eMusic

I bought some Dockers this weekend and it included “100 free music downloads” which turns out just to be a trial month with eMusic, a subscription download service. Previously McDonald’s had given away a free song on Sony’s download service, but I investigated that and found out that they used some proprietary music format that only Sony players would recognize. So I never bothered. But 100 free songs sounded pretty good since on iTunes that would be worth $99!

So I looked into it to make sure it was worth it. Interesting. They let you download true MP3 formatted songs with no copyright restrictions and recorded at high variable bitrates for best quality. They don’t have as many songs as iTunes, only 250,000. So what’s the catch?

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The Pine Cone Game

Susan’s dog, Beacon, invented a game they play when they go on walks. Beacon will find a pine cone, pick it up, walk with it for a little while, and then drop it. In a few steps Susan will catch up to it and kick it. By that time Beacon has stopped and, facing Susan, is set up like hockey goalie to try and stop the pine cone. Whether it gets past Beacon or not she gets the pine cone in her mouth again and walks with it. The game starts again as she carries it for a few seconds and then drops it on the street for Susan to kick again. Beacon only plays this game (or with pine cones) while they are on walks because really it only works on walks. And her other dog, Belle, never plays the game. If a pine cone isn’t available sometimes Beacon will use a magnolia pod. After she does the game five times or so, she will stop playing and that’s the end of the game. This didn’t take any training, it’s just something Beacon does. It’s a great adpatation of fetch except that Beacon knows she doesn’t have to bring the pine cone back, just drop it and Susan will catch up.

New Chainsaw

No man is complete without a chainsaw. Dad had to wait until his 60’s before he got one. Jeb was in his 40’s when he got his. But this weekend I made the move. Given that Dad’s Craftsman is horrible (I think maybe a new chain would do wonders for his, which mostly just polishes tree trunks) and Jeb has some problems with his Husqvarna, I opted for a Stihl MS 250. Stihl is always rated higly and I haven’t had much trouble with my Stihl trimmer, so it made sense for me to get a Stihl chainsaw which uses the same 50:1 fuel mix. A guy at work also swears by his Stihl chainsaw and when it broke he went out and bought another one, a little bit larger. The funny thing about that is he then also went out and got his old chainsaw repaired and continues to use it because it is lighter. He has had the newer one for a couple of years and has yet to use it.

Anyway, I took the chainsaw to Susan’s and went to town on one of several trees that blew down during Hurricane Ivan. I think maybe she had a microburst or tornado at her house because she had a cluster of pretty tall trees snapped off at their trunks and one large tree was knocked completely over and landed on her house (causing remarkably little damage, but crushing the eave completely in that spot).

The Stihl went through everything easily. What a perfect tool for that job! But just as hard was moving all the pieces out to the street. I’m pretty happy with the purchase and still have plenty of trees to work on at Susan’s (but not the one on the house which will require a crane and $3,000 to remove).

The Last Hurrah (?)

Part 6

Today I took the last of the Estonians to the airport for his flight home. It has been an interesting summer watching them struggle and cope with their situation. I think it has been more of a struggle than any of them thought. I was talking to Arni about why he wasn’t doing any work. He said that last year in Idaho he had a similar experience where he had a hard time staying motivated and wound up not doing anything most of the summer. It really bothered him that the job had gotten the better of him and he wanted to do it again to prove that he could be successful at it. He stayed confident and tried to keep himself motivated through the training, but on the first day of selling after he dropped the other two guys off he said he was just shaking from anxiety. Though he sold some books and enjoyed selling in the Avondale area, he started getting a more hostile reception in other neighborhoods around here. He quickly lost his motivation. At the same time he had invested a lot of money in the plane flight, the van, and rent. There’s no way he broke even. He said that even though he couldn’t make himself work he focused on keeping the other two guys motivated and enforcing the schedule. He said they never got going late and were always up at the same time. He had talked at one point about coming back again as a team leader because he likes managing people more than selling. I told him it was definitely easier to work with people than do work on your own, because people will always ask questions and need stuff so you stay pretty busy. But before he left he said he won’t do the book selling again. Part of growing up is learning that you have limitations and Arni has had to accept that he has some.

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Feeding the Birds

Most of the vacation down in Tybee was spent watching the Weather Channel and going outside occasionally to be sandblasted on the beach. But on Monday while Atlanta was getting drenched by Hurricane Jeanne, the weather was clearing up on Tybee.

That afternoon we were watching as the seagulls would fly in the 20-30 mph winds. By making small adjustments they could stay over one spot on the ground, but if they made a small adjustment they were immediately blown sideways at high speed downwind.

Someone decided we should throw breadcrumbs to some of the birds outside our fourth floor balcony. Although the birds were nearly motionless in relation to the balcony, when you threw a piece of bread from the sheltered balcony it was immediately whipped away by the wind. Sometimes the birds would catch it but more often it went to the ground. Some birds were close enough to the balcony you could throw the bread right at them and have a decent chance of them getting it. So Grant, Jeb, and I stood there throwing bread crumbs for a while (Dad would have no part in this since he (correctly) figured we needed the bread to make sandwiches the next day).

The birds were so close I figured I could just hold out a piece of bread and they could get it from my hand. I leaned over the rail and held a piece of bread as far out as I could and the birds immediately started trying for it. In the strong wind this had to be very difficult, but within a few seconds one had snatched the bread away without biting me. I tried a few more times with similar results.

There were some starlings (?) mixed in with the gulls as well. They were a little smaller and did a lot more flapping than the gulls, but they were more nimble and braver. They could come right up and grab a piece of bread while I held it 40 feet above the ground. Jeb said it looked like they landed on my hand for an instant while they picked the piece up. It was pretty interesting and shows you how well animals can adapt to almost any conditions. Pretty soon the birds lost interest as some other people on the second floor threw more bread crumbs from their balcony. Unfortunately nobody brought a camera so we didn’t get any pictures but you can ask anybody who was there and they will tell you this really happened.