More Power and Less “Pizzazz”.

As I have mentioned previously, I am embarking on an adventure of creativity. That is, I want to give my creative side some exercise by trying to take my photography a little bit more seriously; as in actually reviewing the pictures I take, possibly editing some of them, and who knows, maybe even posting them online for others to enjoy. However, I also want to learn more about video creation/editing. I have done a tiny bit of this in the past, and had a blast. I now have many hours of HD video shot over the last three years, but have not been able to edit it. The problem is that my computer is not quite beefy enough to handle the encoding/decoding of full HD video in any sort of timely manner, let alone play it back.

You might say, “Hold on Ben, I am one of the few lucky individuals who have seen some of your videos on youtube, and some of them appear to be in HD, what gives?”. To which I would reply, “Yes! However, I watched those videos on my camera, and then directly uploaded the ones I liked to youtube without editing them. Any videos I have edited were converted to a much lower quality so that I could actually process them on my computer.”

This brings me to the main point of this post. I’ve built a new computer to do this very activity! Hooray! This new computer is also to replace my laptop, which decides when it wants to work and when it does not, mostly because I accidentally decided to clean out the keyboard by bathing it with a cup of tea.

I built* my first computer in 2004 when my parents gave me budget for a computer as I was heading off to college. It was a ton of fun, so much so that I gladly helped build a few more computers for friends/family. Building a computer these days is more or less my generation’s version of learning how to work on a car engine.

In the summer after my freshman year of college, I got the itch to make my computer a little more “unique” and “flashy”. I got an old beige server tower case and armed with a dremel, a jigsaw, some sandpaper, some spray-paint, a sandblaster, some bondo, and reckless abandonment to create the best computer case ever, this happened.

UV reactive orange paint! 7 orange UV Reactive Fans! Four 12” blacklights that blinked to music! Pistol Pete (school mascot) sandblasted into the side window! It was truly a sight to be seen and the envy of my fellow computer nerds.

Flash forward to the present.  Here is the new computer I built.

I decided to go for the “quiet and stealthy” look. Essentially, everything is black and I got the biggest fans known to man. These fans are as big as your face and because of that, they do not need to spin very quickly to move lots of air, and therefore are very quiet. If you want more detailed information on this computer, check out this post on my personal blog.

Now to create/edit some videos!

*For those of you that think building a computer is impressive, it really isn’t. You don’t really “build” a computer in the sense of designing/engineering anything. You really just assemble a computer. There is a short list of parts that you must have, and they only plug in one way, with special cables that only go to their specific part. There are an endless number of tutorials online that will show you how to do this, and I’m sure you have a friend who can walk you through it. Building (assembling) a computer mostly takes courage, and a screwdriver.

Photography, Craigslist, and Fab Hair.

Hello! Ben here again. Last time they let me have the keyboard, I got a bit carried away and ended up needing to split my original post about my new years resolutions into two posts. Here is that second post!

To recap, my first, and primary, resolution was to stop wasting time. My method for doing this is to try and train/trick my brain into associating activities that I deem to be "wasting time" as having an inherent cost in the here and now.

Well then, what to do with all my newly discovered free time? That brings me to....

Resolution #2! Devote the majority of my hobby time to photography. 
(As a start toward this goal, I made a website, Please check it out! )

I've always loved taking pictures. It is something that I can't really explain, but I do know that there are very few things I intrinsically enjoy more than taking pictures. Whether it is the adventure behind how/where the pictures were taken, the surprise of an unexpected shot coming out amazing, or the painstaking time spent trying to capture that one perfect picture, I love it all.

Growing up, I always had a camera to play with; either a family camera, or my Dad's (D)SLRs. I've had my own digital point and shoot cameras since 2004, and very recently I finally took the plunge and invested in a DSLR camera. I've been meaning to do this for quite some time, but every time I saved up enough money to buy one, I decided that I should instead buy something else based on my needs/desires at that time (most notably a HD camcorder to record Our Honeymoon Adventure and a nice Road Bike to get into shape.)

Now that I have my trusty camera, I also have a decent "wish list" of accessories that I want to get. The trouble with photography, and most hobbies, is that there always more things you need and those things invariably cost money. This is where Resolution #1 intersects with Resolution #2.

Where to get the money to buy more camera toys? After all, I just depleted my piggy bank of fun money to get the camera, how then am I supposed to get more lenses? filters? flashes? Simple! Start selling off things I don't need/use/want anymore, especially if they are on my list of "time wasters". Ebay can be good for things like this, but I much prefer Craiglist. Craigslist offers a much quicker turnaround on your sale, and the potential for a good story or two. That being the case, I carefully crafted a few ads, posted them online, and began to respond to the various individuals interested in buying my stuff.  I was able to sell off much of my video game equipment, some older apple products, and a TV Stand without any hiccups not normally associated with a craigslist transaction. These sales funded the purchase of a Macro Lens; pictures from which I will be putting on my photography website in the next few weeks. Hooray!

During those transactions, there were a few e-mails I received that were quite hilarious. Surprisingly, they were for the most "grown up" of all my items, the TV Stand. The quoted text below is from the response I found the most hilarious.

Would u consider bartering for the stand? I am a hairstylist and I will give u a free cut and color in exchange for the stand. Money is tight but I can make ur hair look fab. Please call/text me at ***-***-**** or via email.

Don't get me wrong, in no way am I against bartering.  However, my intent was to barter for cash. Perhaps I could have used a hair style change; after all, I have been styling my hair the same way since the 9th grade. However, I decided the "fab" isn't what my image is really going for. More importantly, the last, and only, time I colored my hair was quite the experience  When a box of temporary hair dye says, "will wash out in 6-8 washes", and you happen to be the owner of some really blond hair, you should translate that to say "will wash out in 1-2 weeks of washing 6-8 times a day." Lucky for me, neon orange hair during homecoming week at a college who's colors could be described as "construction safety cone orange" wasn't that big of an issue.

And now for your viewing enjoyment. Me with orange hair (in 2006)

The Cost of Entertainment

DISCLAIMER: Apparently , I am a long winded writer. What was meant to be a quick post about a new year’s resolution that I (Ben) made for Marci and I, is looking to be two longer posts....Whoops!

I  (Ben) have a confession to make; Not one of those guilty pleasure confessions like, “I thoroughly enjoy color coordinating every aspect of my cycling hobby” (which is completely true), but a serious confession. I have wasted a rather large amount of time in my life. “Wasted time? On what?” you might ask. Well, to keep the list short, I’ll pick on the big hitters: Video Games, TV/Movies, and The Internet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these things are unequivocally bad and I certainly don’t regret all of the time I have spent doing these things. Many of my friendships were born and strengthened over the common bond of, and the many hours spent playing, video games. TV/Movies can be a great way to explore thoughts and ideas about the world around us as well as provide a humorous reprieve from the monotony of “the daily grind”.  And the internet? Oh, how I love the internet!  

I am constantly dreaming of and thinking of awesome things to do, create, see, and explore, but I find myself having done very few of them (if any!).  Many recent events have pushed this issue to the forefront on my mind, but I don’t need to explain those to get my point across. After much contemplation, I can come up with no other thing to blame for not having done these “awesome things” other than myself for wasting my time, talents, and opportunities on excessively entertaining myself.

This brings me to the second topic of this Blog post, a concept I’ve decided to call “The Cost of Entertainment.”

The idea goes something like this. Sitting on the couch for a few hours to watch yet another episode of a show I’ll never remember costs me very little [insert cost here] now, but it could cost me great deal of [insert cost here] later. For example, let’s use health as a cost. Sitting on the couch for a few hours now costs me very little health in the immediate, and therefore, I don’t think twice and indulge. However, if this pattern continues, it follows that my health will suffer greatly in the long term. You could replace the health concept of the “cost” with skills, talents, personal relations, and the list goes on. What skills could I be developing? What relationships am I neglecting or could I be building? What talents am I squandering?  It is so very easy to not think about these things, and instead entertain myself with “cheap” entertainment.

As a tactic to combat this, I have put in place an actual system that will “cost me” to entertain myself through these forms of seemingly cheap entertainment.

• To watch a TV Show or Movie, I must spend one entertainment credit.
• To earn an entertainment credit, I must partake in one solid workout.
• At any given time, I can only be 1 credit in debt. (this allows for the emergency, “Oh, I forgot about that show!”)

I hope that this will force me to think things like, “Do I REALLY want to go run 3 miles so I can watch this movie?” and, “Is this show really worth a trip to the gym?” Essentially, I want to think, “Can I afford this entertainment?” and,  “Do I want to afford this entertainment?” In the end, I hope that after enough decisions like this, I will be able to retrain my brain to think of entertainment as costly use of my time.

Thank you if you made it this far and haven’t TLDR’d on me (Too Long, Didn’t Read. It’s a internet thing. I did mention how much I loved the internet right?).  I should probably stop writing now.

I promise that my next post will be much more hilarious and fun. It’ll cover such topics as, “What will Ben be doing with his time now that he’s not wasting it?” and “What goods and/or services has Ben been offered, instead of cash, for things I’ve been selling on craigslist.”

-Ben

P.S. Check out these awesome videos on YouTube that talk about willpower, habits, and how you make decisions. If you don't have a YouTube account, I strongly recommend you create, one, and subscribe to channels like Epipheo (who made these videos). Also, as a shameless plug, I would also recommend you subscribe to our YouTube channel.