I want my HDTV

Today is a glorious day for television enthusiasts. The headline "Court yanks down FCC's broadcast flag" came across my screen and put a smile on my face. As a MythTV developer in my spare time, I was looking at being forced to purchase an HDTV tuner for my machine before July 1st because of the broadcast flag. So now, instead of broadcasters and hardware manufactures being forced to limit access to digital television, the market is open for all. This is a great victory, especially for open source projects like MythTV that can only survive in the age of digital television if the standards are open and access is unrestricted.

Patent pending

It seems a patent application I was involved with in years gone by has finally made its way to the USPTO patent website. Ironically, of all the things that our team worked on at Motorola, this was one of them that hardly got out of the concept phase. By contrast, our main project, a mobile phone based pizza ordering site called Pizzacast where we did many innovative things, never approached the patent phase. In fact, it ended more for stepping on other people's patents than anything else...

As the ride approaches

I have nearly reached my fundraising goal for the AIDSride in a quite unexpected time frame. With tremendous help from my wife, we sent out letters in early April and already, only two weeks later, we are just about finished. A very different experience than last time and very heartwarming. The Breast Cancer walks are very popular in this area and I was afraid that the AIDS cause did not generate the same feelings within people to give from themselves to support it.

We have also received the list of pit stops that we will be making along the way which I have put into MapPoint to get an idea of our route. While it doesn't travel down the coast the whole time, it seems like a beautiful adventure. 

65 degrees

This looks like the week. 65 degrees and climbing. Time to pull the bike down from the rafters and dust it off for a quick trip to the local bike shope. Only two months to go before the ride and I have yet to seriously train. I can only hope I'm not deluding myself about my readiness for this. On a good note, we have an all-inclusive vacation approaching and I think they have biking available outdoors and certainly a full service fitness center that I can use to get started.

BTW, if you know of a nice small digital camera that fits on a keychain and still takes nice pictures, let me know. I'm thinking I need a digital camera now.

At times I wish I had a camera phone

I had to take a trip to Germany (near Frankfurt specifically) last week. It is times like that I wish had a camera phone or something to take quick pictures with. I love landing at the Frankfurt airport as there is a USAF base there and seeing the planes on the tarmac is a great thing. And usually, you can spot at least one or two US soliders walking through the airport. Snapping a quick picture of our men and women in action would have made for a great image. As it was I could only offer a quick hello and thanks. Still, made me feel good seeing those that are sacrificing so much for us.

All in all it was a good trip. Only managed to break some minor work related things. Got to watch the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring which was exceptional and much better than the original theatrical release. I only made it through half of The Two Towers so I have some more to watch for sure. I also bought Half Life 2 and found it quite engaging and still playable on my ancient laptop. I have to admit to looking up a hint to get out of one of the puzzles and I'm stuck on another currently. I need to reinstall the game on my desktop and home and see how it works with a little more horsepower.

Also got a chance to bowl with the guys at the office there. Bowling is bowling apparently, even in Europe, so we had alot of fun. I was told they had these great burgers at the alley. Ironically, they were called "Chicago Burgers" despite the lack of such a food item in Chicago that I'm aware of. It ended up being a grilled burger not much different from a McDonalds burger. Had a tasty sauce, but I told my coworker there, who is travelling to the states this week, to stop at a Fudruckers and try a real burger before he heads back.

Seems I have a bit of travelling coming up this year. First vacation to Jamacia, then the Vegas gathering in May, and after that, the AIDSride in California. That reminds me, I need to book my tickets for Vegas...