My First Attempt with Watercolor

For my February 9  Thing-A-Day, I decided to create a watercolor drawing.

One of the things on my list of ideas for Thing-A-Day projects was to do a pen and ink drawing with a watercolor wash. Actually, its been on my list for much longer. The watercolor paper I used was from a package I bought about five years ago with the same idea of trying to learn to create watercolor drawings. I finally opened that package today.

It’s almost like that package of paper has been a barrier keeping me from giving it a try. Mocking me on days when I notice it setting on the shelf. I need to work on that whole right brain, left brain thing to combine more of the creative side with the analytical side.

Pen and Ink with watercolor

This project started with a photograph I took several years ago of the pickup. It is a 1946 Chevy half ton pickup. It is an old farm truck my grandfather had.

Photo of 1947 Chevy pickup.

The Process

From photo to watercolor took place with the assistance of Gimp and Photoshop (I’m trying to find my way around in each). I used the programs to edit out the background, enlarge the image, use the edge detection filter, and flatten the range of colors to black and white. I printed out the manipulated image and used vellum tracing paper to ink over the lines.

Composite from Photo to Watercolor.

After I had the pen and ink drawing, I placed a sheet of watercolor paper in the printer. From there I used my Staedtler watercolor crayons to add color. For the highlights I layered lighter colors like yellow and orange then touches of red. For shadows I used red, and two increasingly darker shades of brown.

Pen and Ink Tracing.

One great thing about Thing-A-Day comes from inspiration to try new things. I’m excited about the way this turned out and I don’t think that package of paper will be as intimidating in the future.

I have access to several books about Photoshop with a lot of great information to help learn the mechanical techniques of operating the program. For me, one book stands out for inspiration more than the others, it’s “Creative Thinking in Photoshop“. It focuses on creating art from a collection of hand drawn media plus manipulation within Photoshop.

I have some web sites that I’m beginning to work on and hope to incorporate some hand drawn artwork into the themes they will use. This exercise has given me a good place to start.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Silicone Mold for Tripod, Part 1.

The pattern for a tripod replacement part.

This was posted as my thing-a-day project for February 8.

Yesterday I made a replacement part for a tripod I bought at a garage sale. The Sculpey clay part probably would work but I can make a stronger part if I cast it in a urethane plastic. I will be making a two part mold to cast the new piece. Today I’m creating the first part of my silicone mold.

Alumilite Casting Kit Materials

I’m starting by cleaning up the surface of the pattern. It would be great if the top surface and bottom surface are parallel to each other. Since the tripod has an adjustment for tilt, I’m more concerned with keeping the top and bottom surface flat. I’m using sandpaper to prepare these surfaces.

Flattening the surfaces.

The silicone mold making materials are expensive and I don’t want to waste them by making this part of the mold any larger than necessary. I found a thin cardboard box that held soft drink cans to form the box. I’ve placed the pattern in the center then rolled out some more Sculpey clay. This time I’m not worried about curing the clay. I’m using the new clay to form a ring outside the pattern part. I intend for this ring to be used as a way of fitting the two part mold together with the proper orientation. I’m not being very careful at laying this out in a perfect square because I’m counting on the irregularities to orient the correct position when we create the second part of the mold later.

Positioning the pattern in the box.

I intended to tape the sides of the box together but the tape had a hiding place of its own, a rubber band came to the rescue.  I folded the box sides up to be held in place by the rubber band instead. With my container built, its now time to start mixing the silicone mold compound.

Measuring the materials.

With the mixture ready, its time to pour the goop over the pattern.

Beginning the pour.

Filling the container so each side is covered by at least a quarter inch of material.

Finishing The Pour.

All that’s left now is the cleanup and waiting for the silicone to cure. The instructions suggest letting it cure for 24 hours. Until tomorrow – for the second part of my two part mold.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Thing-A-Day Feb. 7

Making a Replacement Tripod Part

This was posted as my thing-a-day project for February 7.

In January our Make:KC group focused on mold making and casting parts. This is a project I wanted to create but was left over from last month.

Sometime last year I bought a nice tripod at a garage sale. The tripod was missing the piece that attaches a camera and the tripod together. For my Thing-A-Day project I wanted to make a pattern for a replacement part. My project today is making this pattern.

Garage sale tripod missing attachment part.

The missing part was designed to be wedged between an angled portion of the front bracket and a rotating latch which also has a specific angle to pinch the part into place. To make this part I’m going to use some Sculpey polymer modeling clay. This clay can be formed into the shape required then baked in an oven to retain its shape.

Kneading Sculpey Clay

After kneading the clay it’s time to begin rolling out the clay to the precise thickness of about four popsicle sticks.

Rolling clay to thickness needed.

Instead of filling the tripod solid with the clay, I need to leave a void so an attachment bolt has room plus enough width to tighten the bolt with my fingers. The wall widths seem to work if they are one popsicle stick wide.

Wall widths measuring one Ppopsicle stick wide.

The next step is to begin pushing the wall pieces into place. Squeezing them into place forming the angled latching pieces.. After placing the wall parts around the perimeter another wider piece is formed to cap off the top.

Forming the part and capping off the top.

The trick is being able to pull the part back out without deforming the clay. Before placing the clay into the tripod I places a thin sheet of cardboard into the hole. The part pulled back out without much trouble.

Underside of pattern.

After the clay is formed it’s time to bake the part. The oven was set at 275 degrees F. and left for about 20 minutes. After removing the part it is solid and can be handled without fear of deforming it.

Baking the polymer clay part.

The cured part is test fitted back in the tripod. It is a little tight fit but does pop into place.

Test fitting the pattern part.

The new Sculpey clay part could be drilled and fitted with a bolt to attach my camera. The cured clay part is durable and could work to save the day if I didn’t have any other options and needed the part to get the job done. I don’t want just a quick fix, I want a workable replacement part. By using this piece as a pattern I can create a molded part with more durable materials. Next project is to create a mold that can be used to cast a new part.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Thing-A-Day Feb 6

Memories of Grandpa’s Truck.

Manipulated photo using Gimp

This image was scanned from an old snapshot of my grandfather’s 1946 Chevy pickup truck. I have editied the photo using the Gimp program. Instead of using Photoshop this time which requires rebooting my computer into Windows Vista, I decided to try learning some new techniques in Gimp after some friend’s encouragement.

The picture was separated into different layers. It used a white background image. The original photograph on a separate layer. The area outside of the truck’s fender was selected and removed. Another layer was created using a copy of the truck image and converted to a grey scale. Each layer above the background was layer was assigned an opacity value around 50%. The colored layer was adjusted using the edge detect sobel filter.

I was hoping to get an image with an artistic sketch type appearance. I was looking for something with a faded and fuzzy look to represent a faded memory from the past.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Thing-A-Day1+

My Thing-A-Day projects got off to a rocky start by missing the midnight deadline for my first project. I’ve been wanting to learn more about Photoshop, plus I’m wanting to get some promotional materials put together for our Make:KC group. So, for my first project I chose to create a logo using some advanced  Photoshop type effects.

Thing-a-day logo project.

It didn’t quite turn out the way I imagined but I did learn new Photoshop features while working on this project. I was working from the Photoshop Type Effects Visual Encyclopedia book using their Soft Plastic technique. There are a number of great looking typography styles to choose from in the book.

Photoshop is capable of much more than my normal usage, mostly croping photos,  adjusting the image slightly, creating a few montage images, and using a few filters. For this project I ended up learning about using the Alpha Channel.

Alpha Channel

I don’t know why I haven’t used the alpha channel before. I kind of remember reading something a few years ago about how difficult it was to use these channels. That may still be true but I found that using the alpha channel as a way of saving a particular selection set within your image was easy and is great.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Scientific Programming Study Group

Notes from Jan 21 and 27, 2010 Scientific Programming Study Group

Jim Emery is a member of Kansas City’s STEM2 society. He has started a Scientific Programming Study Group recently at the CCCKC hackerspace. STEM2 is a group that promotes Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The topic is based on his document titled “Scientific Calculating, Programming and Writing” which can be found at the Stem2 web site.

Using Python

Jim chose the Python language for these sessions. It is a powerful language with many features that make scientific computing easier.

Finding documentation on Python:

• Python Documentation – Get the official documentation from Python.org.
• Dive into Python – You can download a free copy of this book or purchase a printed copy.
• Thinking in Python – You can get this and other books from Bruce Eckel’s web site.
• A Byte of Python – This is a good introductory text for Python.

Getting Started in Linux

Since I’m using Ubuntu Linux, Python is already installed. To work through Jim’s examples I need to create the following new directories in my home folder “/vthompson“.

• /bin
• /tmp
• /src

The next step is to open a command window and adjust the $PATH variable so any programs placed in the /bin folder can be found. First, keyin the command echo $PATH to see how this environment variable is already defined.

PATH Environment Variable

From the picture above, we see the /bin directory shows up in in several places. Surprisingly, the directory I just created in my home directory already shows up. How did this happen? The answer can be found in the hidden shell script also found in my home directory,  vthompson/.profile. It contains the following code segment that automatically places a home directory’s /bin path as the first one in the PATH list.

# set PATH so it includes user’s private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH=”$HOME/bin:$PATH”
fi

A good place to find more information is the Ubuntu Documentation page on Environment Variables. Also, for more information about shell scripts check out the Beginners Bash Scripting page. Another helpful document if you’re just starting to work with the command line is this CategoryCommandLine document.

Purpose of the /bin Directory

Linux is designed as a multi user operating system. While your desktop or laptop computer may not be used by other people logging into different accounts, using the home directory’s /bin folder prevents our special programs from interfering with someone else’s computer usage habits.

Now, its time to populate the /bin directory with files from the STEM2 software listing. The files we need are linux.zip and py.zip. Download and unzip the contents into /bin.

Trying a Sample Program

From Jim’s book, Chapter 6 on Graphing and Programmable Calculators, I’m trying the square root sample. I’ve created a /src directory to place my program source code into. Here is the sample program written using the gedit editor:

Squareroot Source Code

And the resulting screen shot of the program:

Squareroot Example Python Program

Other Python Notes:

• Python Numeric and Scientific Programs – More programs using Python

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Adventures in Linux Documentation

In the Linux world, there are multiple paths toward providing a solution. There are various “brands” of Linux distributions (“distros”) that seem to have a little different way of doing things. Likewise, when you download programs written for Linux there are often multiple programs providing similar capabilities (some better than others). Documentation with configuration details can lead in different directions based on who wrote them. Sometimes the Linux world gives you enough rope to hang yourself.

I’ve been setting up a test environment to get web server functionality that I’ll use to create web sites offline as I described in X-AMPP Based Web Sites. Since then I’ve downloaded Drupal 6 from the Drupal download site and prepared to install in my test server environment.

A couple of weeks earlier I set up my first Drupal environment with the online Internet service provider that will be hosting my live web sites. This ISP provides a button to launch the Drupal setup process and everything went smoothly.

The X-AMP configuration created a web hosting area under /opt/lampp/htdocs directory. Since I’m wanting to set up multiple virtual domains I added a “www” folder named htdocs/www under that directory as a placeholder for each virtual domain. For example I have set up htdocs/www/mystudysource.dom for that particular web site. My first instinct was to download and extract Dripal into this domain’s directory. I realized this was wrong and placed the extracted files onto my desktop area instead. Then I created a “drupal6″ folder and proceeded to copy the extracted contents into my mystudysource.dom/drupal6 directory using an ftp program.

XAMPP Control Panel

I started the XAMPP control panel, pushing the Start XAMPP button and was up and running as far as having a web server but I still needed to copy the files into my domain’s area. Since one of the components started is ProFTPD (an ftp server program) I’m able to use a program like Mozilla’s FileZilla to transfer these files. With the drupal files in the mystudygroup.dom/drupal6 directory I’m ready to start configuration.

Setting up Drupal on my development environment didn’t go as smoothly. I got a list of warnings and errors but not the configuration screen I expected. Doing the same thing over and over produced similar results with some slight variations. I suspect I have some kind of mis-configuration causing access errors so, its back to reading the documentation to see what I missed.

Over the last few days I’ve been reading a lot more documentation, both online and from books I already have. It’s interesting how a variety of sources can take you off in different directions. Reading the documentation is similar to looking at an old weathered stone that has many cracks running in different directions. I’ve seen a wide range of documentation from topics that are well formated and easy to follow to the extreme opposite with a pathetic mashup of email comments appearing as a solid block of text characters with no formatting at all. I’m sure one of these documentation fissures will lead me in the right direction.

– About SomeoneKnows –
(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

X-AMP Based Web Sites

I’ve been developing web sites since 1996 and was the architect of Paul Mueller’s plate heat exchanger design program brought online in 2000. So far the web sites I’ve built have used Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS).

I’m working on some new web sites running on Linux and using the Apache web server. In particular they are using Apache, MySql database and PHP which refer to using the “AMP” designation. There’s WAMP for a Windows version, LAMP versions for Linux applications, and XAMPP. I ended up using the XAMPP project from ApacheFriends as described in this Ubuntu Forums thread. I went to the XAMPP area on SourceForge to download the latest version. This placed the LAMP applications in my /opt/lampp directory.

Virtual Domains

I am creating multiple web sites and want a separate development environment on my laptop for each web domain. Next I edit the /etc/hosts file to define local ip addresses for each of my web sites. Localhost is already defined at 127.0.0.1, then I’m adding the name of my computer, gtdev1, so it points to 127.0.0.1 also. I will be working on the following web sites: GeometricTechnology.com, MyStudySource.com, DIYRoboticsLab.com, UnBiasedSewing.com, LabyWiinth.com, and MakeKC.com.

I’m hard coding IP locations mapped to my computer. If I were to use the “.com” designation it would hijack any attempts to go to the live Internet web sites from my computer. To prevent confusion I’m changing the names slightly using a “.dom” designation instead. I use .dom to represent domain. I edit the /etc/hosts file adding the lines mapped to IP addresses 127.0.0.1.

127.0.0.1    localhost
127.0.1.1    gtdev1
127.0.1.1    GeometricTechnology.dom
127.0.1.1    MyStudySource.dom
127.0.1.1    DIYRoboticsLab.dom
127.0.1.1    UnBiasedSewing.dom
127.0.1.1    labywiinth.dom
127.0.1.1    MakeKC.dom

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

Now, for instance, when I type http://MyStudySource.dom into the web browser it serves up the default page from my laptop. This lets me work with each unique local web domain. The next thing I need to do is provide a separate folder for each domain instead of the default localhost location.

I created a folder called under /opt/lampp/htdocs/ called www with folders inside for each of the domains, for instance /opt/lampp/htdocs/www/geometrictechnology.dom.

Next I edit the /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf file to identify folders for each of the local domains.

#
# Virtual Hosts
#
# If you want to maintain multiple domains/hostnames on your
# machine you can setup VirtualHost containers for them. Most configurations
# use only name-based virtual hosts so the server doesn’t need to worry about
# IP addresses. This is indicated by the asterisks in the directives below.
#
# Please see the documentation at
# <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/>
# for further details before you try to setup virtual hosts.
#
# You may use the command line option ‘-S’ to verify your virtual host
# configuration.

#
# Use name-based virtual hosting.
#
NameVirtualHost *:80

#
# VirtualHost example:
# Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container.
# The first VirtualHost section is used for all requests that do not
# match a ServerName or ServerAlias in any <VirtualHost> block.
#

<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot htdocs/xampp
ServerName localhost
ErrorLog logs/localhost-error_log
CustomLog logs/localhost-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@geometrictechnology.dom
DocumentRoot htdocs/www/geometrictechnology.dom
ServerName geometrictechnology.dom
ErrorLog logs/geometrictechnology.dom-error_log
CustomLog logs/geometrictechnology.dom-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@mystudysource.dom
DocumentRoot htdocs/www/mystudysource.dom
ServerName mystudysource.dom
ErrorLog logs/mystudysource.dom-error_log
CustomLog logs/mystudysource.dom-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@diyroboticslab.dom
DocumentRoot htdocs/www/diyroboticslab.dom
ServerName diyroboticslab.dom
ErrorLog logs/diyroboticslab.dom-error_log
CustomLog logs/diyroboticslab.dom-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@labywiinth.dom
DocumentRoot htdocs/www/labywiinth.dom
ServerName labywiinth.dom
ErrorLog logs/labywiinth.dom-error_log
CustomLog logs/labywiinth.dom-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@unbiasedsewing.dom
DocumentRoot htdocs/www/unbiasedsewing.dom
ServerName unbiasedsewing.dom
ErrorLog logs/unbiasedsewing.dom-error_log
CustomLog logs/unbiasedsewing.dom-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@makekc.dom
DocumentRoot htdocs/www/makekc.dom
ServerName makekc.dom
ErrorLog logs/makekc.dom-error_log
CustomLog logs/makekc.dom-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

To enable the http-vhosts.config settings check the httpd.config again to verify the following Include statements are un commented.

# Virtual hosts
Include etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

# XAMPP
Include etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf

# Various default settings
Include etc/extra/httpd-default.conf

After making these changes stop and restart Apache so it will find the changes.

Under the /opt/lampp/htdocs/www/ folder I have a folder for each of the domains I want to use. Inside each of the domain folders I have a file named index.html. This file simply has the paragraph tag

<p> Hello World </p>

Actually, I customized the message in each to know which folder the web page was served from. Now when I type my local domain name into a browser is serves up my Hello World or equivalent example from each domain’s directory.

– About SomeoneKnows –

(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

Laptop Rebuild

I got a new 500 GB hard drive over the Christmas season and have installed it in my laptop computer. I considered going with Linux only but finally gave in and set aside a portion for Windows. I’m hoping some of the mythical stimulus money finally lands on a project I’m in line to work on that requires using a Windows only program.

Before installing the new drive I spent a few days archiving files to DVD. I’m getting ready to rebuild a server too so getting files from both computers took extra time.

Hard Drive Partitions

This is how I partitioned my disk drive:

When I installed Windows Vista from the restore CD, this put two partitions on the disk.

• /dev/sda1 – Toshiba System Volume with 1.6 GB NTFS
• /dev/sda2 – SQ0046… Reduced to 60 GB NTFS Area for Windows OS and other programs

After getting Window installed I placed the Ubuntu 9.10 in the CD drive and rebooted. The installation procedure needs to know about how the disk drive will be used. I added the following partitions:

/dev/sda3 Remaining 439 GB partitioned as follows

• /dev/sda5 – 32 GB Filesystem formatted as FAT32 mounted as /shared (I’m using this when my project files are supported by both Win and Linux OS)
• /dev/sda6 – 4GB set up as Linux swap space
• /dev/sda7 – Remaining 403 GB as Linux Ext4 file system mounted as /

– About SomeoneKnows –

(c) 2010 Vince Thompson

The Secret of Life is… A F D B G E

Our Make:KC group began a challenge this month to bring a project using circuit bending for our November Show and Tell. I’m working on a toddler’s piano that plays notes and talks. I also have some cheap thrift store keyboards including a 49 key electronic keyboard. It made me think maybe I should learn to play something too.

My Pursuit of Learning to Play Music

A friend recently asked me to look at some computer source code and see if I understood what it was doing. He said “this code sounds like dogs barking to me”. He is an accomplished artist and musician so this seems reasonable. I hadn’t heard it expressed quite like that before, but I get it, I know what he’s saying. For me, reading sheet music is the same way and the piano lessons 40 some years ago probably reflected that, sounding exactly like dogs barking. I’m not alone in this deficiency of reading music though.

Middle C

The most recognizable note on sheet music is Middle C ( O ) It’s the note sitting there with a short line through the middle between the messes of lines above and below.  It sets there, staring us in the face. Mocking us. Tempting us. I think we may be born knowing which note is the Middle C.

After hours of research, it turns out that Middle C is not so unique after all. Other notes can have that little line drawn through them too, A’s and E’s to name a couple and maybe all of them. It would help if each letter was assigned to only one line or a space of its own but that’s not happening. Take the note E for instance. On the upper staff (AKA: Treble Clef) it shows up twice, once on a line then further up it’s on a space between lines. And what’s going on with the lower staff (AKA: Bass Clef) its notes are no where near the locations in the Treble Clef. I wonder sometimes if people who are dyslexic have an easier time reading sheet music.

Then there are the word games that are supposed to help you remember the notes. PLEASE keep the word phrases away!!! Memorizing “All Good Dogs Go To Heaven” isn’t working for me.

A Computer Science Connection?

Maybe there’s some way to make order out of this chaos. I’ve been programming for a long time, maybe it would help to correlate music with computer science.

We have the letters A through G. That looks like programming using Hexadecimal numbers, but that’s using 16 digits and we only have 7 white key’s before cycling through them again. Seven is one digit short to be considered for the Octal numbering system. Then there are those pesky black keys to mess things up. On a keyboard there are seven white keys plus five black keys, that gets us up to twelve. Come to think of it we do have a precedent with collections of twelve. There are 12 hours on the clock, 12 inches per foot, and 12 donuts in a dozen (or is that 13). This line of thought seems to be going nowhere.

Finding symmetry

It turns out that short line belonging to Middle C is actually borrowed. Other notes can indeed look just like Middle C with the line. The short line has a name, they call it a ledger line. I’m boycotting Middle C for the rest of the day, instead I’m calling it X.

Symmetry with the Ledger Lines.

When I write computer programs I look for patterns. Patterns in the data being used. Patterns in the source code I’m writing. Patterns allow me to create reusable functionality in a program. So looking for patterns in sheet music might work. Then there it was. Hidden, as if written in white ink on white paper, the pattern I was looking for; A F D B G E. A poetic  mnemonic, A F D – B G E. Framed upon symmetrical ledger lines.

Symmetrical Pattern with AFDBGE applied.

Suddenly instead of learning only the treble clef before even thinking about starting on the bass clef, AFDBGE allows me to make sense of both clefs at the same time.

Top Google Results:

I Googled “AFDBGE” to see what other learning aids I could find based on AFDBGE.

• African Development Bank. Completely unrelated I’m sure. But that reminds me I have a couple of emails I haven’t responded to yet about  a relative that recently died leaving a large sum of money. (I’ve never heard of this person but if I don’t come forward soon a foreign government will take all the money).
• Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie. This sounds like something that may be useful when learning to read music. I’ll check this one out later.
• I Found some source code posted that initialized variables using this sequence. Close, but not used as a technique for learning.
• I Found some charts for playing chords and scales. This is logical to run a scale which has the sequence in a downward progression. Still not a technique built around learning to read sheet music.

I’m beginning to wonder if there is a code of ethics among musicians – never speak of AFDBGE and deny its existence.

The Pattern in AFDBGE

If I can get the lines memorized the spaces should come much easier as a function of remembering what letter comes between the particular line pair. For instance lines B & D the letter after B is C (this is not that other note X), lines D & F has an E in between.

• A
  • G
• F
  • E
• D
  • C
• B
  • A
• G
  • F
• E

Memory games.

I never wanted to play guitar but here I am. I talked with an instructor at the Antioch Music Center and scheduled a class. Yikes. That class is less than 24 hours away. Reading music is not a prerequisite but it’s a worthy goal. I’ll try some memory games to see if I can recognize more notes.

Maybe it will help me remember if I write AFDBGE 50 times

AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE
AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE AFDBGE

Nope! That helped me remember the Ctl-V does paste on this computer though.

I know what will help, I’ll blog about it…

Maybe I’ll change my password to AFDBGE -or- afdbge -or- AfDbGe -or- aFdBgE (oops I shouldn’t blog about this one). If you find an account I’ve used any of these passwords on please don’t hijack my account :~|

From this day forward, AFDBGE should never have a phrase associated with it not even “All Fat Dudes Buy Girls Earrings” – NO NEVER!

We know the alphabet – A,B,C,D,E,F,G forwards and backwards right? Not really, and a key to memorizing for me is to try remembering backwards. G, F, E, D, C, B, A. This should help me place the letters in-between, what was that again? AGDGTH – argh, if I reread this blog a couple more times I should have it memorized.

Anyway, a few of my favorite YouTube videos right now are performances of the Leon Russell song “This Masquerade”. One by Jake Reichbart and another by Pat Metheny and friends in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2.  And there’s Leon Russell performing the song himself.

– About SomeoneKnows –

(c) 2009 Vince Thompson