Stayin' Cool

It's real hot here lately. Today I'm staying inside. It feels kind of dumb because it's Saturday and I should be outside because it's summertime. It's just too darn hot and humid for anything outside. Instead I'm inside playing with my new DVD burner. I realized after I installed the thing that the box says I should have a minimum of a Pentium 4, 1.4 GHz processor. I have only half of that. So far it hasn't mattered any though. I burned a couple DVDs without issue. I've used rewritables mostly because I'm not totally confident yet I know what I'm doing and also because I'm not certain some of the material is worthy of a permanently burned DVD.

I found out my DVD player won't play any DVD's I burn....or I should say at least none so far. I'm assuming my player is too old. I probably should have figured on this but I didn't. I got a top of the line Sony DVD player in 1999. I paid like $800 for it. This was back when they had greater numbers of VHS tapes at Blockbuster than DVDs for rent. I remember they'd have 2 or 3 copies of a new release on DVD and you could walk in and get one of them even if it was on a Friday or Saturday. Anyway I figured I'd be OK compatability-wise with my DVD player but so far I haven't been.

Instead of using my Sony DVD player, I figured out I can play my burned DVDs using my Playstation 2. It took a little time figuring out how to connect it to my receiver and get the digital surround sound working but only because I don't normally hook it up that way.
I watched DVD number 1 of 3 of a Led Zeppelin show from Earl's Court in London 1975. I downloaded this set of DVDs from Boot City a while back and now I was finally able to watch some of it. As I watched it I thought about how amazing it was that I had this show to watch in my own living room and about how far technology has come that people can do this. It didn't take much effort on my part.

My New Toys

I got some new toys this week. It's like my birthday but it isn't. Since I've been filling up my hard drives downloading torrents on Boot City and Dime I've needed to buy more drives. This week I got another one plus a DVD burner. I'm up to 5 drives altogether with a combined 920GB of capacity. My 20GB drive that has been in my computer from the start I keep pretty much empty except for Windows. It's getting to be an older drive and I don't trust it much (and especially since I had these issues which thankfully haven't resurfaced). A long while back when I was working at home building a website I picked up a 120GB drive that I thought would last forever. I've since filled up that with digital photos, music, and dumb videos from the internet. More recently I picked up 2 more drives. One has 160GB capacity and the other has 300GB which I use for backups of all the others since CD-R's aren't a practical option anymore. The 300GB drive I use for a backup only and I store it at my work in case my house blows away in a tornado or burns to the ground or something. If I survive at least all the photo's I've taken and all the music I've downloaded won't be gone too.Since I've filled up the 160GB drive too now I got a new drive this week. This one is 320GB which once I formatted it, ends up with about 298GB of usable space. Now I'm shifting my previous backup drive to home which should ease the pressure for a while. Plus I have my other new toy, my DVD burner, so I can archive some things that way if I want to. I got the burner less for backups and more because I've got a few DVD's I've downloaded and I want to burn them.

Colorado

Not long ago I went on vacation to Colorado for about a week and half. I got back July 8. I've been going over about 250 photos I took and assembling some PowerPoint presentations. I make them so I can remember my trip and also because it's an easy way to show my photos and everything about my experiences to my family. I probably spend a great deal more time putting these elaborate presentations together than I need to, but I find the whole creative process making them enjoyable. While I'm making them I reflect on all the places I was and all the things I did. Having more than 200 photos doesn't hurt when it comes to remembering things, but years from now I think I'll be glad I put written text mixed in with my photos into a presentation form. I'll remember more of the details of my experiences that way I think.

Final post about birds......I think.

There are 6 slots total that birds can build nests in above my patio and on the underside of the deck above. Three of the six have had inhabitants who had children and have all since moved on to live somewhere else. If numbered sequentially from left to right the fourth slot now has finches in it and at the same time the fifth slot has robins in it. The robins have 4 babies in one nest. There are 3 for sure and I'm reasonably certain I saw a fourth baby stick his head up one time from the far side of the nest. They don't look much like robins yet. If they're not robins though I can't think of a reason an adult robin would be feeding them. Unless something real spectacular happens I'm going to stop posting about all the bird nest activities and focus on my recent vacation experiences for a while or whatever other random thing comes to mind for a post.

Unidentifiable

I thought perhaps I'd written my last post relating to birds but the other morning I came across a gruesome scene on my back porch/patio. If you've read my blog before you will not be surprised to see that I've taken photos of the scene as it was when I discovered it and I've posted one of them here.I can't tell what kind of bird it was but it appears that only the lower half of it is left. I can only guess what chain of events led to this birds demise. I intend to sweep this into the grass very soon.

My unfinished Rubik's Cube

I bought this Rubik's cube a few years ago while Christmas shopping at a Toys R Us. For a long time I left it on a shelf above my computer desk in its' completed form. Every now and then I'd take it down, mix it up and then finish it up again in a matter of a few minutes, putting all the like colors on each single side of it. More recently I've been leaving it on the shelf all mixed up in its' undone state. This unfinished state is a metaphor for my life. There seems to be a number of things in my life that I have plans for but have not yet started and also things I've begun, but for various reasons have not yet completed. And so for now I leave my cube undone even though I'm capable of completing it anytime I chose to. Every now and then I look at my cube in its' unfinished state and I am reminded and I ponder these other things in my life that are incomplete and unfinished. Things that I'm also perfectly capable of pursuing and seeing through to their end.

Hairballs

Socks coughed up some hairballs today while I was away at work. This time I remembered to take photographs!

After I find these a few times I might not find them so interesting but since I've only had Socks for less than 2 months this is still pretty interesting I think. Maybe I'll try that Petromalt Ms. b suggested.