iProd

I’ve been working on some tools and processes at work to help with status communication and project management between departments. Yesterday, we were toying around with possible names for the system. Since it’s focus is on productivity, products and, in some aspects, prodding people about dates and deliverables…. well the name was obvious to me. After a couple of google searches and a few minutes in PhotoShop, I had the logo completed, as you can see here.

Clearly, this is all for fun. As much as i’d like to imagine the name would stick, it’ll probably fade away with little or no fanfare. And the logo…. it just ain’t gonna happen. :-)

Taking A Bath With Mr Housing Bubble

Well, it’s official, the house in El Dorado Hills has sold. Escrow has closed. The check is in the mail. Thus endeth that chapter. Man it was brief. It’s overwhelming to imagine that we moved 4 times in 9 months. Wasn’t that fun? Uhhh, not so much. And although we took a modest bath on the sale due to having placed it on the market in pretty much the worst time of the year, and not having had even 6 months of appreciation on it, in the end it’s looking like we’ll loose about the same amount of money we’d have spend if we’d rented a really nice home in the Bay Area. So… lesson learned. Time to start stashing away the next down payment.

A Little Nipper and Tuck

Speaking of ‘Nipper’ (see prior post), I thought I’d toss this into the ‘scrapbook’ category as well. For the first few generations of iPods, i’d create [and update] a custom icon for it. The standard one was fine but i wanted something with a little more character. So I searched Google for ‘RCA Victrola’, found plenty of images to choose from, and with a little ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ work in PhotoShop [or in this case a little ‘Nipper’ and ‘Tuck’, if you will] and my iPod icon was complete. (I stopped doing this with the 4th generation iPod and as can read about here, I’m iPodless at this time).

Jamming the OGM

Years ago, when time was plentiful and blood coursed through my veins under a healthy amount of pressure, I made some fun ‘outgoing messages’ for my answering machine. Theses days my home and work OGM’s are about as banal as watching Fred Rogers and Perry Como in a heated debate over Barry Manilow’s career having peaked with ‘Mandy’ or ‘Copacabana’. But there was a time during which I’d put a little creativity and technology to work, and come up with some fun stuff. Recently, my old roommate referenced one we’d made together, and it gave me cause to search out and retrieve a few.

Walken in Spacey Shoes

I stumbled across this today, and remembered laughing my ass off the first time I saw it. Kevin Spacey delivers a perfect dead-pan impression of Christopher Walken.
SNL – Star Wars Auditions » SpikedHumor.com

Visions of Light (4 stars)

Motion picture photography, or cinematography, gets its due in this documentary. This film features DP (director of photography) camerawork in movies from the 1930s to the end of the 20th century, including looks at Citizen Kane and The Conformist and clips from more than 100 other films. Thanks to interviews with some celebrated DPs, movie fans learn about the changes in film with each new invention, including sound, color and widescreen.

Geoff’s Comments: I’d seen this once before, many years ago, and just stumbled across it recently at the local library. I wanted to refresh my memory about the art of cinematography. There is so much that goes into the look of a film, and this wonderful documentary explores the history of film and the choices and manners in which a director of photography chooses to convey a mood, time period, location… you will never watch a movie the same way again, and you’ll learn to appreciate so much of what is taken for granted.
[ rent Visions of Light at netflix.com ]

Visions of Light (4 stars)

Motion picture photography, or cinematography, gets its due in this documentary. This film features DP (director of photography) camerawork in movies from the 1930s to the end of the 20th century, including looks at Citizen Kane and The Conformist and clips from more than 100 other films. Thanks to interviews with some celebrated DPs, movie fans learn about the changes in film with each new invention, including sound, color and widescreen.

Geoff’s Comments: I’d seen this once before, many years ago, and just stumbled across it recently at the local library. I wanted to refresh my memory about the art of cinematography. There is so much that goes into the look of a film, and this wonderful documentary explores the history of film and the choices and manners in which a director of photography chooses to convey a mood, time period, location… you will never watch a movie the same way again, and you’ll learn to appreciate so much of what is taken for granted.
[ rent Visions of Light at netflix.com ]

Just Buy Another Idol, Indy

Yeah, i’m sure you’re thinking ‘whoa… a blog post about buying a printer. How sad. Sad sad sad. No, what’s ‘sad’ is the fact that since January 2005, we’ve been living without a printer at home. That’s meant that any and every time we’ve needed to print something out, it’s had to happen at work, requiring the mailing of a file and printing/retrieval during a hectic work day. It’s just ‘one more straw’ i’ve removed from the camel’s back. Although we do still ‘own’ our previous printer, it’s not only an older serial-port based printer that required an ethernet bridge in order to work, it’s also totally, completely and undeniably lost. I dug through boxes in EDH and here in Saratoga, more then once, and i can’t tell you how frustrating it’s been to know it’s ‘out there’ but not know where. Our garage looks like the closing scene of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, and I’ve spent enough time trying to claw through spider webs, dodging falling milk crates and spelunking into box upon box to come up empty handed. I give up. When i find it I’ll sell it. Meanwhile, I’ve bought a replacement.

Vanity Fair on Steve Jobs

This month’s Vanity Fair has an interesting article about Steve Jobs and I’ve linked to the article below. I’ve also included it on this post for simplicity/archival.

Read the Article on Vanity Fair’s Website

Passing Thought : The Warmth Outside The Blanket

I recently started referring to the state of my daily life as a Calgon commercial. For those of you not old enough to understand the reference, there was a television ad that once showed a chaotic life on screen in 4 squares, in which there was a ringing phone, crying child, a pot boiling over and somebody knocking at the door, all at the same time. Lately, for some time actually, that’s been a sort of daily theme for both of us, starting at 6am and running well into the evening hours. But what I am thinking about now is one of the few moments in the day that probably give me the greatest reward and the strongest sense of accomplishment. That’s the time before bed, when the house is quite, and I step slowing into the room of my sleeping children. I do so for the sole purpose of checking on the room temperature and to routinely cover them once again with the blankets they’ve usually writhed-aside or ended up on top of. The sound of their breathing calms me, and the love I have for them gives me more warmth than any number of blankets might provide for them.

Crash (5 stars)

A 36-hour period in the diverse metropolis of post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles is the theme of this unflinching drama that challenges audiences to confront their prejudices. Lives combust when a Brentwood housewife and her district attorney husband, a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a pair of carjackers and a Korean couple all converge. Director Paul Haggis‘s gritty film stars Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon and Jennifer Esposito.

Geoff’s Comments: We’d watched this early this year and I thought it was a very good film. We watched it again tonight and my opinion went up from there. This is one of those rare occasions where ‘the Academy’ was actually right about ‘Best Picture’ of 2005. I found it very compelling and thought provoking the first time around, and on this 2nd viewing I found even more subtle touches capturing the delicate balance of honesty and humanity. The concept of interwoven lives touches on something I try to stay aware of, being the simple recognition that all of these other people passing through our lives are living their own equally complex lives as well, and what you might generalize or assume is most likely as far from the truth as what somebody might momentarily summarize about you as well. This film also touched on the same qualities I loved about Magnolia… just without the frogs. :-). This is a must see, and time allowing, even if it takes 12 months, it’s a ‘must see again’.

[ rent Crash via netflix.com ]

Crash (5 stars)

A 36-hour period in the diverse metropolis of post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles is the theme of this unflinching drama that challenges audiences to confront their prejudices. Lives combust when a Brentwood housewife and her district attorney husband, a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a pair of carjackers and a Korean couple all converge. Director Paul Haggis‘s gritty film stars Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon and Jennifer Esposito.

Geoff’s Comments: We’d watched this early this year and I thought it was a very good film. We watched it again tonight and my opinion went up from there. This is one of those rare occasions where ‘the Academy’ was actually right about ‘Best Picture’ of 2005. I found it very compelling and thought provoking the first time around, and on this 2nd viewing I found even more subtle touches capturing the delicate balance of honesty and humanity. The concept of interwoven lives touches on something I try to stay aware of, being the simple recognition that all of these other people passing through our lives are living their own equally complex lives as well, and what you might generalize or assume is most likely as far from the truth as what somebody might momentarily summarize about you as well. This film also touched on the same qualities I loved about Magnolia… just without the frogs. :-). This is a must see, and time allowing, even if it takes 12 months, it’s a ‘must see again’.

[ rent Crash via netflix.com ]

Saint Patrick’s Day

One of my work related travels to Cork, Ireland, happened to place me there on St. Patrick’s Day. Oddly, I was so focused on the trip and tasks at hand that I’d failed to note the date, and found it surprising to arrive at the factory and discover it practically vacant. It’s a national holiday there, unlike the US. Once I addressed the more pressing demands of the day, I returned to Morrison’s Island, one of the hotels Apple business travelers stayed at, which was in the heart of downtown Cork. The streets were packed, there’d just been a parade [which I’d unfortunately missed] and the pubs were even more packed then usual. I found a solo barstool in a random pub, nursed a Murphy’s, and casually people watched. It was a great experience, and I reflect on it every year on this day.

For the record, Saint Patrick’s Day is a Catholic feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (386-493), the patron saint of Ireland. You can read all about Saint Patrick’s Day on Wikipedia, as it’s always enlightening to know the background of the holiday you’re celebrating.

Cheers!

Saint Patrick’s Day

One of my work related travels to Cork, Ireland, happened to place me there on St. Patrick’s Day. Oddly, I was so focused on the trip and tasks at hand that I’d failed to note the date, and found it surprising to arrive at the factory and discover it practically vacant. It’s a national holiday there, unlike the US. Once I addressed the more pressing demands of the day, I returned to Morrison’s Island, one of the hotels Apple business travelers stayed at, which was in the heart of downtown Cork. The streets were packed, there’d just been a parade [which I’d unfortunately missed] and the pubs were even more packed then usual. I found a solo barstool in a random pub, nursed a Murphy’s, and casually people watched. It was a great experience, and I reflect on it every year on this day.

For the record, Saint Patrick’s Day is a Catholic feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (386-493), the patron saint of Ireland. You can read all about Saint Patrick’s Day on Wikipedia, as it’s always enlightening to know the background of the holiday you’re celebrating.

Cheers!

Complicated Shadows

I’m a big fan of Declan MacManus, aka ‘Elvis Costello’. I was never a ‘rabid’ fan through most of his career, but I did have a strong appreciation for some of his music, and his 2CD complication entitled ‘Girls Girls Girls‘ was a big favorite for some time. Still, I’d never really delved deeper then the melodies and chords and really paid attention to the written words until a co-worker, Robert Neville, pressed a copy of ‘Never Before, Never Again‘ into my hands, and it opened my eyes to the subtle brilliance of Costello’s musical abilities. This was followed with a long stretch of immersion into his catalog as well as having seen him perform at the Warfield in San Francisco, which will go down as one of the 5 best live concerts i’ve ever seen.

This book is both entertaining and annoying; the author spends a more time playing the critic then the biographer, but when he’s not chiming in with his own assessments, the background stories about Costello and the evolution of his craft and character add yet another dimension to the music. Along the way, as I’ve read in the evenings, I’ve listened to the music of that section the following day. If you’re a fan of the man, this is worth reading.

Crib Notes and Potty Talk

Although it’s not quite the fascinating story, i wanted to capture it here for posterity. We finally did it. We moved the kids from their cribs into toddler beds. It’s been repeatedly delayed while promises of race-car and teady-bear beds have gone unfulfilled for weeks on end. So Saturday, excuses came to a grinding halt, as did sleep for us. The first night was quite a fiasco. Our little girl actually took to the whole idea immediately and is doing excellent, but our son’s opted to take the, uh, less compliant route. So much so that I reassembled his crib on the first night and have it in their room as a fallback option. We’ve had to resort to it for the last two nights but last night, although it took some patience, they both made it through the night.

And to top it off, to our surprise, this morning our daughter made the appropriate overtures about using the ‘potty’ and actually did! So begins that transition as well. Her reward was a sticker, of which her brother was quite jealous, but motivation lies within the reward system. We’ll but putting up a little chart for them on the fridge. Our new motto: tinkle tinkle, little star.

All Your SPAM are belong to us

Am I the only person that can’t believe how BAD the attempted use of english in most SPAM is? How hard can it be? I just came across this one in my junk mail filter and had to laugh at how poorly it is written. Of course the enclosed file was a ‘.exe’ file, being an application that’d probably spread the virus or do damage… for a PC user, that is.

“Today FBI and SCOTLAND YARD has informed on set of new acts of terrorism in New York and London. On a communique was lost more than two thousand person and about ten thousand have received the wounds which were much of them are in a grave condition.Police and MI5 identified an Al-Qaeda cell that had carried out extensive research and video-recorded reconnaissance missions in preparation for the attack. You can learn the detailed information in the attached file.”

I Got Car Bombed Last Night

I took a rare break in the inscent routine of work, kids, clean, work. sleep, repeat, and spent the later evening at CB Hannigan’s in Los Gatos with some friends from my TiVo days, enjoying a Pint ‘o Guinness and catching up. I was initially disappointed to learn that they were no longer serving Murphy’s on tap, which is my favorite Irish Stout, but I was introduced to an Irish Car Bomb instead. It was, in a word, Brilliant! Part of the charm is the name, being just politically incorrect enough to make you groan. It’s a pint size glass half filled with Guinness, and in the same fashion as a boilermaker, you drop a shot glass containing Irish Whiskey with a Bailey’s Irish Cream float into the glass, and chug it. They are SO damned good that the ‘Chug’ phase is the only negative… this is a taste to savor. Half way through I wanted to stop and just relish it, but peer pressure played a winning hand. When in Rome Ireland…

Oh, and in case you’re inclined to not click on the ‘Brilliant’ link, because it’s really so damned funny, here’s a second chance. Brilliant!

Great Lyrics : Tom Waits “San Diego Serenade”

I never saw the mornin’ ’til I stayed up all night
I never saw the sunshine ’til you turned out the light
I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
I never heard the melody until I needed the song

I never saw the white line ’til I was leavin’ you behind
I never knew I needed you until I was caught up in a bind
I never spoke “I love you” ’til I cursed you in vain
I never felt my heart strings until I nearly went insane

I never saw the east coast until I moved to the west
I never saw the moonlight until it shone off of your breast
I never saw your heart until someone tried to steal it away
I never saw your tears until they rolled down your face

Great Lyrics : Tom Waits “San Diego Serenade”

I never saw the mornin’ ’til I stayed up all night
I never saw the sunshine ’til you turned out the light
I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
I never heard the melody until I needed the song

I never saw the white line ’til I was leavin’ you behind
I never knew I needed you until I was caught up in a bind
I never spoke “I love you” ’til I cursed you in vain
I never felt my heart strings until I nearly went insane

I never saw the east coast until I moved to the west
I never saw the moonlight until it shone off of your breast
I never saw your heart until someone tried to steal it away
I never saw your tears until they rolled down your face

The Lost Art of Art?

These thoughts were stirred by a momentary reflection over a number of photos I unpacked recently, most of which were from the days I spent with my own darkroom, developing my own film and printing my own images. It was an overwhelming addiction, so much so that awaking for a work day would include a 30 min detour into the darkroom to further perfect a print before heading to work, returning 9 hrs later to do it all again. I would go for weeks with the smell of photo toner on my fingers, the scent of which would instantly take my mind back to the details of the last printing efforts, usually scrawled in pencil notes onto the back of the photo paper itself, lit only by the orange hue of a film safe light. I’d constantly tweak and refine, reprint, examine, revel in recognized improvements and isolate and scheme on those yet to be perfected.

And although that behavior is all to familiar in the many things I undertake using computers today, where does it stop and when does art cease to be artistic? What difference does the introduction of technology have in our understanding of the skills of an artist. And most importantly why does this paragraph sound like something out of a ‘Sex and the City’ episode?

Reflections On Hi-Fi, Old School

The recent announcement of Apple’s iPod Hi Fi have stirred thoughts of the past for me, and what the term Hi- Fi once meant. I have visions and memories of my Grandparents having the huge, ‘coffinesque’ console stereo systems, being a turntable, radio and speakers enclosed in about 200 pounds of cherry wood. The top would have a hinged door in the center through which they’d access the controls and playback their ‘Lawrence Welk’ and ‘Tennessee Ernie Ford’ records.

Passing Thought : Going with the Expert

It occurred to me this week that it’s typically in one’s best interest to go with the expert when you’re facing a challenging task. For example, I work on websites daily, so at the end of the day, when I go home, if there’s websites to build, who better to do it? And why am i the right candidate…? Because I frickin’ do it all day, every day, that’s why!

So how come I can’t seem to explain this principle to my wife when it comes to the task of changing diapers? :-/