I just wanted to log some random impressions of the day, while they were still fresh in my mind.

Friday had ended on a very high note, with Dad flying in to surprise me. Tricia and I stayed up rather late, preparing all the final items needed to ensure we were ready for the party (getting some of the food prepped, finalizing my music playlist to be played during the event, etc.) AND, Mom & Dad had sent along another great surprise, in the form of a slideshow of pictures from my life, set to the tune of “Nobody Does It Better” – which they titled “Brian – the First Forty”. I was very touched by this, and was able to come up with a way to incorporate it into the day’s events, by bringing my MacBook Pro to the party, to play it for our guests.

We were able to pick up the (HUGE!) cake at the bakery, and make it to the Tech Museum right on time, and had no trouble at all getting setup in the event hall. We even had a lot of help from some of our friends (thanks, Yana & Megan!), who showed up early to help us out. Some other impressions from the day:

• BIG event hall: Very nicely decorated – and including several macro-focus images of plants, insects, animals, etc. (pretty cool) The Tech even had printed some great “Happy Birthday” banners, had festive tablecloths and confetti on the tables, and just really did a great job helping us make the day special. (and don’t forget the “Never Say Forty” banner which Patricia had printed ;-)
• TONS of balloons: From Party Fiesta, which went a long way toward making the area really feel like a festive occasion.
• Catering: Via Buca di Beppo – always great Italian food. Although we started serving a bit late, due to some confusion on my part, it seems that everyone enjoyed the selection of items we had available.
• Fruit / cookies / cake – Patricia made lots of goodies, which she always does an awesome job with. And, the cake – which indicated a very “Happy 39 1/2 Birthday” – was especially good, too. Yum!
• Hats: Everyone got a custom-printed hat, which we had made, indicating “I was there…” on the front, and “Brian’s 39 1/2 th BIrthday; September 2008” (yes, intentionally-awkward verbiage, just for fun). I was happy to see so many folks wearing them, and hope they enjoy them in the future, too.
• Name tags: We had printed blank name tags for everyone, with the “Happy 40th” logo from our Evite, and a few placeholders for them to fill in funny entries. We left them room to write whatever they wanted, starting them off with “Hi, I’m {name} and I {message} the Old Man” placeholders. Many folks had interesting and/or funny things to say, allowing all the guests to get to know each other better.
• • Most touching: My dear friend Donna, who indicated “[…and I] miss working with [the Old Man]” Awww…
  • Funniest: My buddy, Ken, who alluded to the … challenges I face in keeping my communications short: “[…and I] continually get emails that ramble on and on and on and then ask some questions and even more questions from [the Old Man]” :-P
• Slideshow: As indicated, my parents had created a very-touching video for to me, with pictures over my first 40 years. There was a minor hiccup, in that the larger projection screen in the event room wasn’t available to us (darn!), but we still were able to display the video on my laptop, and everyone commented on how much they enjoyed it. Lots of embarrassing pictures of me as a kid, but hey – I guess that comes with the territory, huh? I’m just fascinated that my non-technophile parents were able to put together such a moving tribute; thanks, Mom & Dad!
• Sign board: We picked up a large picture-frame matte, which Tricia had placed a copy of the Evite in the middle, and decorated sparsely around the sides, allowing all the attendees to write messages on. It really meant a lot for me to have such nice wishes documented there; this is going to be one of my most cherished possessions.
• Segway: In the main lobby of the museum, they had a representative from Segway allowing us to try out this rather curious “personal transporter. Several of us had a blast zooming around on this device – not the least of which, was the Birthday Boy.
• The movie: We watched a showing of “Blue Planet” in the IMAX dome, there on-site at the Tech, Before it began, they had shown slides indicating “Happy 40th Birthday, Brian – from your friends at The Tech”, which drew applause and cheers from my guests in the theater. I even had a chance to thank everyone again in the theater, and really felt like a rock star while there. Absolutely awesome.
• Balloon giveaway: As mentioned, we had tons of balloons, which we needed to get rid of, once the event was over. Some of our guests were able to take some, but for the remainder (well, at least those which didn’t break free, and float up to the top of the museum – whoops!), we took them outside. There was an event going on in the Plaza, and there were lots of kids around. I had a blast with one of the Tech staffers, handing out balloons to many of those kids, and making them smile.

It truly was a wonderful day, and one which I’m incredibly thankful to have had so many friends – and family members – attend. Thanks to all who were there to help me celebrate in style. In case anyone is interested in the full set of pictures, find them up on my MobileMe Gallery:

    http://gallery.me.com/latimer/100051

And, Thank You, Patricia, for going through all this effort to make my 40th Birthday an incredibly memorable one. I absolutely loved the day – and certainly love you, for everything you did to make it so.

Of course, it turns out that sometimes, events at work can be very pleasant surprises – like, say, when you receive an early birthday gift, all the way from Missouri.

I was volunteering at our Friday Beer Bash, in celebration of the new iPod releases we announced this past Tuesday, and was having a good time demonstrating the new iPod nano to others. I always enjoy talking with others, and sharing the new features of the products, getting feedback from others on the public perception of the releases, etc., so was having a good time helping out. We had a big turnout (free food & beer is always popular on campus ;-), and so there were plenty of folks packed into the Caffé.

At one point, I saw Tricia making her way through the crowd, and figured she’d say “Hi” – especially since I was talking to a few of her co-workers at the time. I’m in the middle of a demo of some of the new features when I look up to see a distinguished-looking gentleman moving into the group to see some of the features of the nano. A gentleman which I recognized to be my Dad – who wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near California, but who flew in earlier in the day from Missouri to help celebrate my birthday weekend with us. Wow!

I was very surprised, and obviously thrilled to see him. My parents had worked out the trip as a surprise, and didn’t even tell Patricia until the middle of the week. Mom couldn’t make it, as she remaining back home to take care of Grandma, but I know her thoughts are with me, as well. (Thx, Mom!)

I’m looking forward to spending the weekend with both my wife & my Father, as well as the big crowd we have coming to the party on Saturday. It’s been a very nice surprise, and one which I’m incredibly happy that my family has given me. Thanks, all.

Aside: Turns out that Patricia almost spoiled the surprise on Friday morning, on our way into work. She had been watching the weather reports, and saw that it was supposed to be extremely hot for the weekend. She had said something about “Oh, great, the one weekend he’s in town, it will be too hot to enjoy being outdoors”, but I completely missed it. I had been thinking of my friend Johnathon, who we helped celebrate his 40th birthday on Wednesday (Happy B-day, JS!) – but who wasn’t going to be able to make my party, since he was going camping with his family starting Saturday morning. So, I just figured that Patricia was getting confused regarding where they were going to go camping, and was rather confusingly concerned at their ability to enjoy the weekend. Yeah, I guess I am getting older… ;-)

I simply don’t spend enough time on what I’d like to do – like share my life with friends, document significant events in my life, etc. Work takes up too much time – even when I’m home, I’m doing work. This is simply not a good set of priorities for me to maintain.

But, I’d like to change that. We’ll see if I can type a few sentences much more often, and keep those friends more in-touch with what’s going on in my life.

So, as a tentative baby step toward more regular updates, here’s a quick rundown of today’s events:

• Got back from a great weekend with the guys in Lake Tahoe (thanks again, all). We had a great time, had some great weather – and it was only ruined by the stress involved in having to finish some work :-(
• Monday brought with it LOTS to do at work, in preparation for … a little event on Tuesday, Sept 9
• Dinner with the crew; Woz was quite funny, telling some great stories about his travels – and coming clean about he and Kathy (yeah, we knew that – but it was interesting to hear the “why” of his participating in the show)
• Keith’s going to be doing an infomercial for his … uh, mail-order placebos (if you don’t know … you’re lucky ;-). And, it looks like I’ll be playing the creator of the product (!). Should be fun – more details later. (Still can’t get Patricia to agree to play a part…)
• Also, Patricia has been stressing about preparing for my next b-day party this Saturday. I just want things to go easily for everyone, and have a good time with friends. Hopefully, everything will come together well, and we’ll just be able to enjoy the day.

    Passive resistance, like Gandhi

Yep, that was easy.

I turns out that the call was from Jessica, Kathy Griffin’s assistant. She apparently needed some tech support help with something, and had been referred to me for assistance (!). Remember that I helped Kathy with setting up her iPhone, after her concert back in November.

No details on specifically what she wanted, but I’ll certainly find out.

(insert obligatory plug for http://www.celebtechsupport.com here…)

Here’s a couple recent articles regarding using your computer for this content: One review of the El Gato EyeTV Hybrid, and another focusing on the ease-of-use of the EyeTV software.

Takeaway: “Getting media from EyeTV to iTunes is simple but time consuming as TV shows and TV movies have to be converted to a format iTunes is willing to stream to AppleTV.”

In other words,: Yeah, it’s nice – but the host machine will be CONSTANTLY on, converting the recorded stuff from raw MPEG2 into H.264 or the like, just to get it into a format which iTunes (and therefore Apple TV) can handle. Therefore, this looks to be a non-starter for me…

Note the “Ideal solution” indicated on the second page: “Ideal solution: Apple TV directly supports eyeTV Hybrid hanging off of USB port. “

I know that’s not going to happen, but man – why is the Apple TV so limited?

Of course, I never do: When I eventually do start putting up lights, there’s only a few hours before dark, so I just rush headlong into stringing them up. Then, when lighting them, I get frustrated at how many “gaps” there are in the coverage – sub-sections of strings which remain dark, due to bad bulbs.

This year was much the same: I actually took a day off of work on Dec 3rd (we were planning on going on a trip that weekend, but didn’t end up going), and wanted to spend it working around the house. As always, though, I ended up screwing around until nearly 4 PM, meaning I only had an hour or so left to put up the lights. Grrr.

So, I madly pulled the lights out of storage, and began putting them up – trying desperately to remember the stringing pattern I’ve worked out over the past few years, to avoid overloading any one run, and blowing fuses (yeah, I documented it … somewhere). Once up, I turned them on – to find seven (seven!) sections which were out (out of only fourteen strings total). Since each section has 50 lights in it, that’s around 350 lights I’d need to test to see where the problem was. One-by-one. While they were already hanging on the eaves, requiring a ladder to access. Some of which were affixed to our roof gables, requiring actually climbing on the roof itself to reach them. Double-grrr.

Our neighbor came home as I was finishing, and commented on how much she liked the lights and other decorations I had put up, but pointed out that I had a few sections which weren’t lit – thereby depriving me of any possible way I could feign selective blindness and try to ignore them (sigh).

This was Monday evening, and after evaluating the results on Tuesday evening (Tricia like the work I’d done, so that was nice, at least), I also noticed that one of the timers wasn’t shutting off: It would come on around 5 PM, but never shut off at Midnight – leaving them lit even on Wednesday morning as we left for work. Triple-grrr.

(Aside: “On” at 5 PM? Wow. I really can’t stand it getting dark so “early”, primarily due to the screwed-up schedule we get on because of changes due to that stupid concept we call “Daylight Saving Time” – have I mentioned that?)

I disconnected the timers (again, multiple – due to the need for separate circuits), and figured I’d try to address the myriad problems whenever I had time. Translation: Probably 20 minutes after “never”. Therefore, Thursday morning, I simply re-set each timer, and plugged in all the strings again, hoping the lights would at least come on and shut off at the correct times going forward. I figured I’d find out specifics when returning home that evening.

So, Thursday evening, we returned from work, and evaluated the status. Not only were the lights on (yay!), but all but two of the strings were lit.

I had done nothing to address the problem strings at all. They simply … worked again. 7 problem areas, down to 2? That’s a pretty nice update, IMHO.

Yes, it was probably simply a set of loose connections, which their movement in the wind “fixed”. Do I know for sure they will stay fixed? Nope. But, am I going to question it, and over-analyze the situation?

Not a chance.

I’m not a “fan” of Kathy per se, but I do enjoy some of her routines. I have to admit: She was definitely on-task tonight – much (most?) of her material landed, and it was really a very very funny show.

Plus: We had excellent seats: Front row, center. Now, THAT’s the way to do a live show, folks. A buddy of mine from work (Ken) thought he saw me as I walked up front, and was giving us crap and trying to figure out how we got such great seats. Always fun ;-)

Immediately after she came out on stage, she dropped her iPhone (!). Then she complained about how tough it is to use, how she keeps getting “cannot connect to server”, etc. I gotta admit, she’s right on several points – although her audience was just a bit skewed to the geekier side of things, and probably doesn’t have these same issues.

It was a great set – even talking about her relationship with Woz, and how she loved having him accompany her to the Daytime Emmys, if for nothing else than to deflect Fox News reporters over to him for responses ;-)

AND, to cap it all off, we got to go backstage and talk to her, after her set. Several of us (John, Keith, and of course Patricia and I) are Apple folks, so we actually ended up providing iPhone tech support to her. I talked to her quite a bit, and helped her setup her phone favorites, etc. Turns out I’m a God in her mind, and she worships me. Oh yeah – it’s true. What – you don’t believe me? See for yourself ;-)

In all, a GREAT time. Kudos to JAV for getting us the tix, and although we didn’t get a chance to link up with Woz again (he’s probably saving her all for himself…), it really was a great night.

There are many MANY Mac-based tools available for implementing this in your daily workflow, some of which are discussed in this great StarryHope article, as well as an older O’Reilly MacDevCenter article.

But my favorite app – by FAR – is currently iGTD – by an independent developer in Poland.

Bartek has been incredibly responsive to feedback, and has been constantly striving to improve the application. Many, many of my suggestions have been incorporated into recent releases, making me feel this is as close to a custom-made application as I can get (thanks, Bartek!).

Of course, there are several other players in this field – the most promising of which seems to be OmniFocus (trés cool video demo of the latest alpha build there, BTW). I’m not sure if I’ll switch from iGTD, but I am a fan of OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and most recently, OmniPlan – so you never know…

And, here are some other sites with useful information regarding available GTD apps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_GTD_software
http://wiki.jeffsandquist.com/default.aspx/GTD/GTDTools.html
http://www.43folders.com/2006/07/14/mac-gtd/

BTW, If you want to subscribe to this “religion” of productivity (hmm, I guess that leaves some of us out… ;-), you can also frequent Merlin Mann’s “43 folders” site – especially noting posts such as the “Getting Started” entry, and the more-recent “Gentle introduction to GTD” entry.

With several folks – including pundits and friends – expecting that a release of Beatles music on the iTunes Store is imminent, can a Gaelic version of these hits be far behind?

Alright, yes, I guess even if so, they definitely could be…