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February 28, 2005

I Dream of Snowboarding

*poof*

Todd, Trip and I are snowboarding, somewhere in America, but close to the Canadian border. We're all over the mountain and we're freakin' good! We burn through trees, slalom around all the slow people on the slopes, and launch massive air over frozen waterfalls – yes, waterfalls.

We're done for the day, so we head back to the room. On the way, we decide to stop at a rental store so Todd can buy a new beanie. In the store, there's a carpeted area where you can take a skateboard deck and ride around on a little two foot mini-ramp. So while Todd is looking around, kids are flying past us, since the entire section we're in is in the flat of the mini-ramp. I notice a concrete channel on one wall, it's purpose is to channel water when it melts outside. I don't question why it runs through the store, but I nod thinking what a good idea it was.

We all notice a door in the shop and wonder where it leads. The store worker explains that he doesn't know, but when someone is pounding on it at 3am, it's the scariest thing in the world.

It's the next day. We're on the slopes, shreddin' it up again. We get to the bottom and then we're back on the lift, headin' back up to the top.

*poof*

I wake up on a gravel road. I'm super upset because I know I was JUST on the ski lift. I have no jacket on, no snow pants, no boots. In fact, I'm shirtless and have on shorts. I look up and see a walking tour group up ahead, looking at one house that's being built.

I start to run. Past the people in the group and up the hilly gravel road. I'm heading to the only logical place – the hotel on the Canadian side of the border (which we weren't staying at). I run inside the hotel and demand to talk to the concierge.

I explain the entire situation and she understands my frustration... but she says that she can't do anything about it. Defeated, I go to the hotel hallway and sit down and leave a message on Todd's cell phone. Just then, the concierge grabs her suitcase and tells me to come along.

We get in her car and she starts driving to the mountain. She explains that she just quit and that she'll drop me off on her way home. I'm excited, but worried that I still don't have anything to go boarding with. While we're driving, she and I talk about how beautiful the city is. As we pass a park, I notice a softball game going on, and she begins to drive onto the field.

She stops the car at the pitcher's mound. I had just asked her what crime was like in the city and she explained that there was never any crime. As she said that, she reaches out her window and grabs a wad of cash that was on the ground, it belonged to the pitcher.

The car spits dirt all over the field as she speeds off, counting the money as she drives. $107 dollars. She's happy because that'll get her some good food, I tell her that it could help me buy a jacket to snowboard in. We stop at an office building.

*poof*

Posted by Seth at 09:43 AM | Comments (1)

February 24, 2005

Please, No Déjà Vu

I just returned from the Apple Store on the Plaza after picking up my computer! I'm excited to have it back... it's been nothing but final-unpacking and catch-up television this week. Now, instead of being lazy and pushing the fast-forward button, I can be lazy and surfing the web. WooHoo!

The Apple Technicians (wherever they are) diagnosed my computer with a bad Logic Board. While I'm not entirely sure what the Logic Board does, I find it odd that Apple iBooks have a problem with some of the ones in those machines. Could some bad Logic Boards have made their way into PowerBooks? I think it's possible.

I'm just happy to have my computer back now. The hard drive wasn't touched, so I don't have to re-install anything – shooooosh. Should be business as usual, except for the crashes. Fingers crossed (for luck, not for lying).


An Odd Note on Apple Branding

A year ago, the Apple brand was growing. This year, it's number one. There's no doubt that the iPodization of the world has done wonders for the brand, but Apple obviously knows how to market.

One of the things I learned in school, and have to keep reminding myself, is that you can't tell people how to think of a brand — in other words, the brand isn't what the company says it is, it's what the consumers say it is. I'm not sure how Apple made their brand so strong, but I think it has a lot to do with a very loyal consumer base (not to mention a superiority complex) and the fact that they extend their brand beyond television and print ads (ever seen the iPod boxes?).

Although Apple does a wonderful job in extending their brand virtually every where, the one place I think they (and many other companies) fail is on the phone.

Before I went to the Apple Store today, I decided to call and make sure that my personal data was put back on the machine. I called the phone number and was instantly dumped into a recorded message (press one for this, press two for that, etc.). Every option that was given to me was stated in this way:

To talk to someone about _________, press ___.

Simple enough... or so I thought. I had to hang up twice and listened to the options three times before I finally figured out how to get a hold of a real person. See, when they said "talk to someone" they really meant "listen to another recording."

For some of the options they were giving, that was okay – checking the status of a repair number, store hours, etc. – but I needed to actually TALK to someone, a human, and it took me three times to get there.

Not that three times is too many, okay, well, yeah it is. But the fact is, for a company that is number one in world-wide brand recognition, a company that is known for breaking boundaries when it comes to ease-of-use and simplicity, then why was it so difficult to talk to one person on the phone for literally 20 seconds? Guess maybe they're not number one in the world for customer service.

Posted by Seth at 02:07 PM | Comments (1)

February 23, 2005

One Day of TV

Hey, stop reading these old posts and go directly to the good stuff at Why24Sucks!

Almost four years ago I got hooked on a high-concept television show. The style of show had never really been done on television before, but had several stints in Hollywood... the idea of the show was to have it play out in real-time, where the events happened in a minute-by-minute time line. Critics and viewers were skeptical of this idea, but Kiefer Sutherland and Fox made sure that 24 was a success. From the first show, I was hooked, and I've watched the show every season since then.

Now, 24, like any other show, has its ups and downs. We suffered through seasons two and three with Kim getting into mess after mess, but we also stood up and cheered with Sherry Palmer came back into the mix to spice things up. If someone wanted to get technical, they could call shenanigans on the show since it isn't REALLY 24 hours long (rather it's closer to 18.5 hours long), but that's just getting nitpicky.

No, I've got other issues with the show, and week by week those issues are becoming more and more painful:

I could go into more, but I won't. The show is still very fun to watch, but something needs to change. How about a different storyline completely? How about an entirely new cast? Or how about dropping it for a season or two?

I don't know what the answer is, that's why I don't work in television. But if something doesn't change, then I'll be forced to take my 24 (18.5) hours of life back and devote it to some other show.

Posted by Seth at 08:35 AM | Comments (4)

February 22, 2005

He So Smart...

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table," Bush said.

Does that include the option of getting ready to attack Iran? I assume the answer is yes. *sigh*

Posted by Seth at 02:52 PM | Comments (1)

February 21, 2005

My Computer is Sick

About four months ago my computer started to really freak out. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but "freak" seems to be the appropriate term here. What was it doing? Well, Safari would quit unexpectedly, Mail would quit unexpectedly, iChat would quit unexpectedly, Firefox would quit unex... are you getting the picture?

In addition to all of my programs crashing all the time, I would also get something called Kernel Panics – which is almost the equivalent to the Windows Blue Screen of Death.

All in all, not good.

So, I took my troubles to the Apple Discussion Forums. Nothing worked. Then I took my computer to the Apple Store here in KC for the Geniuses to look at. They couldn't find the problem and had even more trouble recreating the errors. Finally they re-seated the RAM and that seemed to fix it.

That is, until it started to crash again and give me more Kernel Panics.

Yesterday I took it in to the Apple Store again, and this time they think it's a faulty hard drive. They're sending it back to Apple today to get some new parts... hopefully it's all better when it gets back.

Time to catch up on TV, reading and fixing my new place up. Ugh, it'll be just like High School.

Posted by Seth at 08:56 AM | Comments (5)

February 20, 2005

Vacation Numbers: A Breakdown

The Basics

The Drive

The Cedar Lodge, Lodge

Eating

On The Mountain

Miscellaneous

Conclusion

Posted by Seth at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2005

Snowboard '05: Days 4 - The End

Day Four
So, when I left off last time, it was snowing... like crazy. After the blizzard-day on the mountain, we woke up the next morning to find that it had snowed all night, and was STILL SNOWING!!! We were all pretty sore and banged up from the previous three days, so we decided to take the day off and relax a bit. And by relax, I mean not do a darn thing.

Day Five
Remember what I said about Day Three? Well, forget it, because Thursday was by far the best day any of us has ever had during our short snowboarding careers. Riding on fresh powder all day long (that's 14-19 inches, depending on who your source is) we throughly wore out the mountain. The best part of the day was this amazing tree run that Jones found... it was so much fun that we rode it six times before lunch - yum!

After lunch, we decided to go and see what other fun stuff we could do on another side of the mountain... and that's when TG and Jones got stuck in waist-deep snow for about 30 minutes (we were goofing around, too). Honestly, the snow was that deep – Todd's got the pics to prove it.

Overall, quite the amazing of days and one I'll never ever ever forget.

Day Six and Driving Back
Speaking of forget... day two was easily outdone in the lame department by day five. Once getting to the mountain on Friday morning, we quickly realized just how spoiled we were all week long. Sunday was a semi-busy day, but the rest of the week was so slow that you could end your run by riding directly into the lift line and hopping on.

Friday was quite the opposite – as in 25 minute lines just to get on the lift. In two hours, we had done two runs... TWO RUNS. Following up a day like Thursday was going to be hard enough. Couple that with our bodies being sore and our new-found snobbery for wanting to be the only ones on the mountain... we decided to leave early and go clean up our room.

Later that evening, we drove into Aurora and had dinner with Chris and Lisa (my cousin and her husband), then went to see the world's worst horror movie, "Boogeyman."

We got up this morning and left Aurora around 8:45 am CST, and now we're almost to Kansas City... have I ever mentioned how badly I-70 sucks? I'm gonna crash hard tonight, then it's get ready for work again... why can't I snowboard for a living?

Posted by Seth at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2005

Snowboard '05: Days 1-3

When driving back from snowboarding last year, I could feel myself on the mountain, doing s-turns back and forth. It was more than just a visual sensation, I could feel the snow beneath me, catching the edge of my board and turning me in the other direction. I wanted to keep going, even while driving that long drive down I-70.

Day One
I was a bit worried when it came to starting up again this year. Even though the sensation never left, when we started last year, we spent a good majority of the day just learning the basics. So when we got to the bottom of the mountain on the first day, I didn't know what to expect.

We all strapped in and took off for the lift. No big deal, I remembered it all. From the moment we got off the lift we were ready.

We went everywhere on the first day. In fact, each of us said (as we laid on our beds after returning, that we did more snowboarding that day than we did any day last year. The smaller number of people helped, apparently.

I had to return my brand new jacket that evening, too... the zipper was busted. Luckily, it had a second zipper in the lining, so I wasn't too cold that day.

Day Two
If there's a day so far that I could forget, it's day two. I left the slopes early because I had finally developed the phlegm-breaking cough that my doctor said I would get towards the end of my cold. Well, I was sooooo happy that she was right, a fire-igniting cough that explodes in my chest isn't the best feeling in the world.

Once the boys got back, we decided to head down to the hot tub and relax a bit. We won't be making any more trips to the tub since I think most of us had small clumps of other people's hair stuck to us when we got out. Also, half the jets didn't work and our shower is hotter than that disease-infested mini-pool. Blech.

Day Three
If there were ever a day that you wish you could re-live over and over and over when snowboarding, today was that day. We woke up and noticed it was snowing outside. And now, as I type this, nearly an hour after we returned from the mountain, it's still snowing. That's right, we overheard someone say nine (9) inches!!!

Snowboarding in powder all day is insanely great. You rarely have to dig your edge in to make turns, but you do have to be careful not to completely relax in the deep stuff, or you will flip pretty fast.

It got a little hard to see on the mountain, and at one point the facial hair on all three of us was kinda frozen (not to mention the hairs in my nose). Brrrrrrr.

More to come later...

Posted by Seth at 04:55 PM | Comments (2)

Snowboard '05: The Drivarrival

This may be the only entry you all get. We somehow found a connection on Day Three...

Who ever said that the drive across Kansas on I-70 was the worst ever, well, they grossly underrated it. It's beyond awful. It's beyond dreadful. It's boring, uneventful, tiring, plain, bland, gray, and adds zero value to whatever your ultimate goal is.

Fortunately, our ultimate goal was Frisco, Colorado – an absolute peach of a town. Upon initial arrival into Frisco, we were impressed and each of us thought that this is what a small mountain ski town should be. Last year, we stayed in Dillon... not quite the same in terms of quaintness, but it was fine.

Not only did we upgrade the town we stayed in, but the place we have this year is overwhelmingly better than the hotel we stayed at last year. Lisa, my second-cousin who lives in Denver, informed us that she has a co-worker who owns a place in Frisco. Without knowing much about it, we asked how much the place was – I won't say how much we got it for, but after walking into the place, we got it for a steal!!!

Kicthenette, queen bed, fold out futon, DVD player, VCR, TV, two stereos, full bath, dedicated space in a garage, hot tub, etc. Wow. Not only does it sport those great features, it also was housed with a ton of movies for our viewing pleasure — Sister Act, Twister, Titanic and Face/Off — just to name a few of the hits.

Tonight we're chilling, hard core. We shopped and got tons of food for the week, and also stopped in to some local ski rental shops. Todd bought a new jacket and I got a new jacket and pants... nothing like finding some cool stuff on sale that makes you feel like a much better snowboarder than you really are.

As if you haven't noticed by now... no internet access. There are some internet-cafes around town, but they cost money (grrrrrrrr). Time for bed. Nighty night.

Posted by Seth at 12:13 AM | Comments (1)

February 11, 2005

Elegant Exit

Tomorrow is only a day away. And today is a bad-ass type of day. Not only are Todd and Trip on their way up here right now, but I had a wonderful experience over lunch.

Scoot, Nik and I met up at the bowling alley to watch our opponents from this week post-bowl, we're a little addicted to seeing how our record would be affected. While there, we had planned on bowling two games a piece, just for fun.

The fun started quickly for me, four strikes, then a spare, then three strikes. I was easily on pace for my best game ever... except this time, I didn't choke. The second game was almost a reply of the first. After getting print outs of those games, I decided that I HAD to bowl a third game, to see what my series would be.

I ended up bowling my best three games ever – in order, 245, 230, 213 – my previous best was 212. That's a 688 series and a 229 average, pro-bowling scores... scores I'll probably never achieve in one series again.

Wow! Tonight I get to see hang out with my best friends, and tomorrow we start our snowboard trip. What a great day to start off a great week!

Tune in for updates from Colorado – we hope.

Posted by Seth at 02:53 PM | Comments (3)

February 10, 2005

Are You RSSing?

RSS is really simple. No, really. RSS means Really Simple Syndication, and it's revolutionizing how we – users of the internet – browse. If you've heard of this, or haven't heard of this, here's a summary of several conversations I've had about RSS in the recent past that should get you all up to speed:

"Revolutionary? Yeah, we've heard that before."
I know, I know. You've heard this song and dance before, but this time it's real. I've written about this before, but it's becoming more and more popular now, and it's time for you to adopt this technology.

"So how is it revolutionary this time?"
Easy. It's turning the internet into a "push" medium rather than a "pull."

"Huh?"
Okay, rather than users having to constantly seek their information ("pulling" what they want to see), RSS allows users to essentially subscribe to the content they want. Whenever that content is published, the content is "pushed" to them.

"What do you mean pushed?"
RSS is a dialect of XML. When database-driven sites* (news sites, message boards, blogs, etc.) publish information, an XML file can also be created/updated to contain a brief summary of the information just published. This XML file, or the RSS feed, is what you "subscribe" to. Every time the XML file is updated, you're notified of the new content.

"You lost me as soon as you said XML."
Right. You don't really need to understand what XML is. The XML file looks a lot like HTML and contains data about the information that was published by the site. If you look at the XML feed for CNN's Top Stories, you'll notice that the first item entry will correspond with the first headline you see on CNN.com. So, every time that CNN adds a new story to their site, the XML is also automatically updated.

"Interesting... So???"
Sooooo, for example, say you like to read CNN's headlines a few times a day. Well, instead of being served all the extraneous crud you don't care about (popups, other advertising, other stories, etc.) with an RSS Aggregator all you see is the most current CNN headlines.

"Oh c'mon... what's an Aggregator?
An Aggregator (or RSS Reader) is a program that helps you organize all of your RSS feeds. The Aggregator stores all of your feeds and updates them based on the time frame you specify. Aggregators provide you access to all of the same content that the web site would give you, without all the pizazz – which is good because internet users are information seekers, we're not watching television.

To further the example above, if you left your Aggregator going all day, it would collect all of the headlines CNN posted throughout the day. You browse the headlines, delete the ones you don't care about, and click to read the full context of the ones you ARE interested in. You control what you want to see, not the other way around. So, really, RSS is making the internet a "tailored push."

Most Aggregators look, and organize RSS feeds, like common email applications. Some RSS Readers can be added into your browser. And some are even built-in to the browser, like Mozilla's Live Bookmarks and Safari RSS.

"Cool! Can I have more than one feed?"
Of course! You can have as few as one, and as many as, well, as many as the program can support... I guess. I subscribe to 13 feeds at work, and I usually add a new one each week.

"How do I find RSS Feeds?"
Great question. Sometimes they're very super easy to find, and other times they're kinda hard to find. Here are some ways:

"I found one I want to subscribe to, now what?"
Alright, this is one of the easiest parts. Say you want to subscribe to CNN's Top Stories (click on this link). In the Address Bar of your browser, you'll see this URL: http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss. Highlight it all, copy it, and paste it into your Aggregator's Address Bar (most Aggregators work similarly). There might be an extra step, like clicking a "Subscribe" button, but that's about all you do. Oh, make sure you go through your preferences to specify how often you want your feeds checked, when things should be deleted, etc.

"What do you use as your Aggregator?"
When I'm at work, I use SharpReader. I haven't tried too many others for the PC, but this one is consistently ranked pretty high. One thing I don't like about it is when you delete something, it's gone, no coming back. But, it's free, so I can't complain.

When I'm at home, I use PulpFiction Lite. There are several different RSS Readers for the Mac, but this one is free and does exactly what I need it to. The full version of PulpFiction has more features, but it costs money.

"Okay Mr. Smarty-Pants, where's Your RSS Feed?"
Currently, I only have mine hooked up so that if you have a Mozilla-based browser, you're notified. If you'd like to subscribe to my blog (are you insane???), then here's the URL.

Here's something else that's funny... if you use Blogger for your blogging engine, then you probably have an RSS (or Atom) Feed already – especially if your stuff is hosted on Blogspot. To find it, just go to your address and add "atom.xml" to the end of the line and press 'enter.'

"I understand RSS, but what is Atom?"
For this discussion, Atom is essentially the same thing as RSS, except it's not RSS. It does the same thing that an RSS Feed does and most Aggregators can accept both. So, if a site doesn't have an RSS Feed, but has an Atom feed, give it a whirl and it should work.

If you want to find out more in depth about Atom vs RSS, then, please do so on your own time.

"Anything else?"
Not that I can think of, for now... though I'm sure there might be plenty of questions and comments, aaaaaaaand I probably left something out somewhere. If you do have questions, just let me know and I'll help out the best I can. Have fun!!!

* Sites do not have to be database-driven to have RSS feeds, but I believe a majority of them are.

Posted by Seth at 01:06 PM | Comments (3)

February 08, 2005

Three days left

Oh boy! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! I simply cannot wait much longer for this weekend to come. On Friday night, Todd and Jones come up to spend the night here... then we wake up on Saturday and drive. We load up my car with all of our stuff, secure some things on the roof, and put our butts in the seat for a nice day-long drive to Copper Mountain.

Yes! We're going snoreboarding again!!! And, as I stated above, I simply cannot wait. Just a few more days, I tell myself. It doesn't help that it snowed today in Kansas City (well, it does when it takes you one hour to drive half a mile, dummies).

But here's where the plot thickens. Todd mentioned the other day that he was "officially sick." That's no good. And today, I re-developed my sore throat that I've been battling for the past three weeks. That's doubly no good. So tomorrow I go see the doctor, who'll hopefully tell me either, a) you're fine, or b) you're gonna be fine, just take these pills. Either way, I'm snowboarding, starting Sunday.

I'm still saddened by the passing of Jeremy's brother. Life is so complex and often I feel that we all take it for granted. It's hard not to. but easy to realize that you have when faced with your own mortality, or the mortality of others. Instead of looking at life through rose-tinted glasses every day, I suppose we all could use a day without them every once in a while. It keeps us grounded.

On a slightly more positive note, I think I've found me a sweet little mission trip to go on (hat tip Kendra). Once I know more about it, I'm sure I'll post some stuff for ya.

Posted by Seth at 10:20 PM | Comments (2)

Sad Day

Yesterday, my good pal, Jeremy Kaiman's twin brother, Zach, passed away after a long fight with cancer. I can't remember how old Jeremy is, but he's young, Zach was young, and it doesn't seem right. I've never lost someone that close to me, and I dread the day that something like this happens.

Today my thoughts and prayers are with Jeremy, his family and friends.

Posted by Seth at 08:47 AM | Comments (1)

February 07, 2005

URL Decision '05

You can help decide what the new URL of my site will be. Do I go more professional and use sethgunderson.com, or the more fun and free-spirited sethyg.com??? Or, is there one I haven't thought of!!! Help me!!!

Posted by Seth at 05:04 PM | Comments (2)

Resumé Updated

It's always fun to go and update my resumé, especially when I have something to update it with:

I Am Into It
Last night the Super Bowl was played, which means tons of new ads (not to mention the millions of dollars spent), and among those new ads was one for MBNA's new "We Are Into It" campaign (see Least Favorite section). The campaign is set around customers getting almost any specialized credit card they want – your alma matter, favorite charity, frequent flier miles, etc. – it's kinda a cool deal. One major component of the campaign was to do a web site where people could see all the available cards and get any information they need. The site was originally pitched as a flash-site, but due to 508 Compliance, the flash site was ousted and (x)HTML was pegged... the only problem, they liked the flash design and wanted the same effects to work on the HTML version.

So, as one of my last projects at VML, I made the MBNA flash site into HTML. Funny thing is, when you go to weareintoit.com, you're defaulted at the flash version. There's a link at the bottom of the page for the HTML, or you can just click here to see it. This is by far the most complex CSS work I've done and am particularly proud of it. At one point, the last point I touched it, it was all compliant and validated... but I've since left VML, and others have come through making modifications (I guess that's the big disclaimer).

Soon I'll have more sites to list... check out the CSS side of the new VML site, too, that's my baby as well.

Posted by Seth at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

February 03, 2005

Funny to think about

These were the most current headlines that I copied from CNN.com. I'm feeling kinda sarcastic tonight (weird, I know) so I thought to modify the headlines for fun and to attempt at making my loyal readers laugh. My edits are in italics.

Posted by Seth at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)

God's Gym, Not Gold's

Is it me, or do you think it's weird too that some guy came up from trying to wrestle a ball away from a high schooler, with his fist cocked back ready to punch the 17 year-old? This, just merely 20 minutes after we all prayed to have a nice, safe game and to "not let our emotions get the best of us." Yes, that's the big thing that happened in the church basketball league that I play in with my pal Jeff. How silly.

We lost, again. But I so much enjoy playing basketball (especially when I make my free-throws). Oh well, maybe next week! Okay, bye.

Posted by Seth at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

February 01, 2005

Htes = Dexelprep

Several weeks ago, I went to see the movie "In Good Company." It's a great little flick, wonderful story, good acting, an overall feel-good movie. It was very similar to last year's "Garden State," which I loved as well (more so than "In Good Company"). These movies have a lot more in common than just the type of story they convey, their soundtracks are littered with many new and great artists – like The Shins, Iron & Wine, and even an old favorite Nick Drake. I recommend that anyone who is a fan of music to go and at least check these out on iTunes: Garden State Soundtrack | In Good Company Soundtrack

When I went to check out the soundtrack for "In Good Company," I was extremely confused. No songs from Rogue Wave appeared on the song list... which I find odd since there were two Rogue Wave songs in the movie – I'm very positive about this. I know a lot of times production companies get permission to use a song in a movie, but not list it on the soundtrack. In my opinion, that sucks for those who buy the soundtrack, because Rogue Wave is one of my favorite bands right now.

I can't find any information about this oddity when I Googled it, so I figured I'd write about it here. Maybe we'll hear something from more people.

Posted by Seth at 01:39 PM | Comments (1)