Random

It’s been a while since I posted last. Try (again) to get this going. I have been more or less pleasantly busy over the past couple months in both my professional and personal lives. Professionally we’ve had plenty of work to keep us busy and personally my wife and I have been trying to eek out the most of Seattle’s short-lived summers this year. We’ve gone out camping a number of times and went on a week-long road trip as well. The road trip we started writing up a post for, but we have yet to finish it, I’ll probably post it soon anyway. We’ve also taken pictures of everything.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve kind of given up on making my Flickr account “cool”. I used to try to weed through the thousands of pictures I’d take and do some Photoshopping to them to make them a bit more artistic in nature…no more. This resulted in not many photos online, because I don’t have time for that… So if you visit my Flickr page now, you’ll see *lots* more pictures going forward in the future as I’m just uploading now. And the thing that actually made it the easiest to do for me so far was actually a Microsoft product…if you can believe it.

Windows Live Photo Gallery is pretty nice as simple photo management tools go. Although it seems to be different on Vista and XP, and the XP version surprisingly is better. Go figure. It’s a Vista app that they retro-graded for XP…and made cooler in XP. But in XP it will allow you to sort your photos intor directories and tag them upon import, which is very clean and intuitive. And once you’ve got them in your library, if you right click on any image (or selection of images) you can choose “More Services > Publish on Flickr…” and upload directly to your Flickr account.

When I found that out (the uploading to Flickr via Photo Gallery) I also learned that Flickr no longer has any limits or restrictions for paying members. Yippee. This fits very nicely into my “upload the whole damn card” mantra that has taken over my photo habits.

-Chris

My sister has a couple photos of the two of us floating around her house on display and I wanted to reciprocate the favor. I came across some photos at my house today and got a good one showing off my sister and myself with our mad youthful stylee…

I must admit, my sister was way cooler than I was, I mean look at those eyes…

The journey back to XP has begun. I have traveled numerous times to the land of Vista and it’s many hamlets (Ultimate, Home, Business, etc.) and have not been impressed. They have some fancy shiney buildings here and there, and occasionally you run into areas where they’ve figured out a new way to work better or more efficiently.  But unfortunately for Vista’s adoption with me my old OS can learn these new tricks now (Like the Photo Gallery, etc.), and Vista also comes with much more inefficiancies than it does efficiencies.

So my vacation was the second to last straw in my Vista experience with the last straw being me installing SP1 (which took like an hour and a half) and finding that again, some things do run better (network copying primarily for me so far) but most of the other issues are still there and I got some new ones to boot (like Photoshop now crashes on me regularly).

So I’ve spent the majority of my morning downloading Windows XP compatible drivers for my Sony VGN-TZ170N (~450 MB total of drivers and software) and backing up my laptop. Drivers for this laptop can be grabbed from Sony’s website. If you don’t feel like doing a fresh install for some reason, Sony is also offering a Windows Vista “downgrade” DVD to bring you back to Windows XP for $10, you can find this offer here. My plan is to attempt to do a fresh XP install and gauge performance/battery life/features, etc. If for some reason that is also an unhappy world, I will use my Vista Restore DVD that I created (I should probably track that down now ;) at least it would be a fresh install of Vista and I might get the option to not install all the Sony crap-ware upon reinstall.

In my download process for the drivers, I documented what all the file names are and what they do, and I tried to find out what any of the more obscure drivers/software packages where and document that as well. I’m attaching these notes to this post.

Well I was trying not to blog again until I was able to get my laptop retro-fitted with XP. I tried two different installs to get XP working on my VAIO, but was unable to get my Bluetooth working in either scenario. So I’ve gone back to the factory install of Vista for the time being. But returning back to the factory install I noticed a piece of software I think I uninstalled when I originally got my laptop, it was a little utility that allows me to custom configure which of my wireless devices are active, called SmartWi I believe. So I may attempt my XP foray again soon and make sure I get that app installed, as that may be where my downfall lied. Anyway, just wanted to try and get a blog post going again.

I just returned from Hawaii (Oahu/Waikiki) and had a lot of fun. I’ll post more on that later, but for now I think this is going to be my last post from Vista. Below is a post I wrote up while on vacation, but I had problems connecting to the Internet due to Vista so I didn’t bother to post it while actually on vacation. Anyway, an update to the post below is, I’ve downloaded Vista’s SP 1 and my Vista experience still blows, so nothings changed, except Photoshop now crashes on me regularly…now the vaction post:

Vista is a piece of garbage. I bought a new laptop towards the end of last year (2007) and of course it came preinstalled with Vista. This particular flavor was of the Business variety. I bought the laptop as a means of having a functioning computer for traveling, with the notion that my workstation at my office would continue to be my real work horse. So I thought having Vista on it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, as I’d mostly be using it for browsing the web, checking email, and the occasional game. It’s now March of 2008, and using my computer exactly as I have described previously, Vista has become slower and slower, and less and less effective.

I really can’t believe that a product could suck this much. My start up times have declined, sometimes my fingerprint scanner doesn’t work…sometimes it does. My built in webcam, hardly ever works these days. I’m sure that’s not only Vista’s fault, it’s probably some rogue program grabbing hold of the cam and not letting other programs use it…but it is adding to my frustration.

I’m currently on vacation and attempted to connect to my hotels in room Internet rip-off. My computer would recognize that a cable was plugged in, but would not obtain and IP address, and would not connect to the network as such. I ended up having building maintenance verify that the room wiring was working well, and had to talk to their ISP provider. The provider tech promptly told me that they have a lot of problems with Vista talking to their network… He gave it a valiant effort to connect, but in the end… I was left with trying to leech some free WIFI from my balcony, or going to the building’s lobby where they also have WIFI. So the one major purpose I bought the freaking laptop for… using Internet while traveling, doesn’t freaking work, because Vista doesn’t like to talk to this hotels network. Have I mentioned Vista sucks? I’m sure I could let my stream of consciousness flow and puke out all kinds of other problems I’ve had, but this satisfies me for the moment.

I tried Vista Ultimate when it came out, and installed it on my workstation. It sucked. I hated the experience. I promptly uninstalled it and reinstalled Windows XP. As soon as I return home, I plan to wipe my laptop clean, and install Windows XP on it as well. E-gads…what a flaming pile of crap. The only regret I have is that I won’t be able to tell my parents “just install Windows XP”, so I’m still going to have to support Vista. What a flaming pile of crap though, I mean seriously. We waited how long for something that just does not work?

Here’s my current wish, that I could reliably install OS X on my computer, and get all my software that has a compatible OS X version to let me switch my license from PC to Mac. I’m really done with Windows, I just don’t have a great alternative to a switch. Mac is the next best thing, but I don’t want to buy all new hardware just to get a new OS.

The joys of the Internet… and WiFi, and whatever. I just finally sat down this week to write a blog post, was going to be quick, and I ended up actually covering a decent amount of updates and of course when I hit submit….I lost connectivity. So I hit my back button in the browser and hope to goodness that my post is still cached…of course not. Sigh…

Well the gist of my failed post was that I’ve been busy lately. I’ve been busy at work and a bit frustrated, so inevitably blogging for me falls to the bottom of the queue. But I’d really like to keep doing it, I feel like it is an attainable creative outlet for myself in these busy times. Even if my “creativity” is just brain dumping text onto the web :).

If you’re bored, we finally added some information about our company on the Skull Squadron website, along with short bios and awesome portraits. We had some fun in the office pulling the pictures together and getting them all pimped out.

Today I was able to hang out with my good buddy, Brian Dart. We were able to just chat and bounce ideas around about things that would be fun, and what not. Typical, “we could do that” conversation. I love those things, because I really feel that we can do a lot, if we apply ourselves… Why does applying have to take so much energy? ;) Anyway, with my busy busy self lately I haven’t been able to get in that fun “we can do anything” zone lately, so it was super awesome to go there today. We might get a repeat tomorrow, I’m hopin for that.

Also on the docket for activities soon, is a trip to Hawaii. Gonna get to see my friend Isaiah that I haven’t seen in a number of years. And going to get to bath in golden sunshine and warm salty waters. I can not wait. The sunshine is too few and far between in Seattle. I need something new. It will be very nice to get away though, hopefully I can get a little bit of a brain reset.

Oh, one last bit of news for today, I bought a book recently. It’s called “How to be a rockstar freelancer“. I found it reccommeded on a number of sites a week or so ago. It look interesting so I went ahead and picked it up. What I was really hoping it would be, since I’ve freelanced for a while, was affirmation that I was on the right track and not doing things “wrong”. I knew I was really, otherwise I wouldn’t be still doing it, but I like reading other peoples thoughts that align with mine. Anyway, I haven’t read all of the book yet, but it is really easy to read, and has already given me that feeling that I am indeed on the right track.

That’s it for now.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always been fascinated by a particular part of my heritage. I’m 1/4 Hungarian, among many of European flavors. But for some reason the Hungarian aspect really stood out to me. I use the word fascinated, because I think it’s more like a fantasy to me. I’m interested in it, but not to the point of actually learning anything substantial. I’ve bought a Hungarian/English dictionary, I had a Hungarian exchange student friend in high school that I played soccer with (Gergei or something similar was his name), and I read a little about some minor history. I’ve tried to ask my grandfather and my great aunt about stuff, as they are 2nd generation (it was my great grandfather/mother who both came over from Hungary) but they don’t really know a lot. I guess my great grandparents had the classic immigrant mentality that they didn’t want to talk about where they came from in hopes of integrating themselves and their family better into American society.

It’s really such a shame, I wish I had more of a connection with some aspect of myself and where I came from. I do know that our last name was originally Büdi, and not Budy. When my great grandfather went through Ellis Island, they decided his last name wouldn’t be easy to pronounce in English, so they opted to change it for him. Oh gee, thanks. So instead of having a cool looking foreign name that is pronounced “Boo-dye”, they change the i to a y and strip out the oomloughts leaving us with a name that is so incredibly often pronounced “Boody”… sigh. What a great experience that provided through my schooling years. Every year, a new teacher, every year the first day of school, every year roll call, every year, “Christopher….um….Boo….Boo..dy?”, every year tons of laughter from my classmates, who never tired of this. Due to the resilient nature of kids, I was able to shake it off. Somehow I always got past it. In 7th grade, one kid decided he would try to get to me, and he called me “Boody” all year, every day. But I just adopted it as a nickname that year, so that everyone called me that, and I didn’t care, I just responded normally. I think it kind of took the thunder out of the name calling.

Anyway, I’d love to someday make it over to Hungary, just to see some land that is associated with my blood. I’m sure I still have relatives over there as well, but I don’t think anyone of my family on this side of the ocean are aware of them. It’d be such a trip to be able to locate someone over there. Maybe if I make a bajillion dollars some day I’ll hire a P.I. to go find them…shaw, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Ran across mention of this conference today.

This sounds pretty interesting and exciting as far as conferences go. Having all sessions recorded and cataloged for later viewing sounds very useful, no more missing out on a session because there were too many good ones at the same time. I also like the idea of this local “grass roots” meeting areas, etc. Anyway, it’s something that I will try to keep abrest of as it develops.

Well, not really. I haven’t posted in a couple of days. I still would like to post some pictures from some of my more recent outings/activities, but life at home has been a little busy. And I started to get a little lazy at home again, trying so hard not to fall into that routine.

Anyway, I’ve been placing ideas for blog posts as drafts so that if I am at a bit of a loss for topics, I can turn to an already started draft. This was one of them.

Some time ago, I might be able to actually dig up the date some how, I wanted to create a song. I’ve always had kind of a mental list of things I’d like to do/accomplish at some point in my life. And one of them was to write a song and get it created. My dear friend Landon Moblo was instrumental in helping me achieve that goal. So I wrote some lyrics for a song, brought it to Landon’s apartment and said what can we do with this? He helped me break it up into a couple of versus and chorus and the concept of repeating verses at different times, etc. He then set about creating a guitar riff on his “not a toy” guitar. (This guitar seemed abnormally small, and he had a sticker on it that said “this is not a toy”) Once he had the riff, he crafted a bass line by tuning the guitar down, and then rocked out a sweet drum line on his little pawn shop scavenged drum machine. So sitting there in his apartment, above Taco Del Mar on 6th Ave in Tacoma, we then began to assemble all the pieces on what I believe was his 4-track. Then the fun times really started, because I began to sing… I did the best I could, and in the end I was incredibly stoked for what we (mostly Landon) had created in a couple hours. I still have the cassette tape in a box in my closet, but a while ago I actually digitized it for posterity.

I’ll probably regret it at some point, but if you are so inclined, here’s a link to it so you can judge for yourself my 18/19 year old song writing skills when couple with Landon. I also have the lyrics for this still written down, I might scan them in and update this post later.
Here’s us back in the day for halloween one year around this time:

A creation by Chris Budy and Landon Moblo.