Happy Birthday to Doug (yesterday)

See you guys later.  I’ll probably post while I’m away.  I’ll make a massive picture post at the end.  Since getting the XTi I’m shooting mostly in RAW now, which makes me have to post-process before posting to Flickr.  If I do get a few pictures edited, you know they’ll be on Flickr.

Do Not TXT me until August

From July 22 to July 31 I will be in London/Paris. I will have my phone for emergency purposes. Please refrain from txt messaging me or calling me.

Rate per minute: $0.99
TXT: $0.35 sent, $0.15 received

Steve Francis to return to Rockets

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4982185.html

In most cases this would be bad news, but I prefer him over what I saw come out of Rafer. Looks like we either have a lot of depth in the guard position or… somebody is getting traded. Francis does play a lot of two guard, so I can see us keeping Rafer around. Aaron Brooks isn’t going anywhere. My vote is to trade Rafer or Head. Head can shoot and teams like that. I’m not sure what other position we need to fill. The roster is looking solid.

G: Francis, James, Brooks, Rafer, Head, Lucas III, Brad Newley (rookie), Sura (trade bait)
G/F: T-Mac, Bonzi, Snyder
F: Battier, Scola, Hayes, Landry, Novak, Justin Reed, Mike Harris
C: Yao, Mutumbo, Butler, Tsakalidis

Some of these guys are Free Agents or Rookies, so we may just drop FAs and keep rookies off the official roster. I could see a trade, but I can also see us keeping this group around and try and get into the second round of the playoffs finally.

Former Spurs draft pick Scola signs with Rockets

HOUSTON — Five years after being drafted, Luis Scola has finally signed an NBA contract.

Scola, chosen by San Antonio in the 2002 draft but never played for the Spurs, was introduced as the newest member of the Houston Rockets on Tuesday.

I posted about Scola a while back.  It has to be one of the greatest trades in Rocket’s history.  Even if both Scola AND Butler turn out to be bums, we gave up V-Span (and some cash and a draft pick in 2009).  V-Span didn’t get to play on a team with Rafer, Luther Head, and John Lucas III in the backcourt.  On top of that, V-Span publicly noted he wasn’t even coming back to the NBA this season, even with Rick Adelman as the new coach.  So the Rockets gave up a player who wasn’t even going to play, for Scola, the best foreign prospect right now.  On top of getting a starting PF, we got Butler.  While he didn’t play much in San Antonio, he’s actually pretty good.  He use to be a Knick.  He has decent touch around the basket and he can also play at PF even though he is huge.  A big PF, but still a PF/C.  He will be able to spend minutes behind Yao/Mutumbo because Mutumbo doesn’t really give you that many minutes.  He will also be able to give some minutes at the PF spot.  Right now I think Scola and Chuck Hayes are the only PFs on the team.  Novak can technically play the position but he’s really a two guard with the height and speed of a PF.  So I do see Butler being able to play some PF when we go big, just like Shane Battier plays PF when we go small.  Like so many seasons before, the Rockets have me excited.  I just hope there isn’t a huge let down, or another injury plagued season.  While I am sad we didn’t get Rashard Lewis, a 3pt shooting PF to spread the floor for Yao, I’m glad we didn’t overpay for him like the Orlando Magic did.  Not landing Rashard got us Scola, which may be better in the end.

I wonder what the starting lineup will be.
Yao, Scola, Battier, Tmac, Rafer
Seems a little slow.  Guess it depends on what team we play.

That’s a pretty big lineup.  Maybe we get lucky and sign Francis.  I’d prefer him over Rafer any day.  At the same time, I wonder if Aaron Brooks can start playing this season.  He can flat out play.  His only problem is being undersized.  Of course, TJ Ford and Chris Paul are tiny players too.  If you can’t tell, I’m really excited.

email signature

I suggest everybody should have an email signature.  It is easy and can be applied automatically.  I ask this because of a very specific problem I have.  I have unlimited txt messages on my phone.  To help put this to use, I automatically forward a copy of all my email to my phone as a txt message.  While I am able to write and send emails through text messages on my phone, I can’t always determine who is writing me the email.

My phone just shows the text message as coming from me because I am just forwarding a copy to my phone.  So I can read the message but unless there is a name in the message, I can’t tell who wrote it.  I guess I could look for a solution to the problem, but a simple email signature by everybody should do the trick.

Who wants to go see the Texans v Titans?

Houston Texans’ single-game tickets go on sale on Wednesday, July 18 at 10 a.m on Ticketmaster.com

Titans game is Oct 21st.

Our new PF I hope

Gigabit

I’ve finally upgraded my entire network to gigabit ethernet.  I wanted to see how file transfers over the network have improved.  I ran some tests:

Computers:
IBM Laptop Intel PRO/1000 LAN adapter
Desktop Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010 PCI Gigabit Ethernet Controller

***Tiny File***
1.  Google_Earth_BZXD.exe  15.0 MB (15,732,984 bytes)

* Laptop to Desktop
3.10 vs 1.30
2.61 vs 1.03

* Desktop to Laptop
1.80 vs 0.76
1.30 vs 0.81

***Bunch of Little Files***
2.  Pictures\20077_07_04 july 4th – hurry before it rains
58 Files 425 MB (446,514,928 bytes) avg 6-10 MB per picture files
moved as a folder

* Laptop to Desktop
46.39 vs 15.34
45.67 vs 16.24

* Desktop to Laptop
50.17 vs 26.01
47.07 vs 26.28

***Big File***
3.  Divx Movie 571 MB (599,660,544 bytes)

* Laptop to Desktop
1m 0.66 vs 15.52
1m 0.66 vs 15.79

* Desktop to Laptop
55.75 vs 26.01
55.89 vs 26.91

***Bigger File***
3.  Divx Movie 696 MB (730,253,312 bytes)

* Laptop to Desktop
1m 14.16 vs 37.35
1m 13.89 vs 19.89

* Desktop to Laptop
1m 8.53 vs 34.29
1m 8.49 vs 31.68

***Even Bigger File***
4.  Divx Movie 1.46 GB (1,572,718,592 bytes)

* Laptop to Desktop
2m 39.03 vs 41.17
2m 39.02 vs 40.09

* Desktop to Laptop
2m 27.60 vs 1m 11.01
2m 26.97 vs 1m 12.00

***Biggest File***
5. game iso – 4.32 GB (4,645,076,992 bytes)

* Laptop to Desktop
7m 43.95 vs 3m 28.53

* Desktop to Laptop
7m 13.21 vs 3m 38.97

***My 2007 Picture Collection***
6. 2,144 files, 63 folders – 7.99 GB

17m 33.49 vs 9m 4.68

As you can see, the results aren’t half bad.  I got my switch for about $25.  I think over time as file sizes grow larger, this thing will pay off more and more.  Consistently backing up my picture files will be easier now.  The XTi files are so much larger than the files generated by the SD550.  While moving multiple files doesn’t get as much boost as just moving one huge file, the entire backup sync is still improved.

so scared

IMG_2301

Originally uploaded by wu.jason

run!

Transformers

Thumbs up.  Entertaining.