timojhen

Sorry Nancy, not sure I can explain it actually.

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Nancy asked me recently why I like doing these odd (solo) motorcycle trips. Got me to thinking, though I'm not sure I can come up with a completely satisfactory explanation.

I like the solo bit because I'm self centered, and going with anyone else inherently involves compromise. Compromise on when to stop, where to stop, where to go. Since I like not having an agenda (or even a pre-planned route), that part I do get.

Beyond that, here's what I could come up with.

1 - pause and reset. Almost impossible not to get caught up in the day to day minutiae while in the middle of it. Stopping, trashing my normal routine and taking an objective (fresh) look can be invigorating.

2 - Reset. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I've found that I have a new appreciation for how rich and full my life is when I live (even for a bit) without some of the things which I love so much... family, wife, work, home.

3 - adventure. Having not become repetitive about any of my trips, they're all new (to me) and interesting in part because I've not done it before.

4 - Riding. At the core of my getaways is spending some quality time on the bike. Don't ride as much as I might like (largely my fault through laziness, inertia or fatigue) and it's awesome to get a chance to focus entirely on finding those choice roads which bring that inexplicably free feeling.

5 - Tourism. I relish the opportunity to see some new things, do a bit of people watching and check out some new parts of the country. Gotta keep marking off those states on them map! (nobalance.com)

Let Go or Be Dragged

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:09:00 +0000

One of the thing which has happened for me since my kids were born is the gradual evolution from "who I used to be" to "who I am". Like all transitions, it's often small things, silent in their nature which combine to signify the change.

I realized in conversation with Nancy a couple of months ago that I'd not ridden a dirt bike in so long I couldn't remember the last time tires touched dirt. Never intentional, wasn't taking a respite or anything, just didn't fit with the lifestyle of having two small children, working a lot and just not having a lot of free time.

Nancy's supportive of my continuing to ride in some capacity (probably couldn't roadrace again, since the commitment there is huge), but it'd just dropped off.

Startling realization, since prior to moving to Virginia I'd been riding several times a week, including one day a week where I left work early to ride motocross under the lights.

Building on that, I've sold the truck and my commuter (Scion) and bought a Subaru WRX. Plan is to get a trailer and use that to get the bike(s) around, so I should still be able to ride sometimes. As a friend has already noted ... I'm on a slippery slope!

Let's see if tire can touch dirt in 2009!

Since you asked, Top Music of 2008. Totally subjective, as it oughta be.

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:01:00 +0000

Was joking about poking holes in the Top 10 lists which always come out at this time of the year, and someone asked what would be in mine (assuming I had one). It was something I did when I wrote for Maximum RocknRoll years ago, so interesting to think about.

With little forethought, and even less qualifications, here it is.

(I know some of this came out before 2008. Whatever. It's subjective! If I didn't 'discover' it until this year, it didn't exist before this year for me anyways.)

** No Order. That'd require way too much thinking and might hurt someone's feelings. **

Jay Reatard. Singles 06-07. Scuzball garage punk without apologies. http://www.myspace.com/jayreatard

Trans Am - Surrender to the Night. Crazy stuff, especially with headphones. I immediately bought everything else they've done. (which is also good, but didn't hit me as hard).

These Arms are Snakes - Tail Swallower & Dove. Like most of their stuff, ranges from crap pop to more atmospheric metal. No real understanding of why I don't hate it, since I would have guessed that to be true.

Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling. They don't seem to release crap ever. Another amazing, anthemic, "Listen in the car where I can go LOUD" release. And they're about to play in Kuala Lumpur. Whoa.

MC Frontalot - Nerdcore Rising. Rapping about ASCII art and Star Wars makes me laugh. Gotta problem with that?

The Mall - Emergency at the Everyday. Totally solid release from this defunct band. Hooks, loud guitars and song titles which you can't really pronounce. goodbye, band.

The Ocean - Precambrian - Enormous, wall of noise sludge metal. Slow enough to drone on and on, loud enough for it to not matter. And reminds me of Chuck Sumner every time I listen to them, which is worth money to me.

The Sword - Age of Winters. Listened to this about a thousand times this year. Yeah, it's old, yeah, they have something more recent, I know. This was still the standount. I'm saving the new record for 2009 maybe.

Torche - Meanderthal. Felt almost sophisticated when my favorite music podcast (Sound Opinions, which is generally right on) named this the second best album of the year. Agreed with their first choice as being awesome as well. Maybe I'm getting smarter.

Tim Fite - anything. Credit to SoundOpinions for introducing me to him. I've plowed through everything he's done this year, in part because much of it is available for free on the web. (Punk!). He rules, even if Nancy has said "it sounds like the Grateful Dead", which is obviously meant to shame me somehow.

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:47:00 +0000

1989 revisited!

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:45:00 +0000

Interesting week, as I've had a number of old, old friends come back in contact. It's been especially interesting as I think about the contrasts from when I was a 19 year old punk floating around WITR with Lucien in Rochester, going up to visit Shauna in Manhattan and buy Doc Martens on St Marks..... crazy times.

Think the thing most poignant about all of it is how different things are now (which certainly isn't a bad thing). I'm about a million miles removed from almost everything I did then into new (and entirely different) activities now.

Crazy how life evolves in a way you couldn't plan or predict. My weekends now are chasing children through county fairs , riding motorcycles, playing xbox after everyone is asleep and fiddling with photography, computers and all the other things which have been consistent the whole time.

It's a wonderful life indeed!

iphwn'd

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:19:00 +0000

Was one of the legions who picked up a iPhone 3G after they were released. Generally, pretty happy with it. Think it's great for reading (email / web) but crap for typing. Still find the blackberry better for typing, though it's lousy for anything else.

Also a bit disappointed my car stereo didn't recognize it as an ipod. It's been finicky in the past (i.e. didn't recognize a first gen nano either), so can't be too surprised. With the commuting I do (~30 miles each way), I consume a lot of podcasts.

I've been following the App Store with some interest, since it holds a lot of promise. Favorite apps so far ... Twitterific , facebook , twittervision (which can be totally fascinating), and the ign game reviews.

Update :: Firmware upgrade on my car stereo, and the iPhone is an iPod to it. Nice. Add the wireless podcast syncing, and I'm stoked. As I said to someone else, it's Tivo for the radio! (Especially nice when you have a long(ish) commute.

Happy (belated) Birthday Maximum RocknRoll

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:01:00 +0000

Wow, 25 years. That's nuts. We're all getting older every day, but it's things like that which really push me over the edge. Had the same weird nostalgic "holy shit" feeling a couple of years ago when I realized that I'd seen Black Flag 20 (!!) years previous in Syracuse NY.
Good stuff either way... lots has passed, there's been some good times, and I can't complain.

Footnote : As my friend Tom recently commented, my taste in music hasn't changed much in 20 years. Not sure if that's good or not, but quite true....

AppleTV

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:05:00 +0000

Managed to win (!!) a 160GB appleTV recently. Was a give-away for people who registered and downloaded white papers, so was a complete surprise.

It's the ideal type of thing to be given, since it's not something I'd pay full retail for, but I'm interested in it. Having had it set up for a couple of weeks now, think I could see myself becoming attached to it over time. Maybe Apple should offer a "rent-to-own" option for these, since they haven't captured the general publics attention.

Here's what I think it does well :

Pictures :
It's easy to set up a folder to sync to the appleTV which is convenient. I have it configured to sync a single folder, and planned on dropping content specific to TV viewing in that. (Have too much to have it sync everything).
The picture quality is great (connected to HDTV via HDMI) and the slide show is functional. There's no "edit" capability (even delete) which would be nice to have it as an editing method, but we were able to look through vacation pictures without huddling around a laptop.

Music :
Much like the Pictures sync, it's easy to set up sync'ing from iTunes to the appleTV. This would include podcasts and smart playlists. I've set it up to sync everything I've added in the last month (again, too much to do everything) and several playlists which we'd use in the living room. I like that shuffle is the first option for playlist playback (since I prefer it for most albums), and the album artwork is large, clear and looks great.

I've not played with Video yet. I'm not someone who'd purchase video content from Apple, but plan to explore the YouTube linkages a bit.

All in all, it's a lot like how I feel about the Chumby. It's interesting, and I could easily see it becoming something that I'd find value in. Unfortunately, the price point is still high enough I'd struggle to measure the ROI on both favorably.

Update : 02/23/08
A week later, and I'm really beginning to like the appleTV. It's great to have access to my mp3 catalog in the family room, something which wasn't possible with iPod docks etc (too small). The YouTube integration works (search-able, can sign in etc), but it's the same crap YouTube quality as the web, so it's really obnoxious on a TV. The pictures sync works as expected, and it's great to be able to view photos on the larger screen.
Still unconvinced I'd pay for it, but think there's probably a market for this, if only it was possible to demonstrate the value effectively.

paying for software

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:08:00 +0000

Found myself paying for software recently (Office 2008 for Mac) which (honestly) would have been unheard of some years ago. I thought of software companies as monolithic entities which didn't need or deserve my support, with the exception of some great shareware ( Graphic Converter, TidyUp!, and MP3 Rage being several which come to mind immediately).

It's a (sorta) weird thing for me to think about, since I'd been so lackadasical about it in the past. Didn't mind paying for hardware, but was always so ambivalent about software.

Guess aging is doing something to me (see post about preferring to buy CD's vs downloading, even when the downloads are legal).

Footnote : I still have limits. Everyone I know (who's serious about photography) loves LightRoom. I can't get over the fact it's $300, so still doing lousy things using Graphic Converter instead....

aging

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:39:00 +0000

Have been thinking a bit lately about responsibility, especially as it relates to digital media. I'd spent about a year using soulseek extensively, and managed to find a ton of great (old) punk which never made the transition from vinyl to CD.

It became somewhat cyclical.... I'd troll around, find a record that I'd completely forgotten about like old metalcore records from Canada (i.e. Sudden Impact's "No Rest for the Wicked") and be psyched to relive musical experiences from years ago.

In the end, there's something unsatisfying for me about completely digital media. I still get a kick out of looking at a CD (or vinyl) and having the full package -- artwork, liner notes, etc.

Ended up buying about 50 CD's (mostly used, and most for <$2.00) at Ameoba last weekend while visiting family in the Bay Area. A new stash of loot to dig through!

Mailordered more Destroyer records yesterday, so looks like I'm back to buying my music. Something enormously more satisfying about holding actual media I guess.

Troy's photo experimentation...

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:54:00 +0000

Troy's been playing with a camera we gave him for christmas (small fischer price digital) and it's been fun. He's gradually getting the hang of it, though it's been fun to watch, since he doesn't really get the concept of a viewfinder yet, so he just holds the camera in front of his face and takes them blind.

I'd be psyched if he kept an interest in this, since it'd be fun to keep seeing things through his eyes.... (even when they're closed!).

Tm

macro photography...

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:36:00 +0000

DSC_0218
Originally uploaded by timojhen

Been spending some time playing with macro photography around the house. It's been especially interesting to me since many things which I don't really notice catch a lot more attention when you're looking at them up (really) close.

Was able to do it on the cheap -- combined Nikon BR3 and BR2A adapters, allowing for mounting a cheap 50mm lense backwards. Gives an effective 1:1 focal length to the CCD size for about $20. That said, it also removes all focusing from the lense, so I end up moving the camera closer / further from the subject to get focus.

Fun stuff, especially for low $$.

more samples....

damn apple pricing

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:39:00 +0000

Have been moving parts around here at home to get RAM where it needs to be etc. My G5 "seems" due for an upgrade to me. Actually sitting here and watching it.... I'm crazy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this thing, and it's rarely underpowered.

If only the new Mac's weren't so expensive. I just built a Vista box for several hundred dollars (and donor parts from a dated XP box) which is more power than I'd use on that front. Paying >$2K is hard to cope with for a new mac. Time to go the Hackintosh route or something.

<1>/Users/timojhen> uptime
20:41 up 9 mins, 2 users, load averages: 0.50 0.35 0.19

hmmm... guess I can't defend a new one on those grounds!

where does all the time go?

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:23:00 +0000

It's amazing to me how I seem to have no time, anytime. I remember thinking when I moved from San Francisco to Purcellville (i.e. 2 stoplights... one of which was blinking when we landed here) that I'd have a ton of time to do things I couldn't find time for in San Francisco... like do more perl etc.

Haven't posted on this in six months. Like so many things, that was an extremely short lived effort -- like a week.

Thinking again that I should ramp this up -- especially for the shoutcast streams. When people (i.e. Alternative Tentacles this week) send me promos of stuff that's more than just listenable (but actually great, like the EAT and MENTALLY ILL promos they swung my way)... it's unfortunate that I don't have a proper platform to give them props.

Lord knows the killedbydeath.org site could use a facelift -- what's there was temporary two years ago, it certainly shows...

christmas -- not a protest!!

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 12:02:00 +0000

Nancy and I talked about doing this some time ago (her idea) and put it into action after Thanksgiving.

In my predictable fashion, I planned on totally over-engineering the whole thing. (Was going to weld a frame to hang the trees from). Ended up just using a couple of pipe fittings and wood screws. Either way, totally amped on how it turned out.

Some of our neighbors asked if we were protesting Christmas. Not quite the case! With a 2 1/2 year old, Christmas is getting a lot of mileage around this house! Ha.

virtualization.... interesting, or just the next fad?

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 11:58:00 +0000

Started playing with virtualization last night. Using vmware, since I have a windows desktop that rarely gets used, and wish I could get more mileage out of it. Sits unused primarily because I have too many computers, but y'know...

Installed Ubuntu on it last night in a VM container. Once I understood how vmware interpreted toggling the mouse between environments, wasn't too bad. Some confusion on the mounting of the CD drive in the client vs host computer, but kinda expected that. Haven't tried any remote management yet, but that's next.

Maybe I'll end up reducing the 12 computers in my basement (a year ago) to 5 (now) to just a couple! Since I've stopped hosting anything from the house (gave up the static IP), it strikes me as frivolous to have so many running but getting so little use....

updates are hard

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 17:50:00 +0000

When I started doing killedbydeath.org, I dumped about everything I could think of in. Turned out to be about 2500 tracks, which seemed reasonable.

Been thinking lately that I should be more aggressive about updating the content -- there's a ton of great stuff that I just don't know about -- thinking of things like Kugelberg's top 100 punk singles.... blazing material from some band no one's ever heard of.

Maybe if I inherit some time somehow...

noreply@blogger.com (timojhen) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:55:00 +0000

thinking about this. not sure I'll have enough to make this worthwhile, but who knows!

API's are enticing -- not having to manage this locally certainly makes the overhead a lot less.