Noise Canceling Headphones First Impression
I got to try out my new Sony noise canceling headphones on my recent trip to New York. My impression is mixed, but overall I’m pleased with them. I haven’t tried other companies so I can’t comment on how they differ. Here are my key comments:
- Reviews will say that all noise cancelling headphones create a sense of “pressure” when activated. This is certainly true, and was more pronounced than I expected. On a plane your head is already all messed up from the cabin pressure so it isn’t as noticeable, but in other situations it is very noticeable.
- The noise canceling works best when the noise generation is perpendicular to you. I got some odd results when my head was rotated 45 degrees making the sound hit them at an angle. Interestingly, after a couple of seconds it goes away so I would guess it is just the noise cancelling process catching up to a slightly different pattern.
- The NC circuitry does impact the sound. If you are a purist, you need to trade off a lower noise floor with some impact to the music.
- I found them comfortable to wear for a couple of hours. My ears didn’t get overly hot.
Mazie at 9 Months
It seems amazing that in only 3 more months Mazie will turn 1! She is doing great. She has recovered from her 2nd real cold with lots of coughing and sneezing, and most notably plenty of running nose. An almost never-ending amount actually. She’s decided she likes baby food and we think she has her 2nd set of teeth coming in since she’s been eating her hand pretty much constantly lately.
She’s turning into such a little kid now. She likes to babble at you for a while and will share some stories with you. They are pretty short still, but it’s just amazing to hear her voice and particularly to hear her giggle.
We had a trip to Ikea this weekend and Mazie and I had a great time while Tammy shopped with our friends Lisa and Eric who were in town for the weekend. All sorts of fun to be had at Ikea.
Mazie has chosen to stay fairly immobile thus far. She’s not crawling, and from the looks of things she is likely to just skip that whole process. She doesn’t like being on her belly at all. She does love it though if you hold her hands and let her walk around the house or around stores. She finds that to be a great old time. She can scoot around pretty well and can make it all over her play area.
I’m itching for spring to come and for us to be able to spend more time outside. We ordered a bike carrier/jogging stroller (Chariot Cougar 2 if you are interested, I’ll post impressions of it after we get it).
I put up a whole bunch of pictures from January and February. Don’t miss the pictures of her in the bowl.
Solar Project Update
I’ve referenced our solar project on this site a couple of times, and this last week marked the most visible part of the project. The collectors were put up on the roof on Thursday.
The collectors are mounted on the north side of the roof, but peeking over so they have a full southern exposure. There is still a lot of work to be done inside the house. The integration with the hot water and heating system are coming up next.
I’ve got some mixed feelings on how the collectors turned out and am going to discuss some alternatives with the contractor. It’s not exactly how I had expected it to look. Hard to imagine without seeing it. Not positive anything will change but am going to explore it. I’m not terribly pleased with the view from the deck.
Noise Canceling Headphones
I stepped off of my last flight, from Dallas to Minneapolis, and wanted to immediately go and get a pair of noise canceling headphones. I made a rookie mistake. Hoping for an empty middle seat back in coach I had moved from a row in the middle of the plane to the last row in the plane. I lost my bet when they shoved one last person onto the plane to sit in between me and the other guy in our row.
Add to the misery of losing the “empty middle seat bet” the fact that the plane is narrower at the back (less room) and the engines were about 6 feet from my head (ridiculously loud). It was a miserable 2 hours and 28 minutes.
This weekend I picked up the Sony MDR-NC50 headphones. Best Buy had a really good deal on them with a coupon I had. I fly on Tuesday and Wednesday so I’ll get a chance to give them a workout.
Deer at Bird Feeder
If you like to feed birds you are completely aware of the ever-lasting battle with squirrels. They will go through amazing gymnastics to get at the wonderful food in your bird feeder. However, the other morning this scene caught me off guard!
Slightly larger than a squirrel, and I don’t think there is anything I can do about this one. 🙂
Mazie Graduates to Bigger Car Seat
We got Mazie’s next car seat today, a Britax Marathon. They had a sporting pink one with flowers all over it, but we went for the more neutral and car appropriate (oh, and washable) version.
Mazie tried it out at the store and she loved it, or at least she didn’t yell at us right away. She is big enough now that she can use the bigger car seats but not too big for her infant seat, so we’ve still been using that. I’ve been thinking that she finds it annoying and wants to move up to the real car seat and stroller combination. That way she can sit up and see more things. She’s always craning her head around trying to look at things. I’d find it annoying at least.
Mazie is finally over her cold. Just some minor sniffles at this point. Tammy and I were able to catch it before she fought it off. Luckily we are able to blow our nose and have cough drops.
T-Rex Assembled
I just spent the last 4 hours assembling my Align T-Rex 450SE. Luckily I got the high-end one that comes 80% pre-assembled. That is why it was 4 hours rather than 40. Man are the parts small. Physically this helicopter is all together, and I’ve even slapped the electronics on it, but now I need to wire it all up. Time to break out the soldering iron and then start getting it all “setup”. That means getting everything just so and finally able to fly with the thing. I expect this process to take close to infinite time. 🙂
I’ll get another update when I have some breakthrough. I got the Reflex XTR training software for my PC and I’m hoping the actual helicopter is a bit easier to fly than the trainer, or that I had the trainer setup wrong. I crashed over and over and over.
Oh, and I got a new video solution for the remote control stuff. I’ll see if I can get a test video out sometime soon.
iPod Nano
Happy Valentines day! My wonderful, beautiful wife and daughter decided to get me an iPod Nano for Valentine’s day. How fun! When the Nano was first released I convinced myself that I didn’t really care. Then a little after it was shipping I went to Best Buy and touched one. I shouldn’t have done that. The form factor is just so small, and the screen is nice (if small) and it just feels so nice in your hand.
I updated the firmware on it, got it setup in iTunes and I’m downloading a ton of photos to it right now (the other reason I wanted a to upgrade from my iPod Mini). I like it so far, of course what is not to like.
I was considering the idea of getting the “big” iPod at somepoint. No need to now, however I may reconsider if the rumors of this big screen, wide iPod turn out to be true.
Mazie's Sick
So yesterday when I got home from work Mazie was having dinner and she was really sick. She didn’t seem nearly as sick when I went to work. She had a full-blown cold. She woke up this morning not feeling any better.
She has had a cold before, when she was very small. It wasn’t that big of a deal – runny nose and some mild coughing. This one is different though. This is her first, real cold. Nose is going crazy. She’s super-congested. Coughing stuff up. And I’ll tell you it’s killing me!
This morning I gave her a bath while Tammy was at the gym and after the bath, which I think she sort of liked with the cold and all, she would cough and then wimper. I could tell her chest was hurting when she was coughing. And what could I do? Zip. I just held her and she hung out with me a lot less excitable than she usually was. To prove the point, when Tammy got back from the gym Mazie just hung out with me and didn’t feel a need to jump into Tammy’s arms as fast as she possibly could (as is typical).
I sure hope she gets better soon. I don’t know how much of this I can take!
First Attempt at RC Camera
Yesterday I received my recent order from Helidirect, a wireless video camera. This little toy is to be put on-board of various radio control things to record video from the car, helicopter or whatever. I gave it a run for the money today, the results weren’t great, but I’m encouraged that it can get much better. Feel free to jump to the videos right away.
Find video `heli-20060212`.
Find video `car-20060212`.
I have to figure some things out. First of all, the E-Sky Llama was almost impossible to fly with the 27g of the video camera and the 9v battery strapped to it. It did get off the ground, but it took a lot of force. The T-Rex I just ordered wont suffer this problem, but as it is, not really flyable to any extent. The other issue was my mount on both helicopter and my nitro car. I just slapped it on there which didn’t work so hot. First of all, the car throws a lot of force around and the 9v battery flew off the car. On the heli, there is a lot of vibration that messes with the picture. I also think I need to deal with interference off of the electric motor.
I plan on working on this a bit. Need to develop a real mount that attaches to the car/heli for real, along with a battery carrier. I’m hopeful that will get rid of a lot of the video noise.