Author: Eugene

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December blogger gathering?

So now that everyone is recovering from the turkey-induced food comas, time to see about our next social event. From the comments, El Bohio seems to be an acceptable choice. Chuck proposes this Friday/Saturday (Nov 30/Dec 1) or next Friday/Saturday (Dec 7/8), which should put it nicely before any other conflicting Christmas/holiday events. I’m thinking 6 or 6:30ish or so. Show of hands anyone?

Take a gander at the menu while you’re mulling it over.

Update: Two votes for next week so far. I’ll make it three. I’m leaning toward a Saturday gathering, but Friday is fine for me too. Anybody else?

Map: In case anybody doesn’t know where El Bohio is, here’s a Google map. It’s across the street from Locklear’s on Maybank Highway.

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Hurricane season in the side view mirror

The 2007 season officially ends in a few days, wrapping up another thankfully uneventful season for us.
Could have used the rain from a few tropical storms though.
The tally so far (May forecast in brackets):
Storms: 16
Named storms: 14 (13-17)
Hurricanes: 4 (7-10)

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New bow

Finally got around to ordering a new bow for the viola a few days ago, and it arrived today.
Viola and Bow
Sounds a little rough right now. Still need to get the bow broken in with rosin and remember how to bow the strings. Can definitely tell the viola’s just a little too small for me (or else I just have fat fingers).
Now to see if I can re-teach myself all the viola-playing stuff I used to know.

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Chickeny goodness

Like the previous slow cooker chickens, yesterday’s attempt turned out pretty decently, although with a good bit of liquid coming off during cooking, it was more of a half braised/half roasted bird.
Next time I think I’ll try it with some veggies underneath the bird. Carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, that kind of thing.

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Video capturing again

Or, Why I Need a Bigger Hard Drive
Shortly after the wedding, I wanted to convert our wedding video from VHS to something digital, so I bought a video capture card to stick into the computer. Knowing digital video takes up a lot of space, I also added a 160GB hard drive to the system as well. Did an ok job, but I soon discovered that the 1.5GHz processor in the computer was a little underpowered for video stuff making for occasional spotty captures and long rendering times. Had fun capturing videos of stuff with it though, and managed to get a few seasons of Good Eats archived away as MPEGs on CD.
Then the card languished for a while and got removed to make room for a 5 port USB card. Earlier this year I finally Powerleaped the computer and decided to dust off the video capture card. Took out the modem to make room (finally got DSL, so didn’t need that anymore) so now I can start capturing again.
Of course in the interim, stuff got put onto the 160GB hard drive, so now I need another hard drive to store the AVI files on. It’s going to have to be an external one because I’m out of molex power plugs inside the case. I’m not sure the power supply in my computer has enough to power another device anyway. Fortunately there’s the Firewire port to plug into. The 750GB external drives have been coming down in price pretty rapidly, so I’ve got my eye on those. That should definitely give me more than enough room to keep me video capturing for a while.
Working on making a DVD of a recent talk given at the last Lab Club meeting. Next up I’m going to recapture the wedding video.