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Spring Break

Spring Break is just about over for me, and I’ve gotta say it was pretty nice. I spent the week hanging out with Matthew. I taught him all about guy stuff – we ate when we wanted, slept when we wanted, and mostly just sat around in our pajamas and watched TV. He seems to like Star Trek pretty well, but I think he liked Robotech even more. It was probably all of the explosions and crazy flashing lights.

I don’t think I spent more than 5 minutes a day in front of the computer all last week. Of course, that caught up with me last night when I had to spend about 4 hours catching up on all of my e-mail and checking out the news sites and blogs to see what I missed. People think I just learn everything about computers through osmosis. If they only knew how much time I spend reading and clicking.

I also tried in vain to organize my office. I will conquer this room soon. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The problem right now is that I just have too much stuff. I did something that I said I would never do. I gathered up a box full of books to throw away. I just can’t see keeping books on things like Programming Windows 95 when I don’t even use Windows anymore, much less the ten year old version. A while back we bought another book shelf to put in here, but I still have books piled on my desk and in boxes in the closet. I can’t help it, I’m addicted to books.

I spent most of today working in the yard. I gathered up big bag of newspaper thanks to the gas station up the street from us. I think they must’ve just piled a bunch of papers on the sidewalk and let them all blow away. This was followed by raking, shoveling, mowing, and even using a sledge hammer to break up some concrete. Of course all of that led to a nasty blister on my thumb. I’m basically a whimp when it comes to manual labor.

Hopefully I’ll heal by Monday. I’d hate to have to call in sick the day after a weeks vacation…

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Google Maps

This is really cool. Google is going maps now. Check it out at http://maps.google.com/. You can click and drag the mouse on the map to move it around and use the slider to zoom in and out. You can also use the cursor keys to move around and use the + and – keys to zoom in and out.

The driving directions are still a little crazy sometimes, but that’s to be expected from any online mapping service. I just use them as a guide and look around for better roads.

Another nice feature is the built in searching. Here’s a search for restaurants near our house. The results are not too bad. Most of those places are still there. Wing N It is closed and so is El Mexicano, but the other restaurants look good. I wonder what that Quizno’s Regional Office is? It seems like I’ve been there before, but I didn’t get a sandwich…

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Shuffle

My iPod shuffle showed up the other day as promised. This thing is so much better than the Rio. The sound quality is amazing, especially when you consider that it’s about the size of a stick of gum and weighs less than an ounce. It’s hard to really understand just how small it is until you hold it.

Matthew couldn’t wait to get his hands on it:

Matthew and the shuffle

So far, 1 GB is plenty of space. Apple says that’s 240 songs with is probably pretty close. I usually estimate 1 MB per minute of music so 1 GB would be 1,000 minutes, or almost 17 hours. Filling it with music only takes a few minutes. Sunday I uploaded about 4 hours of music and it only took 2 minutes.

I just love new toys…

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Sold

My Rio Nitrus sold to a nice guy from Pennsylvania for almost $90. Not too bad. I hope he enjoys it.

According to Fedex, my iPod shuffle should be here tomorrow. Not quite perfect timing, but pretty close. I’ll post pictures plus a little comparison of features once it gets here.

I haven’t posted very much here because I’ve been so busy at work lately. The combination of spyware and viruses is really starting to get to me. Like I’ve been saying for a while now – if you’re still using Internet Explorer, it’s time to switch to Firefox. You’ll thank me for it later.

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Buy My Rio

Looking for a good deal on a nice MP3 player?

I’m selling my Rio Nitrus on eBay. It’s going for only $9.99 right now. The auction doesn’t end until Sunday evening, so you still have plenty of time to bid.

This player is selling for around $150 right now, I sure hope I don’t have to let mine go for only $10. Of course, I’m sure I’ll forget all about it when my iPod Shuffle gets here next week…

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Wide Awake

Matthew doesn’t sleep all the time. In every other picture I’ve posted he’s either asleep or looking sleepy, so here’s one where he’s wide awake:

Matthew

He still has a full head of hair and dark blue eyes.

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More Matthew

Paige and Matthew are asleep on the couch, so I thought I would upload a few more pictures. Here he is with his eyes open, looking very scared of the camera for some reason:

Matthew

He does some funny things when he sleeps. Sometimes he pulls the blanket over his head. He also likes to show us his fists while he sleeps:

Matthew Matthew

We took Matthew to the doctor back on the 10th and they said he has already grown an inch and gained a pound. I’m sure he’ll be full grown before we know it.

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Apple finally got it right

I’ve been saying for a while now that what Apple really needs to do is take the display off of an iMac and sell just the computer. Well, they’ve finally done it. Take a look at what will probably be my next computer, the Mac mini. This is a thing of beauty. It’s a real Macintosh with Mac OS X for only $499. You supply the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Not only that, but they’ve also released a new iPod, the iPod shuffle. 512MB of music for $99 or 1GB for $149. I will have one of these very soon. Anybody want to buy my Rio Nitrus? It’s got a 1.5GB hard drive and it’s as good as new. It’s a steal at $99…

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Who needs sleep?

We’re slowly adjusting to our new way of life now that the baby’s here. I know at one point I used to sleep for 8 hours or more at a time. Now it’s more like 3-4 hours at a time, but that’s OK. It’s all worth it to know that I’m raising my son.

Updates are a little sparse around here right now. We still have tons of pictures to post, but somehow that doesn’t seem very important anymore. Playing with Matthew is a lot more fun that looking at pictures of him on the screen.

Matthew wasn’t my only Christmas present this year. Paige also got me an awsome acoustic / electric guitar. It’s an Ibanez AEG10. Here’s the official picture of it. I’ll eventually post a picture of me playing it.

Ibanez AEG10

This, finally, brings up the reason for this post. Now that I have an acoustic guitar, I’m wanting to learn some of the classic acoustic guitar songs. I’m working on a list of my own, but I want to be sure and not miss anything. Here’s what I have in mind so far:

  • Eagles – Hotel California
  • Kansas – Dust in the Wind
  • Animals – House of the Rising Sun

I consider those pretty much the holy trinity of classic acoustic guitar songs. After those, I have lots of other ideas.

  • Lots of Dave Matthews Band songs
  • Some Beatles songs
  • Some Eric Clapton (I love Bell Bottom Blues)
  • The songs from Nirvana unplugged
  • Some Pearl Jam songs (Elderly Woman…, Yellow Ledbetter, etc.)
  • A few Pink Floyd songs (Paige hates most of Pink Floyd)

Now it’s your turn. I need some different stuff to play. Are there any good newer acoustic guitar songs? Let me know what I’m missing…