Tuesday, November 21, 2006
What better to tote and protect my slim new Macbook than the Archetype: a bag that busts out the cork for form fitting balance between style and function. Seriously - I love this thing. It’s padded enough that I’m not paranoid about my new precious getting dinged or dropped, but sleek and light enough (10oz) that it’s still a portable little package for running down to the coffee shop, or between meetings.
After I got off work I picked up Skype and went down to South Seattle to see the always friendly Darcy from Tom Bihn, and pick up the Archetype that I had ordered. They hooked me up with a 2nd generation ID bag to review so be on the lookout over at Gearlive for more details and a through review soon.
Tonight I pack. I hate packing, but if I don’t do it tonight then tomorrow I’ll be in a big panic trying to get it done prior to heading home to Walla Walla. Skype is already excited to see everything lined up and ready to go - he loves trips!
“The Archetype by Tom Bihn” by sparktography
Monday, November 20, 2006
I’ve managed to get way behind in my blog posting in the last week or so. Luckily work is not entirely to blame as I’ve managed to take a bit of time for myself. After an 80 hour week last week we managed to sort out all the production issues, and working with our changing requirements to get everything done by the end of the day on Friday.
I spent much of the weekend doing very little. I took a walk on Saturday while the weather was nice (and took the above photo), and spent much of the remainder of the day processing photos and spending quality time with Skype. There is something soothing about sitting in front of my rig and working in Photoshop. Tweak this, adjust that, so much control over my captured slice in time - I am god for that moment.
I spent most of the day on Sunday delving back into Oblivion. I had not played my sweet Oblivion in a while, but after showing my mom the game a few weeks ago I’ve been itching to dive back in. I started another new game and am aiming to do a 100% complete with a single character this time.
“Broken bikes” by sparktography
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Meet Marbles, my new Core2Duo Macbook. He’s pretty much the only ray of light in an otherwise draining and shitty week. I started the week disadvantaged by sleep deprivation due to Mind Camp, and it’s just gotten worse. I’ve had a lot of emergencies at work, and spent a lot of sleepless nights (OK - to be fair I did get 90 minutes of sleep Monday night).
All these late nights and stress at work is slowly taking it’s toll on me and my health. I’ve had a sore throat for a couple of days, and was running a low grade fever today at work. I’m really hoping that if I keep up on my vitamin C and can continue last nights trend of getting a reasonable (although not great) amount of sleep that I’ll be able to ward of getting sick again.
I’m really looking forward to this weekend. No un-conference, no work, nothing - just me sitting on my couch watching movies and playing with Marbles.
“Macbaby” by sparktography
Monday, November 13, 2006
It’s been one of those long days. I didn’t sleep Saturday night because of Mind Camp, was up late Sunday night because of work stuff, and now it’s 11:13pm on Monday and I’m just getting ready to drive back into the office to help fix something that broke. Luckily I have my drug of choice caffeine to keep me company till the wee hours of the morning.
It’s just not my week this week.
“POTD 11/13/06 - The drug” by sparktography
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Taken at Seattle Mind Camp 3.0 - Seattle’s premiere un-conference featuring the best and brightest of technology all under the same roof for 24 hours learning from each other, and exploring our passions. This particular crosshatched image was drawn with a pen by a drawing robot put together by the MAKE crew. The original image was taken with a camera and fed into a computer to be processed by the Drawbot. I took a lot of photos with my Lensbaby. Check out Flickr for 100’s of shots I’ve taken in the last 24 hours.
All in all I had a blast. I actually left a little early (I’m too old to stay up for 36 hours at a go) but had 20 great hours geeking with like-minded souls, and playing a delightful game that was passing around: Werewolf. It’s a great mix of social skills, logic, and really getting to know your neighbor in an effort to figure out if they are the werewolf!
I also got my first chance to get some hands on time with the Wii. Nintendo brought one out for part of the evening and let us get some hands on time with it. I’m very impressed with how intuitive the system is, and was taken aback by how small it was - the Wiimote was about 25% smaller than I had envisioned, and the Wii it’self is barely bigger than a DVD case (obviously wider than a single case - but no wider than 4 standard DVD cases stacked together).
“Mind Camp 3.0 - Favorites” by sparktography
Saturday, November 11, 2006
So I’m here at Seattle Mind Camp 3.0 having a blast and I have an observation. A year ago at the first Mind Camp about 10% of the participants had Apple Laptops. Last April at Mind Camp 2.0 about 30% of the campers had Macs, and this time over half of the laptops here are Macbooks or Macbook Pro’s.
Are we the trend leaders, or has Apple really made that much of an inroad into the Seattle tech community in the last 12 months? I realize a lot of companies have come to Seattle that buy Macs for their employees (Google to name a big one) but still - it’s a lot of growth.
Viva La APPLE!
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
A lot of people are flooded into their homes and communities here in Western Washington. I’m rather glad that I live on the top of Capitol Hill where the flooding is unlikely to hit my home and that my standard commute is well drained. I feel for my co-workers and friends who live in Duvall - the entire town has become an island with no way on or off.
Thankfully today it was not raining all day. I was able to escape for a few minutes during a sun-break and take this photo of a (rather superfluous) fire hydrant at work. My project hit a major milestone last night and the end of a long journey is ahead - I can’t wait to see what next awaits me over the current horizon.
“The flood” by sparktography
