Undisclosed Location

The internet gave me ADHD

First Google Reader, then Gmail. Then it's alltop and maybe a little random searching on YouTube or Funny or Die. Those books in my bookshelf collect more and more dust because the internet and TiVo have taken over my entertainment leisure time. I think Steve Jobs hit it right on the head when he was talking about the Amazon Kindle e-book reader.

"It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore...Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore."

I used to read all the time. Hell, half of my childhood was spent in the library with my nose buried behind a book (may explain the pasty whiteness). Now I have an entire shelf of half-read paperbacks that I don't see finishing any time soon. I've gotten so used to processing small chunks of information and moving images that I find it almost impossible to sit and read the same thing for an extending period of time. Scanning headlines through RSS feeds has rotted out the concentration centers of my brain to the point where even studying is difficult. I used to be able to knock out 5-6 hour study sessions. Now I go 30 minutes and my brain starts to short circuit. A good New Yorker article is now a bore because I can't make it past page 3.

I'm considering going to audiobooks because I don't see things improving anytime soon. I would have moved to them earlier but I can't help shake the feeling that I'm cheating if I listened to a book in the car on my iPod.

Ah Spring

I'm out for a stroll, and after a vigorous walk yesterday (that may have caused a few blisters), I'm taking it easy. In the midst of my walk a stranger stopped me to tell me that there was a beautiful blue heron a few minutes walk down the path.

Up for an adventure, I strode down the path to see if she was still there. Along the way, I turned down my iPod in case there was any sound leaking from my headphones. To my surprise I heard a menagarie of birds including the distinctive pecking of a woodpecker. Near dusk, I also heard some frog songs.

I saw the heron moments later. It was a majestic bird, and at the sound of my creeping footsteps in the grass, it spread its graceful wings and flew downstream near another footbridge.

On my walk back to the main trail I saw a ruby red cardinal and his mousey brown mate sitting on a branch. I also began to notice rustlings that sounded, at first, like a snake or other scary critter moving through the brush. Then, I thought, could it be raindrops? The little rustles were so frequent. Finally I spied the culprits. A whole family of robins were hopping in the brush, looking for a snack.

I saw these little violets and snapped a shot in the dimming dusk light with my camera phone. They are yet another sign that the cold winter has passed. I am looking forward to more walks like this as the park fills with families and couples out for a walk on a lovely spring afternoon.

Why people dislike pre-med students

The top five reasons to dislike pre-med students are listed in a recent Wired article. The most interesting part to me, however, were all the comments generated in the discussion. This was apparently the author's intent:

These are sweeping generalizations that are intended to provoke a heated debate, so try not to get too offended.

Ya think? Why in the world would any former pre-med student (including myself) get offended when we're globally accused of not having intellectual curiosity and running organizations into the ground.

I'm not going to lie and say I never came across pre-med people who fit these characterizations, but I think you could substitute any highly-competitive student here (engineering, law, poli-sci) and get the same result. While I agree that the medical student admissions process is a broken system, being a dilweed isn't something that's unique to those going into the medical profession.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention this little gem:

Perhaps, instead of separating the brightest students from the rest, pre-med programs weed out all but the few who are willing to give everything up -- hobbies, athletics, even their curiosity -- for the sake of a high-paying job as a body mechanic.

I've heard that "body mechanic" line quite a few times and every time it's gotten under my skin. Nothing against mechanics, but to simplify the art of medicine like this is just ignorant. I would challenge anyone with this belief to follow a local physician around for a day or two, then let's see you honestly say this.

The state of theater today

Julie and I took a trip to the theater with some good friends last night to see Shakespeare's "As You Like It" and had a great time despite what I thought was a pretty mediocre performance by the local troupe. I couldn't help but come away with a few impressions after watching the show.

It has got to be hard for theaters to compete with other forms of entertainment available these days (movies, concerts, etc.) when ticket prices are as high as they are. If you're not a college student you're pretty much priced out of the loop unless you're somewhat well off. Sure, there are cheap tickets to be had for $10 way up in the balcony, but we were 14 rows back from the stage and I could barely hear the actor dialogue. Our ticket pricing was $50+ and whenever the players would face away from me or TB Joe coughed in the audience I completely missed what was being said. I missed half of the "jokes" because I'm relying on acoustics that should have been left to the ancient romans and greeks. Is it that hard to install a hanging mic system?

Couple that with 85-year-old seat ushers who insisted on leading us to our seats (one shuffling step at a time) and still brought us to the wrong row, and you have a pretty antiquated entertainment experience. I'm a fan of tradition as much as the next guy, but from this and past experiences at the theater I can't help but wonder why things can't be updated a bit. I'm not shocked that most 18-34 year-olds I've come across want nothing to do with the performing arts. It's not that we expect a hot dog derby race or a kiss cam, but the current state of affairs is just too expensive, stuffy, pretentious, and outdated.

I always hit that game winning shot

Twenty-eight. I guess it really couldn't be the way I imagined it because I never pictured myself at this age. Married. Happy. On the verge of finally starting my career and a family. Things are falling into place and I couldn't be more thankful.

It's strange to think that I'm on the verge of a ten year high school reunion and that I've been blogging for almost five years now. I wonder if this is how my parents felt when they were my age...

I don't feel old but I know I'm getting older - age definitely has snuck up on me. One day I'm dorking around on the computer playing Prince of Persia and the next thing I know I'm an adult doing adult things and your youth is a collection of fuzzy rose-colored memories. Old high school friends are married and well-along in their careers, and yet when I look at their pictures I remember the days laughing in class and the bus dropping me off and games of basketball in the driveway pretending I was Patrick Ewing hitting the game winner in the NBA finals. It makes me smile and feel sad all at the same time.

Using a Flip Video camera with iMovie '08

I have a new toy and at least for now I'm gonna have the bug to use it as often as I can. Julie got me a Flip Video Ultra for my birthday and I've been having fun with it since day one. Dare I say it, but this could be the year of video around here at Undisclosed Location. I'm going to have to get over how much I hate hearing my recorded voice, but I think that'll come with time.

There were a few hiccups to getting the Flip to play nice with iMovie '08 and the Mac in general. I freaked out at first try because all of the videos I had recorded played jerky and with garbled audio. This was even after installing the recommended 3ivx decoder that comes on the camera and updating the firmware after plugging the camera in for the first time. After doing a quick google search I came across a support thread suggestion to download and install Perian. Lo and behold, once I did this everything went smoothly. So if you're having problems with your Flip Video camera and your Mac, give the same thing a try.

Once I got video to show up correctly on my MacBook Pro running Leopard, the next step was getting everything to work with iMovie '08. I've read a few tips on how to get this done, but it seemed like this was going to be a multi-step process. So I simply fired up Automator and used the built in actions to create an application that would take care of the whole process for me. I added this application to my finder bar, and now when I plug in my Flip camera all I have to do is navigate to the "DCIM" folder and drag any videos I want to upload onto my "Flip Converter." Quicktime converts the videos from .avi to .m4v, saves them to my user "Movies" folder, and iMovie '08 Opens up and the import command is selected. You're then in control at this point, and can add your newly imported movie to a new even or an existing one.

You can try out this "app" yourself by downloading it here. And if you're aware of something better please let me know, because anything to make this easier will get me uploading more videos.

Honeymoon Bug Bite from Izzy on Vimeo.

Izzy's Birthday Part I

Happy Birthday Chubkins! Here we are on our way to an evening of fun at Red Lobster and bowling.

Izzy is a ripe old 28 this wednesday. He's already got a head start on being a crotchety old man, but we love him - me especially! I'll try to post some photos of the party later tonight.