Not much to type here, really… The video speaks for itself.

Early in my flight training, I'd often grab one of the video cameras we have here at work and take it to the flight school. I'd give it to a passenger or my instructor or stick it up on the dash in the window of the Cessna 172. I found a tape I'd shot late last year and threw together some of the better shots of the hour long flight. It's certainly nothing amazing, but it does show you a little of how pretty flying around Savannah and the Coastal Islands of the low country can be — especially at twilight. Yeah, yeah… for those pro aviators out there, the landing leaves a bit to be desired, but, "Hey!," it was only a little over a month into my training. And, as the infamous aviation saying goes:

Any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing.

Needless to say, after eight more months, my recent landings are straight down the runway center-line and a lot more coordinated.

Savannah Coastal Flight

You can click on the above image or link to check out the video… I'll see what other video(s) I can dig out of the archives over the next few months and post more when time permits. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this short segment.

I'm not too sure whose idea it was to allow VFR (Visual Flight Rules) pilots — meaning you have to be able to see outside to avoid hitting things — to fly at night. Don't get me wrong… It's nice to not be grounded by the absence of the sun. For instance, it is great that you can take a flight in the late afternoon knowing that it will terminate well into night and be able to do so legally having only your VFR rating. It's great that you can fly at dark, in darkness if you want. But, night is a little more than contradictory to the "visual flight rules."

At night, there are plenty of times where you can't see anything at all — no horizon, no lights, nothing. Times like these leave you having to rely on your instruments only. That's not a bad thing and it's not crazy scary or anything, but to me it is a little more than contradictory to what the VFRs constantly pound into your brain. Such was the case light night over open ocean (You can see last night's flight in the above pic. Clicking it will take you to 'Flight Watch' where you can track all kinds of flights. Cool site… But, I'm wandering here…). So, yeah… last night's night flight… I took off from Savannah and headed to open ocean, enroute to Charleston. When over water, you couldn't tell the difference from a star versus the light on a buoy. If banked, turning 30 degrees (which is a lot), you can't see the turn and you can't feel it. (see JFK Jr.) You have to have total reliance on your instruments. VFR prohibits you from flying into clouds. Well guess what? At night you can't see clouds until you're in them. Then, when you are, you have this nice dimmly lit gray fog surrounding you that lights up with the strobes on your wingtips every second. It makes the propeller do that cool, disco strobe freezing thing. So, you have to fight your way back to 'legal' and get out of the clouds. That's fun when they're low and there's lot of them. Then, you have to find your airport, which most incidentally have no runways lit for you. You need to turn on the lights yourself. (You do this with your radios by clicking the mic in succession.) Then, you have to land. You get some landing light from the plane cast on the runway when you're about 50 feet from it.

All in all, night is quite an experience in an airplane. And, experience is something you'll definitely want when you fly at night. Me… other than the flights that intentionally take me into nighttime, I'll wait for those perfectly clear, full moon lit nights once I get my license.

So… Anyone want to go night flying?

(It only took 2 months for me to post this… I've been a bit slow as of late. But then, the last post being eight months ago should have made that fairly obvious.)

In March, the powers that be saw fit to allow me to fly an airplane solo. On March 10th, I soloed a Cessna 172SP through 3 full stop landings in Statesboro, GA (KTBR). At 21 hrs. I didn't do a half bad job, especially considering that I had just come off a business trip from Mexico, was half sick (ears popping, coughing… you know… general funk), and hadn't flown in quite some time. It wasn't anywhere near as intimidating as I thought it might be. And, in many ways, it was actually a relief to have the cockpit all to myself. Instructors can actually be a distraction sometime — if you can believe that. I got a chance to make my own decisions; no one was there to tell me what to do. And, in a strange way, this made managing the cockpit much easier in my opinion. The whole experience was more tactile, more conscious, and well, "it's all you or you're dead." I guess that's just about enough reason right there to make sure you probe down deep in those brain cells, pay attention, and from the depths, grab the knowledge you've learned to date and put it to use. All in all, at the end of the solo flight, I had executed all the pattern flight and maneuvers within tolerance, did a fairly decent job on my radio communication, and had a nice, leisurely flight back to Savannah's Class C airport (KSAV).

Since my solo flight I've put another 12 hours of solo time in the logbook and completed my cross country flights. I need a minimum of 10 hours of solo (and more dual, with an instructor) before I can take my written and get my FAA check ride — the final test to getting my private pilot's license.

A few of these solo flights were quite routine — go to an outlying airport, run the traffic pattern, make 10 landings/take-offs or so in different configurations, and fly back to the home airport.

The last flight I took, however, I decided to make something a bit different. The weather was perfect. I grabbed my camera, some latitude/longitude coordinates, and hit the skies to take some aerial photos — photos of a couple of friend's houses. One place (7 or so miles SW the airport) sits a 1/2 mile from a 1500 ft. tower with guy wires running out an 1/8th of mile, borders a very active Military Operations Area (Fort Stewart's MOA) about a mile to the Northwest, has a 500 ft. tower in the back yard, and off to the West has a "tower farm" consisting of three, 1700 ft. transmission towers. I, personally, didn't even think I'd get clearance from ATC to even head towards all this "madness" at the low altitudes I was requesting (1000 ft.), but to my amazement, I said everything they wanted to hear and they gave me clearance — even though I did get the old, "So… Where do you want to go?!? And what do you want to do there?!" thing — twice. But, after responding again, I guess I told them exactly what they wanted to hear. They nicely cleared me. I headed off, made my way around the antennas (looking over 2000 ft. at the first and seeing 500+ ft. of tower above the plane was reminding me to exercise the caution this area deserved), orbited the property and started snapping pictures. I had to circle the 1500 ft. tower to get a good angle out of the window — and fly the plane at the same time. I circled a few times in order to get some decent photos of the property. ATC was nice enough to vector other traffic away from me once I reported that I was on station. I hung out for 10-15 minutes and headed off North — to the next station (aka. my friend Eric's place). Overall, a great time and a great flight. Flights are much more fun and interesting when you have a goal or destination in mind — that is, in contrast to just flying around and practicing things all the time.

This flying "stuff," for lack of a better word right now, has giving me a new reason to actually add more entires to this "blog." (Yes, I still hate that term and thankfully the general public is slowly killing it without me having to do anything. Yeah! Soon I'll be able to just type the word "write.") Ironic that I 'write' this at 35 thousand feet; I'm on my way back from another business trip that I had to take — this one to Bogotá, Columbia. Considering I had some hours to kill, it seemed as good a time as any to finally make a flying entry. It's something I've thought about doing for a while now. I've just not had the time. But, following the last entry (a long time ago), it seemed appropriate…

There's quite the flying community out there and there's lots I can learn from all of them. I hope to take my VFR Private's to IFR as soon as I complete my ticket. I want to continue flying as often as I can throughout the rest of my life. Being able to fly (especially IFR) will open the "world of adventure" I've always so desired more than ever. Meg (the wife) and I can hop in an aircraft and hit all kinds of places in the States and the Bahamas.

I've added a new heading to the top menu where I'll be attempting to start document my flights and progress… as time allows, of course… which, based on the recent past, won't be too often. I also have a ton of pictures that I need to post. I guess I need to find the time to post them as well… Soon… Soon…

Over and out.

Mildred Natalie Stinaff, my great aunt, was born in Akron, Ohio in 1912. People referred to her as Millie. She was the daughter of Charles and Lillie May Stinaff. She had two brothers, Charles Lloyd Stinaff and Girdwood Stinaff, my grandfather. As she grew into a young woman, she developed a great love for aviation, which was itself still in its infancy, and still a profession mostly only enjoyed by men. I found a newspaper clipping quoting her as having said, "Why couldn't I fly the mail and take passengers as well as the men?"

She saw no boundaries, obviously; her interest in aviation was so strong, that in June of 1929, at 18 years old, she began taking flying lessons to realize her dream of becoming a professional pilot. My grandfather, Girdwood, helped finance her insatiable desire to fly. She began her lessons at the Akron Air Lines School under instructor Hap Roundtree and later with Byron Newcomb. She flew almost daily in order to build up the required hours necessary for her private pilot's license. She became so proficient that after only 20 hours, she took her first solo flight. Not long after her solo, she got the license she so desperately sought and became only the second woman in Akron to learn to fly and one of the first 99 women to obtain a pilot's license.

Flying led her into a job at the airport, working for Akron Airlines, Inc. She continued to fly and went on to receive additional instruction in aerobatic and commercial flight. In January of 1930, at the Mid-City, Akron Municipal Airport, she made 42 consecutive inside loops and set a world's record for the most loops performed in an aircraft piloted by a woman. The next best had been 28 loops performed in Houston, Texas. She went on to thrill audiences, performing loops, stalls, and spins in many local air shows over the next year.

June 13, 1931, Millie accepted a job as acting secretary and hostess at the new administration building at Akron Municipal Airport. It was said that she had a charming personality, was very well liked, and quickly became a very popular figure at the airport. She was soon to complete her commercial pilot's rating and was preparing to retake the looping record she set the year prior. June 23, 1931, just ten days into her job at the airport, she took off from the airport to perform some stunt maneuvers for an air show. She completed her first loop but lost control. The plane went into a spin at 1200 feet. Ultimately, she was able to shut off the motor, but was unable to recover from the spin. The plane crashed, severely injuring Millie. She was rushed to City Hospital, where 37 minutes later, at 8:45 p.m. she died. She was only 20 years old. Following is one many news clippings, this from the 'Akron Beacon Journal', printed many years after her death:

Personally, I wouldn't think she minded dying the way she did. If there was ever a case of "Well, they died doing what they loved," this was it. In fact, I'm posting this article as my mother, upon finding out that I, myself, have been taking lessons to get my private pilot's license, sent me a large package of pictures, newspaper clippings, and letters that proved to me just how much she enjoyed and truly loved what she was doing with her life. After going through them all, I can't see that she would have had any regrets. Not one.

Before her death, Millie became a charter member of the The Ninety-Nines (License No. 10491), the first 99 women in organized aviation. The group has since grown, but virtually all women of achievement in aviation have been or are members of The Ninety-Nines. This is an amazing accomplishment and made me finally realize after all these years, how truly important all those stories my grandfather told me about his sister really were. He talked about her often. And, when he did, no story would be remiss of that enthusiasm she had for flying. I wish I would have had the chance to have met and gotten to know her… She was a pioneer for women, in aviation and in life, was no doubt brave flying those early planes — and flying them aerobatically at that, and had a burning desire to live life.

Simply said, I admire her a great deal. I posted to some photos of Millie to the gallery.

To learn more about The Ninety-Nines, you can check out the following web sites:

The Museum of Women Pilots - The Ninety-Nines
The Ninety-Nines, Inc. - The International Organization of Women Pilots

Let's see… After building up my Google PageRank for over two years to where a search for "Dave Wolf" would appear on Google's first page and as the first or second link on that page, just something as simple as enabling of the comment system in Coppermine, some Open Source photo gallery software I use, crushed me! Well, it didn't crush me… but, it certainly crushed my ranking in regards to Google and Google's PageRank. I think I'm somewhere on page 18 or something now. Great. I only wanted some feedback on my photos. What did I get? I get a thousand porno and prescription drug links spammed into what were to be helpful comments on the photos I've taken and posted to the site.

Spam is simply out of control, people! You can't have anything on the web anymore with any input field without some crazy piece of software monitoring it, verifying the input, whatever… It's crazy. I have Akismet, an automatic service monitoring the general comment system of this web page. It's caught some odd 33,000 spam comments that have attempted to make their way into the posts on this page. Stop the madness already, would ya?! Every other search engine has been nice… I wasn't punished for all the spam links created by Coppermine's weak comment system (yeah, the new version of Coppermine is much better, has a much more robust comment system, etc., etc., but I don't run that version… and, no, I don't want to upgrade. Thank you. I have a life to live.)

So, Googlebot, when you come by again, read this, make note and see what you can do to return me to my previous ranking. I did kill all the porno and drug links for ya!

It's become clear that without titling and commenting my photographs, individually (something which I simply don't have the time to do — It's amazing I do as much as I do on this site as it is…), that a lot of the wider, Internet public, was not able to view them… Why? Well, they couldn't find them. There was nothing that contextually made them apparent or known to the search engines, so only the people that know of this site or received mails to check the images I posted, got to see them.

I created a Flickr account almost a year ago and posted images from Harbour Island (in the Bahamas) to the account. I had all but forgot about the account until doing some work this weekend where I was finally directed back to it for whatever reason. When I got there, I found a comment from an advertising agent. She noted that her agency wished to license some of my photo work. Too bad she left the comment 7 months ago! (Not really getting back to her in a timely manner — so, the "deal is off," I would think. I'm sure she was looking for pictures of Harbour Island and that whatever they were working on has long since been completed.) Also, I found that many of the images were tagged as a lot people's favorite images. Go figure?! Anyhow, it was clear that the Flickr images were getting hit a lot more than those in the gallery on this page. And, isn't the reason I post images so that people can have a look at them? Well… it is.

So, I've taken the time today to add some of my images to Flickr and to "join the community," so to speak…

Since I've been messing around with my photos as of late and actually posted to the site, I hopped out of lazy mode and decided to post the pictures I took while visiting the Rocky Mountain National Park last March. And, with the pics, I have to also and tell my story.

A business trip took me to Comcast in Denver. Business only lasted a couple of days; I took the remainder of the week/weekend to adventure around some of the parks in Colorado. I got everything done, work-wise, by Thursday. I went a few places outside Denver — Colorado Springs & The Rocky Mountain National Park to name a few of the big ones.

I got up Friday at 4:30 in the morning and hit the road towards the Rocky Mountain National Park. I had planned on entering the park near the entrance in Estes, Colorado at sunrise; from there I was going to drive to a trail head at Bear Lake and hike a mile or so into the mountains to Emerald Lake. All went as planned. I made it to the park just as the sun was rising. It was so early, the entrance wasn't even manned by rangers yet, so I saved my $30 entrance fee. I drove a few miles into the park… There were Elk feeding. It was beautiful. After a half hour of driving, I finally made it to the Bear Lake trail.

On the trail, I hit ~11,000 feet at the highest point and hiked about 3 miles round-trip around the Rockies before all was said and done. I'll remember to take snow shoes if and when I ever go to the Rockies in winter next time! I knew I should have, but I wasn't going to buy a pair for this one trip. I followed the "path," if you could call it that. You couldn't see any clear sign of a trail. Best I could do was stay on the hard-pack. Being there in the morning and it being 30 degrees was more important than I thought as the day went on, but I'll get to that later… I hiked for an hour or so, found a rock, and sat to catch my breath. Being alone in the vast silence, staring at the Continental Divide, was quite the experience. It was one of those Thoreau, "I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…" kind of moments.

After resting, I continued on. I knew I had to be getting close to Dream Lake, the second lake in on the trail. I finally saw people — a couple. They looked at me, said "Hi." and then looked at my flat, rubber bottomed, casual dress boots sans snow shoes. It was at that point I knew they took me for some amateur nut-case likely to be a casualty of the Rockies. Everyone (and I only saw about 5 people) had snow shoes — everyone! The couple said I could never make it to the "lakes" in the shoes I had on. So, after they left and I lost sight of them, I showed them what will really was when I met back up with them about 20 mins. later — at the furthest lake on the trail, Emerald Lake. The wife told me her husband said there was no way they'd see me again in the shoes I was wearing. I hung out with them, had a granola bar, and talked with them for 20 mins. or so. Nice people… They lived in Estes right outside the park — retired there. They took off after a while; I hung out and took some pictures. I had made it to where I wanted to, and as the clouds rolled in and killed any good picture taking, I decided to head back to the car.

Coming back down the mountain was a lot easier than climbing it. I skied on my boots most of the way, making sure to stay on the parts of the trail I knew had been pretty packed down by traffic already. I was literally downhill skiing in my street boots! That is, until I found myself "off the trail" and started "post holing" (legs just gone) up to my groin in around 10 foot snow… I thought I might be stuck, but I calmed myself and pulled the army crawl about 30 yards back to hard pack (after I finally was able to find it) or I'd a been stuck in the snow for the rest of the day — I told you it being morning and 30 degrees was important. It was. At this point, it wasn't 30 anymore — it was in the mid-40's now. As the temperature rose, the snow softened. As the day went on the snow got softer and softer. It was good I started at around 6AM (everything was ice at that point — which was still pretty difficult in the shoes I was in… I used about twice the energy it would have taken vs. having snow shoes). Anyhow, I was off the snow/trail by 11:30-12. Any later in the day and I wouldn't have been able to make even a 1/4 mile on the trail without sinking each leg into the snow with every step. I'm glad no one came trucking by while I was sunk to the waist in snow, looking like someone cut my legs off… I would have had to pull the Jedi mind trick, "Nothing to see here. Just chillin'. . . (literally). Please move on."

So… long story, yeah… Pictures are here. The pictures pretty much follow the story, chronologically.

Nothing beats not working, like really not working, heading North to escape the deadly heat of Savannah in the summer, and heading out to hopefully catch some walleye on Lake Erie — even though it was pretty much the end of walleye "season." The day started early for me — 7:30. Now, that's not normally early, but when the night before, you were hanging out, drinking, until 3 o'clock in the morning, it's pretty damn early — trust me! The day slowly turned from utter agony into excitement once I got my bearings and the hang-over started to wear off. By the time my buddy Chris and I reached Lake Erie I was almost back to 100%. Almost. I was amped to get out on the water and start the "fishing tournament." We got lucky with the weather… Erie was as flat as a pancake. The weather was an overcast, 72 degrees. The 89% humidity was a little annoying, but compared to Savannah, I was in heaven. We zoomed out 2 miles on a glass-like Erie (which doesn't happen often) and started fishing. The "Erie pancake" didn't last long though and before we knew it the lake started throwing 3-5 footers at us. My boy Chris would laugh every time a 5 foot valley came heading towards the back of the boat, ready to swamp us. Good stuff! No problems though… Fishing was on! We beat the boat and our bodies up zooming from place to place, but managed a great day of fishing out on the Great Lakes. We finished the day with four walleye and a small mouth (that saved itself by cutting the line on the prop) — and we didn't even get injured or stranded 4 miles out when the engine decided to die on us. We beat the odds and the fish! We got some pictures of the day… Now, I just need to get out on the rivers and do some more fishing in Savannah; that is, when the heat decides to drop below 106 degrees, but that's a whole other story that I'll write about if and when I get the time…

I noticed recently when testing browsing my site with Mozilla Firefox (v1.5-2.x.x.1) that the pop up window that embedded my WMV videos (yeah, I should probably find a better, more cross compatible video codec) linked and presented using Marcus' WordPress VideoPop Plugin would no longer display Microsoft MediaPlayer's controls (pause, seek, volume, etc.) in the pop up window. Also the WMV's would not stream; the files needed to be downloaded in their entirety before they would begin to play. This, of course is not good when some are 50MB+ in size. Essentially, the video pop up window would appear blank, with its caption, and then just seem to sit there. This was happening with v.9, v.10, and v.11 of MediaPlayer — for both Mac and Windows PCs. At this point, most visitors would probably just abandoned viewing the video.

After doing some research, I found something to correct this behavior. Unfortunately, the correction lies in the hands of the end-user, not in the plugin itself. I didn't trace the code too much, so I don't know what is truly at fault. I hope this helps some other Firefox VideoPop users out there. The following install will allow the MS MediaPlayer ActiveX control to be called and instantiated via Firefox:

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm#download

File name: npmozax.dll

Who knows, this might have been fixed by the Mozilla crew by now. This post is quite old and has been sitting in draft mode. I just decided to post it now. If nothing else, drop a comment and let me know if any of you ever saw similar behavior and how you corrected it…

I've been a little slack on doing anything with the web site in the past half year or so. So, I figured this weekend that I could escape my real duty — doing our taxes — and play around with something I've been meaning to do for some time now. Over the last 10 months, I slowly worked on the 1200+ images I took while in Paris with Meg last July. I had every intention of editing most out of what was posted to the site, only leaving the best. I managed to get rid of many of them — so to make going through them not as painful and, well, let's face it, as boring. I really wanted to try and get the collection down to around 200 or so images, but found it impossible. There were just too many photos that were great to look at and that brought back the good times had while there… So, the gallery gets 621 photographs. What?! I cut it in half! That's got to say something?! Doesn't it?!

Anyway, all the pictures are in the Paris Album. I hope you enjoy some of them. Drop a comment or rate one if you dig an image.

I have to say… Paris is without doubt one of the most romantic and beautiful cities on the planet. The fact that most of what you see hasn't changed in centuries is amazing. It's a great contrast to the ever evolving landscape and architecture we're used to here in America. I heard this story once — about when the Germans were occupying Paris and they had to retreat back. They wired Notre Dame to blow, but they had to leave one guy in charge of hitting the switch. And the guy, the soldier, he couldn't do it. You know, he just sat there, knocked out by how beautiful the place was. And, then when the allied troops came in, they found all the explosives just lying there and the switch unturned. They found the same thing at Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, and a couple other places I think… I don't know if it's true or not, but I always liked the story. Paris is just an incredible place. Each visit — and I've been five times now — is just as exciting and eventful as the first. I hope Meg and I can go again soon…

I kept a journal while I was there… I'd get up early every morning (well, almost every morning) and hit the laptop and type the previous day's experiences while Meg slept. Coffee, an open window in a great little room, a nice breeze, Paris… It was a great place to write and a great way to spend the early hours. (Check out the pictures of the room, desk, and window where I wrote.) It's so easy to forget your experiences over time. Re-reading this has shown me that much! So, if you really have time to waste, check it out.

Keep on adventurin'!

Peace.

… that is the question — between me and the wife. I had this idea to paint the foyer a darker color - you know, to help separate it from the rest of the bigger room it's attached to. The foyer, if you can even call it that, is a little alcove off the "great room." Prior to painting it, it didn't really stand out as much of anything. My idea was that if we painted it a different color, we could make it appear almost like another smaller room, giving it more emphasis. The wife didn't agree and had reservations about my "brilliant" idea. Well, when she was at work yesterday, I had a couple of hours to make "a run for it." I grabbed some paint and went to town. I had the thing done in a few hours, cleaned up, and got everything back in its place. When she got home, she didn't even notice!

Anyway, take a look at the picture attached to this post (before and after) and let us know what you think… Did the thing look better before or after? Paint or no paint?

You guys judge… I figure objective views would help paint a more accurate picture (or, foyer, in this case).

In late June of 2006, my wife and I visited my family in Northeast, Ohio. This gave us an opportunity to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's, Fallingwater. I have been a huge admirer of Wright's for many years and had made plan after plan to visit the house; I think it took more than 8 years in total before I was finally successful.

The wife and I set out early Friday morning and headed east towards Pittsburgh. Bear Run, where Fallingwater is located, is only a short drive from Pittsburgh. We arrived at the property around ten in the morning. It was a beautiful morning, mid 70s — the weather couldn't have been any nicer! I might not miss the Northern winters, but the summers are beautiful. I have great nostalgia for the summer months up North.

Visiting the house is something that everyone should do. When you consider that this "modern" house was built in 1935, you can help but note and appreciate Wright's genius. The term "organic architecture" becomes apparent immediately. The home is literally part of its landscape. Cantilevers strap the house to the rock that lines the riverbed, allowing the river to run right under the home. Pieces of the home wrap and form around tree trucks; the home was designed around them. Stairs rise straight from the river bed. Boulders, rock, and running water intrude right into the home making a seamless connection between the outside and in. It's an amazing place.

I took some photographs that can be seen in the photo gallery. Take a look at them here.

60 Minutes has been on the air since 1968, a year before I was born. In the 38 years since then it has become known as the nation's preeminent investigative television program and the "news magazine" to which all others attempt to live up to — but don't. In terms of ratings, it has been in the top ten 23 seasons in a row, never falling out of the top 20 for as long as it has been on the air.

But, as the show grows older, so do its people — the people that have made it what it is today. Ed Bradley's passing today (Nov. 9, 2006) reminded me of how the 60 Minutes that I've grown to love, that I was raised watching, and that has become part of most all my Sunday nights won't be the same forever. Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Andy Rooney, and the show's creator, Don Hewitt, are all getting older; they won't be part of the show for the rest of its life on the air. But then Harry Reasoner wasn't part of it forever either. His leaving didn't destroy the show… I guess it's just that people die. (No surprise there, huh?!) I just hope that my ideal of what 60 Minutes is doesn't die along with them. This is not to say that the rest of the cast is not top notch, but for whatever reason, it's the people that I've watched all these years that made the show what it is — for me.

Long live the 'show of all shows'! And, farewell Ed… You'll be missed.

The year was 1996. Location — 3 miles off Harbour Island in the Bahamas. It was a clear day, the sun was shining, the seas were calm, we had a boat, some beer, all the dive gear you could want, and the hangover from the night before was wearing off just fine… A couple of young, adventurous mugs were ready for some drama on the high seas. We persuaded a local Bahamian, Kenny, with a bottle of rum to help us navigate to a shipwreck located not far off the Devil's Backbone, a huge reef that runs the length of the island.

The ship was The Cienfuegos. On February 5, 1895, The Cienfuegos, an American steamship went aground on the "Backbone." Thanks to the native Eleutherians, not one passenger or crew member lost their lives. The Cienfuegos did, however. Down she went. Flashing forward a hundred years to 1996, here we were, ready to pillage. A couple of dive masters told us on shore that they'd give us $500 if we could rip off one of her port windows, so we packed the tools before leaving port. We were bound and determined to take something from that wreck — anything. (Yeah, you're probably not supposed to do this kind of stuff, but it's the Bahamas; the laws are interpreted loosely if you know what I mean.)

I'd write more of the day and the ensuing adventure, but I finally took the video footage we shot that day, put on my best film maker hat, and made it into something that speaks well enough for itself. I'll let it do the work for me.

So, in all its Technicolor glory, here it is — The Cienfuegos Dive

(It runs about 21 minutes; so, if you get bored, the good stuff happens around the 15 minute mark.)

I'll keep it short and sweet… The W² Software dudes have been hard at work addressing people's problems, adding functionality, and just plain making Random Playlist Creator with Genres a whole bunch better than it was before. An app barely alive… We rebuilt it… We had the technology. We had the capability to make the world's first bionic playlist creator. Better than it was before, Stronger, Faster… (Queue in the theme music now.) It's grown one whole version number, 1.0 to 2.0. Amazing. It's got to be better then, right?!?

Go download it and try it out. It's the perfect app for making those random playlists to throw on your player of choice. So, when you've reached that point where you just don't know what the hell to listen to, but you know you don't want to listen to some genre(s) or artist(s), look no further… Download this and stop hitting that track forward button all the time.

Peace, out!

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A co-worker of mine turned me onto Pandora.com a couple of weeks ago. I have to say, this music service is pretty damn impressive! I'm not a big fan of having to have a browser window open to listen to music on the 'pute (which you have to do with this service), but Pandora does offer you a cool way of finding new music and artists amongst some genre or "mood" you're wanting to explore. There have been a bunch of bands I wouldn't have ever listened to or found if I hadn't come across — or been told — about this service.

The basic gist of it is, you put in an artist or tune you like and it will, based off of thousands of other "votes from others," direct you to a streaming station that it feels compliments what you entered. You can even send this "station" to others. Underneath, the service is powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken.

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Over the past 5 years, we've carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project

So, there you have it… Now go try Pandora.com for yourself and let me know what you think.

Okay, gonna bust out some geekness on ya! I've been using this "application" for over a year, but since RSS feeds are becoming so prevelant across the Internet, I figured it was about time to inform those out there that might not know what to do with them (and even those that do) of a cool way to manage them and actually "read" them.

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication," which infers a way to provide web content or summaries of web content together with links to the full versions of the content. RSS, in particular, delivers this information as an XML file called a RSS feed or WebFeed. In addition to facilitating syndication, RSS allows a website's readers to track and read updates on the site using an "aggregator." What's an aggregator? Well, this is where Pluck comes in. It is the aggregator (or reader) — or, at least, one of them. And, a darn good one. It plugs right into your browser, is supported under both IE and FireFox, is easy to use, and it's free. So, try it out…

Then, whenever you see an icon like the one that's plastered on this post (or at the bottom of this page) or the letters or , click on 'em. If you don't have Pluck or some reader installed all you'll see is a bunch of code you probably won't be able to make much sense of. Installing Pluck will allow you to read and use the feeds as they were intended to be used. It's a cool new way to organize and check for updates on the sites you visit most often. Pluck also makes things easy by allowing you to see that the site has been updated without you even having to visit it.

So, if you didn't know what all the RSS "hype" was all about, now you do. And, you got a tool to make RSS something other than a bunch of garbled text.

Back in '99, I accidentally caught Eddie Izzard's, 'Dressed to Kill' on HBO. I had the TV on while I was cleaning or doing some such nonsense when I started listening to the dialog. After a couple of minutes of crackin' up, I had to sit down and watch the rest of the "accident." It got my undivided attention.

I wanted to show the film to my wife recently, so I rented it again. It was as funny as it was the first time. Firstly, to warn you, the guy might appear a bit off to you. He regularly dresses as a woman during his performances. Strange, yes, but does it matter? Not in the least! He's, after all, just a male lesbian. After reading some things about him, I found he's just as "normal" as anyone else — he's been in a bunch of movies, done stand-up, slept with women, you know? And, who cares as long as the stand-up is as well written and funny as it is? (I tried to turn one guy onto it; he refused to watch it because of the transvestite thing, but I have to wonder what he was so afraid of? Ya know what I'm saying?! He doesn't even know what he missed.) So, get over the inconsequential and rent 'Dressed to Kill' as soon as you possibly can. Go to NetFlix now and add it to your queue. What?!? No NetFlix?!? I'll save that topic for another time.

Bottom line, rent this flick! You'll laugh. Promise. Don't and I'll — I'll — well, I'll do nothing, but… I've never seen or heard comedy that was capable of giving you a history lesson, providing you with some good random facts, offering you a foreign language refresher class, and again, making you bust a gut — all at the same time! Genius, I'll tell ya! Don't believe me. The show got an '8.4′ on Internet Movie Database. If you don't know what that is — well, again, that's a completely separate post. But, anyhow, an 8.4 is good — really good! There's not many movies, shows, or whatever, that bust into the 8's.

I'll stop rambling about it and link in a little clip. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so I assume that video clips are worth a lot more. And, they're definitely worth more than my words!

Click the above picture to view a clip from Dressed to Kill

(Should any "legal" counsel, production peeps, etc. notice this clip and find it in violation of copyright, other such legalese, or blah, blah, blah, let me know. I'll gladly take it down upon request. Me, I thought of it more as "promotion" than anything else; I apologize in advance. I didn't make the quality so poor by accident.)

I've boasted enough to all the folks around the office, so I thought it was about time to lay it out to everyone… Bob Schieffer is one cool cat and one great news anchor. After the whole 24 years I started going to "sleep" watching Dan "Not the Man" Rather (he actually wasn't that bad early on… but, he didn't ripen well with age) it's a blessing to watch CBS News' replacement for Rather.

I guess it would help put this post in better context if I mentioned that I have a strong allegiance to CBS News. There's no good reason behind it other than nostalgia (watching it every night at the dinner table as a kid) and having great respect for the outstanding news men that have tenured at CBS over the years — Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner, and the always enjoyable Mike Wallace (who is retiring from '60 Minutes' this year, which is a huge disappoint to me). But, I digress… Back to Schieffer…

CBS had to come up big after the "Rathergate" scandal last year. Finding a replacement to compete with the great anchors at the other networks, I'm sure, was no easy task. But, I hand it to CBS for taking the leap of faith and heading in a completely different direction, not only with "their" anchor, but in contrast to all the major network's anchors, as a whole. Schieffer's layman's approach to presentation and point-blank questioning of his correspondents is a breath of fresh air.

If there's a fire across the street," Schieffer says, "you don't walk into the newsroom and say, 'A raging, three-alarm fire, whipped by 40-mile-an-hour winds, ripped through the home next door.' You say, 'There's a fire across the street.'"

It would be easier for you to watch CBS News than for me to continue rambling about it, so I guess that's the point of this post. Watch it. See what you think for yourself.

From the Washington Post — Schieffer has been enjoying a wave of positive publicity, not least because reporters who cover television are fixated on ratings. For the season to date, the "CBS Evening News" has gained 183,000 viewers, from what had been a low point under Rather. By contrast, ABC's "World News Tonight," which is still rebuilding after the death of Peter Jennings and the injuries suffered by Bob Woodruff in Iraq, has lost 845,000 viewers and "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" has lost 741,000.

At the same time, Williams remains the undisputed evening news leader, averaging 9.87 million viewers to 8.78 million for ABC and 7.66 million for Schieffer's broadcast.

So, CBS still sits in last place in terms of the major network news ratings, but with Schieffer in the seat, more or more people are coming back to CBS News by the day. There has to be more to it than just what I see…

I, personally, hope the trend continues and that CBS's claim of "temporary anchor" was nothing more than a misnomer. I expect if the ratings continue the way they have, it might just be just that.

Links:

Yahoo!
Washington Post