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Purple Carpet, a Gym, Twitter…

Ah, so it might be a bit before I’m all digital do-dads and local happenings in the blog again, as I’m working on some home renovations. This is not one of those really personal personal blogs, i.e. you won’t ever find me whining about family, friends, etc. I like to post about things on the web I think are cool, new gadgets I get, strange things that happen, local things and more along that vein.

However, you will now get a close, but not too close, look at what’s happening in my life tonight…are you ready…to see the most hideous carpet ever? Here it is, in all it’s purple glory:

After five long years of having carpeted bathrooms, I have finally decided to get rid of it. Who carpets a bathroom? Honestly. I started in the guest bath in case anything went awry, but it turned out pretty well. No wood strips that had to be pulled up or anything. A little touch up paint and some staple pulling and it’s sticky tile city.

But that’s not all you get!

I also visited a couple of gyms today. I’ve been thinking of joining one for about a month now. I can’t do one full push up (I can push up, but then I’m stuck), so I could really use a little weight training and who can’t use a little exercise in general?

Here’s a shot of the ladies room of the larger and cheaper one that I’ve visited twice. I still wasn’t able to sign up today…I’m pretty indecisive on long term monetary commitments. The other gym I visited is open 24-hours and the equipment is nice, but it’s smaller, more expensive, has no pool, no classes, and not near as much cardio equipment. Also, the guys there looked like gorillas on steroids.

So based on my two requirements, which are 1.) All the equipment I would ever want to use with a minimum wait to use it and 2.) Nice looking guys with more available income than me, I’m going to have to go with gym number one.

Lastly, stay tuned for twitter explained…so Shane can finally comment on my tweets. I do believe twitter has a video explaination on the home page, so you might want to check out www.twitter.com and see.

The Grypton by Targus - Review

Check out my newest toy. It’s called a Grypton and is made by Targus. It’s a cheaper (and less well-made) version of the Gorillapod, a “put your camera anywhere” style tripod. I picked up the knock-off Grypton at Wal-Mart over the weekend. It retails for about $10 whereas the Gorillapod of the same size is about $22. It’s rated to hold small cameras up to 9 oz. It does pretty well with my Kodak V570, but I wouldn’t really want to wrap it around tree branches on a windy day or anything.

Supposedly, it doesn’t perform near as well as the Gorillapod, but I’ve yet to try the real deal. I hear Gorillapod is filing a suit against Targus though. I also hear (or read, rather) the Grypton is too wussy to hold up a flash unit that takes 4 AA batteries, so go for the real thing if you are hanging multiple camera flashes off bridges or something, please.

I would definitely go Gorillapod if getting a larger size tripod of this type for a digital SLR or small video camera. I’ve had the Grypton fall off things a few times already and can only imagine what would happen with the larger version attached to a 3 pound camera.

The Grypton goes skittering across my car dash on turns, as the grip rubber on it doesn’t really do much in the way of gripping. Seeing as I was using two decks of playing cards and sticky tack to mount my camera in my car, I can’t complain too much though. I think I got my $10 worth.

It’s Alive! It’s Alive!

The blog is back from the great beyond! Soon to be much more Abby Normal…

Happy Mother’s Day 2008

Earth Day 2008

I think Earth Day is getting the most hoopla it’s ever gotten this year. I’m sure my former environmental science teacher Mrs. Engles and Al Gore are very proud. I’ve noticed displays for eco-friendly products all around Wal-Mart recently and most stores are now selling reusable fabric bags next to check-outs.

Let’s not forget Campbell’s is doing their part:

So is Yahoo!:

And Google:

And Facebook:

and by do their part, I mean they made some graphics…

What are YOU doing? I’m conserving energy by sleeping until noon.

Let me know if you see anyone else around the Internet celebrating Earth Day graphically.

Ryan Adams on Austin City Limits

I didn’t get a chance to post this before the fact, but Saturday I caught a rerun originally recorded in Fall of 2005 of Ryan Adams and the Cardinals on Austin City Limits, which airs on PBS. If you didn’t know, Ryan Adams is my favorite artist currently and I really enjoyed the episode. I looked for this airing on youtube, but wasn’t able to find anything. So, here is a clip of my favorite song of their’s from an appearence on David Letterman:

Also, Austin City Limits is awesome. I recently went to their site and read up on the history of the show. It’s been around for over 33 years and is filmed a KLRU television studio located on the University of Texas campus. I never could decide if it was recorded in a studio or not because of the amazingly real background of the city of Austin. It is indeed done indoors, the backdrop is based on a photograph taken from South Austin and has been in use since 1982…

Here is a link to a short behind the scenes video of what it takes to produce an episode of the show.

Gmail Custom Time

There’s nothing quite like seeing a new link in your Gmail header. As long as it’s on Gmail, preceded by the word “New!” and colored red, it really doesn’t matter what it is, the internet gets excited.

Today’s new link introduces a sly little feature called Gmail Custom Time.

So what is Gmail Custom Time? Well, going against all things we learned in Back to the Future, it allows one to send a back-dated e-mail as far back as April 1, 2004. They can arrive as unread or read, oh, and you only get ten a year. Missed sending in that term paper or forgot to send Aunt Edna an e-card for her birthday? No problem.

Nice April Fool’s prank, right? You might want to check out the link today before it doesn’t exist…you know, like Michael J. Fox in that photo…

The testimonials are great.

“I just got two tickets to Radiohead by being the ‘first’ to respond to a co-worker’s ‘first-come, first-serve’ email. Someone else had already won them, but I told everyone to check their inboxes again. Everyone sort of knows I used Custom Time on this one, but I’m denying it.”

Robby S., Paralegal

Random iTunes Surprises

I have quite the extensive .mp3 collection cataloged in my iTunes and sometimes I get a special audio treat. Not only do I have classic rock, soundtracks and a variety of other music…I also have sound clips from movies and sound effects. What does this mean?

Well, I like to leave my iTunes set to shuffle so it plays songs in a random fashion, so every once in a while it will go from say David Bowie to a sound effect of a wolf howling, or perhaps Michael J. Fox saying, “You built a time machine, out of a Delorean?” Usually it’s a pleasant surprise, but occasionally it scares the snot out of me. I’m just glad I didn’t opt to add police sirens and gun shots to my library…

How to Make Simple Web Videos

I’ve had a couple of questions about what I use to shoot and edit my little videos thus far. I use my Kodak EasyShare V570 (as pictured in this post) to shoot my video clips. I have a 2 GB SD card which provides about an hour of record time. This is plenty, as the battery dies well before the card is full. It shoots VGA 640 × 480 pixels at 30 fps and produces .mov (quicktime) files.

Note: I would not buy this again camera if my purpose was to constantly use it for web video, however the ultrawide angle f2.8 lens (the camera has two lenses) lets in a lot of light for good video in low light.

As for editing the video from this camera, I use Windows Movie Maker. Movie Maker is a VERY simple program to use and comes with Windows. If you have Windows, you have this program unless it has been deleted. It’s very limited feature and it literally takes about five minutes to learn all the ins and outs. There is even a list of steps on the left that tells you what order to do things in if you are unsure.

I do have to convert the .mov files to .avi files first so Movie Maker can read them, I use the free MP4CAM2AVI to convert the video. After importing the video to Movie Maker, saving the movie maker project (save, save, save! you never know when it might randomly quit) adding title frames, and some fade in and outs the video is ready to export. Movie Maker saves the files as a .wmv file, which is acceptable by most video sites such as viddler, vimeo and youtube to name a few.

I then upload the video to the web via a video sharing site and post it to my blog.

I mentioned a few above, but there are many more you can use as well. After uploading video to a video sharing site, it can be e-mailed to friends, or by using the site provided code, embedded into sites like myspace or blogs.

My Kitchen…I Mean Office…

Ever wonder where I’m sitting when I’m posting on my site or what kind of equipment I’m using? If so, wonder no more. If not, well, why not? Don’t you think about me all the time and check my site every hour? No? *sigh*

1: Dell XPS 400
2: Dell monitor, 20 inch?, VGA , nothing too special
3: ProView monitor, Wal-Mart special, 17 inch?
4: harman/kardon speakers that came with my original Dell like 8 years ago. I can’t seem to part with them.
5: Khara fuel! No ice!
6: casemate iPhone case
7: iPhone
8: Western Digital My Book External HD 320GB
9: Kodak EasyShareV570
- this is what I use for my videos currently
- I keep a 2GB card in and it’s plenty for video (the battery dies before you can fill it up)
- also use for snapshots, though not too often as I usually have a DSLR with me
10:Lexar USB 2.0 Multi-Card reader
- used to read my SD and CF cards from my cameras
11: SanDisk Cruzer 2GB Micro (flash, jump, etc.) Drive
-I always have this with me…never know when you need your files or someone else’s!
12: Keyboard. Duh.
13: Office Chair. I finally got a real one!
14: Optical Mouse
15: Kitchen Table/Computer Desk. Seats four…or one plus computer
16: Monitor Riser. Built from a $6 laminate shelf and votive candles

I’ve had a couple of questions about what I used to shoot and edit my little videos. I use my Kodak V570 as pictured above to shoot the video clips and Windows Movie Maker. Read more about it here.