Blog Vorbis

My new baby

2009-06-12T07:55:00.008-05:00

Well, it's taken me long enough, but I'm finally planning on posting about my guitar gear. I'll start off by posting about my #1 guitar, my Gibson '57 Goldtop Les Paul (VOS). She was made in 2008 and I purchased her during Easter weekend of this year. VOS stands for Vintage Original Spec . It is Gibson's new line of reissues(historics, or whatever else they've called them), and they are designed to have a worn-in look and feel without looking trashed (*ahem* *here's looking at you, Fender Custom Shop).

The case is pretty nice, though I didn't get as much case candy as I would have with some other Gibson Custom Shop guitars (no idea why), but I have to say this guitar is the best guitar I have ever laid my hands on, period. The feel is amazing, the playability is superb, and it just looks beautiful, in my opinion.

She has a Burstbucker #1 pickup in the neck position, and a Burstbucker #2 in the bridge. Though there are certainly nicer boutique pickups you can buy (and which I may eventually get), these sound really nice to me, and have that vintage vibe I look for. I also like that these pickups are made to look aged and slightly worn, but don't look rusted or corroded.

I'll write more about the guitar sometime, but here are a few pics for now (click for a slightly larger version).

My Lala.com Forecast...for your listening pleasure

2009-03-22T10:53:00.003-05:00

I've added my Lala.com Forecast (a selection of 4 songs I like and want to share with others) to the sidebar. I'll be updating it every so often, so check back regularly if you like my picks. Also, if you're on Lala.com, feel free to hit me up sometime. My user name is Romonster. :)

Jailbreak!

2009-03-20T08:48:00.002-05:00

Well, I've finally done it. After giving it much thought, I've decided to "jailbreak" my beloved iPhone 3G. What influenced my decision most was my desire to share my iPhone's internet connectivity with my laptop when no wifi network is available (in general, this is known as "tethering").

Jailbreaking the iPhone was very easy. I followed the guide found here and the iPhone was jailbroken in a matter of a few minutes. Then, to tether my laptop to my iPhone, I had to install PdaNet.

Download the PdaNet iPhone app via the Cydia package manager (which was installed during the jailbreak).
Download a desktop PdaNet app for my laptop which allows it to communicate with the iPhone version of PdaNet.

After that, I ran PdaNet on my iPhone and on my laptop and I was online! So as to not upset AT&T, I only plan to use this for basic internet usage (e-mail, browsing, etc.), and probably only on weekends when I am out of town or on long trips.

I'll let you know how it works out!

Looking to join an open source project

2009-03-14T22:18:00.003-05:00

I've decided a good way to get back into development in my spare time would be to join an open source project of interest to me. I've been poking around Codeplex for the past few days trying to find something that I can help with but I haven't found the right project yet.

Does anyone have any interesting projects they care to suggest? My interests are varied, so I'm willing to check just about anything out. I'm only interested in joining a project developed in C# or VB.NET, though.

I'm back!

2009-03-11T22:27:00.003-05:00

Not that anyone cares in particular, but after over a year of mostly neglecting my poor blog, I'm back and hopefully more committed to it. :)

These are still random musings...I don't have much direction for the blog other than to be an outlet for thoughts I'd like to share. However, I've been considering the possibility of shifting the blog to a more focused range of topics.

In the meantime, I'll try and catch you up on the highlights of the past year.

First and foremost, Kristen gave birth to our second son, Brennan Miguel on October 10th. He's a beautiful boy with a winning smile and laugh. He loves to be tickled and held, and seems to favor being in motion at all times. He doesn't like when the car stops driving or his swing stops swaying...it's adorable.

Lately most of my spare time is dominated by my guitar practice schedule. I still play in the Younger Generation worship band at the Arlington SDA Church, and it continues to be a blessing to me. I've grown as a musician, but I've also learned a lot about what it means to serve God. I know I still have much to learn, though.

I've fallen away from my previous time wasters of choice: Halo and World of Warcraft. Don't get me wrong;I still enjoy those games, but I just don't have much time for them at the moment. I am, however, trying to make more time for programming in my spare time. I feel that doing so used to keep me on top of my game, so to speak, and having not done much programming at home in the past 2 years, my programming skills have taken a bit of a hit. No worries, though, I'm trying to think of a project or two to entertain me for a little while and hopefully exercise my mental muscles a bit as well.

Last but not least, I am looking to revive my devotional and prayer life, which are all but dead, I'm sad to say. Any suggestions on a good Christian read or two would be nice. I'm currently reading "Lion and Lamb" by Brennan Manning (who, by the way, was the inspiration for naming our son Brennan). A good read, but I am already ready to read something else.

Savior....He can move the mountains

2008-11-07T14:39:00.001-06:00

I love this song...we're playing it this weekend at YG church!

In My Ear (On Lala)

2008-10-27T18:39:00.001-05:00

These are some of the songs I've been listening to on my Lala.com account.

Passion D/FW 2008

2008-02-18T18:28:00.000-06:00

Two blog posts in 1 month...what's the world coming to? Well, I just had to post about the Passion conference I attended on Friday and Saturday this past weekend (the 15th and 16th). The event was comprised of 4 sessions, each complete with live Christian music from contemporary artists and a talk by a dynamic speaker. Chris Tomlin, one of my favorite Christian recording artists performed there a number of times, as did Kristian Stanfill and the David Crowder Band. The music was uplifting and inspiring. The talks by Louie Giglio and Francis Chan were full of truth and spirit. The whole experience refreshed me spiritually, and I truly felt that the Holy Spirit was present.

At the conference we were asked to pray for the students at Northern Illinois University and Union University, each having recently experienced disasters on their campuses. As part of a relief effort for the latter, the conference attendees were asked on Friday night if they would be willing to give of the clothes they'd brought to the conference so that students who'd lost most every material possession would have clothes to wear. The response was instant and the next morning volunteers at the Passion conference filled a 26' truck with bags of clothes donated to the cause (including 2 shirts and a pair of jeans that I happily contributed). It felt good to see the students respond in such a way.

A few things I took away from Passion '08:

1. Worshiping God involves more than just singing songs. Giving generously and unselfishly to those in need is an act of worship that God loves.
2. The best way most of us will ever spread God's fame and enlarge his kingdom is by living a life that models Christ's (something I have not been doing, but which I am changing)
3. God wants to send us the Holy Spirit...we just need to ask and be willing to accept Him.

That's it for now!

Lately

2008-02-10T08:19:00.000-06:00

Wow, time has flown since my last post. Here's what's going on with me:

I recently fractured my radial head (elbow/arm) while playing with Colin at home. I was carrying him and playing this game where Kristen is supposed to chase us around while I run (really more of a light jog) with Colin. Bad idea, I know. We'd played this game many times before with no problems, but this time, I tripped over Dali (our Cocker Spaniel) while turning a corner and badly hurt my right arm. Colin was fine, mostly due to the fact that I broke our fall with my arm. I'm recovering from the injury and am gaining use of the arm for more things with each passing day. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to play guitar again very soon.

Over the holidays I got a number of guitar pedals and a new guitar. The guitar is a Fender Nashville Telecaster. It caught my eye because of its unique colors and because it has a middle pickup. Classic Telecasters don't have a middle pickup, and this Tele does, so I tried it out and the thing sounded great to me, so I picked it up (rather cheaply, I might add). It was made in Mexico, but the workmanship is great and it sounds awesome. I compared it to Teles made in the U.S. and honestly couldn't tell a difference, so why should I pay more for an American Tele if I can't tell the difference between that one and the Mexican one?

In my ear lately:

Radio head
Ingrid Michaelson
Hillsong United
Owen (the Mike Kinsella project, not the other band)

So much new music!

2007-11-04T16:20:00.000-06:00

In the past month, I've been inundated with new music releases from a number of my favorite bands. Radiohead released "In Rainbows" in early October. I'm quite happy with the release. As many of you already know, Radiohead has so far only released the album digitally and allowed customers to choose whatever price they felt was fair (including $0.00 if they so chose). I paid 4 GBP (about 8 USD) to show my support for the band. I was disappointed to find that we only got 160Kbps MP3s in exchange. I was hoping for better quality, but considering the bitrate, the songs sound very good.

Coheed and Cambria have released "No World For Tomorrow", their followup to their 3rd studio album, "Good Apollo...". It took me a few listens to appreciate it, but it has been firmly entrenched in my music rotation for over a week now.

Thrice released "The Alchemy Index: Vol. 1 and 2" last month as well. Volumes 1 and 2 consist of the Fire and Water albums, with the Earth and Wind albums due out sometime next year. I've got to be honest...the albums aren't bad, but they aren't blowing me away either. I've given them a fair number of listens but I just can't seem to get into them. I'll keep trying, though.

Saves the Day have released "Under the Boards", and I haven't even heard more than about 4 songs on the album, but already I don't like it. I don't know why, exactly...I just don't think the songs are very good. They seem thrown together. I'll give the full album a few listens before I make my final judgement on it, but I'm disappointed given how much I enjoyed "Sound the Alarm".

Finally, Thursday have released and album, and if this tells you anything, I don't even remember the name of it. That's how unimpressed I was by listening to the first 3 or so songs. Again, I have to give the whole album a listen to be fair, but so far, I really couldn't care less about it.

My new baby

2007-09-25T10:24:00.000-05:00

Well, as of last week, I am the proud owner of a used Taylor 310CE! It plays very sweetly, though I found some significant fret-wear, especially on the 3rd and 4th frets, so my new baby is in the shop to (hopefully) have the frets re-dressed (is that the proper term?). There is a chance some of the frets would have to be replaced, which would make the repair more costly. I'm hoping that's not the case.

Also, I got Halo 3 last night and my first impression is: WOW.

I'll blog more about it later...maybe.

What's up?

2007-09-16T21:32:00.000-05:00

I'm so bad. I really should post more often, but I rarely feel inspired to.

Here's what's been going on in my life lately, in no particular order:

Kristen and I are attending YG Church in Arlington regularly at this point. We are just about ready to officially move our membership there from Mosaic SDA in Fairview.

I've started playing with the worship band at YG Church. I play acoustic guitar for them and really enjoy doing it. They are a talented and dedicated group, and I feel God's presence in our worship service each week.

I'm beginning to dream about getting a really nice acoustic guitar...one that sounds beautiful and that will last me a long time. I have my eye on the Taylor 310CE, but man, I just don't think I can afford one right now. Still, I'm beginning the search for a buyer for my Yamaha FGX-04 LTD in hopes of raising just a fraction of the cost of the Taylor 310CE.

Our neighbor across the street ran over our mailbox and completely demolished it last Sunday. However, he got it repaired by this weekend and now our mailbox looks as good as almost new :).

I'm learning some country songs for the YG Church Shindig...it's probably the only time all year I'll ever listen to (let alone play) country music.

I've been listening to the following groups in no particular order or preference:
Fauxliage
God is an Astronaut
Blonde Redhead
Circa Survive
Jeremy Enigk
Bill Evans
Thrice

Oh, and I did finish an initial (rough) version of my MediaMonkey Auto-Rater. It's not quite ready for me to release the source code at this time, but let me know if you're interested in getting a copy of it as it exists.

Until next time...

Mexico in a nutshell

2007-06-15T12:57:00.001-05:00

I don't have a lot of time to post about Mexico right now, though I wish I did. I will say, however, that it was beautiful and that our resort was as wonderful as I'd heard it'd be. Kristen and I agree that our stay was far too short and we plan to make our next stay in Mexico a little longer. Our travels went relatively smoothly...only an hour delay on our return flight. The drivers in Mexico are as crazy as you hear...I truly feared for my life a few times when our driver flew across lanes at twice the posted speed limit without even looking into his mirrors or blind spot. The resort staff was very friendly. The weather was not as good as I'd hoped...it actually rained the last day and a half we were there. We'll look to make our trip at a slightly different time of year next time to ensure drier days. None of us got too burned and we kept Colin's skin from even the slightest burn or irritation (which is great). I tried snorkeling for the first time, and after an initial period of adjustment, I actually quite enjoyed it!

I'll write more if I get the chance later.

New Project: MediaMonkey Auto-Rater

2007-05-19T21:04:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned before that I'm a huge fan of MediaMonkey. I probably annoy my co-workers with how much I rave about it. One of the things I really like about MediaMonkey is how extensible it is. I've already written a number of scripts and apps for it that make organizing and maintaining my music collection much easier than it was when I used iTunes (now a distant but bitter memory). One thing I've been semi-obsessed with lately is rating all my music. I have 7365 tracks in my collection, with 6671 of them unrated. I got an idea from someone on the MediaMonkey forums for creating an auto-rating app that would rate your tracks based on how often you listen to them or how often you skip them. Here's the idea...

When a track plays, it gets an automatic base rating (which will be configurable in my app, but let's assume it's a 3 star rating for the example's sake). After X subsequent plays where the majority of the song is played (I'll explain this in a sec), the rating gets incremented by some configurable amount (MediaMonkey ratings go in half-star increments, so let's assume a half-star increment). Therefore, I could configure my app to give a half star increment to songs after every 2 times that I listen to the majority of the song. I mention listening to the majority of the song because I plan on decrementing the rating if the song gets skipped before a certain point. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to use a pre-set number of seconds (i.e., listen to the song for at least 30 seconds or it gets a lower rating) or a percentage of the song time. I might even use a combination of the two criteria with varying severity in the rating demotion depending on how soon into the song the song gets skipped. There are a number of things to figure out about this approach, but I think it will work.

The app will have to maintain a database of the tracks I listen to and how much of them I listened to. That way the app will know that it can auto-rate a song a.) the song is not yet rated or b.) the song's rating matches the last rating seen by the app for that song. However, if I lose the database of songs (or it gets corrupted), that means the app will only rate songs that are unrated, possibly leaving songs that were being auto-rated without a proper rating. Another concern of mine with this approach is that I think I should set a limit for how much a song can be upgraded or downgraded via the auto-rating method. I don't want a song to be rated a 5 just because I listened to it 10 times in the past month. I wonder if my system should work off of a curve, so that the higher a track's rating is, the harder it becomes for the track to get a rating increment. I'll probably do the same on the decrementing side to keep things even.

Suggestions are welcome...what do you think? Will this work?

REVIEW "Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire

2007-04-06T08:49:00.000-05:00

This album bothered me the first 3 times I listened to it and I couldn't quite put my finger on what irked me so much about it until the fourth listen when I decided to pull up lyrics for the songs and read them as I listened. It was then that I detected a distinct sense of...negativity...towards Christians, the Bible, and God in the lyrics to significant number of the songs. Did I sense bitterness? Perhaps. Resentment? Probably. Anger? I don't know...but whatever it is...the album is saturated with it. Lyrics on the title track are a prime example of what I noticed: "A vial of hope and a vial of pain, in the light they both looked the same. Poured them out on into the world on every boy and every girl. It's in the Neon Bible, the Neon Bible. Not much chance for survival if the Neon Bible is right."

An even more blatant expression of anti-Christian sentiment can be found in the track "Intervention": "Working for the Church while your life falls apart (your life will fall apart). Singin' hallelujah with the fear in your heart (the fear is in your heart). Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home."

Am I reading too much into the lyrics? I don't know...they seem pretty obvious to me. The thing is...I tend to give artists a free pass on this a lot of times. I feel that many churches don't teach Christianity as they should and as a result a lot of people get a completely wrong picture of Christ. Still, I can't help but be unsettled by this album, as it's just loaded with this sentiment and I can't relate to it.

Surprisingly, I was able to enjoy a number of tracks based on the merit of their instrumentation alone. And although I don't agree with Arcade Fire's agenda, I try to view the album as a snapshot of someone's thoughts and feelings captured in music and judge it on its musicality as well as its message. Based on its music, I'd probably give "Neon Bible" 4 stars. Based on its lyrics, I'd give 3 stars or less. Therefore, I give this album 3.5 stars out of 5. Colin didn't review it as I didn't think it was appropriate for him to. ;)

P.S. Sorry this review is so short, but honestly, this album is a drain on me. I don't think I'll listen to it for a long time.

My anticipation is building

2007-03-19T13:12:00.000-05:00

Emusic.com has recently added a couple of highly anticipated releases to its library and I can't wait to give them a few spins on my virtual turntables (a.k.a. my Nano and MediaMonkey).

"Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire came in highly hyped, and, so far, the critics haven't been let down. I'll give it a listen and let you know if I concur.

Then there's "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" by Explosions in the Sky. These guys amazed me with their last two releases, and I'm anxious to hear what they've done this time. Already I'm reading that the album is solid, though not groundbreaking; if that's true, I'll be a bit disappointed, but probably satisfied enough to wait for the next one.

As always, I'd like to be able to take the time to give these albums a few listens and then review them. Time will tell if I get a chance to do so anytime soon...

Colin's first word is...

2007-02-18T10:41:00.000-06:00

Ba-ba! That's me! :) In spanish, we call our fathers Papa or Papi. I've been saying "pa-pa-pa-pa-pa" to Colin for months now and finally yesterday while I was doing that he said "Ba" and smiled. I didn't think much of it until later in the day when I was doing the same thing and he somehow struggled out a "Ba-Ba". I don't care what Kristen says, that counts as far as I'm concerned!

Thanks, Colin!

Quickie Review of 'See the Morning' by Chris Tomlin

2007-02-03T15:05:00.000-06:00

Since I don't have much time for a thorough review, here are a few quick thoughts on "See the Morning" by Chris Tomlin:
The album is solid and has several standout tracks (I like "Everlasting God", "Rejoice", and "Glorious"), although the effort seems a tad derivative and I certainly recognize a bit of repetition in chord progressions and patterns. Still, I didn't expect anything ground-breaking or innovative; I merely expected saccharin anthems of praise and adoration to Christ, and "See the Morning" delivers adequately.

On a related note, I've decided to let Colin hear what I'm reviewing whenever appropriate. Since he can't yet speak, his reaction will be marked with a "Thumbs up" or "Thumbs down"

With that said, I give "See the Morning" 3.5 stars out of 5, and Colin gives it a "Thumbs up".

Lately

2007-01-17T10:58:00.000-06:00

Sorry, I haven't been meaning to neglect the blog, but I've been very busy since my last post. Here are a few of the things (in no particular order) that have kept me busy this past month:

vacation planning (Mexico in June?)
The WoW Trading Card Game
The Burning Crusade (WoW expansion)
holidays (Christmas and New Year)
XBox 360
Viva Piñata (for the XBox 360)
HD-DVD addon for the XBox 360
my guitar
my Last Will and Testament
work

Artists I've been listening to can generally be seen in the "IN MY EAR" section on the sidebar, but there are a few I've been listening to a lot lately:

Portugal. The Man
John Coltrane
Matt Pond PA
Radiohead
Chris Tomlin
Telefon Tel Aviv

I'll try to post something a bit more coherent in the near future

New section

2006-12-17T00:45:00.000-06:00

I've added an "In My Ear" section on the sidebar where I'll post artists that I've been listening to. Right now, this is done manually, but I hope to set it up to update automatically based on information that I scrobble to last.fm.

UPDATE (12/18/06): The section now updates automatically every 5 minutes and reflects the artists that I've listened to most recently. It also automatically links to a Google search for each artist's name in case you're interested in finding out more about them.

Sennheiser HD 595 Headphones: First impression

2006-12-01T13:53:00.000-06:00

I received my Sennheiser HD 595 headphones this past Tuesday and could hardly wait to try them on. Here are my thoughts on them so far...

They are very comfortable, though they are quite large and bulky...certainly not something I can just toss into my laptop bag, but I didn't expect them to be....I guess I just never realized how big they'd be.

The sound is superb. I can tell why the 595s received such good reviews. I was really concerned about the sound "leakage" that is bound to occur with open-back headphones. True to their design, these cans do leak sound, and had I a less gracious office-mate, this may have become a real issue; however, Damar has been quite understanding and even claims he doesn't hear the sound leaking from my headphones (even though I know they do leak and he's probably just trying to be nice).

The 595s are still not broken in, so I am confident the sound quality will continue to improve over the coming hours (I've read the bass takes some time to come into its own). Overall, though, I'm pleased with the purchase.

Thanks honey!

On rotation...

2006-11-27T14:28:00.001-06:00

Currently on rotation for me are:

Denison Witmer - "Of Joy and Sorrow"
Jeremy Enigk - "World Waits"
Brazil - "Dasein"
Telefon Tel Aviv - "Farenheit Fair Enough"

Of note is Jeremy Enigk's latest solo effort which has several excellent tracks...I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which ones those are ;)

Sick as a dog

2006-11-03T19:49:00.000-06:00

Last night my throat became very sore and I began to experience flu-like symptoms. I went to the doctor today since I felt even worse upon waking up. It turns out I have strep throat. I have no idea where I got it from, but I hope Colin and Kristen don't get it from me. I'm on antibiotics and hope to feel better in a few days.

And the winner is...

2006-10-27T00:06:00.000-05:00

The RAV4! We decided on the RAV4 after 2 test drives and a fair amount of haggling. We feel we got a fair price and a quality vehicle. It's just the right size for our family, though if we have any more than 2 kids we'll have to upgrade again. :) I'll post pictures of it soon. Next week we're getting a leather seat kit installed by Toyota so we'll have to do without the car for a day or two, but Toyota will give us a loaner in the meantime.

Cars, cars, cars

2006-10-23T10:45:00.000-05:00

Kristen and I have been considering the purchase of a larger vehicle ever since we found out that we were pregnant with Colin. 11 months later, we still haven't decided. :) Still, we're getting more serious about making a purchase as Colin's weight increases. Getting him into our Accord is certainly possible, but as he grows, it would be nice to have a vehicle with more ground clearance and a bit more cargo space. We considered the Nissan Murano, but it's too pricey for our budget. We are now looking at the Honda CR-V, the Hyundai Santa Fe, and the Toyota RAV4 (even though Kristen and I swore we'd never buy another Toyota after the horrible treatment we received from them in NY).

So far I'm leaning towards the CR-V because of the features, reliability record, and my experience with Honda cars.

Blog Vorbis

My new baby

My Lala.com Forecast...for your listening pleasure

Jailbreak!

Looking to join an open source project

I'm back!

Savior....He can move the mountains

In My Ear (On Lala)

Passion D/FW 2008

Lately

So much new music!

My new baby

What's up?

Mexico in a nutshell

New Project: MediaMonkey Auto-Rater

*REVIEW* "Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire

My anticipation is building

Colin's first word is...

Quickie Review of 'See the Morning' by Chris Tomlin

Lately

New section

Sennheiser HD 595 Headphones: First impression

On rotation...

Sick as a dog

And the winner is...

Cars, cars, cars

REVIEW "Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire