ARTCAR Delaware license on Art Car in Southeastern PA

While driving south on Rt 202 from Rt1 into Delaware we saw this Art Car with an ARTCAR Delaware license.


The driver smiled when we took a picture of the side of the car and him at a stop light. I expect he wants the attention.

Guerilla Drive In on Saturday Night in West Chester

As I posted last night we got the chance to see "Back to the Future" at the Guerilla Drive in in West Chester. The Guerilla Drive in isn't a place, it is a guy with a movie projector in the side car of his motorcycle and he arranges secret locations to show movies on 16mm. To get on the list you have to find the MacGuffin, which we did when it was at the hot dog place last year (it has since moved, follow the clues), but haven't gone to one of these movie occasions until now while we sorted out vacations before the baby and the baby after the baby.

The motorcycle, side car, projector and banner.

As part of the "Back to the Future" them he arranged for the DeLorean Mid-Atlantic Club to bring their prized DeLerean's to the show on top of the Biecentennial Garage in West Chester. Having never even seen a DeLorean in person, this was probably the most DeLoreans I will ever see together in one place in my lifetime, there were six, including one tricked out like the famous time travelling DeLorean of "Back to the Future".

Two Deloreans

Four more Deloreans

"Back to the Future" DeLorean drive side.

"Back to the Future" DeLorean passenger side with Flux capacitor.

There was a costume contest, the guy who won is the one on the yellow tyvek above with a very authentic box to carry his plutonium in. There was a girl with an exact copy of the dress that Loraine wore in the movie to the Enchanted under the sea ball, there was a George McFly, and several Doc Browns. One four week old baby had a "Save the Clock Tower" onesie on, who did not win the contest because us spectator judges are heartless , I guess.

The organizer, John Young, picked this garage so that we could see the clock tower in the middle of West Chester while we watched the movie.

Here is my view, with clock tower on the screen and in the background. The West Chester clock tower was NOT hit by lightning at 10:04 PM. He also figured out a way to dim the garage lights around the screen on the top level by using LED lights stuck on the light sensors of the tower lights, clever.

We had a blast and met some nice people, and got our Guerilla Drive In merit badge. We can't wait to do something like this again. How cool and nice is it that guys like John Young do this kind of thing.

More on the Back to the Future West Chester Guerilla Drive In event at John Young's blog.

MCFLY license on a De Lorean

Getting ready to see Back to the Future at the Guerrila Drive In in West Chester. This license is appropriately on one of the six DeLoreans that the organizers arranged to be here for the movie. More pictures later.

The location is a secret because you have to find the MacGuffin.

Poison Ivy ineffectively hides among the pachysandra

Every year I think that I have gotten the last of the poison ivy (toxicodendron radicans, or Rhus toxicodenron) out of the garden beds and then some more appears. These vines were ineffectively hiding among the pachysandra and were clearly visible and removed doggy doo style with gloves and a plastic bag and right into the trash. I always act excessively paranoid around the stuff because I hate getting it.

Although I am sure there is still more down there, I have won another round.

Highest Shellpot Creek levels in 2009 - video

As promised here is video of Shellpot Creek just after the torrential downpours Saturday. The creek was easily the highest it has been in 2009. The USGS agrees, as seen on the following graph. The red circle shows Saturday's peak. It is almost double the peak from May 16th (Note the log scale, click for larger.)


The first video is of the creek just downstream and up to the waterfall at the corner of my house. You can barely see the waterfall because the water is almost level going over it.



The second video is upstream of the waterfall, and also shows how the temporary streams formed by some drainage swales I have in the yard won't drain into a creek that is higher than they are. Gravity still works here.



It was very dramatic and very loud.

Powerful downpours swell Shellpot Creek to highest 2009 level

This picture doesn't do justice to the raging torrent that Shellpot Creek has become after two very strong downpours around 5pm today. Video is coming.

Prince Vultan of the Hawkman and King Leonidas - separated at birth

I was watching Flash Gordon today and I was struck by Brian Blessed's the over the top portrayal of Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen and it's similarity to Sean McGuire's over the top portrayal of King Leonidas in the 300 spoof, Meet the Spartans.

Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen.

Sean McGuire as King Leonidas

Sean McGuire as King Leonidas, but intense.

Separated at birth? Related? Is it just the beard and the shirt free outfit?

New iPod Touch - woo hoo!

My Father's Day gift this year was an iPod Touch for myself. Conveniently my iPod Nano click wheel had failed so I felt it was time for an upgrade. Apple gave me 10% off of the new iPod for recycling my old one, which was worth it since I won that one in a raffle a few yeays ago anyway.

The iPod Touch is still very new to me, but the first thing I did was try to load MLB at Bat 2009, and I got a notice that it needed the 3.0 software. How gutsy is it that I paid all of this money for the iPod and then to get the particular funtionality I needed I had to pay another $9.99 to upgrade to 3.0? Once I loaded MLB at Bat 2009 after the upggrade I was able to watch live streaming of the Detroit Tigers vs. St. Louis, how cool is that. The picture had nice resolution and the built in speaker was adequate, but it was even better with headphones. MLB at Bat 2009 also has all the scores, play-by-play, pitch-by-pitch, and audio both home and away for every game, but it was the video that drew me in. However it does cleverly figure out where you are so that it can obey blackout restrictions (cleverly is intended sarcastically, still can't watch what I want, when I want, where I want, on what I want). There will be two games a day.

I am sure that I have much more fun to go with this new IPod Touch. Streaming video was my favorite so far, but I also like that I can put all of those pictures of Linus on there to show people, since who prints out pictures anymore, its all digital now.

What are you favorite apps? Suggestions?

Rain all night swollen creek by day

Here is yet another picture of the swollen Shellpot Creek after a night of rain. This has been an unusually wet Spring it seems. I expect that this creek will rise even higher before this rain has passed.

Were you ever driving in a downpour and put your windshield wipers up to the highest setting and then wished for a click or two higher? Today was one of those days. Sprinkles broken up by downpours.

Happy 4th Anniversary Honest Hypocrite - more statistics on page loads

There are still more fun statistics to be digested as part of the 4th Anniversary celebration of the Honest Hypocrite. As I mentioned earlier, I use StatCounter to visitors and page views to this blog. Using the page load statistics from StatCounter we can look at all 150,000 or so page loads and see a histogram of the fraction of days with a given number of page loads.

I have expanded the longer tail region so that the 3800 page load and the 2000 page load days are visible. Still this blog has received on average of about 150 page loads a day.

Interestingly it might be better to look at the page loads for the past year as a function of the day of the week. I have chosen the past year because the page load rate has been fairly steady and the results won't be confounded by the page load growth year over year.

I have shifted each week's curve up by 20 in order to make the trends easier to see. There are 52 instances of each day in the past year tabulated on the chart (click the chart above for bigger). Monday is by far the most popular day with Saturday being the least. I suspect that this represents the regular ebb and flow of Internet usage.

Statcounter keeps the last 500 page loads and statistics such as where a user came from or search terms used. Using a view of StatCounter's past 500 for this blog from today, only 45 out of 476 page loads are from users with no referring link, they came to this blog without being directed by link or search. 390 out of that 476 came from a google search, either the US or the various country variants and of those 133 came from an image search. These results are probably the most pure seasonally unaffected results, since we are not near any holidays (Groundhog's Day is a favorite), or sporting events (March Madness, Football playoffs). Thus the searches are the regular ones.