Busy 2011

Well I decided to not post here until I had something that was worth posting about. And now it seem that I do. 2011 is shaping up to be a busy year. I seriously wonder sometimes what gets into the heads of perfectly sane people. I considered myself to be such a person (perfectly sane that is) and yet I find myself creating more work for myself. This time in the name of mental exercise.

So I'm going to get into the business of creating apps for my phone. Why? Because I can't seem to find any of the apps for my chosen platform yet. Considering that the currently catalog is only 6000+ apps this is not that surprising. To this end I'm going through all of the process to get properly registered. New domain. Check. New domain name that I think is cool.. Check. Start preliminary website design. Check. Have first 3 apps decided upon.. check. Set ridiculous deadlines for completion. and.. check.

Guess we'll see where this goes. Considering that it costs money though to do all of this (not much, but with how cheap my wife tells me that I've become it has become the principle of spending that motivates me to not waste said money) I think I'm in for the long haul.

Plus.. I figure I might as well use that Comp Sci degree finally. For far too long I've managed to escape closet coder destiny.

more to come

Workout Progress #2

Oh.. did I forget to mention that I probably won't make my weight goal for this week.. yes. I have managed to not lose a single pound. Probably has to do with my bad habit of staying up (like now for instance). We'll see tomorrow though. I'm back there for hardcore cardio and core session. Might as well make myself be happy that it's Friday (and my workout is over).

Workout Progress

Fun day at the gym today. I had one of those days where the gym decided it was time to kick my ass. I knew i was in for trouble right from the start during my warm up run. It occurred to me as I trudged through it that the feeling that I was experiencing (that would be feeling like I had cement shoes and was thrown into the river) was one that I distinctly remember right before I started making any progress the last time that I had to get myself back together and not be lazy.

So I managed to trudge through it in spite of everything thing. I think what really helped today was my new running music. Tracks from DJ Tiesto's Kaleidoscope Remixed and the first track (well first section anyway) of Armin Van Buuren's Mirage totally got me through my workout today.

If you haven't heard the latter (Mirage) then do yourself a favour and grab that bad boy. Might be the best slow building cardio/running track I've heard in a long time. Even though I was doggin' it today that track helped me dog it going uphill for my entire warm up run. Definitely awesome track.

Sounds like video game music...

Really? Well check out the vid. You see, I have heard many remarks over the years (generally about bad, repetitious music) about things that sound like video game music. It has always bothered me because all of my favourite games have had their musical scores be one of the most memorable parts of the gaming experience.

Take my favourite series. Final Fantasy. Since the first iteration of that game the music produced has been great. I will admit that in the 8bit days you really couldn't always capture the essence of the music from the modulated music that accompanied those games, but look into the future at the progression of the same theme, the same underlying score and now the essence is fully captured and generally requires symphonies to properly reproduce.

The vid I posted to me shows that video game music is true music, which can be improvised and changed around stylistically while still maintaining its essence. The theme from Mario is a piece of music that I grew up with and I love that it will be as popular for my kids as it was for me. I know this because currently both of my kids love to sing the theme from spider man. Neither have read the comic (not surprising since at 3 and 4 neither can read), and also have not seen the cartoon.

My daughter has just recently found video games. This will eventually lead to her wanting to play mario... because everyone.. everyone plays mario at some point at which point her love of the theme song will begin. Her love of good music. Usually when I hear really good music. I think.. "Now that would be really GOOD video game music!"

Jazzy Super Mario Bros!

And back to the gym. Lots of work to do (again). I've crept up to 218lbs. No worry. I'm hoping by christmas I will have dropped at least 20lbs. I can tell I'm getting older. Myoflex is my new best friend.

Vegas Baby...

So I get the phrase "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!" now..

wait..

First things first.. Lisa (my beautiful wife).. I have NO Vegas stories that have to stay in Vegas.

Ok with that out of the way, back to what I was saying. I suspect that the reason the saying exists is because the people who go to Vegas seem to temporarily lose their minds in search of the Vegas experience. I can't tell you how many people I saw in Vegas that were "hunting". Of more interest was that lots were middle aged women. Of course there were tons of guys doing what guys do, but that is just normal and doesn't require the setting of Vegas. But.. the women.. the blatant "How yoo Doin.." vibe coming off the women was some scary stuff.

And my ego has been thoroughly stroked after my trip. I guess that was nice, but it just made me miss my wife. I almost felt like I had no business being in Vegas without my wife. The whole place is geared to get people in lots of trouble. That being said. I had a great time. I got to hang out with one of my Mentors (MikeS) and that was really cool. Not to say we don't have some funny stories (some of which I might mention later).

Overall.. Vegas was cool.. Ridiculous.. but cool.

Cisco Live

So I managed to finally get to Cisco Live this year.

Blog revivial!

LOL. I think I've said this before. Nobody who knows me knows about this blog.. which makes it interesting.

So.. for 2010 I'll be using it for a few things.

1. My constant and often ridiculous mishaps when it comes to cars. I have been told that I'm simply unlucky when it comes to cars. This might be true. In the last 4 years I've spent about 30,000 fixing my cars (25k of that was 1 car alone). Yes.. I will detail my madness here.

2. Regular foolishness of a married man with 2 very small kids. Since I have no idea who will read this I am not going to put down anything that will end my marriage or anything, but much like with cars, most of my friends often say "OMG that could only happen to you!" when I tell some stories. So here I will not only recount the tale, but might even give my rarely given feelings on said subjects.

3. My hobby progress. Yes.. Silly as it sounds I need to keep track of this stuff.
Current projects are:
Learning regular guitar - will be taken much more seriously this year
Acquiring and learning bass guitar
Operation back to the gym - no sense in wasting the last few years of good hard work!
Project car Rio - lets show people really how geeky you are!

Final thoughts:
I guess it doesn't matter if anyone reads this or not. In fact, I'm pretter sure no one has ever read this blog. Interesting to see if I get any randoms though.

Let the rumpus begin!

Let's see how I do!