Tag: fall

Update

It’s been a while, so maybe I should fill in a little.  The weather’s been pretty nice, a bit cooler (though today was actually warm), but very nice for the fall.  Halloween was good.  Both Endicott and Buffalo are looking nice this time of year.  Here are a few pics:

So there you have it.  Not much has been going on on the Jack Swift front, but we’ve got one more song we’re going to stick on our album sometime in the coming weeks.  I’m still playing on my own of course, and have been working here and there on a tapped arrangement of A. C. Jobim’s Wave.  It should be interesting, maybe I’ll post it here.

I’ve still got  couple more projects, or at least aspirations of projects.  My sine wave inverter idea is looking good (in my head), so it will probably get some mention at some point.  (In the mean time, think class D amplifier powered by 200 VDC and putting out a 60 Hz sine wave.  There are actually similar designs people have out on the net.)  I’m also planning on turning my Soekris Net4501 single board computer into a data logger/some sort of remote controller/whatever, the first step to which involves sticking Debian on it, which I’m actually doing right now.  Or trying to do.  It’s been giving me trouble, but I think I might be able to make it work.  I may actually post again about it tonight.

But anyway, hope your fall is going well.

Misc. Stuff

So it is now fall.  The summer finished up nicely, we even got to go to Cape Cod.  (Photos will follow.)  I’m still working, with the intent of returning for classes in winter quarter.  Still playing music, still messing with Linux, still dreaming of getting all my power from the sun (or at least right now for my mail server), and above all playing with the cats when I can in Buffalo.  But first, some selected Cape pics:

So that’s been the highlight of the past month or so.  Work still drags on, this blog still collects spam, etc.

Snow

The other day (two days ago technically, since it’s after midnight right now), we got snow.  It wasn’t really that much, just a few little specs that melted on contact with the ground.  My roommate says it was sleet, but I believe sleet means rain and snow, and at that moment I think it was just snow.  So that was the first snow of the season.

Today we actually got some respectable amount of snow.  Rain too later on, but there was definitely some snow.  It didn’t accumulate much, but it was decent.  It’s funny, as two years (and a week or so) ago my hometown of Buffalo got hit with a storm of apocalyptic proportions.  It knocked out the poiwer to my house for a week, but luckilly my parents had a generator.  The trees along my street had their branches decimated too.  It really wasn’t a lot of snow, but it came fast.

Who knows how this winter will be.  But this fall is looking pretty good.  It’s cold out, which is nice, and the trees are looking really beautiful.  My only gripe is that it’s a little cloudy.  Even that’s not so bad, at least not until late winter when it seems like it’s always dark.

I’m still working on my light flicker circuit, which I hope to have described in more detail here by Halloween, but I’m not sure if that’ll happen.  Well, whatever.  It’s a neat circuit, and really makes a light bulb flash like a candle convincingly.  Problem is, when I put it together on a project board I found that it shorts somewhere.  Oh well.

Homecoming

This past weekend was my school’s homecoming.  It was fun, I played in the Jazz Band and got to see Bill Nye and later Jimmy Fallon.  The food was good too.

I only stuck around for Saturday, though.  That night I went home and didn’t return until later Sunday evening.  So, it was kind of my own homecoming too.  It had been a nice weekend weather-wise, and I got to see a few friends who were home briefly from other schools.  I took some pictures too.

Autumn Comes to the Swamp

Well it’s getting cooler out and things are starting to turn a little more fall-like.  Well slightly.  But it’s a nice change, seeing as I was here most of the summer.  I took some pictures the other day, and so here they are.

As a side note, I sometimes wonder whether or not any of these pictures would actually help anyone identify where I am.  While I’m not really worried about a stalker or anything I do try to be at least a little careful of what information about me I let onto the Internet.  I may have mentioned where I am at one point on this blog, and I’m pretty sure most visitors can figure out my name is Ben, but I don’t go out of my way to give out too much information.

At any rate, if you do figure out where I am that’s great.  But I’ve got better things to do than confirm it.  So, enjoy the pictures.

First Day of Fall

Well, today is the first day of fall.  This is kind of nice, it’s cooler and then there’s the mental thing of how the summer’s finally over.  We don’t need the air conditioner much anymore, despite the apartment having a crappy crossbreeze.

I have a plan.  I am going to do something on campus, and it will be cool.  I cannot say much about what it is, but it will be neat and people will like it.  Maybe you will notice it, maybe you won’t.  Don’t worry about it.

Now, let’s see.  Aside from that I still have to go and configure Postfix and LDAP for virtual domains, which should prove to be epic, but that can be put on hold for a bit anyway.

The Fall

I know that the fall is a ways away.  However, it’s starting to come now, I can feel it.  It’s cooler out, and some of the leaves are starting to fall of the trees.

It’s nice, as it was hot this weekend.  Very hot, actually.  There was rain, and a lot of wind, but I ended up staying in air conditioning most of the time.  The worst part is the muggieness.  Heat is one thing, but if it’s too humid out it’s pretty uncomfortable around here.

I have a project I am going to post here soon.  It’s nothing to incredible, just a circuit that makes a light bulb flicker to look like a candle flame.  But it’s pretty neat, nice way to play with 555 timers and MOSFETS.  Check back soon.