I forgot that the Taste of Minnesota began yesterday. We’re going today, camera batteries are charging as we speak. And tonight, there’s a concert by The Village People - huzzah!

The best part is next year, we’ll be within walking distance!

Today my newsreader is filled with little more then iPhone fud. From people who love it, to people who despise it, to people who have been waiting in line since the beginning of the week. All said and done, either way, it’s one of the in phones to have this year. The other? Why it’s the Motorola RAZR 2, coming out soon - that’s the phone I’ll be getting when it comes out. My current phone is just too…. big. It’s a smartphone, and I purchased it with big plans to do something with it - and I just never managed to figure out what that something is. I really bought it because I stopped using my Blackberry, switched to a Razr, then realized just how much I miss said blackberry. But I want to try something that had games, tons of apps, fun, excitement, adventure - and ended up short. So I’ll wait patiently. Or maybe I won’t. (BTW: It took friggin forever to figure out a proper link to the phones, appreciate it!) I can’t change phones without paying full price until 08/2008.
Anyway - Mishka needs a new phone. Hers was pulled off the assembly line at around the time Reagan made his famous statement of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”.
She can’t receive anything other then regular text messages - no pics or sounds. And if you place an at sign (@) in your text, she won’t receive anything after it. It has no camera, no internet access, nothing. So, I’m considering getting her an iPhone. Which is the whole point of this diatribe.

So, this weekend I suspect will be fairly bland. Yes, I have some volunteering to do, but it’s only an hour or so and then I’m done. I think we’ll probably be doing some packing, but who knows what’ll happen.

July 4th we’ll probably go down to the Riverfront and watch the fireworks - then she be heading to her parents the next for a reunion, then I’ll follow on Saturday (I’m on call all that week). Then… who the hell knows.

Waiting until August is killing me. I want out of were we are now! NOW! Argh! I have a ton of projects lined up to do this fall too. Not to mention Project SNAP! Gotta get started.

Meh, that’s enough for me. Time to get back to work. Write a little code, then work on some of these editorials I’ve been doing.

Oh, and Hi Wendy!

It’s official - Project SNAP is a GO. It begins 06/28/2007.

I’d go into details, but I don’t want to leak any secret info. Though, I suppose since it’s my project I could de-classify it then say it. But, meh, I don’t want to.

IT STARTS TOMORROW!

I have to admit, I’m really falling in love with google’s Docs and Spreadsheets. It allows me to work on multiple articles, concurrently, wherever I can get an internet connection. Right now, I’m working on 3 articles

• On Internet Personals - I’ve dated a lot of women I’ve met online, and this is all I’ve learned from it.
• On Temporary Friends - I used to drive a semi truck, and along the way you’d have temporary friends - people you would ride along with for 4-5 days, then never see again.
• Cell Phone Jamming - An article about the effects of drivinf whilst chatting and should we be allow to jam those signals under the umbrella of safety.
• A copy of my resume, which gets updated on the fly.
• Copies of various other writings which were deemed to be important.

I’m also keeping several spreadsheets with cost/part information for a few projects I’m working on. It’s an amazing product. Everyone, go use it. Now.

Other then that, there really isn’t much going on now, except for packing. I’ll be at the Guthrie this Saturday and next to volunteer my shifts, then I have the Fringe Festival coming up, of which my participation will be light due to the fact I’ll be moving for half of it.

And I want my new bed NOW, damn it.

So today we signed our lease for out beautiful new loft at the rossmor. I was looking around online, and due to who was living there before it’s already registered with the St. Paul Art Crawl - saves me money! Though really, I’ll probably just sit outside my door and watch the people walk by. Also, I’m tired of my lame queen bed, so we went out and bought a brand new king sized Select Comfort bed! Oi, it is unbelievably comfortable - and at $3000 after all is said and done, it damn well better.

So this weekend will be all about packing. The bed will be delivered to the new place on August 2nd, and we’ll technically be living in 2 places for all of August. And if anyone has been keeping track, yes - I’ve spent roughly $8500 in the last 30 days on things that aren’t bill related. I think I’m just about done though, I have about all I need

Well, Saturday I got to the Dinkytowner at 8:30pm with all my gear, as the Unknown Prophets were supposed to go on at 9. Nine came and went. So did 10. Then 10:30. Then 10:45 I said screw it, lets get outta here - we have a big weekend and can’t be out so friggin late. So I sent them an email apologizing, hopefully they will allow me to reschedule and that they understood.

Sunday, that was Father’s Day. We went to go see Mishka’s parents, and gave him our gift - an elite Mork and Mindy Board Game, circa 1979. I was originally looking for some Bob Dylan screen printed gig posters, but didn’t really find anything I liked - not to mention we weren’t able to get her mom anything for mother’s day, and I didn’t want to make it seem like we were favoring her dad, which we aren’t, we just have the means this time.

New lease is almost finished and ready to be signed, 60 day notice is given - there will be a month were I am paying rent for 2 places, but that’s actually not a bad thing - lets us move on the weekend instead of Wednesday the 1st and lets us really spend some time cleaning the apartment - I’ve only been at this one for a year, and hadn’t really hung anything on the walls, so there isn’t much except some broken blinds due to the dang cat. Oh, and a Washer/Dryer combo unit I need to reassemble after a failed attempt to really really clean it. Oh, and the overlap allows Mishka to get to the new place and paint it - she’s got the color scheme all picked out and her mother to help her do it, so I’m quite happy. No way I was about to climb up 13 feet to paint pfffft.

Yesterday, In The Loop had a private show at the Dorothy Day center in St. Paul, and I was on hand as usual to take photos. I think this is possibly one of my favorite episodes thus far, and the people were great. There was even this homeless musician that played a mean jazz harmonica, with Jeff and The Smarts joining in - made of the most soulful shows to say the least. It was originally going to run from 2pm to 3:30pm, but ran until after 4 - and that’s with a lot of the pre-recorded pieces (all but 1!) removed. There was that much audience participation, everyone had something to say.

Sadly, there won’t be an episode of ‘In The Loop’ next month, and he’s really not sure if they will be given another season - so why don’t you voice your opinion and tell them that WE WANT MORE! I’d hate to see the younger, hipper version of the Prairie Home Companion laid to waste, cast of as if another animated FOX comedy.

All in all I took over 200 photos, and haven’t edited a single one. I’m quite happy with my new lens, though I forgot the lens hood turns, then ‘clicks’ into place. I forgot the ‘click’ part, so some of these have vignetting on the corners, which sucks but I’ll make I suppose. Though I think I’ll end up still buying Nikon’s 17-55mm f/2.8 lens for shows like this - it seems to pull in a significant amount of more light, even though it’s the same aperture. If you’d like to see the slide show, then feel free - or check out my photo set on Flickr - and comment on it damn it!

Oh, it also looks like I’ll be manning the MNArtists.Org booth at the State Fair again this year, come by and say hi! Other then that, not a whole lot more going on. Still trying to decide whether to chill all weekend, the first time in months, or to swing by the large pride parade in Minneapolis and take some shots. We shall see. Anyway, until next time!

So I busted out the Dremel, the dremel cleaning & polishing kit, and some PlastiX to try to clean my clock. It didn’t work - at all. In fact, the dremel had to be moving pretty fast or it gouged it - luckily I tried a more hidden side first.  I was researching this a bit and found this link, it’s to the Janvil Plastic Polish system. So I’ll order it, and give it a shot - I’d love to see the clock look brand new in all it’s 1970s glory!

Bad news too! Raven Hill apartment complex, a couple miles from my house, burnt down today. I had 2 friends who lived there, and Mishka had a friend who moved there just a couple of weeks ago - worst part though is she was going to get renters insurance TOMORROW with her check. She was devastated. I feel sorry for all of those now homeless people.

Also received yet ANOTHER crime alert about people breaking into cars in my apartment complex. I’m quite happy we’re moving out and into St. Paul. The next 45 days are going to go soooooo slowly. But it’ll be worth it - when we went on Tuesday I noticed they ramped up the amount of art murals in the place.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Till the next time!

Huzzah! We went, examined the loft, and then I wrote a check. Come August 1st, we’ll now be living high up in a loft in the Rossmor building in downtown St. Paul.

It’s a gorgeous place too - 1200 square feet, which is the largest you can get in a non-corner unit, but this one has a twist - there’s a bedroom and a little storage/work area setup via some high tensile stainless steel cables and hung mahogany and birch panels. This is perfect for us, because we have seperate hours sleep wise - Mishka will be able to go to bed an hour or so earlier then I, and I won’t bother her being online or watching TV. Unless I wanted to - although there are technically ‘walls’ in this loft, they don’t have a ceiling, so it’s extremely noise dampening - more light dampening.

We also get to paint, any colors we want, and we can add on to it if we want to as well - so I’m getting ready to pickup some kitchen gear from Ikea - make that place great! *sigh* August 1st seems sooooo far away now!

Speaking of cool, now I’m trying to hunt for a pinball machine playfield so I can build this incredible pinball machine coffee table. Love to build it for the new loft before the house warming party! Though it looks like supplies are limited, and because of the instructable, I’m sure a lot of the playfields will be selling for more then they are truly worth. Time to go local!

And so it was yesterday, that I was casually perusing the Craigslist apartment ads from work, wishing something would happen, when it caught my eye. A 1200sqft loft, for rent, August 1st, at… The Rossmor!!! Needless to say, the time frame is perfect - so I quickly emailed her about seeing it, then emailed Mishka.

A little while later the woman responded to me. Not only did she let me know which apartment it is there, she also told me about the mahogany and birch panels strung via high tension steel lines to separate this loft into an additional 2 rooms.

Well now, not only do I know what she is talking about, but I’ve actually been in that apartment, several times! It’s been for sale at each of the art crawls for the past year or so - they are finally giving up and just deciding to rent it out - and we’re going to see it TONIGHT!

I know we’re going to get it. I remember the place very well and loved it, and Mishka saw just the picture of it from one angle and already loves it. So I’m bringing my checkbook along with me as I know I’ll need it

I’m stoked, she’s stoked, we’re all stoked - woot! And the cool thing is the commute is 6-7 minutes shorter then my current one, yar! Just imagine, within the next couple of months I could be living in a building that’s surrounded by artists, a member of the art crawl - meaning I can just fling my front door open and start hawking goods - how sweet it could be.

Based upon the referrer logs, a lot of people are coming here looking for some of my older tech support articles - so I rooted around and found them, and I’ve placed them back up.

ERROR: PPD for Crypt-DES.ppd could not be found in ActiveState ActivePerl

SCSI hard drive error “START UNIT REQUEST FAILED” during bootstrapping.

HOW TO: Work with plexiglas (Acrylic plastic)

There ya go, hoping that the search engines up date themselves in due time.