Wasted Continuum

I got a new hat today. I have plenty of fedoras, flatcaps and ballcaps, but this is my first bucket hat. I got this one from Goorin Brothers. Most of my hats these days are from them. I just thought I’d share.

This week, I purchased a GoPro Hero HD. I mentioned before that I wanted to get one to shoot some videos when I ride trails on my new bike. I am still thinking of a good way to set that up. There are so many options. In the meantime, I have been tested out the GoPro in various ways. I set up a quick time lapse at work which was interesting. Last night, I decided to do a time lapse of me driving from Saint Paul to Minneapolis and back.

What started out as a simple test, turned out to be a mini project. I started by loading up my image sequence into After Effects. From there, I started to do some color correction. It started to look a little cinematic. That made me want to put some music to it. Not wanting to throw some random song on a video that’s not even half a minute, I decided to record my own music for it. This led me to miking up my amp and putting down a couple tracks. After getting some music down, I did some minor edits to it and added it to my project. A little test that I never intended to even save evolved into a two to three hour project that I wanted to share.

Although it’s not a very polished project and I wish I did a lot of things differently, I am really happy with how it turned out. Check it out. I hope you enjoy it. I will produce more videos with my GoPro soon. Leave comments here or wherever you wish to view the video.

• View on YouTube
• View on Vimeo
• View on Flickr

Today marks the end of an era not only for the Apple community, but for the tech industry as a whole with the resignation of Steve Jobs as the CEO of Apple. Whether you liked the man or not, you cannot deny that he changed the landscape. He pushed Apple to where it is now and spurred the rest of the industry to compete which, in the end, created better products for us, the consumers. Here is an excerpt from Steve Job’s letter:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I know the internet will be saturated with everyone’s sadness, disbelief, disinterest, relief, everything, and I know I am adding to the noise. Yet, I still want to state my own brief perspective on the situation. Steve Jobs, in my mind, is a business ninja and someone any entrepreneur can look up to. He always sticks to his goals and does what is necessary to accomplish them.

I’m a tech geek who has loved using Apple products for a long time. My first computer was an Apple IIc and I am typing this up right now on my MacBook Pro. That being said, I am not writing this because I am an Apple fanboy. I honestly do not consider myself to be one. I have no issues being vocal about decisions Apple has made under Jobs lead that I disagree with and have done so. I am writing this because I respect the man and what he has accomplished in his career. I only hope others with similar drive and vision will step up.

I will leave you with this video. This is probably one of his most famous speeches and many of you have likely seen it before. What he says here really translates with what he has accomplished at Apple.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Today, about.me announced a contest where the winner will have their face on a billboard in Times Square and I have entered my profile into the contest. I know there are already a few celebrities that want to win it so beating them will be extremely difficult. I’m still gunning for this though. How cool would it be for a regular geek like me to have my face plastered on a billboard? It’s a long shot, so I’m going to need a lot of help from you guys. If you would like to help me be the face of about.me, just follow these two simple steps:

1. visit my profile at http://about.me/javajunky
2. click on the “Vote for this profile!” button in the upper right corner of the screen

That’s it! Just one vote would be awesome. If you want to be a superfriend, you can vote once everyday. Even if you don’t wish to vote for me, feel free to check out my profile. It links to most of the stuff I do online.

If you don’t know of about.me, it is site that lets you create a profile page that links to all your content you share on the web. It is not a new concept and has been done before. However, the difference here is that about.me does it in style and with ease. Check out the directory to see what I am talking about. At the time that I am writing this, I am actually one of the featured profiles which is unbelievable to me, but I’ll take it. The order is random every time you visit the page, but I am in there. I’m really a fan of about.me so it would be extra cool to have my face on a Times Square billboard because of company like this.

I’m in the process of reorganizing things here. I have been trying to post regularly again. I already have a few topics in mind. I added my post tags right above the post content now. They are easy to see and click on. I am also trimming down my categories. I have many useless ones that really should be tags instead. That is mostly what I am fixing up for now so that I can get back into my writing zone. I have plans to do a full redesign in the near future. More on that later.

I finally got my bike today. I have been waiting about two weeks for it. I got a Giant XTC 29er 2. It was supposed to be a three day wait, but with the timing, the 2012 models were coming in and I got that instead of the previous model. I have to say, after only riding it for maybe twenty minutes, I love it. The 29 inch wheels make a significant difference when riding on rough terrain. It rolls over it like nothing. I went pretty easy on it tonight since I have not ridden in a few years. My last mountain bike was stolen from my garage. I think I will ride it a few times this week to get used to the gearing and then take it out onto some trails this weekend. After I get some solid miles on this ride, I may invest in a GoPro camera and shoot some trail rides. In the meantime, I uploaded a bunch of photos of it on my Flickr.