I just heard of this thing called Google Wave. Now, I use a lot of tools on the web and many of them are offered by Google, but when it comes to sheer continuity, this tops the cake. Google Wave basically merges many functions of GMail, orkut, Friend Connect, Picasa, Docs, Chat and probably many more. It’s pretty incredible.
For a while now, I have been wondering where some of these tools were headed. I mean, the last time I heard of orkut was a few years ago. I had no idea that there was a buzz about it and development of it behind the scenes.
Since I am really no good at tearing apart a video to regurgitate its contents, I’ll just post the video. Check it out.
This is the big news today. From what I am reading all over the web anyway. Microsoft has taken the beta version of “Microsoft Security Essentials” anti-virus software out of beta and allowing the public to download it for free.
For free? What? I did a little doubletake at this one. I have been looking for good free anti-virus software for a while. Well, ever since Norton AntiVirus started annoying me. Let me tell you why I got annoyed:
1. Every time I have to renew Norton, it seems like the price goes up. How much higher can they go?
2. Norton has this annoying feature that sets auto-renew to “on” by default. While this is good for those of us who forget to renew our anti-virus software, it can get annoying for us who can handle this chore. Personally, I like to give my options a yearly review. Good thing they send that email to warn me and to remind me to turn off auto-renew.
3. Apparently, Norton has had some issues with double-charging their customers when it comes time to renew the software. They did this to me. Hey, don’t take my word for it, just click here to see for yourself.
The reviews on Microsoft Security Essentials have been pretty good. I watched a few videos of the beta version and people seem pretty happy with what they get. Remember, this is free, but I think it only works on Windows. It’s a shame we just renewed three computers here at about $50 each. Yeah, I told you it was expensive.
Here is a video describing the free anti-virus software.
Oh yeah…if you want to download Microsoft Security Essentials, click here.
Have you ever met anyone who was cooler than you are? No, I mean much cooler than you are.
Day in, day out, we meet all types of people. The people we meet are generally what we are used to…people who are in the hardware store, the grocery store…people we see driving around on the roads. They are all generally the same type of person and nothing really to stand back from and admire. Well, every so often we come across someone who is out of our league. If you are a guy, this is the kind of person you make sure your lady isn’t looking at for just a bit too long.
I think Peter Mulvey is cooler than I am and yes, I made sure Laura was still interested in me when he took the stage up at Infinity Hall in Norfolk, CT on September 27.
Who is Peter Mulvey? Well, his website says he is an “amazing singer/songwriter/guitarist from Milwaukee.” Good enough for me.
Okay, so here’s the story. The other day, Laura strolled over to me and told me that she made dinner reservations at Infinity Hall. I believe I have written about this place before. I asked her why she made the reservations and she replied, “Oh, no reason.” She then told me that we would be heading upstairs to watch a performer after dinner. This was fairly early in the morning and it was raining outside, so it took me by surprise. Even though I was tired and still half asleep, I agreed to accompany her on this little journey. See what I get for constantly telling her I want to go places?
The dinner reservations were for 5:30 and the show started at 7:30. That gave us two hours to check out the new “Bistro” that Infinity Hall has been promoting. It also gave us time to walk around the newly renovated building that houses Infinity Hall. It’s really cool. If you are ever up in the North/West corner of Connecticut, you should stop in to check it out. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel hip just by being there.
We arrived just on time and walked through the front door. One of the things that struck me right away was the color combination of the interior. It looked great. It was earthy and full of greens, maroons and dark yellows. I kept looking at it as we were eating. These guys put a lot of money and time into restoring the original building and it showed. We sat down and had a good dinner and, of course, drank our Guinness.
After dinner, we walked around to check out the building. We had about a half hour, so I thought it would be a good time to take some pictures. If I didn’t, I would be sitting here right now with nothing to upload. Lucky for you, I got some nice shots. It was kind of dark in there, so I am happy that I got what I got.
Out in front of Infinity Hall in Norfolk, CT
Infinity Hall sign
Huge fan above music hall at Infinity Hall
Balcony above music hall at Infinity Hall
Stage area in the music hall at Infinity Hall
After a while, we walked into the music hall and took our seats. A few minutes later, a very talented artist named Brianna Lane appeared on stage. She sang a few songs and got the audience all warmed up for the main act, Peter Mulvey.
Let me tell you why I think Peter Mulvey is cooler than I am. Well, for one, his voice is better than mine. Also, he can play the guitar really well as opposed to me not being able to play at all. He has a stage presence, writes letters to his nieces and nephews, tells stories and…and rode a bicycle with about four other people to Connecticut from Michigan. I mean, c’mon Peter, you’re killin’ me over here. All I am is a guy who works on computers sitting out in the audience. You gotta stop.
Oh well. At least his show was a crowd pleaser. Everybody loved him and I really got a kick out of how he incorporated some of the letters he wrote to his nieces and nephews in his music and album. He is witty and has a way with words. I can only dream of being like that.
Check out Peter Mulvey. Watch the entire video because he sings towards the end.
This is so weird. I just happen to be looking around at the status of the drought in Atlanta, Ga. I wanted to see if all the rainfall has actually cured it. Sometimes, even when you have flooding, it’s not enough to stop a drought.
I didn’t find the answer to whether or not the drought is over, but I did find some eerie articles and comments. Take a look:
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is worth over 38,000 of them. I apologize. I deleted about half of the photos I took yesterday, but so many of them were good that I didn’t have the heart to cut any further. You’ll just have to look at them.
I think I’ve been to Block Island, RI once before. It seems like more than that because I think about the place quite often. It’s one of those little gems that most of the area hasn’t visited. Don’t get me wrong, Block Island is jumping throughout the Summer, but the crowds disappear in the off season. Ahhh, the perfect time to visit.
The plan was to travel out to Block Island to have lunch at the Spring House Hotel. For my birthday last year, Laura got me a gift certificate just for this. I thought it was a great idea and was excited to go out and use it. We would take the 11AM ferry from Point Judith, arrive at Block Island at noon, eat lunch and leave at 3PM. Well, that was the plan.
When we arrived at Point Judith, we were a little early. I made a big fuss about getting out of the house at 8AM. I totally forgot how long it took to get to Point Judith, so yeah, as I said, we were a little early. Like about an hour. Good thing there was a high speed ferry that left at 10:30AM and only took a half hour to get to Block Island. By taking the high speed ferry, we arrived on Block Island an hour early (11AM).
When we got off the ferry, we walked straight up to the Spring House Hotel. I wanted to go up there just to let them know we were going to walk around a little bit and then come back for lunch. Hey, guess what? When we got to the hotel, we discovered that they don’t serve lunch after Labor Day. Oh well. We left.
On the way back down the road, I explained to Laura that it was actually a good thing that I didn’t call first to find that out. If I had, we wouldn’t have gone there for the day and would have just sat around doing other things. I was glad we made the trip. We just went and ate somewhere else.
Here’s the really cool part. Since we had a few hours to use up before the next ferry would bring us back to Point Judith, we decided to rent a scooter (or moped) to cruise around the island on. That was worth it because scooters are awesome to drive around on and you get to see the whole area. We drove from the most Northern tip of the island to the most Southern and made a bunch of stops in between. We looked hot on the scooter and all the other scooter drivers were envious of us because we could drive 28MPH. That’s a full MPH faster than most scooters on the island. Nobody had the guts to go that fast besides us. We were a gang of two.
At around 2:30PM, we gave the scooter back and did our thing to get on the ferry. During the ride back, I actually fell asleep on the bench. This was the slow ferry, so I had the time. Laura was busy talking with some old ladies who smoke and drank too much. I’ll tell ya, those ladies knew how to party.
Here are those 38 pictures I was talking about above. Enjoy.
Old fishing boat at Point Judith, RI
Point Judith – Block Island high speed ferry
Arriving at Old Harbor, Block Island on the high speed ferry
Small garden at the Hotel Manisses
Hotel Manisses, Block Island, Rhode Island
Spring House Hotel sign
Spring House Hotel, Block Island
Small airplane on final approach to Block Island Airport
Path leading down to Hotel Manisses
Front lawn of the Island Free Libray, Block Island
Large inn and restaurant on Block Island
Surf Hotel, Block Island
Scooter (moped) rental on Block Island
Looking South on Corn Neck Road, Block Island
Path leading to ocean
Lonely house on Block Island
Rock pile on beach
North Lighthouse, Block Island, RI
The scooter we rented on Block Island
The rock pile I made on the beach – bigger than the rest
Pretty shell from Block Island beach
Bird house in Block Island National Wildlife Refuge
More rock piles on a different beach – a whole bunch of them
Block Island National Wildlife Refuge sign
North Light Interpretive Center rock
West Beach Rd., Block Island – heading towards West shore
West Beach Rd. sign
Sandy entrance to Mansion Beach, Block Island
Looking North on Mansion Beach, Block Island
Looking toward Clay Head Beach, Block Island
Looking back at Old Harbor from Mansion Beach, Block Island
Block Island State Airport sign
Block Island State Airport
Southeast Lighthouse sign
Southeast Lighthouse on Block Island
Mohegan Bluffs on Block Island
Standing on small dock in Old Harbor, looking East
Standing on same small dock in Old Harbar, looking at boats back in harbor
Well, we finally did it. We took the schooner cruise on the Mary E. up the Connecticut River.
This was something we were supposed to do about a month ago. When we got the great idea, the weather was nice and cool. When it came time to actually drive down and get on the boat, the heat wave hit. We weren’t in the mood to do anything at that point.
September offers a bunch of great days to get back into those activities you missed during the heat of the Summer. Also, the kids are back in school, so that helps with the crowd levels. The schooner cruise we went on had mostly older folks aboard. I believe we were the youngest and best behaved people on the boat.
I took a bunch of pictures during the cruise and went through them this morning. We actually went on this boat ride last week. I just found the energy to write about it today. I deleted a bunch of pictures that I thought were good at the time of taking them, but later discovered that one can only have so many photos of a flat river. The ones I posted below are the better of the bunch.
If you are interested in taking a schooner cruise on the Mary E. up the Connecticut River, click here to get more information. The Connecticut River Museum manages the whole thing and is a nice place to visit on its own.
Sailboats on the Connecticut River near Essex, CT
Raising the sails on the Mary E. schooner
Schooner sail fully raised
Single sailboat sailing on the Connecticut River
Ropes and bell on the Mary E. schooner
Red house and dock on the Connecticut River
Looking forward past the front of the Mary E. schooner
Joshua Rock near Deep River on the Connecticut River
Since we were in the neighborhood the other day, we stopped by Paul’s and Sandy’s Too to get some nice fresh corn. They get their stock from Gotta’s Farm. I think we went to Gotta’s to get the tomatoes and peaches I was talking about earlier.
While at Paul’s and Sandy’s Too, we decided to browse around the plant section. We don’t usually do this because I like to get the leftovers while they are on sale at Home Depot or Lowe’s. I don’t frequent specialty shops. Unless, of course, it’s to get mulch. I get lots of mulch from Paul’s and Sandy’s Too.
About half way through our browsing, my better half found her Lavender. It’s about time. She has been talking about getting this Lavender forever. Me, I’m into pine trees. Her, she’s into purple plants. She likes that kind of stuff. Together, they go wonderfully.
Here are some pictures of our new Herb Lavandula – Lavender Plant.
By the way, here’s some info I got from this website – Perennial. Plant produces a very beautiful aromatic herb which has dark purple flowers. Makes an excellent ornamental hedge. Used in bouquets, sachets and perfumes. The tender stalks are sometimes used in salads. The flowers and leaves are also edible. Used to repel moths, mosquitoes and gnats. Suitable for containers. Plant Height: 10″.
This morning, Yahoo! had a story about BMW new hybrid concept car. It supposedly gets 62.5 mpg. Not bad.
The car has two electric motors and one turbodiesel engine. BMW claims that the car can reach 62 mph in 4.8 seconds and easily exceed its limited top speed of 155 mph. Not bad again. Certainly a different feeling type of hybrid.
I especially liked the last line…”Leave it to BMW to figure out a way to make hybrids exciting.” That’s right baby.
I usually don’t get into insanely stupid things such as the most recent debacle between Kanye West and Taylor Swift. Maybe I should. You know, I do happen to come across these types of things during my day and I do usually have an opinion on them.
Okay, I’ll keep this short. Can anyone say fake? Can anyone say set up?
As I was telling my sister last night on the phone, what kind of person in their right mind would run up on stage and do that? You have to be a total moron to think it wasn’t planned.
I got up nice and early this morning. I didn’t know this, but Laura had taken my recommendation of setting the alarm clock to go off an hour earlier. I think this is the first step to getting old. When I hit 4AM like Seinfeld’s grandma, that’ when I call it.
I made the coffee and started my morning waltz around the property. I am sure you have heard all about that by now. This morning was pretty good…nice and clear sky with tons of dew on the grass. About half way through my stroll, I decided to go back inside to grab the camera. I didn’t have anything in particular to take pictures of, so I just took random shots.
Here they are:
White Chrysanthemum buds
Purple flower with dew on the petals
White flowers in garden
Morning dew on Fine Fescue grass
Early sprouting of Perennial Ryegrass
Single water droplet clinging on Perennial Ryegrass blade
TYSM I read this one and decided to try it out on my ACER (See, its not always HP with the problems)...