new york city – day 1

Posted on | July 12, 2010 | Comments Off

even though i’ve been to new york almost every year growing up, i’ve never made it down into the city. realizing this discrepancy, i decided to visit the big apple and see what all the hype was about. hype indeed. that place is so much fun!

armed with a little bit of knowledge of the transit system and a hotel room, i flew into the city midweek. before i could meet up my friend haley for dinner, i had to be schooled a bit in the transit system and how it worked. (this wouldn’t be my last lesson either.) but i finally made it to my spot on the upper west side, the belnord hotel, which when i visit NYC again i’ll book a room.

i walked around until i found sarabeth’s. i was almost an hour late and very hungry. sarabeth’s did not disappoint. and it was good to catch up with haley.

another note about my room: after staying there for a week, i felt like a new york city resident. i believe my garage alone is bigger than the room (including closet) and bathroom combined. that is the standard size from what i keep hearing.

oh, and my next trip would be taken in the spring or fall. never again in the summer. despite being in the north, temperatures were what i left behind in knoxtropolis…plus some humidity.

latest chromium

Posted on | May 26, 2010 | Comments Off

if you prefer a faster browser than firefox, then google chrome is what you probably want to be running. if you want something a bit more bleeding edge than waiting for google to push out patches to their chrome release, chromium is what you want.

since they release updates several times a day, i wrote a small bash script to grab the latest version released and set it up as my default browser. (of course, this is for linux.) and this is specifically for the 64-bit linux platform. swap out the CHROMIUM_URL values in the script for your appropriate architecture.

#!/bin/bash
##  get_latest_build.sh
##  this assumes you've set up sudo
##  if not, then change the sudos to "su -c"

CHROME_DIR=/usr/local/bin/chrome
SNAPSHOTS_URL=http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots
CHROMIUM_URL=$SNAPSHOTS_URL/chromium-rel-linux-64
#CHROMIUM_URL=$SNAPSHOTS_URL/chromium-rel-linux
PLUGINS_DIR=~/.mozilla/plugins

if [ ! -d $CHROME_DIR ]; then
  echo "creating $CHROME_DIR..."
  sudo mkdir $CHROME_DIR
fi

echo "get latest version number..."
wget -nv -O "/tmp/LATEST" "$CHROMIUM_URL/LATEST"
LATEST=`cat /tmp/LATEST`
echo "LATEST = $LATEST"

echo "download latest..."
wget -O "$CHROME_DIR/chrome-linux.zip" \
        "$CHROMIUM_URL/$LATEST/chrome-linux.zip"

echo "unzip latest..."
unzip "$CHROME_DIR/chrome-linux.zip" -d "$CHROME_DIR"

echo "rename the directory with build number..."
mv "$CHROME_DIR/chrome-linux" "$CHROME_DIR/chrome-linux-$LATEST"

echo "reset soft link..."
rm "$CHROME_DIR/chrome_linux"
ln -s "$CHROME_DIR/chrome-linux-$LATEST" "$CHROME_DIR/chrome_linux"

if [ -d $PLUGINS_DIR ]; then
  echo "copy plugins directory into new chrome dir..."
  cp -r $PLUGINS_DIR $CHROME_DIR/chrome_linux/
fi

echo "setting permissions on directory..."
chmod ug+rx "$CHROME_DIR/chrome_linux"

echo "done!"

Category: fedora, internet, linux, tech
Tags: chrome > chromium > firefox > linux

benton’s bacon…and a water fall

Posted on | May 20, 2010 | Comments Off

a few weekends back, i made a trip to bald river falls to photograph with a friend and my niece. it was a very sunny day for a drive into the more country side of tennessee. the back roads away from the city set my mind in a more relaxed state…unless i hear banjos. plenty of rains from the weekends before fueled the falls with plenty to shoot.

smooth water i snapped a bunch of photos experimenting with very fast and very slow shutter speeds. i posted a few of what i came up with, including a few of my niece, on flickr. i also messed around with a polarizing filter to help cut down on the glare from the sun. this was quite educational. rotating the filter changed the light and color of the image. although i’ve used this filter before, i’ve not played around with it to this extent. (see “how to use a polarizing filter.”)

after we finished (aw) snapping our photos, our trek back took us close to benton’s bacon in madisonville. did we stop by? are you kidding? i contained my excitement as we walked into the modest storefront. once you step through their portal, the wonderful smell of smoked goodness fills your senses. although visually there’s not much to see, the aroma tells a different story. when i was asked i could be helped, i immediately told the fellow, “i need bacon!”

“how much?”

hmm, what a question? i really hadn’t considered a limited amount. but i knew i wanted a slab. i asked rationally, “how much is it?”

he told me the price per pound. i pondered for a moment and knew he needed an answer. so i uttered, “twenty pounds.” unphased, the benton’s butcher turned and walked toward the back. in a moment, he returned carrying a slab and a half. he loaded it on the scale and told me it was close to twenty pounds. i told him that was fine.

benton’s bacon redefines how i rate the taste of bacon. my senses have been re-calibrated to a high level of quality. everything else pales in comparison. i don’t think i can eat regular bacon again.