Year in Review
In addition, we used AmazingMail.com to send out our Christmas and Chanukah cards. I had purchased cards at Amazing Mail in the summer when they were having specials so that these cards cost only $0.25 a piece -- my full color photograph, text message and small picture on the back plus postage -- all for a quarter!
The temptation to show images of products so that they look good in advertisements rather than be accurate is strong. So, in Sunday newspaper sales brochures, you frequently see disclaimers like "simulated picture" (I'm not even sure advertisers go to this trouble these days since everybody assumes such pictures are doctored to look good).
How to Find Stuff on the Web"When it comes to the internet and searching I feel fairly inept. I can be sitting down with Becca trying to help her find some piece of information for a homework assignment and it will take 45 minutes when it seems like it should take 5, at most. Is there a site you can point me to that will help me better know how to locate information on the web in a fashion that doesn't leave me severely frustrrated?"Here is my response: more...
In an attempt to help Lexington residents communicate with each other in an immediate, grass roots, civil, respectful, fun way, I've started up The Lexington List, a Yahoo!Groups email discussion list and web site. So far, with one message and one letter to the editor, 40 people have signed up for the list. But, it is hard to get the discussion going. I'm a little fearful of sending too many messages to get the list going. I think it will take some time before people feel comfortable expressing their opinions or even asking questions. We'll see...
For quite some time, I have wanted to see if I could host my own website. Well, now I've done it. You are viewing this web site from a server hosted in my basement over my cable modem connection. Why, you ask, would someone want to host their own website? Several reasons including 1) more control, 2) less expensive, 3) to learn what it means for someone to have a home server / digital hub and 4) because it was fun to do. Now that I have done the heavy lifting of getting all of the settings on the router and firewall, all the servers configured, etc., I hope to be able to do even more interesting things -- such as have my entire collection of digital photographs as well as digital music online, control my TiVo over the web, monitor my house with web cams, use my Internet connection as my telephone connection. more...
Yesterday, Will and I started out on a multi-segment kayak paddle down the Charles River -- from Route 128 to the Science Museum. Our route starts just outside Route 128 from the MDC Martin Memorial Golf Club at mile 62.1 and will go to the Science Museum at mile 77.5. We plan to take the Charles in managable doses with the great support of Marsha who dropped us off and picked us up yesterday. Since we now have added a tandem kayak to our fleet, it is now possible for the three of us to all go, using two cars. But for now, this is a guy thing. more...
At the end of June, I called my sister Jane and she told me about a wonderful weekend she had just come back from, which included a variety of boating including kayaking. She went on to tell me how she had just gone out and bought a small kayak. She was talking about exactly what I wanted to do. It must be in the genes. So, being the impulsive sort, I went right out and bought the same kayak, a Perception Sparky. We bought this boat just before the 4th of July. We've had a lot of fun with this little yellow kayak. 
Now, that we've gotten the bug, we decided to buy another one -- a tandem kayak so that either 2, 3 or even 4 of us could go out at once. So, a couple of days ago, we bought an Old Town Twin Otter tandem kayak. This is a big roomy boat -- very stable. We plan to take it out for it's maiden voyage this afternoon.
Check out the diary of our trip to Florence. From March 21 through April 4, 2002 we travelled to Italy to soak in Italian art, architecture, music, scenery -- Italy in general, and Florence in particular. As we went, we all took lots of pictures and Marsha and Jane (my sister) kept journals. Although I was planning on posting the pictures and our commentary as we went, I ran into trouble accessing the Internet due my faulty packing (didn't bring the right cards to plug into my laptop, sigh...). But, now that we are back, I will be posting a new page for each day, including pictures and comments about what we did.
