Thursday, December 31, 2015
Nix Negativity for New Year's
This time of year is all about looking back at the last 12 months, trying to compile things into nice, neat lists to help us summarize the year that was.
And believe me there is nothing geeks like me like doing more than dissecting and examining their obsessions in minute detail, rating them and then having heated arguments about those ratings with their geeky friends
But I’m not going to do that.
Why?
Because there are plenty of other sites out there on the Internet where you can read that kind of stuff.
Plus, I also find it kind of boring.
Now I like a good esoteric debate about the merits – or lack there of – of fictional worlds, characters, starship design, weapons and tactics as much as the next geek. I’ve even been known to engage in an hours-long discussion of why the TARDIS is a cooler time machine than the DeLorean from “Back to the Future.” (Hey, it’s bigger on the inside than the outside, can travel in both outer space as well as time, and has its own swimming pool!) But I’ve grown kind of tired of the negativity expressed on those Internet forums.
Look, I get it that we geeks are a passionate group, but the amount of vitriol people spew out about things they dislike gets me upset and depressed. Sometimes it seems like these rants are personal attacks on people who dare to have a contrary opinion. Even more upsetting than this growing lack of respect for those with differing points of view is that all some people want to do is tear things down.
Whatever happened to exploring how things could have been made better?
As a writer, I want people to critique my work. But I want them to tell me more than just what I did wrong. Tell me why you think it didn’t work and exactly how you think it could have been made better.
It’s called positive or constructive criticism and shows a person put a lot more thought into their review. It’s easy to point out a work’s flaws, especially when they are glaringly obvious (cough, cough, Jar Jar Binks cough, cough). But it takes more time and effort to examine a work, look at its themes and ideas and figure out ways that they could have been expressed better.
So I’m going to ask everyone who is reading this post to make a New Year’s Resolution to be a lot less negative next year. Try not to solely focus on what made something so bad. Try and figure out what could have been done to make it better, and let others know in a positive, constructive way.
And maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, that positive attitude will begin to rub off on others, leading to a brighter, more optimistic future for us all.
Happy New Year!
Monday, November 30, 2015
Best holiday gift is realizing what great gifts I already have
It has come as something of a surprise to me that the older I get, the less stuff I seem to want.
I had this revelation when my wife recently asked me for my annual holiday gift list and I had to keep putting her off because I really didn’t know. This isn’t the first time this has happened either. When she asked me what I wanted for our anniversary this year and what I wanted for my 50th birthday, I was equally at a loss of what to tell her.
In the past I’ve had lists of gadgets and tools that would fill a small notebook.
But now, not so much. Besides for the usual thing I ask for every year – a heated space for my now 25-foot by 25-foot woodworking shop (hey, I turned 50 this year and two 25s equal 50!) – I had to struggle to come up with a dozen or so things that I thought would be kind of nice to have.
Yes there are a few other ridiculously expensive things I like to have, like this CNC Router setup or a MakerBot 3-D printer but the truth of the matter is once the novelty of having one of these devices wears off, I don’t really know how much I’d actually use them.
Even the one sub $1000 tool I’ve been thinking about for years, the Festool Domino Joiner DF, isn’t on my “absolutely must-have” list. While it would make making mortise and tenon joints real easy, it is not like:
A) I make a lot of furniture, cabinets or other stuff that require that joint
B) Don’t have other ways to make that particular jointed if I wanted to/needed to
And
C) Don’t have another tool, a biscuit joiner, which can accomplish nearly the same thing.Whether or not having a tool that makes making those joints quicker and a lot easier would mean I’d use them more often is a good question. But in the types of builds I mostly do, I just don’t know.
This lack of desire for expensive gadgets even extends into my tech life. I work with all sorts of computers and tech all day (and sometimes well into the evening) and while I enjoy playing with cool new stuff, none of it leaves me with an overwhelming desire to have it.
My computers and laptops, while old by today’s standards, still are capable of running modern software and perform at acceptable speeds for the kinds of things I do, so I don’t need to replace or upgrade any of them. Even my ancient versions of Quark and Photoshop are fine for the type of things I use them for, so I can’t see spending the money on a $39/month Adobe Creative Suite subscription
My phone is supplied by work and upgraded every few years without cost to me and my old Sony Alpha DSLR is still a better camera than I will ever be as a photographer, so why should I replace it?
Yes it doesn’t shoot video, let alone HD video, but I don’t really need that.
Not yet anyway.
While I’ve considered starting my own Youtube channel, I just don’t have the time to create the type of professional-looking content I think people would enjoy. Hell, I barely have time to write this monthly blog!
About the only tech gadget that even piqued my interest, recently was one of those fitness bands. But as I stated in my rant about smart watches, they don’t offer that much more than the activity monitoring app on my cell phone does, so I think I just stick to my old analogue watch.
Most of the reasons I don’t actively desire any of these things the way I used to comes down to the fact that I don’t really need them the way I used to think I did. The things I have will generally do the same things as any of the newer stuff I might want. It just might take a bit more work, ingenuity, time or all three.
And that in turn lead me to another surprising, yet timely realization.
That I already have all the important gifts a person can have:
- A wife and family who love me and want to make me happy by trying to get me the stuff I really want.
- Good friends who get me and my odd humor, inspire me, stand by me in good times and bad, and when needed, kick me in the butt and tell me to get-over-myself.
- A job I mostly enjoy that allows me to keep a roof over my head and a full – and unfortunately expanding – belly.
- A workshop full of tools and computers that help me express my creativity.
- And the realization that I’m better off than probably 95 percent of the world population.
So that’s why I had trouble making a list. In the midst of such precious gifts, who could really want anything more?
Yet not to upset her, I did manage to cobble together a list containing a few odds and ends that would be kind of nice (but not important) to have:
- Samsung UN55JS8500 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD 3D Smart LED TV (2015 Model). Okay, I know that after this long essay about being thankful for the all the gifts I already have, putting an expensive HDTV on the list seems hypocritical. And you’re right. It is. But I don’t actually expect anyone to get this for me as our current old-fashioned tube TV is just fine. It’s just one of those guy things that would be cool to have and something I KNOW I would use a regular basis. Plus, you could count it as my holiday, Valentine’s Day, Anniversary and birthday gift this year and get your shopping done all at once! $1,500 at Amazon.com
Button front Fencing Jacket. After looking around for years I think I’ve finally found a place that actually still makes them. My current jacket is Size 40, I’m right handed and would prefer button closure. Color: White (preferred) with a second choice of Steel Blue. Zen Warrior Armory (Triplette Competition Arms) $82.50
- Toggle Clamps. I’ve been thinking of designing a new work bench which would have T-Track down the long sides and I’d need at least 4 of these for them, but could always use more. Here are two examples of the kinds I’d like: 500 lb Horizontal Quick-Release Toggle Clamp - 6 Piece Set, $23 or these auto adjusting Bessey STC-HH50 Horizontal Auto-Adjust Toggle Nickel Plated Clamp, Silver, $20 each. Both available at Amazon.com
- Toggle Plunger/Inline type clamps. Again for the new work bench I’m thinking of building. Either of these two would do, but again I’d need at least two, but preferably four: Bessey STC-IHH25 Horizontal Auto-Adjust Toggle Nickel Plated Clamp with In-Line Clamping Action, Silver, $23 each or Niceeshop(TM) 45Kg 99 Lbs 301A Holding Capacity 16.7mm Plunger Stroke Push Pull Type Toggle Clamp, $4 each
- Toggle Clamp Mounting Plate. Yup these are for the clamps above. I’d need either six or eight of them depending on the number of clamps I get. $8. Amazon or Rockler.
- Northern Industrial Engineer's Square Set - 4-Pc., Model# AMS5535. I’m really only looking for a good 2” or 4” square to help me set up/align my woodworking machines, but this set of four got decent reviews on Amazon and they’re fairly inexpensive. $30
- 15 gallon drum. It’s an unusual request, but I’ve been thinking about converting my single stage dust collector into to two stage unit and have never gotten around to getting one of these to do it. So if you so desire, you could get me one to finally get me started on this project I’ve been thinking about for a year or two. I need a small barrel with a resealable lid and this one’s small enough (20” high and 16” wide) to fit under my current dust collector. You probably get them other places cheaper, this one on Amazon will give you an idea of the kind I’m looking for. $38
- Norton Waterstone Sharpening Combination Package. I debated putting this on my list because I’m not really into sharping, but I’ve been using a lot more hand tools lately (chisels and hand planes) so eventually, I’ll need to sharpen them. Peachtree Woodworking $140
- Festool 498899 Assorted Domino Beech Tenons and Cutters in T-Loc Systainer. This would go with the aforementioned Festool 574432 Domino Joiner DF 500 Q Set, if someone were to get that for me. $295 at Amazon.com The Donino Joiner in case you’re interested goes for $950.
- iOttie Easy One Touch 2 Car Mount Holder for my cell phone when I decide to use it as a GPS. Sometimes my phone is more accurate than my dedicated GPS unit. Besides, my dedicated GPS unit doesn’t stick to my windshield anymore. $14
- Woodworking clamps. This is always a good default gift as woodworkers can never have too many of these. K-Body, bar, pipe or Quick-type are acceptable. 24” or bigger preferred. Your favorite big-box store or online. Price varies by type, but this link should give you an idea.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade? There are many questions...
Whenever a new piece of tech or software appears on the market, it doesn’t take long before people start asking me if they should buy it or upgrade to it.
They want a definitive answer – yes or no – and almost every time, I defy those expectations by answering, “It depends.”
As odd as it seems, the decision to adopt the latest tech gadget or upgrade to the newest version of a piece of software isn’t a binary thing. It depends on a lot of factors beyond the specifications of the device or the software’s newest features.
A good portion of the time, this question comes from colleagues, casual acquaintances or other people whose current equipment, budget and technical savvy I’m often unfamiliar with, so I can’t give them the answer they are looking for without gleaning more information first.
Regardless of the hype, no new product is right for everyone, and I’d stay far, far away from anyone willing to give you a blanket yes or no answer without asking you a few questions first. These people have no idea what they are talking about.
Let’s take for example Windows 10.
According to Microsoft, their latest operating system is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so much so, that they’ve been offering it to users of Windows 7 and 8 for free. But does that mean you should jump on the bandwagon and upgrade to it?
That’s the question a lot of people have been asking me recently, and, as I said above, I tell them: “It depends.” I then ask them the following series of questions which can apply to just about any tech upgrade or new purchase:
How old is your current computer?
If your computer is more than five or six years old and/or is still running Windows XP or Vista, forget about it. You device is already boardering on being obsolete. While your computer may indeed be capable of running Windows 10, you probably won’t be happy with its performance. Rather than spending money trying to beef up that old system, save up your cash and get a new computer in a year or two, which will come with Windows 10 pre-installed.
If you computer is newer than four years, then you should consider it, depending, of course, on your answers to the rest of these questions:
How often do you use your computer?
If the answer is not very often or just occasionally, then
you may be better off sticking with Windows 7 or 8, because by the time
Mircosoft drops support for Windows 7 or 8, you’ll probably be ready for a new
computer anyway.
Are you happy with your current version of Windows and does it do everything you need it do?
This sort of goes hand-in-hand with the question above, and
applies to most other software upgrades as well. If you are happy or
comfortable with your current version of Windows (or other program, app, or even
cell phone/tablet) and have a hard time adjusting to the sometimes radical
changes software and hardware vendors make to their newest products, then you
might be better off staying with what you have. You might also considering
sticking with what you have if the particular software package or device does
everything you need it do well, in a timely manner, and you can live without
whatever new features are in the product you are thinking of getting or
upgrading to.
In the case of Windows, if you’re happy with Windows 7 (or
8) and you don’t need any of Windows 10’s new wiz-bang features, or any new
program that requires you have
Windows 10, then I’d stay put. By the time Microsoft decides to drop support
for Windows 7/8, you’ll likely be ready to buy a new computer, which will come
with whatever Microsoft’s current version of Windows is then.
What other hardware is attached to your computer?
If you have a
really old printer, scanner or some other gadget you’ll need to check with
Microsoft to see if there are drivers available for it. If not, you’ll need to
factor in the cost of replacing those devices into your decision. This is also
something to think about when deciding to ditch your computer for say a tablet
or something else. Will that new device work with all your old tech stuff, or
will you need to replace it?
What do you want to use your computer for?
This one’s not so much related to a Windows 10 upgrade, but
I ask it anyway. If, like most people, you primarily use your computer for
e-mail, browsing, a few games and some light office work, ANY current version of Windows will let you do that. But if you are
an artist, do video editing, or are a hardcore gamer, then you do probably want to upgrade to take
advantage of Windows new coding enhancement and its ability to handle whatever
comes down the road.
Can you afford it/What’s it going to cost?
Windows 10 maybe free if you’re using Windows 7 or 8, but
there are other costs to consider. Will your machine need extra memory or a
bigger hard drive to run it? Will you have to replace any of your old hardware
that is no longer supported by the new software? Are you comfortable doing the
upgrade yourself, or will you need to hire someone to do it for you. Also do
you have the time to do it? I recently did it for one client and it took four
hours. You have that kind of time to spare?
And finally:
Do you have a recent backup of all your data and copy of all your programs in case something goes wrong?
This really shouldn’t be an issue, as you should be backing
up all your important data already, but I always like to ask. Most of the time,
upgrades go off without a hitch. But occasionally they do go wrong, and
sometimes disastrously so, so it’s always good to have a backup of all your
data and copies of your software handy, just in case you are forced to
completely wipe the system, and reinstall everything from scratch.
So the next time you are tempted to ask your favorite tech
guru about whether a particular upgrade or gadget is worth getting, ask yourself
these seven questions first. You might be surprised to find you really don’t
need their help after all.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Sometimes things don’t go as planned, and that's OK
This year, the wife and I took another trip overseas, this time to visit the Nordic countries, or, as our travel brochure put it, “The Viking Homelands.”
We’ve – meaning my wife, who did all the hard work – planned this trip for over two years and were really looking forward to it, the way we always look forward to overseas travel.
Part of the romance of “going abroad” is that you get to go on a big adventure and explore strange new cities, seek out new cultures and ancient civilizations, boldly going where – well to be honest – lots of tourists have gone before.
But most organized tours are so well structured, planned out and/or timed that there’s often little surprise. What you read about in the brochure is often exactly what you get, and that sometimes takes the thrill out of exploring an unknown territory.
That’s why trips where things don’t go exactly as planned tend to stand out in our memories more than those vacations where things go off like clockwork.
And that’s exactly what happened with our trip to Scandinavia and Northern Europe.
Four days into our cruise, our brand new ship broke down and instead of getting to see “The Viking Homelands,” we got a pretty in-depth tour of Estonia and Russia with a side of Norway thrown in.
Was it the trip, we wanted or planned on?
No.
But nor did it ruin our vacation. We still got to explore some strange new cities – albeit fewer of them than originally planned – meet people from cultures new to us and explore their ancient sites. And best of all, the uncertainly of what was going to happen next added a touch of excitement that any real adventure needs.
So the following is my “captain’s log” detailing our adventures aboard the MS Viking Star and her aborted tour of the Nordic countries.
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View of Stockholm's Old Town as we left port.
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DAY 1: STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
Our trip began in Stockholm, Sweden with a two-hour bus tour of the city, which is spread out over 14 islands linked together by 54 bridges. We mostly toured around the Gamla Stan, the "Old Town" part of the city which dates back to the 13th century. This island/neighborhood features many gabled merchant houses and an array of architectural styles – from the enormous baroque Stockholm Palace to the Art Nouveau Royal Dramatic Theater. In 1897, the city hosted the World's Fair, leading to a revitalization boom designed to show off its beautiful setting. A legacy of that period is the Strandvagen, which has been called one of Europe's loveliest waterfront esplanades.DAY 2: TO HELSINKI AND BACK
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My wife and I in front
of a statue to
Czar Alexander of Russia in Senate
Square. Helsinki Cathedral is in the background. |
It was a long, fun day, but we wished they would have stopped the bus at more places, like the Old Olympic stadium, so we could take proper pictures instead of trying to snap one as we drove by. The other disappointment was not having a bit more free time to spend exploring this city on our own.
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| A view of the Czar's Winter Palace, from across the Neva River. Today this complex is known as the Hermitage Museum and is home to one of the largest collections of Western European Art in the world. |
DAY 3: BACK IN THE USSR…ER… RUSSIA
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| Though it looks like a church, The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood is really a monument to Czar Alexander II who was assassinated on this spot in 1881. |
The sea port we docked at and all the new buildings as well as those still under construction – including a soccer stadium for the 2018 World Cup – were still part of the Gulf of Finland in 2004, but the central city looks much the same as it did when we first saw it.
Today's bus tour took us around to familiar sites, with three stops to take photos: In front of St. Isaac's Cathedral, an 1818 Russian Orthodox cathedral and museum known for it's gold-plated dome and an opulent, multicolored interior; The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood, built as a monument to Czar Alexander II who was assassinated on that spot; and a park along the Neva River where we got great views of the Winter Palace (now the Hermitage Museum) and Peter and Paul Fortress, the city's first defense edifice and now home to Peter and Paul Cathedral where the remains of several czars and czarinas, from Peter the Great to Nicholas II and his family, are buried.
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| Diorama in the basement room of Yusupov Palace showing where Felix Yusupov tried to poison then shoot RasputÃn |
DAY 4: STILL RUSSIAN AROUND
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Here's a look at the exterior of Catherine's Palace,
as seen from the rear gardens. |
Then in the afternoon we drove back into the city to see the Yusopov Palace, the home of an old Russian noble family. While not nearly as ostentatious as some of the czars' palaces, this place was still grand and served as a great contrast to what we saw this morning. This building's main claim to fame is that it was the site of the barely successful assassination of Grigori RasputÃn.
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| A view of the Lower section of Tallinn's Old Town seen from an observation terrace in Upper Town. The big spire in the center is St. Olaf's Church, one of the tallest buildings in Estonia. The building with the red conical roof is one of the guard towers that line the old city walls. |
DAY 5: TALLINN TALES
At least it wasn't an iceburg.... |
| I call this, my what's wrong with this picture, picture. The remains of a medieval city wall and watch tower gate with a McDonald's in front of it. Talk about clash of cultures! |
Our brand new ship appeared to have developed engine trouble and since we were only "running on the starboard side propulsion" we were at least four hours behind schedule. So instead of making port in Tallin, Estonia at 7 a.m., we got in about 11:30 a.m.
This turned out for the best, as it allowed us to sleep in today after our early day yesterday. Then after a leisurely lunch we headed out into a rainy Estonia to see "one of Northern Europe's finest medieval Old Towns."
Tallinn is the capital of Estonia and about one-third of the country's entire population live in the city. Its old town section is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, complete with cobblestone streets, plenty of old buildings, onion-domed churches, stone watchtowers and city walls. Our three hour walking tour started in the Walled Upper Town on Toompea (Dome Hill) where churches like the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral mingle with government buildings like the Estonian Parliament building. Then it was down to the Lower Town, which was a mix open squares, gabled houses and shops and even more churches.
After the tour, we spent an hour or so wandering the town on our own before heading back to the ship and finding out the status of our engines.
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| Centuries after it was built, the plaza in front of Tallinn Town Hall is still home to lots of vendors who set up booths here to hawk their wares to visitors. It's no wonder that this place is still called Market Square. |
DAY 6: STUCK BETWEEN A ROCK AND ESTONIA
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Holy Spirit Church, built in the 14th century
features this elaborate painted clock on its facade. It's the oldest and only street clock in Tallinn, that's been marking time for the citizens of this city for the past four centuries. It is the smallest and oldest place of worship in Lower Town and originally considered a refuge for the poor. |
Gdansk, Poland, we were stuck in Tallinn for another day. Unfortunately this means we won't be able to see Berlin, as they've cancelled that stop, but it did give us another afternoon to get to know this wonderful, picturesque little city.
After another leisurely morning onboard, we walked back into town, this time stopping to see a couple of more things we didn't get to visit yesterday, such as St. Olav's Church. Originally standing 159 meters tall (today it's only 124 m) it was the tallest structure in the world during the 16th century.
Today's visit was a made even better by the weather. While yesterday when we began our walking tour in a steady cold rain, today we had sunny and comfortable temperatures for our entire three-hour visit.
DAY 7: OUT OF STEAM
We got word from the captain in the morning that the engines wouldn’t be repaired for another few days, at which time we will sail directly for our last port of call, Bergen, Norway. This means we will miss three-quarters of the places we were set to visit, ruining the rest of our trip.To say that we were disappointed was an understatement, but the staff on board have been bending over backwards to keep us happy and as the ship itself is a mini, luxury hotel with lots of fine dining, we're not exactly roughing it.
On the bright side, I did get a 50-minute, deep-tissue massage (my first ever) at the ship's spa today so that should take sting out of being "marooned" here.
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Tallinn's Old Town is lit up beautifully at night. This shot was taken from the sun deck of our ship.
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| Exploring interior of Padise Monastery (above) in Happsalu, Estonia. The church and monastery complex inside The Episcopal Castle of Haapsalu (left). This castle was built in the 13th century and for the next 300 years or so was the center of the Oesel-Wiek Bishopric, or Catholic ecclesiastical state of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and subject to the Holy See in Rome. |
The town had lots of old medieval ruins for us to explore. First up was Padise Monastery, the ruins of a former Cistercian Monastery established in the 13th century. We didn't get much of a tour here, as our guide wasn't an expert about this part of Estonia. About all she was really able to tell us was that this place is one of the best preserved monastic ruins in Northern Europe and gives visitors a good idea of what Estonian medieval architecture was like. Still it was fun climbing around on wooden ladders and up and down ancient stone steps to explore the place. Back home, they never would have allowed us to do this, for fear someone would get hurt.
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| Kadriorg Palace. Peter the Great had this palace built after capturing Tallinn during the final phase of the Great Northern War in 1710, and dedicated to his wife Catherine I of Russia, hence it is sometimes referred to as Catherine's Palace. It was started on July 25, 1718 but wasn't finished until after Peter's death in 1725. Peter and Catherine visited the unfinished residence on several occasions, but after her husband's death, Catherine showed no interest in the seaside property. Peter, however did stay in Tallinn many times, but in a small, modest, one-room house located elsewhere in the park. Today this building is used as a branch of the Art Museum of Estonia |
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A look past one of the model lighthouses on
the grounds of the Viimmsi Open Air Museum out to the Baltic Sea where a
cruise ship makes its late afternoon
departure. |
so we can at least see that city – we embarked on one more impromptu trip here: to see Kadriorg and the Viimsi Peninsula.
The first stop on this excursion was to the contemporary part of the city to see Kadriorg Palace and park, which was built on command of Peter the Great. Then it was off to the Song Festival Grounds, where important Estonian Song Festivals are held every five years. After that, we went to the Kose-Pirita district where we got to walk around the ruins of St. Birgitta's Convent. Our final stop of the day was at the seaside Viimsi Open-Air Museum, which is built around a historic farm that showed us how serfs and fishermen used to live in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
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The Estonian Festival Song Grounds. Song festivals in which
choirs from across the country come together to perform are held here every five years. The big statue seated looking at the stage is of Gustav Ernesaks, a beloved choir leader and composer lovingly called the Father of Song by the people. For nearly half a century he was one of the main initiators and general leader of the Estonian song festival movement. |
DAY 10: BERGEN BOUND
We finally left Tallinn after nearly a week here and while I was anxious to move on to see a new city, I was sorry to leave the ship behind. It was a very comfortable, relaxing place to stay and the staff aboard was wonderful.Since we were one of the last groups to leave – our flight to Bergen didn’t depart until late the afternoon – we spent the morning packing, then browsed the little shops on the pier, giving the Estonian economy one last boost before returning to the ship for lunch. After we finished eating, we still had some free time, so we spent it up on the sun deck catching some rays and taking in the scenic Tallinn waterfront one final time.
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| Our first view Hardangerfjord as seen from the bus |
DAY 11: PINING FOR THE FJORDS
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| Holdhus Church (or Stave Church) has been on this site for over 700 years, and according to it's sign, there has been a church here since 1200 AD. The current wooden structure dates back to 1726. It, like hundreds of other country churches of the time, were made of wood instead of stone because stone was too expensive for these small parishes. Now there are less than a handful of these churches left in Norway. |
known for; its fjords.
What's a fjord, you ask?
Well according to our guide Undi, a fjord is a flooded valley between two mountains where seawater mixes with fresh water coming down from the cliffs. This pretty much matches what Norway's official fjord website, www.fjordnorway.com, says about them: "A fjord is a deep, narrow and elongated sea or lakedrain, with steep land on three sides."
By either definition, the one we were taken to see today, Hardangerfjord, in the town/province of Hardanger, was absolutely gorgeous. It's know around here as the "Queen of the Fjords" because the scenery is so stunning. And the drive to and from it wasn't that bad either.
On our way to Hardangerfjord we got to stop at the Steinsdall waterfall, which you can actually walk under; saw the spectacular vistas surrounding the town of Oeystese, which included a view of one of Norway's glaciers; and make a stop at Holdhus Church, a cute Norwegian country church which dates back to 1726.
Now I've seen quite a few old churches on this trip as well as others we've made on other overseas trips, but I think Holdhus Church is my favorite. Instead of being made from stone it was completely made from wood, which really appealed to the woodworker in me. Then on the way home we got a short ferry ride across another fjord before driving back into Bergen.
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| A shot from the train looking down into Flam showing the river with its glacial waters running through it as we returned from our in our journey up into Flam's mountains. |
DAY 12: WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU FLAM!
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| Tvindefossen waterfall stands 152 meters tall and
locals believe its water has "magical" properties that enhance your love life. In otherwords, liquid Viragra. Needless to say all the men on our bus, myself included, were looking around for things to bottle this water in! |
The day started with a trip to Oppheim Lake to see yet another waterfall, Tvindefossen, the waters of which are said to have "magical" powers. Then it was on to the Stalheim Hotel for lunch and an absolutely breath-taking view of the Naeroyfjord valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Getting to the hotel wasn't as nearly as much fun as leaving there however. On the way down, our bus took a road with 19 hair-pin tours that was so steep it seemed impossible for such a big vehicle to navigate it without going over the edge. Adding to the drama was a guy in a Mercedes who decided to come up the road the wrong way, forcing our driver to have to maneuver around him and those really tight turns. I don't think I've seen a group of people over 50 so nervously in my life!
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One of the railway cars of the Flam historic railway (Flamsbana) sits
on the tacks at the station with one of the town's nicer buildings behind it. |
But the highlight of the day came at the end with a ride on the Flam Railway. This 20 km (12 mile) journey, starts in Flam at just 2 meters above sea-level and climbs up more than 3,000 ft to 866 meters above sea level. It travels through 20 long tunnels cut into the mountains, only two of which were NOT dug out by hand. During the hour-long ride, we were treated to more splendid views of this beautiful country and the stopped at yet another waterfall, Kjosfossen, to see the "Skogsra," legendary female forest spirits said to seduce men into the woods and to their doom.
After a short stay at the second-to-last station -- Vatnahalsen, a mere 811 meters above sea level -- for an after-lunch snack of waffles and some time to wander around, we got to see the sites all over again on the way down.
All and all a great day to see the natural wonders of Norway.
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| The Bryggen or Hanseatic Wharf which lines the eastern side of the fjord Bergen are a series of commercial built by the The Hanseatic League, a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. This Germanic business group dominated Baltic maritime trade (c. 1400-1800) along the coast of Northern Europe. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (c. 13th to 17th centuries). It has been on the UNESCO list for World Cultural Heritage sites since 1979. |
DAY 13: NORSE CODE
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| An exterior shot of the FantoftStavekirke (stave
church). It was was originally built in the Sognefjord area around the year 1150 and during the 19th century, when it was threatened with demolition, along with hundreds of other stave churches in Norway, it was bought by a man named Fredrik Georg Gade and moved in pieces to its present location in the Fantoft district in Bergen in 1883. |
Surrounded by seven hills and seven fjords, Bergen, founded in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre, was started as trading post, and trade has been an important part of this city ever since. Today it is probably best know for its Bryggen Hanseatic Wharf, a medieval warehouse district set up by a German confederation of merchants in the harbor district. These colorful, wooden-clad boat- and warehouses date back to 1702 and are on the UNESCO World Heritage list of historic places.
The morning began with a steady, light rain, which is fairly typical in this country which averages more than 270 days of rain a year. But that was okay since we were mostly touring the city by bus. We did, however, make a few stops during this part of the tour, the highlight of which was Fantoft Stavekirke, another all wooden church.
The weather drastically improved after lunch, just in time for us to spend our remaining free time walking around the city. So we make a beeline to the Floibanen, a funicular that runs up to the top of Floien Mountain, to get a panoramic view of the entire city. After that, it was back down the mountain to where we spent the next few hours wandering through the fish market, Hanseatic wharf and all the other historic places this city has to offer.
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| Looking down on Bergen from the top of Floien Mountain after riding up on the funicular. |
DAY 14: BYE, BYE BERGEN, BYE, BYE!
Well we wanted an adventure and looking back on our trip as we departed for the airport, I can certainly say we got one! While disappointed we didn't get to see all the places we'd planed on, we did get to see some unexpected places we didn't, and the best souvenir of all was a good story we can tell (and perhaps embellish on) for years!Sunday, August 30, 2015
Don’t shoot the messenger
I think it’s pretty safe to say that over the last 35 years the rapid advances in computer technology have revolutionized the way we live, and I don’t think that most Americans can imagine going back to the pre-digital days of the late 1970s and early ’80s.
I mean, how the hell did we manage to live with only four major television networks, telephones tethered to walls that could only make and receive voice calls and personal computers that for the most part not only couldn’t talk to each other, but required you to master a bizarre and arcane language known as DOS to get them to do anything useful?
Yet only a few short decades later, the things we used to think of as impossible are now so commonplace that it’s hard to remember a time when our collective knowledge wasn’t literally at our fingertips.
For the most part this technological revolution has been a good thing. It has allowed ordinary people to organize and raise money for worthy causes or start businesses in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before (Kickstarter.com); given an outlet to millions of aspiring filmmakers (YouTube), authors (via e-books or on blog sites like this one), artists (Deviantart.com) and musicians (iTunes) who otherwise would never have found a way to share their work with such a huge audience; and made finding information on even the most obscure topic almost as simple as asking a question (Google).
But I fear the instant gratification our new tech has brought us has come with a downside; it’s made us impatient and perhaps a bit self-centered.
As our gadgets have become faster and faster at serving up what we want, we’ve become less and less able to appreciate the millions of tiny things that have to happen in the background to get them to work. We’ve come to expect that our creations will be perfect and function properly all the time and when they don’t, we become easily irritated at it or any humans who fail to live up to our “I want it now” expectations.
Maybe the world has always been this way and I am only seeing it now that I am getting older and perhaps a bit more cynical in my “old age.”
So it’s almost poetic that I noticed this trend the week I turned 50. My wife and I were on a cruise in the Baltic, when the brand new ship we were on lost one of its engines because of a technical glitch with one of its cutting edge power systems. We limped into port on the remaining engine without incident and aside from having to spend most of the rest of our vacation stuck in Tallinn, Estonia, everything else aboard our floating luxury hotel was perfectly operational.
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Our cruise ship, the MS Viking Star, in port in Helsini, Finland
a few days before one of her engines failed. It was using the
latest high-tech power system and despite the crew's best
efforts to fix it, they couldn't.
|
Now I can definitely understand my fellow passengers’ disappointment when the captain announced the cancellation of the rest of our trip after several failed attempts to repair the engine. My wife and I were also terribly disappointed that we were going to miss six of our 10 ports of call.
But listening to some people carrying on like it was the end of the world, hearing their unreasonable expectations and watching them verbally abuse the crew and staff who were obviously bending over backwards and doing their best to try to help us just made me want to scream.
I’ve been in similar situations at my job where a critical server has crashed, so I understood exactly what steps the engineering staff was taking to solve the problem and could emphasize with the kind of pressure they were under. So when some of my fellow passengers began vociferously telling anyone who’d listen how the ships’ crew and/or cruise line were incompetent, it became gallingly obvious that none of them knew the first thing about technology or how to troubleshoot it.
At one point one I even heard one of these “know-it-alls” say that the ship should have been carrying a extra engine incase something like this happens. It took all my self control not to march up to that person ask “Oh really? And do you carry an extra engine in the trunk of your car, in case the one under the hood breaks?”
Sigh.
Now being Jewish, I understand a lot about complaining. My people have raised it to an art form and even coined a name for it – kvetching – and if all some of my fellow passengers had been doing was kvetching, it wouldn’t have bothered me, nor would I probably have noticed.
Only when they got indignant and started blaming the crew for things which they had no control over, did I really realize just how much our ubiquitous technology has made us so impatient.
I don’t think people really have any idea of just how complex all our gadgets have made our lives these days. Sure those slick little boxes with their touch screens and pretty graphics look cool, but does anyone in the general public really understand how they work?
Most people don’t care as long as they do.
But therein lies the problem.
Sometimes the technology behind these gadgets fails and the reason for that failure isn’t as obvious as it used to be.
In the days gone by, if something broke, it was pretty obvious what part had failed, and the average person with some basic tools could fix most things pretty quickly.
But let’s face it, the days of the shade-tree mechanic are all but gone. Today you practically need a degree in electrical engineering and a computer just to retrieve the error codes from your car.
And things are only bound to get more complex from here on out. With computers designing more and more of our devices with little or no human input, it’s going to take us even more time to figure out a problem as first we’ll need to understand how the computers put the devices together before we can even start figuring out what went wrong. This, I suspect, is what happened aboard our cruise ship and explains why it took so long to fix.
Now I’m by no means suggesting that everyone needs to get a degree in engineering or computer science and start troubleshooting their own devices. (If they did, I’d be out of a job!) All I’m asking is for people to remember that our technology isn’t perfect nor are the people who design and keep it running.
Sometimes things break and sometimes my colleagues and I don’t immediately understand why it broke or how to fix it.
Yelling at us or constantly reminding us how you are being inconvenience by the problem doesn’t help us fix it any faster. Believe me when I tell you we don’t like having to work long into the night or through our weekends fixing a problem. We do our best to get everyone up and running as soon as possible so both you and we can get back to our every day lives.
Try and remember how you feel every time you upgrade your smart phone and struggle with all the new features just to get your e-mail and apps working again. Seems to take you forever, right?
Now imagine having to do that for billions of people on hundreds of different models of smart phones and you’ll have an inkling of what IT folks are up against each day.
So next time you have a tech-related problem, cut the people trying to fix it a break, take a deep breath and give us some time to figure it out.
Because despite what you’ve been told, not every problem can be fixed by turning it off and on again.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Making it look easy, isn’t easy
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| Putting together a good how-to can be just as frustrating as putting together a jigsaw puzzle. |
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| “Woodworking for Mere Mortals” |
These often well produced, always entertaining and informative how-to videos which show various projects’ progressions from concept through completion, was the inspiration for last month’s “Giving Old Tech New Life” post.
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| Matthias Wandel |
I was confident I could knock the whole thing out in an hour or so.
Boy, was I wrong.
Unlike taking a series of screen shots and writing a captions for them describing what a user needs to click on to proceed to the next step, documenting a build as “simple” as the clock in last month’s blog was a hell of a lot more complex than I’d ever imaged.
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| “The Wood Whisperer” |
I never realized the way I work in my shop is drastically different from the way I do things at work.
Almost by definition, working with computers requires approaching things in a logical, orderly fashion; following an exact series of steps in a sequential manner until the task at hand is done. At work, this is exactly how I do things.
But in my shop, I just wing it. I rarely if ever draw any real plans, make a cut list or plot out the order of the build. At most, I have a few crude sketches with dimensions scrawled on them and an idea that I’ve been turning over in my head for a few weeks.
I am well aware that this isn’t the most efficient use of my rather limited time in my shop. I know that if I actually spent some time to create a set of detailed plans in Sketch-Up or even Quark Xpress, I’d be able to avoid the slowdowns that always seem to crop up because I hadn’t foreseen some problem or another when I had “built” the project in my head.
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| “Think Woodworks” |
Yet even if I had made detailed plans and followed them to the letter, the clock build still would have taken me twice as long to complete as would have if I wasn’t documenting it. After every step, I had to remember to stop and try to get clear, in-focus pictures that showed what I was doing.
Once that was done I thought I was home-free. All that remained was to write a short introduction and 20 or so captions for the photos, then post it on the blog. I was sure I could accomplish all that in an hour.
Yeah, right…
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| Frank Makes” |
“Cool!” I thought. “Everything’s going to plan for once.”
I should have realized right then and there that things wouldn’t be quite that easy.
Instead of the five minutes I’d thought it take me to upload the photos, cut and paste some text and write some simple HTML to get everything looking the way I wanted, it took me over three bloody hours!
I freely admit I’m no IT genius. I’m a generalist who has a very broad understanding of all the various specialties that make up the Information Technology field, and while none of that knowledge runs really deep, I sure as hell know how to create a basic HTML table!!
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| Jimmy Diresta |
My coding skills won’t win any awards, and I know the use of tables to format a webpage went out of style with Netscape Navigator back in the late ’90s, but hey, it’s a quick, down and dirty way to do it.
So why the hell Blogspot constantly kept rewriting my code and completely screwing it up is beyond me!
Hey Google. Leave my #%$@! HTML code alone, damn it!
I could have built my own web server from spare parts, bought and registered my own domain and created an entire web site from scratch using only Notepad in the time it took me to get Blogspot to format my last post correctly! (Yes, I know there are third party slideshow plug-ins I could have used, but I mistakenly thought it would be quicker to build my own table rather than learning how to use one of those.)
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| April “Wilkerdos” Wilkerson |
So to all of them I say a hearty thank you for keeping me inspired, making me want to get back into my shop and for helping me to wind down at the end of each week.
And if you’ve never check out any of their channels before, please do. Maybe they’ll inspire you too.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Giving old tech a new life
But lately my home office has become so cluttered that even Oscar Madison would be appalled at the mess. So I spent a day going through all the old parts I’ve kept around to fix broken computers and weeded out anything more than a few years old.
Those really old parts were a significant portion of my stash, and as I looked at them stacked on my office floor, I couldn’t quite bring myself to just put it all in the trash.
So I decided to give some of those parts new life out in my workshop. The following pictures detail the process I used to turn an old IDE controller card and a broken hard drive into a desk clock.
| 1. I started with a platter from an dead hard drive, an IDE controller card and clock motor. Then gathered some tools: a hot glue gun, a pair of needle-nose pliers and a few other things, like calipers, a hacksaw and drill which aren't pictured here. | 
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| 2. Using the needle-nose pliers, I removed some of the capacitors on the IDE card. They were in the way of where the clock face was going to go. I didn't feel like going through the trouble of desoldering them, so I just pulled them off, brute-force style. |
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| 3. Next I positioned the platter from the old hard drive on the IDE card and marked the center where the spindle for the clock motor needed to come through. |  |
| 4. I took a pair of calipers and measured the thickness of the clock spindle. It was 3/8". |  |
| 5. So I loaded a 3/8" drill bit into my drill press... |  |
| 6. ... and positioned the bit over the mark I made on the card ... |  |
| 7. ... and drilled a hole in it. The drill bit I used was old and not that sharp -- because I didn't want to ruin one I use for my "real" woodworking projects -- but it cut through that card with surprising ease. |  |
| 8. I checked the fit of the clock spindle and once I saw it fit perfectly, I hot glued it to the back of the card. |  |
| 9. Next I took an O ring that came from the dead hard drive and placed it on the card. I needed this to hold the platter of the hard drive off the card, so the "clock face" would clear that big chip you see pictured at right. Since that O-ring overlapped that chip too, I marked the portion I needed to trim away... |  |
| 10. ... and using a mini-hack saw, I cut it away. |  |
| 11. Once cut to fit, I hot glued that to the face of the IDE card. |
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| 12. I then clamped the card to my work bench so I could remove the little hook on the bracket that secured the card to the computer case. The metal wasn't that thick, but it still took significant effort to cut through it. There's got to be a better way to do this safely with a power tool! |  |
| 13. All that work just to get rid of that little hook! |  |
| 14. And because I'm a perfectionist, I just had to square up the other end of that bracket. That took another few minutes.... |  |
| 15. After that it was back to the drill press to punch holes in that metal bracket so I could screw it to a wood base. I used a newer bit here with a squirt or two of WD40 for lubrication and the bit punched right though the thin metal fine. |  |
| 16. Back at my workbench, I hot glued the platter onto the O ring then used the ring that secured the platter to the spindle of the hard drive's motor to cover the center part of my new clock's face. This too was hot glued down. |  |
| 17. I next attached the clock hands and one of the old IDE ribbon cables to a connector on the side of the clock. | 
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| 18. One of the things about being a woodworker is that I hardly ever throw away a scrap piece of wood, because, like most woodworkers, we never know when it might come in handy. Well this old test drawer front I made for a project several years ago was just about the perfect size for the clock base. Just needed to be trimmed down a bit on my chop saw. (I could have certainly used a handsaw for this, but my chop saw was right next to my bench and far faster...) After cutting it, I did have to use my router add the fancy profile to the side I cut. For some reason I forgot to photograph that setup, so you're just going to have to take my word for it! |  |
| 19. With the base on my bench I marked out where I wanted the bracket to go on it. |  |
| 20. Then I placed the clock on the base and figured out where I wanted the ribbon cable to attach. I finally decided on the position you see here. |  |
| 21. To prove to myself I could cut a mortise by hand, I drilled out this slot and cleaned it up with some chisels. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, so I think I might do mortises this way in my next big furniture project. |  |
| 22. Here's the ribbon cable "connected" to the base. All that was left was to screw the metal bracket down to the wood. Then it was all done! Haven't decided yet how I'll finish that wood. I have a few ideas though.... | 
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And finally here it is on the right, sitting next to other clocks I've built out of obsolete computer parts!
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