Tag Archive for music

My University for a Faster Computer

January 28, 2009 planet3rry No comments

Things would be A LOT easier if my computer would work as fast I did. Hey, no back talk!

So on my (long) list today was to find out if I was chosen as a Pacer for the (Covenant Health) Knoxville Marathon. I haven’t done that much training to date, enough to manage through 10 miles or without much work. If I was going to be a pacer, I would be using Knoxville as a training run. If I wasn’t a pacer, I needed to Volunteer for a Race Day duty (heehee) such as Course Monitor or Course Monitor and I would even settle for a Course Monitor spot.

I sent in my application and waited until January 15th, the date which the pacers would be announced. I couldn’t find any information about it either on the KTC website nor the Marathon Website. I figured that I must not have been needed, as I didn’t get any notice in my email box regardless that it was posted elsewhere.

Today, I went to go email the coordinator and find out for sure. I needed closure… sniff. But I have an email that says “Thank You for Registering for the 2009 Knoxville Marathon”, so perhaps I am on the team. I don’t know… I have an email out. Will Keep you posted.

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Speaking of Running… I haven’t done a whole lot of it this year so far. But when I was in Arizona, I did noodle out my 2009 Schedule from January to Decemeber with the races that I would like to do. There are some others that I would like to do, but other engagements get in the way of them. There might even be some impromptu races that I might do as well, when the chance arises.

I do plan on having Guess My Time, Win Crap contests for these races. I do know that (if I a chosen) for the pacing team, that there will be a variant of the normal rules and it’ll be a straight Yea or Nea if I made within some confidence interval, the pace time. Also, the Flying Monkey marathon will be a Run Under The Bib contest, which I will attempt to run less than 4hr 38 min which is a reference to my lifetime bib # at FMM of 438. I do not (at this time) plan on running Rutledge, TN the week before. Once a Maniac, you don’t have to qualify for membership. Although…. they do this “Star” level thing and so I want to earn MORE stars… but that is for another year (maybe).

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Some unexpected turn of events happened for ASD Athletes, my non-profit organization to raise money for those athletes on the Autism Spectrum participate in athletics. But the mom of one of The Elder’s past schoolmates was talking with someone that puts on a fundraiser. The mom was going to piggyback The Elder’s Friend’s Birthday Party with the fundraiser (smart) and had mentioned ASD Athletes as a potential charity to support since the fundraiser is on march 28 and World Autism Day is April 1st.

Well, in the interview, the Fundraiser person mention that she was thinking of ASDa as a charity to donate money to and the media put that in the newspaper! I’ll have the article soon, but it’s like DAMN! We are getting this Party Started QUICKLY RIGHT?! So, I got some work to get done. I still have some paperwork to get ASDa to 501(c)(3) status. Is there anyone who wants to pad their resume with some “pro bono” experience with a non-profit organization. I am thinking about my Board of Directors and organzation structure and i think that I might want to have some “at large” peeps in there.

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Our 2008 Christmas Card is slowly working toward a 2009 President’s Day card. We haven’t forgotten about it… it bugs me everyday….

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Pictures are STILL on Stella. I KNOW! I should be taken back and shot with a Canon 5D or something like that… seriously… if it was in my college days, I might have even done some modeling for the art department… (wink wink nudge nudge). Of course, at that time of my life a model of me would have been “Bird-chest with Mullet”

Now that it’s twilight of January, that whole… Picture A Day. 365 Pictures from Terry CRAP is not going to happen. I thought about making a calendar of the pictures and post that as in “This was january… in PICTURES!” or something like that.

But the reason why THAT isn’t taking place is because 1) My Computer at work is slow and only a USB 1.1 which means slow transfer times for pictures (or anything else) and i am finishing up compiling the Family’s Computer Files. What once was on about 50 CDs is now on one computer and files are being archived and saved to USB drives for prosperity. This was started last year and of course, is on the USB 1.1 speed. So, it has taken a LOT longer. Plus, I have to take the files that I have done here at work and combine them with the ones at home… still a headache, but should go faster.

Then, earlier this month, I was in the process of getting ready to move all of my mp3 files to a USB drive to take home when I realized (actually, it was more that I remembered) that my MP3 files are in many organizational formats (locations of songs, etc) and so that was UNACCEPTABLE and so, I have been taking my music collection and have been sorting the songs with the approriate artist, in the appropriate Album Folder format and the proper File Name format. THEN I need to Mass Change the MP3 tags on all of them (thankfully, there are open source programs to do the bulk of this FOR me). I had to practice restraint on myself to ONLY classify files for a certain period of time, then move onto something else. I have been working, so far 16 hours on this… STANDARD FORMAT people… standard format!

And what makes it worse, is that has to look up information… Wikipedia is my friend… so that I know where songs go and if I have to know the order of some albums because of the way they were ripped from CD, the file names are vague to the actual title of the song… or the Track number. But on these sites, there is information about the band… Historical tidbits that are delicacies for my brain… sort of like Bon-Bons for my neurons and so I get absorbed on the sites reading about artist that once were… but I must practice… restraint. Somehow. And not read… much.

So right now I am up to “U” which means that I have 163 Folders left to do… some of which will need no work, some of which will need some and then some that will need overhauling. I expect to begin Tagging tomorrow sometime.

So that has been some of the things that have been going on and some of the reasons why I haven’t been blogging as much as I wanted to… stupid standard formatting.

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Nephewistic Inspiration

December 31, 2008 planet3rry 4 comments

As I mentioned in my previous post about our Christmas Endeavors at the In-Laws, I played in the Finding Nemo inspired Guitar Hero rock band SHARK BAIT. Now, as a guest, I didn’t get an offical name as we didn’t go to Mt. IWANNAHAUKALOOGIE and I didn’t go through the Ring of FIRE, but in the future, I might request the name Bruce (as a tribute to Monty Python) but would be fine with Crush (as in his 5 min appearance held the Meat and Potatoes of the movie) or Mr. Ray (he IS a Scientist).

So, I was the Guitarist in the group and being pretty clueless and not the lead singer, Will 7.4 was the one that chose most of the playlist songs. It’s kind of funny and eerie that a 7 yo wants to pick songs that I “grew” up listening to.Jesse’s Girl, Living on a Prayer were some songs that he picked. One song that he picked was Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train.

After Ozzy recent return to fame, the younger generation knows him for a bumbling father and husband who talks, but unlike EF Hutton, no one listens because they don’t know what the Hell he is saying. My Generation knows him for the Satan Worshiping, Backwards Lyrics with Subliminal messages, Bat Eatin, Cat shootin Entertainer. But yet, there are some hooks from some of his songs that are instantly recognizable and you Could Name That Tune in 2 notes. I did not know what the name of the song but eventually learned that the HeadBanger’s Anthem was Ironman. However, the song in the playlist for Guitar Hero game that we played was Crazy Train… I was playing on EASY which is 3 buttons (out of 6) and it was HARD to keep up. I am can only imagine what the other levels were like. So, I am getting butchered in this song…. I don’t remeber what my accuracy was, but it wasn’t pretty.

But all is fair, I guess. I chose No Sleep Til Brooklyn by the Beastie Boys and not only did I expose him to a song with some fast tongue twisting lyrics, but I expanded his vocabulary and shrunk his naivitivity. Example:

“Going coast to coast – watching all the girlies shaking”

“Our manager’s crazy – he always smokes dust”

“Plane to hotel – girls on the jock”

“M.C.A.’s in the back because he’s skeezin’ with a whore”

“Autograph pictures and classy hos”

Which FINALLY brings me to the point that if you have any PEPSI POINTS, they expire TODAY 12-31-2008. Since I still had 15 points (or 3 songs left), one of the songs that I got was Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train. I think I might play the song backwards, just for giggles and not to commune with the dead.

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A Little Diversion

November 4, 2008 planet3rry One comment

In a break of “This State is Blue, This State is Red”, I have this YouTube video that Roon Posted on his site.

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Fave Musician in Town

July 18, 2008 planet3rry 3 comments

One of my Fave Musicians is in town this weekend. And No, I don’t have Tickets either. I never put them on my wish list so they never magically appeared. Here’s some of my fave lyrics:

Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I’m strictly plug-and-play, I ain’t afraid of Y2K
I’m down with Bill Gates, I call him “Money” for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
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And I forgot the next verse
Oh well, I guess it pays to rehearse
The lyric sheet’s so hard to find
What are the words, oh nevermind
Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know, ooh no
Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know…
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It’s Christmas at ground zero
And if the radiation level’s okay
I’ll go out with you and see all the new
Mutations on New Year’s Day
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I’m the pious guy the little Amlettes wanna be like
On my knees day and night scorin’ points for the afterlife
So don’t be vain and don’t be whiny
Or else, my brother, I might have to get medieval on your hiney
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And I was singin’
My my this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later
Now he’s just a small fry
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Don’t play that song
That “Achy Breaky” song
The most annoying song I know
And if you play that song
That “Achy Breaky” song
I might blow up my radio, oooh…
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Elmo’s got gun, Elmo’s got a gun.
Big bird’s on the run.
Bernie’s dialin’ 911.
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Don’t change the channel
Don’t touch that dial
We got it all on UHF
Kick off your sneakers
Stick around for a while
We got it all on UHF

And if you are still clueless it’s Weird Al Yankovic. He’s here in Knoxville this weekend at the Tennessee Theatre

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Christmas Music is playing in my head

November 26, 2007 planet3rry 5 comments

It’s Standard Operating Procedure in our household to break out the Christmas Decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving. We had wanted to include our Au Pair in this endeavor but she had gone to Washington DC for a road trip and honestly, that would be much more exciting, since they have Christmas in Brazil, but they don’t have Washington DC there.

Another thing that happens is that two of the local radio stations play Christmas Music all day everyday from Thanksgiving to Christmas and so we cranked up the radio in the kitchen to get the mundane but festive Christmas songs playing through the house. I did hear the Jeff Foxworthy 12 Days of Christmas but that was at 11pm.

We are going to be going to South Carolina for Christmas so we decided to forego putting up our 9 foot mammoth tree and all the decorations (hard) and put up the kid’s tree with wooden decorations (easy) instead. The kids loved it and we had a sensory activity for the kids with stringing macaroni on fishing line for do-it-yourself garland. We (read: really just My Lovely and Talented Wife) painted the macaroni and placed it on the tree. We have this HUGE bag of macaroni because before we were Casein Free, we’d take the Cheese Mix from Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Cheese and Macaroni and mix it with Gluten Free Pasta… and it was good. So now we have this gallon size bag of macaroni for such crafts as Christmas Garland, maracas, snowflake macaroni decorations (read: throw handfuls macaroni onto tree), Macaroni Cushion decorations (read: throw handfuls macaroni onto couch) and the ever popular Macaroni Floor decorations (read: throw handfuls macaroni onto carpet).

The problem with all , most… eh, make that all mainstream radio stations is that the pool of songs to chose from is very very shallow. So, there might be a few Christmas songs in my 367 song library that I might be already tired of hearing. Thankfully the radio station (an Adult Easy Listening Station) has not played such songs as Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC, from the A Very Special Christmas album, the album that really started my love for Christmas songs and other “off mainstream” songs. I have some store credit at our local Book/Audio Book/CD/VHS/Video Game swap place and will probably score some more less mainstream Christmas music there. Don’t get me wrong, I have some mainstream and classic Christmas songs in my fave rotation.

Saturday, the kidlets and I (read: me) put up the outside light. We have some long netting white lights that we put out on our landscaping for a neat effect and some colored lights in the bushes. The driveway retaining wall is decorated with the lighted icicle lights but for some reason, only every other strand works. And seeing that we are going to South Carolina for Christmas, I’m not all that motived to check the lights.

Even here at work, I pulled up the grungy slightly used Christmas tree from the bellows of the house basement. I think I’m going to bring in some colored lights from home to make my desk area a little more festive. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry that some colored lights will be taken down because it’s not offending someone. Actually, I wish that someone here were I worked celebrated Chanukah, because I am totally ignorant about the whole Festival of Lights other than what I learned from Southpark and Adam Sandler’s Chanukah Song parts 1 & 2. I need to learn more about Kwanzaa other than it would be an awesome Triple Word score in Scrabble. I hear there is even some who really celebrate Festivus and We have Freedom of Religion here in America and the corollary to that Freedom of Holidays, although I might get stoned (with rocks, not pot) if I wish the wrong person a Merry Christmas here on my home turf. Hmmm, I think some of the more uptight people could use a little pot to mello out over the next few weeks…

And so my Christmas Holiday season has started. I’ll be highlighting some of the traditions that I have personally (certain music, my Christmas baking etc) and I am sure that I will have some humorous stories about how Santa scares the pants off The Elder and The Younger… which sorta happened on Wednesday at the Fantasy of Trees.

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Now playing: Smoky Mountain Jazz Cafe – Various Artists – Noel
via FoxyTunes

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4 Score and 7 years ago, err, just 10 Days

January 18, 2005 planet3rry No comments

Okay, from my last post, I was a few minutes late to check out and get to Lunch. All was okay though. We sat as a Pink Generator unit at Lunch: Janie & Jody, Kim & Dan, Elba, Carina and Jen & Terry. After lunch we went for the closing session of the debut again by Cheryl Warfield. I have pictures which are still embedded in the camera and have yet to be downloaded. Cheryl is a great speaker and was very motivating to everyone in the audience. We said our goodbyes and hopped in the car to travel to Tallahassee.

Sunday, we traveled to New Orleans via Interstate 10. Nothing of monumental interest during our travels to New Orleans. When we got into the city, I took the wrong exit to the hotel. Well, wrong isn’t the correct word, let’s try inconvenient. For those of you who have not been to the Crescent City, the steets that run primarily North/South are two lanes, but those that run East/West are mainly one-way streets. So, if you miss your turn, you may have to drive around a bit to get to back to where you want to be. As was the case for the HI Express. Once we made it there, we valeted our car and brought up our bags. The room we had overlooked Cardonelet Street, which turns into Bourbon Street on the otherside of Canal. For a Holiday Inn Express it was a spacious room, but that has more to due to the fact that the buildings in NO are quite old and larger than today’s standards. We ended up getting a pizza for the night since the places near us were already closed and we didn’t want to venture out into the city that night. When Jen went to register, I found a Wal-mart close to the convention center and you know you are in New Orleans when the Wal-mart has one whole row dedicated to hard alcohol. Not the mixer, but the actual hard stuff, Beam, Bacardi, etc…

Monday morning we walked to the convention center as to avoid getting the car from valet and thereby being obligated to tip. Not that we do not tip, in fact we feel obligated to tip everytime but we don’t want to handover our money right away. So we walked. Eric was in the backpack carrier that we borrowed from Marty & Solange. He loved being in that thing and it made it much easier for walking around and having two hands free. We dropped Mommy off at the convention center and we went to the aquarium. I also have pictures of the aquarium which are also on the camera still. Eric seemed to enjoy the Aquarium but it was more like a play area for him. I think if was a little older he would like the fish as well. After the aquarium, we went down and around the Riverwalk on the Mighty Mississippi. Jen got a ride home and after me going out to find food and the nearby restuarants had closed, we decided to order a pizza and salad… we are in New Orleans and we are eating pizza and not cajun? For SHAME!

Tuesday we got the car and drove Jen to the convention center. Eric and I went to Melairie to go shopping at a running store that I saw back in 2002. It was boring other than fact that they had some B&W candid pictures of Steve Prefontaine. We didn’t really go anywhere else exciting, but back to the hotel. I suited Eric up in the kid carrier and went to the French Quarter. We walked down Bourbon Street and down to Jackson Square back to Canal and then stopped for lunch. I got the Po’Boy that I had wanted… crawfish to boot. That evening we went to Landry’s Seafood Restaurant for dinner, I had another Po’boy and some Abita, so I had a Lousiana dinner. Jen had Oysters and Eric, well, I forgot… he usually eats off of our plate.

Wednesday, Leadership ended and we made it halfway to Orlando. We stayed at Hampton Inn since they had internet and laundry. We had bought Eric 3 new outfits while in New Orleans because the diapers he had kept leaking (Huggies). Despite that we were out of clean clothes for him. Eric had discovered that if he stuck his hand in his mouth far enough, it would cause him to gag. So the clothes he was wearing had vomit all over them plus his carseat. Thursday, we made it back to Orlando and had a 2 hour delay at the airport before arriving in Knoxville very very late.

Friday, I had to go to work. So, I totally slept through the alarms and arrived late. I would have updated this blog then but I was inundated in American Samoa report work, which is what I should be doing now. Friday night, doesn’t seem like we did anything for the evening. Jen did turn it into a date night by putting in the movie Elf. I feel asleep about halfway into the movie after eating a lot of popcorn.

Saturday, in the morning Marty and I ran a little less than 17 miles for our Knoxville Marathon training. The last 5-6 miles where pretty tough, but also the hilliest part of the course we took. At Panera, I was sad that they got rid of their Cinn-ful Crunch Trio combo, but happy that they brought back their Chocolate Chip bagels. I love chocolate and the thought of chocolate bread was (at one time) replusive, same thing with other bread-like substance such as chocolate pancakes. Call me crazy. Well, I am over that now. I make Chocolate Chip/Peanut Butter pancakes now (thanks Gray and Laurie) and I prefer chocolate chip bagels (thanks Jen P) over everything except for Panera’s Cinnamon Crunch bagel. We went to the Pugh’s for dinner that night. The appetizer consisted of Venison poppers which were jalepeno pepper hulls with venison and cream cheese wrapped in bacon. YUMMY! The main course was venison and chicken soft tacos with all the fixins and desert was pumpkin cheesecake. Eric and William are buddies, so there was plenty of mayhem going on in the house. Jen did have an allergic reaction to the Pugh’s cat and had to take a benadyrll that evening, so we knew that Jen might not wake up early the next morning

Sunday, after church, Jen and I started getting our end of the year finances together and making our Quicken actually reflect more of our accounts today. I started to rip all of our audio CDs so that I would have all of them on the computer. This was something that I had started in May while I was still in school. Lately, I have been wanting to make mixed tapes for the Civic, so I thought that if I could burn a CD that was 45 minutes long, I could make a cassette tape much much easier that way. If all I had to do was drag and drop the songs into a CD then I could just play the CD, hit record and walk away. No more changing out CDs or anything. The problem was to get the CDs into MP3 format. The new computer was fast at ripping the CDs. When I did it while in school, I could get a ripping speed of around 6x faster than recording it real time. So a 6 minute song would take 1 minute to rip. Well, the new compter was ripping CDs at speeds excess of 18x which made ripping a whole CD take about a minute or less.

Monday, Martin Luther King Day, No Work for me. Most of the day was spent getting the finances in order so that we can afford to stay in our house. We are moving to an all (or almost all) Cash basis. The credit cards didn’t get us in trouble but they do make our finances must thinner. So this way we allocate what we spend money on and stick to it. Plus, it will curb all the crap that we buy that ends up cluttering the house. I finished with ripping the CD except for like 5 albums and the CD singles that I have. I am not sure that I will rip those, except for a few CD singles that sound better than the album version. One strange incident on Sunday, while Eric and I went to get gas, two cops pulled into the gas station where I was. I watched them from the Xterra as they were talking with a gentleman inside the store. As luck would have it, the gas station ran out of gas while I was filling the Xterra. I can usually get 16-17 gallons into the Xterra unless it is bone dry. After 8.5 gallons, it stopped, completely. So I went went to go get my receipt from the pay at the pump, but nothing came out. So now I was forced to go inside. As I tried to go inside, the cops were having their conversion right in the door way which made it harder to get around. Nothing exciting happened but it was rather weird.

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