Entries Tagged 'Personal' ↓

I’ve updated the site design yet again. This time I started with a great open source template called Ezekiel, by the talented Jake Wehner, at OpenWebDesign.org. I had to make a lot of changes to get it to look just right here, but I think it’s turned out to be nice and clean and inviting.

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I’ve seen this meme on a few blogs recently and it sounded fun, so I figured I’d take a stab at defining myself in lists of four.

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Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. In the meantime, I went to Sydney, Australia on vacation for ten days. The trip was incredible — it’s a very beautiful city with quite a bit to do. The weather didn’t cooperate the last half of the trip, but it was still a very nice trip. I’ve posted some photos online, please take a look!

I’m driving up at 6:00 tomorrow morning. I’ll post a message when I get back and let y’all know about the trip and the conference. Or if you’re lucky, I’ll post an update while I’m in Boston!

For those of you going to Paul Graham’s Startup School: Is anyone interested in visiting Jake Ivory’s on Saturday night? It’s a “sing-along pop music piano-bar” that one of my friends recommended. It’s right near Fenway Park, which doesn’t look very far from Cambridge. If you like music, it sounds like a ton of fun!

Anyone interested?

I was busy last weekend! Friday night, I went to see Flightplan with Jodie Foster. In the movie, Foster and her daughter are travelling from Germany to New York on a brand new, giant airplane, when her daughter just disappears. The movie was great. There were a couple plot holes, but nothing too egregious, nothing that abnormal for these kind of action-suspense movies. The acting was great, especially from Foster, Sean Bean (who played the captain), and the various actors who played the flight attendants. If you like the suspense genre, you should definitely catch this one in the theaters.

After Flightplan, I went out to Herndon to see Lloyd Dobler Effect in concert. I saw LDE open for Kansas in July, and was really impressed. They’re a young band from the DC area, playing pretty typical pop/rock music; maybe you’d call it “party rock.” They’ve got a saxophonist/flutist (!) and a really great percussionist. I’d kinda compare them to Matchbox 20 and the Dave Matthews Band. Their songwriting is really good, the songs are all catchy and fun to listen to. Anyway, the first set of the show was great. But toward the beginning of the second set, I got kinda bored and the crowd got kinda annoying. It got better, but I don’t know that I’d keep driving all the way to Herndon to see ‘em.

And on Monday night, I went to see Porcupine Tree at the 9:30 Club. Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band from England. Their music is definitely very “progressive” in the old-school Pink Floyd sense, but they also know how to write killer, catchy rock songs. With good label promotion, they’ve really been doing well in the U.S. This was their second leg of their 2005 tour; I caught them last May at the 9:30 Club as well. Every time I’ve seen them, the crowd has grown larger and larger, and the club seemed packed last night. They were certainly on top of their game, and played a lot of my favorites, including a couple great songs from their new album, and some older songs they hadn’t played in a while. But again, for whatever reason, I just wasn’t into it that much.

I have a few items for sale on eBay and Craigslist if anyone’s interested:

• Apple iWork ‘05 productivity software (Pages, Keynote)
• Apple Wireless Keyboard with Bluetooth technology
• Sennheiser E835 Dynamic Super Cardiod Microphone
• Viewsonic VP171s 17″ LCD monitor (local to DC area only, please)

Sarah Bettens was awesome! She performed acoustically, just her and another guitarist and their matching acoustic guitars. She performed a bunch of tracks from her new album, many of which I recognized from the media on her website. I especially liked the tracks “Go” and “Not Insane.” She also performed a few K’s Choice tracks, including their big hit “Not an Addict,” and a couple tracks from their last album, Almost Happy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to purchase her new album — it won’t be released until next Tuesday — but I already have it pre-ordered from Amazon. Instead I bought the K’s Choice compilation DVD 10, with five hours of material including a lengthy band bio, a live concert recorded in 2002, and fifteen music videos!

Also, Jammin’ Java is a very cool place. I really liked the vibe there — it would be a great neighborhood coffeehouse to hang out at. It’s a shame it’s 15 miles from my house. I’m not really into most of the singer/songwriter acts that perform there, but I might go back and see Lloyd Dobler Effect tonight.

Tonight I’m off to see Sarah Bettens at Jammin’ Java in Vienna. Sarah is the lead singer of K’s Choice, one of my favorite bands, that I first saw in 1997 with my friend Bridget. It should be a good show — I’ll post an update tomorrow!

Update: The concert was excellent, here’s a review.

I’ve also added a new photo gallery at http://www.ryanpark.org/gallery/. This is created with a very sophisticated web application called Gallery, and it will replace the old HTML photo gallery I used to maintain. Gallery might actually be too sophisticated for my needs, but it ties in well with Apple’s iPhoto, so I’m happy to use it for now.