Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Aggregate.

I was looking around the iPad app store last night and I saw that Microsoft (actually MSN) has an app called MSNOnIt. It’s an online magazine designed for guys, featuring cars, beautiful women and things that guys care about. It’s free so I decided to download it.

I’m a little surprised to say that I actually like it.

The front page of this electronic magazine features a scantily clad Bridgette Bardot which was alright, but once I started flipping through it I found some other interesting things inside: recipes from Men’s Health (much like the recipes in a book my friend dave gave me for Christmas), dating advice, geek and tech toy reviews and the like. Though I have to admit I don’t ever remember reading a Playboy in my life (I’ve never been interested in anything that tame when I’m looking for that sort of thing), I suppose this is like a PG-13 version of Playboy and that you’re actually encouraged to read it for the articles. The software pulls the information in from the various traditional men’s magazine (Men’s Health, Popular Mechanics, etc) so if you’re so inclined I say give it a try. You can always delete it and as they say, hey it’s free, so what do you got to lose?

3 June 2011 by J.P. Geek 0

Geekcitement.

It’s rather exciting times for a computer geek. Apple has announced that they will be announcing their new Cloud service next week at their developer’s conference, WWDC. The new cloud service is called iCloud. Some speculate it’s iTunes in the sky mixed in with MobileMe, all in an effort to make your data available everywhere in the world. Great concept and I hope it does what they hope, because the previous incarnations of Apple’s cloud offerings have been lacking in comparison to the rest of their product line. Personally, I love Dropbox because it works across all computing platforms. I love it so much that I pay for premium space on the cloud. I highly recommend it if you have multiple machines.

Apple is also expected to share much more information on OS X Lion. Who knows, they might even release it to the masses at the conference. Lion is going to blur the line between OS X on the desktop and iOS on the iPhone/iPad/iPod so that they’re more like each other. They want you to swipe all sorts of ways on the big glass trackpads built into their MacBooks.

The various Linux folks are trying to find a new paradigm for their desktops to make this year become the Year of the Linux Desktop. I’ve been reading about the Year of the Linux Desktop since 1999 or so and it hasn’t happened yet. We are getting closer to it though, but various flavors of Linux are changing the rules on a periodic basis so who knows what will come to fruition. Unfortunately, the openness of Linux that I love tends to make it fragmented and without focus. This is good for innovation but in the long run I feel it’s not the best thing for the end user. I wouldn’t ever feel comfortable putting Linux on a family member’s desktop. It’s not there yet.

Then we have Windows. A sneak peek at Windows 8 was announced yesterday and it looks like they are radically overhauling the interface in the next incarnation of Windows, making it more like the “Metro” interface found on their Windows Phone 7 smartphones. I haven’t had a chance to play with a Windows 7 Phone yet, but I do find them intriguing if they work as they promise. The Metro interface features tiles of information; you have a “dial” tile which shows the number of missed calls, a “Facebook” tile which shows what your friends are up to, etc. It’s a nifty idea and I’m interested to see how this extends to the Windows desktop. I know that Microsoft is banking on touchscreen monitors for all, which is a natural extension from tablet and iPad like devices, but as an iPad user, I can tell you that the smudges on the screen, especially after enjoying some non-tots (hash browns) from Dunkin’ Donuts, can get old fast. I do think that Microsoft is on to something here, and I wish Linux (particular Ubuntu) would get it’s act together a little faster to go this route, but now it’ll be just a copy.

One of the issues that Microsoft suffers from is the missteps of the past and the bad press it gets from time to time. Actually, most companies suffer from this. If people would just look at a new product with a fresh perspective instead of saying “it’s just like Vista! Gasp! Horror!” when it’s not, the new product just might have a chance. I was speaking with a geek a while back about how much I love using my MacBook and iPad, and he pooh-poohed me, telling me that Macs weren’t even capable of multitasking, which they’ve been able to do for the past decade or so. Old information doesn’t translate to today. More people need to remember that about technology. Even more people need to remember that about life.

So it’s an exciting time in the geek world and I, for one, am looking forward to what everyone has to offer and dabbling in a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Now I just need a finance advisor that can tell me how to accomplish all this.

2 June 2011 by J.P. Geek 0

Boom.

Mother Nature has chosen to delight us during our lunch hour with a fairly hefty thunderstorm. The skies were flashy and loud as I got settled in for my lunch hour, but she seems to have moved on to another part of the county.

Just to be sure that I was safe in the car, I parked in a slightly different spot than usual so that I would be situated in between the two electric poles behind me, instead of parking directly in front of one. I didn’t want it to fall on the car if it got struck by lightning and it happened to fall in my direction.

It’s good to plan for these sorts of things.

I have had a reoccurring dream over the years that involves me getting struck by lightning. I’ve had this dream since elementary school. I’m not worried about that happening today though, because in the dream I am standing on some sort of porch or deck and I think I’m standing behind a mobile home. Since none of these elements are currently in place I have decided that today is not my day to be struck by lightning.

The light and sound show is fairly impressive though. We are suppose to get thunderstorms throughout the day. It may make for a lively ride home tonight.

1 June 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Chicago.

So this past weekend Earl and I saddled up Jamie and Scott and we headed to the Windy City for an extended weekend vacation. The occasion was a bear run called BearPride. The forecast for the event was that there would be big burly guys that like other big burly guys, and their admirers. The forecast was right. Lots of eye candy to behold.

Wednesday afternoon we headed west on Interstate 90. All was good and normal, including the mandatory construction in Erie, Pa. (why is Pennsylvania ALWAYS under construction?), until we got to Cleveland, Ohio. Where dark, ominous clouds littered the sky. The winds picked up, rotation in the clouds was evident and the skies let loose as the winds went crazy. As I was behind the wheel, we continued through the storm, watching many cars hydroplane and others try to drive through the flooded out roads, but we held our own and was only delayed a little bit.

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Interstate 90.

We ended up spending the night in beautiful Toledo, Ohio. We made the rest of the trek to Chicago on Thursday, where we arrived mid-afternoon. And it was cold. Very cold. Like 50Fs cold. But we didn’t let that dampen our spirits too much.

Thursday we socialized and ran into some old friends and made plenty of new ones.

Earl enjoyed carrying Jamie’s camera.

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Strangled in Print.

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza which is right next to Interstate 90. A good hotel, for the most part and a place I would stay again. It is on the edge of Greektown, so we went to a couple of Greek restaurants, an Irish pub and an Italian place. It all makes sense when you think about it in a worldly way.

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Scott and Earl at the Irish Pub. We were deaf because two women saw each other for the first time since college (which appeared to be a few decades ago) and they screamed so loud they shattered every beer glass within a five block radius.

Our view was quite nice.

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Daytime.

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Nighttime.

On Friday we met up with our friends Jeff and Mark from North Carolina. They were not at the bear event, but rather at the leather event at the Hyatt Regency on Wacker Drive. I am curious about this name Wacker Drive. It seems suggestive in some ways but it was an appropriate setting for the various goings on in the Windy City. Dinner was good. I think the place we went to was called McCormick and Schmicks. We are going to visit Jeff and Mark in North Carolina sometime this autumn. It’s been too long since I’ve seen them and now everyone else has met them and all is good.

Saturday night we went to the 80s dance party that didn’t have a lot of dance music but it did feature a lot of men dancing in boxer shorts. I opted to wear my Captain America boxer shorts with Captain America’s shield keeping me “well protected”. Sorry, no photos were taken because I’m shy. We had a lot of fun though and it’s been a long time since Earl and I danced on a dance floor together.

On Sunday we went back to the IML (the leather event) to pass through the vendor mart and buy some things to spice up our life. It is there that I met up with a bundle of hot muscle, Brettcajun himself. I always like meeting other bloggers and Brett is just like he is in his blog. LOL.

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It continued to rain throughout the day on Sunday but at least it was warm enough to be able to get through the city streets without your beard frosting up.

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Rain.

All in all it was a very relaxing and fun weekend for us and we were very happy for the experience. When we left on Monday it was sunny and nearly 80F. Mother Nature can be that way.

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Relaxed bears.

31 May 2011 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 2

Flat.

We are just getting back from Chicago. The trip home took about 11 1/2 hours, with a total of 45 minutes of stopping time for rest stops and food. It’s so simple when you just get on Interstate 90 and drive. Traffic wasn’t bad.

I have much to write over the next couple of days once I catch my breath. 0530 comes early tomorrow, so I’ll keep this one short.

One quick thing to mention though; as we were driving between the Indiana state line and Toledo, I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to the type of landscape and plot of land I would like for us to have a house on when it’s time to retire. I might be getting a little Green Acres in all of this, but the flat lands of the midwest and the houses with trees around them, surrounded by acres and acres of farmland, is the ideal setting for me.

I hope the husbear agrees.

30 May 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Omm.

There are many things that I would like to write about, but it seems that I never find the time to sit down and do it. There’s always something to distract me; a YouTube video pops into my head, someone updates their Facebook account and a little notification pops up on the screen, I get in the mood for porn. In this hectic online experience that we all experience today, in a world where we truly want to be creative, we can’t be. At least I can’t be. I don’t know if it’s really, truly ADHD or if I’m just suffering from genuine technological stimulus overload, but when I want to be the most creative is when I’m distracted the most.

I like writing. Over the past year or so I have gotten in the habit of writing in very short spurts of prose. 150 characters here, a few sentences there. I blame Twitter for this, it has put me in the habit of writing in as close to 140 characters per thought as I can. This is rather unfortunate. I sometimes wonder if this has contributed to my occasional challenge of articulating myself, whether I stammer or stutter my words or even forget my train of thought or random words of the English language from time to time. This occasionally happens. I find it embarrassing. I don’t have this issue when I sit down and write.

The reason I am writing a little more than usual today and actually the motivation for this line of thought is because I downloaded a minimalist word processing program on to my MacBook Pro. It is called Ommwriter Dana II. At $4.99, it seems like a good bargain. It gives me a stark, white screen with a few peaceful looking trees on it. As I’m typing, I wear my headphones and hear Eastern type music that is suppose to be motivating and inspiring for me. There are a lot of chimes and windy like sounds. The usual word processing features that one uses the most, font selection, margins, etc., is all here, I just don’t have any windows or icons or anything like that distracting me to look at the latest YouTube video that feeds the thought that is currently drifting in my head. With Ommwriter, I don’t feel like I need to take a break and look at a Wikipedia article on Sandy Duncan (I love her, by the way) or listen to the latest track by Kylie Minogue. I am concentrating on the words I am writing and hopefully, finding a better path to good articulation. When I am done writing this blog entry using Ommwriter, I can simply cut and paste it into my blogging software.

One of the things that we are missing in this multitasking, multi-windowed computing environment is focus. Well at least I am. Back in the days of the green cursor flashing next to the prompt on the black Unix screen or your favorite DOS prompt, we focused on one task at a time on the computer. And it was kind of cool. We focused on the task at hand. I think this lack of multitasking ability gave us the opportunity to carry this one-task focus into our everyday lives, like the “good ol’ days” used to be, when Beaver walked home from school with his friend Larry. They talked, examined a few things along the way, but they were there in the present and current location; they wouldn’t know what Wally was doing at college without a phone call, they didn’t get status updates on a smartphone.

My ability to focus has gone to crap and I will be the first to admit that. And I know that using Ommwriter is not going to change my life or change the world. But at least it gives me a tool to use technology for what I want to do, and that is focus on each moment, in each place for what it is.

We are having a wonderful weekend in Chicago and I will be writing about our experiences when the time is right. We are relaxing and enjoying each moment.

And it feels good.

28 May 2011 by J.P. Macboy Ponderings and Musings 0

Trip.

The plan was to leave for Chicago Wednesday night at 6. We’d find a cheap hotel tomorrow night and finish the drive on Thursday. However, Earl started has tomorrow off from work and everyone is in vacation mode. So I stepped out of the box and requested half a day off tomorrow.

So we’ll be on the road between 1 and 2. Holy Toledo, I think we might make it to Toledo tomorrow night.

24 May 2011 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 1

More Rain.

When it’s raining outside, my lunchtime setup looks like this.

In the past 30 minutes of sitting here for lunch it has rained twice and had three sunny spells. As long as the sunny spells outnumber the rain showers I guess I can’t complain. The weather looks nice for tomorrow, which is a good thing because we start vacation tomorrow night at 4:00 p.m. We’ll be heading towards Chicago tomorrow night. The forecast in that direction is already calling for severe weather tomorrow night, which should keep the drive lively. I hope the rest of the family doesn’t mind chasing a storm if one crops up nearby.

I’m looking forward to meeting a blogger or two this coming weekend while we are at the bear run in Chicago. It’s always good to meet others, that’s why we go to these things.

Fuzzy faces make my fuzzy face smile.

24 May 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Ride.

If you follow my Twitter or Facebook accounts, you may have seen my mention of my bike ride yesterday. I clocked in at just under 25 miles. On a map, it looks something like this:

It was a very good ride. The weather was perfect with it being partly cloudy and at around 65F. I picked a route that I knew would have some hills in it to keep it interesting and to push myself a bit. I am getting more aggressive with my riding this year as I feel a need to find a physical limit and then see if I can move beyond it.

One of the biggest reasons that I enjoy riding so much is because it gives me the opportunity to let my mind wander and to get into my own version of a meditative state. Once I establish my rhythm for the ride (usually 20 or so minutes into a trip), my mind starts to explore and ponder things. I’m still very much aware of everything going on around me; I know there’s cars on the road behind me and I’m conscious of where my bike is at any given moment, but I’m also very conscious of my breathing and I think that’s what gets me into that zen mode that I enjoy when I’m riding.

I have a couple of goals for rides this summer, including a couple of one day trips somewhere. I’d like to do a two day trip, which would involve me hauling my camping gear on the trailer I have for the bike. I tried a two day trip quite a few years ago, but the timing was off and I found myself in a cold rain, freezing in a tent. That trip ended in a phone call to Earl asking him to come pick me up. I wasn’t well prepared for that ride, but I think I could manage it better this time.

I’d also like to ride in Virginia again. I rode with our friend Thom a couple of years ago and it was quite nice. I would certainly enjoy another ride with him.

The weather has not been very cooperative this season. I think if I’m going to continue to want to ride in these parts, I’m going to have to invest in some rain gear.

23 May 2011 by J.P. Fitness. Ponderings and Musings 1

Spiffed.

I decided to install a new theme for the blog to spruce things up a bit. Perhaps the starkness of the original theme was just a little too stark.

I would love to hear your comments on the new digs.

21 May 2011 by J.P. Geek 1

Aggregate.

Geekcitement.

Boom.

Chicago.

Flat.

Omm.

Trip.

More Rain.

Ride.

Spiffed.

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