It doesn’t rotate or stretch across the multiple homescreens, mostly due to the limitation of that Live Wallpaper Creator app that the script is based on, but if someone who really knows how to create live wallpapers is inspired to make a better one that does those things, please let me know!

The live wallpaper can be found here

Video from my first attempt

The source
The t-shirt

I also took a trip down memory lane, earlier in the week, when an old ex-girlfriend apologized to me on facebook, in case she was ever heartless or selfish. She wasn’t and I told her so. It got me thinking about past relationships… there are a few people I should probably apologize to; I guess I have a few regrets, but I think I only really hold one grudge, maybe two. Facebook is certainly good for bringing up these random memories and feelings.

In other news, camp is almost over, though I got roped into an extra week. It’s going to be a low-enrollment/more chilled-out version of camp, but it’s still another week of getting up early and going to the city. My hope is that my seniority and 15+ years of camp experience will mean that I’m running the show as the fill-in director. My history in these matters is that I’m promised a director’s position and/or I fill in for one until a decision is made and then it isn’t given to me… no such promise was made this time, so maybe this will be the time it happens.

The commute to camp has been made much nicer, this summer, by the set of Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5vi that I picked up when they went on super-sale at Amazon. Unfortunately, the cord busted on the first set, so I had to get myself another set, but Logitech customer service got back to me about my complaint and replaced the first set for free… in the meantime, the cord started to separate, right at the jack, on the second set. I put some electrical tape on there to hold it together until the replacement set came. I’m hoping they replace them as well. The foam tips are the most comfortable, but it makes me sad that they fall apart after a week and half or so. I think my ear canals are too small or something because all of the various sized silicone tips irritate my ears a bit and seem to wiggle their way out. The cord is obviously cheap on this model, both have broken and it makes lots of contact-noise when I’m walking around, but if I ever upgrade to something better, I might look into those custom ear-molded ones.

I’m also still playing the music on my commutes from my iPod. I was hoping to be just be carrying the Droid. I am carrying an extra battery for the phone, so I don’t have that excuse anymore, and it’s not that it’s not capable, but the lack of gapless playback (for those few albums that really need it) or built-in volume normalization (for regular shuffle) or a shuffle-by-album option (for when I feel like reconnecting with my albums, which is most of the time) makes me continue to carry my iPod. There are alternative music apps that attempt to solve these issues (at least the gapless and shuffle by album), but none puts it all together. I’m sure that future versions of Android will get these features in, especially if the rumors are true and they start using android as an OS for a media-player type device. Will these features make it in before I upgrade to a new phone?

I’ve found the phone very difficult to use this summer. I’m not sure if it’s just too humid at my mostly-outside job, or if I sweat too much (likely) but the touchscreen gets all freaked out and thinks it’s being touched all over the place and renders the phone useless until I clean it off… and even then, I can only get good response from it for a few seconds until it starts freaking out again. If I go somewhere cool and dry (air conditioned) and give it some time to recover… and give myself some time to recover and not be so sweaty … it works just fine. This wasn’t an issue at all in the Winter and Spring; It will probably affect when I decide to upgrade to a new phone. I’ll be eligible for a bit of a discount in early July, and that humidity will just be starting to bother me again. So whatever awesome android phone is available on July 06, 2011, you can pretty much bet that I’ll be buying one. If it continues to happen on the next phone I own, I’ll have to seal my phone in a ziploc bag all summer, or something.

I’m pretty sure I have a legitimate use for the wireless tether feature of the Droid. We’ve booked ourselves a few days at a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN, in late September. The rental policy said something about having “local Knoxville area access numbers…” Dial-up? Awesome. I don’t think I know anyone in the area (unless EJ is still around there, somewhere), so this one is going to be pure vacation, for me, and no attempting to visit friends/family. That stuff will have to wait until sometime around the holidays. It’ll be one of the longer roadtrips we’ve done in the past couple years, and I’m excited about that.

Winter. This is my real downtime. The holidays are over and work doesn’t start up again for a few weeks, unless we hire new people and have to train them. I usually entertain myself with a video game addiction at this point in the year, and this year is no exception. Sarah and Frank and I are all addicted to video games. Sarah is still spending most of her time on the Uncharted 2 multiplayer, and I’m almost finished with the The Saboteur. I could go back to Ghostbusters, if I finish it, I guess… Ghostbusters is fun, with all the cast voices in there, but The Saboteur is a way better game. I also have Brutal Legend to finish… and probably some others that I’m forgetting about.

This is the month where work usually wraps up… and that leads to the month when we wrap presents… and it will all blur into a month I will call Wraptember.

Those of you who plan on seeing Sarah and I when we’re back east, claim your days now.

The reviews are true. The keyboard isn’t wonderful. The software keyboard isn’t half bad, though… so I find myself flipping back and forth, for now. The app situation is weird. With such a nice browser, are the apps I’m downloading even necessary? I don’t know the answer to this one, either. Another case of “time will tell.” I loaded some music on it, but will it replace my iPod for the train rides to work in the summer or for car rides? Too early to tell. I’ve only used the camera to try out the Amazon price-matching app. I haven’t even tried the GPS yet, and that’s what really eliminated any doubt… the new, free, google-maps based turn-by-turn navigation.

So far, though, it’s pretty awesome. I will keep you posted on my findings

In other news:

Work starts back up soon, one meeting next week and then officially back to a regular schedule the following week. I think we have Fridays off this season.

Got the annoying clicking noise the rear wheel(s) of my car were making fixed… it took three tries, but we got it done. Now I hear every click and creak the car makes when I hit bumps and stuff… still need to do whatever needs to be done about the little ding in the windshield.

And we’ve been using our game consoles a lot over the break… picked up the X-Men Origins: Wolverine for xBox 360 and Fat Princess for PS3 … and I might dig into our most recent purchase, Mini Ninjas during this last week off. Fall TV season be damned, we’re playing our video games!

iPhone
Pros:
available now
Apple hardware exclusivity means cooler peripherals possible
definite iPod replacement (only carry one device)
Sirius app

Cons:
switching to AT&T
higher plan cost
GPS apps aren’t as good as a Garmin
no background apps without jailbreaking
no keyboard

Android (undecided on which exact phone, maybe the rumored Sholes)
Pros:
Open source
coming to Verizon in October, probably (no switching)
instant Google-ness
keyboard

Cons:
might not be an iPod replacement – dunno how music players on android are
Waiting for a verizon release or Switching carriers
GPS apps aren’t as good as a Garmin

Nuvifone
Pros:
GPS is as good as a Garmin, it’s a Garmin!

Cons:
probably not an iPod replacement – seems GPS/social-centric
have to wait AND probably have to switch carriers
next version is going to be Android
no keyboard

Palm Pre
Pros:
available now
a couple personal recommendations

Cons:
tiny-ass keyboard
switching to Sprint

And now I’m officially between seasons… doing a lot of sleeping in.

The outside screen on my phone broke during the last week of camp, so I really do need a new phone… do I wait for a good Android phone or give in to the immediate pressure and get an iPhone?

Also, early heads up: We will be heading back to the East coast sometime around Christmas and will be spending a little extra time so that I can catch up with all the people who’ve been missed the last couple times I was out there. So, let me know if you’ll be around, so we can work something out.

I think this would be a good time to mention that I’ll be at Mom’s house the weekend after Christmas. Sarah and I will only there for a few days, but we might have a little bit of free time if anybody wants to get together.

Mom enclosed her front porch with sliding glass doors last year. It’s gone through a couple furniture set-ups, but I think this year is a pretty nice layout for the family. I’m sure this picture is a grainy mess, but the cameraphone can only do so much. I’m tempted to break out my real camera… which reminds me: when i pack later, my camera needs to be accessable on the plane. It was way too tightly packed away on the trip out and there were some decent sights out the window on the way out here.

my favorite little chicagoland diner… close to one of the schools I work at. haven’t been there much this season. they have free wi-fi now!

I developed a taste (read: addiction) for apple soda way back in 1995, on a school foreign language club trip to Mexico. At all the cool little restaurants we ate at, we would ask what kinds of soda they had and apple was always on the list among the cokes and sprites and roor beers. Prior to that, I’d only had some sparkling apple stuff at holiday parties and such. I had a bit of a hard time finding it back on the east coast. the Jones green apple variety was way too sweet. The Izze apple was closer, but a little too much like juice. I was hoping to find some online a couple years ago, since coca-cola bottled an apple fanta… and my search didn’t turn up any american products, but I did find Sidral Mundet. Now, I tend to have a supply of Manzanita Sol in the house all the time. It’s a little sweeter than the authentic stuff, but it’s yummy, and probably closest to what I got in restaurants in Mexico. And it’s at a lot of grocery stores and gas stations. Yay!

tied down with care. makes me miss my jeep(s), though I don’t think I ever actually used them to pick up a christmas tree. we also got free cups a hot cider and a free apple cider donut. yum.

in case it’s not apparent, that’s a big round bail of hay dressed as a turkey. we bought a christmas tree… pretty different from when I lived with my parents and we’d run out and get one as close to the day as possible, and then leave it up until St Patrick’s day. It’s also a far cry from my hand-me-down “lottery tree” that served as the whole of the holiday decorations in Woonsocket. It may have come out this early on one or two years, but taking it out of the closet was a lot less effort.

Got a big dinner in the works for tomorrow… helped prepare some desserts for baking this afternoon/morning. I always feel really full after the Adventure Ed. overnights, so the idea of a big meal isn’t all that appealing right now, but I’m sure I’ll be hungry by tomorrow. A couple years ago, I went a little moblog crazy on Thanksgiving. Life was pretty different back then. I won’t deny that it’s fun for me to go back and read old posts. Especially the ones where I’m not doing as well as I am now. I was whiny and depressed a lot, probably terribly uninteresting reading for all of you… but fun for me, ’cause things are so much better now. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel ridiculously tired and on the verge of non-functioning after work some days, but now it seems like it’s a justified exhaustion instead of just not being able to focus or just having a broken head.

I’m the picture of health, eh? Found another big honkin’ Arby’s sign. did i mention that there’s a flickr group dedicated to these signs? for reference (and so I don’t forget), this one is at 5656 la grange rd, la grange, il (according to the GPS).

i didn’t see any actual flying trees, but it is a pretty impressive assembly line

the Y i work for on the weekends is selling trees for the holidays. Apparently, they’ll be up there on top of the stack, chucking trees to each other. If i get a chance, I’ll try to snap a pic of that