Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone in Blog Land.

Who Needs Television part III

Since I "blew up the car" earlier this week I figured "why stop there?". So (being me) I took out my hand forged knife last night and tried to pry open a compact florescent bulb to get to the electronics. Naturally (being me) I wasn't paying attention to what I was really doing and slipped and sliced open my thumb right down to the muscle. Oh goody, more entertainment. I immediately realised I was going to need stitches to fix my latest blunder so my wife drove me into town (the fourth trip for her that day) so I could pay a visit to the emergency room. By the time the doctor arrived to stitch me up I had to explain what happened three times - well, actually it was six. Each time I explained myself it was followed by a "what?" in a tone of voice that either indicated they had no clue what I was talking about or possibly that they thought I was a total bonehead. I'm still not sure. The staff at the hospital, however, were very nice and got me in and out of there very quickly. In the end I headed back home with five stitches and a mostly incapacitated hand. When I got home I asked my son (he had to get stitches a couple of years ago) how many stitches he had. He informed me it was seven so I conceded to him that he had beaten me. He grinned back at me and said "I'm glad about that!".

Merry Christmas!

Who Needs Television part II

Had "car problems" this week but we are sorted out now. I think the best explanation of what happened is mainly summed up by a status my wife posted on Facebook:

Tanya
tried to offer my second born as payment to the tow truck guy but he said only my first born would do - but unfortunately she wasn't at home!
Tuesday at 7:05pm

Comments

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      You, Patrick, Nadine and Kim like this.
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            Gaynor - why did you need a tow truck driver?
            Tuesday at 7:38pm
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            Tanya - Well... you need to ask Darren about that.. ill just say that he tried to blow up the car...
            Tuesday at 7:41pm
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            Eva - what about your first wed?
            Tuesday at 7:42pm
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            Tanya - Well unfortunately he wasn't at home either.
            Tuesday at 7:43pm
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            Doug - He tried to blow up the what??? Did he burn his lip on the tail pipe?
            Tuesday at 8:05pm
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            Ed - lol Doug!
            Tuesday at 8:18pm
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            Erica - thats mean! maybe I'll stay here at my second home. They're nicer
            Tuesday at 8:23pm · 2 people like this (Darren, Tanya < (the parents))
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            Darren - I was attempting to by-pass the fuel injectors to a nitros tank with high pressure injection valves. I figured if I could increase the burn to compression ratio by a factor of about 6.3 (by my calculations) I could enhance the overall fuel-to-distance curve thereby increasing what is known to the common human as "fuel efficiency" - there must have been a "slight" miscalculation because the puff of smoke from below the engine seemed a little disproportionate to my "enhancement"...
            Tuesday at 8:25pm
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            Eva - nerds gone wild!!
            Tuesday at 8:34pm
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            Erica - AGREED!
            17 hours ago
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            Norayr - Darren, you were kidding, right?
            49 minutes ago
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            Darren - ummm, well, I actually hooked up the battery backwards....
            48 minutes ago
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            Norayr - I see. The first explanation sounded a whole lot more impressive. Sorry to have had to ask. Let's just go back to the bypassing fuel injectors.
            4 minutes ago
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            Darren - okay, we'll just pretend you didn't ask ;)
            a few seconds ago

Who Needs Television

Since I'm new to twitter I've been adding new people to follow. Amongst those I have found are celebs like Steve Martin. It's funny how a whole world of entertainment goes on, in real time, behind all the glitz and glamour of the movies and tv screens. A small example of what Steve Martin has been up to in the last couple days on twitter:


REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: defendant looks like a murderer. GUILTY. Waiting for opening remarks.


REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Prosecuting attorney. Don’t like his accent. Serbian? Going with INNOCENT. We’re five minutes in.



REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: I’m cracking up defense with my jokes. Judge not pleased. Defendant finds me funny. Nice guy!


REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Other jurors are stupid. First, they don’t believe in “hexes.” Plus, they want me to put my magazines away.


I like to cup my hands and say, "you tell 'em Judge Judy," then duck behind the other jurors." HUGE laughs.


REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Defendant’s hair looking very Conan-y today. GUILTY.



REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Attorneys presenting “evidence.” Since when are security photos, DNA, and testimony evidence? Trusting intuition.



REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Lunch break. Discussing case with news media gives me chance to promote my book.



REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Now forcing my autograph on other jurors. Also starting whisper campaign of innocence based on Magic 8 Ball.



Slipped into evidence blow-up of fingerprint with my face worked into it. Got screams! Judge now banging gavel on my head. Hard to twee…


Defendant running for exit. Not to escape, but out of disgust. Judge wearing NOTHING under his robes. We are adjourned until tomorrow.

Practice Makes Perfect

Practice Makes Perfect, originally uploaded by Dar Moorhouse.

My son wanted a guitar for his last birthday so we picked one up from the music store in town. We kept promising him guitar lessons and finally, back in September, we got him signed up for half an hour each Saturday. He seems to enjoy it and looks forward to it each weekend. Already, when he practices, his fingers fly across the frets as he practices his scales. Between my daughter and my boy there is a lot of music floating around the house now.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, originally uploaded by Dar Moorhouse.

Merry Christmas. I can't believe it's in less than a week. I knew in my head that Christmas was soon but when some said out loud "it's next week!" it actually sunk in. Once again it crept up on me and took me by surprise.

A great present would be for a bit of warmer weather from the south...

My Son with One Thousand Watts

My Son, originally uploaded by Dar Moorhouse.

I bought two 500 watt lights the other day from Canadian tire and started playing around with portrait photography. I have a lot to learn. One of my first big things to overcome is my total lack of space in my small place (I've taken over the living room and spilled into the kitchen). When the weather is really cold out I have little desire to head out for photography even though I have a couple ideas for outdoor photos I think would look quite nice. For $60 bucks I got some lights, used an old tripod, and bought a cheap black sheet. Almost an instant studio.

Brisk Winter Weather

I stepped out of the house this morning into the dark and the cold to start the car and heard a tree crack. It's now late evening and the walls are starting to contract and crack. The thermometer is dropping and the moon is casting deep, cold shadows across the dimly glistening snow. I had to pile snow about the propane pipes and the tank about an hour ago to insulate it against the other Yukon freezing point (-42.1C). A couple of years ago when we had a low of -LL C (that would be my digital thermometer's way of saying colder than -50C) we managed to keep our propane flowing by using snow for insulation. I certainly don't want it to drop that low out there but at least we can deal with it.

Late to the Game

I finally broke down and started using twitter. I had actually signed up about a year ago (four accounts - one for me, the human, and three for my servers at home) but didn't find it useful at the time. I suddenly decided to try again (because a friend at work has been using it and it seemed kind of fun to follow some of the celebs out there) so I installed it on my blackberry, connected it to this blog and decided to hook my servers in again. The whole difference now is I'm using my blackberry to update twitter and the feed goes directly to this blog to allow it to be a bit more dynamic. The twitter feeds don't allow it to update on Urban Yukon but hey, you can't have the blog-cake and eat it too.

The blackberry also lets me take photos and send them off immediately to twitpics so I won't have to clutter up my flickr stream with lousy blackberry photos.

The plan for my servers is to have my hidden account respond to a special twitter message and execute any command I tell it to. I'll give it a server prefix (as I've been calling it) which tells it what server I'm directing the command at. The prefix will then be followed by the secret command. I've decided I only need one account for a server because I can use that one to send remote commands to my other home servers which should reduce my network chatter.

I realize I'm kind of late to the whole twitter-verse but until I got my blackberry I really didn't see any use for it.