Burning DVD's with iDVD

For those of you at work on Christmas Eve trying to burn a DVD for your wife to give to a friend of hers as a gift, let me give you some recommendations after you've seen iDVD crash three times on your G5 without even starting to burn. (How's that for a quality run-on sentence? That's so fine, I think I'll just leave it in here).


a) Throwing the computer out the window in flames to tumble all 11 floors down to the parking garage is not the answer. Even though it may look really cool, it will probably result in a pink slip.

b) Re-installing iDVD from scratch is a good thing. It appears to fix things up great. Make sure you immediately update to 4.0.1 without ever launching it. Why this works, I do not know. Usually I look at recommendations like this in user to user forums with great skeptism right along with "rebooting", "repairing permissions" and the best one "redo-prebinding". This time however, it does appear to be working (ie I haven't crashed yet).

c) Last but definately not least, uncompress this file into your home directory. Believe it or not, this exposes an easter egg that allows you to make iDVD save to a disk image. When you go to burn, control click on the burn button instead of just normally clicking on it, and this gives you the option of burning to a disk image. Even better, you can mount these disk images and play them in the standard Apple DVD app to check your "DVD" before you actually burn it using the Disk Utility. No more frisbees! I wonder which Apple Engineer let that little egg out...and why Apple hasn't allowed this feature all the time?

Anyways, a couple of hundred transitions to go, and then I'm out of here ;-)

Happy Holidays all!

It's not even out yet!

My wife is probably going to make me sleep on the couch for saying this, but the series is not that great.

The new Harry Potter is already topping the amazon book charts and it's not even out yet. What truly scares me is the purchasing power of the under-15 demographic. This book was only announced 24 odd hours ago.

Week 20

We had our mid term ultrasound this morning...I can't believe we are half way already! We got some insight into what we might be expecting. The doctor was 90% sure; said we might want to hang onto reciepts just in case though. He said that we will be able to make a more accurate guess sometime around the middle of May :-)

I won't post the results in case anyone does not want to know, but if you are interested drop Dave or I am email.

Best Wishes For Bruce McKinnon

I just found out that one of my best friends growing up is in the hospital today getting a lung removed. Bruce has been fighting cancer for several years, and proving it's the little miracles that happen every day that count. When he was originally diagnosed several years ago, the doctors weren't willing to give him more than 6 months. For those of you who don't know Bruce, suffice it to say that he is one of the most intelligent, talented, personable people that I've ever met. He and I sort of parted ways during high school when we headed to different schools, but have always managed to keep in touch. Every couple of years we get together, and it's like we'd never been apart.

Keep Fighting Bruce! There's a lot of us out here thinking of you.

Here's a quick clip of Bruce on the piano playing "I'll Get By" from his album "Something To Live For".

My 15 minutes of anonymous fame

Well, my 15 minutes are up, and I'm not even named :)

Check out paragraph two.

Oh well...it's a cool ad. You can check it out in the WSJ when it goes live (tomorrow I think!)

Gotta Love Leviticus

Senator Rick Santorum
Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sen. Santorum:

Re: "Federal Marriage Amendment":

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your speeches on the Senate floor in support of a Constitutional amendment against "gay" marriage. I am now trying to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them, as you said, that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

iTunes For Canada

Hurrah! Finally....

MacCentral: Apple opens iTunes Music Store in Canada

Some new pics

hi everyone! I just got back from a nice quiet weekend at the lake, where my nearest neighbours were the McManus's and therefore my sources of entertainment included crossword puzzle books, the piano, and... my camera. Here are a couple of the shots I got. Actually... let's cancel that. Dave, what the &^*&^* happened to the "attach file" button that used to be here? Suddenly my image of being fantastically computer savvy is exposing the idiot I really am!
PS-- Happy Christmas Carol Day! It's now legal to listen to Christmas music for the next 25 days.

No Blog Spamming For You!

Hey folks...as you've probably all seen (except for Dad who's never posted anything :( ), we've been recently hit by some blog-spammers. I think I should now have that under control. So hopefully no more ads for online gambling, cialis, or 9 inch extensions.

As a side note, I also upgraded WordPress from 1.03 to 1.2.1. If anybody has any problems, let me know.

Now, off to bed for me.

Happy Birthday Bren!

Since nobody else posted it, and I've just got 11 minutes left, I just wanted to wish Bren a happy birthday!

Just for you, there's 161 ways to say Happy Birthday!.

Hope you had a good one.

Week 17

Here is the summary for this week...no, this does not mean we know it is a girl, that is just how they referred to it in the article.

At 4 to 5 inches long and about 7 ounces, your baby is roughly the size of a large pear. And she's ripening--the brain, muscles, nervous and circulatory systems, and urinary tract are all functioning. Amniotic fluid is pumping through her lungs. Her skeleton, composed of rubbery cartilage, will harden later

Travel Tips For Backpackers

I was going through some old files, and found this one that Jen and I put together when we were travelling. Feel free to add your own to the comments, and I'll add them to the page.

Girly Man?

Even though two of us are wearing skirts, who do you think looks like the girl in this picture? Love ya' Bren! ;-)

Dresser and End-Tables For Sale!

Anybody want a beautiful dresser? With two gorgeous end tables? We've been trying to get rid of it for a while on Craigs List, but nobody seems to be biting.





Please contact us if you are interested, or leave a comment.

Happy (US) Thanksgiving

Hope everybody who celebrates it had a Happy US Thanksgiving. Mr. Paduan provided us with a fine feast, and Aki provided comic relief by chasing after his cats all night. We ate very well, even if the Turkey couldn't figure out what time it was supposed to be done. Being Canadian expats living in the States we are used to double-dipping on the Turkey, much to our pleasure. This year we actually triple-dipped on the turkey (maybe that's why I didn't do as well in my race) in that we had dinner with my folks, the Evans family, and at Paduans. No pictures of any of it, but here's some pictures we took near CDN Thanksgiving from a wedding we attended in Canada.

Craig, Flo, Jen and I dressed up with somewhere to go	Tara Watson (née Shaw) and her new husband Scott
The rose between one drunk thorn, and one who hasn't drunk enough	We're in Canada now baby! Snow and a Timmies! Does it get any better?

Virgin Mary Sandwich

A forward from Mom.... and sorry Dave, I still don't know how to "blue" it. If I had a spare $20,000 this would be a fantastic investment, don't you think??
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/16/ebay.sandwich.ap/index.html

re: fetal PrOn

As per the bottom photo, you can now understand why we refer to it as our little alien:-)

Fetal Pr0n

We're going where no other website dares to go...and you thought kiddy porn was illegal

Here's your first glimpse at online fetal porn! Three shots of a naked fetus! You are all sick I tell you, staring at this poor defenseless creature, who's receiving absolutely no compensation for these pictures. We do guarantee however that the fetus shown in thesepictures are above 5 wks of age....only a complete sicko would post shots of anything younger.

Enjoy!


BTW the title is not a typo

Week 13

Here is the latest on our little alien:

Your Baby
At the end of this week, your baby officially enters the second trimester of development. Although only 3 inches from crown to rump and weighing just half an ounce, it looks, well, human! It's eyes have moved from the sides of it's head to the front, and it's ears are in their normal position. It's also got reflexes--if you prod it, it'll squirm (although you still won't feel it), and it's hands and feet respond to stimuli by closing or clenching.

The photo on the web site is pretty cool, but i could not figure out how to download it...maybe for the next update I will.

Life In Tanz!

Shannon...I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of updating your "Life In Tanz" stories so they were a little more readable. If you'd prefer them to go back to the originals, please let me know and I'll put them back.

Happy Hallowe'en

Some quick hallowe'en postings:

• How to scare the kids away this year


• Give peas a chance! (If you don't get the reference, click here)


• Enjoy the trick-or-treating

Yes I am procrastinating ;-)

RSS/RDF/Atom Feeds

If the above is meaningless, please click here before continuing. Now that everybody's up to speed, I can tell you that I finally fixed up the RSS on the blog. So you can be updated in REAL time. WooHoo! <sarcasm>With all the posting activity going on here, the up to the minute news will be really useful.</sarcasm>

At the bottom of the page you should be able to find the direct URLs if your aggregator can't find them for you. You can also use this neat little tool to track down rss URLS.

My personal favorite aggregator is NetNewsWire because it's interface is great, but at $40 USD it's not cheap. There's also Shrook ($24.95) and Amphetadesk (Free) if you prefer cheaper options.

The Gospel Experiment

In Jen's post below about Sarah McLachlan, she forgot to mention about The Gospel Experiment. Normally I'm not that big on religion in general, but I thought this was an interesting idea. If you've got $10 to donate, Mike would appreciate it. I've chatted to him a bit, and he seems like a cool guy (and he's Canadian too!). Thanks to Jon Reid for letting me know about this.

Time to vote?

More hilarity from Jibjab! These are the same guys who did "This Land is Our Land!".
Also, everybody's favorite GWB quote.

Must be shared

I am surprised Dave did not post this already, but I have watched it 3 times now and can't get over it. It must be shared! This is a sarah McLachlan video that looks poorly done, until you realize where all the money went. Read fast, or as in my case, watch it a couple times. I find it pretty emotional, but that may have something to do with the hormones...

Many of our friends will have already seen it, and thanks to Jon for the initial link.

Enjoy

watch the video...

Michael Moore

OK... I was posting those pics at 2:30am so I didn't have a chance to write much more, for those of you who are asking. Basically the tour is called "The Slacker Uprising 2004" and he's doing it in 61 cities in 4 weeks. (2 cities a day!) His ambition is to get all of the non-voters (ie: slackers) to go to the polls and vote for Kerry. He said, "Sleep in, drink beer, vote for Kerry" and then threw clean underwear and Ramen noodles ("slacker staple food") to everyone who promised to get out and vote.
Moore also showed some "Vote Bush" commercials that he had made-- they were really funny. One of them was along the lines of, "When Senator John Kerry was being shot at in Vietnam, what did he do? He DUCKED." (This is said over a video of a soldier being rained on by bullets and ducking behind a tree). "Do you want a president who ducks?" (Shot of GWB being egged on his inauguration day) Then big letters "VOTE BUSH"... with an American flag being flown upside-down. He had 5-6 of them and had all 10,000 people laughing.
Prior to going into the media conference, I chatted with some protesting Bush supporters in front of the arena. One guy was telling me that Bush was totally justified in invading Iraq, because they found the tail of a plane buried in the sand there. "...and what else is buried there in those sands? We had to find out!"
When I asked him how many weapons the US has at the moment, he said, "Well... we're down 47% from what we had during Clinton's regime..."
I said, "So they're not as dangerous as the WMD that could potentially have been found in Iraq?"
He laughed, "Oh... our weapons are of a much higher calibre than what you'd find over there..."

It's hard to believe that there are people out there like that.

One Bush supporter is alledgedly half-Lebanese and half-Iraqi. I greeted him in Arabic. He could say hello, but not respond to "how are you", because he can't remember any Arabic. He couldn't read my Arabic necklace, either, and can't remember anything about his childhood in Lebanon, but was using his nationality as a selling point for GWB. That was really strange, because he seemed to have a heavy accent. I was wondering if he wasn't faking it.

Anyway... I think MM's speeches and presentations were really effective, and after interviewing a lot of people after the show, that seems to be the general consensus.

Whooee! Not only did we get FRONT ROW seats to see this guy live in Seattle....

Yay Michael Moore!!!

...but we got to see a very cheap surprise concert by Eddie Vedder...

(the lead singer of Pearl Jam)

...and we also scammed our way into the press conference!

(free books and DVDs! Whooee!)

The Phantom!

Shan/Mom I thought you may appreciate this

Stupid Fact Of The Day

Jolly Ranchers are not kosher

You now may continue on with your day...

If you are interested, here's more info on kosher.

Illustrator???

Some more amazing work done with Illustrator.

Warning! This page could take a while to load, but the pictures are absolutely mindblowing.

House inspiration

Being an engineering type guy myself, I really like a couple of ideas in here.

Dilbert's Ultimate House (DUH!)

Shake your booty thang!

We had a good sized earthquake south of here the other day; about 150 miles away. It hit about 6.0 on the Richter scale. Jen didn't feel it at all in Morgan Hill, but we had a good shake in the office. Interestingly, Jen was about 20 miles closer to the epicenter than I was. We felt another one at the office today, but nowhere near as big. Here's a list of recent quakes in our area, and here's a map with the most recent quakes (last week).

To Pioneer Basin....and beyond!

Chris Paduan and I went for a short hike in Inyo National forest. Story will come tomorrow, but here's some quick pictures.

Hey Mom look at me!

I started dirt jumping last week...i got some cool pictures of it today! It's a lot of fun...there is only this one jump though at UBC, it's got about a ten foot gap, although it's table topped...but when you're falling from the height the jump shoots you...you wanna make that gap otherwise it's pretty rough. But we're going to move on to the bigger jumps which are over passed where shannon lives...and soon i'll be able to say "Look mom no hands!" aren't you excited?? i sure am...

soo very very sexy....

mmmmm....i want it...
'nuff said...

Pics from Malibu

Here are a few shots from when Mom and I were at Malibu almost 2 weeks ago... drove up the Sunshine Coast and then took a 3-hour boat ride to get there. Nice place!!!

Good Book

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, by mark haddon

(and yes, he is like e.e. cummings with the small-letter fetish)

A very good book about a kid with autism. Couldn't put it down. Check it out!

Africa the Beautiful

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3655190.stm

Thank god for Arnie...

I'm so happy when I hear about them passing laws for the really pressing issues.

My question is:

HOW ON EARTH DID THE FIRST BILL STALL IN A LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE?

One would think that this one would be a pretty obvious slam dunk, and not require too much thought. I'd just to like to know which of our paid officials stuck up their hand and said "Well, I don't know...what happens if they die as you're doing it...can you be charged then? How about if they're only mostly dead? I think we'll have to consider this one..."

Thanks to Noelle and her bloggy goodness.

Sorry Mom...

Dr. Carter to retire?

From the "Oh my god, who thinks of these things?" Dept.

Shan, this one is for you.

Just type in commands, and see what happens. Also, make sure you print out the mask.

If it's you in the suit, I don't want to know about it.

Thanks to Michelle for pointing this one out.

Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness

These are for you Shan!
Since I know you love this type of stuff. Thanks to Noelle and friends.

Origami Anyone?

There's an origami convention going on in Tokyo this weekend. Click here, here, or here to see some examples of what a real pro can do. Here's some instructions, if you like to try your hand at it.

Garden State

Chris, Jen and I went out last night to see Garden State. It was written, directed and stars Zach Braff whom you may recognize from Scrubs, and Natalie Portman, whom you will recognize from the latest Star Was flicks. Jen, Chris and I all really enjoyed the movie. I think if you enjoy "Eternal Sunshine of the Endless Mind", "Being John Malkovitch", or "O Brother, where art thou?", you will probably enjoy Garden State. If your tastes tend to run more to Alien vs. Predator, wait for the DVD.

The plot is pretty simple. A guy from LA whose been on some form of drug all his life to control his "psychotic" tendancies goes home to New Jersey for his Mom's funeral. While he's there he catches up with old friends, his family, and meets a girl. It doesn't sound like much, but it's quite a funny film in a funny way. I found often you weren't sure if you should be laughing or not. I often heard Chris laughing out loud, and then the rest of the audience laughing after him, like they were using him as a judge as to whether or not it was appropriate to be laughing at a given scene. Either way, it's a funny deep movie without being too full of itself, and I found it extremely easy to relate with even the quirkiest of characters. Also after years of spewing out George Lucas' brutal scripts, Natalie Portman actually gets a chance to show us what a phenominal actress she really is. All in all, I'd say that Garden State was one of the better movies I've seen this year.

Zach Braff has posted a blog here which is a pretty good read.

As a side note, Jen used to ski with Sarah Chalke from Scrubs up at Whistler...I guess that gives me 3 degrees of separation from Zach. Lucky him :)

Chris Rock Quote

Chris Rock's "Quote of the Day!"

"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy,  the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon'. Need I say more?"

Movie

If any of you are interested, you can check out the movie that I am volunteering with as photographer/sound editor here:

http://thehamstercage.irreverentmedia.com

(Check out the first video in the "Making of" section... it's pretty funny.)

An interesting commentary on the division of church and state

Not exactly safe for work

If for some reason you can't play "mp4" files, here's a link to a whole bunch of other different versions,

Mouth-To-Snout

This one is for Taita

This land is law land!

If you haven't checked out George and John's duet yet do it quickly. Then check this out:

Publisher peeved at political parody. - Jul. 26, 2004

So sad....

Teeter-Tooters...not like we knew them

This was a rather interesting toy they had set up in the playground for the slopestyle...10ft step up onto it, 20ft long i think, and don't forget half way through as you're riding up this thing...you unbalance it do it tips you down...hence 'teeter toter', and a 15ft drop off the end...nobody fell off it...one guy fell on it, got back up and managed to ride off...came pretty close to falling off! I think the rider in this is Wade Simmons, but it may be Kyle Straight...not sure though...not that you guys really care anyway! whaddaya think mom?

CRANKWORX!!!

the festival was amazing...i am awed, inspired, pumped, and eat sleep dream live and love riding that much more now...i couldnt' beleive some of the stuff guys were pulling, and trying to pull off. Incredible! and I got to see all my idols up close...which was great. THis is probably the best of the most impressive pictures i got while i was there...this is Thomas Vanderham during the slopestyle...one of the tricks i wanna learn to pull...if you don't know who Vanderham is, he's one of the best extreme freeriders/downhillers in the world...and from Canada!

Back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSA

Well we have had a very busy last week and a bit since returning from our Canadian vacation. I turned around on Friday morning, packed a bag and my horse, and headed to the Salinas Rodeo, a very well known rodeo that happens about 45 minutes south of Morgan Hill. We participated in the parade on Saturday and Sunday which is 4.5 miles long. There were several other horses parading...I would guess the string spread out for about 1 mile. It goes through downtown Salinas and ends at the rodeo grounds where we circle the rodeo track in the opening ceremonies. We won first prize in our category on Saturday and i got to pick up our award!

Check out photos from the event...

Retail Therapy

$704 later, and I am the proud new owner of a Digidesign M-Box and Pro Tools LE which is compatible with my fancy OSX computer. I'd better get famous... soon... Anyone want to buy me a full-size, weighted keyboard for $1500? I'll write a song for the first volunteer.
.... and if anyone wants to get me a Shure 57 dynamic mic, I'd be forever indebted to them.... I am centimetres away from having my own recording studio at home now!

Fun with US Politics

Just some quick links for those who enjoy their US politics:

This land belongs to you and me!

The Bush Game (give yourself about 30 minutes to "enjoy" this one!)

The Dubya Deck (and the Dubya dog toy too)

Doughnuts in a blender?

Krispy Kreme introduces glazed doughnut frozen beverage - Jul. 21, 2004

At 730 calories per 20 oz serving, that's 150 more calories than a Big Mac. I love the end of the article which says "it currently does not have plans to introduce low-carb versions of the new drinks".

Spam Mail goodness

Sometimes I think Spam Mail is almost getting to be an artform in it's efforts to bypass Spam checkers. Check out this piece of literature that beat my spam checker:

Clearly, Molina relates more to his present incarnation as a long-suffering
Jew menaced by Cossacks than as Spidey's nemesis. But Molina, the son of
Spanish father and an Italian mother, has never really had to identify with
his characters to succeed.
"The phone system is probably the most sophisticated phone system ever put
together in the country. It allows for the most participation that we could
figure out how to do in a household," Berman said.

BRENNAN: GARBANZO COURSE MARSHAL!!!

OOHHH YEAH!!! I AM A COURSE MARSHALL!!! meaning I will be IN THE MIDDLE of the race...I will have the best views, I will be just a few feet away from the riders as they race past me!!! THIS IS SOOO COOL!!!! I better have my camera by then...cause i'm going to have an excellent photo opportunity! THIS IS GREAT!! i didn't think i'd get this position! ...and shannon those are amazing photos!

Lightning

I thought that you might be interested in seeing some of the lightning shots that I got at the lake a couple of weeks ago... they're a bit fuzzy, but I am glad that I caught some at least!

Webmaster

Thanks for getting things working again. We think that you make a great webmaster--but no more screw-ups, okay? Bren has trouble accessing my credit card when the system is down. :-)

Webmail back

Hey all...webmail was down today because your favorite System Admin screwed it up. Sorry about that. You should also be able to log into your file areas again as well. Thanks to Shannon for pointing out the problems.

Why don't I still live in Africa?

I love it....

Click Here!

PS- how do I make that blue and clickable, Dave? :)

Perils Of Doc Ock!

Got this from Chris Paduan.

For all you Spiderman and Lego fans out there, check this masterpiece out.

After that, check out their interpretation of Star Wars

WOHOO

I MADE IT! got a call today asking for me to work two shifts on saturday!!! on the GARBANZO DOWNHILL!!! that's like the biggest downhill race in the world!! 3400 vertical ft of descent!!! OOHH YEAH!!! i'm so pumped...this is awesome.

Shuswap Update

Dry wall is complete on three walls of the laundry room. Now we need to make a town run to get more supplies. The front closet is receiving loving attention. Main floor bathroom may see some insullation and new walls soon. In that we have a week with no guests here, it is easier to work on construction. The painter (more commonly known as Mom) has her brushes ready as soon as the mudding is complete. Progress...

Scam or warning?

I received this letter from a friend. What do you think? I looked up area code 809 and it is in the Dominican Republic. Any comments?
Subject: 809 AREA CODE

Fun in the sun!

OOHH YEAH!!! check out where i'm going next weekend!!! Hopefully i'll get the volunteer position i applied for...that way i get free t-shirts, mountain bike passes all sorts of stuff!! it's so cool, i can't wait to be there...basically all the biggest names of downhill mountain biking will be there...i'm so pumped!!

We got Gran online!

Finally had a chance to get Gran up and going on MacLachlans.net so everybody now has their mail working correctly. You can now reach her at both her jetstream account, and at gran@maclachlans.net.

What Is Your Soul's Trait?

Stole this one from Noelle's blog:

What Is Your Soul's Trait?
I got:

Your soul is OPTIMISTIC. You tent to look to the brighter side of things, and your positive outlook on life makes others happy. People love your open, unassuming nature and your innocent belief in good for you, the grass on your side of the fence is always greener. You are rarely, if ever, pessimistic or doubtful, and you try your hardest to make life the best it can be, for yourself and others. You are a joyful and radiant soul.

Notice the joyful and radiant bit...;-)

Becoming A Webpage Builder

I have successfully put a picture of me with bad hair onto my webpage. Dave, my guru brother, I need some quick advice as to how I can make some links to my Life in Tanz stories, résumé, and how to post it all. I tried reading the HTML document but it was only slightly more clear to me than it would have been had it been written in Chinese. That could have to do with the fact that I spent all day on my computer writing stories, looking stuff up on the web, and trying to find a job. I did successfully add some more (slightly higher-quality) pics to my website if anyone is interested.

Rebuilding Iraq

A classic from Kieran...

Just For Shan...a nice Halbadiri

A Tanzanian member of parliament has threatened to place a death curse on all ministers if the government does not do more to fight corruption.

Can I just say that I wish I had the title "Minister of State for Good Governance"? We need one of those here.

82 73 80 66 111 98 (0x52 0x49 0x50 0x42 0x7F 0x62)

Bob Bermer the inventor of ASCII passed away today.

This reminds me of one of the all time best signs I've ever seen.



For those of you who aren't fluent, here's a cheat sheet.

Too much time...

Someone with WAY too much time on their hands. Then again, what's it say about me that I read the entire thing.

BTW we went out last night to see The Terminal. Personally I (and Jen, Anna and Carla...my lovely dates for the evening) all gave it the big two thumbs down. My comment as the credits rolled was: "There's two hours of my life I'll never get back..."

True Illustrators

I can't draw to save my life. I've always wanted to be able to draw, but for some reason I just have never been able to accomplish anything more exciting than a stick figure. Maybe I enjoy my work so much because enabling others to do amazing work is a sad attempt to make up for my lack of drawing talent. This is a small portfolio of some of the amazing things done using Illustrator.

Technical Drawings
Drawings done for architectural or design work

• Schulz Museum - Gary Newman


• Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship - Kevin Hulsey Illustration

Realistics Drawings
These are not photos...these are drawn by hand from scratch

• Horn - Koji Masui


• Lettuce - Koji Masui

Artistic/Stylistic
Drawings showing how to duplicate natural media or more traditional artistic techniques

• Myself am hell - Egypt Urnash


• Beautiful and colorful lotus - Anonymous

Let me know if you enjoy this type of posting, and I'll keep my eye out for other nice images. I'd like to thank Todd Macadangdang for Illustrator World.

Women Drinking Tea! Crazy Talk...

Praise Allah for teleconferencing.

The last quote is the best though...

It's easy to laugh and/or cry about some of the "antiquated" ideas in that article. We shouldn't laugh too hard though. This article is an interesting study of how much bogus-science we're being fed each day. I hear people (myself among them) quoting some of this stuff like it's gospel all the time too...

Just for my wife...

Neat Horse Pictures!
What could be better than that?

Actually I found them through this: The LinkSquare Project. Thanks Noelle!

Cool Commercial

Not the I want to be pimping for Nike, but this is a pretty cool commercial.

Also, added another shot to the SJMB Tri collection. Thanks to Deric and his wife. Click on the small image for a larger one.

SJMTB Pics!

Added some pics (and did some editing) for my latest race. You can check them out here.

Dave's Big Score!

Recently we had another supermall open in the area. Gilroy is just 40,153 people according to the Jan 2000 census, but it has a massive outlet shopping area, a Costco, a Walmart, a Home Depot etc. Just about every large warehouse type shopping experience can be had in Gilroy, except an Ikea. For some reason there is only one Ikea in the entire bay area, which seems weird. Getting back on subject, the new supermall is a little more upclass than some of the previous shopping areas that have recently opened in Gilroy. It includes some nice restaurants, a Best Buy, a SportMart, a Target (pronounced Tarjet by the discriminating shopper), and a Barnes & Noble. I'm actually excited about the Barnes & Noble, as until now, the nearest decent bookstore has been in San Jose, and shopping for books online, while convenient, just isn't quite as much fun as perusing the shelves to see if any of your favorite authors finally came out with a new book. George...I'm STILL waiting! It also has a Maui Taco stand, which in my book is one of the finer burritos to be had around, and it's right beside the Jamba Juice and the ColdStone Creamery which means Jen is happy to head down there as well.

San Jose Mtn Bike Sprint Triathlon Take 2

Just finished off my second San Jose Mtn Bike Sprint Triathlon. There's no pictures yet, but the details are here.. Hopefully we should have some pictures up soon.

From the "Dept. Of What??" Dept

A fun weekend in LA.

Busy Weekend

It's been a busy weekend. We went and saw the new Harry Potter at an early morning showing that Adobe had organized. I get a laugh everytime we go to one of these movies, because the movies start at 9:00, and that's an earlier time than most of the geeks I work with show up to work on a weekday.

From the "It's-the-spirit-of-the-law" dept

This is right up there with the Church of Holier than thou!

Since when does notepaper make anything valid? (read the second last paragraph).

Just in the spirit of things, here's the lyircs to The Huntin' Song

BTW kudos to the Flames for yet another excellent game. Of course going into overtime interfered with the run I had been planning to do, so I'm stacking my workout today, but it was worth it!

I think this article says it all though. Saturday night should be pretty cool no matter which way it goes.

New bike trail

if you wanna check out the bike trail that I have been working on click here! I have made some changes to it, so that it is more rideable...the entry is still pretty challenging...I need to put some grip tape on parts of it so it isn't too suicidal. And in case you are curious...its not all that obvious from the road...well unless you walk past. But driving past you can't see it! I dunno...maybe it will be torn down in favour of somethinge else...I hope not...lots of work went into it.

2 to go!!!

How about that sports fans?? 3-0. What a goalie!! Great games Flames.

Stream of conciousness

So a friend of mine pointed me to this site "More" about how success can change us. Watching it got me thinking about other movies I'd like to see such as this one. Watching that made me do a quick search, and I found this interesting little article and this one. Sounds to me like it's going to be a tough battle.

Anyways, that got me thinking about diets in general and lawsuits, which found this interesting factoid.

Oops, my build is done, so I'd better get back to work...enjoy!

1 Down 3 To Go

I forgot to mention Calgary's great win on Tuesday. 4-1....way to go guys. The first goal was a stroke of luck, but the rest of them were beautiful. As an interesting side note, check this out. Ever since the Sharks disappeared from the playoffs, people around here seem to have forgotten that the NHL exists ;-).

All Alone in the World...

What Colour is Your Brain?
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I'm blue. Is no one else out there compassionate and understanding? Does this mean that I am a wussy romantic weakling?

MyBrain

I'm Gold too, Jen. What does green say about you two guys?

ashamed??

i'm green too. and people think we're brothers...psh! wonder where they'd get that idea?

What color (colour) is your brain?

Sorry Dave, mine is Gold!


What Color is Your Brain?
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BTW, I know it is a little late, but if you guys ever find yourselves back in the middle east you may be interested in reading this important article:

Although, this story is based in Manhatten, so maybe it can happen anywhere.

Yes Dave, I finally made a posting.... :-)

Lord Stanley's Cup?

Way to go Flames! Hopefully that will cut down on the amount of teal that I have to see in and around the office.

In honour of this day, here's some interesting history about the cup. And here's some more history with a list of winners. Erin, please count how many times you see the Vancouver Canucks listed in the winners column (and no...the Millionaires don't count ;-) ).

BTW thanks to Lesley, here's a couple of pictures from last week.

A Cool Canadian some of us know

Believe it or not I just stumbled across this...

Check it out

Other interesting things I read today (thanks Noelle)
I'm not part of that 15%
Kind of like a word of the day calendar

To all you blind fools out there

OK you guys really are thick aren't you...Were all of you perverts drawn solely to the testicles in that picture so that you didn't see the large letters that said "CYRILS BRAIN"??? Thus stating that those were indeed not my testicles posted on the internet? And most of you who commented call yourselves computer engineers...doesn't that title require an education to achieve? :)

What Colour are you?

I actually think this is pretty accurate ;-)

BTW Flames 3 Sharks 0! Don't you love it how I only do write ups on the games the Flames win?


What Colour is Your Brain?
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PS Brennan...we've already seen pictures of your brain. We don't need to know what colour it is.

I can do this too

I was feeling sorry for Dave, the family's sole author, so I decided to help him out by posting a blog of my own. I just got back from another whirlwind weekend trip... this makes 3 in a row... maybe soon I will spend a weekend in Vancouver, seeing as I just moved here. On Friday afternoon, I drove to Canmore with Todd and Pam. We arrived sometime around 2:00am local time, after having had a nice stop at Moose Mulligan's with Doug and Opal McManus for dinner in Sicamous. We spent the night at the Rocky Mountain Inn, and when we woke up we walked outside and were surrounded by lots of people that we hadn't seen forever... uncle Rob, Tyler, Bill, Sandy and their Hartman kids, Andrea, Stacey and Brad Hartman, Jill, Kim, Erin, and Tracey (and their kids!)... Kristin and Shane's wedding took place on the edge of a lake reflecting the rockies in the background. They both looked fabulous and I think Shane's socks and tevas went well with his suit.
The reception went on until the wee hours and we had a great party before climbing back into the car yesterday morning and driving all the way back to Vancouver.
Next weekend I am back to the lake, then my friend Al the biker (http://www.roundtheworldbybike.com) will be here with his friend Duncan to visit. Yay! Here are a few pics of the last 2 weeks... 2 of me and my bros in San Francisco last week, and a few of the wedding this past weekend.

Great Big Weekend

Had quite a busy weekend. Scott, Lesley and I went for dinner with one Lydia (one of my co-workers) at a great Sushi joint in Japan Town (Kubotos). Jen was supposed to join us, but had her horse almost throw a shoe, and totally forgot about us, while she was busy reshoeing her horse. I don't think she was too upset, as she and Sushi aren't the best of friends. Saturday morning we got up and Scott, and Lesley dragged me into San Jose to do some work on their way to the epitome of Americana: The Baseball game (SF Giants vs. Pittsburgh Pirates). I worked for a bit, biked home (new record...74 minutes. Yes, I shaved off a whole 60 seconds), hooked up with Jen, and immediately turned around and drove back in to San Jose to pick up Lydia on our way up to San Francisco to hook up with Scott and Lesley to go see one of our favorite bands, Great Big Sea, in concert at the Fillmore.

Rough Life In Mexico

Just a sample of what it looks like off of my parent's balcony at sunset....Of course one could ask why they aren't posting these types of things, but my Mom taught me that it wasn't nice to guilt trip people into using incredible website systems that you set up for them. Anyways...enjoy the picture.

It's a tough life eh? This shot just screams Corona and lime :)

Flames 2 - Sharks 0

Forgot to mention this the other night :-)

BTW Biked in from home to work (36 km) in 65 minutes (Avg 32.8 km/h). Not bad considering the last personal best I can remember was 70 minutes or so. There is some room to improve though. Lance Armstrong maintains 40.8 km/h (over the entire Tour De France!!!) which means he could do the same sprint in 53 minutes on a bad day.

I figure if I had the bike he has, I'd easily be under 50 minutes. It's all about the bike. Why are there no sarcasm tags in html? ;-)

View From Casa Leon

In case you already were not quite aware of just how beautiful our little Mexican casa is here are two views from you patio.

I'm old

Last Thursday I turned 30 years old. My incredible wife set up a whole collection of surprises for me, some of which I guessed about in advance, and others which were completely unexpected.

Hockey

What an amazing game!! What a talented team! Go Flames Go.

Muttawa Website

For those of you who might be interested in some incredible Saudi insight, check out this website.

Flames 1 - Sharks 0

One down...three to go. Flames 4-3 in overtime. Must admit I was a little scared in overtime...it really did look like the Sharks had it.

I am sad...

vs
I'm rather sad. Tickets for the San Jose-Flames playoff game went on sale at 10:00am this morning, and were soldout by 10:03. Needless to say, I didn't get the pair I wanted for game 2 on Tuesday night. I remember the good old days when only geeks knew about getting tickets via www.ticketmaster.com. Now I guess I'll have to go stand in line with all the "common" folk :). HP Pavillion is just across the street from Adobe, so it shouldn't be too tough to get tickets. Here's hoping the Flames win it in 5 so they can have 1 more game in San Jose.