Spring time
Hey all, well looks like Spring has finally sprung here in Montreal. The last week and half has seen daytime temperatures hovering in the low to mid 20s C, the snow is all gone and even some tulips and crocuses have started to show their heads. One sure sign of Spring is that yours truly has taken out his scooter. I went to work with it last week and rode around several more days. Now that it is fully broken in and I can open up the throttle, it’s a blast to ride. As the warm weather approaches my thoughts also turn to several of the outdoor projects that await me around the house. Things like the annual yard cleaning, and some unexpected things like removing a branch that had fallen on the roof during a mid-Winter wind storm. My daughter has outgrown part of her swing set and so I plan on dismantling half of it and donating the metal to a scrap collector. Unfortunately, several Montreal Winters have wrecked havoc on what was already an old swing set that we inherited from my wife’s friends. There is still some landscaping to do on the East side of the house, which I’ve put off for far too long. As I mentioned a few entries back, I’ve started a financial awareness site called frugal.slandi.net and although it’s had a very slow start my goal is to ramp up a bit more articles and updating during the next several months. Of late my music has taken more and more of my time. I don’t really consider myself a musician, I just like to play around on my guitar, e-drums and synth. From time to time I do plan on recording some small pieces and posting them on Indie Music Works, an independent musicians’ website found at http://www.indiemusicworks.com If you go there check out my artist page at http://indiemusicworks.com/stefano_jazzman/ however I warn you, you may not like the music you hear. 
OK, that’s it for now, I’ll be back with other blog entries in the near future.
Yeah, I know, I know
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything, ME BAD! Truth is I’ve been so darn busy with one thing or another and I recently started another website/blog on financial awareness and I’ve also been busy renovating my office. As things hopefully wind down in certain projects it will give me more time to blog. What am I thinking of writing about? Well, there have been so many incidents in the news that I would like to touch upon. This whole Occupy movement had me really intrigued for a while, but even that seems to have lost a bit of steam. I read something posted by an ex-wrestler of all people that I copied to a post-it note on my desktop. I’d like to reflect on this and perhaps also introduce my new financial awareness site. I’ve been also busy setting up my small home studio to do some future podcasting and hopefully even records some small instrumental music pieces. More on this and other stuff in upcoming articles.
First Indie Music profile post
For the last little while I’ve been enjoying music on the Indie Music Works website. To share my findings I’ve decided from time to time to feature artists that have particularly resonated with me, either because of their music, creative endevours or originality. I’m very particular to good beats and drumming, so it won’t come as any surprised that the first artist I’ve chosen to profile is a drummer.
Visit Buddrumming’s Site At
http://www1.indiemusicworks.com
For More Music
iMovie HD (Also known as ver. 6.0 is alive again)
Ever since I bought my new Mac Mini back about a year ago or so with the then new Mac OS X Leopard and its new incarnation of iLife and iMovie 8.0 I’ve mourned the passing of my beloved iMovie HD (ver 6). You see iMovie 8.0 no longer takes plug-ins and the effects they do have, although great still leave something to be desired creativity-wise. So I set off to find a replacement, preferably Open Source to iMovie that would offer me a simple interface, generous special effects, transitions and some audio editing features as well. I looked high and low for something, but couldn’t find something that fit either my budget, at the time being $0 or my user philosophy. I had resolved to go out and finally buy Final Cut Express as I couldn’t afford Final Cut Pro. Then came Final Cut Pro X, which has all the power of the old Final Cut Pro, but at the Express price. It looked rather attractive and I almost bit, but today I was taking one last look around at getting plug-ins for iMove HD and lo and behold I came across this site. http://www.imovieplugins.com/index.html. They have a great selection of plug-ins for special effects, transitions and a few for inserting titles. The prices are EXTREMELY reasonable with some plug-ins being offered for FREE and others start as little as a few dollars US to a maximum of about $6-7 US.For those of you who no longer have iMovie HD (ver 6.0) you can download it at this site and as of this posting it was still available. The website also has instructions on how to install the software without having to install iMovie 8.0
http://www.note-2-self.com/files/iMovieHD6.dmg
I though this was a great find as now I’ll be able to get back to some video editing using iMovie HD, a software that is perhaps not as full-featured as others and may have its quirks, but I’ve used it quite extensively and have come to like the interface and the workflow. I’ll have some links to some YouTube videos once I get them up and running.
New Star Trek TV series
I was just reading some articles about some rumours claiming that there might be a new Star Trek Television Series in the future. I’m going to read up some more and then post an update in the next few days.
Reflections on 9/11
As tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I thought I would recount where and what I was doing on that now historic day.
I was working in my office in Mississauga and chatting on MSN with a friend of mine back in Montreal who was just getting ready to leave for work and happened to have the morning news on his TV. Well, he at first he told me that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center and then he proceeded to tell me that it wasn’t a small plane after all, it was a commercial jetliner. A few of us curiously turned on the TV in the conference room and started watching the live coverage and as we were there, coffee cups in hand relating to each other how strange of an accident this was, we saw, right before our own eyes, the second plane plow in the other building. At this point we all knew this was an attack and no accident. Then of course the news started to pour in about the Pentagon and flight 93 in Pennsylvania. By now, I as many others were starting to be in a bit of a panic mode and as my wife had recently moved back to Montreal and the rest of my family was there, I really wasn’t sure what to do. I desperately wanted to go back to Montreal, but fearing that they would close highways, I got on Mapquest (Google Maps wasn’t as popular then) and started plotting a rather cumbersome trek back to Mtl using only secondary roads and passing well away from major urban areas. Of course as the intervening hours passed and the world started to realize that although these events were horrific, they were still the only ones as far as was known and that it wasn’t all out war. Those images will be forever etched into my memory; the two buildings, the dust, the smoke, the people leaping to their deaths, choosing a volunteered end, to that of putting their fate and doubtful futures in the hands of the burning buildings and the valiant rescuers who were unfortunately unable to reach them. As vivid as these images still are, the one things I’ll remember the most is my reaction of unadulterated fear and panic as to how I was going to get home to my family. There was also someone who I knew that was trying desperately to reach a loved one who was in one of the affected areas and the desperation in their voice is also something that I will always remember. My thoughts are with the 3,000+ people who perished that day in the buildings, in the plane and I mourn the death of not only those people, but also that of a small piece of each of our collective innocence, that also died that day.
Vancouver vs Bruins for the stanley Cup
Hey all, well it’s with a bit of a torn heart that I will be watching the Stanley cup play-offs. I will be very much torn between rooting for a Canadian team, but nonetheless wanting to root for my favourite team, the Boston Bruins. In the end, may the best team win, but I’m still kind of secretly rooting for the Bruins.
Yoda and Lord Vader finally agree on something.
Click here to listen to Lord Vader’s choice.
NASA announcement
I was particularly excited earlier today to find out that NASA will be making a special announcement on Tuesday May 24th at 3:30 PM EDT concerning a new transportation system that will carry humans into deep space. This is intriguing as NASA cancelled the Constellation program shortly after President Obama took office and appointed the new NASA administrator Charlie Bolden. Up to this morning I didn’t give the US space program much hope for the future with the current presidential administration. Not because President Obama is not a good president, it’s only because he’s got other priorities and seeing the effects of the economic crisis over the last few years on the United States and other countries, it’s only understandable that the president not put much money towards space exploration. However, my curiosity has been peaked and now I can’t wait until tomorrow afternoon 3:30 PM EDT to find out the big news. You can catch it live on NASA TV at the following links: