August 2007 – Page 2 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Family Tradition

Notice: Undefined index: image in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: thumbnail in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: altdesc in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: captiontext in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: thumbid in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: image in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: thumbnail in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: altdesc in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: captiontext in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

Notice: Undefined index: thumbid in /home/geekradio.com/domains/baldheretic.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins/highslide/wp-highslide.php on line 56

We’d been hearing the tell-tale chirp of a baby Cardinal around the yard. This signaled the arrival of another successful hatching for Ricky Handsomepants and his mate, Lucy.

Today we spotted Lucy retrieving food from the feeder and flying down to feed the fledgling.

Click for full size

As we watched her fly back and forth a few times we noticed the young bird hop down into the flower bed. As continued to watch we were surprised and delighted to see that there was not one, but TWO baby cardinals.

Click for full size

This was pretty exciting. We’re used to seeing a baby each summer, but seeing two was a bonus.

Google Maps

Google just announced a new feature of their map site that allows you to embed a Google Map right into a web page just like you would with a Youtube video.

KPFT

View Larger Map

The embedded map has all the functionality you find at the actual Google Maps site. You can scroll it, zoom it, get directions and that good stuff.

It’s way faster and easier than the in-line Google maps plug-in I was playing with before.

This will be a lot of fun to use during the upcoming trip to Spain….

Details are at the Google Lat Long Blog

Getting enough fiber?

I was watching the tube the other day and happened to catch this ad for All Bran touting the benenfits of said cereal in promoting regularity…

Honest to gawd I thought it HAD to be a parody. Something along the lines of the old Colon Blow cereal ad on Saturday Night Live back in the Phil Hartman days. But alas, no…this was a REAL ad for a REAL product.

Big E and Dancing Sister T

Click for full size

What’s for dinner?

Cynthia has been working steady the last 6 months or so on her latest quilt entitled “What’s for dinner?” She first envisioned the idea over a year ago and began to collect various fabric swatches with prints featuring edible items.She completed it today

In the above picture Cynthia is standing on a small step stool so the quilt doesn’t touch the ground.

The individual blocks are pretty neat. There’s picnic ants on a raiding party, all manner of deserts along with fruits, vegetables and even my favorite, sushi! There’s even one small swatch of some laughing mice which amuses Cynthia
to no end…

You can click on any of the blocks in the table below to see a larger, more detailed view.

The reason this quilt took so long to complete is that all of the quilting (including the stipple quilting) was done completely by hand.

Click for full size

It was intended to be hung in the kitchen but now that it’s complete and we’ve had a chance to think about it we plan to hang it in the breakfast room.

Cynthia was glad to finally complete this and as exhausting and tedious as it was toward the end, she’s already started work on the next quilt…

HFD

Don’t Shoot!

If you’ve been paying attention to the news at all this week then I am sure
you have heard about the recent shooting at KPFT, the station I broadcast Technology Bytes from each Wednesday from 8-10 pm.

To recap (from the KPFT site):

At about 1 AM Monday, August 13 a gunshot was fired
from a passing car into the KPFT control room. It penetrated thru both
panes of the outer window, entered the room and smashed into the control
room door on the far side of the room. Police were summoned and have begun an investigation.
Fortunately, Mary Thomas and John Orr of “Zydeco Pas SalÃ©” were not hurt.

I have sat in that control room many times in the last 20 years of programming at KPFT. Only in the last few years have I had an engineer working the board (thanks phliKtid!) which allows me to sit in the windowless on-air studio.

I’m truly grateful that no one was hurt during the incident

This is not the first violent episode at KPFT.

The station’s transmitter was bombed and destroyed on May 12, 1970,
two months after going on the air. The new station was off the air for
three weeks until repairs could be made.

Five months later, on October 6, 1970, while the station was broadcasting Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” the transmitter was bombed yet again and
the damage was significantly more extensive. The second bombing took
KPFT off the air for three months.

Check out this rare video:

The bombing was at the transmitter and the actual station was unharmed, as were the programmers and staff of KPFT.

There’s a piece of the destroyed transmitter on display at the radio station.
It’s upstairs so you have to know about it or ask to see it if you are just
a casual visitor.

Then there was the time not too long ago that the guy who has been ranting and raving all over the Internet about Technology Bytes and KPFT conspiring with Microsoft to exploit the American public showed up at the station brandishing a shotgun.

As to the recent shooting, I have no idea what the motivation might be.
It could have been someone upset with our left leaning programming, it could
have been random, it could have been a disgruntled volunteer…heck,
it could have been someone upset with Rick Heysquierdo for playing one
too many Billy Joe Shaver songs on Lone Star Jukebox for all I know…

The Freepers are going back and forth from accusing us of shooting ourselves as a publicity stunt or a
conspiracy to suggesting that we were “asking for it” …

One thing’s for sure, this event has the opportunity to galvanize
support for KPFT in this community.

No matter your political leanings, no matter your spiritual beliefs
or taste in music, everyone (sane) can agree that shooting a
radio station is just crazy and, quite possibly, a REAL symbol
of the threat to freedom of speech and expression faces each
and every day in this country.

If anything, the recent shooting might bring some much needed
attention to the plight of our little public radio station. Maybe more
people will be motivated to get involved. It’s times of crisis that seem
to bring out the best in people.

I don’t see my show as a lightning rod for controversy, but I sometimes
lose site of the fact that KPFT can be.

I’ll be doing my show tonight. Business as usual. But you can bet I will be a little more on the wary side than before.

Links of interest:

Rolas de Aztlan (kpft.wordpress.com)
Notes from KPFT Program Director Ernesto Aguilar

The Texas Observer (www.texasobserver.org)
KPFT’s Close Call

Charles Kuffner (offthekuff.com)
KPFT targeted for “alternative” programming?

Dooley News

We have been working on teaching Dooley to say
“Dooley’s a bad bird, Dooley’s in biiiiiiiiiiiig trouble”

The emphasis has been on the word “big” which
we pronounce “beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeg”

Dooley has mastered the first part. Previously he’s been able
to say his name and “I’m a bad bad birdy” so it’s come
pretty easy. Also, he’s nailed “beeeeeeeeeeeg” and loves
that word.

The part he’s struggling with is the word “trouble”

When this happens he uses other words he already knows in
an effort to figure out how to say the new word.

This has resulted in the following:

“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeg Cynthia!”
“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeg Zippers!”
“Tickle the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeg bad birdy!”
“I’m a beeeeeeeeeeeeeg bird”
“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeg …. BUB!”
“Jingle bad beeeeeeeeeeeeeeg!”

Al lthis and endless repetitions of
“Beeeeeeg! Beeeeeeg! Beeeeeeg! Beeeeeeg!”

He’ll get there. I just heard something that sounded like
the word “trouble” … it’s just a matter of time.

In other Dooley news there’s been a development
that’s not so pleasant.

Dooley is prone to a repetitive hooting when we leave the room
where his cage resides. It can sometimes get very insistent and
is quickly very irritating. The only remedy is to either go back in
the room or cover his cage.

Over the last few mornings there has been a hooting sound that
is just like Dooley’s but comes from the tree in the front yard. It
seems that there’s a mockingbird who loves that sound and has
been hooting on several mornings over the past few weeks.
The problem is that nothing shuts up the bird in the front yard.
Fortunately he’s only been going off in the morning as we are
headed to work.