Try as I might, I can’t see any difference in Qik’s recent change to an “open” beta.  I’ve submitted my cell phone number to them, received the SMS, opened the link, and then I get a page that says:

Request received!

Thank you for your interest in Qik. We will be in touch to let you know when you can get started – thanks!

Nothing after that, even though their blog post says “No more waiting for approval.”

Anyone have a Qik invite they can share with me in the meantime, since it seems like everything is status quo over there?

About a month and a half ago, we bought bikes.  I’ve been commuting by bike to work averaging about once a week – it definitely takes a while to get into the rhythm of things.  From the previous post, you can see that there’s a crazy huge (well, I’m call it crazy huge) at the 3.4 mile marker.  The first few time we it the hill, we took two mini-rest breaks.  The second time, and subsequent times, I’ve taken one mini-rest break (walking the bike a short distance, along with a few other people that poop out around the same point).  I’ve been getting farther and farther up the hill before the rest break, though, until yesterday… when I made it the whole way sans stopping.  Yay!  Here’s the problem: now that I know it can be done, I no longer have excuses to stop.

Ok, that was longer than anticipated, and many people that ride bikes will say “wow, he’s pathetically out of shape” – they’d be right, but I guess I’m working on fixing that, and that counts for something.

So, back to Guy Kawasaki.  A month or two ago I read Presentation Zen, an excellent book that I recommend people read.  I liked his section on prototyping presentations using paper, pen, tape, and a wall, and I’ve done that when putting together the last few presentations I’ve done.  Where’d Guy go wrong?  Well, he says that slideware (e.g., PowerPoint and Keynote) isn’t usable as a presentation design program.  I think I’ve just come to realize why.

I was putting together a quick & dirty presentation for my homeowner’s association the other day, and I did it directly in PowerPoint.  It worked fine to mock things up, but I found myself doing exactly what you shouldn’t be doing when drafting a presentation: I’d throw text on a slide, and immediately start putting graphics in, figuring out the right formatting, etc.  That doesn’t go in a mock-up, and that’s where Guy is right.  But, if you can ignore the formatting/etc. in your slideware app, I think it’s a perfectly fine spot to put together presentations.

The original Naked Gun intro:

Kudos to Joystiq for finding this one.

That’s Diann leaning on the Prius, me standing on the sidewalk, and a black-tailed deer just beyond my telescope.

While in Port Angeles, Diann & I watched the 4th of July fireworks and parade in the city, and we wandered around the downtown area quite a bit.  I figured these two photos were worth sharing:

See if you can spot the humorous bit on the door to the Martial Arts training center.

Lo and behold, a few of the big names from the show would be at my local Gamestop to launch the game.  We brought the camera, and here I am with Josh Harris, Edgar Hansen, and Sig Hansen.  I spoke a bit of Norwegian to Edgar and Sig, and I’m pretty sure I caught them off guard, but, to their credit, they did talk back in Norwegian.

Yes, the title of the post is a really bad pun, but it wasn’t intended… honestly.

The seeing and transparency were phenomenal – a very stable atmosphere with not much crud in the air.  This makes astronomers happy!  The moon didn’t come up until 2am, so we had great darkness for a few hours.  Sadly, a bunch of the things I wanted to knock off my list were hiding behind a large hill to the southeast – I need to find a viewing site that has better horizons in that direction.

Just a few new Messier’s knocked off the list for tonight:

• Globular clusters: M80
• Open clusters: M11, Double Cluster (NGC 884 and NGC 869), Owl Cluster (NGC 457)
• Galaxies: M31, M32, M51, M59, M60, M110, NGC4638, NGC5195
• Reflection nebula: Veil Nebula (specifically the eastern components of it: NGC 6992 and NGC 6995)
• Planets: Jupiter

Favorite item of the night goes to M11.  I had just gotten done complaining to a few people how boring I thought open clusters were, and then I centered on M11.  Wow – it’s totally opened my eyes to how cool some open clusters can be.  This one’s definitely a new thing on my hit list of things to look at again.  Most disappointing thing: M80 – a tiny globular.  Most pleasing view: getting M59, M60, and NGC4638 in the same field of view.

67 Messier objects completed since November 2007.  Not bad – 3 more to go before I can file for the initial Astronomical League Messier certificate.  I’ll be at the Olympic Star Party on Hurricane Ridge this weekend, so I hope to knock out a bunch of the eastern ones that keep evading me at Rattlesnake.

ok, so my last post was about two weeks ago… I’ve been busy, honestly.  Let me summarize:

Attempt at stargazing on June 14.  Clouds were supposed to clear away, but never really did.  No new Messiers off my list, but I did get to re-visit a few globulars and a few galaxies (M81/M82, in particular).  Watched the moon and Saturn a lot, as well. Met a few new stargazers that night: Nick, in particular, with a brand-new first-light Televue refractor.  Beautiful scope, and nice views.  No stargazing since then, but the forecast for this weekend looks promising.  *fingers crossed*

Diann & I bought bikes last weekend (Trek 7.3FX bikes, for those of you that care or are in-the-know about all things bike), and have done a bit of riding.  I’ve been updating my Facebook and Twitter statuses to reflect my rides so far, but, here they are:

• Ride 1 on the bike: from home, to my office, to REI (to buy some bike clothes), and back home.  Around 15.9 miles.
• Ride 2 on the bike: commute from home to my office, and back again.  Around 11.5 miles.
• Ride 3 on the bike: from home, up the Lake Sammamish Trail, and up to Red Hook brewery.  A beer and a burger, and then back home.  20.9 miles.
• Ride 4 on the bike (today): commute from home to my office.  Will go back home tonight.

I hope to keep up riding to the office a couple times a week, and maybe even riding to/from work daily.  We’ll see how that holds up when the weather starts turning bad again, but that’s the plan for now.  The only problem with my commute to work is a crazy hill just before my office:

Granted, I’m not in the greatest shape now, but the first 3.4 miles of that ride took me around 15 minutes this morning.  Climbing that !#@%$ hill for the next 1.5 miles took me another 20 minutes.  Stupid hill.  Stumbled across veloroutes.org, which is a great mashup of Google Maps and some elevation data to give you distance and elevation maps (just like the one above).

Oh, and speaking of !#@%$, I was saddened to see that George Carlin passed away this weekend. 

Anyhow, that’s all.  More later.

I’ve spent the last few days in the DC area on business, and got to meet up with a few good friends for food/drinks.  Karl sent me an IM on Friday just before I left to let me know that he had gotten a new job and had moved to DC, and to let me know if I ever made my way out there.  This was great timing, as I was able to respond: “How about drinks on Sunday?”  I don’t think he expected that.  Also got to hang out with Ben for dinner and Dan for drinks on Monday night.

The work I was doing took a lot longer than I anticipated.  I had hoped to visit the Smithsonian one of the days I was out here, but, alas, it was all work, all the time.  As a result of our longer than planned workday today, I wasn’t able to catch an earlier flight back to Seattle.

We were supposed to leave Dulles at 6:15pm, and then I was to have a 2 hour layover in LAX before heading home to Seattle.  Mother Nature had other plans:  just after we boarded the flight (15 minutes late, natch), the captain came on and told us that all westbound flights were on-hold due to weather.  I checked my smartphone, and sure enough, a line of red thunderstorms was just west of our location.  Then, I looked out the window and saw them.  Sign #1 you might be addicted to tech: you check the weather on your phone before looking out the window to see it.

We sat on the ground in the plane until about 8:30pm.  If you’re following along and doing the math, you’ll note that’s a 2.25 hour delay – and I only had a 2 hour layover in LAX.  This means, of course, that I’m going to miss my connecting flight, so I’ll be stuck in LA for the night.  The weirdest thing is that this is the first time I’ve ever missed a flight in all my travels.  And to be frank, I’d say I’ve traveled quite a bit over the course of my 29 years.  Sure, I’ve gotten bumped on standby plenty of times – but never missed a connection.  Until today. Oh well, it’s a first.

So, we’re now cruising along somewhere around mach 0.82 (we’re probably going at just the right speed that’ll make me miss my connection) at 34,000 feet.  It’s turbulent, and I’m surrounded by an army of high-school kids on their way back from a class trip to the east coast.  I’m also cranky: I haven’t eaten since lunch, and that was (*checks watch, calculates time zones*) … 10 hours ago.  The flight attendants are coming by soon, though, so I’ll be sure and snag a $6 turkey sandwich.  Did I mention that American Airlines doesn’t even serve peanuts anymore?  I remember laughing at Southwest Airlines a few years back cause that was all they served.  Times have changed. 

Ok, turkey sandwiches were sold out, so I ended up with the last sandwich on the plane – a $10 chicken sandwich.  The lady in seat 30C is now scowling at me; I guess she wanted a sandwich, and now she’s stuck with potato chips, cheese, and crackers.  I avoided the temptation of staring at her and chewing with my mouth open to make a point: the last sandwich is mine. 

The nicest thing about our flight so far is that we’re chasing the sunset.  I’m sitting on the right side of the plane, so I’m being shown a beautiful display: for the past hour, I’ve been watching the sun set.  It’s dropped a bit, but I can still just see it.  That in and of itself isn’t so neat, but the fact that the duration of the sunset (due to our westward travel, of course) has been so long is awesome. 

Two hours into the flight now, and the sun has set.

Well, I think that’s it for now.  It’ll be nice to get back on the ground in Seattle sometime tomorrow, and I’m not going to complain about the cold/damp weather Seattle’s having for quite a while.  If I’ve learned one thing on this trip, it’s that I’m no longer built for 100+ temperatures.

Guess I’m going to power down since I’ve got nothing else to do on here.  I’ve replied to a bunch of emails (which will send when I connect), reviewed some documentation I have been meaning to review, and that’s about the end of it.  I’m now mad at myself for not prefetching RSS feeds in FeedDemon.

Oh well, nap time.  3 hours of flight time left.

Well, I’m happy to report that I found the missing global warming: it’s here, on the east coast.  My rental car reported 108F when I was driving back to Dulles a bit ago.

Back to waiting on my flight!