Author Archives: Heather

TV Room, Bonde found!

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Photo of multimedia shelves
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Emma made the calls and got the folks at IKEA customer service to locate and ship the long-missing parts for the Beech Bonde shelf system. We got a call Weds that the parts had arrived, so i went by the Woodbridge store after work Thursday and picked up all the extra shelves and such. I made time this weekend and got all the pieces screwed together, and even got most of our CD collection rearranged and sorted out.

No, it was NOT sorted in “chronological order” and, yes, I HAVE seen High Fidelity!

Gospel According to Thomas

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In January I wrote about reading Gnosticsm, various sacred writings that were removed from the bible around the 3rd century. I had been particularly intrigued by the Gospel of Thomas as it had a (to me) very Eastern feel.

While reading another blog this morning I ran across a link to Mystic Cowboy weblog, and in reading the archives there, I found a complete version of

the “Scholars’ Translation of the Gospel of Thomas

66. Jesus said, “Show me the stone that the builders rejected: that is the keystone.”

90. Jesus said, “Come to me, for my yoke is comfortable and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves.”

IKEA – Bonde discontinued?

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Photo of multimedia shelves
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The media-room project so far – the dark wood “rack” with the lamp on it is an old Teak stereo rack unit from Scan that will go away – visualize the room with the CD shelf flanked by a pair of narrow shelf units.

Its been a while since I posted an update to the Media Room Redecorating we began around Thanksgiving. I painted the room last fall, after I built a “light box” just below the ceiling on 3 walls and put the “light rope” into it. That gives the room a very nice glow from above (I’m a big fan of indirect lighting) and is especially nice in a room like this which is designed for watching TV and listening to music. Part of the plan was to get rid of the old Sauder shelves that held videotapes and cds and replace them with a more Danish/Scandinavian style display system. We looked around and decided that we really like the Bonde shelf system from Ikea – but only in the Beech finish. Its available in Birch, but that was a very pale wood, and the white finish was too artificial for us.

We are fortunate to have 2 IKEA stores in the area, one is a bit south of DC in Woodbridge VA, one is just north of DC in College Park. There is even another north of Baltimore in White Marsh, MD, but thats further than I want to go!

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Gay Marriage – not so new!

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Funny that Reverend Troy Perry has gotten so little copy in the last couple of months. And I have seen nothing in the press about Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) … Rev Troy Perry started the church a year before Stonewall, back in 1968 and its grown to 300 churches in 22 countries. This church was an outreach by and for the queer community (GLBT). They did not require folks to deny who they are (like the ex-gay “ministries”) and are not a afterthought as some of the recent “welcoming” churches are. At an MCC you and your partner can worship together as a couple, take communion together (At MCC, God’s table is always open), and take blessings together. Different MCCs have a bit different flavor depending on the community, who is the pastor, and what the faith-journey is for the congregants.

Reverend Troy Perry of MCC has been working towards gay marriage since 1969!. The article linked mentions Rev Perry’s lawsuit in California in the early 70s, and various actions since then, including the Mass Marriages during the Millenium March on Washington. Gay folks who want church weddings would do well to connect with their local MCC. Could be a great place to do some activism from …

Civil Union is NOT Equal to a Marriage!!

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My partner and I are currently preparing to spend nearly $700 in legal fees for legal papers (in Virginia) that will allow us Medical Power of Attorney, Financial Power of Attorney, and creating our Wills. Those 6 documents (3 each) only give us a very slight bit of what would be conveyed in a marriage.

Of course, we are also looking into a trip to Massachusetts in May – its just a shame we’d have to rush it and have it done away from home where our friends and family could not attend.

(Just because you CAN have a Las Vegas type marriage doesn’t mean you want one …)

This was originally a comment to a posting on Caitlin’s Blog (now, sadly offline)

Marines get the Weirding Way

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This sounds too much like The Voice – part of the Weirding Way skills of the Bene Gesserit … The article refers to tightly focussed sound above the pain threshold used to warn and then scatter opposing forces …

LRAD is a breakthrough long-range hailing and warning, directed acoustic device that is designed to determine intent, change behavior, and support various rules of engagement. With LRAD, a sentry can issue a focused verbal challenge with instructions in excess of 300 hundred yards, and follow up with a warning tone to cause behavior change. Recorded messages can be selected and delivered over LRAD in multiple languages.

X4X – Home Automation, Part 2

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I’ve been reading more about software for X10 and Macs, and I ran across more information on the xTension software. I’d initially passed on their software after a brief test, when I saw it start up the Mac Classic environment – that seemed like such a step backwards with the beauty of the Mac OS X built on Unix. But yesterday I got a copy of the beta they are calling X4X (xtension for OS X), and I installed it on my Mac, and – its very fine!

I created the master list for the 9 X10 controls that are running in the house, then I created some events for sunset and sunrise (Wakeup Coffeemaker, etc), and after some more reading, I’ve started creating Applescripts for some of the events that I want to happen. Very nice stuff – amazing that its considered beta!

There is a support list and quite a bit of resources for the xtension users – unless something unexpected and crazy happens, I think this is what I’ll be running the house on.

I’ll write more when I have it more experience with it!

More on my new Mac

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small image of a PowerMac G4
Last time I wrote about computers here, I mentioned that I was planning to get a Mac. Well, I found a good price for a dual processor 1.25gHz G4 with 512Meg of ram and a Superdrive (DVD recorder), so I pulled out my VISA card and bought it. I was even able to get Applecare (3 year extended warrantee) on it (for the usual fee).

It was running an older version of OS X, 10.2 Jaguar, so within a week I went to the local Applestore in Tyson’s Corner (partly to check the store out), and I left with a new copy of OS X 10.3 (Jaguar). A week later I got a copy of iLife 04, to get the improved iPhoto, and to have a copy of Garage Band to play with.

My initial impression is that its a very cool computer. When I install software, it
requires that I “authorize it” by entering my UserID and system password. I bet Microsoft systems would be a lot more secure if they used such a feature.

So far the only time it has restarted (booted) is when I turn it off, or when it has installed a major change in software (security updates, etc).

Most of the setup was painless – I took an ethernet cable and tied it to our router (does NAT and Firewall duties for our network from the cable modem)
and a few moments later I was on the internet. It seems Emma’s Win98 machine and can read the Shares there just fine, but it can’t get into my old Win2k machine. Of course, I’ve had that problem before – trying to share files from the Win2k system to Emma’s PC – so thats not new., just annoying.
All my old emails are in Outlook 2000, in a 210 Meg .pst file – I haven’t found a way to move them to the Mac yet, but I did get the Mac Mail program working with my ISPs and aliases.

I bought a copy of Photoshop 7 for Mac on eBay, I have no desire to pay $600+ for Photoshop CS, and I use version 7 at work, and had it on my PC as well, so the learning curve should be small. I got a copy of PageSpinner, a basic HTML editor for the Mac, based on comments in Jeffrey Zeldman’s blog
$30 seemed reasonable for a web editor – $180 for BBedit doesn’t. And I’ve heard bad stories about DreamWeaver on OS X

I’m still sorting out FTP on the Mac – I’ve tried Fetch and Transmit and neither seems at all intuitive – guess I was spoiled by WS-FTP …

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