std::cout <<"Hello World\n";

Sorry for the lack of updates... for anyone that still visits. I've been busy programming image manipulation software, studying technical Japanese, Helping kick off the Hoofer Ski and Snowboard Club, and planning Homecoming Week (this week!).

Everything will die down starting next week, then I will be back to reading my regular amount of newspapers/magazines/books/blogs and sharing whatever I find interesting (and I hope you do too).

listed in: life, programming, school | ∞

Dave Matthews

Hello. I'm still alive. Moving apartments left me without internet for a couple weeks, but I should be back to posting regularly. What has happened since my last post? Not much, working a lot. Survived another round of flooding, although not as bad as last year. Sold t-shirts at Dave Matthews up in Alpine Valley. That was a lot of fun. Got to catch the middle of the show both nights. Caught a few pictures (below) and video clip.

Class starts tomorrow. I'm actually pretty excited.

listed in: life, music | ∞

What I Carry

I recently stumbled across this Flickr Group where people empty their pockets and bags, and explain the typical things they carry with them every day. I killed a few hours going through many of the photos thinking "Oooo, that's a good idea". Common items? iPhone and a Moleskine. Now I just need an iPhone. Although, I'm pretty much at maximum capacity of stuff to carry. I'm pretty prepared.

Click on the Flickr photo for notes on the items.

listed in: life, trends | Comments (1)

Got My Wii Back

So. My Wii broke. Well, not broke, but I was seeing more and more green artifacts on the screen to the point that it got quite annoying. A quick Google search found that many people were having this problem. Apparently (not confirmed by Nintendo) it was because in standby mode, with wireless setup, my Wii was "phoning home", but not turning the cooling fan on resulting in a baked graphics card. Since I had my Wii for less than 90 days I sent it in for a free warranty repair. It took about 2 weeks, but I finally got my Wii back. With the console I got a note: "After thoroughly testing your Nintendo component, we could not duplicate the problem you were experiencing... [but] we have replaced the component that may have caused the problem you experienced". Which was the whole console. And luckily "Your user information has been loaded into your new/repaired unit". Which was nice of them. Although I'm pretty sure this isn't a brand new Wii, because the serial number is smaller than my original. They're probably playing some Wii swapping game. But no more green artifacts. So I'm happy. And from now on, I'm turning my Wii ALL the way off at night.

listed in: life, technology, video games | Comments (1)

Redesign, Again

Yup. I got bored with the old layout. Needed something new, something different than all the other websites out there. And something to help me procrastinate my other web projects. Let me know what you think. I'll probably be tweaking the padding and spacing... well... forever.

listed in: life, website | ∞

They Actually Emailed Back!

I've noticed a trend in the last year or so... Companies are actually responding to my emails. And it makes me happy. I fill out feedback forms with zero expectation of a response, but I've gotten real-life-person replies from the following companies fairly recently:
- Facebook (on multiple occasions)
- Last.fm
- Random House (but took forever)
- Pandora
- Google
- Most UW Departments (except the Union)

How cool is that? The second and seventh most visited sites in the U.S. takes time to reply personally to emails. So why can't these people reply to my emails? (Auto-replies that pretend to be a real person don't count... Yahoo!)
- Amazon.com
- The Daily Cardinal (one of our student newspapers)
- Yahoo
- CNN
- Fox News
- Threadless

I guess the only big difference I can find are the many of the places that reply are fairly newer companies. Maybe they'll eventually get tired of providing customer service too. Hopefully not.

listed in: email, life | ∞

Endless Fear

I just wanted to share my final project from my film production class with everyone.

It was filmed using 16mm silent black and white reversal film and a Bolex camera, and edited on Final Cut Pro. It explores how the editing process can build up suspense in a scene.

The clip shows a similar chase sequence 4 times, building on different elements each time (different shots, different angles, faster cutting, sound effects, and music).

Within the sequences, it also explores differences in film speed, depth of field, and hand-held vs tripod shots.

My film was shown in the "Spring 2007 IFVC Show", which showcased some of the best work from all of the film classes in the Communication Arts department this semester.

(The sound syncs up in real life. The sound is a little slow in YouTube. Also, it's silent at first... so don't crank up your speakers or think they aren't working.)

listed in: film, life, school | Comments (3)

Blue Man Group

On an impulse, I went to the Blue Man Group in Madison today. It was only three blocks away from my apartment, so it was hard to resist.

listed in: life, Madison, music | ∞

The Chase

I present to you the very first film I've ever created. In my media production class I'm fortunate enough to be able to work with actual film (who hasn't done digital video on a computer?), so this was an excellent learning experience.

This was filmed with a spring-wound Bolex camera on 16mm black and white reversal film. It took me 200 feet of film to get all the footage I needed, and took about 5 hours to edit down (by hand... with scissors and tape) to about the 60 foot (two minute) narrative we were required to do.

I was more worried about the exposure settings on the camera that some of the continuity of the clip isn't what I would have liked, but it's a fun little film :) It looks MUCH better projected... the film wasn't prepped for digital conversion.

listed in: film, life, school | ∞

My Favorites (2006)

I have sat down and finally compiled some lists I have been trying to for a long time: Favorite books, TV shows, movies, and musical artists. Not necessarily things from 2006, but just what I like at this point in life. The items in the lists are in no particular order (that would have been too hard). I hope to reevaluate these in a year and see how my tastes have changed.

listed in: books, life, movies, music, tv | Comments (2)

Lewis Black

Lewis Black came to Madison today. His "home away from home" he said. I went to see him. Sat in the nosebleed section, but he was still hilarious from 500 feet away. And his routine was different from his new HBO special (which I saw), so I was pleasantly surprised.

He wasn't happy with the audience's sometimes hesitant laughs and political correctness. "Leave that bullshit for campus!" barked Lewis.

listed in: comedy, life, Madison | ∞

Ski Trip to Steamboat, CO

I just got back from my skiing trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It was a lot of fun!

The big downside to the whole trip was the 24-hourish bus ride there and back. I was not impressed at all with the bus company our school choose (Cavallo). First off, they were late on both the trip there and back. They were also unprepared (didn't bring tire chains for a trip to COLORADO), disorganized (winged the route as they went), and just didn't think ahead (ended up doing stuff like taking 3 short stops within an hour or so for driver change, gas, and food instead of planning it better and taking 1 long stop and doing it all)

But I had a great time skiing... which was the reason for the trip. This was my first trip out west, so I don't have any other basis for comparison, but I thought the hills were great. The runs were long, diverse, and challenging. I tried to hit all 165 trails throughout the 5 days that I skied, and I think I got them all besides a couple of the insane double-black diamonds. I have never been as exhausted as I was skiing in Colorado. The easier runs in Colorado were comparable to the hardest ones in Wisconsin. The weather was also beautiful-- between 30 and 36 all week. I usually ended up taking off layers of clothes during lunch.

I just had such a great time! I just wish it snowed more during the week. I enjoyed the natural powder... something I don't have the pleasure of skiing on here.

listed in: Colorado, life, skiing, travel | ∞

Wheeeeeiiii

I'm probably the last person to give the Wii a try and write about it, but if you haven't had the opportunity feel free to read on.

I went over to a friend's house who recently purchased a Wii and we popped in the game Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz because it has several mini-games you can play with multiple people in a tournament fashion.

As everyone knows by now, the Wii has a unique controller that is motion sensing. It knows if you roll the controller left/right, tip it up/down, move it toward/away from the screen, left/right, or you can use it like a laser-pointer and point on the screen what you want.

Some games required a "nunchuck", which was a second controller you plug into the first and hold in your other hand. It had similar motion sensing.

It had a steep learning curve. Not that I don't know how to move a controller up and down, but almost every one of these mini-games had a different way to move. Some were natural movements, others were not so intuitive.

listed in: life, technology, video games | Comments (1)

First Hockey Game

FINALLY went to my first UW-Madison Men's Hockey Game. What a blast! The (Herb) Kohl center is a beautiful venue, and there seemed to be so much energy at the game. Although I didn't catch on to all the cheers, they were much more... creative... than the football ones.

One of the best parts of the game? When band director Mike came and ripped up the newspapers of two guys who were sitting down instead of dancing along to the band. Too funny!

Am I going to try to go more this year? Yeah! Buy season tickets for next year? Definitely.

listed in: life, school, sports | ∞

Homecoming 2006

Good Times.

listed in: life, school | ∞

Another School Year Begins

Hey. I'm still alive.

At the beginning of August I started training for my job as Involvement Coordinator in one of the UW-Madison Residence Halls. Basically, I work with involved students to put on educational and social programming in the halls. It is a lot of fun, but very time consuming, which is why I haven't been able to update this much. However, things are winding down and you should see updates more often.

If you have visited before, I tweaked the layout a bit. Simplified things a lot so it is more usable on your end, and easier to keep up on mine. Leave any comments about it by clicking that link on the bottom of the entry.

Everything has been going well, except a couple of things that annoy me:

People don't read. Everyone is all up-in-arms about the Facebook Development Platform (saying that Facebook is using this to sell information), but nobody knows what it actually is. Facebook Development Platform is a way to allow ordinary people such as myself to program fun add-ons to Facebook, like map your friends or Billmonk. They aren't selling anything. And if I were to sign up to use the Facebook Development Platform for a website, I would never be able to obtain your contact information from your profile... ever. And simply, if you don't want a 3rd party developer to use your information for their application, DON'T USE IT.

People are oblivious to their surroundings. Some of the first-year students here still haven't figured out they need to walk across busy streets with their eyes open, head up, and iPod off. One frustrating thing are the large number of pedestrians walking down the bike lane next to University Square because the sidewalk is closed. I emailed the City of Madison who promptly put up "PEDESTRIANS PROHIBITED" (with a picture of a guy crossed out) and "BIKE LANE ONLY" (with a picture of a bike) signs at the entrance. People don't seem to see them, or they don't care. And they wonder why they keep getting hit by frustrated bikers, who don't care either.

Don't sit in an aisle seat of an empty row in a lecture hall. I fear this problem will never be solved.

I've also been emailing back and forth with the Athletic Department to do something about the horrible Student Section Football Lines. We'll see if they use any of my suggestions next weekend.

listed in: Facebook, life, Madison, school | ∞

New Canon Digital Camera

I got a new digital camera today, the Canon PowerShot SD600 6MP Digital Elph (right). I bought it to replace my 3-year old Olympus 4MP Camedia C-4000 (left). The reason for buying this camera was different than the reasons for buying my old one. I bought my Olympus because of the image quality. At the time, it took top-of-the-line photos with great quality, especially in the dark... and the pictures are still great compared to cameras today. I bought the Canon because the Olympus was way too big to carry around in my pocket, and the startup time was 12 seconds... by the time it turned on, whatever I wanted to take a picture of was gone. The Canon starts up in less than a second.

listed in: life, photography, technology | ∞

I love my IBM Thinkpad x40

I love my IBM Thinkpad x40. Weighing at just under 3lbs with the battery life of 5 hours and being the size of a spiral notebook, this ultra-portable laptop has been a breeze to carry around campus.

I am going on my second year of having it. Unlike my friends with Dells, I haven't had to call tech support every other week with a hardware problem. In fact, I never contacted tech support until this past weekend. Last week Friday I noticed weird black splotches on the bottom of my screen. They were not on the surface, as I could not rub them off. They were not bad pixels either, but rather something between the pixels and the outer glass.

I have a 3 year parts warranty, so on Saturday I decided to contact support. I pressed the little blue help button right near the top of my keyboard, and after a couple of clicks I was redirected to a simple online form where I typed in my model number, explained my situation, and hit submit. Within the next hour I was called by IBM to confirm my ticket was received, and was told I would be contacted by a technician within the week (On the form I said my issue was not urgent, but I'm guessing if it was, I would have had a technician contact me the next day).

I received a phone call on Tuesday, and was asked what time I would like the technician to come to my house (house call? how cool is that). I scheduled it for this morning at 10am. Assuming IBM support was just like cable/plumbing/heating, I woke up late assuming the technician would be late as well. However at 10am on the dot she called explaining she was here... but looking for a parking spot. Fair enough. There is nowhere to park by my apartment at all. She arrived just minutes later. I explained my problem and she said it doesn't matter, she is just going to replace my entire laptop monitor. (That's like a $600 part!) So she took my laptop apart and installed the new monitor. However... she couldn't quite get it back together and started to get a bit frustrated, trying to force things to snap together that obvisouly didn't. It took quite a bit of assistance on my part to get it together, but when it was finally done, we turned on the laptop and it worked beautifully!

About an hour and a half later, she left, and when I went to close my laptop I noticed a wire was pinched in the monitor frame. It wasn't that big of a big deal... just a couple screws and the frame pops off, I tucked in the wire, and put it back together. Although the repair woman had quite the struggle putting my laptop back together, and in the end didn't do it properly anyway, I was quite impressed with the service IBM had provided me. I was afraid I would have to send my laptop in, which wouldn't have worked out since I need that laptop for school and work. The house call was the coolest thing ever. I checked the monitor, wireless internet, and the keyboard light (anything that was touched by the repair) and it all appears to be in working order. There are a couple bad pixels in the upper-right of the monitor, but that is to be expected with any LCD screen. Those bad pixels aren't that big of a deal.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be billed for the service (warranty only covers parts), but despite the montir replacement, I'm still extremely happy with my IBM Laptop purchase, and for those who don't want an Apple, an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad is the next best thing (assuming Lenovo doesn't screw a good thing up).

listed in: computers, customer service, life, technology | Comments (1)

Chicago Pride

This past weekend I went to visit a friend of mine in Chicago, and Chicago Pride happened to be going on so we decided to check out the parade on Sunday.

It was quite the spectacle. It was approximately 3 hours long... and that was without any gaps between the floats. The types of floats were a lot more diverse than I had expected. While the media makes the parades out to be like all stereotypes there are of the LGBT community, it was a lot more.. sophisticated than that. All the local news stations had floats with their news anchors riding on it, many big companies such as Starbucks, Pepsi, and Miller Lite had floats, as well as several politicians.

Candy wasn't the main item thrown from the floats as per your 'normal' parade. Almost every float had beads (I caught about 30) and many of the bigger companies threw their products from their float. I caught things such as a bag of coffee from Starbucks, a bottle of Juice from Naked, and a bag of chips from Frito Lay, and a mix cd from DJV.

listed in: Chicago, lgbt, life, travel | ∞

New York Tip

I just got back from my week trip to New York with the family. Spent a lot of time with the family, but some highlights were the new Apple Store on 5th Ave: A store design that was more like an art gallery than a store. Probably one of the coolest stores I've ever been in, Times Square, Central Park, Museum of Modern Art: Unfortunately too much to see in just the few hours that we had there, NBC Studio Tour: The SNL set is a LOT smaller than it looks, and Phantom of the Opera: I almost got a couple of obnoxious middle school girls sitting behind me kicked out. It was funny. The house manager was going to get the police if they didn't shut up.

Now, I got a bajillion of emails to catch up on. Econ class starts tomorrow and I go back to work.

listed in: Apple, life, New York, travel | ∞

Public Drunkards

Thursday night I helped out with lighting, sound, and projection for the Public Drunkards. They did an excellent job with their comedy sketch, with viewers demanding another show sometime in the future. The music by Awesome Car Funmaker following was equally as good.

Funny story though. When rehearsing on Tuesday night a big storm hit. We were rehearsing in a room on the second floor of the Humanities building. We were unaware of the torrential downpour at the time, until water started seeping underneath the door. We went out into the hallway to find more water. The water outside was up to our ankles, and flooded the hallway even more when we went outside. When finished playing in the rain outside, we went back to rehearsing in another room when the fire alarms went off. People were coming from downstairs saying the first floor was flooded. We ventured downstairs to find water covering the entire first floor, and water dripping from the ceiling. It was quite a hilarious sight. I think it's a sign that building needs to be knocked down.

listed in: comedy, life, Madison | ∞

Day of Silence

Wednesday was the day of silence where hundreds of UW-Madison LGBT Students and Allies marched to the capitol to support making LGBT bullying and harassment unacceptable in schools. We were joined by High School students for a rally lead by GLSEN. Over 700 of the "Gay? Fine by Me." shirts seen in the picture were sold on campus.

listed in: lgbt, life, school | ∞

Why I Switched my Life to Google

I recently switched over my email from Thunderbird to Gmail and my calendar from Sunbird to Google Calendar.

One of the biggest reasons for this was portability. Almost every hour of the day I'm by a computer-- but a different one. Work, home, computer lab, other job, student organization computer.

The email system our school provides doesn't provide us with much room to store our email, and I don't like to delete email because I'm always referencing an old one. With my other email addresses, IMAP is slow because of the large amount of emails I keep. Gmail is fast, stores everything, and no setup time is required. What I really like? 1) The tagging system instead of folders 2) Significantly more powerful search 3) Great spam filter 4) How it groups emails from the same conversation together -- I frequently have large conversations (8+ people) with several messages each and this keeps track of everything very nicely. Check out the tour. I have invites if anyone wants one.

I was satisfied with Sunbird for quite some time. I shared my calendar between installations of Sunbird on other computers using WebDAV. This worked well except when I wasn't at a computer with Sunbird (and was at a computer lab where I was unable to install it). I installed PHP iCal on my server which provided a very well laid out read-only version of my calendar, but I was unable to add anything to it. Google Calendar allows me to read and write using a great interface, and still has the open format and portability of iCal. Some bonus features? 1) PDF Printable Calendars created on-the-fly 2) Powerful calendar sharing settings 3) Ability to drag and drop calendar entries and resize them without going through any pages. Check out the tour.

One of the best things with using Gmail and Google Calendar? They work together. Gmail searches your message for natural language concerning an upcoming event, and offers a link to add it right to your calendar. Cool huh.

listed in: Google, life, technology | ∞

German engineering in da house, Ya

... not exactly, but rather an engineering undergrad down the hall. Oh Snap.

listed in: engineering, life, school | ∞

Lutsen Mt Ski Trip

The skiing trip was great!
Couldn't have been a better way to spend time with some of my best Kronshage friends.

Madison in 5 days.

listed in: life, skiing, travel | ∞

LDI Trade Show & Conference

I just got back from the LDI Trade Show & Conference. It was really cool. I learned a lot about the newest in theatre technology, and they treated you with respect, regardless of age.

Some of the cool technology showcased:

* Tapered Top Hat by Apollo
* SeaChanger Color Changer for ETC Source 4s
* All of the LED lighting instruments
* LED Products by Main Light Industries (like the stuff used by U2)
* The Vista Lighting Board by Jands -- This had to be the coolest, most powerful, easiest to use lighting board I've ever seen. I want one.

... there was a lot more. I have a huge box full of brochures and such I got.

listed in: Florida, life, theatre, travel | ∞

Recent Fun

What a last couple of months.

The nighttime Michigan-Badger game has to be the best game I've ever been to.

Cap'n Kronsh's Crew put in a lot of hard work toward homecoming and it paid off. FIRST PLACE. Third year in a row. We rock!

Halloween however, not so fun. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can now say I know what it feels like to get pepper sprayed. And it hurts. A lot.

listed in: life, Madison, sports | ∞

Chicago Trip

Wired NextFest

Some of the cool things I saw:

listed in: Chicago, life, technology, travel | ∞

Semester Two Highlights

I can't believe the school year is over already. I can't wait for next year.
The highlights from the second half of my freshman year:

LAN Party with my good friends

listed in: humor, life, school, skiing | ∞

Semester One Hightlights

I love madison! I had so much fun my first semester. Highlights include:

Nader came to Madison. He actually gave a really good speech. Yeah, I know Kerry came too but I missed both his rallies.

listed in: art, life, Madison, politics, school, sports | ∞

Skydiving!

listed in: extreme sports, life | ∞

Robotics Competition

I just got back late last night from the FIRST Robotics Competition at Northwestern University, with not enough energy to write this entry till today.

We came in third place (from last) but I had a great time!

When we got there, my jaw just dropped. The setup for this competition was AMAZING. Below is a picture of the setup, one side being the playing field, the other being the pits. We were called about 15 minutes before we went to compete, and were in a constantly moving line from that point on, having an hour between events. The second an event was done, the teams were taking their robots off as the new teams put theirs on, at the same time about 20 people who were running the event were resetting the playing field. It took just a matter of minutes between events! This had to be the most organized thing I've ever seen. They also had live video feeds with flat screens throughout the stadium with score updates and standings and a quite sophisticated setup for the computer systems running the whole event.

listed in: Chicago, life, robotics, school, technology | ∞