heh

I bought an iPad. I’m sure you are shocked. I love it.

My thoughts on the iPad

I know I’m more than a little behind on this topic, but I haven’t really blogged much lately anyway. I’m trying to break that streak so here we go.

Back on January 27, Apple debuted its newest product, the iPad. It’s a tablet with a 10″ screen and it runs on a modified, expanded version of the iPhone OS. It doesn’t have a physical keyboard, or any real connectivity that a full fledged computer would have. It syncs to your computer much like an iPod would, and runs all the apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

A lot of people were really taken aback by the iPad, describing it as a jumbo iPod Touch and decrying that it would be useless. Initially I was unimpressed as well. Though I have to say, none of us should have been surprised.

The iPhone was the device that was the true breakthrough for Apple, and a big part of that breakthrough was the App Store. Why would the iPad not capitalize on the App Store?

Most people out there are at least somewhat familiar with the iPhone or iPod Touch. They have one or know someone who has one or at least knows the basics of how they work. The iPad runs the iPhone OS because it makes it extremely easy for these people to adopt it. The iPhone is the device that started to break the barrier down between PC’s and phones and put a smartphone in the average user’s hands. And the iPad is an extension of that.

Now, I am an unabashed Apple fan. The iPad makes me drool because it’s an Apple product, and it’s an extension of the iPhone. I’m torn over it though. On one hand I think it’s something I could use, something I could do the majority of my browsing and computering on without having to have my Macbook out all the time.

On the other hand, it doesn’t have any real file system. It doesn’t have USB capability. I was expecting something a little closer to the feature set that a tablet PC would offer, but not full-fledged OSX. So I’d say the iPad as it sits fills about 70% of what I’d want in an Apple tablet.

So will I get one? Probably. When I think about the few shortcomings the iPad has, I think about the shortcomings the iPhone had when it first came out. We didn’t have the App Store then, or MMS, or even a sideways keyboard for texting. The hardware on the iPad is certainly capable of doing more in the future, so a lot of new features may come in the way of software upgrades.

Multitasking is probably the main feature I hope we see in future updates to the iPhone OS. That was one of the biggest complaints people had about the iPad and it is still a legitimate complaint about the iPhone, although most of the time I don’t find it as much more than a minor annoyance.

I can’t wait to see an iPad up close and personal. I think I won’t be buying one sight unseen, but the proof may be in the hands-on.

Latest work on the cars

Over the last couple months I’ve been doing some work on my cars. Mainly I’ve been trying to get the Grand Prix road worthy again, and I’ve been doing some other mods to the G8. Yeah, I know, I swore I wouldn’t do anything to it when I got it, but I guess that didn’t last. I’m sure everyone is surprised.

The GP
For the Grand Prix, I started out by buying a new head unit. Well, it’s new to me. It’s an Eonon 821, and I got it from my friend Justin, who had it in his Tahoe. He complained of unbearable alternator whine, but I figured I’d chance it since the head unit I had before didn’t even play discs. This one is pretty slick, it has a 1.5 din face on a 1 din unit, with a big touchscreen. It plays DVDs, has an SD card slot, has iPod controls, and even has bluetooth for a speaker phone. I loaded up a 2GB SD card with music and put it in there, and also loaded up the Cambered Videos “Grounded” DVD for show duty.

Next in line for the GP was some maintenance work. about a year ago a recall was issued on the 97-03 Grand Prixs because the front valve cover gasket leaks oil, which then builds up behind the spark plug wire retainers, and also on the exhaust manifold, and eventually it catches fire. I never drive my car, but I figured I should do the work anyway. Not trusting the dealership to fix it (and knowing it’s a simple fix) I took at it myself. I removed the spark plug retainers, which wasn’t that hard. I did find that the valve cover gasket is definitely leaking, so the gasket and grommets will need to be replaced. I didn’t check the rear gasket, but I hope it doesn’t need replacing as it is a pain to get to. I’ll order the gaskets and get them replaced fairly soon.

The other project ongoing with the GP is finishing up the trunk and trimming it out to hide the compressor and air tank, and also to build an enclosure for my sub. I think I am going to end up going the fiberglass route for the sub box, if Justin will help me along the way and sort of show me how it’s done. Right now I’ve been working on a template for the false floor that should be done in a week or so. It’s been very cold so I have been less than motivated to get out there and work on it.

The G8
I bought a few things for the G8 with Christmas money. I picked up polished billet grills for the front of the car and I really like how they turned out. Most people get the mesh type grills and I wanted to do something different.

Out back, I totally debadged the rear of the car and switched the rear diffuser panel to the one from the G8 GXP. It looks a lot better.

I took the car to Oxford Muffler and had John and Bill put on a 2.5″ X-pipe in place of the stock mid muffler. They also built Heimholtz resonators on the axle backs to tune out the nasty 120hz drone I was seeing on the highway. It seems to be better now. Took 3 trips out there to get the length of the tubes right (my fault, not theirs).

I also decided to bite the bullet and buy some wheels. Tires for the stock 19s are so expensive. So, I used that as a good excuse to buy 20s. I’m having to piecemeal it a bit because I’m impatient and don’t want to wait to save all the money up, so far I have 2 of the wheels, the lug nuts, and the TPMS sensors. The wheels are 20×8.5″ TSW Indy 500s. I’ve only seen them on one or two other G8s online so I feel like I will have something a little different than everyone else.

Finally, I fabricated video and audio input cables for the rear auxiliary input on the stock head unit. I used USB connectors from my mom’s old dead computer – the header plugs that plug in to the motherboard. I pulled out the other pins and then took some spare RCA cables I had laying around and spliced them in. The installation of the cables a bit were kind of a pain because you have to remove the side console trim and drop the glove box. It doesn’t take long but there’s not a lot of room to work in there. Plus I kept plugging the connectors in the wrong spots. Finally I got it work. It only displays video on the screen when you are under 5mph unless you buy the Video in Motion kit from JHP which is nearly $400. I think for right now it will stay the way it is, because that’s not quite in my budget for this year.

Unless I don’t buy the iPad.

Which we all know I will.

Long time no talk

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written here. A lot has happened since March! I’ll try to summarize it in quick order below

- Started dating a girl named Linda in April. We’ve been together for 7 months. Things are going great.

- Had a cookout with Linda, Justin, Marygrace, Cesar, Nick, Tracy, Jake, Pete, Kayla and Jessica. It was fun, but some events that transpired afterwards have put my friendship with Jake and Pete out to pasture.

- D-Daddy and Nene finally bought a house in Oxford, at Wellsgate.

- In May I traded my G35 in on a 2009 Pontiac G8 GT. It’s a fantastically fun car and actually has a lot of room, which is always great.

- Mom, Linda and I went to Foley from July 4-11 for vacation. Mom had a trip voucher as a work bonus so we used that and stayed at Nene and D-Daddy’s condo. We had a great time, even though the GPS took us off course on the way there and we got caught in a horrible storm (and nearly met up with a tornado) in D’iberville, MS on the way there. We shopped, ate, went to the beach, went to the movies, played minigolf at the Track, and were generally lazy for the entire week.

- Had friends over for our joint birthday party – got to meet some of Linda’s friends and we all had a good time.

- Justin’s mom passed away suddenly on August 9th.

- Linda and I went to Nashville for John Charles’ wedding in mid August. We stayed down town at a nice Hampton Inn & Suites owned by my friend Mike Modi. He comped us a room and we saw mom while we were there. It was really nice. (Despite the bull rider staying in the next room that banged around at 4AM).

- Justin bought a pit bike and on my first attempt riding it I popped a wheelie, shot the bike out from under me and narrowly avoided hitting my neighbor’s Ford Focus

- David Simpson and I went to the ///Relaxed Atmosphere All-Star Event show in Millington. I didn’t get to take the Laid GP because I found that the subframe was about to fall apart from too much dragging, and Sean backed out on me at the last minute as far as trailering the car. I ended up showing the G8 instead. We had a good time though, it was really miserable hot and humid. Bryce came down for a while. Saw all my old buddies from DO and Eksessiv, and others like Keef and Sudds. Picked up some goodies while I was there and it really renewed my interest in the scene.

- Football season is upon us, well actually it’s almost over now. There’s only 2 more home games left to go! Things are going pretty well at work though.

- I’ve been recently having some issues with anxiety again, which I plan to blog about more in the future. Storms seem to set it off more than anything.

- Justin, MaryGrace, Linda and I carved pumpkins the week before Halloween. It was terrible and I hate pumpkins and all other members of the gourd family.

I finally finished college and received my diploma back in September. It is a great feeling to be done!!!

Those are the really major things that I can think of right off the top of my head. I’ve got lots of pics from all of these things in my MobileMe gallery at www.laidgp.com.

I’m going to try really hard to write more here, but if I don’t and you are just dying to know what I’m up to, follow me on Twitter at @Laidgp.

Audit

The weekend guy had surgery the other day so I am covering the audit tonight. Unfortunately the other auditor is leaving and has also had a family emergency so right now it’s up in the air as to whether or not my stint as auditor will last for the remainder of the week.

I know I am working audit Monday-Thursday next week. The only thing that sucks about that is that Nate has soccer games Monday and Tuesday. I think I should be awake in time to go to them, though.

Julie, Nate and I ate at Kabuki tonight. It was nice. The only thing I hate about that place is that it never fails, you will always sit next to a group of people who insist on carrying on a conversation with you. I mean, come on… I’m not here to talk to random strangers!

Afterwards we ran a couple errands, Home Depot and Wal-Mart. Now I’m trying to snooze for a bit before work, unsuccessfully. I hope Full Throttle Energy Drink will be enough to keep me awake all night!

A better week…again.

Once again, last week was pretty terrible but this week has been not so bad. Julie and I went to Batesville Sunday and ate at Cracker Barrel. Afterwards I went and saw Watchmen. Monday and Tuesday I went and watched Nate’s soccer games after work. Today I went to Memphis for a Sam’s run. Tomorrow looks to also be a pretty decent day other than crappy weather. I have to work audit Sunday night.

A better week

Last week was just terrible. It seemed to be one problem after another all week long. This week seems to be off to a better start, other than some minor annoyances.

It’s finals week. I’ve taken both the exams but I have one more paper to complete tomorrow. After that I have 8 weeks off from school and then I go back for my final session. And then I will be finished with college finally. It’s hard to believe I’m almost done but I’m glad.

That’s about it really. I have a few things to do around the house and then it’s time for bed.

TVs and new houses

I bought a new TV for the guest bedroom today. It’s a 19″ Westinghouse flatscreen. The sound on it kind of blows but for $150 you can only expect so much I guess. It takes up so much less room than the 27″ that was in there. I’m going to give that one to mom I think. The TV in her bedroom is about 400 years old so she can use it.

I got it from Justin. I hung out over at their house for a while. While I was there, D-Daddy called me and wanted me to come look at the inside of this house he showed me the other day that they were looking at. So I came back to Oxford and took a look around. They were figuring out what furniture to put in what room, so I asked if they bought the house, and he said they did! I am surprised they have finally committed to buying a house in Oxford, they have been house hunting over here for so long – probably 2 years now.

The house is in Wellsgate and not far from Amanda’s family’s house. It’s across the lake from Chan, too. It backs right up to the pond and has plenty of room. Probably more than they need, but at least it doesn’t have that huge yard to keep up.

They close on it a week from Thursday and I guess they will start moving after that. I’m sure it’s going to be a huge job to move – they have much, much more stuff than I could ever dream of having, and they’ve had 20 years to accumulate it in their current house.

I am going to miss their house in Water Valley, but I am so excited that they will be closer. I’ll be able to see them so much more now.

I’m going to knock out some homework shortly, and finish up the laundry… just the same old menial crap. I’m hoping next weekend can be a “car weekend” and I can get some things done.

Tomorrow’s going to be a long day… 80 guest room activity chairs being delivered and needing to be installed.

Typical

As usual when things tend to go bad in my life it tends to happen in a spectacular fashion and all at once. Mary Kate and I have gone our seperate ways. Things at work have been extraordinarily stressful this week, and just about everything that can go wrong has. So I am trying to take today to collect myself and just have a day for me, but the phones at the hotel break and that keeps me there for most of the day.

I am trying to figure out some things about myself. I see myself repeating this same cycle of destroying my relationships and I trace it all back to what happened with M in high school. I know that is the reason I can’t trust anyone and I know it’s the reason my relationships fail. Everything that’s happened all seems to hinge off of that one series of events and now I can’t get past it. It’s been too long. I want to be happy and I want to move forward and find someone but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to as long as that is floating over my head.

I just feel so angry. I feel like I’m grabbing at straws with so many things and I feel like the one thing that has been a consistent feeling that I’ve had… I feel like I can’t put any faith in that and if I do and it starts to work I mess it up because I have doubts. I can’t have faith or self esteem enough to really do this right. It’s hurting my work and it’s hurting my personal life and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being walked on and used and hurt.

Long time no blog…

I always get in these time periods where I slack off on the blogging. And I have been in one of those lately. I have been dating a girl named Mary Kate since January 9. She is taking up quite a lot of my time.

MaryGrace and I went to New Orleans on January 18-22 for GM Conference. New Orleans is a pretty cool place and we had fun while we were there. Since I’ve been back I’ve just been working. I’m also joining the Ole Miss Rotary Club which is pretty interesting I guess. I wanted to get involved with a social club so there ya go.

Yesterday was Mary Kate’s birthday. We went to Boure last night to eat and then watched a movie. Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Nashville for the weekend. I need a break from work and GM conference really was not that.

Other than that I guess there is not much to report. I submitted my graduation application last week and should graduate in June if all goes as planned. I am really excited about that!