Monday, August 30, 2004
MAYORBOB calls it quits (for now)
MAYORBOB of Plastic.com fame has decided to stop posting at least for awhile and go into deep lurker mode.
The community responds; here's to MAYORBOB.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/30/2004 12:35:19 PM
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Saturday, August 28, 2004
Dual Monitors
I was having some trouble at first, but now I have two monitors setup on my computer. If you don't have a video card that supports two monitors, (ie. has two places to plug them in) then the first thing you need to do in order to get them working is to install a second video card. Originally I was using an onboard NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 video chipset. I installed a Cirrus Logic 5446 Compatible Graphics Adapter but couldn't get it to work. I searched the net but didn't have much luck finding the answer. It turns out the key to getting both monitors working is to change the BIOS / CMOS settings to look for your video card first, instead of just using the onboard video. It took me a couple of trys to find the setting that I needed.
I now have two monitors working and it's great. It's particularly handy to do New Media work having one monitor for tutorials and another to follow along with.
I hope this explanation of what I did helps someone else who is trying to do the same thing.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/28/2004 10:16:07 AM
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Thursday, August 26, 2004
Gmail Invites
I noticed the other day that I have 5 more gmail invitations to give away. Instead of holding a contest I am going to give them to friends that would like them. So if you mentioned to me recently that you are looking for an invitation, or if you never mentioned it but now realize how good gmail is, please let me know.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/26/2004 09:42:48 PM
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Thursday, August 19, 2004
Congratulations Jackie and Glen
My sister Jackie and her husband Glen delivered a baby boy today. Congratulations guys.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/19/2004 09:25:39 PM
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Sunday, August 15, 2004
Living La Vida Loca
Anna-Maria went to Banff again this weekend. I went to Devin Wallace's bachelor party and played 16 player network Halo until 3 in the morning. Since none of them drink they weren't getting any worse as the night progressed, but I can't complain because I did pretty good anyway.
Yesterday I went kayaking down the Milk River. I also discovered that I can drive my Jeep for about at least 100km on the highway after the fuel light is on. I thought for sure I would run out of gas; I didn't though.
So this brings me to Sunday. So far today I've watched a couple episodes of the Sopranos (season five is very good by the way) and I also did a couple of photoshop tutorials. Now I'm thinking about mowing the lawn. Yes, when Anna goes away, I live the crazy life.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/15/2004 04:18:12 PM
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Thursday, August 12, 2004
Another Backmasking Update
I've added the following songs to my backmasking page:
Imagine - John Lennon
Kiss, Kiss, Kiss - Yoko Ono
My Name Is... - Eminem
Pokemon Rap
As well I've made some minor changes to some of the older clips. Feel free to comment on my backmasking page here.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/12/2004 04:35:15 PM
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Wednesday, August 11, 2004
I'm Looking for Olympic Swimming BitTorrent Links
I read an article by Matt Haughey on possible ways of using BitTorrent to broadcast the Olympics.
It made me wonder if I will be able to find swimming torrents. So far my google searches have turned up nothing but I'm hoping that either something new will show up on Suprnova.org once the Olympics start, or perhaps someone reading this will be able to point me in the right direction.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/11/2004 11:46:29 AM
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Moraine Lake
After finishing my 4 week stint as a New Media Movie Making Camp instructor at the University of Lethbridge I've been keeping myself busy helping Anna-Maria with various odd jobs at her work and spending the weekend at Banff. We stopped at Lake Louise and Lake Moraine. The thing about those lakes, besides the fact that Lake Moraine used to be featured on the back of the Canadian $20 bill, is that they are both a very rich and almost unnatural shade of blue-green.
Notice the rich but almost unnatural blue-green tone.
The trip was a lot of fun with very little out of the ordinary happening. After a sad goodbye at the airport Anna-Maria and I headed back to Lethbridge and now she is in charge of another group from Japan and the fun activities get to start all over again.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/11/2004 01:00:41 AM
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Wednesday, August 04, 2004
New Media Camp
The University of Lethbridge New Media Movie Making Camp for July 2004 is done. I'm now an unemployed movie maker instructor / lifeguard. Actually I'm technically employed as a lifeguard but I'm not on the working schedule at present.
The camp itself was, in my opinion, a great success. I've become a better teacher and I believe the program will grow as word spreads about how fun it is to make your own movies. I wish I had the storage space and bandwidth required to show some of my favorite parts on this blog, but you'll just have to take my word for it when I say that for kids averaging between 11 and 13 they made some mighty fine movies.
I came into the University today to finish up some things and to meet with my boss for a little review of the job. I'm getting a pretty good feeling about my chances of doing it again next year. Also next year they will likely try to stretch it out for an additional one or two weeks.
In the meantime aside from hanging out at the University I've been putting out ads for a new roommate, trying to get my student loans application filled out, working out in the pool, running errands, and mostly waiting for Anna-Maria to be done work so we can go home. :)
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/4/2004 05:47:30 PM
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Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Camping
I used to hate camping. It's a secret from Anna-Maria and most of my family, but I don't think it would come as a big surprise to those that have been with me on Scout Camp. I'll try not to delve too deeply into the bad memories.
It's not that Scout Camp is inherently bad. It's not even that LDS Scout Camp is inherently bad. Which as you can guess is what I went too. But do I ever hate those bastards. Please don't take offence if you are reading this and happen to be the one or two people from Scout camp that actually made it bearable. I'm hoping you know who you are.
The thing about Scout camp was that our troop had a very motley crew of people that I would never hang out with in real life. Nice guys - most of them, but so many of them just weirdoes or mental cases. They were either too different in their interests or too anxious to start a fight with us. It was especially bad after they split our ward. Which meant that most of the people I liked to hang out with were no longer in our troop. I sometimes snuck in to the other wards camps because ours sucked so badly.
Anyway having had enough of this tangent I'll be getting to the point of this post.
I went camping with Anna-Maria on the weekend and we had such a good time. Trust me when I say that I was extremely skeptical (even though I kept my skepticism to myself).
I'll try and keep it condensed. On Friday we left and arrived in Sparwood (we = Anna-Maria and Sophie the Dog). Saturday: after eggs and bacon for breakfast we went bridge jumping on a VERY HIGH bridge. I'm guessing approximately 5 or 6 meters 10 meters - I didn't realize it at the time but it was about twice as high as the 5 meter platform at the University. This bridge was HIGH!. There were a wild bunch of guys there jumping off and one of them even did a backflip. There were signs that said, "No Jumping - No Diving" but we got into our wet suits and promptly ignored those signs.
I joked to Anna how we would probably still be here after those locals were gone and the RCMP showed up. I was half right. The RCMP showed up when Anna was dangling on the side of the bridge and the others had all dried off. She quickly scrambled onto the bridge but it was pretty obvious that the two of us dressed in our wet suits were up to no good. I thought for sure he was going to give us a hard time. Just then the wild backflipper guy climbed out on the edge of the bridge. I felt immediately relieved because it wasn't Anna or I that would be getting into any trouble today. He smiled at the officer and leaped head under heals down towards the frigid water. I looked at the cop who just said to us, "Tell him that next time I want to see a double back-flip with a twist." They laughed and the tension was broken. I guess he was cool with it (maybe because nobody was drinking? Or maybe because he really didn't care. It wasn't a dangerous place to jump and he probably wasn't looking for a confrontation anyway.) Either way it made me have a lot more respect for him as a guy who can tell the difference between harmless fun and reckless self endangerment.
Later that night we had a game of Frisbee golf and then late night partying.
Sunday - We drove to Trail, BC to visit my cousin Don and his family. They just had a new baby girl last week.
Monday - Drove home, bought some fresh BC cherries, a peach, and four cobs of corn at a roadside shop. I can only describe how good they were with a sound that has no English word to represent it. (Think Homer Simpson drooling over Beer).
And when it was all over we were very happy to be back in a familiar bed.
In conclusion, camping isn't that bad when you can shower in the morning, free fall into a cold deep river for at least 3 seconds, drive to the store for lunch and take off for relatives if those you are camping with are too boring or having marital problems or both. You can't go wrong camping with Anna-Maria.
P.S. Camping with the Medicine Hat First Ward still would have sucked even with daily showers, but maybe not if I had had my Jeep and someone warm to cuddle up to.
posted by Jeff Milner at 8/3/2004 05:18:12 PM
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