My Life - My Travels

I took a hike the other day up to some water falls I’ve never been to before. Let me tell you, they were awesome! Well…1 out of the 3 were. I went to Squaw Creek Falls outside of Sisters Oregon about 10 miles or so. The directions I have say…

The waterfalls of Whychus Creek are located just nside the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, located south of the town of Sisters. From Highway 242 in downtown Sisters, turn south on Forest Service Road 16, signed for Three Creek Lake (do not follow FR 15, signed for Whychus Creek, west of town). After 7 miles, turn right onto FR 1514, and proceed just under 5 miles to FR 1514-600, immediately before crossing Whychus Creek on a large concrete bridge, and turn left. Road 1514-600 is very rough, but passable for passenger cars with decent clearance. Follow this rough road for another 2 miles to a T-junction and bear left, reaching the trailhead in another ½ mile. From here, follow the Chush Falls trail for an easy mile to canyon-rim views of Chush Falls.Officially, the trail ends here, but it continues on as a plainly
obvious route. The Cascades are encountered ¼ mile further. Read more »

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The minimalist lifestyle sounds great doesn’t it? No debt, no house payment, being able to pick up and move at a moments notice, etc, etc. Some people call it downshifting, some call it being an urban minimalist, and some call it being anti-consumerist. I call it being smart and getting back in touch with what I personally think life should be about.

I got laid off from work about 6 months ago. I was in IT and that is one of the worst markets to be in at this moment. I’ve had a few odd jobs here and there but nothing of any real value. I poked and prodded at my savings to get me by so I can eat and pay the important bills. Read more »

I plan to write a multi-part post about living as a minimalist. This will hopefully document my journey up to my current point and map out the rest of my path to living a minimalist lifestyle.

What exactly is a minimalist lifestyle you make ask. This answer will differ from one person to another but to me it is simple. And the answer can be summed up into one word. Simple.

I used to a bit of a pack rat. I learned that skill from my mother. I read that one of the reason people are pack rats is due to fear. We fear that we may need that item in the future. I might need that spare keyboard even though mine works great and has zero problems. We also grow an item we own and don’t want to get rid of said item because it has been with you for so long. We has a people have come to fear change. Read more »

I ran across Zoto in quest to find a decent and cheap online backup for my all my photos. I love to take photos and a lot of my photos are in in RAW format, so they can take up a lot of room.

I started reading about Zoto and it seemed like it might fit the bill for all my JPGs and I was ok with that.

Turns out that Zoto wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but it turned out to be pretty cool never the less. Some say a Flickr wanna be but I say so what…who cares?

Zoto allows you to create folders and upload as many photos as you like. Share or make them private. They can handle photos up to 20mb in size and they offer a pretty cool interface. There is a lot of technology that you’ve seen before like a lightbox but they do it well and it looks good.

There is also a simple uploader you can put on you computer and all you have to do is drag and drop the individual photos or a whole folder. I would have liked to seen the folder structure be keep instead of just uploading into a “all photos” folder. It creates a lot of extra work in the name of organization.

All in all I think Zoto is a fair opponent to Flickr if you take into consideration the unlimited storage.

Zoto gets a thumbs up for me if I want to share photos with friends but as photo backup it just doesn’t cut it.

Then again, it’s not trying to be a backup service.

I’ve been reading a lot about bigger web companies laying of 10% or 25% of their staff in both reactive and proactive strategies to lower costs to make up for bad economy. This brings up some interesting questions, one of which tends to make me worry.

Are all these free web services we use everyday going to make a jump to paid services?

Things like Gmail, Pandora, Mint, etc, etc. Read more »

A few weeks back I was playing PGR 4 on my Xbox 360 and this song came on while I was racing and it caught my ear. I wrecked 2 times trying to find that song again. It turned out to be “blah blah” by Lady Sovereign. Once I had that bit of info I started up my Zune Marketplace and started to download the album. I then started doing some research to find more of this hypnotic music.

I hadn’t been this taken in by a specifc genre since I got in Drum and Bass.

After several hours of reading about Grime I found some great stuff. To name a few…

• Dizzee Rascal
• M.I.A.
• Kano
• Mr. Slash
• Roll Deep
• Tinchy Stryder

Those just a few that I found.

It’s great. It’s rap, but not American rap. No 50 Cent or Nelly bullshit. I don’t feel like I should sag my pants low and turn my hat to the side. I don’t feel guilty listening to it because I’m not black.

Short post I know, but I figued it was worth a post since it has consumed so many hours of my ears time.

Don’t worry, I didn’t buy a double foam something or other. I ordered the only thing I knew on the menu. Iced Greentea.

After having to reset my Tmobile hotspot username/password since I’ve NEVER used it. I was on my way to surfing the internet super tubes.

I must say that I’m totally out of my element. In front of me sits a 20 something guy with emo hair and pants. He also has big sunglasses (indoors) and a Macbook. Ohh I also forgot to mention that he rides a scooter. Trend whore to the max. Makes me just want to punch him in the face. Then there is me. Hiking Columbia shoes with smartwool socks and worn Carhartt pants and a t-shirt. Don’t forget the evil looking tattoos. People look at me like I’m from a different planet. I love it.

California and me mix like oil and water. I love guns, they hate guns. I love my freedoms and don’t do well with sales tax. California hates freedoms and loves taxes. I must say however, the speed limits rock.   I drove over 65mph in Oregon I had to keep an eye out for the Police. Now, I just hang out in the slow lane doing 70mph while getting passed. Reminds me of the interstate in Idaho.

I am however enjoying the change of landscape. I used to be frightened by change. Feared i wasn’t going to fit in anywhere. Not know my way around and just make a mess of a lot of things.

Not that case it turns out. I suggest to anyone wanted to leave and explore the world. The first step is the hardest. Things get much easier from that point.

The T-Mobile G1 is the best phone in the history of the world! Have you not seen the video reviews and seen the specs? GPS, 3G, Touchscreen, WiFi, etc, etc.

That’s what I thought until I started to delve deeper into what it can ACTUALLY do. Sure it has a built in compass with a nifty gyro thingy but it lacks a few key features.

From what I’ve seen on the net I was ready to drop my Blackberry Curve and pre-order one of these bad boys. Until I found it can’t do UMA, no 3.5mm headphone jack, and can’t be used an a modem for a laptop. All very key features that my Curve currently has and I use on a regular basis.

Android, what are you doing! I’m willing to over the 3.5mm jack but no UMA or dial up networking for my laptop? My HTC Dash had that later of the 3 and that was 2 phones ago for me.

Get it together boys and I’ll reconsider dropping my hard earned cash on your gadget.

The Microsoft Zune Music Marketplace, also known as just the Zune Marketplace is boasting that they have something like 6 million songs. I know the name is long and isn’t as catchy as “iTunes” but hey, what do you want. It’s Microsoft.

I have recently purchased a Zune 120GB (which I will be reviewing later after some more use) and have been playing with the marketplace. Microsoft have put together a nice little music collection which is available at my finger tips. All I have to do is download this little program and I’m set to go. Ohh…I also forgot to mention the $15 a month charge for the Zune Pass which allows me to listen to more than a 20 second preview of each song.

You can however sign up for a 14 day trial and grab as much music as you want.

The way it works is, once you have pass you are able to browse and listen to full length songs and albums. You may also download and sync with your Zune so you can have it with you. This is great for me because I can get bored with an album in no time. Downloads are super fast and only takes a few minutes to get an entire album. You can search by song, artist, album name, etc.

There are a few drawbacks however. One of the major ones is that the music you download via the marketplace is DRM encoded. Therefore, if you don’t pay your monthly dues of $15 your music will go bad and you won’t be able t use it. There is one way around that but I might just leave that for later on in the post. Another thing that really bothers me is once I finally find an album I like. I think…SWEET and click the download button. Only to find out that I can’t download a few songs on that album for whatever reason and i have to buy them. Granted the songs only cost about 79 Microsoft points but I’m already paying $15 a month! I don’t want to buy 2 songs just so I can have a complete album. This also happens with entire albums. They have it…you just have to pay for it and then you can download it.

Overall, I think that it is a great system and is an alternative to anything that starts with a lower case “i” *cough* iPod  *cough* iTunes

I say give it a shot. I personally will pay for one or two months just to find some new music.

As for getting around the problem of DRM encoded music. Two words put together. Sound and Taxi. I would not however, recommend this as it is probably illegal. Because a program that would take DRM encoded music and strip the DRM so the the songs don’t expire would be bad news for everyone. I for one will be paying my dues each month and if I don’t pay my music will expire.

On the other hand…there is always TPB.

Aww yes. The old classic. The NES. It was a favorite as a child for me and acted as one of the best babysitters I ever had. It kept me busy during the day and warm at night. I had a ton of games and hours and hours of pure frustration.

Fast forward to today and I have an anger problem. Not just a regular shake my fist at other drivers anger. I’m talking about unadulterated anger. Yell at people out of my window when they are being retarded. Make comments to people who are looking at me funny in the store. Ya know…things of that nature. I think that I owe it all to the NES.

All the house spent in front of that TV getting pissed because I can’t pass a level and then throwing the controller, trained me at a young age for anger. Read more »