Roberto's X-files

Talk Like A Pirate Day.. Tomorrow, Sept 19th

Ye be an insolent sea dog to pass on this here special day..

WARNING: Mature Content, not intended for folks under the legal drink’n age or self-righteous bilge rats. Ye be warned…

‘Been plan’n this here tribute to “Pirates ‘n Rum”, ever since I stumbled on to this here reference in Wikipedia.

Credit for creat’n ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’ goes to two Rum pots in Albany, Oregon.

Ol’ Chumbucket an’ Cap’n Slappy came up with the idea in 1996. The scalawag Dave Barry (a syndicated humorist) helped it along with a story he did in 2002. If it’s in Print, it has to be true, right? The two scurvy dogs have their own YouTube vids and much, much more. ARRGGG!!!!!

note: i have had a link here for years to the scalwags’ website but it has not been kept up to date. i’ve replaced it with the wikipedia page for the time bein’ – one day they may be back to entertain ye…

There be several points to this here post..
Most of em’s about drink’n Rum. ARRG!

This be a day for carrousin’ and general mischief. [Read more…] about Talk Like A Pirate Day.. Tomorrow, Sept 19th

Lights in the Night Sky & the Unexplained in PR

A Short Reference to the Bizarre Phenomenon in Puerto Rico

There are several points I want to cover with this somewhat off topic post. I do not ‘ask’ that you believe in ‘little green men’, the paranormal, or any clandestine conspiracy theory. Some of us have witnessed an ‘unexplainable event’, most have not. I’m in that 1st category.

Captured at a Local Pub

The summer between my 7th and 8th grade, my brothers and I and the neighborhood kids were playing ‘hide and seek’ close to sunset. Sunsets in Alaska come very late in June and July. Anyway, I spotted something streak across the sky, then literally do acrobatic maneuvers for a good 10 minutes… [Read more…] about Lights in the Night Sky & the Unexplained in PR

Arecibo Observatory- A side trip on a detour…

The Largest Radiotelescope on the Planet

The group that runs the facility is- The National Astronomic and Ionosphere Center. That entity is administrated by the Cornell University.

Funding to run the experiments and maintain the Observatory come from many sources, but I can say from first hand that it appears to be efficiently run. Some of the electrical Control Center gear dates back to the original 1959 installation… that’s the year I started 1st grade! Their operational premise is- “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. They have systems that predate desktop computers… newer systems running the old DOS shell.. [Read more…] about Arecibo Observatory- A side trip on a detour…

The “Intro Bloopers” Reel

Shooting the “Intro Video” to my Blog was fun, but it did have its moments of frustration. It was my first.. there were mistakes.

For those of you not familiar with viewing videos on the Internet, here’s a couple of tips-

If you are on a ‘dial-up’ Internet account, I suggest skipping the videos completely.. they are huge files and will take (almost) forever to down-load. Do you have an hour or so to wait? You could go eat dinner, run an errand or go for a walk and come back when its done. If on the other hand, you have a high speed connection (DSL, cable modem or some such thing), go for it. It should take only a few minutes to down-load.

When you start a video, there is a ‘progress bar’ at the bottom of the frame that tracks the down-load. There is also a ‘play/pause’ button immediately to the left of the bar. As soon as the video starts to play for the first time, stop (pause) the video.

The vid will continue to down-load even though you have paused the play. You can see the progress of the down-load as the bar slowly turns red. Once the bar is mostly red (3/4 or so), restart the video to watch it without interruption. Once it has completely down-loaded (a solid red bar), you can watch the vid over and over without reloading it, without the jitters or breaks.

I also encourage you to ‘rate’ my YouTube videos or leave your own comments (good, bad, or otherwise), but that’s optional. Enjoy!