News of Edward

Somethings I forgot to mention in the last post…

I had foot surgery a couple of days after I got home. Thank goodness. It was long overdue and they are healing up quite nicely.

I didn’t see rain for something like 10 weeks so I was getting anxious. However, the North-western US delivered just as expected. It’s been drizzling for a couple of days and there was a down pour today for a while. That’s one thing I will never miss about this place. You really can’t beat growing up in a rain forest.

Thank you all for the spell checking, grammar corrections and general error rectification. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I won’t have a career centered around the english language. I think I’ll stick to computers.

I think there was one more thing… but I forgot.

Let’s make fun of science

So, it’s been too long since I last posted. I’m sorry, I’ve been very busy and seeing as the sub-title of my blog is “The constant quest to keep my parents informed” it’s not so necessary as I’m living with them. Anyway, what’s happened since the last time I talked…?

Last Saturday was my parents retirement party so congrats to them! We got 72 people into our backyard which isn’t impossible, but it’s not easy. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but I got to see some people that I havn’t seen in a while and had some decent conversations once I got past the “Yes I’m still in school, LA was great, kthxbye” bull shit.

I’ve also been working at store in Portland, getting my mac chops up. I got the opportunity to screen share (see near the end of the page) recently and let me tell you… that is some awesome technology! It helps remote troubleshooting a lot. Half of the time is spent figuring out where the person is and what they are doing so you can tell them how to take the right steps to fix the problem. I’ve taken lots of calls where all I have really said is, “Remove the printer, then add it again exactly the same.” That call, can take up to half an hour. It’s crazy. Maybe I’ll talk about that for a bit.

I’m gonna do my best not to complain here, but there are some things everyone needs to understand about computers. Most importantly, I think, is that computers don’t care about you. They don’t care how many important e-mails you have, how many priceless photos that you can’t recreate, how many awesome tracks you have in your iTunes… they don’t care at all. So when you lose all your data, even if all you did was treat your computer with the utmost care and respect, it’s your fault if you didn’t back up. Period. If you don’t know how, tough. The computer still doesn’t care. You have to figure out something or be prepared for sadness and anger when you loose all your files.

I made it sound like I was going to list off a bunch of stuff. I lied. It got complain-y. Maybe I’ll make it a semi-regular installment. For now, I must go work and prepare for the fall and tomorrow. Busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy

Site redesign coming soon when I have a chance to breathe.

Cath… - Death Cab For Cutie

Today is my last full day here in LA. I fly home tomorrow in the evening. It’s been fun. I really enjoyed my time at Native Instruments and had some fun times out here. From going to the shows of my room mate or going on little trips with NI’s various departments or doing the tourist thing, I got to see enough of LA to get an idea about living here. I’ve also had a lot of free time to learn things like Processing and Ruby on Rails. Over all, a very successful stay.

What’s next… Well, I’m going home for 3 weeks to work at the usual mac job, celebrating my parent’s retirement, then it’s back to school in lovely Boston, MA. That’s what I really can’t wait for. I love home and I love my family, really I do. But my heart is in Boston. I have just fallen in love with that city too much. I’m moving into an apartment September 1^st to hopefully start getting some roots there and maybe gain residency one day. If you want the address, just contact me. So it is will sadness that I leave LA but excitement that I will come home with.

For those in sunny Los Angles, thank you and see you later. For those who live in the Northwest, see you tomorrow. For those in Boston, see you all soon.

Afterall - William Fitzsimmons

You know, I don’t like Yahoo. It’s home page is messy, it’s search isn’t that great (not to mention completely unoriginal) and they take over things that were once good. First Flickr, now delicious (formally known as del.icio.us). As I look this up, I see that they’ve owned delicious for as long as I’ve been a member (or longer. I can’t remember when I joined.) I still feel as if they have cheapened it somehow, but I’m told that’s a normal feeling when you find that Yahoo bought something. It’s like all these good things just go away. It’s really sad. Yahoo just keeps on irking me though. I keep hearing about people resigning after years of service with them and to me, it just feels wrong to use their stuff. I don’t think they’re evil, I don’t hate them. I think that they are trying to copy Google, and failing.

In other news, if you haven’t seen Dan In Real Life, you should. It’s a great movie. I watched it again last night and it makes me laugh and somehow, I feel as if I can identify. Not that I am 40+ with 3 daughters or anything, but I sort of picture my self being like Steve Carrell’s character one day. Who knows.

Six Packs Revisited (Bonus Tracks) - The Get Away People

So…

I have conquered a new mile stone in programming. Object Oriented Programming. It’s a big step to take, a rite of passage if you will. I’m really proud because I’m all self taught. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a course on this. Granted, it’s taken me 21 years to get here, not a semester, but I’ve done it. Hopefully I will do more.

For lack of a better name I present to you Ring Trick and his colorful friend, with an equally stupid name, Ring Trick (color). Ta-Da!

The Horror - RJD2

About a year go, I quit World of Warcraft. I quit cold turkey. It was a tough time at that point in my life. I kept wanting to play it. It was like an itch. Sounds like a drug? Yeah, it was. No more.

So what am I up to a year later as far as games go? Well, I’m currently playing Fable. It’s a light weight RPG. A decent sized world but not too big. It’s all set paths too. You can’t really go exploring like you can in some games. I also got a hold of Oblivion. I’ve barely started, but that reminds me a lot of the WoW landscape in terms of depth. It’s even more expansive actually. Easily larger than any city (proper) in the US. Also you can just pick up most anything. Here’s a skull, there’s an arrow stuck in the wall, there’s someone’s ring from there finger… you know, stuff you totally need.

These both sound addictive, and to some extent they are. I spent a lot of hours on Fable the first weekend I got it. And I’ve barley done anything in Oblivion and already spent an hour or so. However, both these games are single player. There’s not Massively Multiplayer Online world to get sucked into. I can pause whenever I want for any reason. It really takes a lot of stress off the game.

I am also playing an online game… kinda. It’s Dungeons & Dragons which is usually played on a table with dice. However, I found an IRC server that I can play on. Getting people together for a game is quite a challenge sometimes and there’s always someone who will play there. I have been sucked into that kind of game for hours on end and not been able to leave, kinda like WoW. But 1. I don’t have to play 2. it’s a lot more work than WoW so I have to have the energy and 3. the whole style of playing is way more laid back so if I need to leave for sleep/just because, I can.

Lily Allen - Knock ‘Em Out
Check out the rest of this album. It’s good.

http://isitchristmas.com/
http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com/
http://thisissand.com/
http://www.whywashesad.com/
http://www.abevigoda.com/
http://www.colorflip.com/
http://buffaloremix.ytmnd.com

And there’s so much more too.

Because Joss Whedon is an incredible director/writer/producer,
because Firefly was such an awesome show that tanked so hard,
and because he deserve all the support he can get,

GO HERE AND WATCH THIS TOMORROW!

Make the internets crawl.

Here we go.

I went to Hollywood & Highland Center today. Let me tell you, that’s a dense place for tourists. The following are some things I took pictures of.

First off, this is my apartment building, and here is my street. Woo palm trees.

Forecast said it would storm today. They were pretty close… (not)

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s my own fault for subscribing mostly to Apple- and Technology-related blogs, but I really don’t see how people want to hear about how many times MobileMe is down, or seeing 13 different galleries of iPhones being taken out of their packaging. I suppose news is news though and I’ll live. I’ll just have to wait until people calm down a little and we get back to reporting useful apps, tips, tricks and knowledge.

I need a website redesign. This is looking tired to my eyes. As soon as we get the new BIRN thing done, maybe I’ll look at redesigning it. I think I’ve learned a fair amount since this design.

I can’t find a song, but this video will do. It’s hilarious.
Goldfrapp - A&E

Update: Apparently, the english language requires a hyphen in between two or more adjectives when they are together describing a noun. As a believer in syntactical standards (even if I’m not particular familiar with or in favor of this one) I fixed “Apple and Technology related” to what you see above. That is all.