I got my phone last Thursday. Overall, I'm very pleased with the phone. The build quality is excellent, the hardware design is great, and the android OS is, given its relatively young age, very well developed. The only thing that I really wish that it had is a pdf viewer...but that will probably come in time. Having my email with me, as well as google maps (complete with gps support) are both very reassuring.
My running has bbeen going fairly steadily. I have been running 2 miles consistently under 15 minutes for a couple weeks now, I suppose. I'm not losing weight as fast as I had been; it is almost like I have levelled out...but that's not too bad. I'm just a bit shy of the initial goal of 175 that I had set, and it might still happen. I have definitely lost a pretty noticable amount of fat so far, so that is both good and encouraging.
Guitar stuff is progressing...albeit incredibly slowly...necks don't require a lot of jigs, but the ones that are required can be really unforgiving...
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
You can't find nothing at all if there was nothing there all along
This title would have been more applicable to the previous post... oh well.
I made a better neck template for my next neck attempts. The first turned out okay, but was only meant to be a rough draft and ensure I have the steps in the most logical order. The next couple tries will be to fine-tune the individual steps and, ideally, I'll have a decent pine neck out of it all. I've also decided to go with the Stratocaster style curved neck pocket as opposed to the telecaster flat neck pocket. This is more difficult/ambitious, but I think I should be able to manage. One thing I'm a bit worried about is getting the neck to be perfectly symmetrical. My neck template isn't 100% symmetrical, but it's damn close. I've cut a pretty snug fitting neck pocket template, so I think I'm happy (for now).
I got my tax refund, and I'm going to use part of it to pay for the G1 phone. There is supposed to be a refresh of the phone in about 6 months, but I think the new design looks kind of dumb. Plus, I'm not certain about the availability of a developer version (read: totally unlocked, hardware and software). There is another phone coming to t-mobile that doesn't have a physical keyboard, but that's a lot of the reason I would never get an iPhone.
I'm also considering a oscillating spindle/edge sander. I'd need a shopvac for all the dust, though, because collecting it as it is generated is much easier than after.
I made a better neck template for my next neck attempts. The first turned out okay, but was only meant to be a rough draft and ensure I have the steps in the most logical order. The next couple tries will be to fine-tune the individual steps and, ideally, I'll have a decent pine neck out of it all. I've also decided to go with the Stratocaster style curved neck pocket as opposed to the telecaster flat neck pocket. This is more difficult/ambitious, but I think I should be able to manage. One thing I'm a bit worried about is getting the neck to be perfectly symmetrical. My neck template isn't 100% symmetrical, but it's damn close. I've cut a pretty snug fitting neck pocket template, so I think I'm happy (for now).
I got my tax refund, and I'm going to use part of it to pay for the G1 phone. There is supposed to be a refresh of the phone in about 6 months, but I think the new design looks kind of dumb. Plus, I'm not certain about the availability of a developer version (read: totally unlocked, hardware and software). There is another phone coming to t-mobile that doesn't have a physical keyboard, but that's a lot of the reason I would never get an iPhone.
I'm also considering a oscillating spindle/edge sander. I'd need a shopvac for all the dust, though, because collecting it as it is generated is much easier than after.
I am nothing of a builder
This entry is comprised of lots of complaining. Sorry.
Trip to Katy was balls. We drove to San Antonio to pick up a bunch of my brother's stuff first. That wasn't so bad. The drive there was about 1.5 hours, and it went by pretty quickly. We helped my brother get all his stuff into the back of my truck and left. That took about an hour or so. Then, we left for Katy. This drive is boring. I-10 is boring and there isn't shit to look at. We had a decent time, though, listening to music/talking/singing/whatever.
When we got to my parents' house, though, the crazy started. First, the driveway was full of all sorts of shit. We unloaded my truck and put it next to all of the shit. Then we looked through the three boxes of my stuff that was apparently not put into the trailer that got stolen. The boxes were: 1 box of socks, one box with a bunch of trophies I won when I was a kid, and a puppet, along with some assorted things. Of all the stuff I left behind when I moved out of my parents' house, the only things I wound up keeping were a set of french curves, some plastic triangles, a men's restroom sign I apparently stole at some point. There were also two 15W guitar amplifiers that seem to have magically appeared at the house; I didn't even own a guitar before I moved out...I had a bass and a bass amp, but those aren't in Katy.
The cards Erin and I hoped would be there are, apparently, yet another thing that were lost when the trailer got stolen. This is frustrating mostly due to the fact that 1) the cards and the books were probably my most prized possessions, but they were put into a trailer for storage 2) the trailer is NOT any sort of good storage location for any kind of paper products 3) my mom told me about a week ago that my closet was still largely as I left it when, in fact, it was 100% NOT the way I left it 4) my mom had LOADS of other crap she could have put into the trailer that wouldn't be susceptible to the elements (I found a box full of glass sculptures of weird shit like reclining cartoon frogs, for instance) 5) my mom had NO idea where anything of mine was placed. In addition to those three boxes, I had to look through a bunch of crap in the attic, my brother's closet, under my brother's bed, in the laundry room, in my parents' closet, and the garage. She's STILL not even sure if I looked through everything...there could still be other boxes...which, I guess, leaves me without closure.
Probably the only nice part about going to Katy was that we went to Raising Canes for lunch. I like that place.
Sunday, we walked to a store about 2 miles away and bought some cards. We should be able to start playing more interesting games fairly soon.
I wasn't feeling well yesterday (the worst headache of my life) and went home early. I slept for a while and felt better.
Trip to Katy was balls. We drove to San Antonio to pick up a bunch of my brother's stuff first. That wasn't so bad. The drive there was about 1.5 hours, and it went by pretty quickly. We helped my brother get all his stuff into the back of my truck and left. That took about an hour or so. Then, we left for Katy. This drive is boring. I-10 is boring and there isn't shit to look at. We had a decent time, though, listening to music/talking/singing/whatever.
When we got to my parents' house, though, the crazy started. First, the driveway was full of all sorts of shit. We unloaded my truck and put it next to all of the shit. Then we looked through the three boxes of my stuff that was apparently not put into the trailer that got stolen. The boxes were: 1 box of socks, one box with a bunch of trophies I won when I was a kid, and a puppet, along with some assorted things. Of all the stuff I left behind when I moved out of my parents' house, the only things I wound up keeping were a set of french curves, some plastic triangles, a men's restroom sign I apparently stole at some point. There were also two 15W guitar amplifiers that seem to have magically appeared at the house; I didn't even own a guitar before I moved out...I had a bass and a bass amp, but those aren't in Katy.
The cards Erin and I hoped would be there are, apparently, yet another thing that were lost when the trailer got stolen. This is frustrating mostly due to the fact that 1) the cards and the books were probably my most prized possessions, but they were put into a trailer for storage 2) the trailer is NOT any sort of good storage location for any kind of paper products 3) my mom told me about a week ago that my closet was still largely as I left it when, in fact, it was 100% NOT the way I left it 4) my mom had LOADS of other crap she could have put into the trailer that wouldn't be susceptible to the elements (I found a box full of glass sculptures of weird shit like reclining cartoon frogs, for instance) 5) my mom had NO idea where anything of mine was placed. In addition to those three boxes, I had to look through a bunch of crap in the attic, my brother's closet, under my brother's bed, in the laundry room, in my parents' closet, and the garage. She's STILL not even sure if I looked through everything...there could still be other boxes...which, I guess, leaves me without closure.
Probably the only nice part about going to Katy was that we went to Raising Canes for lunch. I like that place.
Sunday, we walked to a store about 2 miles away and bought some cards. We should be able to start playing more interesting games fairly soon.
I wasn't feeling well yesterday (the worst headache of my life) and went home early. I slept for a while and felt better.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Untitled?
I labored over a title for this quote for a while, but couldn't come up with anything.
I haven't updated in a little while, but this might be brief anyway.
Running is still progressing. I ran 2 miles in less than 16 minutes both Monday and Tuesday this week. Not terribly fast, but it seems a good pace for me. I'd like to get that down a bit more, but don't know how/whether I'll really do it.
I finished a bunch of stuff for guitar building and began the process of building a neck. I have a few other things I need to work out, but I've already messed something up. While routing the truss rod cavity (for a one-piece neck, this goes through the back of the neck) I got my template reversed and now I'll be making a left handed neck. Because this neck isn't really intended to take any sort of load (pine isn't hard enough) it's fine. I need some double-stick tape (the thick foam-padded kind, not the two-sided scotch-tape kind) before I can continue.
Back in junior high (ten years ago...that's kind of odd) I used to play Magic: The Gathering a bit. I mostly played with my brother, my friends and his friends, but I tended to play much better than any of them did, so they quit playing with me... I saw that Wizards of the Coast (the company who prints the Magic cards) was giving decks away...so I ordered one. It turned out to be split into two mini-decks...so I taught Erin to play. She seems to like it, so I think we'll try to get into it. Hopefully all of my cards are still at my parents house; when my grandmother moved in with them, a lot of my stuff got moved into a trailer that was at a storage facility...the trailer got stolen, so loads of my stuff (including my really old copies of Lord of the Rings among other books) got stolen along with it. The cards were, I believe, in my closet, which was largely untouched, as far as I can remember, so I have reason to hope. Erin and I are planning to go back to Katy the weekend after next (May 9, probably) and hopefully we'll pick them up then.
I like this song: Ievan Polkka and might make a ringtone from it sometime. In other phone news, I'm 99.999% sure I'm going to buy the Google Developer version of the G1 phone. The OS looks really good and the hardware seems tough enough and well built. I'm pretty excited.
I haven't updated in a little while, but this might be brief anyway.
Running is still progressing. I ran 2 miles in less than 16 minutes both Monday and Tuesday this week. Not terribly fast, but it seems a good pace for me. I'd like to get that down a bit more, but don't know how/whether I'll really do it.
I finished a bunch of stuff for guitar building and began the process of building a neck. I have a few other things I need to work out, but I've already messed something up. While routing the truss rod cavity (for a one-piece neck, this goes through the back of the neck) I got my template reversed and now I'll be making a left handed neck. Because this neck isn't really intended to take any sort of load (pine isn't hard enough) it's fine. I need some double-stick tape (the thick foam-padded kind, not the two-sided scotch-tape kind) before I can continue.
Back in junior high (ten years ago...that's kind of odd) I used to play Magic: The Gathering a bit. I mostly played with my brother, my friends and his friends, but I tended to play much better than any of them did, so they quit playing with me... I saw that Wizards of the Coast (the company who prints the Magic cards) was giving decks away...so I ordered one. It turned out to be split into two mini-decks...so I taught Erin to play. She seems to like it, so I think we'll try to get into it. Hopefully all of my cards are still at my parents house; when my grandmother moved in with them, a lot of my stuff got moved into a trailer that was at a storage facility...the trailer got stolen, so loads of my stuff (including my really old copies of Lord of the Rings among other books) got stolen along with it. The cards were, I believe, in my closet, which was largely untouched, as far as I can remember, so I have reason to hope. Erin and I are planning to go back to Katy the weekend after next (May 9, probably) and hopefully we'll pick them up then.
I like this song: Ievan Polkka and might make a ringtone from it sometime. In other phone news, I'm 99.999% sure I'm going to buy the Google Developer version of the G1 phone. The OS looks really good and the hardware seems tough enough and well built. I'm pretty excited.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
When you get home, I'm skipping town
I had a couple of holidays off from work this past weekend, but the weekend wasn't that great. I started doing some minor work on guitar neck building (building a jig to cut the truss rod mounting cavity and a 3/4" thick neck routing template). Neither one came out perfect, and the jig was actually unusable. I was pretty down because I'd already put a lot of effort into these builds and didn't have a lot to show for it. Saturday, my mom called me to borrow a bunch of money. Against my better judgment, I agreed. Hopefully she'll pay me back on the schedule we agreed on. 5k is kind of a lot of money and I really don't want to have to seriously hound her about it. Sunday wasn't a lot better because Erin wanted to go shopping or something, but everything was closed for Easter (why is Easter bigger than Christmas? Shit stays open on Christmas...and schools cancel for Christmas, whereas they don't for Easter.....) We wound up just sitting around the house most of the day.
I started to feel better on Monday because I bought some more MDF and built that jig with much better rate of success. I'm still a little down (not terribly sure why...just have been feeling like I'm not good at anything lately...hopefully it will pass).
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I've been exercising pretty regularly since my last post. Mon., Tues., Thurs. and Fri. I run 2 miles then walk another 2. I've got my first mile down to about 7 minutes and my 2nd is around 9.5. Those numbers are a bit skewed because the first mile is downhill for the most part, while the second is up. I've also been doing some jacknifes and pushups 2 nights a week each. Basically, I'm just pushing to the point of exhaustion. I push the pushups a bit harder than the jacknifes and am at around a nightly total of 130-150 or so right now (number of reps per set being as many as I can do, starting at around 40-50 and descending from there). I'm trying to do jacknifes Mon. and Thurs., pushups Tues. and Fri. 2 days rest between each and taking weekends off. Erin and I have been walking a bit (usually walking somewhere to go eat) on the weekends, so that's some additional exercise. I've lost somewhere between 15 and 18 lbs now since I started a little more than a month ago. It's a bit fast, but my start weight was really exaggerated (I ate a HUGE dinner, then a giant breakfast and a pretty large lunch, then weighed myself). It's really probably closer to 10-15 lbs. I've been pretty happy with the food changes; because I'm eating a bit less, food seems to just taste better; I'm drinking a lot more water. Plus, groceries have gotten a bit cheaper, too.
I started to feel better on Monday because I bought some more MDF and built that jig with much better rate of success. I'm still a little down (not terribly sure why...just have been feeling like I'm not good at anything lately...hopefully it will pass).
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I've been exercising pretty regularly since my last post. Mon., Tues., Thurs. and Fri. I run 2 miles then walk another 2. I've got my first mile down to about 7 minutes and my 2nd is around 9.5. Those numbers are a bit skewed because the first mile is downhill for the most part, while the second is up. I've also been doing some jacknifes and pushups 2 nights a week each. Basically, I'm just pushing to the point of exhaustion. I push the pushups a bit harder than the jacknifes and am at around a nightly total of 130-150 or so right now (number of reps per set being as many as I can do, starting at around 40-50 and descending from there). I'm trying to do jacknifes Mon. and Thurs., pushups Tues. and Fri. 2 days rest between each and taking weekends off. Erin and I have been walking a bit (usually walking somewhere to go eat) on the weekends, so that's some additional exercise. I've lost somewhere between 15 and 18 lbs now since I started a little more than a month ago. It's a bit fast, but my start weight was really exaggerated (I ate a HUGE dinner, then a giant breakfast and a pretty large lunch, then weighed myself). It's really probably closer to 10-15 lbs. I've been pretty happy with the food changes; because I'm eating a bit less, food seems to just taste better; I'm drinking a lot more water. Plus, groceries have gotten a bit cheaper, too.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
all i want is a good look at your underside
Exercise has been going pretty well. I know it's not what you're supposed to do, but I like weighing myself everyday. Because I tend to have a pretty regular routine (during the week, I eat the same cereal for breakfast, the same sandwich+applesauce+cereal bar lunch and only really deviate for dinner. The only other real possible unknown is whether I drink a Monster Lo-Carb at work. Because of this, I can treat my dinner as a science experiment. For instance, I ate at Fuddruckers and gained 2 lbs (expected, because that's about what I ate) but it stuck, despite exercise and took a couple days to get rid of. I ate at Souper Salad and ate a lot of food (again, nearly 2 lbs) but it was gone that night.
I've been running, in addition to Wii Fit. I'm going to try to keep to a 3-4 times a week schedule. I think that if I run less, I just fall out of the routine, but if I run more, my shins hurt. I'm not focusing so much on speed this time around, as opposed to just distance. Yesterday I did somewhere around 2.5 miles in about 20 minutes and walked approximately one more mile for cool down.
All told, I've lost about 10 lbs in the past two weeks. Given that I've increased my activity level pretty significantly while also cutting silly foods (sometimes I would eat breakfast tacos on Monday at work despite the fact that I had a bunch of cereal in the morning -- also, I'm not eating as much cheese) and making some cuts in portions (no more eating til I feel stuffed).
I've started some work on future guitar work. So far, I made a 7.25" radius sanding block (always wanted to try a true vintage Fender neck radius), I've made a neck template (a telecaster neck with a different headstock shape...kind of like this:
I'm going to work on a truss rod routing jig today, and then I might start on a pine prototype neck sometime later this week/this weekend. Maybe I'll try to take pictures of the process.
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Back when they were new (early Junior High) I read about half of the Animorphs book series, but they became kind of hard to locate, so I stopped reading them. I really liked the series back then and would think about them every once in a while...a month or two ago, I got really curious about them and decided to check if the series actually ever "ended" or if they just stopped coming out. After I found that there was a real end, I decided to try to read them all. I downloaded all the PDFs (omitted the "choose your own ending" stuff) and started reading them.
I really expected to start reading them, decide they were too cheesy and just quit reading them... They were really cheesy, but I really liked one of the side-series of books (There were 54 regular series books where typically one character tells the whole story, 4 "Megamorphs" books where they alternate by chapter and the "Chronicles" books where characters other than the main 6 tell the story). The Chronicles series was really good. The regular series and Megamorphs ranged from absurdly childish/cheesy to really good. All in all, I think if the story were condensed to about 10-15 longer but more detailed books, it might have been better.
I started reading the books because I wanted something kind of light hearted (and also, I suppose, to reminisce about things I did as a kid). In the beginning, they were almost too light hearted, but the final 10 books or so were pretty dark. I was actually genuinely shocked at some of the things that happened. I know lots of people considered some of the stuff in Harry Potter to be dark, but compared to this, Harry Potter was really childish. The plot is a fairly typical, "a group of # ordinary kids have to save the entire planet!" kind of story, but the way war is portrayed is very different. In the typical stories, bad things happen, but they're often balanced by this or that; in the Animorphs books, things don't always balance out so well.
Strange. I was looking for something light hearted, but wound up with something so dark...
I've been running, in addition to Wii Fit. I'm going to try to keep to a 3-4 times a week schedule. I think that if I run less, I just fall out of the routine, but if I run more, my shins hurt. I'm not focusing so much on speed this time around, as opposed to just distance. Yesterday I did somewhere around 2.5 miles in about 20 minutes and walked approximately one more mile for cool down.
All told, I've lost about 10 lbs in the past two weeks. Given that I've increased my activity level pretty significantly while also cutting silly foods (sometimes I would eat breakfast tacos on Monday at work despite the fact that I had a bunch of cereal in the morning -- also, I'm not eating as much cheese) and making some cuts in portions (no more eating til I feel stuffed).
I've started some work on future guitar work. So far, I made a 7.25" radius sanding block (always wanted to try a true vintage Fender neck radius), I've made a neck template (a telecaster neck with a different headstock shape...kind of like this:
I'm going to work on a truss rod routing jig today, and then I might start on a pine prototype neck sometime later this week/this weekend. Maybe I'll try to take pictures of the process.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Back when they were new (early Junior High) I read about half of the Animorphs book series, but they became kind of hard to locate, so I stopped reading them. I really liked the series back then and would think about them every once in a while...a month or two ago, I got really curious about them and decided to check if the series actually ever "ended" or if they just stopped coming out. After I found that there was a real end, I decided to try to read them all. I downloaded all the PDFs (omitted the "choose your own ending" stuff) and started reading them.
I really expected to start reading them, decide they were too cheesy and just quit reading them... They were really cheesy, but I really liked one of the side-series of books (There were 54 regular series books where typically one character tells the whole story, 4 "Megamorphs" books where they alternate by chapter and the "Chronicles" books where characters other than the main 6 tell the story). The Chronicles series was really good. The regular series and Megamorphs ranged from absurdly childish/cheesy to really good. All in all, I think if the story were condensed to about 10-15 longer but more detailed books, it might have been better.
I started reading the books because I wanted something kind of light hearted (and also, I suppose, to reminisce about things I did as a kid). In the beginning, they were almost too light hearted, but the final 10 books or so were pretty dark. I was actually genuinely shocked at some of the things that happened. I know lots of people considered some of the stuff in Harry Potter to be dark, but compared to this, Harry Potter was really childish. The plot is a fairly typical, "a group of # ordinary kids have to save the entire planet!" kind of story, but the way war is portrayed is very different. In the typical stories, bad things happen, but they're often balanced by this or that; in the Animorphs books, things don't always balance out so well.
Strange. I was looking for something light hearted, but wound up with something so dark...
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Bleh
Erin and I got Wii Fit...so now my video games tell me I'm fat =\ I have been gaining some weight since winter started and I wasn't running. Too damn cold. I didn't realize I'd gotten to just over 200 lbs, though. Given that the game measures BMI based solely on weight and height (muscle/bone structure totally ignored) I'm not 100% confident in it. Especially given that I have all but mastered all of the strength exercises on my first try... I know I'm overweight, but not certain I should rely on the game to tell me how far to go. For me, though, I'd like to head down to something like 185...maybe 175-ish...
I just really don't want to totally stop eating or anything like that, like I did in high school. Body image has never been one of my strong points...I'm better about it now than I used to be, but we'll see if I go crazy or not. Really, I just want to lose some weight so my pants fit well again and I won't have to go buy new ones...although, I'm a little worried my thighs have gotten a bit too big for some of my pants (stupid running). I'm going to start running again (I went on Tuesday, was hoping to go tonight, but it's supposed to rain/be cold); I've also been skating with Kerstan about every other week.
Amazon had my bandsaw in stock (still free shipping, but $25 more than Woodcraft had it). The increase in price is worth it to get the thing more than 2 months earlier, though, in my opinion. Given the way Amazon's free shipping works, though, it won't ship out til Monday (and I ordered it this past Monday). Oh well.
I just really don't want to totally stop eating or anything like that, like I did in high school. Body image has never been one of my strong points...I'm better about it now than I used to be, but we'll see if I go crazy or not. Really, I just want to lose some weight so my pants fit well again and I won't have to go buy new ones...although, I'm a little worried my thighs have gotten a bit too big for some of my pants (stupid running). I'm going to start running again (I went on Tuesday, was hoping to go tonight, but it's supposed to rain/be cold); I've also been skating with Kerstan about every other week.
Amazon had my bandsaw in stock (still free shipping, but $25 more than Woodcraft had it). The increase in price is worth it to get the thing more than 2 months earlier, though, in my opinion. Given the way Amazon's free shipping works, though, it won't ship out til Monday (and I ordered it this past Monday). Oh well.
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