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Introducing Nathaniel Pierre Turner on Flickr.
So I’m a few days late in posting this here, but here’s the new addition to our family. Getting his court ruling cleared and permission from the nuns to keep him overnight until, well, pretty much forever, since once the final paperwork clears, we don’t need anyone’s permission for that, pretty much made this year’s Thanksgiving the best ever.
Nathaniel was born April 1, 2011, and is seven months old in this photo. Pierre is what the nuns at the Home of Hope Orphanage named him, and is what will be his legal name on all of his Rwandan documentation, including his passport.
Hunting With SEALs | Karl Rove
Hunting With SEALs | Karl Rove
“Some warn that America’s freedom, like all things human, may crumble into dust. The reason it doesn’t is because in times of trial our country produces men and women of courage and fortitude, honor and sacrifice. Which is another way of saying America produces self-effacing heroes like last weekend’s hunting companions.”
Season ticket holders unfurl the flag on Flickr.
This is my favorite photo of the entire 2011 ALCS Game 1 set. I just love how the sky looks, the way the Ballpark’s lit, the Texas-sized flag in the outfield. Baseball, mom, and apple pie. Darn tootin’.
Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden’s handpicked deputy in Iraq, had killed thousands of people in an attempt to send the world back to the sixth century. In a fitting bit of irony, two operators from SEAL Team Six had killed him with an invisible laser beam and a flying robot.
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Alabama State Champs 2011
While I love a good game day shirt, I’ve never been in the habit of acquiring “victory” shirts. But I have to admit, this one gave me a chuckle.
The More I Believe
The life that I’ve been living From the day I first drew breath Has been my way of forgetting I’m on the journey to my death You make my soul rise up You make my eyes to see When I place my faith in you And I lose my belief in me
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
I don’t believe in beads or crystals Instant karma or mother earth I don’t believe that what I think Makes any difference to what I’m worth I don’t believe in reincarnation I’m not coming back as a flower I don’t bow my head to kings or priests ‘Cos I believe in your higher power
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
Oh you’ve given me a plan That I don’t understand 'Cos I’ve wandered over half the world But I’ve remained an ignorant man One thing That I know Is when the final bell tolls Human love won’t be enough Good deeds can’t save my soul
Well I’m not afraid of dying But I am afraid of you Because you hear me when I’m lying And you see the things I do So the hands go round the clock As the light goes from the room And I can’t help thinking to myself I’m going to find out much to soon
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
Oh you’ve given me a plan That I just don’t understand 'Cos I’ve wandered over half the world But I’ve remained a ignorant man One thing that I know Is when the final bell tolls Human love won’t be enough Good deeds can’t save my soul
I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe
You make my soul rise up You make my eyes to see When I place my faith in you And I lose my belief in me
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
–Charlie and Craig Reid, 1994
Stone Brewing Co.’s giveaway sticker. I wholeheartedly endorse this sentiment. (Taken with picplz.)
I love Twitter timeline serendipity. (Taken with picplz.)
The PMAC lights up the night. Eddy Perez/LSU University Relations
Gorgeous shot of a place I know well.
Michael Winslow (sound effects guy from the Police Academy movies) blows your mind with Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”.
How the hell does he do that electric guitar sound?!?!?
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The Parade Ground under purple and gold skies. Jim Zietz/LSU University Relations
And thanks to @brentmckinney, this has already happened. (Taken with picplz.)
Landscapes: Volume Two
By Dustin Farrell.
Stunningly gorgeous. Captivating. There are not enough words to describe the majesty of God’s creation captured here. I’ve watched this thing five times in a row now, before posting to it here.
If you’ve got a great monitor that supports 1080p, watch it full screen. I did so on my 27-inch iMac, and it blew me away.
[vimeo 30113757 w=250 h=141]
On October 4, 2011, I went with some friends to see Frank Turner at The Loft in Dallas. We’d discovered Frank the year before, when he was one of the opening acts for Social Distortion, and he put on a great show. Then we dove into his music and fell in love with it.
So when Frank got his own headlining tour, we got tickets as soon as was possible.
Frank’s best-known song is “Photosynthesis” (iTunes link) and he closed the show with it. This is the edited cut, where I deleted about 5 minutes worth in the middle of the video, of introducing the band and ginning the crowd up.
Please forgive the frequent out-of-focusing; the dim and changing lighting, not to mention the band’s motion on stage, made it difficult for my little Canon point-and-shoot.
Steve Jobs narrates The Crazy Ones - The Loop
Jobs&Woz with Apple1 (by MischaSprecher)
I sorta want the belt that Woz is wearing.
Somewhere, in a box, I have the signature of one of these gentlemen…
After LSU played Kentucky on Saturday at 11 a.m., a second consecutive day game at Tiger Stadium should be against SEC rules. It goes against everything LSU stands for. Or passes out for. It’s like staging a vampire festival for midday.
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Goonies never say die.
Taken with Camera+ app, processed using Drama filter in Snapseed app.
PEBKAC: Moving, and Moving On
This column originally appeared in the August issue of About This Particular Macintosh.
The past few weeks in our home have encapsulated the Great Room Reshuffle of 2011. My wife and I are in the process of adopting our third child (Boy2 is also adopted), and this is requiring some shuffling of resources. Our guest room will be no more so each boy may have his own room. New bedroom furniture has been ordered, and will be in place by the time, you, dear reader, are seeing these words.
Boy1 is remaining in the same room he’s been in since we got the original furniture, which is now in Boy2’s room. Boy1 is getting the aforementioned new furniture, including a desk, useful for doing homework and LEGO building. The new full bed ensures Boy2 or Boy3 can bunk with him when my parents come for a visit. (See above: guest room going away.) Boy3 will, at some point in the future, once we actually have Boy3, get new furniture, but for now his room remains semi-complete.
So now we’re at the third paragraph, you know way more about my home life than you ever wanted to, and you’re wondering what the heck this has to do with Macs, aren’t you?
Mac OS X Lion released a couple of weeks ago, and for a subset of users, shuffling installations was a concern. Just as we’re rearranging rooms, some found themselves moving to a clean drive partition to put the new operating system on. Most simply did an update install, which shuffles off the old Snow Leopard bits and moves the new Lion furniture in to the former’s place.
As of this writing, I’ve only installed Lion on one of our four Macs, my 11-inch MacBook Air. As more than one commentator has stated, Lion and the Air seem like a match made in heaven. Or Cupertino, as the case may be. I utilized the method most who upgraded to Lion have, the update-in-place. Snow Leopard is packed up, moved off the drive, and Lion is moved in and unpacked, everything put in its place.
It was time-consuming, but otherwise uneventful, much like the Great Room Reshuffle, which saw lots of sweating and grunting by yours truly as dressers and chests and beds were carried and slid about (yay for carpeting!), but no dented furniture, busted walls, or broken bones. Likewise, my moving on to Lion has only seen one hiccup, and that was the need for Java for Mac OS X 10.7 to be installed afterward so CrashPlan would work properly. Just a little sweating over my off-site, online backup, but no grunting this time.
Seasoned Mac veterans may take their time upgrading to Lion, and users of Quicken will most especially want to wait. (Though honestly, given Intuit’s lack of motivation thus far to update Quicken’s code, Quicken users may be better off looking for alternatives from committed developers.) Like many long-time Mac users, I’m not sure I’ll use the new Launchpad or Mission Control features, but I’m otherwise enjoying the many subtle changes Apple has made to OS X’s face. And as with previous Mac OS X updates on previous Macs, this latest operating system just feels faster on the same hardware.
Just as I’m glad we’re doing the Great Room Reshuffle of 2011, I’m happy so far with the Great Lion Upgrade of 2011. If you’ve been on the fence, and don’t have any application-compatibility issues, I encourage you to make the move to Mac OS X Lion. It’s the best Mac OS yet.