Octopi-Press

Retro Future

2012-07-17T13:25:00.000-04:00

I occasionally read the Dark Roasted Blend: Weird and Wonder Things blog and they've been doing multiple articles on "Retro Future" or futuristic illustrations from the past; illustrations from old pulp magazines.

Most of the themes are similar... bubble vehicles, cars that drive themselves and allow for backseat luxury, flying cars, monorails, air planes as big as cruise ships, and lots of fins! At times, it's like walking through EPCOT.

Compared to modern illustrations, fins have dropped out of fashion -- I get that. Modern illustrations have more of an organic feel, a little anime in nature, a little sleeker... But what I don't get is what happened to the monorail or the bubble cars? Have production and maintenance costs made these concepts drop out of fashion? Or maybe it's not something that can be marketed? Or was it Easy Rider and our cultural desire to be our own masters of the road?

Bacon Hatted Piranha

2011-01-04T17:11:00.000-05:00

A bacon hatted Piranha!

Another Quick Gloom/Doom Thought

2009-01-28T16:37:00.041-05:00

This just hit me a few minutes ago while looking at this list of layoffs and thinking about Disney's buyout offer. I understand companies are/will be looking to minimize profit losses, and the easiest way is to offer buyouts to older employees (if you're a good company); or simply do the "job re-classification" shuffle, so older employees' positions are no longer needed and the older employee have to "re-apply" to new the job positions... so positions are cut through "attrition".

From a business perspective, it makes sense to cut costs & minimize legal exposure. But to force people into early retirement when the stock market (and 401K) & economy isn't doing well, just isn't right!

I love how another definition for the word "attrition" is "sorrow for one's sins that arises from a motive other than that of the love of God..."

More Gloom and Doom

2009-01-27T17:42:00.037-05:00

So got word from Chase that they plan to raise our interest rates. I'm assuming since they're doing so badly & not getting enough money from the government to help them out; they figure they can up the interest rates of everyone else to help bail them out. What makes me mad is that those of us with good credit must now bear those who Chase should not have lent money to, to begin with. And instead of holding the people that made bad business decisions responsible (lending money to high risk people), everyone else now has to suffer.

Also on the news, sounds like State Farm is dropping insurance policies of people living in Florida (those with home & renter's insurance) because of foreclosures. Meaning Erika and I need to go insurance shopping soon. When another insurance company started doing this in Florida last year, the state government had to step in. Again, we faithfully pay our insurance, expecting a service to be rendered. Some one makes bad business decisions (offering to insure property that far exceeded steady, realistic market growth, at an over inflated price & people who realistic couldn't afford over-inflated mortgages), and now good, sound, hard-working people loose their policies... This makes me mad as well!

Manatee Watching

2009-01-26T13:38:00.002-05:00

Momma & Babies
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

Erika and I went to the Orange City Blue Spring Manatee Festival. Staring out, I didn't have high hopes for it, but we wanted to do something different this weekend. As a side note, when I see "farmers' market", I think produce being raised and sold in lots of booths in an open air market, not one booth of produce and 50+ booths of arts & crafts -- so with that in mind, I didn't expect a "festival" of the same caliber of ones in Ohio.

And I was right. Maybe 40+ booths of arts & crafts, a few food vendors, some carny style games for the kids. And a long line to the shuttle... and really didn't know what the shuttle was for. Come to find out, the shuttle took you into the Blue Spring park, to a location great for seeing manatees! This was the hi-light of the event & well worth the $8 of admission... and it goes to a good cause, the park. :)

Standing in line, one of the marine life (manatee) experts talked about what to expect & the "curiosity" of manatees. What I didn't expect to see was so many! Gracefully swimming up and down the waters from the springs into the river. From what we overheard, there were 100+ spotted in the area, earlier that day... I thought that was an exaggeration, but I lost count after about 40. The manatees were curious... Erika and I were standing out on the of the piers, just buy ourselves, everyone else had moved on. We stood there quietly for a few minutes, when momma and her two babies came swimming right for us... Then people started screaming with excitement. Momma turned tail and swam away from us... the marine life expert said, the best way to attract them was to be really calm & quite.

Freshly Squeezed Tangerine Juice

2009-01-05T10:45:00.003-05:00

Freshly Squeezed Tangerine Juice
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

Yum. Needs to be colder.

One of Erika's co-workers gave Erika some navel oranges and tangerines from the co-worker's trees. One thing I've learned about tangerines, they need to be cut from the tree and not plucked -- plucking results in tearing the peal, which results in quicker spoilage.

With this in mind, all the tangerines we got were plucked and one started to mold. Hence the freshly squeezed juice this morning. :)

Olympics

2008-08-09T15:15:00.003-04:00

Watching the Olympics last night, I'm reminded a little of the books I once read by Eric Van Lustbader (see: The Ninja, The Miko, & Jian)... To be honest, I was in high school when I read them. I don't remember the exact stories, nor did I realize until just now that Eric wrote the Borne novels that the movies are based upon... but what I do remember one of his characters grew up in China before China became communist, that character had a powerful influence into that decision/direction & a vague understanding that Chinese communism is not the same as Russian communism. From his books, the reason why the Chinese choose communism over capitalism made sense (though I can't remember why now)...

But looking at the opening Olympic ceremonies... 90,000 people in the birdsnest, 2008 performers on the drums, 2008 tai chi performers, etc. The shear size of the performances, the fireworks... The melodrama, the symbolism, the costumes, the colors, the Chinese history, the LEDs, the wires... the shear size of the canvas in which they worked with... you're quickly blown away. And the synchronization of drummers was just fantastic.

Then you start to think... how do you get 2008 people on drums to do that, without a lot of too many mistakes? To make it all seem seamless... I've made my home in cities where the meto area have been between 1.7 to 2 million people... okay, as a contractor, I've lived in larger cities with 5.2 to 6.1 million people... but Beijing has 11 million people in their metro area... almost twice the size of the largest city I've lived in... Not as large as New York or LA, but passing Chicago.

Molly out for a Walk

2008-08-07T17:44:00.003-04:00

Here's Molly out for a walk with Erika. Erika sent this to my iPhone yesterday with the caption, "Out hunting kitty's!!!!"

Testing... 1, 2, 3

2008-08-01T23:39:00.000-04:00

Just testing from my iPhone

Wordle

2008-06-26T21:58:00.001-04:00

A wordle of my resume... Or a word cloud of my resume. It's interesting... it's Web. 2.0-ish... it's artsy... I'd almost like it to be some CSS/XMTML so I can link the words to different items, but it's pretty much a static Java application. I had to make a screen shot of it to upload to Flickr. It'd be neat if it was a Javascript application that after you manipulate the word cloud, the web-app would allow you to cut and paste the CSS + XHTML to your own web-site...

Erika's iPhone

2007-11-30T23:34:00.001-05:00

I love Erika's iPhone! The keyboard takes a little to master, but
otherwise it's very useful. And she loves it as well.

On ColourLovers

2007-08-09T14:25:00.001-04:00

I've subscribed to ColourLovers website for a few weeks now; today there was this article.
Not very interested in the article itself, but this picture by Guilherme Marconi! Nice LEGO.

NMRA in Detroit

2007-07-19T22:57:00.001-04:00

Bridge, Dam & Mountain
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

Since the whole Brickshelf debacle, I've been uploading a bunch of my LEGO pictures to Flickr. As I've been going through them, I'm starting to really look forward to going to NMRA in Detroit, weekend after next.

Everything Is New Again

2007-07-17T16:18:00.001-04:00

LeVeque Tower
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

Well, one of the nice things about Brickshelf about to go off-line, it has force me (and several other people) to upload past LEGO images to their Flickr accounts. So now everyone gets to see more of the images I've taken from past LEGO events.

It's funny how something like this brings out the best (and sometime creative) in people and the worst. I'm still on the fence about the whole Brickshelf is going down thing. For the community, it might be a good thing... how Kevin choose to leave the LEGO community, might not be.

Visiting the Nieces

2007-07-09T08:38:00.001-04:00

Ashlinn & Rayne
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

Managed to spend some time with our nieces this weekend. I glad we went to Sarasota to visit them -- we miss them terribly.

I've been playing around with Erika's new camera. Mike Cotterman turned me onto the panorama feature -- I didn't realize it was on our camera. I still haven't found a good inside setting with no flash... the pictures look a little blurry, but they do have a neat effect -- see my Flickr set for some example pictures.

We gave the camera to both Ashlinn & Rayne.. and Rayne really surprises me with some of the pictures she takes. I know that she doesn't realize what she's doing, but there is a flair to them... I haven't posted it & I might later tonight, but Rayne was taking a picture of herself that came out beautiful.

Brickworld Opening Ceremonies

2007-06-29T10:19:00.001-04:00

Microsoft Tech-Ed '07

2007-06-10T19:37:00.001-04:00

From 3rd Floor
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

Went to Microsoft's Tech-Ed last week... It was a little mind blowing. I've never been to a Tech-Ed before... and I'm not a MSZombie, I'm an script-kiddie (Perl, PHP, JS), so I came out of it with a different perspective.

Overall, the conference was good... the buffet food sucked, but the information was good. I can see the direction Microsoft is heading with it's Flash killer. At first glance, it's very powerful & simple, but in the back of my mind, I wonder if it's as easy to build a media-rich web-site as some of the demos were... It probably is, and that XML-rich simplicity might kill Flash with it's ActionScript. And being able to control the page DOM from QuickSilver, I shudder to think about how much terribly designed MSZombie pages will pop up of the next few years. :)

I talked with one of the MS techs about their VOIP product... deeply integrated with Exchange, but the concept is cool. He should me their phone... it had a touch screen, standard touch pad, but a few extra buttons, a finger print scanner, & a iPod looking wheel. The whole thing was chunky, almost like a prototype phone -- very ugly. It too was integrated with Exchange, running Windows CE on the touch pad... it was laughable, looked hurried to market. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Apple has something similar in the works.

The session in IronPython was very interesting. Very powerful, integrated with .Net. I might have to buy a copy of VisualStudio and play around with it.

Store sponsors Civil War mock protest

2007-04-23T08:13:00.002-04:00

So, I go to this comic shop that put on a Civil War mock protest. The last time I went into the shop, I overheard the protest organizers talking with a co-worker about last week's staged protest -- it was hilarious -- fortunate for the comic shop it was spring break at the college, otherwise they would have been swamped with protest. :)

To quote Newsrama:

The Orlando Sentinel covers the Superhuman Registration Act “protest” organized by A Comic Shop to promote the release of Marvel’s Civil War trade paperback. More than 30 comic book fans showed up for the event, many dressed as Marvel characters and holding signs for or against registration.

You can view video from the protest on the store’s MySpace page. Photos from the event can be seen here.

Sand Beach

2007-04-10T09:03:00.001-04:00

Sand Beach
Originally uploaded by mhuffman.

I've been thinking about ditching Gallery on my web-site & going strictly with Flickr. There's just so many advantages with going with Flickr -- friends will see your newly uploaded photos, comments, on-screen notes, greater ability to create sets, collections, add photos to community pools, etc. It's just fun software.

So I'm going through some old photos, thinking that I only uploaded 3 really good ones from our trips to Maine. Now that I signed up for a Flickr Pro account, I can upload more... (either that or cut back on the size of the photo that I'm uploading).

I've been pretty strict on myself about what I upload to Flickr... not wanting to waste bandwidth on pictures with my thumb in the way. But there have been a few, like this one, I opted not to upload at the time; now I can.

My sister-in-law, Megan, her soon to be husband, Dave & I went down to sand beach during our trip to Maine in '06. It was still a little chilly, but it was a really nice day (considering that last year it rained the whole trip). I snapped a few quick photos as we walked down on the beach... I really liked this shot... I tried to frame it without too many people in it (there were hordes of people up laying out, soaking up the sun, to the left, out of the shot). But it was nice to capture a few kids playing on the beach... like they had it to themselves. And I love how the island juts out into the sea, with big rocks with dark-green trees on top... just pretty.

L-EGG-O

2007-04-06T17:01:00.001-04:00

L-EGG-O
Originally uploaded by mhuffman.

Picked this image up from here: glitterpissing.blogspot.com/2007/03/leggos-grover-cakes.html

How cool are these... I want to make these for Easter now!

Tree Frog

2007-03-27T16:19:00.001-04:00

Tree Frog
Originally uploaded by chris5015.

I had a similar tree frog sneak into the condo last night as I was grilling out stakes. Kinda freaked me out, when I felt this lump on my neck -- the frog must have fell down off the door onto my shoulder/neck. It landed in the living room, then jump & couldn't find where it jumped to. Frustrating. After Erika went to bed last night, I looked up and it was crawling up the wall by the door. I grabbed a plastic LEGO cup (the kind you get if you buy from the Pick-A-Brick area), scooped the little bugger up & tossed him outside -- unharmed & happy I would suspect. It's funny, we never had to deal with tree frogs in Ohio... just the occasional toad.

Monster/Creature WIP

2007-03-24T11:17:00.001-04:00

Monster WIP
Originally uploaded by mhuffman.

I've been talking about doing a micro-scale display within the 'Window into the Community' at the Orlando, LIC for a few months now. We decided to try a micro-moonbase as our first attempt. I've thought about making a building & a monster/creature that rampages through the display... A while ago, I got some macro-fig pieces; I've been trying to think of a good use for them. Enter in the creature... I had to get a cockpit big enough to hold the big head -- I figure the head would be 12 feet tall or a little taller. I didn't intend to make it 3vil, but it was the colors I had on hand... now I need to do a little research & make a skull's head to go on it somewhere.

Sinister Forces

2007-03-22T10:35:00.001-04:00

Sinister Forces
Originally uploaded by
Gems from the Collection.

Very cool collection of pulp sci-fi covers & art. I'll be using it for reference material for the micro Moon-Base that I'm suppose to be building... :)

Work (From My Phone)

2007-03-13T12:22:00.001-04:00

Just a quick snapshot from work for a test. You can see my book Java In A Nutshell and my iPod, that Erika bought me for an anniversary gift -- she got a new stereo for her bug. :)

Braves vs. Astros

2007-03-03T22:36:00.001-05:00

The Game, 2
Originally uploaded by mhuffman.

Erika & I went to the Braves vs. Astros spring training game over at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex (our first time there). Had fun & was a little surprised at the size of the crowd -- a lot of loyal fans. We arrived maybe half an hour before the game started, had a long walk to the ball park... walked by some good ol' boys tailgating in the parking lot... thought this was funny 'cause OSU football fans really know how to tailgate & what the good ol' boys had going on wasn't much of a tailgate party (just standing around drinking cheap beer, with the door of the SUV open and the music going).

I haven't been to a baseball game in a few years... I'm glad we bought tickets and went. Might try to go again before the season open... if not, I'll definately buy tickets to a few spring training games next year... Indians or Reds, of course.

We decided to root for the Braves before walking into the park -- neither one of us cared that much for one team or the other, since we're from Ohio. At first, I thought it would be a close game, then the Astros scored 3 points in one inning... didn't think the Braves would catch up, unless by a miracle. We left the game around the 7th inning... the day started off warm, but then turned cold. For a little while, it looked like the sun might come out, but then it started to sprinkle... we needed to get back to the house & leave before the mass exodus from the game... I had seen enough. It was 4-1 when we left; the final score was 6 (Astros) - 1(Braves). Oh well, the Braves will get them next game.