Tonight I find myself writing from yet another long, long layover and I find myself revisiting The Rosetta Stone to brush up on my Spanish. I remembered my little application I wrote in Spain and so I made a few tweaks and decided to share it, just in case anybody should find it useful.

If anything, it demonstrates two concepts:

• The bizarre Windows goop one must wade through in order to automate a Windows application with no known automation interface.
• The power and expressiveness of well-abstracted code written in Python.

Here is the entire application. It is less than 50 meaningful lines of code:

import os
import sys
import time
from msvcrt import getch

sys.path.append("../win32automation")

import win32automation

os.system("title KeySetta")
win32automation.spawnProcess(
    r"C:\Program Files\The Rosetta Stone\The Rosetta Stone\TheRosettaStone.exe")
while 1:
    print "Waiting for application to start..."
    result = win32automation.windowFocus("The Rosetta Stone")
    if result:
        print "Window found!"
        break
    time.sleep(1.0)
print "Waiting 5 seconds for login screen to appear..."
time.sleep(5.0)
win32automation.sendKeys('jordanh{ENTER}')

print """
   Keyboard to Mouse Macros Enabled:

     - Answer selection:
       [7] [9]
       [1] [3]
       
    Please focus this window to enable them...
"""

coord_map = {"7": (180, 300),
             "9": (480, 300),
             "1": (180, 475),
             "3": (480, 475)}

while 1:
    win32automation.windowFocus("KeySetta")
    ch = getch()
    print "Last key pressed: %s\r" % (ch),
    if ch in ('1','3','7','9'):
        win32automation.windowFocus("The Rosetta Stone")
        x, y = coord_map[ch]
        win32automation.mouseMoveToRelative("The Rosetta Stone", x, y)
        win32automation.mouseClick(button="left")
    elif ch.lower() == 'q':
        print "Quitting!"
        break
    else:
        print "WARNING: Unknown key-macro event '%c'." % (ch)

sys.exit()

Granted the silly "win32automation" module I wrote is a little stupid. It is based on the excellent example provided over at http://del.icio.us/amoebapr/python. Notice for example none of the functions take an opaque handle to an object. Instead, all of the functions inside of the module require some sort of hint (such as a window title) in order to re-find the desired object before executing an operation on it.

Hopefully however sharing this code will spark somebody to develop a better, free Windows automation module for Python.

Download keysetta.zip (md5sum: a4336d883fcb10b11b8b660451e522a3)

My brother needed some logistical help shooting the final scenes of his movie and so my dad drove up from Los Angeles to the Bay Area in order to help him out. This was supposed to be final location for the movie he has been working on for going on two years.

The salty air ended up doing a number on his old VHS camera and he could not wrap production. The next day he needed to be on an airplane to move to New York City. Now he'll have to come back so he can finish his film.

Last month my job sent me to San Diego, CA. I stayed the weekend and drove up to Los Angeles in order to see my dad, his wife and family. Even though I was able to cheat winter and escape Minnesota for the full duration this year it was nice to be able to get out into the warm sunshine after four weeks of not having sun light feel warm on the skin.

We drove north to Ojai in order to go for a hike along Matilija Creek. Everything was beautiful and green. The creeks were full and flowing thanks to a melting snow pack.

Along the way I took a series of photographs with the intention to stitch them together into a panorama. This is about nine photographs stitched together. It is a crop of a panorama about three times this size.

It was the late afternoon and we were just finishing our hike that took the majority of the day. The sun was low on the horizon and there was a lot of dust in the air. The light was very soft but dramatic.

Check out these usage terms:

Muxtape is a service for creating mixtapes. Users may not upload multiple songs from the same album or artist, or songs they do not have permission to let Muxtape use. Individual users may not create multiple muxtapes. Accounts not meeting these restrictions are subject to termination without notice. Muxtape will never reveal your email address to a third party. Muxtape is alive.

The site is by talented web designer and photoblogger Justin Ouellette of http://chromogenic.net/. Justin's photoblogs was one of the first photoblogs I started monitoring regularly. He was definitely an inspiration in getting this site up and running.

I could really see this concept taking off. Sure, there are sites like such as last.fm which allow for the creation of personalized playlists or streaming radio stations or features such as iTunes iMixes but muxtape really neatly encapsulates the bare essence of sharing a pile of music in a format that might actually fit the soul of High Fidelity.

Some enhancements I could see to muxtape:

• The ability to comment on somebody's muxtape
• A feature which would allow you to see related muxtapes.
• An archive feature which allows you to "tag" a previous muxtape so previous track lists are not lost when changes are made; perhaps a tagged entity is the only thing that could be commented upon.
• The ability to download the muxtape in another standard playlist format (this could probably already be done by a third-party from the RSS with an appropriate XSLT!)

My mind began to race. Who could it be? Who do I know in Myanmar? Was one of my friends being held hostage? Was Aung San Suu Kyi trying to reach out to me?

Last Tuesday morning I was lucky enough to catch the phone on the first ring and talk to a live person, "hello Mr. Hewsney, I am just calling to check..." It was the unmistakable opening of a telemarketing call.

I cut off the drawling southern voice of the woman on the other end of the phone, "excuse me, but where are you calling from?"

"What?"

"What? No, I am calling from the Yew-nite-ted states of America..."

I cut her off again, "well I've been getting calls from mysterious numbers starting with International code +95 all week long and I thought somebody was trying to reach me from Asia, Myanmar specifically. You know, perhaps your firm's telephone dialer is misconfigured..."

She cut me off this time, "what? where?" Now the surprise—she raised her voice from calm tones to a full scaled yell, "I AM IN DEERFIELD BEACH FLOOR-I-DAH, GET YOURSELF EDUCATED!"

And then she hung up.

My brother came to Minneapolis to promote and present his company's—Troma Entertainment—new movie Poultrygeist with his boss Lloyd Kaufman. It was a very wild and rowdy event. It was a great time!

We stayed up until nearly 5:00am that night and went out the next morning for a well-deserved breakfast at Maria's Cafe on Franklin Ave. The service was positively atrocious. Our server was a completely space-cadet but at least the light was good!

I love going out to breakfast with my brother. He is at peace with the world when he has eggs, hashbrowns, and a cup of coffee in front of him.

The last time I was in Mexico I heard that Fuji still sells Type 80 there. Type 80 is the size that fits my Holgaroid back. Next time I visit (hopefully soon!) I'll have to see what is for sale...

The common theme that ties the films together is Gabe in a mask and the title prefix "P.S." I hope you enjoy them! Please feel free to leave comments here or on YouTube.

What items have been allowed to permeate the national cultural membrane is reminiscent of the first whispers I heard of a broader world as a child growing up in Middle America during the 1980s. Foreign thrills came to us through Mongolian Barbeque, Bruce Lee (and the boom of martial arts schools that followed), Hawaiian pizza, and catching the odd glimpse of an immigrant family struggling to find suitable food at the Red Owl supermarket.

The cultural growing pains of the 1980s seem to be a necessary stage of development for a country about to join the rest of the world in the age of globalization. If the destination on this journey is to do as the Parisians or New Yorkers do then the first steps may be to eat chicken chow mein and wear a mullet. That’s right: the mullet; the “business in front, party in the back” hairdo that was the hallmark style of our favorite 80s bands, wrestlers, and loser couch-surfing uncles alike.

Many of the travelled Spanish that I met were ashamed about their country’s lack of cultural choice. To these things the standard, “we blame Franco,” mantra would apply. Perhaps the mantra is true. Perhaps Franco did delay the country’s development by decades. However, what is more truthful is that the Spanish love their mullets.

When I asked the Spanish people of what they thought of the mullet the answers I got were nearly universal: the mullet was cool, it was counter culture, and it made you hip. If you locked it in the back it made you “laid-back” or “Rasta.” If you cut out and braided little rat-tails into it that made you seem to be like a drifter, a traveler, perhaps the Spanish Jack Kerouac type. I failed to see any of these things; I only saw Ted Nugent fans.

It certainly didn’t help that most of the mullet wearers I ran into in Spain were often bleary eyed drunks smashing beer bottles on the cobble stones at the end of the night. Take my girlfriend-beating neighbor for instance: he was the proud maintainer of a dirty shoulder-length mane I used to call the Qui-Gon Jinn. His dumpy friend, the Jedi Apprentice, used to sport my favorite little number which featured three braided rat-tails in the back.

I love the Spanish mullet. It used to give us foreigners something to connect on. I cannot tell you how many great conversations started with, “oh my god, can you believe all the mullets?”

A quick search on the Internet revealed similar exuberance for the Spanish version of the Kentucky Waterfall:

• Spain Loves the 80s (posted back in 2005!)
• The Spanish Mane
• Mullets and Other Unexpected Surprises
• The Spanish Mullet

As with all trends, I am sure this one has a limited life span. Soon the mullets will give way to full-on grunge hair. Time will tell what the Spanish version of a plaid work shirt will be. I await with bated breath.

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Camera

ISO 400 Disposable w/Plastic Lens

A ferry crossing at the Rhine in Basel, Switzerland.

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Shot from near Münsterplatz in Basel, Switzerland.

I was able to see the exhibition "Rot. Wenn Farbe zur Täterin wird" (Red. Hot on the Trail of a Colour) at the Basel Museum der Kulturen. A few sets of these table and chairs were in the courtyard of the museum. The chairs were tipped forward no doubt to avoid pooling water from collecting in their seats should while it rained.

The original print was very underexposed. I scanned the photo at my friend Mika's and was able to play with the color curves and contrast to recover this image.

I was supposed to meet a couple of co-workers by the cathedral in Freiburg before catching a train to fly out of Frankfurt to Paris. I woke up early to pack up my hotel room but I found that I had to keep taking breaks. I would sit down at the end of the bed and stare at my shoes. All I thought was that I really needed to get some breakfast.

I wandered down to Starbucks, the closest place to the hotel to get something small, and I bought a piece of lemon loaf and a cup of tea. I brought it back to the hotel room. After finishing the tea I felt even worse.

I checked out of the hotel and got a taxi to the train station. I collapsed into my seat and was awoken about half an hour later by the agent wanting to validate my ticket. She told me that the train I got on didn't go to the Frankfurt airport station but went to the Frankfurt main station instead: I would have to transfer at Mannheim.

My stomach was in knots. I was hot and cold and hot and cold. There was no doubt about it. I was really ill.

An hour into the train ride I couldn't keep it together. I ran for the bathroom and smiled a liquid smile.

"In two minutes, we will be arriving into Mannheim station," said the conductor.

And there I was, smelling like half-digested lemon loaf, in the train bathroom. I was barely able to rinse myself off before I got to my bags and stepped off the train.

I had ten minutes before the next train was to arrive. I wanted to find a bathroom and clean up. I struggled as fast as I could only to find the station's bathroom was guarded by a turnstyle much too small for my luggage. It wanted 50 cents. I had no change. I couldn't have even asked someone to watch my bags if I had wanted. I resigned myself to smelling pukey for 10 more minutes before I could clean up on the next train.

Finally, I had made it to the Frankfurt airport terminal. I'll I had to do was to check in and wait for the plane.

"Sir, your bags are 9 kilograms over the limit."

"Yes, but I am gold elite status, isn't there an allowance?"

"No sir, Air France does not have a weight reciprocity agreement with Northwest Airlines. I can give you a plastic bag to carry on items from your baggage."

I moved the bulk of my clothes to a large plastic bag, checked in, and went through security. I slept for 30 minutes before the plane came.

As soon as we were able to move about the cabin I moved right into the bathroom again and joined a different set of folks in the mile high club.

At the airport I took a taxi to my friend Mika's house and said hello to her mother. Within minutes, I was asleep at 6:30. I slept clean through until 7:30 this morning.

Now I feel well enough to eat again. Hopefully I'll feel better for this busy week!

Hello from Deutschland!

Yes, it means "Jewelry" in German. It made me smile with how boldly it was written.