I Am Such a Nerd

I’m such a nerd. Like there was any doubt that a guy who blogs like 3-5 times a day would be anything other than an uber nerd.

A couple of months ago I turned to Twitter with a question. I always turn to Twitter with nerd questions, and I never get any answers or advice or anything outside of occasionally being followed by spam porn accounts, but I digress.

I asked Twitter if anyone had any experience with using external camera lenses with their phones, specifically their iPhones. I was curious about The Photojojo Phone Lens Series, and the Olloclip iPhone camera lens. I was leaning toward Photojojo because it includes a zoom lens, where Olloclip does not.

As mentioned, the Twitterverse was totally silent in response to my questions so I had to decide for myself.

I just ordered the Photojojo set.

I told you I was an uber nerd!

Oh yeah, I also ordered the super deluxe blu-ray version of 2112.

I told you I was an uber nerd!

Backing Up Flickr

I have tried a couple of different publicly available (free) programs to back up my Flickr account. There are over 25,000 pictures on the account so backing up is kind of a huge undertaking.

The last time I did this it was on a windows machine. The program I used worked well, but not perfectly. It failed when there were multiple files in a set that had the same file name. Why it did not use Flickr’s ID and guarantee uniqueness, I will never know, but the result was my iPhone sets were missing just about everything. The upload app I normally use sticks the name “photo” on everything that isn’t specifically given a name. Therefore the back up program just kept overwriting everything.

last night I ran a really slick python script i found. It ran from the terminal on my Mac and it backed up everything perfectly. I was really pleased. I checked the folder created to hold my iPhone 4 set and everything was there.

How many photos were in the folder?

2,112.

Thats right, Rush fans… 2112.

My 2012 in Pictures – Part Deux

Yeah, I did a my-year-in-pictures thing the other day. It was fun. What the hell, thought I, why not do it again? This time I’ll run fast and loose with the whole one-pic-from-each-month thing. I’m crazy like that.

We have to get our pics of the Sands Bridge in Methuen before she collapses. Or maybe I should say before she finishes collapsing. It’s already started. Also, I don’t think I found a relative in the Grove Street Cemetery, but who knows?

In February I finally finished an RPM Challenge on time. It only took me five tries. We also got a new bed. Jen’s penguin approved.

In March, the kids and I became wilderness explorers. Hipstamatic came along for the ride. Actually, we just wandered around in the woods behind our house for a little while. It was fun.

April in San Diego. I want to go back RIGHT NOW!

May gave us baseball, Bar Harbor, and my first up close New England Lighthouse.

The picture pickin’s are slim in June, but we did get a new Rush album (and it is awesome) and we got another fantastic piano recital from the kids.

July offers more choices after a spontaneous trip to Boston, and a week long stay in Maine that included some time in the mountains of New Hampshire.

In August we went to the Top of the Hub for the first time in my life. The views of my city were spectacular. We also spent some twilight time on Hampton Beach.

September had mountain waterfalls, leaf peeping, my first ever attempt at photo-walking in Tewksbury, and more Rush.

October continues to belong to Washington, DC.

The camera didn’t come out much in November, but I did torture the cat, and my wife, with my camera phone, and we did celebrate Turkey Day.

December had more mountains, more mountain streams, and Christmas.

And there we have a second view of my 2012 in pictures. Forgive the gratuitousness.

Happy New Year (again).

My 2012 in Pictures

In January I took my swanky new lens out and about in Methuen to see what it could do. These trips usually focus on the Spicket River, but this time I went to the Merrimack.

As usual, February focused on the RPM Challenge. This year my saxophone came out of retirement.

In March I finally managed to get a few pictures of the night sky that only mostly sucked, as opposed to the normal total suck. This is the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter, all at once.

April brought us back to San Diego and I swear, each time we go there it gets harder and harder to come home.

In May we brought the kids to Fenway Park. Dustin Pedroia and the Red Sox won the game, but went on to their worst season in 100,000 years.

June was very quiet, photography wise, but we did get another piano recital in the wonderful Nevins Library in Methuen.

In July we spent a week on Long Lake in Maine. I managed to accidentally take a few pictures that didn’t suck.

In August we spent a day wandering around Portsmouth, NH including Strawbery Banke.

In September we took the kids to see Rush. Now they know what I’ve been talking about all this time.

In October we took the kids to Washington, DC and tried our best to see everything in the short time we were there.

In November I didn’t post a single picture taken with my D90. I did, however, learn that this existed and it made me feel a little better about the human race in general.

In December my wife and I ran off together to the mountains for a few days. It was wonderful to get away.

And there you have it. A brief synopsis of my 2012, in pictures. I could have posted hundreds of pictures. Maybe I will later on.

Wouldn’t it be Nice?

I’ve been sitting at my computer tonight more or less since I got home. My beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous, brilliant, amazing wife is next to me. She built a PC today and is jumping through hoops trying to get all of her software installed and all of her settings the way she wants them. I’m helping with the heavy lifting here and there.

I’ve also being a bootleg music nerd. My goal to get a copy of every show on the Rush Clockwork Angels tour is more than likely never going to be achieved, but I’m now up to 17 shows (18 if you count the DVD of the first set of the Brooklyn show, which I don’t). I’m fighting with the new iTunes and with iTunes match. Apparently we no longer have the ability to open a playlist in a separate window? Gee… thanks iTunes. I never made use of that function ever (and by never I mean I used it constantly). Now when I drag a new folder full of music into a playlist and have it upload to iTunes Match, it does not add the music to the playlist. You know, the playlist that I just added it to? I then have to go into albums and right click and select add to playlist. It gives me a drop down of all my playlists. I have about a hundred and eighty thousand of them. Yeah, that’s easier than having two windows.

Anyway, the real inspiration for this particular waste of server memory is Monday Night Football. I don’t have the television on, but I keep seeing Facebook and Twitter notifications popping up with posts about the Patriots game. I live in New England. I suppose I identify myself as a Patriots fan. I just don’t live and die by football the way 95% of my fellow New Englanders do. I want my home team to win, but I am not going to get upset if they don’t.

However, all of this football buzz is making me think…

I could really go for some NHL hockey right now. A Bruins game would sure be a lot more interesting than a Patriots game. Hell, a Columbus vs Florida game would be more interesting to me. I’d park my largess down on the coach and watch the shit out of a game like that tonight.

Thanks a ton, NHL.

Travel

I can measure the time it took us to drive from Jen’s company Christmas party to our bed and breakfast in Rush albums.

With the iPod shuffling my Rush (studio records only) playlist by album, we heard:
Clockwork Angels
Permanent Waves
Grace Under Pressure
And the first track off of Snakes and Arrows. Three album and one song.

Time for sleep.

G’night.

Rush is Touring N. America in 2013

They made it official yesterday, although no dates have been announced yet.

Rush, having just this week completed the first leg of the Clockwork Angels tour, are going to be touring North America again next year. I haven’t missed a tour since 1987, but I came damn close this time. In fact, I failed to see a full show. We went to the opening night show in Manchester, NH with the kids, but a combination of sleepy children and my gorgeous wife’s bad back had us out of the building early in the 2nd set. I had tickets to the Boston show, but something came up at (literally) the last second and kept us away.

I would like to think that Rush decided to come back next year (assuming they come somewhere close enough for us to get to, although I have seen them as far away as Milwaukee, WI) specifically so I can see the 2nd set and the encoure.

I cannot wait!

As I sit in the living room packing up a suitcase or two (for what reason, I don’t know) I am listening to Clockwork Angels. I haven’t spun this particular platter in a month or two.

Yes, it is still the best Rush album since at least 1981, and it still may be the best album they have ever made.

Please come to Boston for the Springtime, oh Holy Triumvirate of Prog.

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