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Top 5 Google+ Features

I’m not one to do “Top #” lists, but after today’s announcement that Google+ is now available to any and all, I thought it would be useful to recount a few of the features that I’ve been using on a nearly daily basis (well…some things…not everything, of course).

1). House Hunting – When we moved up here, I came up alone and brought along our Flip Video camera so Brooke could get a “feel” for the different options, at least in some virtual sense. This time around, Brooke is taking pictures with her phone, then allowing the Google+ app to automatically upload the pictures to her profile so she can share them with me. Then, I can comment on each picture and she can answer all my questions. This is done without anyone else having to see the conversation(s) or the pictures.

Here's a picture of a living room for a place we're considering

2). Gaming Communication – In the past, we have used Skype to make VOIP calls between Josh, Ryan and Mike so we can voice chat while playing whatever game we’re on at the time. Skype works well, but one person hosts the call and then has to call each person once they’re ready (much like a telephone). Now, with Google+ Hangouts, you can simply “Open A Hangout,” which is basically an open invitation with whatever group you want that can join in at any time. So, if one of us isn’t ready, they can join in whenever they want. Much more convenient, and the voice quality is nice, too.

3). Selective Sharing – I post a lot of stuff on Facebook. A lot of stuff. Google+ makes it easy with their Circles function, allowing me to share with people from Columbia, or people from Truman, or people from St. Louis, or all of them all at once. This is done really easily, both from the web interface and from within the Google+ Android app. Facebook has started adding in some of this functionality, but it’s nowhere near as helpful. It’s obvious it’s a “stop gap” measure to provide some of the same functionality, but is very much “tacked on” to their existing, convoluted infrastructure. Circles is just easier to use.

Photos taken with the camera are geo-tagged and dated. Select the ones you want, and then click the green "Share" button!

4). Full Integration with Picasa – I already use Picasa to post pictures online, partially for display on this very website.  Because of the integration between Google+ and Picasa, any pictures from my phone are automatically uploaded, and then I can share them on Google+ with whoever I want.  But also, they are made available under Picasa, so I can copy them into any albums I want, and either keep them private or share them.  In short: it’s free cloud storage and organization for any picture I take with my phone (though, you can still manually upload them from a camera if you want).

Here's what the main screen looks like.

5). Separated Streams – Right now, I have 287 people in my various circles on Google+.  A lot of those folks are Gamers With Jobs people.  There are times, however, I really just want to see the news updates from my Friends, rather than the GWJ crew.  Thus, Google+ makes it easy to choose which Circle (or “news feed”) you want to view.  Moreover, the Android App lets you set feeds so you just have to swipe from side to side on the screen to switch between feeds, making it much easier to follow the people you want without seeing updates from everyone else.  Again, Facebook implemented something similar in recent weeks, and while their web interface works alright for this, the Android app just doesn’t have the same functionality.  Believe you me, when you have over 500 people on your Facebook friends list, it’s a daunting task to scroll through everyone’s stuff every morning…

So now that Google+ is open to everyone, I hope more people check it out.  Really, anyone that has a Google account for e-mail already has a Google+ account ready and waiting.  It’ll get more integrated over the coming year, anyway, especially with Picasa (being renamed to “Google Photos”) and Reader.  You may as well get used to it now!

Plus, you may find that you like it.  🙂

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Any Given Friday

The crisp, cool air of September typically brings up some of these memories.  Fourteen years ago now, a Friday night in September meant that I was walking out onto a football field in mid-Missouri to play a marching show.  To this day, the fondest memories of high school involve that uniform and that snare drum, the same one I had all three years at Hickman High School.  I’m sad I’ve lost track of a lot of the people I marched with, but I do think of them from time to time and wish I could get that kind of experience back again.

More than likely, I’ll have to wait until Meg’s in a similar uniform someday.

But until then, I can relive the memories, thanks to transfer technology from VHS to DVD, and from DVD to YouTube.  Thus, on this Friday in September, I present to you my marching shows from high school for your viewing enjoyment.


“Western Perceptions” – 1997


“The Music of Shakespeare” – 1998


“Homage: Three Tapestries” – 1999

And for those that want Kristen’s shows, I’ve got those up on YouTube also. “The Music of Stravinsky,” “The Wind and The Lion,” and “Journey Through A Dream.”

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One Man and a Baby

I remember watching “Three Men and a Baby” more than a few times growing up.  Pretty sure we had it taped on VHS.  I didn’t watch it as much as “Ghostbusters” or anything, but definitely more than a few times.  For those that don’t remember, “Three Men” involved a set of bachelors living in a New York high rise when a baby is left on their doorstep.  Not knowing what to do, they try their hand at taking care of it, learning more about child care than they ever thought they would.

Granted, I have a bit more experience than Tom Selleck (and no mustache), but there are times I can relate.

When we first started this little adventure of ours, we didn’t know quite how long we’d be doing it.  As of next week, it will have been two months of Brooke being here for the weekend, and Meg and I alone four nights a week.  Brooke typically gets here mid-evening on Thursdays, though a few weeks there, it’s been closer to 10:00.  She will then be here through the weekend, keeping busy making sure the produce from the garden is processed and that Meg and I have something to eat during the following week, and then she leaves after putting Meg down for a nap on Sunday afternoon.

For the most part, it’s gone shockingly well.  Certainly, it isn’t an ideal situation, but all things considered, I haven’t damaged Meg in any permanent way.  🙂

We generally stick to a routine, which thankfully works well for Meg and for me.  I get up at 6:00 am, then I wake her up at 6:30.  I give her some milk and we hop in the car, so she’s at daycare by 6:50, putting me to work only about 15 min later than I normally would get there.  I pick her up anywhere from 4:30 to 5:15 pm, then we come home and eat.  She likes hot dogs and bananas, but I’ve had some luck giving her bits of whatever I’m eating.  Her new love is cottage cheese (blech…).  Then, we go outside or watch some TV, or just play with toys for awhile until she goes to bed at 7:30.  After which, I finish cleaning up, do some laundry, and either watch TV or play video games.  Rinse and repeat.

Regardless, it’s been an interesting experience, one that, in some ways, I’m glad I’ve gone through.  It’s good to know that I can take care of a small human without hurting it and that she’ll still prosper and thrive under my guidance.  If anything, I think we’ve “bonded” a bit more than we would have, otherwise.  Obviously, these aren’t the circumstances I would have chosen for such things…

Meg still misses her “Mama,” though.  They talked on the phone a bit tonight.  🙂

Fun Fact: “Three Men and a Baby” was directed by a young up-and-comer named Leonard Nimoy.  I learned something new!

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On This September 12th

The headline on September 12th from the New York Times

I actually started composing something a week ago about September 11th, reminiscing about that day and the general mood of the country prior to the attack on the World Trade Center.  As I paid attention to some 9/11 coverage during the past week, I was reminded of what the country was actually like, and that I was really viewing it with rose-colored glasses.  Hey, I was a sophomore in college; I’d only just started paying attention to the world around me.

Thus, instead, I reflect on September 12th, or really, the initial days that followed September 11th.

Much like the JFK assassination and the generation(s) before me that were actually alive at that time, I remember exactly what I was doing at the time it all happened.  I was in my dorm room and had just gotten up to read my Yahoo! News feed and see that a plane of some type had hit the first tower.  I woke up my roommate and turned on CNN just in time to watch the second plane hit the second tower.  On live television.

What followed over the next few hours, and few days, and few weeks, was a series of feelings.  Confusion.  Fear.  Shock.

Then Focus.

Then Togetherness.

Then Direction.

This country went through a terrible tragedy and, from it, came a sense of direction that it hadn’t had in awhile.  My initial blog post was looking to those years before 9/11, and that it was a time that I wish we could all return to.  However, in many ways, the country was already on a downward spiral of divisiveness, with the Lewinsky Scandal and Impeachment proceedings in the news.  With a Dot Com Bubble bursting.  With a Housing Crisis already in the works.

Really, a decade on, I’d like us all to reflect on where we were 10 years ago today, rather than 10 years ago yesterday.  Sure, yesterday was incredibly important and it is equally important that all those lives were lost.  At the same time, I think it’s essential that we remember how much of the country actually came together for a common purpose.  Eventually, that purpose was misdirected toward other political goals.  That purpose was used to divide the country even further than it’s ever been, certainly in my lifetime.  And today, on September 12, 2011, we are about as divided as we could be.

But on September 12, 2001, we were all together.  In grief.  In searching.  In wondering.

Yet also, in a desire to root out evil.  A need to be together in service to our communities.  To be together in solidarity and in support of our firefighters, policemen and EMTs, but also in support of each other.

Case in point: I read on Facebook that over 100 people from our church in St. Louis went to East St. Louis to be in service to others on September 10th as part of the Serve 2011 project.  That’s the kind of feeling we should be getting from 9/11.  Not only focusing on the attack itself, but also on the need to better ourselves that followed for the first few days and weeks after it.  The thing that was designed to tear us apart that actually helped bring us together, even if only for a few short moments.  Where we weren’t rich, poor, black, white, man or woman: we were just American.  And we were all the same.

And that’s what we need to work toward finding again, 10 years later.  Ten years after September the 12th.

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On Netflix

There has been a reasonable amount of vitriol on the interwebs with regards to Netflix in recent weeks.  First, it was the price increase and separation of DVDs and Instant Queue into separate plans.  Then, Starz pulls out of negotiations to keep their content on the streaming service, including Disney movies and TV shows, meaning that a lot of content will disappear in February.  Finally, today, it comes out that Netflix will begin enforcing its rule to only allow streaming to a single device on an account at one time (or two devices if you have a two-DVD plan, and so on).

I’ll read comments from folks on blogs saying that they’re going to cancel their accounts over all this.  That Netflix isn’t adding enough new content to justify their $8/mo.  That they are screwing over their consumers.

Well, folks.  Get used to it.  The cost of doing business with Netflix will keep going up, and they aren’t alone.

Hulu famously created “Hulu Plus,” a separate entity that you pay $8/mo to use.  Hulu carries shows from ABC, FOX and NBC, as well as many of their affiliates.  Some shows appear the day after airing on TV.  Other shows appear after 30 days.  Hulu Plus gives you the ability to watch some of these shows on your television, but the nature of the deal that Hulu was able to work with The Powers That Be dictate that not all of Hulu’s content can be sent to your TV.  They still want you to watch that content on a TV, through your cable provider, rather than do it through the internet.

Oh, and Hulu Plus still contains ads.  You pay $8/mo extra for different content than you get through their website, and you still get ads.  All just so you can watch it on your TV.  Because an LCD TV is different than an LCD monitor, apparently.

The content providers in the motion picture and television industry want a large piece of the proverbial pie, and they have entrenched interests with the cable providers that have built and “maintained” that infrastructure for decades.  They see upstarts like Netflix to be a threat.  A company that provides a really nice service to their customers that the vast majority of people are happy with.

Netflix has almost single-handidly destroyed the DVD industry.  In the early-2000s, I bought tons of DVDs, but now that I have Netflix, I have no need.  I can order a DVD and have it the next day, any time I want to see a movie.  Half the movies I own are on Netflix Streaming.  I still prefer the video quality of popping the disc in rather than using the internet to watch it, but still: if I want to see it, I can with only the most minimal of planning.  There was a time where I would rarely walk out of Wal-Mart without a DVD in town.  Now, I can safely enter and browse DVDs without fear of actually buying one.

Thus, these companies will charge Netflix exorbitant amounts of money to license movies and TV shows.  They will keep increasing the licensing costs, not because the content is actually worth that much, but because they want to destroy Netflix and keep their business model intact.

This is all aside from the fact that cable seems to have less and less that I want to watch.  Whenever Brooke and I are at our respective parent’s houses, we’ll flip on the TV and see what’s on.  Invariably, the answer is a resounding “nada.”  The only thing I miss having is the occasional sporting event.  So if I cared about sports more, we’d have to have cable.  Other than that, we just don’t watch much on TV anymore, at least stuff that isn’t available digitally through Hulu or TV.com, or that will eventually be available through Netflix in some form or fashion.  Part of me wants to get the basic “Family Package” of 30 channels when we move just so I don’t have to deal with bunny ears anymore, but thankfully, St. Louis gets a good number of channels over-the-air, so even that isn’t as big a deal.

Netflix provides me with a good service.  I have almost no desire to return to cable.  I can watch what I want and there’s plenty of material available, with new content arriving frequently.  My Instant Queue has 63 items in it, and it should be longer except that I know I barely have enough time to watch what I already added.

Keep on going, Netflix.  I’ll continue to support you.  And I imagine most people will, too.

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08.27.11 Dinner

I forgot about this one from a couple of weekends ago, but since we weren’t home last weekend this can tide you over!

Sort of fajitas with grilled steak, peppers and onions, tomatoes, and avocado on whole wheat tortillas. My mom came to help us with the picking and processing of our garden’s bounty that day, so it was a nice dinner to send her home with!

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08.29.11 Dinner

I was pretty proud of myself, actually making a reasonable attempt at “making dinner,” rather than relying on stores frozen by Brooke to keep me alive in her absence.  Here, I made scrambled eggs using a few of our home-grown variety, and added in some sliced steak left from Saturday’s meal (thanks again, Diana!).  Also, a few slices of toast and half a tomato, also direct from the garden.  Not too bad, methinks!  Healthier than cereal and Hot Pockets, at least.  🙂

Meg had a hot dog, a banana and some graham crackers.  She still isn’t very interested in eggs.  Crazy person…

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08.20.11 Dinner

This was a couple of weeks ago, now, but our house has seen this menu again a couple of times since then: BLTs with tomatoes from our garden and homemade bread with green beans from our garden. The perfect summer meal!!

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Of Movie Ratings and “Black Swan”

We grabbed “Black Swan” from Netflix this weekend.  The film was directed by Darren Aronofsky, a guy whose movies I can’t say I’ve been particularly fond of (“Pi” and “Requiem For A Dream,” specifically).  Unlike those previous flicks, I can safely say that I enjoyed this movie, though it was definitely weird.  I can understand that it probably isn’t everyone’s cup o’ tea, but it is more suspenseful than I expected and the story worked on a variety of levels, which I always appreciate.

I only write about this because I had to think a bit about how to rate the movie on Netflix.  They let you rate movies on a 5 star scale, which then helps them suggest more movies for your viewing pleasure.  I tend to struggle with such things because, in some ways, you’re trying to think about Netflix’s rating system and assess what you think about a movie and what you want them to think you think about the movie.  For example, I love me some “Army of Darkness,” but by most accounts, it’s a terrible movie.  Perhaps it’s best not to rate a movie based on whether you believe it deserves critical acclaim for technical accomplishment and performance by the actors, but instead on whether you’d see it again or not.

Thus, I have settled upon the following system:

  • 5 Stars: I’d watch this movie again and again for all eternity.  I’d buy the DVD and the Bluray if I could.
  • 4 Stars: Great movie that I’d watch again, but I don’t need to own it.
  • 3 Stars: Good movie.  Glad I saw it.  Don’t really need to see it again.
  • 2 Stars: Not very good.  I’ll never watch this again and I’ll steer others clear of it.
  • 1 Star: Minutes of my life were taken by this movie.  It’s almost worth buying a copy so I can burn it.  In a barrel. “Battlefield Earth,” I’m talking to you.

Under this system, I think I’ll give “Black Swan” 4 Stars.  It’s a pretty great movie, I think.  I need to see it again just to see what I missed during the somewhat difficult-to-follow plot line, but I really like where the writer went with it.  I’d say more about the story, but I’m afraid I’d give too much away.  I definitely recommend you see it.

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Meg’s Word List

"To you, Chicken, I say 'bah, bah, bah.'"

As first-time parents, I assume it’s expected that we should be surprised with the level of language comprehension and execution that our 17 month old has.  To be fair, neither Brooke nor I have much experience with children of this age, so we don’t really know what Meg is supposed to be doing, aside from walking and playing.  That said, it’s astounding to me the number of words Meg seems to know already.  My Mom has marveled at this fact in the past, and her general feeling is that Meg wasn’t walking for so long that her language skills developed sooner instead (we’re convinced it was because of the ear infections, messing with her balance: she was walking within 4 days of getting ear tubes put in).

With all this in mind, I figured I should recount the words Meg knows.  We aren’t really keeping much of a “baby book,” in favor of taking a ridiculous number of photos and videos, and writing things down on this blog, instead.  Bear in mind that these are all words that Meg appears to know, most of which she can say, though it may not sound like we know it (and I have included her phrasing in parenthesis after each word).  At the bottom, I’m also listing a series of body parts Meg knows.  So far as we’ve read, this part is quite impressive, as she’s not really supposed to be able to do this for another year or so.  She can only say a few of them, but she can point to each one reliably.

Words:

  • Mom (“Mama”)
  • Dad (“Da”)
  • Meg (“Mee”)
  • Edie (“Dih-di”)
  • Banana (“Nana”)
  • Apple (“Appo”)
  • Juice (“Ju”)
  • Car (“Doh”)
  • Chicken (“Ba ba ba”)
  • Sheep (“Bah”)
  • Cow (“Mmm”)
  • Outside (“Outside”)
  • Elmo (“Emmo”)
  • Abby (“Abbee”)
  • That (“Da”)  — [Note: This is what she says when she points at something…]
  • Shirt (“Sit”)
  • Shoes (“Soos”)
  • No (“No”) —  [Note: As in, “I don’t want to do that”]
  • No? (“No no”) — [Note: As in, “I know I shouldn’t do this but I want to do it anyway…”  :-)]
  • Goodnight (“Night night”)
  • Hi (“Hi”)
  • Hello (“Ello”)
  • Goodbye (“Buh bye”)
  • Hat (“Hatta”)
  • Star (“Tar”)
  • Ball (“Bah”)
  • More (“Mo”)
  • Cat (“Didee”)
  • Good morning (“Minning”)
  • Uh oh (“oh-ohhh”)
  • Whoa (“whoa”)
  • Help, please (“Hep-eez”)
  • Baby (“bee-bee”)
  • All done (“aw done”)
  • Close door (“ah doh”)

Body Parts:

  • Nose (“no”)
  • Eyes (“ay”)
  • Ears
  • Teeth
  • Cheeks
  • Knees (“Nee”)
  • Feet
  • Toes (“Dohs”)
  • Belly
  • Hair