Oregon Coast

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Originally uploaded by jimusik

Yaquina Head Lighthouse is an amazing place to visit. We lucked out and were able to see some sort of sea birds nesting on the rocks. Of course a couple sea lions were playing around and pelicans were hanging just above the waves. Beautiful day at the coast.

~soundguy

The Valley in May

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Originally uploaded by jimusik

Now that I am fascinated with photography I thought I would start posting about some of my favorite pictures. So far, I am learning a great deal about what not to do with little amazing output but, it is fun none the less. This picture is using a 400mm lens on a Minolta SR T101 with 200 film. I wish the mountains popped a little more, I might have to play with my collection of filters. I also put a slighly more powerful battery in so I might be running it a little hot. More pictures to come...

~soundguy

Memorial Day Weekend

What better way to spend a Memorial Day Weekend that with Family! (or in my case, soon to be family). Amazingly enough Ben had never spent any quality time in Oregon so of course the ChoirPres and I decided to show them what is so great about the Willamette Valley, besides rainy winters and allergy filled summers of course.
We had a fun time at Amity Vineyard and Willamette Valley Vineyards. I really need to become a better expert at the wineries in the valley. So much history and such good wine!
We also showed them how to Fly Kites at the Oregon Coast. Of course the day ended with cloud cover and the need to bundle up a bit, the morning was blue and beautiful though. I was able to take my new (old) camera out for a test spin. Can't wait to develop the film and see if anything came out.

~soundguy

Needed Strap

So, my soon to be Pop sent me a full collection of Minolta gear including a SRT101 with 3 lenses and a hand full of filters. Of course I ran straight out and bought one of these for it...Now, after running around with the gear and taking random pictures as I try to figure out how to use it I find that I really need one of these....
Not the camera but the strap. Just so happens there is a drawing over at a friends blog who sells these cute little beggers so I thought, why not enter her drawing and give her a little publicity.

Alright, so it might be a little floral for a boy but its way cool, you gotta admit. Worth the try.

So, check out Etsy if you have a moment and like crafty stuff.

~soundguy

Spring in MN

Yo Yo Ma!

That's how I answer the phone when this Crazy Liberated Woman calls me. "Yo Yo Ma!" She's such a good sport - she laughs at it almost every time.
Since I've made fourteen attempts to call her today (all unsuccessful) I've opted for the cyber shout-out. YO YO MA. Pick up the dang phone so I can wish you a Happy Mother's Day, will ya? This woman has big fish to fry. There's no time to sit at home waiting for the phone to ring! There are flowers to plant, mountains to climb, notes to be played, and the athletic club to keep in business. Then there's the matter of mastering her iPod...
I sure do love you, Mom! Thanks for going nine months without coffee on my behalf.

And a Mother's Day post wouldn't be complete without a nod to my future mother-in-law as well! We're still figuring each other out, so I'd better keep the snarky remarks to a minimum lest she think her son is marrying a heathen.
Enjoy the grace period, Pam. Who knows how I'll be answering the phone the next time you call ;)

Big love to all the moms! Enjoy your day!

Geeking Out

Windows 7

Some of you nerds out there probably know that Microsoft is finally putting out the operating system the should have put out when they released Vista. It even seems that Vista is getting the same treatment Millennium Edition received when that flopped. Well, this week Microsoft released the RC version of Windows 7 for download and of course I couldn't help myself in trying to install it on the iMac with Parallels.
I must say that it was not as difficult to install as I suspected and the darn thing seems to run quite well. Windows always runs faster in Parallels anyway and of course some of the graphic based applications don't work at all but so far I have been able to test the newest release of OpenOffice and Chrome. It has a lot of Vista styled menus but the task bar is a complete redesign.

For those of you trying to install Windows 7 on Parallels 3 check out the following tips.

• Don't even try to burn the ISO from microsoft. Toast failed at two attempts and I am not sure why. Just point Parallels to the ISO file. It installs much faster too.
• When you install just choose the other operating system option and pick Windows Experimental 2008, the rest of the settings are standard.
• I had some weird graphic issues when I told Parallels to install the Parallel tools. I found that if I jumped away from the window and came back, it would correct itself.
  
• When it asks you to run the Parallel Tools inside Windows 7, do not click run...instead explore the connected drive, right click on the parallel tools and change compatibility to Windows XP mode.
  
• It will yell at you that the drivers arn't signed but my internet and sound started working after a restart. The shared drives don't seem to connect but for me but I don't really care.

Peace -

~soundguy

Snort Snort

Are you freaking out about the Swine Flu!?! Have you been refusing to shake hands and using that sanitizer all the time? Good for you. Way to keep the world germ free! Here's a really cool tool with which to play around, a computer simulation of how the flu interacts with populations. It's pretty simple but effective in seeing how the flu spreads and how hard it actually is (especially if people are cautious) to make it reach pandemic levels. So, in the mean time, have fun playing the Killer Flu game HERE.

~soundguy

Rutter Anthem by St. Peder's Choir

There is something really great about having a wonderful set of voices willing to work hard on beautiful music. I just happened to have the chance to record The Lord is my Shepherd from Sunday. Although there are clearly mistakes I thought overall the group did a fantastic job. And for the snobs out there, the cleaners crawled into the organ to clean after the fire and messed the tuning up big time. Rita did a great job of trying to compensate for it but the Tuner is on his way this week.

Thank you to all my music ministers at St. Peder's, see you next Thursday.



~soundguy

p.s. random photos cause blogger doesn't let you just upload mp3's, go figure.