NJ Visit

The Kids

This weekend we had a quick visit to Jersey. We met Ken in Union and stayed at my Grandmother's house for a visit with her. She had a blast watching the kids play and joining in from time to time. We don't get a lot of time to get up there, so it's great to see her once in awhile.

The following day we headed home. The powers to be were calling for bad weather, but we decided to make a pit stop in Mt. Laurel on the way home to visit my good friend Garth & Co. There we met Garth, Lauren (wife), Josh (son), and Megan (daughter). Garth's brother Erik was there as well with his wife Ginger, and daughter Heather. Our stay was brief but we enjoyed some chit chat and a little Guitar Hero II action. I was able to play for the first time and look forward to it being released on the xbox 360 soon. It's amazing how fast we age. It seems like just the other day Heather was just a baby. Now she's almost ready to drive.

Shelly was reluctant to stop at Garth's due to the bad weather that they were calling for. We pressed on and just as we left Garth's it started to snow. Gradually, as we approached Delaware, it got worse. And by the time we got to the Delaware Memorial Bridge I realized that we may have made a slight mistake by stopping at Garth's. All lanes at the toll booth were backed up including the EZ Pass lanes. Finally after a 1/2 hour of that nonsense we finally got through. From then on it was slow sailing because the roads were so nasty. Fortunately we made it home safe and sound. It just took a long time to get home.

I'll never admit it other than in this blog post, but I should have listened to Shelly. :) Regardless, it was still nice seeing the Nielsen family.

Visit Flickr to see some photos from my Grandmother's House & Garth's House.

Shelly's First Day

For those unaware, Shelly has a new job. She was very happy at Meridian, but this just fell in her lap. The only real thing that she didn't like about her old job was the drive to Milton every day. Shelly's new job will offer her all the same amenities that she liked about her old job, plus she will make a little more money and it's right here in Dover.

The new company is called Lake Roeder Hillard & Associates and they're based out of Pennsylvania. Recently they decided to open a branch in Dover as the company has decided to expand. Shelly is very excited and didn't want to pass up this opportunity.

You go girl! ;)

Another Tooth Out!

Two Holes

Cade's front tooth has been loose for some time now. I was beginning to think it was never going to fall out. This weekend Nicole stopped by and yanked the sucker out! He's now missing two front teeth. One on top. The other on the bottom.


I've also posted several new and various pictures over at Flickr. Check them out!

last.fm

Recently I was talking to Ken about ripping my cd collection so that I can have a digital copy of it. Quite honestly I don't bother with cds anymore. Having them on my computer would allow me to listen to them on my PC as well as allow me to stream the audio to our xboxes.

Currently I'm almost half way through the 200ish discs I have. The process isn't all that bad, but it does take a little time. It's best to do in spurts. Ken has 10x the number of discs I have, so he has his work cut out for him when he finally decides to start rippin'. :)

Begin the process by getting a free program called Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and the free mp3 encoder LAME. There are other programs out there, but this one does a bang up job. Once you have those two pieces you can begin the ripping and encoding process. Go through the options and settings to meet your needs. When setting quality under compression, choose a bitrate that is at least 192 kpbs. Go higher if you want, but file sizes are going to increase. Personally after you get to 192 kbps, I have difficulty noticing any real difference. After everything is set up, start ripping your collection. If you configure EAC properly, it'll grab the song information from an online database to build your mp3 tags properly. This isn't intended to be a tutorial, so I'm not going to go into any detail. Contact me if you want for more in depth help.

As you rip your collection, you are going to want to use some kind of program to manage your music. There are a lot of different programs out there. Many are free. iTunes is probably one of the more popular aps and does a fine job. I heard about MediaMonkey, which has a free version and a PRO version. iTunes, I'm sure would work just fine but I chose MM for different reasons. It allows for scripting and allows you to run add-on features that other users have created. I also use MM to add cover art to my mp3 tags, which it downloads from Amazon.

So that leads me to the final piece of the puzzle... While researching some MM scripts, I came across this cool web site called last.fm. Basically, using a plugin from your media player (MediaMonkey in my case), it creates a database of the music you listen to. Additionally, it offers social means to meet people who have interests in similar music. You are also able to listen to music from the site, so it provides a means to introduce you to new bands that you mat not have known about. By checking into what other people are listening to that have similar musical tastes, it allows you a more direct way of finding music that will most likely appeal to you. It takes quite a bit of listening before it can determine what people are good neighbors (people with similar musical tastes) to you.

Finally, one of the coolest features of last.fm is the ability to publish charts online of your listening habits. Take a peek on the right hand side of the blog in the sidebar there is a listing of the last 10 songs I listened to on my PC. Lately I have just randomly been shuffling through my music. You can choose to display charts of currently playing, groups most listened to for the week, or groups most listened to for the year. Their site will let you choose charts of all different styles and supply you with the code to insert in your web page, blog, or forum signature.

last.fm is really new to me. I only found out about it yesterday but I have already taken a liking to it. If you don't want to mess with plugins, they also have a stand alone media player that will send the data to them. If anyone needs help with any of the information above, just drop me an email.

If you are into music and feel like joining last.fm, please befriend me. HERE is a link to my profile. I'm a loner right now. :) Play with the charts by clicking on the charts tab. If you are wondering where all the Def Leppard is, I really haven't gotten to ripping it yet. It's coming next. :)

Currently I've ripped 83 discs, 1017 songs, 5.8 GB of data, for 72 hours 7 minutes 56 seconds of music.

Whatever music you like, enjoy it!

Cale Has His Party

Blowing Them Out

It was nothing more than family and several of his close friends joining us for a few hours at the house, but the kids seemed to have had fun.

Poor Cale bumped his head on Shelly's chair while opening gifts and started to cry. Partly for the pain, but also for the slight embarrassment. A couple minutes later he was fine again.

There are a few new pictures over at Flickr if you are interested.

Enjoy the Super Bowl! I really don't care who wins. I'm not too into football. When the playoffs were on I wanted Seattle to win. That's out, so I guess if I had to pick I would pick Chicago. Go Bears!