birthday celebration

for my birthday celebration this year, i wanted to do something different. i have always wanted to take my family out on my birthday. and so i did.

we met up at brazeiros churrascaria for the evening meal. i had taken my mom and dad there on separate occasions for special events, but my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces had never been. they seemed to really enjoy the place. i know my parents love it. my dad, who’s diabetic, can eat here without being concerned as he would be eating anywhere else.



for dessert, i had ordered some cupcakes from magpie’s. a rich assortment of chocolate-based mini cakes were perfect after braseiros except we had less room for these than if had skipped dinner. we still managed to throw enough down to avoid any accusations of being quitters.

i got plenty of nice gifts including but limited to xbox gift cards and gear, bar mops,  a sizable bacon press, coffee, and led lighting. but the one thing i never would have expected was my great-great grandfather’s pocket watch. this timepiece dates back to the 1800’s, per my dad’s account.



the watch is in working order. my parents also bought a glass case to display the watch. you can see on the cover an engraved McI forning the design. this is amazing.



it was a fun birthday.

honesty is…not the best policy?

according to blog site lifehacker, lying is just fine and dandy as long as no one gets hurts.

what?!

that’s what they are essentially saying in this post from last year: “six questions to ask yourself before telling a lie.”

before you think i promote this line of horrific crap, i will tell you right now that i was appalled when i read this article.

but you have to realize that if you were not brought up with any principles, lying is part of your regular lifestyle. they even make an assumption, which probably sums up at least the author’s life but puts her credibility into question.

the final question you ask yourself is “if you were in their shoes, what would you want to hear?” i don’t know about anyone else, but i want the truth. in fact, i am willing to bet that if you asked anyone what characteristic they would want in a friend, mate, colleague, family member, or even from the media, they would list honesty as either the top option or in the top three things.

would you seriously date someone who only told you stuff to make you happy if they believed it or not, if it was the truth or not?

would you hire someone who lied occasionally to make you feel better about your hiring of them or about the work they should be getting done?

if lifehacker supports this policy, it’s sad, and to be honest, shameful. promoting more lying isn’t making the world a better place. according to gregory house, m.d., “everybody lies.” and he’s right. we all do. some more than others. but the goal isn’t to keep on doing it or to encourage it.

in the so-called information age, what good is any of it if all the information is not reliable. (think brian williams here.) and if we make decisions based on faulty information, how much more damage can be done? again, you can justify how big or small it might be, but you don’t know how big or small it could possibly become.

fear causes us to lie, sometimes fueled by shame or cowardice, but always fear. the post from lifehacker proves that.

i cannot subscribe to their suggested life policy. lying never is positive thing, no matter how much you justify it. i want to know the truth. maybe the truth hurts, but that’s life. maybe the truth causes more work, but that’s life. maybe i can’t handle the truth…initially, but i will adapt, grow even. and that too is life. some things in life shouldn’t be hacked.

the Truth will set you free.

new york city over the sofa

a few years back, i took my first trip to new york city. it was a great time. i took my dslr (a canon rebel xti) and nabbed many photos of the city. i didn’t get to do everything i wanted to do on my initial visit and decided i would come back to complete my list.

last october, i finally made my return. although this trip had a different primary goal: to fetch an image of the city which i could hang on the wall behind my new sofa.



after passing through my photos, i finally found the one that i wanted to use as the image for the picture. this was taken from the top rockefeller center on friday evening during my visit. i think the image is a little dark compared to the original, but it still looks great on the wall in my living room. f/32 Photo did a great job making this into a 40×60 inch piece of wall art. (not to say that my photography as wall art, but it is my wall art.)

new ice box

my kenmore refrigerator of eleven years died last week. i noticed the compressor making a much louder noise than normal. when i got home from choir practice last wednesday, my freezer was too warm. all my frozen fruit has defrosted and leaked all over the bottom. (the cherry juice looked like blood.)

i moved the bacon down to the fridge to keep it alive, and i put a thermometer to monitor the temperature. by thursday, it was getting warmer.

i had already started my replacement search. i wasn’t sure how much time i had because i did not know if the problem was just my freezer or the whole unit. between online and in-store searching, i was not finding what i really wanted. what complicated my search was a static width of 34 inches. most of the fridges these days are being made for 36 inch width spaces.

i narrowed my selection down on by friday morning. despite their selection, sears could not get a replacement to me in less than two weeks. best buy, home depot, and lowe’s didn’t either have model i was considering or they didn’t have an alternative in black.

the winner this time was hh gregg. i had found the LG model LFXS24623B which was more than i primarily wanted to spend; but it matched the size, color, and configuration on my list.



this was my first hh gregg experience, and it was a good one. richard d. was my sales guy. he answered all my questions and was patient as i worked out my final decision on this fridge. for weekend delivery, there was a $20.00 fee, which included transportation of the dead fridge. considering this unit was in atlanta on friday evening and in my house saturday morning, it was worth the twenty bucks.

life is back to normal at mock manor now. i did end up losing some bacon in the whole ordeal. (that was not due to spoiling but to ice in the cooler melting and seeping into the packing.) i will recover that sooner, though.

more keyboard redesigns from lenovo

lenovo has had a history of screwing with keyboard layouts on their products. from thinkpads back as far as the T40 series, they have moved and shuffled keys around for the sake of the rest of their machines’ designs.

i recall glenn making a comment about his thinkpad because the escape key was placed above the F1 key. for a programmer running linux (and using vi), pressing the escape key is a regular occurrence. it’s maddening to get the help screen every time you reach up to exit insert mode!

there have been several lenovo laptops i’ve skipped over because the keyboard layout is non-standard.

and here is another example of this case: the new lenovo yoga 3. first, let’s look at a keyboard from the yoga 2, which follows a standard layout:

see how the row of function keys are above the number keys and the tildé/accent key is above the tab key? that’s important. now, look at what they’ve done to their latest laptop keyboard:

they have moved the tildé/accent key to the other side of the keyboard! they eliminated the whole function key row. i can already predict how my keyboarding experience would be on this laptop!

but perhaps i’m not seeing this as lenovo sees it. perhaps they don’t intend to market it to programmers or people who use that key in that spot often. given that they completely removed the function key row, non-techies seem to be more the audience for this device.

and it won’t matter anyway. lenovo will have yet another and different keyboard design next laptop line they introduce.

android L preview apps: starbucks, google, and others not ready

looks like i might have written too soon. the starbucks app which now actually gets me into my card so that I can pay does not allow me to refresh to check my current balance. i can’t really complain, since i can at least still pay for my drinks with the app. and i can always go online if i need to check my balance in real time. the app will, however, let me load my card, and i can still see my rewards.





but the starbucks app isn’t the only one not working. i’ve had several of google’s own apps crash at various points on my android L preview. the my maps app, one i tried to use on a recent trip, started but failed to function properly. the photos app (which now seems to be a function of the google+ app) crashes when trying to build auto awesome movies with captured video. the google music app refuses to connect to the internet to stream tunes with the latest update (at this writing). also amazon’s ability to stream prime video to devices seems to start playing the video but then crashes.

the point of a preview is to give the companies time to get these things worked out. but the one company i am most confused about getting working apps with android L preview is google. i mean, they are making them all android L ready. shouldn’t they be working with android L? and it’s not like i have a one-off device. i’m on a stock nexus 5.

maybe i’m being too picky. the android L becomes no longer just a preview in a few weeks. with all these little crashes all over the place, i’m more than excited for the release of android L!

nyc again

when i redecorated my house last year, i took a painting off the wall behind my sofa. i needed to replace it with something other than the painting since it no longer matched. what i really wanted was a good shot of new york city.

my trip to the big apple in 2010 didn’t include any i could use, i booked a trip back up north. (i had wanted to have come back ever since my initial visit.)

because my purpose was primarily photography, i did not plan for shows. i scheduled some extended time on top of rockefeller center. morning sunrise and evening sunset provided enough for the shots i was looking.

all of the photos in this post were taken with my nexus 5:





last time i was here, i didn’t actually visit the statue of liberty. i got some tickets this time too. i think it would be worth visiting the island if you can make the climb up to the crown, bit you have to book those tickets well in advance (which i failed to do). and it was raining most of the morning. i stayed on the island long enough for the clouds to clear and get a few snaps.



the ticket also included ellis island. because i was hungry and my legs were hurting (a little), i didn’t read the whole museum. many of the artifacts were still in preservation since hurricane sandy caused serious problems. i would like to return when i was less pressed for time and the items were no longer in storage. by the time i was ready to leave, the clouds had broken enough to get more pictures of the city from another angle.





two other things i didn’t really get to do last time here was eat pizza at two places i heard were some of the best. (i know that is a highly subjective statement, but…eh.) i ate at grimaldi’s and lombardi’s. both were very good pies. can’t beat new york style pizza.



one bonus shot was of james earl jones leaving an off-broadway theatre after one of his shows. i was headed back to my hotel on the first night when the crowd was waiting outside. that was fun.

nexus 5 photo of my canon 70d display

oh, one note: although i didn’t plan for shows, i did try to catch a taping of jimmy fallon and the tonight show, but i didn’t get tickets in time. turns out it was dane cook as the guest, so i didn’t feel so bad for not getting tickets.

i wish i could have made it a three full-day visit. there were a few more things i would like to have seen. i did get to eat street-vendor food.

there will be another trip.