Ego Wall

We're making progress on the "office credibility" front...



Thanks to Mom for getting all of this stuff framed for me!

(Post created with Android phone using Blogaway)

Matilda Gone Mobile

Testing, testing, one two...



Well, looks like Matilda has gone mobile. I just installed the BlogAway app on my Android phone and am giving it a quick go. Look for more mobile blogging in the near future if this pans out.

We took this pic of Jack out at the Guilford Courthouse National Battlefield park, the weekend before thanksgiving.  Apprently it is the last pic i took with the phone. Pretty nifty huh?

Follow Me

Are you a long-time subscriber to Waltzing Matilda? Do you consider yourself an avid consumer, of prose and poetry alike? Does our incessant wit leave you in stitches, or our adorable family bring forth a little tear? Here's you chance to be part of the official "Waltzing Matilda Fan Club."

See that little button in the right-hand side bar? The one that says "Follow"? Yeah, those are our real friends. The ones with Google accounts, that use Googel Friend Connect. Not to dis you, our faithful anonymous readership. I'm just sayin'.

Seriously, we like to know who you are. Well, I do. And Big Brother (er.. the big G) is pretty much keeping tabs anyway. So just do it. Click the Follow button.







Right here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>

Do it. Do it now. Get on the chopper.

Eating my words

I was delighted to post back in January that I had sat through my last first day of school. I thought to myself that day, "surely if I can only get through the 19th Grade unscathed, I will finally be smart enough to be unleashed on the world!" Now, only 9 short months later, I regret to inform you that I am at it again. Like eating boiled crow, indeed.

I had my first day of work at Elon University today, bolstering the already talented Advancement Office's bench strength by filling the post of Assistant Director of Gift Planning. Just so youse know, any of youse out there want to be giving away money, you come and talk to me first. So long as you are giving to Elon!

Not only that, but I am blogging right now because I am halfway through my assigned reading for my first class at NYU Law's famed Tax LL.M. program, which I am pleased to be taking via teh internets. Ah technology. Actually, it may not be too different from actually attending class - half of that felt like I was just watching a videotape of the professor, anyhow.

Seriously, this is exciting to be doing, even if tonight's reading is all about cash and accrual accounting methods and how they are treated under the Internal Revenue Code.

Oh well. Wish me luck.

Matilda's New Clothes

Faithful readers:

You will notice as you read this post that Waltzing Matilda has gone through a recent redesign. I have been trying out some of Blogger's new design templates, primarily to increase the width of the post column to support the 16:9 YouTube format. I know you will miss the custom photo header of the old design, but rest assured that the photo backdrop you see is just another in the series of pictures I took along the Black Mountain Crest Trail, looking West over the Cane River valley, just north of Mount Mitchell.

I am interested to get your feedback about the new formatting, the readability and how the blog displays in your browser. We're happy to receive your remarks in the Comments section, and if there is something that looks effed up on your screen, please let me know what browser/resolution/etc you are using.

Cheers,
The Management

The Power of Facebook

So, I have posted before about my unbridled eagerness for more blog statistics, which Google/Blogger has handily provides with their built-in stats tool. And I have watched with excitement as people the world-over travel to Waltzing Matilda at the rate of about 25 people per day. But as cool as the stats are, they don't make their own traffic.

WM gets a lot of referrals from the Schueler's, the Williams', and Meredith Daniels, as well as random Google searches that stumble across our unique, varied, and enigmatic content. But imagine my surprise to log on today and see over 250 pageviews yesterday! Thanks to Rachel's Facebook post highlighting Callie and Caroline's recent photo shoot, over 100-something different people clicked the link.

Just goes to show, you can put whatever you want on the internet and it will just languish in semi-oblivion. But as soon as you dump it into the stream of social media with your stamp of approval, you might just hit the jackpot.

Holy pageviews, Batman!

Blogger has finally added built-in traffic analytics to the Waltzing Matilda blog. I had dumped the Google Analytics code into the template a while back but always forgot to check it - the new inline stats are much easier to use and show up in the Dashboard.

What's even more interesting is that we've had 304 pageviews this month alone! Holy cow. Didn't know we had such a strong readership! (of course, a couple of dozen came from Google searches for "Waltzing Matilda" and "The Master Speed", which I am sure were unintentional).

UPDATE I: Apparent viewership* of Waltzing Matilda has skyrocketed over the last month to over 830 pageviews, including China, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, Germany, Canada, India and Taiwan. Who are these people?

*I say apparent because I have no idea if the stats app is discounting the many times Doc and I look at the blog to see if the other is keeping up with their blogo-marital duties.

Christmas in May.

Forget Christmas in July - Santa rocked it out this May. Sorry to Mom and Dad for taking so long to complete my inchoate Christmas gift, but the Samsung PN50C550G1FXZA you got me is just about perfect.

I came.

I saw.

I conquered.

O tannenbaum, O tannenbaum. ;-)

Gotta love the Aussies...

Matilda owes much of its lineage to the fighting prowess of the ANZAC warriors. So we were not surprised to see a preview of some of the latest sniper-training technology show up at this western Australia SOF training facility.

The Rover system by Marathon applies state-of-the-art robotic technology to live-fire sniper training. This approach simultaneously improves realism and challenge of training while reducing the overall cost of ownership.

With the Rover system, a single instructor can conduct complex long-duration scenarios with multiple free-ranging targets. No need to use a joystick – just give the command and off they go, following a pre-orchestrated scenario. When a target is shot, it provides instant visual feedback by stopping and dropping its mannequin. It simultaneously sends a message to other targets, who can react by running for cover.

Fast-forward to 4:45 for some real "action". My favorite part? When one robot is shot, the others "run for cover." Awesomeness.

Apparently, the Segway is more useful than just giving cops another way to do their job without having to actually walk..

Swing Time

After more than several attempts throwing a hammer tied to a small rope tied to a big ropeover a tree branch waaaaaay up in the air, Daddy _finally_ got my swing hung up and ready to go. I've only been waiting since January - I think this was my birthday present. That's only 3 months to you, but it's a fifth of my whole life. Anyway, we pretty much had to wait for some sunny weather, so no harm no foul.

I'm ready to go. Can you tell? C'mon, let's go! Hurry up and buckle me in, Mom..

Man, this thing is fun.. I could do this all day!

Plumbers and Scutcheons and Valve Stems, Oh My!

I have to say, I have always had the utmost respect for guys with know-how, that work with their hands and take things apart and put them back together working better than before. Those kind of folks that collect old Jeeps and Scouts and boats and other stuff, fix 'em up and turn 'em loose. Not that I can't do those things - I might be able - but I never really learned the right way, and so my first (and second) attempts are usually just short of catastrophe. So I am always happy to learn from the experts, when I have the chance.

When the tub faucet started leaking (running uncontrollably) yesterday, I gave it about a half hour of good elbow grease. In the end, I had determined that the screw holding the handle to the valve stem was corroded and stuck. How did I reach this determination? I stripped the screw head until looked like a Hot & Now Krispy Kreme donut. Time to find a plumber.

Countless Facebook and email solicitations later, I still didn't have a good plumber I could trust. What luck when I struck up a conversation with Mr. Steve Crihfield, a well-respected Greensboro attorney and preceptor that willingly passes his knowledge on to Elon students. He recommended I call Coble Plumbing, and it was game on.

Phil showed up shortly after I called, and quickly got to work. A little banging and twisting, he knew enough to tell me that he didn't know what parts I needed, even though he could show them to me. He was, however, gracious enough to point me in the right direction: the all-knowing Cliff down at The Plumbing Store. Phil just wasn't going to charge me to drive down there, ask Cliff, buy the part, and put the whole rig back together when he knew I had watched him take it apart. Not only did my wallet respect his forthright frugality, my ego was soothed by his trusting confidence. He even left me a tool to finish the job, and didn't charge me a cent (He also showed me where the in-house mater cut-off valve was). Talk about getting a customer for life..

Cliff is a work of art, a man that knew exactly what part I needed within seconds of seeing it clutched in my grubby hand, and cheerfully retrieved it while finishing his Bear Claw. He charged me $22.36 and laughed when I found exactly $23 in my wallet. I think he even made some joke about adjusting the cash-scanning machine at the door. Apparently plumbing supply stores run into a lot of desperate clients. Hell, I thought under $25 for a pair of Nibco cartridge valves was a fair deal.

Back to the house to fix this mess. New valves installed, then the scutcheon tubes, valve stems, and the scutcheon. Two almost brand new faucets that don't leak a drop. Sweet.

This diagram? I have no idea what it represents.

I just found it on a plumbing webpage and thought

I would include it for the "cool factor."

Got. To. Have. One.

You know that I have posted previously about the wondrousness that is the world of anti-personnel mines - my favorite of course being the M18A1 Claymore, which includes the helpful instruction of "Front Towards Enemy."

I know it is wrong to covet. But Quantico Tactical is one of those great stores that you just feel compelled to support, and the ad I got today in an email is just one of those "must have" occasions. Imagine how cool it would be to have your very own Claymore attached to the receiver hitch on the back of your car. Well, thanks to the brilliant folks at QTS, here's your chance:

My order's been placed. Support your local "hero store" and order one today.

All Songs Considered: NPR's Best Songs of 2009

I love NPR. Everytime I get so tired of the s-o-s that is on conventional radio (read: ClearChannel Comm.) and the same top 40 country and pop and rock and whatnot, I suddenly realize that I should be listening to NPR and WUNC (also, WNCW!) That lasts for a week or so until I'm stuck in traffic and want to hear why and I switch back to something else.

One of the great features of NPR is the website, where they archive previous features so you can go back and listen to that really neat Story or All Things Considered you heard while driving but couldn't write down. Or even, the new song you heard and you have no idea how to find it again. Imagine my glee when a good friend pointed me to this: NPR Listener's Best Songs of 2009.

Really, this is a good list - The Avett Bros., Neko Case, The Decemberists, Wilco, Regina Spektor - plus a bunch of others. This will be on my playlist for some time.

Reader Challenge: Post to comments with your favorite song / album of 2009, or alternatively the CD (mild laughter) that you want most for Xmas.

Google-licious

I know it smacks of rapidly trending toward a Big Brother uber-control of all knowledge, but I am an unabashed admirer of and subscriber to a variety of Google-powered technologies. I use Google Voice, Calendar, Blogger, YouTube, and Gmail, among other things. One of their programs that drives most of the new (at least photographic) content on this blog is the freeware picture organizing and editing tool called Picasa. Picasa is a light-weight photo editor but really shines when it comes to displaying and organizing and sharing your photo archive. I even use Picasa Web Albums to share the myriad other photos that don't make the blog cut.

Picasa has just rolled out v3.5 which incorporates an amazing new facial recognition feature. This really is phenomenal - the program will now scan your already well-organized and tagged and geolocated photo collection, pick out faces from the crowd, and help you identify and tag those folks using your Google contacts list. Incredible. So now when you are looking for pictures of, say, Dad - they are just a click away, regardless of what folder or album they are in. Sweet.