I was in Vegas for a couple days on a business trip. We stayed at The Mirage. I have to say I'd give a mixed review to anyone that asked. The public bathrooms smell like coconut (nice), everything costs extra - the sauna, movies, etc. (not so nice), the in-room soap is oatmeal soap (nice), it's way too crowded (not so nice), the volcano is cool (nice), and they have an awesome aquarium in the lobby (nice). In fact, they don't even have HBO or anything because they want you to purchase your movies at a way too inflated cost. The light bulbs in my bathroom were burnt out during my stay (not so nice), the pool wasn't open due to renovation (not so nice), and even if it had been open, you would've had to walk through the mall and crowds of people in your swimsuit just to get to the pool (not so nice). Also missing were the little touchs that most other hotels have, such as a free copy of USA Today in the morning, or a bathrobe, or your hotel bill slipped under your door on the morning that you're checking out. The lack of the latter affected me because when I didn't see my bill under the door, I went down to the lobby to get a copy of my bill but took one look at the crowds waiting in line and said 'forget it'. All-in-all, I don't think it's that great of a hotel.

I did walk 'the strip' one night and watched the water fountain show at Bellagio. They were playing some awesome Pavarotti, and the fountain coreography was stunning. It could've lasted longer, in my opinion, but it was very nice. The crappy part about walking up and down the street is that these stupid people keep trying to shove porno cards/booklets into your hand every 20 or 30 feet, despite the fact that there are several signs posted on fences and such stating that it's illegal to distribute handbills. As a consequence, there are thousands of cards littering the ground all up and down the strip, as well as stuck in fences, on garbage canisters, on the pedestrian overpasses, etc.

Films we've recently viewed: Piglet's Big Movie, Space Cowboys (Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland), Whatever It Takes, and "Finding Faith in Christ" (the free DVD that came with the Ensign this month).

There are two words in the French language for pride: 'la fierte' (dignity) and 'l'orgueil' (arrogance). In English, the same word has two very different connotations: one of the prides is good, and one is bad. ('I'm proud of you, son' is the good kind, while 'She's too proud to ask for help' is the bad kind.) I think it's cool that French has two separate words for pride. 'Bravo' in the Spanish language also has two meanings: a shout of approval and arrogantly obnoxious. We went and supported Bonnish in her school's cheese play a few nights ago - it was cute and clever.

What's the deal with Adobe Acrobat 5.0.5 (full version, not the free reader)? There's an updated web client available every single time you check for updates, which is impossible - it's a bug. Also, it always says there's a problem with Acrobat not being able to display PDFs in the browser, but it really doesn't matter - it still will: just check the "don't show this again" checkbox and you'll be just fine. Also, if Acrobat Reader (the free reader) prints all the words run together (no spaces between words), then select "print document as image" in the print properties, as this solves the problem on most computers. Also, upgrade to the latest version (currently version 5.1.0), as this solves it, too.

Elizabeth Smart was found. Simply glorious and remarkable. I sincerely hope she can return to a normal life. Everyone goes on and on about how great WS_FTP is. Well, it's not - for one simple reason: it doesn't support temp transfer file renaming for large file transfers (like most webcam software does). Obviously a major oversight. What's the issue, you ask? Well. Let's say you start to transfer a 150 KB photo to your website. While you're in the middle of the transfer, I click on that link on your website. What happens? I get a partial file download. In case of a photo, I get only a portion of the image. In the case of a document (like a PDF), I get a corrupt file that won't open. WS_FTP could help minimize this problem by taking a cue from the Webcam32 folks, and incorporating the "temp transfer file rename" feature. This works by the file being transferred temporarily under a different name, and then once the transfer is complete (very important, the very crux of this problem being that it takes time to transfer large files), it overwrites the previous copy on the server by renaming the temp file with the correct name. Cam software does this all the time, to refresh webcam images on a site. Why should this be so hard for 'regular' FTP programs to incorporate?

War in Iraq ('Operation Iraqi Freedom') has started, whilst Operation Valiant Strike (Al-Queda in Afghanistan) is still underway. I like the live Baghdad streaming webcam that MSNBC has provided.

There's quite a bit of confusion out there about digital image quality, specifically between DPI (print size) and Pixels (screen size), and also about compression. Frogprints has a great tutorial on digital camera compression, specifically the differences between JPEGs and TIFFs. As for DPI (75 dots per inch vs. 300 dots per inch), it has nothing at all to do with photo quality, but only with printed image size.

The photo compression level (JPEG, 95% vs. TIFF uncompressed) and the original image size (800x600 pixels vs. 1600x1200 pixels) is really the determining part of technical digital quality (artistically, however, if you can't seem to take a decent photo, none of this really matters, does it?!). DPI is just for determining printed image size (on paper) - you can't change this setting on digital cameras - it's automatic). You can, however, adjust the size (DPI) of the photos with Photoshop or in your desktop publishing software, if necessary. In fact, many programs will determine the correct DPI setting for you based upon how big you want it to be when printed - in other words, you hardly ever have to even worry about DPI at all.

Bottom line: If you want to take good quality digital photos, get a decent camera, use a high resolution and very little compression, and take a photography class!

We recently got some new tires at Tires Plus, some Dayton Quadra SE's rated for 55,000 miles. We got the complete set installed for under $185 - even less than the 40,000 mile price at competing stores! Nice.

Tried the new Parmesan & Garlic Cheez-Its - not as good as the Four Cheese Cheese Nips, but still better than a poke in the eye.   =)

We've been gorging ourselves lately on navel oranges. We grabbed three bags of awesome tasting navels from Smallymart. Mmmmmm.

As some of you know, I teach an Internet Basics class at work. I had a bright idea backfire on me recently. As part of the class, I have the students find answers to obsure questions to demonstrate the power of the web's search capabilities. I got a wild hair and asked them to find out what Adolf Hitler's middle name was. As luck would have it, Adolf Hitler didn't have a middle name.   =(

We got some tasty frozen treats at the store today, Skinny Cow Silhouette Fat Free Fudge Bars. Mmmmm.

We went up to the Lake last week to see Spoon. She won a couple of trophies including 2nd Place Overall at the 2003 Girl Scout Cookie Celebration competition on March 12, 2002 at Harrah's Harvey's Lake Tahoe. All the casinos and hotels had their chefs try to make interesting desserts out of Girl Scout cookies, and Spoony made this cool-lookin' ordeal using three different types of cookies. She called it the "Lemon Pastry, Thin Mint & Caramel de Lite Trio". It was tasty, mmmmm.   =)

Recently watched a few movies, including "Enemy of the State" (Will Smith, Gene Hackman), "Sweet Home Alabama" (Reese Witherspoon, Candace Bergman), "Pollyanna" (Haley Mills), "Swiss Family Robinson", "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and "Executive Decision" (Kurt Russell, Halle Berry). The last one has been on TV almost every day for 2 months. We've seen bits and pieces of it A LOT.

Gene and I both have noticed and commented on the same phenomenon recently: people going around turns in their car seem to have to lean their heads like they're going to tip over or something. Maybe they feel that they're race car drivers or something, I don't know, but it makes them look really goofy. Driving through a turn at 35 mph hardly makes you a race car driver, and although it may subject you to addition G force (directional acceleration), it's minimal at best, so why do they do it? Is it learned behavior - they see others doing it so they mimic them? Is it to impress other drivers ("out of my way, I'm TURNING here"), or simply to entertain those of us who think they look ridiculous? Who knows. The whole thing doesn't make any sense. If you're turning left, then while your car tires are experiencing centripetal (not centrifugal) force (a common misconception), the only thing YOU'RE really experiencing is Newton's First Law of Motion, which dictates that you lean to the RIGHT, not to the left, so you can't claim that some external force is making you do it (Newton's first law isn't a force at all - in fact, it's actually defined as inertia, the lack of a force). It must all be psychological: maybe you're trying to compensate for something, or maybe you're trying to shift your weight to help keep the car on all four wheels, who knows. The only way you won't look like a goof, however, is if your head stays in the same spot it's normally in - in other words, keep your head level - don't tilt either direction. In fact, we had a good chuckle a while back, as we were driving around - discussing this very subject. Misti was driving, and I was in the passenger seat, and we made a right-hand turn. She leaned to the right for whatever reason, while I let Newton's first law do it's job (I leaned left), and we nearly bonked heads in the middle. Of course, most of the time, I just remain right in the same spot, not leaning either way - it's the only thing that makes any sense, in my opinion. I forget what Gene had to say about it, but I remember that he had witnessed the same behavior and we had chuckled about it. Next time you go around the Spaghetti Bowl, take note: it looks like you're watching NASCAR.

The weather has been a little screwy this past week. It snowed earlier in the week, but has been really warm (in the 50 or 60s) the last few days. Of course, none of the snow stuck, but it was a nice change of pace.

Becca loves wooden puzzles and says "stuck" a lot lately. She climbs on chairs and sticks her head in between bars and such on the furniture and then, matter-of-factly, says "stuck" - not in a panic or anything, she's merely stating a fact. It's funny.

LOTR 2 was much better than LOTR 1 - can't wait for 3. If you recall, I didn't like LOTR 1 - it wasn't as good as all the hype built it up to be. With LOTR 2, there wasn't nearly as much hype, so I think I enjoyed it more. I wasn't expecting it to be any good (especially after the first one), and was therefore pleasantly surprised. I really think the 3rd one ought to be pretty great, though, so I might be setting myself for disappointment... hmmm, we'll see.

We had a hilarious conversation at work a few days ago about toilet paper and dieting. Betty first told us about the "toilet paper diet", but declined to admit that she'd tried it. From there, everyone had their opinion on which way was the correct way for the toilet paper roll to be oriented (dispenses over the top, or from underneath). Of course, we all know that nobody really cares, and most people don't keep it on the roller, anyway. We just keep the roll on the counter top, so there isn't any issue. While some others agreed, I was actually interested to learn that some people actually have those dispenser rollers installed sideways (so that the roller is vertical), so that the issue isn't "top or bottom", but left or right - then it just depends whether you're right or left-handed. And, of course, we all know that right-handers are the vast majority.   =)

I, and many people around me, expressed sorrow at the news that Mr. Rogers died recently. He was my friend as a child. I got 2 paper cuts in the past 3 days - one was actually a cardboard cut. Not fun.

We celebrated both Heather's birthday and Bonny's baptism recently. Lots of fun - and a few photos, too. Stay tuned. We recently viewed the film "Chocolat" with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. It was an awesome flick - light and funny, with a happy ending. I recommend it.

Got some wonderful red plums at Wal-mart. Gene and Ronda had their baby recently. Dave has sent back some hilarious letters from Wisconsin recently. I guess it takes 15 seconds for spittle to freeze solid. I was shocked to find out that Brad was so cool. Sister Blattman sniffed some shoes in Primary on Sunday - stinky ones, apparently.