Looks like I've got some catching up to do with my blog. I suppose all those times that I thought "I should blog this" would have been good opportunities for posts.

Let's see... what's happened lately. Well, Minnesota decided to have an "Early Antlerless Deer" hunt this year on October 13 and 14. So I went to my traditional hunting spot in Bemidji with my wife's aunt and unkle. The three of us came out of the weekend with two deer. Two of us did not get any deer. I saw several fast-moving deer-shaped objects and a few deer that were doing an excelent job of hiding behind brush and trees. Unfortunately, none of them were cooperating enough to be shot.

The week after that, I had a meetup with some photographers I met on line through strobist.com. We had several people confirm and four actually show up. Still, it was quite a bit of fun, and we're planning to do it again, just not very quickly. Not that we're not planning to do it soon, just that we're not planning very quickly. Later that afternoon, I decided that we were out of Coke. We still have several cans in the 'fridge left over from this fall's Tai-Chi picnic, but it's that American stuff, made with corn syrup. So at around 17:00, we piled into the Outback and headed north to Thunder Bay. We didn't make it until early Sunday morning. It was late enough when we hit Grand Marais, that it made sense to just stay the night on US soil, since we weren't sure if the Grand Portage border crossing was open 24 hours. It was a safe assumption, but we were tired.

It turns out there was another reason to drive to Canada; iTunes gift cards. The Canadian iTunes store has different music because the record companies think it's a good idea to limit their markets when they produce albums rather than allowing the whole world an opportunity to purchase them. If you are paying for music on the iTunes music store with a US credit card or other form of payment from the US, the only music available to you is from the US version of the iTunes store. But a gift card counts as a form of payment from the country it was purchased (or intended to be purchased) in. That works for the UK and Japan and all other countries as well.

I think that one of the more entertaining parts of the trip to Canada was our interactions with the border patrol:

"What is the purpose of your visit"

"To buy Coca-Cola"

"You can't get Coca-Cola in the States?"

"Yeah, but it's not made with sugar, it's made with corn syrup"

"Oh... Does it taste different?"

"I think so" (Duh)

This coming weekend, I'm making the trip up to Bemidji again for more deer hunting. I've been skunked on the last two trips and I'd really like to get me a deer this year. I'd rather not be one of the 50% of hunters who come home empty handed.

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So, I got my new Pocket Wizards from Midwest Photo Exchange. My 3rd floor studio is pretty much set up and I shot half a card on Sunday with my hacked-in batteries on my flashes. I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

That brings me to my wish list page. Those Pocket Wizards are still listed because you just can't have enough of them and I don't really expect anyone to spend $200 on me anyway. Steph's wish list is, in theory, at the same location, but I have to get her to keep feeding me the info. It's easy for me to create a shopping wish list for myself, but I have enough trouble figuring out what to get for Steph without giving away all my ideas.

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I was reading on target.com about the AEM646 espresso maker that they have for $59 and I saw this review

"I bought this for my wife and received it a few days ago. It had a bit of a learning curve to it, but my wife got the hang of it after two attempts. Now her creations really do taste like something from Starbucks."

I guess, if it makes coffee like from Starbucks, I should keep looking for a better model.

...Which I did. The next most expensive one that Target had was the DeLonghi EC140B. Amazon had this "helpful" suggestion at the bottom of their page:

I added up the regular, Amazon-discounted price for both units and it, unsurprisingly, added up to that exact dollar amount. Great Savings!

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What would Steve Jobs do? I don't know either, I guess that's why I don't run Apple Inc.

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Quite a while ago, I sent an email to Lifehacker about SearchMash. Today, they posted an article with lots of text from that email. I don't know that calling me an insider is appropriate, but I apreceate it anyway.

Thanks Lifehacker!

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Gin and tonic is one of my favorite drinks and I've started to try some different varieties of Gin. I know that the quinine in the tonic water will help protect me in a small, excuse-based way from malaria too.

Tech, business and all-other-things blogger Dave Taylor has an article that I found quite interesting. It gives enough information to get the juices flowing.

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I found this in a manual for one of the applications I support. I guess they don't really give us a lot of credit.

Click: This involves placing the cursor with the use of your mouse, over a clickable object and left-clicking. Clickable objects can include a button, a word, groups of words or an icon.
Field: This is an area found in a window for text or numeric data entry.
Radio Button: This is a small, round open selection button that is filled in when selected.
Checkbox: This is a small, square selection button that contains a checkmark when selected.

And, just in case that wasn't enough:
Shift: The key, when held down simultaneously while typing, allows for the selection of uppercase letters and the selection of the characters shown above the numeric (non-alpha) or top row of keys.
Caps Lock: When you select the key (by pressing it once), locks the keyboard in "Capitals" mode (only applies to Alpha keys). This does not shift-select numeric (non-alpha) characters however. You must still use the key.

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A while ago, I asked a sales person at a T-Mobile store if there was a plan other than T-Mobile Total Internet that would work with my phone. They said no, that was the only one since they were moving more to devices with wi-fi capabilities and they had bundled the hot-spot service in with the other web browsing. Now, that may be true, but this page had an interesting bit of information on the subject.

Basically, the idea was that T-Mobile allowed its users to connect to their mail servers via the T-Zones connection for free so, if one were to set up a proxy server on a mail port, one could sneak web traffic through it. Unfortunately, I can't seem to connect to my mail server through T-Zones. A later post gave the address of T-Mobile's proxy server (which should have been pre-configured in my opinion) 216.155.165.50:8080 (which I verified was a T-Mobile IP). So I set that up, was prompted to pay $5.99 per month for access, and was online. I still suspect there is a better way, but wouldn't be surprised if T-Mobile had closed most of the holes that might have let people out for free. Anyway, the result is that this post was typed on a very small keyboard.

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For anyone who doesn't already believe that Homeschooling is for Idiots I present The Complete Idiot's Guide to Homeschooling.

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On October 3rd our 2001 Subaru Forester was totaled.

While driving north on Park Avenue in Minneapolis, on my way home, I passed 27th Street as I have done countless times before. I was driving in the right-hand-most lane since I'd be turning right on 24th Street in a couple of blocks.

"Why is there an air-bag in front of me and why am I going so slow? This can't be good." Was the next thing to go through my mind. Apparently, a minivan had pulled out of a parking lot to my right and was making a right turn into my lane. It would have been too much work, I guess to have looked and seen if anyone was coming and if maybe that might cause a problem.

Anyway, I'm OK, but the car is totaled and towed. Here are some pictures.

	This is an overview shot of the damage. The yellow cable you see under the fender is connected to the air-bag sensor. That was part of the answer to that initial question.
	Here's a closer view of the damage. It doesn't look like much so it wasn't obviously totaled. The insurance guy took 24 hours to make a decision and he had to talk to his boss about it first.
	This is the spot where I hit a pillar at the mall of america the second year we had the car. The accident creamed all the evidence of that event and I finally got my wish to get rid of that ugly purple paint.
	I took these pictures the day after the accident and had intended to get this post up last week. Of course, most of my spare time was spent looking for another car. We wanted something like our Forester, and I wanted something that didn't feel like a step down. I also refuse to own an automatic transmission car so that really limited our options. Anyway, after just one day, you can really see the rust attacking that unprotected metal.
	In order to get the car home, I had to wad up the air-bags so that I could see out the windshield and use the steering wheel. You can kind-of see where my nearly-empty mug of cocoa flew out of the cup holder and dumped the thick, rich dregs of cocoa on the dash and driver's seat.

So now we own a 2002 Subaru Outback Limited and are making car payments again.

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