Obama @ the Target Center

Hello folks,

Barack Obama is going to be speaking this Saturday at 1:30pm in the Target Center! Whether or not you like the man's politics, he's still one of the better speakers of our time, and could possibly be our next President! If you're interested in going, you have to fill out a form (here) to get an E-ticket sent to you. (They say tickets are required. It was easy though, and I just got mine.) Otherwise you can go to one of the locations listed on the bottom of that page to get a ticket in advance.

Let me know if you'll be out there, or if you want to meet on the way out.

Oscars '08

Woot! The nominations are out, and for the most part, look great.

http://a.oscar.abc.com/media/2008/html/printer.html

I AM GOING TO SEE THERE WILL BE BLOOD BEFORE THE OSCARS. That's my mantra for the time being. :) Otherwise I've done better than usual at seeing all of this year's top films.

What was your favorite film of '08?

Presidential Milkshakes?

A list I came across today.
(List under: I have no idea what this guy is talking about, but know exactly what he is saying...?)

Presidential Milkshakes:

I drink your milkshake! -Daniel Plainview

I drink your milkshake, even though I opposed drinking your milkshake four years ago. -Mitt Romney

I drink your milkshake, but only if the Bible says it's allowed. -Mike Huckabee

I may drink your milkshake for another 100 years, if that's what it takes. -John McCain

I drank a milkshake on 9/11. -Rudy Giuliani

I'll drink your milkshake a few months after everyone else does. -Fred Thompson

I drink your milkshake, but I'm paying for it with gold. -Ron Paul

America deserves a new milkshake. -Barack Obama

I will fight the corporations so that you can drink your own milkshake. -John Edwards

I have 35 years of milkshake-drinking experience. *sob* -Hillary Clinton

I peacefully drink your milkshake. -Dennis Kucinich

It depends on what your definition of "milkshake" is. -Bill Clinton

I voted for drinking your milkshake before I voted against it. -John Kerry

Global warming is melting your milkshake. -Al Gore

We're making good progress in the war on milkshakes, and make no mistake: we will prevail. -George W. Bush

link to original

Old Photos, New Link

I put up our wedding photos on a easy to use Flickr page.
http://www.flickr.com/gp/8797776@N08/1FUs71
Enjoy!

-Bjorn

"I am a Golden God!"

In this last year I've been collecting and assembling the various supplies and equipment necessary to start my own little screen printing shop. In the beginning I had a screen made at work and bought the inks and squeegee and that was that. I printed a shirt. And it wasn't pretty. Or easy. Or economical.

Tonight though, I've taken a big step forward. I just got done washing out a screen that I coated and exposed myself, with equipment that I researched and built myself. Even better, I've seen workable results on this first time through, which is awesome, and I'm excited now to sharpen my skills. Watching that emulsion wash out for the first time was a really really nice feeling. Like all of the time and money that I've invested in this junk is maybe going to work out!
(If you don't know anything about screen printing, there's a lot of PROCESS between IDEA>>>and>>>IDEA PRINTED ON A SHIRT... and I was going to try to explain it, but maybe another time... for now, maybe you'll get an idea of what it's all about with these pictures.)


"Safelight"

"Exposure Unit" Usually cost $1000s, I built mine for under $200...

...including this darkroom timer to control my exposures.

Screen after un-exposed region (blocked by the film pos.) is washed-out. (Sorry it's sideways. I'm being lazy now.)

Some edges are burning in, so I'm actually over-exposed after a 5-min. exposure window. It'll be faster next time! (Many home-built units can take from 30-60 mins. to expose a screen, so I'm pumped!)

Otherwise we're relatively sharp.



Pre-exposure-unit: Another, less efficient, way to work. Painting Screen Drawing Fluid onto a screen. Still fun though!


A shirt I printed for some of the luckier Hagstroms this Christmas - the screen I had made at Northwest Graphic Supply. (Hagstrom is a real guitar company, and the Super Swede is a real guitar...) A nice fit for the fam. But now, I can make the screen myself!

"Clock of Nines"

http://www.walyou.com/blog/2008/01/06/the-math-clock-for-geeks/

The arguments going on in the comments on the Waylou page are pretty funny. I thought Lou, at least, would have an opinion.

Nice Flight!

Paper Airplane Madness.

SLEEPTRACKER®

I got the SLEEPTRACKER® watch for my birthday (Thank you, Änna!), which if you haven't heard about it, tracks your sleep patterns, marking your 'wakeful moments' with the help of an accelerometer to determine when the best time to wake you is on a given morning.


I'm really excited to test this thing out. If it works as promised, it will only wake me when I'm most ready to get up, and not when I'm in the middle of a deep sleep.

So far I've only worn the watch on a holiday, so I let myself wake up naturally. Seeing the sleep data was cool for sure, but the first real test will be getting up for work tomorrow and seeing how refreshed I really feel.

You can go to the SLEEPTRACKER® site to learn more about how the watch works, or just wait to hear more about it from me. (Sorry, I sound like a product rep.) :)

Photoshoped?

Part one.
I've been reading a kind of a lot about news photography/photo journalism/faked photos lately, mostly in regards to good/cool/editorial Photoshop chops, and then today I came across this photo and I thought, "No way is this real..." But I haven't read anything that purports it as a fake. It which case, it's quite the picture. Or wait, does that matter?Part two.
Does it matter if a photo is "real" or not? Do we still believe by seeing? And isn't the term "Photoshop Fake" redundant? :)

In terms of judging imagery for its visual appeal, I don't think that these things matter all that much really. I like to look at pretty things, and most of the time I just don't care how the image came to be. Other times I'm excited by images that show the mastery that a person can have over their images, equipment and software. It's when these images are purported as News that things can get confusing.

How about this: What's the difference between a photographer dodging and burning his photograph and increasing the contrast to bring out the smoke of a burning building (all very old-school) and a (new school) photographer using Photoshop tools and brushes to make that same smoke look more menacing?

Or what if the above photo is chopped/faked, but based on factual information? (The gator was seen holding the zookeeper's arm in its jaws, knuckles curled and severed 3/4ths of the way between the wrist and the elbow - with 3" of tattered bloody flesh trailing out the severed end...) Gruesome, right? But why not make that picture to get people's attention? I think some gory headline would be just as sensational as a "fake" photo.

Thoughts?

(...all of that just so I can show a crazy picture that I saw today...)

Re: Huckabee

Hey [friends],

Some of you have... expressed your concerns, shall we say, over my casual support of Republican Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee in my last post. And although I might not be entirely coherent, educated, or logical in my theories on Presidential politics, I thought I might be able to clear up my stance a little bit - at least for this upcoming election.

For one, I don't actually think that I'd vote for Huckabee if it turned out to be him verses, say Clinton... especially not based on one ad. (Now if Chuck Norris was standing next to the ballot booths while I was voting, that'd be another story!) :)

It is interesting though, that because of the "political climate" in America, I find myself caring less about what a candidate claims that s/he stands for, and rather more about the impression that said candidate makes on me [or doesn't] as a loyal, trustworthy citizen. And Huckabee seems to be a solid, stand up guy. I agree with you that on most [if not all] accounts, Huckabee takes a different stance than I might on the issues, and so technically I shouldn't even consider him. But I find myself trusting him more than, well... most of the viable candidates.

Some of these candidates I see as bearing a cross, or caring an agenda that's outside of doing the best for the country. (Power? Pride? Fame?) And I hate watching these debates where candidates squirm their way around answers and try to distract us from the severity of the issues with snappy comebacks and winning smiles... So I'm cynical about the process and the people in it, and I feel that regardless of where a candidate stands these days, I want them to be genuine. Because the reality is, if we have a genuine leader in the top position in this country (and not a no-brained, power-hungry-war-monger), the power will stay with the people - and it will be the people making unified decisions on the big issues with the President as their voice.
An ideal President doesn't have to agree with me on everything. They just have to be sensible enough to understand the many sides of the issues at hand, and selfless enough to act in the best interest of the country. All of the candidates say that they could do that. For the Rebulicans, Huckabee seems the most capable.

Maybe he's just the best actor. Yeesh.

Like I said, I probably wouldn't vote for him over the Dems top pick next fall. On paper, he stands just too far to the right. There's just that part of his character that I think is missing, for the most part, in politics today. Obama is the other candidate that I find some of that same quality in. I think that he would still be carrying quite a bit as the first black Pres., but the man's genuineness is apparent. Huckabee and Obama talk like they believe what they're saying - whereas Clinton, Romney, Giuliani, Edwards, McCain... I suspect them of having their fingers crossed half the time they're talking...

Sorry. There's a big mix of patriotic idealism and cynicism going on in this post, and honestly I'm still pretty lost. If anything though, this race is interesting, and likely, the results will be historical. And I hope that the following 4-8 years follow suit. [Well, historical in a good way... not like the past 8 years!]

Huckabee/Norris '08

Well, that's pretty much un-toppable. I'd have to say that my choices for President now go: 1. Barack Obama, 2. Mike Huckabee.

I think I'm serious. Along with sounding like the most reasonable Republican candiate since I've been alive (...and boy is that Mitt Romney a douche bag... ), Huckabee now comes out with the best campaign platform ever. BECAUSE CHUCK NORRIS SAID SO.

Although you can't help but think of the new Chuck Norris jokes that this will spur...
"Chuck Norris endorsed Mike Huckabee for President, but Huckabee still didn't win... because everyone wrote in CHUCK NORRIS! on their ballots instead. And Chuck Norris wouldn't accept the Presidency [as usual] because he didn't want to downgrade to President, from his current status of Chuck Norris".

Beard Cap

Ha ha!

I was going to buy this for Davin, but then I found out they're $135...

Too bad Davin.

Happy Thanksgorging.

Yeah, but can he do Elliot's Exploding-Wine-Glass-Trick?

I busted out the Gyro Ring (aka Jitter Ring, Chatter Ring) at a party last night in an attempt to steal some of the fire out from under the Wii: that I knew would be otherwise dominating the nerdiest of party goers' attentions. I'm happy to say that my friends are at least as 'cool' as they used to be (I definitely am), and many of them really had fun with the toy - and Elliot even invented a new trick... (I wish we had a video of that... Sorry Baker and Marie!) :)

I got one of these at a toy store back in high school, right after the Yo-Yo craze, and recently decided to try to get my hands on one again. Not knowing what the thing was called, it took some creative Google searching to come up with the right item, but I eventually found them for sale (on Ebay) . I'm already as good as I once was, but that's not saying much. I expect that I'll play with it a couple more times in the next month or two, maybe learn a new trick, and then back to the closet it'll go.

But it'll be fun while it lasts.

SGIA '07 - Orlando

Me, working the booth in Orlando.

At the end of last month I got to go to Orlando with 'the guys' here at Northwest Graphic Supply and help out at our Screen Systems booth. Mostly, I acted as a general technician and TJET operator, but I got to try out my share of sales pitches on the passing crowds as well. (Usually my customer interactions went something like, "Oh yeah, that's a great product. What's in it?/What's it used for?/What's the distributor discount? etc... Oh, I don't know, I'm just the booth lackey, but I can have you talk to one of our sales people as soon as one's free... How 'bout this weather?") But by the end of the show I actually felt like I had helped out quite a bit.

These pictures are from inside the Convention Center. Uncrating (above), working the booth (left, below right). Bob, Dave and Ben (and me, in the right corner) are in the picture here to the right. Alan (my boss, the company owner) and John were also at the show, but we took turns manning the booth so everyone had time to wander the floor. You can see Canon has a booth a couple rows behind us, Anatol (a big screen printing press maker) is right next to us, 3M was off to the left a couple rows. Also at the show were Epson, Brother, HP, Graphtec... basically all of the big names in printers/printing, as well as thousands of smaller outfits you've never heard of.


It was pretty cool after all was said and done. And definitely a nice break from the day-to-day type of work I do at the shop. (And we actually got to go to some pretty incredible restaurants for dinner each night too!) I hope that they decide to take me again next time... or maybe I'll have to go as a representative of NWG to one of the international shows I hear my boss talking about.

Paris anyone? :)

Grounds for Impeachment

I started reading this article, Joseph A. Palermo: The Starr Report: How to Impeach a President, not knowing exactly what it was all about, but I quickly guessed where it was going... Still though, I thought the article well written and thought provoking -- enough so that I could realistically consider the points that it raises for the impeachment of our current president.

For the most part, the arguments I've heard for Bush's impeachment have come across as bitterly idealistic and as unhelpfully accusatory as the allegations against Clinton that are noted in the above article. (The Palermo article is mostly about Clinton/Starr, and builds a case against Bush by weakening Starr's and the public's attack of Clinton.) But this article seems sincere, and sincerely worried about the state of our country and it's unfortunate leadership.

And where I'll certainly agree (with my terribly limited knowledge of US and Presidential history) that Bush is the worst President of all time, I can't see him doing anything as horrible as people like Palermo are forecasting... Again, that kind of thinking sounds like 'bitter-liberal' to me... But after reading this article I have to agree, if Clinton deserved impeachment, so does Bush. Not that necssarily I think we should go there.

See, as partisan as this country is, I wouldn't want impeachment to become a trend for every President down the line... Then I suppose it just goes downhill until we have another civil war.

Sorry. Not funny. Thoughts?

ZIPskinny

Where are you? ... Who are you? Who are your neighbors? Is my 'hood denser than yours? Population-wise or education-wise? Richer? Culturally or Economically?

ZIPskinny.com has the answers! (In the strictly statistical sense.)

Based on the data from the last census. I found it pretty interesting.


Try popular zips, like 90210...

So... That shut me up.

Flaming Moe didn't qualify for Nationals 2007, where we likely would have been seeded, like, 5th. Weird? Frustrating? Absolutely. Every time I look at the Nationals seedings I realize I'm still looking for our name. But that's that. The season is over, and we're all still fine (and great Ultimate players). Maybe you can get more out of me in person, but that's all I plan on writing about it.

Fortunately, there's still cool stuff on the internet.

Like this ballerina image.

Apparently, some people can see this spinning one way, and some the other. I can only see it spinning one direction, but I won't tell you which until after you look at it (in case the suggestion could affect how you see it?).


And ok, one more thing about Flaming Moe.

We did have a great season. I'm not going to say that it was so good that not going to Nationals doesn't matter, but we still did get to play with the top teams in competitive games all season, and those are experiences that we shouldn't soon forget.

Best of luck to Poodle, the VBBs, Rackages...

$499 to Ireland! Inclueds Flight, Car & Hotel!

Another great resource from The NYTIMES Freakonomics blog:
Arthur Frommer Online: Fly/drive Ireland (in winter) for only $499 is again available to each of two persons traveling together, for bookings until September 28

There are lots of great travel ideas and bargains that I shouldn't even be considering right now... but I'll be glad that this site is around someday!

What I've been saying for years. :)

"People often talk about saving the planet. But really, the planet will be just fine without us, and the issue is more whether our species will be smart enough to survive the climactic and biological changes we are wreaking on ecosystems."

Graham Hill, founder and CEO of Treehugger.com

I've been reading the Freakonomics blog on nytimes.com lately, and I came across this article about Global Warming today. Besides finding the above quote (basically echoing the argument that I use against 'environmentalists' when I feel preached at), I thought it interesting to discover that the article was repeatedly suggesting, if not promoting the unpopular?/realistic?/scientific? argument that one person really can't do anything. The real point being that it's up to our governments to do anything that would actually have a planetary effect.

Maybe it's just my personality type, but I find that kind of logical/cynical honesty refreshing. I feel that the One-Person-CAN-Make-a-Difference!-type arguments are generally corny and not-powerful. Sometimes I even think that they hinder the development of the kinds of technologies and legislature that could actually help these situations, because people start to think that turning off the lights is all it'll take... In the end it can really dumb down the issue.

And it seems like these contributors are all sticking with the argument (for action against Global Warming) that [I think] you're stupid not to buy into - no matter what side of the political scale you weigh in on - and that is: No matter what the cause of Global Warming is, it is happening, and it could make life for humans difficult in years to come, so why not try to do something about it? The cause matters in terms of HOW we fight Global Warming (whether it's a naturally occurring temperature fluxuation or completely human-caused, or whatever...), sure, but WHY NOT do something about it either way? The only reason that I see for the massive onslaught of GW Doubters is $. (Dolla dolla bill, y'all.)

And I'll be pissed if in 50 years I find out that all the penguins had to die because the US was too scared to offend Big Oil to not consider the funding and development of alternative technologies.

2nd place is the first loser?

Heavyweights in Chicago lived up to its name this year with Elite contenders from all over the nation. Going into the tournament Flaming Moe was the 2nd seed to Slow White - we'd seen Slow once in Boston (where Moe won) and once at Spawnfest (where Moe lost). Slow proved themselves the better team once again in Chicago, beating Moe handily, 15-7.

What this means: Unfortunately, barring some disastrous upsets early in the series, Moe doesn't have a shot at a #3 seed going into Nationals.

What this also means: Holy sh!t Moe! So you lost to the [now] #3 team in the nation... That makes us what? The worst team ever to be the 4th best team in the nation? Yeah...whuh? Hell no!

Moe has earned it's place at the top this season. Start owning your successes Moe! Realize who we are. If you're on Flaming Moe 2007, you're on the fastest, toughest, hardest working, best looking team in Mixed Ultimate. It doesn't get much better. It CAN'T get much better than this.

Sure, there's room for improvement, and we're going to make adjustments. But from here on out, for every point and every game, you're going to know - but more importantly, we are going to know - that Flaming Moe is on the field.

P.S. - I don't think that my readership extends very far into the Ultimate world (or the world in general) but for those of you that do read this; yeah, this is a rather candid and personal look at Flaming Moe, but I couldn't be prouder to be the first to tell you how well this team is going to play throughout the 2007 club series.

...So watch out.