crashBlog

Not the side you usually see

Chris — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:56:00 GMT

I've followed John Mayer's twitter account for a while (along with about a million other people) and he has a quirky, fun, unabashed, slightly snarky style that I find amusing.

His tweet on Sunday threw me for a loop:

"Thank You Toronto. Here is my friend Isaac I was telling you about. He made me the valentine card tonight. http://bit.ly/dmekJQ"

If you read the posts on the blog at the linked site, it tells a bit about a young boy named Isaac who is fighting a rare disorder known as MPS VI. Isaac has been a John Mayer fan for much of his young life and over the last couple years has been able to meet him on several occasions. Most recently, John Mayer was to play a show in Toronto last weekend and arranged to have Isaac and his family take in the show. There is an account of the evening from Isaac's parents in their blog, but this video is a pretty cool view of it as well.

You know, that's pretty freaking awesome. Good on you, John Mayer. Don't let the bastards grind you down -- keep doing it the right way...

Been a while...

Chris — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:54:00 GMT

I've been remiss in posting anything here, as I have been lazy and post mostly to my twitter page when I feel the urge.

Today, while catching up on articles, I came across some 'best of' posts Wil Wheaton included on his blog, and one of them referenced something I found moving when I read it the first time, and re-reading it I am again stirred by its naked honesty and purity of expression. Nothing earth-shattering, just some good quality capture of what it is to be human and to feel.

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/08/in-which-some-comfort-is-found.html

Having dealt with some of the very same emotions (both feeling comforted by a close canine when very sad, and dealing with the death of said canine) I find his anecdote to be particularly poignant.

I still miss that darn Dusty Dog.

Where there is a will...

Chris — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:19:00 GMT

Somehow, I hadn't heard of this before, but this is a little bit of the story of a very neat individual...

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/29/the-boy-who-harnesse.html

What it means to be a daddy...

Chris — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:07:00 GMT

When you catch a foul ball - the first one you ever have - at a MLB game, and are so excited to share it with your child...

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4479580

...and she throws it back. What can you do -- give her a big hug and remember that there are more important things in life.

The look on his face is classic, but when his little girl realized she goofed and felt bad he immediately went into protective daddy mode -- that just made my day. Precious. They ended up getting several replacement baseballs, and a bunch of media attention, to boot, so it ended up even better than he could have imagined, but I am proud of him for having his priorities right.

Rather eloquent, but not from me...

Chris — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:27:00 GMT

The best argument I have seen yet to quit bitching about crap and get on with living...

"Breathing, by the way, is invariably fatal, if you keep at it long enough."

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/31/why-the-space-shuttl.html#comment-577909

The context of the article and comment thread only add credence to my train of thought.

Go ahead and dance, the others will join...

Chris — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:21:00 GMT

This makes me smile a lot. Just what I needed.

iTunes is garbage

Chris — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:49:00 GMT

I assume this is a widely held belief since there is no way this software is liked by anyone who actually attempts to use it. I have an extensive library of music, most of which was pulled from vinyl or CD by me, and nearly all of which I have laboriously tagged and organized. Not only does iTuned start very slowly (even on a newish dual-core laptop with 2GB of RAM) but trying to add my library to the iTunes library takes nearly an hour. If that was a one-time cost, I guess I could live with it, but as I rip more of my CD collection and add new music (from outside iTunes) I have to repeatedly manually add folders or readd the whole library. Why can't iTunes monitor folders? (MediaPlayer and other solutions can!)

All that aside, I find the interface to pretty much blow. I am not an Apple fanboy (obviously) so I can say with a fair amount of certainty, that this interface is not an innovation or an improvement over anything else out there. Library navigation is impossibly slow and honestly, the fact that I can't easily replicate my tried and true organization is frustrating. I understand that the designers believe their organization is what I should use, but they're wrong, and it is annoying. I don't want everything only visible by tag, as Dave Matthews, Dave Matthews Band, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, The Dave Matthews Band, and Dave Matthews Band and Phish all are in one folder for me. Changing the artist doesn't help because it creates inaccuracies. So now I have to manually create playlists to recreate my organization structure -- damn you iTunes.

I would have thought that folder organization was pretty common when creating a library of music -- am I alone here?

I say again, the ukulele is the instrument of happy...

Chris — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:30:00 GMT

851 ukuleles and their owners rocking together. Now *THAT* is a jam session!

ukes = happy

Chris — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:25:00 GMT

The Last Lecture

Chris — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:41:00 GMT

The late Dr. Randy Pausch gave this great lecture back in 2007. Take the hour and 15 minutes to watch it or go out and get the book and read it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=ji5_MqicxSo

http://www.thelastlecture.com/

A good read...

Chris — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT

I recently ran out of sci-fi to read so I looked at my stack of books and realized one of my birthday presents hadn't yet been cracked open. I had been skeptical due to a couple of Recod Eagle articles that made me cringe due to perceived braggartism. But I decided to give it a go and picked up http://www.amazon.com/River-Home-Explorations-Jerry-Dennis/dp/0312254156. Boy, was I wrong to be a skeptic. This book is really quite good, and righ off the bat, the author tries hard to make the reader realize that he is out to win over anyone with preconceptions. He is successful in my mind. Thanks to Jo and Jerry for the quality read, I am bummed it is done. I actually cried like I was reading "Where the red fern grows" when I read the passages at the end (I don't want to ruin it!). I want my wife to read it, if just for the TC connection, but anyone with a heart and a love for the outdoors would like it. The first 2/3rds are heavily Fly fishing, but the last two chapters are near-Hemingway quality short stories and are quite wonderful. Buy the book if you love fly fishing and reading about it. Get it from a library or friend and read the last couple chapters if you just need a good emotional outdoors story or two... Good stuff, either way. I would be overjoyed to bump into this guy on a river someday and admit my naivete when it comes to the art...

Where ya been?

Chris — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:10:00 GMT

I'm still around, but I have been fairly distracted lately. My attempts to establish a workout routine have been somewhat successful, but then again, an always changing schedule makes it hard to stick to. With some nice warm weather occurring lately, I have been allowing myself the indulgence of evenings on the deck with a good book, instead of watching TV or sitting at a 'puter. I read Amerika (Franz Kafka), Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) and Anathem (Neal Stephenson) over the last month or so. Probably better for my brain than watching Enterprise or American Chopper. Also, after spending some time removing a couple of stumps from my yard (no small task, that) we had the joy of a sewer backup and subsequent 'crushed-pipe' scare that had me quite uneasy. Luckily, it was some 'creative' plumbing, and the sewer is again clear and working and I didn't have to trench the whole yard (phew!). I have been getting out whenever possible and riding the bike. The trail I ride is young, and somewhat punishing on a rigid, but I am enjoying trying to ride it at least once a week.

So, posting to the website has taken a backseat to the rest of life for a while. Stay tuned, I'll be around...

Science 'rocks'!

Chris — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:25:00 GMT

A rock song about mitochondria? Okay. At least it is fairly accurate...

http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2009/05/quite_possibly_the_only_song_d.php

Warren Buffet is just plain cool.

Chris — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:40:00 GMT

Go watch this video of Warren Buffett spending a day with the girls at Girls Inc. of Omaha, helping them to learn to use the 17 new Hilo ukes he brought them. This just makes me happy...

Backstory here...

You don't have to be a billionaire to do great things for the world. The only thing this cost was time, and to see him give that so freely to these deserving young women is really cool. Plus, it involves ukes!

Neat.

Chris — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:50:00 GMT

A friend just forwarded this to me. Very cool.

"Stand by Me" performed by musicians around the world from SKAT on Vimeo.