Category: Life with Pratts

A Summer Weekend

Sorry, I haven’t written in a bit. Been taking a break.

One of our neighbors had their big, annual cookout. The husband was Eric’s math teacher two years ago. He always rents one of those inflatable fun houses. Eric thinks the drawings on it are funny, and I agree.

Inflatable funhouse
Inflatable funhouseInflatable funhouse

Looks like a hardhat theme, but the black guy isn’t wearing one and he’s winking. Hmm. I think they should have gone for an all-out Village People motif. One of the faces looks sort of like a young Dubya Bush, and the other like Rock Hudson. Bizarre.

The air conditioner on Carol’s 2002 Honda CRV blew. Online there are many complaints about the same problem. We’re taking it to our trusted local independent garage, and depending on what they say we’ll call Honda of America. Loud noises and things sounding like they’re falling off indicate a defective part, and not normal wear-and-tear.

Let’s see, what else is going on? I mowed the lawn, I ran seven miles today, we went out to dinner tonight, and oh yes. I won an eBay auction recently, and I’ll be blogging about that item as soon as it comes in.

Lights in the Sky, TV in the Mirror

The fireworks show in Boston last night was like a 1964 Beatles concert — short and loud. It was a big 20-minute display, which seemed like the right length. We were watching from the Cambridge side of the Charles River, on Memorial Drive in front of M.I.T. The blimp belongs to Hood, one of the bigger dairies in the Boston area. For a minute it looked like the blimp was flying into the fireworks, but as you can see it was a safe distance away.

[flv:/Video/2008/JUL/Fireworks2008.flv 440 330]

Another interesting sight awaited us at the hotel, down the road near Harvard, where the bathroom mirror had a built-in LCD TV.

[flv:/Video/2008/JUL/TVMirror.flv 440 330]

Boston Bound

Happy 4th of July! (Although I suspect that if I were living here in Massachusetts during Colonial times I perhaps would have been a Loyalist.)

We’re going to watch the big fireworks show in Boston tonight, and because it starts so late, 10:30, we’ll be staying in town overnight. So there won’t be anything new here until tomorrow night.

H.264 Test

If you see this, please ignore…
[MEDIA=12]

OK… so don’t ignore. Because the test works.

This is sort of an important post. First, I’m seriously considering getting an iPhone 3G, after the initial rush has passed. But I was going to get a full-featured FiOS TV set top box for the porch, and instead I went for the free digital converter, so maybe I won’t get an iPhone.

The point to this 10-minute video about the new iPhone is that it’s in an entirely different format than what I’ve used up to now. This is just the proof of concept, and the next thing to do will be converting one of my own video transfers into the new format. If this works, from now on the videos should be watchable in full screen mode.

Ringone

Ringo and His All Starr Band put on a super show tonight, at the Bank of America Pavilion in Boston! Nearly two and a half hours. I’m tired, and I have an early meeting, so I’d better hit the sack.