If your shower is longer than two songs...

I've recently come up with a small productivity trick. I guess it can even be called a lifehack. I keep my showers short and sweet in the morning listening to music. Yes, listening to music.

I enjoy music. It really brightens my mood or helps pull me out of a funk. My family can tell when I've had a rough day if they come home and some dark industrial is playing. When I stay up way too late coding, dirty dubstep helps keep me going for the long run. I have a playlist (listen to it on Spotify its loud and probably NSFW) that fires me up on the way to CrossFit. A day doesn't go by without music. With smart phones and streaming audio services it makes it that much easier to get your music where ever you are.

I go to CrossFit first thing in the morning and return home to shower, get breakfast and get ready for my day. It's so easy to step into a hot shower and let the water massage my sore muscles and warm me back up again, as we start to get into cooler weather. I could just stand there (okay, sometimes lean against the wall) and let the hot water course down my back. I could do it until the hot water runs out.

I've started playing music (you might recall this post) while I'm in the shower and found that a shower takes less than 2 songs. So, I use that as my benchmark for shower length. Instead of falling into a blissful state of relaxation in the hot water, it reminds to keep moving.

I've been unable to get any of my kids to take on this practice and I've got kids who can just stand in the shower well after the hot water has run out (or at least that's how long they seem to me). But I think it would be a great tip to keep them on task.

Now, before any of you go out and have your kids start this, I've also figured out how to game my own system. Most of the time, I listen to punk songs, which are on the order of 90 seconds to 2 minutes long. But if I want to take a longer, relaxing shower, most dubstep songs are 4 to 5 minutes long.  So, if they start listening to Iron Butterfly's In A Gadda Da Vida (bewtween 8 and 30 minutes, depending upon the version) or Weezer's Only in Dreams (7:59) as their two songs, you'll know they're playing you.

HDMX Jam Classic Speaker Review

I remember getting my first radio. It was the one from my Dad's workshop, with blobs of plaster dripped on it and a rather out of place replacement power knob. But it started my enjoyment of music.

My second was a boom box. I split the purchase with my parents. It was pretty cool, with detachable speakers and a tape deck. I could record music off the radio to listen to whenever I wanted. I started buying music, my first cassette was a Joan Jett and the Blackhearts album.

When I graduated from high school, I bought a pretty nice Denon receiver, CD changer.  It came to me with college and yes, my room mate and I had two 100+ watt stereos in our small dorm room.

A few years after getting out of the army, I upgraded my receiver and added as sub-woofer to the mix. This receiver was 5.1, so we stepped up to the world of surround sound on our DVD player.

I enjoy my music and listening to it in the best possible way; I've replaced my iPhone ear buds with some some noise-isolating Klipsch headphones.

I've never really gotten into listening to music on my phone, the built-in speakers just don't do justice for the music. But as more music is available with services like Pandora and Spotify, I'm beginning to listen to music on my phone.  It's been nice, as I read at night in bed, my phone is there charging and I listen to some music.

AT&T generously provided my wife with a HMDX Jam Classic bluetooth speaker, which means I get to play with it too.

The small, rechargeable speaker connects to my phone via bluetooth and does have a mini-stereo jack so I can use my iPod, too.  No wires necessary makes it pretty convenient; I just walk in my room, turn on the speaker and it automatically connects.

I only read for about 30 minutes a night and I charge every other week or so.  The user's guide indicates that it has 4 hour battery life, and do I think that the battery would last for a day at the beach or for a picnic.

The sound quality is good, considering the size of the speakers.  I can't turn it up to 11, but it does get pretty loud. I enjoy music that has a good deal of bass, and though this speaker won't vibrate my pants, its a huge improvement over my phone's built in speaker.

Its a great speaker for a kid's room, they're bright and colorful and could pair it to a computer, phone or any other bluetooth capable device. Maybe it'll get your kid started on a path towards being an audiophile.

Just so you know, I wasn't compensated for this post, unless I get to keep the speakers, as they were really given to Heather to review. The post embodies my honest opinion.

My rapture playlist

As I picked up Kid3 from swim practice, I asked him what we should listen to on our drive.

He suggested Europe's The Final Countdown since the world is going to end tomorrow.

I'm going to piggy back on his idea and share what I'll be listening to when the earth starts shaking.

1) Europe - The Final Countdown
2) The Beastie Boys - So Whatcha Want
3) Metallica - The Four Horsemen
4) REM - Its the End of the World
5) Ministry - The Missing
6) They Might Be Giants - Dead
7) They Might Be Giants - Snowball in Hell
8) Depeche Mode - Blasphemous Rumors

What would you add?

Don't be frontin' when revelation comes!

My Kids and Jello, Biafra that is

Warning: This post contains links to hardcore punk rock, which might aurally offend some of my fairer readers. In most office places, schools and churches, this music might not fit in. Just don't click on the links, they aren't necessary for the story. And if The Dead Kennedys fit in your office place and you need an MBA with Supply Chain Management experience drop me a line!

Yesterday, as I was driving the kids home from swim practice, we were listening to Moon Over Marin by the Dead Kennedys.

Kid 2 says from the backseat, "Is this guy part goat?" I had to smile, because I can hear where she's coming from.

If you haven't already, click on the link. I'll wait, while you listen. Listen to the way his voice warbles on the long drawn out words. Can you hear the goat, that my daughter hears?

We drove on and Kid 1 said, "Hey, isn't this the guy who sings..." As the gears in his head were turning, I fatherly pride started to build up. "... Holiday in Cambodia?" Even though we were driving at highway speeds, I gave my son a high five.

Yes, my son recognized The Dead Kennedys. How cool is that.

Shortly thereafter, the playlist moved ahead to a Jay-Z and Alphaville mashup, Young Forever. Yes, Alphaville from your high school prom (I didn't go to mine, so I can't be sure if it was the song at my prom). Its pretty cool. I won't put a link to it, since my warning message was all about hardcore punk, which Jay-Z and Alphaville most certainly are not.

But what was really cool, was that my daughter was signing along with the Alphaville part! It might be "recycled" but if old is new, it's still cool when we can share a musical moment.

Ubuntu is easy or Computer recover with Linux

It seems to be the time for hard drive failure in our house. Heather has had two hard drive failures in the last two years and I have finally had my first disk failure.

On Christmas Eve, my windows PC gave me a blue screen of doom error. I decided that it was a good time to turn it off. When I turned it on Christmas afternoon, my disk was clicking and clacking and the BIOS found no bootable disk. Not a good thing to happen.

I wasn't concerned because all my data was backed up with Carbonite. A good backup strategy is a great idea, no matter how you do it. Comcast provides some backup software with the free with subscription McAfee Security Center and there are scads of online backup services. But I really like Carbonite because it runs in the background and backs up to a remote site. I can selectively restore files or even to a new computer!

But, I needed a computer. Okay, I really wanted a computer - I store recipes online, I keep my tasks with Remember the Milk, and I was sure to get one or two Christmas greeting emails (I use Gmail). Just about everything I do an use is web based, so as long as I could get online, I was good to go.

I had also been wanting to play with some distro of Linux. This was my excuse to do it. I downloaded the latest Ubuntu Live CD, burned it to a CD (on my wife's computer) and just like that, I was able to boot my PC.

It was super easy! Unfortunately, it did confirm for me that my hard drive was entirely fried. But it wasn't a big deal, I had a working computer until my company was able to send me a new hard disk (well, a new laptop, too because it was time for a new computer anyway).

So, I've been running Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn for a short while (and know that I will continue to do so in the future) and here are my thoughts:

1. Incredibly simple install. You answer a few questions and then it does its thing. You don't have to sit and supervise it.
2. Package managers (either with the command line or a graphical one) make installing software so easy. I was very quickly able to get the software I wanted up and running (and it automatically installed all the required other libraries as well). For those still running Windows, check out Appupdater for that same type of functionality.
3. Almost all of the software is free! Free! Ubuntu is free!
   
4. Linux does a better job of memory management than Windows. I can run the same several memory intensive applications (Open Office with giant spreadsheets, Google Earth, GIMP and then several Citrix based java apps) simultaneously with better performance under Ubuntu. Linux will keep an older computer running longer than under Windows!
5. There is so much information available online to support Linux. Sure it helps to have a smart friend (I've got a few of them) for computer support, but there are all kinds of forums and blog postings out there. Okay, at the same time this can be problematic - some of it wasn't up to date, but there is lots of information available.
6. Ubuntu has a great UI. Most people think of 'nix and the command line, but you don't have to use the command line (editor's note: the command line is such a faster and easier way to do stuff, so check it out). The learning curve was almost flat from a user standpoint. If you are a just turn on the computer and use it person, you can do that with Ubuntu. If you want to get into the backend of the system, you can do that with Ubuntu.
7. I'd like to give serious props to the Wireless Network Manager in Ubuntu. Under Windows you always have to enter your wireless access point's WEP key in hex (numbers 0 - 9 and A - F). With the Gnome network manager, you can actually enter the plain text phrase - real words that are easy to remember and know that you typed correctly. Oh yeah, and you only have to enter it once as opposed to twice (or more if you type it wrong) under Windows.
   

So far the only thing I still have to figure out (and it is from a lack of looking, not that Ubuntu can't) is to manage my music and iPod. For the time being, it isn't a problem, because I manage my iPod on my daughter's PC, but I'd really like to be able to do that at some point.

Ubuntu is definitely as good an operating system as Windows, if not better, both technically and cost wise. The applications are out there and they too are as good as or better than the commercial alternatives. I'd recommend checking it out and thinking about it for your next OS.

New wifi access point, new KMFDM album

I didn't think I'd be writing a post like this tonight, but it fits.

I was out picking up pizza and I heard that KMFDM would be on the C89.5 Worldwide and so I called up Heather to see if they were having a show tonight in Seattle. No dice, just a radio thing. So when I got home, I kept the radio in my MINI on and ran to the entertainment center.

Heather asked me why the music was on in the car and I responded, "so I can have a seamless audio experience."

She didn't want to listen to the radio show, because she "doesn't like my music." So Parker and I sat in the garage in the car listening, while the pizza cooked.

Once the pizza was ready, I decided I would sit in my home office and stream the music. And that is were I am right now. Eating pizza, listening to KMFDM streaming online, downloading some very large work files and using my new wifi access point.

I finally upgraded to 802.11g and I am doing all this via wifi, without any latency! It is incredible. Just like the new KMFDM. The album is really good, lots of self-sampling (a KMFDM trademark), but the radio show is hilarious. They are having all kinds of technological issues with the phones (dropping callers) and quite funny conversations with the callers.

Listening to Oldies

Last night, while we were playing the Sponge Bob edition of the Game of Life, Heather put on the local Oldies station. As she put it, it was the "only tolerable noise." I thought it was pretty good. As we played the game for about two hours, they played nothing but good music.

I was signing along and having a great time.

I guess when they have music from 40 - 60 years ago, they can pick out only the best ones!

Resurrection Weekends

Those that know me really know I like to listen to music.

Back in college, when I was going to sleep earlier than my room mate, the music would still be going. I'd fall asleep to KMFDM's Money that I'm afraid it might trigger that same response today. I don't own that album out of that fear.

We would also set one particular track of the Warlock Pinchers on repeat and head down to the Dining Commons. We lived on the eighth floor and you could hear it from the bottom. We were some of those people that contribute to people wanting to leave the dorms.

I've been using a computer for years and when streaming audio first came out, I couldn't understand why someone would want to listen to music on their computer - they should be listening on their stereo. Better amplification and speakers and all that.

Then, I started working and bandwidth (in the Army) was precious, so they encouraged us to not use streaming media. I started then to rip music to my computer. Not alot, but enough to keep me satisfied during the day.

When I first worked for Dreyer's, my cinderblock office had no windows and no radio reception. As I write this, I also recall that my office had a lake (the Clean Out of Place room shared a wall with me and on Wednesday mornings, it would leak under the wall into my office). My Army experience came in handy here, I would deftly mop it up... But back to music. At Dreyer's I started to rip more and more music. Then things like mp3 players started coming out.

Now a days, my entire music collection is digital. Everything has been moved to computer (able to stream to the stereo) and I'm a big iTunes/iPod fan (even being a Windoze user). My iPod holds my entire collection (and there is still about 20GB free for future additions) and I buy all my music on iTunes now.

It is rare that I go someplace without my iPod. I've got iPod integration (ice>Link Plus) in my MINI, I've got iPod speakers on my desk and a docking station to run it through my home audio system.

I hardly listen to broadcast radio any more. Except for Saturdays. The local alternative (or whatever the genre is called), The End, has resurrection weekends.

This morning, I've heard 88 Lines about 44 Women, Dancing with Myself, Holiday in Cambodia, Never Say Never. The Smiths, They Might Be Giants, Blondie. Just great music. A lot of the music lives on my iPod, but just the weekend's show putting it all in one place makes listening to the DJ's blather and the ads worth it.