Archive for the 'Random Thoughts' Category

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busy summer, as usual

Published on July 12, 2009 in Computers, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Camp is going well. I’m taking lots of pictures, again, but we haven’t made any decisions about where to put them, yet. If any go online publicly, I’ll be sure to post a link. I bought a timbuk2 backpack to help alleviate some near-constant back pain. It’s a great bag and quite comfortable. I still love my big messenger bag, but I’ll save it for team-building programs.

I’m also back to trains and other public transportation for the summer and have been listening to a lot of music (and Half-Blood Prince, lately, in preparation for the movie). I like how the commute in the summertime gives me a chance to reconnect with my music collection. I’d still love to replace my phone (which still turns itself off quite a bit) and my iPod and the GPS with one device… but I don’t know if I should wait for the Garmin phones to come out or just cave in and get an iPhone. So I’m still nursing my phone along and carrying both.

The wedding and trip out to Maine  was fun. I haven’t really had a chance to go through those pictures and pick out the best ones yet, but again, I’ll post a link, when I do. I don’t think I have another day off until camp is over… though, I may take a Saturday, next week or the week after. I’m LOVING my Macbook pro. I haven’t completely set myself up on it and decided what programs I’m going to use for photo work and web work to replace my windows favorites (Paint Shop Pro and Homesite 5.5). It’s an awesome piece of hardware, and I’ve already used it to do some stats work for adventure ed. and it was almost a pleasant experience. I’ve definitely gotten used to the trackpad and the multi-touch-ness.

I’m also eating a little healthier. When I’m picking out meals, I constantly think of the Dead Milkmen song “nutrition,” which is fun to hum, but it’s kind of a silly song. I’ll get more into the reasons for this sudden health-consciousness when I’ve completely wrapped my head around it.

retail-nesia

Published on March 29, 2009 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , .

Almost everyone has experienced the phenomenon of forgetting everything you wanted to pick up when you actually walk into the store. The easy solution is a shopping list, of course, but shopping is not always a planned event. This happened to me Friday when we went to Half-priced Books. We had a few coupons… I couldn’t think of anything I wanted. Maybe I download too much of my music and books, but I was completely blank. I looked around online today and found some stuff I’d probably enjoy picking up… mostly recommendations by Cory Doctorow and other BoingBoing writers. I’ll have to make a list if I plan to remember them all, I know I’ll blank out again if I don’t… we’re planning a return trip on our way to the movie theater to see Monsters vs Aliens in 3D.

upgrade anticipation

Published on March 22, 2009 in Computers, Photo, Random Thoughts and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I have a time frame for the macbook upgrade. If I haven’t done it by June 25th, it will happen that day. The fact that it is going to happen makes me hate the loud fans and uncomfortable weight of the Dell even more. I don’t actually hate the Dell, it’s had a bunch of good years, but it is time for the upgrade.

I don’t have a timeframe for the phone upgrade. I was waiting for the nuvifone, but there isn’t a release date for that yet, and the main reason I was leaning towards it was the GPS-centric nature of it. The word on the street is that the new iPhone OS will enable using the Google maps in other applications and allow turn-by-turn directions. I don’t know if I can go Apple in such a big way… but the iPhone does have great customer satisfaction ratings and such. My phone turned itself off three times, completely at random, on Thursday… it is definitely time for that upgrade, but it also might not happen until the summer.

I don’t know if it’s actually going to be an upgrade, but we’re supposed to switch from Dish to U-Verse next month. Our DSL is currently with AT&T, and it can’t even handle streaming Netflix movies… I don’t think we ordered any more speed, so it probably won’t change, but the girl who set up the install sure did try to convince us that it was a newer, better, more exclusive dsl line. As far as I’ve heard, U-Verse is just TV over DSL. It’s pretty likely that we’re actually trying to squeeze TV and the internet over the same pipe and actually downgrading. We shall see.

This site’s wordpress code is due for an upgrade, but I don’t have any desire to do that. All of my little plugins are working fine. Maybe, if I get a little more into tumblr/twitter/etc. after the phone/macbook upgrade, I’ll feel the need to tweak the code here to keep up with more mobile updates.

My car doesn’t need any upgrades… I guess Doug’s van is dead, though. We peeked at some craigslist ads for similar vehicles in our price range, but haven’t started actively looking at anything yet. I’ve been using the Sirius in my car much more often, lately. I got an eMail from Sirius and I was tempted to buy the latest portable radio while I can still “lock in” the current rates. Who knows if Sirius will survive? I’ve done my part to support them. I resisted the urge by telling myself that the radio I had put in my car works fine and I don’t need another portable music player… I like the idea of combining a couple devices, not adding one to carry around.

My camera also doesn’t need to be upgraded, but I haven’t used it much, lately. When I had time to be taking pictures, I was mostly playing video games. I’ll bring it along on the field trips for work and maybe that’ll respark my desire to shoot. Maybe a new toy would help… Or maybe I should get a Diana+ for myself, since it seems to be getting all the cool attachments and add-ons lately.

Upgrade fever is similar to Spring fever. All of our vacation planning is definitely keeping the typical spring fever symptoms at bay… unless vacation planning is a symptom of spring fever. Mom’s coming up during my spring break, we’ve got a family vacation planned for early June and a wedding back east in late June… and we’ve yet to pick out a show, but we plan to hit APT/Theater in the woods again this summer. I guess there are a few weeks between the team-building season and the camp season that I haven’t thought about, yet. There’s always video games…

recently…

Published on February 14, 2009 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , .
  • made it through a Friday the 13th without once thinking about it.
  • watched my first blu-ray movie.
  • used soap that sounds too much like food.
  • replaced the battery in my car. Three years isn’t too bad for a battery, right?
  • prepped the new staff and ourselves for the next season of work.
  • developed a healthy addiction to our new video game systems.
  • signed up for a blog that sort of tracks that addiction.
  • enjoyed Olive Garden a couple times. There’s something strange about a place that brings you salty breadsticks in a plastic basket, wrapped in a paper towel… but has their own house wine. The food is good, though, so we’ll continue to go back.
  • tried to update my wishlist, and failed. If you’re feeling generous, Apple gift cards are still the best bet, for my inevitable macbook purchase.

speaking of upgrades

Published on July 28, 2008 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , .

My iPod is getting old. It’s kind of sad. I guess it has outlasted any other portable audio device I’ve ever owned. I’ll always have fond memories of my Fisher portable CD player, with the 40 seconds of memory, so that I could take a CD out, if I was in the last 40 seconds of the track, and put the new CD in, with no gap in the music. And I’ll never forget my cute Philips portable MP3 mini CD player. It looked just like a miniature discman. Those 80mm discs were a little hard to find, and the name and size caused a lot of confusion with minidiscs, but it got me through many bus trips. I definitely had a few other trashy portable CD players and portable CD players that could read MP3s, but those two were my favorites. Had I known how much effort (making MP3 CDs) and time and money (buying CDs) I could have saved myself, I probably would’ve gotten the iPod a lot sooner. But it was two and a half years ago, and now it’s throwing up this weird “connect to your computer. use itunes to restore” error message every now and then. Resetting/restarting it seems to make it go away, I don’t actually have to connect it to a computer or restore it, that would be annoying. It might mean that the hard drive is dying. I dunno, maybe I should try a restore one of these days. It’s an essential part of my life, now that I’m on the trains and buses every day.

It got me thinking about my phone situation, again. It’s also not performing at it’s best, and occasionally turning off or restarting itself, randomly, and my contract is up sometime in the next six months. I still think switching from Verizon to AT&T, for the iPhone, is a big hassle… and I don’t know if the iPhone would fill my expectations as either a GPS device or as an iPod replacement. Sure, the idea of having all of those gadgets in one is appealing, but I really like the click-wheel, I think I’d miss it. I really like my phone’s real QWERTY keyboard, with real keys. And I even like my big honkin’ laptop GPS system, though, that is the system that most needs replacing with something smaller and easier to use. Still no word on carriers for the Nuvifone. I doubt that it’ll be the right replacement for the iPod, though, so unless it’s available on Verizon, it’s not gonna happen for me. The only way the switch to AT&T is going to happen is if the iPhone proves itself to be the all-encompassing device that I need it to be.

waiting

Published on July 24, 2008 in Random Thoughts. Closed



waiting

i forget if this flickr-to-blog thing works, but i’ll try it. Took another day off work. Waiting at the mazda dealership for my car. Shadow of mazda accessory display looks like film taped to a window. I like it.

longevity

Published on June 22, 2008 in Family & Friends and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Sarah’s mom reminded us that we passed the two year anniversary of our first date. She then started to ask me whether this was my longest relationship and I had to think about it. It turns out that it definitely is. The longest possible definition for my last long relationship was from November 1992 to September 1994… and it was a long distance relationship, only seeing each other on weekends and school breaks, and, for at least one year, it wasn’t an exclusive relationship… and it was in high school… so really, does it count at all? While I was sitting here, bored at work, I figured out that Sarah might also be a record holder for the longest “friendship that turned into a serious relationship,” since we started talking back in 2003, on photoSIG… as long as I don’t count the weird girls who I had relationships with in high school, lost touch with, off and on, for 5-10 years and then had another relationship with. All those years of non-contact don’t count, right? I dunno the rules for these kind of things. I wouldn’t say that two years flew by, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been two years. I know time flies when you’re having fun… but what do you call it when you’re happy and in love and two years doesn’t feel like two years? I guess it’s the same thing, fun just seems like too general a word to sum up the last two years. It’s been wonderful.

In other news, my phone started doing weird things and “rebooting” itself, so I brought it to a Verizon store and got its software/firmware updated. It seemed to help. Apparently, I’m eligible for $100 towards a new phone at the end of August. I looked at what’s available, now and wasn’t overly excited by anything. And I’m certainly not going to double my bill [to get unlimited calling to anyone on any service] just so I’m eligible for the new iPhone rip-off. I may not do anything in the phone department until I find out what carriers the Nuviphone will be on. That would satisfy my new GPS urges and hopefully quash any iPhone urges. I don’t really want to rearrange the family phone plan, though, so if it can’t work with Verizon, it probably won’t happen. What’s nice is that my current phone has been pretty good to me for almost two years. My current little laptop with GPS has been adequate, for a little over two years, but it’s not nearly as convenient or nice as those little portable units. It’d be cool to do some one-stop shopping, but I have to be patient and let the cool new devices hit the marketplace.

Now, I’ve just gotta survive through the rest of the boring front desk gig at the Y… not that I’m complaining – boring work on the weekends is fine with me, but relaxing at home is nicer.

pictures up, car down

Published on June 11, 2008 in Photo and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , .

trees on rocksSpent most of the day going through pictures from the trip. I picked out about 150 of them and put them up on flickr. My flickr “uploadr” sucks pretty bad… I had to retry the upload on some of these sets two or three times. Sometimes it gives up and keeps track of what didn’t get uploaded. Sometimes it’ll try to finish it’s upload, sometimes it won’t. Sometimes it’ll fail to upload at all and not even tell me. Sometimes it’ll get glitchy and upload the ones it missed twice. It’s pretty buggy. You can see all the picturesfrom the newest sets in my Vacations collection or by searching the tag “Knopf Northwest Vacation”

In other news, someone drove into my car in the YMCA parking lot on Saturday. It apparently happened just before I was going to leave. I didn’t notice, since all the damage was around the front passenger-side wheel. I was in my car, and had turned it on and was ready to drive off… when a kid came running up with a note in his hand and apologized for scratching my car. I got out and looked at it, and it seemed to look like a bunch of scratches, so I was hoping we could take care of it without going through insurance companies. I got his contact info. But then I put the car in drive and it would not go. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the wheel was not going straight, like the driver-side. So, I found the kid, in the Y, and we exchanged insurance info and called the police and I called my insurance company and set up all the towing, repairs and rental car stuff. It was supposed to be towed on Monday, so I went back to the Y on Sunday afternoon, after picking up the rental car, to take some pictures, and it was already gone. My rental is a Dodge Magnum, which is really fun to drive and very comfortable.

What’s wrong with Barack Obama’s campaign:

Published on April 22, 2008 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , .

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not political. I’m not even registered to vote in Illinois. I thought I was last registered in Dudley, but who knows. Until a candidate who is an atheist, possibly an existentialist, in favor of a complete destruction and rebuilding of the monetary system from one based on debt to one based on work and is basically an anarchist runs, I can’t get behind one and give them my vote, because they won’t represent me. Having said that, I have voted once (and attempted to vote a couple other times, but was told I didn’t exist). I will vote for or against the presidential candidate that I would like to or not like to see on TV for the next four years. I didn’t want to see Bush’s creepy little beady eyes on TV for four years (or four more years), so I attempted to vote against him, twice. I didn’t really like either candidate, but I knew who I didn’t like, based on what I’d seen on TV. I occasionally watch some election coverage, so I’m not clueless about who’s on the ticket. Tonight, the Pennsylvania primary coverage was on. Barack Obama was losing the state’s primary. He’d traveled to Indiana to start his campaigning there, so he gave his speech tonight, from there. Here is what I saw… and what I don’t want to see, for the next four years:

obama and fitch

That’s Barack Obama and three guys who look like fratboy-idiots, in Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts. I’m not saying that this is some sort of purposeful advertising campaign by Abercrombie, though that would be really disgusting, too. I’m saying that I don’t want to see dumb people behind my president. He seems ok, but those buffoons behind him are obviously fratboy sheep. If they were blank t-shirts, it would’ve been ok. If they had witty text on them, I might’ve been intrigued. But they’re brand name t-shirts among the likes of Aeropostale, Hollister and American Eagle Outfitters. Why are they there? Do fratboy-sheep like this guy? It makes me think twice about liking him. If nothing else, this is a tragic mistake by some staffer on his campaign. There must be a guy who looks at the people who are going to be on screen with him… image is important, right? To an unimpressed, unaffected voter like myself, it’s just about all that matters. And if there is such a guy, he let those three bully-esque, stubble-faced kids with giant advertisements on their chests, be the backdrop behind his candidate.

change of time, change of scenery?

Published on March 9, 2008 in Family & Friends, Music, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

Next week, not this week, is Spring break for Chicago public schools. Sarah has just given notice at her job (seems like a sinking ship, doing what it can to cut costs by cutting hours). We think we should take another road-trip/vacation… last year was our trek across Missouri. Where should we go this time? Sarah wants to go somewhere “green,” so I guess maybe we need to head somewhat South-ish? At some point, we want to go see Mom, with Sarah’s mom, but that’ll wait until we all make some time at the same time and Mom has her guest room ready… and New England is probably no more green than it is here.

I walked around the Y and changed all the clocks, again, today. Last time the time changed, I was late for work when my clock changed on the wrong weekend. It was too smart for its own good. My new clock has a daylight savings time mode, so I got there with no problem… and I think we only had one guy show up late because he hadn’t changed his clocks.

And yes, the amp and equipment and stuff all still seems to be working great, I’ve got a couple opportunities to go play with some people in the city this week… to try some stuff out, see if there’s a good fit. I plugged my bass into my computer and played along with some tracks yesterday. It was fun. Looking forward to playing with people… hoping something comes together.

woot