While doing a search for papercraft sites, I came across one run by Canon. They have a ton of really interesting models out there. If you are into cutting, folding, and assembling paper models, it’s worth a look.

Canon Papercraft Site

Well, we just got back from seeing The Dark Knight, and I must say it was a fun movie. Being a theater hater, I went with IMAX, which typically has a quieter crowd. There was a line of 150 people 45 minutes before the doors even opened. Pretty nutty. All of the shows have sold out–and they are showing it 4 times a day. 

For those who have seen the movie, or haven’t yet, I highly recommend spending the few extra bucks for the IMAX showing. The movie is LOUD and the vistas are great on the big screen. Evelyn and I kept pointing out all the Chicago shots. (Thank goodness they removed that stupid elevated train from LaSalle street and let that street be grand on its own.) It really felt like they kept the movie more Chicago-like and therefore more realistic (no hokey Arkum, which always felt tacked on to me).

Anyhow, it was a nice way to spend the evening. Our local IMAX is downtown at the Texas State History museum. It’s clean and easy to get to (especially after 6 PM when the state workers have cleared out and all parking is easy and free-try that in Chicago). The screen seemed smaller than the one at Navy Pier in Chicago, but still jumbo-tron.

And I have to agree with the masses, Heath Ledger did a great job, and pretty much stole every scene he was in.

Back in May, I recommended that Google put together a Google Walk / Bike feature. Well, I was just looking up some directions earlier today and what do I find: Google Walk. I haven’t played with it much, but a couple of routes it recommended seemed reasonable. Did you you know that it would take 17 days 3 hours for me to walk to my parents’ house? LOL! Though, I still can’t walk (or drive) to Puerto Rico.

We’re back in Austin again, coming home from our Smokies trip. The return trip went fine, though slow. Day 1, from the park to Vicksburg, was okay, but tons of rain. Day 2, from Vicksburg to Austin, was much more tiring. The first leg, to Dallas, was okay. The second leg, from Dallas to Austin was a mess. I-35 was super-busy, with several major slowdowns.

To anyone who says that “people aren’t traveling” is telling a bold-faced lie. There were TONS of people on the road during our entire trip, and Gatlinburg and the park were very busy. Economic downturn indeed. I sure didn’t see it on this trip.

Evelyn and I are in the Smokies this week, so I’ll not be posting much. We’ve had some adventures already and lots of photos. I’ll be posting again sometime next week.

Oh, isn’t it cute! Our chief commanding decider shrub is speaking. Let’s listen to his words of insight:

When the going get’s tough, the tough charge it! Lift the drilling ban–it will mean we pay 4 cents less a gallon for gas in 10 years. If someone has a year or two free, perhaps you can example fungibility to the shrub. On second thought, by the time he understands, he’ll be out to pasture.

In other exciting news, the “do not fly” list now contains over 1,000,000 people. Keep up the good work, TSA! If you get to 100,000,000 maybe you’ll start to realize that the list is useless. Because, you know what? Then market pressures will take over. You think that the airlines are going to put up with 1/3 of the US population not being able to fly? I think not. (I call this the Stroger Paradox. There is a limit to the amount of mis-representation that citizens will allow. Politicians will attempt to ignore that limit whenever possible.)

Poor politicos. Even pandering isn’t working any more. The people of this country are just tired of hearing the same old rhetoric over and over and over. (See this months Reason for a good article about this.) We’ll cut gas taxes over the summer! (Audience laughs.) We’ll drill for oil along the coast! (Audience laughs.)  This is where technology really helps, as your stupid comment from a year ago can be replayed 10,000,000 times. Mission Accomplished, indeed.

On the bright side, while the D-minus students who run our government are working on More Of The Same, I do feel that we’re really on the cusp of something great. There are so many extraordinarily complicated things happening right now that we have only two directions to go in. To use the space analogy, we’re either going to blow up on the pad, or we’re going to land on the moon. We’ve got 5.6M pounds of propellant under us. Explode or fly? It’s up to us.

While it’s easy to get suckered into the Doom and Gloom of it all, the simple fact is that the bedrock of our society is made up of hard working people, trying to be successful in their own little way, often while raising a family. These people don’t want to see their kids living in squalor, do they? I think not.

I say we’re on the cusp of something great because of the great re-birth of DIY that has been happening over the last couple of years. Couple that with strong pessimistic view toward government solving anything and a good dose of economic instability, and you’ve got (forgive the cliche) The Perfect Storm.

Smart, clear-thinking, people are working on problems NOW. Doing it on their own, without waiting for funding, without filling out forms, without getting approval. From mini hydroelectric plants (made from a 5 gallon paint bucket) in Central America, to personal wind farms, to pedal powered washing machines in China, people are DOING stuff and it’s wonderful.

The recent meltdown of the IndyMac bank is another clear example of never, ever, keeping all your eggs in one basket. In this case, the eggs being your life savings. While a vast majority of their deposits were insured, one BILLION dollars worth were not.

But I thought all my savings were insured by the FDIC? Think again.

First off, there is the $100,000 limit per named account holder. The named account holder is the important part. I could, say, have two accounts at a bank under my name. The total I’m insured for is $100K regardless of the number of accounts. The only way around this is being married and having one account in one partner’s name, and another in the others, and even then we’re only covered for $100K.

Now, I know that many readers will say “$100K-that’s more than I’ll ever save”. Well, not with inflation, nor with the fact that you should have at least $1,000,000 put away for a care-free retirement (though, most people would have that in uninsured mutual funds or 401Ks).

I’m a firm believer of having my money spread around. Not so much as to make it difficult to manage, but well enough to reduce my risk of losing money (or being locked out of it). I learned this lesson very well with the whole Whittman-Hart debacle, where loads of people had their retirement funds locked down, meaning they couldn’t dump their worthless stock. I was lucky to have quit before then, and quickly (for once) moved my money elsewhere. Others were not so lucky.

In my opinion, you should never have only one 401K and you should never deal with only one bank. Having a handful of 401Ks can be a huge pain in the ass, and many “advisors” say roll-them-into-one. That’s a good idea, and makes them easier to manage, but puts ALL of your retirement in one basket. Are you sure you want to do that? I thought not.

Same thing goes for checking and savings accounts. You should always, always, always, have at least two checking accounts. If you are married, have a joint one, and each spouse should have their own at different banks. You are doing this for a couple of reasons. First, each will be insured up to $100k. Second, divorce happens, and you want a way to get money out of joint accounts quickly. (If you are considering parting from a former loved one I recommend [a] move the money quick and [b] cancel every credit card you have. And, no, I’m not getting divorced. Far from it.) Third, banks fail, and you should have your money spread around a bit.

Basically, the same rule that most advisors say about your retirement (”diversify”) holds true for how you handle your day-to-day cash. With tools like Quicken and on-line banking, managing several accounts is no trouble at all. It’s your money after all, and you should guard it as best you can.

Evelyn got back in Austin on Thursday evening, safe and sound.

She took Jet Blue, which was a surprisingly pleasant experience. They fly out of the small Aguadilla airport (toward the north west of Puerto Rico). It’s a big hanger-like building, and you walk out to the tarmac to board the plane using good-old-fashioned stairs. MUCH less frantic and busy than the San Juan airport, and a lot closer to her parents home.

For those of you fearing a smaller airport, remember that this one is an old US Air Force base. That means it was designed for huge planes. In fact, the main runway is 11,700 feet long. That’s longer than any runway at SJU and only two runways at ORD are longer.

She flew in an Airbus 320 (good legroom, TVs at the seat) from BQN to Orlando, had an hour layover, and then another ride into Austin. Everything was on-time and smooth sailing, which seems to be the exception these days.

This was the first time that we’d gone to the AUS airport, and it was fine. Pretty small, kinda like an old Midway, except not so 1960’s feeling (they did have those classic black 60’s waiting chairs, though). Only one terminal building and baggage area, so it’s easy to meet up and find people. Easy to get in and out of, too. Good, close-in, parking, too. It too was an old Air Force base, converted to commercial. (Our old commercial airport was right in the middle of the city, kinda like Midway, but even closer in. It’s now being converted to a subdivision.)

Unfortunately, Evelyn got a cold about two days before her trip, so she was pretty much exhausted and feeling very sick at the end of it. She spent yesterday resting, and seems quite a bit better now. Hopefully the cold will be gone before our trip to the Smokies next week.

Speaking of the Smokies, we’re driving out there for a week. Sharing a chalet with my parents and Mike. Since it’s a long drive from Austin, we’ll do it in two parts. On the 18th we leave and then stay overnight at Vicksburg, MS. (We’ve stopped there before, in 2006, when going between Atlanta and Austin.) Then the 19th we drive out to TN to meet up and relax.

The Roku Netflix player has been out for a bit now, but I had held off considering it. It seemed a little too much money (about $110, shipped) for the amount of content available. Plus, we were able to watch the shows on the computer (which we have in the bedroom), so there wasn’t too much point.

However, ever since Netflix made their on-demand service unlimited we’ve been using it like crazy. We don’t use it for current movies or anything, but old TV programs. Stuff like Dragnet, Emergency, Adam 12, and other 60s-70s TV shows. And a good selection of Mystery and PBS and BBC, too. We don’t have cable TV, so Netflix on-demand has been a great way to watch good TV without all the BS.

Recently, after reading some updated (positive) reviews, I decided to get their player. It arrived today and I’ve been playing around with it a bit. Here’s what it looks like:

it’s about five inches square and about two inches high. The front panel just has a little white LED to indicate status (thankfully, it’s not a super-bright-blind-you blue LED). The top is vented and so far it’s running pretty cool (no fan, so it’s silent).

Here’s the back view. It has an amazing amount of outputs, making it super easy to hook up to your existing TV setup. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 10 year old CRT or a brand new LCD. Take a look:

It’s really quite amazing what they can stuff into a little box these days. You’ve got S-Video, Composite Video, Component Video, Optical Audo, and HDMI. Talk about the kitchen-sink! In addition, you have a wired ethernet connection and the power jack. Wired ethernet? Don’t worry, it has wireless, too. So, if you have good wireless reception, use that. If not, you can fall back to copper.

To hook it up to your TV, just choose your connection (I used HDMI) and plug the thing in. It literally took me longer to figure out how to open the remote (for the batteries) than it did to connect the unit.

Once you have it connected to your TV and powered up it walks you through the setup process. You can choose either wired or wireless. If you choose wireless, it scans the local network, at which point you can either choose from the list or enter your own SSID (if you have yours hidden, as you should). You can also enter a wireless password, if you use one (you should). Even on my cranky network, it took all of 2 minutes to configure the wireless.

Once the network is set up, it give you an Authorization code. What you do is go to Netflix and enter the code. Your device is then validated and connected to your Netflix account.

I really have to give credit to the team who designed the setup process. It really is dead simple. Very step-by-step, very clear. It took me longer to find a free power jack than it did to configure the device. It’s nice when something is properly designed! The “getting started” guide is also very clear.

So, how do you watch programs on it? Well, you can’t add programs with the player. You have to add them to your Netflix On Demand queue (the Roku player is one of the reasons why you now have that “On Demand” queue). Once you have added programs to your queue, they automatically appear on the player. You scroll through them kinda like the “cover art” view in iTunes. Very simple.

Dealing with TV Series programs is also dead-simple. You first go into the series (ex. “Yes, Minister”) and then you can scroll through the episodes. Each one shows a little synopsis, so it’s easy to find the esisode you want to play. It also keeps track of what you’ve watched, and where you left off, which is very handy.

To control all this, you use what must be my new favorite remote control:

Ah, I love it. Menu (home), directions & select, reverse, play/pause, and forward. That’s it. It’s a beautiful thing (though, I don’t look forward to having another remote in the house; maybe Logitech has codes for it, I’ll have to check). Home brings you to the browsing menu, where you use the direction keys to select a show, and the big Select button in the middle is your “click”. It’s very easy to deal with.

So, how’s the video quality? Well, I live in a crowded wireless area, and it’s pretty darn good on my 37″ Sharp Aquos. When I first started it, it switched to lower (1 of 4) quality, but that may have been a fluke. Ever since then I’ve been getting high (4 of 4) quality over the wireless. I’ve got wired near the TV if I find the wireless a problem, but so far so good.

It takes about 10-15 seconds for a program to start up (similar to the computer version; but no need to hit that damn “full screen” button all the time–Netflix users know what I mean). I’ve yet to have it stutter at all; though most of my connection problems are due to the cable company and not Netflix.

Note that this is NOT some HD device. It runs at 480p. It ain’t BluRay, but I’m also watching shows from the 60’s, so who cares? Also, it comes with composite cables, which is nice, but if you want HDMI you need your own cable. (Be sure to hunt down a cheap one; overpriced cables are just that–overpriced. It’s digital. All the ‘gold plated oxygen free’ hype won’t mean anything.)

If you have a Netflix subscription already, and can find enough programming on their On Demand service, then I’d recommend getting this little box. I have a feeling that the content is going to improve over time and it’s nice to watch old TV shows on the bigger screen in the living room.

On the downside, it’s tied to the Netflix service, so if the content you want isn’t there, then it will serve you no purpose. However, I’ve heard that Roku is making their firmware Open Source. Methinks you’ll soon see the coders out there writing firmware updates to allow for other service tie-ins. YouTube? Joost? Comedy Central? Who knows.

Those are some of my initial thoughts. I’ll post an update in a couple of weeks, after I’ve lived with it for a while. But, so far so good.

Update: I’ve watched a couple of programs on it and things seem good. It actually takes between 25 and 30 seconds to start a program (over wireless). Not sure if wired is any faster. Other than that, it’s fine. Images seem a little more blocky, but that might because I’m watching it on a much bigger screen than usual (37″ versus 20″).

Also, my Logitech Harmony 880 universal remote works fine with it, so I don’t need to have the extra remote. That’s nice. Just make sure you’re using the latest Logitech software, or simply do the IR programming. I looked for Roku under the PVR/DVR section. The heading doesn’t matter, as you can rename everything on the Harmony 880. I have mine as “Netflix Roku”.

People living in “first world” countries waste a LOT of food. Whether we prepare too much, and throw away leftovers, or we buy too much, and throw away unused ingredients. It’s part of living in a well-off society, I guess, where you can afford to throw things away unused or underused.

Depending on the study you read, households are wasting about 15% of their food purchases. Perhaps even more shocking, some studies suggest that up to 40% of ready-to-harvest food is wasted, somewhere along the line. It seems like an amazingly high number to me, but when you break it down you can see where the points add up. Some lost in the field, spilled from trucks, mis-shaped (god forbig a consumer eat a non-perfect potato), damaged in transit, spoiled in storage (apples are stored 10 months out of the year; the picking season is only 2 months), and fallen on the grocery store floor.

Now, a lot of the farm-to-market waste seems pretty easy to fix. We can’t continue to keep shipping foods 2,000 miles just so that someone can get an apple or orange out of season. As consumers, we must look back to the older ways, and eat foods in-season, or can them for later use. Besides cutting costs and reducing waste, I think this would be good for us overall. It would allow us to think more about the food we’re eating, and get more in touch with the seasons and how they affect our palate. Kinda like the way you look forward to the summer and grilling outside.

Anyhow, I’m interested to know about how much food you waste in your households. What kinds of food get wasted? How long does something sit before getting tossed? Do you store leftovers? Do you eat them? What ideas do you have for reducing food waste in your home? I’m trying to get a better picture of what kinds of thing get tossed. My guess: unused fruits & vegatables are the most wasted.