UkeMike

oh well

2010-02-05T08:33:00.001-08:00

It's seems obvious that I no longer blog. I've found twitter to me a much lower effort way of tossing my musings out there into the ether. There are lots of other ways to see me on the web. My personal website is benefield.net. My youtube ukulele videos now have almost 20,000 views. I twitter, though I have slacked off of that just like many of those I follow. I'm also on facebook. I think

Ewan's Own Rocket

2008-07-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

Ewan built his own rocket with just a little help from Dad. He launched it on a beautiful clear still morning.

Adventures in Quicktime

2008-06-25T23:39:00.000-07:00

Quicktime is an odd program. It has immense capcbilities but it costs $29 for the pro version. The problem is that it is very badly documented, and the user interface is minimal. I bought it so I could do some simple video editing. I've been learning about the things that can be done with it. To give you an idea, iTunes - it's just a skin for quicktime. iMovie - just a skin for quicktime.

My first music video

2008-06-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Last night my friend Stephen returned to his radio program "The Haciena with Boy Howdy" but this time on imradionetwork.org. He played my cover of REM's Gardening at Night. I was inspired and made a video and posted it on youtube. It's my first youtube video. Hopefully many will follow.When I went to upload onto youtube, I had to sign up. I was sad to discover that my normal login name of

Cheapest Gas in Town

2008-05-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

Fuel Economy

2008-05-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my hood latch broke. I wired it down with a wire hanger. I think it was probably pretty safe up to 80mph, but until it was fixed yesterday I tried to keep under 60mph. This did wonders for my average fuel economy. I've tracked the mileage I get ever since I bought this car. Until recently I usually got 27mpg. With the broken latch I got 29-30mpg consistently. I also noticed

Infrared Me and Ewan

2008-05-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

We got this picture taken at maker faire with a Flir T200 Infrared Camera.

Maker Faire

2008-05-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

----> click on the picture to see a short animation <----Ewan and I went to Maker Faire yesterday. I asked Ewan what he liked the most. He said, "Everything!"

It works

2008-04-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

More than a year ago I bought an Epiphone Mandobird. It's a 4 string electric mandolin modeled on the famed Gibson Thunderbird Guitar. Of course I play the Uke not the Mandolin. So I tuned it to GCEA, but the intonation was off because the some of the strings were the wrong gauge for that tuning. So on and off for the last year I've fiddling around making an electric ukulele out of an

The 5th Aniversary of our National Shame

2008-03-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well it's been five years now since our ship of state, sails full of hot air and lies, blew into Iraq. In early 2003 before the invasion Pat Buchanan, a man with whom I don't often agree, wrote;"With our MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, Pax Americana will reach apogee. But then the tide recedes, for the one endeavour at which Islamic people excel is expelling imperial powers by terror or guerrilla

Space Disaster

2008-03-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

Corte Madera - The Benefield Aeronautics and Space Administration (BASA) suffered a tragic setback today as its second manned space flight was lost. Two astronauts were aboard the ill fated flight of the Payloader. All hands are presumed dead after an exhaustive search of the crash zone. The flight launched at 08:13:21 on Sunday March 16, 2008. BASA astronauts Joker and Rastaman were on

Mt. Tam at sunset

2008-02-11T23:12:00.000-08:00

Last night.

New Paintings by Ewan

2008-02-07T22:39:00.001-08:00

Three new paintings by Ewan. The most fun is his painting of the flood.

No rain all day.

2008-01-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

Ewan and I went into town today. The water level was way down, though it was still much higher than we are used to. To illustrate just how terribly high it was last night watch this: (a much nicer version of the video can been seen here)It didn't rain here all day. Unless there is a deluge tomorrow I think we are out of the woods.

Spared the Worst?

2008-01-26T08:47:00.000-08:00

Ewan and I are gonna go into town and have breakfast at Bubba's, assuming they are open. It should be interesting to see.http://cbs5.com/local/Bay.Area.storm.2.638503.htmlLooks like we got to see the peak last night. Which means that the worst that happened downtown was water coming out of the man holes.Rain is in the forecast for this afternoon, Sunday, Monday, and maybe Tuesday. Stay tuned.

The rain stopped

2008-01-26T00:40:00.000-08:00

The water level is going down. It's almost below 'critical flood level.' G'nite.

Creek level

2008-01-26T00:02:00.000-08:00

Flood Photos

2008-01-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

At about 8:30 Ewan and I piled into the car and went for a drive to check out the the creek. We drove towards downtown and were able to park in the Creek Park parking lot. Lots of other people were there to see the spectacle. We were all being disaster tourists. It was really astonishing to see. At the north end of Creek Park the creek comes out from under a "bridge" that has some

FLOOD!

2008-01-25T18:44:00.000-08:00

The flood alarm just sounded. San Anselmo Creek has hit flood stage. I hope the shop owners are prepared.Downtown Evacuated

Interesting Visits to my websites

2008-01-25T10:29:00.000-08:00

I use this really neat service called statcounter.com to help me interpret all of the data logs I get from visitors to my website. Most of the visits to benefield.net are people who are looking for the songs/chords I have posted there, though I am always surprised at how many visits I get from people googling my name. I get a fair number of short visits to this blog from people who googled

Calm

2008-01-04T18:39:00.000-08:00

It's been calm for a while. The creek was down by a few feet when I took Ewan to see it at about 4:30. The bridge re-opened at 2:30pm. 101 re-opened at 11:30. No flooding in downtown San Anselmo. There is supposed to me more rain on Sunday.

More rain news

2008-01-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

The CHP closed the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge at 8:30am because a truck overturned. The bridge will be closed both directions until at least 10PM! Highway 101 is closed at the 580 interchange because "debris from an interchange under construction blew onto the freeway, the California Highway Patrol said." That'll be closed until about 5pm because they can't start cleanup until the wind slows.

San Anselmo

2008-01-04T13:19:00.000-08:00

The downtown shops seem to be as prepared as they are gonna be. Lots of them are closed. Lots have their inventory cleared out. The creek is really high but it has a way to go before it spills it's banks. My camera is not working well at all. The sensor seems to be going dark. Sure it's cloudy but it's the middle of the day and I was using 1/2 second exposures just to get an image! I'm

How High's the Water Papa?

2008-01-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

You know it's 6 feet high and risin'Local weather conditions can be checked here.

Christmas Ascent of Red Hill

2007-12-25T15:38:00.001-08:00

I climbed Red Hill today. It was my first ascent without injury. I bought some crampons and it made is so much easier.

Christmas Eve

2007-12-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

Ewan is going with his Mom to spend Christmas with his cousins in Atascadero, so we had Christmas a day early here. My poor little boy is sick. He's coughing, sniffling, and has a fever so naturally he is a tired little guy. He's having a Christmas nap with some old and new friends.

Crazy Horse

2007-12-20T20:58:00.001-08:00

South Dakota

2007-12-19T22:48:00.001-08:00

New songs/chords on my website

2007-11-17T19:57:00.000-08:00

So far this year I've had over 2,700 page loads and 1,700 unique visitors to my website benefield.net. Mostly due to the chords for several songs that I like to play on my uke. Usually the visitors find my site by searching on a song name or a lyric. If you google "san francisco bay blues chords" I'm on the first page of results! If you google "grandma's feather bed chords" I'm on the first

Fireworks

2007-10-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's taken me entirely too long. I've finally done a comlete fireworks movie. It is has a heavily distorted ukulele rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

Blast Off!

2007-10-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Ewan and I got up early to get to the park so we could launch our rocket. After two weeks in a row of finding the parks full of people playing soccer, we did it! The first two on the video were from this morning. The third was a few weeks ago when Grampa was here.(Click for movie)"Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

2007-10-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

Great weekend. My good friend Stephen came up to my 'hood for the weekend to attend the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival. I'm completely exhausted. Ewan and I went and hung with Stephen there yesterday and today. On saturday we saw The Knitters, John Prine, The Flatlanders (with Jimmy Dale Gilmore), and a little bit of Ricky Scaggs before Ewan and I retreated and fled home in

Grampa and Rockets

2007-09-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

Ewan's Grampa, the rocket scientist, is here visiting us this weekend. Last night they put together Ewan's birthday present, a model rocket! This morning after a few fits and starts we launched it at Piper Park.

Spider-Ewan

2007-08-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

When I was about Ewan's age, my favorite show was the late '60s animated Spider-Man. We've gotten some of the episodes through netflix. Now Spiderman is Ewan's favorite superhero. He talked his Mother into buying him this cool Spiderman costume. He wore it all last weekend. We took some pictures and then I had some fun putting Spider-Ewan onto some screenshots from the '67 Spider-Man

Marin County Fair

2007-07-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

(click on fireworks to see a short firework slideshow)My memories of the Utah State Fair include big pigs, tacky salesmen pushing window cleaning gimmicks, and gang shootings. None of that prepared me for the Marin County Fair which is probably the biggest event in Marin County every year. It's great fun. They get slightly washed up but high quality bands to play. They have great art displays

It's been a while...

2007-06-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted so here are a few recent photos from my phone.These two are from Maker Faire. Ewan and I made that rocket together and he got to push the button to launch it.That's Ewan up on stage dancing with Sylvester.

More trains Sacramento this time.

2007-04-16T00:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Ewan and I went to Sacramento to the train museum in Old Sacramento. They run an old steam train along the river. This slide show was made on the train ride.It was a long day (184 mile round trip drive) but it was fun.

Vacation

2007-04-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

I took off all of last week. I drove up the coast. I came back. On Friday I got Ewan and we rode the ferry to Angel Island and we camped out. That's what this slide show is about.

New Songs

2007-03-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

I've uploaded two new songs that I've just recorded! "Don't Fence Me In" by Cole Porter, and "Bye Bye Love" by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. These are two of my favorite songs to play right now.I also added a new uke to the small collection. I was not in a buying mode when I saw it, but I got it for sooooo cheap. I think it is a soprano Supertone. It is made of Koa wood, has lots of fancy

Stephen and Wendy's Wedding

2007-03-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Ewan and I flew South to attend a wedding. One of my favorite people in the world found the perfect woman for him and they tied the knot. It was a beautiful wedding near Joshua Tree in the high desert of Southern California.Ewan and I stayed in the Pioneer Town Motel. There was a tricycle there that he really liked.

Cascade Falls

2007-02-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

Well my free week just passed. Ewan is back from Hawaii. He spent last night with me. He was very excited to see me when I picked them up at the airport. That made the whole drive worth it.I did make good use of my free weekend. I made this video/slideshow on a hike up to Cascade Falls near Fairfax. It was very green. This is a rough edit. I expect to work with it a bit more.Well it seems

Have fun Ewan!

2007-02-03T20:39:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow morning Ewan is going with his Mom to Hawaii for a whole week. I'm sure gonna miss him.

At the zoo

2007-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

Ewan and I went to the zoo last weekend.I have a nice digital camera. Of course I forgot it. It gave me a chance to explore the limitations of my phone's built in camera.The Little Steamer was not running so we rode the carousel a few times.

Sing me a song Daddy

2007-01-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday I was driving down to Santa Cruz on a work errand. My phone rang and I heard the words, "Your son has a request." Okay. She put Ewan on and he said, "Sing Dirty Old Town Daddy."Dirty Old Town is a song I sing to him when I put him to bed at night or for a nap. It's a Pogues song, written by Shane McGowan. It is a sweet mix of melancholy and happy. I actually had trouble singing

Our Fun Train Videos

2007-01-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

Ewan and I (well mostly I) have been having fun making movies with Quicktime. It's not pro quality but video editing for $30 can't be beat. I've been looking into different ways to share the videos, and I finally settled on using google video to host the files. It's easy, free, and anyone with internet access can watch them.I made the first one the same day that I bought Quicktime. It sure is

Holiday Vacation

2007-01-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

Since Ewan's Mom was willing to trade Thanksgiving for Christmas, Ewan and I were able to go to my Dad's house in Utah for a short Christmas vacation. Thanks Melissa!It was a nice low key break. We got to hang out with family. David and I went skiing at Alta one day. Ewan got to play in the snow.Here are some pictures from Christmas:Ewan and my brother WillEwan and my sister AmyEwan and my

So long since the last post

2006-10-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

I lost my momentum with this blog. Been too busy.Since my last post Ewan turned 3!We've done lots of fun train stuff.He's become such a great swimmer. Though now it's too cold.and... My sister had a baby! A little girl.

Visiting my Dad in Oregon

2006-07-16T23:52:00.000-07:00

Ewan and I are visting my dad and my brother in Cannon Beach, Oregon. We've gone to the beach and the Maritime Museum in Astoria. We've flown some kites and eaten out a lot. We've had a great time. Ewan is having so much fun he is bursting with excitement.

Daddy the Hypocrite

2006-06-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

2 years and 9 months to the day and my son is already calling me a hypocrite. No the actual word "hypocrite" is not in his vocabulary yet but he's got the idea down pretty well. The worst of it is that he is absolutely correct.On father's day we were driving up to Sonoma Train Town around noon. He was napping. It was hot and I was thirsty. I got into Sonoma and he was still asleep so I went

Great Train Animations

2006-05-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has made, for Ewan, these wonderful Flash animations of trains going by.TrainTrain over the Bridge---revised 7/5/06---Really long train over the bridge

My Favorite Phrase

2006-05-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

My favorite phrase in the English language is, "more please."On Sunday I made a batch raspberry bars. After dinner I cut out a piece for dessert. I offered it to Ewan and like with any new food he rejected it emphatically until I said it was like a cookie. After one bite he smiled and looked at me and said, "more please." This morning we both overslept. To wake him up I started scratching

Indian Rock Park

2006-05-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a full day. In the morning we went swimming. After his nap we went to the Tilden steam trains again, and on the way out of there we stopped at Indian Rock Park in the Berkeley hills. There are steps cut into the rock to help you get up. Once we got up he didn't want my hand holding anymore. I let him roam free and steered him clear of the edges. I used to love scrambling

Like a fishy

2006-05-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

The last two weekends Ewan and I have taken advantage of the swimming pool here at our apartment complex. For me it is still too cold. Why won't the landlords turn on the solar heat, it's not like it costs them a bundle. Ewan doesn't seem to care. On Saturday he was standing on the second step splashing when he fell forward into the water. Naturally I was there in a beat to scoop him out and wipe

Website updates

2006-04-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

The lyrics pages should format correctly in all browsers now. I've added a page of Ewan's art, a new song on the music page, and a new song on the lyrics and chords page.benefield.net

BART, Cable Cars, and Model Trains

2006-04-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit. For the overwhelming majority of riders BART is a method of getting to their destination. If you have a train obsessed 2 year old sometimes BART itself is the destination. On Saturday Ewan and I drove to the East Bay to ride the BART Trains. Kids will do strange things to your world. Public transportation becomes entertainment. Every time we see a bus, he

Potty Training and Playing Catch

2006-03-26T00:25:00.000-08:00

We do things that aren't train related from time to time. It's been potty training the last two weeks. He's picking up on it pretty quickly. We got a special toilet seat with a small hole so he doesn't fall through. I guess I shouldn't get into the particulars except to day I'm proud of how well he is learning.Last weekend I bought a little basket ball for him. He picked it out. It is a

California State Railroad Museum

2006-02-28T08:36:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Ewan and I drove up to Sacramento to the California State Railroad Museum. It was very fun. They have the largest existing steam locomotivee in the world. It was designed for hauling big freight loads over the Sierras. The exhaust output of the big steam engines was so prodigous that the engineers were suffocating in the long tunnels. So they designed these with the cab in front. The

Visit to Utah

2006-02-06T23:25:00.000-08:00

Ewan and I went to Utah last weekend. I had a couple of days of meetings for work. Ewan stayed with my family while I was working. On Saturday we rode the old Heber Creeper, though now it's called the Heber Valley Railroad.It runs from Heber down to Deer Creek resevoir. Ewan loved it.Ewan had so much fun playing with his uncle and Damba (trans: Grampa)All during the ride Ewan wanted a better

What a fun weekend

2006-01-24T20:49:00.000-08:00

Okay so there are no new pics this time, but Ewan and I had so much fun this weekend. On Saturday we left home about nap time and then drove over the the East Bay. He slept. I stopped by the office to grab something I had forgotten there then we drove to Tilden Park. He was still out cold so I parked in the shade and had a nap myself. When I woke up I looked at him and he was looking back.

"America's Constitution is in Grave Danger" - Al Gore

2006-01-17T19:58:00.000-08:00

An excellent speech on the subject of the malaise that has gripped us.http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606Y.shtmlAl gore speaks about more than just the spying abuses. He addresses the pattern of abuse of executive power in a comprehensive way. If he had spoken with this kind of passion and honesty when he was running for President Bush couldn't have stolen the election because it would

No Doubt, NSA Domestic Spying is a Crime

2006-01-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

A group of constitutional scholars have written a letter to Congress utterly discrediting the White House's weak arguments that the domestic NSA spying is legal. Please read the article. This isn't a partisan issue. The Executive Branch is flagrantly committing crimes. They have admitted to the facts. The law is clear. If this is allowed to go unanswered then memory is all that is left of

NSA Spies on Millions of Americans

2006-01-12T13:20:00.000-08:00

Russel Tice, 20 year NSA veteran and whistleblower, was on Democracy Now! saying that the NSA had spied illegally on millions of Americans.Democracy Now!About a week later ABC took the story into the "mainstream media"ABC NewsAdditionally we've learned that the Feds are spying on People for the Ethical Treament of Animals (PETA), the Quakers, anti-war organizations, and they are opening mail from

Drive to Modesto and Back

2006-01-11T22:54:00.000-08:00

Ewan's Mom's car broke down so I drove from the East Bay to Modesto and back to Marin to pick him up tonight. He was staying with his Mom's parents. It's real decent of them to be nice to me despite the ongoing divorce.It was his first time away from both his Mom and me overnight. I think he had fun. I'm sure he had too much "pop" to drink. He was taking swigs straight from the can when I got

Comments

2006-01-08T23:38:00.000-08:00

After debuting this blog, I learned that I had it set to require registration to leave a comment. I have changed that.

Sonoma Train Town

2006-01-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

I guess I should have named the blog something train realted! The weather was finally cooperative and Ewan and I went to Train Town in Sonoma today. It was lots of fun. Choo choooo!

Yeah so he signed the toture ban...

2006-01-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays Bush caved and signed the appropriations bill that had the McCain anti-torture amendment. Good news right? We won't be the bad guys any more, right? Wrongo! Bush issued a signing statement on the whitehouse website that read like this:"The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional

Flooding in my hometown!

2006-01-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

Well if you watched TV over the long weekend you know that several parts of Marin, Sonoma, and Napa counties got flooded. I have a TV but we only use it for watching VHS tapes. So I was a bit suprised when Ewan and I went into town to get a gelatto and we found this instead. It was about 4:30pm and the police were telling everyone they had to leave by 5pm. Most stores were still squeegying (is

Where's the impeachment!?!

2006-01-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

George Bush has now adamantly publicly and repeatedly admitted to breaking the law. He has stated very clearly that he intends to continue breaking the law. His justifications for this completely unacceptable behavior are pathetic and bogus. Bush has ordered the NSA to conduct illegal domestic spying. There is a very easy to use mechanism for legal domestic spying. Why aren't they using it?

It's been a train season

2006-01-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

My boy has become totally train obsessed. It's actually a lot of fun. I've been reconfiguring the track every few days. Just a few years ago you could go broke supplying a toddler with Brio(TM) stuff but now there are a variety of outfits making compatible tracks and trains. A little competition and even ordinary folks like us can afford fancy toys like these.Well I hope y'all had happy holidays,

Happy Holidays

2005-12-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Bright Solstice, Happy New Year, and Peace to You and Yours!

What have we become?

2005-11-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

I copied the following quote directly from the whitehouse.gov website. Bush was in Korea and being interviewed by the press there."Q. Mr. President, there has been a bit of an international outcry over reports of secret U.S. prisons in Europe for terrorism suspects. Will you let the Red Cross have access to them? And do you agree with Vice President Cheney that the CIA should be exempt from

Bush's New Spin

2005-11-14T00:31:00.000-08:00

It is obvious to anyone that has looked beyond the corporate media propaganda that the Bush administration lied us into a war. But this week Karl Rove seems to be back on the job because some serious new spin is coming out of the Whitehouse this week. They're saying, "hey the congress had the same intel that we did and they came to the same conclusion and authorized us to take Saddam out."

Tilden Steam Trains

2005-11-14T00:11:00.000-08:00

We went to the Steam Trains in Tilden Park on Sauturday. Ewan says "Woo Woooo!"

Intro

2005-11-13T23:06:00.000-08:00

I'm Mike.This is my boy, Ewan (that's pronounced "you-an.")He's much better looking than I am despite thefact that he needs a haircut and I don't.

Welcome

2005-11-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

My first post on this new blog. I imagine it'll be a place for me to post personal and political comentary and links. Hi!