I want one! I have been recently reinterested in electic vehicles. A couple of Canadians have built a really interesting vehicle that gets 170 miles to the charge and only needs another hour in the sun to recharge. Its slow, but it holds some promise. On the other side of the table is a cool little commercial model that gets to 37 MPH (the other only goes 21), but I suspect takes all night to recharge. But, I am thinking that a solar powered recharging station would be totally cool. It costs a lot more, something to consider though. I doubt that I could license either of these for use in Kentucky, but I still want to do my part.

But, to show you what really keeps me drooling click here. This dude gets about 13 MPG but can tow a Abrams M-1 tank if it wants to. Built on the Ford F-650 frame this XUV will set you back a cool $150k with all of the options. If you know me at all you know that I have been trying to figure a way to cost justify this as a legitamate business expense. Mary keeps saying "No!" If you take a good look at the picture you will see extreme extended diesel tanks on the side, 385 gallons!!! Can you just imagine topping off those tanks at $2.20 a gallon? Sure, $850 dollars to tank up, but I could drive to Seattle and back without having to stop for fuel. That would be cool! I could drive down and see my folks, come home, return because I forgot something, and come home again! To quote Will Smith (in Independence Day) "I got to get me one of these!"

My Small World. This morning as I read of the extreme rains in India, I was struck that I didn't even know that Bombay had officially changed its name to Mumbai. When did that happen. I thought that was something that I should have known, afterall I am college educated and quite the traveler! Someone in India should have sent me notice that they were planning on changing their name, I might have had something to say about it. Well I decided to take a look and see if I could discover why they did it (and when). This is one of the reasons that I love the Internet. I googled the phrase "Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay" to see what that would yield and I found a fantastic article on life in the poorer section of Mumbai called the Wallahs. These are extremely small cubicals where people do business for near pennies. It was amazing reading. You can grab breakfast at one place for 35 cents (American equivalent), have your hair cut in the next booth, and feed a sacred cow in the next. If I ever visit India this sounds like a place that I would like to spend a day shopping.

Someday they are going to discover that Helen Thomas is actually a guy in drag, and a bad one at that. The latest is that he/she is claiming to kill himself/herself if Dick Cheney runs for president. I just love the unbiased reporter pool at the White House. If it wasn't illegal I might suggest some ways to creatively commit this merciful act.
Just look at that picture, what a happy person. The joy of being a liberal. But, we all remember the many entertainers who claimed that they would move out of the counrty if Bush won, and they are still making millions each year in this great country.

Missing an Old Friend: Have you ever googled an old friend? Maybe someone from high school or college just to see what they are up to? I have. I have an old friend from my youth that I google from time to time. It is amazing, the first time that I did it I couldn't find squat. Recently I found out how fast his kids swam in a meet at the same swim club where I learned to swim. That was kind of neat.

Today I googled an old friend, well not so old. The friend was PointCast, a terrific software program that died in 1999. For those of you too young to the web to remember it was a screensaver that had a live news feed built in. When your computer went into screensaver mode the news would appear on your screen. You could program your favorite stocks to see if you were making or losing money. It would give you the box scores of your favorite teams. It had a really great weather interface that would even show a live radar feed. Of course the best part was having the news refreshing on your screen whenever the computer went idle.

For the folks at PointCast this was a huge money maker because the bottom of the news feeds had advertisements. They once sat with Rupert Murdoch and company on a $500m deal, but they didn't take it. The company was sold a few years later for $20m and is non-existent today. But, it was a fantastic concept and I am really surprised that no one else has taped into it.

Well, welcome to the new web. With the advent of the ubiqutous blogs and RSS feeds there are apparently some pretty neat tools out there to do this. I think that I will give it a shot in the coming days. Sounds like a fun Saturday project.

Multitasking Movie Watching. I love watching a movie with my laptop. I keep IMDB as a bookmark on my main toolbar. When a movie comes on that we are watching I just click and get all the info on that movie. I love the trivia section, gives a cool perspective into what happened during the filming of the movie.

What to Blog: I have been struggling with write and what not to write. I am constantly amazed at who is looking at this site and who reads everything. So, if you know me personally you probably know why I am not blogging as much as before. If you don't know, there is probably a reason. But, if you want to know, just ask.

I did get a few new photographic items this past month. I got a great studio lighting setup and I plan to develop a studio over at the office, once I get it cleaned up! I am not sure that I want to do this professionally, but it might be nice to have a hobby that pays for itself. I also go a remote trigger cord. This will allow me to lock the shutter open for extended periods which will be neat for some celestial shots. You will see those the first time we get a clear sky with no moon.

I'm Struggling Again: Christ exhorts us that we are to love those who hate us, and this is a struggle for me. When a group of people consistently kills innocent people in the name of their god my blood just boils. Where is the honor in that? Four bombs explode in London and my first thought was that it was muslims. Hours later they claim credit. They are the invisible army. They don't wear a uniform, blend in with the people that they seek to kill. How do you combat that? They kill beyond their borders and their hate knows no bounds. They are not content with staying in their wonderful countries and continuing with their policies there, they have to expand into the civilized world and try to destroy it as well.

Sensor Clean! I shot a couple of hundred pictures over the weekend and on a few (especially sky shots) you could see the dust bunny that was on my sensor. I determined that I would get rid of that dude once and for all. I found a sensor brush for about $100 that would do the job, but weighed the option of just taking it into the shop and letting them do it. Well, I did some research online and found that it was indeed something that I could do myself for under $2. I got some ispropyl alcohol and some Q-Tips (cotton buds for those of you in the UK) and just carefully wiped it a couple of times. Man was I nervous! But, after everything evaporated I did some test shots and all is now well again. Wish that I had done that before the trip. I have a couple of great shots but they have that stupid dust particle in it and it will be a lot of work to Photoshop it. We shall see.

The past 5 days have been some of the best that I have had in a long time. We spent a few days in Gatlinburg with N&N and despite having the Suburban give us a difficult time we really had fun. Then back to the digital ranch for a few days of fellowship here. Don’t think that we have spent this much time with them since we moved from Cincinnati some 13 years ago.

Digitally, the highlight of the week was the photography. I really could have shot another 500 pictures in the Smokies. I read an article last night from a guy traveling through the Painted Desert and he recommended bringing 10 CF cards at 2 gig each. Wow! That’s 5 DVD’s worth of pictures. But, he shoots RAW only (I only experiment right now with RAW) and he is using a 12MP camera, mine is 8.2. Still, I did easily clear the first card and need to get into the second. I think that another CF card is needed on my wish list, maybe a few.

We watched Revenge of the Sith on the personal big screen. This is something that I like to do once a quarter. I hook up my laptop to my digital projector and hook up a pair of Sony speakers and we watch a movie. Several of the group in Nashville hadn’t seen that before, it’s a lot of fun. Of course, watching a movie that is still in theaters really topped things off.

The most expensive part of the week was going to the Honda dealer at Mountain Top Adventures. I have wanted a Goldwing longer than I can remember and to sit on one, start it up, and drool was more than I could handle. We are planning on going back in the fall and I will rent one for the weekend and enjoy the fall colors in the Smokies with N&N. That trip will likely cost me about $500 for the weekend, $20,000 for the new bike that I will get as soon as we return!