Schierer Space

The astute observer of this web space may also have noticed that I uploaded a whole pile of images from the last several weeks. (month?)

There is a trip to the Zoo on Nate’s birthday set:

There is a Memorial Day set:

And some other just family update pics:

As always, you can see these and more by going to the latest updates link.

I hope all of you have had a great Thanksgiving. Of course we are thankful that K’s folks, brother and grandfather are here visiting with us. We had a great dinner and I’m looking forward to pie.

At 5 o’clock, though, we had a bonus flyby of the ISS and STS-237. Through pretty heavy clouds we still got a great view of the tandem flyby. The shuttle trailed behind the space station by about 20 seconds, but both were very bright and readily visible through the cloud cover. This is one of the brightest flybys of the shuttle I’ve ever seen. There were times when the shuttle was as bright or brighter than the space station.

Here’s a slightly enhanced long exposure (about 25 seconds), and a very enhanced version with sky map overlay.

K & I decided to finally cash in our Discover Card cash back that we’ve been accumulating pretty much since we were married.^[1] We’ve replaced the TV in our entertainment center with a new Sony Bravia LCD TV. Nothing enormous, a nice 32″ set, which is about as large as the entertainment center can handle. It took us pretty much all night to finally get it set up properly. Apparently everybody else in the world would rather have their images distorted or cut off than display^[2] some tiny piece of unused space. Yuck.
I think we finally got it squared away between the TV and the cable box… which pretty much means we’ll have to go through it again when we finally stick a DVD in. I also had to scrounge for component video cables. ^[3] Minus two points to my geek score for not realizing that S-video supports only standard resolution broadcast. HD resolution requires either component or HDMI connectivity. That’s ok, I get the two geek points returned for backing the right technology^[4] when I selected our DVD player 8 years ago. HDMI wasn’t in wide use yet, so no support for that… but since I don’t have anything that provides and HDMI output^[5] no big deal there. Anyways, it does look pretty nice and we’re looking forward to testing it out properly. DVR recordings look pretty good but just don’t do it justice.

In other news, I’ve sold off the excess camera gear and I’m about half way to my next L-series lens. Not sure when the other half will ever come around, but I’ll look for excuses.

Finally, I took the plunge on an e-bay CPU. It only cost me $59, but it feels like a gamble. If it works, it will double my processing bandwidth and increase the work on my heatsink by about 15%. If it doesn’t, I’ll be out $59 and some thermal paste.^[6] It is pretty remarkable that they can squeeze two 3.4GHz processors onto the same form factor and only increase the thermal load from 84 to 95 watts. I suppose it helps when the transistor size is reduces by a third (90 to 65nm process). So bye-bye Hyper-threading, hello dual core…. assuming my PC doesn’t just melt into a glowing pile of slag.

The good news is my new improved space heater will be just in time for winter!

1. Ok, not really, but it’s been many many years. [↩]
2. or not display as the case might be [↩]
3. Thankfully they are physically and electrically identical to RCA audio and video cables. [↩]
4. Component Video [↩]
5. yet [↩]
6. Hmm… I suppose I ought to check to see if I have any thermal paste left… [↩]

From Friday afternoon, Nate putting on a burst of billowing speed.

And a gratuitous world dominating iris shot: ^[1]

Saturday morning, after the Wings’ defeat, I decided to show my team spirit by wearing my 2008 Stanley Cup t-shirt anyways. Rather amusingly Nate (not a hockey fan… yet) demanded to wear his “peh-gun wert”. ^[2] I decided this was a good excuse for a picture. You’ll have to (mostly) trust me on the content of my shirt though.

1. These irises are taking over the world, not the shot. They grow like weeds! Beautiful weeds, but weeds. [↩]
2. We’re still working on the “s” and “sh” sounds. He’s capable of making them, he just doesn’t seem to realize they’re significant. We correct him as often as we think about it. He says “wah-dow”. We reply back “SHHHHadow”. “wadow, good,” he replies. [↩]

Of the 400 something pictures I took this weekend, I’ve uploaded over 100 of them into the Dragon*Con 2008 gallery. There are sub-albums for each day Friday through Sunday, with the majority of the pictures on Saturday because of the parade.

Here are my top 10 in no particular order, except for this first picture, which I think is the best I took all weekend.

The subject is wearing a fantastic costume and is well posed and balanced in the shot. I didn’t get her name, but thanks for being so cooperative. I like the steam-punk look, I could definitely have some fun with that, but I’m not sure how I would distinguish myself amongst the crowd.

Can you believe it!?

He hits the big 1.0 next month Memorial Day weekend. We’re going to have a shindig, so if you can make it to town, let us know. The house is already going to be full, but there’s plenty of space in the backyard for tents*!

I have just finished watching the first two episodes in the 11 part Planet Earth miniseries on the Discovery Channel. The 3rd is recording now and I will watch it later. I have to admit that this is some of the most impressive footage I’ve ever seen in a TV series. Growing up without cable (gasp!), Nova, National Geographic specials and other PBS fare were special treats that we would watch. Some were the campy naturalist shows, but others offered glimpse into the beauty and majesty of the world and universe beyond our daily lives.
Planet Earth takes me back to the wonder I felt as a child watching the amazing scenes of the elephants or penguins living in their (to us) alien habitats. As an adult, the beauty and grandeur of this footage has more than once caused me to gasp, rewind and gasp again. Sometimes I find the narration to be distracting in its self-aggrandizement… “Never before captured on film” and “brand new filming technologies” would be nice for the “Making of…” show, but lets just enjoy the moment. Maybe the DVD will offer a ‘no-narration’ option.

Despite this very minor flaw, if you have have not been watching, catch the encore performances, and set your alarm clocks or recording devices for next week. If you enjoy these sorts of expositions of the world around us, you won’t regret it.