Pictures of the most adorable baby in the park!

This weekend is the first ever blizzcon, Blizzard Entertainment’s gaming convention.

Pictures

Pictures from Day 2 start here.

A few pictures from Maccamp!

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Well it took until now to successfully get a three way video chat going, between my friend Totte in Sweden and my mother. Of course my mom didn’t like popping into a 3 way chat at 6:30am with a stranger. ROFL. Interesting UI implications.

Update: After reinstalling Tiger (due to disk issues) I can no longer iChat AV with someone I did the day earlier. Sigh, Apple.

This week’s podcast was recorded at Maccamp Fall 2005! Maccamp is PMUG’s biannual Macintosh get away in the lush forest where we learn and teach, hike, play games and do all things Mac!

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have not updated my album in awhile, new pictures start here.

First off, many thanks to Martin, Michael and everyone else who made my stay in Magdeburg comfortable.

The journey home was easy. Got into Portland 40 mins late. Elizabeth picked up up. My large bag was the last one off the plane. Made it to Comp USA with 5 mins to spare and picked up a D-Link game router. Not sure how well it works yet, but it is set up.

Been up most of the night syncing my laptop back to the G5. Really thinking about a new laptop, would save hours of time over months, and I could probably re-sell it when the Macintel’s come out for a fairly good price.

Thanks to everyone for their emails, chats and support while I was gone. Now I have much to do before Maccamp this weekend.

My TiVo DID go ape and recorded a marathon of South Park (even tho they were repeats, I really hate Comedy Central.) So I lost some shows, like the Desperate Housewives I had bought on iTMS and already watched heh.

Not sure what else I lost but life won’t be too worse off for it.

Tonight, Serenity!

We landed in Minnesota an hour early. My flight to portland is delayed 28 mins so far. I’ll land around 4:30am as far as my body is concerned. WEEE!

Customs was a breeze in both Amsterdam and here in Minnesota. Had a nice flight back is much easier going west than east.

Hope I get home in time to go to Comp USA. Oh and new Powerbooks are calling my name.

Today at work is winding down as I have been working on tutorials and more training.

Last night was pizza dinner at home and was nice and quiet. Tonight, we’re going to Layla (a pub) for dinner and drinks after our team conference call.

Then I shall finish packing and get ready for the long trip tomorrow. Michael is being kind enough to drop be at the airport so that saves me about 90 minutes of travel and two more modes of transportation - Plus I get to go on the Autobahn!

Then it is 3 flights until I am home. I can’t wait to see my friends and family whom I have missed so much.

Charles and Janet - Serenity awaits!

Martin and I went to Elbauenpark today, across the river Elbe. It is a lovely garden park build some years ago during one of the country’s bi-annual garden shows, where they take a area and revitalize it in the host city.

Elbauenpark is home to the 60 meter Millennium Tower which is made entirely of wood and houses science exhibits and has a outer walkway to the top, then you walk down the center visiting each level of history as you go.

Don’t miss the little elevated train, too. Monorail it is not, but I swear I thought it was a model when I saw the tiny rail track. Nope, we rode it!

New photos here!

Thanks to the ever wonderful Erick Laabs at The Mac Store, I tried plugging my iPod in and told iTunes to not sync the music library.

I was then able to select the iPod and choose settings. Then on the music tab I selected sync manually.

Now I can drag things to the iPod or delete them off!

Podcasts added in this manner do not show up under Music->Podcasts. That is reserved for the synced special playlist. But they do show under Music->Genre-Podcast.

I also added a dumb playlist called “Added from Laptop,” drug my laptop music into that playlist, then that playlist to the iPod.

Once added, music is there for good until you either manually delete it or do a full sync to a library.

There are just 15 days till I’m in the park, taking my niece around, be still my heart, there’s so much for me to share, though its kinda sad that at 7 months she has more hair, I’m a happy geek after all……

It had english instructions, but only for a oven. So I just guessed. Microwave is so easy to use. Set temp, then set timer via a dial. It just starts. Ding, turns off. None of this programming nonsense heh.

The food is so so, maybe it doesn’t have any of the preservative crap our food in the states has, haha.

I did buy a nice freshly baked pastry and rolls. No idea what is in the pastry. LOL

Tiki Bar TV is a bunch of geeks who are making vidCasts (video podcasts) of silly situations to show you how to mix a drink. Quite funny, creative and perfect use of this medium!

Subscribe now via iTunes

Apple yesterday announced:

Apple Computer Inc. has named Tim Cook, the company’s executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations since 2002, as chief operating officer, while Jon Rubinstein, head of the iPod division, will soon retire, the company said Friday.

Now hmm, Jon Rubinstein is stepping down. This made me curious, because on the conference call Tuesday, I heard something that made me say in IRC, “Someone is getting a memo!” Some memo that is. Listen to this segment of the conference call and see if you agree that Jon got much more than a memo.

Last night I went down to Martin’s and watched a little German TV. Was quite amusing. We then watched some fan flicks like Troops and also Triumph. I then got my iPod and we shared musical tastes. I really am bummed Apple won’t let me put new music on my iPod without syncing my library. My library is home as I can’t fit it on my laptop. Bleh. I know they want to prevent farming, but if i wanted to steal music, I could just rip it and store it on the HD and copy it to the iPod when I got home. I wanted to BUY music from iTMS and add it to my authorized virtual library.

That should certainly be allowable, no? I guess not.

So was a fun three hours of listening to different types of music!

Last night I paid $10 Euro ($12.40 US) for 10 hours of Skype time. Because I bought $10 worth I got 2 free hours tacked on.

Skype is a teleconference application that lets you call other computer users for free. It is best to have a USB headset so you don’t get feedback. You can talk with 4-5 people at once. This is free.

But you can pay for time to call a phone anywhere in the world from your computer. The time is prepaid and you have to use it within 3 months (which sucks). This is called “Skype Out” for calling out.

They also have Skype In, which gives your computer a phone # that others can call. I am not sure of the fees for this.

In any case, VOIP (Voice Over IP) is becoming all the rage. I can do the same thing with Vonage for $10 a month. I chose Skype to test it out and because it was a one shot fee. I’ll be calling others tonight

There was a PhD challenge today. After the verbal challenge about 20 people marched to the statue of Otto Von Guering and did other whacky things. Martin was in costume and the drummer. It was quite amusing

I am trying to get some basic concepts down before I leave so I just watched from the window but it was different!

Today is my parent’s 47th wedding anniversary.

I love you both!

William Goldman is bringing The Princess Bride to the stage. Whoot!

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