6uold

Sending email through Yahoo! with Windows Mail

2010-04-08T14:39:00.007-05:00

Go to accounts in Windows Mail:

Click on Add button:

Select E-mail Account and click Next:

Enter your name as Display name and click Next:

Enter your Yahoo! email address and click Next:

Enter pop.mail.yahoo.com and smtp.mail.yahoo.com for the incoming and outgoing server names, respectively, check the outgoing-authentication checkbox, and click Next:

Enter your Yahoo! account name and password and click Next:

Check the do-not-download checkbox and click Finish:

Select the new Yahoo! entry and click Properties:

Enter a better name for this account (optional), uncheck the include-this-account checkbox (we can't receive Yahoo! email anyway), enter other email address to which you want recipients to reply (optional), and click OK:

Select the new Yahoo! entry and click Set as Default (this causes all email to be sent via this account):

Click Close:

I want a new mouse

2009-10-01T13:04:00.053-05:00

One that wont make me sick
One that wont make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick

I've tried a couple of mouses at work—an off-brand and one from Microsoft—both cheap, corded, optical, and with a scroll wheel. Every so often, the mouse cursor/pointer jerks to a corner of the screen. This happens with both of them. I've gone through Dell's online troubleshooting process, but to no avail. I'm thinking the cause may be their lowly LED-based sensors on my fake-wood laminate desk. Laser should be better, right, or anything that doesn't need to look at my desk surface? While I'm replacing it, I might as well consider the ergonomics, too. My mouse wrist—the right one—hasn't hurt but, you know, now that I think about it, well, maybe it does hurt just a bit. :-) Actually my left wrist hurts more. What's up with that?

The Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan looks nice, although I've never used a trackball for any length of time.

3M has an interesting alternative—a joystick. Hmmm, I dunno, though...

	I think I'll get one of these touchpads just for fun. I don't mind using the touchpad on my Eee PC. Might be nice to switch back and forth between a mouse and a touchpad during the day.

The HandshoeMouse looks like a ray (you know, the fish). Nice, but it's not a laser.

Here's Microsoft's Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000. Not bad. I've had trouble with their scroll wheels in the past, though.

Finally, Logitech's MX 1100 looks real nice. Good reviews, too. I've used their MX Revolution at home for several years and really like it.

UPDATE 12/3/2009: I ended up buying a like-new Logitech MX1100 off of eBay for $20. I like it, although I have been accidentally clicking what are normally the Back and Document Flip ("stealth") buttons with my thumb. After recently losing some text I had just written by accidentally clicking the Back button, I finally got around to disabling these and the Forward button. I never use the Mouse Sensitivity buttons, but they're out of the way so I'll leave them alone. The button below the scroll wheel that switches between scroll speeds works fine, although I miss the automatic clutch in the more expensive MX Revolution. My biggest gripe is with scrolling in click-to-click mode. When you scroll in one direction and then stop, the wheel often rolls back to the previous notch, which moves the mouse back a bit in the opposite direction, which of course scrolls whatever you're looking at back past where you wanted to stop. Just a minor irritation, though. Overall, I like this mouse.

Two-wheeled emergency vehicles

2009-08-21T12:50:00.005-05:00

I saw this on digg:

It reminded me of these Austin EMS motorcycles:

I HATE ALL THAT SILENCE.

2008-11-29T14:56:00.008-06:00

This is my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.

Click on the image for a larger, readable size.

Very realistic flame job

2008-11-29T14:41:00.007-06:00

Not sure where I ~~stole~~ saw this. To add to the irony, this is permit-only parking—see the sign?

Vanishing act

2008-11-08T10:20:00.008-06:00

One night when I was a teenager, during a break from playing keyboards in a nightclub, I was staring at a brick wall in a hallway much like this:

It had a carriage lamp on it but nothing else. As I stared directly ahead at the wall—but not the lamp—the lamp gradually disappeared so that all I saw was an unadorned brick wall:

I have since been able to do this at will with other scenes. It doesn't work if I stare at the object that I'm trying to erase, and the background has to be uniform, either solid or patterned. I just look at it for a few seconds and the object fades from view. if I alter my gaze, the object comes back.

I know that we all have a blind spot where the optic nerve passes through the back of the eye ball and that our brain compensates by filling in the details based on the scene. Maybe that facility is erasing the lamp. Somehow, I am able to consciously control it. Has anybody else had this happen to them?

IPv4 Exhaustion Counter

2008-10-30T15:30:00.007-05:00

A friend pointed out this site to me. It shows how much longer we have until all IPv4 addresses have been used up. I wanted to add it to my blog, so I made an installer so that others may add it to their blog, too. Look in the right-hand margin for the result.

Cinematic style in photography

2008-10-06T09:20:00.003-05:00

Coming across a reference to "cinematic style" in a Twitter entry, I wondered what makes a photograph cinematic.

Production
- Wide aperture
- Slow shutter (< 1/60 sec)
- Telephoto lens from a distance on a tripod
- Slightly underexpose
- Dusk or dawn
Post-production
- Shift white balance
- Black bars, top and bottom
- Reduce saturation
- Add multicolor noise
- Curved gamma
- Increase contrast or make black blacker

The above summary is based on the following citations.

...lighting, the way you move the camera (don't zoom in, be steady, use tripods), film grain, the exposure of the film, and of course depth of field. your depth of field isn't that great on most mini-dv cameras... they're pretty much flat. forums.studentfilms.com

White balance to off-white colors for nice tints.

Lock the camera down on a tripod and zoom in from a distance, this gives a nice shallow depth of field with blurry backgrounds much the way a film is shot. forums.studentfilms.com

Something I've learned is to get rid of shadow grain. this means toying with the exposure.

You know when yuor filming someone under a light, but everything else is dark, and the camera tries to compensate by adding more light? turn your exposure on the camera down a tad and it will get rid of that. forums.studentfilms.com

Another thing to do that is pretty easy is to add a black matte to the top and bottom of the screen. Just two bars of black. I know it's cheesy but it works well when you have no other capabilities such as knocking down the frame rate. forums.studentfilms.com

...get a camera with manual focus, exposure, and shutter speed, and set the shutter to 1/60s or slower. Use a tripod.

Avoid shooting at mid-day. Early morning or sunset will look better. forums.studentfilms.com

...try to shoot on a long lens as much as possible (put the camera far away from actors, zoom in and film it that way) to create some more depth. Also, shoot on a low F Stop forums.studentfilms.com

"How to turn your photo into movie-like effect using Photoshop?"
This is basically what the author says:

Reduce saturation
Increase contrast
Use lens blur to create shallow depth of field
Add Noise
Add black bars top and bottom for Cinemascope effect
Adjust color balance

How do I make my film look digital?

Film cameras normally sample time 24 times a second at 1/48th second each.

Film also tends to record a greater contrast ratio.

...film gamma tends to be more curved (exponential) than video.

Film grain tends to look more multicolored, smaller sized (because film has a greater resolution), ...

...start with basic 3-point lighting.

Use high or low angle shots to convey a character's power in a scene (camera at eyelevel is neutral).

...keep the aperture as open as possible (lower number) and the shutter speed as long a possible (normally 1/60th sec). ... Also, try and work with the camera more zoomed in (but never digitally zoomed in!) and physically farther away from the subject. This flattens the frame and narrows the depth of field (creating a blurry background)–this look is associated with being more cinematic.

Examine something as simple as the color of the walls: In a Hollywood movie, are interior walls ever off-white? No, they are either bright white or a darker, moodier color. This is a micro budget problem because most houses have off-white walls. Off-white works in real life, but looks dirty in a movie.

Desaturate Colors
Some people think reducing the color intensity makes video look more like film.

For whatever reason, video cameras don’t record the dark areas as black as they should (a contrast problem). ... make the blacks blacker ... by reducing the lows or with a filter called “Levels” by increasing the black input.

Blur the Highlights
... The very bright areas of the frame are blurry and almost bleed into the areas directly surrounding them. ... Add a small Gaussian blur ...

Add Grain
... Generate some noise that is colored and randomly changing (under it’s settings). ... Reduce opacity and experiment with composite mode (multiply might be good for this). Keep the opacity low—a little goes a long way.

Long list of URL shorteners

2008-06-21T23:09:00.021-05:00

I recently went on a hunt for alternatives to tinyurl.com, just to see how many there are out there. The concept and implementation are simple. My company runs one, too—flq.us. As you can see, there are quite a few.

301url.com*
6url.com
bit.ly
budurl.com
canurl.com
cli.gs
cuttr.info*
decenturl.com
diggurl.com*
doiop.com
dwarfurl.com
easyurl.net
elfurl.com
fire.to
flq.us
freak.to
fype.com*
gonext.org*
is.gd
ix.lt
jive.to*
krunchd.com
kurl.us*
lilurl.us*
lnkurl.com*
memurl.com
miklos.dk
miny.info*
myurl.in
nanoref.com
notlong.com
piurl.com
plexp.com*
qicute.com
qurlyq.com
readthisurl.com*
redir.fr*
redirx.com
rurl.org
shorl.com
shorterlink.com
shortlinks.co.uk
shorturl.com
shout.to
shrinkurl.us
shurl.net
simurl.com
smarturl.eu
snipurl.com
snurl.com
starturl.com
surl.co.uk
tighturl.com
tinylink.com
traceurl.com
tr.im
twurl.nl
url9.com
urlcut.com
urlcutter.com*
urlhawk.com
urlpass.com
url-press.com
urlsmash.com*
urlsn.com*
urltea.com*
yuarel.com
x.se*
xaddr.com
xil.in*
xrl.us
yatuc.com
yep.it
yweb.com

*Defunct.

It's interesting that even with all this competition, tinyurl.com has almost cornered the market. I've seen some use of urltea.com and maybe single instances of a few more.

New dog fashion trend

2008-05-30T14:21:00.002-05:00

Our beagle, Bailey, wearing the latest fashion in dogwear—dried frog on collar. We have no idea how it got there. Idgit dawg! He'd glance down at it from time to time. It finally fell off.

"When pride comes, then comes disgrace"

2008-05-30T01:37:00.017-05:00

(Proverbs 11:2)

Last evening, I received an email from someone I know containing the tract on the right (click for larger version). Here is the response I sent to him and the other recipients:

Subject: Re: Fwd: I Am Proud To Be White~And I'm NOT A Racist....
From: xxxxxx
Date: 5/29/2008 9:49 PM
To: xxxxxx
Cc: xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx, xxxxxx

Xxxxx,

We are all Americans, but if you want to qualify it by race or ancestry, you and I are European-Americans, not simply "Americans."

I have never heard a racial slur used against a white person except on TV. No racial slur, such as "cracker," has ever been used against me, and I don't plan on using one against anyone else. Life is too short. Why bother insulting anybody, for any reason?

Regarding, "You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you," depending on what "a lot" means, I have never heard any racial minority use this argument. I think most people understand that violent crime is largely intraracial, e.g., for the most part whites kill whites, Hispanics kill Hispanics, and blacks kill blacks.

There are no "Black-only Colleges" in the U.S.; however, there are historically black colleges and predominantly black colleges. All have non-black students.

Whites don't have days, months, organizations, TV stations, etc. that identify themselves as being "white" in some way because _all_ of our days, months, organizations, TV stations, etc. are essentially white. That's what it means to live in a culture dominated by our, the white race. I'm sure the same is true in other, non-white cultures. For example, I doubt whether Liberia has a Black History Month or the equivalent of the NAACP. It would make no sense. Think about it.

Nobody thinks that "only whites can be racists." That's absurd. Every race has members that are racist against other races.

The U.S. has had a "white"-dominated culture for the past few hundred years. (For several _thousand_ years before that, it had an exclusively Indian culture.) There are institutions, programs, and social graces that specifically benefit non-whites because these people have been trod upon for so long by our culture. There are certainly inexcusable excesses, but I think it's pretty easy to understand the motivation within our still-white-dominated society to accommodate these people in a few mostly symbolic ways. I mean, if you really feel threatened by Black History Month, you need to find a hobby. :-)

Xxxx

Big. Ugly. Watch.

2008-05-20T13:30:00.011-05:00

I was looking to replace my current, Timex Expedition watch, whose metal body has started to corrode after less than a year (dang, where's that receipt?). I wanted a similar watch but with a plastic body. I haven't found the ideal watch yet, but in the process I found this godawful thing yesterday at a reduced price at Ross.

It's a Nike Hammer watch. The low-contrast black-on-red display makes it sometimes difficult to read, the back light does so barely, the rubber watch band makes my wrist sweat, and the alarm is almost inaudible. But I like it!

I was earlier tempted by a black Pulsar. I have a feeling that its curved, thin metal body will not corrode. A bit too dressy, though. (UPDATE: Found a used Pulsar for $29.99 on eBay. I bet I win the auction.) So here are my requirements: analog, second hand (for EMS—taking pulse and respiration), date, simple and easy to read face, will not corrode.

My first HDR photo

2008-04-30T12:46:00.015-05:00

The reason I bought my Nikon D70s last year was to take HDR photos. I am just now getting around to it. This is our house.

I used the trial version of Photomatix Pro 3.0 and just removed their watermarks with Corel Paint Shop Pro X. This is probably over processed—colors too saturated and contrast too high, but I'm just playing around. Our house is completely different from the Simpson's house, but the flat, bright colors create a passing resemblance.

The next photo has been processed on some Japanese site to look like an old photo. Maybe a small stagecoach inn, circa 1890? Pretty good job. I used the overexposed photo from the bracketed set that produced the above HDR image. The properly exposed photo was too dark after processing.

How to write telephone numbers

2008-02-11T19:04:00.005-06:00

There is actually an international standard for how your contact information appears, including telephone number and email address. It's the ITU-T E.123 Recommendation. This is taken from the text:

Orange flower

2007-10-02T17:18:00.000-05:00

Neither my wife nor I remember the name of this flower which we most likely bought at Home Depot or Lowe's. Very intense orange blossoms. It actually looked better yesterday—less blousy—but I was too lazy to get out my camera.

My depth of field was too shallow. Would have been nice to have all of the flower completely in focus.

Yellow garden spider

2007-10-02T17:05:00.000-05:00

My wife pointed out this spider to me this afternoon on our front porch. It's commonly called a yellow garden spider, but its latin name is Argiope aurantia. Very pretty colors. Click on the image to see the high-resolution version. The spider looks much more impressive that way.

The rain lilly

2007-09-05T19:19:00.001-05:00

In the Texas hill country, rain lillies like these appear a day or so after a heavy rain in the spring and summer.

Their buds are purple, and they flower the same day. The giant rain lilly is slightly larger.

Yellow fungus

2007-09-05T19:01:00.003-05:00

Some sort of fungus growing on our shed step after a series of rainy days. The bright golden color caught my eye.

First National Starbuck's

2007-09-05T18:24:00.001-05:00

Saw this in Bastrop, Texas a week-and-a-half ago.

Is the bank in a Starbuck's or is the Starbuck's in a bank?

(BTW, "Bastrop" is pronounced, "bass drop," as in a fish fall.)

Texas coast, Christmas 2004

2007-08-22T10:30:00.000-05:00

While cleaning up some old email just now, I came across this satellite photo from Christmas 2004 of the Texas coast dusted with snow. Folks, this is an extremely rare thing! Cool photo, too. The upper coast starts at about West Matagorda Bay and goes all the way down the coast into Mexico.

Old rainy day

2007-08-18T23:47:00.000-05:00

My wife took this photo a month or so ago of our front porch during a rain storm. I just found it on her camera's memory card. Nice colors!

I corrected some spatial distortion, but now the front chair looks a bit odd. Oh, well. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

Night photos

2007-08-18T22:53:00.001-05:00

I just bought a remote shutter release for my Nikon D70s. I've needed it before, and I'll need it for the HDR photos I've been meaning to take (that's why I bought the camera). I took a few photos of the night sky to play around with it. None of them are that good, but here are a couple after cropping.

This first one (above) of the moon looks like a grey ball that is illuminated by a flashlight. I couldn't see the dark side of the moon with the naked eye, but it shows up well in the photo. It was windy, so some of the blurriness may be due to slight shaking of the camera. The exposure took around 10 seconds. I increased the contrast a tad to get rid of some of the glare from the cloudy sky. I like the clouds and whatever chromatic aberrations are going on there. It looks like a frame from a silent movie.

This shows the glow over some hills in front of our house. The red light (two, actually) is on an antenna at the nearby fire hall. Depending on your monitor, you may or may not be able to see the silhouette of the trees and what I assume are utility poles on the horizon. I like it like that.

Gun culture

2007-08-10T17:33:00.000-05:00

I own guns, but check this out—a double-barreled lighter. Pull back the hammer to light it. Trigger doesn't do anything. Refillable. I don't have anything to light with it but had to have it.

Bought at local convenience store.

"Butterfly on Lavender"

2007-08-06T16:56:00.001-05:00

I especially like this photo. The short depth of field yields a 3D effect.

Taken at a vineyard and lavender farm in Stonewall, Texas in summer of 2007.

Prophetic boat name

2007-08-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

Taken in the aftermath of flooding in and around Marble Falls, Texas in the summer of 2007.

"The Great Wave off Kanagawa"

2007-08-06T16:41:00.000-05:00

Hokusia's work is cliched by its pervasiveness, but I have always found Great Wave breathtakingly beautiful.

They like to get a little high

2007-08-06T16:33:00.000-05:00

My new favorite 17th century painting, A Peasant Couple and a Dog on Tiptoe by Adriaen van de Venne.

Found through Neatorama.

Food to the poor

2007-07-31T17:11:00.000-05:00

Ain't this the truth...

What the fwck?

2007-05-08T00:11:00.000-05:00

Remember the vowels you learned in school—"a, e, i, o, u?" Do you also remember the part that followed—"...and sometimes y and w?" ..."W!?" I've seen diphthongs mentioned as examples, such as "chew," but never as a straight-ahead vowel. I found an example—the strange little word, crwth. It has Welsh roots yet is in my (American) English dictionary and is pronounced like "tooth." It's a stringed musical instrument, and here is what it sounds like. By the way, that clip sounds sort of like music played backwards. "Turn me on, dead man," indeed.

Duh, what's that thing?

2007-05-07T13:42:00.000-05:00

Why do folks label the obvious? Just in case aliens arrive, they won't have to ask what that thing is?

Found at medical office building in Austin, Texas.

Bump standard

2007-02-20T11:16:00.000-06:00

Did you know that there is actually a standard for that little bump on a telephone's 5 key? It's in the ITU-T E.161 Recommendation. Now, to assure that your phone is within specs, everybody get out your micrometers.

Luther on a Holsman

2007-01-25T22:09:00.000-06:00

I've been wondering where this old photograph was. I had just about given up hope, thinking that I might have lost it. However, as you can see, I found it!

On the back is written in my father's handwriting,

"PAPA" JONES BROTHER LUTHER
ON RIGHT. OTHER PERSON
UNKNOWN.

So I guess that makes LUTHER my... wait a minute... my great-great uncle. The vehicle is a turn-of-the-century Holsman. While looking for the link, I learned that Mr. Holsman invented the reverse gear. Wow. High tech, indeed!

Ice in the hills

2007-01-18T15:43:00.000-06:00

This is looking northwest from our front yard towards Marble Falls, TX. Note the sleet on the ground and ice-encrusted trees and bushes. Brrr. Has been in the upper twenties for a few days, and we've been having sleet and a bit of snow. We're on a warming trend, now, though. We need the water, no matter in what form it arrives.

For virtually every photo I use, I manipulate in some way with Paint Shop Pro. Starting with the following photo, I increased the color saturation, brightness high-end, and sharpness to end up with the above photo. Took just a few minutes but made quite a difference.

E.S. Posthumus

2007-01-14T13:53:00.000-06:00

Great instrumental music to work by. They do lots of sound tracks for movies and television, and it shows. Basically, orchestral/choral works often with a dominant John Bohnam drum track. A lot of their stuff sounds like Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song" but without the singing and guitar work.

Found it at Neatorama. Bring up E.S. Posthumus' site in a browser tab, click on the ||/> icon, and then get to work...

Buying cheap glasses online

2007-01-12T19:10:00.000-06:00

This is what $27.85 buys.

I was recently given a practically new recliner, and boy do I appreciate it—it's the most comfortable chair in the house. However, since I wear progressive lenses (I'm near and far sighted), I can't lay back in the chair to watch TV because I'm looking down my nose through the bottom of my lenses, which have a curvature for close vision, such as reading a book, not looking ten feet away at a television. So I mentally filed away a plan to buy some single-vision glasses just for watching TV in my recliner. I then came across a blog entry for buying cheap glasses online and decide to put that plan into action.

There are several sites from which to choose. I looked around and chose Zenni Optical. Since this was an "experiment," and I didn't need anything fancy because I'd be wearing them in the house, I went with the cheapest—just $8.95 for frames and lenses! This includes a scratch-resistant coating, but I also wanted an anti-reflective coating for the light from the TV, which costs an additional $4.95. Upon entering my prescription, the form on their site automatically added $9.00 because my prescription is apparently "extra strength." I don't know why the extra charge. Maybe I need extra-thick lenses to start with. Anyway, add an additional $4.95 for shipping, for a total of $27.85. Here's the breakdown.

$8.95 base price
+4.95 anti-reflective coating
+9.00 extra strength
+4.95 shipping
____________________
$27.85 total

I needed help measuring my glasses, but Zenni wasn't particularly helpful. You should Google for other stores that describe exactly what the measurements mean, such as frame width and temple-bar length. Some sites let you upload a head shot and "try on" some of their glasses. Some are better than others. I liked SpecsOnTheNet and may buy from them in the future if I attempt to buy designer frames again.

The receipt they emailed me says, "Although your glass [sic] may take a few weeks to arrive, they are made within 48 hours after you place your order"; however, I received them in just ten days. That's a nice surprise. Zenni shipped them in a bubble-wrap mailer, which is kind of flimsy, but the glasses arrived in great shape. I guess since they don't weigh very much, they don't need much protection.

All of their glasses come with a case and a lens-cleaning cloth. The case is different than ones I've had before because it has a magnetic clasp. It opens and closes easily but makes a slightly loud snapping noise when closing—be careful in church and the library. The hinges on the case are just bendable plastic, so I'm not sure if they'll take a lot of opening and closing.

Here's everything laid out. The frames are "4119 Metal Alloy Half-rim Frame" and come in five colors. I chose blue just for fun.

There were no smudges or scratches on the lenses, although they were just a tad dusty. Easy to fix that.

Bottom line: I like them. A lot. They fit perfectly, and the prescription is spot on. My head is a bit on the wide side, so, when ordering, I made sure that the frames would be wide enough. That's one thing I should mention—if you're going to try this out, spend plenty of time measuring your current glasses so that you get a frame that fits. Since you can't just walk around the eye-glass store and try on a bunch of glasses, you have to know ahead of time whether you are buying frames that fit you. I don't know what Zenni's return policy is, but I doubt whether it is real good. Even if it is, I wouldn't want to go to the trouble of returning the glasses. At this price, I'd probably just donate them to charity and buy another pair.

By contrast, I bought a pair of glasses at LensCrafters last summer with progressive, coated lenses for $660.00, including a $100 discount that eye-glass stores always seem to offer. Admittedly, they were designer frames and had a nice "Scotchgard Protector" coating on the lenses that I had to special order, but contrast and compare—$27.85 versus $660.00. Moreover, LensCrafters messed up my prescription several times causing me to drive quite a distance into town each time (I live out in the country). After the third trip, I asked for my money back. The fellow helping me said that the person who originally helped me pick out the frames made a mistake because those frames were too narrow to hold a progressive prescription. Geez. From now on, I'm going to be buying my glasses online.

Bluebonnets in winter

2007-01-02T16:41:00.000-06:00

This is what Texas bluebonnets look like in winter. We have lots of them. They're beautiful come spring, but the blooms only last a couple of weeks.

While I was out taking photos of the bluebonnets, I came across several of these strange plants. I'm thinking that it may be some kind of mushroom/fungus thingy. Weird. The seed/flower structure eventually pops off, leaving no discernible plant in the ground. I dunno, though, maybe this is the entire plant. (The black stuff is sealcoat overspray from the driveway.)

Rejected Christmas-card design

2006-12-18T21:41:00.000-06:00

My wife just rejected this design for our Christmas card. Dang.

Update: Here's the one that was finally approved:

Thanks to whoever I swiped this image from.

Letter from Lech

2006-12-18T11:31:00.000-06:00

Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize twenty-three years ago for his trade-union activism in Communist Poland. In addition to being the chairman of the Polish trade union, Solidarność, he later became president of his, now-democratic country.

Right after the Nobel Committee awarded the prize to him (through his wife), I wrote him a letter in English telling him how much I admired him and supported his cause. In return, I received this typewritten personal letter in Polish.

I tried to translate it back then with a Polish-to-English dictionary, but the translation was rather <ahem> awkward. Recently, I had a Polish friend of mine translate it for me (thanks JZ).

Dear Sir,

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your congratulations on the occasion of the Nobel Peace Award being awarded to me. The award is a result of solidary work by many people.

Sympathetic reaction after receiving the award strengthen my firm belief in the correctness of the path taken.

At the same time, I apologize for the delay, but only now did I find some time to write back.

Best wishes,
<sig>

I had always wondered who wrote that letter. Was it Lech Wałęsa himself? All I had to go by was the squiggle of a signature. After a few minutes of Googling, I found that the airport in Gdańsk was named after him and uses his signature as a logo. Allowing for a little variance, it's definitely his signature—Lech signed my letter. I also noticed that there is a "LW" in the upper left-hand corner of the letter, indicating that the letter was ostensibly from him.

Texas Hill Country View

2006-12-18T02:04:00.000-06:00

This is the view from the front, upper balcony of our house.

I was told that it is a thirty-five- to forty-mile view, and not a day goes by that I don't admire it.

I took the original set of photos and pasted them together back in 2005. Tonight I got around to cleaning up the panorama, eliminating the seams between the individual photos and harmonizing the colors and light levels. Was fun! The full, 1MB image (6914 by 1203 pixels) is available here. I assume that's a bird in the sky and not a UFO. :-)

No room at the inn

2006-12-17T14:03:00.000-06:00

I dunno, am I sending mixed signals? :-) This is the new (custom, no-less) no-soliciting sign at the end of our driveway near the road. Attached is a cheap wreath ($2) from Garden Ridge. Next year, we're gettin' a gate.

Killer and Hammer - Separated at birth?

2006-12-17T00:09:00.000-06:00

Is it just me, or do Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom DeLay look alike?

It took some time to find two photos where they had similar expressions. Tom smiles an awful lot.

I've heard a few good cuts off of Jerry Lee's new album, Last Man Standing. Gotta get that CD (now that allofmp3.com is virtually dead in the water). Geez, but he sure looks old, though. I haven't seen him in a few years.