Ok, everyone will be getting tired of all these updates on the baby, but some of this is very cool . . . or very weird. I leave it up to you to decide. Here is the latest “photos”. Actually it is a 4D movie from the last ultra sound. The resolution is not quite as good as we saw in the first scan a few weeks ago. This was taken with a different machine, at a different facility. Still you get the idea. Oh and the sex? Well he’s ( yes he!) is only 13 weeks here so it is not 100% positive, we’ll know for sure in a couple of weeks. Petrie’s just can’t produce girls!
http://www.petrieweb.net/video/Baby3d.flvAnyone who watched TV in Canada in the 1970’s will recognize this:
While the famous “exploding pizza” logo has been updated over the years, it is without question the symbol of public broadcasting in Canada.
So much to my surprise what did I find in the store today. Has funding for the CBC come down to this? Gift Cards? No it’s Apple’s new iTunes Gift card. Obviously its a take on the click wheel found on most of the classic iPods. But wow, did they not research that there could be similar designs out there?
Now I know most people outside of Canada have never heard of the CBC, and I’m not even sure that is a trademark outside of Canada. But with the “mother corporation” needing over $100 million in more funding, perhaps she should get the litigation underway now!
Tyler found the perfect new name for Leah. No one can seem to get the old name right except for me, so my parents decided on the name Foxy!!
I received a phone call from Mom yesterday. They found a dog they fell in love with and want to take her home, but the shelter wants to make sure she gets along with Rufus and Tyler. So, today we all went down to the shelter to meet Leah (I don’t know if they are keeping the name). Everyone got along so here she is…
Updated the HTPC today. I had been using the onboard graphics solution which had component out to my HDTV. When I first built the computer I had always intended to add a discrete graphics card. At one time I had an NVIDA card that also had component HD out, but I found that the onboard graphics actually had better saturation and contrast.
So that worked fine, until last year when Netflix updated their DRM for instant viewing, and I was unable to watch instant movies on the HTPC without a HDCP compliant video card. At the time most HDCP cards were well over $100, so while it sucked to only be able to watch instant movies on my laptop, I decided to wait for awhile to see if any cards came down in price. (Ok I was told by Tracie to wait for a while to see if cards came down in price!)
Fast forward to now and I finally got around to check out what HDCP compliant cards are out there. To my surprise I found the choice out there now to be almost overwhelming! I have always liked ASUS, in fact the motherboard in the HTPC is an ASUS M2NPV-VM, and as I said its integrated graphics outperformed that old NVIDIA card. Also as a Canuck I have always been biased to the ATI cards, even though they are owned by AMD now. I have always felt that when it comes to games NVIDIA usually has the edge, but for TV, video and HD applications, ATI is where its at.
I picked up the ASUS EAH4550 card from NewEgg.com. It is a low profile, HDCP compliant card based on the ATI HD 4550. It has VGA, DVI and HDMI out, and all for about $45 after rebate! My HTPC is such a hack right now, that I’m always leery about changing anything on it because that usually means that something else will break. I’m still running XP on that machine, because Vista just can’t get all the components working together. Well I installed the card, attached the HDMI cable to the TV and booted her back up.
Everything worked the first time! I was so disappointed! 
There was one small hiccup. After installing the drivers I noticed that any audio for video went through HDMI cable instead of the audio out to home theater amp. After disabling the HDMI audio, everything worked as it should. The picture quality is amazing, and the contrast and detail over the component video is like night and day. Why did I wait so long to do this?! Oh that’s right Tracie!
But the best part is Netflix on demand works again. And now that they are adding more and more HD content, the card will be able to handle all that onboard, without offloading that the CPU.
While its not a gaming card, I hope to try a few out to see how it handles them. Nothing better that killing a few Nazis on the big screen!
Well we got to meet the newest member of the family today. We had our first ultra-sound, and here are some the results.
Just amazing the 3d technology. You can actually see him move in 3d in real time! So far everything seems to be fine. He is much further along then we thought. He is currently 11 weeks and 3 days old, 4.5 centimeters long and his due date is October 11.
We woke up to an absolutely gorgeous day. It was a little on the warm side, but that was balanced by a light breeze. After we checked out, it was off to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.
Tracie and I had been there in 2003 and was probably the highlight of that trip. The museum is way out in the hills on the western side of the city, surrounded by nothing but desert and tens of thousands of saguaro cactuses. Part zoo, part natural history museum, the ASDM focus is on the Sonora Desert and out interaction with it.
The museum is laid out on various paths and trails, with the various exhibits along the way. Being a hot day, most of the animals were pretty hard to find. Tyler had fun stamping a book with footprints from all the animals in the park.
We decided to have lunch at the museum as we were heading back to Phoenix immediately. Ok, I know that you always get overcharged at these places, but $3.25 for a soda!???!? Lunch for us all came to over $35.00, not the best value for sure, but with the facility so for removed from civilization, you do not have a lot of options.
After lunch we headed for home and drove through the Saguaro National Park. Very cool drive, through windy roads, and literally a forest of cactus. And so ended our Tucson trip. We probably enjoyed this one a little better than the last. Maybe we will come down this way a little more often. I always heard Bisbee was nice, perhaps that will be our next foray into southern Arizona.
We spent the better part of the day at the Pima Air & Space Museum.
The museum is about 15 miles south of Tucson, near Davis-Motham AFB. The museum is really two parts, indoor themed displays with various interactive exhibits, and a massive outdoor static display of various aircraft. We saw most all of the indoor displays, and all the static displays that Tyler’s three year old legs would allow. Expect to take about 3 to 4 hours to see it all.
We were very impressed with the wide variety of aircraft, especially large aircraft, on display. Most museums would be proud of 1 B-52, but 3 side by side? They also had a B-17, B-29, and an SR-71. Most aircraft were available to go right up and touch, but very few were you able to actually go inside.
After lunch we decided to head back to the room. We were a little annoyed that by 3pm the room still hadn’t been cleaned! Still we took a nap (well Tracie did anyway) and then decided to do some shopping. Didn’t buy too much (for myself that is), Tracie finally got her own laptop though. With Tracie doing her Masters online, I’ve just got tired of sharing mine all the time.
Ended the day with our first ever trip to the Waffle House. I know they are raved about in the south, but there is only one that I know of in Phoenix. Well we had come across 3 or 4 in Tucson so decided to see what the fuss was about. To me it seemed a step down from a Denny’s. The staff were pleasant though, and the food was good for what it was.
Tomorrow its the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.
It’s been 6 years, one dog and one kid ago, since we’ve last been to Tucson. We went for a few days and had high expectations because of what we had been told to expect there. Everyone said we would love it.
Well as I said it’s been 6 years, one dog, and one kid and we have really never felt the need to go back. Maybe that trip was doomed from high expectations, with this trip having such low ones hopefully the opposite will be true.
We stayed at the Best Western Inn and Suites at the Tucson foothills. Nothing really that special, but it was clean and quiet and recently remodeled. Could have used a few more plugs around the room, (indicative of an older facility) but the fridge and cook top was a nice touch, and as always important for me the free wifi was excellent 1.3 m/bit up 1.5 down.
Tomorrow the plan is to see the Pima Air and Space Museum.
Amazing Race has been on for 4 weeks now and I’ve missed every episode!!!
 
 I absolutely love this show, but have always felt that CBS has never properly promoted it.
Fortunately they have the first episodes I’ve missed up at CBS.com. I guess I’ll have some catching up to do next week when I’m on vacation.
After checking out the amazing race site, I’m wondering if watching it online would be a better experience that watching it on TV. Not only do you have fewer commercials, but there are loads of additional videos, behind the scene features, and other information that you just can’t get on the broadcast version.
I remember an early Star Trek Next Gen episode where they mentioned that TV died as a form of entertainment early in the 21st century. Star Trek maybe prophetic once again.