This video is from a weekend getaway trip with about 20 friends. Most of the video was taken at Stone Mountain Vineyards and the rest was taken at the Black Bear Log Cabin in the Shenandoah Valley. We had everything from a hot tub, fire pit, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and for some reason, saddles all over the cabin. This WILL be an annual trip!

I did this video in Final Cut Express. It was my first time using FCE and I learned a lot through the process. No more iMovie 09 for me. Of course, I do need to figure out a way to stabilize the video since FCE doesn’t have an image stabilization feature. This may be even more of a reason for me to go ahead and buy the Kodak Zi8 to replace my Zi6.

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A web series about dressing like a grownup

Don’t think this is about dressing like a fifty plus year old in a three piece suit, it’s not.

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You’re welcome.

Almost a month old article, but now that I have been using Facebook Lite for the past month, I can say that I never plan on switching back to the cluttered mess that is the current state of Facebook.

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I usually get to work between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. Of the 16 people at the company, eight of us live here in Chicago. Employees come to the office if and when they feel like it, or else they work from home. I don’t believe in the 40-hour workweek, so we cut all that BS about being somewhere for a certain number of hours. I have no idea how many hours my employees work — I just know they get the work done.

Jason Fried is one of the founders of 37signals, a business I would easily label as a minimalist company. The ideas and way of business that would make anyone over the age of fifty cringe, but anyone under the age of forty strive to be a part of. Those forty to fifty typically side either with the belief alongside the fifty plus mentality or lack clear direction on the subject for various reasons.

The 40 hour workweek is a dated method that no longer applies to today’s ability to do business, but one in which most of us are still forced to follow. Looking at the absolute least amount of time most eight hour a day workers would have centered around a work schedule.

• 6:30 - Alarm sounds
• 7:00 - Out of bed
• 7:30 - Leave for work
• 8:00 - Arrive at work
• 5:00 - Leave for home
• 5:30 - Arrive at home
• 6:30 - Clothes changed, relaxed

In this scenario, allow one hour for lunch. Adding up the number of hours shows that the day consists of twelve hours dedicated or revolved around work, not eight. If the minimum of five to six hours meant for sleep actually happens, then only six to seven hours can be considered personal time.

Unfortunately, this is the bare minimum schedule for a typical eight hour day. It is more common for people to spend more time getting ready in the morning, more time in their commute and easily over eight hours dedicated to work itself dwindling personal time down to a measly three to five hours.

Factoring in two weekend days that are completely personal time, the personal time throughout the week, and taking out time spent around work and sleep, only forty percent of the average person’s life in a bare minimum work week truly belongs to them.

Although many start ups are taking similar paths as 37signals, it is time for bigger, existing companies to adopt the same.

A fun little video of my niece, Mikayla, while I was home for a visit. I only had a few clips to work with, but I discovered that she tends to walk away from people pretty frequently.

This was my first time really playing around with iMovie 09, but I think I may need to take more video with the Kodak Zi6 and see what other fun videos I can make.

As I sit here listening to Sunlounger’s “Sunny Tales”, I can’t help but think how music takes me back to memories or events in my life. Being one of the more recent ones, whenever I hear Sunlounger, my thoughts automatically go back to last year, sitting on the Metro and heading into DC almost on a weekly basis to catch shows at Ibiza for Armin, Guetta, Kaskade, and many others. I would just chill to the music for the 30 minutes I was on the Metro.

But Sunlounger is simply one of the more recent music memories. My life seems to be defined by the music I listen to and what stage of my life I am in at the time. Finley Quaye’s “Dice” reminds me of nights back at home, Fragma’s “Toca’s Miracle” takes me back to 2002 and when I first started working at Saks, whereas Eve 6’s “Inside Out” takes me to when I worked a part time job at a furniture store in 1998.

I was reminded again last week how music can bring up memories you thought were lost when I heard Dr Alban’s “It’s My Life” on the radio, and upon getting home and grabbing a couple Dr Alban songs, hearing a 3 second clip from a Scatman John song. These took me back to when I lived in the 1990’s techno heavy Dominican Republic.

I have found that I can place the years, and even months, of events in my life based off the music of the time, whether it is an artist, a single song, or an entire genre.

Nada Surf, Butthole Surfers, Silverchair, and Superdrag take me to one period. Bone Thugs-in-Harmony, Domino, Dr Dre, and Snoop take me to another; while Metallica, Guns-n-Roses, and Pearl Jam take me to a whole other time and place.

Although work or school may be the places where memory retention is most important, most of that knowledge is easily forgotten, but it is always amazing to see how a song that you may have not heard in 10+ years brings back instant memories of the past (both good and bad).

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The ASUS EEEPC 1000HE secured the top spot as our readers’ favorite netbook, building on the reputation of the EEEPC line as a very capable netbook and cinching the deal with one of the longest running batteries in its class.

The ASUS may have won by a lot, but my MSI Wind is no slouch and came in second. Take that Dell!