Depression update June 10-11

Today is a better day than yesterday.  I can’t figure out if the new drug is kicking in or if I was letting environmental stuff spin me into a very bad place.  Sunday I was a mess.  But there were a lot of things bothering me.   A close friend isn’t speaking to me and I don’t actually know why. I had a huge fight with Melissa over little stuff. Though it’s not so little. When you have someone depressed and stressed out, they are less likely to notice the piles of glasses on their desk. Or the dead wasp 3 feet behind their chair. Or the cat throw up on the fireplace. Or the tons of glasses said depressed person puts in the sink to soak, planning on washing them, but clearly not in the same time frame as their partner would have liked. Hypothetically speaking of course…  Which could hypothetically lead to a huge fight. Especially if the other person happens to be a little OCD. OK the glasses on the desk sucked, but I did have a reason. I was waiting for the new Dishwasher to be installed, which didn’t happen, thank you very much Home Depot.  I can’t say I was a perfect angel, but I also had some legitimate gripes about Melissa for which I will not call her out on the internet.  But we probably had one of the biggest fights we have ever had.

I think we resolved it, or resolved to try and resolve it. I think I need to get her a book on living with someone with anxiety and depression, I know most of what really got to me was that I didn’t feel understood.  Of course I’m sure she felt the same way. But at the end of the fight we did what we always do, made up, kissed each other good night and did not go to bed mad. We have a rule in the house not to leave it, or go to bed angry. Naturally Melissa is better at it than I am. Its an important rule because you never know what life will bring you. A simple accident/event can change your world forever, and you can never get to say what needs to be said. I think that is what I find most frustrating about the friend that isn’t speaking to me. Life is too short to leave things unresolved.

Speaking of life being to short, yesterday, part of my mood was certainly related to the boy’s end of the year party. Josh has a 1/2 of a day of school tomorrow then he is done with preschool forever. Come fall I will have a kindergartner.  While he may be more than ready, I’m not. Time is just going to fast.

And Elijah got hurt on the moon bounce at the party. I hate those things, not as much as trampolines, but enough just the same. He wasn’t hurt too bad, thankfully. But it definitely freaked me out a bit.

I was also pissed at Home Depot. We paid for a new dishwasher including installation and removal of the old one.  No one told us that would happen on different days. I was pissed. Apparently there is some new law in my area that is has to be installed by a plumber, and for some reason Home Depot didn’t think to coordinate those two things together.

But today is better. I can’t say I am feeling happy yet, but I am not miserable like Sunday. There are even a few things I am looking forward to. I’m hoping this new cocktail will work.  I have noticed an increased ability to concentrate today. So I will mark that in win column. I got to see part of a Bris this morning, such a cute kid.  I love little kids but I do get sad sometime remembering I’m not having anymore.  Which is really and issue I have to work on in therapy. I can’t make Melissa want to have another child, so I need to figure out a way to resolve that trigger of resentment. Yippy, something to talk about in therapy on Wednesday.  Oh back to Sunday, I also did not get my Sunday run in. That is never good. OK I have rambled on enough. Sunday = Bad. Monday = tolerable.  I’m giving odds that Tuesday will be good.  At the least I am going to set that expectation, maybe make a self fulfilling prophecy.

BTW if there are any Unix/linux/Centos experts out there, I effed up my bind configuration so I shut it off. DNS is managed off site and I just have a few workdpress installations on my VPS.    I can’t think of any reason I need it on, but let me know if I’m wrong.

Plex Media Center for OS X and iOS

Warning Tech Post with Apple focus. Don’t bother reading if you aren’t into Apple, Tech, and digital Media.

On September 1, 2010 Plex released an upgrade to their already powerful and flexible multimedia software. For the record it is definitely a beta, but it is a brilliant. It plays most media flawlessly, but its real power as a home theatre backbone is in the remote friendly interface that intelligently gathers metadata from the internet to organize your television and movies.  It pulls, movies posters, cast and episode data, in some cases even theme music. This is without a doubt my favorite and most used piece of OS X software. The irony that Plex evolved from a program that had its start on the XBox, XMBC, is not lost me.

The real power of their latest release is decentralization. Meaning no matter what computer you are on (in network), you have access to your full library. Start a show in one room/computer pick it up on another. I am currently running the Plex server/player software on three computers. My macbook and two hackintoshes. For the record, Apple makes great hardware (well they don’t technically make it); I choice the hackintosh route to augment my home theater setup as I already had the hardware available. Also for the record, I have a license for each copy of OS X that is installed.

So I can start a show here, conveniently set up right in front of my treadmill.

Then finish it on the Plasma.

I can also watch it in any other room in my house that I have my Macbook, iPad or iPhone. Yes, Plex also released client software for IOS iPad and iPhone. It transcodes and streams your content to the iPhone or iPad beautifully. I had no problem sitting on my patio tonight and streaming a 720p video. With a little port forwarding, I could even stream over 3g, although at a greatly reduced video quality. Plex

While this isn’t something I would use often, you even have the option of using the app as a remote. Select the video you want then choose to either stream it to the IOS device or open on the server. Typically I would just use my remote, but if I couldn’t find it, it could be useful.

The Plex software for OS X is free/donation model, but they do charge for the iPhone/iPad app. Probably the best $5 I have spent in the App store. The video quality is beautiful, and it just works. I have used other video streaming software for IOS devices, but the integration into Plex, the access to metadata, and being able to just pick up were you left off on another computer/device…At $5 it’s a steal.

A I said, this is still Beta software, and it is not without it bugs, but after a few days of use I can honestly say it has been damn near flawless with one notable exception. Plex had to temporarily shut off the gathering of the metadata (Show Info, Posters, cast etc..) on TV shows. It currently uses TheTVDB.com to gather the information, and thoroughly hosed their servers. It is beta software and there were a huge number of users who upgraded, all scanning their full libraries all at once… From what I understand, Plex is setting up a cache to share the load, and that is expected to be online over the next day or so. I was lucky and managed to get most of my metadata before the lockout. And if you really want to reactivate the scanning before Plex officially turns it back on (I don’t recommend this unless you have a small number of shows), it is as simple as removing one line of code. I’m not going to tell you how, but google is your friend.

Update – The TVDB.com database issues seems to have been resolved. I have had no problems with meta-data.

T-22 hours and counting

Tomorrow morning I’ll be standing in line for my new iPhone. Apparently if I had pre ordered versus reserved there is a good chance I would be making this post on my new iPhone 4. Oh well, what’s another day in the grand scheme of things.  And yes, I know it is just a phone – there are far more important things in life, such as family and good health. But the iPhone has changed the way I live my life on a day to day basis, and I look forward to the changes iPhone 4 will bring.

Microsoft and Windows 7 – I’m just not that in to you

I’m sorry 7 you’re just not what I am looking for in an OS.  Don’t get me wrong, you’re a definite improvement over the 1 step forward 2 steps backwards that was  Vista.  You got some pretty new bells and whistles and you may even be as stable as Grandma XP (which is good compared to its far past but far from good). While  your Apple charm school lessons have done much to enhance your overall elegance- well it is still so much lipstick on a pig.  When we first got together I knew you were a beta but you have been in release candidate for months now and your still giving me way too many blue screens of death. I know it doesn’t help to point fingers or compare you to other OSs but you have crashed more times in the last month then my trusty macbook has in 2 years.  I’m not saying its over since BeyondTV/Snapstream doesn’t make DVR software for OS X, you will still have a place at the core of my DVR Box. But I have to tell you, if you can’t get your act together I might have to consider MythTV on Linux.  I know crazy Uncle Walt (not really  my Uncle) Mossberg thinks your almost as good as OS X. But your not.  Oh you can still do a few things for me that no other OS can.  But I don’t have to work in Access as much these days and I am getting pretty comfy with MYSQL and as I said, if things don’t improve I might seriously consider Linux/MythTV for the one box (quad core Intel w/ 4 TVtuners and 2 terabytes of HDTV goodness) really keeping you with me at home.

Don’t worry, we can still be work buddies. I’m not planning any moves and I can’t imagine the paradigm shift that would have to happen for our office to go Mac, its just not even possible with our current HRIS software. And its not like I won’t ever see you outside of the office. As I said there are certain things you do very well, and I am willing to keep you around in Virtual Machine form. I will  call on you when I need some quick and dirty MS Office project that can’t be done in Office for Mac or Google Docs.  And when I am done, I can just shut down the VM software and forget about you until our next month boot up call.

25 random things about me

I was tagged and completed one of those “25 random things about me” and true to #25 I decided to repost to my blog.

1. Someday I will finish and publish a novel.

2. I have finished many shorts stories over the years and have never attempted to have any of them published.

3. I have an irrational fear of birds.

4. That said very few things in this world truly frighten me. I have driven a buck twenty bumper to bumper on a tortuous road, gone bungee jumping, cliff diving, skydiving and countless other youthful indiscretions.

5. And that said I have been terrified on a couple of occasions. The first was a month before Josh was born and we were driving to Holly Cross to do a tour of the maternity ward. We were stopped in traffic on 495 near magical kingdom AKA the Mormon Temple. Melissa stated screaming as a SVU plowed into us at highway speeds. The accident put her into early labor and it was hours before they were able to stop the labor and give us any assurance that she and the baby would be OK. The second time in recent memory was when I held my son for the first time.

6. Even though I am pro-science and highly critical of religious dogma, I am surprisingly religious. I have never doubted in G-d, only humanity’s ability to understand.

7. Most of my life I preferred to read what Academics call literature and now I prefer speculative fiction. I can even admit to truly loving some urban/dark fantasy that could just as easily be housed in the romance isle.

8. I am a terrible insomniac and Lunesta has changed my life.

9. I have been contemplating giving up meat on moral grounds but am not sure I have the will power to make it happen.

10. I’m a Mac, and a PC and a LINUX

11. As a kid I used to take things apart to to figure out how they worked, I still do.

12. I used to build PCs before it was considered easy.

12. I am very mechanically inclined but have never changed my own oil, mostly because I don’t like getting dirty.

13. I love to garden. I know that sounds contradictory but I don’t mind dirt dirt. It is the greasy and/or sticky things I don’t love.

14. I have studied Christianity more in depth than Judaism.

15. I hated being Jewish as a child but happily identify with Judaism as an adult.

16. My favorite game is Gin provided I am playing with my wife. She is a knocker!

17. My mind works best when I am multitasking.

18. I can listen to an audio book or watch TV while reading and follow both. I know this makes me a little odd but I was a multitasker before modern communication necessitated it.

19. My wife never ceases to amaze me.

20. On any given day Lifeguarding was my favorite job. Bar-tending was the most fun, and Teaching the most rewarding.

21. Even though I don’t LOVE it I am very good at HR an assume I will keep doing it forever unless I do #1 more than once and really really really well.

22. I am terrible with names.

23. Having a child (soon to be children) has changed my life in unbelievable and indescribable ways.

24. Yes I do get asked about the other Corey Feldman all to often and how funny is it that my best friend’s name is Tony Orlando.

25. Most of my life I have shared easily but with few. With Social media (blogging, facebook, twitter) I now share with many but no longer with ease.

Could this day go any slower?

This day is dragging.  I am starting to wonder if time is actually slowing down.  Wait a second, didn’t the Large Hadron Collider  go live today.  Is it possible we are all being sucked into a black hole and time is literally slowing down?

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Joss Whedon rocks.  Neil Patrick Harris brilliant.  Nathan Fillion hilarious.  Felicia Day totally geeky hot.

Are Keys Going the way of the Dinosaur?

For the last two days I have been saddled with a Nissan Altima.  My wife’s car was rear ended for the second time in its short life and is in the shop.  I took the rental car the insurance company provided, so Melissa would have a car with a properly inspected child safety seat.  The really cool thing about this car is that there is no key.  Just a fob that stays in you pocket.  As long as you have the key fob in the car, you just press the button and it starts.  I can picture the day when you have one programmable key fob, as long as it is on your person, you can open your house, office, car etc… Technology does seem to blur the line between magic and science.

Leopard OS X 10.5 – Spaces

When I first tried spaces I thought it was a nice gimmick but not a feature I would actually use.  This week I have been working on a couple projects that I wanted to test out in OS X so I brought my Macbook into the office.  Spaces has turned out to be one of my favorite new features. It took a couple minutes to retrain my brain, but I was amazed how quickly I adjusted and how I really prefer working in organized and separate desktops.  I put IChat in one space, Email in another and the third and fourth held my two projects.  I set it up with a hot corner, so with a quick move of the mouse (or a couple of keystrokes if that is what works for your inner geek) I have whatever I am looking for open and in full view.

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