The Usual Susspects

Surprise!

Jan 242012

It was almost the biggest surprise ever.

Late yesterday I got word at work that there was a strong desire to send me out the following day on what would have been my first business trip ever. The reason would have been to assist with a time-sensitive video shoot in another state, to ensure that everything went smoothly.

That state was North Carolina. The specific location was Mooresville, in the Charlotte metro area!

It looked probable, but the final decision wouldn’t be made until we discussed it in a group meeting early the next morning. So I went to work with luggage packed, ready to leave in the afternoon.

Since nothing would be definate until just hours before leaving for the airport, I didn’t mention anything to Patty or the kids. First, I didn’t want to get their hopes up incase plans feel through. But also, how awesome would it have been to knock on the front door and surprise Patty and the kids, totally unexpectedly?! (I would’ve had to leave at 5:30am to make it to my shoot, but a short visit is better than no visit.)

Needless to say, I didn’t end up going to Charlotte on business today. If I had, I would’ve been knocking on the front door and saying “Surprise!” right at this very moment. And I also would’ve been posting some totally awesome video too, shortly thereafter.

Neighborhood Insecurity

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Dec 032011

Yesterday I was walking back from the Metro after work. It’s a mile walk. Just because I was curious, I took out my new Android mini-tablet (more on that in a future post) and ran one of several wi-fi scanning programs I have. These aren’t hacking apps. They’re just standard apps that scan for available wi-fi networks, such as local hot-spots you’d find in a Starbucks or elsewhere. As I walked I just watched the screen, which refreshed every five seconds.

Throughout my mile-long walk through the neighborhood, I was never in a spot with less than four wi-fi signals. That’s a lot of wi-fi spilling into the streets. My first thoughts were about how many people used personal information in the name of their network, including people’s names. Just walking by I could tell that Mary and Anthony were the names of a couple of my neighbors.

Most of the wi-fi throughout the neighborhood was secured networks that you would need a password to get on to. But what surprised me was at least 10 different wi-fi signals were totally open, unprotected from anybody like me stealing their bandwidth. One person (Anthony, mentioned above) had two very strong network signals. One that was secure named “Anthony-secure” and another totally unprotected signal named “Anthony-guests”. What the heck is the point of having a secure wi-fi signal if you have another insecure signal on the same network? That’s like having a lock on your back door but having the front door wide open.

Metro Test

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Dec 022011

This is just a quick test to see if my WordPress for Android app really works offline as it claims to. (Obviously needing internet access later to actually upload.)

Karma Calling

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Nov 212011

On Sunday I left right on time to drive to the Metro station and then take the train into the city to watch a certain professional football team play. (Not naming teams.) After locking up my car and walking down to the Metro entrance, a stranger stopped me and asked me if I had jumper cables in my car. I always have jumper cables in my car. I didn’t want to be late for my game and lose a seat, having to stand for the entire three hour game, but of course I helped her out. We walked back up to the parking lot, I drove my car over to her’s, popped the hood, and connected the jumper cables. It took a few tries but she finally got her car started. I put everything away and re-parked my car.

It didn’t take too long but it took long enough that I knew I was now going to miss kickoff, and most likely lose a choice seat too. I thought to myself that karma owes me for helping that woman and I had the urge to tweet a comment about it. While walking back down to the Metro entrance I pulled out my cell phone specifically to tweet about karma and pressed the button to unlock it. Instead of my standard unlock screen or any other display that would show when using one of the phone’s various functions, I was extremely surprised to see an unobstructed full screen photo of the universe displayed on my phone, without any buttons, icons, or text that I would normally see on my phone display. I had never seen this image on my phone before! This image may have been hidden in my phone as a factory setting but that still wouldn’t explain how it magically showed up just then, for no reason. Was this karma trying to tell me something?

When I finally got to the ‘local establishment’ that was showing the game, I did indeed miss kickoff. But somehow there was still a seat left for me! A good one. Karma?

Jane’s Voice Mails

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Nov 202011

On Friday I kept getting voice mails from an old lady named Jane in North Carolina. Messages ranged from not knowing the location of the restaurant we were supposedly meeting at later, to this very strange one…

Darah Sings to Her Dandelion

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Nov 192011

This is some video I shot during the summer of Darah singing to her dandelion.

Above The Driver

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Oct 172011

This post is nothing more than an excuse to try out a few different WordPress plugins that enable me to post photos that I’ve uploaded to Picasa.

So my photo excuse is that on my last trip back from Charlotte to Washington, I was the first person on the double-decker bus. After trying out the upper deck once before I decided not to go up there again because you’re in the sun the whole time, beneath the glass ceiling. But being first on, plus the fact that it was overcast that day, plus the fact that the first couple of rows doesn’t have glass overhead anyway – I decided to do it. So below is just a collection of cell phone photos taken from my view in the front row of the upper deck. (Again, just an excuse to test out some plug-ins.)

OK, that one is a little better. Same photos as above but now you can see the captions when you click the photos. (Bonus: I can choose individual photos rather than the entire album)

World’s Largest QR Code

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Oct 072011

First lets establish what a QR code is: You’ve seen them on everything from storefront windows to magazine articles. They are two dimensional bar codes that you can scan with a smart phone to get more information about something. It doesn’t have to be but they are most often simply a website address.

So in Charlotte they are currently painting the World’s Largest QR Code on the top of a warehouse. I’ve seen businesses like Lowe’s Home Improvement paint their logo on their roof before, either to be seen while flying overhead or more likely when viewing the satellite view in Google Maps. So it only makes sense to take it to the next step with a QR code.

I think this is a great idea, although I do think it’s ironic that you can’t capture the code on your smart phone while flying overhead, since all electronic devices must be turned off during takeoffs and landings. (Note: The NoDa neighborhood (where this QR code was created) is not on any flight lines anyway.)

Fly Like An Eagle, or a Cardinal, or a Panther

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Oct 052011

Back in August I flew to Charlotte on the Steelers plane. (Here’s the photo I took with my cell phone.) This plane doesn’t belong to the Pittsburgh Steelers but it is painted in Steelers colors and sports their logo on the tail. This US Airways plane is fairly well known in Charlotte (a US Airways hub) because it clearly stands out and flies in and out of the city daily. Sooner or later you’ll see it. But until that night I had never actually flown on it. What I found incredibly ironic was that I was actually flying to Charlotte that night specifically to get to a Panthers pre-season game against the Steelers!

For years I thought that the Steelers plane was unique because for all the times I had seen the Steelers plane I had never seen any other NFL teams on an airplane. Then the last time I flew back from Charlotte to DC a couple of weeks ago, I looked out the window and was surprised to see a Philadelphia Eagles plane next to me on the tarmac. (Here’s the photo I took with my cell phone.) What? First of all I had no idea that there were any other NFL team planes, but now I was wondering if it’s only for teams from Pennsylvania.

So I finally looked it up online. These weren’t the only two, but there are only four US Airways planes with NFL team designs, out of a possible 32 total NFL teams. Aside from the Steelers and Eagles, there is also an Arizona Cardinals plane and… a Carolina Panthers plane! A Carolina Panthers plane? Why have I never seen this before? Where is it? And also why does US Airways apparently keep each of their NFL team plane away from the cities these teams actually hail from?

I want to fly on the Carolina Panthers airplane.

View From The Top

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Sep 282011

Incredible video was released a few days ago showing the surveillance cameras inside the observation deck within the Washington Monument during last month’s 5.8 magnitude earthquake.

It was scary enough being nine floors up during the earthquake so I can only imagine being 555 feet in the air, at the top of a hundred-year-old thin needle-like structure. In fact, I can imagine it because I was up at the top of the Washington Monument just a month earlier – a close call by a geological timeline. So it very well could have been us up there in that mayhem. Wow.

Anyway, yesterday a “Difficult Access Team” from the National Park Service began rappelling down the Washington Monument to inspect it up close and assess the damages. It was a pretty incredible site. Today I noticed these special rangers from my office window so I snapped a photo. On the left is the shot I took from my window. On the right is a closer shot from AP.