Who Should you Vote For

Who should you vote for?

Barack Obama				69
Mike Gravel				57
Hillary Clinton				39
Ron Paul				11
John McCain	-24
Mitt Romney	-66
Mike Huckabee	-66

You expected: Barack Obama
Your recommendation: Barack Obama

Party: Democratic
Born: 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii
Family: wife and two daughters
Career: Business International Corporation; NYPIRG; attorney and constitutional law lecturer
Political career: Member of the Illinois State Senate from the 13th district, 1997-2004. Incumbent Junior Senator from Illinois since 2005
Hot topic: Universal healthcare
Did you know? He is the only African American currently serving in the US Senate
Supported by: Oprah Winfrey, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, George Clooney, Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Michael Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Ed Norton, Jennifer Aniston, Zach Braff, John Cleese, Leonard Nimoy and Brooke Shields

I'm Moving to Spain

70% Of Navarra's Power Comes From Wind, Solar (TreeHugger)

Some people are warmongers, some are pacifists. I'm a technologist. Let's use our brain power and engineering resources to solve the issues of housing and food. Harness renewable sources of energy, promote efficient housing, research the best crops. People that are well fed, have shelter and clothing will still fight, but hopefully over whether they prefer Picasso or Dali.

This is not my beautiful house...

Just having one of those days where I'm not quite sure how I got here. Not in a bad way. Sort of taking a step back and looking at my life, wondering how I wound up where I wound up and what's next. And yes... I've been drinking.

Me... Master Criminal

Well, one thing I learned this weekend was how to break into my house.  Which apparently is not all that hard, since I was slightly inebriated at the time.  

Now, before you ask, I was fully lucid (or as close as I come) when I left my keys on the counter.  

So after having a neighbor buzz me in, and several manly attempts at kicking the door in, resulting in nothing more than footprints (cop shows are crap.)   I found a way in.  Points for anyone who can tell me how. 

Car-to-Car Chat: Sony Patents Talking Headlights - Gizmodo

Car-to-Car Chat: Sony Patents Talking Headlights - Gizmodo

This could be useful. Pretty cool if cars could really communicate real time. Of course we'd all still get rear ended by the idiot in K Car station wagon who didn't have the tech...

Projects for this weekend

1. Easter Vigil Mass - It's a marathon of music
2. Organize Softball team for Summer
3. Surround Sound Speakers
4. Get Stacker system working for Directivo
5. Upgrade TiVo Software
6. Transfer Quicken data to Mac
7. Get my free printer
8. Gesturing SW for Mac
9. Seriously, isn't that enough?

iMac

So I finally broke down and bought a computer. Been without one for about 6 years. Just using my work laptop when I needed it. But it's been acting up lately and I thought it would be nice to have one at home to expand my use of.

Given that I spend oodles of time making phones work with my PC and just making my PC work I decided it was time to make the jump to Mac. Yes, an iMac with Intel inside. Yes, the ability to dual boot did influence my decision, though I haven't done that yet. Mostly I didn't want to have to twiddle a lot. I just wanted stuff to work.

Observations so far. iTunes import was beautiful, found my airport and everything. Still synching the iPod with the PC though... Network setup was also super easy. The hardest part there was figuring out the iMac's MAC address to tell my router. iPhoto is nice, but i have to redo all of my folders and labels from Picasa. Not sure I'm sold on iPhoto yet. Oh... I have a LinkStation on my network, and the iMac found it and mounted it with ease.

Safari and even the Firefox for Mac are lagging a bit behind their windows counterparts... but might be lack of experience. I do like expose. I can't adjust the mouse tracking to be fast enough for me.

Biggest issue is transferring Quicken data from PC to Mac. It is not straightforward at all. Intui basically says you will lose info, and refers you to a data transfer service to do it manually. I think I found a way to do it in steps without losing too much, but may have found the first reason to install windows (you know, besides that I can.) Also need to find a gesturing program for Mac. I have one in Windows and like Vespa's industrial strength hair dryer, ' I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT'

Vonage Good

I've had vonage for 3 months now. I like it. Once I got past the firewall setup on my router it worked great. No QoS problems at all.

My favorite feature has to be that I get an email when anyone leaves a voicemail, and I can then listen to it over the internet. Since it's a wav file that you download you can easily replay sections to get phone numbers or whatever.

I highly reccommend it. Oh and feel free to tell them kerrnal98 referred you!

Kudos

To the Apple store. I bought an iMac and no one mentioned the $100 rebate on printers. The rebate requires the printer and computer to be on the same receipt, so I called. They called back letting me know that I could return the computer and buy a computer and printer together. Free printer here I come.

Moment of Zen

I need one... now.

Pool Anyone????

My New Pool table
Originally uploaded by kerrnal.

That's right, I'm just a flat screen, mirror ball, and jacuzzi away from the ultimate bachelor pad.

I get all my great ideas in the shower

Shower White Board

Great idea.... I wonder if it's 'dry' erase board.

That's a sweet feeling...

When you pass a Porsche Cayenne on the freeway in your Prius hybrid. Doing 90mph at 45MPG. Booyah! If you buy a Porsche, ya better use it.

Fundue

Need to convince the wife you need a new computer? Just show her the old one is good for this.

A study you need to see

Now you know. It's all a government plot to control your mind.

This is some HOT sushi... wait, that's just the plate

Wow. This is unreal. I usually don't like sushi, but I'd be willing to try this, and of course my birthday is just around the corner. You think I'm kidding, click to see all the action shots. I hope those leaves are glued down. Must take a lot of focus to just lay there the whole meal. Side note... the picture show goes from this restaraunt to a place called 'Extra Virgin.' I couldn't make this up.

Thirty & Broke

Yikes.... this is really scary stuff. $100,000 in student loan debt.... Yowza.

Pictures of My New Condo

Check 'em out!

One of those days....

So I had one of those day today. Just kind of woke up on the wrong side of bed... Services at PRCC were ok, but something just felt out of step. I came home and got a call from my accompanist, who was sick and couldn't make it to mass later that afternoon. I had a little time to look over the parts for the songs I was doing, and switch out a piano heavy song for an accapella one. Then I got to church and was moving this big black wheeled cabinet that we keep all the micropones equipment in. It's about 6' tall and about 4' wide (did I mention heavy). As I was wheeling it down the ramp of the altar, a wheel came off. I didn't notice until it started to fall over the ramp edge and dumped the 15lb speakers that were on top of it off onto the floor. I was hanging on for dear life to prevent it from falling over. Miraculously there were two people in the church (it was really early usually no one there) who helped me get it upright. Boy was I spooked. So, no accompanist, and I nearly lost all my equipment, and almost got a monitor in the head. Something was just off. Forge ahead. So during practice I couldn't get one of our pieces to work, between spotty attendance and my inability to play piano while simultaneously singing bass, and tenor. So I decided I would do a meditiation piece in it's place. My drummer came, and he's an amazing musician... which was really helping out. We finished rehearsal, and I still had to pick a piece to do. Mass starts, going well. Homily time, I'm looking to see what I have on hand. I'm indecisive. Then I start listening to the homily and Fr. Don is talking about how our lives are gifts from God, to give back, and everything we are is his... And I have the perfect song. 'I'm Yours Lord' Kind of rocking, but it fits. So it's me and my guitar and i start, and then I notice drummer is hanging out and jams with me. It was awesome. Not only didn't we practice it, I hadn't played it in months. It just rocked. He's a great musician. Then we went into an amazing version of Deep Within, and my new clarinet player was awesome. The choir was singing with a lot of feeling, and then we did the last refrain accapella (I just decided to do it on the spot) but the drummer was filling space. It was awesome. Tight harmony, beautiful singing. Then we really rocked 'Freedom is Coming.' Here's the thing, in the middle of me being unsettled, i listened a little and found the right piece of music. Then some angels came and played and sang with me. They carried me, and God carried us all. Sometimes great music comes from chaos. And you never know what can happen in God.

Think Secret - Updated Mac minis arriving, details revealed [updated]

It's like they don't want me to by a mac mini.