justin penney

Unfortunately, this type of waste is way too common.

A particularly difficult part for the stroller.

Last year Jacey and I both put a focus on getting our bodies back in order. We were both using Lose It! to track our food and exercise and were constantly looking for physical activities and ways to save calories. I started off pretty good losing 15 lbs in a few months time. Jacey, went a completely different direction and started participating in some “boot camp” classes 4 times a week.

Since I can’t participate in the boot camp (it’s for women) and it would be nearly impossible for the two of us to workout together, I started slipping. I quit doing the elliptical, quit logging my food. I didn’t completely jump ship. I kept half an eye on my intake. Regardless, I’ve gone back up 5 lbs and I don’t like it.

After the lack of care during my vacation I resolved to pay attention to my health again and started logging my food and exercise again. Since Jacey is busy 3 evenings during the week working out I decided that I would grab Evan and his jogging stroller and do what I could.

We drove up to Burr Oak woods and started off at the very bottom of the Hickory Grove Trail. I figured starting out going uphill would be the smartest move should I get too tired. Gravity is something I count on!

The weather was perfect; mid-eighties with slight breeze in the cover of the adolescent forest. The trail was thick with daddy-long-legs and dragon flies (and a few mosquitos). Every so often the rustle of the flora would alert us to a gentle breeze that would take a little of the edge off.

Looking at the creek.

We had no major agenda or goal, just a rough time that we should get back to our house. Most of the trail was briskly walked, some slowly maneuvered and some in an all out sprint. Evan enjoyed the wheelies over the drainage humps pausing to watch the water tumble through the creeks. He pointed at the flowers saying their colors. He learned the words bridge and bench as we used the former and passed by the latter.

After 25 minutes of ascent we turned back. The descent was around 15 minutes (thanks gravity) so we turned our attention to the Bethany Falls trail on the other side of the park.

At this point the sun was starting to sag in the sky and was cutting dramatic pathways through the thick woods. The slight wind was now at our backs but the temperature had dropped a few degrees. Evan kept repeating “bridge” and “bench” in his little sing-song voice. When the color of the wild flowers popped up he’d pause his song and say “flower” then continue with his new words. The sound of babbling water in the creeks would, again, pause his new word song so he could say “water”. I would say, “yep, I hear the water too.” He’d smile and we would keep moving.

After an hour of walking and running while pushing my little guy around we headed home. Evan fell asleep during the 10 minute car trip, the excitement of the walk had worn him pretty thin. That’s thin metaphorically, I’m the one that needs it literally.

I’m going to pour out my hypocrisy right now. I have some irrational fears. Dentists (I think I’m about done with this one) and planes. I know it makes no sense and that my assessment of these risks is bad … but I’m going to comment anyway.

I think guns are cool as shit. Period. They are clean, simple, machines that have a job and do it well. A well cared for gun can last centuries and work as good as the day it was made. While I currently have no guns in my possession (my old .410 is at my grandparents), that’s not a permanent situation.

The problem I have when I start researching guns is the outlandish scenarios and overabundance of machismo that’s attached to them. I appreciate the practice and marksmanship of being a good shot (I take a Daisy BB gun outside every so often), but I don’t get the “worst case scenarios” that a lot of gun advocates tout. These events are so unlikely that you might as well just start playing the lottery (which I’m sure they do) because the chances of these heroic events are few and far between.

I think gun enthusiasts would do themselves a huge favor by dropping the fear-mongering fantasies and just adopt the “guns are cool” mentality. It’s a much easier sell to people that aren’t enamored with guns. The non-lovers understand, on some level, hot rods and motorcycles and extreme sports. Treat guns the same way … a fun hobby that doesn’t always make sense but gives the participants some pride in what they do.

Guns aren’t a right/left, Democrat/Republican issue … and they shouldn’t be. I’m firmly to the left as are a majority of my friends, and I can’t name one that doesn’t think gun are awesome. Realistically, I’d bet that I know more Democrats that regularly use guns than Republicans.

So gun fans, drop the dooms day scenarios and just embrace the awesome hobby!

If I were in the need (meaning want) for a netbook … I would have kept the iPad. But I’m not. I returned it and put the money toward a used MacBook.

I’m not usually an early adopter, more of the revision 2 type. I didn’t jump on the iPhone bus until the 3GS. The iPhone is hands down the best phone/gadget I’ve owned. The iPad, I’m not sure yet.

I told Jacey that I felt that it would do at least 90% of what our ancient (and failing) Windows XP laptop would do. With the addition of Bluetooth keyboard or the keyboard dock, I stick by that … maybe even bumping up the number higher.

First, the gushing. The screen is amazing. When the home screen first appeared Jacey and I were both in amazement. The onscreen image seems almost more real than the real world around it.

It’s heavy, at least heavier than it appears and very solid feeling.

The rotation lock switch needs to be grated onto the phone. This is a seriously great feature that makes reading in bed a joy.

All of our iPhone apps work fine, but I don’t want to use them. The 2x zoom is blocky and a little distracting. Conversely, running the old apps in a little section of the big screen seems wasteful. I think most of these will be deleted shortly.

The iPad specific apps I’ve downloaded have all been great looking. The early developers really get the best ways to use the space. I have yet to download any turd iPad apps.

There is a design disconnect with some apps. Using the eBay app as an example. It’s really freaking nice looking and clear to use. It’s also nothing that couldn’t be done in the browser with the same (or less) effort as writing the app. eBay’s website is an ugly, unusable mess and the dev effort put into making a WebKit specific site that worked like the iPad app could have paid off on nearly every platform.

There are some really neat apps in the store … but they seem pretty expensive compared to the iPhone apps. Granted, there’s undoubtedly going to be more, or more easily accessible, features. For actually getting things done, the iPad has a lot of potential.

I wish that there were a subsidy for owners of iPhone apps that upgrade to the iPad specific versions. Paying a buck or two wouldn’t bother me but paying 150% of my iPhone version doesn’t hit me in the good value region of my brain.

There are some really interesting apps available but the prices are pretty high, which is hindering me from grabbing them at the moment. I have yet to buy any iPad apps.

The iPad store looks really nice but it’s not clear, and kind of difficult, to figure out how to browse all of the apps and not just the “Featured” and “Top Charts”. For reference: tap “Categories”, tap a category, tap “See All >”. At this point clicking the “Sort by:” selector lets you reorder the results. The store is even more biased to Apple blessed “Featured” apps and established chart toppers. This makes it hard for newer apps to get noticed.

Typing isn’t too bad. I type 35 – 40 WPM on the iPhone and hit at least that on the iPad. I get a few glitches but I’m sure those will work out with some use.

Browsing is fantastic! All of the familiar iPhone movements and gestures work as expected but almost all pages are viewable without zooming.

I’m assuming that as apps become available as more developers actually hold the device that it will become greatly more usable. For now, I think it’s a really neat toy that does mostly supplant our use of the ancient laptop. In the future, It may become an indispensable tool.

I hadn’t done anything serious with web design in years. I’m working on a project that generates some game play statistics for an iPhone game using UIWebView.

On one hand, it’s nice to have a set browser and size to work with … on the other, Mobile safari has enough oddities that make some simple things hard. One design element we wanted was a status bar that stayed at the bottom of the view. This is very simple in a desktop browser. Mobile Safari renders the entire page then give a viewport into it which makes the status bar stay where it was originally drawn and scroll with the page. I pieced together some JavaScript that would move the status bar back to the bottom of the viewport after the page was scrolled. This approach worked great in Mobile Safari but was glitchy when inside UIWebView.

We altered the design.

I’m big on code reuse and tried a few different CSS and JavaScript libraries that provided iPhone-like elements, specifically iui and iWebKit. While both were fine for a limited set of elements, they were very heavy handed with what could be done on a page. After altering and fighting with iWebKit, I scratched using it as is and just started ripping some parts that I needed out.

One of our child gates was recalled a couple weeks ago. Since it’s at the bottom of the stairs and not the top we didn’t place it high on our priority list. Thanks to Wendy’s occasional appetite for wood the broken gate is now at the top of our list.

Well, the gate is nearly at the top, right below Evan’s recalled crib. The company that made the crib is no longer in business and instructs owners to return the crib to the retailer. Hopefully this goes smoothly.

I finally got around to reading some reviews of the latest Rumblejetts album (that I produced). All the reviews were very good, but this one mentioned the production.

The Rumblejetts are consistent throughout the album — the production is first-rate
– Ink

Standing Here Since Midnight (mp3)

This was recorded on my iPhone. I pulled the tracks into ProTools for a little EQ, delay and compression. The iPhone mic leaves a lot to be desired except for the upright, I am really pretty happy with the sound of that.

When I first put the Dakota on the market, I asked Grandpa what he would want for his truck. He threw out a quick number that I felt was fair.

Once the Dakota left, Grandpa let me take is truck on an “extended trial”. I was fairly concerned with the milage and wanted to make sure that it would be reasonable and that I didn’t mind driving it the 25 miles to work.

The truck is a 1990 Ford F-150, extended cab, long-bed. Oh, and two fuel tanks: one is fourteen gallons and the other is sixteen gallons. Despite the heft I was able to eek out fourteen miles per gallon. Not too bad when I was getting sixteen to eighteen in the Dakota.

Today, we were having lunch at my grandparents and Grandpa wanted to do the deal on the truck. He did have a surprise for me. The back of the title was already filled out with a sale price of $1.00.

Grandpa came out to the truck with me to clean out the bed. Even though he hadn’t been able to use the truck in over two years, he still knew exactly where everything was.

Once everything was put away we spent a couple minutes just talking about the truck. Grandpa was reminiscing about things that had been done with it. We talked about maintenance, cleaning, repairs. I mentioned cleaning and that it needed a coat of wax before winter. Granpa looked down and lowered his tone. He said, “I used to be able to take better care of my vehicles.” After a few moment we headed inside.

This felt less like buying a vehicle and more like being handed stewardship of it.