Bidi’s World

I’ve recently added a new feature to the blog which posts my microblog activity in digest format. Part of this system takes any activity that has associated images and displays thumbnails at the bottom of the post. For the most part this seems to be working well but there was a bug where the images weren’t linking to their associated articles.

I’ve fixed this bug and gone back and edited the previous digest posts by hand. Hopefully everything is linking to where it should now.

One last issue remains with the digests though. The time on some of the mircroblog entries is off. I know what the issue is and I’ll try to get it resolved over the next few weeks.

In the mean time let me know what you think of it by leaving a comment on the web site. I’m considering moving the images to the top of the post too though I haven’t made up my mind about that yet.

• Working hard on the podcasts (0)
• Thinking of changing blogging tools (2)
• Synaptic System Failure (0)

I had a truly amazing year in 2007. As the year went on, I got more and more ambitious. By Christmas I had so much going on I think the creative part of my mind just shut down.

I would wake up in the morning and think about all the things I wanted to do during the day and it was a very long list. I’m only talking about the things I really wanted to do too. There was also all the things I had to do. It got so bad that not only did I start using a calendar but I even scheduled stuff out into 2008.

Indecision over what needed doing first became a huge problem and all the while I kept thinking of new projects and endeavors I wanted to start which just added to the confusion. By the time December came around all I wanted to do was focus on our Christmas vacation trip to my parents and nothing else. The blog, podcast, gaming, and everything was on hold at this point.

Here we are in the new year and I’ve finally had time to think. I’ve decided it is time to focus my priorities and here is what I have planned for 2008.

It’s time to wake up JD’s Musical Alchemy and get back to reviewing the music I love so much. Putting the show together was becoming a chore and taking away from the enjoyment of finding and presenting the music. This was mostly because I kept trying to find better ways to improve the quality at the cost of more labor. My goal for this year is to keep it simple so I can focus on the music.

I have a hand full of motorcycle trips scheduled for 2008 already including a rally in Eastern Oregon. Except for the occasional weekend ride I’m going to stick with what I have scheduled instead of trying to fit in every event available this year.

Last year I found a cool gaming group that seemed to focus on “organized play” games. Shortly after hooking up with them the coordinator for the group stepped down from his role. I had thought I would be able to help put together game days to keep things moving but it looks like I won’t have the time to learn enough about the games to really do a good job scheduling events. I should be able to fit in the occasional game though and I hope to be able to referee a campaign at some point with a system I’m familiar with.

I’m having a blast gaming with the family too. In addition to continuing to play World of Warcraft with the wife, we purchased a Wii just before Christmas and picked up a few new games over the holidays. The Wii has a very different style of console gaming and I’ll go into that in more detail in another post. I have also picked up a number of table top games for the family to play together.

We also have a new addition in the family. Rocket is a one year old Lab/Aussie mix. He’s smart, friendly, and a huge ball of energy. We started basic training this week at PetSmart and even after just one class I’m already seeing progress. While Rocket is a family dog, much of the responsibility falls on me as it was on my insistence that we adopted him from the rescue group.

The last thing I want to do is work on my painting. Last year I decided to get back into painting in water colors. This year I hope to continue that and perhaps even take a class or two. My next Christmas my goal is to be able to make my own hand made holiday cards.

So 2008 is perhaps going to be even more busy than last year. It is my hope that it will be better organized than last year though.

• Bidi’s World Microblog Digest for 3/17/2008 (0)
• Working hard on the podcasts (0)
• Lamenting for a polyhedral life style (0)

I was over at Techie Diva’s blog today checking out her article on the iSlide when I noticed she added a new feature to her site I hadn’t heard of before. By the way, the iSlide is such a cool device. It is a sort of skateboard that rolls on one big wheel in it’s center. Rock the board forward and it starts moving. Rock back and it stops. Can you say Christmas?

I digress though. The new feature is Odiogo’s text to speech system. This is an equally cool toy. Their service will convert a blog post into a sound file with some of the best text to speech I’ve heard in a long time. Then it will serve the sound files through streaming or even as a podcast feed.

To hear this feature in action click on the “Listen Now” button at the top of the post or visit the Odiogo Bidi’s World podcast page. I’ll work on getting some links and such added to the page for subscribing as we move forward.

For the moment though, leave a comment and let me know what you think. Personally I’m quite excited about this feature. Heck, it might even get me to post more often. LOL

• New projects and losing weight (0)
• Checking out MyBlogLog (0)
• Added tumblr to bidiworld.net (4)

It looks like I’ve been neglecting my blog. I’ve had allot of things going on lately and really haven’t had time to post anything about it.

Among other things I’ve been trying to get episodes of my podcast out. I’m trying to do a show every two weeks and I have a schedule for it I’m trying to keep. Last Friday was supposed to be another show but I only just got the show from two weeks before that released. I’m trying to put together Episode 29 and get it out early this week so I can get back on schedule.

On my list for things to do to this site is getting ReCaptcha installed. It’s a captcha system with a twist. The answers you give, when you verify your human, are used to help digitalize books. Ahh the great circle of life.

Another project I hope to start up soon here is the Bidi’s World podcast. I haven’t hammered all the details out yet but the idea is we’ll talk about technology, games, music, motorcycles, podcasts, travel, and pretty much any thing else that is going on in my world at the time. A variety show of sorts. Initially I’m going to shoot for a monthly podcast and I suspect it will run about an hour. This may be altered once I get some feed back and start planning out the future shows. I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter.

There is so much more to talk about but I’ll save that for future posts. I do want to finish off with one accomplishment I’ve been very proud of. My doctor has been very concerned with my weight (who’s isn’t). In the last few months I’ve been working on getting my weight down.

I tried using the South Beach diet at first. It sounds simple enough. Cut out bread, rice, sugar, starch, wheat, fruit, and of course fatty food. That leaves… umm…. I’m sure there was something. Oh ya, cheese and water.

Ok, it really isn’t that bad but it sure seems that way. After the first two weeks, known as phase one, you get to start reintroducing some of stuff you had to cut out but in limited quantity. During phase one you lose allot of weight though. I lost a pound a day during that period. It was a great moral booster.

I have since tapered off following the diet but it gave me allot of insight into what I can eat and how much of it. I’ve been continuing to lose weight and have even started exercising in the form of an elliptical jogger and the 10,000 steps program. So far I’ve lost over 25 pounds since I started and had to buy new pants because the old ones don’t fit anymore.

Well, off to go unplug and play table top games with the kid. I’ll try to keep things more up to date going forward.

• Added Odiogo to the blog (0)
• New blog features courtesy of Feedburner (0)
• Checking out MyBlogLog (0)

Welcome to the new and improved Bidi’s World.

I decided to make the move to WordPress. I’ve been using it quite extensively over on my podcast site and have fallen in love with it. I’m also planning on adding a podcast to this blog which should be interesting. I haven’t got any dates set for that though.

In addition to the system change I’ve done a complete overhaul on the theme. I think the new theme is easier to read than the old one but still looks pretty sharp. Be sure to let me know what you think.

I’ve still got a few things to do in order to completely restore functionality to the site but I think we are mostly there. There are a few tweeks I’d like to do to the theme still as well.

Well, I’m trying desperately to get another episode of JD’s Musical Alchemy recorded but it’s been one delay after the next. At this point I’m two weeks behind on my schedule. The problem has been getting quiet time for recording. To make matters worse I’ve got a PC down today that needs attending to.

• Thinking of changing blogging tools (2)
• Checking out MyBlogLog (0)
• Added tumblr to bidiworld.net (4)