Author: Dave

He was born in Canada, but currently lives in Boulder, CO up in Boulder Heights.

Coffee maker reviews

Post author By Dave
Post date March 16, 2008

Many folks know I’m an extreme coffee fan, so I thought I’d review the various super-automatic espresso machines I’ve had or tried since 2003. These are in chronological order:

Gaggia Compact

Tags Costco, Delonghi, Espresso, Gaggia, Jura-Capresso, review, Saeco, Super Automatic, WholeLatteLove

Personal

Putting out fires I set

Post author By Dave
Post date March 9, 2008

I took the opportunity yesterday to volunteer to help the Sheriff’s office to burn some ditches near IBM in Boulder. We even burned right across diagonal. It was exhausting but good experience in fire behavior. In the middle of diagonal it even got exciting for a few minutes.

Tags BMFPD, boulder, Boulder Mountain, burn, diagonal, fire, Mountainview, Sheriff's Office

Personal

Funny XBOX 360 commercial

Post author By Dave
Post date March 6, 2008

They say it was banned, not sure I believe it, but really funny nonetheless.

Tags banned, commercial, video, xbox 360, youtube

Personal Technology & Gadgets

Jonathan Coulton

After playing through Portal (awesome game, need to do a review soon), I heard a quirky song at the end by the monstrous computer who’d been trying to kill me. Well, it turns out this song was written by Jonathan Coulton, and I heard about his life story on TWiT. “Code Monkey” and “Re: Your Brains” are my favourite songs by him.

PS: If you’re wondering, Jonathan licenses under Creative Commons, so it’s ok for me to post the mp3s here.

Tags artist, code monkey, jonathan coulton, portal, re: your brains, song, still alive, twit, valve

Personal Technology & Gadgets

Woes of cancelling XBOX Live Gold

Post author By Dave
Post date March 4, 2008
1 Comment on Woes of cancelling XBOX Live Gold

Just got off the phone with XBOX Live. It takes 3 minutes to enter your corporate card to sign up for one month membership on the console to be able to do a demo at CES, and over 30 minutes on the phone (you cannot cancel on the console or online) to cancel this recurring charge. What a pain!

Tags cancel subscription, microsoft, xbox, xbox 360, xbox live

Personal

Mallory Cave hike

Post author By Dave
Post date March 1, 2008

Cassie and I took advantage at some warm weather to do a long hike from NCAR. It was quite icy downhill, as the snow hadn’t melted. Here’s some pictures.

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Tags boulder, hike, Mallory Cave, Mesa trail, NCAR

Personal

Back from Paris

Post author By Dave
Post date February 18, 2008

Got back from Paris on Saturday. I tagged some visits to popular places over the weekend onto my business trip the next week. Cassie and I went with Kim, Andy and Tom. Got some good photos, but like an idiot, I sold my Canon Digital Rebel XTi a month and a half before the replacement will be available. Ooops. Anyways, the Canon SD800 IS and SD950 IS were great until the SD950 up-and-died (lens wouldn’t retract, focus screwed up). Here’s some choice pics (click to go to the gallery):

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Tags Arc de Triomphe, Au Caveau Montpensier, Bateaux Mouches, Birthday, Eiffel Tower, France, Louvre, Orsay, Paris, tour Eiffel, Versailles

Personal

Las Vegas environs

Post author By Dave
Post date January 22, 2008

In Vegas:

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We stayed at the Bellagio, I had drinks with Michael Douglas, and was briefly on a first-name basis with him. I met and had dinner chosen for me by Chef David Burke at one his restaurants. I had front row tickets to a Mary J Blige concert (pic) and actually touched her hand. Cassie and I went to see Penn & Teller, and “O” (Cirque du Soleil).

Outside Vegas:

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Rob, Cassie and I went to Red Rock Canyon outside Vegas. We saw a ringtail cat and went under a very cold waterfall.

Tags cat, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Panamint Springs, Red Rock Canyon, ringtail

Personal

Back from CES

Post author By Dave
Post date January 21, 2008

I did booth duty and help setup my company’s booth at CES. It was a lot of work, and honestly, I got more information about what was going on at the show last year, when I didn’t attend, than this year, when I did. A great source of information about CES is clearly Engadget.

I have to say, after hearing about the stunt pulled by Gizmodo, I would have been extremely upset at this individual (Richard Blakeley) if he had done this to our booth.

Tags 2008, booth, CES

Personal

Lightning photos

Post author By Dave
Post date January 4, 2008

16929I’ve taken a few lightning photos which have come out rather well, in my opinion. My technique is not very advanced, and possibly not the best, but here’s what I do:

Turn off the flash (or automatic flash)
Set the timer to 2 seconds (10 seconds is too long).
Mount camera on tripod, gorillapod, or rest it somewhere steady.
Trigger it OVER and OVER again until you get the picture you want.

Tags camera, lightning, photo, strike