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Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson

ben wilson This is the blog of a one Ben Wilson, a Louisville, Kentucky native who enjoys baseball, beer, music, bikes, things that fly and good food. By day he pushes pixels and makes the Internet happen for a local advertising agency. His wife, Kelly is an Ironman, and his baby Amelia is the cutest thing ever.

A couple of days ago, Major League Baseball unveiled a plan to use the first, second and third bases in 15 major-league ballparks as billboards for the new Spider-Man 2 film, due out in June. After a collective “what in the hell are you thinking?” from most Americans — they have decided to shelve that plan.

Advertising in ballparks is nothing new — it is a tradition so old that it almost seems part of the game. However, there are two aspects of the game that have never been touched, and in my mind, should never be touched — those being the uniform and the field. To do so would be to break the sanctity of the sport itself.

Major League Baseball has rules about pitchers not having “distracting” parts of their uniform (like a bright wristband, for example).

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May 7 2004 ~ 10:52 am ~ Comments Off ~
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"/gallery/20040429pegasusparade">giant Cathy balloon

Kelly and I went to the "/gallery/20040429pegasusparade" >Pegasus Parade last Thursday evening. The honorary Pegasus Parade Grand Marshall was none other than Cathy Guisewithe. Yeah. The woman who created the abhorrant cartoon “Cathy”. No, I am not joking. Last year was pretty rad — we had none other than GEORGE TAKEI. Yeah.

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May 3 2004 ~ 10:53 am ~ Comments (2) ~
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Apr30

themes.

Greetings chilluns — I have made a couple of new CSS themes for your enjoyment. You will note at the bottom of each page a “theme” selector. Currently, you most likely are viewing the default white/grey/blue theme. May I suggest trying the “tornado” or “old skool” theme? Some of you may recognize the “old skool” theme as the old-old-old theme of thelocust.org.

Wanna see what it really looked like back in the day? Check out thelocust.org, circa February 2001, via the Wayback Machine.

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Apr 30 2004 ~ 3:35 pm ~ Comments Off ~
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I got some mail (of the electronic persuasion) from yet another Brit with some silly problem with my instantRSS project, so I did a little work, and fixed it up. Voila! New version 1.3, now validates with CSS validating thingies: http://feeds.archive.org/validator/ and http://rss.scripting.com/.

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Apr 29 2004 ~ 12:26 am ~ Comments Off ~
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Two new galleries up today! Thunder Over Louisville 2004 and some photos I took of the kitties wearing beads.

bocephus with beads


thunder

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Apr 21 2004 ~ 12:28 pm ~ Comments (7) ~
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Brand new, just for you. I have been working on this redesign for longer than I care to mention (most of that time being me fiddling with the portfolio section.

The new design is intended to be very clean, and very easy to redesign, as it is completely controlled via CSS. Long explanation short, Cascading Style Sheets are a way to “style” HTML from a central point, and you can control a LOT of stuff, including font size, line spacing, block positioning, colors, overlapping, nerd nerd, nerd nerd nerd, nerd. In any case, to give you an idea of the “power of CSS”, I suggest you take a look at CSS Zen Garden, which is a showcase of a single HTML page, but with different style sheets submitted by different people. Each stylesheet radically redesigns the HTML, but keeps the content the same.

In any case, I hope you enjoy the new design, and let me know what you think!

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Apr 14 2004 ~ 9:42 am ~ Comments (2) ~
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Week before last, Geoff mentioned that the local Amateur Radio league (ARTS) was holding a testing session the following Friday at the local Red Cross. He figured I was a quick study, and let me borrow his somewhat-dated copy of Now You’re Talking: All You Need to Get Your First Ham Radio License, and I went about studying for my Technician license (the first rung of the ladder).

The old-timers will tell you (quite rightly) that the new HAM licensing is far easier than it was in the olden-days. Now, the entire question pool for the 35 question test is open to the public, and to you only have to pass a single 5 words-per-minute Morse code test. Youth wasted on the young! Well, I took many an online practice test, and even started learning CW (HAM shorthand for Morse code).

Friday (Good Friday) rolled around, and I took the Technician class exam at the Red Cross and passed! Geoff suggested I attempt the General class exam and the Morse Code while I was there, since I paid my $10. I missed 16 our of 35 on the General exam (not bad, considering I had only taken one practice exam for the General class license). Then I decided to attempt the 5 WPM Morse code test. The play you 5 minutes of a Morse code QSO (HAM-speak for a conversation), and you have to transcribe a least a solid minute. Oh lordy, that was tough. It was quite the embarassment, but at least I know more now about my enemy than before. Woo-hoo.

So that was Friday. They told me I’d have my callsign by Monday (today), and that it would be posted on the FCC’s website. Well, Monday is here, and who says the government is slow! I am now the proud owner of the call KI4EZO.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be studying for my Morse code, General and Extra class licenses.

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Apr 12 2004 ~ 8:17 am ~ Comments (5) ~
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church sign

Visit the Church Sign Generator to make your own…

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Mar 11 2004 ~ 11:22 am ~ Comments (4) ~
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Ducks in my front yard!

ducks

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Mar 8 2004 ~ 8:13 am ~ Comments Off ~
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Aw man, a whole MONTH and nothing new. Damn. Well, I can tell you I’ve been busy. I can tell you that, but it’s really a lie. I just haven’t had much to report on lately. Spring’s thaw is almost here, which is good, because I was feeling the chill of winter a little too closely. I can’t wait to get out and play some soccer and do a little r/c soaring.

In other news, I do have an impending site update “in-the-works”, I am also getting close to finishing up a freelancing side-project (tho’ I’ve been approached for a couple others, too), and work is going well. I’ve been a semi-productive little monkey lately. It feels good.

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Feb 25 2004 ~ 8:30 am ~ Comments Off ~
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