4 of 5 in a series of placeholder blog posts. :-) Day 5 started with a character breakfast at the Crystal Palace. We only managed to get on a few rides during the day but went back for "extra magic hours" after spending a few hours at Downtown Disney. As with the previous posts, this will get fleshed out when I get better network access.
At the Hadrian Hotel
Monday, November 12, 2007
Disney World - Day 4 - Magic Kingdom
4 of 5 in a series of placeholder blog posts. :-) Day 5 started with a character breakfast at the Crystal Palace. We only managed to get on a few rides during the day but went back for "extra magic hours" after spending a few hours at Downtown Disney. As with the previous posts, this will get fleshed out when I get better network access.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Disney World - Day 3 - Animal Kingdom
Day 3 at WDW was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom...
We started off on the Kali River Rapids where we all got slightly damp. The boys wanted to ride again, so Randee and I hung out near the exit and watched a few of the more local primates hang out. While everybody continued to dry out, we roamed around, learned a bit about the Komodo Dragon and headed over to the bat house. All of the bats are male, but that doesn't prevent them from "fighting," as one little girl commented. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
The boys and I had been pin trading since we arrived at WDW and our day at the Animal Kingdom presented more opportunities for trading. In fact, it presented opportunities for more than just trading. We were on our way to the 2PM Lion King show when the boys stopped to trade pins with "Joe," a cast member with a clipboard. We chatted for a while and he eventually asked us if we were planning on watching "Mickey's Jingle Jungle Parade." We said we probably would and he asked if we'd like some really good seats. That sounded good to us, so he showed us the route of the parade and said that our seats would follow the parade route. The only requirements were that we wear some minor costumes (vests and Goofy hats with antlers, as it turns out) and wave to everybody - we'd actually be in the parade! How many times does something like *this* come along? (Answer: not nearly often enough).
We went of to the Lion King show and then wandered off to the parade's starting location. We were given our costumes, put on a float, and off we went! We rode all around the park and waved and smiled at many, many people. It was really satisfying to see little kids' eyes light up when you smiled their way. It made you want to keep smiling and waving even thought your arm felt like it would fall off any minute. One amusing moment during the parade was when we looked into the sea of people and saw Mark's 3rd grade teacher waving to us. You just never know who you'l run into at Disney World.
After the parade, there was not a whole lot of time left until the park closed for the day, so we headed off to the new Expedition Everest. The boys and I had each gotten a FastPass for this one earlier in the day and we were ready to go. Randee had no interest so she cruised the gift shop while me and the guys waited on line. The ride was fun and the boys went again since the line was now pretty short. It turns out that Randee spent her time in the gift shop getting the 3 of us Expedition Everest t-shirts for Christmas. It was a nice reminder of the trip when we got them.
So day 3 didn't include too many attractions but it did include a once-in-a-lifetime thrill for all of us. I think that riding in the parade was, for all of us, the highlight of the day, and perhaps the entire trip.
UPDATED 2008/03/19: Way later than I expected.... I originally posted a day 3 (Saturday) entry from my Blackberry at 1:15 AM on Sunday (Nov. 11) using IMified, which is cool, but not great for long blog posts - especially if you want links and pictures.
We started off on the Kali River Rapids where we all got slightly damp. The boys wanted to ride again, so Randee and I hung out near the exit and watched a few of the more local primates hang out. While everybody continued to dry out, we roamed around, learned a bit about the Komodo Dragon and headed over to the bat house. All of the bats are male, but that doesn't prevent them from "fighting," as one little girl commented. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
The boys and I had been pin trading since we arrived at WDW and our day at the Animal Kingdom presented more opportunities for trading. In fact, it presented opportunities for more than just trading. We were on our way to the 2PM Lion King show when the boys stopped to trade pins with "Joe," a cast member with a clipboard. We chatted for a while and he eventually asked us if we were planning on watching "Mickey's Jingle Jungle Parade." We said we probably would and he asked if we'd like some really good seats. That sounded good to us, so he showed us the route of the parade and said that our seats would follow the parade route. The only requirements were that we wear some minor costumes (vests and Goofy hats with antlers, as it turns out) and wave to everybody - we'd actually be in the parade! How many times does something like *this* come along? (Answer: not nearly often enough).
We went of to the Lion King show and then wandered off to the parade's starting location. We were given our costumes, put on a float, and off we went! We rode all around the park and waved and smiled at many, many people. It was really satisfying to see little kids' eyes light up when you smiled their way. It made you want to keep smiling and waving even thought your arm felt like it would fall off any minute. One amusing moment during the parade was when we looked into the sea of people and saw Mark's 3rd grade teacher waving to us. You just never know who you'l run into at Disney World.
After the parade, there was not a whole lot of time left until the park closed for the day, so we headed off to the new Expedition Everest. The boys and I had each gotten a FastPass for this one earlier in the day and we were ready to go. Randee had no interest so she cruised the gift shop while me and the guys waited on line. The ride was fun and the boys went again since the line was now pretty short. It turns out that Randee spent her time in the gift shop getting the 3 of us Expedition Everest t-shirts for Christmas. It was a nice reminder of the trip when we got them.
So day 3 didn't include too many attractions but it did include a once-in-a-lifetime thrill for all of us. I think that riding in the parade was, for all of us, the highlight of the day, and perhaps the entire trip.
UPDATED 2008/03/19: Way later than I expected.... I originally posted a day 3 (Saturday) entry from my Blackberry at 1:15 AM on Sunday (Nov. 11) using IMified, which is cool, but not great for long blog posts - especially if you want links and pictures.
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Saturday, November 10, 2007
Disney World - Day 2 - Epcot
Today we spent a *really* long ("Extra Magic Hours") day at Epcot. We got kind of a late start and didn't actually get on a ride until around 10:45 AM. That ride was "Mission Space" where we discovered that, unlike the last time we were at WDW, there are 2 flavors of the ride: one where they spin you and one where they don't. The boys and I opted for all-spinning, all-dancing and enjoyed it quite well.
After "Mission Space" we met up with Randee's sister Merryl and her girls: Megan and Lauren. We headed for
the "Universe of Energy" where we got to see "Ellen," "Alex" and "Bill Nye The Science Guy" (Bill! Bill!). Nothing new to report here, but we always seem to enjoy this one. We went on to "The Seas" followed by "The Land" where we had lunch.
Other than "Soarin'" (which we rode later, during our Extra Magic Hours), both Land and Sea were pretty disappointing. "The Seas" now seems to be much more geared toward younger visitors (way pre-teen). I remember there being more scientific information available in the past. The boat ride in "The Land" was pretty useless. The last time we went to WDW, there was a cast member riding along with us, explaining what was what and answering questions. This time, we were on our own except for a few pre-recorded blurbs here and there.
After lunch, we headed for "Test Track" which is always fun. We rode again during the Extra Magic Hours, but I took a video clip for our first ride. On the way out, Eric found the car he wants when he turns 17 in January. If he can pay for it, he can have it!
The rest of the daylight hours were spent roaming around the World Showcase. We rode the "River of Time" (another attraction modified down to the way pre-teen level, sigh) and the Maelstrom. We saw Chinese Acrobats and found "Hidden Mickeys" and wandered around until about dinner time, when Merryl and the girls headed back to their hotel. The four of us then had dinner at the "Rose and Crown" where we had lagoon-side seats for the nightly "Illuminations" light and fireworks show. The food was great and we had a great view of the show. If you'd like to watch the show while enjoying some typical British fare, I highly recommend that you make reservations at the Rose and Crown for dinner - and be sure to tell them that you'd like outside seating to watch the fireworks.
We ended the night with a ride on Soarin' which involved almost an hour waiting on line. The wait was worth it (just like it was last time). To keep you amused while you're waiting, they have an interactive wall that allows the crowd to move various animated objects and animals back and forth across the wall. If you wave your arms to the right and your shadow moves into an object, the object moves to the right. The same goes for left, up, and down. They have a number of different games they run, alternating them such that you (hopefully) don't end up playing the same game twice while you're waiting. The ride itself is pretty spectacular. You sit in a "car" in a row of 6 or 8 seats, all facing a large curved screen. Your car gets lifted into the air so that your feet are dangling (don't wear flip-flops!) and all you can see is the screen. They then play an iMax-like movie while blowing you with a gentle breeze, appropriately scented for the area over which you are flying. You almost wish it could go on forever. This one is a definite for Fastpass. I honestly wouldn't mind riding this 2 or 3 times.
I have pictures from this trip over at flickr, with the Epcot pics starting here.
UPDATE 2008/01/04: I originally posted this from my Blackbery using IMified early morning on day 3 as a placeholder post to be fleshed out when I got a net connection better than my Blackberry (and I wasn't ready to just collapse onto the bed :-) ).
After "Mission Space" we met up with Randee's sister Merryl and her girls: Megan and Lauren. We headed for
the "Universe of Energy" where we got to see "Ellen," "Alex" and "Bill Nye The Science Guy" (Bill! Bill!). Nothing new to report here, but we always seem to enjoy this one. We went on to "The Seas" followed by "The Land" where we had lunch.
Other than "Soarin'" (which we rode later, during our Extra Magic Hours), both Land and Sea were pretty disappointing. "The Seas" now seems to be much more geared toward younger visitors (way pre-teen). I remember there being more scientific information available in the past. The boat ride in "The Land" was pretty useless. The last time we went to WDW, there was a cast member riding along with us, explaining what was what and answering questions. This time, we were on our own except for a few pre-recorded blurbs here and there.
After lunch, we headed for "Test Track" which is always fun. We rode again during the Extra Magic Hours, but I took a video clip for our first ride. On the way out, Eric found the car he wants when he turns 17 in January. If he can pay for it, he can have it!
The rest of the daylight hours were spent roaming around the World Showcase. We rode the "River of Time" (another attraction modified down to the way pre-teen level, sigh) and the Maelstrom. We saw Chinese Acrobats and found "Hidden Mickeys" and wandered around until about dinner time, when Merryl and the girls headed back to their hotel. The four of us then had dinner at the "Rose and Crown" where we had lagoon-side seats for the nightly "Illuminations" light and fireworks show. The food was great and we had a great view of the show. If you'd like to watch the show while enjoying some typical British fare, I highly recommend that you make reservations at the Rose and Crown for dinner - and be sure to tell them that you'd like outside seating to watch the fireworks.
We ended the night with a ride on Soarin' which involved almost an hour waiting on line. The wait was worth it (just like it was last time). To keep you amused while you're waiting, they have an interactive wall that allows the crowd to move various animated objects and animals back and forth across the wall. If you wave your arms to the right and your shadow moves into an object, the object moves to the right. The same goes for left, up, and down. They have a number of different games they run, alternating them such that you (hopefully) don't end up playing the same game twice while you're waiting. The ride itself is pretty spectacular. You sit in a "car" in a row of 6 or 8 seats, all facing a large curved screen. Your car gets lifted into the air so that your feet are dangling (don't wear flip-flops!) and all you can see is the screen. They then play an iMax-like movie while blowing you with a gentle breeze, appropriately scented for the area over which you are flying. You almost wish it could go on forever. This one is a definite for Fastpass. I honestly wouldn't mind riding this 2 or 3 times.
I have pictures from this trip over at flickr, with the Epcot pics starting here.
UPDATE 2008/01/04: I originally posted this from my Blackbery using IMified early morning on day 3 as a placeholder post to be fleshed out when I got a net connection better than my Blackberry (and I wasn't ready to just collapse onto the bed :-) ).
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Friday, November 09, 2007
Disney World - Day 1 - MGM
Last night we flew from PHL to Orlando (via Atlanta), got onto Disney's Magical Express, and arrived at the Port Orleans Riverside around 10PM. Fortunately, we had gotten some good advice about packing "first night" clothing and such in a carry-on bag, so we didn't need to wait for our luggage to catch up with us (good thing too, as it didn't get to the resort until 3AM).
Today we spent the day at Disney MGM Studios. The highlights were the new "Lights, Motors, Action" stunt show imported from Disneyland Paris, the Rockin' Roller Coaster, and Fantasmic. The stunt show was very cool (and very loud). This being a Disney attraction, it naturally had a back story: they are "filming" a number of chase sequences for an upcoming movie. Of course they're not really doing that, but it does provide for a bit of behind-the-scenes style theater. If you like fast cars, fast bikes, jumps and flames, this is a show must-see.
The last time we were at the Disney-MGM Studios, they had not yet built the Rockin' Roller Coaster. The premise is that you've been invited by Aerosmith to one of their shows, but everybody's running very late so they need to put you in a really fast limo. They shoot this limo out of the staging area at what seems like 0 to 60 MPH in about 1.5 seconds. I'm sure I have the numbers wrong, but we did get up to speed very quickly. The limo took you over the surprisingly winding and hilly LA freeways to the tune of (naturally) blaring Aerosmith music. Too bad all limo rides can't be like that.
We also tried something new (for us) this year by signing up for a dining plan. This is a really good deal. We had lunch at the ABC Commissary and dinner at Spoodles (at the Boardwalk), saved a substantial bit of money, and walked away from both meals *far* from hungry. The meal plan entitled each of us to a sit-down meal, a counter-service meal, and a snack, every day. The counter-service meal included an entree, a drink and a dessert and the full-service meal added an appetizer to that. I just have to say that the food at Spoodles was absolutely great. I would eat there again even without the meal plan, but I don't think I'd order nearly as much food.
After dinner we headed back to Disney-MGM for the evening's showing of Fantasmic. We saw the show years ago when we were last at Disney-MGM, but I don't remember enough to say if/how the show has evolved. There was lots of smoke and fireworks, as well as animations and movie clips projected on water sprays (which were pretty cool). And of course, there were plenty of Disney characters and extras. All-in-all it was a good show.
I have a bunch of pictures from this trip over at flickr.
UPDATE 2007/12/11: I originally posted this from my Blackbery using IMified. It's a great tool for quick posts, but if you want multiple paragraphs, formatting and HTTP links, you need to do a little post processing on a bigger screen.
Today we spent the day at Disney MGM Studios. The highlights were the new "Lights, Motors, Action" stunt show imported from Disneyland Paris, the Rockin' Roller Coaster, and Fantasmic. The stunt show was very cool (and very loud). This being a Disney attraction, it naturally had a back story: they are "filming" a number of chase sequences for an upcoming movie. Of course they're not really doing that, but it does provide for a bit of behind-the-scenes style theater. If you like fast cars, fast bikes, jumps and flames, this is a show must-see.
The last time we were at the Disney-MGM Studios, they had not yet built the Rockin' Roller Coaster. The premise is that you've been invited by Aerosmith to one of their shows, but everybody's running very late so they need to put you in a really fast limo. They shoot this limo out of the staging area at what seems like 0 to 60 MPH in about 1.5 seconds. I'm sure I have the numbers wrong, but we did get up to speed very quickly. The limo took you over the surprisingly winding and hilly LA freeways to the tune of (naturally) blaring Aerosmith music. Too bad all limo rides can't be like that.
We also tried something new (for us) this year by signing up for a dining plan. This is a really good deal. We had lunch at the ABC Commissary and dinner at Spoodles (at the Boardwalk), saved a substantial bit of money, and walked away from both meals *far* from hungry. The meal plan entitled each of us to a sit-down meal, a counter-service meal, and a snack, every day. The counter-service meal included an entree, a drink and a dessert and the full-service meal added an appetizer to that. I just have to say that the food at Spoodles was absolutely great. I would eat there again even without the meal plan, but I don't think I'd order nearly as much food.
After dinner we headed back to Disney-MGM for the evening's showing of Fantasmic. We saw the show years ago when we were last at Disney-MGM, but I don't remember enough to say if/how the show has evolved. There was lots of smoke and fireworks, as well as animations and movie clips projected on water sprays (which were pretty cool). And of course, there were plenty of Disney characters and extras. All-in-all it was a good show.
I have a bunch of pictures from this trip over at flickr.
UPDATE 2007/12/11: I originally posted this from my Blackbery using IMified. It's a great tool for quick posts, but if you want multiple paragraphs, formatting and HTTP links, you need to do a little post processing on a bigger screen.
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Tuesday, October 30, 2007
I Have Spies Everywhere
Today, Princeton University held its annual vendor fair. I asked my wife, Randee, if she was planning on attending, and she said "no." One of the vendors there was Dell and they were holding a drawing for a Latitude D630 laptop. I decided to pass, as you needed to be present to win and I wasn't planning on hanging around. -- One of Randee's co-workers had entered the drawing and gone back to the office. She was heading back to the fair, asked Randee to go with her and Randee agreed. With 10 minutes to go before the drawing, Randee decided to enter. 15 minutes later I got a message on my Blackberry from one of my co-workers telling me that Randee won the laptop. A few minutes later I received another message telling me the same thing. -- I sent Randee an EMail asking her if she had anything she wanted to tell me. I got a phone call a few minutes later asking how I knew, before she even got back to her office. I told her that "I have spies everywhere.". :-)
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
GMail Now Supports IMAP
I'm in NYC today, attending Interop. One of the keynote speakers is Matthew Glotzbach, who is Head of Products, Google Enterprise. In his talk he announced that, as of today, GMail supports IMAP in addition to POP. Now all of us who use Thunderbird or Mail.app can access our GMail using the same interface we use for our other EMail. Woo-Hoo!
Technorati Tags: Google, GMail, IMAP
Technorati Tags: Google, GMail, IMAP
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Test from IMified
I just found out about IMified and decided to give it a try. The whole idea is to be able to do a bunch of different things by sending messages to a single IM buddy. You set up an account by adding imified as a buddy and then sending a message. You get a message back with a URL. Visit that page to complete your setup. You can add different widgets to you IMified menu (which is displayed in the conversation when you send IMified a message). I added the Blogger and Remember the Milk widgets to my menu, as well as one called NetLookup, which allows you to do things like ping, traceroute, and whois. Sounds pretty neat.
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Thursday, September 20, 2007
Google as Landlord
Today I attended the first "IT Policy Lunch" of the school year. These are weekly lunch-time discussions hosted by Ed Felten, director of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy. The topic on the table was "Computing in the Clouds." If you're not familiar with the concept, it is essentially computing as a service, typified by Yahoo!'s flickr and Google Mail. We were given pointers to 2 short blog posts by John Markoff of the "New York Times" for background reading that go into a bit more detail than the one-liner I wrote here.
The discussion was lively and touched on a number of topics such as the level of privacy that users of these services should expect, how difficult should it be for law enforcement to gain access to the data, and do many users even know or care that these types of issues exist? The most notable take-away for me, however, is from a comment made to Ed after the session ended by Matthew Adlai-Gail, Director of New Product Development at Kaplan Eduneering.
Matt said that these services are analogous to an apartment building, where the landlord has the keys, but each tenant has an expectation of privacy within their "space." This seemed to me to be just about right. If I live in an apartment, I can fill it up with my things. As long as I lock the door(s) and windows, I feel confident that nobody will go snooping around when I'm not there. Yes, the landlord has the keys. But between my lease and various laws, he is not likely to use them just to come in and start going through my stuff. If the police want to see what I have, they need to get a warrant from a judge.
Let's say I have a Google account and I use Google Docs to save a few spreadsheets and other random documents. If I have a reasonable password on my account and I don't explicitly share any of documents with anybody, is it more like I have them on a desk in my apartment, or have I left them lying around on the sidewalk? I'd like to think that I haven't left my documents where they can be picked up and read by anybody, and I suspect that many users of these services feel the same way. That just seems reasonable to me. I'll keep my stuff in my "apartment" and let Google be my landlord. While I'm at it, maybe I'll get a place over at the Flickr building for my pictures and let Yahoo! be my landlord over there. I might even put a bunch of pictures in the windows so that everybody can see them. :-)
So, what do you think?
The discussion was lively and touched on a number of topics such as the level of privacy that users of these services should expect, how difficult should it be for law enforcement to gain access to the data, and do many users even know or care that these types of issues exist? The most notable take-away for me, however, is from a comment made to Ed after the session ended by Matthew Adlai-Gail, Director of New Product Development at Kaplan Eduneering.
Matt said that these services are analogous to an apartment building, where the landlord has the keys, but each tenant has an expectation of privacy within their "space." This seemed to me to be just about right. If I live in an apartment, I can fill it up with my things. As long as I lock the door(s) and windows, I feel confident that nobody will go snooping around when I'm not there. Yes, the landlord has the keys. But between my lease and various laws, he is not likely to use them just to come in and start going through my stuff. If the police want to see what I have, they need to get a warrant from a judge.
Let's say I have a Google account and I use Google Docs to save a few spreadsheets and other random documents. If I have a reasonable password on my account and I don't explicitly share any of documents with anybody, is it more like I have them on a desk in my apartment, or have I left them lying around on the sidewalk? I'd like to think that I haven't left my documents where they can be picked up and read by anybody, and I suspect that many users of these services feel the same way. That just seems reasonable to me. I'll keep my stuff in my "apartment" and let Google be my landlord. While I'm at it, maybe I'll get a place over at the Flickr building for my pictures and let Yahoo! be my landlord over there. I might even put a bunch of pictures in the windows so that everybody can see them. :-)
So, what do you think?
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Gigapixel Google Earth
Apparently, the folks over at the GigaPxl Project have built a camera that can capture thousands of megapixels in a single exposure. They took it around North America and took some very detailed pictures. Then, somebody got the bright idea of integrating these pictures into Google Earth. The results are simply spectacular!
If you haven't downloaded the latest (as of today) version of Google earth, do it right now! Install it, fire it up, and check the "Gigapxl Photos" check-box under "Featured Content" in the layers panel. Then, double-click on the words "Gigapxl Photos" to see what's out there. I've only looked at a few so far, but they are truly amazing.
Navigate your way down to Florida and double-click on the "Space Shuttle Discovery" image icon. Click on the "Fly into..." link and watch the show. Once the image is displayed, you can navigate around it just as you would with Google Earth. Try double-clicking on the car just out from the right tread of the transport. If you zoom in far enough, you can actually read the license plate!
Make your way over to Arizona and double click on the icon for "Angel's Widow" in the Grand Canyon. Fly into that picture and zoom your way toward the dark spot on the top of the outcropping on the right side of the image. Zoom all the way in and be sure to notice the chain-link fence. These images are totally mind-blowing.
I expect that I'll now bewasting spending my entire evening looking at all of these pictures. I really like how they've been aligned with the satellite imagery. A hearty "Bravo!" to all involved.
If you haven't downloaded the latest (as of today) version of Google earth, do it right now! Install it, fire it up, and check the "Gigapxl Photos" check-box under "Featured Content" in the layers panel. Then, double-click on the words "Gigapxl Photos" to see what's out there. I've only looked at a few so far, but they are truly amazing.
Navigate your way down to Florida and double-click on the "Space Shuttle Discovery" image icon. Click on the "Fly into..." link and watch the show. Once the image is displayed, you can navigate around it just as you would with Google Earth. Try double-clicking on the car just out from the right tread of the transport. If you zoom in far enough, you can actually read the license plate!
Make your way over to Arizona and double click on the icon for "Angel's Widow" in the Grand Canyon. Fly into that picture and zoom your way toward the dark spot on the top of the outcropping on the right side of the image. Zoom all the way in and be sure to notice the chain-link fence. These images are totally mind-blowing.
I expect that I'll now be
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Phantom Roads at the Big Dig
I was nosing around Google Maps in Boston's North End when I came across this.
It looks like there's a bit of a problem with old images not meshing properly with new ones. Either that, or cars are driving into the Twilight Zone. While this isn't earth shattering, I did find it somewhat amusing.
It looks like there's a bit of a problem with old images not meshing properly with new ones. Either that, or cars are driving into the Twilight Zone. While this isn't earth shattering, I did find it somewhat amusing.
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Palm Tungsten Case Mod
I have a Palm Tungsten E2, which comes with RealPlayer and an earphone jack. The jack works just fine until you put the Tungsten in a Palm hard case. An unmodified case will not close with a pair of earphones plugged into the Palm because there is no hole for the plug to pass through. This situation makes it a bit difficult to put the case in your pocket when your listening to tunes or a podcast.
Dremel to the rescue!
Looking at the case and the location of the jack on the Palm, I knew that it shouldn't be too difficult to modify the case for an earphone plug if I could get my hands on a Dremel. It turns out that my buddy Steve had one and was willing to lend it to me. Let the modding begin....
I started off by marking the location of the jack on the case with a Sharpie and then making an arc for the cut-out. I used the Sharpie cap to trace out the arc. Naturally, I did this without the benefit of a clamp of any kind, trying to hold the case and the cap with one hand without slipping. I removed the Palm from the case (!) and went to work with the Dremel.
Using a 7mm cutting bit, I roughed out the opening until the Sharpie lines were gone. I then switched to the 14mm sanding drum to gently smooth things out. On my case the base of the arc is roughly flush with the plastic of the case back. When I was using the drum, I angled it down slightly toward the outer edge to remove the lip. After the Dremel, I chipped off th melted plastic that had accumulated and used some 200 grit sandpaper to smooth things out. A little polishing with 000 steel wool and I was done! (mostly)
I cleaned all of the debris from the case and put in the Palm. I then attached some earphones and closed the case. It was almost perfect -- the top of the case hit the earphone plug. So I took out the Palm and grabbed the Dremel with the sanding drum. Very gently. I placed the spinning drum in the cut-out. Making sure to touch the bottom as little as possible and trying to keep the case from sliding side-to-side, I closed the lid slowly until the drum started cutting an arc. When I thought it was big enough, I opened the case, cleaned sanded and polished and tried fitting the Palm in the case again. This time it was perfect.
With a time investment of about 20 minutes, I now have a Palm Tungsten in a case that I can close while I listen to music. The case snaps shut so I don't have to worry about anything flopping around (try plugging earphones in with an unmodified case and you'll see exactly what I mean). All-in-all this was an easy project that will make my Palm a much better music player.
Dremel to the rescue!
Looking at the case and the location of the jack on the Palm, I knew that it shouldn't be too difficult to modify the case for an earphone plug if I could get my hands on a Dremel. It turns out that my buddy Steve had one and was willing to lend it to me. Let the modding begin....
I started off by marking the location of the jack on the case with a Sharpie and then making an arc for the cut-out. I used the Sharpie cap to trace out the arc. Naturally, I did this without the benefit of a clamp of any kind, trying to hold the case and the cap with one hand without slipping. I removed the Palm from the case (!) and went to work with the Dremel.
Using a 7mm cutting bit, I roughed out the opening until the Sharpie lines were gone. I then switched to the 14mm sanding drum to gently smooth things out. On my case the base of the arc is roughly flush with the plastic of the case back. When I was using the drum, I angled it down slightly toward the outer edge to remove the lip. After the Dremel, I chipped off th melted plastic that had accumulated and used some 200 grit sandpaper to smooth things out. A little polishing with 000 steel wool and I was done! (mostly)
I cleaned all of the debris from the case and put in the Palm. I then attached some earphones and closed the case. It was almost perfect -- the top of the case hit the earphone plug. So I took out the Palm and grabbed the Dremel with the sanding drum. Very gently. I placed the spinning drum in the cut-out. Making sure to touch the bottom as little as possible and trying to keep the case from sliding side-to-side, I closed the lid slowly until the drum started cutting an arc. When I thought it was big enough, I opened the case, cleaned sanded and polished and tried fitting the Palm in the case again. This time it was perfect.
With a time investment of about 20 minutes, I now have a Palm Tungsten in a case that I can close while I listen to music. The case snaps shut so I don't have to worry about anything flopping around (try plugging earphones in with an unmodified case and you'll see exactly what I mean). All-in-all this was an easy project that will make my Palm a much better music player.
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Monday, June 18, 2007
Ravenchase Adventures in Princeton
For Father's day this year, my wife and the boys took me on a little adventure in Princeton. Around noon, Randee said to me and the boys that we needed to be out of the house by 12:30 for a little Father's Day adventure. Of course, everybody but me knew where we were going and what was going to happen when we got there, but who am I to turn down an adventure?
We drove into town and went to the Fitzrandolph Gate in front of Nassau Hall. There we met Rob and Kristine Jenner from Ravenchase Adventures. When all 3 teams had arrived, Rob and Kristine went over the rules and the goals. We were given 4 clues to solve and given an "aged" map showing 5 locations on campus. We were to use our 4 clues to find the final clue that would lead us to a restaurant in Princeton where Rob and Kristine would be waiting for us to buy the first round of drinks and award tacky prizes.
Randee and I had a bit of an advantage as we both work on campus. However, that didn't help us in finding the actual clues once we found the right locations on campus. In fact, one set of (supposedly) required clues was completely missing when we got there. In the fountain behind Robertson Hall there is a fountain/pool. In the fountain there were placed 2006 pennies. The clue here was to find a "coppered Civil War power" which was meant to be the image of Abraham Lincoln on the pennies. However, there was a kids "pool party" going on there and it seems that one or more of the kids collected the coins before any of the teams got there.
We wondered around the fountain for a while trying to find anything copper and eventually gave up (we did not know until later about the pennies). We hit all the other locations on the clue sheets we were given and, at the stadium, found a scroll that took us to the last site. There we found a lock-box that we knew contained the cryptex. The clue on the scroll said to use "Lincoln's date" to open the lock. So, not knowing anything about the pennies, we tried 212 (Feb 12 - Lincoln's birthday). That didn't work, so I looked up the date Lincoln was assassinated on my Blackberry and tried that (I know, you might call that cheating). That didn't work either.
So, I decided to try the brute force method. I set all 3 wheels of the lock to "0" and put pressure on the thumb latch. I was hoping that as I set each wheel to the correct digit of the combination that I'd be able to fel a small movement in the latch. I tried 001, 002, 003, 004, and 005 without any movement of the latch button at all. However, when I got to 006, the box popped open, to the amazement of all 4 of us. We had no idea how "006" could be Lincoln's date, at that point.
I removed the cryptex and gave it to Mark, who had asked to try it first. He spun the wheels for a bit when Eric deciphered the key from the scroll. It was an abbreviation for the name of the race -- DADDY. Mark spun it in and opened the cryptex. I removed the scroll and found the final "clue" with the name of the restaurant. At about that time, my cell phone rang. It was Rob apologizing for the missing clue at the fountain. I told him that we had just opened the cryptex and would meet him at Sotto shortly. We got there and found, to our amazement, that we had won the race! The entire time, we had been joking and mis-quoting Rowan Atkinson in "Rat Race" saying ,"It's a race. We're losing!" Boy, were we surprised.
All-in-all, we had a really fun time wandering around the campus and attempting to solve the clues. I'd recommend this for anybody who likes puzzles and the outdoors. Just remember to wear comfortable walking shoes.
We drove into town and went to the Fitzrandolph Gate in front of Nassau Hall. There we met Rob and Kristine Jenner from Ravenchase Adventures. When all 3 teams had arrived, Rob and Kristine went over the rules and the goals. We were given 4 clues to solve and given an "aged" map showing 5 locations on campus. We were to use our 4 clues to find the final clue that would lead us to a restaurant in Princeton where Rob and Kristine would be waiting for us to buy the first round of drinks and award tacky prizes.
Randee and I had a bit of an advantage as we both work on campus. However, that didn't help us in finding the actual clues once we found the right locations on campus. In fact, one set of (supposedly) required clues was completely missing when we got there. In the fountain behind Robertson Hall there is a fountain/pool. In the fountain there were placed 2006 pennies. The clue here was to find a "coppered Civil War power" which was meant to be the image of Abraham Lincoln on the pennies. However, there was a kids "pool party" going on there and it seems that one or more of the kids collected the coins before any of the teams got there.
We wondered around the fountain for a while trying to find anything copper and eventually gave up (we did not know until later about the pennies). We hit all the other locations on the clue sheets we were given and, at the stadium, found a scroll that took us to the last site. There we found a lock-box that we knew contained the cryptex. The clue on the scroll said to use "Lincoln's date" to open the lock. So, not knowing anything about the pennies, we tried 212 (Feb 12 - Lincoln's birthday). That didn't work, so I looked up the date Lincoln was assassinated on my Blackberry and tried that (I know, you might call that cheating). That didn't work either.
So, I decided to try the brute force method. I set all 3 wheels of the lock to "0" and put pressure on the thumb latch. I was hoping that as I set each wheel to the correct digit of the combination that I'd be able to fel a small movement in the latch. I tried 001, 002, 003, 004, and 005 without any movement of the latch button at all. However, when I got to 006, the box popped open, to the amazement of all 4 of us. We had no idea how "006" could be Lincoln's date, at that point.
I removed the cryptex and gave it to Mark, who had asked to try it first. He spun the wheels for a bit when Eric deciphered the key from the scroll. It was an abbreviation for the name of the race -- DADDY. Mark spun it in and opened the cryptex. I removed the scroll and found the final "clue" with the name of the restaurant. At about that time, my cell phone rang. It was Rob apologizing for the missing clue at the fountain. I told him that we had just opened the cryptex and would meet him at Sotto shortly. We got there and found, to our amazement, that we had won the race! The entire time, we had been joking and mis-quoting Rowan Atkinson in "Rat Race" saying ,"It's a race. We're losing!" Boy, were we surprised.
All-in-all, we had a really fun time wandering around the campus and attempting to solve the clues. I'd recommend this for anybody who likes puzzles and the outdoors. Just remember to wear comfortable walking shoes.
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Monday, May 21, 2007
Don't use Preview on the Mac to write EXIF keywords
If you read this blog, you may have realized by now that I'm a fan of flickr. As I write this, I have 791 photos uploaded to flickr. One of the things I like about flickr is the ability to tag photos, and one of the features of the flickr uploadr (buy a vowel already :-) ) for the Mac is that it will use EXIF (IPTC, really) keywords as tags for uploaded photos.
I've been using Phil Harvey's excellent exiftool to do all sorts of header manipulations as well as jhead to reset the filesystem timestamp once I'm all done mucking around with the file. Not too long ago, I discovered that the Preview application on the Mac will let you set keywords as well. Even though I am a command line kind of guy, I liked the idea of setting keywords for an image while I was actually looking at it. So I went through and added keywords to about 50 pictures. I then went to reset the date using jhead, and it complained about the EXIF header directory. I used exiftool to take a look, and it told me there was a problem with the IDF0 directory. Hmmm....
I contacted Phil to ask him if he could enlighten me at all on the problem. He was kind enought to respond almost immediately with an explanation of the error, a way I could find it myself (use 'exiftool -htmldump0') and even a way to fix it! Talk about customer service. Thanks, Phil!
It turns out that in the process of writing the keywords to the .JPG file, Preview would delete the YCbCrPositioning tag from IFD0 but not update the entry count for the IFD. That would corrupt the structure for pretty much everything following the now missing entry. This turns out to be a fair amount of stuff.
Phil suggested that I open a case with Apple, so I gave them a call. After spending about 10 minutes trying to explain what an EXIF header was, why it was important, and what Preview was doing to damage it, the woman at Apple put me on hold. When she came back, she said that they did some testing and since there didn't seem to be a subsequent problem with iPhoto and iDVD, there was nothing she could do for me. Grrrr....
I spent a few more minutes trying to explain why having an Apple application corrupt their users' data was a bad thing. She finally gave in and transferred me to an application specialist. I had to spend some time with him explaining the whole problem again, including the bit about my disappointment with the original "it works for us" response I received. I then remembered that Aperture was an Apple product that might actually care about the contents of the EXIF header and mentioned this to him. I was told to call back in a few days to see if he was able to find out anything useful for me.
I called back today and spoke to the specialist. He said that he had discussed the problem with the product engineers and that they knew about it. They told him that there are no plans to fix the problem at this time and the work-around is to not use Preview to set keywords in photos. As you might imagine, this was not exactly the response I was hoping for. However, in light of the initial response I got when reporting the problem, I probably should have expected it. Sigh....
If you want to try this at home, here's what to do. First, make a copy of the photo you want to work on. Open the copy in Preview and type <APPLE>-I (type 'i' while holding down the "Apple" key). A window will pop up with 3 tabs, the third of which is "Keywords." Click on that tab and then the "Add" button in the bottom of the window. Do this as many times as you want and then exit Preview. You will be prompted to save you changes, which you should do.
Now, open up a Terminal window and 'cd' to the directory where the photo files reside. Run 'exiftool -htmldump0' against the original photo and redirect the output to something ending in ".html." Do the same thing with the modified photo, using a different filename for the output, of course. Back in the GUI, double-click on the 2 ".html" files and compare the output. Scan down the right side of the pages looking for "IDF0-" entries. You should see "invalid IFD entry" listed for the modified photo. If you look at the page for the non-modified photo, you should see a whole bunch of information about your photo that is now lost in the modified image. It is possible to update the "IFD0 entries" field to get back most of the missing information, but it is not for those uncomfortable with the command line....
I've been using Phil Harvey's excellent exiftool to do all sorts of header manipulations as well as jhead to reset the filesystem timestamp once I'm all done mucking around with the file. Not too long ago, I discovered that the Preview application on the Mac will let you set keywords as well. Even though I am a command line kind of guy, I liked the idea of setting keywords for an image while I was actually looking at it. So I went through and added keywords to about 50 pictures. I then went to reset the date using jhead, and it complained about the EXIF header directory. I used exiftool to take a look, and it told me there was a problem with the IDF0 directory. Hmmm....
I contacted Phil to ask him if he could enlighten me at all on the problem. He was kind enought to respond almost immediately with an explanation of the error, a way I could find it myself (use 'exiftool -htmldump0') and even a way to fix it! Talk about customer service. Thanks, Phil!
It turns out that in the process of writing the keywords to the .JPG file, Preview would delete the YCbCrPositioning tag from IFD0 but not update the entry count for the IFD. That would corrupt the structure for pretty much everything following the now missing entry. This turns out to be a fair amount of stuff.
Phil suggested that I open a case with Apple, so I gave them a call. After spending about 10 minutes trying to explain what an EXIF header was, why it was important, and what Preview was doing to damage it, the woman at Apple put me on hold. When she came back, she said that they did some testing and since there didn't seem to be a subsequent problem with iPhoto and iDVD, there was nothing she could do for me. Grrrr....
I spent a few more minutes trying to explain why having an Apple application corrupt their users' data was a bad thing. She finally gave in and transferred me to an application specialist. I had to spend some time with him explaining the whole problem again, including the bit about my disappointment with the original "it works for us" response I received. I then remembered that Aperture was an Apple product that might actually care about the contents of the EXIF header and mentioned this to him. I was told to call back in a few days to see if he was able to find out anything useful for me.
I called back today and spoke to the specialist. He said that he had discussed the problem with the product engineers and that they knew about it. They told him that there are no plans to fix the problem at this time and the work-around is to not use Preview to set keywords in photos. As you might imagine, this was not exactly the response I was hoping for. However, in light of the initial response I got when reporting the problem, I probably should have expected it. Sigh....
If you want to try this at home, here's what to do. First, make a copy of the photo you want to work on. Open the copy in Preview and type <APPLE>-I (type 'i' while holding down the "Apple" key). A window will pop up with 3 tabs, the third of which is "Keywords." Click on that tab and then the "Add" button in the bottom of the window. Do this as many times as you want and then exit Preview. You will be prompted to save you changes, which you should do.
Now, open up a Terminal window and 'cd' to the directory where the photo files reside. Run 'exiftool -htmldump0' against the original photo and redirect the output to something ending in ".html." Do the same thing with the modified photo, using a different filename for the output, of course. Back in the GUI, double-click on the 2 ".html" files and compare the output. Scan down the right side of the pages looking for "IDF0-" entries. You should see "invalid IFD entry" listed for the modified photo. If you look at the page for the non-modified photo, you should see a whole bunch of information about your photo that is now lost in the modified image. It is possible to update the "IFD0 entries" field to get back most of the missing information, but it is not for those uncomfortable with the command line....
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Thursday, May 10, 2007
Backing up your Google Calendar(s)
I've been mucking about lately with ways to synchronize my various Google Calendars with iCal on my MacBook. The latest method I've been working with is gSync, which seems to now work almost just the way I want. Of course, when you're playing around with your all-important calendar data, you want to make sure that you have a backup (or 2 or 3) in a safe place. To that end, I wrote a quick hack of a csh script to slurp my Google Calendar data to a safe place. The script will keep up to 8 versions of the calendar data for a given day, in case you tend to experiment a bit too much.
I include the script below for any of you who may wish to do the same type of thing (that's all of you, right? - you know what happens when you don't back up your data!). Replace the ALL_CAPS stuff with values that are appropriate for your situation. I hope this helps!
I include the script below for any of you who may wish to do the same type of thing (that's all of you, right? - you know what happens when you don't back up your data!). Replace the ALL_CAPS stuff with values that are appropriate for your situation. I hope this helps!
#!/bin/csh
cd DIRECTORY_PATH_FOR_BACKUP_FILES
set today=`date +%Y%m%d`
foreach i (GCAL_1 GCAL_2 GCAL_3 GCAL_4)
foreach j (7 6 5 4 3 2)
set current=`expr $j - 1`
if (-f gc-${i}-${today}.ics.${current}) then
mv gc-${i}-${today}.ics.${current} gc-${i}-${today}.ics.${j}
endif
end
if (-f gc-${i}-${today}.ics) then
mv gc-${i}-${today}.ics gc-${i}-${today}.ics.1
endif
end
set verbose
curl -o gc-GCAL_1-${today}.ics 'GCAL_1_PRIVATE_ICS_URL'
curl -o gc-GCAL_2-${today}.ics 'GCAL_2_PRIVATE_ICS_URL'
curl -o gc-GCAL_3-${today}.ics 'GCAL_3_PRIVATE_ICS_URL'
curl -o gc-GCAL_4-${today}.ics 'GCAL_4_PRIVATE_ICS_URL'
unset verbose
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Wednesday, May 02, 2007
You are Here
Can you find your online home on this map? Boing-Boing and Cory Doctorow's Baloon can be found in the "Blogipeligo" with Stallman's Airship just below MIT. Bonus points for finding the Make Blog.
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
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xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
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Monday, April 23, 2007
Arizona Day 4 - Biosphere 2 and the Trip to Mesa
Saturday morning we left the Westward Look and headed of toward Mesa, to visit with my Aunt and cousin for a few days. However, before we checked out we took a walk on the "Saguaro Nature Trail" on the resort grounds. We took a few pictures and set a geocache. It was really just a plastic food container with a small pad of paper for a log book, but it was our first one, so we didn't want to go overboard.We then checked out of the Westward Look and headed off toward Mesa. Our plans for the day included a visit to Biosphere 2, which was very cool indeed.
It was a nice drive to Biosphere 2 and we arrived around 11:45, in plenty of time to make the noon tour which began with a short lecture about the history and current status of the facility. Then came the good stuff....
Our tour first took us to the ocean environment where they have a one million gallon simulated ocean, complete with gentle waves on the shoreline. From the ocean we moved into the desert environment where I managed to get a picture of a bird in flight.
After the desert came the "behind the scenes" part. We walked down a stairway from the desert section and through a hallway that doubled as ductwork for the ventilation system (it was a bit windy in there :-) ). The tour guide led us to a room beneath the desert that contained large water storage tanks and this sign. Now that's something you don't see every day. We followed the sign to the South Lung, passing down a long tunnel that ended in a triangular shaped connector tunnel.The lung consisted of a large curved metal plate attached to what looked like a donut. When Biosphere 2 was a sealed environment, the South and West Lungs were used as air reservoirs. In the heat of the day, air inside the biosphere would expand, rush down the tunnels to the lungs, and lift the metal plates. If not for the expansion capability of the lungs, the glass panels would have been blown out by the increased pressure of the heated air inside.
We exited the lung and were shown a few more features of Biosphere 2 before our guide left us to roam about on our own. We looked about a little, going down to the ocean viewing room to see what we could see, and then headed off to my Aunt Betty's place.
My Aunt Betty lives in Mesa, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix. It took us around two hours to get there from Biosphere 2, taking the various "86" roads instead of the Interstate. After we got settled in and caught up for a bit, we headed over to my cousin Jim's place, visited there for a bit and headed out to dinner at Caffé Portobello where a good time was had by all. We went back to Aunt Betty's place and crashed.
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Friday, April 20, 2007
12345!
My son Mark told me the other day that my blog was nearing 12,345 hits. Well, not that anybody other than he and I really care, but it happened late (EDT) on Thursday. The lucky winner came from California State University, Northridge. The host was s175n172.csun.edu, which seems to have a DNS 'PTR' record but no 'A' record so I couldn't do a traceroute to it. Whomever you are, thanks for getting me to my next numeric milestone.
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Monday, April 16, 2007
Nor' Easter
As you may know, New Jersey and a number of other eastern states are currently dealing with a Nor' Easter. There's a fair amount of flooding in Mercer County, where I live, and I've put up a small set of pictures on flickr showing some of what's out there.
UPDATE: More Nor' Easter pics available from jcrouthamel, woodcreeper and Cavalier92.
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Thursday, April 12, 2007
Arizona Day 3 - Sabino Canyon
Friday brought us to Sabino Canyon. When we arrived at the parking lot and paid our parking fee, we were given a bright green flyer warning us about mountain lions. "Maintain eye contact." "Do not run." "Make yourself big." "Pick up small children, but do not bend down." That certainly set our minds at ease.
We bought our tram tickets for the ride into the canyon. We were warned that the tram was only running to stop 4 (instead of 9) because the road beyond that was severely damaged by a 1000-year flood last July 31. We were told that the stream flowing through the canyon was the only running water in Tucson.
The tram ride was a 45 minute round trip to stop 4 and back, driving along the two-lane road punctuated by several one-lane bridges. These bridges all had pipes to allow water to flow beneath them, but many of the pipes were blocked (probably due to the flood) and the water flowed over the bridges like waterfalls.
So, we got off at stop 4 and walked further up the road. It was a beautiful day and we walked around for about an hour. We walked along the road and through the stream and took a bunch of pictures. There was quite a bit of mica in the sand in and along the stream, looking kind of like the "gold" we had panned for the day before at the Old Tucson Studios.
On the way back to the visitor's center, the tram driver told us a little bit about the flood and pointed out the debris line on a tree (which was about 6 feet high) and a picnic table that was buried in the sand. We got a five minute stop at the Sabino Canyon dam, which was built in the 1920s to create a lake for boaters. These days, there is no longer any boating in the canyon.
After visiting the canyon, we headed over to the University of Arizona, where Eric had a 2PM tour scheduled (along with about 80 other kids and parents). While Randee and Eric took the tour, Mark and I headed over to the Flandrau Science Center to see what they had to offer.
The Flandrau center has a number of exhibits. Mark and I took advantage of the hands-on physics exhibit where we examined (played around with) light and motion. We also took a quick look at the rocks and minerals exhibit in the basement, which had some interesting specimens. Unfortunately, we got kicked out when they closed at 3PM so we wandered around campus a bit until we met up with Randee and Eric at the end of their tour.
We went back to the hotel for a while and then had dinner at a restaurant around the corner. Then back to the hotel for a little TV before we crashed. Another fun vacation day in Arizona!
We bought our tram tickets for the ride into the canyon. We were warned that the tram was only running to stop 4 (instead of 9) because the road beyond that was severely damaged by a 1000-year flood last July 31. We were told that the stream flowing through the canyon was the only running water in Tucson.
The tram ride was a 45 minute round trip to stop 4 and back, driving along the two-lane road punctuated by several one-lane bridges. These bridges all had pipes to allow water to flow beneath them, but many of the pipes were blocked (probably due to the flood) and the water flowed over the bridges like waterfalls.
So, we got off at stop 4 and walked further up the road. It was a beautiful day and we walked around for about an hour. We walked along the road and through the stream and took a bunch of pictures. There was quite a bit of mica in the sand in and along the stream, looking kind of like the "gold" we had panned for the day before at the Old Tucson Studios.
On the way back to the visitor's center, the tram driver told us a little bit about the flood and pointed out the debris line on a tree (which was about 6 feet high) and a picnic table that was buried in the sand. We got a five minute stop at the Sabino Canyon dam, which was built in the 1920s to create a lake for boaters. These days, there is no longer any boating in the canyon.After visiting the canyon, we headed over to the University of Arizona, where Eric had a 2PM tour scheduled (along with about 80 other kids and parents). While Randee and Eric took the tour, Mark and I headed over to the Flandrau Science Center to see what they had to offer.
The Flandrau center has a number of exhibits. Mark and I took advantage of the hands-on physics exhibit where we examined (played around with) light and motion. We also took a quick look at the rocks and minerals exhibit in the basement, which had some interesting specimens. Unfortunately, we got kicked out when they closed at 3PM so we wandered around campus a bit until we met up with Randee and Eric at the end of their tour.
We went back to the hotel for a while and then had dinner at a restaurant around the corner. Then back to the hotel for a little TV before we crashed. Another fun vacation day in Arizona!
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Saturday, April 07, 2007
Arizona Day 2 - The View from 6875 Feet
To start off our second day in Arizona we took a trip to the Kitt Peak National Observatory. You can probably tell how high above sea level the observatory is from the title of this entry.
We arrived shortly before the 10:00 AM tour of the Solar Telescope, which started in the visitor's center with a brief history of the observatory. The land on which the observatory sits is leased from the Tohono O'odham people. The conditions of the lease require that only astronomical research be done on the site, with no military or commercial ventures (such as a snack bar). The only exception is the gift shop, which is also an outlet for craft items produced by the Tohono O'odham.
The Solar Telescope is built into the top of the mountain at an angle of 32°, which is the latitude of the location. At night, the telescope points directly at the north star. During the day, there is a heliostat at the top of the telescope which tracks the sun and sends its light deep into the mountain where it is reflected by a pair of mirrors into the observation room. The body of the telescope is sheathed in copper with system of tubing filled with ethylene glycol and used to keep all of the air inside the telescope at the same temperature. This keeps the air from moving within the telescope which keeps the image from getting distorted.
Our tour guide told us that there are about 26 telescopes on the site. Among these are the 2.1m reflector pictured here and a 12m radio telescope dish. The guide only gave us an approximate number for the telescope count because different groups are always bringing in new instruments or taking out old ones.
On the way up to the observatory, we saw a man riding a bicycle up the long twisty road. As we were getting ready to leave we saw him and I asked him how long it took to do the climb. He told me that it took him 2:45, but that he used to be able to do it in 2:13. He left shortly before we did and we didn't see him until we were back on the highway. He must have gone down hill a bit faster than the 35 MPH speed limit.
After leaving Kitt Peak, we headed over to the Old Tucson Studios - the home of many American westerns including "Arizona," "Rio Bravo," "The Outlaw Josie Wales" and "Tombstone."
Randee's theory is that Old Tucson Studios used to be just a working studio site but that when the western became less popular the decision was made to turn it into a tourist attraction as well. Now, they seem to have the best of both worlds. It is still a working studio site and it is open daily for visitors. As an added bonus, if you happen to be there on a day that they're filming, you can watch the action or maybe even be pulled in as an extra.
We took a walking tour at the studios and our guide knew quite a bit about the history of the studios and the movies that were made there. He told us about which actor stood where and did what during what movie. Unfortunately, as I write this a few days have passed and I remember almost nothing of what he said. That's what I get for packing so much into a vacation that I have almost no time to write about it. :-)
After the tour, we took in the wild west shoot-out show (Eric took some video) and then roamed around for a few hours. It was a pretty neat place and even the boys had a good time. If you're in the are and have any interest at all in movies, you should check it out.
We arrived shortly before the 10:00 AM tour of the Solar Telescope, which started in the visitor's center with a brief history of the observatory. The land on which the observatory sits is leased from the Tohono O'odham people. The conditions of the lease require that only astronomical research be done on the site, with no military or commercial ventures (such as a snack bar). The only exception is the gift shop, which is also an outlet for craft items produced by the Tohono O'odham.
The Solar Telescope is built into the top of the mountain at an angle of 32°, which is the latitude of the location. At night, the telescope points directly at the north star. During the day, there is a heliostat at the top of the telescope which tracks the sun and sends its light deep into the mountain where it is reflected by a pair of mirrors into the observation room. The body of the telescope is sheathed in copper with system of tubing filled with ethylene glycol and used to keep all of the air inside the telescope at the same temperature. This keeps the air from moving within the telescope which keeps the image from getting distorted.
Our tour guide told us that there are about 26 telescopes on the site. Among these are the 2.1m reflector pictured here and a 12m radio telescope dish. The guide only gave us an approximate number for the telescope count because different groups are always bringing in new instruments or taking out old ones.On the way up to the observatory, we saw a man riding a bicycle up the long twisty road. As we were getting ready to leave we saw him and I asked him how long it took to do the climb. He told me that it took him 2:45, but that he used to be able to do it in 2:13. He left shortly before we did and we didn't see him until we were back on the highway. He must have gone down hill a bit faster than the 35 MPH speed limit.
After leaving Kitt Peak, we headed over to the Old Tucson Studios - the home of many American westerns including "Arizona," "Rio Bravo," "The Outlaw Josie Wales" and "Tombstone."
Randee's theory is that Old Tucson Studios used to be just a working studio site but that when the western became less popular the decision was made to turn it into a tourist attraction as well. Now, they seem to have the best of both worlds. It is still a working studio site and it is open daily for visitors. As an added bonus, if you happen to be there on a day that they're filming, you can watch the action or maybe even be pulled in as an extra.We took a walking tour at the studios and our guide knew quite a bit about the history of the studios and the movies that were made there. He told us about which actor stood where and did what during what movie. Unfortunately, as I write this a few days have passed and I remember almost nothing of what he said. That's what I get for packing so much into a vacation that I have almost no time to write about it. :-)
After the tour, we took in the wild west shoot-out show (Eric took some video) and then roamed around for a few hours. It was a pretty neat place and even the boys had a good time. If you're in the are and have any interest at all in movies, you should check it out.
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