August 21, 2004
Many thanks to Jeanette for bringing this wonderful item to my attention. What a great gift for your favorite geek this Christmas!
Cyberguys - USB WATCH, BLACK W/SILVER FACE, 128MB
Cyberguys - USB WATCH, BLACK W/SILVER FACE, 256MB
Cool, huh? One will do nicely, just remember bigger is better. ;-)
Cyberguys - USB WATCH, BLACK W/SILVER FACE, 128MB
Cyberguys - USB WATCH, BLACK W/SILVER FACE, 256MB
Cool, huh? One will do nicely, just remember bigger is better. ;-)
August 15, 2004
NOTE: This is not an advertisement or a solicitation for sales.
I'm surprised we still have a bunch of these refurbished HP Photosmart 735 
digital cameras in stock at our store. At $99.98 these are just a great way to get into digital photography! At this price why not join the digital camera revolution and start shooting low-cost, utterly guilt-free digital photos? Sure there are better cameras, there always are! But all-around, HPs are way simple to use (esp. for the non-WinXP user!), have good battery life, good photo quality, and a better-than-average feature set.
Digital Photo Review Information Page on HP 735 - http://www.dpreview.com/news/0303/03030301hp735.asp
Compare:
* Refurbished HP 735 camera at $99.98 + 128Mb SD-card $39.94 + rechargable batteries $14.99 + camera bag $4.99 + 2 year warranty $19.99 = $179.89 Total!
* A brand new HP 735 camera = $179.98 for the camera alone!
Staples Buying Information Page for the Refurbed HP 735 digital camera - http://www.staples.com/Catalog/Browse/Sku.asp?PageType=1&Sku=577184
August 07, 2004
How sad that I had to go 'out of town' to find some decent coverage of the John Kerry campaign event in Beloit last Tuesday.
Highlight quotes from the article:
- "Thelma Siker of Janesville ... asked to talk to Heinz Kerry, in her native tongue, Portuguese. The two chatted for a couple of minutes."
- "After word spread that Heinz Kerry would chat with locals at Bagels & More, media and others anxiously gathered outside the small cafe.
"The crowd was a surprise for the store's employees, who knew nothing about the plan."
[More confusion and misunderstanding from organizers? As we now know, Theresa Heinz Kerry planned and did stop at the downtown Monroe institution of Baumgartners to sample their world-famous cheese and beer. I am pretty sure someone knew of this well in advance, but the exact information failed to accurately filter down the food chain to Beloit street level. (And they didn't find any WMDs, either.) ]
- "Also in the crowd were the superintendents of the county's two largest school districts, Tom Evert from Janesville and Beloit Superintendent Bette Lang.
"Afterward, Evert took pains to say he would have been honored to attend a political speech by President Bush as well."
[Somehow space didn't permit the article to mention these two are married.]
- Vendors sat throughout the grounds to sell Kerry/Edwards paraphernalia like pins and flags while the eager crowd waited for security checks.
[The BDN covered much of this stuff in a photo feature with little, if any, captioning. Proof that a photo isn't always worth more than few words.]
- "Who was that guy running the microphone around to people who wanted to ask Kerry questions? Yup, that was Dan Schooff... "
Here are two photos of John Kerry taken at the meet-and-greet outside after the rally (provided by anonymous friend):
August 01, 2004
Some things just make you wonder about our school district. Let's start with these wonderful new trees planted along the riverbank behind BMHS:
I remember watching Dutch Elm Disease march down Beloit's terraces - from tree-to-tree, lot-to-lot and block-to-block - eventually wiping out all the huge elm trees that lined and canopied Beloit's streets. It was very depressing. By the time I graduated from BMHS, Beloit's 'old city' looked almost as barren as Park Meadow (off Murphy's Woods Road) does now.
So why are all these same-species trees planted side-by-side, in a row, and so close together? It is no longer recommended, and Beloit's terrace tree program strongly discourages, the planting of same species trees in rows near each other. I also know from personal experience that you need more space between trees than what appears above.
Doesn't our school district employ some pretty well-educated people who understand and teach (imagine that!) biology and environmental science? So... how did we get this? Educate me.
Heck, I can't help but wonder if these maple trees are even appropriate for a riverbank planting? Oh yeah, and my son (see below) wants to know what happened to the big willow trees behind BMHS. Why were they cut down and not replaced?
Wait, there's more! How many more trees or books (gasp!) could our district have purchased if they'd skipped the silly plaques in front of each tree?
Each plaque, and therefore each tree, represents a school in the district Here's a close up:
Now, I don't know about you, but this all seems pretty silly and wasteful to me.
Wait... we're not done yet, there's still more! Maybe they could have used the time and concrete for the plaques to improve the looks, navigability, and safety of the area where the riverwalk ends south of BMHS? Here's what I'm talking about:
This spot represents an area of future development/improvement plans as part of the whole Beloit2000 plan. It is also in the gray area... between City and School properties. In other words, nobody wants to do anything. So it sits for years just as you see it here...
WHY? Because its in some ten-year plan to fix or improve? Because we can't agree on who will spend the few hundred dollars it would take to fix? What's so hard about making this look better and be safer?
Look closely and you should be able to see the pipe sticking up. (Look for a dark spot, right and a little up from center, between grass and dirt path.) You'd think that alone would get the district's risk management team to force some kind of action.
This doesn't require anything fancy. A little landscaping, a bit of fill, and layer of blacktop 3 to 4 feet wide and - POOF - all better! What is so hard about this?
Where are our school district's skills and priorities? Where's our school board?
But, you say, 'you're nitpicking' or 'this is micromanaging to the extreme.' It is, but that's what you get when a governmental enterprise suffers from bad management - micromanagement from elected officials and the electorate. What other choice do you have? That's simple: Get new management.
Think about it.
(You can see the originals of these photos at: http://www.geocities.com/mark_e_p/blogimages .)
I remember watching Dutch Elm Disease march down Beloit's terraces - from tree-to-tree, lot-to-lot and block-to-block - eventually wiping out all the huge elm trees that lined and canopied Beloit's streets. It was very depressing. By the time I graduated from BMHS, Beloit's 'old city' looked almost as barren as Park Meadow (off Murphy's Woods Road) does now.
So why are all these same-species trees planted side-by-side, in a row, and so close together? It is no longer recommended, and Beloit's terrace tree program strongly discourages, the planting of same species trees in rows near each other. I also know from personal experience that you need more space between trees than what appears above.
Doesn't our school district employ some pretty well-educated people who understand and teach (imagine that!) biology and environmental science? So... how did we get this? Educate me.
Heck, I can't help but wonder if these maple trees are even appropriate for a riverbank planting? Oh yeah, and my son (see below) wants to know what happened to the big willow trees behind BMHS. Why were they cut down and not replaced?
Wait, there's more! How many more trees or books (gasp!) could our district have purchased if they'd skipped the silly plaques in front of each tree?
Each plaque, and therefore each tree, represents a school in the district Here's a close up:
Now, I don't know about you, but this all seems pretty silly and wasteful to me.
Wait... we're not done yet, there's still more! Maybe they could have used the time and concrete for the plaques to improve the looks, navigability, and safety of the area where the riverwalk ends south of BMHS? Here's what I'm talking about:
This spot represents an area of future development/improvement plans as part of the whole Beloit2000 plan. It is also in the gray area... between City and School properties. In other words, nobody wants to do anything. So it sits for years just as you see it here...
WHY? Because its in some ten-year plan to fix or improve? Because we can't agree on who will spend the few hundred dollars it would take to fix? What's so hard about making this look better and be safer?
Look closely and you should be able to see the pipe sticking up. (Look for a dark spot, right and a little up from center, between grass and dirt path.) You'd think that alone would get the district's risk management team to force some kind of action.
This doesn't require anything fancy. A little landscaping, a bit of fill, and layer of blacktop 3 to 4 feet wide and - POOF - all better! What is so hard about this?
Where are our school district's skills and priorities? Where's our school board?
But, you say, 'you're nitpicking' or 'this is micromanaging to the extreme.' It is, but that's what you get when a governmental enterprise suffers from bad management - micromanagement from elected officials and the electorate. What other choice do you have? That's simple: Get new management.
Think about it.
(You can see the originals of these photos at: http://www.geocities.com/mark_e_p/blogimages .)
