My heretofore unexplained absence from the internet is related to the volunteering work I’ve been doing for the Haiti earthquake. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s also been a great learning experience. One of the tangible outcomes from this is a map I’ve developed with another Googler, which plots out hospitals and showcases recent aerial and satellite imagery for the affected areas. Find it here:
http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/index.html
January 21, 2010
So as part of the wwiigis.org effort, I’m buying a ton of World War 2-related imagery from Ebay, including a lot of neat aerial photography. Once I win an auction, I save the auction page in Firefox via ‘Save Page As’ which writes out an html page, and folder containing images for that auction. In getting a separate blog post together, I wanted to have access to the auction title and auction photograph for each auction, without having to manually go through a million folders. So what follows is a quick and dirty Python script that gets the job done, albeit in a pretty ineffecient way. I’m sharing this script on the assumption that there’s one other person in universe in a similiar situation, who doesn’t want to waste an hour in programming land.
Click continue, below, for the code. And check out the latest images, also below (soon to be live on wwiigis.org):
Continue January 9, 2010
With the California “Rainy Season” almost upon us (aka me), it’s time to ready the reading list. I’ve already started a few, and a few others I’m anxious to start reading:
|
Now that I’ve got a complete fly fishing setup (thanks Leon and Cheryl), it’s time to learn how to use it. After about 40 pages though, it’s safe to say I’m still no Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It  .
|
Gone through four chapters so far, and can’t put it down. The book is definitely living up to its billing as a must read for anyone who’s interested in post-Weimar Germany. |
|
A quick read at 450 pages, this promises to provide *the* history of the German air force in World War II. Not sure how much I’ll get out of this, but at four bux, it’s a nice addition to the collection. |
A re-read and a must-read. The definitive look at the closing phases of the war, Toland does a great job of stitching together stories from all sides of the conflict — the Germans trying to bargain for their lives, the Ango-American tension, and the barbaric march through Germany by the Russians. |
|
What can I say, I love bees. |
The story of the Allied race to acquire Germany aviation technology (e.g. the Me-262) before the Russians could do the same. |
January 6, 2010
I am now the proud owner of the domain, http://www.tecmosports.com. Tecmo Sports being the producer of some especially great sports video games back in the 1980s/90s (think: Super Tecmo Bowl). So now the challenge is to come up with something cool to do with the site. I’m torn between making it an actual sports news page, or just showing sweet Bo Jackson touchdown runs…
or…
Replaying painful Vikings moments from my childhood
1 Comment January 3, 2010
For New Years 2010, a bunch of us (Tom, Pete, Adam, Jennifer, Erin, Dustin, Tonya, et al) decided to head down to Red Wing, MN to reign in the new year in style. The night started at the super Super 8, then downtown, then to Treasure Island Casino. Needless to say, the evening was a lot of fun, thanks to Dustin for coordinating, and everyone else for making it out.
What follows is a rough recap of our evening which, thanks to the wonder that is Twitter, included some folks that weren’t able to make the trip… Note: Click on the Twitgoo and Twitpic links for Tweet-embedded images.
Liberty’s in red wing
9:00 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from txt
Editors note: Liberty’s Restaurant and Lounge, not a bad spot.
@dustinumn I expect you brought your wig!
8:05 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from Tweetie in reply to dustinumn
Editors note: Dustin did not bring his now-famous wig, which is probably good because it smells like year-old beer.
gettin ready for treasure island http://twitpic.com/w4vw8
8:37 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from TweetDeck
@djlein you’re missing out! http://twitgoo.com/at3ip
8:42 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from twidroid
Editors note: Tom’s scalloped potatoes, which hopefully tasted better than they looked…
@giencke That looks horribly disgusting! Don’t they have any buttersteak?
8:45 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from TweetDeck in reply to giencke
Editors note: Buttersteak, made famous in Vegas 2006 when Tom dipped his Kobe beef in drawn butter.
Butter bone! http://twitpic.com/w516u
9:02 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from TweetDeck
Editors note: A discarded rib from Tom’s dinner + butter. Genius.
RT @beyondbasic Butter bone! http://twitpic.com/w516u
9:03 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from twidroid
Editors note: The RT button got a lot of use that night — “Retweet it like it’s hot.”
@beyondbasic @giencke @djlein you guys are killin me!
9:21 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from txt
@KellBean Aren’t you down there having butter bone with everyone else?
9:26 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from TweetDeck in reply to KellBean
@djlein hell no. Sitting around in a casino for 8hrs does not appeal to me
9:27 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from txt
@kellbean we’re on hour 13 at the casino, wish you were here
9:45 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from twidroid in reply to KellBean
Editors note: And at this point we weren’t at the casino yet 
@giencke LMAO. That could be the best tweet of 2009.
9:47 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from TweetDeck in reply to giencke
http://twitpic.com/w5ln6
10:36 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from TweetDeck
Editors note: Finally at Treasure Island, posing for a pic in between chatting up the locals.
Hour 96 at the casino: http://twitpic.com/w69hr
12:23 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from TweetDeck
Editors note: Minus 95 hours and change
Editors note: Everything after this gets a bit hazy, but there was gambling, drinking, and a 4:30am trip to Perkins. All in all, a great, great New Years!
1 Comment January 2, 2010
Congrats to Tom on winning the 2009 Giencke.net fantasy football league championship, beating yours truly in a pretty (read: painfully) close week 16 game.
Update: Thanks to the Dallas Cowboys getting credited with an additional sack last night, I’m now the league champion, beating Tom by a grand total of 0.12 points. Wow.
Relevant links:
Championship matchup
League Chatter
Week 16 Sunday scene
League link
Manager of the Year (MOTY) voting
December 27, 2009
What better to do with a backyard full of Minnesota snow, piled a foot high, than to make a 12-foot tall snow Christmas tree. Note the plastic plate star and food coloring ornaments
 Snow Christmas Tree I |
 Snow Christmas Tree II |
Update: It’s now 36 degrees here, and the snow Christmas tree is melting, bad…
Update 2: The snow Christmas tree continues to melt, will it fall??
Update 3: The snow Christmas tree has toppled. It’s now 8 feet of melting snow, food coloring, and a plate… :\
2 Comments December 25, 2009
Buenos Aires 2009
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jan | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
