今日の花写真

今日の花写真集。　

I Lied, Dell Didn't Flip Flop

They didn't flip flop, they just hid it. This page doesn't indicate anything about Ubuntu when you click on of the systems except for the $349 one. Hence, if you click on the Mini 10v on that page, you do not have the option to swap out windows for Ubuntu. Hence I thought that is was no longer an option.

My daughter, concerned that she wasn't going to get her favored Ubuntu netbook did some more digging. And sure enough, it's not that they don't sell it, they just hide it. Well, I guess hiding it isn't even right. It all depends on how you navigate the site. If you go to their laptops page and only select minibooks in the left hand navigation box, you get this page which does show the ubuntu version.

Clearly this is a marketing thing. They don't want to sell ubuntu (or Microsoft doesn't want them to) is one way of looking at it. Based on my experience with Dell I tend to take that view. It's always hard to find linux boxen even though they are there. But more likely, really, is that most consumers would be confused since they don't know what Ubuntu even is.

But here's the thing - the Mini 10v is a Mini 10V and you can customize it to your delight. With the exception of the operating system depending on which one you find first. Wouldn't it just make sense to make the operating system customizable? Or at least a link to the other system? For what it's worth, you can't select windows if you happen to start with the Ubuntu system.

I now remember why this will be this family's first dell ever. It's just too hard to by a non-windows system even though they offer it.

Suffice it to say though, my daughter is relieved that they do sell the Mini 10v with Ubuntu and is excited to get hers.

Dell Does A Flip Flop - Windows Cheaper than Ubuntu Netbook

I'm amazed. A few weeks ago I was looking at getting a netbook from Dell, largely because we get an employee discount. Not much of a discount, but a discount. So I login again today since my daughter wants to buy one. One with Ubuntu on it, not Windows. Her choice, not mine - though if you know me, you'd know Ubuntu would be my choice as well.

When I originally saved my cart (cool little feature there on Dell's site), I had selected a Mini 10v, which came with Ubuntu. And it cost $299. The Windows netbooks were like $50 more. So imagine my suprise when I go back today and the Mini 10v is only available with Windows on it, and the Ubuntu version now costs what the Windows version did previously, $349.

No explanation, no nothing. You just can't order the Mini 10v with Ubuntu on it anymore. You only have the option of Windows XP SP3. Which is surprising to me since we all know that Microsoft has been waffling back and forth as to when XP is going to hit the junk heap.

I would be absolutely fascinated with Dell's explanation of this flip flop. The only change in the configuration is the OS. What made Ubuntu, a free and free of charge OS all of a sudden $50 more expensive than an operating system that costs money?

Maybe I need to go back and consider Asus again. But that will be for my next one. We did order the Mini 10v that was saved in my cart. We'll see what actually shows up.

More Flower Pics

More pics from our garden and yard. Arisa's on a roll here...

うさぎ、＊＊やろう

うさぎ、馬鹿やろう！　といって仕方がないじゃないんですか。　分かっているけど、やっぱ頭が来ますわ。

いや、実は前から小さなうさぎちゃんが何回もバークヤードに発見しています。　しかも、殆ど人間に怖がらないやつなですよ。　子供のうさぎだから可愛いし、ガーデンではなくクローバ(Clover)とか食べていたのであんまり気にしていないのです。でも、こんなにやられると、あいつがピーターラビットと同じ経験させようかなと思っています。　でも、昨夜隣に住んでいる方と話しをしたら、やっぱうさぎではんくグラウンドホグが犯人だと思います。

僕も前に見たことがあって、デカーーーーイやつんですわ。　多分２ー３フィートぐらいの大きさです。　隣の方が一昨日に我が庭にいることを見たそうです。　こういつをどう追い出すかが今の課題です。　もちろん、フェンスを買った方が良いでしょうけど、まず他の手段を使う予定です。　非常にシャイだそうで、風鈴を出しました。これからグラウンドホグが嫌いな石けんとかアモニアとかを使って見ます。

結局、フェンスしかないと気がするけれど、フェンスだって登ることが出来るし、下に掘ることも出来るなので困りますわ。　

Quick Garden Pics

Just a quick update on our backyard garden, which is mostly vegetables.

Grow Your Own

p>今年は、レモンタイムを植えました。　成長ぶりとかはまったく分からないですけど、小さな花が咲き始めているから一応生きているんだな。　今年はハーブが結構植えましたが、他のハーブはどのように使うのかは分かっていますけど、レモンタイムが分からないので、
レシピーをグーグルしました。そうすると、美味しいそうなレモンソベットのレシピーを見つかりました(英語）。　これをやってみようと思っておりますけど、アイスクリーム機会がないので諦めるかもしれません。

そのページを読んだらこのGrow Your Ownというブログイベントを見つかりました。　なんか、このアイディアが非常に面白いなと思って参加しようと思っています。

参加ルールは非常に簡単です。 第一条件として、自分のガーデンの野菜などを使ったレシピーを自分のブログに投稿します。　ようは自分が育ったものをなんらかの形でレシピーで使うことです。 例えば、今月の初め頃に「Garden Report」という記事を書いたのですが、その中でうちのガーデンから収得したレタスとChives(ニイラ？）を使った「生春巻き」を作ったという内容でした。　一応、そのぐらいにレシピーを加えれば、GYOの条件を満たすわけです。 ブログにアップしたら、300x300以内の写真と簡単なブログ紹介をホストにメールします。　ホストは持ち回りに8月中旬まで決まっていて、リストアップされています。　（ホストは自分のブログに全員のブログ内容をまとめて紹介する役割です。　毎回、担当変わるのでそんなに重くならないような仕組みになっています。

JANOでもこのような形式でなんかやっていいかなと思いますね。 　

僕はこのGYOに参加しますけど、　どのレシピーでやるかはありさと相談しないと。。。。

Not Just Vegetables

Okay, just so you don't get the wrong impression. We here at neohawk.org don't do just vegetables. In fact, vegetables are generally my reposonsiblity. Arisa, on the other hand does the flowers. So here are some quick pics:

Update: I finally got some good pics on the one rose flower that's blooming. Bunch more coming in. I added them to the pics below.

The flowers are mostly in the front of the house, while the last three pictures in the above slide show are the side of our driveway in front of the garage. We have a bunch of sunflowers there, some shiso, and other mixed flowers. This side area is actually kind of a collaborative effort. When some of the flowers that I planted in the backyard bloom, I'll grab some picks.

Garden Report

Okay, so the garden is coming along okay. Today, we picked our first radish, grabbed three more strawberries, and picked one head of lettuce. The lettuce is a tad bit early I think, but we wanted to taste it, and I wanted to thin the row out a little bit. Check out the pics below:

 

The last picture in the slide show is a picture of a "Raw Spring Roll". It's made with lettuce, chives, harusame(green been noodle?), pork, shrimp, and egg. You dip it in a korean miso based sauce, i.e., spicy. Of course, the lettuce and chives were from our yard.

m, m, good

Google Connect for Comments

For the time being, nevermind. It didn't work like I thought it would.

I am trying something new on this blog. I am giving Google Connect a go for commenting. I have also added a "social bar" on the right side of the blog, but that was really part of my testing to make sure that Google Connect was working.

This site is powered mostly by Byteflow with some minor code added by me (news and links), and a couple other pieces of Django code/modules. But I wanted to give Google connect a try. With Byteflow, in order to comment you need to register with this site either with an OpenID account or a email address and password. I'm pleased with the OpenID support, but not many people actually know what it is. They do know their google, aim, or yahoo accounts and can use those to register and then comment.

Of course, there actually needs to be somebody reading this blog before any comments are going to happen. But I know I'm talking to myself here in the ether. But I think this may be easier in the long run.

I'll need to tidy up my templates since there is still some stuff left over from the byteflow templates. I'll need to nix those when I get around to it.

Page Speed

Check this out, Google's version of Yahoo's YSlow.



http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/index.html

Memorial Day Weekend

A tad bit belated, but we had a very nice Memorial Day. For lunch, we had our first attempt at bbq'd ribs and I must say it was quite successful. After that we headed to the Blossom Time Festival in Chagrin Falls, and listened to Alex Bevan. On the way home, we had dinner at Four Guys Burgers and Fries to see what all the fuss was about. Pretty darn good burgers..

マイ いちご

昨日、JANOのブログに「いちご狩りの季節 」という投稿がありましたが、我がガーデンにもイチゴがかなり成長しています。２－３週間前に植えましたが、以下の画像とおりに成長しています。　すでに一番大きなのが、少し赤くなっています。

食べるのを楽しみしています。

JANO Sakura Picnic

JANO has released more information on this year's Annual Sakura Picnic. Once again it's a potluck picnic and the the Consul General from the Detroit Consulate will be in attendance.

• Sakura Picnic Flier (English PDF)
• 桜ピックニック フライヤー （日本語 PDF ）

If you are interested in Japan, or meeting with Japanese, or just looking to have some fun and eat some really good Japanese food, feel free to come along. It'll be held at the Brookside Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks (see map below for location)

View Cleveland Metroparks Brookside Pavilion in a larger map

 

Cavs Win, Cavs Win

Big hattip to Blogger Interrupted for this vid.

I gotta admit that I pretty much had the same gut-wrenching thoughts that Leon verbalized - "there's always next year". My reaction though was exactly like the guy on the right who jumps up and screams "Cavs Win, Cavs Win". I just was't on a live broadcast.

Gardening

This year I'm trying my hand at setting up a vegetable garden. We are trying to start almost everything from seeds, but since we started late, I did breakdown and by some at a store.

We have radish, green beans, tomatoes, chingensai, bitaminsai, onions, green onions and sunflowers. All of these were grown from seeds. We also have store bought plants including corn, green peppers, japanese eggplants, watermelon, a grape vine, strawberries, and pumpkin. We have a big back yard so we tilled two areas for the garden. We were able to fence in one of the gardens, but the other one we just have to hope that the fact that the yard is fenced will keep the bad bunnies out. Unfortunately, I already know that this is a failure. In particular there is a really big ground hog which appears to live under the shed. I am transplanting some mint from the front garden, and may move some our plentiful chives. I'm hoping the chives and mint will help be a natural pesticide. Thinking of getting some marigolds as well, since I was unable to get any to grow from seeds.

I hope to update the photo album as the garden progresses. I'm hoping it'll be successful, even if we did start late. In particular, I'm interested in how the tomatoes do as I started them from seeds and was quite successful. We have about 26 of them. I hope I wasn't too late in starting them...

Chagrin Falls Blossom Time Festival

WKYC よりチャグリンフォールズのBlossom Time祭りが明日（木曜日）から月曜日まで行われます。 中学生ごろこの祭りに行ったことがある記憶があります

チャグリンフォールズは小さな町で昔の味があります。　もちろん、チャグリンフォールズの中にチャグリン川の滝があります。その横にレストランがあったり、上にショップなどがあります。　そして、町の真中に公園があって、その中に乗り物とかが設置されます。予定表は英語になりますが、時間ごとに何が開催されるとか全部リストアップしています： 予定表

小さな子供を持っている方々にはいいかもしれませんよ。 Ferris Wheelとかの乗り物があります。　本当にアメリカ小さな町の祭りをたっぷり体験出来ます

日曜日に4時からAlex Bevanの公演があるそうです。　僕は大学時代にBevanさんを大学に誘って小さなコンサートをしてもらいました。　僕が大好きな名曲：Skinny (Little Boy From Cleveland Ohio)なんですよ。　youtubeで発見！このビデオは大学でコンサートしてもらった４年後ですね。

彼を見に行くつもりです。　大学時代にバーでのライブをよく見にいきました。　もう年をとっているけど間違えなくいいコンサートになると思います。

アップデート Our Cleveland Daysは行ってきたみたいです。 [ Blossom Time Festival ]投稿をみてください  

Prom 2009

昨夜はメイフィルド高校のプロムでした。　プロムは3年生と4年生用で今年エリーの初体験でした。　他のフォーマル服用のイベントがあったが、親としてプロム初体験しました。　

Chombo

I am currently reading William Gibson's Spook Country (amazon). One of the key characters, though he actually has shown up briefly, is the center of alot activity. His name is Bobby Chombo.

Thai Chef

今の仕事で６割ぐらいが出張になっている。　現在やっているプロジェクトはニュージャージー州にある会社です。　出張になると外食が多くなります。　最初は結構楽しんで沢山食べていたが、一気に体重が増えたわけんです。　それで最近、出張するときにちょっと流れを変えまして、仕事から帰るとパネラブレッドにいって、サンドウィッチとサラダを買ってホテルに戻ります。　１時間前後ぐらい運動してから食べるようにしていました。

でもね、いつもこのパターンだど、変わった味がある食べ物を食べたがってきて、昨夜モントクレア市にある「Thai Chef」を食べに行きました。