strawbo.com

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Stephen — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:27:00 +0000

In one of my random Wikipedia wanderings, I came across a neat web tool that calculates an actor's "Bacon Number", or degrees of separation they have from Kevin Bacon. Some of my favorites:

Ronald Reagan: 2
Ronald Reagan was in The Young Doctors (1961) with Eddie Albert
Eddie Albert was in The Big Picture (1989) with Kevin Bacon

Arnold Schwarzenegger: 2
Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Twins (1988) with Maury Chaykin
Maury Chaykin was in Where the Truth Lies (2005) with Kevin Bacon

Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite): 2
Jon Heder was in School for Scoundrels (2006) with Angela Frye
Angela Frye was in In the Cut (2003) with Kevin Bacon

Try it out! Oracle of Kevin Bacon

Last FM

Stephen — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 01:49:00 +0000

Last FM
Originally uploaded by strawbo.

If you haven't heard of Last FM (http://www.last.fm), you should check it out. It's a free service that tracks all the music you listen too and gives you statistics and recommendations based on what you listen to. You can also post the last few songs that you've listened to on your website, like so (look to the right). Looks like Jimmy Eat World still holds the record as my favorite band.

Seattle Summers

Stephen — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:03:00 +0000

Originally uploaded by strawbo.

I went wakeboarding on Lake Sammamish the last 2 days after work. I thought going to the lake in Arizona was good fun, but Washington is incredible! That's why I'm a little bummed that starting July 16th, I'm going to be working "on the road" between St. Louis, Seattle, and SoCal. Although I won't complain about SoCal, I'm not terribly excited about giving up my Seattle Summer for St. Louis. Oh well. I'll just make the most out of the summertime I have left!

My Friend Flickr

Stephen — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:03:00 +0000

Alright, if you haven't noticed, I'm not much of a writer. I do not profess to have any creative abilities in writing, nor do I enjoy it very much. I do, however, thoroughly enjoy photography. That's why I *love* my new Flickr account! Flickr.com is kind of like a photo blog. I don't have to write, but I can show my creative abilities and what's going on in my life in a way that is much more comfortable for me. If you have a Yahoo or Flickr account, you can also leave comments on my photos or print them off at Target (pretty stinkin' convenient). So, check out my Flickr site!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/strawbo

p.s. I've got a ton more photos of Europe, wakeboarding, ward activities, etc. on there. Just look for the albums on the right side.

God dag from Sweden!

Stephen — Fri, 05 May 2006 21:00:00 +0000

Well, actually, I'm in Denmark at the moment, but the photo is in Sweden. We flew out of Phoenix Tuesday night, and arrived in London on Wednesday. A few hours later, we flew to Malmo, Sweden and spent the night there. Thursday, we took a ferry to the island of Bornholm where my great-great-great-grandfather was born. It's a neat little place, with a beautiful countryside, neat houses, and unexpected beaches! We spend this morning at the beach (pretty bummed that I didn't add the Baltic to one of the seas that I have swam in--way too cold). Afterward, we took the ferry back to Ystad, Sweden and then a bus to Copenhagen. I love it here! I really do feel like this place is home, and I love that I don't stick out of a crowd. Everyone here thinks I'm Danish; until I speak :) Anyway, I'm having a great time, and I will post more pictures later. Hejdå!

More photos

O Danmark!

Stephen — Sat, 06 May 2006 18:06:00 +0000

Today we took a castle tour. First, we visited the Helsingor castle, better known as "Hamlet's castle." This castle is the setting for Shakespeare's "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." Our tour guide proceeded to show us all of the spots where important parts of the play took place, and then dashed our hopes of gloating to our friends by reminding us that it is, in fact, a fictitious story :) Still cool, though, that this is the place Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote it.

Next we visited the Queen of Denmark's summer residence. She was actually there at the moment, which was kind of cool, but didn't allow us to see much.

Last, we visited Frederiksborg castle (shown), built by King Christian IV in the late 1500's. It's a very neat castle, and holds a lot of the original Carl Bloch paintings that the church uses in its publications.

TechTip

Stephen — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:13:00 +0000

CNET News and The New York Times recently ran an article talking about printing digital photos from home. I'll sum it up for you in 5 words: don't buy a color printer. More specifically, don't buy a color printer if the main reason is for printing digital photos. The ink and paper for those printers is going to cost you a lot more than sending it to a lab, plus you will get an inferior photo. The photo lab down the street is always going to have better equipment that you do in your home office. My recommendation, therefore, is to use one of the many online services that will print your photos for pickup or delivery.

This segways quite nicely into another recommendation I have for digital photo organization and correction. Google's Picasa is just about the best photo program that I have seen for a number of reasons.

It's free--can't beat that!
Does an excellent job of basic photo manipulation techniques, such as red-eye reduction, converting to black & white, cropping, and resizing.
Allows you to send photos through your GMail or other email account in an extremely easy way.
Let's you upload your photos directly to the aforementioned digital photo labs, such as Walmart.com and Ritz Camera stores.

With that said, I don't want any phone calls asking me if you should buy that snazzy new color printer :)

A nice Photoshop effect I did of a photo taken on...

Stephen — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 05:18:00 +0000

A nice Photoshop effect I did of a photo taken on my last day in Provo. Yes, that is a grass couch...

Knocking down trees at the ranch.

Stephen — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 04:34:00 +0000

Knocking down trees at the ranch.

All done!

Stephen — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 05:45:00 +0000

Wow, that took me much longer than it should have. Hope you like it! But now that I am done, this web site should stay much more up to date, since the interface uses Blogger's easy posting.

Trying this all out

Stephen — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 05:42:00 +0000

I wouldn't say I'm completely new to blogging. My good friend Kelly has been bugging me about posting to his blog for some time now, and I have contributed a few times. I also have kind of recreated blogs for my family as well. What I'm trying to do now, though, is make my blog a seamless part of my personal web page. I think it'd be pretty cool...