bentup

Experimentation!

2008-11-11T13:35:00.001-08:00

Thats me! I have been testing a lot of stuff out. I want to get into photo/micro blogging a bit more. It is super easy, and a lot more interesting to look at media rich stuff then text about things no one cares about. Soooo, tumblr is beautiful, I might be moving there. Then again, people already look at my facebook, and my iphone app is really good at uploading photos on the fly. I have an aversion to notes for some reason... Me thinks some variation of the two. Check back for updates. Until then, I'll still be looking for a job.

ZOMG! Did he just do that?

2008-09-23T10:59:00.001-07:00

Purchased MarsEdit. Jobless (but looking). Graduated. Updates? Yes. Add my feed. Revamp time.

slotMusic?!

2008-09-23T10:53:00.001-07:00

Just read about this article on ars. Sounds similar to chip-based music players in the past, but not for your four year old. I am all in favor of changing the format from CD to what looks like micro SD-would cut down on packaging, materials and transportation costs all around(yay environmentalism). But ars is right, the whole point of digital music is that its digimalz! I shouldn't have to carry anything around! CDs are big, they get scratched and are motor based... We are always going to need a physical format (or are we?), so why not?

Labels launch slotMusic format, miss point of digital music: "

These days, digital music is all about convenience. Despite that, SanDisk and the Big Four labels have introduced microSD cards with preloaded albums that users can just pop into their portable devices. The physical format ship has sailed and slotMusic is destined to sink.

Geotagging on the fly with Eye-Fi Explore

2008-05-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah, updates. Graduation is coming. I'm busy.

But I just picked up this story over at Ars, and it was just a little to cool/relevant to pass up. Eye-Fi is a company that makes SD cards for your camera, and they recently rolled out with new ones. SD cards are no big deal, so why talk about them? Well the newest ones have all kinds of tricks up their sleeve. For instance, the Eye-Fi Share gives you the ability to store 2 GB worht of photos, and then upload said photos to your computer wirelessly. Through the SD card. What?! You can also upload to Flickr and whatever site you want. Wirelessly. Through your SD card. What?!

The one I like is the Eye-Fi Explore. Which is an SD card, but basically has a functional GPS like ability to figure out where you are, and then record Geotags for each picture as it is taken. This rocks the socks right off expensive GPS cameras, and programs that you have to run your photos through in post. The little guy uses Skyhook, which is the service that uses WiFi hotspots and the like to determine location. Soooo, if you are in the Sierras... it probably won't work. But still, pretty cool considering its ALL IN YOUR SD CARD. Would be pretty cool for a suburban geocacher. Ars says it runs $130, so its not for the weak at heart.

As for me. School is almost over. Woo!

Bucket List: Tacoma

2008-04-10T23:58:00.001-07:00

We all know that Tacoma has all things that are good. But sadly, my friends and I will be turning our backs on the City of Destiny in May to take on the world! People are starting to make lists of all the things they have to do before saying goodbye. I thought about it for awhile and looked at many sites on Tacoma, and made an extensive list. There are a lot of things I haven't done. The more I think about it, the longer it gets. If you have any other suggestions, let me know in the comments. If you want to check something off the list, call me! Check back to see how it all goes!

Bucket List: Tacoma

Visit the Thompson Observatory
Go to the Glass Museum
Eat at Frisko Freeze
Go to the Freight House
Go to Bob's Java Jive
Visit the Pantages Theater
Eat at JT's BBQ
See the Rocky Horror picture Show at the Blue Mouse Theater
Duel at Chopstix
BBQ at Wapato Park
Find every fish statue in Tacoma
Find every Bronze statue in Tacoma
More tomorrow...

MarsEdit

2008-04-06T20:25:00.001-07:00

OK. Serious blog rethinking time. Time to change the layout, the.. well everything... Lets start with editing. Time to give this whole MarsEdit thing a try.

First things first, HTML! Holy Guacamole! watch watch!

centered!

I'm tired of digging through layers of menus just to figure out out to center stuff. Journler has a nice feel to it, but does not work well with blogginess. MacJournal is ok, but to me, its just that, ok. iWeb is shiny, but doesn't have the text editing/RSS/email feel to it. Its a web page creator. Maybe Journler mixed with iWeb? nononono... HTML! Now just to decide if it is worth 30 buckaroos.

When it comes to any program that involves text and publishing, its really interesting how people expect it to work like MS Word. Just look at the progression of the iWork apps. Pages is picking up more and more aspects of Word. Its kinda funny, but standards are standards for a reason. Does this stifle innovation? maybe. I am a Mac user, but still, I want my toolbars!

27th District Caucus...

2008-04-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

Sitting at Jason Lee, I was outraged, I had one thing on my mind. Introducing my new tag: I’m Blogging This

iPhone: I have been at the Jason Lee middle school since 8 am (its now noon). Only now are they getting through the 4th of the 30-something prisincts... I'll be here for another several hours. Moral of the story, people are incompitent, especially en masse.. More to come

Edits:

/wrists

Holy Cow...

What a horrible process this is. They were describing how this year, the caucus would happen at break-neck speeds thanks to the wonder of technology! We weren’t done with figuring out if everyone was there until 2 PM. That is 6 hours of sitting in a hot, sweaty hall filled with a whole bunch of crazies. I had a woman sing to me. She actually sang a song. About democracy. I tried to escape, but she followed me. She had a whole repertoire about the corruption of the government, and how the democrats will save the day.

I was an alternate delegate, but was eventually seated around 12:50 because none of the real delegates actually showed up. There was then a big confusion/miss communication over what came next. This was when I realized how dumb the whole thing was.

Grass Roots?!

The whole point of a caucus is to encourage grass roots politics. You all get together, discuss and well, caucus. But in an effort to streamline the process, the modern caucus involves assembling and then listening to minute long speeches from each side. The kicker is that the campaigns pick in advance who is going to give the speeches, so there is really no grass roots anything going on. Also, 1 minute speeches? You would have to be an expert at framing to be convincing at all in that amount of time. Basically, by the end of the speeches, nothing is different except people are that much more ticked off because they are losing that much more of their Saturday.

Once speeches and registration was done, the next step involved voting on the delegates that would go on to other caucuses... But really, who cares? The division of delegates is the same for each candidate, if someone thinks they should go, let them. Suddenly I realized was duped into this. Delegates are completely symbolic. They represent a vote. In a past system, maybe their voice mattered, but not anymore. If a precinct delegate didn’t show up, minus one vote for that candidate. One is no big deal, a lot might throw things off. So once I got my arm band as a delegate, I was entered into the system. As far as the presidential race is concerned, thats all that matters. So then I ask, why am I wasting my Saturday? We didn’t sit and have a ceremonious vote for a candidate or anything, we are just a further symbolic representation of what happened in the first caucus, minus the people too lazy to show up.

Why couldn’t they just count the people who signed up? Why did they have to have us physically there in order to count us? Why did they ruin my weekend? And why did they call me when I got home and ask why I wasn’t there?! I HAVE AN ARM BAND!

Caucuses are a good idea for small things. In the current system, primaries are the only way to go.

Technology could have helped in SO many ways. Swipe ID when you show up, computer then automatically figures out who is there and who isn’t instantly. The computer then calls the alternates needed to tell them to come (or provides a list to volunteers to make the call). Hooray, we just saved 6 hours of day light! Now we can talk and discuss, forget that we are all set in our ways and bickering, there is one undecided delegate here!!! Hooray for democracy!

Anyway... back to school.

Catch Up!

2008-02-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

CRUD! Catch up time!

I’m in the middle of my last semester and coming up on midterms. I’ve been through new years, many boring classes, a hard drive failure, a caucus, facial hair loss, fun times with friends and am now watching the oscars! My blockbuster queue is now very large...

Hillary Clinton visited UPS!! I have to get the pictures off my friend’s laptop, but I’ll put a few up soon. The next day I got to participate in a caucus, which was horribly depressing because no one had any real knowledge of the issues. I blame the media. haha.

Anyway... time for work. More soon.

Heehee!

2007-12-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

Well, its the day after christmas, and hooray! No more school until late late January.
In the news:

Putin just launched a bunch of satellites into space. Apparently the motherland wants something different than GPS, which is run by the US and can apparently just be switched off for certain areas. So they revived their GLONASS program Global Navigation Satellite System, from the good old Soviet Days. Might there be a future bluray/hddvd squabble between GPS or GNSS? Probably not, but it is always good to have alternatives. Soon Tom Tom will have new features, “Turn right, comrade! Head straight on to capitalist marketplace!”

An aside:
A 4th person has found our geocache! hooray! Hopefully Team Inferno will be going on hikes soon. Expect more posts!

Finals...

2007-10-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I don’t update so much when I’m in school... According to my new iCal in Leopard, I’m busy:

But Navizon seems to be working on the mac now. They updated their client so it sees wifi. Will test to see if it works with the GPS soon. Marin isn’t in their database, so I might do a bet of driving around and see if I can’t make a buck or two filling in the gaps!

UPS (my school) puts off a newspaper called The Trail Its written by students and funded by the ASUPS student government. Its articles are horrible, and people didn’t really read it until they added the “Hey You!” section, a page long piece full of one sentence anonymous shout outs. Everyone is always so excited for the week’s trail to read the funny, and awkwardly personal, Hey you’s! Real Politzer winning stuff.... Well someone finally came up with a satirical newspaper, The Anti-Trail. Its crude. Its rude. It is amazing. On one page, it rips on every problem the campus has, and for some reason refuses to fix. Satire and comedy really is the way people my age find out whats up. Look for a link later! Hooray for things to distract us from our studies.

Navizon + iPhone = GPS?

2007-09-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

        I am way too busy with classes... But I am taking a break this evening so that I can mess around with a few things. My super l33t hax0red iPhone loves to keep me busy when I should be doing other things. My only lament is that it lacks GPS... or does it? Via Installer.app I found a new app called Navizon. Basically, as you are walking around, it triangulates your location based on available WiFi networks AP and cellphone towers! The only catch is that someone has to have documented the coords of cell towers and WiFi spots in your area with a GPS for it to work. But, thanks to their handy app, one can drive around town with their GPS enabled laptop or smart phone, and everything will be compiled and ready to drop into their database. They will even pay you for it!
        It seems to be a small venture so support is limited and bugs are plentiful, but the cleverness of the idea makes me giddy. Sadly, their app is a spindly java client that emulates a cell phone on your computer. It is having problems finding my GPS and iPhone attached to the Powerbook, so my network/tower locating days may not be coming for awhile. le sigh... It would be like a lame version of geocaching.. except you get paid! WOO! Why do they have to taunt me so?!
        Hopefully everything will get worked out soon and then we could have GPS(ish) on our iPhones! *drool*

Geotag iPhoto with HoudahGeo

2007-09-01T20:58:00.001-07:00

        So you want to geotag/geocode? I know I’m a bit late with this... I have been messing around with my iPhone, and will talk about that soon (tonight?). But for now is time to learn how to quickly Geotag photos on a Mac! If you are looking for a super fast way to do this, simply download HoudahGeo and it can be as easy as click and drag! I’ll give you a quick step by step just for help and to clear up any doubts about this cool little app! This program can work with or without a GPS, I’ll explain both!

        But first, what is Geotagging? A Geotag is a bit of metadata attached to an image or even a blog/wiki article, that shows the lat/long/alt of the subject of the media. So, if I take a picture of the Grand Canyon, and geotag it, Google Earth, Flickr, and many other apps and website will be able to quickly lay the photos on the map! Here is the most famous example on flickr! http://flickr.com/map/ Basically... its super awesome if you are taking pictures of obscure locations, where other people may want to visit.

        Kristin and I went on a quick bike ride around Tacoma the other day. I brought my GPS and made sure that it was set to track, and also made sure my camera matched the time of the GPS. Once I got home, I plugged my GPS in on one side of the my Powerbook, and my camera in on the other, and away I went (YES! Garmin will work on a Mac wonderfully with Google Earth, GPSBabel and HoudahGeo! Comment or email me if you want to know more about it!).

        What HoudahGeo does, is compare the time of the tracks, with the timestamp of each photo. It then adds lat/long metadata to the photo. After quickly uploading picture to iPhoto, drag the pictures you want tagged directly into HoudahGeo. You can then either upload GPX info from a GPS receiver or a saved file. There is even a cool feature for people without GPS receivers! Just select the photo, then select the point on the map. Then bam! Just hit write EXIF tag and you are done! You can even export directly to flickr! Check mine out here!
http://flickr.com/photos/bentup/map/ Here is the clipping from Google Earth:

It all works really well, and will cut a lot of time off of any geo blogging experience! Im stoked! Expect more posts soon! And please comment/email if you have anything to say!

Its About Time!

2007-08-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have been back in Tacoma for awhile and haven’t been updating. I have TONS of pictures from our trip to the UK and have yet to put any of them up. I was hoping to Geotag them, but it seems as though I am really too lazy to. Geo tagging over 2000 pictures may just be too much. With the way I have been doing it. So, I have created a flickr album, one for each day, and linked it from here and from each appropriate blog entry. I’m getting bored here, so expect geocache stuff in the near future!! Tomorrow, I am rolling out a guide on how to Geotag photos using a Mac!

Stonehenge/Glastonbury! 8/15

2007-08-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

So Stonehenge was pretty cool. Sadly, we couldn’t get too close to it, so it was a little small. Check out the pictures, linked bellow!

We then drove over to Glastonbury, said to be the location of the Isle of Avalon, the final resting place of King Arthur. We checked out the old Abbey of Glastonbury, which was completely torn down. It is said that the Abbey is the oldest Christian Church, and that Joseph of Arimathia visited here on a few occasions (locals say that he even brought Jesus). It is even said that Joseph brought the Holy Grail here, and washed it in the well. Whether or not the stories are true, there is a lot of history here. Overlooking the abbey is a large Tor, with a small tower on top, the last remnants of a small, sister abbey. Sadly, Cromwell, had the Glastonbury Abbeys destroyed, so ruins are all that are left.

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022097&l=7045e&id=17700012
and here -> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022098&l=efea0&id=17700012

IM TIRED!

2007-08-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

I’m so tired! Tonight is our last night in the UK... BUT, I have been carefully documenting the journey, and will update everything when I get home... or maybe when I get to Tacoma. But I have found new and wonderful ways to display my travels and photos! Geotagging! And iPhoto and Google Earth and HoudahGeo! Oh man, everything will be so much prettier and faster I can’t wait! I’ll be stateside tomorrow! Check back here for crazy vacation blog-ness!

Stonehenge 8/14/07

2007-08-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

We are stuck in traffic right now... Our engine is off, and for the first day it is raining. The channel was dark and full of white caps, it was really windy, and pretty cool. We are on the M25, south of London on the way to Stone Henge, and eventually Bristol. Annnnnd my battery is at 3%......

SO! We were stuck between junction 8 and 9 on M25 for about an hour. It was pretty humorous when Laura had to go to the bathroom. It was raining, and my Dad got out of the car in the middle of the motorway (freeway) and began scoping things out, as soon as he did, so did the rest of the freeway. It was basically a parking lot for a long time. We heard on the radio that a lourie (a big rig) had turned over and they couldn’t get it out of the way. When things finally started moving, we realized that the truck had actually turned over only a couple hundred yards in front of us. Had we been going a tiny bit faster, we possibly could have avoided the whole mess, or heaven forbid, been a part of it.

The sad thing is because of our long delay, on top of a second over turned lourie, a missed turn and other traffic, we had to skip all our attractions today, and head straight into Bristol. So we are in the hotel room, and we plan for stonehenge tomorrow! woo!

Bodiam Castle 8/13/07

2007-08-14T04:55:00.000-07:00

Today is my Dad’s 50th birthday! Half a century old! dang, thats old! haha, Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today we departed hastings to visit the Castle at Bodiam. On the way we stopped off at Battle Abbey, the location of a battle between the Norman, William the conqueror and the Saxon King Herald in 1066. In the end, Herald was done through, and England was forever changed, becoming an imperial behemoth, and eventually a funny talking cousin of the colonies. The abbey was pretty cool, but it was way expensive, so we continued on our way.

I have to say that Bodiam Castle is truely amazing. When I build my castle, AND I WILL, it will be in the same style of Bodiam. It was built to protect the river from the French. It was then abandoned and had trees growing up through it and was covered in vines. There was a painting of it, which looked amazing. This castle style with moat is a later castle than what we saw a the Tower of London, which was basically a fortified keep. At Bodiam, the rooms of the castle is the fortification, with a great cortyard in the middle, and all surrounded by moat. It looks like it is just sitting in a lake, which in turn, is surrounded by rolling grassy hills, it really is beautiful!

Check out the pictures here -> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022085&l=41fd8&id=17700012

Dover Castle! 8/12/07

2007-08-14T04:14:00.000-07:00

Today we drove over to Dover. From the tall white cliffs of Dover (which Drake said his landing sight in Marin reminded him of), you could just make out the shores of France. We drove to the highest hill in Dover, and there was a large triangular shaped fortress. Dover Castle has a pretty large history. The Romans built light houses throughout the channel in the late first century, one of which went on the hill in Dover. Then in 410, when the Romans took off, the Saxons came in and built an wooden fortified town around the light house on the hill. They built an old abbey next to the light house which still stands there today. They also surrounded the town with a trench and hilly earth work to add extra defense. Then, William the jerk face, as the Saxons called him, came in around 1066, burned everything down, took the thrown, and civilized the English. In Dover, William quickly built a keep on the hill, and then surrounded it with stone fortifications. The resulting castle was used a lot over the next thousand years, and abandoned at various times. When Napoleon started getting war happy, the started bolstering the defenses at Dover again, and continued to through the second World War. There were portraits of the Battle of London, depicting the castle set in front of mortar and flack explosions in the sky. It would have been a pretty scary place to be. Turns out that Dover Castle also has a HUGE series of secret tunnels under it, which acted as the naval headquarters during WWII, and that the evacuation of Dunkirk was planned in those tunnels. Crazy history, in that that castle was used as a military place for over 800 years. Similar to the Tower of London too.

The castle keep itself was pretty small on the inside, with tremendously thick stone walls. There were also a lot of tacky touristy things added in all the rooms to make it seem like King Henry VIII was on his way (he apparently stayed there for 2 nights once). It was cheesy and funny, especially the recordings of “workers” who were getting everything ready for the king. “Hurry up there! Hurry up! You! Stay out of the kings quarters!” hehe. funny stuff.

While we were driving back to the hotel, we noticed a strange stone thingy poking up over the hill. So we swerved off the road to check it out. After a short drive down a tiny little road we came upon a stone archway, the last remnants of what seemed to be a great wall. We drove through and immediately started photographing. Before long, we began turning around our diesel guzzling cherokee, and a grizzled old man with a cane strolled through the arch with his walking stick, and two old sheep dogs trotting in front of him. The English country side rolled out to his right, and the setting sun cast an orange hue on the stone arch. I wish I had my camera up at that second. He told us that it was the old wall of Winchelsea, and that the town was a large, old port city. He also said that he was having an argument with another man, about this very archway. He said that this was the traitor’s gate, and was left open when the French came a-knockin’ in the 1200s. The town is only a few blocks in size now. The old man said it was once much larger. Those darn French! Everything here is so cool. What a crazy history!

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022044&l=ac38f&id=17700012

British Museum 8/12/07

2007-08-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the British Museum, which is huge and filled with many interesting stolen artifacts. After a quick lunch we saw the pieces of the Parthenon which were removed. The argument is that they would have been destroyed had the British not carted them off, which I think I half believe. Next were the giant man/lion/eagles from Mesopotamia, and then the remnants of the mausoleum of King Mausolus. While there were only a few tiny pieces, it is clear why it was one of the wonders of the ancient world. Each figure was massive and really well crafted. After going through greek sculptures we hit the Egyptian section. The main attraction here was the Rosetta Stone, which is a lot larger and thicker than I expected, and equally magnetic when it comes to attracting tourists. Trying to catch a glimpse of the front, you would be lucky not to be knocked down by a swarm of history-hungry travelers.

Upstairs was the Europe and Britain section. Europe... Probably the most interesting part of the British section was about the Romans. All the trinkets in the pre-Roman era were tiny, ugly, and rather unimpressive. Suddenly the Romans came and there were fancy things like architecture nice jewelry, art and neat Roman stuff. Then Rome fell, the Romans left England for Europe, and the Anglo-Saxon tribes just kinda sacked everything, used the ruins to make huts and leantoos, and reverted back to the state they were in before the Romans even showed up (if not worse). I just don’t understand why they didn’t hang the door back up on its hinges and try to restore the Roman buildings.... oh well.

We got tired after awhile and decided to flee the city. According to the map we were on the main road, but it really didn’t seem like it. Cars were parked on this tiny street in such a way that in order to continue, we were forced completely into oncoming traffic. Driving is pretty weird here. If there is any space for your car, you take, regaurdless of direction of traffic, or the color of the stop light. I think its pretty fun, but I get a little freaked out whenever a car is comming, and we are in the left lane. “Its just not natural,” says my Dad. But we are in Hastings now, at the Royal Victoria Hotel, right off the beach. We have two bedrooms, and it is super old and kinda fancy. Hooray for McDonalds, even here, its the only thing open really late.

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022043&l=16ec4&id=17700012

The Abbey

2007-08-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

Today we had a lot planned, and didn’t really make it to everything. We got up early and had breakfast at the breakfast club which was pretty good. We are finally confident to order tap water, so no more paying through the teeth for watery refreshment!

My Dad wanted to stroll over to an old Temple of the Knights Templar. Built waaaay back when. We got there, and sadly it was closed. But it was a very cool courtyard!

A short tube ride across the Thames took us back to Westminster Abbey where we took the tour. It is filled with many many old dead people, many of which were Kings and Queens, all of which were crazy rich. It was fascinating how much time went into the effigies and tombs, while time itself wore much of all the work away. The floor was smooth from millions of feet shuffling across it, wearing away the names of those buried beneath. On many of the inscriptions, the person’s life story, along with any rich relatives was often described. One in particular interested me because the man had lead a noble life, fighting the Moors, killing the Moroccan King, and even defending the town against an uprising partially lead by his own son! For some reason, they took the guy to the Tower and cut off his head... All thanks to that no good son... Atleast after hundreds of years, people are still learning his story! The oldest grave I could find was from the year 1080! wow! Sadly, photos weren’t allowed in the cool parts.... But check out the pictures of the flying buttresses in the map! So cool!

This experience took all day so we couldn’t make it to the British Museum, so instead we took a detour passed Buckingham Palace on our way back to Trafalgar Square. The queen was out, so there weren’t many cool guards, but it was still a pretty neat sight to see. In front of the palace is a memorial for Queen Victoria, and many gates, each labeled with a country of the commonwealth. Never before, and never again do I think I will see a giant stone kangaroo!

The Mall from the palace took us where we wanted to go. We got back in time to have fish and chips at a pub, and then ran over to the square to see an Indian dance and light show! There was a 4 piece band playing very ethereal music, while the dancers swayed back and forth. When it was dark, a crane lifted a bunch of white sacks in the air. Suddenly, they burst open, revealing angels (who in the end turned out to be men dressed as women, but that is besides the point), who threw snow and glitter on the dancers bellow. It was really a sight to see. With the lights, the dancers, the instruments, the angels, and Admiral Nelson looking down on it all, it was pretty astounding!

Anyway, tonight’s our last night in London. Make sure to click the buttons on the map bellow, and comment! yes! comment! well... when i post the map... do it! Check back for adds!!!

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022038&l=a9030&id=17700012
and here! -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022042&l=2179c&id=17700012

Ultra Modern!

2007-08-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Tate Modern, the modern art museum off of the Thames. There was an exhibit on city density around the world which was really interesting. Mumbai is crazy, and one shouldn’t live there unless they reallllllly like other people... And sewage. Then upstairs there was a Dalí exhibit. It was really cool. All the drippy clocks and really random paintings. His films were pretty funny. I personally think he was selling out towards the end, but oh well. The rest of the museum was interesting. There was a running theme of a man tripping over a dog. It was funny at first, but in the end, I honestly think anything could go up in a modern art museum. Sedaris’s book Me Talk Pretty Someday explains it all.

We also tubed on over to Trafalgar Square to check out an Indian Music Festival. It was pretty cool, but we literally caught the tail end of it. London is a pretty town, so I am glad we are hopping all over it. We got pizza we had to eat with a fork, and then Laura and I went to a pub. It was called the Hope and Anchor pub, and there were Specials, Selector and Madness memorabilia from when they performed there last! OHHHH MAN. I wish I was there for that!

Apple just updated the OS to 10.4.10 and apparently broke part of Google Earth... So no maps for awhile... But I just found a work around involving some fussing with Package contents.... Maybe I’ll try...

*futzes*

haha woo! oh those silly programmers...

maps up soon! For now... look at these:
AHHHHH!!!! click here to see the good ones BIG! -> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021274&l=ae10f&id=17700012

Prowling the streets!

2007-08-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

Well today was a lot of fun, if not exhausting. At a camera store we were told that the US is way behind the times as our credit card did not have “chip-N-P” (?). I guess he meant the pay and tap thingy where there is a micro chip in the card. So, the poor lad had to actually swipe the card for us, letting us know “we rarely do this,” as if he was breaking some kind of rule, or would be docked his commission pay or something.

Another major difference (or so I am told, because I really don’t notice except the most extreme cases) is the fashion. My Mom and Sister are extremely concerned about the hippest London trends (I am frequently told by my mother that “Grey is haugte in London!”), so it takes forever to do anything because everything must be prepared for. For instance, there was a spot on my Mom’s shirt. Lucky for us, the hotel was close and we hadn’t eaten in 9 hours! After a “quick” change we were eating fancy Thai food! mmm! Anyway, what did we do today?

The Thompsons are masters of the tube system! I have to say that I really like the London Underground. Its pretty spifftacular. My family is horrible at making decisions, so when food time comes around, we end up wandering for hours. Thanks to the underground, we can always just hop on somewhere, and get off where there is good food. For instance, today we went to the Tower of London. I personally think it didn’t live up the hype. It was cool, but coming from the nation that runs Guantanamo, I was hardly spooked. After seeing the crown jewels, I now know that QEII is more iced out than Flavor Flav. It was pretty interesting, but the lines in and out of The Tower were worse than Disney Land, so afterward we were all cranky and hungry. So we walked a few blocks to get away from the tourists, only to find ourselves smack in the middle of the financial district. The only open establishments were pubs packed to the street with businessmen enjoying pints of their favorite ale. After walking forever, the family turned down every possible establishment (i helped) and for some reason we hopped on the train and wound up in Westminster where we wandered for another few hours. I got some good pictures, but by the time things were getting hopeless, it was 8. Underground to the rescue! We ran to the nearest tube station, and before we knew it, I was eating Thai food! yum! Anyway, Its almost midnight, and we turned Laura down on a pub run. She is eager to get out. I think it is kinda funny, especially because after a long and hard fight about how she is 18 and London is all about having fun and not sleeping, yet she was the first of us to fall asleep. WOO!

Maybe more maps will come tomorrow... If you are good!

LONDON!!!111!!1!!!

2007-08-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

        Its a good thing my Dad wanted us to get to the airport 17 hours early, it is absolutely empty. Barely anyone is flying, yet the security is out in force. We were told by the ubiquitous airport voice that the threat level is orange, and we have to cooperate with airport security as best we can. The airport security outnumbered us about 2 to 1 and were apparently in the middle of some fued. They had fashioned sling shots out of rubber inspection gloves and dust clothes and were catapulting detergent-soaked rags at one-another. I was nearly caught in the cross fire as I walked through the metal detector. Lucky for me, I escaped with my life, and my dirty jacket, intact.
        I am sad that the only available internet is through T-Moible, but I guess I can post this when I get to London... at least 13 hours from now...
        Over the next few days my family and I will be traveling around southern England. We’ll be staying in London for a few days before we start moving west, seeing as many sights as we can along the way. Armed with my GPS, and my Dad’s new Nikon D200, I’ll try to drop as much as I can on here in the evening when we get back to our hotels. Anyway... I think I’ll read one of my embarrassingly nerdy books until the plane gets here... More when I land! ~>

Internet in the hotel room is 15 pounds... *sigh* I guess we’ll try it once?

        The flight was alright. British Airways was decent enough to supply us with two meals and complimentary wine! shazam! I got to watch Shrek the third , read my book, and nap a bit before I was startled awake by an ungodly noise. Ofcourse, a baby was crying, no, screaming, on the airplane, and we were only half way through the flight. Normally I am a fan of live and let live, so I shrugged it off and decided the matter would be best left to a pair of priests, one young and one old, who could devise a way to exercise whatever demon had possesed this poor child. So, only somewhat bothered, I tried to concentrate on my book. About an hour later, I realized that the cries from the infant were actually complete sentences, and that it was not an infant at all, but a child between the ages of 4 and 6, who was upset because their Mum (ooh look at me in England!) wouldn’t let them watch the telly. This was suddenly an in-exusable problem for me, a clear issue of bad parenting. I’m not a parent, so I don’t have to figure out how to shut the kid up, thats their job, one that they were clearly failing at. But if you ask me, some form of capital punishment was quickly beginning to sound like the only option. No I didn’t really want to kill the kid, just somehow render his vocal cords useless. Eventually someone flicked on the TV and wouldn’t you know it, the crying stopped! Before tooooo long (6 hours later), we landed into stuffy London Heathrow and joined the hussle and bussle of happy people with funny accents. The Euro trash is pretty funny. Honestly, I can’t get enough.
        We took the Heathrow Express (15 pounds each) to the Paddington Station Underground and from there to Islington (4 pounds each). While my family wandered around like headless chickens trying to figure out the Underground system (is it really so different from Bart), I vacantly stood there until a friendly Londoner approached me and offered me his day pass. I can ride free all day now. As for the fam, they will continue to pay the big bucks. Laura is passed out, my Mom is on the way there. And we are currently having communication problems with the difference between “roll-away bed,” “extra-bed” and “cette.” There was also a pretty funny mix up with the whole smoking/non-smoking thing. My Mom has issues with smelly things. So getting a room where someone once smoked a cigarette anywhere in the hotel, there will likely be an issue. I just can’t get over the money thing. 43 p for $1... We should have gone to South Korea, where $1 will get you 400 WON. Anyway, to end this rant, I look forward to having some good food and get rid of this light headed-ness..

Update and such! Subject: Music Biz

2007-08-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

SO. I did some stupid cut and pasting of javascript, making the maps stop working... But it is fixed now. Its a little slow, but hey, my compsci degree is an AA from the University of Google.com, so I am pretty satisfied with it all. Thursday was my last day at Iris, and Friday my last day at Dolby. It was really a great summer, albeit busy. I learned a lot and had a blast doing it! I am glad that I get time off to travel and hang out before going back to school.

Thursday we got to talk to the Programming Director over at a popular music download service. The most enlightening part of the conversation involved how he chose to feature various artists. He said 75% of the features come directly from Billboard rankings. His logic was that the labels are putting a lot of money behind some of these artists, to make them popular, the music store then features these artists to give consumers what they want. This sounds fishy if you ask me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that “a lot of money behind these bands” means he is seeing any of it... but it just seems that a popular band need not be featured because they are already well known and don’t need “free” marketing from some retailer. If people want it, they will dig for it (And by dig I mean click on an artist on the Top 10 board on the main page...SO MUCH DIGGING!). Sure, maybe some Billboard artists have actual quality music and therefore deserve features on the main page. But 75% of all features coming directly from Billboard? Makes me a little sick. Yeah, big names will get big features. But if you have control over what people listen to, why add to the machine when you can give young minds new, good music?! It just lets you know how great of an industry this all is.

One of my coworkers sent me an essay written by about Tony Brummel, CEO of Victory Records, one of the largest indie record labels. Its by Brummel’s VP, Ramsey Dean, who has since left due to the horrible working conditions. The essay surfaced a few days ago, but Victory had it taken down. Its in Google’s Cache, but its starting to resurface. If you have a some spare time and are wanting a good horror story, check it out. If the link dies, or you dont want to read it in this hip-hop blog, let me know and I’ll email you the story!

Spelunking

2007-07-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

So yesterday my Dad mentioned there was a geocache right next to a mine he never knew existed. So we headed up the top of Bolinas ridge, where the road forks. Strangely enough, we ran into Brian, my Dad’s friend, and he joined our party. Once parking, we covered the hillside pretty well until I nearly fell right into the open mine.

We hung out there for awhile, which was fun. The cave is about 6’3“ at it’s highest point!

It was 10-20 degrees cooler in this old mine. We found the geocache, and I think I’ll visit again today to leave a surprise for future visitors!

Oh Yeah I Gots Teh iPhone!11!!!!!1!

2007-07-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

Because it is what Jesus would have done->

iJesus

Tahoe 6/30

2007-07-04T18:01:00.000-07:00

I went to Tahoe the other weekend with Jamie, Brendan, Matt and Jamie’s friend, Kim. We had a lot of fun, staying at Jamie’s Grandparent’s condo. After exploring some beaches, we went hiking up Eagle Rock, an awesome mountain thing that over looked the lake. I couldn’t help myself and quickly got information for a geocache. We then hiked down to emerald bay and were attacked by geese! I hate geese. Check out the slideshow!

The next day we went rafting down the Truckee river. it was pretty mellow the whole way down, making for a nice time to hang out. I got pretty burned, but I’ll live.

Father's Day Hike! 6/17

2007-07-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

Oh man! I have been soooooo busy with work and traveling that I have barely had any time to relax or update blogness! But Here we go! Happy Father’s Day to Dads! We went on a hike up above Mt. Tam!

The hike started with trouble as we locked the keys in the car, it was hot out and the parents were a little under the weather so I won’t blame them, lol. We hiked down the hill to find a few Geocaches. One was by a bridge and another across a fallen tree bridge. Both my mom and dad got pretty excited about the whole Geocache thing, which was pretty cool. The first was located near an old corsair engine!

This inspired us to search for the rest of the wreckage, which was rumored to still be lying around. So, we scaled hills in the blistering heat, brushed against spiky scrubs and tumbled down valleys until we eventually found this neat little meditation spot. It was this old windblown tree surrounded by a rock wall and covered in all sorts of weird little trinkets.(Lets see if I can get this video thing to work...)

Success!

Anyway, we pressed on until we found our final Geocache... No wreckage tho... I wanted to bushwack to get home, but that made my mom very unhappy as she got a little beat up. They are getting old, but not old to the point that I can drive them through rough terrain for several hours! I hope to be as active when I am 50. After a lot of arguing we eventually got back to the car! Twas a great hike! Happy Pappys Day!

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
Click here to open Google Maps in New Window!

Jedi Caching 6/4

2007-06-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

OK, My bad. I am 9 days late on this blog. Working 5 days a week is just so damn difficult sometimes! I am so tired when I get home, its dinner, TV, bed, then up again at 6 AM. I am even so low on time I’m not playing wow. Holy cow! And so, I am very sorry for my tardiness. So you, whoever you are, validate my entries and feel free to comment. woo. NOW onto the caches!

Sean and I decided we were going to go on a Jedi Geocache mission, and try to get find as many caches as we could with the few hours of daylight we had left. So I threw a bunch on the GPS and we charged fourth! We were lead up above St. Ritas where a very cleverly hidden cache was placed at the trailhead. Then it was on to D-Hill above Drake where we found a cache where we met our newest friend, Rinocotron! He is, as I type, on his way to Australia with Kristin. Exciting!

On the way down the hill, we ran into Sally, an old friend from Drake. She brought us over to Tracy’s house, where we talked caching with her parents. The three of us then ran over to Memorial Park and snagged a multi-cache! While we were heading back, we ran into Robin and her boyfriend, Daniel. We threw them in the car and kept going, picking up 2 more caches along the miracle mile.

We eventually wound up in Ross hunting around the police yard for a cache when we decided to give up, realizing it was pretty sketchy to be snooping around the police yard at midnight. Oops!

Anyway, check out the map, lets see if I can get another entry out tonight.

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
Click here to open Google Maps in New Window!

Mac Journal

2007-06-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

Instead of actually posting on what I have spent my evening preparing, I’m going to post on my new blog software. I now use Mac Journal! It is basically a word processor designed specifically for journaling. It is pretty intuitive, but lacks the standard MS Word controls that one would expect to have in a text editor. It has a really neat calendar function and the ability to have multiple journals. You can also drag and drop attachments such as pictures, video and other things.

Perhaps the coolest part of this app is that it can export and upload to a blog. The upload doesn’t work too well if you are putting pictures in and not uploading to an ftp server. Formatting also gets messed up a bit, but the ability to author a blog locally and not through a lame HTML UI is really nice. Mac Journal will even download from the blog to update its back up and local registry. So you can author the entry locally, upload, fix pictures/formatting online, and Mac Journal will download the changes. Sounds like a lot of work, but it is loads easier than other ways I have tried.

Sooooo MacJournal plus my Google Earth and Excel code generator, blogging is super easy! Hooray for Macjournal!

FIRST CACHE

2007-06-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

Just a little link to our first cache ever published!!! http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=3bd862a5-705c-4804-aa6e-93f3ee943a8a GO! Two more posts are coming up tonight! BE READY!

The Frog Tree 6/3

2007-06-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

So late last night I finished the coding to get this blog working and was dying to go do something after staring at a screen for 5 hours not playing wow. So I fired up the interwebs and lo and behold! A Geocache right in my back yard. At the Frog Tree no less! The Frog Tree is a tiny wind blown tree on the ridge between Kristin's house and mine. I have spent many an hour hanging out with people under that tree and was stoked to know about the geocache!

SO, Sean and I threw on our shoes and charged up the overgrown path I used to use in my days of a Middle Schooler. Did i mention it was around 9:00 PM and dark? I get slapped in the face with a tree and press on only to be stopped by Sean, "uhhh... wasn't that poison oak you just stuck your face in?" Thank God for Technu! We plowed straight up the hill to Frog Tree and realized the error of not bringing a flash light. We could not find the cache for the life of us. Luckily we were able to call Kristin, who looked up the exact location online, officially making this a TEAM INFERNO (WOO!) event! Sean eventually found the Altoid tin, just in time for me to stick my face in another poison oak bush looking for the stupid thing. I dropped in an Iris pin from work and took a cool coin.. i think it is chinese? Funny that this is only cache number 8 for me... Expect the number to double by the end of the week!

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
Click here to open Google Maps in New Window!

DOLBY!

2007-06-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Now I have a paying job too!

Looks like I only get weekends for big hikes now... sad day. Well at least now I can pay my bills.

Roy's to White Hill

2007-06-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

Sean and I have been aching to go on a truly EPIC hike. Right now our goal is to hike from his house to Stinson Beach. Woo. But because I'm fat, we have been working our way up to it. So, we decided to depart from Roy's Redwoods and hike east back toward town. We aren't much for trails, so once we hit open space, we took off into gullies and up ridges. Moral of the story, it was the longest 5 mile hike I have ever been on. I honestly would have taken more pictures were it not for Kristin's 32 MB flash card. 32 MB?! I thought you were a photographer! I'll bring my 1gb from now on! :P

We first stopped off at the Roy's Redwood's Geocache to see how it was doing. Ammo boxes are awesome, and one day I will replace all my GladWare with them. We then continued up the trail and through a barbed wire fence. Being the outdoors-men we are, we decided to take a shortcut through a fun looking little valley. This was instantly a bad decision as we realized that the only pleasant thing in this valley was Sticky Monkey Cock(the name Brendan calls Sticky Monkey Plant). By this, I mean we were completely surrounded by poison oak. Sean, because of his dirty redskin blood is immune, that jerk! Im not, so he would step on vines while I vaulted over the deadly shrubs. Once we cleared the valley, we named it, The Poisonous Valley of Oaks!

On our way to our destination, we found two large green circles. There was no water to be found, but these Emerald Oases were truly a sight to see among the golden hillside. Eventually, we finally got to our "destination," a large out cropping of rock we affectionately call Old Man's Perch due to its resemblance to Sean's mothe... i mean grandpa. Sean, the horticulture expert discovered some Blessed Thistle, a fancy burgundy thistle that is apparently good in food. A rare find indeed. Too bad they were all infested with meal worms!

Now that we were in the middle of no where, I was getting hungry and decided it was time to head back and eat. SO, we decided we would hike up to the ridge and walk along it until we got to the White Hill pass and find a ride into town. By the time we got to the ridge, we realized we were on private property. Every airplane sounded like a truck coming around the next turn on the fire road, causing us to hurl ourselves off the edge of the road and into the bushes. Before long we came to our senses and finally reach the Loma Alta Reserve. Here we hiked down the hill side and discovered and wooded area surrounding a large mound of rock. Against the mound, someone had built walls out of layered stone and attempted to thatch a roof. This shattered den, with a little of work will some day be The Assembly Halls of the Fellowship. The home of Team Inferno! We are going to get a big horn. And call the fellowship. It will be awesome.

Eventually we reached White Hill Middle School. There Sean saw one of his fellow coaches who gave us water! Bonus! Kristin couldn't pick us up because she was hanging out with him who shall not be named. Keeley was working some show and no one else was around. We were walking back along Drake toward Fairfax, calling my dad for a ride, how horrible... WHEN SUDDENLY MIA DROVE BY! She honked her horn and waved. I chased the car waving my arms in the air. When I talked to her about why she didn't pull over, she said she was already on her way to the valley and it would have been too dangerous to pull over. Thats right on Drake in Fairfax, into a parking lane. *sigh* new drivers. We'll get her back. Eventually my dad picked us up (hooray!) and dropped Sean and I off back at my car. Then we got burritos at Mi Pueblo! ¡DELICIOSO!

Hopefully this isn't too boring, future posts will be better, I swear!

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
Click here to open Google Maps in New Window!

Proper Usage Guidelines

2007-06-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to recount the thoughts and journeys of my friends and I. If you are only interested in the maps and hiking and such, stay here and select the appropriate tag on the right side, or check out the sister blog at http://geocachemarin.blogspot.com, which only has outdoorsy posts. Now for the instructions!

Each post has labels depending on what its about. On the right side of the page you can navigate through these tags, or through the sea of archives. Also, be sure to check out the nifty links!

The maps are all made using my Garmin etrex Legend C, uploaded into Google Earth running on OS X, then exported to KML. The Google Maps API can work the KML files to embed the map data into the blog.

The maps themselves have the tracks that we followed for that particular adventure. Each marker, when clicked on, will show fun tidbits and pictures. NEATO! Click away clickers!

If you are hardcore, you will download the KML files and put them in your own Google Earth App and really enjoy the huge amount of work I have put into this blog... even if only 3 or 4 people are ever going to look at it... Get it here.

Everything else... well enjoy it. If you don't... find a sense of humor and get back to me.

Hike to Arch Rock!

2007-06-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

FINALLY! I have mastered the Google Maps API and may present to you the first of many map posts for this blog. The next post will discuss how to use this blog.

The trip! Kristin, Sean and I (TEAM INFERNO).. oh and Nick :P, hiked out to Arch Rock hearing rumors that part of the arch collapsed. We left from the Bear Valley trail head to the arch. About half way, Kristin removed her boots to expose horrid blisters. She fought through it and removed her boots at the arch and stayed barefoot the rest of the way (OUCH!). The tide was extremely low. Lower than I have ever seen it. We were able to walk under the arch and easily hop over the creek. We then decided to see how far up the beach we could walk. After exploring the cave on the way, we reached the cove and peninsula north of the arch. Sadly, this was the end of the line and we were forced to turn back. I definitely look forward to exploring the hills around the arch sometime soon. We'll have to find Kristin a good pair of boots, haha.

Right click here (or option click) to download the KML file for Google Earth!
Click here to open Google Maps in New Window!

Sick Compy

2007-05-30T13:59:00.001-07:00

My laptop is sick... but when it comes back, expect a plethora of posts. Going on a hike right now! hooray!

DONAGE!

2007-05-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow I am done for the year! I am sitting here on the couch relaxing. InboxZero, check. Clean desktop, check. Only thing left to do is clean up the house and drive home! One neato thing I have been playing with is iusethis.com. Check out my profile:
http://osx.iusethis.com/user/bentup

Hope everyone is doing well! Turns out I got the Iris internship! woo. Its only 2 days a week tho, so the rest of the time I get to explore and write in this bloggggggg!

Hawking!

2007-04-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

This just makes me happy:

Look at that smile!

on the subject I might as well link these made by Brendon Vitz:

E=MCHawking!
Crazy

As for me... I have more class and papers to write. Expect delicious blogness in the weeks to come!

Application

2007-04-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah so instead of actually doing any work for class, I have been applying for an Internship!!

Shit Son!

It looks pretty cool! Basically it is the middle man for companies like iTunes and the indies. Soooo music+digits=happy boy! Lets just hope paid plays into that equation so I will be a happy and not hungry boy!

Yeah... So I'm not too sure what the point of all this is... considering no one will actually read this. I suspect blog ≠ livejournal and that even if someone did stumble upon this by mistake, they would quickly close the window or kill themselves... haha. Well, look for more thematic posts in the future! Such topics may include:

Geocaching!
Biking/Hiking/Scenery of Marin County
Music technology and distribution
Uninformed Tech Rants

Just check for future tags!

And now.... time for class.

First Post

2007-04-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

I think I saw this somewhere....

Blogito, ergo sum.

soooo......

i am.

This is to complement the twittering...