Made of Metal

So I’m hoping that this new year keeps me one my toes about this blog and posting music on here. In leu of this desire, I’m doing a follow up to the last band I posted about, Zero Hour. I hope those of you who follow me watched at least one of those videos. They are amazing. The guitarist, Jasun Tipton, formed Cynthesis, while his brother, Troy, recovers from arm surgery. They only have one album, DeEvolution, but it’s a great concept album. It’s akin to Queensrÿche’s, Operation Mindcrime, based in a time where government covers up its crimes and puts the interests of the powerful over the interests of the people. Sound familiar? Anyway, the guitar work on here is top notch and that’s what I care about the most. It’s not the most musical sound, but who listens to “super-prog-metal” to listen for cookie cutter verse-chorus-verse type songs? This is music for the brain, not the air headed teenager looking to fill the air with ridiculous noise. Now, some people may call what I listen to noise, which I understand. Some stuff I listen to is definitely noise, this is more than that. Jasun Tipton pushes the limits of how math and music blend together. Anyway, I’ll let the music speak for itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAEpoT3dNFE

There’s only one other video, therefore I’m only into the better of the two. Let me know what you think. ROCK ON!!!!

Updated apps time

Well, it’s been a bit since I’ve posted anything on here. Part of that is due to that fact that I’ve been writing a daily journal since the new year, and I don’t do that till about 1130-ish every night, which means that the blog never happens. But it’s now 11 and I already wrote in my journal. Actually an app, called Day One, which is super awesome and I highly recommend it. Anyway, I’ve been getting more and more into my iPhoneography, and I’ve haven’t posted any new pictures yet, but I promise I will soon on the other page. It’s just hard trying to pick what to share and all that.

However, I’m posting here because my two favorite apps that I used on my iPod touch, ClearCam and Vint B&W, which updates make them usable on my phone. ClearCam, essentially, provides a way to double or more than double your photos pixel count, which on the iPod’s .7mp camera, was a godsend. Now I can get an 18mp (17.95mp) shot without having to send it to another upsizing app. What it does is in its ‘enhanced mode’, it takes 6 shots, and saves them to the photo que, where you then tell it to process. It aligns and does whatever, to enlarge your shot, which looks sharp and clean. The only downside with this approach is that it’ll only really work on static objects and you cannot import your own 6 photos for the app to enhance. To me, however, the benefits far outweigh the costs. I’ve used it to then zoom and crop a photo to make its usability better than cropping an 8mp shot. Totally worth the 1.99 in the App Store.

The other app, Vint B&W, is a very straightforward black and white camera app. It came out in 2008, and was never really updated after that year. You could only take shots in the app and that was it. No editing, no picking and choosing which exposures you wanted, nothing. I loved it. So MII version stills seems to have the same algorithm as the old, the UI is improved and allows for importing photos!! And it’s also a universal app, meaning it works for iPhones, iPods and iPads. Anyway, both of these apps are worth the money. Too bad this blog isn’t famous enough to get promo codes or anything from developers.

Well, I hope I inspired someone on their path to become a better…something. See y’all later.

Here are the links

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vint-b-w-mii/id295438855?mt=8

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clearcam/id364930963?mt=8

New Year

Happy new year everyone. Hope it was well. i know ours was ok. NYE is also our anniversary, but andrea was sick so we jsut had an office marathon, which was just as fun as having a night out on the town. so yea, thats about it for us, besides the fact that Watson gets more mobile everyday. He’s already bonked his head on some pointy edges. I’ll put some photos of him up on the photo page. feel free to follow me on instagram if you want to see more pics of him more often, along with other photo subjects, @tylerpond05.

Now, onto the metal!!

ZERO HOUR

This band is no longer together, but that doesn’t stop me from listening to them. I call them “super-prog-metal” because they go crazy on time changes and all that stuff. I love the guitar and bass playing, which are performed by twin brothers, Jasun and Troy Tipton. That’s way sweet. Anyway, this is what I’ve been rocking to lately in the car, when I’m not listening to my podcasts. Here are some videos. dont mind the first one’s crappy filming and weird plot. The music is what it’s all about here. WARNING! These are long songs, so be in it to win it!!

Don’t worry about the bears, they go away in like 30 seconds.

The coldest Christmas I’ve ever had

Well, this winter break, Andrea, Watson and I traveled to the the last frontier, Alaska. It was Andrea’s grandmother’s 90th birthday!!! Her father flew us up there, along with her brother and sister-in-law and their 2 babies (well a 6 week old and an almost 2 year old). We were the most worried about Watson on the flights there and back, but he was a stud on both ways on both legs (need to take 2 flights to get to Alaska). It was so fun to see Andreas older sister and her family. The last time we saw them, Watson had just been born! Only 6 months, but it feels like a long time ago now. Anyways, Andrea’s grandma paid for our hotel, which was a big help, since trying to stay at someone’s house would’ve been a disaster. Alaska in winter was a pleasant surprise, to my astonishment. It snowed before we got there, and the temperatures were a little above what I thought it would’ve been. The lowest that I had walk out in was like 5-8 below zero. It actually hit 20 at some point.

Here’s a picture of one of our days out. Pretty sweet, huh?

We had about 3 gift exchanges while we were there, which was fun. Watson has drooled all over his new toys, which is a sign of how much he likes them, FYI. I’ll put up a video of him somewhere at sometime during one of the exchanges. Which also reminds me, Watson now eats baby food!! It’s really quite funny to watch him eat. He’s gotten a lot more vocal as well, which makes for some fun times while changing him, holding him or just strollering him on the street. Anyway, his cousin Max showed him how to crawl one day while we were up there, which is Andrea’s biggest fears. I video taped him for about 3 minutes and he was a champ. I’ll put that up later as well.

Here are some more photos from the last frontier.

New toy

Well, well, well, the has come. For the few people who follow me here and not on FB, my wife allowed me to get an iPad!!!! It took me a week to decide which iPad I wanted to purchase. The iPad 4 was outta the question, since its new and costs too much for what I wanted. The mini looked good, but I had reservations about it. Plus, both of those have the new Lightning connectors, which, while cool, means I’d have to buy all new accessories. Not cool Apple. Apple sells refurbished products so I looked at those. I ended up with a white iPad 3 32 gb wifi model. I was gunna go iPad 2 with 3G, but now I’m glad I didn’t. This screen is freakin insane and the hardware is top notch

The best part (worst part if you’re my poor wife) was tracking the shipment. When it got to SD, I checked all day. It finally came while printing my vocab sheet for my ASL class. I drove Andrea crazy until it came. I’m totally grateful for a wife that puts up with my shenanigans and loves me even when I’m being a little crazy. I’ve had so much fun with it and I’ve only had it for a day. It kinda drive Andrea crazy, but she and Apple products don’t get along very well anyway. At least she’s able to check her email and play some word games that she likes. I’m totally the luckiest guy on the planet to have such a cool wife.

And don’t worry, I’ll still be doing music and stuff, but expect to see some more photo-centric posts.

Party on dudes!!!!!!

Twenty-six…

Well this week was my birthday. the big 26!! well actually not that exciting. 18, 21, 25 (you can rent a car) are pretty big. Also, it was on my big school day, which means school, then work and then school till 8, but this week in my last class, the teacher decides to go the full 3 hours (has never happened this whole semester)!! along with some other crap things that happened, the only redeeming thing was that Andrea and a friend of ours, we all went to yogurt express and our friend bought me 5, yes five 12-packs of Diet Mountain Dew!!!! pretty rad.

26, married, with a kid. Seems like yesterday I was getting off the plane in Philly, ready to baptize the whole city! Truly amazing how quickly life can pass us by. I’m totally glad for all the decisions i’ve made about going on a mission and every decision after that.

Some songs that i’ve been rocking to lately, just so you can get a feel for whats being listened to at the Pond house…

the last 2 have a bit to do with how i feel about the most recent election. While I feel it’s unfortunate turn of events, I take hope in the future. I have started to listen to podcasts of radio shows that I miss while in school, or are on at the same time as other shows i listen to, and Mark Levin said some great things a few days after the election. I won’t ruin the surprise for those reading this, i’ll let you find the awesomeness that is Levin’s mind. WARNING: Andrea said he’s a little harsh, so he’d not for the faint of heart. Anyway, leave a constructive comment or just comment about how awesome my taste in music is. Thanks.

Just hanging

Well it’s been quite awhile since I posted here last. I’m back in school and right now waiting for my part 2 of world history class to start. First thing is that I cannot believe that Watson is already 3 months old!!! This kids hates to nap during the day, but kills it at night!! So knock on wood. This kid has been a major blessing to our family.

I’ve been working a ton lately and having school before and after work on Monday’s and Wednesday’s doesn’t help, but anything to get school over ASAP, right?

Now onto the good stuff. Watson fell asleep to Joe Satriani’s ”Just Look Up” from Is There Love In Space album. It was freaking sweet. So now I’m on this shred mode, and luckily I have such a playlist for this occasion “The Best of Shred”. What impresses me still to this day is the precision that these guys put into their music. Francesco Fareri, Rusty Cooley, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, etc. it’s ridiculous to think about how they may have had a riff or a hook in their head for years, then one day just record an awesome take that was exactly what they were hearing in their brains. INSANE!!! Anyway, since I’m on my phone, I have no access to post YouTube videos on here, so I’ll do those later tonight with an update…

Update…

Here’s the song that Watson fell asleep to in my arms… awesome!!

Jeff Loomis (of Nevermore)

Last one from Mr Fastfingers