Archive for the 'Travel' Category

Traveling to Ireland

Jen and I are planning a trip to Ireland! We’re going to go October 4 - 15, and we’re planning to visit Connemara, The Burren, the Cliffs of Moher, and Galway City. This will be our second trip there, the first being in October of 2005, when we hiked the Dingle Peninsula.

We’re hiring a car this time around, so hopefully we’ll get to see a bit more of that beautiful country. Does anyone have recommendations on where to visit? While we will be there for 11 days, we don’t want to have to drive too much (we did that in Scotland last year.. no thanks), so we’re sticking to the west.

If you have them, I’d love to hear your Ireland stories! Places to go, things to see, people to meet.. all would be very helpful :).

We’re looking to pick up a new video camera before we leave, and I was wondering if anyone could help with that.

I was thinking a Hard Drive based camera would be nice, as I wouldn’t have to constantly purchase and swap media. I’ve heard some of these store the video in a poorer-quality codec, though. I was initially worried about the space, but at high quality most can fit at least 7 hours of video, and I don’t think we’re such video bugs as to run out of that in 11 days. Who knows, though. That’ll probably come back and bite me ;). I was thinking worst case we could always go to an internet cafe and burn a DVD to free up some space.

As for brand, Sony seems to have good quality. Any ideas here? All input is highly appreciated! Features-wise, I don’t care if it can take stills. We have multiple powerful cameras for that.

The biggest drawback I see to a HDD camcorder is price—most are $200 more than equivalent DVD or tape based models. Is this paying for quality or early adoption?

Wish us a safe trip! I’ll be sure to post here when we have pictures (and video?) up.

D&D Ability Scores Test

According to This D&D Ability Scores Test, These are my character stats:

STR: 10
DEX: 16
CON: 13
INT (pt1/pt2): 17/18
INT: 18
WIS: 15
CHA: 12
And no, I didn’t cheat; although you could pretty easily by reading the javascript running the page.

Btw, anyone in MD, I’m here for the week. If you want to hang out, drop me a line :)

A New Car!

Yay, I’m joining the hybrid club ;). I won this 2003 Honda Insight! It’s Automatic and has 45,000 miles. KBB said this car in ‘good’ condition should be $12.9k and I paid $11k, so I think I got a great deal :). I’m going down to Long Island Saturday to pick it up.

Add this to my recent purchases of carbon offsets and I’m on my way to doing my part to help stop global warming.

Oh, also the Insight just has so much geek chic ;).

Wow, I want one

Man screw getting a pilot’s license, I want one of these!

You can see more of this amazing Quebecer’s videos at his youtube page.

I can see these kinds of setups becoming very popular!

New Site Updates

Well, It’s been awhile since I’ve posted in my blog, and there are a number of changes to mention: Firstly, I’ve made my new website redesign live. I’m pretty happy with it. It’s using some ajax-y features, and some kludgy features, but overall I think it works. Look for more content soon, I need to put up my artwork. I particularly like the photolog section. Don’t miss the pixelog (on the left, roll over for zoomed-in versions), the random-thumbnail window up top, and other javascriptie eye-candy :).

I’ve switched my personally hosted blog from Blogger to Wordpress. Wordpress gives me more control over basically every aspect of my blog, and has a wonderful plugin/extention interface to let me or others further customize it.

I’ve also resolved to stop blogging directly on MySpace.. It’s far too annoying to deal with myspace’s limitations. I’ll crosspost on there just so people know I’ve blogged, but the main composition will be on here. People are more than welcome to subscribe to my RSS Feed though, so they don’t have to deal with myspace either ;).

In other, non-tech-related news, Jen and I just got back from Montreal. It was fun, we stayed in the old town and walked our butts off all over the city. Pictures to come soon!

A Tent That Pitches in 2 Seconds: Before It Hits the Ground

Yes, 2 seconds; simply toss the folded-up tent in the air, and by the time it hits the ground, it’s pitched. All you have to do then is attach it to the ground with tent pegs so it doesn’t blow away or anything. These tents are really neat!

Takedown is just 15 seconds (once you get the knack I guess). The really nice deluxe 3 man tent with extra vents is like £50, or like $100. Not too bad!

this is a video of another brand