We took the kids to the Wichita Falls Railroad Museum today. They had lots of great things, lots of history, and plenty of areas to walk around the trains including an engine that the kids got to ring the big bell. I would love to go back some time and go on one of the tours and hear more about the history while walking around. Despite the 100+F temp outside (I believe the high hit 102F) it was a nice visit. Here is a quick video from the end of the yard (the camera died so I wasn’t able to get more video). You can also find 80+ pics on my flickr profile.
We finally got our first HD TV. After some searching and browsing I knew which one I wanted. We ended up with a 47″ 1080p Philips Ambilight. It came in yesterday so I haven’t fully used it but so far I am loving it. Not only the size and the nice crisp HD channels (we upgraded our Time Warner Cable to Digital/HD Set Top Box two weeks ago) but the ambilight adds another experience to it. Anyways, you can see a picture of our new entertainment setup (new tv stand, dvd/game stand, etc) here. Below is a quick video of the tv and the ambilight.
On Monday I became an official Mac User as my 24″ 2.4Ghz iMac arrived. Granted there were a few problems with FedEx (details below) I was still excited to get it. Honestly, I didn’t think I could get that excited over a computer but I couldn’t wait. I had spent hours looking at iMac/Apple flickr pools and reading lots of greatresources on switching. Lets go over the order again. For my first Mac I debated between a MacBook and using my current 22″ Dell LCD or the 24″ iMac. I personally prefer desktops for the amount of time that I spent on it and really love the look of the iMac. I also love big monitors. On my PC I used dual monitors with the 22″ Dell and my old 19″ CRT (that the Dell replaced as main) and grown to love the screen space between the two. The CRT was used to hold my ‘extra’ programs and social app such as Snitter (a twiter app), GoogleTalk, iTunes, uTorrent, etc. Basically used it for ‘play’ and the Dell for ‘work’. The setup worked perfect. Moving on to my new Apple Era. I ended up with a 24″ iMac, 2.4Ghz Processor, and a 4GB Ram Kit from Crucial to max it out.
My first thought after looking at the iMac box was how huge is this thing. Its amazing in all its 24″ glory. After opening the box you are presented with another box with manuals, cleaning cloth, apple remote, wireless Mighty Mouse, and wired keyboard. First was the keyboard which is just amazing and so small. I always have a hard time finding a keyboard that I love and was worried about the Apple Keyboard with it being so slim and the keys so small. However, it came so natural to type on it and the keys are so soft. Next came the wireless Mighty Mouse which is just awesome. After admiring the keyboard for a little bit I got to taking the iMac itself from the box. I was blown away by the size. Sometimes moving up in monitor size you can’t always tell a huge difference but moving from a 22″ to the 24″ was a huge difference and in fact sitting here I still can’t get over it. I love screen space and this is just crazy. Even after only 3 days I find it hard to look at my 22″ and not feel that it is just too small now. It makes me wonder what it is like to sit in front of Chris Pirillo’s setup of 2 30″ screens. The iMac is just so slick, shiny, thin and looks amazing in person. It’s important to note that I had never seen the iMac in person so I really didn’t know what to expect besides pictures. I wanted to get it setup on my desk as soon as I could but ran into a problem. The gap for monitors on my desk wasn’t tall enough for the iMac, it was just over an inch smaller. Which meant that I would have to take apart my desk before I could set it up. Well I wasn’t going to wait for that so I set it up on the dining room table so I could go through the setup and then install the 4GB Ram kit.
After powering on the iMac it started the setup which went smooth and was pretty quick. One of the main selling points for Apple is that the Macs just work out of the box. I always thought okay that’s cool but until you take it out of the box, power it up, and start playing with it you have no clue. I know how many hours upon hours I wasted installing Windows XP when getting a new PC. Spending hours before I could even log on for the first time. Everything you hear about OSX, its features, eye candy, and apps are true. It really is a beautiful operating system that works great on a beautiful machine like the iMac. I am still blown away by some of the features that before when reading about them I always that well that’s a cool feature but never thought about them being useful and saving time. However, you feel more productive and it feels like you do a lot more in a short amount of time on OSX because of some of these great features like stacks for example. Everything seems to be aimed at being more productive and keeping things simple so you can GTD.
I had done lots of research before making the purchase on which apps were the best for what I do and did what I needed them to do so I didn’t spend much time testing apps. I had bought the MacHeist 2 bundle in January so I already had several apps including CSSEdit which I planned to purchase anyways. I also bought Transmit for FTP. I’m debating which editor I want to use but currently using Smultron which is going great so far. I love the whole drag & drop to install aspect of the OS. I am also using my 22″ Dell as a second monitor and its going great. I’ve of course played around with the built-in iSight and some of the Mac Apps in iLife which have been great and I know will get some use in the near future.
Overall I am really happy with the purchase and look forward to life as a Mac User from here on out. I do have pictures in my flickr account but not as many as I had planned as I kept getting distracted. I’m sure that I will have future posts about Apple, the iMac and OSX. I will be posting about what apps that I find useful as a new Mac User sometime in the next week.
Today was Playhouse Disney Live! The show started at 3:30pm and of course I have to get to places early so we did. The show was pretty cool. In high school I did Stage Production and did the whole set building, back stage for live shows, running lights/sound, etc so I always love live shows no matter what they are. The kids loved it and Chase spent most of the time singing and dancing. It was actually pretty packed. The place holds almost 3,000 people and I would honestly say it was about 80% full. There were two shows today we had the second. We took several videos and some pictures. The videos won’t be up until sometime tomorrow (going to do a little editing) but the pictures are up on my flickr. I look forward to taking the kids to more shows (the wife is thinking about Disney On Ice: Nemo).
On another note; I wanted to say congrats to Matt Brett who had a baby girl, Addison, on January 22 (which happens to be my wifes birthday) and to Brent Spore who had his baby girl, Cadie, earlier today. Brent even got his wife to do a Me Today before birth. Congrats both of you.
Today is of course the day before Christmas (more commonly known as Christmas Eve or the Evening before Christmas). Melissa is currently at work and will be until just after lunch. Which is fine as nothing is planned this morning and I’m mostly cleaning or at least trying to get the kids to clean. This is the first year that we have tracked Santa with Norad/Google Earth. Chase (4 year old) is loving it. He gets excited when it shows Santa move from one place to another. I had to of course explain whats going on because he didn’t understand at first why Santa was out because it wasn’t dark here. Maybe when Santa hits the US he will be excited to go to bed and actually fall asleep. We, as a family, are still starting and setting traditions that we hope to keep every year. He is also excited to put out cookies and milk for Santa along with some carrots for the Reindeer. One of my favorites is driving around looking at lights and the Christmas Displays. We have done this before in Lawton, OK but you would drive for hours before finding a house. Here in Wichita Falls there are tons of areas with lots of lights up. Everybody gets into it a little more. Plus MSU has their display which we drove by. Didn’t get a chance to walk it as the day we wanted to it was 27F outside and really windy. We spent Saturday night driving around Iowa Park (the place where I grew up, pre-junior high) and Burkburnett. You can see some pictures in my flickr profile.
Our shopping is done, kinda. Does anybody ever say their Christmas shopping is done and mean it? We have said it about 15 times and didn’t mean it any of those times. I have a few more things to buy for Melissa today (yes last minute shopping) and we have to get some clothes for Rachael still (this is actually her Melissa’s dad as he just gives us money for them). The tree is packed with presents and the ones from Santa are sitting in my closet (mostly put together) and ready for Santa to come get them out. We also have all our food ready. Which mostly includes what we had at Thanksgiving again. I just love turkey. It will just be Me, Melissa, and the kids for Christmas. Not spending it with other family and just having a personal one. It will be our first one without family over or driving to other houses. Our plan is tonight the kids get to open one present each (night clothes). We are then going to light the fireplace and watch The Santa Claus 1. Tomorrow the kids will get to make a huge mess by opening their presents and we plan to have some cinnamon rolls for breakfast and watch The Santa Claus 2. Then get the turkey going and get everything else ready (cookies, fudge, etc). I believe we plan to eat about 1pm. The turkey is smaller as its just us so it won’t take but 4 hours to cook. Then Christmas night we will be watching The Santa Claus 3 before bed. The kids are wanting to watch all three of the movies (they are great movies) so it will keep them busy and us. We did all of our exchanges with other family members on Wednesday and Friday of last week so we don’t have to get out at all tonight or tomorrow. I will be uploading lots of pics via my flickr account tomorrow and I’m sure I will be twittering most of the day.
