sjamesho.v3

today has been a long day. well, not really. its just that when you’re the only one driving, it seems long. however, i passed the time away quickly with plenty of podcasts loaded on my mp3 player. so to start of this blog, here’s a picture of my parents and i right before we left the house.

while they go on a cruise for 15 days, i’ll be making my way up to Oregon. why am i going up to Oregon? well, you can read my earlier blog entries this month. that’s what they’re there for.

we stopped at the post office so that my mom can send off mail before she left. i took this opportunity to take another snapshot of my aforementioned GPS mounted on my windshield. this is as close to “in-action” as i’m willing to get because taking pictures and driving don’t mix… and its also harder to keep your hands steady.

the thing i like most about road trips is the beauty revealed when the texture of the sky and the variation of the mountain ridge meet has if they are holding a pose just long enough for you to take its picture. the clouds are constantly moving and there are a myriad of angles to choose from.

i arrive in Ashland about 3:00p and checked into my hotel. i relaxed for about two hours before heading into town to fill gas, get some money from the ATM, pick up my tickets, and grab some dinner. as i was waiting outside the Elizabethan Stage, it started raining. you can’t see it in this picture but i’m being rained upon. if you look closely you can see that it looks like there’s sweat coming down my right cheek. well… maybe a little, but the water from above certainly helped the dripping.

the heat and humidity tonight was uncomfortable for me and for about half of the first half of the play i was so drowsy and found it difficult to keep awake to pay attention. i didn’t sleep but actively fighting against it wasn’t doing me any good. by the second half, it was much cooler and not so humid. i was able to completely enjoy the Merry Wives without fear of slipping into a coma.

that’s it for now. since there are no plays on Monday, i’ll be going up to Sisters to visit Christina who also has a day off of camp. so more driving and hopefully more opportunities for me to take more pictures.

i love tech gadgets. this is the third last time this month that i’m going to rave about my new tech toys. its mostly due to the fact that i’ve already spent (over-spent is more like it) my month’s budget on tech gadgets. so to make up for it i’ll probably wait for a month or two or maybe longer before acquiring neato stuff. actually there’s nothing that i’m looking to buy other than a big screen entertainment system with a surround sound speaker setup… oh wait, yes there is! how i can so quickly forget. you’ll just have to wait and see next month for my next tech gadget reveal. oh well… i guess the months of September through November will be my tech fasting period.

arriving last Thursday, my Garmin nüvi 360 GPS came just in time for my road trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. once again you’ll find a crazy MSRP on the manufacturer’s website which after some internet price comparison shopping i found it for almost $200 off. as with all tech gadgets, time will drop the price. but since my road trip starts this sunday i don’t really have the time to wait do i? anyways back to my GPS. replacing the 350 model, the 360 was scheduled to be in the vendor’s stock on July 17. i didn’t want to risk having it arrive after i left so i swallowed the $10.11 Fedex 2-day fee and voilá! it came on Thursday which gave me Thursday night to study it with the manual and yesterday on testing it on the road.

i used it again today on the way to Soquel Camp Meeting. it offered two alternate routes other than the two routes that i know of to get there. here are some pictures of Soquel.

i went Sabbath School at Parachute Park for Young Adults but after song service i left for the Main Auditorium because i wasn’t expecting the rest of the program to be a mini-concert given by a musician from southern California.

by the time i got to the Main Auditorium, i had about 2 min 11 sec before the worship service began. apparently not all programs start and end at the same time.

WOOOOOO! it was so HOT! and after lunch we decided to head back home. i had just left a tent where i had lunch with my family and some church friends.

i was sent to get the car which was at Hilltop parking. even though they have shuttles that run up and down from there, one can seriously get dehydrated if hiking up to this location especially on a day like today. you can’t really see just how the sweat beaded on my forehead. i guess that’s a good thing otherwise you’d be grossed out.

after i picked up my family and friend, i let the GPS dictate the route back. it took us through some backroads that i’ve never been on. it was kind of nice since the backroads is shaded by the tall trees unlike the open area of the highway route. all was going well until, unbeknownst to the GPS, we encountered a “Road Closed” blockade. so i turned around and it recalculated the route based on me going the opposite direction and found another way which took us to even a smaller and out-of-the-way road. well, we eventually got back to the main highway but i must say i’m impressed that the GPS recognized these really small roads. i guess as helpful as GPS systems are, depending on them 100% isn’t such a good idea especially if you’re already familiar with the area. of course if you don’t know the area at all its better than nothing.

i love tech gadgets. yes… this is the second time i’ve started my blog entry this way. maybe its because it was only a few days after my new webcam came that my new remote-control-on-steroids arrived at my doorstep. yes, this is my new Logitech® Harmony® 880 Advanced Universal Remote. if you click the link it’ll take you to its spec page and you’ll definitely see its suggested retail price of USD$249.99. so you’re probably thinking why i would spend that amount of cash on a remote. well i would ask myself that question too, but i didn’t… really i didn’t. i saw a deal on the internet that Dell Computers had a limited time special on this remote for USD$99.00. yes, you read right $99! that’s 60% off MSRP! so i quickly took this opportunity to snatch this quick before it passed me by.

there are some people that have so many remotes that they can open up a store of remotes. but i only have four remotes… well five if you count my Xbox DVD remote control and that’s four too many. its not that i have a lot of people who come to my house when i’m not there and become utterly confused at my entertainment setup when they want to pop in a DVD to watch. its just that like many other things, keeping things simple and uncluttered is key. just how simple you ask?

well, here’s a close up of the activity screen. if you click the button on the upper left next to “Watch a DVD” it will 1) turn on my television and auto switch the channel to Video-1 which my DVD is connected to, 2) it will turn on my DVD player, 3) it will turn on my stereo system and auto switch the input to AUX which my DVD audio is connected to… all at the same time! and of course by turning the power off, all three devices begin to turn off at the same time. ahh… such audio-visual nirvana in the palm of my hand! of course, the experience will be even more appreciated if one were to have a more complicated entertainment system with more remotes to juggle. but for me and my new remote, i can now put the others away and chalk it up to keeping things simple and uncluttered. yes! that’s it uncluttered. if any of my married guy friends are reading this, tell your wives that a universal remote will make your entertainment space more simple and uncluttered. maybe that’ll work. ;D

i love tech gadgets. if i have a potential of using up and coming technology, my eye will fixate on it until i either acquire it or another takes its place. i recently replaced my webcam which i may have used a handful of times. it actually still works on its own. but with the newer releases of current chat clients like Yahoo! Messenger and Trillian, the software no longer supports my aged webcam. so if you remember my post last month about how Some Technologies Die By Starvation, i guess some technologies die by no longer being supported by software. man, the whole computer industry is sneaky!

so here is my new Logitech QuickCam© Pro 5000 sitting on my monitor. there’s some pretty neat effects that the software does like the ability to replace your head with an avatar that mimics your facial expression or add crazy accents like mustaches and hats to your head while you video conference. but the thing i like most about the webcam is its face tracking ability. so if i move away it’ll find my face and zoom in or if i come a little close it’ll zoom out. it also compensates if i’m a little left or right of the frame and adjust accordingly.

if you want to vidchat sometime… or if you just want to see me while we IM, just give me a ping. because i can do it now. well… that is until the software no longer supports the hardware. grrr…

although my “little crappy” throat didn’t really get out of hand, it did put me in a rather “not completely well” state. i wasn’t bed-ridden or anything but any feeling that makes me feel less than well puts me in determined focus to increase my health points and which makes me oblivious to everything else. as for my current health points, i think i’m at around 90 out of 100. i feel 10 more points coming by the weekend. but if it comes sooner, i’m not complaining.

since my last post, i’ve found the time to upload to my mp3 player a bunch of tech podcasts that i’ve found. it definitely helps with the drive time as i go to and from my clients office as well as the trip i’m planning to Oregon later this month to for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. i’ll give you the details about this trip in a later post. for now, i’ll be getting some sleep.