Welcome Back Random Photo

Expert means that you know more than anyone you need to talk to about the subject. - Timothy Ferriss

In the before time, the long, long ago, my website was statically put together on my computer and then uploaded to Lycos for hosting. To make my life easier I moved it the main story handling to blogger and all the hosting over to GoDaddy. As part of the transition I knew there would be a loss of some functionality, but that generally everything would be easier, faster and all around better.
One of the losses in the transition was the "random photo" widget I had running in the header of my website. When I clicked "published" in my old system, it would run a perl file that would find all pictures and build a giant static javascript file that could randomly select and load one. With the most, all of my photos are now hosted in Picasa and I can't do that. So I just let it go. Or so I thought.
But one particular friend (hi Timmy!) told me that I was not allowed to do that! He asked (demanded?) that I fix the random photo display on my website. Since he might name his firstborn child after me, I felt like I needed to figure it out. I have! It works! Let me tell you how!
I am using JQuery and Picasa Web APIs to do it and it wasn't that hard! Wasn't that hard at all with a grand total of 30-lines of javascript that would be a lot more compact if I wanted it to be.
One call to get total number of photos in the album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/username/albumid/albumId?alt=json&max-results=0&fields=openSearch:totalResults
Generate a random number between 1 and the result and then one more call to pull back the URLs for that image.
https://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/username/albumid/albumId?alt=json&max-results=1&start-index="+showPhoto
Then you get a random photo!

Falling Behind on Content Consumption

Where you are is not really different than any other place you could be. - Dennis Kas

Over the past few years I've basically had all the time I once spent reading be slowly replaced with other activities.  For a long time I was always reading three books at a time.  One book in my backpack for use on the train to work, on flights, at coffee shops, etc.  One book next to my bed to read for a little while before going to sleep.  One book on my Palm Pilot that I could read when in didn't have the others around: waiting for meetings, standing in line for something, etc.
For the past many years I've always had my iPhone on me and I've slowly migrated away from having a written book towards having podcasts and audiobooks.  I veraciously consume these while I'm cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, commuting in my car and copy-pasting spreadsheets at work.  Over this Christmas, I'm on vacation with Mrs.Chaos' family and have been spending nearly all my time talking with the family and playing with the nieces and the nephew.  Often the nieces are playing make-believe while I'm sitting in the room and it would be the perfect opportunity to read a book on my phone, but I don't have one.  I just have audio and that doesn't work as well.  I am being constantly asked questions and it's just too tough to pause the audio, ask them to repeat, answer the question and then start it again.  Reading is great; it automatically pauses when I look away.  So my list just keeps getting longer and longer.  

Fourth Annual Graham Cracker Shacks

Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life's true delights. - Iroh (Avatar)

We tend to have two big parties every year. The first party is my birthday, obviously a tradition that I have held for many decades. The other big party is the annual graham cracker shack party which originated with Mrs.Chaos. This year we were a little worried because we invited more than fifty people and we were sure we had enough space for everyone to work! A total of twenty-three people showed up throughout the evening and it was fantastic.
It was also the most diverse group of friends we've gathered that included my usual suspects, people from swing dancing and people from the book club we joined half way through the year (did I mention we're in a book club now?).
Some year we should start presenting awards for things like: most professional looking, most creative, most geeky, etc. Not this year. A few standouts:
1) The Farm. Obviously planned, Meghan brought colored frosting for the red barn and frosted mini-wheats to make hay barrels.

Graham Cracker Shack - The Farm

2) The Tower of Babel -or- the Jenga Tower. Built so high that the teddy graham people started talking other languages. The creator learned that our second year someone had made a seven story tall tower and needed to beat it.

Graham Cracker Shack - Tower of Babel

3) A Prius and a Snowspeeder - proving graham crackers build more than houses.

Graham Cracker Prius

Graham Cracker Snowspeeder

Something I found amazing was at the end of the night, my gang of usual suspects had gone home to bed. These are the people I expect to stick around until 1am or 2am discussing the finer points of playing Ticket to Ride or Dominion. Instead they turned into pumpkins, and the newer groups of dancers and readers stuck around for the final picture. And.... video fly through.

Download Video: MP4

2011 in Review

Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen. - Conan O'Brien

Another year is coming to an end. What amazing year. This is the first year end video where I actually have videos taken during the year I want to include. This technology thing is crazy!

Download Video: MP4

No Shave November

There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless - boys and women - and I am neither one. - Someone Silly

So ends the season of no-shave-november.  Though I've grown a beard before, I've never participated in the month.  One of my friends start the month by shaving his face and head and made me jealous.  I reminded Mrs.Chaos that when we first met I was sporting a fancy beard which made me look older and wiser and she agreed to let me go the month without shaving (much).
It was not as easy as it might have been.  It turns out that Mrs.Chaos didn't like the scratch of the beard and so mid-month it turned into "No Shave / No Kiss" November for me.  It was an unintended consequence and it took a lot of extra mid-month negotiation with my wife about letting me finish.
It's now over, I have returned to being clean shaven, and so ends what is likely to be the last no-shave November I will ever have the pleasure of participating in.
I have tried to embed an HTML5 video player and use the HTML5 video tags for the below video. Will it work in the page in the RSS feed? I really have no clue. But I needed to do this test in preparation for my upcoming year-end video.

Download Video:
MP4

Thanksgiving Travels

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice. - Meister Eckhart

Mrs.Chaos and I have are sharing our family traditions during the holiday season. Our system, pioneered by her family, is to have one year with an in-laws Thanksgiving and an outlaws Christmas followed by the next year with the outlaws Thanksgiving and the in-laws Christmas. This year is my family's turn for the Thanksgiving and then her family's turn for Christmas.
The two families have a very different feel for the holiday season. Her family tradition has everyone gather together at her parent's house and just casually relax and hang out for the season. There are games played, television watched, movies seen, meals shared, ATVs ridden, and all sorts of things. It's long and relaxed and filled with togetherness.
My tradition is to cram in as many family events as possible in as short of a time as possible. So I spend the holidays seeing my mother's side of the family, my father's side of the family, events with friends, etc. Just a lot of little events.
How did that translate this thanksgiving?

• Wednesday - hanging out my male cousins and their girlfriends until 5am.
• Thursday - Thanksgiving with my mother's family.
• Friday - Lunch with my grandparents, followed by swing dancing.
• Saturday - Relax.
• Sunday - Thanksgiving Leftovers with my father's family.

It'll be interesting as the future unfolds for our own family and we combines the traditions to make our own--as well as throw in a few of our own.  Bulgogi soup for Thanksgiving?  Why that does sound lovely

Happy thanksgiving! I'm thankful for having more friends and family than I know what to do with.

And here is the picture of three of the four men of similar genetic descent.  My older brother was busy living on the east coast.