Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Rippin' good time

Tonight I've completed an important pre-move task: ripping all our music CDs to MP3s. I've been working on it off-and-on for over a week now and I'm done (barring the discovery of a few loose discs buried in a drawer or something). I haven't done a disc count yet (I'll post one soon), but it amounted to 34 GB on a new external drive purchased just for music and iTunes.

Why? As a part of our "weight-reduction" plan (a household effects diet?), we're not going to take the physical discs to Albania with us. The discs will go to storage (so we're still legal) and the MP3s and iTunes' TV shows will travel.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Just a quick plug

I just wanted to give a quick plug to WUWM (University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee) radio, both NPR and, more importantly perhaps, WUWM2 "The Deuce." The NPR side of things has allowed Emily and I to keep in touch (in the same time zone) with current news. "The Deuce," WUWM's HD channel, is also broadcast on the web and has proven a godsend for us. We've been introduced to so much good music through this one station. I've been working my way through the MySpace pages for a number of bands this evening:
Silver Seas
Standfast
The Weepies
Midlake
Persephone's Bees

And probably my favorite band for the past... maybe five years?... Hem. I managed to catch three of their four DC-area shows before we moved to Mexico. I even bought tickets for an NYC show at the Lincoln Center, but had to sell the tickets (thanks, Craigstlist!) when Emily got her dream job with the Foreign Service (worth the loss, believe me). If you listen and like their music, I recommend you sign up on their list. I've gotten links to MP3s of various songs over the last few years as freebies.

We've bought at least two CDs based on music heard on WUWM's Cafe Tonight or The Deuce in the last year:
Brett Dennan
Carbon Leaf *

I encourage you to tune in to WUWM and The Deuce and take a listen. WUWM introduced me to another program I hadn't experienced in the DC area: Alternative Radio. Not all of the programs are of interest to me, but some are so I try my best to remember to tune in at 8 PM (CT) on Sundays.

* How odd that I'd hear a band from my home state (Virginia) for the first time over the internet from a Wisconsin radio station, while living in Mexico!

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Spring must be here!

Why? Because the geckos are back! :-) (Sorry, no new photos - Emily has the camera!)
I spotted my first gecko of the new year tonight, plastered to the wall on the front of the house.

In a previous post from last year, I had a sky-shot of new leaves. We have those, too, but I think the old leaves took a little longer to fall this time. Our winter has been much warmer and far, far drier than last year.

As for an update, I've been busy with classes - too busy. I've never been a great student, but this all-remote bit is getting old. Thankfully this is the last semester I'll have to do it. With any luck, I'll be an in-person full-time student at the University of New York - Tirana once we get to Albania in 2009. Taking classes in person will be a pain, in some respects, but I'll honestly welcome the structure.

We still don't know when we're leaving Monterrey, only that my language classes run from September 2008 - April 2009. Emily still doesn't have a schedule, so we have no departure date. Hopefully we'll know soon, so we can start planning for the big move.

We are probably going to purchase a condo (or townhouse/house if we can afford it) while back in the States. We'll live there during training, then rent it out after we move to Albania. If we're back in the DC area for an extended period again, we'll probably live there, since we plan to get something convenient to the Foreign Service Institute and Metro.

I must say, NBC Universal, the owner of Battlestar Galactica, has greatly annoyed me. In December, they dropped the show from iTunes. I guess we'll have to wait until the new season comes out on DVD and pick it up while we're back in the States. Grr. At least Stargate:Atlantis is still available, although I think the season ends soon. With any luck, Big Bang Theory will make it back with a few episodes now that the writers' strike is over. We've managed to catch all but one or two of the few episodes released on either the studio channel (Warner, I think) or a re-run on the network. We are also watching Jericho, although we didn't see most of the first season, just the last few episodes of it and the new show that just kicked it off. I don't know when/if Smallville and Supernatural will resume here in Mexico. I think a few fewer episodes aired down here than in the States; we stopped getting new episodes before the Christmas episodes.

That's about all I have time for now. I have some class work to wrap up this weekend and, with Emily in Nueva York with her parents, I have nothing else to do . Other than TV... and games... and books... and a dog that really needs a walk... more accurately: I have no excuses.