Charles TM

Geek out!

charlestm — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:37:28 +0000

I just added Gmail to my domain and it’s flippin’ sweet. Thanks Google and WordPress!

Here’s how.

Flying

charlestm — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:29:15 +0000

Up in the air, winging toward Spain, I find myself trying to eat a meal that is packed into tiny containers with right-angled sides. To eat a salad (containter approx. 3″x3″x1.5), I must cut with my elbows comically up in the air. To move on to the next course, I play a form of containter Tetris, shifting oddly shaped vessels around my fold-down tray, which will only slide closer to my lap, not farther, which would allow me to eat with normal arm extension.

I’m also trying to figure out which language to use with the flight attendants. My Spanish is sub-par, yet I can order food and drinks just fine. The problem is that the staff is very soft-spoken, and I can’t hear either language. I’ll muddle my way through this one, I suspect.

Out the window, the stars are incredible. It’s perfectly dark and clear. Hopefully, now that Tetris-dinner is finished, they’ll cut off the cabin lights.

King of the Small People

charlestm — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:38:12 +0000

Walking home from the V-Day screening of The Princess Bride at the Arlington Cinema ‘n’ Draughthouse, we stumbled (read: slipped along an icy sidewalk) upon a storefront full of figurines, which were rather amusing. Keep in mind these are all taken with the iPhone, through a dirty pane of glass.

What a great way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

U words

charlestm — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:36:14 +0000

This just popped into my head…vacuum, continuum, are there other double “u” words out there?

One More

charlestm — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:42:14 +0000

I snapped this one while walking around this evening.

Definitely some noise going on, but this was shot handheld.

New Toy

charlestm — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:29:35 +0000

After almost two years of being without a point and shoot digital camera (thanks to some shady roommates in a previous apartment), I finally decided that it was time to stop comparison shopping and reading reviews and pony up for a new one, in anticipation of taking a trip to Spain. I have no desire to take the DSLR or a film camera when the goal is to spend the whole week traveling with one backpack.

Enter my new Lumix DMC-LX3. I’m very pleased with how it shoots in low light as well as the macro mode. Here are some early shots from a weekend around the city. I’ll definitely post some shots from the trip as well as additional thoughts when I get back.

(I think the compression is a little weird on these, but I’m too lazy to re-do them today.)

XHTML and CSS

charlestm — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:52:30 +0000

Recently, I decided that I needed to learn some more about XHTML and CSS. I’ve been building HTML emails a good deal lately, and I realized that I had to ask someone for help or do an ad hoc search for anything that I did not already know how to do. This is incredibly frustrating. So, I did what many people before me have done and ordered up some literature on the subject in the form of a For Dummies book.

Having the concepts explained rather than just the tools is incredibly helpful; however, I’m looking at the pages that I’m building and then looking at something like WordPress admin and affirming to myself that hacking together a webpage and building a platform are incredibly far between. I think I should focus on fundraising to hire an engineer to build whatever’s next.

Tongue

charlestm — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:51:27 +0000

I still can’t bring myself to try this.

Meat

charlestm — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:01:34 +0000

There’s nothing like a little MEAT flavor.

Thanksgiving

charlestm — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:50:16 +0000

This year, I started off Thanksgiving by walking the North Shore and Buttermilk trails along the banks of the James. Here are some of the sights.