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At least 99% of the time I listen to music, I am sitting at the computer or in the car. To listen to music in the car, I can either (1) listen to the 4 songs that are in rotation on commercial radio, or (2) bring along CDs. And with the advent of iTunes, I end up burning a lot of CDs to listen to in the car.

So, with all the hype surrounding iPods, I have thought about getting one several times, along with one of those FM transmitter add-ons so you can listen to it through your car stereo. But it just keeps coming down to this: is it really worth several hundred dollars to be able to listen to music I like in the car? When I can already do it by burning CDs, even though that’s a hassle? No, it’s not, so I don’t have an iPod.

Then I came across this little guy:

The VR3 FM Modulator. It plugs into your car’s cigarette lighter and has a USB port. So, you can fill up a USB key (which is way cheaper than an iPod) with all your favorite mp3s, stick it into the VR3, and it will broadcast the mp3s over your car stereo. It’s about $30.

Mine just arrived in the mail today, so maybe I’m not that qualified to review it, but here’s what I’ve experienced so far: it was incredibly easy to use, the sound quality was fine, and it works exactly as I expected. The cons: it will only play songs in the order in which they were copied onto the USB key, so if order is important to you, you have to be careful there. More importantly, the unit completely resets when the car is turned off, so if you’ve filled up a 1Gb USB key for a long car trip and you stop for gas, you can expect to sit there hitting the “next song” button for a minute or two to get back to the song you were listening to. Also, the VR3 broadcasts on one of 7 channels — you can select the channel that sounds the best in your area. But the channel selection also resets when you turn the car off, so basically you have to reconfigure this thing every time you turn your car on. Kind of a pain, but hey, it was 30 bucks.

Here’s where I bought it from: Virtual Reality Sound Labs. When I bought it, I couldn’t find any reviews online, so I took a chance… So here’s my review, in case anyone else out there is wondering if this thing really works.

UPDATE: It’s been a year and a half since I wrote this review. Ultimately, having to reset every time I turned the car off wasn’t working for me, especially since I tend to listen to long podcasts and there’s no way to fast-forward. In December I bit the bullet and got an iPod Shuffle — they were down to around $75, so really not that bad. I don’t use a radio transmitter for listening in the car; I just drive with the earbuds in, and that seems to be fine. If you’re considering the VR3 for the same reason I did, I think the Shuffle is worth the extra money.

A lot of wrong numbers leave messages on our answering machine, mostly for “Theresa” telling her to come pick up her kids from school. I sure hope Theresa’s kids finally got picked up. I’ve tried calling the school back and telling them that Theresa’s number has changed, but that has not stemmed the tide (okay, I exagerate, maybe there’s one or two a month) of calls for her. But anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about:

Everyone knows how answering machines work by now, so ours has a very short message: Hey, it’s the Kurths — leave us a message!

Today that really confused a lady. Just listen to the way she says, Hey it’s WHAT?? [Listen to the message]

I make resolutions throughout the year, and their typical lifespan ranges from about 30 minutes to, in a good year, 45 minutes. Whatever, I like making resolutions, and I think this will be a good one to try out.

Basically, I am going to read more old books (100 years old or older). Here’s where I got the idea:

In the early 300s, St. Athanasius wrote a short book called On the Incarnation. A little over 1600 years later, C.S. Lewis wrote an introduction to an english translation of that book. About 50-60 years after that (i.e., this morning), I read his introduction and was inspired. Here’s the introduction, in case you’re interested. He makes a good case for reading old books to keep from being blinded to contemporary assumptions that might be easily overlooked otherwise.

Another pro: Old books are in the public domain, so many of them are free online (for example, after reading the introduction I just linked to, scroll down and start reading On the Incarnation!). But I also resolve to finally get a library card soon.

Lewis suggests: “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.” I will probably fall more on the “one old one to every three new ones” side, but we’ll see. I’m starting with On the Incarnation, which, like my attention span, is pretty short.

“What’s it like having a baby?”
“Jordan says it’s like having a dog that slowly learns to talk.”
“Cool!”

—Scrubs, Jan. 3, 2006

In The Message, a popular Bible translation, 1 Timothy 1:10 says:

“Sex, truth, whatever!”

Sounds like a hedonistic band slogan or something.

Karianne and I are trying out a new schedule starting this morning. Basically, we’re getting up at 5:00 to eat breakfast, do some morning chores, and (of course) feed the baby. Our goal is to work from 7:00 to 3:30 every day, so we’ll get to spend more of the afternoon with Kaeta each day. Karianne goes back to work next Monday, so we’re starting the new routine today to help us get used to it.

For our anniversary (Dec. 21) we bought a new camera! To make a long, boring ordeal short: we first bought an Olympus, but it took over 3 seconds from the time you pushed the button to the time it captured the picture! This was unbearable. So we returned it and got a Canon SD550, which (so far, at least) I can highly recommend. It’s very small, the pictures look good (See for yourself.), and the shutter delay is much better.

There are some new pics of Kaeta from Christmas and New Year’s, just check out the Photos link at the top of this page. Happy New Year!

Today I took a break from work to walk down to the corner and stretch my legs. Imagine my surprise when, right outside the business next to ours, I saw two bright green tropical birds standing amidst a crowd of crows and grackles!

Alas, I did not have a camera, so I stood there and stared wide-eyed for a minute (they were really pretty birds, and I’m easily impressed). I poked my head in the door of Regal Plastics to say “hey, come check out these cool birds!”, but the people in there looked busy so I didn’t say anything. Then a lady drove up and stopped her car to stare out the window at the birds. We exchanged a few words about how cool they were, and then she left.

I hoofed it back to the office, picked up my camera phone, and grabbed Colin and Joshua, who instantly began making fun of me for being so excited. As the three of us walked back outside, I scanned the trees and spotted the birds across the street. Like a crazy man, I then ran across the road (yes, Mom, I looked both ways first) pointing at the birds and shouting, “There they are!”

So we all got to see them. I busted out my (exceedingly crappy) camera phone to take a picture, but somebody scared them away. I tried to take a pic of one of the birds while it was still in the air, so here it is:

Colin compared this photo to a picture of Sasquatch… I think there are a few blurry green pixels there. Anyway, here’s a picture I found online of what the bird looks like up close. I think this is some kind of parrot. It was pretty big, about the same size as a crow.

It was surprisingly exciting to see a bird like this! I’ve sometimes wondered, “What’s the big deal about bird watching?” But now I can sort of imagine how it could be fun.

***UPDATE 12/19/05*** Barry says these are Mexican parrots that sometimes migrate this far north. We then speculated on who would win in a fight between the parrots and the bats that live under the Congress bridge. Consensus: the parrot would win, but it would later die after contracting some weird bat disease.

“According to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival, which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth-like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that medieval folks believed the earth is flat-often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true.”

Get the rest of the story here.
*Update* Here is a more scholarly article about this.

You can see photos from Kaeta’s baptism by clicking the Photos link at the top of this page, or by clicking this link.

Starting with this gallery, I’m using a new tool to generate web albums called, appropriately, Web Album Generator. Most web gallery programs I’ve seen are WAY more complicated than I need, so up to now I’ve been generating albums using a Perl script of my own devising. But this tool is simple, free, and does exactly what I wanted, no more or less, so I’m switching. Just thought you’d want to know.

Also, astute readers will notice that there is now a “Books” link at the top of this page. Click it sometime and see what all the fuss is about.

Another cute thing I keep forgetting to post…

39 weeks	43 weeks