the anarchist @ home

0.005: farewell, unc

In the wee hours of the morning on Friday, August 31, 2007, the world lost one of its most special inhabitants.

Clare B. "Bud" Howard
December 22, 1924 -- August 31, 2007

Clare B. Howard was known to most of those that knew him as "Bud," but everyone in the family just called him "Unc." Not "Uncle Bud," because the specificity was unnecessary. He was just "Unc" - the one and only.

He will be missed by everyone who knew him, and the hole he left behind in this world will never, ever be filled. His impact was simply that significant.

I won't eulogize Unc here, though...that's already been done. Instead, this blog entry will serve as the collection of his memory:

• His obituary, and the guest book, on the Lowell Sun web site
• The photo album we created

If you'd like to add something, send it to me. And feel free to leave a comment below. Although Unc never had a PC, I'm sure he'll figure out how to read this. He was an engineer, after all...

And finally, his daughter (my wife) presented the following eulogy at his Mercy Meal, and I feel it simply must be shared with everyone who knew Unc.

0.004: Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

0.003: inside the new canon dslrs

Short and sweet - if you haven't seen this, you must: CNet has an inside-the-skin look at the new Canon 40D and 1Ds Mark III digital SLRs. Enjoy!

0.002: new canon dslrs are (almost) here!

I've been debating for months what camera would be the upgrade for my current 6MP Canon EOS Digital Rebel. I've long outgrown this camera, and I've put aside a chuck of cash to upgrade.

But I just couldn't decide what to get. I've got a hefty investment in Canon "L" glass (lenses), so switching brands isn't an option. But both the Canon EOS 30D and the 5D are approaching 2 years in the market, and that generally means there's an upgrade coming (given Canon's historical release schedules). So I've been waffling between wait-and-see and can't-wait-any-longer for several weeks.

Today my wait came to an end. As has been reported widely around the Internet, Amazon jumped the gun on Canon's expected announcement later this week and posted pages for both the new 10MP EOS 40D as well as the 21MP 1Ds Mark III. Unfortunately, both links were removed after a few hours, but you can see the details over at DPReview.com on this thread.

0.001: blogketing reading list

This whole blogging social media thing was totally a mystery to me up until just about the beginning of 2007.

Oh, I'd seen blogs referenced as I browsed the Internet, but I hadn't really ever experienced on first-hand. Then I got hooked on Chuck Hollis' blog at EMC (I used to work for Chuck), and the rest (as they say) is history.

I found blogs about TiVo, and blogs about photography, and blogs about - well, about just about everything I can imagine. I quickly learned that I needed a blog reader to aggregate all the blogs that interested me, because I simply couldn't visit each of them directly to see if there was anything new. I first tried NewsGator, but eventually switched to Google Reader. Then I learned about wikis from wikipedia, and then I got a Facebook account, and before I knew it, I was knee-deep in a whole new subject domain. After months of prodding, I started the storage anarchist using TypePad, hooked up with FeedBurner, and adopted Windows Live Writer (Beta) as my blog editor.

0.000: welcome to the anarchist @ home

I've decided to expand my blogging experience. My inaugural blog, the storage anarchist, is nearly 100% work focused, and generating a reasonable amount of traffic (and at least a little impact ).

But I've discovered that I need an outlet for my non-work interests. So I'm creating this adjunct blog as an interaction platform for people who aren't necessarily interested in what I do for work.

I'll probably explore many of my hobbies here: photography, music, food & wine, HD entertainment, technology, reading - you know, all that sort of stuff. I tend not to get all wrapped up in politics or religion, so I don't expect to spend much time on those. One thing I intend NOT to do is talk about work, or even storage, although I probably will mention the progress of my multi-terabyte home along the way.

But my primary intention is to keep work and home as separate entities.

You'll probably note that I've kept the look and feel consistent with my other blog, changing only the color and the layout. The two blogs are indeed meant to be complimentary for folks who ARE interested in both sides of my work/life yin & yang. I also plan to experiment with some of the blogging tools and formats more on this site. For example, I like this 3 column format better than the one I've customized for the storage anarchist - it will probably find it's way back over to the original at some point.

Anyway, if you've stumbled across this and want to see how it goes, please subscribe to the feed in the left-most sidebar on the right of the page. Comments and feedback will always be welcome (and almost always approved).

So let's begin, shall we?