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Saturday, April 28, 2007
File under: Duh/Life Hack
Came up with a brilliant solution today that I'm quite sure others have already thought of...



I've started labeling my power supplies.  You know, those little black boxes that supply power to every electronic gizmo you've got.  I started with the power drill we have, but labeled Rachel's laptop supply as well as the various things that happened to be easy to reach (and label) under my desk.



I wish I had thought of this before I had accrued such an impressive collection of mystery power supplies.
posted by Steve @ 11:02 AM   0 comments
Sunday, April 22, 2007
2007 = My Summer of '69
I just realized something. This summer - within the next 4 months or so - I am planning on beginning or finishing five goals that many people spend a lifetime doing. I don't know if all of them can be completed, but it really isn't a stretch. In fact, because I had already planned how and when I would do them, the enormity of their accomplishment hadn't really dawned on me.

So here's hoping I manage to do these things:

1. Pay off all of my monetary debts (not including student loans). This includes finishing off the mountain of credit card debt accrued from using them to pay for college, and the familial debts that were used to float us when we were at our lowest.

2. Finish my fourth album, Ignition. While 'most' people don't count this as something they should do, I am hoping it will stand as a major creative accomplishment, and that it won't be my last.

3. Register Impulse Media. Hopefully, I can get the domain name, but either way I'll have my own business... and tax write-off a lot of the stuff I'd buy anyway.

4. Organize my music (the zillions of Mp3's), media archive (my back catalog of 100GB in previous projects and clipart), and finances (taxes, back statements, etc). So far, about 85% of the music is done, 20% of the media archive, and 90% of the finances are properly and completely organized.

5. Get into great physical shape. I am working a desk job. I'm 26. I'll turn into putty very quickly unless I do something about it, and that something is to play basketball. I'm training the entire summer - five days a week, no less - and will join a league in the fall.

Funny thing is, it's all completely realistic. We're almost out of debt right now. I'm reducing my work load to a 'mere' 40 hours a week at the end of school, and it'll be down to 20 at the end of June until I go full-time at webmastering (hopefully in August-September). I already obsessively organize stuff, so no sweat there. And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE just shooting a basketball. I can't wait until I can actually play decently enough to show my face in a league.
posted by Steve @ 1:32 AM   0 comments
Impulse? Impulse Media?
I have started looking into making my sole proprietorship business a reality - after freelancing for a half decade.

What? I was busy.

The main reason is so that I can deduct a lot of my business-related expenses. While I do (often) question what is being done with my money, I don't plan on weaseling my way out of taxes completely. Strikes me as un-patriotic and, well, weasel-y.

So that means I will be reading government forms in my spare time. Oh, the joy! But it will be worth it. After all, I'm putting all the music, design, and art into one business. That means that a new computer, guitar, and paint are deductible. I just hope that the IRS understand that the design will be funding the other two - the music and art are a rather long shot at ever becoming profitable, but I think the odds are good enough to merit the business' money...

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posted by Steve @ 12:57 AM   0 comments
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Brilliant light at the end of a long, long, black tunnel
Some events this week:

Rachel just registered for the last class of her Bachelor's degree in the Fall. She will begin her graduate classes in Library Science the following semester, and will probably go to a part-time job at a library.

We'll be out of debt this summer, pending catastrophe.

I had the truck's gas tank cleaned; we can now begin the process of bringing it up to fully-tuned and awesome... and get the A/C going.

I went to the Phoenix Suns game versus the LA Lakers. While my mojo wasn't exactly 'on,' I can't complain that they won an ugly game on Friday the 13th that was otherwise pretty weird.

And at some point during the week, I had this conversation with a pair of my female high school students:

"Boys just want girls and money, don't they?"
"What'd you say?"
"Boys. They just want girls and money."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said syphilis and taxes."
posted by Steve @ 9:10 PM   0 comments
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Durable Machines pt. 2
This! This! Want! Want!!!



The Group Mobile SwitchBack Rugged Ultra Mobile PC, to be released in Summer '07.



This is what I want. It accepts power from 9V to 28V - i.e., can be basically plugged into my car battery. It has built-in wireless, GPS and Bluetooth. It can be dropped, sprayed, and generally abused. It is sunlight viewable and the screen is 1024x600 - which means you can surf the 'net properly. It has between 512MB and 1 GB memory (which isn't spectacular but is enough to run basically anything short of video editing or something like that). It has a big, removeable Hard Drive, and 32 GB of solid state hard drive. And a 1GHz Celeron processor (again, not amazing but perfectly serviceable).



It will fit easily in my car - 7.5" x 5.5".  Oh, there's so much cool stuff about this computer I don't know where to stop, so I'll stop now. I just hope it comes down below like $1500 before too long...









Joygasm!
posted by Steve @ 2:47 AM   0 comments
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Spring "Break"
To-do list for my weird spring break (that's from Thursday to Monday):

  1. Eastpointe teaching
  2. Meeting with Volkswerks, drop off truck
  3. Dreamco
  4. Do validation work on Jen's site, my design site, do MS Money work

  5. John's site (Thu, Fri)

  6. Dreamco (Thu, Fri, Sat)

  7. Start Volkswerks site
  8. Saturday: Start new Latitude section
  9. Saturday: Finish new Latitude section
  10. Saturday: Preliminary ideas for new Impulse Nine site
  11. Saturday: Check out framing prices
  12. Saturday: Get business card pricing

  13. Saturday: Send Kinko's my business card
  14. Saturday: Begin re-design of Impulse Nine music site
  15. Saturday: Install IE3, IE4, IE5, IE5.5, Opera and Netscape for testing

  16. Saturday: Pick up cat litter, milk, razor blades

  17. Sunday: Put Rachel's handwriting into her homepage
  18. Sunday: Finish Volkswerks bones
  19. Monday: Check out Kinko's proof
  20. Monday: Run clothes through the dryer


  21. Monday: Finally do filing
  22. Monday: Fold laundry
  23. Monday: Give John paperwork, hard drive
  24. Monday: Dreamco

  25. Monday: Pick up business cards.
  26. Monday: Gather up and do the taxes; set up an appointment if it's really necessary.
  27. Tuesday: Pick up gas tank


  28. Tuesday: Mulberry Street
  29. Wednesday: Try to sell clothes at Twice As Nice and/or Buffalo Exchange.
Break. Right.
posted by Steve @ 12:22 PM   0 comments
Monday, April 02, 2007
The Mojo

So I got free tickets to the Mavericks game on Sunday from Jessy.

This is pretty much the definition of awesome. But I was really worried. I had only been to three Suns games in my life, but they were remarkably - nay, historically - good games for the Suns:

  • On 3/24/90, I saw Tom Chambers go bananas for 60 points, a standing Suns record.
  • On 12/17/93, I saw Shaq demolish the rim (literally) for the first time (I think),
  • and on 4/26/06, I saw the Hornets blowout ( 115-78 ) game at the end of last season that almost set a record for most 3's made (20; the record's 21), had a 20/10 from James Jones and ended with a Burke-Tskitishvili lob jam (!).
So, despite the fact that I know it has nothing to do with me... that's quite a record. But the first two were long ago, and the last was a throwaway game. This game on April Fool's was against a very good team, and the Suns are quite likely to meet them in the Western Conference Finals later this year.

I worried about my Mojo.

We left Tucson at 7:45 because the game started at 12:30, and I didn't want traffic on I-10 or parking problems to come between me and this game. We got there in no time. It was a gorgeous day outside, in Phoenix (which is usually the armpit of Hell). Ok, so I got a bit enthused and dragged the other people to this place like two hours early. We had all gotten a grand total of 16 hours of sleep between the four of us, I think. Not that it matters at a Suns game

Dallas played excellent basketball - they didn't miss any of their first 7 3-pointers - but Phoenix was astounding. It's rare to see that level of basketball played. The passes were sharp, the play was crisp and they shot an absurd percentage. In fact, they shot so well that my 'record-setting' pace alive: the Suns shot a higher overall Field Goal Percentage than any other team - Suns or visitors - in the history of that building (which the Suns have called home since 1993). Because yes, 64.8% (57.1% from the 3) is insanely good. They shot 86% in the fourth quarter. Wow. It was beautiful.

So yeah. The Mojo is just fine.
posted by Steve @ 8:03 PM   0 comments
 
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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
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