What is On Jeffs' Mind

On Monday I had the day off, due to extra hours I had worked over the past month or so.

I have to say, I usually feel uneasy about days off, as I tend to have all these ideas, and when it does not pan out, I get feeling down. I guess I don’t like the idea of wasting a day off, but then that is usually what happens.

The first thing I did, was started to clean out my office. I had this on my 2012 resolutions, and I think I made some good progress on it. There is still some more I need to do, but I think I did a good job of getting rid of the clutter. I have to say it was harder then I was expecting, especially when I got to a bunch of old computer games. It took a bit of me to toss them in the trash, but I did. I guess the tough part is that I have some memories of those games, and playing them, and it was tough to part with. But I am not going to go back and play them, and they were taking up space. I don’t believe that I am hoarder, but at times I do see some of the same tendencies in me, like the one that something has a use, or like I stated, I have memory attached to it. I also cleaned out a bunch of other items, as well, keeping in my mind, that I will not be using this again, and it needs to go. I really could not believe how many boxes I have kept around. As well I threw out some old books that I will not be reading again, and also a bunch of cables that are not of use. Again, had to say to myself I am not going to be needing these, but it was hard. My next step is to paint the office and put up some shelves. That will come down the road, as now that I got some of the clutter out of the room, I might be able to get a vision of what I want.

It was near the end of the month, and my registration on my cars were due, so I headed to the registry place. It was busy as I suspect a lot of other people were doing the same thing. I was finally able to get the cars registered, with a day to spare. Truthfully, I had pretty much forgotten this, so it is a good thing I remembered or I could have been inline for a ticket if caught driving with an over due registration. Like anything, the cost of the registration has gone up. I don’t really fault the government, as things cost what they cost, but I will blame myself and the place I work for, for not keeping my salary more current. After that I headed to get some gas and a car wash. Not sure why I washed the car, as it was warm out, and pretty much dirty by the time I got home. I stopped off and got some spicy chicken wings for lunch and headed home.

Another thing I needed to do, was get my gas bill figured out. I had not received a bill in quite sometime and I had the gas company calling me. I had called them a few times, and they never knew anything. I would ask who is providing my gas, and they would not be able to tell me. Finally I got to the bottom of the issue, and it turned out that they had been sending the bills to the wrong address. I got that corrected, and fortunately the bill was not to high. I am going back to a shared services contract next month, so glad I got the loose ends tied up.

After that I packed up my Wii, and listed it on a for sale site. My Wife and I no longer use it, and I decided we may as well sell it and get something out of it. I asked what I felt was a fair price, and looks like I might possibly already have a buyer. I could have probably parted it out and sold it for much more, but did not really want to have multiple listings, and might take some time to sell that way. My guess who ever is buying it might be doing that, as they might have the means to do that. Maybe I watch to much Storage Wars/ Pawn Stars, but I could see where someone could double their money at least by parting it out. So I am hoping that by the end of the day, I have the Wii moved.

My next order of business is to list my Mac Mini, I am in the process of cleaning it up and then I will reinstall the OS on it, and then list it as well for sale. My plan is to buy a new Mac Mini, and will no longer need this one, so if I can get a bit of money for it, it will help goes towards the new one. I also have a bunch of change I am going to take to the bank, and see what I can get out of it.

So onto Tuesday, and I have the day off, so I am hoping I can have another productive day.

Tags: Day Off, Resolutions 2012

I thought I would do a quick post on some of my 2012 resolutions.

Probably the one I was most excited about for the year, was recommitting myself to completing my vintage Star Wars loose figure collection. I said to myself that each month I would get one figure. Well today, my first vintage figure for 2012 arrived. A few weeks back I won an eBay auction for a vintage Emperor Palpatine, and today he arrived in the mail. It is probably not one of figures that was very high on my list, but none the less, he was on it. I got it for a pretty good price, and it came in a bag. Hard to tell if he was ever removed from the bag or not, as there was a piece of tape on it that looked really old. The paint looks good, and the joints are very stiff, so if he was loose before, he did not see much play. It is probably a figure that is not one of the harder ones to get, but to me, he represents the start of my goal for 2012 and until I complete my collection. Welcome to you new home Emperor.

Another resolution I had was to get more healthy and exercise more. My start has not been what I was hoping for. I started off the year being pretty good with riding my exercise bike. But after a few days, I was pushing myself to hard and ended up getting a rather painful rash, that led to a sore back. So for over a week, I had to not exercise as I tried to recover from my rash and other pains. I started back earlier in the week, but not pushing myself as hard, and making sure to incorporate more stretching. So I am hopeful if I ease into this more reasonably I can up my pace and intensity in short order.

No further updates, but my other goals are still on my mind constantly, so hopefully in the next month I can start making those more of a reality.

Tags: Exercising, Star Wars Vintage

I guess I have something to celebrate for 2012, I have finally gotten to the point where I can record stereo through my mixer. That is a big thing for me as I have been battling this since summer when I got the mixer. I have to admit this really got me down, probably more down then I was expecting. I think for most of the fall, I was in a real funk about this. Working in computers, I somewhat pride myself in being able to figure out a lot of things, but this mixer had me. I guess another part of my frustration was that I could not just easily buy another mixer, as I don’t have as much available cash as I did a few years ago, thanks to my company not recognizing that the cost of living has increased (That is a complaint for another time).

It came down to I had the wrong driver selected in the recording program, and that I am limited to using this Mixer with a recording program that supports an ASIO driver. I am sort of up in the air about what I am going to do with the mixer. I don’t really like using the Cubase software that has come with the mixer, it is much more then I really need, as there is so many settings to configure. I might play around with it a bit over the next few months, record a few podcasts, and see how I feel. I sent the tech support a question as well if there is some other recording programs that would work with this mixer that I could try. I might just sell it as well , and use the money towards a different, less advanced mixer.

At least this is off my mind now, and I am grateful for that.  It has been a bit of a journey of frustration and doubt. So I am hoping now I can get my collecting podcast back on track, even if I have to use software I would not normally use. Hopefully this is the start of some good things coming for 2012.

Tags: Mixer

I will be doing a series of 3 posts on my favorite ships from different Sci-Fi Movies and TV Shows. This first one will be ships that are not from either Star Trek or Star Wars. Then I will have posts, one for Star Trek and One for Star Wars.

One of the reasons why I like Sci-Fi so much, is for the Ships. There is something about them that really grab me, so I was thinking, why not talk about some of my favorites.

Original Series Cylon Raider

This ship has always been a favorite, since the first time I saw it as a kid. I really like that it has some what of a saucer shape, but looks so menacing. It looks fast, it looks tough, it looks mean. When I think about this ship, I think about all the stock clips from the old Battlestar Galactica series, where the Cylon Raiders would cruise onto the screen in packs. I saw it over and over, but never tire of those clips. They are iconic to me.

When I was a kid, a friend down the road from me, had a toy Cylon Raider, and I would remember going over and always gravitating to that toy. The Cylons in side were pretty small, and it shot little missiles, but I thought it was real cool. I am not really sure why I never asked for one from my parents, it might have been there were other Star Wars toys that I wanted more. But I had a lot of good times playing with my friends Raider.

When the updated Battlestar Galactica came out, I was interested to see what the new Cylon Raider would look like, and to be honest, I really did not like it, and still dont. I get the idea that in the new series that the Cylon and Ship are one, but I guess the design of it really did not grab me. They did come out with some larger Cylon ships that were bombers, that were more reminiscent of the original, but they never got a lot of screen time.

Jupiter 2

A pretty plain looking ship from all accounts, but I find something charming about it. From the 60′s show Lost in Space, each week the Robinson on the Jupiter 2 would travel to some new strange world and have a new and usually cheesy adventure.

I think what I like about this ship, is it simplicity, as it really is just a saucer, almost like what one would imagine of a flying saucer from that era. It spun when it flew, landing and take off. It had a big front wind shield so to say, where they could look out to help navigate. But since it’s mission was to take the Robinson’s to different planets as they found a new place for the people of Earth, it was sort of a futuristic Motorhome.  There was two floors to it as we saw on the show, with the upper level for navigation, and the lower level for living.

It did seem for the size for the Ship, that they were able to pack a lot into it, as they had a Land Chariot, a bunch of equipments, and a crew of 7 plus a robot. The sets looked quite large compared to the scale of the ship when we saw it on the outside. I suspect back in the 60′s, they did not put as much thought into the scale like they would now. Also it was Lost in Space, so a very Cheesy show. But still, I really liked this ship, and some day I hope that I can get some sort of model of it.

Blackbird BSG

I have always liked Vipers from Battlestar Galactica, and I actually like all of them from both series. There is something about them that I really find cool, they look so fast, and can deliver a good punch. Some might say they are a bit derivative of the X-Wing as they have some of the same lines to them with a long nose, rear engines, and red striping, but I think they are cool none the less.

I chose the Blackbird out of all the Vipers as the one to put on my list as I found it different from the rest, but still very familiar to the over all design. They don’t really consider it a Viper, but part of me still does. It is cool as it is black, and made for stealth. Built from carbon fiber they use it to go on secret type missions when they want to do surveillance, since it cannot be detected like the standard Viper.

It was named Laura after president Roslyn on BSG, and it is a pretty simple design. There is not a lot to it, and it is pretty sleek. I think part of the reason why I like this ship so much, was that it was in some of my favorite BSG episodes. I always liked more of the space and ship based episodes compared to all the dramatic and arc based episodes. So anytime they got out in the ships and did battles or missions, I really liked the episodes.

Phoenix

Growing up one of the cartoon series I watched a lot was Battle of the Planets. I remember watching it every day after school, and looking forward to it. The show was based off a Japanese anime show called Gatchaman, and re dubbed and edited for North American audiences. It followed 5 young people who protected Earth from an enemy called Spectra. The crew was led by their commander Mark, his second in command was Jason, Tiny piloted the ship, and Princess and Keyop rounded out the crew. Their base was an underwater facility called Center Neptune.

This was a real cool ship in my opinion, it was a pretty basic design, and was blue and red. But what the Phoenix could do made it so special. 4 of the members had their own vehicles which would be located in different parts of the ship. It was always cool, when they would show clips of the Phoenix picking them up. Jason had a race car that would fit into the nose of the ship, Keyop had a buggy of some sort that was in one of the wings, Princess had a cool looking motorcycle that went in the other wing, and Mark had a jet that would be docked in a hangar in the back of the Phoenix. All their vehicles could transform from standard type vehicles to the special vehicles they used to protect Earth. Another thing that made this ship so cool, was that they could transform it into what was called the fiery Phoenix, which was that the ship turned into a flaming bird.

This ship will always hold a soft spot in my heart as it was one of the first models I ever built. I built it in the early 80′s at summer camp. I wish I still had the model, but I don’t as I played with it quite a bit. I suspect that I did not do a very good job, since it was my first model, and I might have been a pre teen at the time, but it always gives me some nice memories of the time. It is a ship that I am hoping that one day I can find a model of, as I would not mind having something in my collection. I look for it off and on on eBay but never really got to anything serious, but it is on my list of ships I would like.

Original Series Basestar

Seems like my list has a lot of Battlestar Galactica ships in it. I guess for me, I really liked the ships in the shows, and they really grabbed me. The Original series had a lot of episodes based on space battles and missions, and like I said, I really like sci-fi shows that focus a lot on ships. The Basestar from the original series I thought had a real cool and different design from the rest of the ships.

Again, like the Cylon Raiders, I really liked these ships, especially when they traveled in numbers, as they looked like a formidable opponent. Basically they look like two disks which tapered down and connected to each other. They had a much different look to them then the Galactica did, since they did not have a real traditional ship look to them. I guess they are a Basestar, so in a sense probably more of a Spacestation then a ship. I guess another argument could be made that they come off a bit similar to the Deathstar, since both are sort of round, and a ship or station that does not have a lot of detailing to it.

All I know, is if I was a fugitive fleet, on the run, that I would not want a pack of these following me, with their squadrons of Raiders that could be deployed to attack. I think some of the coolest Episodes these ships were in was the Living Legend episodes, where the Galactica and the Pegasus take on the Basestar is some cool battle sequences.

 

So that is my list of top 5 Sci-Fi ships that are not in Star Trek or Star Wars. I was going to add honorable mentions, but to be honest, there are probably quite a few ships I could add, so I think I will leave it at this list. Also, I only included shows that I watched a lot of, as I am sure there are plenty more cool shows with cool ship I have not seen. Maybe this list is a bit of a reminder to me that I need to watch some more Sci-Fi . My Followup posts for Star Trek and Star Wars I will add Honorable Mentions.

Tags: Basestar, Battle of the Planets, Battlestar Galactica, Blackbird, BSG, Cylon Raider, Fiery Phoenix, Gatchaman, Jupiter 2, Lost in Space, Phoenix, Viper