As the entire Northeastern United States is getting blanketed by upwards of a foot of snow today and tonight, then another 7+ inches from a different storm tomorrow night, my dad made an interesting observation:  He's not receiving any Severe Weather Watches via NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) VHF weather radio.

I only realized it after he mentioned it, but even through the ice storm last week and the snow this week, I haven't received any watches or warnings either.  However my wife has been thrilled not to be woken up by the shrill alerts.

My dad called the NWS field office in Buffalo, where an unnamed meteorologist told him they were under a directive not to issue watches via the weather radio.  We both remember receiving watches during the summer thunderstorm season, but it's been very quiet the past few months.  Too quiet.

I emailed Raymond O'Keefe with the NWS Albany field office about this, and confirmed that while they do issue watches via weather service radio (as in, they announce them via voice), they do not SAME encode them.  He also said this isn't a new policy for them.

This weekend I will be digging into this issue while digging out from the snow while we impatiently await for our new arrival.

UPDATE 1/26/2009: The dead pixel issues seems to have resolved themselves, as the no longer appear to be an issue.  However the lack of image stabilization continues to be an issue as I struggle to find clever ways to handle the VadoHD to minimize shake, including even this trick.

With my wife and my expected addition (T minus 6 days!), we needed to procure a portable video capture device (video camera) with video quality at least better than our Canon SD800 point & shoot. 

In phototography as in life, timing is everything.  Very recently, the pocket high-def (HD) camcorder market started heating up, most recently with Creative Labs' VadoHD.

I ordered on Monday, 12/8/2008, the day they were offered on Creative's website... 720p for $200 delivered, and in a form factor that's about the size of my iPhone?!?  Sure, don't mind if I do!

So by Friday, 12/12 when I didn't recive any shipping notice, I emailed customer service. 

"We were expecting to have the Vado HD's in our warehouse on the 8th,
however, there was a delay in the delivery. We received them yesterday
and immediately shipped out the orders."

OK, no sweat.  I received the VadoHD tonight, and immediately put it to use with the requisite cat snaps.  Luckly, Chairman Meow (aka Evil Kenny) was feeling camera happy.  However the results were less than encouraging upon reviewing via included HDMI cable to my 1080p 40" Bravia: Two dead/stuck pixels, about two pixels apart, near the center of the screen.  Stuck on green.  I hate green.

It looks like I'll have to add a new tagging keyword for blog posts:  Mac.

Last
Thursday, after years of frustration with the state of Windows
operating systems and the poor build quality and support of laptop hardware, I decided
to give Apple a shot.

Increasingly, Windows XP has felt like the wrong tool in my digital
photo arsenal. From the lack of real DNG thumbnail and metadata editing
in Windows Explorer, to kludgy network fileshare support in Lightroom and
iViewMediaPro (now Expression Media), I wanted something new. Something easier.  Vista, the
current upgrade path offered by Redmond, is what I have been trying out on my Home Theater PC (HTPC) media center. The 10 foot interface in Vista Media Center is
arguably the best user interface (UI) Microsoft has ever released, but the
desktop feels like a new wrapper on the same old backend that will
invariably become more laggy as it ages.

Steve Jobs' strategy of getting iPods and iPhones into the hands of
Windows users as an evil gateway drug was a success for me.  I'm
drinking the Kool-aid, smelling the coffee, or whatever mixed metaphor
you want to use.  After four days and probably 20 hours of use, I completely get
it.  OS X's layout is logical, and it makes sense, once you know where to look for stuff, and once
you learn the basic operating system and application shortcut keys.

I pitty my wife, pets, friends and family who will now be subjected
to those "a-ha" moments and the overall evangelism that will
undoubtedly occur over the next few months.  I apologize in advance.

Thanks to my MacGeek friends for helping me on this journey, including MrLint and PJP.  I'm archiving links to the software tools and general infos which I found most useful, in the hope it will help others along the way: