| Weekend at the Cottage and the Rockhound Gemboree | Aug 02, 2005, 9:58 PM |
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I have just returned from the annual Murphy family weekend at my uncle's cottage north of Bancroft. Not that I was ever in doubt, but Nicole fared well against my rather large (and at times overwhelming) extended family on my mom's side. Pictures are here Nicole and I brought her 4.25 inch telescope and enjoyed much darker skies than we're used to in downtown Toronto. My favorite sightings were the ring nebula, M4, various other globular clusters I can't remember the name of, and one of the brightest shooting stars I've ever seen. On Saturday, we went to the annual Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree. Basically the event is just a bunch of rock, gem and fossil collectors and businesses gathering together in an arena to trade and show their goods. I took pictures of some of the more interesting rock sightings. We got a neat piece of ulexite (T.V. rock) and an interesting snail fossil (ammonite) that had been cut in half and polished. |
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| My Desk: Where the magic happens | Jul 26, 2005, 7:07 PM |
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I'm quite proud of my desk set up, not only because it's awesome (as you can see), but also because every piece of it is a carefully selected bargain buy. As a recently converted (read: recovered) Mac user, my apple-loving friends sometimes ask me to justify my decision to switch. The choice was simple. Cheapest Apple PowerMac G5: $2500 Cheapest Apple Powerbook G4 12" Ultra-portable: $1900 Total Apple Cost: $3600 Instead I purchased: Custom PC Desktop [Athlon 2500+ w/ Barton Core, Asus Deluxe Socket A MB, Radeon 9550 w/ 256MB VRAM, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HD, LG 16x DVD Writer]: ~$850 Averatec 12.1" Laptop [384 MB Ram, Athlon 1600+M, 30GB Drive, DVD/CDRW]: $1150 Total PC Cost: $2000 (prices are in CDN and quoted at the time I was investigating purchasing - Summer 2004) Thankfully, this left some extra cash to buy 'extras' like the desk, an IKEA Jerker, which I highly recommend by the way, a snazzy chair, and a canon digital camera... with money left over for food and rent! One of the best things about my set up, which you may not notice from the picture, is the shelf the LCD monitor is on swivels to the right, making it perfectly viewable from my couch for movies. The next step in desk heaven is to replace the 19" CRT with a 24" LCD wide screen with a resolution of 1920x1200 - I may also need a second video card to drive that bad boy. |
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| Christian Science | Jul 25, 2005, 11:34 PM |
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One of the best things about my new apartment is the proximity to 'The First Church of Christ Scientist'. Every week there is a new Topic for Sunday listed on their sign, and I always wait in patient anticipation of next week's topic. Amusingly enough, when I first moved in, the sign read 'Topic for Sunday: God'. As you can see from the pictures, the sign looks like it's permanent - or at least not as changeable as those rented yellow signs. So I found the sign kind of amusing... same topic every Sunday: God. And before you ask, no I haven't actually gone in for a Sunday discussion on Christian Science, but if anyone wants to meet up for a weekly discussion on oxymorons, I'm in. |
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| Field Day Report | Jul 03, 2005, 11:56 AM |
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Nicole and I spent the weekend at the University of Toronto Amateur Radio Club's field day event, held at Hart House farm in Caledon Hills. Field Day is an international amateur radio contest where radio users world wide set up there radios and try to make as many contacts as they can. The actual conversation you partake in is very short and transactional. Something like: Me: "CQ Field Day CQ Field Day, This is Victor Echo 3 Uniform Oscar Tango" Them: "Roger That VE3, this is VE3DXE" Me: "Copy that VE3DXE, we are 4A in Ontario" Them: "copy 4A in ontario, I am 1D in Ontario" Me: "Confirmed 1D in Ontario, Good luck in the contest" Them: "Happy Field Day" The contest results are tabulated so that teams get points for the number of contacts they make IF the other party also submits the same contact information. In addition to your call sign (ours was VE3UOT), parties exchange a class code (ours was 4A) which tells information about how many radios they are operating and what class they are in, and their location (State/Province code). In total, our team made 324 contacts, crushing the club's previous record of 120. In addition to the radios, we also brought up two of Nicole's telescopes. One was a massive 11.5 inch scope that beautifully imaged jupiter and it's moons. We also got to see a few different nebulas, globular clusters and (perhaps the highlight of the evening) mercury, venus AND saturn within one 80x20 binocular field of view. Hart House farm is a great property atop the escarpment. In addition to our more nerdy endeavours, we also enjoyed exploring some interesting rock formations, including one fantastic crevice which you could climb down nearly 20 feet into. After climbing around for a while, we decided to cool off with a swim in a nearby, spring-fed pond. Thanks to everyone who helped plan this weekend - everyone appreciates your hard work! |
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| Small Towns Are Changing | May 31, 2005, 5:11 PM |
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While I was out visiting my parents I went into Port Hope and Cobourg. I haven't been into either for a while, and I was surprised at the amount of change. Everyone's heard stories about small towns being overrun by big box stores like Walmart and Home Depot. For some reason, it's different when it's YOUR small town being overrun. Our claim to fame used to be that we lived so far out of the city, that the nearest town didn't even have a McDonald's - you had to go to Cobourg for that. |
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| First Metric Century Ride of The Year | May 27, 2005, 8:06 PM |
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Thursday evening after work I made the 112.7 km trek from my apartment at St. George and Bloor downtown Toronto to my parent's place outside of Port Hope. The trip took just over 4 hours, and I really felt that post winter feeling in my legs by the time I was climbing the last few big hills. Quite a transition one rides through on this trip: from downtown traffic, through downtown neighbourhoods, through (the neighbourhood I was born in) Scarborough, through cyclist-unfriendly suburbia in Pickering and Whitby, through downtown Oshawa and then finally out into the fairly wide open country side near Bowmanville and Newcastle. By the time I was riding the final 15 km of the trip it was pitch black, and I'd only see the occasional car - a big change from being run off the road by cabs downtown! The roads are smoother out here, there are fewer lights, motorists are more patient and accomodating, and the air is cleaner and cooler. |
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| Lucas (Partially) Redeems Himself with Episode 3 | May 26, 2005, 12:16 AM |
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This was the first Star Wars movie that I got to see in the theatre that I wasn't utterly disappointed by. Perhaps it was that the first 2 episodes of the prequel trilogy left me with such extremely low expectations, but it was a good feeling to be a little less ashamed to be a nerd as I left the theatre. The interesting thing about this movie was that we basically knew exactly how it was going to end before it even started. We knew Anakin Skywalker would turn out to be Darth Vader, we knew that Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi would live, and we knew that Padme would have Leia and Luke. The focus was instead on HOW these things happened. For example, I expected I'd be bored by the fight scenes - how exciting can it be when you know both parties in a light-saber fight are going to be alive at the end of it. I think this lack of surprise outcome might have forced Lucas to produce some of the stunning cinematography/special effects that characterized this movie. If you sat through the first two prequel eps, go see this one - it's better. On a sadder note, I just realized that this week I watched what could be the last Star Wars movie and what could be the last Star Trek episode (Enterprise's finale was last Friday). I guess we're all doomed to watch reality TV... or *GASP*... read. |
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| New Website! | May 25, 2005, 12:16 AM |
| I finally got around to putting up a new website... complete with a blog and photo gallery! | |