by Matt | Mar 29, 2003 | Imported Entry
At the moment I’m downtown at the lab. I picked up my film a few minutes ago and luckily it all turned out well. I’m scanning them on our awesome Flextight negative scanner. I’m scanning at 3200ppi so it’s literally taking 20 minutes per scan. That leaves me a few minutes to browse the web while I’m waiting. I’d also like to mention that for once SCAD has done something right. Before this semester we had to scan our negatives on one machine and either transfer them across the network to a machine with a CD burner or check out one of the fire-wire burners we have. This was all well and good but the fire-wire burners were always either checked out or broken. This left us transfering 200Mb files across a shitty campus network. That took forever. No longer! Someone finally convinced the photo department to invest in some burners IN the machines connected to the scanners. Not only did the buy a few burners, they bought beautiful new 40x Plextor burners. I love Plextor burners, they are, in my opinion, the pinacle of burner technology. Silent, quick and rock solid. I have a wonderful SCSI Plextor in my older machine that I wouldn’t ever dream of parting with, except maybe for a faster Plextor. Anyway, I just wanted to share that little tid bit. Its not often that SCAD does something correctly and its usually worth mentioning when they do.
…damn, all this typing and my scan is only halfway done. 🙂
by Matt | Mar 29, 2003 | Imported Entry
Shooting went well yesterday, I finished in less than 30 minutes. Well, not counting setup time at least. I should be picking up the negatives very shortly if my roommate ever wakes up. Lauren has a package coming from FedEx this afternoon and she’s left a note saying it could be dropped off upstairs at my apartment. I don’t want to leave and go downtown and miss the package. I was waiting until Jason got up but it’s 2:30 already. At this point, Lauren will be back from the wedding shower she’s gone to before Jason ever gets up. I guess I can wait until then.
Once I pick up the film I’m going to scan it and start working on it in Photoshop. The effect I was going for was a dirty/blurry window in font of my model. I used a semi-dirty, kind of blurry window in hopes that it could be Photoshop’ed later. I don’t need it until Tuesday so there’s plenty of time so I’m not really worried about that.
I’ve also been playing with Samurize a lot. It’s an “everything” monitoring system with tons of customization built in. Actually, it’s completely custom, to the point where you need to make your own config files in order to even start the thing. Once you get the hang of it however, you can use it to keep track of anything and everything. I’ll post a screen-shot of my desktop once I get FTP software reinstalled. At the moment I have it displaying the date and time, my current weather conditions, what’s playing in winamp, my system up-time, memory (free and total), network traffic and free hard drive space. There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of different plug-ins and scripts you can run. You could, if properly motivated, setup something to check to see if you have new email, whats currently on TV and I’ve even seen a script to display a list of the past few things you’ve downloaded with a file sharing program and one that tells you the status of your favorite CS server. It’s really pretty neat. You can make some custom graphics for it, PNGs of course, and use them to create some pretty elaborate setups. Just check out screen shot section on the website for some examples of how graphically nifty (example) you can make it if you want to, or oppositely how simple you can make it (example). I suggest you check it out if you have the time.
More on this later.
by Matt | Mar 27, 2003 | Imported Entry
Sorry about not updating for a few days. Usually the first week of school is hectic and I just didn’t have the time. Anyway, classes seem like they’ll be fine. Personal Vision II and Fashion seem like they’re going to be A LOT of work, especially PV2. My “personal vision” if you will, this semester is to heavily digitally manipulate some fashion-ish pictures. I know that doesn’t really sound like a “vision” but you’d have to see it in my head to understand. Right now there’s a big “anti-fashion” movement that’s rebelling against the while 80’s revival. I hated the 80’s so I’m more of less with the other camp. My basic plan is to shoot fashion and anti-fashion at the same time, digitally alter both and turn the more fashion-like images in for Fashion class assignments and the others for Personal Vision. This segways nicely into my History of Media class since we’re going to be talking about digitally manipulated prints as an art form. This is going to be a very weird class. It’s basically all about web art (those weird flash websites that no one understands) and video installations (don’t even get me started). What’s kind of interesting is that at some point we’re supposed to talk about “hacker culture” and the use of programming as art. Basically its computer art for geeks, I’m kind of excited.
I already have my first assignment and I’m actually leaving to go shoot now, I’m shooting Lauren’s friend Nichole in front of Burgen. I’ve also been trying my best to eat better and run on a daily basis. I know that college isn’t exactly the typical place to get off the “pizza and soda” diet but I think it’s important. I’m also going to get a haircut and finish the damn webpage I started. There’s also the small matter of finding a job, sending off portfolios, securing a future, all that great stuff. The two photo classes I mentioned before will keep me busy on a pretty constant basis and when I’m not thinking about class I’ll be thinking about the rest of my life. This is going to be one stressful semester I can tell you that much.
Well, I’m off. Oh, and sorry about the lack of updates, it might be a reoccurring theme until I get some sort of schedule worked out for myself. Later.
by Matt | Mar 23, 2003 | Imported Entry
Well, I’m a little disappointed in Spring Break this year. I didn’t get my website done (started), Nagle didn’t hang out at all, I was a pretty pathetic tour guide for Chip, my broken computer took up much of the “entertainment” and so on. Basically all we did was sit around, play a few video games and go out to eat. I feel bad for Chip, who must have been extremely bored, after driving 1200 miles, to just sit in my apartment and not do anything. I kept on asking if there was something he wanted to do and he kept saying he was fine but I know he was bored. I also feel bad about Nagle, who obviously didn’t want to go with us to Hilton Head but came anyway, either out of loyalty to me or boredom or something. I kept asking everyone if they were sure they wanted to go but no one spoke up and said they’d rather go home. I asked more than once, saying “are you sure you want to go, we don’t have to go, I can turn the car around and we can go get a pizza or something.” I don’t know. I felt like I had to make conversation in the car and push everybody to do things when it was pretty obvious they’d rather be someplace else. I was trying to play “host” all break but no one wanted to be the “guest” so I dropped it.
Anyway, Chip left yesterday after a little shenanigans with his car. His rear-passenger side tire was locked up solid when he went to leave. He had left the parking break on all week and it had locked tight with the wheel, or at least that’s what we’re assuming. He called Ford Roadside assistance it the guy that usually helps me when I call AAA came out and took a look at it. He just put it into gear and gave it gas until it popped out of place. Not exactly the most technical of repair jobs but it did the trick. So, 3 hours behind schedule, Chip was back on the road. He should be somewhere in VA and be leaving shortly to finish his drive.
After Chip left I set about doing some of the massive pile of laundry I have. $8 in quarters later I had clean clothes again. I was hesitant about using the apartment complex laundry room but since the new management took over a few months ago we’ve received new washers and dryers and nightly cleanings by a cleaning service. It’s actually rather nice. After laundry and some dinner, Lauren and I decided to see the new Bruce Willis movie, Tears of the Sun. I was in the mood for a mindless action flick and this was nothing of the sort. It was a tear-jerker with some action to keep the guys in the audience interested. It was actually really good. It wasn’t the “best action movie since Die Hard” like a review I read decided to say. It was an action-drama with soul and heart and all that jazz. Basically it’s your typical “do the right thing” type of movie with a little “character transformation” thrown in for good measure. It was pretty good and very well done, but don’t go see it if you’re expecting Die Hard in the jungle, go see it on it’s own merits.
That brings us up to today. Lauren’s at church right now and I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do with myself. I’m leaning towards cleaning the apartment and checking out the price of supplies for next semester. After that I’ll probably check the news to see what we’re blowing up in the middle-east and then I might read for a little bit. Who knows. It’s my last day of break before… well, the rest of my life, I’d like to enjoy it.
Later.
by Matt | Mar 21, 2003 | Imported Entry
Yippee! Lauren’s coming home in about an hour. I’ve got to leave and head to the airport as soon as Chip gets out of the shower. She’s in Atlanta right now and her connector should be leaving… well, about now. My basic plan was to get her from the airport, have something to eat and then take a nap until it’s time to go to Savannah Smiles tonight. I figured that would be a fun “group” activity to bring Chip to. I think Sarah might be coming along as well. I’m just glad to have Lauren back.
The couple times we talked on the phone this week she let me know that she had pretty much cemented a good portion of our wedding planning. We’re going to have our wedding at this “historic ranch/villa/complex” place. It’s actually pretty cool so I’ve been told. Complete with separate houses for bride and groom to get ready in on the big day. The best part is that the location does all the setting up, is the site for both the ceremony and the reception, does all the catering, entertainment AND you get the services of their entire staff of coordinators. And, since they’re a family friend of the Arolfo’s (Lauren’s family) we get a great price… or it might have been a good price to begin with and they just happen to be friends… either way, I wasn’t really sure.
So, all that’s left is to get the flowers and the photographer. We plan on meeting with our prospective photographer once next semester begins. Jason, one of my friends from the photo department is the person I’d really like to shoot our wedding. He’s got great black and white skills and I’d have that extra bit of confidence that the photographer wouldn’t mess anything up.
We also have to start registering and also meet with the priest for what was confusingly referred to as “a compatibility test.” I actually took great insult to this “test” until it was explained to me what it actually was. See, when I hear the word “test” I think of something like the SATs. You’re sitting in a small room, filling in little circles with a number 2 pencil and sweating your brains out knowing that if you “fail” this is the end of your existence. This is apparently not what a “compatibility test” is. They should really call it “meeting with the priest to talk about married life” or “getting marriage advice” because calling it a test makes me jumpy. Apparently, and this is a new concept to me, we get to talk to the preacher for a few hours and talk about things like joint bank accounts, how many kids we want, what conflicts might arise when we’re married, things like that. That I can see making more sense than a paper and pencil quiz. I have to admit that Lauren and I have already talked a great deal about things sticky issues like those and I feel confident that we’re mature enough to be married. I guess the talks are more for people who are going into it a little hastily, or at least that’s what I’d assume. It also dawned on me that it’s probably a final seal of approval, from god or the representative from god, in this case the priest, kind of a “if you think you’re ready, we want to be sure you’re ready before we let you commit to something like this” and in the eyes of the church and god, marriage is a huge deal. So they just want to be sure you’re ready and they want to see that you’re ready before they give the “all clear”. I feel better about it after thinking about it for a while. I guess my initial resistance was to the phrasing more than the meeting itself. Lauren reassured me that it was nothing to fear and more of a formality than anything else. She also mentioned that it’s lucky we’re not catholic because apparently they have to go through at least a month a marriage counseling and marriage classes before the church gives the thumbs up.
Anyway, so, we’re pretty much close be being done the planning phase. Now it’s getting close to the actual execution of the plan. We have to register, pick out party favors, get the invitations done, things like that. I hope I can be a help at some point. It’s common opinion that the groom is more or less useless through most of this and I’m starting to feel that way. Not that I’m being made to feel this way, it’s just that I don’t know anything about anything. If I knew what kind of cake to look for I’m sure I could help there, or if I knew what kind of parchment paper goes best with a particular style of envelope I’m sure I could be of some small help. I don’t, so I feel more of less useless.
Well, I’ve successfully typed until it was time to leave for the airport. I’m going to go pick up Lauren now. Tonight we’ll be having some fun at the piano bar, tomorrow Chip is leaving and Monday we start classes again. Wow, things are wrapping up fast. Hold on, ’cause here we go…
Matt out.
by Matt | Mar 20, 2003 | Imported Entry
Well, last night was interesting. We had let the computer format itself while we were in Hilton Head and even that crashed. So, it was time for some drastic measures. We started ripping hardware out until we were down to nothing but the motherboard, CPU and RAM. That crashed. At that point we figure it was probably bad RAM and started swapping out sticks. I had 2 sticks of Crucial and 1 stick of Kingston and at this point the stick of Kingston seems to be the stable one. I got the two sticks of Crucial confused and so I’m not sure which one is the problem anymore. We’ve gotten 90% of the way into the reinstall and have device drivers, service pack one and some random updates. At this point I’ve done a SiSandra “burn in” test and it seems to be stable. I’m going to give it a little time before I start reinstalling software.
As I mentioned before, we had gone to Hilton Head yesterday. Before that however, Chip and I went bowling with Nagle and a few of his RA friends. After bowling we picked up Sara and headed North to the island. No one really wanted to go and had no real opinion as to where they wanted to go. All I knew was that I wanted to eat at Fudruckers, a tasty burger joint. After we got there and ate we headed quickly to Old Navy because I needed a pair of pants. I only have 2 pairs of jeans at any given time and one of those pairs is getting “thin” and is probably going to blow out a knee or rip sometime soon.
So, fixing computers has taken up most of yesterday and this morning. The puppy is also back. Melissa has more or less decided to keep it but she couldn’t take care of it today so it’s hold’up in Jason’s room in an attempt to keep it, well, away from me. Not that I dislike puppies in any way, it’s just that they make me sneeze. So, yah, the puppy is here.
Oh, and we’re also at war. Incase you have been living in a cave for the past day or so, we’ve started bombing shit. Not really much of a surprise but it’s disconcerting none-the-less.
Oh, and if all this isn’t enough to stress me out today, there’s a Tornado warning for Chatam and surrounding counties. Apparently there’s a big spinning cloud of death headed this way. Fun!
Actually, the sky just got real dark and the thunder is getting closer so it’s probably time to shut down these computers for a little while.
Matt out.
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