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Seems like every Christmas over the last few years, we’ve gravitated toward one particular holiday-themed film. Last year, it was The Family Stone. The year before … well … is a little hazy. Maybe The Holiday?

This year, my brother Andy recommended a film via instant messenger a few days before he arrived home for Thanksgiving… Joyeux Noël. After I checked out the trailer and it looked promising, we decided to nab it on our next trip to the video store.

That trip happened Saturday night, and we checked out the film along with Jason. The story is set during WW1, on France’s Western front. Though most of the script is in French or German, the subtitling isn’t too intrusive – and the lingual variation throughout lends an authenticity that most films lack.

All critiqueyness aside, this film ended up as Kelly and my “Christmas pick” for 2008, quite simply, because it’s heartwarming. The story – which reflects events that actually happened in trenches all over Western Europe – contrasts the world’s coldness with the warmth of humanity. That made me feel good – and I guess that’s what I look for in movies at Christmas time.

After a ten-month absence, my dear friend and fellow-blogger Jason is back online. An issue with his WordPress installation – which we have recently dispatched with fervor, flare and FTP – had prevented him from posting, and caused his blog’s display to go all kaflooey.

Welcome back, sir Jason!

Robert Benson isn’t an engineer, and (at least to my knowledge) he doesn’t have a degree in business. He’s a photojournalist, and an accomplished one at that. As a freelancer, he’s been hired by the likes of ESPN, Inc. Magazine, USA Today and Sports Illustrated – just to name a few.

But it isn’t Robert’s great images that mark his entry into America’s long history of innovation via “cottage industry” – it’s a creation he calls his long-range wireless camera triggering device. With a printed circuit board, some components, some cables and a pair of inexpensive two-way radios, Robert has created a way to release the shutter of his pro-SLR cameras from miles away.

(Photo by Robert Benson)

Taking his place in a long (and, to those sharing my geek leanings, regal) line of basement experimenters, backyard mechanics and soldering iron jockeys before him, Robert didn’t just make one copy of his invention and call it good. Nope – you can buy your own, too. For $90, it comes fully assembled, so all that’s left to do is add the two-way radios of your choice.

Seeing inventions like Robert Benson’s wireless camera trigger means a lot to me – because it’s a clear indicator that the spirit of American tinkering is alive and well, and producing amazing gadgets that interact with our ever-more-complex world. And seeing Rob Galbraith report that Robert has a 3-week backlog of orders means a lot to me too – because it means that someone co-opting the family dinner table as a production line can still do so successfully, perhaps now more than ever with the Internet as an enabler. The long string of comments left on Robert’s blog about the camera triggering system speaks volumes, too: it says that people the world over, despite being barraged with sleek, sexy technology at every turn, still recognize the value of good old home-grown ingenuity.

Bravo, Mr. Benson! May your soldering iron never stand idle, and may your new invention find favor the world over…

I think I’ve told Kelly the stories at just about every winter holiday, but – to me at least – they never get old. For some reason, whenever I find my hands coated in cinnamon, sugar and bits of apple, or whenever I feel the texture of floured dough and a rolling pin beneath my hands, it’s just like I’m there. There are certainly stories I tell when – this time around – she rolls her eyes and sighs as if to say “here we go again”, but never my stories about Mom.

As we stood at the counter together last night, peeling and slicing our way through a bag of McIntosh apples for Thanksgiving pies, I recounted the story once again of how my Mom and Aunt used to compete to see who could peel the longest thread of apple skin. They’d pick out the biggest apple they could find, and deftly slide their paring knives around in a meticulous spiral. There were no potato peelers here! Slowly, a pile of ribbonlike apple peel would appear on the countertop, until someone finally exclaimed… “eergh!” as the cut end of the ribbon fell to the counter. We’d all laugh and one sister would congratulate the other – and the piemaking would continue.

Sadly, I never learned the art of marathon apple peeling, though I doubt I’d have the patience for it anyway. But there is another favorite childhood tradition I can share with Kelly in the present-tense. One of the reasons I loved watching (and, in my own small-fry way, helping) my Mom bake her pies was, oddly enough, leftover crust. What didn’t go into transforming her pies into utter works-of-art went back into the bowl … and that’s where I came in. We’d toss some fresh flour on the counter, and hit that tablespoon-or-three of crust dough with the rolling pin. It usually ended up about the size of a saucer, with the thickness of a Christmas cut-out cookie. But what came next was the real magic.

Mom always kept a shaker of cinnamon-sugar in the spice rack, and after brushing a little butter or egg white over my newly-flattened masterpiece, we’d apply a liberal dousing of crunchy-sweet flavor over the top. Along with the pie, my doughy little confection would go into the oven, to emerge (a looonnng ten minutes later) as an inimitable sweet treat.

Well, almost inimitable – because last night, after we assembled our crumb-top apple pie, we managed to have just enough crust left over for a little trip down memory lane.

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for memories like these, and for a loving family to share them with. I’m sure there are thousands more, shrink-wrapped just beneath the surface, waiting for the right touch, the right smell, the right place to bring them out. I’m thankful for those, too.

In perusing the daverea.com traffic stats, I’ve noticed a lot of folks arriving here from searches for various permutations of “Linux” and “HP 6710b”, probably attributable to my ongoing log of my experience running Ubuntu Linux on my very own 6710b business notebook.

Lately, I’d been experiencing a peculiar battery problem on my 6710b, so – despite their being completely unrelated to my use of Linux aboard the machine – I decided to add the symptoms and solution to the page. Here’s an excerpt…

Over the past few months, I’ve been noticing an increasing propensity for my 6710b’s battery light to flash yellow, rapidly, whenever the machine is turned off and the AC adapter is unplugged. As it began to occur more and more frequently, it became quite an annoyance – the machine can’t be turned on in this state, despite the fact that the battery has a full charge and will happily operate the computer if the AC adapter is removed at runtime.

[...snip...]

On returning to the line, [the tech] advised me that HP would be sending a replacement battery, but if this didn’t fix the issue, I’d need to load Windows in order to use the battery diagnostic utility.

The new battery arrived in the mail the next day – kudos to HP for sending it overnight air – and I gave it plenty of time to warm up (from the 35°F ambient outside) and an overnight charge. The next day, upon shutting down and removing the AC adapter, I got the same symptom: rapid-blinking yellow battery light.

Before calling back HP tech support or – gasp! – loading Windows, I thought perhaps a BIOS update might be in order.

[...snip...]

I burned [the BIOS update] to a CD and used the straightforward installer to flash it onto the motherboard.

From that point on, the 6710b has not exhibited the rapid-blinking yellow battery light after the machine is shut down and the AC adapter disconnected.

You can read the full accounting of my adventures with HP tech support, as well as find a link to the required BIOS update, over at the Linux on an HP 6710b page.

You might be fine with paying $9 for two hours of mediocre entertainment at the movie theater this holiday season (important note: any movie involving “James” or “Bond” is categorically excepted), but some of us are pinching pennies…

It seems fitting that I follow-up a post riddled with third-hand information and a multiplicity of latent corrections with something a little more “primary source”ish. Tonight, I had the unique – but far from singular – pleasure of taking in a Public Comment Meeting of the Monroe County Parks Department, where the county’s retained engineering firm reviewed the proposed parks master plan for several East-side parks. To say the results were “colorful” would certainly be an understatement!

I knew going into the meeting that at least two groups with opposing viewpoints would be in abundant attendance: the ADK / Sierra Club / Audubon Society set (read: staunchly opposed to multi-use trails) and those of us representing the Genesee Regional Offroad Cyclists. What I didn’t anticipate, but should have expected, was plenty of others: the dog-walkers, the dog no-leashers, the aimless ranters, the hunting-is-evil’ers, and of course, the we-must-preserve-the-fragile-ecosystem-of-biodiversity-at-all-cost’ers.

A lot of folks made a lot of valid points, and a few people actually offered some interesting perspective. More than one completely disregarded the discussion topic and pounded their agendas zombie- or schizo-style, but by and large most folks were respectful.

Obviously, unlike those covering the meeting for legitimate news outlets (and yes, they were certainly there), I’m about as biased in this fight as I was when we talked about car companies the other day. I mountain bike. A lot. While I love the places I’m allowed to ride in our area – all of which are beacons of how well multi-use can work when it’s done right – I do wish that me and my fellow knobby-tire-riding friends could be something other than second-class citizens when we enter a Monroe County Park.

When all was said and done, one bottom line emerged: mountain biking is coming to Monroe County, and the growing crowd of 50 million off-road cyclists in this country is assurance of that. The question is “where?”, and there are plenty of folks who are perfectly content to say, “over there, in that little park the rest of us don’t want to use any more.” Unfortunately for their delicate sensibilities, that’s not gonna work for the rest of us. As has been demonstrated time and time again in this great experiment called America, segregation and discrimination don’t work.

The area’s off-road cyclists’ tax dollars are just as good as those that fund the parks department from the pockets of hikers, bird watchers, horseback riders, cross-country skiers, snowshoers, fishermen and dog-walkers. All of these users enjoy their activity of choice in our county parks, with mutual respect and without fear of harassment. I refuse to believe that our area’s trail cyclists shouldn’t be afforded the same opportunity.

For the record: The photo above only shows about 1-in-10 of the people present at the meeting. Guess I need to go get one of those snazzy wide-angle cell phone cameras!!

Just a few days ago, Pauley paid tribute on his blog to one of our area’s newest – and shortest-lived – heroes. Sean Dusinberre, a father of two from Ontario County, died saving his sons’ lives when their car slid into a 12-foot-deep pond last week.

Last week, our area produced another local hero, on the opposite side of the city, from the opposite side of a 911 call. Evidently the local news outlets haven’t had time to post the story on their web sites yet, but last night a police officer in the nearby town of Greece, NY became a hero to at least two people. One of them was a woman who found herself on the business end of a carving knife – and the other was the man holding it.

He’d just stabbed the wall of his home over 200 times, and now he was ready to turn the knife on his wife. Our new hero – Greece police officer Shaun Moore – was watching the man through a rifle scope, and when the knife was raised, the officer discharged a round. It entered through the window of the home, and struck the man inside. In the arm. The arm that was holding the knife.

Moore’s fellow officers entered the house and secured the scene, and both the intoxicated, disgruntled man and his would-be victim were brought out safely. The man is expected to make a full recovery – so both he and his wife have a new hero to thank. Because of this Officer Moore’s restraint, performance under pressure, and phenomenal marksmanship, they’re both alive today. Amazingly enough, when the media rushed in to get got a statement from the town’s police chief, he praised Moore for firing the shot and ending the standoff – and rightly so. When an officer does the right thing, ends a dangerous situation – and has to use a service weapon to do it – he doesn’t deserve desk duty and an investigation. He deserves congratulations and gratitude.

Kudos to the Greece police department, and to Officer Moore, for doing all the right things. Two people have you to thank for being alive today.

Edit: Added officer’s name. Hat tip: Bob Lonsberry via 1180 WHAM
Edit: Actually, this happened last Friday. The press conference praising Officer Moore was Saturday the 22nd.

So I took my shot at a rational, logical treatment of the American Auto Manufacturers’ situation on Saturday. Given that this is a blog, I tried to keep the industry talking points in the noise, and make it more about my take than what the pundits and watchdogs are saying.

But there’s more story to tell than just my take. There’s plenty of legitimate criticism, but there’s also a lot of important fact to be conveyed – which is important when the rhetoric starts flying. Fortunately, Richard Williamson from Scripps News did a pretty darn good job setting the record straight and keeping things in perspective. I’ll try to keep this short, but I wanted to include few excerpts here that I particularly enjoyed…

In 2007, more than 9.3 million “nobodies” bought GM cars and trucks, keeping the brand in a dead heat with Toyota as the world’s largest automaker. It was the second-best sales year in GM’s 100-year history.

Were buyers just being charitable? Does “nobody” want a Corvette? Do the more than 600,000 potential buyers lining up for the new 2010 Camaro not really want one? Clearly, no one wants to buy the Cadillac CTS, Motor Trend magazine’s Car of the Year.

But the Detroit Three are not just paying for their past sins, they’re also paying for their past successes. The thousands upon thousands of retirees GM still supports were working on the line when factories were running overtime to keep up with demand. The plants they have closed were built for less competitive times.

In 2004, health care cost GM $1,525 per vehicle, compared to Toyota’s $201, according to the management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. And health care costs increase with age. Toyota had only 250 retirees in North America in 2004. GM covered about 340,000, including spouses. And those contract provisions were painstakingly negotiated in many a midnight mediation over the decades.

GM could be the beneficiary or the victim of government action, but the government has been deeply involved in the automotive business for most of its existence, from catalytic converters to air bags, which, by the way, GM pioneered.

Should the U.S. government lend taxpayer dollars to the Big Three? We’re talking about a loan, here, not an outright gift like the hundreds of billions of dollars we have poured into Iraq, including $9 billion in cash that simply disappeared.

Some respected economists argue that bankruptcy may be the only way for GM to hack the Gordian knot of contracts, laws, regulations and debts dating back to an era of black-and-white TV. But GM questions whether the world’s largest automaker could survive bankruptcy. Who would trust a warranty or parts supplies for a company that might not be around next year?

If you’re occupying an ivory tower or a talk-show microphone, you have the luxury of debating economic theory. If you are among the one out of 10 workers who depend on the auto industry for your daily bread, the question is a little more immediate.

One notable error in Williamson’s commentary is his characterization of the Chevy Volt, and we need to get this cleared up: it’s not a hybrid. I’m not talking about some obscure engineering distinction here, but a simple matter of the powertrain’s architecture. The Volt is an electric car, and it happens to have a built-in generator that can charge its battery pack. Terming it a hybrid would imply that either an electric motor or a gasoline engine could be used to put power to the wheels – and the Volt isn’t about just being a “me too” to Toyota’s prius.

I promise I’ve got some stuff in the pipeline to post here that’s pretty far from ranting about the auto industry, but for obvious reasons this topic is occupying a lot of space in my brain these days.