There have been a lot of big changes going on in my life. I got a new job and I am headed back to college in a couple of weeks. I am getting back into programming and have spent the past few days working on servers and refreshing my programming skills. Right now I’m installing xcode tools on my iMac so I can try doing some coco apps. I have been to Fry’s twice in the past two days needing to pick up parts and books on PHP and Facebook programming. Back to the grindstone.
Twitter Withdrawl
I have been going through some twitter withdrawl lately with the downtime and loss of IM intergration as Twitter goes through some scalability issues as the micro blogging service becomes more and more popular with people. I like to use Twitter through GTalk on my blackberry because I don’t have the cost of using SMS on the phone. But with the rapid growth this feature has been turned off leaving me to only use Twitter through the web interface or twitterrific on my MacBook. One of two things will happen: 1. Twitter comes back to full service 2. I buy iPhone 3G (just another reason why)
Also, tommorrow is the release of Firefox 3 and their attempt to break the record for the most downloaded program in one day. I have been using RC 2 and 3 and have really like the improvements in speed and I haven’t noticed the memory leak problems that I have had in the past with Firefox 2. Go to http://spreadfirefox.com to join in the fun.
The month of Baseball
This weekend begins the month of baseball. A time when almost every weekend I have tickets to at least one game. Next weekend I’m going to the new QT Park in Grand Prairie to see the AirHogs. I also have tickets to several Frisco RoughRiders games and one of my favorite events the Heroes game on June 28th. I enjoyed going to the Heroes Celebrity Home Run Derby and Game last year and really look forward to the game this year.
Last night kicked off with a game at the Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco to see the perennially great Frisco RoughRiders square off against the Corpus Christi Hooks in the third game of this home series. It was a great game and a close one all the way till the end. Not even into the third inning when the Hooks manager and one of their infielders got tossed from the game.
Game one down and five more to go.
Thoughts on iPhone 3G
After checking my email on the blackberry and finding that CNN was reporting that Apple did announce the 3G iPhone, I rushed to much to my dismay that the new iPhone isn’t coming out until July 11th. At first look I was ready to buy with the faster 3G network and much lighter price, but there are a couple of things that I really thought that this iPhone would have.
The biggest thing that I would have like to see in this new iPhone is a video camera. There is a lot of good things the Nokia’s are able to do with services like QIK. It seems like the ability to do video and upload it with the iPhone would be great for mobile journalism. I’ve been a crackberry user for years and am really torn between getting the new blackberry bold or the new iPhone when they come out. Maybe I’ll get both
Planning my trip to Seattle
I have been working the past several days on planning our trip to Seattle and I can’t wait. I already bought the airline tickets and have our hotel reservation made and I’m trying to use gCal to plan out everything in our schedule. I working on some stuff so that I can be blogging while out and about seattle and keep in touch with the folks who haven’t really gotten into the whole social networking thing. Come on April 4th.
Travel Woes
So this weekend we were going to fly to Ohio to see family and leave my Dad so he could spend some time with his mom. Needless to say, we never got there. The snow that we had here thursday went there friday and caused alot of problems. We left and made it to columbus but never landed, just circled around until almost running out of fuel and having to divert to Detroit. American airlines then took all the luggage off the plane and quickly lost it. I had to scramble to reschedule everything and return to Dallas to try Saturday to get to Columbus on the dreaded flight 460. Saturday we get to the airport and 10 minutes after we check-in they cancel the flight. After one hour and three minutes on the phone with AA customer support I was able to get a refund for our tickets since they weren’t willing to reschedule the tickets for a time that works for us only the next day. I understand that it isn’t AA fault that the weather interfered with our flight but I shouldn’t be forced to take a flight days later when I can’t get off work or pay hundreds of dollars in fees to reschedule the tickets. AA is in the service industry and needs to remember what good customer service is about.
Vanlooser CaSucks
Tuesday night Summer (my sister) and I went to the Stars game at the AAC. I haven’t gone to a Stars game since they were still playing at Reunion so I was really excited when I got some tickets for Christmas. Costco had a Stars package on sale where you got two tickets valued up to 70 dollars and a program all for less than 100 dollars. These were great seats. I have never got the chance to sit down on the plaza level so this was a whole new experience. We sat in row T in the corner at the goal line.
The game was something that you would expect to see in the playoffs not the regular season. Regulation time ended tied up at 2 forcing overtime. After the 5 minute overtime period the score was still tied forcing the shootout. In the first round the Stars scored and the Canucks answered. Not until the sixth round did the Stars score again leaving it up to the Canucks to answer. Go Stars
Mardi Gras Run
Last Saturday Summer and I volunteered at the Mardi Gras Run benefiting Captain Hopes Kids a North Texas non-profit organization committed to helping fill the needs of homeless children in North Texas. Captain Hopes Kids helps through providing resources to its 42 member homeless service providers. Each week Captain Hopes Kids distributes more than 5,000 diapers as well as many other essentials. Summer and I went down to volunteer and help out. We helped put up some banners and then went out to assist as some of the coveted “course monitors” whose main purpose was cheering on the runners and making sure they all were going the right way. I soon found out that my cheering skills need some honing as “we got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit, how bout you?” grew very tiresome.
How does one improve with my awesome cheer skills such as sporatic clapping and the occasional half hearted “whoo?” I’ll tell you how, buy Netflix’n all of the “Bring it On” DVD’s. Yes that’s right, Hollywood found it in their infinite wisedom to create not one, not two, but three sequels to the box office money machine “Bring it On” franchise. I wait with bells on and baited breath for the day a fifth film makes its straight to Dvd.
But I digress, the Mardi Gras Run benefits a great charity, Captain Hope’s Kids and the Mardi Gras parade that follows is even bigger with this year being the first for MystiQal the namesake for the big party in victory plaza. MystiQal is just another in the line of big events in the victory development that gives people another reason to go downtown. I definitaly had a good time volunteering at the Mardi Gras Run and look forward to next year.
Lessons I learned from Guitar Hero and Rockband
So following CES and the whole downfall of HD DVD with the announcement of Warner choice of Blu-ray in the high def disc battle I had to buy a PS3 and jump on the blu-ray bandwagon. I like my HD DVD player but there have been some deal breaking titles like the Simpson’s movie and “live free or die hard” that have been only on blu-ray. The PS3 is great and when I’m not watching movies or playing games I have the Folding at home program running which is blazingly fast on the cell processor in the PS3, it way out paces my duo core dell server.
So being the proud owner of a PS3 and an Amazon Prime customer I had to purchase Guitar Hero 3. It took me a couple hours to get down how to play and get past my cramping left hand. I finished the game on easy after three days leaving the huger of guitar stardom that could only be satisfied with Rockband. My sick guitar skills are humbled by my constant sucking playing drums on rockband. For a white guy I have some rhythm but I lack the very basic skills to finish even the easiest song on rockband. Perhaps my rock skills will increase if I get some gloves with the fingers cut off and a mullet wig.