Skype!
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Thursday, December 7th, 2006I went over to the Tom Bihn factory with Skype today so he could try fitting my Macbook in some prototypes of new bags. Unfortunately Skype behaved badly with his dog Reilly and tried to get into a bit of a fight, but other than that it was a great visit. I just kept Skype on his leash and right next to me while Tom, Darcy, and myself sat around for a while talking about bags and computers.
Tom made me a longer key loop for one of my bags and I got to see the coolest sewing machine ever in action. This machine sews 42 stitches automatically into a strip to seal two ends together. It’s almost hypnotic to watch it pound out 42 stitches so precisely in about a second. I took this video of the mechanical ballet - check it out:
Return from Eastern Washington
Friday, November 24th, 2006Thanksgiving was good this year - 2 days with the whole family in Eastern Washington can be fun. Between Janet, Dave, Mom, Dad, Skype, and myself it was a pretty full house for the Toews family.
There were some great memories made over the holiday: dad burning the turkey, Skype getting a giant beef bone with real raw beef still stuck to it, watching Monty Python with the family. I gave my old Powerbook to my parents (an early Christmas present) and was quite pleased to see how much use my dad got out of it in even the first day - I think it’s good to see them getting more into technology.
I took the following picture while driving back with Skype today:
I’m glad to be home and have an actual weekend ahead of me. I have a little work to do, but hopefully it will be for the most part a chance to simply lay around and relax - something I have not done in far too long.
“Return from Eastern Washington” by sparktography
Over the pass and through the woods
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006The good news is I made it to Walla Walla safe and sound. The bad news - I’m not home right now. I actually wouldn’t mind traveling if I could bring my whole condo with me, but I just like having my regular schedule, and my things arranged around me in my special little way.
Aside from the stress of getting out the door this morning (thanks to a work emergency, and forgetting things multiple times, and Skype being rather fussy) it was actually a fairly uneventful trip - the passes were rainy but clear, and traffic was moving at a clean 70-80MPH the rest of the way home.
Now that I’m here I have to admit that it’s nice to see the whole family. Last time we were all together was when my grandma died - and obviously I’d much rather see them under the guise of giving thanks rather than mourning the dead. I think this is actually the first time that the whole family (my sisters husband Dave included) has been together under the same roof with Skype - he’s been rather excited about the whole experience and the loads of love that he’s getting slathered on top of his already love-laden life.
I have taken a bunch of pictures already while I’m down here. I won’t have an opportunity to go through my workflow until I get home, but soon enough I promise to post something here.
Vodcast quickie: Skype with a firetoy
Monday, October 16th, 2006I had to share this one - I think it’s adorable. I took a video of Skype playing with a toy made of fire-hose. He loves them because once the stuffing has been removed they are virtually indestructible. Now without further ado or any apologies for the crappy video quality:
Fun with friends
Saturday, September 30th, 2006Tonight was unexpectedly populous at Le Cinema Sparks! I had planned on doing a movie showing with a few friends, and it ended up being quite the showing of The Chronicles of Riddick in hi-def for a large number of people. Thank you so much to Ben, Elliot, Ian, Keenan, Rob, Shawna, and Troy for the fantastic evening and great company.
Ian, Ben, and Keenan joined me for dinner at Pho 900 on Broadway, where we all made the bzzzt mistake of bzzzzzzt drinking iced bzzt Vietnamese coffee and having Pho. The Pho was fantastic, but the sugary deliciousness of the coffee was significantly more caffeinated than planned.
After dinner we all went back to my place and were joined by the rest of the crowd for some drunken movie madness. Now it’s past two in the morning, and I’m left alone, somewhat buzzed, and very awake still from the caffeine with nothing but an exhausted puppy and my beloved TNG to keep me company.
10 Simple pleasures
Friday, August 25th, 2006My friend Jason has gone limp and let the meme-o-sphere make him it’s bitch. Luckily this involved putting up a post that’s all about his 10 favorite simple pleasures in life that I enjoyed reading quite a bit.
Why not follow suit? I’m sure my readers could come up with many reasons why not to follow suit, however I’ve decided to preemptively ignore them. Without further ado here is my list of simple things that make my life happy, and presented in no order whatsoever.
–Fatherhood - Skype has changed my life in more ways than I could possibly list here. There is just something fantastic to be said about having a rough day and being able to come home to 70 pounds of unconditional love.
–Caramel Apple Pie Ala Mode - The best comes from Charlies on Broadway, but I’ll take any and all CAP that I can get! Warm carmelly crust, sweet and sloppy apple innards, and that cool creamy ice cream melting into it all just tickles my fancy just fine!
–Technology that “just works” - I love technology, but when it’s not working I get more frustrated than I often care to admit. There is something magical (and highly elegant behind the scenes) of anything that just works.
Perfect examples are my iPod (for instance plugging it into my Powerbook or my Xbox 360 produces the exact results I’m looking for with no intervention), stereo equipment, land line phones, keyless entry for my car, and the 100’s of other little things that are so technically honed at this point we all take them for granted.
When technology works correctly it blends into the rest of your life and adds functionality without taking away from the experience. What more of a simple pleasure could you list?
– Watching movies on my couch - My life seems to revolve around this particular activity for long stretches of time. It’s not really the movies, the couch, or any one thing about the experience - but I would rather be curled up on the couch with Skype watching a good movie than just about anything else.
Heck - I even prefer watching movies at home to the theater 90% of the time. I’ll only go see the rarest of big blockbusters (or Snakes on a Plane) in the theater, but usually between the people, the distractions, and the noise I would rather be at home.
On that topic I just set up an email list that’s all about movies, and watching them. If you know me, and live in Seattle then shoot me an email or leave a comment and I’d be happy to set you up on the announce list for “Le Cinema Sparks”.
– Getting stoned - What can I say, I truly appreciate being able to completely unwind once in a while and just get baked. The old (and more career-oriented) I get the less often I find myself able to do this, but it does not stop me from treasuring it whenever I do.
– Clinique skin care - I’m hooked. Brien got me into it, and as silly as the idea seems I just feel like a happier person when my skin is all soft and moisturized. I guess it’s the 45 year old women that lives in the back of my head and yells at kids to get off her lawn.
– Console gaming - If I spend too much time watching movies on my couch then I have two problems because I spend nearly as much time laying on my couch playing video games. Oblivion, Dead Rising, and The New Super Mario Bros are all current obsessions.
– An abundance of information in our society - I love information, and love to learn. I can’t count how many hours I spend on my couch just wandering around the internet absorbing all of it’s goodness. Skittering around on Wikipedia, jumping from RSS feed to RSS feed, and watching human knowledge slowly present and organize itself.
– Hanging out with good friends - The older I get the more I realize how valuable true friends are, and how precious they are to me. Even those friends I don’t see terribly often still add value and meaning to my life and I really enjoy spending time with them, particularly when I can combine spending time with a good friend with other simple pleasures on this list.
– Good Science Fiction - I don’t care if it’s written, audio only, or a full movie experience: I just love good sci-fi. Some personal favorites are Cory Doctorow, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick. Curling up with a convincing and innovative view of the future is the first step to towards thinking about and creating that future. Let’s get on it people!
Having had a rather stressful week I think I’ll be trying to indulge in a number (or quite possibly all) of these this weekend. I have my dad passing through town on Sunday, but I have pretty much all day on Saturday earmarked for the majority of this list.
Sunshine idiots
Sunday, July 16th, 2006Oh the best laid plans gone awry: I thought I would go down to Golden Gardens this afternoon for some Sundazed dancing. Unfortunately it’s a beautiful day outside so everyone and their dog had the same idea. Skype and I showed up a little after one and spent a good 20 minutes parking.
Everyone was being rude and idiotic about parking - driving slowly, waiting excessively long for people to get into their car, cutting off people waiting excessively long for a parking spot, stealing parking spots from people, and parking in the middle of the road when they got sick of it. I’ve never seen more moronic assholes at once, let alone all trying to vie for the five remaining parking spots in the whole wide world!
In Seattle any time the weather changes people drive like idiots. When it rains for the first time in a while people freak out. When it’s sunny, people freak out even more. I’m not sure why this problem exists, but at times it drives me insane.
Upon getting down to the park I discovered that nobody was down there that I knew, nor any equipment. I walked around with Skype and checked out the off-leash area for about an hour before getting ready to leave. Just after giving up my parking spot I of course saw someone walking with a Mackie, but after dealing with the parking idiots the first time it was just too much effort to go through it all again.
Now that I’m home I’m at least thankful that Skype and I got to enjoy at least a little bit of this beautiful Seattle day! I have some work to do around the house anyway so it’s probably for the best that I didn’t spend all day out in the sun.
But daddy, I want them NOW!
Friday, July 14th, 2006The week is over and I’m video-podcasting again! This week I try out my new camera, and take a crash course in video editing. Sorry that it’s quicktime video, and not an embedded Flash video but I was having problems with re-encoding it and am too drained to futz with it. You might have to upgrade to Quicktime 7 if you are on Windows to see it because I encoded using h.264.
I’m happy with the camera quality, but my workflow needs a lot of work to avoid the compression artifacts that you will see in this video. I managed to have to re-compress it twice, both times losing significant amounts of quality. I also need to figure out how to wrangle audio - something went horribly awry right, but then I seemed to keep it under control.
Anyone have a recommendation of a lossless video codec that’s Mac friendly? I’m doing the editing using iMovie HD because it’s both slick and handy. Video editing in general seems to have a bit of a steep learning curve, but I’m always up for a challenge.
Still got it
Monday, July 10th, 2006Even with a few extra pounds in the trunk I am pleased to say I somehow still have it going on. While waiting outside the Green Papaya (a fabulous Vietnamese restaurant on Capitol Hill) with Skype while my friend Alissa got us nummy sandwiches for dinner I got cruised. Now when I say cruised I mean newspaper delivery guy hanging out in front of the restaurant for 2 minutes before coming over with an obvious boner to say hello. He then proceeded to fumble around trying to make a conversation for several minutes finally giving up to my somewhat tepid response.
Mind you - before I let all this nonsense get to my head I’m not that hot and I have to remember that he was a little scary, not to mention not seeming like the brightest fork in the cutlery drawer.
Must be the dog that still brings them in… Good boy!
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