I gotta have my orange juice. » Miscellany

Chrysalis

Scott Moonen — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:57:47 +0000

We found a butterfly garden on sale for the kids. It’s been a learning experience for me. I’ve always assumed that a chrysalis was like a cocoon, something a caterpillar built around itself. But now I’ve learned that the chrysalis is actually formed after the caterpillar sheds its outer skin. You can see a clearer picture over at HowStuffWorks, but we were able to catch one of our caterpillars doing it on video. Watch the guy on the right. He slowly shrugs out of his skin and then wiggles frantically to cast it off.

We started with five caterpillars, but one actually got stuck in all their webbing and was unable to climb to the top of the jar. He didn’t make it. Three have now emerged as butterflies, and we’re waiting on the fourth.

Brood XIX

Scott Moonen — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:28:25 +0000

They’re called Brood XIX and their invasion began about a week ago. Fortunately, they only seem to be active during the daytime.

It sounds like emergency vehicles have our neighborhood surrounded. We expect at least a couple more weeks of this constant racket before the cicada mating season is over.

Bed

Scott Moonen — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:24:56 +0000

I built this for Asher over the Christmas holidays:

I used these plans, but because we planned to back it up against a wall I moved the dividers all the way to the back. That left me with a little less trim work, which was nice. I’m no skilled woodworker, so there are certainly lessons learned. But I’m pleased with how it turned out.

And now we can fit a crib in there too.

Blogs I read

Scott Moonen — Sat, 15 May 2010 21:24:59 +0000

Apart from a few work-related subscriptions, these are the blogs in my reader. There are a few more folks I keep up with on Facebook or Twitter (mostly family, church family, and a few friends from college). I feel bad having such a long list, but trimming it down this far has been an accomplishment.

Top three

Family

My wife, Lisa
Sister Abby
Brother-in-law Chad and Judi

Church family

Theology and Christian living

Our church (plus a few ancillary blogs)
C. J. Mahaney
Mark Lauterbach
Biblical Horizons
Jeff Meyers
Gene Veith
Credenda|Agenda
Justin Taylor
John Barach
Ken Auer
David Koyzis (also his Genevan Psalter blog)

Comics

Other

Gene Chase, one of my college professors
Jon Barlow
The Big Picture
Woot! (also Kids.Woot)

Commute Time

Scott Moonen — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:11:31 +0000

Woot.com is selling a 2GB MP3 player today for $13.

At Crossway.org you can buy the ESV on MP3 for $30 (there is also a version by Mac McLean which is more expensive). Sometimes they have discounts, but I can’t find an active coupon code today. If your church has a bookstore you could check with them to see if they have a trade account with Crossway; I’m not sure if Crossway discounts the MP3s for trade customers but it’s worth asking.

Back in January Woot was selling this MP3 player, and I bought it plus the ESV on MP3. At the time there was an active coupon code so the Bible cost me only $20. Since then I’ve been listening to the ESV during my work commute. My drive is a little more than 30 minutes each way, and right now I’m working from home only one day per week. The entire Bible is about 70 hours, so I’ve just now finished and am starting up again. I’m enjoying this greatly. It certainly helps with devotional consistency! And the pace is interesting — there are things to see at every level of detail, and this pace has its own sort of breathtaking.

If you read this after today then Woot will be selling something completely different. But they sell inexpensive MP3 players from time to time so check them daily; alternatively you can find some MP3 players under $30 at Overstock.com. One hint about the Sansa Clip and the Crossway ESV: even if you copy the MP3 files to the Music folder, they will not show up under the Music menu on the device. Instead, the Clip realizes they are books and places them under the Audiobook menu.

Everything you need to know about website design

Scott Moonen — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:39:40 +0000

HT: Jon Barlow

Computer monster

Scott Moonen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:24:11 +0000

Speaking of Sesame Street (see my last post), below is a funny video of a proto-Cookie Monster eating a computer. This monster is a little bigger than Cookie Monster and has fangs. Unlike Cookie Monster, he has a hole in his mouth and actually consumes some of what he destroys. Apparently he was the origin of Cookie Monster. My favorite part is the Jabberwocky reference. What’s yours?

HT: Jeffrey Meyers

Richard Scarry and hexadecimal

Scott Moonen — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:46:13 +0000

When you read a hexadecimal number out loud, how do you pronounce the letters?

At my workplace, I’ve grown used to our custom of pronouncing the letters using the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet standardized in 1941. The letter digits are pronounced Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy and Fox. Under this scheme, the hexadecimal number 0x7F8D3BC0 would be pronounced “Seven Fox Eight Dog Three Baker Charlie Zero.” This was disorienting to me at first, but after eight years this is now so natural that this is how I pronounce the digits in my mind even if I’m not speaking them.

We’ve started collecting Richard Scarry’s children’s books. Richard Scarry writes with a degree of detail and whimsy that holds an adult’s interest — much like old-school Sesame Street. (How far it has fallen — modern-day Sesame Street is much too postmodern, pluralistic, saccharine and juvenile for my taste. I console myself by searching for old Sesame Street clips on Youtube.) Recently I was amused and pleased to discover that one of Richard Scarry’s characters is named Able Baker Charlie! What a strange juxtaposition of worlds for me — programming and children’s books.

Able Baker Charlie is a mouse. He is a baker, and assists Baker Humperdink, a pig. Despite his small size, Able Baker Charlie is capable assisting with any step of the baking process, from stoking the oven, to mixing the dough, to putting loaves in the oven, and even delivering bread around Busytown. Below you may see a picture of Able Baker Charlie ably distributing French baguettes to Louie’s Restaurant.

Richard Scarry served in the U. S. Army during World War II. No doubt this is the source of the Able Baker Charlie aptonym. It still gives me a chuckle every time we read it.