Another Beatles book - Beatles Gear

I got a new Beatles book for Christmas, "Beatles Gear". It's a very cool. It's an exhaustive look at all of the Beatles guitars, amps, and drums. It is very fascinating.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Amazon Cloud - the jury is still out

I've been using Amazon Cloud now for a few months. I am using it strictly for backup purposes. I was using Amazon S3, but the unlimited space for $60 a year is about half I am paying for the S3 account.

The problem is that the interface is really terrible. You can login using existing Amazon un/pw, which is great. You can go to amazon.com/clouddrive and start dragging and dropping files, which is also great. You can also install the desktop app, but if you upload file using that, it puts the files in the rooter directory. I can't figure out a way to put files in specific locations using the desktop app. You can go back and move them at amazon.com/clouddrive, but web interface is really bad.

It's all because the web interface is so unresponsive at times. You click on a directory and you wait a few seconds for it to go to that location, or if you create a folder, you wait. Yes, it's only seconds, but those seconds add up.

Sometimes if I am uploading a lot of files, it will become completely unresponsive. I will click on a directory that I know has files in it, and it shows nothing. Sometimes I can refresh the page and they show up, but other times I just can't get it to load the files. Because of all of this, it is taking me weeks to get on my files up there. Yes, I have a TB+ worth of files, but the pitch is "unlimited".

I want to use this to backup my ext hard drive, and do this frequently to back up new and new versions of files. I use "Beyond Compare" to sync my hard drive with another back up HD, but now I want this same functionality in the cloud, so that's why I went to Amazon Cloud.

I am using NetDrive to load my Amazon Cloud account as a drive on my PC, and then I use Beyond Compare to compare my HD with my Amazon Cloud drive. This works, in theory, but NetDrive will always disconnect with Amazon after a while. I would say this is a NetDrive issue, but my experience with Amazon Cloud tells me that it is the weak link.

Once I have everything backed up I will reevaluate. I have well over a TB to get up there, and I'm only half way. It's a long process. I wish I could just get it all uploading and wake up the next day with it done, but that doesn't seem to be an option.

Saints win, but it's been a rough year. And attention...Brees is not done.

The Saints beat the Jags today. It was a classic Brees-era Saints game. The offense put up huge numbers, and the defense gave up huge numbers. Ironically, the D did have two turnovers, so they stopped the Jags from making it close.

Brees was pretty much perfect. He just about had a 70% completion rate with 400+ yards passing and 3 TDs. This dude still has it.

The Brees era is winding down, but he is clearly not done. He might only have a year or two left to play at this level, but that level is Hall-of-Fame caliber, so please get a defense. Please.

Christmas Eve morning run in beautiful weather

It is perfect running weather. Clear blue skies and 70 degrees. I love me some global warming.

I got in a slow but steady 5 miles. Now I'm off to do a little late Christmas shopping and then getting ready for church and a party this evening with friends. It's a really good start to the holidays.

I even did my part by picking up some trash in the park. Somebody threw some beer cans on the ground only 30 feet from a trash can. I guess that was too much trouble for them.

The 2015 Last Chance Half Marathon is in the books...way ahead of schedule

I went out on Sunday (11-22-15) to add a mile to last weekend's 10 mile run. When I started I did think that if I felt good at 11, I would keep on going, but at about 6 miles I decided I was going for it today. The weather was very chilly when I started out, but after I started sweating and the temps warmed just a bit, it was perfect running weather.

I just need to keep up my extended miles (5-6, not 10) up for a while, as I have a plan for my birthday, but that's a month and a half away, so I'll take a little break for a few days.

9.25 miles in the books.

Getting closer to my half marathon goal of 13.1 miles. I was feeling it in my feet the last couple of miles, but pretty positive about adding 4 more. I gave myself until the end of the year, so I am on track.

Actually a little ahead of schedule for this year's "Last Chance Half Marathon".

My 7 miles turned into 8, so even better. My pace is slow, but what else is new. I'm on pace for my usual 2.5 hr half. I'll take it.

Rehearsing with April Samuels and Robbie Wilson for a 49th Vibration show.

Fun show last night with The 1969s at Three Links in Deep Ellum

It's been so long since we've played that I can't really remember the last gig. I believe that it has been a year since our last show. We recorded back in May with Chris Mancini on drums, and that was Chris' last time to jam with me and Scott.

Since then we had Brair Sparkman come in a jam with us, but he wasn't into it. Since then Scott's friend Sal Torneo has been with us and that's working out pretty well.

I looked it up and our last gig was at Club DaDa with Lee Bains II and the Glory Fires, and we played with the same band last night. Lee Bains is pretty cool. They are from Alabama and have a cool kind of Alt Southern Rock thing going on. They have some interesting songs.

I just downloaded their album "There is a Bomb in Gilead" and it's very good. I don't think it represent their live show very much thought. I'll check out some of their other stuff. Maybe other albums do capture that vibe.

Our show went well. We played good and Sal fit right in.

Hopefully we will have more shows soon.

Run in the sun

I am getting ready to go for a run at Arbor Hills. It is 98 degrees so this will be quite miserable I'm sure. It's always a challenge when it gets this hot but it's a great feeling once I finish.

AC at the house actin' up.

My AC was making a weird noise, so I took a look at the filter. It was toast.

As a result of a clogged filter, I had a frozen system that needed to thaw.

After thawing the drain was filling with this gunk that I could not seem to get out of the drain pan.

To clean out the gunk I invented the Cajun Crud Catcher attachment. This attaches to any wet vac system, and replacement parts are available over the counter at any hardware store.

The rain, and all that implies

All the rain has brought these weird growths in the front yard. Apparently they are a type of mushroom called a stinkhorn.






There's also some more normal looking mushrooms too. I'm not sure what theses are called.


Also, we had a huge branch break off on our tree. That poor tree is dying slowly.

Low carb, bad knee, empty stomach, 82 and humid makes for a hard 3 miles

82 feels like 98 today. I have been eating very low carb and I have not eaten today so that made for a very hard for 3 miles. my knee wasn't feeling that great either. Now that the whining is out of the way, it did feel good. And when I say it felt good I mean it felt good to be finished with the run.

Running with Daisy on the greenbelt

Daisy is an older dog now but she doesn't seem to get tired. Now me on the other hand...

I am about to try and get a run in before it starts raining again

I am about to give it another go on my knee. The sprints and squats on Monday really had my knee hurting but it's a little better today.

It's crazy how many different pieces of software I use as part of a normal work week

I tried to make a list. This does not include email and non work-related apps and websites.

I'll say, if I use it every week, I'll list it.

Adobe: 
Photoshop
Illustrator
Fireworks
Dreamweaver

Amazon Cloud Drive
Dropbox
Cloudberry
FileZilla
MS Word
MS Excel
notepad

Web based apps:
Silverpop
ExactTarget
Litmus
Basecamp
Trello
Tenrox
W3C Markup Validation Service
JSLint
Hightail
base64decode.org
Evernote
Toggl

FireFox Extensions:
Fireshot
Firebug
FireFTP

Café Bene to get my day going

I stopped by my favorite Korean coffee shop on my way to work. Okay, it's the only Korean coffee shop that I know of. The coffee is awesome and if it had a drive thru and 1,000,000 locations I would never go to Starbucks again.

My knee has been really bothering me lately but I'm about to hit the gym and see what happens

Tried to eat good for lunch, but was a pretty half-assed attempt. I ran few sprints afterwards to try and balance it out, but all I did was aggregate my knee. Have to remember and ice it down when I get home.

It's all in the pot. Now we wait.

Starting my Super Bowl seafood gumbo preparation.

Picking out seafood from the Asian market. They have everything that swims, crawls, slithers, etc.

APB show booked! Fri Feb 6th at O'Riley's

APB goes on at 9 pm. Come early, stay late!

The first show of 2015 is sure to be a fun one. We're all fresh off of giving up on any New Year's resolutions, and have decided that we are awesome the way we are.

www.orileys.com
8989 Forest Ln
Dallas, TX 75243

Check out "Faking My Way" by APB.
This pre-release release is a taste of things to come.

Birthday Crawfish - Hellz Yea!

Here is a pic of three of my favorites.

Faking My Way - mix 1-11-15

Please comment:

"Faking My Way" by A Pleasant Blur

http://tinyurl.com/m98c4tq

I tried the new flat white at Starbucks

I tried the new flat white at Starbucks. It was pretty good but nothing special. It is not very sweet so do not expect the usual milkshake tasting latte.

New years resolution crowd at the gym

I am not hating on them. It is just too many damn people at the gym. I am not a shining examples of workout consistency, so I am NOT saying I am any better than they are. I am happy for them that they are working out...but damn.