Several of you know that for the last year or so, I've been toying with building a camera crane, or 'jib'.  I've been putting it off for technical reasons until recently.

The main thing that was deterring me was building a pan/tilt head.  I have one pretty much designed, but I really don't have the equipment to be able to do a proper job of testing it as I go.  I even have a microcontroller programmed with my assembly program for controlling the stepper motors with a standard computer joystick.  Anyway, it was too big a job for a simple hobby.

I went as far as designing a crane with no pan/tilt head, attempting to acheive it all through pulleys and cables.  It wasn't capable or portable enough to be much use for my projects.

So, I'm going back to my original design, but I'm purchasing an off-the-shelf solution for a pan/tilt head.  I managed to find a full solution for around $100, and it's simple enough to be easily stuck on the end of a very long jib arm.

Hopefully by Friday I'll have a crane to use at the CD release party for Three Nails Short, a band that one of my former Sunday School students is in. I've talked about them before.

No one but Webdell seems interested in my Wiki.  I've got a few projects up there.  I'll give it a few more weeks to catch on.  I really find it useful for quickly cross-referencing my thoughts on stuff.

I just read a fanstasic article on designing for performance by Rico Mariani.  He's the .NET runtime performance guy at Microsoft.  It's a great article.

Ok, we have alot of discussions here in blog world.  Blogs don't lend themselves to discussions.  They tend to get left behind when new content arrives.  It's hard to get notified when someone answers your comment on someone else's blog.

Wiki to the rescue!  As an experiement, I've set up a Wiki where we can have our discussions about the BCS, smoking, Clinton, marshmallow peeps, or whatever we want.  I'd also like to collaborate on film projects and whatever.  It's a big experiement, much like this blog was so many moons ago.

Here's hoping I can start another trend.

Since I've been on a diet, I've been bagging my lunch much more often.  Actually, I should say Becky has been bagging my lunch much more often.  She does a fantastic job of putting that together just about every morning, and I would like to thank her publicly for that.

She is also becoming very resourceful.  For instance, we must be out of plastic sandwich bags because my carrots, sandwich, and multi-vitamin were all encased in Saran Wrap today.

Dave and I rented the GameCube version of Return of the King yesterday.  It was really awesome.  For someone really looking forward to the movie, it really heightened the anticipation.  It follows the storyline from the end of Helms Deep through the end of the movie (I guess, we didn't finish it by any means).

If you are a fan of the old Gauntlet arcade game, and a fan of the books/movies, it's fantastic.  It does contain real shots/environments from the movie, so if you're looking for that sterile movie experience, don't play it until after the movie, but this is such a well-known story that it shouldn't matter much.

Anyway, it's real cool, and has a nice multi-player cooperative mode.  I've heard the PS2 version doesn't look as nice, but should be pretty cool as well.

Well, Becky's parents came into town last night from El Paso.  I worked most of the day today and we all ate at P.F. Chang's, one of my very favorite restaurants.  It seemed a little silly to have a P.F. Chang's feast the day before Thanksgiving, but it was delicious anyway.

We just watched the first half of the special edition of “The Two Towers”.  All the new footage is great.  It really fills it in nicely.

Tommorow's the big day, all my practicing will come together, and we should have a great fried turkey.  I got it all marinated this afternoon, so we're all set.  Half cajun creole and garlic flavored, and the other half hot & spicy.

Since we're on the subject of eating, I'd like to reveal to everyone that I've been working hard and have lost almost 30 pounds in the last several months.  Really it's about 27, but 30 sounds better.  For the first time since college I weigh 200 pounds.  The best part is it's a lifestyle change that should be simple to keep.  I mainly realized that I was eating for about 6 people.  It all started when we had a health screening at work, and my cholesterol was high.  Since I was going to have to adjust my diet anyway to avoid cholesterol, I thought I might as well kill two birds with one stone, and not eat them both for once.

My ultimate target is somewhere between 190 and 200, but with alot more muscle than I've got going on right now, so I plan on heading toward 190, and stepping up the exercise.  Becky's lost alot as well, and we both are feeling very good.  Mom and Dad are losing weight as well, and I'm very proud of them for that.  We'll be seeing them tomorrow, along with Andrew.  Poor Sara has to work.  Jeff, I'll be sure to get his email address.

Anyway, hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!  I'll probably use the extra time to get up some pictures I've been promising.

In case you don't have an aggregator that tells you when posts change, I've made some adjustments to my wish list.  Again, I want to make it clear that I'm not asking people to buy these things, I thought it would be an interesting insight into my personality for my readers.

Another side-effect of my list is that it is causing me to think about what are the technologies that REALLY interest me, and build a roadmap for my hobbies.  Right now, I have so many hobbies that very few of them ever yield anything of interest.  I'm finding my efforts to be much more focused.  In the process I'm finding projects that combine many of my hobbies so I can kill several birds with one stone.  For instance, as a result of the list, I've decided I probably won't buy another DVD player, but rather focus on a concept called an HTPC.

There are lots of hobbies to be fulfilled here:

• Designing/Building things - It's going to require creating a case that minimizes noise, while maximizes cooling and looks wicked awesome.
• Electricity - It gots ta have wires
• Software - I can write all kinds of stuff for it to have cool features I've always wanted.
• Computers - It is one
• Movies - I can watch them
• Music - I can listen to it

I could go on and on.  But for now I won't.

We just got back from Belton where we hung out with the family for Andrew's birthday.  He got loaded up with all kinds of goodies.  I'll let him share those with you individually if he wants.  You know how he gets...Some of you, anyway.  We had a great time.

Well, since it seems to be somewhat popular on the weblogs I read, here's my Holiday Wishlist.  I'm not doing this because I'm trying to be greedy.  First of all, this is more of a dream list than a realistic wishlist, but it should let people know what kind of stuff I'm into.  I'll try to keep it up to date with my latest whims.

Home Theater Stuff:

• Samsung 50“ DLP TV - Ok, I'm crazy.  I have a very nice TV already...but come on!
• Samsung HD DVD Player - 720p...enough said. (note: I know DVD's do not contain that kind of resolution...but come on!)  It would go great with the TV! I've taken this off the list.  It only up-converts to HD on the DVI output, meaning I'd need an expensive converter, or the above TV (which upconverts to 720p anyway).  Also, there's alot of talk on new HD DVDs. I think I'll go for a pc-based solution next time around.
• Sony STR-DA3000ES - Ok, so this is the most reasonable thing so far.  I could go much crazier on a digital receiver, but Andrew's made me a believer in Sony ES again.
• Sony Universal Remote Commander - I've got no less than 7 remotes, all of which I have to use at some point.  I've got some friends with this that say it is well worth it. Whoo hoo! already got it!!  

Misc.:

• Roomba Vacuum - I know I already have a nice vacuum, but this one's right up my alley.
• Indiana Jones DVD Trilogy (Widescreen) - I just picked up The Two Towers set and figured Indie could wait a while.  (I won't fully delve into the widescreen/fullscreen debate here, except to note that fullscreen is a ploy to make more money from the uneducated consumer.) My boy Cooper came through BIG TIME!!
• a Love Sac - These things are cool!

Computer Stuff:

• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB video card - Ok, maybe this is overkill.  I could easily go with the 9600 pro.  Since I got my LCD screen, I've been itching for a DVI card.
• MDP-120 HDTV Tuner card - The perfect driving force behind my HTPC.
• M-Audio Revolution 8-channel sound card - Perfect for driving 7.1 audio out of my HTPC.

Video Games:

• Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (for GameCube) - Looks like fun. Got it
• Beyond Good and Evil (for GameCube) - Got excellent reviews. Got it!!
• Mario Kart: Double Dash (for GameCube) - Classic sequel Got it!!!
• GameCube Broadband Adapter - For internet Double Dash! Got it with a thoughtful gift certificate
• Nintendo WaveBird Controller - I have one, but only one.

Ok, some of these are ridiculous.

On another note, I've been hounding Jen and Dave to get an RSS feed for their blog.  They're hosting on blogSpot, who charges for those fancy things.  They've managed to get comments and tracking from other locations, so I thought I'd step in and get them an RSS feed.  It still needs some work.  I don't have comments working yet, or the time of the posts, or several other non-essentials, but now it's even easier to keep track of what they're doing.

[Update 10:50]

Just got Referrer spoofing implemented so RSS requests will show up correctly.  Also, I updated my User-Agent string to be more humorous.  In doing so, I found some inconsistencies in the Framework for the spelling of Referrer (Referer).

My first Fried Turkey experience was a complete success.  Dave helped me out a bunch.  We only had a few minor difficulties, but I'll be ready for Thanksgiving for sure.  I'll see about getting some pictures up here tommorow.