Go Vandy

Just to prove that I am a good sport - congratulations to Vanderbilt on their 4-0 (2-0 SEC) start. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict 7-4 (4-4 SEC) for the 'Dores and a bowl game. Could even be 8-3 (5-3 SEC) if you know what I mean, and most of you don't.

Real storm tracking on Virtual Earth

Check out the latest tracks for Hurricane Rita here.

Every time a new point is updated (about every six hours), this site will show it!

With the new storm-tracker feature, you can see a past published storm's data, too, like Katrina.

Just what sort of paperback was he writing?

I must have heard the Beatles doing "Paperback Writer" a million times (although, as it is a "Paul song," I'm not particularly interested in it) ... however, tonight I heard something new.

Of course, I'm too lazy to go find the CD and see if it is on there, or if this is just an artifact of the MP3 or something, but ...

About 57 seconds into the song, there is the sound of a woman, not exactly moaning, but taking a rather sharp breath.

You might mistake it for just one of the Beatles taking a breath for the next lyric, but then you hear it again at a minute and 46 seconds, and it is much more distinct.

And now that I listen more closely, you can hear it a bit at the very beginning of the song, too!

I couldn't find any references to this on a quick net search, but I didn't try too hard.

The version I'm listening to is from CD collection of Beatles singles, Past Masters, Vol. 2.

New iPod book

Click above to get a free book about the iPod ... OK, this is just a shameless plug to win a contest. Just click it. Thanks.

Are you there, Todd? It's me - Margaret.

God knows the Todd/Margaret storyline needs to be put out of its misery (Misery, see - get it? No? Consider yourself lucky then.), but major props to the writers at One Life to Live for writing what may be the funniest line of dialogue ever written for a soap opera.

It wasn't mine

I got a copy of BillG's slides from the PDC, and the app shown was not mine. No big deal, it was just a screenshot anyway, he didn't actually talk about it. Still cool to see traffic on the phone shown in some way as a valuable thing ...

The Biggest Loser

Go Suzy! ... (OK, it is hard to pick a favorite after 10 minutes, but I have done so nonetheless).

Found it!

The slide is too blurry to tell if it is my version of the app or not, but if you look at the Bill Gates keynote speech and forward to 21:54, you might get a glimpse!

On the hunt for my other PDC app

My former manager, Steve Cover, tells me that he was watching Bill Gates give the keynote at the PDC (Professional Developers' Conference), and he thinks he saw an application I wrote on a slide (traffic for the Smartphone).

There are a couple of apps that are similar, so it might not have been mine, but nice that Bill is showing Smartphone, even if it wasn't my app!

Of course, that was just an app I wrote on my own time (and Laurel calls it my "one trick pony") ... he could have shown Pocket Inbox, or Pocket Internet Explorer ... or the new things I'm working on that you don't get to know about yet!

So now I have to sit and watch the whole keynote to see the app flash on the screen, if they even thought to cut to the slides during the video.

What I worked on (very briefly)

Microsoft Codename Max was released today. I only worked on the team for a short time before I realized that:

• Program Management isn't for me
• I'm bored of the desktop and think the mobile space is where the action is

But kudos to the team, folks seem to like it!

(By the way, the graphic is of Misha and Max, the team's mascots ... I actually know the real Max the Dog (there is no real Misha)).

My site is a ViaVirtualEarth Gallery "pick"

I looked at the Virtual Earth developers' site, Via Virtual Earth, today, and was pleased to see that my GPX Plotter "app" was featured on the Site Gallery! ... note that although it says, "Check out the developer on his bike," the bicycle rider was actually my friend Steve Meredith.

Listening to "Very Spatial Podcast Episode 07" by VerySpatial from the album Very Spatial

nano-probes infecting the Borg Cube

I've been showing my iPod nano around the halls of Microsoft today -- I was afraid for a while that I wasn't going to get it back, as it traveled from office to office ... I finally caught up with it, and now it is shown "by request only."

Am I ... an Apple guy?

So today, I just had to rush to the Apple Store to get the iPod Nano ... The pictures do NOT do it justice, by the way -- go see one if you can. I bought it sight unseen because we couldn't find a parking place outside the store (not because of a Nano-rush, though, just because you can NEVER find a spot there), so Laurel just jumped in and got it for me.

She is now aghast that I am a first-day Apple product buyer ... and that as I was talking about how the iTunes 5.0 upgrade lost some of my data, but that I was OK with that because I was looking forward to cleaning stuff out, she pointed out that I was also an Apple Apologist! Noooooooo!

Of course, a long time ago, I was so into Apple that I'd go to the Dillards department store just to play with the Mac on display there, long before I could buy one. I still prefer the PC (Sony PCs, specifically) and Windows XP, but Apple hardware is starting to creep into my life -- you can't beat the 23" Cinema Display I have (well, except with the 30") and I now technically have *two* iPods (the original and the nano -- Laurel has a Mini, which doesn't look so "mini" next to the nano!)

I must have this

The Oculas

Real Earth

I mention Virtual Earth a lot, but how about a bit of the real thing? (Taken from a space probe on its way to Mercury).

Full pix of half marathon

Click to see photos of Laurel's first half-marathon. She is soaking at a spa right now ... you'll see why on picture #38 (warning: quite gross!)

Barking Frog

Where was I while Laurel was running? Having brunch at the nearby Barking Frog ... delicious! Dan and Tilly joined me as the "cheering section" after our wonderful meal.

Laurel's first half-marathon!

Laurel completed a half-marathon (13.1 miles) today! Check out this data-fest ... and pictures of course will follow soon!

Check it out on Virtual Earth!

Laurel's run at 9:01 AM on 9/5/2005:

• Time: 02:11:47
• Distance: 13.5 miles
• Average speed: 6.14 mph
• Average pace: 00:09:46 / mile
• Average heartrate: 0 bpm
• Calories: 1515

Run was in Bothell, WA, United States.

Satellite map:

Street map:

Dave's Art Gallery

I have converted the "Bachelor Pad Annex" in our house into Dave's Art Gallery. Included in the gallery (so far) are 3-foot-by-2-foot prints of the following photos:

• Cool Laurel
• Ocean Blue
• Girl on the Ferry
• Prism

Also, I finally hung an antique map that I got at the local junk shop, and of course, a printed version of the Seattle Panorama that makes up this blog's title logo is down there, too.

Flash map

Click for larger version
Originally uploaded by dstewartms.

My (fairly liberal) estimate of the area from which the "flash" we saw at 9:30 p.m. Friday Aug. 26 from our campsite near Deer Lake could have come. Note that Seattle isn't in the field of view, but Mt. St. Helens is (and so is McChord Air Force Base) . What the flash was, though, is still a mystery!

Katrina's really destructive path, virtually

Someone used my virtual earth GPX tracker to make this. Interesting visualization!

Virtual hike

Check out the GPS track of Day 2 of our Olympic Adventure hike overlayed on Virtual Earth.