When the little ones leave home.

Oh its a touching story, but no not my little ones per say (my son is no where near old enough to head out on his own yet!) but three little robins headed out into the big world this weekend. Every year there is a robin that nest under my deck. I never take down the nest so each year its ready and waiting for her (at least I'm guessing its the same bird). I guess its kind of my way to give back to nature. Sure I scare her away alot when I go out the door to the deck and sure it makes me jump when she takes off but this year we developed a few I'll sit here you stay there moments, it was touching.

Interesting this year I got to catch a few moments that I haven't in the past. I've included pictures of the babies being fed (ala my new digital camera) and you'll just have to take my word for it that on Sunday I caught two of the babies taking off from the nest as I came out of my shed, there they went.

It's pretty neat seeing nature up close like that, hopefully the new robins will do well in the world and until next year hopefully mama will do well.

Trip to Guitar Center

So today Logan MacLeod and I took a trip to Guitar Center to pick up some cable adapters for the new mixer. Have you ever gone somewhere shopping where you wish you were smarter and more talented so you could appreciate more of what was around you? That was me at Guitar Center. I play the guitar, albeit not that great, and with the new podcast I'm more into producing audio shows so I'm walking around GC looking at all this great technology and all these guitars thinking wow I could spend ALOT of money in this place!

So I guess in hindsight its better that I'm not talented enough to buy lots of stuff at GC! I did pick up a new cable to hook my electric guitar up to my amp, the one I had broke along time ago so I threw it away. One thing I'd like to get is a new electric guitar, the one I have is old and as I found out today not in the best shape since I haven't used it in quite some time. Maybe I'll look into getting back into that and making a better investment.

The interesting thing is that this was not the normal music instrument store of yesterday, I was surprised to see ALOT of technolgy running through this place, heck they even sold Apple and Dell computers! There was more softward on the shelves in this place than some computer stores.

Its funny how you get involved in something on the lesser end of the price scale (our mics are from Radioshack and were about $20 each) but there is always a higher end of the scale (I asked Logan is he was ready to upgrade to one of the $900 mics!). One thing we did leave without this time was a pop screen for our mics and we are looking into getting a headphone amplifier.

In any case I did come home and hook up my electric guitar and start playing again so thats good. Of course we headed to Radioshack afterwards to pick up some "lower end scale" headphones!

We get to use the new mixer tomorrow, can't wait!

P.S. they sold Rock Band at Guitar Center for those of us with a little less talent!

Accumulating Audio Recording Equipment

While I have only been involved in podcasting for three months or so it seems my co host and I have been accumulating quite a bit of audio recording equipment. We started honestly enough with a cheap mixer, two mics and audacity for free to record the shows. Since then we realized we needed some in the field equipment so we both bought handheld recorders and I bought a mic for both, then we added some more microphones and now we've picked up a new "advanced" mixer which we'll get a chance to use this week. On top of all that we've gone to at least a two computer setup for the show.

Now all we need is a bigger table to record the show on! We started out simple enough but realized that if we wanted to grow and get better and better we'd need to put a little investment into this little hobby, just like every other hobby.

But you know what its pretty damn fun, and being that we're both tech heads and geeks this all falls well into line with our other interests as well.

Sure it won't be long before we're building our very own studio in the backyard or something. So if you havn't gotten a chance to listen to our show head over to www.toooldtogrowup.com and download the latest episode (then download them all) and let us know what you think.

We're spending our money to make spending time with us more fun!

The Desire to be Creative!

I've always had a hankering to be "creative" which most people probably do, whether its for yourself or the desire to be seen or heard by others. A long time ago I wrote short stories, liked to draw and had tons of fun building lego's and playing with toys. These days I'm a bit grown up but still like to do things like write, blog and recently take photos, not to mention co host the Too Old to Grow Up! podcast. My last venture was creating videos on the computer which I mostly did around home movies but a parody of the Sopranos opening credits got quite a bit of play on YouTube.

These days I've taken up photography after the amazingly expensive purchase of my Nikon D40 and concurrent lens purchase (but it was worth it) and also feeling the desire to get back into writing. I've been writing the story of the first year of Too Old to Grow Up! which I'm sure will end up being a gripping nail biter but more interestingly I've started developing a character story of sorts. Whats also fun is that I have a partner in photography which keeps a nice friendly challenge going and a collaborator on the story which has already helped it tremendously.

Hopefully these creative juices may lead to something in the future where more people than just myself will get to enjoy them, until then I'll just have to have some fun with them for awhile.

The Big Video Game Delima

I've been playing video games for a LONG time, since the beginning of Pong in the home I've played and owe many a game system and many more actual games. I've always been a gamer yet there are times when I question if I really am a gamer. Nowadays I can go long stretches without buying a new game unlike times gone by when I would buy a lot more but now it seems its either feast or famine with games.

Here's where I'm at lately. I haven't been wondering around the lands of Azeroth in Warcraft as much as I used to and my friends forgot who I am in Halo. Yet I've added such games to my collection like Call of Duty 4, GTA IV, Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros Brawl and just today I bought Wii Ski and I'm waiting for Wii Fit next week.

Yet lately when I get free time I just want to sit and either read or watch TV, heck today I just wanted to sit outside for awhile. In all of this however the most recent fun I've had was playing Mario Kart Wii with my two year old son.

Why is it then that these games catch my eye, I must have them but then there's no time to actually play them? Or is it just that I'd rather not? Perhaps I need a vacation to catch up on all this gaming!

Well I haven't blogged in awhile and now I'm back with a ramble about how I have no time to play games. I guess its good, I have alot going on and I'm also starting to delve back into my creative side as well. I guess the ultimate question is will I ever not be a gamer, I guess the answer to that question will come someday, but for now I'll just try to buy a little less and play a little more.

Until next time!

Simplifying the Media

My greatest home improvement work resides in the ever changing and growing face of my home media.  The hardware and network that allows me to work with and share my media throughout the home.  Some of those pieces are connected and some are not, some are automated and some require a bit of help.  Although technically and financially I am far from the complete package I have never been quite as close as I am now.

For all the work that I put into this, simplification seems to be the greatest tool for me.  At times I will admit I try to make it complicated but its all a part of determining what works and what doesn't.  Sometimes things work but long term are just not really cut out to continue in service.  Case in point my iBook and Linux computers, the Linux box will soon find itself departed from the overall network as a computer is moved and replaces it.

Over the weekend I purchased a TV which was placed in the bedroom, well I soon found out that it indeed fit in the living room entertainment center and was much more fitted for that location, that in turn put a few other moves in place such as a new added job for my Zune in the bedroom to watch things like podcasts (podcasts are automated to the Zune, movies and videos are not in my settings).

Another thing I did today was remove two 5 disc DVD changers from active service, and I've done something I almost never have done, I am for the first time relying on game systems as DVD players.

Its all a part of the changing landscape of a media environment, one that needs to work for me and not against me, and the key is simplification, otherwise my wife will never use any of it!

del.icio.us Tags: DVD,Blu ray,ibook,Linux,DVD Changer,Home Network

The New View of My Vizio

I was planning to get a new TV for the bedroom, if you've read any of my past blog posts you know that.  I wasn't planning on getting one this weekend.  My biggest problem was price and size weren't working out for me, but guess what they did this weekend.

Vizio is a brand that I probably wouldn't check out all that much but this past year it seems the brand really took off and I can already see why, its a pretty darn nice TV.

Sure I haven't spent that much time with it and it is a TV for the bedroom but I really think its going to work for what it was purchased for.

My biggest problem was getting my dang PS2 hooked up to it, I use my PS2 for watching DVD's in the bedroom because its small nice size is nice.  But I will tell you it was SO freaking hard to get that thing to display 16x9 progressive scan properly and once I figured out how to adjust the "hidden" settings I still had to manually set the TV to "wide mode" since apparently the PS2 doesn't send the right signals.  I guess I may be asking too much of an age old video game system but really, why do I always have to jump through hoops with Sony?

In any case my digital home is moving closer and closer to what it should be since now I can finally use my Zune in the bedroom for podcasts and photos and such since it can finally be hooked up to a TV!

Now if you've excuse me I have to go watch some TV!

Backwards Time?

So I'm at a training today and we look over at the wall and there's the clock right, no big deal. Until we realized the clock was backwards, completely backwards. Let me tell you how interesting that makes the day when you're looking at the clock.

Everytime you stop and look at the clock you have to wonder for a second where you're at. Although it was backwards it told correct time.

Luckily the training was interesting enough that the day went by rather quickly but I just couldn't leave without taking a quick photo of the "backwards clock" before heading out for the day!