So, needless to say, we left early.

The Opening Band (the name of which naturally escapes me) was terrible in seven different ways. SMP was a hoot, as always. Skeleton Key was like seeing approx. 65% of Cop Shoot Cop, and that is in no way a bad thing. USSA was teh awesome, or at least their first 3 songs were. I assume Chemlab was Chemlab, but they're a wave function at this point. There was a pretty good crowd there, which is actually surprising, considering it was a rainy Tuesday night in Portland, OR. But I see what you guys were saying about the whole "okay, let's dig around in the back of the closet for our old clubbing clothes."

Long story short, fun night, but I wouldn't want to make a tour of it, you know? I'm just too fucking old for this shit.

Earlier in the day we were again on the hunt for the ideal place to plant our flag as First Time Home Buyers. We visited Mololla (sp?), Estecada, and Sandy. I'm quite taken by the last, but I think my opinion may be colored by the fact that it is 22 miles from Timberline Lodge (and year-round snowboarding) and half an hour from Hood River (and summertime windsurfing.) Since Elle doesn't care for those two things, and is the ultimate arbitrator in this matter, it'll probably take some talking.

In any event, that was our day. I got a sexy Nikon D-40 for an early Christmas present from my lovely and thoughtful wife, who I think will be very happy in Sandy.

A new video up on the Tubes that has some experiments I was doing this week with Processing, an integrated programming language (mostly Java) for making visuals. The music is "semicoma," another track off the forthcoming Callisto. The main thing I learned was that video editing on a PC fucking blows heaping chunks of bullshit all over my face for hours on end. I won't be making that mistake ever again. Apparently, that's what Macs are for, and whaddya know, I have two. Go figure.

Anyways, since the quality of YouTube videos blows almost as much as editing on a PC, I uploaded a full resolution HD version to Vimeo, which you can find here. It isn't HD right now, but by the time you read this the HD portion should be available for viewing.

Or, to put it another way, now I know how the turkey feels. But let me say this much: my wife has her shit together, and for that I am truly thankful. Without her, this holiday would have been a complete and total disaster. With her, it was smooth as silk, delicious, and dare I say fun.

Here's a newToob of a Micronaut song I'm working on, Factor1. I'm just fooling with the arrangement and the sounds; this is about 10% of a completed track. But you get the idea.

I've put the first one up, which is just me dicking around with a new synth I got today; I'll put the first one up of a proper musical performance within the next few days (or, more to the point, as soon as I write a proper musical performance worthy of uploading.) So, if you're a YouTube "member," feel free to subscribe to my channel. Or be my friend so my friends thing can stop saying "You have no friends." That's just fucking depressing.

In other news, Bless1 found the original vocal tracks he did for "Full Speed" and got them to me, and I'm busy recreating the song. Rather than trying to do the same exact track over, I'm re-imagining it from the git-go; it will be on the album, though. We also did another track at that tempo (actually a little faster) called "Rapid I Movement," which is coming along nicely. Once these two are done, just a matter of touching up, and the Micronaut album will be finished.

Other than that, same ol' same ol'. It was Elle's birthday today, but we did all our celebrating on Monday. We went to Portland and did some shopping, then saw the Oregon Symphony lay down the stink. All in all an excellent day. Snowboarding season starts in two weeks, Audio Damage is doing well, and creative output is excellent. Life is good. (Knock on wood.)

If you were curious, this is what a sunstone looks like fresh out the ground. Not a terribly good specimen, but on the largish side anyways, about 20 carats. There are five or so different types of sunstones all found in the same spot, even right next to each other. The most valuable are reds, the least valuable are clear, and somewhere in the middle are these, called "Schiller" for some reason I haven't been able to ascertain. They have copper in 'em, and are quite nice, I think.

This is what remains of the largest Schiller I found on Friday, after I had it cut. It was roughly a third again as big as the one pictured at the top, about 30 carats. There was a gemstone cutter there, and she knocked it down in to what you see here. The picture doesn't do it justice, as I have neither the skill nor the equipment to properly photograph cut gemstones (a semi-difficult task, it seems.) But you get the general idea.

Was it worth it? Hard to say. Financially, I came out well in the plus column versus actual dollars spent. For wear and tear on my body and vehicle? The jury's still out. As far as what my time's worth, that's not a quantifiable asset, so you can put a nil in that column. I had a good time, learned some things, got some exercise. All in all, I say "yes."