MarchTwenty.com Blog

Panoramio Pics

Ted Balmer — 2009-01-03 21:10:37

I dumped a few of my scenic photos on Panoramio. Which should be viewable on Google Earth and Google Maps. The photos are mainly from around Wisconsin, with a couple from Chelsea, MI and Schenectady, NY.

Winter Houses theme

Ted Balmer — 2008-12-14 10:31:14

I just finished the winter version of my iGoogle Houses Theme. I tried to make it relatively generic in avoiding anything directly related to the holidays, since this theme is supposed to last through February. I'll need to come up with a Spring theme next and after that I don't know. I still need to make a theme based off the illustrations from my book.

Ambulance Ride Along

Ted Balmer — 2008-11-02 23:33:51

Later this week I'm going on a ride along with an ambulance service. To date, I've never been in an ambulance one way or the other. So this should be an eye opening experience for me. I'm still unsure if I want to do this for a living though. Even after two full months of class, I don't know if I'm going to like this line of work. At the very least I've learned a lot.

First EMT class

Ted Balmer — 2008-09-04 00:19:31

I had my first EMT-B class this evening. This is certainly going to be an interesting experience. The ride along portion of the course alone should be eye opening enough. I never been inside an ambulance one way or an other. But, I am still unsure if I want to do that for a living. At the very least I may learn something new that could come in handy down the road. A little variety in life never hurt.

Gen Con, how I miss thee

Ted Balmer — 2008-08-17 22:26:38

I went to Gen Con every year through the 90’s up until it was moved out of Milwaukee. I miss it even though I admittedly never took part in the actual gaming that went on there. I did, however, enjoy exploring the exhibit hall and gazing at all the hard-to-find stuff that you couldn't get anywhere else. I especially liked witnessing some of the upcoming computer games, with some becoming vaporware never to be anything more than a presentation reel. Oh, and the free stuff! I still have a bunch of old FASA posters and trinkets from Gen Con’s of yore.

That was before the Internet came around. Now with video games being announced a year or two in advance accompanied by a website with screen shots and video; seeing these same things live just doesn't do anything for me anymore. And with the plethora of online stores and eBay, hard-to-find stuff is somewhat less difficult.

If Gen Con can stays afloat, it will be because of the people who go to game with other like minded individuals.

To me, it was a great way to kill a Saturday afternoon.

Swords of Wood

Ted Balmer — 2008-08-15 00:34:16

A couple of weeks ago I decided to make some swords out of some scrap wood that I had laying around at my parents house. I've always enjoued creating things and since most of my creations are not in a tactile form, I thought it would be nice to make something I could touch, that and my Dad has a workshop with every kind of power tool you can imagine... that would impress even Norm.

So far I've only made three. I kept the designs rather simple for my first attempts: a square blade and rounded edges. The trickiest part has been cutting the rectagular hole in the hilt cross guard so that it isn't too big, but just tight enough. With staining, I went with a two-tone stain as opposed to paint. I thought there was no sense in disguising these blades as something they are not.

With my next attempts, I intend on giving the blades more of an edge, a flat diamond shape, to make them more realistic and a little less blocky.

New Site once again

Ted Balmer — 2008-07-25 18:32:45

I've redesigned my site around a new content management system that I wrote from scratch. On this new site, I stripped away the unnecessary material and streamlined what I had left. Most of my gallery works are, at this point, pretty old, so I've pushed them into the back seat and I'm focusing on my more recent works, such as my book.

Anyway, I'm still actively tweaking the design of the site, so parts of the site may change a bit.

iGoogle homepage theme

Ted Balmer — 2008-07-17 20:42:37

I made my own iGoogle homepage theme with Inkscape. The creation process wasn't too bad, Google’s documentation was okay, but as a web designer i wish Google allowed a bit more freedom in the design of a few of the graphical elements. I'll probably update it in the future to fix a few minor things. I may even do a winter theme as well down the road as well.

2007 Round-up

Ted Balmer — 2008-01-05 01:10:30

Obviously I didn't live up to my blogging promise. I really haven't felt compelled to write about anything over the past year, and I don't particularly like to write about nothing just for the sake of writing something everyday or so (or in my case every year). But to sum this year up, 2007 was a lot like 2006: for the better or worse, not much has changed.

Anyway, here’s a quick update on my projects:

REMLAB - I haven't worked on it all year. The truth is I can't remember the last time I played Battletech, so my personal incentive to keep working on REMLAB is pretty bleak. I'm pretty content with the state that I left the application in. At some point I may get back to working on it.
Content Management System - My personal Ajax adapted CMS is largely completed. It’s a tad quirky, but everything seems to work fine. I hope to use it to run my own site soon.
Mistletoe’s Night - My children’s book is finally coming together. I have the illustrations completed to the point where I a happy with them. I'm now in the process of reworking some of the text. I'm planning on self-publishing this book through Lulu.com. I had hoped to have finished it before Christmas, but the illustrations needed more work than I had anticipated. I now hope to finish it sometime in February.

Well, that’s it for another year... well... maybe I'll post something sooner than that, once I come up with something interesting to write about.

Exploring Engineering Textbook

Ted Balmer — 2006-09-08 02:09:08

The college textbook that I designed the illustrations for using Inkscape is now in available in stores.