March 2014 – Bus Driver Jim

Juhnk 48367

I’ve been putting a lot of code development into my latest app Juhnk. Conflicts arise between my work time (driving the bus), my personal time (hanging out with my partners Steph and Piper), writing code time and finally, posting to my blog time, but eventually it all comes together.

My directions mapping app is progressing nicely. You can now create PermaMap links with their own unique code number that you can save to your desktop. Here’s an example of a route from Driggs, ID to Kent, WA.

Update: I just created some big marker handles for tablet dragging!

Aughhh

A week ago today I was lounging by a Nevada resort hotel pool browning my body and reports were coming out of Teton Valley about nice weather and major snow melting.

And then I come home to this shiht. It’s been snowing all day and I go back to work tomorrow. Oh well, my bus still has her snow tires on…

Unplugged

Steph and I were settled down on my office couch last night watching an Amazon streaming movie about American pilots flying French planes (Flyboys) when the power went out. We sat there in stunned silence for at least a minute, neither saying a word, I suppose just assuming it would come right back on.

No…. I ended up connecting my devices to the cell phone and we sat around listening to music and surfing the web. Steph was Face Booking and mentioned a trend that’s making the rounds where women post photos of themselves without makeup. It’s called the No Makeup Challenge.

She showed me a photo that my grand-daughter Shelby had posted so I grabbed it, tweaked it and now I’m re-posting it here. I’m all for no makeup!

Couch Crashed

I went walking around the house with my new camera today looking for something to spark my creative juices. Pretty quiet Saturday around here…

Canon Kudos

I’m a bit of a camera buff, a photography nerd I suppose. Back in the seventies and eighties I spent small fortunes on 35mm equipment and even dabbled in darkrooms. In the nineties I used to dabble around in dark rooms and tried to capture digital images. The following century found me moving away from interchangeable lenses to spending small fortunes on point and shoot cameras.

I love these little marvels of camera technology. You can carry one in the front pocket of your shorts without the fear of it pulling your shorts to the ground. They start up quick and take amazing shots. Long-range manual zoom coupled with image stabilization circuitry lets you photograph uncle Rob picking his nose covertly at the wedding while you’re standing well behind the cake.

Unfortunately, a lot of these new cameras have an issue: sensor crud. Dust accumulates on your lens when you turn the camera on and the lens extends outward and becomes exposed to the air. It’s then sucked back into the body when you turn the camera off where it floats around inside until it ultimately lands on your sensor, and then your image results are screwed.

It happened to my $350 Panasonic DMC-FX78 two summers ago. I sent it to their repair center where they took it apart, cleaned the sensor, and returned it at no charge. Three months later new dust had found it’s way back down to the sensor. That poor expensive camera died a quick death shortly after due to an accidental water spill during a road trip to the South, but I was fed up with it anyway.

I replaced it with a Canon PowerShot A1300 which only cost about $100 and performed great, with no sensor crud. I ended up giving it to Steph when I bought the upper scale SX280 which I just recently had to send back to Canon for sensor crud issues. Sigh…

The problem must be that these better cameras have great zooms. If my SX280’s zoom went off in my shorts, I’d be embarrassed!

Canon product support was great. They said they couldn’t fix the crud on my sensor but they would send me a new or refurb unit in exchange. What you see below is what I got and the camera appears to have never been used and it came with a new battery, charger and connector.

I’m very pleased, thank you Canon! I feel for the engineers at these companies who are being asked to drive the technology further and smaller only to get caught up by a single bit of dust on a sensor that can’t be cleaned.

Here’s an example of an artifact before and after some image tweaking. Note the subtle shadow in the upper left corner.

I’ve tweaked the example here to illustrate the artifact, and to expose a smaller dot that I hadn’t noticed before.

Now you know I’m not just being paranoid, I just have a good eye!

Life Is Now

Yesterday is behind you, tomorrow is down the road, and life is now. The consecutive simultaneous existence of now instants in time is a gift to be cherished.

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Desert Down

I bailed from Laughlin Nevada early today. I was going to check out Kingman but critical info was missing from my inbox so I headed north. My internal clock is bouncing around and looking at my GPS I could have made it home in one shot but that just breaks a rambling mans creed so I laid over in Evanston Wyoming.

Here’s a video that I shot on the way down, a couple of days ago:

Laughlin

The great thing about long drives through desolate country is that it gives you the opportunity to evaluate your life. On this recent drive from 6500 feet at the base of a ski resort to zero feet in the middle of the desert I have observed a few things about my life as I sneak up on sixty eight in July.

First off, I’m really grateful to still be alive. I love living and there have been way too many times in my past when I should have bought the farm. I’m also in pretty good shape for an old guy compared to the sorry asses my age that I’ve seen around the casinos here in Laughlin, NV. (pronounced lof-lin)

I slipped on my prescription shades and hunkered down my Tilly hat last night and went looking for comrades. I didn’t see any. All of the people my age have bought the fat farm and they’re either riding a scooter, staggering around with a cane, or waddling back and forth with their even fatter old lady in tow. Oh well, the weather is terrific and some outside bands were playing oldies.

I took a road trip down to Lake Havasu this morning and snapped a few shots, and my buddy Dave (niece Catherine’s husband) is swinging by here shortly. We’ll grab a meal!

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Layover

I just finished up an 8.5 hour drive from Driggs, Idaho to Cedar City, Utah (bailing on the Wyoming stop) and I could have pushed on further but why? I’m on vacation! The trip was interesting, Utah drivers enjoyed passing me in the outside lane at 80mph (the speed limit) while I’m passing trucks on the inside lane doing my speed limit (70mph). Almost nailed me a couple of them bastards.

I’m now hunkered down in a cheap but nice little motel on the cities main drag. I grabbed some Mexican Food To Go from the joint next door, made me a cocktail and the road trip vibrations are slowly fading from my naked body.

Yeah, you read me right, the air around me is starting to warm up. A four hour drive tomorrow will land me in Bullhead City Arizona where the temps are in the high eighties. I’ve got a four night stay booked by the pool, with a few discovery trips in mind, so drop by the blog in the next few days and I’ll have some photos to show…

Heat Seeker

My little truck is pointed South, waiting for the ignition click that will launch it like a heat seeking missile towards the land of the sun. I’ll just be along for the ride.

I have a few per-conceived notions on where we’ll land and for how long, but my mind is open to whatever happens. I’ll call my buddy Robert when the sun rises in Arizona time and find out if his little cheap motel has an opening. If so, I’ll click Lake Havasu on my GPS and start shedding clothes as the missile flies over Utah. If not, I’ll abort that mission and re-program the flight to plan B, which will probably be written on the fly.

In any event, it’s battery recharge time. I need a lot of sun drenched hours soaking warmth into skin that really shouldn’t have it, but needs it desperately. The winters here expand my wallet but drain my spirit. The only time I’ve really warmed up at all recently is the night I fell asleep with the heating blanket on high.

Update, Thursday evening: Havasu has fallen through. I called Bob and he said all of his cheap rooms were booked. So, I’m heading down to one of my favorite Wyoming towns for a one night stay and then on to Laughlin, Nevada for four days in a casino hotel.

I called the casino after I booked the room and talked to a guy that sounded like Sam Elliot and he set me up with a room pool side. The location is perfect, smack dab in the middle of the desert and open to road trips all around. I’ll keep you informed…

Juhnk

I have a new app. It’s called Juhnk and it’s a Google map that lets you drag a couple of markers around the U.S. and when you release either marker it will plot the directions between the two points.

It was written to accommodate my own travel needs. I can zoom down and click on Driggs then zoom out and drag a second marker anywhere I want. It gives me an instant look at possible travel destinations on the fly and I can recalculate by simply dragging either marker around.

This app is state of the art everything but still has mobile issues where the map wants to drag along with the marker sometimes. If you have a real computer with a mouse you should have a great time with this…

Alta Brunch

I’ve been telling my sister for years now that her neighbors trees would eventually mess with her view and it’s finally starting to happen. Life is tough in the big city.

We enjoyed a great family brunch today, out at the base of the Tetons…

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Survival

I was walking in downtown Rexburg today while Jill was getting her front wheel bearings repacked prior to an alignment. My sweet little truck is ready to blast me down I-15 to the land of the sun come next Friday.

There’s been a little shop that’s caught my eye the last few years that sold survival stuff. You know, the things you need when zombies take over, Yellowstone explodes or a giant meteor hits us. This is also the most fervent Mormon town I have ever experienced (no booze sold here) so maybe it was catering to their food hoarding needs.

In any event, they didn’t survive. I don’t know what this means, but I think it’s good!

Dancing Snow

I don’t make snow ice-scream, but I can make it dance…

Beads

This is the view from my passenger door while I’m waiting for kids at the Community School in Victor. If I was sitting in front of a normal school with common core crap and teachers unions I know I wouldn’t see this kind of creativity and encouraged expression.