All posts by kleucht

Computers, User Interfaces, Miscellaneous

Google AdSense Video Units Now Available

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I’m going to attempt to place a Google AdSense Video Unit into this blog post. I have no idea what the actual content of the video will be, but it is supposed to be targeted specifically to match other content on this website. I imagine it will contain something related to woodworking or the Space Program.

[Google AdSense Video Unit removed due to inappropriate and usually offending content!]

Update: That didn’t originally work too well. WordPress, my blog software trashed the javascript code I pasted in. I had to directly modify the mySql database entry to get it to work.

Update 2: Wow, the videos that were showing up here were not related to woodworking or the Space Program at all! Many of them were quite offending, so I removed the video unit. I guess Google has some more work to do in this area. Good luck, Google!

Kurt
Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Health, Home, Property, Safety

Build Your Own Yard Shed

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According to recent website statistics, my Yard Shed Plans web page (http://www.leucht.com/kurt/shed/) is pretty much the most popular web page on my whole website. This is very cool to me because this is exactly the sort of content that I had most hoped to be able to provide with this website back in the late 90’s when I first created it. Sadly, that Yard Shed Plans page never even got completely finished. Mostly because the 3D models and images were difficult and time consuming to create. Also because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, which makes them even more time consuming to make.

.Shed Plans .Shed Plans

So busy-ness has kept me from finishing that particular page and also it has kept me from providing more content like this on my site. But the invention of the blog in the past few years (and my subsequent use of it here) has allowed me to quickly and easily create simple web pages, or blog posts, about even the most simple and small projects. So far the traffic on my blog is no where near the amount of traffic on the Yard Shed Plans page, though. Maybe most people that find my Yard Shed Plans page are searching specifically for “plans”. And it’s hard work and time consuming to put together actual “plans” for a project. So maybe I’ll have to go back and add “plans” to all my other projects that are on this site. In my spare time, of course. 🙂
Kurt

Miscellaneous

Dee-Mack Class of 1988 — 20 Year Reunion

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Pretty soon it will be 2008, which means that those of us who graduated high school in 1988 will be having our big 20 year reunions next year. The Deer Creek-Mackinaw (a.k.a. Dee-Mack) High School class of 1988 is starting to lay down plans for our 20 year reunion.

.Dee-Mack Class of 1988 20 year reunion

The current plan is to have our reunion around the Homecoming time frame, which is September 19th, 2008. If you are a member of the Dee-Mack class of 1988, email me (Kurt only) your contact information (at least email address, if not phone and street address too) by using the web based email form on my website. I will forward your contact information to the folks who are planning and organizing the reunion. It’s gonna be a great party!

Kurt

Nature, Photography, Videos, Science, Space, Technology

STS-120 Lifts Off

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I was at the NASA Press Site yesterday for the launch of STS-120. What an amazing launch that was to witness. I’ve seen a lot of launches, and this one was the loudest I can remember. I imagine the extreme loudness can be attributed to either the heavy humid air, or the wind direction, or the low cloud deck, or probably a combination of these atmospheric conditions. I took these photos of the launch while at the same time helping to make sure people didn’t “loiter” in front of the big countdown clock. When people stand directly in front of the clock, it has a tendency to annoy most of the TV stations who are using the footage from the countdown clock in their live launch feeds. Click on a photo for a larger version in my photo gallery.

.STS-120 launch .STS-120 launch

BLOG CONTEST: I will give one dollar via PayPal to the first person who can identify the white haired man in the white shirt in the second photo. Anyone that I know and have already told is obviously not eligible! Also, anyone who was actually at the NASA Press Site yesterday is not eligible. To enter, you must email me (Kurt only) via the web based email form on my website and tell me your name and your email address so that I can PayPal you the money. If you enter using this method, your email address will only be seen by me and nobody else. If you don’t mind sharing your email address with the whole world, you can enter by adding a comment to this blog posting. I promise I will not use your email address for anything other than sending you the one dollar.

Computers, User Interfaces, Miscellaneous

Dare I put down blogs in my own blog?

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I’m noticing that many of the Internet Blogs that I come across fall into one of two categories … neither of which seems to me to be of much value in the grand scheme of things. My own blog that you’re reading right now is no exception.
There are the “all about me” blogs which simply tell the world about the author and the author’s family and the author’s life and things that the author has done and accomplished. (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=32) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=35) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=38) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=41) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=43) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=53) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=67) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=74) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=77) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=88) (http://leucht.com/blog/?p=112)

Then there are the “this is cool” blogs which simply tell the world about cool websites or cool products or whatever. (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=7) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=8) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=103) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=107) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=110) (http://www.leucht.com/blog/?p=114)

Huh, I just realized that I have about twice as many “all about me” posts as I have “this is cool” posts. Guess I’m a little more vain that I was hoping.

What’s the real benefit to society of an “all about me” blog, anyways? Our families and friends might get a kick out of reading them, but we could really take care of that by sending them emails and calling them more often. Don’t we really publish “all about me” content just to make ourselves feel better?

And don’t get me started on all the “this is cool” blogs out there. I could spend 24 hours a day looking at all the cool sites that bloggers try to get me to check out. And I agree that many of them are very very cool. But the Internet is not getting any smaller last time I checked, while at the same time my waking hours still remain constant. It’s a losing battle. I need a larger and larger filter to keep me focused and to minimize my time online. It’s hopeless for me to try to check out all the cool sites that are out there and to add the coolest ones to my ever expanding list of cool bookmarks.

How huge and how watered down will the Internet have to get before the general public starts losing interest?

Kurt