Deep Cut - Scott Gilman “I Can’t Stand the Rain”

I was listening to Scott Gilman doing “I Can’t Stand the Rain” this weekend, and loving it. It’s from an out of print CD "Bo-Town Does Mo-Town" , that you definitely need for your collection.

Gilman is probably best known as “that guy that plays the incredible sax solo on Foreigner’s hit Urgent”. Here's a link to the video, just to give you a taste of his prowess.

His cover of Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is the standout track on the Bo-Town CD. His vocals and sax work, along with Danny Mo’s incredible bass lines, transport me to another place.

The CD, originally released by Fast Track Records in 1990, is great, and well worth tracking down. It also contains cuts by George Leh and his Rockin’ Shoes, Boston Baked Blues, The Motor City Rhythm Kings and Taylor Made.

You need to get it.

That is all.

Apple’s March Madness, the good, the bad, and the meh.

March has been a busy month for Apple. They introduced the new 3rd gen Shuffle, rolled out iTunes 8.1, and unveiled a beta of iPhone OS 3.0. Man, do these guys ever sleep?

As is usually the case, their flurry of activity has been met with joy, anger and plain old indifference in the user community, and as usual, each stance has its valid points.

I’m actually pretty excited about the upcoming release of OS 3, and that’s good, but I’m also a little indifferent because it won’t be released until mid July, and just a tad bit miffed, because most of the cool improvements just unlock features that have been on board all along, like the Bluetooth chip in the 2nd gen Touch, which currently only communicates with the Nike Sensor. I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty savvy marketing to charge me $9.99 to turn on something I’ve already bought. Savvy, but also a little bit sleazy.

I’ll pony up though, because the improvements promise to be dramatic. Stereo streaming via Bluetooth is my favorite; I’m hoping I’ll be able to sync my Touch with my car stereo. Wouldn’t it be the nards to lose the old FM transmitter? And how about transferring contacts and streaming audio to other iPods via Bluetooth? Too cool.

There’s also the long awaited cut and paste, MMS messaging, tethering, encrypted backup, the list goes on and on. Of course, iTunes 8.1 will be needed to take full advantage, so I’ll be sure to download it, after the prescribed incubation period.

So, lots of good stuff is coming, we’ve just got to wait a bit.

The real disappointment here is the new 3rd gen Shuffle. Yes, it’s cute, but come on guys; you couldn’t have added a couple of tiny buttons? Like I’m going to buy a device that can’t be used without a proprietary headset, or a yet to be released accessory. Please.

So, what were they thinking when they came up with this? “Ooh, think of all the accessories we can sell” sounds about right. Wrong time for that line of thought, if you ask me. I’m already sick of seeing the “Charging is not supported with this accessory” message on my 2nd gen Touch when I plug it in to something. If I didn’t still have my 3rd gen Nano, most of the devices I currently have would be useless for their intended purpose. Now, I like accessories as much as the next guy, but I’m not going to keep shelling out good money for things that will be rendered obsolete within a year by the very people who caused me to need the accessory in the first place, and I’m hearing the same sentiment from others.

Speaking of accessories, there is one new thing on the market that’s really cool and has a great price point. The Thumb Tacks Micro Microphone from SwitchEasy. This is a must have if you’ve got a 2nd gen Touch and are interested in using it for VoIP or applications like Shazam or voice memos, and it’s only $13. Check it out.

That is all.

The Great Flood Of ‘09

Okay, so it’s been one sloppy week here in jooksville. Last Wednesday it warmed up to around 40 degrees, and then it rained all day.

When the day started, we had about 3 or 4 inches of leftover snow patchworked around the yard, plus the rock hard, scummy remains of a few plow banks out front. When it was over, it was all gone, and we had standing water on the lawn, and in the basement.

We’d been having snow storms followed by meltdowns the last couple of weeks, and the ground was totally saturated. My sump pumps were running 24-7, but they were keeping up. Last Wednesday put them to the ultimate test, and one of them failed.

I got home late that night. I’ve been so busy lately that the rain, and its consequences, had never even entered my thoughts. It took about 20 minutes before I noticed I wasn’t hearing that old familiar water hammer that the pumps make when they’re going full out, so I headed downstairs to check things out, and that’s when the poop hit the fan…

My entire basement (laundry room, burner room, home office and Mantown) was flooded. The water wasn’t deep, only about an inch or two, but it was everywhere. I stood there on the stairs for a few minutes, transfixed by the reflection of the light on the water, and then I blew. I took a Donald Duck, and I’m really glad no one was there to see it.

Once I was moving again, I fumed and sputtered my way through the basement to the pumps, and I found that one of them had stopped working. The float was stuck in the up position due to the water level, so I quickly plunged my hand into the sump and pushed the float down. When I released it, pumping commenced. I wiped the slime off of my hand on my jeans, and then swore my way out the back door. I got the submersible pump and the wet and dry vac out of the shed, and got very busy, and very wet.

By the time my wife got home I had started to calm down, and was beginning to make headway on the standing water, but getting rid of the water is the easy part after a flood. As she quickly pointed out, we needed to move the furniture and rip out the carpeting in the finished areas, and lug everything out that was on the floor in the unfinished areas, before we could really start cleaning up.

Dejected, I shut down the vac, and had another small fit. I had been so focused on my task that I hadn’t really let the whole breadth of the situation into my angry and crowded mind.

And that’s when she said the magic words: “Have you called MetLife yet?”

I hadn’t, and I should know better by now. I trudged upstairs and did a quick wash of my hands while she dug out the policy info and got the phone. A few minutes later I was talking to an agent, who was both calming and knowledgeable. She assured me that I was covered, and that she was dispatching an emergency cleanup crew that would be here within the hour. A dispatcher from Service Master called me about 10 minutes later and said that a truck was on its way. Thank God.

It was late when I called, and even later when the crew arrived, but they were incredible. They shot pictures of the whole mess, told me that they had a lot of work to do and would be here for a while, then gently shooed me away, even taking the full to the brim shop vac off of my hands.

They dragged vacuum hoses in from their truck, moved the furniture, cut out the carpeting, lugged everything wet outside, then wiped down the legs of the furniture and set it up on blocks. Luckily none of the material had gotten wet, as we bought our basement furniture with damp floors in mind.

Next they sprayed all the surfaces with disinfectant, and then brought in blowers and dehumidifiers. They also loaded all the trash into their truck. By the time they were done and I closed up shop it was almost 3am, but what they accomplished in five hours would have taken my wife and I five days to do.

Since then, they’ve come back every day to take moisture readings, disinfect, and move the blowers and dehumidifiers around. Hopefully when they come tomorrow, they’ll be able to remove the equipment and do a final cleanup.

So, we’re on the road to recovery, and life is slowly returning to normal. We didn’t lose much in the way of material goods, because we don’t leave things on the floor in the basement unless they’re in a plastic container or up on legs, so that’s a plus. And although we’re still kind of in shock over this whole thing, my wife is already planning the rebuild. Like the Phoenix, Mantown will rise again from the ashes, or to be more precise, from the puddles.

Anyway, the moral of this story is; don’t skimp when it comes to insurance coverage.

In these tough economic times it’s tempting to cut out the little extras on your home and auto policies to try and bring the cost down, but you shouldn’t. Coverage for floods due to sewer backup or sump pump failure is one of those little extras, and if I hadn’t had it, I would have been up the creek, so to speak. It’s critical to clean up quickly and thoroughly after a flood to prevent mold growth, and most of us don’t have the time or equipment to do it right.

I also want to emphasize again how great both MetLife and Service Master have been. This isn’t the first time they’ve both helped us through an emergency, so I know their quick and courteous response wasn’t just a lucky break for us. It’s what they do, and they do it well.

Once Again, Insomnia Has Broadened My Horizons

The other night I fell asleep on the couch within about a minute of plopping down. I’d had a busy day, and the moment I stopped, I stopped.

I woke with a start, mid snork, about three hours later, and had to will myself off of the couch. I turned off the tube and the lights; trudged upstairs, stripped down and slid into bed... only to lay there wide awake.

I hate when that happens.

Resigned to my fate, I popped on the TV just in time to catch the start of Last Call with Carson Daly. Although I’m not a fan of the show, I’ve seen it enough to know right away that it wasn’t his usual intro. I had happened on a special “On Location” edition, and that night they were broadcasting from The Hotel Café in Hollywood, as they were doing a piece on a young musician named Robert Francis.

I was a little leery at first, one of the reasons I’m not a Last Call fan is that I’m usually left cold by their choice of musical acts, but this night was different. I was totally floored by this young guy. He writes and produces his own stuff, and performs it with a depth of feeling that you don’t usually see in someone of his years. The first tune he did was “One By One”, the title track of his first album, and my personal favorite.

The next morning I did a little googling, and found that I’ve heard this guy before, and you probably have too. He does the soundtrack for a popular Zales ad, “Love Rocks”.

I’ve embedded the show below because you need to see this guy performing to fully appreciate his intensity. Check it out; maybe my insomnia will broaden your horizons too...


Robert Francis on Last Call with Carson Daly (3/5/2009)

Windows Autorun/Autoplay Problems

I recently did some major scrubbing and upgrading of my system, and as is often the case, broke something in the process.

My PC had gotten sluggish; it needed a good cleaning and more memory. Norton had flagged a couple of downloaders and a Trojan Webkit that it couldn’t remove, or quarantine, so I decided just to nuke it and start over.

Confident that I had a good backup, I popped the hood and added another 2 gig of RAM, then reloaded Windows. Next I spent about 2 hours researching and removing all of the useless crap that comes bundled on the reload disks. Once I was happy with it, I plugged in the network cable and began downloading and applying all of the security patches and updates that had come out for service pack 2, culminating in the application of service pack 3. Done, or so I thought…

The computer was running great. It was clean as a whistle and fast as lightning, and I was a happy man. That is, until the first time I popped a CD into one of the drives.., and nothing happened.

Normally the Autoplay wizard fires up when you insert or connect any media or media devices into your PC. It’s the little wizard that pops up and asks you what you’d like to do with said media. Insert a CD, DVD, USB drive or connect a camera or MP3 player, and it asks you to choose a program to open, play or import data with. It’s not a necessity to have, but it sure makes life easy.

If I opened up My Computer, I could see the media mounted in the drive, so I could use it, but something was blocking Autoplay from starting. I checked all of my settings, and found the process was enabled on all of the drives, so I began searching the Interwebs for an answer.

First I found this document on the Microsoft Help and Support site. It described the problem to a T, and came to the conclusion that the problem was caused by having certain versions of Easy CD Creator loaded on the machine. The fix was to remove the software, and then make some registry changes to re-enable Autoplay. Not having this program, I continued to search for an answer more appropriate for my situation.

Then I found this link to an Autoplay Repair Wizard available from the Microsoft Download Center. After verifying the authenticity of my copy of Windows, Microsoft allowed me to download and run the wizard, which indeed found a problem, fixed it, and wrote the changes and results to a log file. The wizard requires you to log out and then log back in to complete the fix, and once I did, the system immediately recognized the CD I had in one of the drives and fired up the Autoplay feature. Sweet.

Just to be certain I had the problem licked, I switched the CD to the secondary drive. I’m glad I did, because I found that I wasn’t done. I ended up having to run the wizard on all of my drives and ports, one at a time, with a logout in between each. For the USB drives, I had to insert a thumb drive to get them to show up in the wizard’s device repair list, but once I fixed the first one, they all began to work again. It was a bit tedious, but it looks like my system is finally back to normal.

This must be a fairly common problem, as Microsoft has come up with a repair wizard for it. The last puzzler I had like this was the Media Center black screen problem, which they also had a wizard to fix. My post on that problem, and repair, has been the top visited post via keyword search on my blog for over 6 months now, so I hope this one proves to be just as helpful.

Matt Cassel Traded

Multiple sources are reporting that Matt Cassel has been traded to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Wow, it's been a busy couple of days for the Pats, and for teams now run by ex-Pats...

They traded both Mike Vrabel and Matt Cassel to the Chiefs, and released Jabar Gaffney and Lonie Paxton, who both signed with the Broncos.

On the plus side, they picked up running back Fred Taylor from the Jaguars, and tight end Chris Baker from the Jets.

While by themselves, these pickups don't seem like much (although I must admit, I've always been a Fred Taylor fan...), it would appear that Bill has a plan here. My guess is that he's clearing cap room for a bigger acquisition (Julius Peppers maybe?), and helping out his prodigies get their new houses in order.

It will be fun to watch and see just how large of an iceberg is about to pop into view...

Sony XDR-S10HDiP HD Radio With Dock

This is a great HD table radio with a built in iPod dock, and perhaps the best iPod accessory I’ve come across yet.

I was looking for a replacement for the iHome iH5 that’s been our kitchen radio for the last couple of years. It still worked fine, but since it didn’t support charging on my 2nd gen Touch, and didn’t have a proper insert for supporting it (I hate it when your iPod is all wimbley-wombley in the dock, I always get a vision of snapping the dock connector off while pressing the iPod’s buttons.), I decided to replace it with a nice table radio.

I had made up my mind to go with a radio sans dock, because I was sick of getting accessories that became obsolete every time I upgraded my iPod. I have a universal dock, and I figured I’d just plug it in when I needed it. Then I saw the Sony XDR-S10HDiP HD Radio with dock, and fell in love.

It’s a great sounding AM, FM, HD radio with an integrated iPod dock that supports the new iPhone 3g, Touch 2nd gen and Nano 4th gen charging requirements (as well as all previous models), and it supports Apple’s universal dock adapters, so it will stick with you through all of them changes.

HD radio is fantastic, and free, and most of the Boston area stations are now streaming multicasts, giving you a plethora of crisp, clean, CD quality listening choices. Check out what’s currently available here. My favorite so far is WZLX’s Radio Mojo Blues Channel, but there are so many choices that for the first time ever I filled all 20 presets, and longed for more. Thank goodness it’s also got a scan feature!

Because digital radio can carry information as well as music, the radio gives you station, artist and song information in the display, and allows you to do iTunes tagging. Tagging is a cool feature that lets you “tag” a song you’re listening to by hitting the tag button on the top of the radio while it’s lit. The next time you dock your iPod, the radio transfers all the stored tags to it. When you sync, iTunes uses the information in the digital tags to retrieve the songs for you. How cool is that? It even comes with a full sized remote, so you can tag from the comfort of your chair.

Besides having all the bells and whistles you could ever want, this radio has excellent sound quality, and the clarity of the HD signal makes it all the better. Plus it’s a real looker, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Bring your iPod into an Apple retailer and plug it in for a test drive.

Note: You’ll probably need to use the supplied FM dipole and AM loop antennas for best reception, but it’s worth it. Although you don’t get static on digital radio, it will drop the link intermittently if you’re below 2 bars on the signal strength meter. Get creative; I have the dipole cleverly woven up the back of the baker’s rack it sits on.

The Faithful Cat

We lost our oldest and dearest pet last week, Zoë the cat. She was a loving and faithful old cat, and we started and ended just about every day with her for the past 15 years.

When she was young and spry, she would follow me everywhere, even getting mad if I closed her out of the bathroom. What a fuss she’d make, clawing and scratching at the door. She would not be denied, and it didn’t take her long to figure out how to jump up and flick the light switch off. The minute I’d open the door, she would scuttle in and sit on my feet, or jump into my pants, if the situation allowed. She was one smart cat.

She was also the self appointed mother to all of our pets, and when there was no one around to mother, or scold, she would drag various stuffed animals long distances just to place them by her bed and bowls. It took us the longest time to figure out what was going on with this one.

We’d see the stuffed animals in the kitchen, and scratch our heads. We asked the kids if they were bringing her the toys, and they said no, but we didn’t completely believe them. We even started to suspect each other. Then one day I came home early and caught her dragging a teddy bear down the stairs by the scruff of its neck. She had gone up to the bedroom and grabbed it off of the bed.

After that, we always made sure she had a few by her bed, and it soon became a family thing. My mother-in-law liked to bring her little stuffed kittens, and Zoë would move them from her bed to her food bowls and back again, clucking at them and cleaning them. Good old Mama Zo.

We recently had to travel, and Zoë went to our Vet for boarding and tests. She had developed diabetes in her old age, and it was the perfect time for a blood curve. While there, our Vet discovered that she had an infection. She and her staff treated and pampered the old girl until we got back, and she actually seemed to be getting better by the time we took her home.

She was incredibly active for the last week of her life, visiting with everyone and checking out every corner of the house, and in retrospect, I see it as her farewell tour. As the weekend came and went, she started to slow down, and by that Sunday night it was obvious that she really wasn’t getting better. I can’t believe that she fooled us so completely, but I think she was running on pure love.

So, here we are, adjusting to life without our old friend holding court in the kitchen. I find myself constantly glancing over at her “spot”, expecting to see her laying there contentedly in the sun. Her little food bowl and favorite rug are still there, we just haven’t had it in us to put them away yet, but she’s not. It takes a beat or two for the realization to sink in, but it does, and I’m left feeling both happy and sad.

Animals can be unquestionably faithful, giving you so much for so little. Zoë lived to be with us. That’s all she wanted, to be with us. Well, that, and a little kibble, of course. Ecstasy for her was being brushed while she ate. Ecstasy for me was having her snuggled up next to me, purring like a little motorboat.

I take comfort in the fact that she had a long and happy life, and in all the joy she gave us, and I smile when I remember one of the last conversations I had with my Dad before he passed.

He had grown up on a farm and loved animals, and he would cater to our pets when he was with us in the summers. “Can’t be bored here,” he’d say, “The cats won’t leave me alone.”

Anyway, he had just made the move from the hospital to the hospice, and once he was comfortable and settled in for the night, I asked him if there was anything else that he needed or wanted. He was on the cusp of sleep, and I wasn’t sure if he was even going to answer me, but after a pause he looked up at me and said “Get me a cat.”

I guess we know whose lap she’s on now.

Update On iPod, iPhone Syncing Problems

I haven’t seen much in the forums on the syncing problems that seemed to abound last week. Since users across multiple platforms were experiencing the problem, and Apple released a notice that users should deautorize and reauthorize their systems to clear the problem, I’m assuming that the root cause was related to changes in the libraries associated with DRM removal, not the 2.2.1 firmware, and that Apple has since cleared it up.

Although I didn’t experience the iTunes freeze ups, I had noticed an oddity in my syncs last week. iTunes showed a 1 on the app folder, indicating that there was 1 new app available for syncing, and after I synced by USB it was still there. When I disconnected, there was a corresponding 1 on the Touch’s app icon. I tapped it and the iPod told me that I had a version upgrade for Labyrinth to download. I did, and the app updated wirelessly and worked fine afterwards.

iTunes still showed 1 new app to download, so I synced it again via USB, just to see if it would go away. Nope. I did see a copy of Labyrinth in the trash though, indicating that iTunes had replaced it with the upgraded version.

Through subsequent syncs, the 1 stayed on the app folder in iTunes, but didn’t reappear on the iPod. This morning, I synced again, and once again there was no change to iTunes, but the iPod had now gotten its “1 app download” indicator back. I went through the steps to upgrade the app again, and viola, the “1 app download” indicator finally went away on both iTunes and the iPod. There was also another copy of Labyrinth in the trash.

Perhaps Apple has reissued certain downloads that weren’t playing well with the libraries. Who knows, I’m just happy that everything is working.

I’m still holding off on upgrading to 2.2.1 though, just in case…

Problems With The iPhone 2.2.1 Firmware Upgrade?

Whenever I get a notice that there’s a new version of iPod firmware or iTunes software, I postpone downloading until I’ve Googled for issues. Such was the case today, when Apple offered me the newest firmware for my 2nd gen Touch.

After seeing this posting on MacRumors.com, I was glad I did. It seems that some people are unable to sync their iPhone or Touch after the upgrade. iTunes freezes when the sync fails, and the system needs to be rebooted.

There’s a fix, which includes deauthorizing and reauthorizing your computer, and then downloading and running a free app, but as I prodded deeper in the forums, it appears that the problem may not be limited to the iPhone and Touch. Some users are reporting the same symptoms are plaguing standard iPods also, which would mean that the root cause may not be the 2.2.1 firmware. There’s conjecture out there that the problem may be due to changes in some of the tracks available in iTunes that have been upgraded to iTunes Plus.

Whatever the case may be, I’m definitely not downloading 2.2.1 yet. I’m also going to refrain from any track downloads until there’s more info available, and I suggest you do the same.

If you’ve been bitten by this bug, it would be greatly appreciated if you would post the symptoms, corrective actions taken, and whether or not you had success. Thanks!

Super Finish

Pretty exciting finish to a game I expected to be a snoozer. Man, I thought the Cardinals just might pull off an upset there.

Even though I'm not a fan of either team, I found myself pulling for Warner to make a comeback. It would have been a great storyline, and it would have been kind of nice to see the air go out of the Steelers balloon. But in the end, you have to give them credit. Roethlisberger stepped up, and Holmes' catch and tap-down was amazing.

Anyways, the game was great, even though the Steelers won. The commercials, on the other hand, were only so-so. My two favorites were the "Doritos crystal ball" ad, and the Leno "move to prime time" spot.

The Doritos ad was priceless. There's nothing like physical comedy when it's done right. "Free Doritos at the office today?". Beautiful.

The Leno ad was brilliant for it's simplicity. The car, the music and the camera work all fit together perfectly to convey an image and message without a word being uttered. Very smart.

I also liked the "SoBe Lizard Lake" spot at halftime. The 3D (did you have your glasses?) was very good, and Matt Light was a riot. He was really getting his groove on. It'll make great Jumbotron fodder for next season. We may even have seen the birth of the new Gino...

At the very least, it will probably earn him a berth on the next Dancing With The Stars.

The Fort Myers Area Dunkin' Donuts Now Have Free Wi-Fi!

Old berry has his traveling shoes on, and he's got big news for all you Red Sox Spring Training devotees; the Fort Myers area Dunkin' Donuts now have free Wi-Fi.

The Cleveland Ave. Dunkies has now become a full service pit stop for me on my way to and from the pahk. I can get my large iced coffee, make room for it, and check my email. How cool is that?

Don't be checking your email while you're emptying your tank though. Handhelds don't float...