Well I've got a demo version of Maybe that everyone can listen to. Check it out on the music page. I really like this song, and I think it's going to become something great. I can't wait for Todd to figure out some drumming for it, as that will really bring it to life. Unfortunately, almost every night this week I've had to stay up until about 2am to work on the song and get stuff accomplished. I think I'm about ready to pass out...

In other news, I have a bunch of pictures of the wiring of the house. They aren't very exciting, but they are extremely important to have around. I will at least post some of them soon, but the majority I will probably just archive. I'm heading back to the house tomorrow, so hopefully I will have sheet rock on the inner walls and maybe stucco on the outside. That will at least be a little more interesting.

On a side note, everyone with a DS should go look up the CycloDS. This device is about the coolest extension you can get for your DS. Thanks to Todd for showing me and others about it.

Well it was another three day weekend( I get every other Friday off ), and I had a great time. On Friday, I got some normal mundane stuff accomplished, and then began working on both my movie database and the song I'm going to release next called Maybe. I'm hoping to get Todd Jeffreys to do the drums for the song once I get a little further in( I only have vocals and acoustic guitar at the moment - need electric, perhaps bass as well, and backup vocals ). He is very good, and I know getting him to do the drumming would sound way better than something I could cook up. Hopefully the song will agree with him. Anyways, the track is sounding pretty good so far, and I really like what I did with the modified melody/lyrics( I originally wrote it a year and a half ago ).

After the relaxing day on Friday, I had a lot to do on Saturday. I first took my car in early to get serviced at the Avondale Toyota Dealership, which I've never been to before. The Camelback dealership screwed me over, so I'm never going there again( and I advise other people not to as well ). The Avondale dealership was a breath of fresh air - they have excellent service, they are really friendly, and the waiting lounge is really awesome. They will continue to get my business as long as they stay like that. Next, I prepared to go down to Tucson. On the way, I needed to pick up my volleyball, which a fellow player was nice enough to grab for me when I left it behind at the Gold Medal Squared grass tournament at ASU. Well I had to go out to Scottsdale, and get it, which was a little out of the way, but not horrible. However, getting back to the I-10 was a NIGHTMARE. Every exit I tried was closed off, and I was doing circles for 20 minutes. I was ready to kill someone when I finally found my way. I continued listening to book 6 of the Dark Tower series( which rocks and I will post on the forum about that series sometime ), and made my way down to get a haircut. While getting my haircut, I saw the news about Cedar Falls, the flooding, and the 350 million dollars of damage. I also heard about the horrible earthquake in Japan. All of these horrible things happening back to back... It really sucks.

After the haircut, I prepared for the evening benefit volleyball tournament. We managed to get 5 teams together, and there was a lot of great talent out there. It started out windy, which really made it challenging, but the day ended with some great weather. My sister Jody worked really hard to put it together, and did an awesome job. Please check out the pictures at the link below, as well as some random videos if you are interested in downloading them( I didn't compress them, so they are somewhat large ).

Volleyball Pictures
Volleyball Clip #1
Volleyball Clip #2

On Sunday, I managed to work on the Movie Database some more, watched Ninja Warrior #20( so awesome, I LOVE this show ), played with my nephew Tyler, worked out, celebrated Father's Day with my dad before he left for a flight for work( so messed up to have to leave like that on a Sunday ), saw my beautiful new niece some more, and then watched Jumper with everyone. I then headed back up to Phoenix, having to double back once for my cell phone, which had fallen out in my parent's car when we carpooled to the volleyball tournament. Fun times...

I've finally got a finished version of Disguises. There is always a possibility I might tweak it some more, but the brunt of the work is done. Go to the music page and check it out!

* UPDATE *

Ha, done... yeah right. After several more hours of tweaking tonight, I'm much happier with the mix now. It had too much reverb, the volumes and pannings weren't quite right, and the eq was definitely off. My monitors are really not cutting it though. It could be the crappy size proportions of my recording room, or the monitors themselves, but it's nearly impossible to get an accurate representation of what the song will be like on all speakers. As soon as I get the house, that will be one of my first upgrades...

Well, if you've checked recently, you can see that I don't have any pictures of Kiara( my sister's baby ). That would be because the last 4 days in a row, she hasn't been able to get a bed at the hospital she wants to go to. I guess there has been an insane amount of women going into labor for the last few days - Julie just has the worst timing. If she went to a different hospital, her doctor wouldn't be able to deliver it, so she is set on that one. I feel really bad for her, because she feels really guilty about everyone having to try to change their schedules to be there for her. I just hope she can get a bed by Sunday for her sake, even though I won't be able to be there. I will probably get pictures of Kiara in a week or two when I go down to Tucson next.

My dad got through his surgery just fine( in 45 minutes no less ). His stomach is swelling up a bit, but I'm sure he will be back to riding his bike insanely far in no time at all. It bodes very well for me that he is so extremely fit for his age.

I checked on my house today, and they've finished the concrete slab, but they've had to let it harden for awhile now. Next door, John already has a ton of framing done, including the covered roof. He also has windows now...bastard...

In other news, I've been working really hard on my RSS Reader for the movies page. I will post a little bit about it on the forum, but I will just say this - it's going to be better than the free one I'm using now. It's been tough though - getting the visuals to act correctly and the text formatted the right way has made it one of the most difficult things I've done. I've also updated the zubersoft mp3 player, as the visuals weren't quite right before, and it wasn't handling playlist stuff correctly( preparing for having more than one song ).

I hope to have my next song done by the end of this weekend, so wish me luck. Now back to finishing the Matrix Reloaded before I go to lift weights...

Boy, some interesting things have been going on. First off, the weekend was great. I've been working on hard on trying to finish up development on my mp3 player so that I can stream my music, as well as trying to get more time in recording my songs. It took a lot of work and refinement, but I think I finally have a version of Unbinded that I like. It probably won't be my favorite song on my cd, but it's definitely a fun, upbeat song. I also had a great time at the volleyball tournament on Saturday. I wound up staying up until 4:30 am the night before( stupid me ), but I got the team arrangements done, and I think most everyone was satisfied. John, my mom and I wound up winning, but there were prizes for the first 3 teams with some leftovers for others. Here is a picture of me doing some hitting. Who says white men can't jump?

There are some more pictures in the gallery, so be sure to check them out.

Right after the tournament, my mom, dad, and I went to Best Buy, and got two Canon SD1100 cameras( one for me and my mom ) and a laptop for my mom( Yay! she is finally entering the technical age! ). She got a killer deal on the laptop - 1200 dollar Dell XPS for 600 bucks. I was jealous, but happy for her. I freaking LOVE the camera, and all of the pictures I upload from now on will be from that camera, and the resolution is sooooo much better. The camera looks like this:

In other news, I subbed out at Scottsdale Ranch Park( boy what a drive ) and really enjoyed playing out there, and seeing a lot of people that I haven't seen in a long time. We only won 1/3 games, but hopefully I can sub again next week and get a better record. On a non-volleyball related topic, my sister is having her baby girl Kiara next Wednesday, so I am really excited for her. Despite the cost of gas, I'm gonna drive out to support her. Honestly though, 50 bucks to fill up one tank is ridiculous...

I've also been watching movies here and there. Some of this will be covered on the movie page when it comes up, but the Golden Compass was a pretty good movie on blu-ray( incredible visuals ). I'm actually interested enough to read the books, as the movie is watered down. I also rented( it was free ) the worst movie I have ever seen. I had a free non-new rental, and I've seen most of the good older movies, so I picked out a random martial arts type movie, and my god, it looked like a 3rd grader put the movie together and added the lamest effects EVER!! Needless to say, I turned it off after about 1 minute. If you are in the mood for a romance type movie, 27 dresses and PS I love you were decent.

There will be some new additions to the site very soon. I have some ideas for the movies page( you can see some of the stuff I'm compiling already ), and I'm actually going to try redoing the layout a little bit. I tried out some Yoga stuff recently, so I might even compile some stuff for that so I have an easy to find guide to some of the moves.

Now back to watching War with Jet Li...

* UPDATE *

One thing I forgot to mention is that I went to see Cats on Sunday, and it ROCKED! There will be a couple pics of the stage in the gallery, but I must say, it was an excellent cast. I still think the dvd cast was slightly better, but it was a very good show.