Beautiful Weather Has Arrived!

Posted on February 14, 2011 by derek

Beautiful weather is finally here again! I am enjoying this so much. We are in the mid-50’s in Tulsa. After all that snow, this is a blessing.
Malerie and I washed our cars this afternoon. I hate having a dirty car. It was killing me to drive around in a dirty car. You could hardly see my taillights. Snow is not a clean thing.

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Brandon Flowers – Only The Young

Posted on November 21, 2010 by derek

I have been listening to Brandon Flowers solo stuff the past few days. You know him as the frontman to the Killers. He has a solid voice in my opinion.
And my favorite song off his album has to be Only The Young.

check out the video:

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Parkinson’s Law – Deadlines Are Beautiful

Posted on November 5, 2010 by derek

I read about Parkinson’s Law today as I was re-reading the 4 Hour Workweek.

I well know the value of deadlines. One thing that has helped me be a better writer is doing timed practice. That’s basicallly a short deadline. Write everything you can about this subject for the next ten minutes, that kind of thing. It will make you a better writer in no time.

Parkinson’s Law as applied to time is good to remember when a task seems overwhelming.
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
That it does. When you give yourself a small amount of time to do something, you will automatically focus on the most important parts of the task. Its almost forcing you to recognize the 80/20 rule and live by it.

Our brains are so focused on finding distractions. We can spend a full day doing just a few errands, things that could have been done in an hour.

Remember Parkinson’s Law when you want to accomplish something, and set that deadline even if it hurts.

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Khuda – Palingenesia

Posted on November 1, 2010 by derek

Some music has this effect on me, where when I hear it, I have to get up and play my guitar. The sound gives me inspiration to play.

I found a band from the UK that does this to me: Khuda

They released an album just this month, check them out at http://www.myspace.com/khudamusic

A little more info about them: They are a two-piece instrumental group. A drummer and guitarist. You have to hear this stuff, its phenomenal. They make great use of dynamics, and the guitar tones are right where I would like my sound to be.

For your listening pleasure, here is some live action by Khuda:

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Big Blue Caddi Alive Again

Posted on October 17, 2010 by derek

Yes, it finally happened. My giant blue Caddi is once again wandering the streets of T-Town. Fuzzy feelings all around.
How nice it would be to fix her up and give her some help in the speed department.
1992 Cadillac Brougham

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First Blog From iPhone

Posted on October 6, 2010 by derek

This is my first post from wordpress or iPhone. I can’t seem to get landscape mode to work well. And the keyboard is lagging like crazy. Oh well, it’s cool to be able to blog from anywhere without my laptop.

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Jailbreak iPhone 4.0 – Why I Still Jailbreak

Posted on September 24, 2010 by derek

I have been Jailbreaking since I got my iPhone 3G. I patiently await for the hackers to jailbreak the latest update. It’s always been for two reasons: to customize the look of my iPhone, and the jailbroken apps that help me do things quicker.
You see, I’m one of those mac guys who is fanatical about Quicksilver. I do so many things with Quicksilver. It’s all the everyday little things that you have to do, I can do them quicker with a few keystrokes.
I’m the same way with my iPhone. I jailbroke it up to 4.0 the other day. I’m still waiting for iRealQuickSMS to update; I loved that app. It gave me the ability to send and receive txt messages on my lockscreen. Huge time saver.

What I still use for looks: Five Icon Dock
Five Icon Springboard
Categories and Categories SB (in addition to the new folders)

For speed, I use qtweeter and Snappy.

Snappy is awesome, it allows you to use your camera while you use any other app. You can even use your camera from the lockscreen. It’s the coolest jailbroken app I have seen in a long time. So much better than before. It seems the regular camera app included with the iPhone takes way too long to open. It’s very frustrating to miss a photo opportunity.

Those are the reasons I’m still jailbreaking. It does seem that Apple may eventually have everything I want, and then I won’t have to hack it up. We’ll see…

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GameFace – “Four Chords, Seven Years”

Posted on March 21, 2010 by derek

Let’s do one thing I seem to enjoy quite a lot: take it back to the early ‘90’s. This is a pop-punk band you might not have heard of. But you need to.
They were signed to Doghouse records, a label that has signed many of my other favorite bands. For example, The Honorary Title, The Get Up Kids, Say Anything etc.
Here’s to the 90’s (you weren’t so bad afterall)

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Davenport Cabinet

Posted on March 17, 2010 by derek

“I surrender… to the stereo…”
What a great line to start this song with. It fits so well atop the main guitar riff, you couldn’t ask for more.

Davenport Cabinet is a side project of Travis Stever, of Coheed and Cambra.

I’ve listened to his album Nostalgia in Stereo a few times now, and it really is good stuff. The title track is very very stick in my head.

Lots of acoustic mixed with electric, guitar solos, and an instrumental track with some slide guitar.

Wikipedia claims this project is similar to Claudio Sanchez’s The Prize Fighter Inferno. I don’t see them as that similar. Prize Fighter has more electronic elements imo. Some of the Davenport Cabinet tracks have a very prog-rock feel to them. Maybe someone was listening to Yes. But they are both great projects, so go get it all. Close your eyes and listen.

Oh, check out this video. A great idea for a video, without having to spend billions. Its made of fan submitted footage, put together by Travis’ cousin Sky.
Good good good…

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Fleet Foxes – “White Winter Hymnal”

Posted on December 28, 2009 by derek

This song came out in 2008, but I felt I should share the song and video for those who haven’t heard about it. The video is some fun claymation. The song really stands out on its own, and will surely be stuck in your head:

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