AbsolutBlog

Over the past few months, I’ve upgraded/updated my various systems.  Both home and work macs went to Snow Leopard, iPhoto 08 –> 09, etc.  Today I upgraded Gallery2 (photos) to version 2.3 and had to reinstall the exporter for iPhoto to work with Gallery2.  Wordpress got the refresh and an upgrade  Ubuntu system maybe forthcoming.  During graduate school, these updates were fun.  Now with two kids and a much more hectic work schedule, they are painful.  Especially when things go wrong (like loosing 2 years of e-mail with my switch from POP to gmail IMAP across the board) or a database corruption (like today with Gallery2).  In addition, I’ve forgotten much of my Linux and scripting knowledge from graduate school and free online resources have replaced the need for my personally administered blog and photo site (Flickr, Twitter, Facebook).  Those websites are also easier to use through my iPhone which has enstilled a love for “the cloud” as storage for everything (mail, calendars, contacts, files, etc).

What all this means, is that I won’t be posting here that often.  Not like I post here all that often to begin with   I will try to link my wordpress site through facebook and flicker so posts show up in both places, AKA, the cloud.  I may post pictures for those who read this and don’t have facebook, but if you have facebook, check there for picture updates as it is easier to sync.  If you don’t, then let me know.

Cheers!

Well, another wonderful ACL festival has come and gone.  This year, we had to find tickets from many places, but after a month of searching Facebook, Craigslist, and asking friends, we secured 5 tickets for Alisha, Krysten, Jason, Anil and I to attend.  We took Madison and Elizabeth Friday and the lawn was amazing.  Austin spent around 2 million to level and resurface the “Great Lawn” of Zilker park.  It looked like a golf course over the entire festival grounds.  Below is a picture of a small area, but image all of Zilker looking just like this.  Compare the aerial photo of the great lawn to the brown areas on top and top left in the image.

We arrived in time to see Sara Watkins and the Knux.  Then we walked over to Mishka and Avett Brothers before heading to Kiddie Limits stage where Maddy and Alisha caught Milkshake and were waiting patiently for the special guest.  K’Naan was set to appear on the Kiddie Limits stage and we were all very excited (see picture below).  We were no less than 10 feet from him and Lizzy really enjoyed dancing to the music.  He is a rapper from Somalia with some amazing lyrics and was honored with Mos Def as the first rap acts to play the Austin City Limits TV show, taping the same weekend as the festival.  If he’s in your area, go see him…amazing.  We finished the evening with John Legend, Thievery Corporation and Kings of Leon.

On Saturday we awoke to rain.  At the festival grounds, it rained for 20 minutes during Mute Math, then stopped and didn’t start again till Citizen Cope when it continued to rain for 2.5 hours straight.  That beautiful lawn turned into a mud pit and stayed that way for Dave Matthews Band closing out Saturday night and all day Sunday.  Through the rain, we saw Lunch Money, Ralph’s world, Bon Iver, Eek-A-Mouse, Mos Def, The Scabs and DMB.

Sunday presented mud and mud (see below).  Actually, it wasn’t mud, but rather “dillo dirt“, a type of Austin recycled fertilizer.  We saw Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, Ralph’s World, The B-52s, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Heartless Bastards, Arctic Monkeys, Ben Sollee, Brett Dennen, Ben Harper, Girl Talk, Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Pearl Jam. 

I was able to see two of my favorite bands from high school and college in DMB and Pearl Jam.  Both put on great performances.  In addition, I was introduced to some new artists I will enjoy in the future such as K’Naan, Black Joe Lewis, and Mute Math.  Enjoy some more pictures:

We are all doing quite well these days.  I realize there hasn’t been a new post the ENTIRE summer and for that, I’m sorry.  It really wasn’t all that busy (aside from the usual teaching, two kids, house chores, etc.).  To be quite honest, it wasn’t terribly exciting with blog worthy events.  We didn’t go on any great vacations I could blog about.  We stayed around home.  My mom and Bruce came into town late in the summer. 

However, thinking back, we did rearrange our living room, rip up the carpet, paint some rooms, Maddy attended two week long camps involving horses and science.  Lizzy learned how to talk and won’t stop.  She has also become super independent and will often refuse help doing things she is incapable of till she can actually do it (like climbing into her high chair for dinner).  She has learned that she can a.) push kitchen chairs places, b.) climb into the kitchen chair and then into her high chair, c.) without the kitchen chair, pulling the high chair down on top of her hurts.  This was all on her own and Maddy wasn’t a part of it.  Lizzy learned how to brush her own teeth.  Maddy had her first lemonade stand, and got stung by her first bee.  Lizzy learned how to swim with floaties, something it took her sister 4 years to accomplish. 

We are gearing up for Madison’s 7th birthday party this coming weekend and ACL festival next weekend.  October brings Macklin’s wedding, Alisha and my 9 year anniversary, and Wurstfest.

Enjoy some pictures from the summer.

First Google had the following doodle and was “unexplained” meaning no mouse over description and clicking led to a search for unexplained phenomena:

Many people thought it may be a tribute to Zero Wing 20th anniversary, the 1980s Japanese video game that coined the “All your base are belong to us” catch phrase.  I did not agree, because they would have had a mouse over describing this.  Then last Tuesday, the following doodle appeared, again without explanation and led to a search about crop circles.

Google’s Twitter page provided coordinates for Horsell a town in Surrey, England.  This town so happens to be where aliens started attacking earth in H.G. Well’s radio broadcast, “War of the Worlds.”  It hinted at Google’s actual idea.  Today Google finally releases an answer to the strange appearance of UFOs in their logos.

The mouseover for this one is for the birthday of H.G. Wells.  He would have been 143 today.  Makes sense now and was very well done, considering Google created search hysteria with their unexplained logos over the last week.  For each day the logo was released, the search term was the largest on the internet.  Well played Google and certainly a new twist to your doodle art collections.

Well, she did it.  My wife is now officially a triathlete!  It was a sprint distance out a Lake Pflugerville: 500m swim, 14mi bike and 3mi (5K) run.  First one in the family to have finished this type of race that I know of.  And I’m thinking I’ll join her next (or later this) year.  In addition, she finished in record (for her) time!  From her facebook page: ” placed 21 of 22 in my age group, 135 of 181 in my gender, and 344 of 374 over all. My times were: Swim: 0:17:57.78, Bike: 1:01:50.60, Run: 37:54.95. Transition time total: 0:06:24.50. Total Time: 2:04:07.83!! Total Race Time: 1:57:46.33!!“.  She was hoping to finish in under 2h.  Based on her previous workouts, I didn’t think she could, however she blew all her previous individual bests out of the water.  Preivously she did the swim in 19 minutes, the bike in 1 hour 3 minutes and the run in 55 minutes.  Pictures can be found here and on our site here.