Jon Troast and Under the Radar

A few weeks ago my dad invited me to stop by his office at lunch time. His office is about 5 mins away from mine so it's pretty easy to get over there for lunch. They were having a special luncheon/recording with Jon Troast. I guess it's part of a new program they've got going on over there. They had Andrew Petersen in for the same thing in November, unfortunately my dad was out of the country at the time so I didn't hear about it till later. The program is called Under the Radar and its also available as a podcast. The most recent podcast includes the music and interviews from the luncheon I attended. Check it out. I hadn't heard of Jon Troast before this but I really enjoyed the show and his music.

Christmas Movie

Here's the Christmas time lapse video. The pictures from my parents house were taken using both my macbook and my dad's macbook pro, therefore that section is longer, since we had twice the footage. Music from Trans Siberian Orchestra.

Thanksgiving

Finally got around to splicing together some time lapse videos from Thanksgiving in Michigan this year. This was my first time doing this kind of project. I thought it was pretty cool. I used Gawker on my macbook to make these.

Change We Can Believe In

With all the talk about the Obama family looking for a hypo allergenic dog to bring with them to Washington, Buckley has launched a grassroots campaign to finally get a Wheaten in the White House.

Ovaltine

Our old apartment complex used to have this tall smokestack in the middle of the parking lot (it was an old Ovaltine factory)... It doesn't anymore.

8 in 90

Along the same lines of the previous video, here are 8 months of Buckley's life in 90 seconds.

My Day Yesterday

I came across a cool blog post where a guy recorded movie clips throughout the day and edited down to a 90 sec movie with no added soundtrack. He posted it on flickr and created a group for others to do the same. I thought it was cool so I tried it out a few saturdays ago.

Kazookeylele

Must find out where to get a kazookeylele.

Yo

This was on the front page of Tumblr this morning. This kid's got some skills.

The Pull

This last weekend I was at The Pull, which is a 111 year old tradition at my college. This year was pretty wild as the Odd Year team won in a pretty definitive way. Pull's usually 3 hrs long and at the end of the Pull they measure to see which side has taken more rope. Well this year the sophomore team won in 67 mins. It was quite the sight. I was one of the lucky one's that got to coach a team, that was pretty special. The others I coached with make an effort to attend every year and most of us haven't missed one yet. This year was the 10th anniversary of my team winning the Pull, so it was pretty special for me to see this team win in such a legendary way. Every year I look forward to this weekend. It's a chance for us to get together and remember the good times we had when we had the responsibility of passing on this great tradition to the next generation. I'm sure we will continue on with this tradition for as long as possible, so if you're ever in at the Pull look for me on the banks of the Black River.

What goes around

I have a lot of blogs that I follow in my reader. A lot of these people read each other's blog. The problem with that is that when one person finds/posts something cool within the week just about everyone else has posted it on their blog. I don't really have a problem with that because I post cool things I come across as well so I can't blame them. This particular video though has been posted numerous times recently and it's a little more than annoying but what can you do? The only reason I'm posting this is to show the follow up video that Victor Estrada posted about David Crowder Band's response. David Crowder Band is my favorite worship band, and if you've ever heard any our worship sets you know he influences us a lot. Anyway roll the tape:






And Crowder:

pups

Buckley's pretty good about going to bed, she only had problems the first two nights we got her. Had I seen this earlier I might have tried different tactics.

Randy Pausch 7/25/08

Prof Randy Pausch died today. He was the Carnegie Mellon professor whose last lecture I blogged about earlier. He lost his battle to pancreatic cancer. He was a great man who inspired many people with the way he led his life. Take some time to keep his family and friends in prayer.

macbook woes

My macbook is in perfect working order again. While the problem wasn't a huge deal it was quite the ordeal to get it back to normal. It took 3 visits to the apple store in 2 weeks. The problem was that red light you see in the picture above. That light is coming from the headphone jack. When that light is on the speakers on the macbook don't work and the only way to hear anything is to plug in headphones. When it first started out everything would be fine until I plugged in headphones, then when I took them out the light would come on. After a while the red light was on all the time, so the speakers didn't work at all. A quick search on the internet showed that this was problem that many were having but the responses varied from a logic board problem to just something hooking on the headphone jack. The easy fix was to plug the headphone in and pull it out a few times. I tried that - it didn't work. Finally decided to make an appoitntment. They told me to try that, the headphone jack trick. I was not very pleased with that "fix" but I tried it anyway, was never able to get it to work. So I went in again, this time they decided to keep it a few days and switch out the logic board - which is a pain but it worked. The only bad thing is that when I got the computer back the speaker issue was fixed, but now the bluetooth didn't work. In I went again, they dissassembled it and messed with the connections and now it is working again. I'm glad apple is able to take care of all these problems and its just a minor inconvinience, but I thought they were supposed to be a superior product that shouldn't have so many problems. I'm just waiting to see what else can go wrong.

Buck Buck Buckuck

Buckley got a haircut a few weeks ago here's a picture of the short haired Buckster and below a long hair.  She also graduated from puppy class.

9nineteen

So a long time ago I bought a website for our wedding. Included in the package was another domain name that I never did anything with. Recently I decided to put it to good use, so head over to 9nineteen sometime. There you will find my Tumblr site - which is a mini blog. I'll still update this blog although obviously it has been very infrequent lateley, but the way Tumblr is set up it's much easier to post little things that I come across on my everyday interwebbing. I've also set it up so that the feeds from this blog and my music blog go there as well, so you can just check there if you want.

Buckley

Two weeks ago we got ourselves a puppy. We've been wanting one for a while but never had the timing right. We finally decided to go for it and got a Soft Coated Wheaten.  Wheatens average around 35 lbs when fully grown, they don't shed, love people and they like the water.  Should make for a good pet.

After a couple of days of wrestling with name ideas - we even resorted to our own whiteboard session - we named her Buckley after Jeff Buckley (also like the dog in The Royal Tannenbaums) Elizabeth brought the name to the table and we both liked it so we went with it. So far Buckley's been a great pup, she is learning quickly although she can be stubborn at times. We are all getting adjusted to our new lives together but I think she fits right in.

old milwaukee

Last weekend Elizabeth had a baby shower to attend in Milwaukee, so I thought I'd tag along and explore a little around Milwaukee's downtown.  I met John McDonald for lunch and we hung out a few hours around there.  John brought along his 7 month old daughter so I could meet her.  We had a good time catching up.  Unfortunately Elizabeth had the good camera at the shower, I had an old camera but it didn't have any batteries.  I did venture to go buy some batteries but when I got some the camera didn't work, so I don't any pictures of our visit.  We did take some when Elizabeth came back to pick me up though.  Anyway we had a nice saturday there and truly enjoyed the Milwaukee lakefront area.

The Last Lecture

My last few years of high school I received lots of mail from Carnegie Mellon University, I didn't know anything about that school so I didn't bother to take a look at it. Had I seen this video back then I would have definitely given them a serious look.

They have a series called the Last Lecture, this particular lecture was given last year by Dr. Randy Pausch, and it was indeed his final lecture as he has terminal cancer. I remember seeing a lot of news coverage when the lecture took place but I had never listened to it, it truly is a great lecture.
Do yourself a favor and watch/listen to the whole thing sometime, I'll also post a summarized version below.

Get Your Tickets?

Photo @ hrtmnstrfr


I ordered my tickets to Lollapalooza a few weeks ago, and I'm pretty excited for this year's lineup. Of course the headliners are a big draw - Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Wilco but I'm also looking forward to a whole lot of other bands, here are some highlights for me : Raconteurs, Black Keys, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, G Love, The National, John Butler Trio, Battles, Rouge Wave, Mason Jennings, The Whigs, and Manchester Orchestra. Should be a great weekend, let me know if you're in.