What is On Jeffs' Mind

The past few weeks for me for the most part have been quiet, with nothing to exciting happening. We came off a long weekend last weekend for Family Day, which I did not do to much, but that was ok. It gave me a chance to finish work on a new website I created, which is called Popoff Podcasts.

The purpose of Popoff Podcasts is to be a general place for a person to go and see all the podcasts Jason and I are involved with. As usual, it was fun to work on the site, as I really like getting into building these sites, and it turns out to be weekend long project. I can sit for hours and work on the site, as it is something I really enjoy to do. The site is nearly done and I am pretty happy with how it came out.  I found a WordPress template I liked, and then modified it to what I wanted. It really helped me learn a lot as I was able to add things to the template that were not there. I find I am reading php and css sheets better now, and understand what they are doing, which is good, as maybe in the future I would like to get into web development.

This past week I attended a digital camera course with my Dad. I have to say I learned quite a bit about my camera in the first class. I have another class on Tuesday. The first class they went through some of the settings on the camera, things that I never really knew where there, or did not really understand what they do. It gave me a better understanding of what my camera can do. I am looking forward to the next class and learning even more. I might consider taking a photography course in the future, so will see where it leads.

I also got the opportunity to help my friend Jen from the Anomaly Podcast on a new site she it working on. It was a lot of fun to work on it, she has picked a great theme for her site, and it helped me expand my knowledge on WordPress some with editing php and css style sheets. She is still working on it, so looking forward to seeing it when she is done, as I think it is going to be great. You should check out the Anomaly Podcast, it is a real fun podcast to listen to. This past podcast, they did a review of a Star Trek TNG episode for their worst of Trek series. It was a fun review of the episode Sub Rosa, from the seventh season of TNG. I have to admit, that this episode also ranks up there in my all time list of least liked Star Trek episodes.

I also started a new Star Wars book that I am excited about, it is the Fate of the Jedi series and the first one called Outcast. I have really gotten into this book, and made quite a dent into it just reading for a few days. I really enjoyed the last Star Wars series The Legacy of the Force, all the books in that series were top notch. I get the feeling this series will be just as good, and I like the long story arcs that go from book to book, more so then some of the event type one off books.

Also, last week, my friend Rick bought me an iTunes copy of the new Stryper CD called The Covering. They  cover a lot of cool Heavy Metal and Hard Rock songs from the 70′s and 80′s, such as Iron Maidens’ The Trooper, Van Halens’ On Fire, Breaking the Law by Judas Priest and Heaven and Hell from Black Sabbath. It is a really cool CD with a lot of other cool covers from some great bands.

Tags: Anomaly Podcast, Black Sabbath, Fate of the Jedi, Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden, Jason, Jen from Anomaly Podcast, Judas Priest, Legacy of the Force, Popoff Podcasts, Rick Moyer, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stryper, Van Halen

For the last few night, I have been having some rather vivid dreams. Most of them involve people yelling. A few nights back I was awoken, because the dream was so intense, and revolved around me arguing with someo0ne else, and involving a lot of yelling on both my part and the others. That one left me so disturbed, that I really could not get back to sleep after.

Last night I had another dream, I woke up right after it, and figured I would right it down, what I remembered so I could reflect on it after. I decided I would do it in point form, as that was easier for me to capture the details of the dream.

• - I was on a bus going to NAIT (That is the school I took my computer course at)
• - The bus was on schedule and coming to the stop, but then the driver changes the route, as the driver did not want to wait to make a left hand turn, so will take a long way around and get back to my stop.
• - I am not that concerned as they change schedule from time to time and will get to my stop. It looks now the bus is slowed down by traffic, and will be late. People start getting angry at the bus driver for changing the route and making them late.
• - The bus driver apologies for making the change. Was trying to do what they felt best, but it turned out not to be the best choice. The bus driver then cries and tell everyone they are doing the best they can, they had just had a heart transplant, so trying to deal with that.  (I cannot really tell if the bus driver is a man or a woman, sometimes it appears one, then it is another, the last part they are in my dream, they appear as a woman, though I think it started as a man)
• - I am now worried about being late for class. I am not sure what the teacher will say about me being late, and if it is alright to come into class late or not. The dream gives me the sense that it is a math class that I am going to.
• - I realize I have no idea where my class is. I have a room written down, but I am not sure if that was just for the first day, or if that is every day. I am looking through my notes and books to try and find what classroom it is in. I think that it is in the third building and I am in the second building at the time.
• - I stop in the lounge and sitting beside a group of film students working on an assignment for their class. I am still trying to find what classroom I should be in.
• - The students are watching some Special Effects clips and rating them
• - They are watching a clip of old Battlestar  Galactica. They are laughing at it and giving it a bad rating.
• - After holding back my thoughts, I finally tell them that it is over 30 years old and a TV show, so to keep that in mind.
• - They don’t see my point on that, but are somewhat friendly, we are in some sort of friendly debate.
• - One student does not want to give it as bad of a rating, so they change their rating from a 4 to a 5
• - As I leave, I tell them by today’s standards it looks bad, but that it is over 30 years old so to keep that in mind. I tell them I agree can do better today on our own computers.
• - I leave, they call to me, and then wave a long stick at me (not sure if it is chiding me or in acknowledgment) . The stick looks like some sort of electronics, possibly a very long remote control.
• - Going to registrar to find the room my class in. I had look through my notes I have going through all the papers in my bag, can only find the one room that I wrote down at the start, but not sure if that meant for just the first day or every day. I also look through some sort of schedule, which also seems to indicate the room I have written down. But for some reason I am not certain that is the room, and scared to walk there in case it is not.
• - Realize I don’t have a badge, so thinking I will not be able to get my course details from the registrar without proper identification.
• - I am debating on just missing the class and sending the teacher an email to send me the homework for the course.
• - I walk over to the third building, I have to go across a pedway to the next street. I am on the second floor and the class would be on the third. I look out the windows and notice NAIT is in some downtown core, with lots of tall building around it. It looks some what futuristic, but also with some old building as well. Very sci-fi looking.
• - I realize I have nothing written down for the course. No notes or anything. And I have no memory of the class either. Just a room number I think it would be in. I find it strange that I would have no memory of it, even though I have been to class before.

I wake up

This dream was a bit different then the last few, it had some angry people in it, but mostly at the beginning of the dream, and then it was over. But there was still frustration on my part in that I was not sure where the class was. Looking at it now, I thought I could not recall where my classroom was. But all information pointed to the one I had written down and what was in the schedule. But for some reason I was not sure and frightened to go check without someone confirming for me. Maybe that is some message about doubting myself, which is something I do quite often.

Since I started back to work in the office, I take the bus daily. So that all felt familiar to me. Due to all the bad weather lately, sometimes the bus is late, and it does not bother me all that much.

Tao tao is taking an accounting course at NAIT for the next few months. I am not sure why I had a dream where I was taking a course at NAIT, and that it was math. That might explain why I did not remember anything about the course. But the dream felt like I was taking a bunch of courses, but the first one for the day was math, and I am not good at math, so strange I would even be taking a math course.

Last weekend my friend Rick and I did a podcast on Battlestar Galactica, so I am guessing that is where that part of the dream came from. The Original series and Galactica 1980 had some campy moments in them, so possibly when I was coming up with my notes and arguments, the idea of the time it was made in was one of my notes. A lot of people tease both of the old Galactica’s for how they look today, and I always felt they should be looked in the context of when they came out. The discussion with the films students was not angry or anything, just something you might have with younger people in regards to the looks of old shows.

Going through my notes seems familiar to me. I often have the problem of having a lot of papers on my desk and in my house that I don’t want to throw away as I feel it might have information I need later. Usually the documents that are really important I can never find within all the clutter of unimportant paper. Maybe the dream is telling me I need to throw away a lot of the useless paper I have around me.

I was thinking about the dates and numbers in my dream, what they might have meant. I arrived in building 2 on the second floor, the class was on the third floor in building 3. The rating the film students gave the Battlestar Galactica clip was 4 and then they changed it to five. Is it as simple as the days of the month. So does building 2 (2nd Floor) mean Feb 2, and then building 3 (3rd Floor) mean Feb 3. Rating of 4 does that mean Feb 4 and then changing to 5 mean that we are now at Feb 5th. That is really the only thing I can think of.

I think that the main message from my dream was all about doubting myself. I had the classroom information right in front of me, but I was not sure. I was to the point where I was scared to even go and check the classroom to see if it was the right one or not. Maybe I am giving myself a message, not to let my doubts hold me back from doing things. I need to go off the information I have and not to second guess it. Interesting dream, maybe in the fact that I remembered it so well. Usually with dreams I might remember them for a short time, but then forget them, sometimes even before the end of the dream. In the future I will try and document them more. I am not sure if there is a lot of analyzing that can be done after the fact, and if you get a lot out of the analysis. But might be a fun exercise to try regardless. So I have this one documented so I might do some searching on dream analysis, and see if I might be able to find some more clues in the dream I had.

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Dream, Rick Moyer, Tao tao

This week I am guess hosting the Treks in Sci-Fi podcast with my friend Rick. When I visited Rick in the summer, we had talked about doing a guest host gig on Treks in Sci-Fi, and this week we got our chance to do that. We had talked about a few different subjects, but Galactica 1980 was at the top of both of our lists. We both have a fondness for the original Battlestar Galactica series, and Galactica 1980 was not a series that was covered in any depth on Treks in Sci-Fi. Rick approached Rico, the show host about the idea, and he allowed us to do it.

Galactica 1980 was never a series that was held in much regard. A lot of the episodes were very campy and cheesy, and most felt that the over all quality of the series was very low. I am not going to disagree that it could have been done much better, but there was some cool stories and ideas that came out of it. I think another reason that turned people off of the show, was that the majority of the cast did not return. I remember as a kid being disappointed that Apollo and Starbuck were not on the show, and that the settings were not sci-fi enough for me, and just plain pedestrian. The series only lasted 10 episodes, and then it was gone into history. Looking back at the series, it makes me remember just how old I am, as to think that it came out 31 years ago almost to the day. Wow, I am feeling very old.

We joked on the podcast, that we are sort of into B grade Sci-Fi, which made both of us chuckle. Last year I did a podcast on the Time Tunnel, another cheesy sci-fi show from another era. I also did a podcast on Earth 2, which some considered B grade as well. So I am thinking that the listeners of Treks in Sci-Fi are associating me with B grade stuff, I am sure every time they hear my name, they are going to be wondering what I am going to come out with next . It was a lot of fun to guest host with Rick, we had a great time reminiscing about the show. I was surprised how much information I found on the show, so it gave us plenty to talk about, to the point that Rick had to cut a lot out. Sometimes when you start a project you worry if you will have enough content, but usually by the end, you have more then enough.

Guest hosting was a lot of fun, and looking forward to getting the chance to do it again in the future. Check out the podcast at Treks in Sci-Fi, it should be up sometime Sunday.

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Earth 2, Galactica 1980, Rick Moyer, Rico, The Time Tunnel, Treks in Sci-Fi

The past week I made some good progress on some of my web projects, and I am feeling very good with what I have done to date.

After well over a year, I finally got the next podcast recorded for my collecting Podcast Jedijeff’s Basement . In this latest podcast, I review a couple Battlestar Galactica Minibusts. One from Art Asylum released in 2006 and another from Diamond Select Toys released in 2008. Head over to my Podcast site to check it out. I have to say, after a lot of work, I have the site to where I want it. I have been tweaking at it for over the past year, trying to get it to a point where I am happy with it. Earlier in the week, I created a new graphic, that I am quite happy with. I did a few other updates as well in the template as well, to get it where I want. So hopefully going forward, I can focus more on doing the podcast, and less on working on the site. There will always be little tweaks here and there, but for the most part, the site is pretty much done for now.

I also got a great chance to work with my friend Rick on a few of his sites. First off, we worked on a redesign on his main website, Take Him With You . Rick had WordPress installed already, so we worked on getting a new template installed, and then customizing it to fit Rick’s needs. After we got that done, Rick registered a new domain for his parody songs, Star Trek Parodies. That was a lot of fun to setup, and along with his other site, I learned a lot over the past few days with php and css sheets. I feel very good about what I have learned, and will help me a lot in the future with customizing sites. I am looking forward to Rick getting the parodies page finished, as it will be much easier to access his parodies, and with wordpress, allows to organize the songs into categories.

I still have another site to work on, as I want to register a Site for Jason and I Podcast group, as all the Podcasts we do will be under the banner of Popoff Podcasts. So In the next few days I will register the domain, and get started on building the site. That should be a lot of fun and looking forward to taking some of what I have learned lately and applying to this new site.

Also in February I will be taking a digital photography course with my Dad. I am looking forward to that, as it should help me with taking pictures of my collectibles, for my podcast. I am hoping over time, that my photography skills get better, so that the quality of the podcasts go up. The past few weeks, I have also learned quite a bit with Photoshop, that I am quite pleased about as well. Before I found myself sort of thrashing around with Photoshop, and I think the out put I did showed it, but now I am getting a better handle on it, so in the future, the graphic part of my podcast should look better.

So all in all, I am happy with what I have done with my time off. I even got some work done in my basement, as I painted a hand rail. Tomorrow I will try and push myself to attach it back to the wall. Also I need to make a trip over to Walmart to get some poster frames, to finish off the basement, as I have some posters I want to hang up.

Tags: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, Battlestar Galactica, jedijeffs basement, Popoff Podcasts, Rick Moyer, Star Trek Parodies, Take Him With You