Tom – Page 128 – Random Connections

An Evening with the Newberry Indi..Wolves

September 5, 2010 Tom No Comments

Family

Saturday was the opening day of the college football season. Furman didn’t have a game, so we decided to join the rest of the family to watch my two nephews play their first game with Newberry College. It was also the first time that Newberry would play as the Wolves, having had to change their mascot from the Indians because of NCAA rules.

We started the day with a visit to the parents in Prosperity, then headed up the game. My sister, Ann, had set up a tent, and we had all the fixings for a huge tailgate. Most of my siblings and their families were able to make it to the game and the tailgate

Bring Your Own Broadband – revisited

September 3, 2010 Tom No Comments

Gear

This afternoon I checked my phone and saw that Verizon was pushing out an update to the operating system. I was excited! I knew that the update would take me from Android 2.1 to version 2.2. That also meant that I would get the components to allow the phone to act as a wifi hub. … Read More “Bring Your Own Broadband – revisited” »

Nifty Fifty Downtown

September 3, 2010 Tom 2 Comments

Photography

It was the “golden hour”, that time in late afternoon when the sunlight filters warmly at an angle covering everything with long, interesting shadows. I hadn’t been out shooting in awhile, so I grabbed my camera and headed downtown.

I parked in the Richardson Street lot behind Mast General Store. Normally on a Thursday night they have Downtown Alive and the place is hopping, but this evening it seemed to be dead. It could be that the series has just ended for the summer, but it could also be that construction in the area has disrupted civic activities.

I started out with my camera and the 18-200 zoom lens, and picked up my little SlikStick tripod to take with me. I had walked about two blocks and had taken only a few shots when I spotted that my battery was just about dead. Not good. I headed back to the car to pick up my spare.

Back at the car I made a quick decision. I swapped out my zoom lens, opting instead for my 50mm f/1.8 prime lens. With the faster lens I could leave my tripod behind and not have to lug it down the street. I also wanted to spend some time with this lens. I’m always shooting with the big zoom, so I thought it would be fun to try something different.

Crowded Cunningham

August 30, 2010 Tom No Comments

Local, Paddling

I hadn’t planned to go paddling this weekend. However, someone posted a last-minute trip on the Greenville Canoe and Kayak Meetup group for Lake Cunningham, and I made a last-minute decision to join them.

It turned out to be really last minute, because I overslept, and almost didn’t make it. Fortunately, Lake Cunningham is close, so I tossed the boat and some gear in the back of the truck and headed out. I kept it light – one camera, no GPS, and very little extraneous stuff.

Eventually 20 boaters showed up at the put-in on Lake Cunningham – quite a crowd. Both skill levels and boat types were quite varied. There were a couple of us that had paddled the lake extensively, so I wound up as one of the defacto guides for the trip.

Ebenezer, Shiloh, Moriah, and Beulah

August 25, 2010 Tom No Comments

History and Genealogy, Local

Photo – Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church, Mount Carmel, South Carolina

Saturday afternoon my sister Glynda and I had ridden up toward Saluda, NC, for lunch. She and I both love exploring, so on the way home we were taking several side roads and rambling over the countyside. Our route took us past Ebenezer Church near Tigerville. That led to a discussion about the name Ebenezer, and about Biblical place names in general, and how so many of these have worked their way into our own geography.

A Biblical place name such Ebenezer, Beulah, or Shiloh is often indicative of an older, usually historic congregation. The word “ebenezer” itself is an excellent name for a church – according to 1 Samuel 7:12, it was a stone to commemorate what God had done for Israel – a place to give thanks and dedication. However, in today’s society the word is more likely to conjure up a Dickensian miser, and the word “Beulah” is more likely to bring forth unflattering images of a large woman, rather than a vision of the land of Israel, as Isaiah had intended. (Although, the word did originally refer to a married woman, so the comparison may not be as far-fetched as one might think.)

Modern churches tend to pick names that are more evocative of today’s sensibilities – New Spring, Grace, New Life, etc., etc. – or they are more place specific or pick names of neighborhoods, such as Brookwood. I can’t think of any newer congregation that has selected one of the old Biblical names.

Sustainability, Greenability, and Misunderstandings

August 23, 2010 Tom 4 Comments

Miscellaneous

Three seemingly unrelated tales of environmental misunderstanding…

When I was playing disc golf at Furman Sunday afternoon I noticed something unusual. There were weeds everywhere and the place looked badly overgrown. This was most noticeable around several of the park benches and picnic tables around the lake.

Furman usually keeps immaculate grounds. Not a blade of grass is left too long, nor leaf left to clutter the green grass. With students returning and so many families on campus, I couldn’t understand why things were left like this. I figured cut-backs on maintenance were much greater than I had thought.

When I got home and mentioned this to Laura, she set me straight. This is part of Furman’s sustainability program, and the intent is to let portions of the lake shoreline return to a more “natural state.” Of course, one of my fellow alumni and Facebook friends pointed out that this is a man-made lake, so how could it be natural. My reply was that it probably focuses on saving fuel by not cutting down the weeds.

I was only partially correct. What looks like weeds to me are actually carefully selected natural plants, following an extensive landscaping plan. The plan is to create a wildflower meadow along the banks. While the flowers aren’t in bloom, they do look like weeds.

Disc Golf at Furman

August 23, 2010 Tom 3 Comments

Entertainment, Local

Back last spring Furman University put up an official disc golf course. Sunday was a beautiful (albeit, hot) day, so I decided to spend the afternoon playing a round.

Background

As a student here a quarter of a century ago we played quite a lot of Frisbee golf. We used standard-sized Frisbees (there was no other brand) and picked a target for our next hole, be it a tree, bench, or hapless passer-by. Then we would estimate how many throws it would take to get there, and that would be our par. It was informal, but it worked.

Furman took its first steps toward an official course about fifteen years ago. This first venture was wasn’t much more than what we had done when I was a student. A map was drawn up indicating which objects (again, mostly trees) would be used as targets. The course wound around the mall and PAC building, for the most part.

A few years ago there was an attempt to create a true course on campus, but for whatever reason, that didn’t go through. Finally, in February of this year it was announced that the course would be built.

Online Tonal Toys

August 22, 2010 Tom No Comments

Entertainment, Gear, Internet, Music

A random link led me to a series of fantastic tonal toys. Some of these are simply diversions, and some are elaborate programs that can be used to create amazing compositions. Here’s a quick run-down of what I found…

Pulsate

Think wind chimes. This little Flash app by Andre Michelle is hypnotic and addictive. Clicking on the black work area will create a circle that expands from the click-point. The circle will continue to expand until it touches another circle, so you need to create at least two for this thing to work. When two circles touch a bell-like tone is generated, and the circles reverse direction. If they had been expanding they now contract. A contracting circle will contract until it reaches a single point, then start expanding again.

The pitch of the tone is determined by the size of circles. A larger circle will create a deeper tone, and a smaller one a higher pitch. An interval is created, but sometimes the larger circle’s pitch is so low that it’s hardly audible. It sounds like the app is tuned to a pentatonic scale to minimize dissonance, much like a set of wind chimes would be be tuned.

Rhythm is determined by the expansion rates of the various circles. You can create very complex patterns by positioning circles closer to or farther away from each other. Circles within circles also create neat patterns. I find it fascinating to start with a simple pattern of three circles, and gradually make the pattern more complex by adding more circles.

Here’s a short video of one of my creations. However, I suggest that you follow the link and create your own to get the full sensation.

Stormy Edisto

August 17, 2010 Tom 5 Comments

Paddling

Second Saturday of the month, and once again LowCountry Unfiltered is back on the Edisto. This time we did the section from Stokes Bridge down to Mars Old Field Landing. We had done this one once before, so we were covering somewhat familiar ground. This was by far the largest group we’ve had, with fifteen kayaks on the water.

It had rain most of Friday night. Saturday’s forecast called for a 50% chance of rain. I picked up Bob Donnan and we headed south in the early hours of the morning, with fog followed by cloudy skies once the sun came up. The clouds stayed with us for most of the day.

There was a slight delay as Bob and I went to the take-out instead of the put-in, but soon we rendezvoused with the rest of the group and got launched. Before we even got underway we had one spill, the first of three for the day.

Bring Your Own Bandwidth

August 11, 2010 Tom 2 Comments

EdTech, Gear, General Technology

While in Washington State last week I didn’t have good Internet access. Laura’s mom still uses AOL dial-up. Neighbor Duff offered access to his WiFi, but we were just out of range. So this was the perfect chance to try tethering my laptop to my HTC Android phone. It worked brilliantly!

I had explored several options for phone tethering. The current crop of broadband modems just seemed like an additional expense for something with limited capabilities. I had almost bought the Palm Pre, which can set itself as a WiFi hub, before settling on my HTC Incredible.

I knew I didn’t want to do anything crazy that involved root access to the phone. I needed something fairly simple, so I first tried PDANet. I’d had some success using the free version connecting to my netbook. However, it was very buggy and kept wanting to crash when I tried connecting it to my larger laptop.

I finally settled on EasyTether, and it worked like a charm. The phone connected to the laptop with no problem, and I was even able to access the drive space on the phone over the USB cable – something that I couldn’t do with PDANet. I wound up purchasing the full version of the program for under $10, which gave me access to https and secure sites. With that I was able to check GMail and remotely log into my district’s network to do some simple maintenance.

I’ve read that 3G speeds are nowhere near as fast as cable or DSL speeds. However, the speeds I got over my phone were pretty darn fast. I didn’t try watching lots of video, but I did see a couple of clips, and they played just fine. I also uploaded lots of high resolution images to Flickr, and those went without a hitch fairly quickly. As far as I could see, there was nothing I couldn’t access that I would normally access from my home Internet connection.

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