Family

Family Things

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It took me most of Saturday afternoon, but I was able to install all the programs on my dad’s new computer. Then it took me 5 hours to move all his stuff off his old machine and finish setting up the new one on sunday. It didn’t realize he only had a 10megabit network card in his old computer. It took forever to move his 3 gigs of data off the old computer. It took 20 minutes to move it onto the new computer from my laptop.

I was able to setup all his new gadgets to the new computer. he has his new 512 meg flash drive to bring stuff to work on. I also got his Treo 300 to sync up to the new computer.

With all that work done, we went to my sisters for dinner. I got to see Morgan crawl. I helped my sister move some stuff to my parents house for storage. I also burned myself a new CD of morgan from last month. I will update the website soon.

I am cleaning up my place so I can figure out where the furniture is going to go. My sister gave me the number of the movers they used. I will call them this week.

In my spare time I was also messing around with some video editing. I am playing with Final Cut Express. I imported an old family video I had and I am trying to figure out how to do editing. My dad said he has a bunch of 8mm reels that we could get converted to DVD also. I am going to see how much that will cost. Getting a VCR tape into a DV format that Final Cut can edit is a time consuming process. Granted I don’t have the best tools to do that, but it does work after you follow all the steps. I didn’t have much time to work on that project this weekend.

Recomendations

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I was backed into a corner to make a recommendation on a laptop to buy. My brother in law’s mom wanted one and she said she trusted my judgment and wanted me to decide for her. After 3 conversations where I said I don’t like to do that and I like to make suggestions only, she convinced me to take the plunge. That means this decision will come back to haunt me later. She is nice, and just want somethings that works. I recommended the Apple ibook 12″. It fits her requirements and I think it will be easier to use than a windows machine. I like mac’s now, but I would not normally recommend it to a windows person. I did for her since she used mac’s in the past and had good things to say about them.

Lets just hope that she is as happy with an iBook as I am with my Powerbook.

The family Technology Consultant

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So since I work with computers for a living I am the familys technology consultant. No one remembers my sister works with computers also, but I guess programing doesn’t count! I mentioned last week that I got my dad a new Treo 300 for Sprint PCS. I finally got it to sync to his computer at home. He had problems for months with his home computer and his old Palm 505. After trying 3 versions of the palm desktop, deleting the USB drivers (and killing his mouse in the process) I finally got the Treo to sync to his computer. He was very happy to get rid of his Palm 505. The screen was very dim. he also has to carry 1 PDA/Phone instead of a phone and a PDA. I tried to convince him to wait 2 weeks and get the Treo 600, but he said that it was too small. As long as he is happy, I won’t force him to buy the latest and greatest. The Treo fits into his scrubs pocket easily so he was very pleased.

While I was sick this week I spent some time taking some old videos and converting them to MPEG-1 files to be put on Video CD’s (VCD). I use Elgato systems EyeTV. It is a USB device that makes your mac into a Tivo like DVR. You can export the files to MPEG-1 format to burn onto a VCD. I also played around with exporting the files to imovie, but it was time consuming and the files were huge. I didn’t need to edit the files so I just burned the MPEG-1’s to VCD. The quality wasn’t so bad. What you would expect from a VCR. The better the source, the better the results.

Doing the video extraction made me realize that I need more hard drive space on my mac. The Powerbook I have only has 40 Gigs on the hard drive. 10 of which are taken up by my music. I need to get a Firewire external drive. I am pricing them out now.

So Much To Write About

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I have so much to write about I don’t know where to start. I just got back from the second night of the Jewish new year’s celebration. I was at my family’s best friends house. We do almost all the major holidays with them. This being the first holiday of the season was weird. Their were so many new babies and little kids. My sister hasn’t been the only one having kids. Bruce and Richard (my dentists) both have new kids. Scott brought griffin (1 1/2), his new son. Cari (another Cari, not my sister) brought her 3 kids (6, 3 1/2, and 18 months). Then their was like 5 others that I can’t remember. Lots of kids.

Dinner was ok. I am not big on holiday food spreads. Desert was fantastic though. Had some awesome chocolate cake. My dad had a little on my recommendation. he is diabetic, so he waits for me to have chocolate to give my opinion on if it is worth the sugar for him. 5 months & 6 days until I can introduce chocolate to Morgan. Morgan’s mommy may not be too happy, but I will try anyway!

I tried to rest today. It didn’t work. I didn’t feel well during the day. I didn’t get to bed till after 1:30AM since I got home late last night from the first night of the new year dinner. I took a furiset to prevent the migraine. it worked, but I was really tired. I couldn’t sleep though. When I lied down, I kept getting woken up by the phone. Now I will try to sleep and probably won’t be able to.

“Family” get together’s are always interesting, and annoying. I get the curious questions about what I am doing and how things are. That is normal from people you don’t see that much. Then I get the inevitable tech questions. Some of them are cool, and I don’t have problems answering. Case in point, Scott’s question tonight on what laptop to buy. He used to have a Mac and I talking to him about my Powerbook. He may get one, but also is looking at a decent dell. Told him he can’t go wrong with either. But then their are questions like anything from Wammy (not his real name but everyone calls him that. Don’t know why). Ever time I see him he picks my brain about all sorts of tech crap. Some stuff is interesting, but other times it is downright annoying. Now I like talking about technology. you can tell that by reading this blog, but I like talking about it with others who know what is going on. Family gatherings are not the place to discuss stuff.

I also tried to get data off my Dad’s old Palm 505. He just got a Treo 300, and I need to get the data onto it. Can’t get it off using the equipment he has at home. it only sync’s with his work computer, so I have to have him sync it and then backup the file and email it to me. I tried 2 cradles and neither worked.

Been Busy

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I was away in Kingston till Wednesday night. I was busy and tired at night so I didn’t blog. Tons to talk about but I just am not in the mode to write that much. As I said Kingston was buys. Tons of issues remain outstanding. NYC is also a hotbed of problems right now. I hope to have things straightened out by next week.

Tomorrow I go with my family to my mom’s friends house for the Jewish holiday’s. I am not a big “holiday” fan, but I do what the family asks in situation’s like this. Why piss off my mom when I don’t have to! I will play next time.

I didn’t go to Gus’ for poker like I thought I would tonight. I had too much to do, and I was really tired. I didn’t really want to be out late tonight while I had problems to work on.

Dinner With The Family

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My family is meeting at my sisters tonight for dinner. As much as I want to go, I am not sure if I will get to them by the meeting time. I am also tired from working today. I do want to play with morgan. Thinking of her just now I can’t help but smiling:)

Update. So I wrote this when I was on the train. Turns out I didn’t go to dinner, since I was tired and it was late. I will catch them next time, when I am not traveling.

Shopping Called Off

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My shopping plans with my dad got called off today. My parents had plans that started earlier than they originally planned. My dad didn’t even know about the change. He isn’t up on my family’s social calendar. He just goes where he is told. He was not too happy. He wants a new PDA. Also I was going to order him his new computer today. It worked out ok since I unexpected work stuff come up also.

Sort of funny good/bad new today my sister called. She said that morgan got scared from a game of peekaboo gone wrong with her dad, and the only thing that would calm her down was Blume the big pink elephant I got her when she was born. Got to love the plush toys!

Technology Scare’s Me Some Times

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My dad wants to get a phone / PDA combo device. Now he has always been ahead of the game when it comes to gadgets. I get that from him. But he is also not the biggest computer genius. He has had a cell phone since the late 80’s. Has had a PDA or whatever they used to be called for longer than that. He now doesn’t want to carry a cell phone and a Palm. He uses his palm all the time at work, but only carry’s the cell phone in case of emergencies. He now likes the idea of combining the two. Lucky for him he has Sprint PCS. I don’t like them anymore, but at some point I did. That is why he has service with them. He actually doesn’t complain about the service so we keep him on it. My mom also likes her phone number. I say we are lucky is sprint looks like it has the biggest selection of PDA Phones. I showed him my Treo 270. He seemed to like it. Of course I showed him my original Treo over a year ago, but that is another story. I think he may be better off with one of 2 Samsung phones out there. The SPH-I300 or the SPH-I500. I like the I500, but it may be too much like a phone for my dad. He will use it as a palm more than a phone. He liked the Treo but I don’t know if the no memory expansion and the keyboard will cause him problems. He did play with the keyboard on my Treo for a half an hour today and then proclaimed we will go shopping next sunday.

Shopping with him is fun. We go for breakfast, drive out to Roosevelt Field mall area. Shop for maybe an hour and then go home. We are super fast shoppers. The only slow down we encounter is if we goto Best Buy. He can browse the DVD section for like 2 hours. That store is a black whole. Everyone I know sifts through those DVD racks forever.

Family Get Together’

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Today was my cousin Adrienne’s 21’st birthday party. It was an excuse to get together with my family. It was an interesting outage to Brooklyn. I saw some relatives I actually wish I would see more often. And then there were people who you would rather forget you were related in some way or another.

I got to play with Morgan, so it was a good day if just for that. I also got to see Cerina, Merric & Arrielle. I miss them. I need to take a weekend and get back to Jersey and stay with them again. I have been busy all summer and when I haven’t been busy, I have been tired from being busy. I need to talk to wayne a bit. I didn’t talk much with him today, and I miss talking.

Then there are the cousin’s who you know, but really don’t get to know. My cousin Samia’s kids are like 17 & 18. I don’t really ever speak to them. Samia and her husband are cool, but never hang with the kids. My cousin Shelly’s kids are cool and I get along with all three of them, but I haven’t hung out with them regularly in like 10 years. It is weird that they are all grown up now.

And then there was my Cousin Mike and his kids. My dad used to be really friendly with him, but for some reason he is so distant now. We all think it is his wife. My cousin Synde almost had a fist fight with her today over seats or something weird. Family outings are always interesting. I half wish I went with my brother in law mike to the Yankee game.

All in all I didn’t get sick at the Chinese buffet, and it was nice out. A good day. If I went on about all my cousin’s, this blog would become a psyche paper.