Saturday in the Park

Posted on October 3, 2011 by SusanG

So how did you spend your Saturday? I was invited to come out and see, listen to and support my friends play their first official gig at at a fund raiser. So on a cool fall afternoon I headed out to Matthews to the Skirmish at Stumptown to hang out and listen.

The event was a fund raiser for Presbyterian Hospital for Leukemia and Lymphoma. In all they got four bands to participate and they got Rock University to sponsor it. It’s the first annual of this event and I think for a first one and competing with Juried Arts Festival the turn put was pretty good. It wasn’t huge but it was ok. The park could easily handle more people. The location was nice and in spite of it being a bit on the cool side it was a pleasant day.

The first band up was Fusebox Poet and they were good. Most notable for me was their cover of Toto’s ‘Hold the Line’. I enjoyed their performance. Sorry guys I don’t remember the other songs they played. They did have a merchandise table so I’m going to bet they have a website.

Next up was Something Clever. They looked to be about mid-high school age. Aside from their age and the fact that they were good. What stuck with me was that they opened with the Alice in Chains song ‘Man in the Box’, they had a female lead singer an a female lead guitar player. You Go Girls! The final notable for this group is that their last song was due to get some local radio play the next day, it’s their first original and it’s playing on Reverb Nation. I was surprised and impressed.

Up next was Mayhem Loves Company. These guys looked to be about Junior High age and they played at least as well as The Dropkick Murphies do at a live show. In fact they kind of remind me of them in some of their style though maybe not substance. I wasn’t paying very good attention to the intro but I’m pretty sure they are a punk band. As I listened it turned out that for their style they are pretty good and they even managed a decent version of ‘Destroyer’ by the Kinks. And a tip of the hat to the Bass player who was, yes, you guessed it, female.

The last band, Horsefly was my favorite, for a few reasons. First, they are my friends and I get to jam with them periodically. Second, I could hear and understand their vocals best. And finally, I knew the songs. So all bias aside, they sounded great. Their lead singer rips it up when they play ‘House of the Rising Sun’ and the original tune they did was cool. It was right there in with the rest of what they play. They rapped it up with a whaling version of Cream’s ‘White Room’. I even caught some of the kids from the earlier bands paying respect by hanging out and watching.

My friends, the band, Horsefly

Even though it was cold by the end of the event it was a great time and all the bands sounded great. I was really impressed. All the bands were really great!

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Added the Links….

Posted on October 1, 2011 by SusanG

I have added the links for the Cool Online Science Projects.

You can find them under links under the category Online Science.

Enjoy.

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Cool Internet Science Projects

Posted on October 1, 2011 by SusanG

By now you have probably heard the story about the ‘gamers’ that helped find a key protein in the fight against AIDS just by playing a game. Did you know there are other cool things like that out there?

I read a bunch of different stuff and a while back I came across an article that sent me to a place where I could get involved in projects like the protein one. Things like comparing historical writings to help decipher what was written and folding proteins and several other projects that thanks to the Internet a solution can be crowd sourced. NASA even has one through JPL that is aimed at kids, not that adults can’t play, it has two aspects to it and one of those involves helping to match close up photos of the Martian surface with a less detailed view. The idea being to put the puzzle pieces together to get a more detailed view of the surface.

There are also the projects that want to use a little bit of your computer processing time to help them sift through data to find something. Or to process data for some final result. These are usually what I will call @home projects. Many have probably heard of the SETI@home project. It’s been around for years. You install a little program that goes out and grabs a bit of the data and then processes it looking for something, in the case of SETI it’s signs of intelligent life in the universe. There are projects for space and physics, you can do the LHC@home project, or chemistry or artificial intelligence with the Free HAL project.

I’ve been reading about these different things for several years and always think I’m going to try one of them and of course never seem to get to it. This week I finally downloaded the software and joined in. First I joined in the Milkyway@home project. It has to do with making a 3D rendering of the Milkyway using photos from one of the telescopes. I was going along happily until no more work was issued. Bummer. It looks like they might be doing maintenance or it’s waiting on the next process to be loaded. Still I have a computer sitting doing nothing. So I have joined SETI@home and I have joined Free HAL.

Right now it looks like I’m running stuff for both SETI and HAL. One of the bonuses of the process is the cool screensaver you end up getting with it. Whether it is just the BOINC one telling you what you are running or the one that SETI shows, it’s still cool.

I will try to get the web addresses for some of these sites and add them to the links in case anyone is interested. If we can’t have whirled peas we might as well help look for little green men and the Higgs boson.

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Why I Took the Plunge and Got an iPad

Posted on September 24, 2011 by SusanG

I had been investigating getting a tablet device of some sort. I had finally decided on the iPad and yet I felt like it could wait a little while, maybe closer to the holidays. However, the prospect of so much to get done made the potential boost to productivity and organization very appealing.

I got to thinking about how I could write blog articles on my lunch break, or watch computer programming and university lectures a lunch or even at the gym. I could switch to eBooks and save my back and my wallet and not have to carry as much stuff. I could put my contacts and such on it. I, of course, can have music on it. Even better, I  can get GarageBand for it. I started really formulating a plan for how I could and would use this thing in a manner that would really justify getting it now.

So with this all in mind I went and got my iPad. It’s a 16GB iPad2 with wi-fi only, so no 3g cellular service. Yes this is the little one. I chose to start small because while I believe I will use it like crazy and get to a point where I think life without it is tragic, I want to be sure of that. I also want to see how I really do end up using it. What do I do with it? Do I watch more podcasts and lectures or more streaming content? Do I listen to music more? Do I, maybe, use a bunch of appps that are for productivity or utilities or education or do I default to just games? Do I actually get around to using it as an eReader and what sort of difference does that make? Time will tell.

I can tell you what I’ve done so far and what some of my plans are. So far I’ve written two blog articles on it, one during my lunch break and the other at 6:00am from my cozy bed. I’ve also watched a TED lecture, in podcast form, on my lunch break. I watched another podcast while on the elliptical machine at the gym. I didn’t even notice the effort I was putting out and ended up working harder that usual. I’ve watched several lectures for an MIT Open Course Ware class. I’ve watched these while making and eating dinner, and even while working on a piece of art. I’m also using the calender for appointments and I’ve got an app to use as a ‘To Do’ list that even has reminders. I’ve also got the WordPress app for posting to my blog and it allows for managing/approving comments. And I’ve watched some streaming content from a couple of news sites and NASA. That’s so far, and I’ve only had it a week and a half.

My current plans for using my iPad include more of the MIT lectures, I want to actually complete the course. Well, at least the lectures. I’m also planning on using it to view the course lectures for the AI class at Stanford that I have signed up to take, with 115,000 other people. I’m planning on getting GarageBand and an iRig so I can record some rhythm guitar parts and begin to learn to play lead guitar over that. Switching to eBooks is also on the agenda. Given some of the cool apps I’ve come across, I’m certain I will find much more that I can and will do with my iPad.

 

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My Trip to the Guitar Center

Posted on September 21, 2011 by SusanG

I got an iPad a couple of weeks ago. I’ll get to why I did it in another post. One of the cool things. About the iPad and the Mac is the app or program called GarageBand. If you haven’t seen it, stop in an Apple Store and have some one show it to you. It’s very powerful and robust for a $15 program for the Mac and a $5 app for the iPad. It’s so cool that Guitar Center has teamed up with Apple to offer a four week course on recording with GarageBand.

I’ve decided it might be time to learn to play lead guitar or at least be able to play the occasional solo. While I could just try it at one of the next Blues Jams I prefer to be a little prepared. So I’ve come up with the idea of using GarageBand to record a 12-barre blues rhythm track and maybe throw a basic drum track behind it. Then I can record it in whatever key, or just record it once and change keys. Once that’s done I can loop it and play solos over it forever until I feel like I’ve got a style or phrasing that I like.

With this all in mind I signed up for the class and hauled myself off to the local Guitar Center on a fairly cold Saturday morning. The class was cool and there was a bunch of good info and think I’m going to go back for the next class.

Equally as cool was the experience I had as I was heading out. The store manager there goes to the same blues jam that I do and he’s good. He and the other guys that play together really do shine. They’ve also got a band that plays around. I didn’t really figure I stood out that much at the jams but I’m going to go with he’s observant. Anyway, as I’m leaving he stops me and asks if I’m going to the next jam and we got to chatting about the experience and such. He also gave me a nice tip on finding the right place to play in the box based on the key. I can’t wait to try this.

My rabidness regarding playing music has fortunately mellowed over the last month or two. Unfortunately it means I don’t play as much, either at home or out. I was starting to wonder if perhaps I was pulling away from that group that I was so happy to find and get to be a part of when I first moved to the area. The visit to the Guitar Center and with the store manager made me realize that that is a group of people I enjoy and an experience I enjoy and it allows me opportunity to stretch and grow. More importantly it gives me a connection to a community. We may not be that close knit but they do care and are very patient and accepting and we all need those connections.

What it means for me is that I need to make time for those opportunities. I may be knee deep in some other project but if it’s jam night, I think I’ll be going. Though probably not more than about twice a month. That’s just enough to get in some camaraderie and yet not get totally consumed by it to the exclusion of all else.

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