I’m in alien territory here. Over the past few months my vision has become increasingly blurry, both when reading and when reading signs at a distance. I’ve been lucky enough to have enjoyed a life of perfect vision so far, but those days are gone. I’m officially old. Had my first encounter with an optometrist yesterday, went through the whole dilation and eyeball pressure gizmo thing, and walked away with a prescription.

Now I’m about to join the “other” half of society and think about frames.  No idea which way to go. Took some shots in a glasses store today. I think some of these are downright goofy, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. Any of these look halfway decent, or should I keep shopping? Refer to row/column if you have opinions.

And yes, I’ve always wanted a monocle, but doesn’t seem like that’s going to be practical this time around.

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In some circles, the gas vs. charcoal grill debate is like red state/blue state, saints vs. atheist heathens. Charcoal purists swear there’s a noticeable taste difference, while gas users claim there is none, or that if there is, it’s minuscule compared to taste factors that come from the dry rub or marinade, cooking technique, and quality of meat. Some even cite studies “showing that there is no effective taste difference between food cooked with gas vs. charcoal.” Charcoal users claim that if you can’t taste the difference, you’re not paying attention. There’s also a big romance factor associated with charcoal – piling up, lighting, tending the coals is part of the ritual, and rituals are important. I can dig that, but happily trade it for the convenience of being able to come home from work late and start grilling immediately. And I’m just not sure I buy the taste difference thing, unless you’re wanting to make a real smoker.

I’ve found that some charcoal enthusiasts think gas grills don’t produce smoke at all… which is absolutely not true. A gas grill is not an oven! The smoke from gas grills can be voluminous (even scary), and comes from the burning off of fats and drippings from meat, as well as the carbonized residue of previous grilling sessions. Yep, it’s a different kind of smoke from charcoal smoke, but it’s definitely smoke.

Our family are gas peeps – we sort of skipped the charcoal phase and went straight for convenience. For us, the gas decision was partly environmental, wanting to sidestep or reduce particulate emissions that come from burning wood, for the same reason newer houses don’t even come with fireplaces.

Charcoal grills emit more carbon monoxide, particulate matter and soot into the atmosphere, contributing to increased pollution and higher concentrations of ground-level ozone.

In fact, in Canada, charcoal is now a restricted product under the Hazardous Products Act. But the carbon footprint question is more complicated than it appears on the surface – charcoal may come from renewable forests, which in turn consume the same amount of CO2 as the grills they fuel produce. Then again, a lot of charcoal products are infused with chemicals to make it easier to light, burn longer, etc. Slate has a great piece on the environmental factors in the gas vs. charcoal question.

Then there’s the cost factor – gas grills cost more, but reqire far less expenditure on fuel – a round of charcoal cooking can cost up to $5.00 in briquettes, while gas might clock in at around $0.50 per session.

OK, poll time – do you do gas or charcoal? Let me know in the comments whether you can taste the difference.

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Here’s a pretty good side-by-side comparison chart, though it conveniently skips the environmental factors.

The unfortunate but sometimes hilarious side-effect of having the last name “Hacker” — occasional emails like this one.

Email: queen5050pil@ymail.com
Message:
pls are you a hacker, if yes pls can you get for me cc with the balance and ATM pin visa and master cards or can you hack into any bank system mostly nigerian banks, pls reply asap thanks.

Srsly.

I don’t generally “do” Facebook or chain letters, but lately a meme has been floating around — write a note including 25 random facts or observations about your life, and tag some people you know or used to know (that’s the viral part). Seems silly on the surface, but it’s actually a really neat little vehicle for an hour or two of life review. Finally took the plunge and wrote one of my own. Excerpts:

- In high school, made a good living cleaning boat bottoms, scuba diving upside down in water so dense with algae and brine shrimp you could barely see your hand in front of your face. Sea monkeys creeping under the mask and up your nose, scraping knuckles on barnacles. Loved that job, but would never do it today.

- God, I love Fritos.

- My 6-year-old son is one of the two most important people in my life (the other is my wife, of course). I relish every moment with him, can’t wait to see him in the evenings. We rock the weekends together, try to always have at least one adventure. He’s shaping up to be an amazing human being. I could drown in his laughter and die happy.

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Robot-themed party plans for Miles’ 6th continue apace. Last weekend decided to track down that elusive robot piñata, but no dice. The closest we could come was a Wall-E piñata, but no way. Decided to build our own – how hard could it be? A couple of cardboard boxes bolted together with cardboard rivets and filled with misc. party booty, wrapped in crepe paper and adorned with various parts from our robot-building grab-bag (TV speaker, busted headphones, random electronic thingy for an antenna). Arms and legs from gift-wrap tubing, swaddled in aluminum foil, and we were done in a couple of hours. To be destroyed by some blind-folded kid with a baseball bat in 15 seconds, no doubt, but we knew that going in. Should be good.

Spent a day of our recent vacation at the Minnesota Museum of Science’s Star Wars exhibit – the largest collection of actual Star Wars props and models ever assembled. Miles was jumping out of his skin with excitement, seeing actual/life-sized land speeders and battle droids, scaled down ship models used by ILM in various episodes, trying to pierce the veil of the Jawas. The exhibit took every opportunity to use the props as learning opps – we got to assemble our own maglev trains, program R2 units to negotiate an obstacle course, build support systems for robots capable of standing both on flat and sloped ground, and C3PO hosted a 15-minute live-action educational robot show… a nice combination of education and learning. Finished up the day by jumping to hyperspace in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, very convincing. If the lines between fact and fiction weren’t blurry enough before last week, they are now!

Flickr set

Three weeks ago, Amy came home to find a rear window of our house smashed, our house ransacked. Missing were my GPSr, a couple of digital cameras, a video camera, and two of Amy’s film cameras, including an old two-lens Mamiya and the Nikon FE2 she did her master’s thesis work on. Left behind, strangely, were a couple of Nerdz wrappers and an English class assignment to read two Shakespeare books this summer. We were sure the heist was done by some local high school kids. El Cerrito police dusted for fingerprints, took a report, and that was that. We never expected to get anything back, and started the insurance process.

A few days later, I realized my checkbook had also been stolen. Immediately checked my online banking and found that, sure enough, a check had been cashed, my signature forged. Since Wells Fargo showed a clear scan of the thief’s name and writing, I forwarded it to the police and called the bank to find out where and when it was cashed. The cop was then able to obtain surveillance footage of the actual “guy” from the ATM where it happened. Wow – a break! But then, two weeks of nothing.

Yesterday, got a call from the PD informing us that they had obtained a warrant, searched the perp’s house, and retrieved Amy’s two film cameras. Interesting that analog gear was the only stuff “he” couldn’t fence. And there was an extra twist – the perp was apparently a very large black transsexual in the midst of hormone treatments, now in custody. Life is so weird.

This morning we traipsed down to the department so Amy could I.D. the two cameras and Miles could get his first jail cell tour (pix of him behind bars unfortunately didn’t work out). But I did get a good shot of the inside of a drunk tank (complete with floors you can hose down in the morning). And of Amy walking out of the department, jubilant with her much-loved film cameras.

Just amazed we got anything back at all. Huge props to the El Cerrito PD for following up so thoroughly, and for caring!

Amazing… just took a break from the all-day Journalism and Databases session we’re running, checked for recent Tweets, and there was one apparently from myself:

Hi.i found this phone.could you tell me how to find the owner..

A few Tweets later, messages from Xian Crumlish, Michael Fitzhugh, and Dylan Tweney, pointing me to the source. A block walk and I had the phone again (which I hadn’t even realized was missing until Twitter told me). Thanks so much Good Samaritan Silje for having the brilliance to check my address book and send an SMS Tweet as me, and to alla y’all for helping to track it down.

Xian’s book title is spot on: The Power of Many.

Update: Whoa! This little  dance just got covered on Wired.com’s blog (by Tweney).

Went for a hike, but ended up mountain biking up Schmidt Lane with slick tires.