wysereeser.com

Every once in a while I find some pretty interesting reading. Lately I’ve had in the back of my mind that one of my larger problems in life is starting things (anything) and then failing to follow through and finish them. Last night at a church event (of sorts) someone mentioned a ’slacker management’ blog they found entertaining. I googled for it and, as it typically happens, stumbled across a variety of tips and perspectives — one linking to the next.

First is the Slacker@Work (pdf). This links off to a variety of resources, one of which was the hipster pda. I found it interesting because I too have a Palm V and, like my dad, tend to write out a lot of lists of things to do. I’ve found myself carrying around the Palm over the last few months back and forth from work just for the simple excercise of doing so. I should ebay it.

This past weekend the family and I made our way to Goshen College. We had a good time seeing some friends that we hadn’t in a while. Saturday was a full day, and we got a lot of things ‘done.’ But by the end of the day I was beat. Sunday was no different. I had to lead the church service last night and ended up falling asleep out in the entryway just to get caught up. I had some weird dreams while I was sleeping, I hope I wasn’t making a spectacle of myself in the process.

The boy out performed himself as usual the whole weekend. I just can’t stop saying good things about the little bugger. He amazes his mom and me on a continuing basis with his good attitude. Someone told me yesterday that this means when Angie and I get around to having another kid at somepoint that the second one will be the exact opposite. …. I REALLY hope that won’t be the case.

So I found myself playing with iTunes again this evening. I’ve never gotten around to trying to use it to organize and play the few GBs of music I’ve ripped from the various CDs I own. The rights management, while understandable from Apple’s perspective I find irritating. I try to plug the iPod I purchased last year into my laptop and … nothing it won’t play the ‘new’ files that I’ve downloaded. So I’ve been looking at what’s involved to convert the M4P files that iTunes created into something more friendly. Seems like a pain in the ass to have to do this, but … what’s a guy to do who paid for it? So far in my searches as usual I turn up several other items of mentionable interest. Jon Lech has a blog that has some discussions around m4p conversion. He turned me onto a perl module that apparently tries to convert m4p files. That’s the next thing I try…..

So I’ve been working on trying to kick out some video clips from a talent show the church I attend conducted a few weeks ago. Getting the files down to a reasonable file size (even for DVD, seemingly) is proving to be quite the learning experience. I came across the apparently very popular site for digital video editing http://www.dvdrhelp.com which has provided extensive information. I wanted to try more freely available tools since I wasn’t looking to do anything too complicated and decided to check out google(virtualdub). Outwardly it seems pretty cool, but it wouldn’t open the video files produced from google(Microsoft Movie Maker). Error messages suggested it was a codec problem, but further investigation revealed that MMM kicks out Type I AVI files which are not capable of being opened by VirtualDub because of the file type. Instead the files need to be AVIs of Type II, who the hell knew? Apparently the guy who created this application did. I sure didn’t. So I’m checking out tools that will convert from Type I to Type II.

Part of my problem is that the AVI files MMM captured intitially are HUGE!! Total, I’ve got 15GB for an hour of video, which is reasonable, I guess, considering the information I’ve read on the subject. But with everything else I have installed and a re-partitioned drive….I only have about 8 GB left. So I’m trying to be selective in what I try … but this is taking longer than I’d hoped. Anyhow I felt compelled to post the information I learned.

Found this crazy web site through google(boing boing) that had a link to paper foldable robots.

So myself and some of our church’s youth group had the chance to go to Camp Friedenswald for one of their winter weekend retreats. A little fun was had on the camp’s tubing run and this video (AVI, 3.5 MB) was the result.

How rich are you?!?!

Find out on the Global Rich List.

These iPod ads are awesome!

Thought this was kinda funny.

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?

Angie (the wife) and I are heading to google(Atlanta, Georgia) for a bi-annual Mennonite conference. We volunteered to sponsor the 5 or so youth from our church to attend the event. I was in a state of denial for a while about our going, but now I’m starting to get excited and I am looking forward to the event. The weather for our time down there doesn’t sound the best, but I still think it will be a good experience for everyone involved.