A Quick Tour of Broad Street, Newark, NJ

I just happened to have the camera in the car today and had to make a surprise swing around “the block” in downtown Newark so I took the opportunity to record a quick trip up Broad Street from south to north. The video quality is pretty rough with bad lighting and a dirty windscreen but at least it will give you a feel for the area just south of where we are currently living. You can see Military Park, City Hall, the new New Jersey Devils Stadium under construction, Market St., etc. At the end I pull up to 1180 Raymond Blvd and you get a glimpse of the building. Enjoy.

Down the Tour of Broad Street, Newark, New Jersey
Watch the Tour streaming from OurMedia

November 3, 2006: It’s Friday, Yay!

In the eleventh hour leading up to the release of Windows Vista Microsoft has decided to back off on its draconian licensing terms in the Vista EULA and now users will be allowed to transfer the Vista license an unlimited number of times if they buy the full, non-OEM copy. This makes the licenses mostly comparable to Windows XP and makes it something that I can once again recommend. Kudos to Microsoft for getting a clue and listening to the bloggers responses to discovering the original EULA terms.

Some of you were aware that Dominica and I were looking at a possible move at work that would have allowed us to move to Northern Ireland. At one point it was an “all clear” and as far as we knew everything was happening but as often happens there were many unknown factors and that has fallen through. As with any opportunity we are kind of bummed just because it would have been a neat change of pace but there were lots of downsides and we are very happy where we are now. So we are staying in Newark for the foreseeable future.

Now we can really put forth some effort furnishing our apartment and getting it to be a place where we are really going to live. It will mean that we get to continue using the house in Geneseo on a semi-regular basis. Our plan, currently for what that is worth, is to keep moving forward with finishing the house in Geneseo.

We finally got our apartment deposit back from our place in North Brunswick today. Boy this stuff takes forever. At least that is one less thing that I need to worry about. I hate having to follow up to make sure that people are giving you your money back.

Last night when I got home from work Dominica wanted to go out shopping in West Orange so I picked her up and we did some driving around trying to find a new way to get our to West Orange. That ended up just getting us lost.

We finally got out to the shopping center and we know how to get there easily now. We grabbed dinner at Desert Moon Cafe which we didn’t realize was a national chain. They now have tofu on their menu and we were really happy with the food there. It was very tasty. We will be going back there now that we know that they are just ten minutes away and that they have new menu items that we really like.

After dinner we hit Macy’s really quickly to get the stuff that Dominica had wanted to go shopping for. That only took a few minutes. Then we hit Stone Cold Creamery for dessert but we were pretty full and couldn’t eat much which was sad because the ice cream sounded so good.

We came home and decided that it needed to be a very early night and we went pretty much right to bed. Boy are we ever getting old! I thought about playing some Lunar Legend before actually falling asleep but before I could actually play it – I was asleep.

I ended up working from home for quite a while this morning. I was planning on escaping Newark on the early side but I got caught doing one thing or another and didn’t actually manage to leave Newark until almost eleven. That works out well though because it ends up making the day seem to fly by.

I am really glad that today is Friday. I am looking forward to a nice “relaxing” weekend at home. We don’t get those often enough. Dominica has a lot of homework and studying to do this weekend so we will just be home doing that most of the weekend. She is coming into the second half of her Java class and so that is getting much harder. And she has only six weeks left to finish her A+ before they introduce a new A+ test and she has to start over again which would be awful.

We had a fire “drill” this afternoon. Apparently it was announced but through a channel where no one was aware of it and I am pretty sure that only a small number of people were told. So I had no jacket and had to stand around outside for a while without one. It was a little chilly.

Here is a story proving that everything that you think about Newark is a Bunch of Bull.

I left work just a little after five and drove in heavy traffic and beat Dominica and Oreo home by quite a bit. When they got home we decided to order from Domino’s and to just spend the evening relaxing at home. We have to be up early in the morning to go bookshelf shopping so we don’t want to stay up too late.

We popped in Date Movie which was one of the many movies that we had picked up while having been down in Maryland this past weekend. In addition to Date Movie we also picked up copies of Benchwarmers, Just Friends, Scorched, Wedding Crashers, The New World, Lord of War and Ladies in Lavender with Judi Dench. It didn’t take long before we realized that Date Movie was completely unwatchable and turned it off and watched Benchwarmers instead.

The Benchwarmers was significantly better and a halfway decent movie on its own. Silly and dumb but it had some good people and was cute. Then it was off to bed to play some video games. Oreo had another surprise birthday party today at daycare and is totally exhausted. This was his first five day daycare week, he had two parties and he had a long weekend of playing with buddy leading into the week so he is the most tired Oreo that there has ever been!

I posted some really cute pics of Oreo in his Yoda costume onto Flickr. He is so adorable in his costume and he loves wearing it.

November 2, 2006: Internet Television Day

Joey’s Scribble Blog had a cute Windows vs. Linux article this morning that I found entertaining. So here it is.

Dad sent me a link to this weird drawing game thing called Line Rider.

Last night was a short night. I got home and both Dominica and I had decided that we kind of wanted to eat at IHOP so I picked up Min who was waiting at the door and we were off to IHOP. Dinner was good. We got home and pretty much it was straight to bed for us.

I was up early this morning – before half past five. I got ready for work and left a little bit before Dominica did. It turns out that it was a good morning to be up and moving early. I got to the office and was inundated with work and was completely swamped all morning. I didn’t get a chance to catch my breath until after noon.

I did bring a stack of magazines and newspapers to work today to get caught up. Whenever I see dad he always has a huge stack of mail for me that always includes a huge number of magazines that I need to get through. Over the past two days I have made it through four or five issues each of InfoWorld and eWeek, CIOInsight, Optimize, Baseline, among others. I really do get backed up.

I have recently discovered that due to something beyond my control that Rocketboom now works from my office. How did this happen? I have no idea. But, yay! So today I decided to do what I could to get caught up on old Rocketboom episodes.

My after lunch slash early afternoon period got pretty slow and I got to search around for new and exciting Internet television programs. Amanda Congdon made famous by being the original host of Rocketboom is now wrapping up a cool show that she did called Amanda Across America which you should definitely check out.

I am also excited to report that Homestar Runner is no longer only available in the annoying flash format but is now available as a downloadable Internet television show. That is so much better than the way that it used to be. Andy will definitely appreciate that.

Dad said that the work on his barn roof is done today and just in time. Minutes after completing the roof it began to snow and they got two inches of snow this afternoon. That is really amazing to us here where it is Indian Summer and really warm the past couple of days. Dominica and I have been running the air conditioning at night because it has been so warm!

Epson is expected to have a 1080p projector available in Japan in December. We can only imagine that this will be being made available to the rest of the world shortly thereafter. That is very exciting. Finally a way to watch 1080p BluRay Discs at a full 1080p at full size. I can’t wait to have THAT in the theatre!

Dominica ordered our new hall table yesterday and we hope to have that soon. Our plan is to go to IKEA on Saturday morning to pick up the new bookshelf that we want. They have a really nice, large bookshelf that is available with additional extensions that go on top allowing you to make it really tall and able to hold a ton of books which we really need. Since we have little floor space but eleven foot ceilings that should be perfect for us. It will probably quadruple our total shelf space in the apartment.

Susan is coming to visit us next week. She and Zach just moved to Baltimore a couple of months back but she has just found out that she has a position with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra! She called a few weeks ago to find out where we were living and if we were anywhere in the vicinity of where the orchestra plays. As luck would have it, we are living right across the park from their home at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. When we walk Oreo in Military Park we go right past NJPAC. We can see it from our building. We is less than a five minute walk from our building to the performing arts center. We were planning on getting season tickets to attend the symphony which works out even better. So Susan is coming up next week to stay with us for a few days. Now, with the exception of our families, only Josh and Susan will have ever come to New Jersey to visit us.

Dominica wanted to go to Macy’s tonight to do some shopping and then we are going to get some dinner. I wrapped up around six this evening so it wasn’t too late. Only one more day and no traveling this weekend. Just some shopping.

Vloging with the New Camera

Today’s Vlog is the very first using the new Kodak v530 camera. I vlog as I drive from Newark to Warren, NJ. The episode is about nine and a half minutes long and you get a chance to see a rather long stretch of US 78 westbound with the autumn leaves changing. This is the first SGL Vlog episode shot in thirty frames per second and the first using 640×480 screen resolution (similar to the output of a progressive scan DVD player also known as Enhanced Definition TV or EDTV.) So compared to earlier vlog entries this one is huge. Be prepared to wait a while for this download.

Download the QuickTime Movie: Scott Driving to Warren with the New Camera

Attempt to stream to your QuickTime Browser Plugin Directly from OurMedia

SDTV – 480i, 480 interlaced lines in 4:3 format.
EDTV – 480p, 480 true lines in 4:3 format.
HDTV – 1080i, 1080 interlaced lines in 16:9 format.

November 1, 2006: Back in New Jersey

I am back in New Jersey and SGL is back online. Life is good. I was a little tired this morning after all of the driving over the past five days but at least that is done now. (200 miles on Friday, 110 miles on Saturday, 200 miles on Sunday, 360 on Monday and 310 yesterday – that is 1180 miles in five days!)

Today we are sending out a special W.O.R.D. to Chris and Eric from Long Island who are now reading the site. Once you start you just can’t stop. SGL is addicting.

Oreo had a great time at daycare yesterday. All of the dogs were dressed up for the holiday and it was like a giant party. Oreo just loves parties. He knows when there is a party going on and he gets so excited. And he really likes wearing his costume so he was having all kinds of fun. Oreo’s Yoda costume won the highly coveted “Most Original Costume” award and he got a special treat bag to take home.

On the way into the office this morning I managed to record the first video blog using the new Kodak V530 digital camera. The one that we got is black and very attractive. It is small and far easier to hold than the old camera – the CX7530. Additionally the new camera captures 30fps at 640×480 instead of 15fps of the old camera. (I believe that all of the old videos were shot in 20fps 320×240 so brace yourselves for some seriously updated video quality.) The new camera also has zoom and focus working while the video is recording which was missing from the last camera. This is a far more versatile unit.

The one thing that really concerns me about the new camera is the battery situation. It uses a Kodak rechargeable battery which in and of itself is a good thing. My Nikon uses a Nikon battery and I am extremely happy with that but the Nikon is used differently (by me) and charging the battery is not a big deal (even though after having had it for a year and using it I have never had the battery even decrease in strength let alone need to be charged!) but the Kodak I carry with me and use all of the time for silly stuff and the last thing that I want to have happen is to have the battery die just when I go to use the camera and then I have to go put it onto the charger and wait three hours or more for the camera to be useful again. There is no way, as far as I can tell, to charge the battery without having it in the camera which is a huge pain. The camera comes with a totally useless base that you would think would be used for charging batteries outside of the camera but that is not what it is for. It apparently just exists to use extra plastic.

In any case I am quite excited to be able to use the new camera and I can’t wait to post the first pics and videos so that everyone can see how it is working. I managed to record a nine and a half minute vlog post this morning while driving in to the office which is much longer than I ever was able to record with the old camera so that is a very good sign. Perhaps the bad flash on the old camera was more of a problem than we thought.

For lunch today I went out with a buddy from the office and looked at a condo that he was interested in and then we headed down to the thriving metropolis of Warrenville to get some Thai from the Thai House. I haven’t managed to get down there for a while. Apparently this is the week of eating places that I haven’t made it to in a while. First the Omega twice yesterday. Then the Thai House. Maybe Tanjore later this week?

Dominica has been furniture shopping and discovered that getting the bookshelf delivered from Ikea that we want will cost as much for the shipping as it will for the bookshelf so we have to go and pick it up ourselves which will be awful. She did find a hall table from Target that she really likes that has to be ordered online which she attempted to do today. We desperately need those two pieces of furniture as we have no space to store anything and there are books and magazines just sprawling everywhere in the apartment and the hall table is critical for giving us a place to put down our keys and stuff. Right now they keep making their way to the kitchen counter and that has become a disaster.

Dominica also managed to find bar stools that we like but we are going to wait on getting those. Too much furniture all at once. We need to pace ourselves. The first thing that we need to do is to get all of these servers wrapped up and shipped off. They take up a lot of space and are really in the way. It is tough having “work materials” in such a small apartment. I am very hopeful to have them all moved out next week. At least most of them. That means, of course, that I have to make a trip back out to Scranton soon. Just what I wanted – more driving.

I am going to post early again tonight. I know that everyone has been SGL deprived and I managed to get a lot done today so enjoy.