Structured Signal

I am sort of a gear head. I love reading about and playing with new gadgets and improvements to old gadgets for cars, space missions, computer parts, home entertainment, guitar gear, etc.
I mentioned before I used the OMG WTF Free Phone money to buy guitar pedals. The two new additions are the electro harmonix pedals: the big muff pi (fuzz and sustain) and the micro synth (octave generator and filter). I am like, totally stoked with the sounds I am getting bra!!!
The picture above is pretty self explanatory. I play a Fender American Deluxe Strat with a bridge humbucker and two single-coils (holla Steve!) and a Gibson Les Paul Studio (thanks so much family!)...
Yeah, I play a Strat and a Les Paul...I used to skateboard Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays and I'd rollerblade on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays (Fridays I played N64 and Playstation). I'm Irish and I think U2 sucks. I have a Mac and a home-built PC running Windows...Vista. Yeah, so I'm a walking contradiction...and I fucking hate Green Day...
Wow, how did it get to this...
Oh yeah, so the picture shows the signal flow from my contradictory pieces to the Fender Hot Rod DeVille 4x10. This is the first configuration I've used with the new additions. It sounds good, but I'll definitely experiment with the effects chain. Mutation facilitates evolution right?
For now, I'll just try to explain my thinking for the initial chain...maybe I can get some feedbacks (as someone says) from anyone wanting to venture an opinion...Steve, Justin...I'm looking your way...

The loop station is last and is a pretty obvious choice for the end pedal. This is a phrase recorder, allowing me to loop and layer guitar parts. I surely want to be able to lay a lead part on top of a rhythm part - different sounds - it makes sense to modify the sounds before they get to the recorder.

Similarly for the delay pedal, I want the effects to "echo" along with the notes themselves...so the signal going in to the DD-6 is desirably wet.

I think the wah pedal is also nice at the end, since this is a more dynamically expressive effect. I can take what the prior effects yield and...um...make it go "wah haw wah haw"...

...I don't know...
...I don't know...
...I don't know...
...I don't know...

And finally, the tuner goes first. You definitely want the cleanest signal straight from the guitar as the input to the chromatic tuner so you can tune with greatest accuracy.

Alright, I'm going to go now. I love you.

Listening to
Dredg - The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion...over and over and over again...I love this album.

Watching
Entourage
Grumpier Old Men

Drinking
All of the Heinze's wine and champagne...

Up To

It has been a busy forty days for this cat. But of course, nothing happens until you post something about it on the interwebs...yielding many posts (that ship has sailed) or one large post from this egoist.
And thus the latter begins...

Taholerette
My sister and her fiancé decided to have their bachelor and bachelorette parties together in Lake Tahoe. Josh (the aforementioned brother-in-law-to-be) flew us from San Jose to Lake Tahoe which was awesome because I had finals the following week and was happy to be in a plane for a bit over an hour rather than in a car for a bit over three hours.

The Landing:


We drank and danced in Tahoe...the normal family fun (I climbed some horse statue, got in a fountain for the sake of photography, watched my twin sisters dance together with a bald Nepalese dude, and rode tricycles on the bar).

Me and the bride:


The maid of honor:


Congraduation
My wonderful girlfriend finished her B.S. in computer science. We went out to club WET, where my roommate had previously...left his mark...
Turns out I had been there before it was renamed to "WET". Little had changed...an abundance of bags and hags of douche...but they did put some fish tanks in the wall, which was kind of cool. When you don't want to have your senses annoyed by the environment, you can look at a shark and blow fish and eel stuck in a tank in the wall of the club...neat?
All said and done, I did have a good time. I like to dance. I love any time at all with mi muñeca and friends.

Club:


Grademony:


G(I/O)gle Conference
I picked up my girlfriend from the Caltrain station last year on her way back from the Google I/O conference. It was pretty amazing...good music (Queens of the Stone Age - Make It Wit Chu), good food (taco bell on the way to the station), and good conversation (my baby and her friend telling me how awesome the conference was as I drove them home). So this year, I decided maybe it'd be even amazinger if I went to the conference myself...
I still got to drive us home from Caltrain, so no loss in that realm...
The conference was well worth the $50 academia registration fee. The food was delicious and the talks were informative and inspiring.

And here is my ass, easily located with Google maps:


Oh yeah, and they gave all attendees a free phone...wait, what?!
Yes, all ~4,000 conference guests were given a Google (american apparel) t-shirt and an HTC Magic Ion G2 Android Google phone (I don't know which of the six names are correct, or in which order, so I just put them all...basically, it's a touch screen phone that is or is not better than the iPhone).

OMG WTF I got a free fucking phone LOL:


Another highlight was the "after hours" party. There were innumerable (not really...~4,000) nerds (~ means "about" or "approximately").
Nerds can eat. And nerds like it dark (to hide facial asymmetry). And nerds like video games. And nerds like to walk around with beer pretending to like it.
Google likes nerds. It was an orgy of deliverance.
Spherical caged picture-taking robots, Lego robots, arcade games, finger foods, Sierra Nevada, chardonnay, modded everything, and finally, DJ Mike Relm and DJ Scotty Boy providing aural goodness. I had fun. I guess I am a nerd.
Google posted these pictures of the event.

This is one of them and I am proud to have been one of the few present to talk to a girl...ever:


The best thing about the conference actually happened a couple of days ago, a week or so after the conference. I sold the HTC Ion Magic G2 (OMG WTF free phone for short) for $500 on Craig's List. Yeah, okay...they were going for a bit more here and there on eBay...but I'd actually opened and used mine, activated the SIM card that came with it, etc. Also, I essentially got it for $50. I am no mathemagician...but that's like 10% profit or something! YES!
With the money I made I bought new stuff for my fish tank...to be posted later...and a couple new guitar pedals, also to be made real at a later date.
My girlfriend is now selling her OMG WTF free phone here if you are interested...
[Update] It's been sold...for another huge profit.

Holy Shit...er, uh...Matrimony
I now have only one sibling with a common last name. But I have a brother-in-law and larger family...which is awesome in case competing local clans come to raid our land and livestock. We have increased strength and numbers now you fucking aggressors...try something.

Is my sister not the most beautiful bride ever? I know she loves the frozen dead dude, but Walt Disney ain't got shit on this reality:


And the McGees (one full McGee, three half McGees):


Now that all is in sync with reality and network...piece oot.


Watching
NBA Finals
Stigmata
New Blu-Rays (The Boondock Saints and Pineapple Express)

Listening to
Silverchair - Neon Ballroom
Massive Attack - Danny the Dog
Elliott Smith - Either/Or

Drinking
Trader Joe's Unsweetened Green Tea With Mint
Squirt + Cuervo♦

Indifference is Bliss

I paid off an automobile on Friday.

I "bought" a 2006 Nissan Frontier Crew Cab 4X4 Nismo in June of 2006.
The synonym for 'purchased' is in double quotes because few people actually buy a car. Cars are financed, yielding people in debt, like I was.
I am no longer in debt. I used money saved while working my ass off at UCSD as well as the bonus I got from joining Actel as an American. No, the company is not ethnocentric. They just happen to hire most of their interns from Canada...University of Toronto to be specific, which I understand rivals the best universities in the U.S. when it comes to engineering...so I guess they don't "happen" to do it, they hire these kids for a reason, a good reason, as I can confirm after working with some of these Canucks for 3 years. They are sharp.
But back to the point...I don't necessitate extra expenses for a work visa as I am a Californian douche by birth.
So while the "facilitating your trip back to Canada" meetings I was called to as an intern at Actel were designated nap times and work diversions for me, I still gladly accepted the cash handouts Actel gave to interns for relocation fees, holiday travel, and being a SUPREMELY INFERIOR Canadian in general.
This essentially boils down to an analogy for the continuous VIZIO HDTV upgrades my Romanian friend enjoyed from Costco until they got wise and changed their policy.
But, like Tiberiu says, "It's their policy, you can't feel guilty. I have a much bigger TV now."
So, after all this diction, the point is that I had extra cash from a "signing bonus" and from my own transfer-to-savings monthly discipline.
I used it for a down payment on the redneck-mobile mentioned above. Yes, I concur, it's akin to the compensation Marty McFly had as a present-dream car when he returned to the future after going to the past and back.
But...I can snatch my 'rents' boat to wakeboard in Don Pedro, climb any mountain you want to go to for snowboarding, bring home the Christmas tree, and move your fucking couch, though that won't happen unless you buy me a burrito.
So, in short, the new University of Toronto intern can ask me why I chose to buy a pickup truck during my "short stay in Cali", not knowing that I fucking live in this state, but when I take the five of us to Arikato for sushi in fall and the same five plus boards and skis up the icy mountain in December without chains, they can shut up and sleep to the music playing through my Nissan iPod interface in comfort.

Listening to
Silversun Pickups - Swoon
Led Zeppelin - BBC Sessions
Tricky - Knowle West Boy
Air - Talkie Walkie
Portishead - Third...only with chocolate syrup

Watching
The Rock - Blu Ray, bitch
My salt water creatures
The Office
Futurama

Drinking
Sutter Home - yeah, cheap wine, but it's like juice...delicious
Jim Beam & Diet Pepsi - because "Jack 'n Coke" is so cliché
Water - 2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

A few things...

Earf Day
Caught a glimpse of the voluntary human extinction movement, and while some of the site content is well written and mildly insightful, mostly I was moved to laughter. The thing that is comical about paradigms like this one is the inherent contradiction in how "humanity" is perceived. On the one hand, humans are seen to have no special rights or claims on our planet, and then on the other, are treated as some kind of supernatural being. Pick a side. If we are just another insignificant species, then recognize we are natural to this planet. Granted, (some of) the species has grown some measure of intellect, but we are by no means wizards...the plastic, aluminum, silicon, and...stuff...used to make this laptop was not conjured with a staff, rather harnessed from the planet. You can't create or destroy matter...I can...but not you.

I'm not saying to ignore the adverse artifacts our endeavors create, just to recognize we are not above nature. You don't shit where you eat (unless it's good for the soil and helps you to grow more potatoes for fry baskets). And if Agent Smith is right, that we are "A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet..." then we are still a natural one.
So as I was sitting in my living room, perversely watching some doves mate on my patio railing, surrounded by cacti, fern, a ficus, a lime tree, a bird of paradise tree, and another human...I thought, it is a happy Earth Day, like everyday. Don't ruin what makes you smile, and don't require a special day in April to be less destructive...without purpose.

Tank Update
The 10 gallon container of ocean reef life in my living room saw some additions and some sad subtractions of late. I added a beautiful Sea Star and a Sally Lightfoot Crab, but the crab died...or rather...transformed into hermit crab, snail, fish, and bristle worm food...

Up The Wall


Hermit crab riding a sea star riding a snail:

Megatron:


The next addition might be an Arrow Crab, mainly for their diet of bristle worms which are a virus, a disease, a cancer of the tank...the arrow crab...the arrow crab is the cure...but I'm apprehensive to send another crab into the tank after the death of Sally...we'll see.


Tribe Tribute
- Both of my sisters now have a master's degree. They are twin success stories and I love them a whole heap.
- My pop just started up an online store, Bolter's Cycle Specialties, which is doing well.
- My brother in law recently got his pilot's license and flew us from San Jose to Groveland for pizza and back on Thursday night...
Best way to view Stockton and neighboring cities: way the foxtrot up in the sky...away from Stockton and neighboring cities.
The chariot:

Windmills:

Crop Circles:

San Joaquin Lights:

Pardee for the KG eyes

Alex Pardee makes art that I like. Some...ok...most of it is pretty dark. But the colors and the style are super fly. Granted, I know less about art than about how someone can sit and enjoy watching a soccer game on television, but I have no problem with the shallow proclamation, "I like to look at this."

And on that note...er, brush stroke...check out the red hotness of Kelly Grenard. Not only is she the sweetest lady you'll ever meet, she is also wicked talented. I worked with her (in a less creative forum) while at UCSD.

Listening to
Mogwai - Mr. Beast
Portugal The Man - Censored Colors
Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

Watching
The Matrix
Super Troopers
Big Bang Theory
Arrested Development
NBA Playoffs

Drinking
Sangria
Home made smoothie with strawberries, raspberries, apple, and orange...left over from aforementioned sangria
Water

Fish are friends, not food...

Weekends are great. Those in Nor-Cal can agree the weather was fetch this weekend. Probably my homies in So-Cal can argue their weather is ALWAYS amayonaising...but some of us get suckered in to heading North...and eventually get happy and settle in.
Played some volleyball this weekend at the park with a grip of Canadians. Got hella sun and now I wear a wife beater even when I'm naked...
Then I went to the fish store and picked up a "cleaner crew" for my salt water tank, a hand-me-down from my future brother-in-law. A cleaner crew is called as such because they keep the algae and other dirtinesses in your tank in check. So I got some snails and some zebra hermits. Also got two damsels.
For those, like me, who know more about worm holes than keeping a salt water tank in their living room, the idea is to cycle the tank for at least a week or two, then test the water, then put in some creatures. To cycle the tank, you first put in the filters, add the salt water, some sand, condition with some chemicals, get some live rock, and...small version of a violin, swap 'o' with 'i'! You are committed.
This is turning out to be an expensive hobby...but what hobbies are cheap these days? I will single-handedly restore the economy with my fishy purchases.


Finally, thanks to this girl:

I have discovered jícama. Add chili powder and lime, delicious.
I love them both.

The guy that knows nothing...and knows it

I enjoyed reading this guy's blog the other day. Apparently he seems to have more depth than he appears to have in the real world...just kidding Alex...you don't...no, just kidding...seriously...
And while I have the depth of a bottomless order of chips from Chili's (seemingly, apparently, and in appearance), I thought to myself, "Wow, how egotistical to think one's ramblings might be browsed in such a forum...wait a minute...I'm egotistical...match."
Likely, this will just turn out to be another diversion from elsewhat...like figuring out how to use my MOTU both as the interface to my DAW as well as a surround sound decoder so I don't have to keep hard-swapping the speaker cables when I want to watch a movie or decide to lay down some tracks...