Rappelling in UK Library

One of the coolest things I've ever (not) seen happen at UK, I'm grateful today for youtube, but sorry my pal Jamie is moving to ATL. We both learned about this happening this morning when she was my guest on Trivial Thursdays and she blogged it at It's All About before I could.

Yay, Jamie! Good luck in ATL!

Deejay Season for Mick

This is charity deejay season for me, which is pretty fun. So far, my favorite event has been H'Artful of Fun, partially because I've ended up as the intro guy on Mary Meehan's video for the Herald Leader.

The next stop is the Headley-Whitney Museum's fundraiser, Studio 54 Fashion Dance Party, this Saturday. You should come on out and disco!

Soccer Practice

Had our first soccer practice today under coach Bow Wow. Went well, but hear my initial trepidation, Gods of Pelé.

Photo_02
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

T-Mobile

balloon guy at retirement home

There is something just wonderfully tender about this.

new EBS-transmitter tower goes up at KET

new EBS-transmitter tower goes up at KET
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Construction Dudes do the all-important stand-about and walk-about that is so critical to all sorts of Big Machine Operations. (no, really)

new EBS-transmitter tower at KET

new EBS-transmitter tower at KET
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

Crane putting up new transmitter tower at KET! Exciting Big Crane Times as they "snugged' one section onto another, no bolts necessary, apparently!

Family

Seaside New Years
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

this is a real family portrait to me:

my brother,
my mother,
my wife…

my beloved stepdad and … uh, four dogs?

this a real family portrait. whatever that means.

click the image to see the next two in the stream of the same shoot.

Very funny to do — to try to pose a family portrait … that I needed to be included in, too. "Oh, sure we'll just rustle the dogs; they'll fall in to line"

I think the pictures tell a different tale (and yes: tail) and one — accidentally — of family.

I've heard it from some of the best, I guess, now that I think about it. "It" is something about photography being an often accidental art.

"I'm just waiting every day to see what kinds of things will go wrong or mistakes that I'll make that have never happened to me before."

--mirthfully paraphrased from some guru at The Workshops in 2007. He was speaking about botching photoshoot after photoshoot throughout his otherwise celebrated, illustrious career. (ha)

Which reminds me — jeffries, time to book this year's dreamtime enlightenment odyssey. could this be it?

Skype Me!

Is anybody using Skype?

It's an amazing telephone alternative that uses the net to allow you to make phone calls. To any phone. And while you can enhance the experience with a variety of handsets and headsets and video cameras, you really don't need anything except your computer. This morning I called Lucy from my laptop on a wi-fi connection at Coffea Island. That's just cool. Did I mention that the connection includes live video? (assuming your laptop is connected to a webcam or such)

Plus it's free and/or unbelievably cheap (less than 3¢ a minute to call any phone in (practically) the world. Go sign up and install the Skype software so that I can have more Skype friends. It's free to talk skype-to-skype, and that includes a video feed, if you're into that kind of thing. Even if you don't have a video feed from your computer, you can see somebody else who does. That would be me.

OH. One more thing — Skype is just one implementation of Voice-Over Internet Protocol (VoIP for short), which is going to change The Telephone forever and for everybody. Why not get on board early? It's already happening. Some claim there are currently at least 1500 companies vying for a foothold in the nascent VoIP business. You've probably at least heard of Vonage, the biggest kid on the block currently. That could change; ebay bought Skype for large dollars and that was way back in late 2005.

I'm mickjeffries on Skype, should you choose to play.

Skype official website

lucy on the "car phone"

lucy on the "car phone"
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey

We've gotten many laffs out of this brilliantly ridiculous cell phone "headset." You just plug it into yr. cell phone and then, um, hold it just like you would yr. cell phone. It's cool, but not quite as cool as this.

Apples in Stereo's Robert Schneider

Robert performs "Skyway" last night at the Big Fresh record release part at the Icehouse in Lexington. Good times.

Waving goodbye

My cross-country journey comes to end, just a few hours ago

Free Sandwiches!

One of my favorite things about Amtrak is a certain goodnatured haphazardness that seems to run collectively throughout the organization. One of the best examples of this was shortlying into our voyage. It's what I like to call the Free Sandwich Debacle.

The explanation: Over the PA, in a typically longwinded address, we were told that due to the breakage of "certain equipment" in the snack car (read: refrigerator) that "arrived in Portland that way" (read: not our fault), everybody on board was going to get a free sandwich, with chips and a cookie. In a box. With a coupon.

The fallout: In order to get our coupon, we were all instructed to return to our seats. No mention was made of any individuals who might for some unknown reason not want a free sandwich. After receiving our coupon we were encouraged to proceed fairly immediately back to the snack car (4 cars away in many cases), to get our sandwich. This led to a herd of people moving all in the same direction on the train, without consideration of the fact that these very people, in a very few minutes would need to move in exactly the opposite direction.

Now, the aisle on the train is somewhat larger than that on a plane, but still, folks, we're talkin' one lane. I got my sandwich and watched the well-intentioned hilarity unfold.

Pulling in...

I made it all the way from Portland, Oregon, to Ashland, Kentucky this AM and this was the scene as I prepared to, um, de-train? It was a great trip. I'm stil in Ashland, working at the PubLib here... I was on the train for 50 hours... awesome.

Home again!

Well, i take that back. Ashland is NOT home, but close enough, considering that I came from the other side of the country.

The Cardinal dumped me out here only an hour and a half late at 7:30am and I've found a nice little diner a block from the station with super wifi and bottomless coffee.

I'll post some video here in a bit..

an earlier post

Welcome to my weird mobile officing experiment.

I'm currently on Amtrak's Empire Builder, next to one of only two serviceable AC outlets (okay, there are two others located impossibly behind the arms of seats) on the car.

I've got my brother's Sierra Wireless Broadband Modem card, some snacks and variety of wires, a flip video camera and a yen for long trips. Really long trips. Like 50 hours long. I'm in coach, which is fine. Amtrak ain't the airlines. I've got major leg and elbow room (elbow room diminished greatly if somebody decides to sit next to me, please lord no), no "fasten your seatbelts" sign, relative quietude (except for several people with repeatedly ringing cell phones -- "vibrate" people!), and a barcar and lounge car, too!

It's dusk now... we're truckin' right along. I love the train.

the amtrak sandwich

I've done a bit of wandering and real quickly made some friends in the observation car, and as we discussed predicting the exact moment that the bar car might open, there was an announcement that went kind of like this:

"Attention— due to the malfunction of certain equipment that is in our snack car — it came to us this way from Seattle — we will be giving each passenger a free sandwich. We will come through the cars and you will each get coupons for a free sandwich and some chips and maybe an apple or possibly a cookie. After the free sandwiches have been distributed, then we will open the lounge car for beverages. Now, everyone please return to your seats so you can receive your free sandwich coupon."

It's hard not to love Amtrak, if not simply for their congenial weirdness.

City of Minot | HOME

A late night longer-than-expected stop in Minot
North Dakota. It's at least 10 below zero here, but not where I sit in the observation lounge.. Internet access through Montana and ND has been super sparse and I haven't bothered to try much, but here in Minot — magical wi-fi appeared to me! So had to take the opportunity.. Video to come..

I'm On! (amtrak)

My experiment in mobile officing has begun and here's video to prove it, currently I'm headed east, away from Portland on the Amtrak Empire Builder. I bribed a couple of employees with chocolate (very nice chocolate) to get first dibs at a seat with an electrical outlet. (very rare in coach. But I've got it, and my bro's broadband wireless card is working an away we go!

The Stereo Projector find! Hollywood Camera (Part 1)

I came to Portland with a strange and kismet-like destiny and that was to discover that: 1. There is a vibrant community of stereo photography fans here; 2. I happened to have brought, coincidentally, my grandfather's stereo camera; 3. I found and purchased — by sheer coincidence — a stereo photography projector. Here's a video of that. There are also two other parts, which you can find by clicking on the video and going to my youtube site.