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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
It's been a while since I did more than slap some pictures of Honey into my blog. My Neverending Music Project is the primary reason for the recent blog no-shows.
The final phase of my Music Project which I began on April 12th, is now COMPLETE! COMPLETE, I tell you!
Since April 12th, I've ripped and burned my full CD library and compiled and burned other digital files. Now the 72 tapes from the Eek-I-Just-Found-Another-Box-O'-Tapes have all been converted to digital mp3 files, burned into 2 sets of disks (one for home and the other for off-site storage), labeled and indexed. Here is a picture of the disks from the 72 tapes laid out all burned labeled.
Besides the disks, I have everything on two external Western Digital Hard Drives so it will be easy to listen to the music or teachings through the computer or to download files to my I-pod-like music player, or just play a disk from my work stash. Oh, how I love functionality.
My estimate is that this entire Music Project has consumed about 21 months of my free time over the past several years. The next phase (because there always is a next phase) is the enjoyable part where I listen to everything and compile BEST OF folders, and probably disks. For now, I'll be celebrating with a refreshing beverage or two.
Posted at 6/27/2006 10:08:20 pm by lifeonhold
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006
I couldn't help myself.
Honey finally nestled into her cambed this afternoon about 3:10 pm. I IM'ed everyone on line and e-mailed a few others.
Then Honey settled down and got into some serious sleeping.
I didn't like that.
So I phoned the apartment.
What's that?!!!
My baaaaaaad!
I promise to stop obsessing. It was a reallllllly slow afternoon. Or something.
Here are some other cam shots from today:
Posted at 6/13/2006 4:58:07 pm by lifeonhold
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Monday, June 12, 2006
Announcing the HoneyCat Cam
My cat, Honey, is a cuddle monster, a little dumpling, a birdie watcher, a chow hound, and sometimes she is a scardy cat. I don't know if she's a Famewhore or not, but we're about to find out.
I bring you the HoneyCat Cam!
SCREENSHOT OF 1st SIGHTING 3:10 pm 6/13/06
The cam is strapped to the leg of my computer table and pointed to one of Honey's sleeping locations. She is usually here in the late afternoon when I come home from work, but she uses the spot other times based on her whims.
Of course she failed to be present for the Premire of the cam. Cats are like that.
I'll work on lighting and angle of the cam as I gain experience with it. The cam might not be on every day. This is all new to me. And Honey.
WATCHING live feeds, however, is not new to me, or many of you.
Oh, and thanks to Deb for some important info on the webcam hosting site (free!) and for her Darby Cam that was the inspiration for this little project.
Posted at 6/12/2006 11:52:03 pm by lifeonhold
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Thursday, June 08, 2006
For the past week a friend has been raving about her new DVR. First she raved in anticipation of it's arrival, and now she's raving about how great it is.
I've considered getting a TiVo or other DVR unit for a while, but have been reluctant to fork over the plastic/bucks. But I'm weakening by all the accolades from my friend.
Just last night she helped me scout out some DVR options online. Then this morning when I log into AOL, I see this picture on their home page:
Is this a sign from God to get the damn TiVo?
I want to believe!
Posted at 6/8/2006 1:23:41 pm by lifeonhold
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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
 Blogdrive just ate my entry....guess editing a Draft more than once makes it go bye-bye. *Chomp!*
Anyways, I'm still racing against the clock and calendar to get my Music Project finished before July 6th, the day Big Brother begins. I'm also playing with SnagIt software to perfect my photo and video capture techniques so I can provide some visuals for HamsterTime.net along with doing the Moderator thing there this season.
I was up until 2:30 AM last night trying to find a way to boost the audio capture on the video clips. No luck. I also discovered a FHUGE amount of files in my Temp folder and wonder if that is slowing my laptop. It's not a good thing to decide to tinker with files after 2 AM.
I also ran across a neat thing on someone's blog and want to try it out here. Hopefully it will be ENTERTAINING. Hopefully I'll get it together this weekend.
Happy Wednesday.
Posted at 6/7/2006 1:03:15 pm by lifeonhold
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Thursday, June 01, 2006
I logged into BlogDrive.comto post an entry, a Auntie Bragging Entry, only to find my avatar on their cover page. Seems that Life Off Hold is one of their Featured Blogs today. Wooo!
SnagIt captured the moment; my avatar is in the lower right corner of the photo:
What I REALLY came here to brag about is my nephew, Daniel. He just graduated a year early from the University of Tennessee with a Physics degree. He has already worked on a NASA project and has been out of this world (sort of!). Here he is floating weightlessly in the NASA training airplane.
Keep up the good work, Daniel! We're all proud of you!
Posted at 6/1/2006 1:01:35 pm by lifeonhold
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Tuesday, May 30, 2006
At Last, there is Purpose to my Life!
Honey has discovered a new use for me.
She has always liked to have me run my fingers along the side of her mouth (and sometimes her teeth too), but she has recently discovered another use for me:
Honey's Washcloth
*salivate* *lick* *wiiiipe*
*salivate* *lick* *wiiiipe*
*salivate* *lick* *wiiiipe*
She has discovered the Power Wash feature.
I suppose if I'd only learn to lick her back (like mommy used to do) she wouldn't have to go through all this. But I draw the line at that kind of interspecies interaction.
Oh, and as of this weekend, Honey has assumed her Summer Pose:
Posted at 5/30/2006 1:01:11 pm by lifeonhold
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Monday, May 29, 2006
I've just had almost a real vacation with all kinds of playtime. Five, count 'em, five full days! It's been many years since I've had that kind of time off without any real obligations.
Of course, true to form, the first 2 days (Thurs and Fri) I had a bad back and neck and couldn't focus on my intended projects, but I managed to get the housework and shopping out of the way.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were totally devoted to only two things: the first Grilling of the season, and major time working on my neverending Music Project.
The weather was wonderful and the first seafood kabobs and chicken breasts of the season came off the grill. Yum!
But really, the weekend was all about the Music Project. I did the final clean-up on my music files, sorting some stragglers into folders, and then began burning two sets of each mp3 (a Master and a Backup of each).
The Set-Up for my Music Project. The desktop computer is used for the burns while I use the laptop for web surfing and other tasks. I don't dare to anything else on the computer during burns due to the potential for corrupting the files.
So far I've burned the following:
50s Music - 3 mp3 disks x 2 = 6
60s Music - 9 mp3 disks x 2 = 18
70s Music - 13 mp3 disks x 2 = 26
80's Punk Music - 4 mp3 disks x 2 = 8
The total for the weekend is 58 burned disks, all labeled and catalogued.
The cataloguing of the disks was something I've been dreading, but a new computer program has helped enormously. It's called Snag-It.
I originally downloaded the 30-day free trial to try out it's streaming video capture for use on the Big Brother Live Feeds later this summer. It looks like that should work and so I explored it's other features.
It can be used to capture web graphics, icons, text and windows, including scrolling windows so I've been using it to list the contents of folders and cut and paste them into word documents to index the mp3 disk contents. It has made the whole process much easier than anticipated.
Well, back to work. I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend.
Posted at 5/29/2006 10:34:30 pm by lifeonhold
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Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Last night I dialed my fingers to the nubs getting in votes for Taylor *twitch* Hicks, and a few for his adorable sidekick, Elliott Yamin in the hopes they will be the ones to advance to the American Idol finals.
The voting looks very close if DialIdol's prediction results are accurate [click on the link if you want to be spoiled as to how close]. Once the East Coast dialing window closed, the voting evened up, so I'm glad I did my part.
Magpie, who dials and deals with customers for a living, was a reluctant dialer, but she joined the effort on behalf of Elliott Yamin.
I also want a Taylor / Elliott finale, and so threw some votes to Elliott once I came up with a convienient dialing method. I programmed each of my wireless units so one had a Taylor number and the other had an Elliott number; then I clipped the phones to the wire rack I use as my laptop tray and alternated dialing the numbers using each unit's redial button on speakerphone. This worked so well I'm sorry I won't need the dual set-up next week.
Magpie542 (10:22:18 PM): i need a hand'sfree way to do this
Magpie542 (10:23:22 PM): i voted 6 times for e, and once for t
Magpie542 (10:25:01 PM): even mister slippery is voting for elliott
Lifeonhold52 (10:26:02 PM): I clipped my phones to the rack I use for my laptop
Lifeonhold52 (10:26:28 PM): and put the calls on speakerphone so I can hear the results (photo on my blog tomorrow)
Magpie542 (10:26:40 PM): i was just thinking about speakerphone
Magpie542 (10:26:47 PM): and just got another vote in for elliott
Magpie542 (10:27:01 PM): i need to teach the cat to do this
Lifeonhold52 (10:27:04 PM): hahaha
Magpie542 (10:27:15 PM): except she might vote for KAT
Lifeonhold52 (10:27:20 PM): if you can trust her not to vote for KAT!!!!
Lifeonhold52 (10:27:22 PM): hahahaha
Magpie542 (10:27:24 PM): lol
Lifeonhold52 (10:27:39 PM): that's going on my blog too
Magpie542 (10:27:45 PM): she's in her litterbox now showing us what she thinks about all this
The Final Contestants
Taylor Hicks - I've loved him since he first showed up in auditions; the quality of his voice and the style of music it fits the best is my favorite. The spazz ticks, twitches and jerks and his dancing is a little over the top, but he makes me smile. I am entertained by him week after week. I also like the fact that he is anti-Idol material. The Grey Charles website has a mp3 download section of Taylor's music; I haven't heard all on the list yet, but so far recommend Trouble, Somehow, the long version of Georgia, Levon, The Fall, and his audition clip, Change Is Gonna Come. SOUL PATROL, baby.
Elliott Yamin - he also has a beautiful voice and is very sincere as a person. His best night was Elvis night, a week ago. Unfortunately, despite is great vocals, his performances don't tend to be that memorable. I think he's probably calling it a show tonight. I might be interested in his music someday, if he picks the right songs.
Katharine McPhee - she also has a good voice, at least sometimes, on some songs, but she bugs me. Here again we have IdolBot material. She smiles through sad songs and doesn't seem to connect with the emotions and she has a 'beauty pageant contestant' personality. She will probably have a good career even if she loses tonight, but the songs she will go on to sing won't interest me.
Posted at 5/17/2006 9:05:37 pm by lifeonhold
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Friday, May 05, 2006
You know your company is going out of business......
When the President wants to change fundamental business accounting, sales, and production practices so the numbers look better and provide more info.
I've just come from another battle that sprung up with the Prez over a whole new way he wants to handle deposits on jobs that would mean a significant change to fundamental accounting practices and make our computer software that manages accounting, production and inventory do something it wasn't designed to do. That means that at least 4 of us will have to keep track of these oddball entries and track their impact all the way from Sales, Order Entry, Production, Inventory and Accounts Receivable. We will have to make adjustments to our work systems to accommodate this new procedure, adding another level of complexity to our work.
It is also a system that is fraught with the possibility of error and result in further inaccuracies and another huge financial mess.
What the Prez needs is a non-system method of gathering the info he wants. I've already worked up part of the solution in an Excel spreadsheet that could be updated monthly from standard reports. He liked it, but did not understand how it could be a large part of what he's after. Then the most informative portion of the spreadsheet [from my point of view] was dropped by A/R because the data wasn't meaningful to her little world.
I am soooooo glad it's Friday. I just want to walk out of here and not look back. It's quite likely I'll get to do this some month in the near future.
UPDATE: I've tried to post this update since Friday afternoon with no success; seems there has been a problem with blogdrive.
After lunch on Friday, the Prez and I had another meeting where we went through all of this again anf, finally, with the light of understanding reaching both our minds. He was not trying to manipulate the books [whew!] but what he was trying to do, and his solution, did create problems, which he finally understood. We re-visited my non-system spreadsheet solution and he understood that it would give us what we were after; the solution was very simple and even elegant, really, once we talked it through verrry carefully.
I later told him that I appreciate being able to be part of the process. He said in return that what I said changed his thinking on the approach.
Posted at 5/5/2006 1:09:12 pm by lifeonhold
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