Happy Holidays!

Aside from the graduates of RPI, another product of Troy NY was the first publication of "The Night before Christmas"

P.S. If you are thinking of getting me something for Christmas: Landroller skates, Nokia N90, more to follow...

Virtual Acquarium

Brush up on your Jedi Lightsaber skills!

light_saber2

Pneumatic Home Elevator

Check out this new home elevator. No winches or hyrdaulics. It moves you up and down like one of the old pneumatic mailing tubes.

This image shows the current phase:

In the car...

 It's been quite an interesting wknd so far. (This will ramble a bit, but I'll clean it up when I get home. I'm writing this on the way to the boat in the car @ 4:19. ]

We started this trip off brite and early yesterday, my friends picked me up at. 7 am and we made it all the way to 62nd on the first leg. 

Then the grinding noise started, we hopped out to see what was dragging and it turned out to be the left rear wheel.  We popped it off and saw that the recent brake work he had done did not include attaching the brake assy with the bolts to hold it on.

It was quite interesting breaking down in NYC (is that a song?). People would walk by and stare, but noone offered to help.  The cops offered to giive us a ticket until we pointed out that we were broken down.  The officer then said "oh" and left us to fend for ourselves.

So you would think that you could get a simple 15 minute repair in a city of 8 MM people. It's not the case.  We called AAA and they sent a truck who offered to tow the car to a garage that could not do repairs until Monday.  We sent him away thinking we could repair it ourselves and limp back to a garage the could give us 2 std bolts.

I started googling furiously (I love using that verb) on my blackberry 7290. I found many repair shops, but noone did repairs on the weekends, incl the 'emergency' #s I found.  I started looking for parts companies, but no good either. (So much for telling people that I live in a city where I can have anything delivered any time I want (incl women).

So we decided to press on with our trip since there were 3 of us and we had another car we could use.  We then had a movie moment where 1 of our party could not finish the trip so we patched him up and left him with provisions for the wait for the rescue party.

So this is the story of my first "brake job", I've always been too afraid of working on my own brakes, but emergenvcies have a way of making heroes out of us. The brakes are really simple to figure out if you are an engineer [I'll incl details when I get online]

So then we finally arrived in MD and relaxed after the long drive by telling the tale with a few more details so far.  Our hosts then asked if we could do them a favor, loading 2 hay wagons into their barn's hay loft.  [Details and photos to follow from david's palm treo. I have really bad phone envy. I forgot my camera, so I have to rely on other people's snaps]

[Enuf for now, I'm getting "blackberry thumb" syndrome]

Mark
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MA:bb

Google Maps - Flood St, New Orleans, LA

Google has maps/photos of the Katrina damage

Car Talk

For great brain teasers, checkout: Car Talk's Puzzlers.

Too bad summer is almost over, this would have been great: link

Here are some great links to protect you from hackers: http://www.bgnews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/08/18/430612e66490c

Women for WineSense Fundraising Wine Event for Autism on August 30 with Leonard Lopate

Our event was a great success. Please join us in September for our next tasting.

---

A TASTING OF WINES MADE BY CHATEAU LAFITE ROTHSCHILD - AUGUST 30, 2005

The New York Chapter of Women for WineSense is delighted to present its first
fundraising event, which will benefit autistic children. Leonard
Lopate, show host for WNYC radio, will be our special speaker and
will share his personal experience as a parent of an autistic child.
The tasting will be led by Martin Sinkoff, Director of Marketing for
Pasternak Wine Imports. Martin will discuss the wines and estates
owned by Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Chile, Argentina and Portugal,
and will provide a unique view of how globalization is changing the
wine world. We are pleased to announce that 100% of the profits from
the evening will be donated to the Autism Society of America.

Regional Restaurant - 2607 Broadway (between 98th and 99th Streets)

About Regional Restaurant: “Regional, a breezy 70-seat trattoria on the Upper West Side,
celebrates lesser-known culinary gems from each of Italy's 20 regions"

The cube is missing!

We noticed that the Cube sculpture in Astor Place near Cooper Union was missing. After a little Googling, we found this story about it's repair and history. BTW, it's name is "The Alamo".

Lilypie : Kids Birthday : v1.0

I found a neat site to create a ticker for your next birthday

Elizabeth

Greg & Mark

I actually started to write about my favorite Firefox add-ins: "Next Please," "Blog This," "Calc," etc. then looking at timers: digital and analog

First catch of the day

        <<05-02-05_0805.jpg>>

Gone Fishin

We are going fishing on Chesapeake Bay this weekend for Rockfish. Between the cost of the boat, beer, and travel, I think the cost of the fish is about $100/pound. [But we go for the conversation.]

Final score:
Crew of the maverick: 4; Bloody point rockfish: 1

Women For Winesense

WWS is delighted to present a "Sherry and Soup Tasting” with cookbook author Joanna Pruess and restaurant critic Bob Lape at Pulse, a Pan-Asian restaurant in the heart of Rockefeller Center. Joanna and Bob will guide us through a tasting of several sherries paired with two soups featured in Joanna's new cookbook, Soup for Every Body: Low Carb, High Protein, Vegetarian and More.

P.S. On CNN, they featured this graph of baby names; also try this color test.

Living Wills; Student sailors rescue 49 Haitians

With all the Terry Schiavo stuff going on, please remember to do a living will. A related ethics article. I was reading up on locked-in states (paralyzed, but aware) and found this interesting book: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby who was trapped in his body for 2 years.

p.s. A friend's research sailboat recently rescued 49 Haitians stranded at sea.
p.p.s. There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses! [Other strange facts]

My wishlist

My wishlist >> ThinkGeek: Swiss Army Key, MiniPliers, CD Curtain, AirCannon, Calendar, Boomerang Gun, Internet Poster, James Bond Lighter, Badge; Life stuff: job for ERH, World Peace ... Other fun stuff >> One handed keyboard, Cat Video, Checkout this free, ecologically correct screen cleaner.

I also enjoy Sunclocks: Shadowfacts, others: World Sunlight Map, 3D Satellite Globe, NASA View of NYC, the Handwriting clock, Calendar/Clock, Cuckoo Clock, humanclock.com, and a photo thermometer: Photo Meteo. One more clock

The Gates

The Gates are gone now history like Christo's Other Works, but we still have photos: [LINK] and [The Parodies]. Other NYC Photos - My neighborhood: c.1929, c.1935, 2nd Ave EL demolition from NYPL Digital Images. Sunrise along the NYC grid.

New baby in the family

Here are the latest baby photos: Ava - Slideshow Greg and I were going through them together while on free phone service:Skype.

World's funniest joke

World's funniest jokes: "Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: 'My friend is dead! What can I do?' The operator says: 'Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.' There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: 'OK, now what?'

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25 Great Calvin & Hobbes Strips

A good analyisis of: 25 Great Calvin & Hobbes Strips

gazingus.org - Page Weight & Speed Bookmarklet

I wanted a quick way to see how big a webpage is and this link provides a quick tool:gazingus.org - Page Weight & Speed Bookmarklet