I was communicating with another branch of the “Kindel Family” as a result of the post I made about the Kindel Furniture Factory fire several weeks ago. As a result I looked through some old files and found a copy of the article that was written about my father’s death in 1990. Since tomorrow (June 7) is the anniversary of his death, I thought it would be a useful tribute to post the text of …Continue reading
My great grandfather, Charles J. “CJ” Kindel, founded the Denver Bedding Company in 1900. He sold that company and founded the CJ Kindel Bedding Company in St. Louis in 1904. In 1912 ground breaking began on a new factory focused on wood working in Grand Rapids, MI. My grandfather (Charles M. “CM” Kindel) and great-uncle (Thomas Kindel) ran the company through the ‘60s selling our family’s share in 1964. My father worked for the company …Continue reading
This blog is now running on WordPress. I’ve been meaning to move from Community Server (hosted on a server in my house) to something more modern & flexible (and hosted in the cloud) for ages. The desire to dig into the latest in Linux and cloud hosting finally drove me to actually do it. I decided to force myself to use no Microsoft technologies for this project. Step one was updating my Ubuntu Linux desktop …Continue reading
It’s no secret that I love pretty much everything Amazon.com does. You may think that this is just because they named their Kindle book reader after me, but it’s really because they do such a damn good job of focusing on the customer. Case in point: A month ago, as soon as the new Portal 2 game was available for pre-order on Amazon.com, I placed and order (using my Prime member ship which gets me …Continue reading
A while ago I posted about how much I love Amazon.com’s customer service and I frequently tweet about great service I receive when out and about. Great customer service should be the norm, but sadly that does not seem to be the case. So when I encounter Shockingly Great Customer Service I want to scream from the mountain tops. BendPak, a manufacturer and distributor of automotive shop equipment such as car lifts, wheel balancers, and …Continue reading
The Microsoft Channel 9 Behind the Code series is managed by the Technical Community Network group within Microsoft and is intended to capture the stories of Microsoft’s most influential technical employees. Last fall I was honored to be invited to do an interview for Behind the Code and that interview was recently published. I think it turned out pretty well and represents my story nicely. So far it is the highest rated Behind the Code …Continue reading
Lame that I have not posted anything since last year’s post on the books I read in 2009. But whatever… Below are the books I read in 2010. I’m posting this mostly for my own documentary benefit. Maybe you’ll find it useful and find some gems to read. Title Author My Rating Comments Consider Phlebas Banks, Iain M. ***** Matter Banks, Iain M. ***** Surface Detail Banks, Iain M. ***** The Player …Continue reading
Mostly writing this for my own (future) benefit… These are the books I read in 2009 with ratings/categorization: Most were read on my Amazon Kindle (some on the DX, which I review here, others on my Kindle 2). ***** means loved it. * means I hated it. Science Fiction – By Iain M. Banks (Blog post on Iain M. Banks): Matter (****) Transition (****) Look to Windward (*****) Use of Weapons (*****) Against a Dark …Continue reading
I haven’t posted a book review in a while. Not because I haven’t been reading, just because I’ve been lazy. My most recent book was The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy by David Hoffman. I had heard about this book in a mention on a National People’s Radio story about Ronald Reagan. In that story the book was presented as a story about Reagan and …Continue reading
On April 4, 2007 I got on twitter to check it out. I didn’t see the value and bailed. Then in June of 2008 I gave it another try. At that time I was using @ckindel and I bounced between it being private and public. My use of twitter finally settled into one where I was only tweeting between a small (15-20) group of pretty close friends who I knew I could trust. We use …Continue reading
Today Amazon announced that they have released a firmware update for the Kindle 2 that dramatically increases battery life (from a perfectly fine 4 days to 7 days, even with wireless turned on). They also added native PDF support to the Kindle 2 (this was only previously available on the Kindle DX). I continue to us my Kindles almost all the time. Of all my electronic devices the Kindle remains the one I am the …Continue reading
Gun Digest ran an essay contest in 1964: In 50 words or less write what the Right to Bear Arms means to you. The winner would get an all expense paid hunting safari to Africa. I had known my father (Charles E. “Ted” Kindel) had won this contest when I was a kid but didn’t really know the details. All the family knew was that it was an essay contest in “some gun magazine”, that …Continue reading
My 1998 Porsche 911 Carrera has several unique factory options including sunroof-delete and 15” Fuchs (most ‘88s were ordered with 16” Fuchs). When I purchased it in 1997 I needed to replace the tires and because I was autocrossing I appreciated the slightly lower gearing provided by the 205/55R15 (F) and 225/50R15 (R) that were recommended to me. In the end I actually really liked the look of these slightly lower profile tires as well. …Continue reading
Once again the most amazing consumer product Microsoft has ever created, Windows Home Server, has saved my family [disclaimer]. Today I was in a meeting and I got a text message from my 15 year old daughter. It read (spelling and txt errors verbatim): “daddddd o my god. i think i just deleated all my pictures from freshmen year. please call meee!” I texted her back “Ok, don’t touch anything. I’ll call you when I …Continue reading
Here’s a list of tips, tricks, and hacks for the Amazon Kindle that I’ve uncovered. Some of these are valid for the original Kindle and some are valid for the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. Keyboard Shortcuts Alt+Shift+M – Start a game of Minesweeper. While in the game you can press G for a version of “Go” Alt-T – Shows time (only on the original Kindle; does not work on the Kindle 2 or Kindle …Continue reading
Last year I discovered sci-fi author Peter F. Hamilton and have now read the following books by him on my Amazon Kindle 2: The Night’s Dawn Trilogy: The Reality Dysfunction The Neutronium Alchemist The Naked God Pandora’s Star Judas Unchained The Void Trilology The Dreaming Void The Temporal Void It’s taken me a while to read all these because I read a few other books in between (see list below) and because they are all …Continue reading
Yesterday my new Amazon Kindle DX arrived and here are my initial impressions. I’ve owned a Kindle since November 2007 when they were first released. We currently own 4 of them: CJ has an original, Julie has a Kindle 2, and I now have both a Kindle 2 and the new DX. The moment Amazon announced the Kindle in the fall of 2007 I was enamored with the concept and have been a fan ever …Continue reading
Amazon continues to impress me. This time it is their customer service. This week CJ somehow (he claims he has no idea how it happened…Really!?!?) broke the screen on the original Kindle I had handed-down to him. It was completely toast. At the same time I realized that my Kindle 2 was not working right in sunlight. The text on the screen would appear faded if there was direct sunlight on it. Covering a portion …Continue reading
Lacrosse 2009-03-07 203 Stitch Originally uploaded by ckindel I love digital photography but not so much that I feel like I need to become an Adobe Lightroom whore. I just like really simple tools that just work. I’ve found Windows Live Photo Gallery simply Just Works for 100% of what I do with digital photos (which is probably 80% of what hard core amateurs do). For instance, take this panoramic stitch. I shot 6 photos …Continue reading
Amazon is brilliant. They released a version of their Kindle reader for the iPhone the other day and it’s just brilliant. Wow. I have an iPhone (that I currently don’t use as a phone; my job requires that I play with other phones) and I immediately downloaded it to check out. It is very cool. What I like: Super easy to download books you’ve already purchased for your Kindle onto your iPhone. I can read …Continue reading
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