Spotify

I've discussed Pandora before and I've asked if it still makes sense to buy music as well.  This week I've been on a music kick.  For the past year or so I've been listening to various songs that I have on my Amazon Cloud.  I've grown a bit tired of that soundtrack and was looking for something new.  I started listening to Pandora again and have already discovered some pretty great new music.  I also downloaded the Spotify program for my desktop.  I used Spotify on the web one time when it first came available in the United States but not since.  When I opened up their program I was surprised by what I saw.  Basically it's a program that looks similar to iTunes, with songs and playlists loaded and ready to go.  I have been using Pandora to find new artists and when I hear a song or artist that I like I then go to Spotify where I can listen to the whole album for free.  Yes, there are occasional adds you are forced to listen to in between the songs but this doesn't bother me at all.  I think the functionality and ability to listen to all of this music for free is worth the occasional add.

I've grown up in a period of time where we have seen tremendous change in how we listen to and acquire music (among many other things).  In my life we have went from cassette tapes to CDs to burnable CDs to the free for all of free MP3s via file sharing to MP3s you purchase to these new streaming services.  If I want to buy an MP3 album on Amazon I pay between $5-$12.  Even that is a tremendous change.  I remember when CDs were more like $20.  The kicker with all of this is that for $10 a month you can subscribe to Spotify and get access to all of their music without the adds.  If you bought more than one album per month you would be saving money just subscribing to Spotify.  And you get access to over a million songs going that route, not just one album worth of songs. 

The traditionalist in me still likes the idea of physically owning something, even if it is an MP3 file that you can't touch or feel.  I like knowing that if I switch computers or hard drives or whatever the case may be, I will still have access to that file.  This is my only hesitation.  Otherwise I can't think of a single reason why it would be better to acquire your music on your own, one album or MP3 at a time.  You can have access to so much more for so much less money going the Spotify route. 

On Spotify's website they say you can download music to listen to when you are offline.  I need to look further into this to see if there are limits to the downloads and if the downloads delete if you discontinue the service.

Epic Fail At Hanging Curtains

Our big house project for the weekend was to hang some curtains in my home office.  The curtains were going to hang over bay windows.  Bay windows add some extra challenge to hanging curtains in that you have extra rods in close proximity so getting everything to fit properly can be tough.  Sarah bought some fancy curtain rods that have connectors that bend so that you can bend and mold the rods to the shape of the bay windows, an idea that I thought was pretty cool.  Doing this should help with the problem of having too many rods in a small space because you reduce all of the rods to one long rod that bends.  You also decrease the number of panels and tie-backs that you need.  Unfortunately, the rods were way too long for our windows and so we weren't able to hang them.  They will either need to be returned or used on other windows.  I'm a bit of a procrastinator when it comes to home projects so any delay such as having the wrong equipment compounds that issue.  Hopefully we will get them hung before summer.

An update with the girls - they're big thing now is that they are actually producing tears now.  So if we let them cry too long before feeding them (like just a few minutes...) when we go to pick them up they actually have tears in their eyes.  It adds an extra level of sadness to the whole situation.  They especially don't like it when Mr. Blue comes around (see below).

 Mr Blue:

Living In 3 Hour Intervals: An Update at 1 Month

I've got a few small house projects going on right now, one of which (the broken window in a prior post) has been delayed a few times.  It was initially delayed because I couldn't find replacement material for the window.  I think I've found the replacement material now but it has been delayed again due to the weather as I haven't been too excited about standing up on a ladder outside with several inches of snow on the ground.  My job has always delayed home projects, especially outdoors projects.  This weekend I was able to get salt for our water softener and get that up and going again.  I also attached our carbon monoxide detector to the wall and finished painting a few dark spots we had on our ceiling from the shower leak.  And I shoveled the driveway so that we could easily get our vehicles in and out of our garage.  Between those chores and all of the sports this weekend I stayed pretty busy. 

The girls are still in their eat, poop and sleep phase.  That is mostly what they do.  I will say that they seem to be settling into a routine and I think they are getting used to being here at home.  I will say that we as parents are getting into our routine and getting used to them being here as well.  As far as at-home tasks go (either chores/projects or fun activities), I've found that I can pretty much still do everything I used to be able to do.  The big difference is that I might have to wait until the girls are fed or I may get interrupted to help them out.  Their eat, poop and sleep routine takes about three hours and then the process is repeated.  The eat and poop phases take between 30-60 minutes, leaving the other 2-2.5 hours for us to get what we need or want to get done.  So I can still do projects and watch sports, I just have to schedule my activities around their eat, poop and sleep routine.  After living like this for a month I have pretty much become used to the routine as my new life and things seem to be going pretty well at this point.

2015 Corvette

The 2015 'Vette was unveiled at the auto show earlier this week and I think it looks absolutely awesome.  Corvette's have always had a lot of power but this model has a lot of aero upgrades in addition to the power.  I think this is the best looking Corvette to date.  I can't wait to see its performance numbers against its more expensive European competition.

Hilarious

As a Cardinals fan I must say that I find this story to be hilarious.  Leave it to the Cubs to screw something like this up.  I know that they are getting a lot of ridicule for Clark on the internet.  I wonder if they will scrap the whole idea or stick it out.

Surviving The Polar Vortex

I've never been one to get too nervous about the weather.  I figure there is nothing you can do about it and fortunately I've never been face to face with a real weather emergency.  People around here get bent out of shape about snow (living in the Great Lakes snow belt really changes your perspective on this) and thunderstorms.  I don't take shelter unless I can visibly see a tornado coming towards my house.  The polar vortex we had this past week changed my attitude towards weather a bit.  We got 12 inches or more of snow last week in one day, followed by temperatures in the minus teens with windchill around minus 40 degrees.  The snow itself didn't make me too nervous but the cold temperatures sure did.  Things (including humans) just aren't designed to work in those cold temperatures.  There were a few days where I was quite concerned that either the power would go out or a pipe would freeze and break.  Part of this new nervousness is because I own a house and am now responsible for any damage that occurs.  Most of the nervousness, however, comes from now having two little ones at home.  I couldn't imagine what we would have done if the power would've went out when it was -15 degrees outside.  We do have a kerosene heater my parents bought us but luckily we didn't have to use it.  Needless to say I am now quite happy the weather is back to normal for winter.  Our only real casualty from all of this was a window in our porch area that some how broke.  My dad did a temporary fix (see below) until we are able to order a replacement part.  Doesn't it look nice?  Right up to code I am sure for our HOA.

Playstation Now

Sony announced their Playstation Now service today at CES.  This service will allow people to play Playstation 3 games (as well as PS2 and PS1) on various devices without having to own a PS3 via the cloud.  We've seen streaming services for movies and TV shows (i.e. Netflix) work well and be quite popular.  This is the first time (to my knowledge) that such a service has been offered for mainstream gaming.  It will be interesting to see how well it works as I really think this is the future of gaming.  Why go out and pay for an expensive console when you can just pay a small monthly fee and stream the games over the web?

From Black Out To White Out

Thanks to Meijer for buying the rest of the Colts tickets for our playoff game against the Chiefs.  Turned out to be a great game that was well worth watching (It was going to be blacked out in the Indianapolis market if the stadium didn't sell out.).  It was a good comeback by the Colts and an epic choke job by the Chiefs.

We are having an Erie-esque snow here in central Indiana today.  I am temporarily losing my high def satellite signal and thus am watching football on standard def (first world problem, I know).  The snow is causing havoc on the roads and I think my office is going to be closed tomorrow due to the conditions and wind chill.

Being A Father: An Update At 2.5 Weeks

I've been a dad (still feels weird saying that) for a little over two weeks now so I thought I'd update everyone on my take of the pros and cons of being a father for two newborns.

Pros

• They provide occasional comedic relief, usually in the form of Elle's goofy old man faces or by passing loud, raunchy farts.
• We should be getting a decent little tax break since they were born in 2013.

Cons

• The biggest con by far is that we are up at all hours of the night attending to their fussiness.
• Having to deal with other people's poop is a big turn-off.  Sometimes this is an isolated event, but frequently it also involves them urinating on themselves and ruining their outfits, which is a bonus.
• Not being able to do things you want to do or having to frequently pause things you are in the middle of doing to attend to their fussiness.  Not nearly as big of a deal as the lack of sleep, but still inconvinient.
• Having to answer numerous questions regarding their status.

Cons 1-3 are typical baby stuff that I pretty much expected and was prepared for.  Con 4 however, having to answer numerous questions about them, was something I was not prepared for.  Behind the lack of sleep this is my second least favorite aspect of being a father for two newborns.  When I go to work I want to focus on my job and what needs to be accomplished for the day, not answer 14,000 questions regarding the status of the girls that are asked by every individual I encounter.  I am thinking about holding a press conference stating that unless otherwise noted, the kids are doing the above aforementioned things (i.e. eating, sleeping, pooping, fussing) and that I will update everyone as soon as their status changes.  One of my favorite questions is "How are you sleeping?"  What a stupid ass question.  I have two newborns at home.  How do you think I'm sleeping?  And by the way thanks for reminding me of the situation.

The comedic relief is amusing and I anticipate that as they get older the pros will start to outweigh the cons.  Time will tell!