Quote of the week, from Henry Rollins, on his weekly column on LA Weekly.
“When I connected with punk rock, the music overload was complete. This is probably when my contempt for reality was fully realized.”
Nervous Hospital Video
A quick vid I made last night. Also made the soundtrack.
New Video
Fun with Photoshop
Finally got back out to my skateboarding hill last night. Used the GoPro to get some footage. Not the greatest footage, but not too bad for tripod stuff done quickly.
I captured a few stills from the video footage and tweaked them a bit with Photoshop. Here are 4 of them.
Click the images for full size.
Still Shots
Still capture from video session last night, run through Photoshop.
Out of the Loop
A confession here.
I have only seen the first episode of Breaking Bad. I found it amusing and engaging.
But not enough to pay for the more expensive cable package. You see, I have the “locals only” package. It costs about $20 a month after taxes and fees, and gets me the local TV stations (in HD) via cable.
Occasionally there’s a show that I or my wife decide we’d like to watch, like the Sopranos or Mad Men. In that case, we’ll wait until it’s available via streaming Netflix and watch it there. Good enough. No commercials that way.
I was going to write this post in a very high-falootin’ way, saying all kinds of stuff about how TV is for morons, there’s nothing good on, etc. That’s all mostly true. Network TV is mostly crap. If you disagree with that assessment, do me a favor. Tune in to America’s Got Talent or the Voice, or try finding anything on during a weekday that doesn’t involve paternity tests. I think you will change your mind.
Occasionally there will be something on network television that mildly interests me. For example, last week Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD started. I watched the first episode, and being a comic book nerd I kinda liked it. It won’t last. No network show I like lasts more than one or two seasons. If it does, it quickly degenerates into not-so-good. I dug the show 24. It was exciting. There were a few others shows during that time period that were kind of good, at least initially. We used to watch Alias, but after season two it went from entertainingly implausible and fun to mind-lurchingly stupid.
Did I just invent a new term? Has anyone ever in the history of the English language written “mind-lurchingly”. I think I have just contributed to the zeitgeist.
Speaking of lurching, a couple of years ago my friend Mike turned me on to the show The Walking Dead. I watched an episode with him and his family. It was fun. I’m not really a zombie fan, but what the hell, it was enjoyable. I watched the first episode on Netflix a while back. It was kind of fun too. If you want escapism (and who occasionally doesn’t?) why not zombies trying to eat people? It’s a lot better than network stuff like CSI: Necrophiliac Sodomizer Division.
Note: if you are looking for a “thesis” in this post – some indication of where I’m going with this, stop. I’m just thinking and typing.
Apparently the good writers, good ideas, and good actors all go to the “pay TV” channels, like HBO, and whatever the hell Breaking Bad was on. That is where the money is. The networks have decided that it is easier and more profitable to put Bovine-America on display on reality shows, like a Elephant dressed in a tutu, dancing on tippy toes while balanced on an inverted cup and saucer, while eating Twinkies and guzzling down Coors Lite. Sadly, that elephant is getting more and better exercise than the viewers. They’re at home waiting for the Ambien to kick in, not realizing that it already has.
So it seems that if you are going to watch and enjoy TV, it really is necessary to get a nice “package” of channels.
Or, you can do what I do. Just watch the oldies channels like MeTV or Cozi TV. I can’t say TV has gotten any better since the Twilight Zone, Star Trek, the Six Million Dollar Man, Lost in Space, or Night Gallery. That’s about all you really need. I’ll admit, the Six Million Dollar Man actually doesn’t rate with the others in that list, but I have a soft spot for the bionic man.
When you watch TV like that, see, there is a sense of freedom you get. No. Not just a sense of freedom. But Freedom with a capital F. You don’t have to be there at a particular time to see a particular new episode, because you’ve seen ’em all before.
You don’t have to worry about setting your TIVO up to record some shit. You don’t even need TIVO. You just sit down after a fine evening of exercise, skateboarding, music playing, reading, class, or [insert name of other productive mind/body-embiggening activity here], turn on the tube, and get stoked that the Star Trek episode about the Horta is on.
Note: as I sit here doing a proof-read of this post, I realized that for a person who really doesn’t watch a lot of TV, I tend to write about it a lot. Like most of us, I watched a lot of TV as a kid. I’m surprised I can even walk, given the amount of time I spent splayed out in front of the TV when I was a kid. Were it not for skateboarding, I’m sure I would currently weigh 700 pounds, and be preparing for one of the weight loss reality shows so popular now. Anyway, due to the frequency of my TV posts, I just created a “television” category for the blog. I’m obsessive that way.
OK, time to wrap this up. Regarding Breaking Bad. Apparently last night was the final episode extravaganza of the series. It is all over the interwebs. A friend of mine posted this great cartoon today. I think that having seen the first episode and generally knowing what it is about, and then totally understanding and finding this comic funny, proves that Episode 1 probably is all you need to see. The essentials are all there, the rest is just fluff.
But watch the whole thing if it brings you pleasure.
Urinal Talk
Fellow men,
Bathroom urinals are designed so that the “pee catcher” protrudes a few inches from the main body of the urinal. While urinal design varies slightly from one manufacturer to the other (one must consider aesthetics in all areas of endeavor), the protruding pee catcher is common to all modern urinals.
This design allows one to urinate without dribbling pee all over the floor in front of the urinal, IF — and I can’t emphasize this enough — one stands within a reasonable distance of the urinal.
It doesn’t work if you are a foot away. It isn’t that complicated. When finishing the urination, you must have your member OVER the pee catcher until all urination is concluded, and all dribble-droplets are dribbled.
That is all.
The Ultimate Plot Hole
In the Fantastic Four’s first encounter with Galactus, they get a little help from the Watcher, who gives Reed Richards access to the Ultimate Nullifier, a device with which he is able to drive Galactus away from Earth.
Are we to believe that Galactus, an almost omnipotent being, capable of creating demigods like the Silver Surfer, subsisting on the life-energy of entire planets, born in the fire of the Big Bang…
…can’t simply take the damned thing away from Reed Richards, the guy whose power is the ability to stretch?
Surely Galactus could have paralyzed Reed rendering him unable to trigger the device. He could have teleported the device from Reed’s hand. He could simply cause Reed to instantly be dead. There are an infinite number of ways a being like Galactus could have easily solved this problem.
I call BULLSHIT!
Long or Short?
If I’m going to go back to the Philly Freestyle contest in 2014, I guess now is the time to start thinking about my plan. Will I ride the longboard again? Will I go back to a shortboard? Will I do one run on each?
The truth is that I could probably go back to a normal freestyle board and do pretty well. I have enough reasonably good tricks to place well, and that would be very cool. On the other hand, I really like riding the longboard. It is challenging, and it is different. Even if other longboarders enter, it is unlikely they will skate in the same way I do.
I had a good time this year without placing. A number of people approached me after the contest to tell me they enjoyed my runs. That made me feel real good — I’d kind of rather be appreciated by a select few that dug by the many. Unless the many are all giving me money in appreciation of my skillz. Then the many would be really cool.
Now, when I eventually see the video of myself at this event, if I am just horrified by what I see I may change my mind, but as of right now I think I’m gonna stick with the longboard. I think there are enough good tricks I can adapt to the longboard that I can make it continue to work for me.
This past weekend in Philly was the most I’ve ever ridden the Small School 41″ Mega Freestyle deck before. It took a while, but I really started getting used to it. Took a while to find the wheelie sweet spot on the nose, as well as the right foot positioning for 360s and Space Walks on the tail. Once I figured that stuff out, it really became fun.
Besides the obvious difference of figuring out how to do tricks on a longer, heavier board, one thing I didn’t really consider is how much space it takes to do the moves. There were a few times I really had to rush. For instance, I had to rush getting my feet into position for a two-footed nose wheel, and as a result the wheelie wasn’t really that good. That’s a trick I can typically just lock in, and carve a nice smooth curve. So I need to remember that even with the relatively short 1-minute runs to not rush anything. I’d rather do 6 tricks well than 8 tricks crappily.
In the two days since I started writing this post, I’ve been thinking of and noting lots of ideas for tricks and footwork sequences on the longboard. While you can’t do the footwork as fast on the longboard, the extra wheelbase actually allows some footwork to be done better, as it give you a lot more room to move your feet.
So in the coming weeks I’ll start working on both my tricks and tweaking my setup a bit. Not much to be done with the setup, but I want to experiment with different wheels. I like the Bones STF — they are great and provide the perfect amount of slide for the board, but I am thinking about going to a slightly larger diameter. The taller wheels provide a little more consistent roll for doing wheelies. I’m not talking about a big difference – just going from 51mm to 54mm.
Philly Trip, Day 3 – Contest Day
This post is being written the week after the contest, as I was too tired when I got back after the contest to even think about writing this.
Saturday, September 14 was contest day. The event was supposed to start at 11am, and of course being a skate event I knew it would be at least an hour late. Skaters sleep late. However, I didn’t know how the parking would be, so I got up early, payed way too much for the hotel buffet breakfast but got a nice big breakfast and lots of coffee, finished “the morning ritual”, and got to the contest site about 10am.
I started rolling around, thinking about a couple of good lines for my runs, as people slowly started to arrive. It was quickly very clear that in my division, “the Masters” (over 40), we would have some really good skating. Due to its nature, freestyle is a kind of skating that people can do it really well up to pretty advanced ages and still be really good.
AJ Kohn, contest organizer, had already been there for a while, setting up the “tent”, the sound system, chairs, and just generally getting things ready. He handled sign-in too. More about AJ later. For now I’ll just say he rules.
So, this venue is called Rizzo Rink. It is actually a public basketball court sitting under I95, just a block or two west of the Delaware River. The actual “rink” is a public ice skating rink. The city uses the space under the elevated freeway for parking, basketball, etc. So the place is covered. It is pretty damned cool.
Skaters continued to arrive and start practicing. The schedule was to be…
- Novice (groms)
- Amateur
- Masters
- Pro
- 360 Spin-Off
- Highest Ollie
- Launch Ramp
- Game of Skate
Unlike traditional freestyle contests of the past, in which each skater got two 2-minute runs, there is recent trend of doing 1-minute runs instead. This trend was continued in Philly. Everyone got two 1-minute runs, and pros got three runs. I think there is room in freestyle for both ways. There are some advantages to doing 1-minute runs. It keeps things moving well. It is more interesting to watch. It encourages more people to enter, since one minute is much less intimidating than two minutes. I think it is true that the more limited time doesn’t permit more accomplished skaters put together a whole artistic presentation, so for some that is a big issue. Each contest has its own vibe and goals. For this event, AJ certainly made the right choice. It was a fun, fast moving contest with lots of participants.
I’ve been involved with freestyle for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve ever been to a contest in about 25 years. It was great to finally meet people face to face whom I’ve been collaborating with/communicating with for over ten years. I felt like I already knew these guys. It was very cool. I saw Keith Renna over at the judges stand, so I snuck up on him, put him in a very sloppy rear-naked choke (Keith is an MMA practitioner) and he had no problem guessing who it was. Frank Lavallee was there with Keith, and it was great to meet him too! Others on the list of longtime “hey I know you” people were Jesse Whalen, obviously Terry and Jenna Synnott, and of course AJ Kohn.
OK, I will give an overview of the divisions. Please forgive me if I leave out any names — these are just my recollections and impressions.
Groms: it’s always cool to see the little people (children) out there ripping at a contest. I didn’t know any of these kids, but clearly most if not all of them had participated in AJ’s events before. There were some solid flip tricks in this group — a few that were more solid than most of the adults/teens could do. A kid named Tyler Thomas won the Novice division, but really all of ’em skated hard!
Amateurs: This was the biggest group (20 riders), consisting of “the young dudes”. This is where you find the younger skaters who are all about freestyle, and the competition for the top 3 places was pretty serious. Pete Betti, of New Jersey, won this division, followed closely by El Paso’s Jacob Whitt in the #2 spot and Sweden’s Felix Jonsson in 3rd. I think all three of these guys are planning to move up to Pro in the next contest. My friend and co-cooperative at Small School, John Sargent, showed up with very little if any practice and nailed down 4th place with solid and impressive skating. Philly’s own Tyrone Williams finished out the top five with some killer runs.
One really fun thing about the Am division was the participation of a number of all-around skaters. Guys that don’t specialize in flatland. Modern street skating has enough flip tricks that with the 1-minute format these guys can enter and really put on a good show. It is nice to see their participation. It was also great to see El Paso’s Garrett Danger Morrison on a longboard. Garrett ended up in 9th place, and showed a different way of attacking freestyle. Hats off, young sir.
Masters: This was my division. 8 skaters. It was clear pretty early that Bill Robertson, from El Paso, was the man to beat. Bill is an accomplished demo skater who had a pro model on Walker in the 1980s, and he’s really an all-around skater and good dude. So yeah – Bill won this with very ripping and I think perfect runs. If he made any mistakes they were minimal. Glad to have him in Texas! 2nd place went to veteran FSer Mike Kinney, who skated with great precision and style. Great to meet him and see him skate. 3rd went to Rodney “Ancient” Watkins – a Philly local and longtime skate advocate and mentor. He seems to be one of those guys who can just skate everything, adapting and enjoying any terrain or event. Alan Benson got 4th. Alan is a cool guy, and he does the slowest 360s I’ve ever seen! And I mean that in a nice way. Just total control. Kind of amazing.
Pros: There were 7 skaters entered in the pro event. Each of these guys offered a very different bag of tricks and riding style.
1st place – Terry Synnott. Yeah, I was pretty much rooting for him, not because the other guys aren’t great, but Terry is just the best. He is still inventing new footwork tricks, and at over 40 years of age could have decimated the Masters division, but keeps it real in the Pro.
2nd: AJ Kohn. AJ stepped away from the MC microphone long enough to skate, hammering away with his very hybrid style of freestyle.
3rd: Jesse Whalen. Jesse is one of my favorite skaters. His ability to throw multiple 540 shove-it variations into a 1-minute run is just fantastic. He also has the craziest and cool footwork style.
4th: Bert Mathieson. This was my first real look at Bert. Dude is a doctor — you know – a physician. At over 50 years old, he is in phenomenal shape, and is absolutely rewriting the book on handstand variations in skateboarding. It is something to see. Got to spend some time with him later at dinner, and he’s a good guy.
5th: Kyle Hamilton. OK, this guy is one solid muscle. He skated in a full Indiana basketball uniform. Seriously. Including red headband and white tube socks. He has a solid pro-level trick arsenal, including a very killer 360 fingerflip.
6th: Dave Vey. Dave came in with Terry. I was totally unaware of him. Real cool guy, and some serious pop. Dave does some really hard ollie tricks, as well as good footwork and all-around freestyle. Very impressed.
7th: Steven Vera: Steven skates for Bustin Boards, a longboard company. He entered on a total downhill style longboard — dropped platform, drop-through trucks, tiny nose and tail kicks. I loved watching this guy’s runs. He did his own thing and did it well. Absolutely the best G-Turns of anyone there, spiraling them until finishing with a shove-it out. I’m not sure that 7th really properly represents the quality of his skating — I think that the FS judging model just isn’t really geared-up to deal with this style of freestyle.
360s Spin-Off: Bill Robertson won this even with 22.5 spins. Closest competitor was Terry Synnott with 14.
Game of Skate: Don’t mess with Jesse Whalen. Just don’t do it.
Jump Ramp: Joey Uva
High Ollie: Official: Arjun Shah (6 Decks)
Un Official: John Jones (7 Decks)
Oh yeah, I ended up getting 6 out of 8 riding my longboard in the Masters Division. I was pretty happy with it. I did what I wanted to do. The guy just below me, Jason Thoel, probably maybe should have been in 6th. He did some good solid freestyle, and it was fun meeting and skating with him.
OK, a few words on AJ Kohn.
AJ organized this contest and essentially put it all together. He does this once a year, plus lots of other events. It is one thing to go skate and be a good skater, but another thing entirely to make things happen. AJ makes things happen. He is great on the microphone, keeping the contest moving, the crowd engaged, and is especially good at encouraging the little kids and brings out the best in them. He even does this all legally! Yep. He had a permit from the city for this contest at this location. So you don’t even have to worry about the event getting busted!
So he really deserves a lot of thanks, and in my book he has it.
I’ll be going back.
Philly Trip, Day 2
My typings from day 2 of the Philly Freestyle Trip, 2013…
Friday, Sept 13, Airport Hilton in Philly.
12:15pm I have been here less than 24 hours, and have eaten two gigantic cheeseburgers already. Not good — well — the burgers were OK, but I can’t do that the next 3 days. The hotel restaurant’s menu is very limited, and there is really nothing else around here, as the hotel is quite literally across the highway from the runways.
I slept in pretty late today. I probably needed it. My friend Terry Synnott and his wife, Jenna, and a friend, are coming in later this afternoon. I believe they will be at this hotel. Looking forward to meeting them for the first time in-person. So strange to “know” people for all these years and never meet face to face. But I feel these are real relationships, for sure. We share the skateboarding bond, which often equates to instant friendship.
Hotel rooms have to be the most solitary places in the world. If I were writing a book, a hotel might be a good place to do it. There’s nothing else to do. It is quiet. If you don’t like “to drink”, most hotels are pretty boring. I can also see how people who are on the road all the time become drunks. Most people would not enjoy sitting in a hotel room reading or writing every night. They would seek out the bar, and soon they’d be done.
I am digging this coffee that was in the little machine in my room. Single cup servings, measured out pretty well. Cream and sugar. It’s not bad at all. I needed it too. Feel an ocular migraine coming on.
Considering all the sitting in airports and on planes yesterday, my back feels alright. If I can loosen up a bit today with a short skate session, just to get my legs under me, I think I’ll be good for tomorrow. I still have very little in my bag of tricks. Looking at the Masters division, with a little practice I might have done well. I may still.
Only a skateboarder would go to a new city, a historic and famous city, and sit in the hotel until it is time to skate.
Well, time to let this burger digest.
6 minutes later…tried to sleep, but I have slept all I can. Reading may be the ticket.
9pm I spent most of the afternoon watching World War Z on streaming Amazon.com. It was better than I expected. Actually, it is pretty good and exciting.
About 3/4 into the movie, and maybe 3pm, Terry called and they had gone directly to the contest site to skate, without coming first to check in at the hotel. I made a quick call to Enterprise Rent-a-car at the airport, got the hotel shuttle driver to take me over there, and within about 25 minutes I had a car, had my board in the trunk, had a vague idea based on some half-ass directions how to get to this skate spot in downtown Philadelphia, and was on the road.
With very little difficulty I found the place, and when I got there Terry, his wife Jenna, Dave Vey, swedish freestyler Felix Jonsson, JT, and Gary Spatola were already there. So good to meet Terry after all these years of internet communication.
The spot is pretty cool. It is under a freeway on some basketball courts, next to a public ice rink — also under the freeway. It’s in a classic Philadelphia neighborhood — so cool! The surface is pretty good. The whole thing has a bit of a slope, which is a little freaky at first, but really not a big deal after you get used to it. I was glad to be there a day early and have a chance to check it out. I never skate well on the first time at a spot, even on flat ground.
Sooo…we skated, then Terry’s group and I went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and me down a the hotel sports bar for dinner. Great time at dinner talking with them. Terry is a freestyle skateboarding history freak, as am I, so it was fun.
Now back in the room. Lights out soon. Long day of skating and fun tomorrow.
Philly Trip, Day 1
I wrote this on the way to Philadelphia last week for a freestyle skateboarding contest. Posting it now…it is kind of stream of consciousness, so if you find it tiresome just go back to watching your stories.
9/12/2013
9:44am First learning from this trip: School zones suck. Morning traffic sucks. When caught in school zones and frustrated, Slayer is not the optimal music for avoiding nervous breakdowns or strokes.
Sitting now at the terminal waiting on flight, which is already 5 minutes delayed. Already there is a crying baby, and we’re not even on the plane yet. While I appreciate air travel, it is stressful. Going through security, the scanner operator asked what my digital voice recorder was. I explained its function and she was cool. It does look like a taser, so I can understand her question.
Grabbed some coffee and a not-so-fresh cinnamon roll from the Dunkin Donuts stand in the airport. The coffee is alright.
I have a 30 minute gap between my connecting flights in Tulsa, which is already down to 25 minutes. Just relax, Bob. Relax. You are not in a hurry. As long as no one steals the longboard out of your luggage all is well.
You can’t help but hear people’s conversations in situations like this. It’s weird. Especially travelling alone. It really makes me feel like an alien. Hearing business people talk on the phone is especially strange.
As my longtime regular readers know, I’m on my way to Philadelphia, for a skate contest. So all this bullshit should be worth it. I have plenty of time. Southwest Airlines will just have to get me there.
12:03 After a 30 minute delay in Dallas to get some overhead light repaired, we got underway and I made to Tulsa just in time to hand the agent my boarding pass, A-32, and step on the plane right in order. Then I looked out the window of the plane and saw my longboard bag being loaded on the new plane. So cool.
The WiFi costs $8 per day on Southwest, so I’m writing this offline. Will write a bit, then spend a lot of time reading.
So far, combining traffic with flight delays, it has been a stressful day. Now I am settled in to chill. Black Sabbath playing on the iPod. I messaged on FB this morning with Terry. He will be getting to Philly later in the day on Friday, which is fine. I will have a day of chilling at the hotel, then we’ll go skate and check out the spot. Not sure who else will be there at this hotel. Maybe no one.
Digging the Chromebook. Size and weight are perfect for airplane use. I could see getting the 11” MacBook Pro when money allows. Portablity is great. Funny – spell check doesn’t work offline on this machine. It really is all in the cloud. Also will not allow me to rename it offline. Crazy. Also loving that I have over 6 hours of batter life left.
Lots of early drinking on the plane. Couple in their 60s next to me ordered matching bloody marys. Seriously, there are a LOT of alcohols being served on this airliner. hahaha — yeah – this could be an interesting flight.
I only brought one board – the 41” small school FS longboard. I got on my normal FS board this morning and it just didn’t feel good. Last thing I need is to land a little off and throw out my back again. I could see that happening right now.
Even with the battery life of this Chrome book, I’m gonna be cutting it close if I left it on the whole flight.
2:02 Landed in Chicago’s Midway Airport to change crews and continue on to Philly. Apparently there is some bullshit traffic issue in Philly, so we are delayed two hours. Glad I don’t have another connecting flight. I realize this is the kind of thing the frequent travelers deal with all the time. It was a nice chance to get off the plane and eat some really horrible chinese food. Not sure what this means for my arrival time in Philly. Doesn’t matter too much. Think I will walk around a bit more.
6pm – Eastern time. In the air. Spent a few hours in Chicago. Weather on the east coast was a problem. Lighting hit a control tower in Baltimore, and lots of planes were diverted all over, including Philly. A real mess. On the way now, in the air, and expecting a rough flight. It is already rough.
So I’ll probably get to my hotel about 9pm. What a day. I guess I shouldn’t complain. Had a nice conversation with a fellow traveller in Chicago. He and I talked technology — gadgets. Nice guy. Wished him luck on his travels.
I’m really glad I have a day to rest now before the contest. Will need it. My back feels tired. Will try to work out tonight at the hotel. Get some exercise.
Need to come up with a good run for the contest. I think I have a some good longboard lines. Need to practice them. Big trick should be a kickflip at speed, I think. Need to make it more than a novelty — it needs to be a statement. Its a shame I wasn’t able to really crush the practice this year. I had such grand designs. Oh well. Fun is the name of the game. All that matters, really.
I will experiment tonight and tomorrow with the online audio editing app I installed. Curious how it will work for podcast editing. How will it handle multi-track, etc.
Travel can be so tiring, even if you aren’t doing the driving. Having music/internet does help. It was great to be able to chat with my wife while hung up in Chicago. I always find when I go to conferences that I’m kind of antisocial. I think this will be different. These are my people. Gonna make the most of this opportunity to get to know these guys I’ve been collaborating/communicating with for 10 years or more. This will actually be my second big skate trip of the year. Went to the small school jam earlier this year, which is always fun. Always great to see Jeremy, Sean Burke, Connor Burke, Sarge, Tommy, etc. Wish I could have seen Tyler Self this year, but he is deep into the college life. He’s a very smart young guy. A lot of fun to talk with.
New Chromebook realization: I guess it will not let you rename stuff on the offline files, once you have created them, unless it can simultaneously do the name change online. Lots of stuff like that seem to be the case. The problem is it won’t let you delete all the “Untitled Documents” you end up creating, because I can’t figure out how to find these offline docs in the “files” folder.
I feel like the Google Docs word processing editor is more intuitive than the newer versions of Word. Most people don’t need all the power of Word. Maybe if you are a PhD student, but not most users.
Will sign off for a bit. Write more at the hotel.
Later — after getting home from this trip…
As you will see in the coming entries, I did indeed make it to Philly and it was indeed worth the fairly horrible day of travel. That first night after arriving at the hotel I slammed down a cheese burger of epic proportions, fries, a Coca Cola, and a big piece of chocolate cake, then went to bed. A fantastic event, and I will write about it soon.
Yes, Again
Today is yet another 9-11 anniversary.
On this day of sad memories, confusion, bullshit jingoism and disaster-marketing, all I have to say is this…
Another nice thing about the Chromebook
A few years ago I purchased a Toshiba laptop (mention in the previous post) on which to learn some Windows/PC software. Didn’t want to defile my MacBook by putting Microsoft crap on it.
The PC laptop comes with tons of useless advertising crap on it. You have to either pay the store (in this case Best Buy) to remove the junk, or spend hours doing it yourself.
The Chromebook, which runs on a Linux-based OS, has none of that shit. Turn it one, sign on, and you are good to go. No frustrating PC-like bullshit.
Enter the Chromebook
I am typing this entry from my new Google Chromebook, working offline (intentionally) to test its offline document editing capacity.
It seems to work pretty well. I bought this machine a couple of hours ago. Since it is all Flash memory driven, it boots up really fast. It is light, which is why I purchased it — so I’d have a lightweight machine to use for travel. Something that won’t weight down my backpack.
Getting on WiFi is easy enough. There is a slight learning curve, even for technology veterans, in navigating the “desktop”. Unlike most laptops, you don’t really “save stuff to the desktop” on this machine. It is designed to work with Google Drive. Thus far, when I have tested it’s online/offline syncing ability, it seems to work quite well.
The Google Docs app I’m using right now will save in an MS Word format, as well as various other common text formats.
I intend to us this machine while on trips, for uploading photos, doing blog posts, writing, and general web surfing/communication. The apps available for video/audio editing seem limited right now, but not completely absent. The one I was really hoping to use for audio has been discontinued by its maker, which sucks, but I will figure out a workaround. It is rare that I need on the road audio editing. I’ll figure it out.
The screen quality seems pretty good considering this machine only cost $250. It looks a lot better than the full-sized Dell monitor I use at work, and is comparable to a non-Retina Apple monitor. So that’s cool.
The keyboard is big enough to be comfortable for full-sized male hands, and the track pad is fairly good. Not as good as an Apple track pad, but much better than the one on my much-hated and seldom used Toshiba laptop. It is one of those new-fangled trackpads with no discrete click button. The bottom of the pad itself is the button. This entire machine feels superior in its user-interface, keyboard, monitor, and trackpad than any PC laptop I’ve ever used. And at about ¼ or less the price.
Having everything you do show up in a Chrome browser window does seem strange at first, I must admit. Using Google’s apps and Google Drive is also strange to me. As much as I appreciate Google’s various products, it does seem somehow dumb to be giving them even more of my life to store on their servers. But really, they’ve already got it all anyway. If I decide to write a novel that will make me lots of money, I’ll do it offline I recon – and not on Google. Don’t want them coming after my fortune, even though they say in Google Docs that they won’t.
The construction of the Chromebook seems adequate. I wouldn’t call it flimsy at all, but I also wouldn’t say its bulletproof. A nice foam sleeve for travel might be a good idea.
Obviously, the machine works well for web surfing, since it is all based on the Chrome browser.
Importing images to the Chromebook was a bit confusing at first. I took a pic using a standard Canon digital camera, and connected via USB cable. The Chromebook didn’t seem to recognize the connection. Then I remember that the Chromebook has an SD card slot. I popped the SD card in there, and a file manager came right up. You can then drag the images into your “downloads” folder, or any other folder you create.
I’m still trying to figure out how to insert images into this document. There is an option for it in the “insert” menu, but it is grayed out. Will figure that out later. I wonder if it has to do with being offline? Weird. I’ll also install the Flickr app and see how it works later at home, online.
OK, I’m at home, online, and I figured it out. Images can’t be inserted into the Google Doc unless you are line. Make sense. You have upload the image to Google Drive, where the Doc will always have access to it.
I tried a Flickr app, but it sucked. Better to just go to Flickr.com and use it normally via the brower. Now I’ll try inserted this old skate image I had on Flickr. Not bad.
Now, finally, to save this in some format that can be quickly and easily put into my concretelunch.info blog. Let’s see…
I don’t want to “Publish to web”, as this will simply make the Google Doc public on my account.
Simply copying directly from the Google Chrome window and pasting into WordPress worked, but the formatting was just a bit messed up. Really big gaps between paragraphs.
Saving this document in Word format, than doing “paste from Word” in WordPress didn’t work very well.
None of this is surprising. Stuff never pastes into WordPress correctly from other formats/apps.
I have just opted for the 1st choice – pasting directly into WordPress from Docs. I cleaned up the extra space between paragraphs. This is actually pretty common. I’ve not found what I consider a really good offline blog editor. I used to have one for the Mac, but rarely used it. It just didn’t work that well. The reality is that most of the time I am somewhere that WiFi is available, and I suspect that trend will increase in the future. Assuming that civilization doesn’t collapse.
Well, now to finish up this post I’m typing directly into WordPress, like normal. As I come up with new thoughts about the Chromebook I will collect them and post them. So far I think it is going to be a good option for light weight mobile blogging/social media/word processing.