Entertainment

The New Entertainment Center

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The cabinet makers delivered our entertainment center today. We asked them to match the knotted alder wood cabinets that they installed while the house was being built. I think they did an excellent job. We’re watching football this afternoon, so this will be a short post. Click on the image to enlarge.

Permanent Cable Installation

trencher.jpgWe reported on our temporary cable installation over two weeks ago. A crew finally showed up today to dig the permanent trench and install the conduit to house the cable.

We were surprised by the extent of the installation process. Three men showed up with sophisticated equipment and had the entire job completed in less than three hours.

They had a pneumatic tool that bored holes through the earth, a pneumatic earth compactor and a gas-powered trench digger that cut an eight inch by one foot deep trench 30 feet long in less then five minutes. Verna photographed the trench digger while it was in action. Click on the image to enlarge.

Our internet and CATV is working just fine now, without the worry that one of the trucks bringing materials for our new courtyard will damage the cable that was buried in a shallow trench and had surfaced in some places on the road in front of the house.

Multicolor Webcam Art Fun

This works only if you have a webcam installed.

The program I use to prepare Adobe Flash® animations has a blog. Their authors will post articles describing various aspects of the program. Yesterday, they posted about importing webcam video into the animation. I downloaded the example program and tried it out. This is the result – 25 mini me images rendered with different video filters:

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If you do have a webcam you might try out the flash animation below the fold. You will have to give your permission to allow access to your camera.

Continue reading…

Animated Slideshow Transitions

I recently upgraded to the latest version of the Flash™ authoring tool that I use. There are lots of new features in the latest release, several of which I used for the slideshow seen here.

The tool lets me break up the images into whimsical shapes and then the effects browser allows me to preview the transition effect before choosing it. This is the result:

The images were made in November at the site of the new house in Arizona.

Sons of the Pioneers Concert

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We had quite an enjoyable afternoon when we attended a concert by the Sons of the Pioneers at the Del Webb Center for the Performing Arts in Wickenburg, AZ. The group is celebrating their 75th anniversary this year and put on a great show.

My Mom and Dad loved The Sons of the Pioneers and I grew up hearing their music. Although the group we saw this afternoon were not the original 1938 members, the music was just as I remember from those many years ago.

It was a great show and both Verna and I used up a couple of tissues apiece as we went back in time to the good old cowboy music days.

Digital Keyboard

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Several months back (a year maybe?) my digital keyboard gave up the ghost. I have been thinking about a replacement, so I went on-line and ordered this one. It’s a Yamaha 61-key synthesizer. It got very good reviews and was priced around $270 USD including shipping and accessories.

I started playing when I was five years old and I have almost always had a piano or organ, so I sort of missed having one. I’m looking forward to playing this nice new shiny rig.

Click on the image above for a larger view.