Here's a handful of recent King's X interviews from around the web.
5/2003 interview with ty @ Metalhall.com
5/2003 Interview with ty @ ElectricBasement.com
interview with ty @ guitar.net
interview with Doug @ 1340.com
Ok, I picked up the new King's X album Black Like Sunday. I've only had a chance to listen to the first half of the CD, so I'll wait to post a review until I can listen to the album all the way through a couple of times. My initial impression was there were a couple of keepers, and the rest was not up to the King's X standard. (I actually haven't been very found of the last 3 King's X CDs. Bulbuous I thought was good, but the other two just felt hastily thrown together. That's not to say there weren't songs on the albums I liked, just overall it just felt rushed. I still think their first five or six albums are all good though—especially the first four.)
Well, I made it back in to work today. I didn't want to risk giving the cold to anyone else, so I stayed home Monday through Wednesday. Although I'm definitely not 100%, I felt I was at a point where I'm no longer contagious. This cold has really been a bitch—it really had me knocked out. I just had no energy or ability to concentrate.
This is Honda's new "Cog" commercial. It's a pretty good
example of streaming video in Flash MX—plus it's just
neat to watch. You'll need Flash MX to view the commercial.
Here's an article that covers the making of the commercial.
Well, I'm back from Denver. I had a good time and the speech went really well—it wasn't perfect, but the crowd response was very positive, so I was happy with that. The whole time out in Denver I never really feel quite right. I was really dehydrated the whole time and just had a general lack of energy—turns it was the beginning of a cold. I felt horrible all day Sunday and it just kept getting worse as the day went on. So anyway, I took the day off to get some rest and to try to recoup. The cold at the moment is primarily in my ears and my throat. Enough of the cold talk though, I did have a really good time while I was there. Hopefully I'll get my pictures posted soon...
I got up around 6:15am MST time to get ready to check out of the hotel. Cameron and I decided we better leave the hotel by 7:30am in order to make sure we had enough time at the airport. We ended up at the airport around 8:00pm and had a little breakfast at the airport. I ended up heading to my terminal around 8:45, so Cam and I parted ways in the airport lobby.
The flight was filled to capacity, so there wasn't much room to stretch, but other than that it was pretty uneventful. I was definitely feeling crappy on the flight home. I had been feeling bad all day—well actually I had been feeling not quite right the whole time I was in Denver.
Jenn & Maddie met me at the airport around quarter of 3pm. We headed back to the house, talked for a bit and then I took a nap. I was really feeling crappy. I ended up taking about a two hour nap and then felt even worse after waking up. My entire head has felt like it was going to explode for most of the day. Jenn and I ended up just watching TV and veggie for the rest of the night.
I slept in a bit on Saturday morning—I got up around 10:00am. I had made plans w/Danita to meet me at the hotel lobby around noon. I decided I wanted a little breakfast, so I headed back down to Starbucks for some breakfast. I ended up playing around on the 'net a bit while killing time until noon. Cam joined me downstairs about 11:30 or so. Danita, Bernie and Quintin joined me in the hotel lobby shortly after noon—while actually, I saw them pull in to the hotel, so I went outside to meet them. We decided to drive up to Breckinridge for lunch.
Breckinridge is about 90 minutes away from downtown Denver. It was a very scenic drive and there were tons of snow capped mountains to view. Breckinridge was a very neat little town—lots of little shops—you can definitely tell it's a ski town. We ate at this restaurant called "Eric's"—which is a place Danita, Bernie and Quintin have eaten at before. Danita and I shared a Mexican pizza which was very good. After lunch we drove around a bit—even taking a detour down about a 10 mile dirt road. :) We ended up driving back to Denver and hung out playing games at the ESPN Sports Zone—which is right next to the Westin (which is the hotel I stayed at.)
I played games w/Quintin and Bernie until about 7:30pm and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Robi, Mark, Cameron, Eric and another couple had reservations at Tommy Tsunami's—which is was a nouveau/fusion Japanese restaurant. I ended up having the Golden Salmon, which was probably one of the best pieces of salmon I've ever had—my whole diner was excellent. Most of the group ended up eating sushi, but I'm not a big seaweed fan, so I've never cared much for sushi.
I got up this morning and went down to the hotel lobby for coffee and for some banana bread at the Starbucks in the hotel lobby. The lobby areas have wifi—so I was able to check my e-mail over breakfast.
Cameron and I ended up hanging around the hotel working on our presentations until lunch. We ended up meeting Robi, Kevin and Eric for at the Corner Bakery on 16th Street—which was a nice little deli (reminded me of La Chatalaine here in Columbus) around the corner from the convetion center. I wanted a light lunch, so I had half a roastbeef sandwich and a small ceasar salad. Lunch was very good and hit the spot.
I got to the convention center about 15 minutes before my presentation was to begin—which was plenty of time to set up and get ready. I had a pretty good turn out, because there were only two sessions going on at that time (instead of the normal 3-4 sessions.) The speech went pretty well—I think it helped that I actually do live coding during my presentation. I think people are always impressed when they see how easy qForms is to actually implement. I even had a couple people tell me afterwards that this was the best session they had attended and made it worth the cost of the conference—it's always a great feeling to know someone appreciated the time and work you put in to your presentation.
Well, I thought I was going to speak today, but Mark moved my presentation to Friday afternoon. That'll probably work out well as it'll give me some time to get a few more things done before I give my presentation done.
I ate lunch at the Rialto Cafe on 16th Street with Robi, Cameron and Raymond. The food was pretty good: the golden mashpotatoes were excellent and my burger was very good. After lunch we headed back to the presenters room and sat and chatted w/some of the other presenters who were preparing their presentations. We stayed at the convention center until about 3:30pm and then Cam and I headed back to the hotel to freshen up before the reception at 5:45pm. We ended up getting back to the convention center at about 5:15 and hung out until we left for the reception.
The reception was held at the Wynkoop Brewing Company. They had a portion of the 2nd story reserved for the conference. They had appetizers setting out and a bunch of pitchers of draft beer brewed at the by the Wynkoop. I end up playing pool w/Cameron, Raymond and Justin Balog for a couple of hours. We then moved on to the shuffle table and played a couple of games of that. About 11:30 or so, the group that was left decided to go out and hit some more pubs. I was feeling pretty beat and decided I'd just head back to the room since I had to give my presentation in the early afternoon—I wanted to make sure I was fresh for my presentation.
Well, I got to Denver today. I won't be able to post this blog entries until I get home (well, I could blog them now I suppose, but I'm not going to bother until I get home.) I arrived in town around 7pm MST and Danita and Quintin picked me up from the airport. They had already eaten so they took me downtown and I met Robi, Cameron, Raymond, Kevin and a couple of other people for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory on 16th Street. It was a very nice causal dinner—a great way to start the trip!
Well, I'm leaving for Denver, CO today at 5:50pm. I've got a ton of stuff to do before I leave, but I think I should be able to get it all down. Jenn's driving me to the airport and picking me up on Sunday. She's going to be staying at the house and watching Maddie for me.
I wrapped up a few minor things on my presentation that I'm giving tomorrow. I'll probably still do some tweaking to it. I wish I had more of the "masking" features done, but I've got enough of a prototype that people can see how it'll work.
The next four or five days should just fly by—there's so many friends and family to spend time with out there. I'll probably spend all day w/Danita, Bernie and Quintin on Saturday. Not sure where we're going yet, but I'll have my digital camera with me this time!
Well, Maddie's first training class was last night. She did really well. There's only one other dog in our class, so that should be nice. Since the class is actually done in Petsmart, there's lots of distractions with other dogs coming and going—which is good. The best way to train an animal is in a place where they can be easily distracted. It makes for a little more work, but they're more likely to behave that way in everyday life—since they're used to the distractions. Oh yeah, and how come dogs are always on their best behavior when you're trying to show off their bad behavior to another person?
Ok, I haven't had much opportunity to post lately—as you can tell. I've been swamped with work and trying to work out going to Denver next week. Fortunately, I think everything is squared away. I'm leaving for Denver on Wednesday (5/14) and returning on Sunday (5/18.) The primary reason I'm going is to give a speech on qForms at the MX On The Rocks Conference—which was rescheduled due to the nasty blizzard in Colorado in March.
Oh yeah, I also got my tickets to see Iron Maiden in August. They're playing at the Germaine Ampitheater (formerly known as "Polaris Ampitheater.") I don't listen to Maiden like I did when I was in high school, but I've never had good seats when I've seen them in the past and really would like to try to get a bird's eye view of Steve Harris bursting off those triplets. It'll be good to see Adrian, Dave, Nicko, Steve, Bruce and Jannick all playing together (although I've never been a big fan of Jannick—he just doesn't fit the Maiden mold.)
I took Jenn to lunch today. I had to go to the east part of town to the travel agents, so I worked it out so that I could stop by and take her out to lunch. She informed me that it's our seven month anniversary today. Is Bob Evans appropriate for that? :)
Well I took Maddie to the Vets this morning and she got her stitches all take out (from her spaying two weeks ago.) The Vet said it's safe for her to return to normal activities.
She's been ornery as all hell lately, so I'm hoping the fact I can play frisbee and walk her again regularly will help. I don't think she understood why I wasn't allow her to run around.
Well, Maddie's doing pretty well—but she's definitely getting bored. I can't wait until I can play Frisbee with her again. The stitches come out on this Friday—presuming everything is ok.
I did take her to the Vets on Friday to have them check out the stitches—I noticed a little "bubble" that I wanted them to check out. The vet felt pretty about it, but he did give me some general penicillin to give her just in case there was a mild infection.
Anyway, I tried walking Maddie w/her "Gentle Leader" again on Sunday and she really hates it. I'm pretty sure I've got it on her correctly, but she just wants to scrape her head on the ground trying to get it off. I think I'll take her in to the petstore to see if they think the fit is ok. I've walked her 5 times with it on and she's not getting any better about it. I wouldn't be concerned if she wasn't scraping her face up trying to get it off.