Jon Sagara

Many thanks to the Cobbs, Hunters, and Eoffs, who all came over to help celebrate the holidays with us.  Part of the festivities included a gingerbread house building "contest":

The "Mr. and Mrs. Clean" award: The Hunter House.  Very tidy and neat.  Notice the little snow man and the automobile.  Very nice attention to detail. 

The "WTF Were They Smoking?" award: The Sagara Shanty.  Note the funkadelic smiley face and the stylish unibrow.  Very chic.

The "Hippest House" award: The Cobb Cantina.  Mad props for sporting the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale label.  Nice wreath on the back side, too.

The "Best Adaptation When Everything Goes To Hell" award: The Eoff's Midtown-Sac Government Building in the Lavender District.  Hey, give credit where credit's due.  Greta took a wrecked residential dwelling and turned it into an income-generating property.  That's resourcefulness and improvisation at its best.

Happy holidays, everyone!

P.s. – the kids had a great time, too!

When I was a wide-eyed freshman EE student, I had a great idea for a senior project.  I was going to devise a patrol car-mounted system that would automatically detect the speed of an oncoming car and, if it was traveling above the speed limit, my system would snap a picture of the license plate and automatically generate a ticket for the owner of the car.  Obviously, I didn't think this through very far, but it was a fascinating idea to me at the time. 

Then, around the end of my sophomore year, I got bitten by the programming bug.

Bye-bye vehicle-mounted automated ticketing sytem, hello Web apps.

Well, it looks like parts of my idea are coming to fruition*:

The Sacramento Police Department will receive an award Wednesday for its high-tech license plate reader system during a ceremony recognizing outstanding accomplishments within the public sector's information technology community. [...]

The system allows a computer to read license plates in real time and compares it with information on stolen and wanted vehicles in a police database, Young said.

Patrol cars outfitted with the license plate reader are equipped with three external camera systems, which constantly scan license plate images during routine patrols. The images are then transmitted to a computer database and processed. The system notifies the officer if a match is made.

That's pretty sweet… and pretty gnarly, too. 

I suspect that it's only a matter of time before they're able to tie in GPS, radar, and video, and make each patrol car an automated hammer of justice.  Drivers, beware.

* To be clear, I had nothing to do with the design or implementation of Sac PD's new system.

w00t!

No, seriously, it's w00t:

Merriam-Webster asked the Internet [to choose the 2007 word of the year], and the Internet chose "w00t," complete with two zeros.

Err… huzzah?

I rear-ended a car this morning.
So there were – alongside the road and slowly the driver gets out of the car …
and you know how you just-get-sooo-stressed and life-stuff seems to get funny?
Yeah, well, I could NOT believe it … he was a DWARF!
He storms over to my car, looks up at me and says, I AM NOT HAPPY!"
So, I look down at him and say, "Well, which one are you then?"
… and that's when the fight started. 

Hehehe

[Received via email.  h/t to my Mom, via Uncle Bill]

It's that time of year again, where we gather around and try to take a family photo.  Here's how it went for us.

First, Troy has to warm up his posing muscles:

Okay.  We're ready.  Everybody smile!

Smile, Troy.

Dangit.  Almost.  Smile, Troy!

Yes… aw, damnit, Homer!

Frack.  Okay, the dog wants to be in the picture.  C'mere, Homer!  Homer, come!

HOMER!!!  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Okay, everyone look at the camera.

*sigh* Troy, look at the camera, please.

Seriously, Homer?  I'm gonna turn you into Dog Jerky in 2 seconds.

F*#% it.  Close enough.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

[Thank you to the Hunters for taking the pictures for us!]