Oh The Glory!!!!!!!

Oh glorious day in heaven. Caren and I figured it out. It was raining out today and now it is snowing with an accumulation of about 3 inches. So, we decided to take the scenic route to the store today. Caren being the good sport that she is snapped pictures and I tried not to kill us when she was snapping pictures of both of us. We then came home and got the pictures all geotagged. There is nothing special about the pics, just a proof of concept is all. For a larger map click the link below this one. Enjoy. 

View Larger Map

Heleman's Gun/Oh Google, How I Love Thee

Seriously, what doesn't google have?

Here is the patent for the extractor and ejector mechanism for Heleman's Gun as found on Google Patents. 

http://www.google.com/patents?id=QTdmAAAAEBAJ&printsec=claims&zoom=4&dq=august+11,+1896+davenport#PPA1,M1

Ode to Bachelorhood

I'm probably going to get beat for this, but I just can't resist. The lyrics are here as well for those who may be at work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdAi9dJlp0A

Lyrics:

Parody of "It's A Great Day To Be Alive" by Travis Tritt (Darrell Scott)

New lyrics by Cledus T. Judd/Chris "P. Cream" Clark/Rich Fagan/DarinGardner

I got my socks dryin in the microwave

Hair on my back I don't plan to shave

I got the house to myself while the wife's away

I'll be rockin all night

Yeah I think I'll drink me an ice cold brew

Lounge in my boxers like I used to do

There'll be no Ally McBeal on the tube

No...I'll be watchin the fight

Well it's a great day to be a guy

Playin cards my buddies until sunrise

You know I never thought that my neighbor would

Be sunbathing topless Lord she sure looks good

I caught a ten pound bass out on the lake

Played 18 holes with my best friend Jake

Best balls I hit was when I stepped on a rake

(FORE)

(oh God)

Oh it wuddn't too bright 

(Gee whiz)

Now I look in the fridge what do I see?

Last night's pizza starin back at me

Pepperoni and anchovies

What a beautiful sight

Well it's a great day to be a guy

Buck naked in my lawn chair swattin at flies

Got some hot dogs on the charcoal grill

Don't want to burn my wieners but I probably will

That fried baloney 

And cheese macaroni

Tasted good this afternoon

But now I'm passin

Some serious gas an

I might have to leave the room

P UUUUUUUUUUUUU

Well I might go get me a new hairdo

Spend a couple hours at a tanning booth

Might even get me a gold front tooth

(muffled as if a patient in a dentist chair)

Oh yeah yeah

And it's a great day to be a guy

But when my wife gets home she's gonna tan my hide

I'll be hung over but a-lookin good

From a week of reliving my bachelorhood

It's a great day to be a guy

But another week of this and I'll probably die

I

Tend to party harder than I should

When my wifes not here to make me be good

Yay whooo

The Stuff Stalkers Are Made Of

I confess that the title was just to get Heidi to read this. 

Well, as promised in the previous post, here is a copy of the track that my Nuvi logged after a few modifications to it. It isn't exactly as the nuvi logged it though. The Nuvi logs its position every second which is overkill. So, I ran it through some software that cuts down the number of points while preserving the shape of the track. It is now down to about 200 points over the course of about a 40 minute drive which works out to be about 1 point every 12 seconds or so. Although that really isn't true because it is trying to maintain the shape, so where points are not needed to do so, it cuts out large swaths of them. The other nice thing is the stalker capabilities of this. If you load the map from the link in google instead of playing with it here, you can not only get map, satelite, and terrain, but also google maps street view. The link follows the map. Enjoy. 

View Larger Map

Geotagging Photos

Here is something for the nerds in the family.

I've always been interested in making photo maps such as this one that I made of all the gravestones of direct ancestors that I've been to:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=110621227674241327820.000001123a8b23bca9747&z=6

However, this was quite laborious because I had to go to each grave, place my etrex legend on the gravestone, write down the coordinates, and enter all of them one at a time into google maps.

There are a couple of options for streamlining this process.

1) You can buy a camera that will automatically geotag your photos. I had a hard time finding anything that wasn't for professional cartographers. Granted, I didn't search for very long because I already have a camera and can't justify spending money on another one. Here is one example though:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B001DO15J2/ref=dp_olp_new_map?ie=UTF8&condition=new

2) You can get a gps device that will create a log of where you have been. Basically, you turn it on and leave it running whenever you are taking pictures and it leaves breadcrumbs about ever 15 seconds. Before you do that though, you make sure the clock on the gps and the clock on the camera are set exactly the same (usually gps units track in UTC, so it is important to set them to the same time zone). You then save the breadcrumb log (needs to be in gpx or nmea format as I understand it from reading the link below) and photos to your computer. From there you run it through software that synchronizes the photos with the log and geotags the photos. You can then upload the pictures to google earth or google maps or something along those lines and create a map with your photos. Google offers free software that will do all of this.

http://code.google.com/p/gpicsync/

Option 1 would probably be easier if you can afford it. There are probably other options out there besides the Nikon above, but they aren't jumping out at me when I do a basic search.

Option 2 would be easier for me because I already have everything I need to make it work (a camera and a gps) and the software from google is free.

Also, if you happen to own a Garmin Nuvi 200 series, I know a way to hack the gps so it will create a track log for you. Normally they aren't designed to do this, but there are ways. That info would then have to be converted from Garmin's format to gpx or nmea, but there are free programs that will do that for you as well. If you are interested, just ask.

I let Caren borrow my camera, so unfortunately, I can't post an example, but I will see her this weekend and we will try it out around Moscow. Tonight I will post an example of a hacked track log from my Nuvi 270.

Joe

Fwd: Pictures of Tabitha and invite to Natalie's baptism

This is from Shanna. 

Hi everyone,

We are finally getting around to sending some pictures of Tabitha.  The first one is one month old and the second is when she was 5 days old.  She has been a difficult baby (colic probably) and we haven't had many times when she would lay down long enough for us to do things.  Hopefully it will get better soon.  

We also wanted to invite everyone to come to Natalie's baptism Saturday, April 11, at 9 am.  Since it is so early we want to invite you to stay for lunch and an Easter egg hunt too.  If  the weather cooperates we will have lunch outside.

Mom - can you post this on one of the blogs that everyone reads just in case we don't have the right emails.

Love,

     Wayne, Shanna, and Family

Revenge of the Nerds

This was inspired by a post on a friends blog. The second one about made me die laughing. Enjoy.

Where's Joe Goes Toes Up?

Well, the V2 Rocket will live to ride another day, but unfortunately is now in need of some repairs.

I was driving home from work yesterday on the freeway. We just got 6 inches of new snow yesterday to add to the 6 or so that we got in the previous two days. Needless to say, the freeway was a sheet of ice. Traffic wasn't going very fast and I was going 25 in a 70 in the left hand lane and keeping plenty of distance between me and the next car. All of the sudden, a green ford ranger spins out of control from the right hand lane into my lane. I tried braking and no response. I tried swerving to the median and no response. It was solid ice and just warm enough to make it impossible to get traction. So, I braced and prepared for the worst. Fortunately, we weren't going too fast. I turned just enough to hit him with the right front passenger side corner. My car came up roses compared to his little pickup. It bashed the crap out of his drivers side door and the area around it. My car is pretty heavy and with no traction is like a missile going down the road. I ended up backwards half in and half out of the fast lane of the freeway. Fortunately nobody was going fast. There was nothing I could do, so I kicked back, called the cops and waited. The cop came from the other direction and crossed the median (those dodge magnums get some serious traction) and then stopped traffic for me while I crossed the road and parked behind the other guy on the right hand side of the freeway. We exchanged information and the other guy got the ticket for the crash and a ticket for failure to provide current proof of insurance. Now I get the joy of dealing with my insurance as they try to extract the money from his provided he has any. Otherwise I get to have him suspended for six years and take him to court. My insurance will pay all but the $500 deductible and they tell me they will go after his insurance (provided he actually has some) and then I get repaid first. Fun times for sure. Here are some pics from this morning of the damage. Not too serious and the car still drives fine. Mostly just enough to be a pain in my butt. Near as I can tell, he was following to close to the person in front of him and when he tried to brake, he found out, much like me, that there is no traction to be had. I guess the moral of the story is that white stuff on the road means slick and slow the crap down and don't follow so close. There is a reason they recommend that you double your precautionary measures when conditions are not ideal. Gary, Heidi, Olivia, and I found that out real well going over Sweetzer in 2004. Don't worry Heidi, I didn't swear this time. ;-) What annoys me is that I was doing everything right and still have to be subject to the fun of dealing with insurance and potentially pay $500 to get my car fixed. I am grateful nobody was hurt though. It could have been much worse at freeway speeds.

Where's Joe Updates

Just a quick note regarding the Where's Joe map above. You may have noticed fewer points on the map from my commute to Spokane here lately, and in fact there are very few points at all between Post Falls, ID and Spokane. This is because I changed the path setting on my radio. I decided it might be a good idea to look at the operating procedures that are suggested by those running the repeaters I'm using. Figured it might be courteous to do so anyway. Well, they suggest a path of Wide 1-1 if I'm going to be transmitting more often than every 2 minutes. Not every repeater is an i-gate that will get my coordinates onto the internet. Some of them are just booster repeaters. A path of Wide 1-1 means that I transmit to only the most proximal repeaters and don't go beyond that. This works great down in Moscow because most of the i-gate repeaters down there are within one hop of my transmission. However, up north, the only repeater I can hit on the first hop that is an i-gate (or rather connects to one without another hop anyway), is on lookout pass. As you might imagine, I would need a clear line of sight to get that one which is why I do best on that one in Post Falls and Hayden. I'm also able to hit one up near Sandpoint occasionally out on the prairie. However, I'm down behind some hills between there and Spokane and then I'm far enough away that it is a hit and miss proposition. Unfortunately, the repeater that I pick up inbetween is a booster repeater, so any transmissions sent with a Wide 1-1 path don't get transmitted on to the i-gate repeaters. The booster repeaters read the Wide 1-1 and that tells them to stop there. In order to get it to the i-gate repeaters, I have to set my path to Wide 1-1, Wide 2-1. The booster repeaters then read that as a signal to go ahead and send the transmission on to the next wave of repeaters and then I'm able to hit an i-gate. You might have noticed that if you mouse over the car or any of the points, you can now follow the path of my transmission from me to the i-gate and all of the repeaters it goes through inbetween. Kind of cool I think. The trade off with the Wide 1-1,Wide 2-1 path is that recommended practice is that you only transmit every two minutes as opposed to the every 30 seconds that I have been doing. I don't think anyone would come after me with a gun, but it is an unspoken rule in the world of radio that courtesy rules the day. If I tie up all of the repeaters in the North West every 30 seconds, I guess that isn't exactly courteous. ;-) So, from here on out, I will have a lower temporal resolution, but looking at today's trip from Spokane to Hayden, it is plenty.

In short, what you see now is at least 2 minutes between points and maybe more if I wasn't able to hit a repeater at all on any given transmission.

I'm also trying to work out why someone operating on a Mac can't see the map. However, I don't have a Mac to work with, so I would appreciate a detailed description of everything those using Mac's are doing and the results via e-mail. Include what you are using to surf the web and such and I'll see what I can do to get it worked out.