Everything !(Zen)

So I have completely dumped this journal and have been focusing on my new blog. The address changed since my last post. The address is http://www.tkrphoto.com so bookmark that one and tell everyone you know about it! :)

Just a quick moment to let everyone know I started a new blog site that I am planning on using for more professional topics. I will probably continue to post here but it will be irrelevant posts about day to day things. Any of my software or photography related posts will take place on the other site. Feel free to drop by and give it a read from time to time.

You will find it here.

I am so sick of hearing political campaigns say some candidate "misspoke" after every damn speech they give. Seriously, I am fucking tired of it. Have some integrity and deal with what you say or shut the fuck up.

I have had my MacBook Pro for about a week now and I thought it would be a good time to post an update with my opinions so far on the switch. I will not go too in depth; I will save that for the article series I am still planning on writing.

When I first decided to switch to Mac and OSX I decided that I was going to keep an open mind. I felt that keeping an open mind was important since I hated Vista so much. I do not want to be seen as a "Mac Fan Boy" and have that view taint any information that I give. However, I have found it very hard to remain open minded. In all seriousness, I have found the hardware of the MBP and the software of OSX to be vastly superior to the hardware found in OEM PC laptops and Windows XP / Vista. Based on my research prior to making the change I knew that I would like the Mac. What I didn't realize is how much I would like it. As I said, I have found that the hardware and software is vastly superior to the systems I have been using (Dell Windows XP laptop and HP Windows Vista laptop).

For my day to day computer use I have found that the Mac meets every expectation. The OSX environment is very easy to use and has been rock solid. I have not had any problems or software crashes at all. Programs are very responsive and the file system doesn't seem to lag when doing file copies or read / writes. I did replace Safari with Firefox for my web browsing. I like Safari and it seems to run faster than Firefox but I cannot live without my mouse gestures for browsing! I also prefer the layout and feel of Firefox. So the decision to use Firefox is based purely on opinions rather than actual performance. The build in email application is great! It is much faster than Outlook and its usability and spam filters are awesome. I haven't used Thunderbird in years so I cannot make an honest comparison there. I am still getting used to the fact that iCal is not part of the email client like Outlook but so far it hasn't caused too many issues. I like most of the features of iCal but I still like the look & feel of Outlooks calendar. Time will tell which one I end up liking more but for right now I have to say Outlook's calendar is more to my liking.

When it comes to documents and spreadsheets I installed Microsoft Office:Mac 2008. Apple has their iWork suite that contains programs for doing the same tasks as found in Office but I wanted to ensure I maintained compatibility with everyone else I know that uses Office. I have found that Office:Mac runs so much better than Office on the PC. It looks prettier, has a much more useful layout, and runs faster. I found this to be very interesting since it is a Microsoft product. I expected there to be little to no difference between platforms when using Office but there is a huge difference.

I found the same to be true for using Adobe products on the Mac compared to Windows.
invisibleink151
 and I ordered Adobe CS3 Design Premium; her for her graphic art work and me for my photography. I have only used Bridge and Photoshop so far but I've found that they run much faster and the general look & feel is far better on the Mac. The start up time alone for the applications is a fraction of what it is on a Windows system. Some of this is probably due to the fact that the new Mac does have a slightly faster CPU and 1GB more memory but the difference is too great for it to be a simple hardware fix. I could explain more in-depth with low level software details but I will save it for the article series.

Some other quick findings:
1. Multitouch rocks!
2. Not having page up or page down buttons is still bothering me.
3. Not having home or end buttons is still bother me. I am getting used to the difference using command/option buttons with the arrow keys but still confuse them.
4. The back lit keyboard is awesome. The keyboard itself feels better than any other keyboard I have ever used.
5. The display brightness adjusting based on ambient light levels is cool but it was giving me a headache so I had to turn that feature off.
6. The sound quality from the Mac is much better.

Well, I planned to write more but have to run for now. Needless to say, I am sure you can tell that I love the Mac so far!

Yet another news story that perfectly validates the saying "A gun in your hand is better than a cop on the phone".

Read the story here.

For the last one and a half years I have been involved in developing a FMS (Flight Management System) for our avionics system. It has been one of the worst kept secrets in aviation kind of things. The project lead was given an award yesterday and an interesting press release on the subject can be found at this link.

I guess this means I can say I was on the award winning FMS team. Haha.

I've been looking for a spare XP Pro license to run on my Mac using VMWare and cannot find one. I do have a WindowsXP Home license though. Before deciding to go with XP Home instead of XP Pro I want to make sure I am not forgetting something... like a big difference between the two that would force me to use Pro.

I found the Microsoft comparison chart here.

Nothing there sends up a red flag to me. So, am I forgetting something that would really force me to use Pro??

When I got to lecture this morning I refreshed my shipping status page and saw that my MBP was put on a truck for delivery today! After getting to work and getting my day started,
invisibleink151 called me to say that our MBP's had been delivered. Four and a half days from China to Florida. Of course I had to come home for lunch so I could unpack "Trinity". When I walked in the door I saw the MacBook Pro box sitting on the counter along with a small gift bag. Attached to the gift bag was a note.... "Welcome to the Smug Club - Apple Care Package". Inside I found the following contents:

• Performance Powerbar
• SoyJoy Bar
• Red Hair Dye (apparently the store was out of green)
• Sparkling Juice bottle with a note "Do not open until Microsoft falls"
• A Starbucks double shot espresso
• "My Shit Dont Stink" breath spray
• Mac | Life magazine

I found it to be quite hilarious. She had a few other ideas that were even more funny but didn't have the time to go out and get the stuff. So I've been officially indoctrinated into the Smug Club.

I couldn't seem to find my Starbucks locater guide in the box though.

And yes, the new computer kicks total ass.

It has been awhile since I have posted anything about my training so I figured I would give a general update.

I was sick early last week so I skipped working out every day that whole week. At times I felt bad about skipping it but I knew I needed to keep my energy up so I wouldn't get sick again. So, from last Saturday until today I did not stretch, work out, or do anything karate related (other than look up some music to use). I have skipped a week or two of training in the past and have experienced two different things when I started working out again. One is that I felt better than ever once I started working out again as if the break completely recharged my body and mind. The second is I struggled to get moving, energy was real low, and my whole body hurt. I am happy to say that today's work out was the first; after stretching my body felt great and I was able to do the two hour workout without any major problems. The only problem I had was the three doughnuts I had for breakfast (stupid - I know) had me burping quite a bit. I did have to take a little breather at about the hour mark but overall I am extremely happy with how well I was able to jump back into things.

The work out I did this morning was with B and J as usual. There are two other candidates that could test with us but they are not putting forth near enough effort for them to be ready to test with us. B is a guy I've known since fourth grade although we did loose contact for around 12 years as we went through high school and our early twenties. J is an eleven year old girl with spirit and motivation that rivals most adults that I know. She is a very sweet kid and I think she is just awesome. We bombed through all our material first and then refined some of the katas here and there to make sure we had them all down correctly. Then we ended up sparring 10 rounds or so.

B and I have been working with J a lot on being more aggressive in sparring and actually making contact and hitting/kicking us. When we first started training together towards our black belt she was timid and wouldn't make contact. I can understand the natural timidness when you are an eleven year old girl going up against a twenty-nine year old man even though we continued to tell her that we were not going to hurt her and would spar down at her level. I am happy to report that she was tearing into us today! She got over whatever it was that was bothering her and she was not afraid to get in close and hit us. I am so happy that she was able to break free of her reservations and really open up with her skills. This opens a whole new avenue for us to help train her in her martial arts. She has a huge heart and I really cannot describe how happy I am that we were able to help her reach another level in her training.

Now I have to go take a shower and get ready for our photo shoot. Every group that tests for their black belt has a theme and our instructor (who is a very good photographer - he hangs out with Scott Kelby, Vincent Versache, and those types of guys) does a photo shoot so he can create posters and stuff for the test. I am usually the one behind the lens but I do enjoy modeling for the martial arts type photo shoots. I wouldn't mind doing martial arts modeling for catalogs and maybe even be an extra in a movie. Would be a lot of fun.

One of the things I noticed is that many engineers dismiss the use of Macs almost right away when you talk to them about it. I only know a few engineers that use them. That may be because I do not work in Silicon Valley or in a web design firm. Well, that is probably exactly why. But in the big embedded systems power houses that do aviation and government contracts you don't see any Macs except in the graphics and marketing department. In fact, for many years I had the same mind set of "I cannot do what I need to do on a Mac so forget about it". radven showed me a lot of really cool stuff that would allow me to do my Windows based builds on a Mac (VMWare Fusion or Boot Camp) and after researching it I have changed my opinion 100%.

So, I came up with the idea to write a series of articles that go into detail regarding each step of my transitioning over to a Mac. This will include mini-reviews on the software that I use, how I set up that software and why, the tips and tricks I find that make the switch easier, and any other general thoughts I have along the way. Everything will be based on my view as an engineer. While I will be doing photography stuff with it too I know there are a ton of articles out there about Adobe CS3 on the Mac.

My questions for the very few people who actually read my blog are as follows:

1. Would a series of articles or blog posts on this topic be interesting to you or do you think there would be a large interest in the engineering community for them? Meaning, would this be a waste of my time or not?

2. What medium should I look at writing these up in? Would it be more suited for a few large articles or a lot more short blog posts about each topic?

3. Should I start my own blog site for this or approach an established blog site like TUAW for it?

The general idea that I have is to challenge the idea that Macs are not for engineers. Who knows, maybe I will determine that Macs are NOT for engineers! With all the research I have done I find it very hard to believe that I would come to that opinion but I am going to keep an open mind about it. I don't want to waste my time going through the trouble of taking notes and writing it all up if it isn't going to be present to a large audience. No offense but the 5 people who actually read my LJ doesn't seem nearly enough for me to simply post it all here.

Let me know your thoughts on the matter...

My MacBook Pro got to Memphis, TN at 2:45am this morning. Too bad I couldn't call them and bribe someone to put it in the "send this package on Sunday" pile so that it would get down here and delivered tomorrow. I have a feeling that it will sit there until tomorrow and then make its way down here for a Tuesday delivery. Who knows... maybe I will get lucky. I upgraded to 2-3 business day shipping and ordered it Wednesday morning (shipped on Thursday afternoon). So Tuesday seems to be the right amount of time for it. I went from Shanghai, China to Anchorage, Alaska and then on to Memphis, Tennessee.

I cannot help but be amazed at the system FedEx and UPS has that can get a package from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world in a day or two. Each individual part of the combined system has to be working perfectly in sync to pull something like that off and they do it on a day to day basis. It really is amazing if you think about it. It sure beats the Pony Express!

Oh well... I just have to relax and wait for it to get here. I received VMWare Fusion in the mail on Friday and it has been sitting on my desk waiting for the computer to arrive. I haven't received Adobe CS3 yet but it should be here soon too. invisibleink151 ordered that for us so she is probably holding the tracking number ransom from me. I haven't received any demands yet so maybe not.

Back to waiting...

Today has been a very productive day for me. Well, most of my days are usually productive but there isn't a whole lot of easily visible results since most of what I do is software related.

After breakfast I changed the front brakes on the truck which needed done a long while ago. We bought the truck in 2004 from an old man who only used it to tow his boat from his winter house in Florida to the river and back. Needless to say, we got a great deal on a 10 year old truck with only 30k miles on it!! The brakes that I changed today were the original factory brakes! 14 year old truck and this is the first brake job ever done on it. Crazy, huh? After that I fixed the tire for the riding lawn mower which had come off the rim the last time I mowed. Then I took the carberator apart for the push mower and got it all cleaned up and put back together so that mower now works too. Since the transmission is broke on the riding mower I used the push mower to get the front yard mowed and then sprayed with the stuff that is supposed to kill off dollar weeds. Oh, and between the mower repair and the actual mowing I took invisibleink151 out for sushi and damn was it good!

So yes, I have that feeling of accomplishment today. The feeling is all concentrated down in my feet and it sucks!! I have to stop being so productive so my feet don't ache as much. No wonder I went into software. Haha.

I posted a while back about music ideas for use during the Black Belt show portion of my test. Here are two things I have come up with so far.

I heard this while watching The Matrix last night and after some Google searches found it. I think it is bad ass!!


This is one a friend of mine told me about and I like the beat and overall feeling of the song. The YouTube video is of the show Numbers which is a really great show.

Naming machines at work is quite common but I have never officially named my own personal computers (except for naming my Linux box at work Penguin but that is quite generic). That is all going to change once my Mac arrives! I already have a few names I am kicking around but still on the look out for inspiration. I did a Google search on the topic and came across this FAQ that outlines the dos and donts when choosing a name for your computer. At first I laughed that there was actually a FAQ on the topic. I have to admit though, it has some really good advice in it.

So now my question to all of you...

What thought process would you use to come up with a name for a new computer?

Where would you look for inspiration?

This looks to be a pretty cool device for a photographer on the move...



It records the GPS location of every photo taken and once you download everything to your PC it tags the photos with it. Check out a short write up on it here.

What would be really awesome is if it interfaced with the camera itself and add the location to the embedded data right then and there. No need to download the location and have some other software tag them in post process. I do not see me needing anything like this until I go on my vacation around Europe and would like to post the photos with specific locations for others to visit.

I continue to be pleased by banking with Washington Mutual. <lj user="invisibleink151"> bought her MacBook Pro on our WAMU debit card about 5 minutes after I bought mine on it. Within two minutes of her submitting her order the phone rang. It was WAMU's fraud prevention automated system checking to make sure that the purchases were OK and not fraud. She had to verify some information using the touch pad on the phone and that was it. She then ordered Adobe CS3 from a different internet site on the same card and within a few minutes the phone rang again. Same deal.

I know this sounds like it can be annoying but I am very pleased with it. Since the charges were being put on a debit card and they are of a large amount it is good to have them verified. And since it was done within two minutes of submitting the order there was no hold up on getting the funds to Apple so they can put our orders together and get them into our waiting hands!

Good job WAMU; you get yet another plus in my book!

The deed is done. invisibleink151 and I just placed our order for shiny new MacBook Pros from the Apple website. We ordered identical machines and have already begun thinking about how we are going to customize the cases to tell them apart.

The specs we ordered are as follows:

• MacBook Pro 15-inch Widescreen Display
• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB

We both upgraded the hard drive from the 200GB to the 250GB since it was only a $49 upgrade and got the glossy screen. We went back and forth on the screen type but after looking at our current laptops (mine has glossy / hers doesn't) we went with glossy. The glare doesn't both me much and I like the deeper more rich colors from the glossy screen. The 2GB to 4GB memory upgrade was $360 and that can be purchased off the internet for much cheaper. So we will upgrade that in a few months once we've broken them in. I was also thinking about getting each of us an external hard drive to use with Leopard's time machine feature but decided the cost of the laptops themselves was enough for now. Well, that and the $599 for the Mac version of CS3 design premium. The cool thing is we found it from a third party website that includes 1500 Mac fonts for free with it! Woo Hoo! That is the main drawback to this switch over; all our software is the PC version so we have to re-buy most of it.

Now the waiting game begins. What can we do to make the time pass faster and not let the suspense of our new beasts showing up drive us crazy? I thought about that last night and after researching various Mac topics I decided we have two main tasks to complete before they get here; increase our smugness and become more proficient at blindly lashing out against anyone that speaks ill of Apple, Mac, or OSX. I read many articles and reviews on Mac topics yesterday and found the comments to be the most interesting part. When one person leaves a comment, even a well structured and nice comment, that is in any way negative towards Macs the rest of the comment page is filled with Mac users tearing the other commenter to shreds! That must be the secret as to how Apple came up with the names for each version of OSX... because their users are lurking around like huge cats ready to pounce on Mac haters and tear them to shreds with bitter promises of death and dismemberment unless they change their ways and convert to the Mac Cult. It really is quite interesting to witness the Mac Cult phenominon from an external point of view prior to putting on the robes and receiving my official copy of Starbuck locations. I think that my hatred for Microsoft Vista and the way that I always jump into new things two feet first will help me to increase my smug level enough to be worthy of being seen in public with a Mac. I am also quite the loud mouth (if you hadn't already noticed) so I think I can lash out at Mac haters with equal fervor as my fellow cult brethren.

In all honesty though I have a lot to do before the new Macs arrive. I have to get all my files packaged up and transfered to my other computer and get this computer fully ready to be handed over to serolynne for her purge genie service. I have to do the same thing for invisibleink151 old laptop and her old desktop. Her old desktop is going to need a complete OS reinstall to put the Dell WindowsXP back on it that I removed the day we got it.  Then both of those computers go over to the purge genie as well. Then, after all that, I have to finish getting her iBook set up for our daughter to take over. I already started getting the parental controls set up so she can only go to certain websites and cannot use iChat or iMail. I love how Macs have this feature built into them. But even with all this to do, the wait is still going to suck!

Windows XP Pro Single License: $299
Windows XP Pro Upgrade Single License: $199
Windows Vista Ultimate Single License: $399
Mac OS X Leopard 5-Pack License: $199

It is debatable which OS is better but I have been leaning towards OS X for many months now. Even more so since getting a laptop with Vista on it. I cannot give up Windows completely since I need it for a great deal of my development tasks. I am planning on running XP in VMWare. What kills me is that I am probably going to have to spend more money on what will be my secondary OS than my primary OS costs! From the numbers above, I will have to spend the same amount as *5* licenses of my primary OS!!! That is just fucking stupid!

Regardless, good-bye Vista! I'm ordering a MacBook Pro tomorrow.

FUCK Microsoft

I have always been critical of religion based on my belief that it is nothing more than a tool for select groups of people to control the masses using fear. I have many other issues with it but at the very heart of the matter is how it is used to exploit and control people. The latest news from the Vatican has me wondering again how anyone can continue to follow the church. Check out this story.

The Vatican has added seven more deadly sins to the list for the age of globalization. It doesn't really matter what these new sins are. It is just the fact that the Vatican has added them that gets me. The story mentions that this information was released at the same time the pope deplored the decreasing sense of sin in the western world and the decreasing numbers of Roman catholics going to confession. That right there tells me everything I need to know. The decrease in population going to church has the Vatican worried that their power over the people is failing and so they are trying to scare people back under their control.

So what are the new sins? I haven't seen the document myself (I couldn't read it anyway since I don't know the language) so I do not know the exact wording. But from the story it mentions destroying the environment, morally questionable scientific experiments, DNA altering genetics, excessive accumulation of wealth, abortion, drug dealing, and pedophilia.

Saving the environment is a great thing but is polluting really a 'deadly sin'? I hardly think so.

Pedophilia, in my book, is an instant death sentence but is the catholic church really one to talk?

Excessive accumulation of wealth a deadly sin? Ha! If the Vatican had it's way the wealthy would give all their money to the church.

Morally questionable science experiments like determining that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice-versa? Building large particle accelerators to help determine how existence came into being instead of blindly believing what was written in a book that has been re-written throughout history? This is a perfect case in that they are afraid of science telling the world what they themselves already know... their beliefs are drastically incorrect.

DNA altering genetics... If sickness is God's plan then going to see a medical professional should be a mortal sin. That is what doctors do, isn't it? They change God's plan. Oh, unless of course God's plan is for you to get sick so a doctor can heal you. Whatever. Their story constantly evolves and changes as people find holes in it.

The funny thing is that the pope said that abortion violates the dignity and rights of women. Ha! I see it as just the opposite. Making abortion a deadly sin is a direct assault against womens rights and their dignity. Ok, so it isn't funny. It is quite distressing.

I see this as another ploy by the church to regain their control over the masses. The church saw a huge upswing in followers after 9/11 and it has begun to fade again. Now they are trying to counteract the intelligence of the people by creating new fear. This is sad... so very sad.

My daughter caught some kind of bug and threw up 5 or 6 times Friday evening. She felt fine Saturday morning and all day Sunday but said she was feeling sick again this morning. She either caught the bug again or just wanted another day out of school. I am hoping it is the second as I hate to see her sick.

Sunday afternoon it was my turn. I spent the morning playing Crysis and around 11am my stomach started feeling weird so I went and laid down on the couch. Right about 2pm it was my turn to start throwing up. I spent the afternoon sleeping on the floor of the bathroom. Let me tell you, that was not comfortable at all. But every time I tried to get up to move to the bedroom I would get sick again so cold tile floor wrapped in towels was it for me. I spent the rest of the evening and overnight in bed going from being extremely cold to extremely hot. I think that is worse than actually throwing up! Around 10pm I was able to drink a little Gateraid and water without getting sick and around 4:30am this morning I was able to eat some crackers. Other than those crackers I haven't had anything to eat since Sunday morning. Maybe I will loose a few pounds out of this whole thing!

I didn't sleep very well and whenever I did get to sleep I had some weird dreams. All the dreams were about the same thing... I was creating a machine that cured the effects of the "bug" in the movie I Am Legend that turned all the humans into dark feeders. I was in the role of Will Smith in the sense that I was immune to the bug and it was my job to find the cure for it. They were not pleasant dreams. But I remember constantly waking up with my lower back aching like mad and it being very hard to go back to sleep. I don't know of anyone else whose lower back hurts so bad when they get sick. Maybe it is just something weird with my body... but I hate it. Every time I move it is just so uncomfortable.

So at 5:30am this morning it was H's turn to start throwing up. She slept on the couch so I could have the bed to myself since I was sick. I heard her get up so I slowly got out of bed to go out and say good morning. When I came around the corner into the kitchen I heard her in the guest bathroom throwing up. So it was my turn to get her a cold wash cloth and help her with whatever she needed. She was so good at taking care of me on Sunday so now I get to repay her. Too bad I am completely drained of energy... just going to do my best to help her the best I can.

Well, thats whats going on today. All of us are in bed or on the couch trying to get over a flu-like bug. Not fun... not fun at all.