So I'm really enjoying the new house. There are still a couple of rooms that are pretty much empty.....one downstairs, one upstairs. The downstairs will be my office as soon as we grab some french doors (or you may call them "freedom doors") to put on there....it's designed to be a living room or sitting area, but we don't have any use for that. The upstairs will be just another guest bedroom. The old office (I'm totally there right now!) will just be a fun room, probably keep the futon in there for guests.
Never running out of things to do to the home, but always running out of appropriate funds. Aside from cutting the grass, pulling weeds in the landscaping and keeping everything looking decent, I haven't done much to the outside......pretty soon I won't even have to cut the grass, suuuhhweeeeet.
So now we've got less than a week of Summer left and I'm facing the fact that I never got to go to the beach during the summer. We did stop in Biloxi and stay near the beach back in early June, but only for the night, didn't really hit up the beach except for a walk......and it wasn't Summer, it was Spring. I know, life is real hard....look at me complaining about not getting to go to the beach. Well, you have a point.........it's just the first time I haven't been to the beach EVER, and it only serves to remind me that I done gone and growed up. Bah.
The Dawgs are playing a lot better than I thought they would this season. Got seats for all the games, but I already know 1 game I'm not going to catch (homecoming game....usually pretty boring anyways, but this year's game is against Arkansas).
Still pluggin' away on TradeWind projects....currently handling a 35mm slide digitize. Got 240 slides to scan (got a new scanner for that, suuuuuuuhhhhhweeeeeeet) and then make a slideshow DVD with music. Also going to include the full res scans on the disc as data content in case the family wants to print any of the images. Got a end-of-the-month deadline on that, should be no problem.
Buying furniture is the most ridiculous set up ever invented. It's like a car, for those not aware, in that you see a price on a bed or table or whatever, and right away you know that only a sucker pays that price. They mark everything way up KNOWING that you will haggle....so, if you don't haggle, ::::poof::::: you're a sucker. Case in point....we just bought a china cabinet, floor model, and there was vitually nothing wrong with it. Very nice furniture, built solidly, made to last, very reputable store. Great, so the floor model was selling for about 20% off the regular price (keep in mind that the regular price is intended to be haggled). So, we're thinking that now that they've marked down the floor model, it reflects the true price for a new model, which means yep, we still have to haggle. Long story short, this weekend they didn't mark it down as much as we wanted, so we left. Twice. They called back yesterday and said okay. Sold. While I do feel a sense of victory, I have to remember that IT IS JUST FURNITURE AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE THAT I SHOULD HAVE TO BUY IT LIKE IT WAS A CAR. Insane. And what's the deal with financing furniture for 2 years? Seriously, it's JUST LIKE A CAR. Except that it's furniture....I guess it will probably last a lot longer than most cars though....
Nice sales lady overall, highly recommend her. Might even get some TradWind work out of her as she has some 8mm family film reels that she wants converted to DVD. Time will tell.
I have got to get out more.
My friend Eric sent me this absolutely HILARIOUS video a day ago and I've lost the link, but it is so funny......maybe Eric will post it here for us all to enjoy.
Meeting up with Andy and Abby for dinner tonight at their NEW HOME! They're also joining us for the game tomorrow, club seats in the end zone. HUGE congrats go out to Abby's brother who got a scholarship to play football with UGA starting next fall. Hunker down, Fred.
Big props also to Mike (his blog is currently MIA......for a while). He was "given the opportunity to fly F-16s as the primary Undergraduate Pilot Training candidate for the 125th Fighter Squadron at Tulsa, OK." This is big stuff, real proud of him. Apparently he's got about 3 more years of various training and such to get to that, but being given the opportunity at all is big time, so buy the man a beer and wish him luck.
Speaking of beer, I've got to head on in to work................so that I can afford beer.
9.16.2005
8.29.2005
Been a pretty busy month of work for TradeWind Productions (yeah, I know, not a whole lot on the website yet......still waiting on a logo, 'cause the one there right now...well, it ain't it). I feel like I learn something new every time I take on a new project, which is great.....although, learning curves can be dangerous when it's crunch time and something is due for delivery in a handful of hours.
So I'm having fun with that, and the new editing machine is pulling its weight. What a great investment...I'm saving so much time now, and so I can take on twice as much work. My day job is still fun, getting to do streaming video has it's own interesting twists and turns.
Oh, before I forget......HAPPY GAY FREAKIN' BIRFDAY TO ERIC! I think he turns 48 today....or 33. I forget.
We had a "housewarming" party a few weekends ago (if you can call it that after living there for over 6 months). What a freakin' blast! Got to chill with the buds and folks from Your Favorite Town and Athens......good times. We had WAY more food than we needed, so we all hogged out and drank way too much. Chilled around the fire outside and chatted about whatever. Cool.
In the middle of all the work and fun, Hil and I are planning out the weekends for the fall. Gonna be about 6 weekends where we'll be going to UGA football games, and that leaves a few others where we'd like to take some little trips. We want to get some folks together to go camping up in N. Georgia and do Oktoberfest in.....October (you should e-mail me if this sounds fun to you.....), and we were thinking about pulling a weekend getaway to Savannah, GA. I know what you're thinking..."Savannah? Why? What are you gonna do?" Well, they have a fun nightlife, and there's some neat historical tours we've always wanted to do down there but never had the time to do. One is a tour of haunted houses and such around the town, which is always a neat Fall thing to do. We're also thinking about putting together another camp weekend (well, probably just one night) out at Stone Mountain and catching one of the last laser shows for the year. Then there's always Furman Homecoming in Greenville, SC. Not even really sure if we're gonna do that this year because I don't know if any of the regulars are planning the trip. Not that I mind taking a trip just w/ my sweetie, but there's other things we could do if we're gonna be the only ones there (out of the group, anyways).
Now the hard part is actually figuring out 1) if we really wanna do all this stuff, 2) if we can really do all this stuff and 3) where our friends are at on all this stuff, because it ain't fun to be alone.
Now back to work......still plenty on today's plate.
So I'm having fun with that, and the new editing machine is pulling its weight. What a great investment...I'm saving so much time now, and so I can take on twice as much work. My day job is still fun, getting to do streaming video has it's own interesting twists and turns.
Oh, before I forget......HAPPY GAY FREAKIN' BIRFDAY TO ERIC! I think he turns 48 today....or 33. I forget.
We had a "housewarming" party a few weekends ago (if you can call it that after living there for over 6 months). What a freakin' blast! Got to chill with the buds and folks from Your Favorite Town and Athens......good times. We had WAY more food than we needed, so we all hogged out and drank way too much. Chilled around the fire outside and chatted about whatever. Cool.
In the middle of all the work and fun, Hil and I are planning out the weekends for the fall. Gonna be about 6 weekends where we'll be going to UGA football games, and that leaves a few others where we'd like to take some little trips. We want to get some folks together to go camping up in N. Georgia and do Oktoberfest in.....October (you should e-mail me if this sounds fun to you.....), and we were thinking about pulling a weekend getaway to Savannah, GA. I know what you're thinking..."Savannah? Why? What are you gonna do?" Well, they have a fun nightlife, and there's some neat historical tours we've always wanted to do down there but never had the time to do. One is a tour of haunted houses and such around the town, which is always a neat Fall thing to do. We're also thinking about putting together another camp weekend (well, probably just one night) out at Stone Mountain and catching one of the last laser shows for the year. Then there's always Furman Homecoming in Greenville, SC. Not even really sure if we're gonna do that this year because I don't know if any of the regulars are planning the trip. Not that I mind taking a trip just w/ my sweetie, but there's other things we could do if we're gonna be the only ones there (out of the group, anyways).
Now the hard part is actually figuring out 1) if we really wanna do all this stuff, 2) if we can really do all this stuff and 3) where our friends are at on all this stuff, because it ain't fun to be alone.
Now back to work......still plenty on today's plate.
8.03.2005
Totally rad.
So over the sales tax holiday, Hilary and I invested in my company in the form of a new editing machine. We shopped our good friends at Monarch Computer while they were knocking out the tax and also had rebates for just about everything we wanted. If the sales tax and rebates weren't there, I don't think I would have been able to buy such a boss machine.
I do feel like I had to scrap a couple of the things that I wanted to get on this machine just to bring the price down, but nothing integral...the machine will still run faster than any machine I've ever layed hands on. However, I did want 2GB of RAM (settled for 1GB) and I also wanted more storage (wanted 2 more of the 250GB SATAII drives to set up a RAID 5). Both of those things are easy upgrades though, and not very pricey either, so they will come in the near future. I really needed to get a fast, reliable motherboard, though, so I got the best one (and apparently one of the more pricey) I could find. It'll allow for processor upgrading in the long run, to keep this thing making money for a long time. For now, I got a nice fast processor from Intel that will maintain its value for a few years.
And of course I had to get the awesome case with the window and glowing lights (see links below for pics). Nice and roomy, making sure my new machine doesn't burn itself up from the massive heat it's gonna generate. Here's the general specs (most females and all non-techie males need not apply):
I should probably also tell you not to bother trying to figure out how much I spent, because we got a TON of money knocked off of that thing. I think it could have been cheaper if we stole it.
I still have the "old" machine (little over 3 years old) to help with more multi-tasking as well as any and all office-related tasks (spreadsheets, e-mail, web, etc)...however, now I gotta find a KVM switch.
Now that I've bored everyone to tears (except, of course, me....and all the techie gearheads)......I should say that I'm getting buried under all sorts of projects right now....slide shows, weddings, even a beauty pageant....all needing edits. Hopefully business won't slow down....ever....but at the same time, between that and my day job and just getting stuff done around the house, I am wishing for more free time. I think a wise man once said something to the extent of "you can sleep when you're dead."
So over the sales tax holiday, Hilary and I invested in my company in the form of a new editing machine. We shopped our good friends at Monarch Computer while they were knocking out the tax and also had rebates for just about everything we wanted. If the sales tax and rebates weren't there, I don't think I would have been able to buy such a boss machine.
I do feel like I had to scrap a couple of the things that I wanted to get on this machine just to bring the price down, but nothing integral...the machine will still run faster than any machine I've ever layed hands on. However, I did want 2GB of RAM (settled for 1GB) and I also wanted more storage (wanted 2 more of the 250GB SATAII drives to set up a RAID 5). Both of those things are easy upgrades though, and not very pricey either, so they will come in the near future. I really needed to get a fast, reliable motherboard, though, so I got the best one (and apparently one of the more pricey) I could find. It'll allow for processor upgrading in the long run, to keep this thing making money for a long time. For now, I got a nice fast processor from Intel that will maintain its value for a few years.
And of course I had to get the awesome case with the window and glowing lights (see links below for pics). Nice and roomy, making sure my new machine doesn't burn itself up from the massive heat it's gonna generate. Here's the general specs (most females and all non-techie males need not apply):
- Case: Thermaltake Tsunami Dream
- Power Supply: OCZ 520 watt ModStream
- Motherboard: Asus P5WD2 Premium
- Processor: Intel Pentium 4 640 (Hyper-Threaded) 3.2Ghz 2MB L2 Cache
- Memory: OCZ DDR2 PC2-4200 (533Mhz) 1GB (2x512)
- System Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB SATAII (8MB Cache)
- Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATAII (16MB Cache)
- Video: eVGA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB DDR3
- Optical: Pioneer DVR-109BK (OEM)
- Operating System: Windows XP Professional w/SP2
I should probably also tell you not to bother trying to figure out how much I spent, because we got a TON of money knocked off of that thing. I think it could have been cheaper if we stole it.
I still have the "old" machine (little over 3 years old) to help with more multi-tasking as well as any and all office-related tasks (spreadsheets, e-mail, web, etc)...however, now I gotta find a KVM switch.
Now that I've bored everyone to tears (except, of course, me....and all the techie gearheads)......I should say that I'm getting buried under all sorts of projects right now....slide shows, weddings, even a beauty pageant....all needing edits. Hopefully business won't slow down....ever....but at the same time, between that and my day job and just getting stuff done around the house, I am wishing for more free time. I think a wise man once said something to the extent of "you can sleep when you're dead."
7.19.2005
Industry Guru and Journalist Bob Turner Dies
How very sad for his family, of course, but also for the many of us out there that got a lot of valuable help and information from his years of experience and dedication to his craft. I have been reading his publications since right after I got out of school and have always found at least one new thing each time that I didn't know beforehand. Better yet, there was always some new knowledge that I could apply right away.
To have been taken away by something as difficult to cope with as cancer rather than simply old age is sad in itself. I never knew much about the man himself outside of his comprehensive knowledge of the industry, but from what I've read, he was quite the human being. I personally feel indebted for all that I was able to learn from him. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife and daughter.
To have been taken away by something as difficult to cope with as cancer rather than simply old age is sad in itself. I never knew much about the man himself outside of his comprehensive knowledge of the industry, but from what I've read, he was quite the human being. I personally feel indebted for all that I was able to learn from him. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife and daughter.
7.18.2005
As of today, we've got a new URL for this site, www.ChristianJolly.com. The .com has been available for a while now, and I decided to finally pick it up, just to make sure some other fool doesn't start spoutin' off stuff pretending to be me....or something like that. It's not active yet, but that's coming within a few days. (Thanks Mike!)
Also, coming soon, my new production company TradeWind Productions will launch at www.TradeWindProductions.com. I have been DBA (Doing Business As) Christian Jolly Productions since I started working on solo work, but since only about half of my jobs constitute true solo work, I decided I needed something more representative of all the folks that I usually work with. Plus, I liked the pleasant sound of it and just felt like it would feel professional and artistic, two things people (usually) look for. So it should be fun...not sure if it will be a sustaining income any time soon, but that's cool. I have fun. I don't have a site design or even a logo yet (it's being handled as we speak). I'll have e-mail up soon and a placeholder page, so in a month or so hopefully the site will be up there with pricing and contracts and all that junk. Wish me luck!
For that matter, let me know (in the comments, of course) what you think about TradeWind Productions. Obviously I've already committed to it, and I like it so much, but it'd be nice to hear some thoughts on it (besides the friends/coworkers/family that have already talked about it). And hey, if you've got a video production need, want some old movies cut to DVD or just want to make a slide show CD/DVD out of your old photo albums, talk to me and we'll hook it up.
In other news, went to the Reel Big Fish concert Saturday night....all the same folks were there, lots of fun. Might be RBF's last tour, so I definitely wasn't going to miss it. Went and hung out at Chris and Mike's new place up in BUCKHEAD before the show for some burgers and beers. I say Chris and Mike's place, but Adam lives there, too, and unlike Chris, Adam actually went to the RBF show. Chris, oh Chris....what measure of distraction must it have taken to forego such a rockin' show? We may never know.
In OTHER other news, Eric and I trekked up to Gwam and Mo's place near Carrollton (Hilary joined up for moral support and to also see how truly awful we sounded) to practice some SCizzAP a couple weekends ago, and I have some great news...we got us up a new song, and it is hardcore like none other. Well, maybe it's just awesome, and not so much "hardcore." We actually sound a lot better than we should given our practice schedule (or lack thereof...) for the last couple of years. Still, got to have some fun playing with an electronic drum set. Seems like we'd played one before, but I guess it was just my memories of Eric rockin' out in the drum room on one of our many trips to the now-defunct MARS music stores. The good days...
I gotta get back to regular posting....this once-in-a-while, post-1000-words-or-more blogging extravaganza is almost too much for even me to handle. Sheesh, hope you enjoyed my typing. I did it just for you.
Also, coming soon, my new production company TradeWind Productions will launch at www.TradeWindProductions.com. I have been DBA (Doing Business As) Christian Jolly Productions since I started working on solo work, but since only about half of my jobs constitute true solo work, I decided I needed something more representative of all the folks that I usually work with. Plus, I liked the pleasant sound of it and just felt like it would feel professional and artistic, two things people (usually) look for. So it should be fun...not sure if it will be a sustaining income any time soon, but that's cool. I have fun. I don't have a site design or even a logo yet (it's being handled as we speak). I'll have e-mail up soon and a placeholder page, so in a month or so hopefully the site will be up there with pricing and contracts and all that junk. Wish me luck!
For that matter, let me know (in the comments, of course) what you think about TradeWind Productions. Obviously I've already committed to it, and I like it so much, but it'd be nice to hear some thoughts on it (besides the friends/coworkers/family that have already talked about it). And hey, if you've got a video production need, want some old movies cut to DVD or just want to make a slide show CD/DVD out of your old photo albums, talk to me and we'll hook it up.
In other news, went to the Reel Big Fish concert Saturday night....all the same folks were there, lots of fun. Might be RBF's last tour, so I definitely wasn't going to miss it. Went and hung out at Chris and Mike's new place up in BUCKHEAD before the show for some burgers and beers. I say Chris and Mike's place, but Adam lives there, too, and unlike Chris, Adam actually went to the RBF show. Chris, oh Chris....what measure of distraction must it have taken to forego such a rockin' show? We may never know.
In OTHER other news, Eric and I trekked up to Gwam and Mo's place near Carrollton (Hilary joined up for moral support and to also see how truly awful we sounded) to practice some SCizzAP a couple weekends ago, and I have some great news...we got us up a new song, and it is hardcore like none other. Well, maybe it's just awesome, and not so much "hardcore." We actually sound a lot better than we should given our practice schedule (or lack thereof...) for the last couple of years. Still, got to have some fun playing with an electronic drum set. Seems like we'd played one before, but I guess it was just my memories of Eric rockin' out in the drum room on one of our many trips to the now-defunct MARS music stores. The good days...
I gotta get back to regular posting....this once-in-a-while, post-1000-words-or-more blogging extravaganza is almost too much for even me to handle. Sheesh, hope you enjoyed my typing. I did it just for you.
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