Westslope Aquarium When Dave and I lived on Westslope, one of the hobbies that we invested quite a bit of time into was keeping up with aquariums representative of the local aquatic life. Basically, we would go around to the local streams and rivers (generally near or within the greenbelts) with fish nets and capture some of the local species. Everything from the sand, rocks, plant life, and of course the fish, were specific to the local habitat. Perhaps most interesting of the fish species that we kept were small bass. The only complication with keeping bass is that they are carnivores (technically omnivores I suppose) and so we needed to keep a smaller tank full of minnows to feed the bass with. Every so often we'd make a trip out to one of the streams with a seine to catch more minnows. It was fun feeding them, especially as they would 'learn' when it was time to eat. For the record, Dave Krewet is really the person who got us started in this sort of thing.

Bobcat S150 at Axel Lane Two days before my Axel Lane new years eve party, I hired out a Bobcat S150 Skid Steer and got to working on flattening some more of my property with the help of Dave G. It was quite a hassle to get things moving, but fortunately, Dave's friend Aaron needed a trailer to move a hot tub with and I needed a truck to pull the trailer and Bobcat with. Since Aaron owns a large van with an F250 frame, it turned out to be a good fit. While Dave and I took turns using the Bobcat and chopping up wood with Preston's chain saw, I gave Tracy and Eric both some time on it as well.

2016 TX NORML Speech with K-Devin I gave one of my annual speeches at the TX NORML monthly meeting. Devin came with me and provided some wonderful support. A guy with a parrot was also there and we got to spend some time with his little bird. The parrot climbed right up on top of Devin. She seemed to be pretty amused with it.

A man and a woman in winter clothing standing on a mountain or cliff area with white smoke billowing up behind them. There is some green grass and a few shrubs on the ground. There is a dark green hillside filled with trees in the background. She is wearing a white jacket with a red knit cap with a black bag slung across her body. He's wearing a read jacket and blue knit cap with a hiking pack on his back and buckled across his chest.

Three people appear to be sitting against a bright orange wall. To the far left is a Caucasian woman with two-tone hair wearing a white shirt and a black sweater. In the middle is a plus size woman with medium length brown hair and light skin wearing a yellow tee-shirt with the logo of a sports team on it. To the far right is a man with a goatee wearing a vee-neck blue shirt with striped collar and short, striped sleeves.

25 Things Written About Me I ll let the writer of this remain anonymous for the time being but per 10 on the list I d sure love to see more of these pop up BEWARE LADIES 25 Things You Should Know About Kevin Patrick Ludlow 1 He cackles when he thinks something is particularly funny and if you point out his cackle he will cackle even louder 2 He once had a comic strip in college titled Super Sperm It was a Superman esque comic about a superhero sperm 3 He loves having his toes popped shudder and will try to persuade you to pop them for him If you are unsuccessful he will complain 4 He twirls his hair and or plays with his hands when he is thinking or talking about something serious 5 He considers being submersed in any type of water as his shower for the day Pools rivers etc it all counts 6 He is generally impatient 7 He is however amazingly patient with children 8 He has a sweet tooth 9 He has a particular fondness for Krispy Kreme raspberry filled donuts 10 He likes being the center of attention 11 He doesn t like being like everyone else and will go out of his way to be different i e wearing black dress socks with shorts or one gray sock and one white sock 12 He is determined and hates to fail As evidence he works far more hours than the average person 13 He prefers floss sword sticks over regular floss 14 Speaking of swords he has a knack for fusing the little swords that spear olives etc into eye glasses Check out the link for evidence http www kevinludlow com index php module Photos amp op view amp albumID 330 amp photoID 16277 15 He often brushes his teeth in the shower 16 He is good at making animal sounds I think I stumped him once with giraffe though 17 He doesn t drink coffee but likes Earl Grey tea 18 He is allergic to almost everything 19 He likes to argue his views and doesn t like to be wrong 20 He often pays with 2 bills 21 Due to his natural coat of hair he prefers the colder climates 22 He has a hole in his nasal cavity 23 He doesn t enjoy singing in front of others unless he is drunk and the radio is turned up 24 He enjoys opera music 25 He has been known to do aerobatic tricks at high altitudes He doesn t frighten easily but is terrified of spiders 26 It s complicated

Howard Ludlow Sr Slide Collection As some of you already know or have possibly noticed popping up on Facebook over the months I have finally taken on the arduous task of digitizing and restoring all of my grandparent s Momma and Poppa old slides In truth I actually started this project a few years ago but was not satisfied with the quality of output that I getting and ultimately shelved the idea A dear friend of mine Mark Holzbach a href http www austinforum org speakers holzbach html http www austinforum org speakers holzbach html a was kind enough to provide me with his Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 and SF 210 Slide Feeder finally making the process both bearable and of exceptional quality I am very pleased with the final result The complete collection is a little more than 6 50 GB The file prefixes were consistent with how my grandfather Poppa had the boxes originally labeled and the slides were all scanned in the order that they appeared in the original carousels There was no post editing done to the scans aside from the built in Nikon VueScan filtering and so some are upside down inverted etc strong About the Slide Set strong In total there were 1 869 slides that were part of the collection The date range of these slides appears to be from about 1973 1988 The locations are vast and span the North Atlantic Canada parts of New York and New Jersey Eastern and Western Europe Scandinavia Russia and Northern Africa namely Egypt and Morocco I would say that most of them take place on various cruises and other water transports though certainly not exclusively It s also worth noting that Poppa was very interested in shooting photos of locations and scenery as opposed to people As it happens he was actually very good at composition in my opinion but the downside is that probably less than 15 of the photos are actually of people or at least people that are recognized by my family strong Digitization and Restoration strong photo 36255 740 0 right Poppa on a boat 7 26 1975 BEFORE infrared processing and and chrome color correction photo photo 36257 740 0 right Poppa on a boat 7 26 1975 AFTER infrared processing and and chrome color correction photo The Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 allowed me to capture very high quality image data I initially intended to scan all of the photos in RAW format but ultimately decided against this calculating that the 500 GB or so of data that would be required would be very difficult to mobilize and would not justify the benefits given the otherwise VERY high quality of scanning Instead I wound up scanning each slide at 4000 DPI and stored them in 100 uncompressed JPEG format The lack of compression makes this more or less equivalent to TIFF data there is no or should not be adjusting of the color pallet The complete dataset wound up being 6 50 GB of JPEG data or about 3 477 MB per photo essentially the same as any high resolution photography these days The scanner also utilizes a technology known as digital ICE which incidentally was invented by a friend of Marks Essentially after each slide was scanned it would be rescanned using an infrared light Unlike traditional white light used for scanning infrared is capable of detecting depth This is used to automatically detect dust and similar particulates as well as scratches on the physical film Once the process finished a proprietary software program I purchased called VueScan compared the infrared layer of data to the color layer and automatically eliminated the granular imperfections The final step was to apply industry standard color corrections to the various types of slide film Kodachrome Ektochrome etc photo 36254 740 0 right London Wellington Arch 4 17 76 BEFORE color correcting photo photo 36256 740 0 right London Wellington Arch 4 17 76 AFTER color correcting photo The blended result of these technologies is a wonderful restoration of the entire photo set Aside from physically improving the slides under a microscope I m not sure they could be restored or preserved any better I should also note that I did not use any sort of cropping on the slides The reason for this is that I occasionally find the algorithms to detect the edges of slides not to be very good I wanted to preserve the entirety of the slides and so you ll note that almost all of them have the slide frame scanned around them If you zoom in and look very closely you ll even see the frayed edges of the film against the slide frames In the few occasional instances where no slide frame is visible these were slides that simply had no lip Also if you are interested in printing any of these photos just open the photo in a graphic editor of your choosing and crop as desired The quality is FAR great enough to produce very nice prints Even 16x20 prints of these slides should print without any pixilation strong Storing strong photo 26043 644 0 right Some of Poppa s original notes photo Several years ago I carefully moved all of the slides from their carousel trays to specialized air tight acrylic slide containers The slides have been placed back into these with all of the notes that Poppa kept on them I will be getting these notes typed up sometime soon The slide containers only hold up to 50 slides each so there are quite a few of them Each of these slide containers was then placed into air tight photo boxes available at craft stores such as Michael s Upon the completion of my company warehouse hopefully to be open in early summer 2012 I will be storing these slide boxes in a fireproof safe in my hidden room There will be some irony should they burn I realize this but that s about as safe as I can think to make them strong Additional Photos strong photo 26079 644 0 right One of the air tight acrylic slide boxes photo I am still hoping to get any remaining family photos slides or the like from old boxes or books in order to have them digitized and add them to my collections I would also like to note to anyone reading this that if you DO have photos in those old sticky magnetic photo books please note that the glues are only accelerating the destruction of the photos You may want to consider removing them from those books as I did for my parents 2 years ago and storing them in proper photo containers until they can be digitally preserved This is especially the case given the pervasiveness of modern scanning technologies and methodologies

Older Software Projects table cellspacing 0 cellpadding 0 tbody tr td strong About My Software strong Over the years I have written a bit of software under the GNU GPL license Although some of the software that I wrote was originally distributed under my AustinSmoke Scripts software label I have now just assumed distribute it under my own name All downloads are free and can be used however the license was intended At the moment I m not really supporting any of the software That said if you run into any problems I probably won t be of much help Still you re welcome to a href index php module Contact contact me a Finally I have received a number of questions regarding the released of my openFace software and despire the current project name having the word open in it it is not currently open source and I have no intentions of making it open source in the near future Sorry for the let down td tr tr td valign top img src files software thumbnails AS GasTracker_screen01 png alt AustinSmoke GasTracker v1 0 0 a href http www austinsmoke com AS GasTracker demo a This script will allow you to keep track of your gas mileage and have the results displayed in an easy to read website None of the data is harvested from anywhere on the web but is rather entered manually by the user and for the user Currently the program only supports the English system of miles and gallons Future versions intend to include the metric system as well as conversions between the figures If the demand seems to exist a future version will allow the user to import a CSV file or something similar This should satisfy any users who have historically kept up with such data with Excel and other spreadsheets table tbody tr td strong Filename strong td td strong File Size strong td td strong File MD5 Checksum strong td tr tr td a href files software packages AS GasTracker_v1_0_0 tar gz AS GasTracker_v1_0_0 tar gz a td td 43789 bytes td td f8e080a0948becb174496990c84e22fc td tr tr td a href files software packages AS GasTracker_v1_0_0 zip AS GasTracker_v1_0_0 zip a td td 62133 bytes td td 1c90e4cccbe1a49c14f718a405f81f1f td tr tbody table td tr tr td valign top img src files software thumbnails same gnome pixmaps0 1 jpg alt Same Gnome 2 8 0 Custom Image Pack 0 1 This is just a pretty simple image pack that I put together for the popular open source game Same Gnome The top left image is the default pixmap for the game and the other three images are custom pixmaps that I made Included in the tarball are rotating_pills png topright three_lens_flares png bottomleft and mexican_numbers png bottomright I can not guarantee that they will work with all versions of Same Gnome but were designed to work with v2 8 0 While the Mexican Numbers and the Rotating Pills themes were meant to be graphically appealing the Three Lens Flares pixmap was simply designed to allow the user to more easily see what particular color appears most in the game thus allowing for higher scores or so was the idea How to use Read your Same Gnome help section on Creating Scenarios Simply unTar GZip the file and copy the PNGs into your usr share pixmaps same gnome directory note directory may be slightly different depending on your Linux distribution table tbody tr td strong Filename strong td td strong File Size strong td td strong File MD5 Checksum strong td tr tr td a href files software packages same gnome pixmaps0 1 tar gz same gnome pixmaps0 1 tar gz a td td 110354 bytes td td c89fa40e7016eada6b42f69704b0444a td tr tbody table td tr tr td valign top img src files software thumbnails as_currency02 jpg alt AustinSmoke Currency Converter v2 0 riginal msg thread Anyone looking for a Currency Converter 169 different currencies included or that is already using AS Currency 1 0 I have finally completed AS Currency 2 0 Tons of new features including a redesigned and more powerful admin interface market gain and loss calculations ability to use graphical images new flag sets for 45 countries and plenty more Previous bugs have been worked out and I have included a thorough documentation set as well as an easy to use install script For use with PHP Nuke 6 9 nukecops download thread Heavily redesigned PHPNuke block module combination built off of the existing v1 0 The block displays current exchange rate information displaying countries that the administrator defines The module is a currency converter New to v2 0 are market gains and losses displayed within the block graphical displays available for both gains and losses and for numerical values new flag images included redesigned admin interface redesigned module interface multiple data servers can be selected for each currency used ability to edit specific currency information Version 2 0 table tbody tr td strong Filename strong td td strong File Size strong td td strong File MD5 Checksum strong td tr tr td a href files software packages AS Currency v2 0 tar gz AS Currency v2 0 tar gz a td td 129013 bytes td td e22f8246efa5c5ae44315503a7820d5a td tr tr td a href files software packages AS Currency_v2_0 zip AS Currency_v2_0 zip a td td 205880 bytes td td bbdb80946c60c7ec0cdd887b072af0dc td tr tbody table td tr tr td valign top img src files software thumbnails as_currency01 jpg alt AustinSmoke Currency Converter v1 0 nukecops download thread A PHPNuke block module combination The block displays current exchange rate information displaying countries that the administrator defines The module is a currency converter Version 1 0 table tbody tr td strong Filename strong td td strong File Size strong td td strong File MD5 Checksum strong td tr tr td a href files software packages AS Currency zip AS Currency zip a td td 119866 bytes td td 9374d3958cee0aad1906623bd83b139a td tr tbody table td tr tbody table

The Golf Ball Injury One evening over the Thanksgiving holiday during my freshman year in college I took to the local driving range with my little sister I had been learning to play golf earlier in the summer One of my roommates Donlee Cone Smith was an accomplished golfer and a rather good teacher I was neither but he was doing his best with me The interesting thing about our local driving range is that was uniquely designed by a guy who won the lottery Evidently he used some of his winnings to develop and presumably patent a system that automatically placed the ball on the tee for the golfer It was a pretty cool device All you had to do was tap your golf club on a lever and a PVC arm would drop down into place set the ball on the tea and then retract itself Just when it seemed golf could not get any lazier this guy proved the world wrong The relevance of this detail is that one key component to golfing is how one stands relative to the tee It took me a number of swings to find a good setup but once I got perfectly into place I didn t have to move This presented a pretty big advantage to non golfers like myself As a result to all of this I was actually hitting the ball really well that evening One after another I was driving well beyond my typical norms My sister just 13 at the time was seated in the bench behind me If it seems strange that she was just watching her brother play golf keep in mind that 13 is a pretty young age to be independent I think she just enjoyed the fact that I would take her out and about the adventure otherwise being unimportant In this instance it s good that she was there with me After I d gone through about half of the balls I sliced the hell out one shot It was at this moment that a huge flaw in the driving range was inadvertently discovered There were metal rails extending beyond the area that one could shoot The ball I sliced hit one of these metal rails to the right of me and before I could even finish my swing came back and hit me square in the head over my right eye I was likely immediately knocked unconscious As I started to fall to the ground the momentum from my swing continued and my golf club bent itself around the metal rail to the left of me I have no idea how long I was unconscious for likely only seconds but as I was lying face down on the AstroTurf I could hear my sister chuckling behind me She later explained to me that she thought I was just playing around as I typically did When I rolled over in her direction I was holding my right hand above my eye I could feel the injury that I had sustained but had no idea just how severe it was As I removed my hand my sister screamed and realize that not only was I injured but that I had a protrusion literally the size of a golf ball just above my right eye I was in a very blurred state from the injury and only vaguely remember another golfer from a few stalls down coming to my rescue He picked me up and brought me inside insistent that the place call an ambulence My sister instead got in touch with my parents and they came and picked me up instead Another trip to the emergency room ensued I was told that I was extremely lucky the injury pushed outwardly from my skull Evidently an inwardly bruise of that size could have resulted in serious brain injury or other complications I was also lucky enough not to have fractured my skull I was perfectly fine just a few days later albeit became the only of my friends to have ever rendered himself unconscious with a golf ball It was many years later before I was comfortable at a driving range again My sister sent a package to my college dorm a week or so later The package contained a note taped to a golf ball that read The golf ball that so viciously attacked you I still have it

My College Movies When starting my university career back in 1997 at the University of Texas at Austin my first major of any real dedication was film More specifically RTF or Radio Television and Film I kept on this path for about 2 years and inevitably wound up making a number of short films In some cases the films were made for myself in others they were made for class projects If you would like to see some media saved from these films please click on the links below Please note that all work is copyrighted by Kevin Ludlow and can not be used or duplicated without the explicit consent of Kevin Ludlow photo 36277 740 200 right Klaus Wagner in Alive April Chase photo photo 36272 740 200 right Part of the opening sequence photo strong Alive April Chase strong strong Running Time strong 3 minutes 20 seconds strong Shoot Date strong March 8 12 1999 strong Release Date strong March 23 1999 strong Cast strong Klaus Wagner em additional names to be released em strong Specifications strong Super 8mm strong Genre strong Comedy Animation strong Notes strong Ludlow s first movie shot on film The piece was just over 3 minutes long and contained stop action animation as well as hand drawn animation It follows a newspaper comic hero br style clear both photo 36278 740 200 right The opening action sequence from Bill s Day photo photo 36282 740 200 right Jeff Smith at Quix photo strong Bill s Day strong strong Running Time strong 2 minutes strong Shoot Date strong May 1 May 5 1999 strong Release Date strong May 6 1999 strong Cast strong Carey Quackenbush The Driver Vance Kotrla The Passenger Jeff Smith Money Ower Laura Kennemer Edwards Girl Sunni Graham Graves Letter Girl Quix Clerk as himself strong Specifications strong Digital 8mm strong Genre strong Action Mystery strong Notes strong Shot for a film class this 2 minute video follows a random storyline with action br style clear both photo 36280 740 200 right photo photo 36275 740 200 right photo strong Return of the Forest Monster strong strong Running Time strong 75 minutes strong Shoot Date strong Summer 2003 strong Release Date strong November 8 2003 strong Cast strong a href http www imdb com title tt0383593 fullcredits http www imdb com title tt0383593 fullcredits a strong Specifications strong DV 1 78 1 strong Genre strong Comedy Horror strong Notes strong A long time friend of mine Vance Kotrla has made a number of independent films this is one of them He shot the film over the summer of 2003 and needed a few of his friends to act in it I didn t have a very large role but I was in the film no less Sadly I get eaten by the forest monster You can view the movie trailer 4 75mb WMV or visit the movies home page at a href http www brokenimage net rotfmwmv html http www brokenimage net rotfmwmv html a br style clear both photo 36271 740 200 right photo photo 36279 740 200 right photo strong Suicide strong strong Running Time strong 18 minutes strong Shoot Date strong December 1998 January 1999 strong Release Date strong January 19 1999 trailer only strong Cast strong Victor Perez Joe Mr Sabatini Kevin Ludlow The Blue Guy strong Specifications strong VHS C 8mm strong Genre strong Action Mystery strong Notes strong Shot over Christmas with friend Victor Perez Perez also wrote and directed the film with Ludlow br style clear both photo 36281 740 200 right Kim Ludlow starring as Mary photo photo 36273 740 200 right photo strong style clear both The Cross of Mary strong strong Running Time strong 5 minutes strong Shoot Date strong December 1998 strong Release Date strong not released strong Cast strong Kim Ludlow Mary strong Specifications strong 8mm Video strong Genre strong Drama strong Notes strong After casting his sister to do this project Ludlow created a dramatic silent piece to the score of an inspirational song br style clear both photo 36274 740 200 right photo photo 36283 740 200 right photo strong When the Son Rises strong strong Running Time strong 4 minutes 30 seconds strong Shoot Date strong April 24 30 1999 strong Release Date strong May 4 1999 Cast strong Daniel Putt Father Klaus Wagner Younger Son Kevin Ludlow Older Son Kim Ludlow Bendaw the Servant Heather Kominczak Passing Lady strong Specifications strong Digital 8mm strong Genre strong Biblical strong Notes strong Experimental film piece shot with family and friends A biblical piece with changed dialogue to fit the times Depicted in pre Judeo Christian times The only song used in the piece is my so called A Song See A Song br style clear both