movie – Chris' Site

iLife ’09

So I’ve had iLife ’09 for about a week now and have been using it heavily. About the only 2 things I use in this though are iPhoto and iMovie. Both of which are a HUGE improvement over what was previously there.

However, iPhoto is missing a TON of features.

Very SLOW! – Faces and Places are both VERY VERY slow. When I add new photos, it takes FOREVER to find the faces, etc.
Additional Faces / Missing Faces – It’d be nice if when I click the “Add missing faces” iPhoto attempts to locate missing faces. Also, I wish that you could add the box, and then just CLICK in the Name area to name it, instead of having to click “Done” and then click again to name someone. Another thing is it’d be nice if there were a way to tag “Other people in this photo”. IE people who might not be exactly FACING the camera, but are IN the photo.
Smart filters for Places and Faces – These need to be expanded a LOT. I’ve always found iPhoto’s smart filters lacking and now they are missing even MORE features. I wish I could find photos who have a face but are not labeled. I wish that the Smart filters for places were much smarter. Some photos DO have geotagging, but they are not “apple’s” geotags, so it counts those as not having GEO info! Very annoying.
Delete from Albums, Smart Albums – I use albums, not events, to manage my photos. This is how I like to do it, I find it MUCH easier to organize. I have folders for each year and then albums in those folders for each event. I also use Smart filters a lot to find photos. But you cannot EASILY move images from the albums to the trash. Give me the ABILITY to do that with a warning or something at least.
REMOVE BACKUPS! – This is something people have been wanting FOREVER! I currently have 19,717 photos in my library, at 37.6Gb. But my iPhoto library takes up a whopping 51.73Gb!!! This is insane. I want to recover all the space from images that are duplicates (backups/etc). If I make edits to a photo 5-8 years ago. I don’t really CARE about keeping the original. LET ME DELETE THEM!

I haven’t really used iMovie too much yet, but one really annoying thing that I was hoping would be there was the ability to edit background music from within iMovie. Currently if I have a track in the background and want to quickly cut out portions of it, I have to open the audio track in another program and edit those sections out. It’s just very cumbersome. I hope that they continue to make HUGE strides in iMovie they way they have in this last release!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been very very busy!

So going back, two weekends ago, Kris and I went to San Diego{/wiki] to visit his friend Suze and for my Birthday. We had a mostly good trip down there, but it became clear as the weekend went on that he only went down to see his friends and I was a total third wheel. He HATES and bitches when people are the third wheel, so I got very annoyed. Sunday he asked what I wanted to do, I told him the one thing that I would have liked to see and do again that I know in town. Now, I don’t know San Diego, and if _I_ took a friend to a town that I knew very well and they didn’t know very well, I would come up with suggestions of things for them/us to do. I was offered no such items. So instead we basically wasted the day wondering around and watching a movie. On the ride home he asked what was wrong. I told him, he BLEW up at me saying that I was only pissed because the weekend wasn’t ALL about me. We haven’t spoken since. He told me that I was being childish. Ugh. Whatever.

We went to the San Diego wild animal park while there. That was tons of fun at least! 🙂 I took like 400 pictures with the new camera. Only kept 200 of them. Still trying to widdle down to my favorites. I’m going to have to get used to deleting images now that EACH picture is 10megs!

So anyways, Birthday week wasn’t all that exciting. Jason and I had a heart-to-heart one night, I got a birthday package from Aaron and Erick which was VERY nice of them! Although, I just went to get some chocolate out of the box and there’s a WHOLE bar missing!! WHO the FUCK steals a bar of chocolate out of someone’s box on their desk!? Ugh. These are the idiots I work with.

Speaking of idiots. So my big project that I was all exciting about before the holidays. Well the boss man has TAKEN IT OVER and is ruining it with lightening efficiency. Basically he’s writing the requirements without EVER talking to the end users about what they want to see changed and what they do, etc. He says, “I have a basic idea of how things work.” You MIGHT. BUT that doesn’t mean you have ANY IDEA about how things are ACTUALLY working! Plus part of this project is to REDUCE the number of Excel spreadsheets that are wondering around the company. Well you would think that you would NEED TO KNOW what those are and how they are getting used to be sure that they are going to be worked into the new software. He has NOT begun at ALL exploration of what those spreadsheets are. VERY ANNOYING.

Also he designed a [wiki]Gnatt chart in fucking EXCEL! Who does Gnatt charts in EXCEL!? Idiots do Gnatt charts in EXCEL, that’s WHO!

So then, remember how I went to Caborca and NO ONE knew the fucking passwords. Well apparently LAST week German, the guy in Caborca, figured them out or remembered them or something. So anyways, the boss calls me the other day and we proceed to have a 20 minute convo in which I have to EXPLAIN TO HIM in detail a reason why my solution to a problem is the ONLY solution. I mention SEVERAL times in my reasoning that this is BECAUSE WE DO NOT KNOW THE passwords. AT THE END of the convo, the boss says, “By the way German has access to the server now”. I ask, “How is that?”. He says, “because he remembered the password”. DON’T YOU THINK that’s something you should have mentioned to me RIGHT AWAY when you found out?! Don’t you think that’s something that would be HELPFUL to me to do my FUCKING JOB!

Anyways, so for my Birthday Jason and I had Champagne and Cake, just a low-class day. Nothing to exciting. I really wasn’t into my birthday again this year.

So this past weekend, I was gonna go on a quick backpacking trip with JoEric and Claudia, but it rained and was nasty and it’s a good thing I didn’t go because I ended up pretty damn sick all weekend! So Saturday I dropped of Asparagus off to George and then went to Griffith Observatory with Jason and his new wife. Had a good time overall, came home, took a vicodin and went to bed.

Sunday I spent the whole day laying on the couch. Tried to do laundry, but everyone else in the building apparently had the same Idea. So I got nothing done.

Back from Caborca

So I’m back from Caborca, but writing this post in San Diego now.

It’s been one whirlwind trip down south. We got down there about 6ish on Monday and went straight to this restaurant called “La Carret”. This place had the MOST AMAZING food ever! You get this neat little heater thing with tons and tons and tons of Carne Asada, ribs and cow udders on it. With tons of vegetables and stuff on the side and you make your own tacos. I seriously could have eaten a full one by myself! We typically had one for every 2 people on the table! Anyways, met with all the employees down there and had a good time chatting and what not. Got done about 9ish and went to the office to do some work and then got to the hotel by 11 I think.

Tuesday we got up, at breakfast at the hotel with all the co-workers and then headed out to the office. Apparently the truck we were supposed to be driving was in the shop, so we had to wait around to get that fixed. About 10 we got on the road to the first stop. Got there and found out that NONE of the passwords I was given before coming to Caborca worked! So I was basically LOCKED OUT of everything! I couldn’t do SHIT. So I get on the phone with the guy who PROGRAMMED the software and SETUP the servers/etc. He has NO IDEA what the passwords are. So I call my boss, ALSO has no IDEA what the passwords are. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! IDIOTS! Who does not WRITE DOWN THE FUCKING PASSWORDS.

So basically the whole trip was a wash. I couldn’t do anything that I was supposed to do. So we went onto the other sheds and had a good time, had lunch around 2ish and met up with the other 2 guys from the LA office. Found out that they both HATE my boss as well. In fact one of them got into a YELLING fight on the phone with him. It was quite hilarious! Other other sheds were fun and it was cool to see how the asparagus grows and get’s packed and what not. They also apparently burn off the fields before they start harvesting, which I find strange. But whatever!

The last one we were at right around sunset, so we drove across the fields to the base of this huge mountain, got there and found a HUGE nail in the tire, so we drove back to the farm shed real fast and stopped to change it. Well that’s when the fun started! We couldn’t get the spare tire to release and then they couldn’t get the TIRE to come off. There were 7 Mexicans POUNDING on the tire to get it off.

We again had dinner at the same place, had about 30 people there, with all of our growers and what not. It was funny because Dole came into the same place with their ONE grower, while we had like 25!!! LOL. You’d think they would have a lot more people then we are since they are such a HUGE company! Again got back to the hotel late and watched a movie and crashed, AFTER we got locked out of our rooms and had to fight with the stupid front desk people. Idiots fucking DE-ACTIVATE ALL keys every day and you have to go in and have them re-activated. How stupid!

Wed we got up and had breakfast at the hotel again and then off to the fields! Again had a good time, this was a short day and went back to one of the BIG sheds that was packing. It was cool to see it all in full force.

Went around town after that, saw the church again, did some shopping, etc. Had dinner at the same place and ate WAY to much.

Thursday was the drive home, which wasn’t too bad. Got home around 5ish, but called in sick anyways on Friday. It was a REALLY long week. And Friday ended up being REALLY long as well. People are complete idiots!

We couldn’t send ANY emails to Costco and the main phone number was NOT working at all. UGH. I also sent the boss instructions on how to add additional email accounts to someone’s Outlook. He replied back saying he couldn’t figure it out. He had ONLY followed the FIRST of 8 instructions!!!! UGH. What is wrong with people.

Anyways, so here I am in San Diego now… We went out to the shout house which was tons of fun!

Well, time to go! Adios!

Valkyrie

I _hate_ Tom Cruise. But this movie. Amazing! Read about some of the background here.

At the height of WW2, a group of high-ranking German officers hatched a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and seize power of the military command in order to end the war. The operation was codenamed “Valkyrie”, for the emergency plan that was meant to be used in case of a revolt against the Nazi government. This plan had been modified by the conspirators to ensure their success, but for various reasons the plot failed when finally carried out on 20 July 1944. The conspirators of the inner circle were shot after a kangaroo trial or sentenced to death soon after.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I _love_ this time period and the history associated with it. This film really delivered in this area. I am excited to do some research to see how much of this was all true and what was made up for dramatic scenes. It was so well done that even though we all knew the ending, you were really pulling for them the whole time hoping that they would succeed!

Very good movie, I highly suggest checking it out.

Christmas in Iowa

Sooooo.

Here I am back at work! 🙁 Ugh. I so don’t wanna be there.

Yesterday was so long. Got up early to do stuff and ended up not having to leave the house till 10! I could have slept in. I’m not sure why, but the last few days I have been UBER sleepy! My dad and I went to look at some houses, which I think are really cute! The only problem is that the guy is asking WAY to much for them. $185k. He needs to drop it to the $150k range to make it feasible. Went to the airport and had no problems getting checked in and through security in like 10 minutes. Sat around the airport and watched The Color Purple. Which was pretty good.

Got on the flight from DSM to STL and slept pretty much the WHOLE flight. Got into STL and my flight to LAX was delayed like an hour.

So anyways, the rest of the week was great. Christmas night I went out with the gang as per usual to The Blazing Saddle. It was of course a fun disaster! 🙂 We even had a new person join this year! Amanda F from our HS. She was tons of fun! We ended up getting home at like 3:30ish. Made a fool of myself I’m sure at the Saddle but, who cares it was fun! 🙂

Friday I got up and just lounged around the house, I was pretty hung over. Wasn’t going to go out that night but I had met this really cute guy who wanted to hang out. So I headed over and picked him up and we went out to dinner at Java Joes and then met up with a bunch of his friends. Meeting his friends was a little AWK but I still had a ton of fun. We went to a few different bars including Locust Tap, 101 (SCARY!), El Bait Shop (tons of fun, including the attached 70’s bar!) and again the Saddle where we lost the girls, very annoying. I also found this really good beer called 312 Wonderful!

So anyways, I drove him home and spent the night there at his house which was a total crazyness. His dad was still up when we got there so it was like an undercover operation to get me into the house! LOL. Got up early the next morning and found out that we got a TON of freezing rain overnight. My car was COVERED in ice! So I had to drive home in that shit.

Got home only to find out that we weren’t going to go to the farm for Christmas, meaning I could have slept in more at his house. Instead I just lounged around the house all day and did nothing. That night I met up with the Adam again to go see Valkyrie. It was an amazing movie! Drove him home again and sat in his living room talking for a little bit. Got back to the parents house around 2ish.

I really enjoyed the guy, he’s very nice and very cute… I think he intrigues me most because he really compliments who I am. He’s artistic and outgoing and what not. Problems are that A) he lives in Chicago and B) has no money to come visit. He honestly reminds me a lot of Andrew, which I’m not sure good or bad? I’m hoping that maybe I can go to Chicago to visit for a weekend. I’m not to sure what will come of it all..

It was also a very sad trip home for me. First time being back to the family since Grandpa’s passing and I had a pretty hard time dealing with it. There were many times where I was holding back tears. Even at random times as I was out with friends or just sitting at home. Opening presents at Grandma’s house one of the last ones was a gift for the three grandchildren. It said “From: Grandpa” and it was a 50-state quarter set. My grandpa always collected coins and one thing we always knew we’d get was a mint set every year. This was the last gift from him, it was only 3 quarters away from being completed when he died.

Anyways, I wish that I could have spent more time back home and had more free time. I didn’t get to see many of the friends that I usually hang out with, never got to sit in the hot tub, and didn’t get to do some of the stuff that I typically do back home.

Overall it was a great trip home!