Review: Christopher Jak
Although it’s been out since March of 2004, I recently discovered the music of Christopher Jak. His album “Applause of the Rain” has quickly become one of my favorites. With musical influences such as the Allman Brothers, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Cat Stevens, his acoustic style tracks and crisp vocals are soothing to one’s ears. The melodies are simple and the lyrics relate to everyone. Although not for everyone, his folk style freshman album plays well for long road trips, quite evenings at home, and perfect chill out music. Many of his songs warrant the opportunity as a romantic comedy movie soundtrack without the cheesiness and flare. This album is a wonderful mix of slow and upbeat tunes and is definitely worth the purchase.
Starbucks. Too much, too fast?
Starbucks is slated to close about 600 of their retail stores around the country. Here in Austin, Texas, they are scheduled to close two stores, one of which is located close to my home. Granted, there are about 4 Starbucks stores in a 1 miles radius of my house and the one closing is one that I do not frequent. However, I was surprised to learn that this particular store is closing since it’s located in a new retail development that is booming in South Austin. It’s also located right off of Interstate 35 and is fairly easy to get to should you exit the highway for some brew.
Regardless of the location and patronage, do you think Starbucks grew too much, too fast? I remember a few years ago when Starbucks was tooting their horn on how many stores they were opening each and every week. I also remember that some market analysts speculated that the rapid growth of the retail stores would one day come to bite Starbucks in the butt. It looks like that time has finally come.
The majority of retailers out there forced to close 600 stores would consider this a huge loss. Granted Starbucks is taking quite a hit for many of these stores. The one in South Austin alone hasn’t been open for more than a year. But given the 1000’s of retail locations they currently have open, is this truly a hit in the pants?
I love a Starbucks drink just like the next person. But I have to admit it’s not always a place that I frequent. I’m on a budget and Starbucks is one of those places that I use for a “treat” or the occasional meeting place. I stick to the packaged Starbucks coffee and brew at home at a substantially lower cost.
Does anyone else think that Starbucks grew too much, too fast?
Life Comes at You Fast
Saturday night I was in a wreck. I didn’t see it coming. I had parked in the huge pakring lot under I-35 near 6th street to meet up with some friends that were leaving Austin for Grad school. After a fun dinner with friends I headed back to my truck to head home for the evening. Little did I know that a couple from Hoston was trying to squeeze their small Toyota into a the smaller part of the entryway that no car could have made it through. Because their car wasn’t moving and I thought they were aware they wouldn’t fit into entry way my truck was blocking, I decided to pull out of the parking lot into the south bound feeder road. Low and behold, they had pulled into the spot and another car had taken their position in the road and I nailed the car from the passenger side.
I saw the entire thing happen too! As my headlights lit both the driver and passenger up, I saw the glass from their window completely implode on the car. The driver of the other vehicle ended up being taken to Brackendridge hospital here in Austin and I walked away with very little damage on my truck and no injury to myself. It really made me take a step back from life for just a quick moment that night. My mind has been running since I hit her on Saturday.
It hasn’t been anything profound, but it has caused me to stop and just think about life, and what it is that I take for granted and value. I hope and pray that the driver of the other vehicle was more shaken up by the incident than actually hurt. (no blood or anything) - The passenger walked away with no injury either.
E-Mail Standards
As some of you know, I recently took a job with a company in Austin called Engauge Direct. We focus our daily efforts on helping companies communicate through e-mail and micro-sites about new products, special offers, promotions, and other forms of electronic communications. Specifically, we work with Best Buy for Business, Logitech, CDW, Advocent, and a number of other clients.
One of the daily obstacals we face is meeting the design standards to ensure that our e-mails show up, or render, correctly on all the e-mail clients out there. It’s no small undertaking and we are constantly haveing to keep up with new standards and clients that are making changes to their email platforms. The web based e-mail systems like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! are just a few the programs that able to change their standards and rendering systems on the fly. It’s has been constant headahe that we face day in and day out.
There is a group of people that have started the Email Standards Project, that are working to help set the standard for e-mails and e-mail clients. It’s an uphill battle, but they are trying to connect directly with team members from the development teams of the web and client based programs as well as spread the word in the design community about these standards.
If you are a designer or work for one of the major clients, please be sure to visit the project to read more about their effots.
We’ve Landed on Mars
If you haven’t read by now, the US has successfully landed on Mars. After a 10 month, 422 million mile journey to the red planted, the Mars Phoenix landed on the planet for a 90 day mission. NASA has stated that they are looking for signs of past, present or future ability for the planet to substain life. The Phoenix landed closer to the planets north pole, the Red Planet’s arctic plains, where winter is quickly approaching. The Phoenix relies on solar power in order to power up it’s camera, robotic arm and other instruments while on the planet.
When I was a kid I was always fascinated with the idea of space and what all is out there. The idea that there might be other galaxy’s just like ours with another “Earth” somewhere out there. Reading the stories and keeping up with the images coming in from the Phoenix is amazing to me. The fact that we can communicate with a device so far away blows me away. It’s hard to believe that NASA is able to retrieve images, control and communicate with an object 422 million miles away.
The Phoenix was originally scheduled to depart back in 2001 but was postponed due to a crash of the rover Polar back in 1999. Other explorations in 1997 and 2004 were successful and allowed NASA views of the terrain in order to better locate ice and water for this mission. In 2004, the rover Opportunity found evidence that a salty sea once lapped the shores of an area near Mars’ equator called Meridiani Planum. Astrobiologists generally agree that it’s best to look for life in wet places.
All this said, it still amazes me that we are not only able to reach planets millions of miles away, but we can communicate with these objects and explore for the future.
Blues on the Green
It’s that time again in Austin, Texas. As summer is upon us, it’s time for Blues on the Green to hit Zilker Park once again (and it starts tonight). Last year included some amazing performers and aritsts and this years line up is no different. If you are in the Austin area, you should check out Blues on the Green if have a free Wednesday night. The City of Austin charges for parking in the park on Blues night so be prepared to car pool or park a distance and walk but the concerts are FREE!
Schedule:
6/11 - Asleep At the Wheel
6/25 - Marcia Ball
7/9 - Los Lonely Boys (w/Shawn Sahm & The Tex Mex Experience)
7/23 - Carolyn Wonderland
8/6 - Sonny Landreth
8/20 - Doyle Bramhall/Gary Clark Jr.
This is just one of the other reasons that I love AUSTIN TEXAS. For more information about the events, visit http://www.kgsr.com/blues/index.html
A Close Call
The other afternoon, I walked out of my house after being home for a few hours to discover a huge limb from the tree in the font yard completely blocking me in my driveway. I am so thankful that the tree didn’t hit my truck. Needless to say, I ended up maneuvering my truck out of the driveway, through the neighbors yard and into the street.
What is ironic about this whole thing is that I called a tree trimming company a few days before to get an estimate to get the tree limbs off my house and clean up what the previous owner “tried” to do. This site is currently sitting in my driveway until Friday morning.
To My Readers…
I ran into B-Dub’s girl yesterday and we got to talking about blog posts and the funny things that happen in our lives. During the conversation, I was asked why I wasn’t posting anymore. So to all of my three readers, I have to be honest that I have just been in a blogging funk here lately. Life has been busy but I just haven’t been motived to post much. I am hoping to change this.
Some time ago I had quite a few readers that visited here. I still get quite a few clicks into the blog as shown by my tracking stats, but even those have started to drop some. I even had built up quite a few readers from other blogs and people around the globe from my postings here and there. I figure it’s high time to get back into the blogging world and write about life, liberty, and the pursuit of… well stuff. Plus being so busy would at least give me content to post about don’t you think?
So here is my promise to post more. Maybe not everyday, but I’m going to shoot for at least one a week.
Free Drugs
This was taken from Foxnews.com today! Crazy!
An unsuspecting passenger who flew through Tokyo’s Narita airport left with $10,000 worth of free marijuana thanks to a forgetful customs officer and a sniffer dog with an unreliable nose.
The officer stuffed five ounces of the drug into the side pocket of a randomly selected black suitcase coming off an overseas flight into Narita yesterday so that the dog could get some practice at detecting drugs.
“The dog couldn’t find it and the officer also forgot which bag he put it in,” a customs office spokeswoman said. “If by some chance passengers find it in their suitcase, we’re asking them to return it.”
The spokeswoman quoted the unnamed 38-year-old officer as saying: “I knew that using passengers’ bags is prohibited, but I did it because I wanted to improve the sniffer dog’s ability.”
He was reprimanded by the head of customs at Narita, Manpei Tanaka, who said: “This case was extremely regrettable. I would like to deeply apologize.”
The marijuana, which has a street value of $9,680, was in a metal box wrapped with newspapers. Japan strictly prohibits both hard and soft drugs, with people imprisoned for possession of even small amounts of marijuana.
April Fools Joke’s Abound
I arrived into work today to find the first of many April Fool’s jokes in the office and around the net. However, little did I realize that it was in fact April Fools. The company dress code at work is pretty relaxed. We can wear shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, etc. As I sat down to read my e-mail, the president of our company had sent out a company wide e-mail addressing some of the dress code issues and a few changes that he wanted make. It was even attached to the official company letterhead through our e-mail program. Basically it took me about an hour to realize that we infact did not need to wear suits and ties along with dress shoes and the entire getup. Hoover’s is a pretty relaxed place to work for the most part so the entire thing caught me off guard to say the least. I was thinking about where I was going to be able to find a few suites without breaking the bank.
Google and a few other companies also had their share of pranks for the day. I got pranked for sure.