I finally upgraded my Wordpress today. This allowed me to be able easily blog from my iPhone (which is what I am doing right now). So many times I have wanted to blog something and wished I had something like this to do it.
Well…no more excuses.
And there you have it.
Joe.
If you don’t know what those two things stand for, you may be bored by this, but Kirk Evans, an Architect Evangelist from Microsoft, and friend, cornered me at the recent Microsoft Launch event in Atlanta for a quick interview. It is available on Microsoft’s Channel 9 site. Click here to view it.
And there you have it.
Joe.
I discovered a type of music that I have heard many times, but was not able to assign a genre. Gypsy Jazz, a French born style of music, typically features acoustic string instruments such as guitar, upright bass, and violin. One telling aspect of the style of music is the rhythm guitar which is played as close to a percussive instrument as you can get with out actually hitting the guitar with your hand like a drum. For a look at the styles of guitars that Gypsy Jazz musicians typically play look here.
Django Reinhardt is credited with creating the music style France in the 1930’s and it is now popular world wide. Unlike other genres, Gypsy Jazz musicians typically do not read or write music. Songs are passed down orally or by recordings. This makes learning to play Gypsy Jazz very challenging.
I was fortunate enough to catch an Orlando based Gypsy Jazz group, The Cook Trio, last night while staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando on business. The three musician’s (Brothers Jason and Ian Cook, and friend Kyle Jones) have over sixty years of combined musical background despite being in their early thirties. I fell in love with the bright, yet elegant style and inquired about it. I got a brief history lesson on Gypsy Jazz and was practically forced by Ian to look up Moreno, a French raised Roma, who further popularized Reinhardt’s music. He said I would be so impressed that I would either be majestically inspired or quit playing guitar all together. I have to go with the former.
I can’t wait to start learning to play this unique, rare form of music.
And there you have it.
Joe.
since I learned I have arthritis in my knees and would, therefore, be unable to run to keep in shape, I took up swimming. Every weekday morning, before working out I swim laps in the gym’s pool. It is great exercise and I enjoy it thoroughly. One of the things I miss about running, however, is the ability to listen to audiobooks while I run.
A coworker, David, and I were having a conversation about this when I suggested that someone should make an underwater case for iPods. Weeks later, David came across an advertisement for that very thing and forwarded it on to me.
I jumped on the chance to purchase this product from H20 Audio. I purchased the case and headset to fit the Generation 3 iPod Nano.
The case fits very well and is the best part of this two piece configuration. It is easy operate. The controls fit directly over the Nano’s and work flawlessly. It water tight seal does not make opening and closing the case overly difficult.
The headset, which is a separate purchase for, I suspect, several reasons. One is that they have several different cases, but only one model of headset. The other, and I think the actual reason, is that the though the case needs little improvement, the headset could stand a few. One the headset isn’t comfortable. The plastic that holds the ear buds presses too much on the side of the head. It isn’t so uncomfortable as to deter usage, but could be improved. That is the easy improvement. The difficult improvement is the design. I thought the most challenging aspect of the product is to get the sound to your ear when submerged, until I used it. That’s when I realized the biggest obstacle the designers face is not submerged audio, but the frequent shifting between submerged and non-submerged audio. Water tends to fill your ears when underwater (go figure). The audio quality of these ear buds is great underwater and satisfactory when out, but they do not deal with the transition well. Maybe they could figure out a way to keep the water from getting in the ear. Or better yet, since they sound better when submerged, maybe they could figure out how to hold the water in your ear. Either way would be an improvement.
All in all, I really like the product an don’t regret the purchase, though it is very pricey. It is completely suitable to listen to music while swimming laps, though the constant shifting in audio quality (under vs. out of water) makes listening to an audiobook too challenging. With that said, if you are just hanging out in the pool and not trying to swim laps with this thing, run out and get one right now… don’t even finish this blog post!
And there you have it.
Joe.
Wow…. it has been a long time since I have “spoken”. I had been good about blogging this year until something just got in the way. Hell, I don’t even remember what that something was.
So here are some things that have been happening with me:
Though I have been playing guitar since I was a teenager, I never really got any better. I was satisfied with the skills I had learned and, though I always wanted to get better, I never really had the drive to do what it takes to get there. Not any more. I decided about two months ago to pick up the guitar after a long hiatus and to learn the theory of lead guitar. It has been really enjoyable and led to a purchase of a new guitar…More on that later.
After changing my diet late last year, I managed to lose about 50lbs. My goal was to lose 70lbs, but I was having trouble getting past my first plateau. I decided that I needed to begin exercising and regularly. I joined the company gym and am now working out Monday through Friday including swimming laps daily. I just started this, so I haven’t had time to see any benefit from a weight loss perspective, but I know it takes patience and persistence to achieve this goal. I am on my way.
My 20 year class reunion is supposedly this year, though I haven’t heard anything formal about it. Interestingly enough, I have heard more from the High School that I attended only one year at, then I have from the High School where I graduated. Hopefully, they can get their act together, because I am looking forward to it.
My wife and I are going on our first vacation as a married couple (excluding our honeymoon). This is pretty significant since we have been married for 9 years this coming August. I don’t really know why we have never taken a vacation before now, but I suspect it has to do with schooling, certifications, and a few other impacting events that we have endured throughout our marriage. We are both really excited about it as is our son.
That’s about it for now, but, hopefully, I will get back on the “blogging horse” and dedicate more time to putting things out there.
And there you have it.
I am huge fan of Major League Baseball and as a fan I decided that, this year, instead of just watching what was available on cable and following online, I would purchase Comcast’s MLB Extra Innings.
I started looking for this option on their website towards the end of January. I even called them to inquire about it only to find out that the representatives that answer the phone know no more information (and probably less) than the website offers. To my delight, on the first day of Spring Training, Comcast’s site provided information on purchasing this package and offered a $50 discount for signing up before the season started! I called immediately. Although the Comcast rep didn’t know about the promotion or the availability of the package, he was able to look up the details. This, of course, was after several back-and-forth’s of me telling him that I could see the “Sign up today” statements on their site, and him trying to convince me that I didn’t. All-in-all it wasn’t a terrible experience signing up… yet!
Since I called from work, I had to wait until after to verify that I had been setup correctly. I don’t think waiting until I had gotten home to sign up would’ve had any affect on the outcome. Once home, I discovered that I couldn’t find any baseball games on my TV. I consulted the TV listings on Comcast’s site to find out that MLB Extra Innings games should reside on channels 771-784. Interestingly enough, NHL Center Ice should also reside on channels 771-784. Of course, I found only hockey on my TV.
I called Comcast’s support to remedy the mistake. Surely, someone accidentally gave me hockey instead of baseball. After some amount of time on hold, I spent the better part of an hour troubleshooting the problem with the support technician (I use that term quite loosely). I was eventually promised a call-back in an hour.
So I called back the next day. Incidentally I didn’t expect my promised call-back to ever take place. I still have hockey. The new “technician” removes MLB from my account and asks me, “What do you see?”
“I see the ‘You don’t have this subscription’ message”, I replied.
“How about now?”
“Hockey.”
“And now?”
“Call Comcast to order this subscription”
“And now?”
“Hockey, again.”
This repeated meander took place for about 30 minutes. I started recounting the many times I have heard Benjamin Franklin’s definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. I wasn’t surprised to eventually be offered a call-back and was even less surprised to not receive one.
I called back and spoke to a semi-competent service agent who explained to me that Comcast offers NHL Center Ice and MLB Extra Innings on the same channels. There will be no coverage for spring training games, but once the regular season is underway, the games will be available. Without any significant rebuttal to offer, I was forced to accept the explanation given to me and wait to the end of the month to verify it.
Opening day for Boston in Japan. I consult my listings. Hockey and no Baseball. Remembering the lady on the phone told me that it would be April, I decided to wait until then. Maybe the all-intelligent sports reps at Comcast didn’t know that opening day would be in March.
Today was the New York Yankees 2008 season home opener. April 1st. Today was the day that the hockey listings would be replaced with baseball.
Results: Hockey.
I started thinking about it and wondered if I had missed something. I consulted the listings once again. Hockey…AND baseball! Ok, I get it now. They are intermingling to the two packages. I discovered this a bit too late to catch opening day, but now I can watch my Yankees. All is well.
At $40 dollars discount, the $159 dollar price tag on MLB Extra Innings is worth it to me. Especially since it can be broken up into three easy payments of $53 dollars. Even the frustration of spending three, or so, hours (excluding hold times) on the phone with Comcast trying to resolve the issue weren’t enough to break the deal now that I can watch baseball.
However, discovering that I am being charged 3 counts of MLB Extra Innings and 1 count of NHL Center Ice totaling $526 dollars on top of my regularly monthly payment makes me start thinking strongly about changing to DirecTV.
Obviously, I will not pay these erroneous charges, but the thought of having to call Comcast and spend another 30+ minutes on hold, only to try to convince the resulting customer service representative that I should not be charged for these things makes me want to jab ice-picks into my ears. Not to mention that they are surely going to suggest that I pay the bill now and will be credited the amount next month to avoid late penalties.
I switched to Comcast from DirecTV because, at the time, they had a more HD channels than DirecTV and DISH and better prices. I sacrificed many things that I loved about DirecTV for HD/Comcast, but the for switching back may be at hand.
It will, however, have to wait until baseball season is over!
</rant>
I just wanted to test Jott with Word Press. This seems like an interesting way to blog, and I’m not sure that the length message will be long enough to actually make it worth it, but just want to see if it would be successful. listen
Powered by Jott
At the beginning of this year, I made a resolution to blog regularly. During that time, I have being discovering my public image.
Getting started, I really liked the way that Maigh’s Blog looks, so I decided to use Wordpress for my blog. I originally started off with a Wordpress.com subdomain, but that was very short lived. I am too much of a gadgeteer to withstand the inability to customize my blog.
Now I am self-hosting Wordpress and that has suited me for the last month or so, but I am in need of something richer.
Since I am a .Net developer by trade and know very little about PHP, I get frustrated with the things that I am unable to do with my blog…albeit from lack of trying, not from the shortcomings of PHP.
If you have been paying attention, my blog was down for the last 3 days. I managed to completely botch my environment in way that caused me to have to completely rebuild it. The entire experience made me realize that I do not want to be hosted with Wordpress or with anything else out there. What I really want is a custom built site that I can freely update.
Microsoft just released Silverlight 2.0 to beta. Though my experience with XAML must be measured in grams, it is a technology that greatly interests me.
Now that I have remedied my Wordpress problems, I will be dedicating some evenings to creating my own blog hosting software using Silverlight 2.0.
During this development process, I will keep you posted on my progress and, hopefully, will be able to switch you to my new site in a few months.
This should be fun and will allow me to publish what I am learning about Silverlight.
And there you have it.
Joe.
“I only need 4-6 hours of sleep a night”
I have made this statement countless times to many people. I have argued that I wake up without an alarm clock therefore I am not sleep deprived.
Studies show that lack of sleep induces hunger. There are endorphins that are released when one is awake for extended hours that increase appetite.
Americans, in addition to being the most obese nation, is also one of the most sleep-deprived. Connections between these two things are being discovered.
Maybe that explains how I got to be 240lbs at only 5′8″. Every night I would do a considerable amount of snacking. Even today, after losing 50lbs and being disciplined eater, I still have an overwhelming urge to snack after midnight.
Regardless of the maybe’s, I think I will try to get more sleep to at least reduce the cravings.
And there you have it!
Joe
To continue with my reviews of the various bookmark saving services lets cover a few more services.
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