Check out this very good article on Ingress. After I viewed the big photo at the top, however, I noticed it’s just a “little” outdated. It brought back a ton of memories though–check it out–the gamers on an Atari 2600 playing Pac-Man. There are also a bunch of full-sized 33 RPM LPs stacked on top of the (probably 300-lb.) dinosaur console television. You can even see the slow refresh-rate of the TV screen captured in mid-refresh in the photo. Ah, the memories! I just can’t quite make out exactly what product is on those blue and white shopping bags everyone is carrying in the background though… any idea?
Camera & Eye-Fi Review – Sony DSC-HX20V with Eye-Fi Pro X2 16GB
I got this camera for my 50th birthday this month. So far, it’s nothing short of great. And after reading about the Eye-Fi card, and how it works, I immediately ordered one to use with the new camera. The 18.2 MP photos are great, and the 20x (40x digital) really is nice too. I’ve been using the “i+ Superior Auto” mode, which is new for me. What it does is pretty nice: When you take a picture in this mode, depending on the lighting and the image contents, you might hear multiple clicks as the shutter snaps multiple times using various settings. Then it combines all of the images and blends them automatically into one photo, much like HDR. This allows you to take excellent low-light photos that are still crisp and clear with little or no graininess in them. The camera also has built-in GPS tagging (and logging, for recording your journey on a map!) It takes the camera a couple minutes to grab the GPS signal once you turn it on, but from that point on it works great.
Another excellent feature is “iSweep Panorama” mode. This mode allows you to simply click the shutter button and sweep the camera from left to right in one clean motion, either slow or fast. Once you’ve rotated it 180 degrees, your panorama is completed and it displays as a nice, long photo on the screen, at a resolution of 4912×1080 (5mp) in STD mode, 7152×1080 (7.7mp) in WIDE mode, or a whopping 10480×4096 (42.9mp) in HR mode! This is tons better than many other panorama methods I’ve seen cameras (and apps) use, involving stitching of multiple separate photos together, or doing virtually the same thing, but by having you click for each photo, then overlapping them in-camera as you rotate to the next spot, line it up, and click again.
The camera also shoots very nice, full 1080p video, while using image stabilization (optional) and optional zooming, so it’s great for home movie-making as well. It will also shoot 3D photos and 3D panoramas as well as 3D multi-angle images viewable in-camera and on 3D TVs.
The final kicker, which makes this pretty much my “dream” camera, is the addition of a Eye-Fi Pro X2 16GB SDHC card! This is a memory card, used just like a standard SDHC memory card–with one major difference: It has built-in Wifi! When configured (initially, on a PC, with the included SDHC card reader), it will automatically sync all of your photos and videos–as you take them–with your home PC, laptop, or your Android or iPhone! And it can optionally auto-upload to your favorite photo-sharing service like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, and many others! I will never have to worry about losing any of my photos, because they’re automatically backed up–both on my PC and in my Flickr account in the cloud!
Once I take a photo or two, after about a minute (as long as I keep the camera’s power on) the photos start streaming into my Android phone. It will also optionally GPS-tag the photos from your cell phone. I actually set this option, even though the camera has GPS, because I like to turn the camera on and snap photos quickly, and sometimes I’m done shooting before the GPS ever gets a lock. So with this option on, the GPS from my phone (which is on all the time) is used to tag the photos instead, and it’s fairly accurate all of the time. Once the photos are uploaded to my phone, my phone then uploads them to my preferred backup destination–which is Flickr. You can choose to make them automatically public or private, or only viewable by certain people. I have mine set to private, then later on I can sort through them on Flickr and publish those that I want to share, and delete or keep the rest as I want. This will be great for vacations! I can setup the photo album ahead of time, make it public, then snap all the photos as we travel and everyone gets a live photo feed of our trip! Hopefully it’ll work out much better than EveryTrail, which has pretty much been a flop for our vacations thus far. I can understand having some “dead spots” in very rural places at times, when crossing the country, but for it to just stop working completely when we take just a few photos and never pick up again until we’re at our destination two days later, is simply unacceptable. That’s EveryTrail though, and has nothing to do with Eye-Fi or the camera.
I tried the camera today for a new Ingress Portal Submission, and it worked great. Took a minute to get to my phone, and once the photo was there, I shared it to NIA Super-Ops, gave it a title, and submitted the new portal. The Eye-Fi Pro X2 Android app also has the ability to simply auto-upload photos taken with just your cell phone camera as well, so all of the photos taken with just my cell phone are also automatically uploaded to Flickr and/or my PC just as the camera’s photos are. This is a great bonus because it fully backs up EVERY photo I take, not just those taken with the camera containing the Eye-Fi card.
The only issue I have with using the Eye-Fi card is how I have to leave the camera power on after shooting photos. I have the habit of powering it off immediately after I’m done to save battery. When I do this, it can’t establish a connection to my phone and send the photos to it. Granted it does transfer the photos just fine the next time the power is turned on again, but that makes backups a little less instant, making my photos a little more vulnerable. Once I leave the camera on and the photos finish transferring to the phone, then the camera power shuts itself off automatically. Though, how an Eye-Fi card (which can be used in ANY camera) can control THIS camera like this, I have no idea. Don’t question the magic Jim, just go with it…
New camera, new photos
I got an awesome 18-megapixel camera for my birthday Sunday! I took some initial photos just playing around and added them to my “Misc Photos” set. They’re everything at the top, from the Robin in our yard this morning to the closeups of Socks. I also took a quick panorama of the mural painted on the side of Genesee theater in Waukegan. Yes, it’s a portal!
Launcher Widget Issues
I’ve used a lot of different Android launchers over the years, and even purchased several of them, but I always end up coming back to the stock launcher for one reason or another. Lately, EVERY launcher I try has failed miserably at the same thing: Displaying a 4×4 calendar widget I use very often. If fact, I have even purchased a second calendar app that includes a completely different 4×4 calendar, hoping that it might not actually be the launchers, but the calendar app I was using (Jorte). Well, THAT one has the same issue in every non-stock launcher!
So now I’m very confused as to exactly what causes the issue. All I know is that they both simply work in the stock launcher on my Galaxy SIII. They’re always there when I scroll to that home screen. With every other launcher, after a day (and usually less than that) I scroll to that home screen and I get the “Problem loading widget” error and no calendar. I always have to restart the launcher app to get it working again (on the launchers that DO include a restart option). Has anyone else experienced this issue? I’d be curious to know if it’s just the Galaxy SIII, or if the same issue exists for other phones using non-stock launchers. I had a different phone a year ago, but do you think I can remember if I had this issue then?? Ha! I’m 50 now…I’m prone to a lot of CRS issues.
Anyway, the two apps I use that both include a 4×4 monthly calendar widget are Jorte (free) and Business Calendar (paid). I always configure them to display all of my calendar events as text. On the launchers that allow resizing, I usually stretch the calendar to the edges of the screen to maximize the info displayed on the calendar, but I’ve tried just leaving it the default size as well as making it smaller–the same issue always occurs either way.
The big 5-0, Ingress again, X-Box, and Spam
OMG! I turn 50 this weekend! The horror!! I just wish it was past already. My wife’s got something planned and she keeps insisting it’s nothing big, just a small get-together at the house… I sure hope that’s accurate. I hate all the “Over The Hill” gifts and parties I’ve seen others have over the years. It’s just another day, take it easy.
I’ve been obsessed with Ingress lately (see my previous post if you don’t know what Ingress is). I finally made L8 – the highest level in the game, and it only took 4 months! Now I am changing my focus from leveling up to helping other teammates level up–primarily Kevin, Tyler, Matt, and Eric. Having a nice group of L8’s in our area will give the Resistance some serious power in the game. It’s fun, very addicting, and I’ve met a lot of nice people who play the game.
Microsoft introduced their new X-Box recently–The X-Box One. Really? One? This is Three, right? I don’t know about you, but when I refer to the ORIGINAL X-Box, I call it the X-Box One. Hello confusion. Are we going to get one? Probably. Just like the PS4. Eventually. Everything changes. Gotta keep up.
Finally, I managed to find a excellent plugin for my website that totally eliminates the spam I’ve been getting! This is exciting for me, because it was such a pain to keep cleaning up hundreds (sometimes thousands!) of spam messages each month. Now I can focus on other things more… like hacking portals, or posting a little more often…
Arizona Spring Break 2013
Well, finally, I’ve managed to get everything (I think) organized and sorted out from this year’s vacation, so here it is. This year, for spring break we went to Arizona. No surprise there, this was my third time there, Kevin’s second, and Sandy’s first. We enjoy getting away, Arizona is an awesome place to visit this time of year, and Jay, Shell and family make it feel just like home. Our vacation was two weeks long and began Friday 3/22/13 and ending Saturday 4/6/13 when we returned home. We drove, with me doing 90% of the driving this time. Last time, when Patrick went with Kevin, Ty and I, we split the driving in half, so we saved some vacation time by driving straight through, there and back. This time, since it was just me driving (pretty much) we planned one overnight stay at a motel going down and one coming back. It worked out very nicely.
We left Kenosha on Friday night–technically it was Saturday morning, since we left after midnight. I slept from about 6pm Friday to around midnight, as Sandy and Kevin packed and got things ready. After I got up, we loaded the car and left. Socks was so confused, with everyone leaving him alone in the middle of the night.
The hardest part of the drive was that first night driving in the dark, getting sleepy mainly just because it was dark out. After the sun came up it was much easier to stay awake and see everything. Sandy even tried driving, once we hit a stretch of 200+ miles of straight road, and it worked out well, allowing me to get some much-needed rest. She did that a few more times on the trip down, which was a huge relief for me each time.
Kevin started collecting state pins for his hat along the way, so he’s got quite a few already. We stayed overnight at Travelodge in Amarillo, TX on Saturday night, and it was very comfortable. Then in the morning we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo before heading out on the rest of the drive to Phoenix. The Cadillac Ranch was unexpectedly ice-cold and out in the middle of a field, so we froze a bit, and had to make it only a short stop before hurrying back to the car to thaw out. Unfortunately we didn’t stay until the sun came all the way up, or we would have gotten some better photos than we did. The rest of the Sunday drive was nice, much less stressful than Saturday was, since the driving was only during the daylight hours.
The visit with Jay and his family was great. We ate good, played good, and just took it easy most of the time, when we weren’t preparing for, or going on, our little excursions in the area. We had planned to drive to Hollywood and LA this year, but it just didn’t work out this time, so we skipped it. Maybe next year. It’s still on our “to do” list. We want to see the walk of fame, the Hollywood sign, and a few other famous locales in that area, at the very least.
Did I mention the horses…er, I mean, their dogs? Jay has two of the largest dogs I’ve ever played with. Ozzie is a 12-year-old St. Bernard, and Duke is a 5-month-old Great Dane puppy! Duke (the puppy!) makes poops larger than Socks himself! Socks would be a light snack for him. And, appropriately, he makes the exact same sound as a Clydesdale when he walks across their hardwood floors! He’s very playful and friendly, but he certainly doesn’t realize his size and power and hasn’t learned to respect personal space yet. Ozzie, on the other hand, is a “gentle giant”, just chillin’ all the time and looking for a nice petting from anyone willing to pay attention to him. It was fun watching them wrestle and play tug-of-war together too. There are some photos of them in here.
We went camping at Lake Pleasant Tuesday and Wednesday, and came back Thursday morning. That was very nice, the weather was excellent, and my only complaint was an upset stomach and diarrhea I picked up from something along the way. It passed in a couple days though, so all in all it was really nice. There are a few Lake Pleasant photos in this miscellaneous album.
Monday 4/1 we went to Tombstone and The Thing. Just after leaving Tombstone, we had to stop at a border patrol checkpoint. Their dog sniffed our car, we were asked if we were all US Citizens, Sandy said hello to the nice doggy, and we were back on the road. The Thing was full of its usual weirdness, our in the middle of nowhere (Dragoon, AZ) but still has an excellent gift shop and a Dairy Queen, which we took full advantage of. Kevin, of course, had to collect his usual bag of rocks for his collection, and some other trinkets
Tuesday, 4/2, Jay drove us up South Mountain. This is another must-see every time someone new is with us. The view is not to be missed. Shell came with this time, and she isn’t too fond of heights. This was Sandy’s first visit, and I think she really liked it.
On the way back from South Mountain we went for lunch at Alice Cooperstown. This is a really cool restaurant located 2 blocks from Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s a warehouse-style building filled with music memorabilia, and featuring a 2-foot hot dog called “The Big Unit”. I took several photos, but with my current diet, I didn’t have the guts to order The Big Unit. A couple other people did while we were there, and they make a big deal out of it. I didn’t manage to get the camera out in time, so I missed a photo of the actual thing. Maybe next time I’ll even order one myself. I could always split it with someone, or take some home.
We also visited the Roosevelt Dam while we were there. It was really neat, and very well documented at the viewing areas on both sides of the dam. Then, after talking to a couple other travelers who came from the other direction, we decided to head back home by way of the Apache Trail. This is a long trail, about 40-50 miles, consisting mostly of graded dirt road (sometimes very thin, I might add–and very bumpy) winding around, up, and down a mountain range. It was a little scary at times, but we took it easy and enjoyed the ride. The views were spectacular, as you can see by the photos! I even took a few small videos. One one point, when Tyler was deep into his music and not paying attention, Jay made the van fishtail, on purpose, just enough to scare the crap out of Tyler and make him think we were out of control! His reaction was priceless. One additional note on the Roosevelt Dam and Apache Trail Photos, in case you look at them: You might notice that many of them are very clear and sharp, while others are very hazy and low-quality. The high-quality photos were the result of Jay’s awesome new 18 megapixel Sony camera! Wow, is that thing nice, even for quick panoramas! You can really tell the difference in quality between photos from that camera and the rest, which are from my phone, Sandy’s phone (which are both 8 megapixels), and Kevin’s phone (5 megapixels). I’ll definitely get a camera like Jay’s before our next trip, that’s for sure!
Wednesday, 4/3, was Lia’s birthday party at Chuck e Cheese. Ah, some things never change: Pizza, Animatronic Chuckie, a “live” visit from him every hour on the 30’s, the goofy and most-awful song parodies EVER, and games that hate to give up their tickets. Then it’s over to the ticket-eating machine to cash in and see what little $1.00 prizes the kids have earned.
I had also planned to take a few random “portal runs” using Ingress, but that didn’t happen either. Not knowing the area very well would make it very difficult, and no one seemed too keen on using a lot of gas just to get me AP points in Ingress so I could level up sooner. I seemed to be the only one there really into the game, so majority ruled and I set it aside. I did manage to hack a few choice portals and get a few nice keys during the regular stops on the trip though! I took screenshots of the dual portals at the Cadillac Ranch (both Resistance-owned) and the portal at Roosevelt Dam was wide open, so I acquired that one for myself. I even obtained a key for that one, and as I just checked it today, I am still the Owner, and it’s now a L6 portal, thanks to other Resistance members who must have leveled it up for me. Being only an L6 myself, I can’t level up a portal higher than L4 on my own. It wasn’t an easy task, even though it was an unoccupied portal when we arrived–the cellular reception there was very very weak, and I could only obtain a weak signal when I stood in certain specific spots at the lookout point, and even then it only stay connected for a very short time, just enough to place one or two resonators before getting disconnected again. Now I’m using remote recharge from home, whenever I get the chance, to keep it fully charged up.
Thursday, 4/4, at 6pm we left Jay’s for Mount Rushmore. I stayed up the night before, only taking a short nap in the middle of the night, so I could get a good sleep in just before leaving. I went to sleep between 9 and 10am Thursday and slept good until about 4:30pm. Then we ate, and headed out for South Dakota. Having a good sleep, I was able to comfortably drive clear through the night, until shortly after the sun came up. We were in Las Vegas, New Mexico when I decided I was too tired to continue, so Sandy took over once we got to road with no changes for several hundred miles. I slept a couple hours, then took over driving again the rest of the way into South Dakota. We stayed at a motel in Rapid City, SD, which is about 25-30 minutes from Mount Rushmore. It was dark when we arrived, so we spent the night there, then went to Mount Rushmore after breakfast in the morning. We had breakfast at the Colonial House in Rapid City, SD before Mt. Rushmore. It was a restaurant with Wizard of Oz theme. Very good food.
We ran across Castle Rock, Colorado on the way there too. This is something I hadn’t seen before – There was a gas station at the base of this huge, vertical mountain, with what looks like a very old stone castle or building atop it. I took a few shots while filling up at the gas station.
Mount Rushmore is an awesome sight. At first glance, when we were still approaching it, it looked very small. Then, as we got closer, things became bigger and clearer. There’s a very nice, official monument building there, including a huge viewing area, a stadium in front of it, a museum containing its entire history, and an enormous gift shop. It’s free to view, but you have to pay $11.00 to park your vehicle there.
Lastly, I must say, Wyoming is the most boring, flat state in the country. It’s empty. Lusk, Wyoming – Flat as a pancake, no humans seen for hours and hours. I’d hate to break down anywhere in that state, that’s for sure. A curious sight we did see (or “sights” I should say), was the billboards for The Firehouse Brewing Company, which is located in Rapid City, SD, where we stayed the night. These billboards, located along the highway all through South Dakota and in one or two other states as well, each have a completely real fire engine–usually a restored antique–all polished up and looking perfectly usable–next to them! Every single one, I swear, had an enormous real fire engine alongside it. At the first one I thought there was a fire at the billboard or something, not making the connection until we passed another one.
All in all, it was a great vacation with no issues at all. Very pleasant! We’d like to thank Jay and Shell and their wonderful family–again–for allowing us to stay with them. Already, Kevin is already asking “What else is there that we can see and do there next year?” I told him “There’s a ton more, Kevin – the country is a big place…Google it!” I explained that I haven’t even begin to think about next year’s vacation, I’m still trying to sort through THIS year’s vacation photos and get them posted as soon as I can! At least he’s looking forward to it… He must have had a good time.
Spring fall
I took a fall today. Whacked by head pretty good. Ironically, it was the exact same day I just might have helped a doctor save the life of a person in the ER with a brain hemorrhage. I had today off because I worked on Sunday, so after I dropped Kevin off at school, Socks and I went to the lakefront to walk the portal cluster there and gather some Ingress supplies which also getting my daily walk in before the next winter storm hit. The storm was coming, but it looked an hour or more out, so I figured we’d be back home before the weather turned.
It wasn’t snowing when we started walking, but it was getting colder and the melted snow on the sidewalks was freezing into black patches of very smooth, dangerous ice. Socks was even losing his footing once in awhile, and that’s gotta say something when you have FOUR feet to work with! We easily made it all the way East to the last portal on the lake, then turned around and headed back. The winding path we took was getting more icy, so I decided to try another walkway back west, one which was completely straight, so it’s easier to navigate, and it didn’t look like it had any ice patches on it. This sidewalk is closer to the lake itself. So we headed back, hacking the same portals again on the return trip. As we did, it started snowing, covering parts of the sidewalk. I didn’t realize that the light snow had covered a patch of that smooth, black ice on this sidewalk, and my feet flew out from under me in an instant, and I slammed down hard, flat on my back, and my head hit the pavement hard. SMACK! I was conscious, lying on the sidewalk, looking up at the white sky, snow falling on my glasses.
The dog walked up to me and whimpered, unable to assist. Maybe I need a St. Bernard instead of a Chihuahua, I thought. My cell phone, in my pocket, was pinging every few seconds, indicating a nearby Ingress Portal, and announcing my speed and distance walked, courtesy of my Cardiotrainer app. So after gather my marbles–of which Jay says I have only a few of left–I tried getting up. Nothing. No movement from my arms or legs at all. I couldn’t even turn my head, I could only look around at the white sky, full of clouds. I just wondered what I could do next, without being able to move at all. I couldn’t do anything to even call or signal for help. It was really a terrifying couple of minutes. Then my fingers started to tingle and I was able to start moving them. The feeling gradually came back to my arms and legs over the next few minutes, and I crawled to my knees. Then I crawled a little on all fours until I was off the ice patch and on solid cement, and stood up. I was dizzy, shaky, and had a huge, pounding headache, but didn’t feel any blood on the back of my head. I had the hood of my parka up when I fell, so at least there was a little cushion when my head hit the pavement, but not much.
With my head pounding, my legs shaky, and socks ready to continue our walk, I started walking again, directly toward the car this time, avoiding the sidewalk altogether. (Even the snow and grass is softer to hit than that black ice on cement!) I passed a lady who was on the same sidewalk I just fell on, heading right for that spot where I fell. She said “Hi!”, then said “Be careful, watch for those black ice patches it’s VERY slippery!” I aid “Yeah, I found that out…I just fell right over there, YOU be careful” and continued walking toward the parking lot and my car. Once in the car, I pull down my hood and gathered my thoughts. Not sure of the actual damage, and wondering if I should go to the ER, I called Sandy and explained the situation. After agreeing that I could drive, she had me drive home and meet her there, then she drove me to the ER to get checked out.
My head was pounding with the biggest headache I’ve ever had, throbbing to the beat of my heart, I think, and both sides of my jaw hurt whenever to clenched my teeth together slightly. Not good, I figured. In the ER waiting room they put me in a wheelchair. As I waited there I saw a few floaters in my eyes, and a few fireflies. Another bad sign, I figured. Great. After a few minutes in the waiting room I was taken in to an ER room where they checked my out and asked all of the usual medical history and medication questions and details on what happened today.
Next was a trip down the hall to a CT scanner, then back to my ER room. Through all of this, however, amazingly, no one even actually looked at the back of my head. I could feel a huge goose egg there, and told them about it, but no one even asked to look. I guess the CT scan tells all, so they don’t need a real visual if there’s no blood…?
Anyway, the CT came back ok, showing no damage, and the doctor explained that it was a jarring blow to the head, but it didn’t cause any unconsciousness and he didn’t see any of the symptoms or signs of any serious injury anywhere, so I should be ok after a few days of rest and some strong pain and muscle relaxer meds. The nurse said when I wake up tomorrow I will probably feel even worse than I do today, so there’s that to look forward to!
I asked the doctor, if there’s no damage, what caused the issue with my being conscious but unable to move at all for a few minutes. He had no explanation, he just said “it’s one of those mysteries of life we can’t explain. All we can go by is what the tests show, and they show no serious injury.”
This is probably where faith kicks in for most people. Had I not had faith in an all-powerful being watching over me and returning my ability to move again, would I have been left there on the pavement to freeze, or permanently paralyzed as a quadriplegic? I’ll never know. I try to keep an open mind on such things, but if there is one (or more) greater beings out there, then I thank them. Very much. I am home now, resting comfortably, with my family, happy once again, and recovering.
Counting the days now, to our annual Spring Break Arizona Road Trip! One more week!
On sleeping in
Rick asked me the other day if I was going to sleep in today. I worked some weird hours the past couple days, and had to go into work at 2:00am and 3:00am for scheduled IT-related events. I told him “No, I’ll still get up at 5:00am like I always do.” He didn’t seem to understand, and said “I just figured you’d sleep in, since you don’t have to work the next day…you know, catch up on your sleep…?” I told him “I’ll catch up on my sleep when I’m DEAD. It’s a day off, I’m not going to waste it by sleeping through half of it. Us ‘older’ folks (I’m turning 50 this year) have to take advantage of all the time we have left…I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to.”
As it turned out, I got paged at 3:45am this morning, on my day off, and as a result, probably assisted in saving a life. A neurosurgeon paged me. The page said “…having issues, needs your help NOW please!” I called him, he said he had a patient in the ER with a brain hemorrhage, and can’t login to see his images. I believe he was calling in from home or another location other than the hospital. I quickly reset his password and waited on the phone until he was able to get to the images he needed.
Awesome start to a day off–Now I get an extra hour to enjoy it even more! Have a nice one yourself!
Amazing new discovery…and Ingress progress
I just discovered this awesome coffee warming technique! It really works! When ripping DVDs, the fan runs at high speed constantly, blowing the heat out of the laptop. This is even more useful than the built-in coffee cup holder…which is only available on the laptop when I’m NOT ripping DVDs… 😉
This weekend we made a lot of progress in getting more “blue” on Kenosha’s Ingress map! Before it was nearly all green, with the Enlightened consuming large chunks of area. Last night we had a few large areas covered in blue, but this morning I see that most of our areas are back to simply links, so I’m afraid the Enlightened are becoming just that, and are working on re-acquiring their portals. We have made great progress, however, and are working with a few other key Resistance allies in the area to build up our portals and hammer on the enemie’s as much as possible.
My daily walks really help our progress a great deal, allowing us to attack and gather from each portal we encounter, both on the way out and on the way back. I’m only a few hundred points from level 3 now, and Kevin is well into level 2. We are getting so addicted to the game, it’s ridiculous.
Ingress
Kevin and I finally got our Ingress invites last week. Matt got his a couple weeks earlier, so he sparked our interest. Yesterday, while on our usual walk with Socks, we went through the training, built up some XM energy and learned how to hack a portal. Ingress is a “walking game”, like “Zombies, Run!” but with a totally different concept to get you out and walking around. In Ingress, you gather “XM” as energy and find portals, which are usually represented by real-life public objects, such as sculptures or monuments. You learn how everything works as you start playing the game, gathering energy and finding resonators and other components to help with your hacking and taking control of these portals. It looks like an interesting game, and so far we’re only a tiny bit into it. The only problem I can see is that you have to keep your phone screen on to run the program, so you can’t just put on your headphones and put it in your pocket–it requires you to be viewing the screen most of the time. This can be pretty dangerous when you’re out walking around in public–especially if you’re walking a dog or walking out in the street! Constantly staring at your phone instead of watching where you’re walking could get you killed! For real–not just in the game.
I can see this is unlike other games in popularity already though–we’ve already noticed others in real life playing it. One guy with a tablet at a monument in downtown Kenosha was actually hacking the same portal as us. Turned out he was on the other side–one of the “Enlightened” while we are on the “Resistance”. He asked what side WE were on, but I “mistakenly” said I was also on the Enlightened. We found several portals near the lake–almost all of the metal sculptures along the new lakefront contains a portal. This not only gets you out and about, but also informs you about the monuments and public displays around you! It’ll even show you a photo of the object containing the portal, it’s name, and more, a little like the “Field Trip” does. In fact, FieldTrip was created by the same company.
This week I’ve been hacking the portals that are located between home and work, trying to gather what I can and weaken those of the enemy. It’s slow, but effective. This week I also found a wealth of information on the web, including the global Ingress Map, which details every found portal, who owns it and it’s makeup, a great instruction page, and even instructions on how to SUBMIT a site as a portal! I’ll be submitting a few preferred sites of my own soon. This game is great–too bad it’s still only in beta. You can only get in by invite, so if you’re interested, please sign up as soon as possible on their website. It took Kevin and I a couple months to get an invite, but Matt got his sooner by other means–he found someone else with an extra key.
The ISO Event
A couple weeks ago, Jay told me about a server application that let you stream ISOs to your PS3. I was in awe, and had to give it a shot. I have a lot of backup ISOs of my movies, and being able to immediately play a DVD image directly on the PS3 without having to burn a DVD would be HUGE for me! So I tried it. For those not familiar with what an “ISO” is, it’s an exact image of a DVD disc–it contains every single bit of the DVD–the movie, menus, extras, etc., in the exact format of the DVD, except that it’s a file instead of a disc. There are several applications available that will then let you burn that image to an actual DVD when desired, and even some that will “mount” the image as a “virtual” DVD drive on your computer so you can play the movie on your computer without having to burn a disc. So, as you can imagine, ISOs can be very handy on a computer, and they make great backups in case your DVDs get scratched or marked up so much they’re no longer playable (thanks, kids!).
So being able to instantly stream and play these ISOs on the TV to which my PS3 is on, is a big deal for me. It makes all of these movies and special feature discs available at my fingertips, instead of having to go find the DVD and insert it into my PS3. I played with the latest version of the application for a couple days, but found that the voices never synced up with the video–ISO movies always played with a too-fast video speed, and the audio was always 10-15 seconds behind the video. There are a ton of tweaking options in this application, so I tweaked everything I could, but couldn’t get it to play ISOs properly. It would stream every other type of video file from my PC without any problems, but ISOs were the key to my happiness. This was very disappointing. Meanwhile, Jay was having the same issues, so it wasn’t just me. After some googling of the issue, I found others having the same problem–with the newest versions of the application. A few users noted that the previous version that they had before this one would play ISOs perfectly. Ah ha! So I uninstalled and deleted the newest version, then installed an older (actually the oldest version online–version 1.04) and guess what? They were right–ISOs now play perfectly!!
Just as Audible screwed up their audiobook app on me in their latest version, PS3 Media Server’s latest version messed up ISO streaming. So right now, my ISO images are streaming perfectly, and I’m very happy with it, though it is a very old version of the application. Hopefully someone will determine what went wrong and correct it in a future version. I will be glad to upgrade it to the latest version, once this issue is resolved, but for now I’m perfectly happy staying right where I am. This is awesome! I also found out, during my googling, that this may be the ONLY application that can actually perform this function! I’d be perfectly willing to pay for a full-blown feature-rich commercial application that did this, if I could find one!
By the way, PS3 Media Server works with more than just the PS3. It will stream to any DLNA-compliant network device, and is available for many operating systems, including Windows, Linux and Mac. And it’s a completely free, open-source project. Here’s the link: http://www.ps3mediaserver.org
Review of the Wii-U
After a few days of playing with the Wii-U (once I managed to pry it out of the hands of my 14-year-old) I thought I’d post my thoughts. An HD Nintendo console has been overdue for quite some time, so it’s a relief to finally see them catching up (somewhat) to the “big boys”–PS3 and X-Box 360–though new consoles from both of those companies are now in the works as well. But Nintendo reminds me a lot of Apple in the way they evolve. They’re slower in movement, but over time they do get it right for their particular audience. Anyway, the Wii-U is an excellent replacement for the Wii. I am very relieved to see that we can still play our old Wii games on it, so we can get rid of the old thing completely. It was a pain to have to bring the TV down to a standard definition video image to use the Wii. Now everything can remain in full 1080p HD.
The Wii-U comes with a huge “GamePad” controller, which is much like a small tablet combined with a Wii controller. It has a decent-sized touchscreen–at least it’s bigger than the Nintendo DS screen–and feels very comfortable in the hands. It’s nice and light, with nice finger grooves in the right places underneath and a stick on both the left and right sides. Many games allow their gameplay to run on either the Gamepad screen or the TV screen, and some allow both simultaneously. Unfortunately this doesn’t apply to all games–and doesn’t apply to the old Wii games at all–but hopefully this will change in the near future with an update. Being able to play on just the gamepad–even if you can only go up to 40 feet away from the console–is HUGE for our household. To Kevin, it means being able to still play the console games he wants when he has time, while we can still watch the TV shows we want. If Nintendo adds this feature into the classic Wii software, I think this feature alone could justify its price for a lot of families!
The good ole “Mii” universe is alive and well on the Wii-U, and there are always hundreds, if not thousands, of other users visiting our system and posting comments about all of the games. We even see posts from others as we finish levels of some of the games, and I’m always wondering if the comments are actually directed toward OUR game or just generic comments… Can other users watch our gameplay?? Can we watch theirs?? I haven’t found this out yet.
For the old Wii games, there’s a “Wii” option provided as a separate app, which takes you to the classic “Wii Menu” and provides the exact same interface as the old Wii system. In fact, you have to put down the Gamepad and pick up a standard Wii controller to play any of the Wii games and use the Wii menu interface. We did the “Wii system transfer” before completely taking our old Wii out of service, and that was pretty flawless, once we got it going. This was a lengthy process though, probably because we had accumulated a lot of game save data, Mii’s, and games from the Wii Store over the years. The process is fully animated once you start it, and kind of plays out like a little cartoon, with “Pikmin” characters (from what Kevin says they are) carrying your data through the old Wii systems, out to a rocket ship and loading them up for the transfer. One little pikmin character almost gets left behind, ala “E.T”, but they realize it before blastoff, and re-open the ship’s bay door and let him in at the last second. Once the data is saved to your SD card, the ship takes off and your’re ready to insert it into the Wii-U, switch to that system and continue the process where the ship then lands and the pikmin unload the data into the new system and setup the icons. It’s an amusing little cartoon, but pretty monotonous if you have a lot of data like we did.
The Wii-U also has “TVii”, which I originally thought would be a streaming TV service from Nintendo, but unfortunately it’s not. All it is, is a “remote” for your existing TV and cable box. You select your TV remote by answering a few simple questions based on whether the TV responds to the signals the Wii-U sends, and it sets up the remote for it. This is definitely the simplest “universal remote control” setup I’ve ever seen, by far. Totally painless. Then it does the same for your cable box and cable provider. Once that’s done you can completely control your cable box and TV with just the GamePad, replacing your two remotes. Unfortunately, WE have much more than that to control, including our stereo, PS3, X-Box, etc., and the Wii-U doesn’t go any further than the two devices. If someone could just make a 15-device universal remote app for the Wii-U, I’d gladly pay for it…that would be bliss!
Other apps included with the Wii-U are Netflix and HuluPlus, which both work great. I’m currently using both services and comparing them. Using the Wii-U interface, Netflix easily outshines HuluPlus, in my opinion. In the Netflix app the interface on the Gamepad screen matches the TV interface, so you can use either one to select a movie or TV show and watch it on either the TV or the GamePad. Excellent! But in HuluPlus on the GamePad, it only shows you the currently-selected option, very large, in the middle of the GamePad screen. You have to look at the TV to scroll and select what you’re looking for. Unless you memorize the layout of the menus, you can’t use just the GamePad to find a movie or TV show to watch, so it’s rather limited. I’m guessing Hulu will fix this in an update though. In comparing the Netflix and Hulu services themselves, it’s pretty much a draw. They both offer little of the same content. They seem to each have their own contracts for the content they offer, and both have good solid YV series offerings and movies. It’s a tough split. One minus on Hulu is the fact that its TV shows include “limited commercial interruptions” throughout its TV shows. Sometimes this seems like a bit much, with hour-long TV shows sometimes having numerous 3-commercial breaks. And there’s no fast-forwarding through the commercials either–you’re stuck with them. I did find, several times, when I did several fast-forwards and rewinds to rewatch a part of an episode, that it can get confused and then lets you fast-forward through commercials, but then thinks a later section of the actual TV show is the commercial block! Then later it seemed to realize it was messed up, and when I went to fast-forward or rewind the show it reset it back to the beginning again. Pretty irritating, but it didn’t happen often and I couldn’t repeat the glitch at will. Most of the time it worked fine. Both Netflix and HuluPlus also have an autoplay feature for TV series playing, so you can seamlessly watch a series without manually having to start each episode. But since HuluPlus has a commercial block before every episode and after, you have to site through a huge block of commercials (usually 6) between each episode. A big PLUS with Hulu, however, is with current TV series playing. Hulu gives you the current episodes of TV shows, while Netflix only provides you with previous seasons, only releasing new seasons of a show long after the next season is airing or long after the series is completed. I guess you have to weigh the value of this with whether you watch a lot of currently-airing series’ or not. Both services are $7.99 a month, so it makes me wonder if Hulu is worth it for all the ads when Netflix is ad-free. But, like I said, there are enough differences between the two services to warrant having both of them, for those who can afford it and are avid movie and TV buffs.
But back to the Wii-U: The Wii-U store currently offers a very small selection, but that’s just because it’s new. They haven’t added any of the classic Wii games to the store yet, so only Wii-U games are there at the moment. When they finally get the games from the old Wii store into the new one, there will be a much better selection. And it’d be even more awesome if they also add all of their classic “boxed” Wii games as digital downloads as well! They would certainly make a fortune, especially on those hard-to-find classics. I know they can do it–they already offer most of their new “boxed” Wii-U games as digital downloads, and the classic Wii games are much smaller in size, I’m sure.
We played a bit of Mario & Nintendoland for the Wii-U as well as a couple of the new downloadable Wii-U games that were on sale this week in the Wii-U store, and what does Kevin come back to the most?…. wait for it…. a cheap download called “Little Inferno”! This game is just plain “WRONG”. It teaches kids how to burn their toys. It’s aimed at older teens, obviously, and always warns you not to play with fire, but it provides you with a safe environment to do so, allowing you to burn everything from all kinds of toys imaginable, to batteries, to a school bus full of screaming children, or an angry elf (yes, Jay–an Angry Elf) who has a belt of dynamite strapped around his waist. It’s totally wrong, but I must admit it’s very addicting to but everything and see the way each item responds to a flame. How this game got past the Nintendo approval process I have no idea–I guess it’s a good test of the parental controls on the Wii-U–you can block your kids from playing it if you want. But, if they gotta play with fire, I guess doing it on the Wii-U is tons better than anywhere else!
I think Nintento has a great start here. As long as they get busy with updating and keeping on top of the issues in a timely manner, this will turn out to be an awesome Wii system. The GamePad features alone can make it almost as useful as a full tablet, if they make the right improvements. We’ll see what happens.
Rick and Sandy made the paper…and other treats
Wow, Christmas is getting close. The holiday cheer is here. Three nice things just from this morning: Rick and Sandy made the paper (see photo–click it to see it full-size in a new window), then, when I went to Flickr to upload it, Flickr presented me with a gift of 3 free months of Flickr Pro–that’s a whopping $6.00 more in my pocket… then when I went to Facebook to catch up on family and friends I found that Jelly Bean was released today for my Galaxy SIII! I hit the trifecta today!
DSub opens my eyes
Today I discovered a weird convergence of the two big issues I posted previously. It started when I discovered DSub, an Android Subsonic client that ROCKS! The regular Android Subsonic client–called simply “Subsonic” was decent, but lacked some crucial features and functionality that made me lean more toward Audiogalaxy when they were both excellent streaming music server options. DSub is (and looks a lot like) the Subsonic client on steroids! It’s open-source, so I’m guessing it’s the same client at it’s base, just customized to be much better. It’s like the “full version” of the Android Subsonic client! It costs $1.99, but it’s well worth it! Anyway, one of the big features of this app that just punched me in the face and woke me up today, is an option in its settings called “Temporary loss of focus”. It has 4 options under it: “Always Pause”, “Pause and lower volume when requested”, “Always lower volume”, and “Do Nothing”. I didn’t realize what this weird function was until I clicked on it and saw these 4 options…. then it hit me–THIS is the feature than an audio-heavy app needs, to know what to do when another sound plays on the Android device!
So now I was on a mission. I set it to “Always Pause”, threw on my winter coat, and hopped in the car for a ride around the neighborhood. I turned setup Google Navigation to take me to work, started up my DSub music, then drove around the neighborhood while Google Navigation kept interrupting my song to give me directions. It was FLAWLESS! DSub paused every time when the Navigation started talking, and all is right with my (Android) world again! So next I started up an Audible book and drove around some more… Bummer. Audible isn’t working that way, and keeps playing now, blending the two voices of the book and the navigation into something very confusing (and potentially dangerous if I were relying on actual directions while driving). So I came back home and send a support e-mail to Audible. They responded very quickly to another question I had previously, so I am anxiously awaiting their response to this one. Here’s what I wrote:
I listen to my audible books heavily on my Android phone during my daily commute, along with Google Navigation. I’ve been having a problem recently, however: The audible application no longer pauses when Google Navigation speaks–they both talk at once, which can sometimes make me miss a turn or direction unless I’m constantly watching the GPS directions on the screen.
After some research on the web, and finding other apps that still work ok and pause for the navigation, I have realized that it might be something that has changed in the Audible app.
I also found this explanation on Audible regarding a slightly different issue:
“We have received reports from users of the Audible for Android application, that the Audible application pauses at random. Upon further investigation, we have found that other applications may ‘steal’ the audio focus for no apparent reason when running in the background. The Audible for Android application respects audio focus requests to pause or stop playback. At the current time, the only means of resolution is to uninstall the offending application from your phone.”
To me, it seems like the Audible application used to respect the audio focus change, but now it no longer does. Can I get this ability back? Maybe if I uninstall and reinstall the app?? Or was something actually removed in the app so that it will no longer auto-pause like it used to?
Please let me know if there’s anything I, or Audible, can do to resolve this issue. I’m afraid I would no longer be able to safely listen to audiobooks in my car (with Audible) if this can’t be fixed, and I’d have to seek another alternative.
Thank you.
That’s it. I’m pretty sure they took this ability out of their app, but we’ll see if there might be a way to correct it’s behavior and make it work. It worked properly ever since I first subscribed to Audible and started listening to books in the car. I’ll post the response I get.
UPDATE:
Wow, Audible is quick. About an hour after sending that support message to them this evening, they responded. They gave me a $10 coupon for my trouble, apologized, and said there’s an update for the app, and I need to completely uninstall, delete the Audible folder, then install the updated version. So I did all of this, but was unable to completely remove the application, since it came pre-installed on my phone. I could only uninstall the updates. So I did that much and deleted the folder. Then ran Audible, signed in and downloaded a book. I played the book, then started Google Navigation. Sure enough, it worked great by pausing the book when driving directions were spoken, then resumed the book again right after. Next I installed the latest update from the app store and did it again. Crap! It went back to having the issue again by completely ignoring the driving directions and playing the book right through them. Back to the drawing board!
This definitely proves it’s something in the updated versions though, so it helps. I e-mailed support again, as a reply, so they have the entire history of the issue. I asked that, if they don’t want to have the auto-pause feature due to a lot of users having the “random pausing issue” they talk about on their help page, why not add it as an option that the user can toggle in the app’s settings? I’ll let you know what they say.
For now though, I’m back to listening to my books in the car–I just can’t update my Audible App beyond the version that came with my phone.
App Crap
What’s with all of the Android app issues all of a sudden?? First, Google Navigation–the absolute best (and totally free) navigation app available for Android–pretty much threw in the towel recently by removing the ability to control the voice volume for the navigation while integrating a very natural and human-sounding internal speech engine. Now, whenever I use it I can’t hear any of the navigation announcements because my music volume is apparently louder than the new voice engine! And since the eliminated the separate volume control for the navigation, there’s no way to control it! Turning down the volume turns down both the Navigation volume as well as the music, so I end up having to choose a no-music (or audiobook) drive or a music-only drive without navigation at all. Unacceptable, Google!! I’m trying to work with Waze right now, which has made some big improvements lately, from what I’m seeing. It does pretty good navigation and includes “crowdsourcing” features, constantly including traffic, accident and other updates instantly as you drive, from all of the “Wazers”. You even earn points for everything to report in the app, to increase your Waze score and earn better ranks. It has it’s issues, doesn’t look as “Pro” as Google Navigation, and the voice navigation is a bit muffled…but at least it has a separate voice navigation VOLUME CONTROL!!! Are you listening, Google?!?!?!? It works ok for me for now, until something better comes along (or Google fixes theirs).
Then today I find out that Dropbox acquired Audiogalaxy!! Now Audiogalaxy isn’t accepting any new accounts, and their “Mixes” subscription service is ending on 12/31/12. Yikes!! They go on to say “previous users with accounts can continue to stream their music collections”… but for how long?!?! Audiogalaxy is the best Android music streaming server I have ever found, and nothing compares to it!! I sure hope they eventually decide to keep streaming and start accepting new accounts again, even if it becomes branded as a Dropbox Music Streaming app–as long as they DON’T start requiring everyone to upload their music collection to Dropbox though–THAT would suck! I have such a huge collection of music, it would cost me quite a bit of money each month for a dropbox account big enough to hold my entire music collection. Hmmph. Time to start looking for something better anyway, I guess.
Happy Holidaze
The season is getting pretty busy. Yesterday we finished up cleaning and emptying the final bit of stuff left at the old house, and we’re finally fully out of it. The bank is finally making some headway, and we’re moving forward. Today Sandy and I did some shopping during the Packers/Bears game. It was the perfect time for it, since all of the area’s football fans were busy watching the game. No lines, no waiting. Afterward, Kevin, Socks and I took a walk with a twist: Matt recommended an app called “Zombies, Run!“, so we tried it out. You play it like an audiobook while you walk and/or run, and the story unfolds as you progress. You also collect items during your walk, and when you get back home, in the game you “return to base” and apply the items to your compound and level up the various sections of it, like the hospital, your housing, and the armory.
It’s a neat game, and encourages you to walk more. In fact, I think today’s walk was one of my longest in awhile at just over 1.5 miles. At one point, walking on the sidewalk next to Towerline Park, Kevin picked up 4 different items together, all at once. I didn’t get them, so I stopped and went back to where he said he picked them up… Sure enough, I also picked up the 4 extra items! That doesn’t seem to work all of the time, but did work once, so there might just be something to it. We’ll see as we move forward in the game. The object is to build up your base to defend against the zombie hordes I think. As you walk, a story unfolds as you try to reach different destinations, like a hospital for supplies, etc., and hordes of zombies chase you at various times. You can hear them coming as they approach, and as you walk for run from them, their distance increases until you lose them again. It keeps you occupied, like reading a good audiobook. We’ll see how it works out.
Just one week till Christmas–wow, that’s soon. I hope everyone has a great holiday season! Thanks for visiting!
Christmas Lane Train is no more…?
Kevin, Socks and I walked to Christmas Lane last night. It was awesome. Most of the houses–from Christmas Lane to a couple block East–were very well-lit and it was nice to take our time walking and look at everything. Socks, of course, considered everything his and marked everything as such. There’s was a couple cool animated penguin displays–one with an igloo cannon with a turret that rotated slowly to aim at onlookers, and the other one was a Whack-a-penguin game where the penguins kept popping up out of the holes in a box. Another display had a life-sized Santa hanging by his hands from someone’s gutter! Pretty funny. Then we found two completely different life-sized either scared-stiff–or very cold–snowmen. They just stood there, eyes bulging, shivering like crazy. Perhaps they were afraid Socks would mark them…
Today, during the daylight, Socks and I walked one block further South of Christmas Lane, to the block where the Christmas Train display is normally setup. There’s one house there that’s always a huge attraction with a model train set display covering the entire front yard (and sometimes even expanded to the back yard). They always attract a lot of people and cars slow to a stop all winter long to take a look. Closer to Christmas they always have a fire or two going in the evenings and serve hot chocolate and snacks, and Santa even comes and hands out goodies to the kids on occasion! It was great…but I don’t think it’s going to be there this year. Sadly, when we got to the house, there was only a few standard Christmas decorations in that yard this year. He has always had the display up, or at least well into the setup by this time of year, so it doesn’t look good.
I just googled the Kenosha Christmas Train and I believe I found out what happened. Here’s what is currently posted on kenoshaacvb.com:
Holiday Train Display
November 23, 2012 – January 6, 2013
For your enterTRAINment – check out the Holiday Train Display. A local man used to showcase his train collection in a popular outdoor display in his front yard each December. Now he shares it with an even wider audience at the Kenosha Public Museum. Watch as locomotives chug their way through a quaint village scene.
That’s a relief, at least, from what I was starting to think might have happened. I guess he’ll stay warm and his display will be protected from the elements this way, but still, it takes away a lot of the festivity from our new neighborhood, so we’re a little disappointed in this move.
Brown Thursday Weekend
We had a nice Brown Thursday dinner at Mike’s house. Mike and Emma made a big turkey dinner with all of the extras. Unfortunately I got paged in the afternoon (for a total of 4 times during the extended weekend…so far…), but I was still able to get back in town before dinner started, so all turned out ok. This weekend it seems like every time I decide to leave the house for my walk, I always get paged. It’s eery, actually. And if I just stay home watching movies I don’t get paged…that is, unless it’s a GOOD movie… None of that Black Friday crap either. Just stayed home, and stayed safe. We did walk to Petco for some dog treats with Socks on Friday, and MAN, was it cold and windy! Chihuahuas can walk sideways in that kinda wind! Socks toughed it out though, shivering the entire walk.
Anyway, I just uploaded a few new photos. Nothing exciting, just Socks on Duty on Thanksgiving weekend, a cool shot Kevin wanted me to take, and a little lake we found behind Kenosha Bible Church. Our weekend in a nutshell: Eat, Walk, Watch a movie, relax, and repeat. And I mean “repeat” in more ways than one… man, I don’t remember ever having this much gas after eating thanksgiving food! Is it the turkey?!?!
Latest obsession complete
My Ultimate Forrest Gump Soundtrack collection is finished. 51 tracks, including all of the songs missing from the “Special Collector’s Edition” as listed on Wikipedia. I would have just bought the darned thing, if it was even available in MP3 format! Sheesh. It costed me less than $5.00 though–I was only missing 5 of the tracks. I even created custom album art and re-tagged all the tracks properly. It was pretty fun, actually.
Burn, Forrest, Burn! (music, I mean, burn music!)
I just watched Forrest Gump tonight. I had seen it 3 or 4 times in the past, but this is the first time I watched it on Blu-Ray. Now I’m on a mission. The awesome soundtrack is one I am drooling for, and the internet is not making it easy for me. According to Wikipedia, there was a soundtrack CD released–first with 32 tracks of the original songs (not the musical background score–which was released separately–but the actual songs in the movie), then, later, a “Special Edition” version containing two more songs for a total of 34 songs, on two CDs. So it is out there, but I’ll be damned if I can find an MP3 version! Amazon doesn’t have it, so I doubt it’s for sale anywhere. It makes no sense. I have everything I need to convert a CD to MP3’s, but in today’s day and age, I shouldn’t have to. I’ll dig around some more, someone’s gotta have it somewhere. I hate to have to purchase a silly plastic CD case with two more plastic CD discs, then burn them to MP3’s and just let the CDs rot in their case forever. It’s such a waste. But then again, this could be an awesome quest–even the 34-track set is still missing 16 songs that were skipped for some reason. So I could attempt to assemble the ULTIMATE Forrest Gump Soundtrack of my own! I’m sure I already have several of the songs in my collection, so there’s a start. I’ll add comments to this post as I progress. Stay tuned.
JimTrottier.com 