I am still here, ten miles from Disneyland. Alive and kicking, though continuously distracted.
In the time I have been gone, others have written their own blog software, visited France, or started a best selling book. I however have simply stopped to smell the roses. Lots of roses.
The last two weeks of my life could easily fit the lyrics of a particular Billy Joel song:
Saw the LA Galaxy vs. Dallas Burn and then the LA Galaxy vs. New England Revolution. Later watched a monster truck special on MSNBC — still a little redneck for my tastes.
Celebrated Independence Day while watching "The largest fireworks display this side of the Mississippi." It had to be the biggest with a $120k price tag.
Sold the G3 Blue & White, bought a 15" Powerbook, bought Xbox with four games. Prepared lots of distractions and knickknacks for Ebay. Packing up the Dell for a swift journey out of my life forever.
Visited with my father-in-law from Alaska. As always, he's in great shape.
Had some great food at the Napa Rose, UVA Bar, Starbucks, Pacific Whey Cafe. Meanwhile I stood in line for 20 minutes for nachos at the Home Depot Center.
Watched Legally Blond 2, Man on the Moon, CQ, and Family Guy - Seasons 1 & 2. No television to speak of, it is the devil's device after all.
Read half of the great Orange Book.
Ordered 16 iced lattes.
Replaced sprinkler heads after trying to get the old ones to work, ended up soaked and hot. Dug into the ground and watched the worms frantically crawl away from the blazing sun.
Loved my country, despised my country.
Signed the petition to boot Grey Davis out of California (good luck in France Grey!). Convinced others to track down the petition and sign it.
Drove on the 405, 22, 55, 241, 5, 134, 261, 91 freeways — It takes forever to drive anywhere on the 5, I hate that road so much! Mistakenly drove through a toll road booth — it cost me $30.
Had some gas but did not confuse it with heart failure this time.
Visited Crystal Cove, Coto de Caza, San Deigo, and Burbank. While in tinsel town, saw the gates of Warner Bros., Disney Animation, DIC, Universal Studios, ABC, and NBC. Reminded the wife that we need to attend a live taping of the Tonight Show.
Filled the gas tank three times, instead of two.
And of course I went to Disneyland. Twice.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Yeah, Greg's back! Yes, it's been a while since his last post, but I am, alas, am a true advocate of NOT sitting in front of the computer too much.
The descriptions of goings-on in California make me wish I were there! As for New York City, I'm here cuddling with my 12,000 BTU of air conditioning. Humid and it could hit 100 degrees in the concrete jungle. This sucks!
Fireworks: Greg, I enjoyed your account of "The largest fireworks display west of the Mississippi."
On the fourth of July I was in a 40th-story apartment on the Manhattan waterfront watching the, what you could call, "The largest fireworks display east of the Mississippi."
...Oh, east OR west of the Mississippi, I mean.
:)
Well hey, welcome back. You sound like you were certainly busy. How much could I bet Greg was just sitting around watching game shows the entire month? Bah! So how's the orange book I've yet to buy mine.
Greg, good to see you're alive and kickin'. And if you got $350 for your B&W G3 with monitor, I'm probably better off keeping my monitor-less G3 as the doorstop/dustbunny trap that it has become. Congrats on the PowerBook (just got a new 15" myself), and again, a warm welcome back.
The Orange Book is excellent, I highly recommend it though you should wait until the second edition is published (which I believe is to be soon).
Resonance, if you have room for the 17" then keep it. That has to be the best Apple monitor made. After using flat panels for a while, the CRT is just so huge and I didn't feel like sacrificing desk real estate.
Glad you are back Greg!
Can you trust the color on a flat panel monitor? Though I'd love to go flat panel (space is an issue in my tiny NYC apartment) I'm not sold on trusting the color, especially for output to video.
You had better learn to trust it soon. The consumer CRT is dying at a quick pace and professional CRTs are going to cost a boat load (as they do now).
greg, I wasn't clear. I have a B&W G3 without a monitor. I did like the Apple 17" CRT, though. Mitch, I used to work in print quite a bit and when I did, I developed a taste for all-things-color-accurate. This was back when monitor calibration systems were really expensive. I moved wholesale to LCD about a year and a half ago, when 400:1-450:1 contrast ration LCDs became somewhat reasonable in price. My eyes have thanked me since. While LCDs don't quite have the color gamut of CRTs, the better LCDs are definitely much more accurate between uses than CRTs, particularly when used with a digital cable such as DVI or ADC. The contrast ratio is, I believe, the most important factor when choosing an LCD for color work...there are plenty of acceptable and even some really desirable LCDs out there, and I think the LCD is finally a viable option for photographers and high-quality print designers/production folk, especially since many of the popular monitor calibration systems work with LCDs now. I wouldn't trust the LCD on a notebook for color due to the limited number of backlights, but I've gotten nothing but great results off my LCD monitor when going to print, even with a recent job which involved a lot of black and dark tones. I was impressed.
Thanks, Resonance! Great information. I guess I'm still thinking about laptop LCDs when I think of LCD. I do animation for video, and NTSC is such crappy color in the end anyway (Supposedly it stands for National Television Standards Commission but is also affectionaely known as Never The Same Color.)
What? I thought you gave up coffee. Welcome back.