Picasa facial recognition

I know the Mick & Brian Adventures blog has been a little slow lately. If you check the header - you'll know why. We had a very busy summer, with just enough down time to sit back and relax. We didn't use the grill much that I remember - but the weather here - we can grill anytime. Nicely BBQ'ed burgers in January sound good, don't they?

Something that Google released in early September is interesting to note. I wanted to write about this just about a month ago....but you know. Adventures happen. Just yesterday, we participated in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes, here in Portland. We registered at the last minute - and just went and had fun! We walked on a team organized for one of Tegan's friends - Lili. The Team we were on was called Hi Lili Hi Lo - and they have done this for a few years now. Lili was one of the Walk Ambassadors for this event - very exciting! After the walk - we got to ride on the Oak's Park rides all day long! I even discovered that as you get older - you don't have the same ride endurance. I went on about 3 rides too many - and by the time we quit at 4:30 - luckily lunch was four hours past....

So - on to the main topic of this post - facial recognition comes to the impoverished masses!

We have used Picasa to manage all our digital photos - probably since before we got our digital camera, and only had photos sent to us by others. We started using the Picasa Web Albums soon after to share photos of our adventures with all of you. Now - Picasa Web Albums have facial recognition technology!

What does that mean? Well -the Picasa/Google servers look through all our photos that have been uploaded. The software find all the faces that it can recognize - and then starts sorting them by facial characteristics. Once it has finished that - it presents the faces it thinks are the same person to you to identify. It does actually work very well. Now - whenever we upload new photos, it can find our 'classified' faces and tag the photos automatically. Neat!

The first face groupings presented for identification are usually all the same face. Sometimes - interesting things happen. Photos of Tegan and Connor were sometimes grouped together. Sometimes they were at the same age, or shared a similar smile, or Tegan's long hair was up in a hat... Sometimes Connor's nephews were grouped with him, and vice versa. I don't think my face and Mick's were ever mixed together...but I guess we need to be a lot older before we start looking like each other.

Just for fun - I grabbed a most of the shots of me (Brian). Take a look, and see the tough job that the Picasa computers had to deal with. I think they are up and processing again after dealing with this crazy face.

Click on me to see it slightly larger - if you dare.

I really wish this technology was in the Picasa software on our computer, because I don't want to upload our 10,000+ library to Google. Someday - when I get the time - I intend to indentify all the people in our photos. The EXIF tags make this 'easy' to do, if you get the right software. I am still looking for that perfect setup - so I can export data to Excel, enter info there, and then reload the data back into the photos. I did find a freeware program once that did this (Exifer) - but that one is no longer being developed. Something will come along....even if the time to do it doesn't.

The tree returns - and is defeated again

Remember the trouble we had with a maple tree growing up under our front fence? Well - at the end of April our neighbor finally cut this tree down. Looking at the stump - it was only eight to nine years old - but the stump was about 10 inches in diameter. It was taller than our house. So - a serious growing tree.

Well - about the end of July - I noticed maple leaves again



Apparently the stump had lots of stored energy, since it's spring growing spurt was cut short. So it decided to send up shoots. Some of these growths were about eight feet tall. Once again - the fence was in jeopardy.


Three weeks ago I took a few board off the fence, and had a go at the stump with an axe. It didn't go well, because the fence had a lower horizontal support at ground level. I don't have a chain saw (the perfect tool for this job, don't you think) - so I used a circular saw to cut the stump down. Piece by piece. I added a few more hits with the axe, and a nice, large, 1-inch drill bit also helped. A little Roundup should help keep the stump moving along the slow path to decaying in place.

So - the grass has started growing again - though September in Portland is turning out to be a very dry one. Less than an inch of rain - less than July or August, I think. Another yard work update is coming - because I need to get the grass short, try and aerate it a little, and put down some grass seed. Gotta fill in those gaps before the winter sets in, and Yukon kills off more patches.

1994 Ford Explorer...still going strong

Two weeks ago, the turn signal on our 1994 Ford Explorer seemed to be blinking a little slowly. But I wasn't really sure. You know how it is - each car is different, and if you drive more than one car - you're really not sure if what you are hearing is quite right. We had just gone camping at Fort Stevens State Park on our annual church campout. I thought maybe the blinker relay was recovering from having to drive the lights on our pop-up camper.

So anyway - on Monday the turn signal still seemed slow, and on my way to work in the morning the ABS light came on. I wasn't happy about this as we just had the ABS computer replaced - maybe it has been a year or two, but it should last longer than that - right?

Leaving work that afternoon - the Explorer had a dead battery. I didn't connect these two other symptoms at the time - because that morning as I drove to work I noticed a back door partially open howling in the wind, because the door had been closed on a seat belt. I thought maybe the dome light had been on all night, and maybe I just barely got the engine started and.... I still hadn't put the puzzle pieces together. I had a dentist appointment to go to, but since the dentist was only three blocks away - I went for a quick walk.

After the dentist - Mick came with our minivan and we jump started the Explorer. So far, so good. On the way home - I now had no blinker lights, the ABS light was still on, and it almost stalled at a stop light. I soon realized the battery wasn't being charged, was completely dead, and I might not make it home. So I turned off the AC, the radio, and tried to hit all the lights green.

I made it home, but it was a Connor soccer night. After soccer practice and a quick dinner - I started to take the alternator out. It was actually pretty easy - two small bolts to remove a guard, two air hose connectors to loosen to remove an air flow hose, and then three bolts on the alternator. The only hard part was loosening tension on the belt - I needed Mick to pull the belt off as I moved a tension adjusting wheel out of the way. Then - a quick trip down to the local Tualatin Schucks store.


I got there five minutes before 8 PM - closing time. I wasn't too happy - as they "didn't have the parts to be able to mount my non-standard alternator" in the testing equipment. Non-standard? C'mon! Ford Explorers are not exactly a rare item around here. Yesterday I saw two other Explorers at a 4-way stop - and these were the same model Explorer (1991 to 1994) that I was driving. At this advanced age - lots of these alternators are probably failing!

Anyway - the Schucks employee told me the Tigard store was open until 9 PM, and they could test my alternator there. A quick 15 minute trip from Tualatin to Tigard - and the results were what I expected - the alternator was dead. This kindly Shucks employee even took $25 off the price of the alternator because of the problems I had with the Tualatin store. Nice customer service! Thanks Tigard Schucks!

A quick trip home - and a relatively painless installation of the new alternator. After pushing the Explorer back from the garage (nice thinking....drive up to where I can't jump start it) and starting it again with help from the minivan - a quick trip around the neighborhood to add some juice to the battery. Success!


Now the list of things I can do to repair our Explorer has expanded. Replace the alternator, change the spark plugs or the air filter or the battery, replace the brake pads (but due to 4 wheel drive hubs - never again!), and change the oil & filter. Everything else goes to In and Out Auto Care in Gladstone. Tell Dan that Mick & Brian sent you - and he'll take great care of your car.

Yard Work 2008 #13

Wow - it has been a month and a half since the last lawn mowing, back on July 12th I think.

I thought maybe I mowed before Kevin & Paula and their kids visited us in early August - but I think we were too busy with Tour de Cure for that.

So - no grass was cut at all in August at our house.   Some areas were quite long, and other areas had died from no water.  The inflatable pool killed off its own 70 square feet or so.

They (the Portland area Metro people) say that you should water only 1 inch per week.  Since we received around 0.20 inches in July, and 3.30 inches in August (2.70 inches was in a 1-week period)....that is enough for just over 4 weeks.  I got this rain data from the City of Portland HYDRA Rainfall Network - Sylvania PCC gauge.

It will be another month at least before we start getting "Portland Rain" again...so maybe only 1 more cut before October.  Stay tuned!