Going up

I am now running at 1800 by 1440 res on my work computer. I am not likely to go higher though, as I can't. I need to get my hands on one of these.



30" and a max res of 2560 x 1600. Sweet. Only problem is the response time is 16ms, not that great for gaming. I keep thinking all of these pictures are so small. I have to remeber that most people are running at much smaller resolutions. 1024 x 768 is standard now I think. Just need to keep that in mind.

Still Here

Been a while since I've posted. Been really busy at work. Of course our anniversary was last week. Got my wife some nice flowers, lilies of course.



My wife took that picture. I love it. So much that it is now the desktop wallpaper for all of my computers. Is it a bad thing when you have 4 desktops to put wallpapers on? I got one of these for a present. :)



I love my wife. Apparently this is one of that last of these models you can get, as the new ones now all have color screens. Not that big of a deal for me. It will mostly be used for listening to Podcasts. Apple is the only company I know that can get away with selling the same thing with different colors for more money. You can buy a U2 black and red iPod, which is no different from a white iPod, for $50 dollars more. What is up with that? I do have to say, though, that this thing oozes style. Its got great battery life too, and the sound is great.

Been playing a lot of Total Annihilation again. 8 years old an its still a great game. About half way through the Arm campaign on hard. Getting close to finally completing this game. Will need to find the expansion packs some time. Did I ever tell you I love to post images.

730 days

Today is the second anniversary for my my wife and me. Two years, its been so quick and yet so long. Hopefully I will be saying the same thing in 48 more years. If your reading this Julie, I love you.

Crash and Burn

Don't you just love it when software crashes on you (Autodesk calls it unexpectedly closing, but its the same thing). I thought I would share an image with you that I see on an almost daily basis. This is really annoying, and causes me to lose a lot of work. I would rather companies make rock solid software rather than adding new features. Give me a 3D modeling application that never crashes. I would buy that in a heart beat.

Viva La RESOLUTION!

There are many things I love about the modern technolgical world. One is the upgrading of Graphics cards from previous ones


Geforce 3 Ti 200

to far superor ones. (Thanks to one Thomas R Stanis)


Radeon X800 Pro

These pictures were both taken with a free camera phone. Not bad.

It is also a joy to download at 600kbs a 25mb file (Radeon Catalyst Drivers) in approximatly 15 seconds! (Is it strange that my home connection is way faster than the one I have at work?)

Life is good.

Cat in a box

Rainbow

Not a case of the Mondays

Mondays is always a very interesting experience for me. I go from the relative calm of the weekend into the information fire storm that is the modern age. Weekends are for house work and watching movies with your wife while the cat tries to get your attention (one by sitting on your face, the other by knocking everything off the table with a knowing "What are you gona do about it?" expression on his face), not for browsing the internet.

I walk into work this morning, start up my computer (which requires the mandatory 1 restart because our network is screwed up), open up the aggregator, and am instantly barraged by over 150 posts. While this is definitely a shock to my system (just getting off of sleep mode) I must say that I enjoy it. Such a wealth of information at my fingertips, with nothing but a double click. I am instantly perusing the articles from the latest cell phone reviews to why the next generation of video game consoles is looking so dull.

The world (well the tech part of it anyways) is at my fingertips, and I am instantly in the know. This is my CNN. This is one of the reasons I love the internet. I can filter out the stuff I don't want to hear and turn up the volume on the things I do. I have a few general news sites in there, but for the most part its tech related. Its a constant IV to my inner geek. Even now I am continuing to get updates (the latest one on how to ebooks for your iPod) from my aggregator, which is set to update every 15 minutes. I feel, truly and totally, plugged in.

Concrete Pains

Getting this concrete for our garage has been a real pain. Now that we finally have the quote I find its going to be over 5 grand. Maybe we should start a "Help us build a garage" fund.

Its still bloody hot.

Just like riding a bike

Well I started riding my bike to work today. Only takes me about 4 minutes from my house to work, which is only twice as long as it took to drive.

Its bloody hot outside.

Picked up a new game the other day. Metal Arms: Glitch In The System. So far its really fun. Think Ratchet and Clank or Jet Force Jemini. Did I ever tell you I love posting images.

New screen door + Curious cats = Very amusing

I installed a new screen door yesterday. Its like the one on the patio door, but white, and I put it on the front door. Need less to say it was very fun after I let Oliver and Patches out. When Oliver first saw it he imediatly ran foor it thinking it was open. Going full speed he ran into it to his shock and ran off. It was quite amusing. This was followed by both Oliver and Patches sitting around the screen door looking out for hours afterwards. You could just hear their coverstation.

"Whats with this, why did they put this thing up?"
"I don't know, but we can see outside now!"
"Yah, and maybe even escape. Here, let me paw at this track, maybe it will open"

I am in this habbit of slowly increasing the resolution on my monitors at work and at home. I now have both up to 1600x1200. Its damn tiny, but looks great, especially on 22 inch monitors.

Anybody else here about Apple starting to make computers with Intel chips? Very interesting. Apparently the Mac Mini will ship with Intel chips in 6 months, with full desktops in 18 months. Maybe we can get a dual Win/Mac computer out of this. If they make it, I will be there in a heart beat. Macs have been looking so appealing of late, and those 30 inch displays are to die for. One day, they will be mine!

Oh, and we picked up 4 Nintendo Wavebirds on Sunday. Its a little weird (they are lighter, and shaped a little different, and no rumble), but its great not to have any more controller wires.

Is anyone out there?

How about that, I managed to figure out how to post again! Go Julie! I thought, many times, that it might be cool to write a book someday. Thus, you all get to suffer through my pathetic attempts at literary genius! Today's topic is: dreams

Like so many nights, last night my mind was kept busy dabbling in the territory of bizarre. This morning, like many mornings, the images from those dreams were so vivid that I can't tell whether they are memories or some awesome specimen of my subconscious. Either way, last evening went a little bit like this:

I was sitting in the Appleton East High School theater, watching a dramatization of Tarzan. Our ominous theater "director", (we'll just call her D) was screaming something at the beloved main character. Surprisingly, Tarzan was being played by our dear friend Josh (?-one of the many confusing parts of this tale. Josh is in the Army now, and never had any interest in theater...) I believe I was surrounded in the audience by people from tech (theater) as well as people that I have known from other points in my life. Suddenly, just as Josh is about to pull out one of his infamous smart-alecky remarks, the scene changes.

Now I am sitting on the roof of a very tall building... petrified... (for those of you that know me this was not one of those "I am five feet off the ground, I am going to die" moments, it was more like, "I am five thousand feet of the ground, and I am in the process of dying sort of moments!") Anyway, we are atop a very tall building in Texas. I know this because everyone around me has that Texan drawl and is asking me if I need a refill on my beer. (I don't even like beer!)So you're wondering what in the h-e double hockey sticks we were doing on that building, well we were watching a live football game... yeah, they were playing in the sky! The funny part is that I was in Texas, but I was watching the broncos and the Chiefs... hmmm. The last thing I remembered was yelling to Josh to come sit next to me... I awoke staring Patch right in the face.

So all you dream buffs... figure out the meaning of that! Until next time...

No Data Found

This is kind of funny. Google can't find the data for their own stock.

So far its been kind of a slow day. Spent a lot of it trying to make 2 line crosshairs. That sounds simple, but don't tell Inventor that. Think I finally have it figured out. Its terrible tedious though.

The Motorola v220 I got on Satuday is already broken. I hope this is not going to be a recuring theme. Basically its ringing speaker does not work unless you squeas the damn thing. We are taking it back to Best Buy tonight. Julies is fine, so I hope its a one time deal.

This is Benji. He is our puppy. He is very sleepy.

Testing

Hmmm, wonder how this thing will work. I asked Jon for a place to put pics so that we could share with the world (more realistically our family and friends) all of our hard work. Instead or (insert adverb) he started this thing! So, unfortunately, you all get to listen to my rambling! First, regarding our animals or nanimals as we tend to call them, they have ruthlessly perfected their ploy for life! As I write this monologue... yep your in for a long one, Benji lies hopelessly adorable on the floor next to me pretending to be sound asleep. I can see one eye open though, waiting to capture my every move! (see pic later) Next, video games. I feel the need to put Jon's glee over my seemingly new interest in Mario Party into context. Tina and I have been hopelessly challenging him for months now (on occasion, not like everyday...) And we failed miserably! Until yesterday when we got this bright idea to play when Jon wasn't around, thus improving our skills without also improving his... clever huh? Anyway, as you heard, Tina finally won! (and I was only a little bit behind in Third... Yeah, I beat the computer... set on easy... I rule!) Glad to have the opportunity to set things straight. (and for the record, when Jon says "I really suck at this one" it really means, "watch out! This one's mine!" I know that from personal experience! If I don't post in the next few days, fear not, it just means that I am trying to figure out how to do it again... eventually I will persevere, even if I have to break down and ask Jon for help ;(

More garage. The white thing on the right is the door, and those are truses on the left. 

Its a garage, really, it is. Now where are those damn "easy to assemble" instructions. 

Looks like a earthquake went through here. 

Don't worry Greg, Julie fixed the bench. 

Congradulations, its a post! 

Power tools are fun! 

And then there were 4

Yesterday we managed to put up a 4th post on our porch. Its supposed to make it look more even, and not so "we didn't want a 4th post" ish. Hopefully I will upload a picture later.

So far the inspector has not called us back, so we should be able to fill in the trench tommorrow. Also, the concrete guy has yet to call or fax us.

Been playing a lot of Mario Party 4 recently. Tina is really into it, and Julie likes it too. Tina actually won yesterday. My abilites with the game are becoming less and less noticable as they get better, but I must say I managed to pick up 2 stars in one turn along with a magic lamp. Damn lucky if you ask me. I still lost. For those of you wondering what I am smoking.