Caught In The Whirlwind
Archive for November, 2009
Thanksgiving Summary
0906 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and it was definitely an enjoyable one this year.
As per usual, I woke up bright and early to head over to my parents house for our traditional putting up of the christmas tree and such. This year, I helped with thanksgiving dinner again (assembling the lasagna and making the lemon meringue pie were my tasks). Unlike last year though, we didn’t do turkey. But that was perfectly fine with me.
My mom had a migrane headache the day before so she was running a little bit late with preparations so we ended up starting doing the tree after the Macy’s parade started. But it seems like everyone was running late (since they changed the parade route this year) so it worked out. The christmas tree has seen better days. Some branches are a bit droopy this year and some parts of the top are being held on by zip ties. The thought was that it’s going to have to be replaced soon. Dah. Especially since all the trees out there are pre-lit which seem to break more often.
The afternoon lead to some Madden with my Dad. I finally broke my horrific losing streak and we *almost* got our franchise mode game up to the playoffs. One more play and we’ll be there, but it’s harder to organize now that I live further away than I used to.
Dinner time arrived and with it came my roommates (along with the Strawberry Shortcake Cake that Wassy made to bring over. Mmmm) and my sister and her husband. The rest of the evening was thoroughly enjoyable, I thought. Dinner was tasty and fun and after we broke out Apples to Apples and played a game which ended up being a really really fun time.
As per usual, I know I left out a bunch of stuff, but the most important bit was that it was a great start to vacation. Lots of fun hanging out with my friends and family.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
0908 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
4:00. The day before Thanksgiving. Sitting at my desk at work…watching the clock tick slowly by…
Yep, it’s that time again. The long wait before vacation begins. And after what I did today at work I could really use all 5 days that I took off (took off Monday just for good measure) to recover.
I had to delve into one of our old programs that’s technically unmaintained (it was never migrated over to our new development platform) but still in use to add a feature somebody requested. This program is held together by the coding equivalent of duct tape and chewing gum. In fact, when it was overheard that I would be working in this program, I was instructed to not go anywhere even remotely close to the printing code. Because, and I quote this exactly: “You’re just better off not going there…” spoken in a tone of voice suggesting some deep rooted trauma, suppressed by the ages suddenly bubbling to the surface.
So after getting the morning trying to get the program to actually run properly on my machine (setting the tone for what was to come), I set about trying to wedge a new feature into the 5 year old, horribly documented and strung together code.
Can I go home now?
I spent last night poking around photoshop and trying some things out. I ended up creating a neat looking (in my opinion anyway) outer space nebula/star field background that I’m not quite sure what to do with. I was thinking of trying to transform it into some sort of desktop wallpaper for the heck of it. Maybe put in a (bright) star and a couple planets or something. See if I can turn it into an artsy type project as a break from bashing my head against the wall with web design things.
It’ll expand my photoshop skillz at any rate, even if it ends up sucking. I’m already using some stuff I never got into before (adjustment and clipping layers, specifically. Extremely useful little features). I’ll probably spend some time over my vacation poking away at it and seeing what I can do.
Turkey Day Plans (Minus The Turkey)
0910 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
It looks like plans are beginning to shape up for Thanksgiving this week, and it couldn’t come soon enough for me. I’ve used a vacation day to turn the 4 day weekend into a 5 day weekend and I could use the time off.
As per tradition, I’ll be heading over to my parents house early on. This year to help prep the lemon meringue pie and the lasagna (we’re having a non traditional thanksgiving dinner this year. No turkey) and put up the christmas tree like we do every year. New this year though my roommates are going to be joining my family for dinner later on (and bringing a tasty strawberry shortcake cake for desert. Mmmmm).
As far as what I’ll be doing in the meantime, I’ve been feeling the itch to start working again on some of my personal web design type projects that have been floating around in limbo for a while. I opened up the work that I was doing on my mom’s website last night and I’m not really sure I like where it’s going anymore. Sigh. This project is becoming epic.
The End Is Near
0914 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
End of the semester that is. Class seems to have simply flown by this semester for me which is an unusual experience as I’m normally counting down the days until it ends. Not so this time. I’m about 60% completed with my final project for Digital Typography and I hope to get it mostly done over thanksgiving break. But there’s just 2 more classes left before it’s over. And if I get it all done and printed, I don’t even have to go to that last class.
Couple of updates on the posts from yesterday. My first Gyro was really, really good. I’m kinda glad that I don’t work near this place (the place that made the gyro) as I would have to resist getting lunch there every single day…
Also an update: We just got through with our mandatory health care meeting at work here since we got new plans and, as it turns out, the plans aren’t as sucky as I thought. While the deductibles are higher, less stuff touches the deductible than our current plan so it makes less of a difference. The only issue comes in if I have to go to the ER for something. It also has the Healthy Rewards thingy so I can earn some extra cash doing that stuff.
[Plinky] Wardrobe Change
0915 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Describe any wardrobe changes you make when you get home from work, school, or your other day activities.
Depending on how I’m feeling I might go straight to pajamas, but I usually change out from my work clothes into either jeans or shorts (depending on the weather) and a t-shirt of some kind.
I don’t like hanging around in my work clothes longer than I have to as it reminds me of…well…work.
International Foods Week
0915 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Man, it’s the second half of november and I’ve only made 3 posts here this month. Well, 4 counting this one. I’m slacking off :-/
Well, really I’m having trouble coming up with stuff to write about as my daily activities have been quite mundane for a while.
As it turns out this week’s food choices have been quite global. We started out we some good ol’ american hamburger helper and then we had Indian last night. Tonight we’re having greek (gyros). Skipping over to saturday we’re having salsa chicken tacos and sunday I’m cooking up some chicken riggies. Those last two choices are only…sorta international, but they still count I think! I’m looking forward to cooking up the riggies as my first attempt revealed some things that need modification, so hopefully I can refine it properly this time around.
Lets see, random news time…work has been pretty rocky the past couple days. Lots of stuff going wrong and I’m finding I’m having increasingly little patience for it. Probably shouldn’t go into that too much, but it’s been pretty un-good recently. And to top it all off, we’re getting new health insurance plans for next year that suck worse than the ones we have now. Increased co-pays (even some co-pays that didn’t exist before, like a $40 X-ray co-pay), the deductible doubled, and the ER visit copay went up from like $50 to $150. All of which the benefits e-mail touted as “features” of the plan. Seems like they were trying to sugar coat it.
I just hope I never have to go to the emergency room.
In relaxation news, I’ve played a couple of games of battletech to ease back into it. I’m playing against myself (which I know is lame), but I dunno if I’ll really be able to do anything different as, like I mentioned, nobody around here really plays at all. It’s just something nice and different that I can do for an hour or so. I’m really more interested in the fiction of the universe at this point than the actual playing.
A (Mostly) Working Weekend
0918 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I was a very productive individual this weekend.
I got a lot done on my final project for my Digital Typography course over the past two days. I can’t recall if I mentioned it but the project involves re-creating a 2 page spread (using Adobe InDesign) from a magazine and the one I picked ended up being quite complicated:
Final Project Article
There’s something like 45 boxes of text on there and about 35 pictures (although the pictures also include things like the orange and yellow boxes and such). All of which had to be measured and recorded. The worst part was trying to identify all of the various fonts used and trying to match those to fonts that I had available. Not to mention cleaning up the graphics and getting rid of all the text (especially overlaying the ad image on the second page) I had that all finished last class and approved by the instructor, so I was able to start the process of putting all the boxes in their proper locations on the computer.
My roommates just picked up the extended ultra mega super edition of The Watchmen, so while that was on in the background I started working. 2 and a half hours later I had finally gotten all the boxes in position. I’m glad I started doing this at home instead of waiting for class as I don’t think I’d have quite enough time in class to finish it off…
The extended edition of Watchmen is really nice, by the way. The missing bits that were added back in really complete the movie and it doesn’t feel like it’s too long. I worry sometimes about directors cuts of movies when they add back in so much footage (Like the extended versions of the Lord of The Rings movies. They just felt like they were a little too long to me). But the stuff that was dropped from Watchmen was all stuff that added to the movie when it was put back in. Two thumbs up for Watchmen.
Sunday was a little more relaxed. I spent some time adjusting images, but I ended up doing a lot of reading otherwise. I had intended to play a game of Battletech as well, but I didn’t quite have all the supplies I needed to get going (missing a couple record sheets I needed) which should be rectified today.
The weekend was capped off by watching the newest episode of Dexter. And wow, what an episode it was…there were parts of it that were so intense I totally forgot it was a TV show I was watching. I don’t want to spoil anything in case somebody out there watches it delayed, but after the slow setup of Season 3, Season 4 is ranking right up there with the first season as far as how much I’m enjoying it. So many twists and turns!
Pretty Quiet
0924 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I haven’t been posting much over the past week because I really haven’t had that much to say. Just been going along…not much in the way of out of the ordinary happenings. I’ve started working on my final project for my Digital Typography course which is going to take up significant chunks of time considering how complex it ended up being. I’ve tried working on my various website design projects that I have going without much real progress to speak of. I feel kinda like I’m in a bit of a rut on that front. Hopefully I can snap out of it.
I’ve been thinking recently about maybe getting back into playing Battletech a bit. For those not in the know (which is probably everybody…not really a hugely popular game) Battletech is a sci-fi tactical pen and paper wargame involving, chiefly, gigantic piloted robots who shoot each other up. I used to play a lot about 10 years ago, but I lost track of the game and the people I played with. I used to hang out on this IRC chat server with a bunch of folks who played the game online since really nobody in my area plays so I’m a bit short on people to actually play with.
But I’ve picked up the novels again and I’ve started feeling the old urge to get back in and play a few games. I’m just glad I never sold off any of my books, maps or playing materials in the years since I last played. I knew I’d get back to it eventually.
Other than that, it’s been all quiet.
Caught In The Whirlwind
5932 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Transatlantic - The Whirlwind
As I mentioned, my most anticipated musical release of the year has arrived in my hands as of last week. And since then I’ve had the time to dig in and digest it a bit, so now it’s time to review.
If you’ve missed all of my previous postings on Transatlantic, let me describe the group a bit. They’re a progressive rock super group consisting of Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater on drums, Neal Morse ( Ex-Spock’s Beard) on keyboards and most of the vocals, Roine Stolt from The Flower Kings on guitar and the rest of the vocals and Pete Trewavas from Marillion on bass. Their music is in the classic era progressive rock sound, like from the 70s when prog was starting to really pick up steam. But it’s very modern as well. They’re influenced greatly by early Genesis, Yes, and The Beatles among others.
So after an 8 year gap between albums, does Transatlantic still have it? My answer is: Yes! As soon as I started listening to the album for the first time I got a grin on my face that didn’t go away for quite a while. The overall sound is a bit different, but the guys are in different places musically now than they were 8 years ago so a shift is to be expected. The writing chemstry is still in place and that’s what really counts.
The album is basically one giant 77 minute song. And as opposed to the most recent album in my collection that tried this approach (Porcupine Tree’s – The Incident), The Whirlwind succeeds in making it feel like a single piece instead of songs strung together with some transition bits thrown in. Recurring lyrics and musical themes weave through the piece and tie everything together.
The fact that all 4 of them were excited to be back together and producing music shines through clearly in the playing and musical composition. Of special note are Pete Trewavas’s bass lines in this album. He’s always been an exceptional bass player, but he’s outdone himself on this release. I don’t usually sit there and listen to the bass specifically in a song, but here I often find myself mesmerized.
My only complaint with the album revolves around the lyrics. While generally really good, Neal Morse’s dive into overtly Christian/religious music after he left Spock’s Beard has left it’s mark here as well. In a few spots, I find the lyrics to be slightly uncomfortably preachy and what was once spiritual overtones that were subtle in the past albums became much more distinct here. It doesn’t detract much from the album for me, but it’s there and it’s something I could really have done without.
The production and mix are perfect. No loudness war crap everything sounds amazing. Even Mike and Pete’s vocals which can be shaky at times are really impressive here.
Is it better than Bridge Across Forever? Well…no. But Bridge Across Forever is, as far as I’m concerned absolutely perfect in every way. Be that as it may, Transatlantic is back and The Whirlwind is a worthy addition to their musical legacy. This is probably my #1 album of the year, in a year with some incredible albums.
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