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I just noticed last night that the blurb I sent in so.... so long ago has made it to the alumni notes section of the Cornell Alumni Magazine. If you recognized my name and decided to stop by - thanks. If we knew each other, I'd love to hear from you. You can send mail to my old school address [lifetime email forwarding from CU! : cay4 @ cornell dot edu]. Also, meet my friend des. She's on here as well. Thanks for the visit and I apologize for the lack of life updates. I'm living it instead of managing record mode and peering through a viewfinder.

Thanks for stopping by and please do shoot me an email. Have a great day! --Cyrus

My father was in town last week to take me to the Sabres/Canes Eastern game 7 semifinals. Very exciting. Our Sabres didn't quite take it but we had a lot of support there regardless. Good time.

With "Sweep" done, Wake Drama and my friend Maciej put another short, tentatively titled "Test," in the can Sunday. It's about a young couple in the midst of a pregnancy test - results unknown. Shot it in one day. If you take a look at my MySpace page and browse through the comments, you can probably see a shot of me holding about $2500 worth of gear, a selection of the equipment we used to shoot it. Afterwards, after Maciej fed us (it was his script :), himself, Rob and I went to see "The Sentinel" at the Blue Ridge theatre. Cool conspiracy theory stuff but a little bit action-cheesy about 3/4 of the way through. Enjoyed it.

Coming up this weekend is CarolinaCon2006 which I am thinking about attending. It sounds pretty neat. If you can go, you should check it out. It's Friday 6p through Sunday morning. It will be relatively geeky and "technology enthusiast" oriented and, for most, rather sleepless. It's at the Hampton Inn, 3621 Spring Forest Rd. in Raleigh. $20 cash at the door. If you want to book a room, call and tell them you're with CarolinaCon. I'm pretty excited about it.

At the greenhouse today Shuhai and I recovered the side of one of our houses with double layered poly, I cleaned the evaporative cooling pads of all the dead alge that grew on them last year, and I caulked all the aspirated air monitoring tubes with silicone to prevent the mist from the high pressure fog system from corroding the contacts and humidity sensors inside. His study is now up and running and things seem to be going pretty well.

The "Sweep" footage is now mostly in the can. We shot some more dream sequence footage (giggage?) Friday night till about 2a at the dojo in Chapel Hill. Saturday was my first relaxing weekend day in some time. I played a game of disc golf @ the Kentwood Park course on Kaplan Dr., right near NCSU. It's a really nice relaxing game if you've never played before.

If you've ever been to Carrboro, NC, check out this video from It'sCarrboro.com. Pretty funny at times. "Vis to the Art to the VID-E-O" Weaver street market is also mentioned a number of times, Cat's Cradle, etc.

Carrboro is a cool town. I've spent many really nice days and nights there since I've moved to Raleigh. I'd move there next if I wanted to leave Raleigh and stay in the area. After that would be some place in Chatham Co.

Bye weekend.......

Here's a list of speedtraps in Raleigh, NC. (See also Beartraps.com for interstate fuzz.)

There's also a page that shows the cheapest gas in Raleigh, NC which is a direct link to my locale for GasBuddy.com.

For tips on saving money on gas, check out drivefar.org. I gave the author some feedback which he's put up on his pitfalls.html page.

I was icerocketing myself this afternoon for no reason after work and came across some new stuff that google hasn't picked up. It's a nice search in that it displays little clips of each web page that show up in the results. Supposedly good for blog searches.... Haven't used it before today.

Read my rant on stopping useless PGP keys from clogging up the public keyservers out there. I'll iterate more someday or update this post later on what all this stuff is about. My public key is here and I encourage you to use it to encrypt your messages when sending me email (cyrus at 80d dot org). Read more about PGP here. PGP is a way to both ensure that only I see email you send to me (nobody can read it along the way) and a way for you to ensure (to some degree) that the email I send to you has not been forged by somebody pretending to be me.

Today I installed 14 humidity sensors at the greenhouse with Shuhai and cleaned out the evaporative cooling pad water reservoir. It was hot out there. One challenge we had at the end of last year, trying to weigh mist, that's right - about a tenth of a gram at a time, was the resolution of the scales we are using. I suggested today that we put the pan of oil (oil so the mist doesn't evaporate when it sinks (not always easy in itself)), at the end of a lever and let the mass of the water push up on a mass that goes on the scale. The mass puts the scale in the middle of the range (loaded configuration), hopefully where it's most accurate, and the weight read by the scale goes down when the mist collects, but the measurement is 'amplified' by the lever. Hopefully we can do it accurately and without a great deal of expense.

I had a long converstation last night with my mom about life and where I'm going. It was insightful for the both of us.

What wonderful friends I have. It's 3:35 am and I was just driving home from a Thursday night shoot for Sweep. Cell phones are obviously off during a shoot and I'm always curious what might be on my phone when I get in my car and head home.

3 voicemails! My friend Kristen called me back. I rung her earlier on the way over to our shoot but got her voicemail - around 6p. We haven't spoken in maybe 4 months. Kevin just finished school and gave me a ring to see what's up. Christina asked me to stop by the Jackpot for a brewski. All this stuff usually happens before like 10 or midnight - I don't get them for many hours later.

There's no reason you should care. It just makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Time for nighty-night anyway. I appreciate the calls!

CUTE!!! video. Laughing babies make you smile.

A link to my friends' radio show :: the Twisted Pair radio show with Al and Y0rii. I know them through my local nc2600 group. We meet at BitPlayers in Raleigh on the first Friday of every month. There's a 'gear swap' tomorrow. Bring some technical gear you've been trying to get rid of and maybe somebody will take it off your hands. If you'd like to find the 2600 meeting closest to you, go to 2600.com and look to the worldwide meetings list.

More on the anti-mouse stance. Learn the excellent text editor vim by using this really neat tutorial to radically flatten the learing curve. It's not intuitive in any respect but if you edit any quantity of text on a daily basis, do not deny yourself learning the vi/vim keybindings. You can find a few more resources by googling or looking to my 'learningunix' page. It's worth it and I use it every day.

Happy 5 May!!!

Besides looking for stuff on the web, grown up computer users don't have much use for the mouse.

I once heard an author remark that when you are a child you use a computer by looking at the pictures. When you grow up, you learn to read and write. Welcome to Computer Literacy 101. Now let's get to work.

Learning the command line on unix/Linux/cygwin (a unix-like environment for windows based machines).

If you've ever thirsted to extract the full power of a unix prompt, but were never really sure where to start, check out the link above. If you've ever wondered why you did something with the mouse 35 time in a row and wondered why you were doing all the work and not the computer, the command line is your friend.

One of the best window managers I've ever used is called ratpoison and requires no mouse to operate. Absolue freedom from constantly moving your hand back and forth between keyboard and mouse. While moving back and forth doesn't sound like much of a task, it can be a bear when you've got work to do. Next time you're editing a document think about how much time you spend moving back and forth.

Just sent off an email to see if a few people want to meet later at Horniblows, a Raleigh tavern that sells beer by the Edenton Brewing Company. (Searching around I found this link to Beerinator :: North Carolina's Beer Community)

Also wanted to mention the website of Southern Girl Films. I have been doing location sound for their latest production "Sweep" for about the last month or so during the week and on weekends. It's been a good time working with them.

Today I had lunch at Cookout. I got a "tray" : 1/4 lb. burger, Western Style - no mayo, add grilled onions (no charge!), fries, onion rings and a Coke float. Yum.

Kay. Back to work.

Tonight I played soccer, with my CASL team : Barletta. We beat "The Defenders."

I came home and talked to my sister, then read a few articles on K5, namely this one about a guy that infected himself with hookworm to cure his asthma. He could be a fraud but it's interesting and seemingly informative nonetheless. Innovative and balsy medical self-experimentation.

Holy crap this is funny. Not any one in particular but after a few they are absolutely hilarious. Binge. Be sure to click around once you get there.

Foshata is a website where people add English language captions to random bits of the crazy video we all know that comes from Japan. Crazy Japanese media with English subtitles - by you! Genius!

fsh7HN
fshIQU
fshFT
fsh5NH
fshI2G
fsh5T
fshESB
fsh4SI
fshFCH
fsh6LM
fshBB
fshL89

Put your favorites in the comments. I'm done here.

Catchup post. Just went for a run with a friend. Did some lifting and swimming Friday. Just told my friend Steven about this website. He should feel free to create an account and do some writing here of his own. He's a wonderful guy.

Made a movie, Inspection, the 8th of January with Rusty Lantern. An initial cut should be out by the end of the month.

Went out to the Rockford last night. Had my first 'Old Fashion.' Decent drink. I'm not sold on it but I liked it.

Been living life more than writing about it lately.

It's Sunday. Do you know where your weekend went?

My most recent web project, SaveYourHearing.org has just gone live. My goal is being able to speak comfortably with my peers and contemporaries when I'm 70 years old. Every time I go into a music venue I see people destroying one of their most precious senses - their hearing. It pains me to watch them and it pains me to shout in order to have a conversation with people who cannot hear very well.

There are so many very wonderful sounds out there and people everywhere are just flushing them down the toilet by not wearing hearing protection when they go out. Wear your protection! Get some ear plugs. Bring them to music venues. Wear them! Please don't worry about looking silly. Give them a chance. You will still be able to hear the music! (Just try not to shout when talking to others - even if you can't hear yourself very well.....) Get a container to keep them clean in your pocket (or on your keyring!) or buy a supply of disposables.

Please check it out and contribute if you can by submitting articles, links, tips, tricks or personal stories related to your sense of hearing. Thanks!

Down by the beach was I only yesterday. How nice it was....('twas NOT-½baked, BTW :)

Temps were in the 70s and 80s this past week in Florida while the rest of the country was basically freezing. I feel for you! I grew up an hour outside of Buffalo, NY and I know what that cold feels like. Thank goodness for warm apple cider!

I won't gloat about how nice it was to be in Florida, just mention how many times I wished my sister could have been there with us.

Cooking and cleaning and eating is so much fun. Turkey, potatos, gravy, and family... what could be better? People just don't cook up large birds enough. All that wonderful tryptophan! (I'm sure there's no relation, but I did dream especially well over my holiday - even sleeping on the floor...)

What am I most thankful for? Life. The amazing force that makes this planet so very, very exciting and interesting. That's what I'm most thankful for. Things would be pretty boring without it :)

Enjoy it and do all that you can to preserve it - that's my request for you today. Don't waste it - not one bit of it.

Hope you had a nice holiday as well.

I got my Flu Shot today. (Thanks Deepak!) You should too. I haven't listened to it yet, but you can try this link to an article from NPR about the upcoming flu season. Listen in RealMedia. Listen in Windows Media.

The common influenza shot (which is modified year-to-year) won't ward off the H5N1 flu strain but many believe it can restore your "immune system's memory" to similar threats like the avian flu you've heard so much about. More info from Texas A&M Health Services

The BBC has some in depth coverage of the virus and its migration (shows maps of bird migratory flights) and mutations, with an up to date map of human cases. Here's a quick Q&A on the bird flu.

Have a look at Wikipedia's H5N1 entry.

Get your flu shot.

If the bird flu arrives on our shores (or in the middle of the country due to a flight from Asia) don't be afraid to head for the hills. If you've got a cabin out in the woods, please don't be afraid of taking some time off and getting away from people.

I had a wonderful weekend this weekend. I drove to Kerr Lake, about and hour north of Raleigh, Friday evening, I took my friend Daniel to meet up with a number of friends to see off our friend Maria. She returned to Italy this Saturday, the beautiful November day I took a dip in the lake. I brought the canoe to paddle under the stars, after dinner around a campfire.

Saturday eve (Nov. 5th) I attended a "Guy Fawkes" party at Kellys. The Gunpowder Plot was well represented by the barrel of smokeless I hung from my neck.

Sunday I saw Good night and Good Luck. *Lots* of smoking in that movie..... I enjoyed it. Well done and a good historical context refresher for me.

How I miss the coolest game on earth. Timely perhaps as the Hurricanes are winning and I don't think Rita's interested in taking prisoners.

My neighbor approached my roommate Amber and myself yesterday late afternoon. He had on a pink shirt and walked up to our porch. "Any hockey fans live here?" Why yes, in fact we do have a few here! (Well, at least myself) The Canes are in their pre-season (unlike the tropical storm variety) and my neighbor was offering a pair of really nice tickets for the taking. I followed him to his house where I saw his, what I assumed to be, wife sitting in the car. He opened the front door and grabbed two tickets and a green parking pass off the polished wooden "keys and fake flowers" table right inside the door, handed them to me, and locked the door. He said his son had something going and he "didn't feel like going alone" so he gave them to me and got himself into the waiting car.

I returned to our porch where Amber was reading her book Birth Order and asked if she wanted to go. Affirmative. Strong affirmative. Start time was listed as 7:00pm. Atlanta Thrashers. The time was about quarter to. After a shower and time to pull on some clean jeans and a button down shirt (Amber and I later decided people like to get dressed up when they spend money) we grabbed some blueberry cereal bars, myself a fresh red pepper (from the greenhouse), and we were out the door. We stopped at Wendy's for a spicy chicken just outside the stadium as neither of us had really eaten yet that night. We went in and grabbed two small beers at $5.25 apice.

How I miss that game. I wanted to lace up my skates as soon as we caught a glance of the ice and started walking down the steps to our seats (corner glass @ the goal line, nobody in front of us). We settled in to catch the last 5 minutes or so of the first period. Oh well. Score went to 4-2 by the end of the second, Canes up. I don't remember exactly when it happened but one of the Thrashers got laid out sometime in, I believe, the second period. He was skating across the ice at about the red line and came across an opponent. I don't know what happened but he was down on the ice for at least 3 minutes after the ref blew down further play with his whistle. Things got really quiet when the stretcher was wheeled out onto the ice.

Tell me something interesting that happened to you today. Something you've never seen before, a new thought or notion, or a new smell. Anything. Leave it in the comments please.... Thank you.

Desiree has safely made it back to the states. Welcome back Des!

Hot Hot Hot! Beat the Triangle's 1949 record of 100 deg F today with a high of 101 deg F @ 1600 hours (measured at RDU). Not the best time to be measuring leaf areas on our pepper plants.....

("doing leaf areas" consists of measuring the length and width of every leaf on the plant and recording each individually in a notebook. Figure ~40-60 leaves per plant times 40 plants; on a stool about 12-15 inches off the ground, your arms wrapped around a 3 foot tall pepper plant with an 18 inch ruler in your hand - trying not to break any of the brittle leaves while unbending all the curled leaves, etc.. The cooling pads take the heat down to the high 90's and the job is split 3 ways, but it's still the better part of a week on a stool - pruning and measuring some almost 800 plants. And that's when it's NOT >100 deg F outside.)

The water in the shower doesn't go cold enough. The cold front crossing the mid-West right now must lend a wonderful feeling of relief to those who have been without storms for a while.... Things will be hot tomorrow then hopefully cool down a bit by Thursday.

So I'm home in Elba for the 4th and it's been wonderful so far. So nice being with family. I had some troubles getting out of RDU - got home @ 9:30p Thursday instead of 4:30p but that's not too bad for buying the ticket just a half a week previous.

Thursday evening my mom picked me up at the airport in Rochester. She had been gone away all week and was home for an hour before driving (~45 min.) in to grab me. So nice. Had a snack when we got home. Open faced sandwiches and watermellon covered with feta. Yum. Good being home :)

Katherine was hanging out at "the Stumblin'," our "local establishment," and asked me to join her for "dollar bottles" with some friends. Headed over there at 10:30p or so and played "Wordz" on the video poker box with Ms. Contant, drank outside, and talked with Stack about his spraying gig. I shot the breeze with my sister's friends - generally about 5 years younger. We did pretty well with Wordz. Headed home to crash.

Friday was a visit to Grandma's next door and driving around with Dad to scout some crops. Looked at a bunch of beans, wheat, onions, and peas. Things are thirsty. It was pretty windy - dry and windy. This kind of weather is especially rough on the plants as remaining moisture is quickly stripped away. Rain's been promised for weeks but little has arrived. Irrigation is in full force around here and the "Reel Rain" has been getting a workout lately. Met some of Dad's friends for happy hour late afternoon and then tried to go for a sail with Rich up at the lake. The high wind kept us inside the break wall. Had a bit of dinner there and some beer.

Hosted an "Immortals" party last night @ the Castle. Not till 5:30a or so did the last few awake stagger on. There were about 6 left zonked on couches, and in the basement, etc.

"How about some water."

We had lots of togas here.

Everybody welcome my friend Des. The first "real" contributor I've had here @ wce. She's really great and really nice and cool and sexy and all that....and she's started a blog here. So yeah. Welcome Des. Hope you like it. Been great hearing about your time in .cn

Never made it to Wakarusa :(

Tonight, Melissa invited me to go see the Carolina Roller Girls over at the Skate Ranch off of Capital in Raleigh. Pretty rough - cool sport. Sexy, rockin' punk girls all skating around beating eachother up. Good fun - almost got rolled on a few times - we sat right at the corner, front row, on the floor.

It was fun.

This morning I went up to 2550 Glenwood to have breakfast with some new friends I met Friday night @ Danielle's birthday. Good fun. Ron has a huge skillet with a broken handle he puts on a grill outside. Gets plenty hot and holds the heat.

Had a little trip this weekend back up to WNY (CNY actually). Saw my sister, final sibling to come out of Cornell, graduate Sunday. 'Twas a beautiful day. Lost my wallet under the bleachers - 2 1/2 feet high bleachers - made for quite an interesting crawl.

Saw a number of friends from "back in the day." Martin from freshman year, Osborne & Hoss from the house, "Pep" from Dunbars.

Played some pool with Kasey and the family @ Chapter House - memories. Shot a few games of darts as well.....

Flew in and out through Philly - brother picked me up and dropped off Fri/Monday. Fun!

Bought tickets for Wakarusa today. 16 June through the 19th. Will be here soon - I fly out and Luther will pick me up. We *should* get ourselves a low paying gig there and free admission - SweeT!

Did a bunch of work on NIRProfessors.com tonight. It's coming along..... Hopefully the conference in Auckland, NZ coming in April will generate a bunch of new users.

Played a little ultimate frisbee today after work. There was about 12 of us and we probably played just a bit over an hour. It was beautiful here today! Good exercise and good practice.