it become HAZMAT? Surely you don’t pour it into the ground? I’ll have to check out biodiesel.org and see if it’s covered there. It seemed to be a very straight forward operation once it’s set up and depending on the set up. There were references made to getting used cooking oil for free but I’ve notice that at least on the East coast that most restaurants pay to have the cooking oil removed for recycling. I remember a couple years ago hearing stories in Savannah of a rash of restaurants having their waste oil stolen.

My Xfire signature…

MichaelDeM — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:57:55 +0000

Hmmmm…so I can post html…question is, will it actively update?

Hmmmm, nope. Although I entered the code for a sig badge, it treats it just as a graphic. Oh well.

Oh my bad. It is updating. That’s a pretty cool thing then.

Hello World V2.0!

MichaelDeM — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:40:44 +0000

Testing my first post with the wordpress iPhone applet. Now I can post from my iPhone!

iWeb Site Address

MichaelDeM — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:37:43 +0000

Howdy all,

Our web site of pictures and what not is at http://web.mac.com/michaeldem/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html