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Portland Vacation – Day 2 and 3

So, to pick up where I left off. Walking around in Seattle, WA. We hopped on the train back to Portland. I can’t remember I rode in a train, probably in Duluth on the North Shore. It was cool, 3 hour ride. Something different, and you get to see the countryside instead of worry about driving. By the time we got back to Em’s apt it was around 6 or 7, so we decided to get something to eat, and hit a few places to see what was up.

We went to dinner at this place called the Doug Fir. (I like to call it the Douglas Fir). Anyways, it was a nice cozy place, cheap food, but really good food. We bought tickets for the music downstairs. Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer (and others) were playing. It was really hippy like, people sitting on the floor, just really laid back. It was good music. We then headed out to a few other places and then headed home.

Friday, was moving day. I helped Emily move! Oh how I love moving. I think we really did a good job. Thing is, WTF is up with U-Haul. They sent us on a wild goose chase to get a truck, way out of town, and it was some ghetto garage, and they told us to come back in an hour. Umm, no. We found a different one, and got the U-Haul, loaded it up, unloaded it, and good to go. Tired after that, but we decided to hit up some dinner and some beer joints around town, see the different places. Really fun time!

Moving Day 2

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Geeky/Programming

T-Mobile Dash Windows Mobile 6 Upgrade!

I installed the Windows Mobile 6.0 Upgrade today on my T-Mobile Dash. Haven’t dug into the new features yet, but the looks of it, are awesome. New Icons, sleeker design.

Found the link here

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Geeky/Programming

Netflix Watch It Now, Windows Media Center Edition

I have Vista Ultimate, with Media Center Edition. I also have an Xbox 360, which I use as an extender for MCE. I also subscribe to Netflix. They have a “Watch It Now!” feature, which allows you to watch some of their collection online. Well, It just makes sense that you would be able to watch within MCE, but that would just be too easy right? Netflix needs to come out with plugin!!

Anyways, I tried to get it to work. You can actually get it to work in straight MCE, but not using an extender.

First, I did a little Googling and found this, which has some good info on the Watch It Now feature. In the past, I have used MCE Browser, which is a cool little plugin written by Anthony Park. If you install this, then on your MCE box, hit Netflix, login and do the Watch It Now feature, it will first ask you to install a plugin for the Watch It Now (even if you already have it installed). Do that, and then go back to the site. It should work! You can open it full screen, etc.

Next stop, Xbox 360 as the extender. Got to Netflix, Logged in, Got to Watch it Now, hit Play. Starts up, the Netflix banner shows in the media player. MCE Browser locks up. Doh. My guess is it can’t save the stream or something, or something wacky with the plugin (Netflix player).

Maybe Netflix can make a plugin of their own, or maybe MCE Browser can be tweaked, either way, this functionally would be really sweet.

Update: Anthony Park has created the plugin called MyNetflix for MCE that we all want – check it out here – http://www.anpark.com/Software.aspx

Update 2: another plugin lets you watch netflix on your xbox 360 – prayers have been answered! vmcNetflix

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Portland Vacation – Seattle, WA

After I left MSP, I flew into Seattle, WA. Pretty nice airport, nicer than MSP anyways. Walked to get my stuff, then outside. A worker guy was like “You need a cab”? I was like, yea, so he called one. I wait and wait, and then all of a sudden this small limo pulls up, ‘You Steve”? yea – that’s me. Dang, pimp my ride. Gave me a ride to the hotel, and it wasn’t to bad, nicest cab ride I ever had. (And I have had some bad ones, 15 miles into Mexico anyone?)

Once I got the hotel, the Inn at Queen Anne, I met up with Emily and we had a glass of wine, talked with a nice older couple, which was cool. We then decided to trek it up the huge hill up the view over Seattle and that is where we took some pictures of the Space Needle, and the view.

Emily and Steve - Seattle, WA

After that, we decided to head to a district in Seattle, Ballard. We heard that it had some good things going on, so we checked it out. There was a bar/restaurant we headed into, and since we chatted up the guy outside, he bought our first drinks, good stuff. We had nachos and wings (my fave!), then decided to find some live music. We headed to this place called the Tractor. There was like a 18 dollar cover, but it looked like a ton of bands were playing. We went in and the band that was playing was just horrible, couldn’t stand it, so we decided to walk after a while. Umm, yeah, got lost in Ballard, but the T-Mobile Dash with Live Maps saved the day (it was like the first time out of 100 we used it). Got a cab back, then walked around the hotel area, found a cool little pub, had some beers, talked, just had a good time. Not to eventful, but it was fun.

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Life

How do you sell/get rid your stuff?

This weekend I started spring cleaning, minimizing. You can see I started with getting rid of cable. Instead of running a second Windows 2003 server, I am going to get a USB enclosure for the 80 GB hard drive and use that. I have a lot of things that I don’t use, don’t need, or just could get rid of.

#1 – My PSP – won it, used it, but don’t use it enough

#2 – My PS2 – played all the games, over it, time to get rid of it

#2.5 – PS2 Games – 32 games – taking up space.

#3 – My Beer Fridge – don’t need it 🙂

#4 – My Bass guitar and small amp – again, don’t use enough, don’t really need it

#5 – My Electric Guitar and Big Amp – don’t use it. They are old, if I want to get a new one, I will, and it won’t be a ghetto one.

#6 – Portable DVD player – don’t really use it anymore, and I have a DVD player here (Xbox 360 – what can’t it do?)

#7 – Ipod – well gave it to someone who will use it.

#8 – DVD’s – I have Netflix, easy enough to get them, or Unbox, or other online movie services. No use having the DVD’s . I will keep a few classics (Matrix, Goonies, Big Lebowski) of course.

#9 – Books – I had a bookshelf full of books that I have lugged around for 5 years. Well, the Library has them now, Magazines too (MSDN, Xbox, Nintendo Power)

#9.5 – Bookshelf – no more books – don’t need a bookshelf anymore 🙂

#10 – Clothes – A lot of clothes I don’t wear or won’t wear – going to Goodwill.

#11 – Junk – tons of junk and pack rat stuff, throwing it out.

#12 – Baseball cards – I have some baseball cards. I want to sell, need to figure it out, it really is a hassle.

#13 – 27 inch TV – I have two TV’s, the old tube and the new LCD I won this year. Time to consolidate.

I also have a ton of other stuff, old Nintendo NES parts if anyone wants (controllers, joystick, games, etc)

There are probably 1000 more things I could list, just to clean up stuff and get organized.

So out of the list, I have things on EBay, Amazon.com, Craigslist. Add that with donating, and throwing, you can really clean up your stuff. It starts to feel good when things are just what you need and you don’t have stuff all over the place taking up space, and you just end up hauling it around every time you move.

In my experience, I have found Amazon to be the best for media (DVD’s, Games) – although I will probably bring most of my games to a local store, and DVD’s too, its a hassle to mail them out.

EBay, for bigger electronics, but I have recently found Craigslist to work too. Still on the fence with this.

If anyone is interested in anything above, let me know, I will give you a deal, that is if its not already gone! 🙂

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Life

Cutting the Cable

This morning I cut the cable. I called up Charter and disconnected my cable TV. I have researched into all the different ways to get media/TV shows etc online and I have found that it just isn’t worth it to have cable TV anymore. I can watch the shows I really like to watch online, or at worst, buy them for $1.99 an episode, or if I am really desperate, download the torrents.

Basically all you need in your house is a good Internet connection and you can do anything. That coupled with Netflix and you are good to go. I can use Amazon Unbox, Itunes, Xbox Video Marketplace, Bittorrent, Fox.com, Abc.com, NBC.com, CBS.com. Basically there is one show I cannot miss – that is 24. The others, Law and Order’s and 1 or 2 others, I don’t mind if I see or not, it is just background noise usually when I am doing other things.

Do you think you could take the plunge and cut your cable?

 

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Portland Vacation – Pictures

I have uploaded pictures of the vacation here

I have stories for most of them, which I will post up as I get some time. Was a fun trip!

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Life

Knock, Knock, Anybody Home?

Yes, I am back in Minnesota. Been busy. Catching up on work and other things. I will post up some pictures and stuff this weekend. The trip was…well, a trip! Awesome time, and I don’t think I have ever had a better time on vacation.

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Random

Happy Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. Everyone try to think of something they can do to help the environment!

 

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Geeky/Programming

Google Earth, Track My Flight!

ok, for the seriously hardcore geeks out there. Track my flight in Google Earth!

First, if you don’t have it installed, go to http://earth.google.com and install Google Earth.

Then, hit this link

http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geOFNF.aspx?pp=51902740

you will see an live tracking of my flight when it takes off (around 4:10 PM CST)

It will update once a minute. Pretty dang cool if you ask me.

I love it on the site, it says “FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOT TO BE USED FOR IN-FLIGHT NAVIGATION.”

Yeah, I’m flying my plane, with a satellite Internet connection, with Google Earth, and using it to track where I am, man, I don’t need the gauges and what not, I have Google to tell me where to go!!……..crash 🙂

Pretty sweet thing, its crazy what you can do these days.

 

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