tdh|blog

I purchased a Canon A620 camera for my Egypt trip. I played around with it for a few weeks before the trip. The camera worked great. Took excellent pictures, small enough to carry around, and didn’t have any complaints. When I got to Egypt, everything was going great. Taking the pictures of the prymids, camels, guys with machine guns, the usual.

Then the camera broke. Not even halfway through the trip and the camera breaks. While I was carrying the camera in my pocket, the camera turned on. When I got the camera out of my pocket, the lens was stuck halfway out of the camera. The camera refused to work after that, and would only show an error message of “E18″. Googling this error, and you will find tons of irate consumers complaining about this error. Most of the sites offer suggestions on fixing the error, by “gently” forcing the lens back in place.

I reluctently sent the camera back to canon for repair. My camera (not even a month old) was still under the 1 year warrenty, so it only cost me 7 bucks for shipping. They took about a week to repair it, I had my fixed camera back in my hands about a week and half after I shipped it. If the camera was out of warrenty, it would have cost me around 250 to get it repaired.

Lessons learned from this experience is that the Canon Camera’s take great pictures, but are not rugged. They cannot be counted out in any sort of outside enironments, if you take one of their cameras on vaction, make sure you have another camera to use, just in case. If you are looking at buying a canon camera, google it first. Check to see if it is susecptable to the “E18″ error.

Okay so fortune cookies are costing me money now. I went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant with a good friend. After our meal we got the typical bill with fortune cookies. I grabbed one opened it up and what did I get? The community chest card of fortune cookies: “You should pay the bill, you are feeling generous”. Why couldn’t I have drawn the, beauty pageant one, and win fifty bucks from everyone at the table. But alas I had to be generous, I guess it worked out; I was only out to lunch with one friend, and not ten or twenty. My friend did take the fortune with him, I did warn him however, I won’t pick up the bill if “suddenly” fortune cookies appear at Bob Chins, or Wildfire.

Does Parker brothers know some guy somewhere is stealing there community chest cards and putting them on fortune cookies?!

Yesterday NASA began accepting job applications for becoming an Astronaut. So going through the requirements, bachelor degree in engineering, I got that. Vision correctable to 20/20, I got that. Height between 5 foot 2, and 6 foot 3, what the hell. I’m too TALL to be an astronaut.

I’M TOO TALL!

I knew I shouldn’t have drank all that milk as a kid. Maybe I can fib on my application say I’m 6 foot 3, and just slouch and go barefoot when I go for the interview.

For those people who are the “right” height for NASA, here is the job application Job Application.

When you get to space, look for me from orbit. I’ll be the tall speck staring at the stars.

Okay. The Apple iPhone is being released today at 6 pm. YESTERDAY I saw people waiting in line to get there chance to purchase an iPhone, more then 24 hours earlier then the release date. The iPhone is a 500 to 600 dollar phone, plus a minimum 2 year contract of 60 dollars a month. How the hell can people afford to skip work, and wait in line for this phone? On top of it, Apple/AT&T has not announced how many iPhones are available at each store. So who knows if you are waiting in line in vain or not?

I understand people waiting in line for a movie. If you don’t have a job, nothing better today, I can see waiting in line and paying 10 dollars for a movie. I can see waiting in line for a video game console. That brings countless hours of entertainment, and if you want to turn a quick buck, sell it on eBay the day of the release, and get back over two to three times the amount you spent on the gaming system. But it’s a phone! It may be a unique phone, but it is still just a phone. On top of it, the sales goals Apple is putting out for this phone, it doesn’t sound like you would have to wait long to pick one up, even if they did sell out tonight.

What I took away from this iPhone launch is that I should have invested in AT&T and Apple 6 months ago.

Okay, last weekend I had my first backpacking trip. I learned a few things, that I think I should share.

• Carrying 30 Lbs on your back dramatically affects how far you can hike.
• Hills are harder then flat ground
• Setting up a Tent for the first time at night, is not the best idea
• Every Ounce matters
• After 10 miles Legs, Hips, and Shoulders will be sore
• Stairs are not your friend for the next few days

The trip didn’t go exactly as planned. It ended a day early, but learned a lot. The next trip will be a more reasonable distance between camp sites. Overall the trip was great, and learned a ton.

The rapture has happened! The only creature holy enough to get collected were BEE’s! Bee’s have disappeared across planet. Granted some Bee’s were sinfully enough to suffer down here on earth with the rest of the sinners. So we are not totally screwed. Outside of the metaphysical questions (Why only bee’s? What have we done to piss off god? What about birds? etc), how will this affect us? Well the immediate effect is higher honey prices. Longer term, any plants that rely on bees to pollinate are going to be in short supply.

In all seriousness, its not unheard of for a bee colony to just get abandon, but as far as science knows, it’s never happened on this scale before. The Bee disappearance first noticed in North America, but now looks like Europe is see similar colony collapses, and it may also be happening in Brazil. Pretty wild stuff, no one knows why it’s happening, theories are wide ranging, but no reason has been found. Outside of the Bee Rapture of course.

So last week on the 15th, cook county no smoking ordinance went into effect. Now each individual city was allowed to override this ordinance. If the town chooses not to, it bans smoking in all public places, including work environments, restaurants, bars, and bowling alleys. As well as 15 feet of all public entrances.

As a result of this ordinance, the company I work for have installed bus stop size smoking huts. These huts are littered around the outside of the building, and are intended for the smoker to use, so he does not pollute the fresh air with their tobacco smoke. These huts are fully enclosed, and are completely transparent.

It’s a little creeping now, looking outside, seeing the fellow employee’s smoking in confining booths. It’s like they are a separate class of people now. Relegated not even to separate yet equal space. Pretty disturbing.

Of course, they ask society to pay for their lung cancer.

My dad passed away a a few Saturdays ago. We had the funeral last weekend. His passing was expected, and came peacefully at home. The pastors that preformed the ceremony asked us to write a down a few of our fond memories of him. I’ve decided to share them here.
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This week the world came together and banned the sale of Apple’s iPods to North Korea. I never realized how popular they are as a commodity. I know in the US that you are not cool unless you have the stylish white ear buds going into your ears, but who knew this was a world wide thing. There hope is that this move will force the N. Korea to the bargaining table and force them to give up there nuclear program.

Maybe this will work in Iran too? Or maybe Palatine? Iraq? Afghanistan? Imagine a world of peace, with everyone having the white ear buds. We need Bill Gates, Bono, Oprah or someone to set up and implement this plan!

Today I received a letter from the American Diabetes Association. The letter proudly proclaimed that it contained a nickel and showed the new shiny nickel in the envelopes address window. My first thought was someone should inform the ADA that should not send cash through the mail. Quickly followed by the thought maybe they believe I have diabetes and this is there support they are offering to sufferers of diabetes.

Upon opening the envelope and reading the accompanying letter, I discovered that a mere nickel is spend on Diabetes research per American per week (Math: .05 * 52 * 300 mil = 780 mil). Apparently the ADA thinks 780 mil is too much, since they are sending out nickels to people. On the other hand, maybe it is some new accounting rule or a way to embezzle money out of the non-for-profit organization (1 nickel at a time!). Either way it is silly. Stop wasting postage on sending a nickel. Keep the nickel in your coffers.

Now the question is, if I mail back the nickel can I claim the nickel as a tax deductible donation?