Ed showed me both of these:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rXcdcDB2S8]
This is a Hang (Pronounced “hung” or “hong”). It was invented in Switzerland in 2000. It is incredibly hard to find one. But I want one. Bad. (Add it to the list of things I may be able to afford when I have a real job.)
And then there’s this…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdz38TIwqIQ]
1,588 Filipino prisoners. Forget jailyard fights, gangs, and ballpoint pen tattoos. This is a true lot of evil criminals.
My 20″ Widescreen came in today. Sometime in the future it will belong to a desktop that I plan to build, but in the meantime, I am running it in a dual-monitor setup with the 14.1″ screen on my laptop.
The monitor itself is great… I got it for a steal and at 1650×1080 resolution, the thing is positively gigantic.
But it really brings out the weaknesses in my laptop. The thing isn’t designed for graphical prowess in the first place – Intel GMA 950 internal graphics are fine for the 1200×800 built-in screen, and I am really quite lucky that the thing supports Aero Glass in the first place. It even runs a dual monitor at 1280×1024 without even a hiccup. But if I go dual with my new beast, say goodbye to Aero, and say hello to Fisher-Price-reminiscent Vista Basic.
It’s OK. Aero works when I only have the big monitor turned on, and it’s like a 6″ upgrade from the built-in screen, so it’s still great.
But even when it’s only running this one monitor, my internal graphics really take a plunge.s Stuff moves around slowly and anything graphics-intensive is a lot slower. And then I get this nasty guy while playing a DVD:
Thank you very much, Windows Vista! This is a standard DVD (none of the crazy copy protection in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) that I own, and am trying to play on my own monitor. Luckily, I have better video programs, but this is still an unacceptable nuscience.
Anybody want to give me $500 so I can get this?
Yep. It’s a computer inside of a drum shell.
Oh, if only it were cheaper.
I’m back stateside!
Last night I saw Ratdog at Red Rocks. It was a great show! Their lead guitarist has throat cancer, which is unfortunate, but Steve Kimock is taking his place for a little while on the tour, which is great for a Kimock nerd like myself.
I also got to break in my new(ish) Canon. Part of the reason I got it was to improve my photos at dark concerts, which usually are so bad that I don’t even bother taking a camera along. This one has a lot more manual control, which is helpful since the automatic point-and-shoot stuff tries to take pictures with super-low shutter speeds that don’t work in a low-light venue. I could definitely get better pictures with a DSLR with an expensive lens, but for the money and time put into learning some settings, I’m pretty happy with what I got here – I fired off 455 shots and got 115 or so that I liked.
You can view the Picasa Web Album of the very best ones here. Or, if you want to see all 108 that I like, click here. They’re still noisy and a bit blurry, but I’m happy just to have the ability to take decent photos at a great show!
Here’s a shortened album of my vacation in Cape May, New Jersey with my mom’s family:
You can view the album in better detail here.
So I finally managed to pick out a few photos to share with everyone. It’s slow uploading here, so I’ll do a proper photoset on Flickr or Picasa when I get back. But here they are:
Today was our first day out snorkeling. We went on a three-hour tour (no Gilligan jokes, please) on the barrier reef outside Caye Caulker. The first stop was in shallow waters on stingray feeding grounds. I was on guard at first since I haven’t been around them before and had thoughts of Steve Irwin running through my mind, but later it was a pretty calm “I’m cool with you, but come too close, I will mess you up” experience.
Next we went pretty far out… Lots of impressive, deep coral. And two manatees – they were a trip.
Overall, it was really fun… I’ve been snorkeling twice before, once in the Yucatan at Isla Mujeres, and once on a quick dip in Hanauma Bay in Hawaii on the band tour. Both weren’t the greatest experiences, mainly due to the $5 rental equipment that I was using. I could only put up with 10 or 15 minutes because of the salt water that kept coming down my snorkel. But before this trip, my mom bought me my own snorkel, mask and fins, and it makes all the difference; I don’t have to worry about my gear crapping out on me and I can go out for extended amounts of time.
I am hoping that I can work up enough of a tan to upgrade me from “pasty whiteboy” status to a shade of tan that says, “doesn’t work in a computer lab.”
Still no photos. Gotta go to a different internet café for that.
*tumbleweeds*
…Yeah, it’s been pretty quiet ’round these parts recently. But for good reason: I’m in the middle of a 2-week vacation.
The first week, I went to Cape May, New Jersey. My mom’s family goes there pretty much every year, and we have a big family. I hadn’t been to Cape May in about five years, so it was really great going back and seeing almost the whole family. But I’ll talk about that later.
Today, I got into Belize with my mom and stepdad. So far, it’s awesome… Caribbean weather, high humidity…. But sooooo relaxed. Pretty much everyone so far is very nice and outgoing…. Not packed at all. Kind of hard to put into words at the moment.
Hammocks. Beach bars. Sand roads, golf carts, and bicycles.
Oh, and drinking age is 18.
I’m in a nice internet café right now, but there’s a big “NO uploading of pictures during happy hour” sign so I guess I’ll have to do that bit later. I have a ton of pictures to post, and I will probably write something more descriptive about Belize later. In the meantime, I have a lot of snorkeling and beach bumming to do.
I just finished making my dad’s website. I’m pretty proud of it, since it’s the first design from scratch that I’ve done in about two years. It’s nice to see that i’ve improved in that time.
I’m thinking about getting a bit more serious about web design stuff. I might launch a little design service for artists and small businesses in northern Colorado. I have to ponder naming, how I would market it, et cetera… But I’ve really enjoyed the work I’ve done for several clients this summer. I find that it doesn’t suck me dry when I’m working. So keep an eye out, and in the meantime, tell me what you think of Dad’s site.