A weekend in Philly – Sunday

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Joel

50% of our weekend was already over. How the weekend was flying by, but I didn’t want to think about it!

We had a slightly lazy morning, but eventually got everyone dressed, suitcases packed, zoo (and parking) tickets purchased online, stomachs full of breakfast, and out the door around 10:30am. We hit a nearby Wawa to buy our lunches, in order to avoid being fleeced at the zoo like the last time in May 2008. My sister had to work, so it was just Robbie and Abby along for the ride. We battled the traffic, found parking in one of the lots, and walked to the Philadelphia Zoo. We basically walked in a straight line for two hours, then found a empty table to have lunch. We walked around some more, tried to stay cool. We called it a day around 4pm. It was a long weekend, the heat was getting to us, and I think we were ready to get home.  We walked back to the parking lot, said our goodbyes, and drove home. No issues getting home, and the cats were happy to see us again.

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A weekend in Philly – Saturday

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Joel

This weekend, we went to Philadelphia to see the sights. The plan was to spend the entire weekend in the Philadelphia area to visit the Franklin Institute on Saturday and the Philadelphia Zoo on Sunday. We would also fit in a visit with friends Leena and Sanjay visiting from Florida, and stay over Saturday night at my ssiter’s place. We left Saturday mid-morning to get down to Philadelphia. We met my sister and her family at the Franklin Institute, and then hit the various halls.

At 12:30, we decided to catch the next show at the Fels Planetarium. The show that day was The Sky Tonight. My sister and her family would get lunch instead at the dining hall. We’re all big fans of planetarium shows — give me a Whoopi Goldberg narration about galaxies and stars any time. I’ve never been to a bad planetarium show.

This classic planetarium presentation introduces the stars and planets seen in the night sky, and the concept of the earth’s rotation. The show changes with the seasons so that you can try to locate constellations from your own backyard after seeing the show.

Let me tell you, we did not enjoy this show. We walked in, found seats, and the show started a few mins later. A bald fellow with a long beard stood in the back and lectured everyone on facts about various planets and stars visible in the night sky. The visuals were poor, and fellow narrating was reminiscent of one of those smart fellows who knows he’s smart, and wants to tell you all things he knows about stars and planets. It was boring. The only person that I could tell enjoying the show was Joshua!

Eventually, the show was over in 45 mins, and then we rode the elevator down to the main floor to eat at the Franklin Foodworks. $32 later, I gotta say the food wasn’t that bad. The burgers tasted like real burgers, and the hot dogs were big. My sister and family decided to go home, since my niece was getting tired. We took a group photo in front of the Benjamin Franklin statue, and then they left. The Ipes continued on to check out the rest of the 2nd floor. BTW, I took the kids on one of those $5/ticket flight simulator rides, and it was pretty lame. I’m talking 1990’s-era CGI, and pointless flying around.

We had some time to kill, so we walked out of the museum, and spent some time chilling out at the Swann fountain. We eventually made our way out of Philly and to someone’s house to see friends Leena, Sanjay, their kids, and their family. We hung out for a few hours there, then drove back to South Jersey to my sister’s house for dinner, to hang out, and eventually get some sleep.

It was a good day.

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John Carter (2012)

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Joel

Have you seen John Carter? This was the 2012 sci-fi action Disney film directed by Andrew Stanton (of Pixar fame.) From what I’ve read, the movie is mostly based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1917 book A Princess of Mars. Having been written in the early 20th century, Burroughs imagined that Mars supported life, various races lived there, etc, etc. The film stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, and a few other actors and actresses that I’m not familiar with. It seems a little nonsensical to put out a big-budgeted movie about Mars where the source material is in sharp contrast to the scientific reality of the Martian environment. Still, I think the best method to suspend your disbelief is to think of this as an alternate dimension / reality, and the planet’s development took a different path.

The story seemed a little complicated to me, but revolved an American man from the 1860’s named John Carter who is accidentally transported to Mars, and gets thrown into the middle of a conflict between the people of two kingdoms (Helium & Zodanga), but there is another race called the Thern (the pale bald people in the trailer) who are secretly aiding the Zodanga baddies. In addition to these three groups, there are also the four-armed Tharks that you also see predominantly in the trailer. Carter ends up in the midst of the Tharks when he first arrives on Mars.

So that’s the setting of the film. Background on John Carter while on Earth, accidentally gets to Mars, inserted into conflict between the warring factions, oh and meets obligatory princess. Lynn Collins portrays Princess Dejah Thoris of Helium. She’s supposedly smart, an excellent fighter, and beautiful. I guess she’s an interesting character, but her educated background was a little forced when you see her about to do a demonstration of a device using “9th ray” technology. Um, yeah.

The character John Carter stands out on Mars where, supposedly due to the Martian gravity, his bone density and musculature allows him heightened strength and jumping ability. He’s also an amazing swordsman, and frankly very intelligent and enlightened for an 1860’s American soldier.

I gotta admit that there were many critical reviews (and some positive) going into watching this film. The audio and video is pretty good, and you can easily tell the production costs must have been staggering. Apart from the jumping (it didn’t look very realistic to me), Disney must have tens of millions of dollars on the production — be it the clothes, the CGI special effects, etc. It all looks very expensive.

Regarding the plot, I didn’t think it was very special. The film has its moments, but the story pacing dragged at times, and I just didn’t find the John Carter character to believable act this way. Maybe I’m hung up that he’s from the 19th century, but I don’t know if any person from that era would ever react and adjust to life well when presented by alien races.

I’m probably expecting too much from the film. The kids haven’t finished it yet, but they like it. Maybe it’s a film more geared to children. It’s definitely a rental for the kids.

John Carter (2012)

John Carter (2012)

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Dr. Abdus Salam, theoretical physicist

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Joel
Dr. Abdus Salam

Dr. Abdus Salam

Earlier this month, there was a lot of news that scientists over at Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had potentially discovered the Higgs boson. Named after the British scientist (Peter Higgs) who dreamed it up in 1964, it’s an exciting to think we have evidence that it exists. A few weeks ago, I learned in a Daily Mail article that in the 1970’s, a Pakistani physicist named Dr. Abdus Salam also predicted the existence of the Higgs boson particle. Salam was the first Pakistani to win a Nobel prize in Physics. However, he was later shunned in his own country by Muslim fundamentalists when they took control of Pakistan in the 1970’s. It seems that he is from a different sect of Islam that is considered heretical in the eyes of Sunni Muslims. He ended up living out his days in England  until he died in 1996. When I read the article, I had the impression that he won the Nobel Prize for predicting the the existence of the particle, which is not true at all. The article is actually wrong.

Last night, I was watching The Elegant Universe, a very nice 3-part series on string theory that came out in 2003, and hosted by noted American physicist Brian Greene. While I’m watching this, there is a clip from the 1979 Nobel Prize ceremony, and there on screen are three fellows winning the Nobel Prize in Physics for work on the electroweak theory, and the fellow in middle appears to be South Asian! Who is that? I do some searching and lo and behold, the fellow in the middle is none other than Dr. Abdus Salam.

SHELDON L. GLASHOW, ABDUS SALAM and STEVEN WEINBERG for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including inter alia the prediction of the weak neutral current.

Dr. Abdus Salam accepting the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics

Dr. Abdus Salam accepting the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics

So yes, the Daily Mail article had some of its facts incorrect, which I think is the sign of the times here, because I don’t think these writers are doing their due dilligence in researching (or minimizing typographical errors!) In any case, Dr. Salam is huge, because he was one of three physicists who independently came up up with the electroweak theory.

I’m sorry for geeking out, but I do loves me some physics. Also, I geeked a little, because Dr. Salam came up earlier in the month because of the Higgs boson annoucement, and again a few weeks later while I was watching a completely unrelated episode of NOVA on PBS. Can you blame me?

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Vacation Bible School 2012

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Joel

I just wanted to make a small note here for posterity’s sake — My wife wrapped up running her latest church program. For the 2nd year in a row, she ran our church’s vacation bible school this summer. To accomodate potential volunteer and attendee schedules, she changed up the format from a week-long program for the kids (as in years past) to a program tailored for adult and children running from Friday evening through Saturday afternoon, following by the customary “Celebration Sunday” service on Sunday morning jointly run by our church and a neighboring church.

It went very well, and I think I hear everyone enjoyed it. Why am I writing all this? Just to give my wife some well-deserved kudos for working hard (again) to help her community, and also so I could post this family photo!

2012 Vacaton Bible School -- family photo

2012 Vacaton Bible School — family photo

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I’m considering a move to Android

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Joel

What holds me back? In my limited exposure to the Android OS, I haven’t played with it, navigating all the options. For whatever reason, it hasn’t been automatically intuitive. For example, when I was playing with the Nexus phone at the VZW store this week. On the phone keypad, I couldn’t find the backspace button. I don’t recall recently becoming a non-nerd or an idiot, but I couldn’t figure it out. From what I’ve read, it seems that there is a learning curve, but there is more to get out of Android. So I’m tossing the idea around in my head for what to do in Nov.

Recent pathetic Speedtest.net results on my AT&T iPhone 4
Samsung Galaxy S3

The reason I went to AT&T was for the selection in smartphones, and eventually the iPhone. As well, I’m a big user of voice and data simulaneously, because AT&T uses GSM network. Nowadays, Verizon is moving towards Voice over LTE (“VoLTE”.) They already support simultaneous voice and data now (using both the CDMA, 802.11, and LTE radios, so I could theoretically use data and voice (in an LTE coverage area.) Couple the ability to use data and voice with the lure of large 4.8″ AMOLED, a new OS, wider data coverage, and begins to push me towards Verizon. Oh, also, I use way more Google products/apps than Apple products, do that’s another “pro” reason to switch to Android.

Something to think about in the next few months.

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Dinner at Mehtaphor

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Joel

I found Saturday to be a pretty decent day for me. Most weekends are full of activities, Saturday wasn’t so bad. I woke up a little before 9am, helped my daughter get ready for swim class, but my wife took her to class. My son and I had breakfast, and hung out at home to try out our trial version of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The girls eventually came back, and the kids and I played Star Wars for an hour or so — I drove the mouse & keyboard, and they each sat on an armrest and told me what to do with our new Jedi character. My wife left to run her errands.

Around 1pm, I took the kids to walk and get some lunch, then we watched some television / Netflix. So far, unproductive yet immensely relaxing for me. I rarely get to sit my butt down most weeknights and weekends, so this was a much needed opportunity.

Around 4pm, I ran two errands, and then we all got ready to hit NYC for dinner. We were going to our friend Plexy’s surprise 40th birthday party at Mehtaphor, a restaurant down in the Tribecca neighborhood. We were supposed to be there by 7pm, but encountered heavy traffic on the way.

We arrived on Duane St a little after 7pm. I dropped the three of them off on the street, was lucky enough to find street parking, and walked to the restaurant. A small snafu occurred, as I was looking for the restaurant and I spotted Plexy and his wife Sheba getting out of their car 100 feet ahead of me. I panicked and bolted, but I had nowhere to go. I ran to a nearby building glass entrance, and then saw my friend Lesh. Weird. I opened the door, and it happened that this was the restaurant. How odd?

Well, the surprise was somewhat ruined as the guest of honor apparently saw me running. Also, his wife was getting a lot of text messages, so that made him a little suspicious as well. Ah well.

Dinner at the restaurant was good. The head chef was apparently a runner-up on the 2009 Iron Chef reality competition. We ordered drinks, and agreed to a 7 course tasting menu, chef’s choice. Over the course of the evening, the staff brought out small dishes with various items to eat, like oysters, a mini pizza, etc. It was all very interesting and different.

Unfortunately, with all of us being college-educated geniuses, not one of us thought to ask how much was the tasting menu beforehand. Suffice it to say, it was a small fortune per person, and let’s leave it at that. It was a very good experience, something different, and I suppose you only get to live life once. Now we all have a good story to tell. Our wallets are lighter, but we have a good story.

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Crazy Heart (2009)

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Joel

I wanted to see Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal back when it had come out, or maybe it was just after release to home media — I can’t remember these details in my old age. In any case, it’s been a long while, but I finally had this film at the top of the Netflix queue. Namita had no real interest in seeing this film, and that’s not a big deal — it wasn’t a perfect film by any means, but Jeff Bridges performance partially makes up for it.

In case you haven’t watched this film, Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a broken-down, hard-living, past his prime, country music singer. Bad relationships, many years on the road, and one too many drinks. He seems like a very talented singer/artist, but whatever demons possess him appear to hold him back. You’ll see that he’s a great performing, singing his own songs, but then you’ll see him drinking away his sorrows and pain heavily, even during performances. He eventually meets Jean (Gyllenhaal), an aspiring journalist who gets to know Bad Blake, and slowly brings out the real man. Not being completely unrealistic, dealing with alcholism is not an overnight affair, so there are setbacks, but this film is Bad Blake’s journey of redemption.

I tried to like this film a lot, but the pacing was very slow for me to truly enjoy. The plot was fine, but events transpired so slowly, I found myself bored at many points as the story unfolded. That’s not a good sign. The redeeming quality of this film though was Jeff Bridges performance as Bad Blake. He makes this character interesting and real. Bridges won Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role at the 2010 Academy Awards, and I thought that was well-deserved. Too bad the film itself was so slow.

Crazy Heart (2009)

Crazy Heart (2009)

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Celebrating Bastile Day with a family dinner at Sophie’s Bistro

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Joel

Happy Bastile Day, everyone. My wife had an excellent idea that we celebrate French independence with a nice fancy dinner at Sophie’s Bistro in Somerset, NJ. I got home from work when I could, and when I got home, my wife had gotten the three of them showered and ready. I freshened up as fast as I could, and we did our best to make our 8pm reservation. Dinner went very well, as we had some excellent appetizers, entrees, and dessert. It was all very rich and delicious, so we took home most of our dinner as leftovers.

Namita and I have been here by ourselves to enjoy some well-needed romantic, adults-only dinners in the past, so this was the first time we brought the kids. I was a little worried that they’d enjoy the food, but it was fine, and I had nothing to worry about. The kids were well-dressed, well-behaved, and the owner was nice enough to come over to chat, and compliment us on the kids being so well-behaved. Hey, we’ll take compliments.

Pictures below. Vive le France!

 

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Ripping Blu-rays and making my own digital copies

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Joel

Last month, I discovered an dissatisfying truth about the digital copies that consumers often get with their home video home video purchases — you know, when you purchase a blu-ray, DVD, digital copy combo pack. Those digital copies provide you a code to only download a standard definition (SD) copy of the film. It’s likely my fault that I had never considered what was the resolution for these digital copies. I didn’t realize this after all these years, because I often watched them on either my iPhone or on my little 19″ Dell LCD monitor, which only could only output in SD. I knew Apple sold both SD and HD versions through iTunes, but I didn’t give it much thought. I discovered this when I tried to play a few films on my new HD-capable 24″ Dell monitors — color me surprised to witness the terrible resolution!

I had to research it, but it’s confirmed. Digital copies that come with your blu-ray and DVD combo packs entitle you to one SD version. Apple allows  you to purchase HD versions of movies, but you can’t upgrade your SD digital copies. Now I had a conundrum – I planned this slowly-built-up digital library for when I got my future Retina display, HD iPad. Now, these films will look terrible as well. Frustration! I’m officially disenchanted with digital copies. They’re no good to me. I don’t expect to make extra effort to purchase those combo packs any longer. In addition, in January of this year, I upgraded to TiVo Desktop To Go Plus, as I had the new faster PC. With the TiVo also at home, perfect opportunity for me to transfer current movies and tv shows to my home PC, iPhone, and future iPad. Guess what? While The TiVo Desktop Plus software ($24.95) allows you to convert your recordings to mobile devices (e.g. the iPhone), it does not allow you to convert the recordings to more than a 640×480 resolution! That’s fine for the mobile phone, but again, useless for an iPad equipped with a Retina display. Curses!

What to do?

Instead, I’m exploring ripping my own digital copies for private home use from my personal collection. Lifehacker.com writer Whitson Gordon wrote an article last December, The Hassle-Free Guide to Ripping Your Blu-Ray Collection, which is exactly what I’m looking for. At the moment, I’m using MakeMKV for the initial blu-ray rip to a high quality .mkv file for easy encoding. Through my initial trials, the initial ripping process for blu-ray films takes about 1-2 hours, and outputs the aforementioned MKV file.  You can’t play this file out of the box, unless you do what I did and installed the VLC freeware, which plays .mkv files.

Once you have an .mkv file, you can use the Handbrake open source video encoder to encode to various file formats, such as H.264. There are various presets, including 1080p, 640×480, and even iPad. This process takes a little less than the initial blu-ray ripping, but it’s not hours. I think this must also be dependent on the speed of your CPU. So far, it works well. BTW, I think you need to have various encoded versions, because I hoped that I could just encode one 1080p version and use it on the home PC and the iPhone, but iTunes told me it was an unsupported file format. Once I encoded the file in an iPhone-friendly size format, it was fine. The good news to share is that smaller (lower resolution) format takes a shorter time to encode.

That’s about it. I’m trialing all this software right now. So far, it’s not bad. I think I can rip .mkv files of my personal video library, and later encode to whatever format I desire at a later date for my devices.

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