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...

It was so nice to have a 3-day weekend, and only a 3-day work week coming up. Most people would view this as a perfect opportunity to lay back, relax, and just veg. I, on the other hand, decided that it would be a perfect opportunity to work an insane amount of hours on the website and on music. If you've never been to the site before, it's been completely revamped. I didn't think the old look was good enough, and it didn't feel professional. I am extremely happy with this new layout though. I'm also very proud of the flash controls - if you highlight any of the thumbs in the top left, it brings down a preview of the background, and if you click, it changes the background to that image. It's completely dynamic too, so all I have to do is drop new backgrounds in and I can immediately take advantage of them. I've collected a fair amount of backgrounds( I threw away a lot of cool ones too that didn't really work with the site ), so the list of available thumbs is somewhat large. I'm still trying to decide which ones actually work with the site, and which ones I like too much to give up, even though they clash. In addition to that control, the zubersoft mp3 player is finished and is on the music page. I also redid the tab menu so that it looks much better. The only flash component I want to make now is a replacement for the rss reader on the movie page( that's a free one, mine will be better ). If any of you like the site, or have a suggestion for improvements, please leave me a comment. I'll take all the criticism I can get.

Here's a quick overview of how my weekend went.

Friday - Worked, then drove in the rain to look at the house. John's house( my soon to be next door neighbor who I also work with ) was moving quickly, and already had a fair amount of framing done. Mine, on the other hand, wasn't getting any love. They delayed the concrete because of the rain, so I hope they catch up. Friday night, I played Texas Hold'em with about 6-7 other people, and came in 3rd the first round, then 5th the second round( my pocket aces got owned by Lucija )

Saturday - Slept in late, gotta love it. I then proceeded to spend something like 10 hours of the day working on the website. Needless to say, I didn't do much else, yet I had a blast... I stayed up WAY too late( 3:30 am or so )

Sunday - Didn't sleep in all that much because my mind wanted me to keep working. So I split up my day so that I spent like 5 hours on the website, then 2 hours lifting and running, 1.5 hours cleaning and about 4-5 hours on music.

Monday - Such a good day, yet such a bad day. I started out the day on a high note - I finally finished the flash background preview gallery( thing in the top left ). It was really tricky to get the gallery to pop up over the center content when you highlight, but then go behind it all when you aren't on it. I also watched a movie called Teeth, which was amusing, but not all that great. It's about a girl in high school with teeth "down there" punishing every guy who tries to force his way into her pants, and freaking out every time it happens cause she can't understand how its possible... not exactly oscar winning material. Then I went in the music room with one goal - get really close to finishing Disguises. I wrote and recorded the song about a year ago, before I knew what I was doing, and had all the equipment I have now, so I am redoing the song. I was cruising along, recorded the main vocals, background vocals, was adding effects processing, then I tried using a plug-in and CRASH. There goes 3 hours of work down the drain. I tried to see if I could recover everything, but it was impossible. That's when something snapped in my head, and I started punching things. Mind you, I don't get angry very easily, but this drove me insane. I worked really hard on those vocals, and re-recording them was the last thing I wanted to do. After calming down( took a bit ), and pulling my hand out of the hole in the wall( not really ), I re-recorded the vocals, turned on auto-saving( doeh, why didn't I do that before... ) and then went for a couple mile run on the treadmill to work the anger out of my system. I then proceeded to work for the next 3+ hours and managed to get some really good stuff down. The song is really coming together, and all I need to do now is fix a little of the arrangement, then I can have fun with eq, compression and mastering. Hopefully I can have the song done by next weekend, and I can put it up on the site for all to listen.

On another note, I've agreed to help my sister Jody plan a benefit volleyball tournament in Tucson on May 14th. It's going to be a twilight co-ed 4's tournament( meaning from around 4pm -10pm ) with only 8 teams( we only have 3 nets ). Even though I can't play( I want to focus on helping my sis ), it should be a blast. I need to find a way to get the word out so she can get it filled... Lastly, Julie is having her baby on Wednesday, which is the same day my dad has surgery. It should be an insane day, as I have to head down to Tucson in the early morning. I will be post an entry afterward with a picture of Kiara.

Hope you all had a great weekend too

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.

Link: http://sasuke.keshiheads.co.uk/media.html

Go here for all your ninja warrior needs. I love watching this stuff - some of these people are truly great athletes. If you are interested, post in the forum in the ninja warrior section - I made a topic already about how John and I are building our own course hopefully in the backyards of our new houses. We will see how that pans out, but it would really cool.

This weekend should turn out to be a fun one. I have this Friday off, which I LOVE. I hope to get lots of music arranging/recording done, and hopefully finish more of the website. I might also go play in the Friday Night Draw at Victory Lanes, but back to back volleyball Friday Night and then Saturday Morning might be a bit much... There is a benefit volleyball tournament on Saturday, and the funds are going towards the Susan G foundation against Breast Cancer. The cool part is that winner's of the tournament will get gift certificates to restaurants. I am in charge of the brackets, and at first I thought it might be best to arrange the teams myself to make it fair, but I don't know if I really want people blaming me for team arrangements if they lose. I think it might be better to just draw names out of hats( several hats - 1 for good players, 1 for ok, maybe even 1 for rec ). Perhaps I should get other people's input on that...

Saturday and Sunday are also the AVP tournaments over at Victory Lanes. Saturday is men's and women's double and Sunday is the coed. AVPNext Website explains it all. They are hoping to draw some really good players, so I hope it works out for them. I would have played normally, but I already committed to the benefit tournament. On Sunday I'm going to Tucson, as my parents bought tickets for us all to go see Cats. It should be a really good time, despite having to drive back and forth.

In other news, I have created a forum. It's at www.zubersoft.com/forum/. I'm hoping to get some people involved, because I think forums are great, but we will see what happens. Anyways, time to run a couple miles, or fall over trying...