Cat In A Tree

Cat In A Tree
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Pensively observing Puggles in the backyard.

Suburban Disco Ball

Suburban Disco Ball
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Cue Daft Punk "Who Da Funk" lyrics here...

Mr. Peanut M&M Man

Mr. Peanut M&M Man
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Always eager to brighten up the holiday season.

Presents Under The Tree

Presents Under The Tree
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blu...errr white.

My Current Home Screen

My Current Home Screen
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

It seems I never keep an arrangement of applications static for more
than a few days.

Dog Statue Outside Pet Smart In Portofino

Dog Statue Outside Pet Smart In Portofino
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Sticking with the Roman theme of the shopping center.

Saturday Night of School Work

Saturday Night of School Work
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Crunch time with 10 days before the semester is over.

Docked Water Taxis

Docked Water Taxis
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Behind the Library & near the Pavilion.

Saints On Thursday Night Football

Saints On Thursday Night Football
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Into The Christmas Tree

Into The Christmas Tree
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Santa has his list & is checking...

Snow On The Roof Of The Jetta

Snow On The Roof Of The Jetta
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Results of the Deep South winter blast.

My Golden Buddha From China Town NYC

My Golden Buddha From China Town NYC
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Always cheerfully lording over the home office television set.

Chuck The Nutcracker Stands Guard

Chuck The Nutcracker Stands Guard
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

6 feet tall with bonus points for the Fleur De Lis on his chest.

The Apple Store Window Santa Claus

The Apple Store Window Santa Claus
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

The Western Christmas Tree 2008

The Western Christmas Tree 2008
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Cut down with THESE hands!

To Celebrate 75 Years

To Celebrate 75 Years
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Of the repeal of Prohibition.

Puggle

Puggle
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Puggles Lays For A Treat

Puggles Lays For A Treat
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

With a blur for a tail.

Discarded Bottlecaps

Discarded Bottlecaps
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

3 Series iDrive At Night

3 Series iDrive At Night
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Get yo commute on!

Christmas Tree, Waterfall, & Highrise

Christmas Tree, Waterfall, & Highrise
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Sights from the Waterway in The Woodlands.

Lunch On The Patio Of The Goose's Acre

Lunch On The Patio Of The Goose's Acre
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

What a gorgeous day.

Christmas Lights On A Hill

Christmas Lights On A Hill
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Infrared style.

The Ol' Coin Collection

The Ol' Coin Collection
Originally uploaded by Juston Western

Husemann's coin is still the largest in modern time.

Christmas Time Is Here

Christmas Time Is Here, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Happiness & Cheer... *queue Charlie Brown jazz interlude*

Scotch & Economics

Scotch & Economics, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

With a little jazz thrown in for the Saturday evening fare.

Puggles Is Introspective

Puggles Is Introspective, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Still So Much Ham Remaining

Still So Much Ham Remaining, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Leftovers for the next few days.

The Best Margarita In Houston

The Best Margarita In Houston, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

The Perfect at Cafe Adobe

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Fleur De Lis For Saints Monday Night Football

Fleur De Lis For Saints Monday Night Football, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Who dat?

Puggles, Texas Ranger Enjoys A Burger/Chicken Combo Dinner

Puggles, Texas Ranger Enjoys A Burger/Chicken Combo Dinner, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Ashley's MacBook

Ashley's MacBook, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Cupcake & Punch At Kooker's Baby Shower

Cupcake & Punch At Kooker's Baby Shower, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Brunch at The Egg & I

Brunch at The Egg & I, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

So delicious.

Thanksgiving Potluck At Hewitt

Thanksgiving Potluck At Hewitt, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Complete with Turkey Day quiz. I need to brush up on my Plymouth Rock
trivia.

Keeping Time Around The World

Keeping Time Around The World, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Shrimp Etouffee Night

Shrimp Etouffee Night, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Bookworm Statue At Montgomery County Library

Bookworm Statue At Montgomery County Library, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

My Typical Sunday View

My Typical Sunday View, originally uploaded by Juston Western.

Writing a paper, quasi-watching a Texans or Saints game, & listening
to music.

'Tis The Season At The Western Ranch In Texas

Purportedly, Puggles also moonlights as a saloon piano player.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/tD2r9G3AI6XiACom

Returning To Normalcy Post-Ike

The greater Houston area kind of took it on the chin for Hurricane Ike last weekend. Even 90 miles from the coast, The Woodlands experienced hurricane force winds.

We were without power at our house from 6:17AM on Saturday morning until 9:58PM on Tuesday evening, so basically 4 full days. I posted play-by-play updates on my Twitter page starting on September 11 and continuing for the next week if you're interested in going back to see how it unfolded.

Today I've also posted a photoset on Flickr with pictures of Ike's aftermath, as well as 2 videos on YouTube, which I'm embedding below. The first was footage from Saturday morning, as the remnants of Ike were still looming in The Woodlands, and the second is from Sunday afternoon when I was out assesing the damage after the rains had subsided.


Hurricane Ike Wanes In The Woodlands




Damage From Hurricane Ike In The Woodlands

Hurricane Ike Playlist or Tina (Houston) Turner vs L'Ouragon Ikey Tunes

We're all bunkered down here in The Woodlands, expecting Hurricane Ike to make it our way in about 10 hours. So in that spirit, I scoured my iTunes library & put together a little music for the event. In all it's 31 song glory, here is the tracklisting:

01 - Ike & Tina Turner - I Want To Take You Higher
02 - Dean Martin - Houston
03 - Ella Fitzgerald - Stormy Weather (Keeps Rainin' All The Time)
04 - Jimmy Buffett - Tryin' To Reason With Hurricane Season
05 - Roachford & M.Y.N.C. Project - Ride The Storm (Life Goes On Club Mix)
06 - Bob Dylan - Hurricane
07 - Amoeba Assassin - Piledriver (The Hurricane Mix)
08 - Gambino Family - Trapped In A Storm
09 - Houston Grand Opera - Porgy & Bess Act 2, Scene 4: Oh, Doctor Jesus (Hurricane Scene)
10 - Selwyn Cooper - Hurricane Blues
11 - Roni Size - Centre of the Storm featuring Zack De La Rocha
12 - Ike & Tina Turner - Proud Mary
13 - Green Velvet - Stormy Weather
14 - Bob Dylan - Shelter From The Storm
15 - Darude - Calm Before The Storm
16 - Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane
17 - Kaos, Karl K, & Jae Kennedy - Houston
18 - The Doors - Riders On The Storm
19 - Frank Sinatra - Stormy Weather (with Quincy Jones)
20 - Gnarls Barkley - Storm Coming
21 - Jeff Mills - The Storm Among Us
22 - Leftfield - Storm 3000
23 - Massive Attack - Weather Storm
24 - Hurricane Smith - Oh, Babe, What Would You Say
25 - AIR - The World Hurricane
26 - Mobb Deep - Quiet Storm
27 - Beausoleil - L'Ouragan (The Hurricane)
28 - Enya - Storms In Africa
29 - Scorpions - Wind of Change
30 - Orbital - Desert Storm
31 - T-Bone Walker - Stormy Monday

Fingers crossed for the best!

A Brain Melter Of A Live Set: Digweed at Amnesia

I've had this hour of music on heavy rotation over the past week, and felt compelled to share it. This was recorded on the night of August 2, 2008, as part of Radio 1's Essential Mix broadcast from Amnesia in Ibiza.

I've pasted the tracklist below, with three tracks I considered particularly notable bolded. A bit heavier on the techno than I've heard from John Digweed in recent years, but it works really, REALLY well. He made full use of his hour of allotted live broadcast time. Truly, this is the most consistently aggressive 60 minutes of music I've ever heard come from the man.

[00:00] 01 - Bedrock - Forge (Tom Middleton Remix)
[06:00] 02 - Guy J - Geko (Remute Remix)
[11:00] 03 - On Spec vs The Police - Voices Of Columbus (Jamie Stevens Re-Edit)
[17:00] 04 - Gianluca Motta - London (Pig & Dan Remix)
[23:00] 05 - Depeche Mode - Freelove (Josh Wink Vocal Dub)
[31:00] 06 - Remute - Condensated
[35:00] 07 - Christian Smith - Flyertalk
[43:00] 08 - Timo Maas - Subtellite
[53:00] 09 - Misstress Barbara - K-10 (Alan Fitzpatrick Remix)
[59:00] 10 - Winona - Without You (Kris Menace Remix)

Click Here To Download The Set

I hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as I have! It's gotten more remarkable with each subsequent listen.

Google Street View Comes To The Woodlands

I ran across a post this morning on the Inside The Woodlands blog about Google Street view images of this area now being available.

Sure enough, the omnipresent Googlebot seemed to take a ride by our house some time around December 2007 given the wreath on our house. For those of you with familiarity of the area, try plugging in a few addresses to see their accuracy. I'm not sure if the images are intentionally off by a few houses due to security concerns, but on the addresses I've checked, I've invariably had to scroll down the street a tad to see accurate pics.

Looking Back At The Richie Hawtin & Danny Tenaglia Pacha NYC 2007 Evening

Upon seeing that Richie Hawtin will make an extremely rare appearance in the southern United States later this month in Houston, I became nostalgic about a very memorable club night I attended last June in Manhattan.

I poked around on YouTube & came across three videos from that evening that others recorded. While I assumed cameras were banned from the club (and therefore, didn't bring mine), I did end up in the background of one of the club photographer's shots. However, still images can't do the event justice, so check out these 3 videos from June 8, 2007 at club Pacha in New York City.



For those interested in seeing true "techno" performed by one of its pioneers, I highly recommend catching Richie on his Fall 2008 tour. Full itinerary on his website.

Synthetic Shadiness - "Installment": 8 Years Later

During December 1999 & January 2000, I along with my brother, Matthew, & friend, Ryan Wimberley, produced an electronica album under the collective name Synthetic Shadiness. Individually, we had three pseudonyms: I was JetaTek, Matthew was Crazy Shady, & Ryan was Cain.

After making the album, we even went through the process of getting 100 copies pressed, and assembled the resulting discs in jewel cases with album artwork (see adjacent...hey, it was the 90's). We sold the album for $8 a pop, and were pretty successful in unloading all of them through sales at our high school & at a couple of raves in New Orleans.

A couple of weeks ago I was sorting through my iTunes library and ran across the ripped MP3s from our album. Surprisingly, I felt the songs aged pretty well. You wouldn't mistake them for Grammy winning tracks, but they're definitely a couple of notches above a toddler banging on a Casio keyboard.

I thought I'd share the album with those of you who may be interested in giving it a listen. There were originally 18 songs on the album, but I've added a bonus track of a remix I did back in April 2004 as my semester final project in the Computer Music course at Tulane.

The download link is below. Just unzip and enjoy!

Synthetic Shadiness - Installment

Muxtape Compilation Of My Current Running Music

Like many, I really enjoy running with music. Although I circulate the tunes on my iPod fairly regularly, there's a core set of tracks that I find myself consistently reloading to keep me motivated while running the trails here in The Woodlands.

A few months back I read a post on the Houston Chronicle's TechBlog about Muxtape. Basically, it lets you create a web-based mixtape to share with friends. You can't download the songs, but you can listen to the tracks in their entirety.

Since I get pretty jazzed about the music I'm listening to at any given time, I thought Muxtape would lend itself fairly well to sharing my current tastes with others. So click the link the below to listen to the compilation of songs I use to keep the adrenaline flowing.

http://justonwestern.muxtape.com/

Why My Next Computer Will Be A Mac

How I Got To This Point

I typically buy a computer every 2 to 3 years. This has been the case since I got my first Pentium 60 MHz machine running Windows 3.11 during the fall of 1994.

In the late 1990s, I never really considered a Macintosh computer as a potential purchase. From what I knew of them, they were typically expensive, had a limited selection of software, and the only individuals I knew who used them could best be described as inhabiting the fringes of society. These beliefs were only reinforced when I worked at CompUSA in 2000. The Apple section was relegated to the back corner of the store and to say it was sparsely populated with customers would be an overstatement.

When I started undergraduate studies in the Fall of 2000, my bias towards Windows-based PCs only grew stronger. It wasn't so much a loyalty to Microsoft, as it was realizing that I had the most freedoms and fewest restrictions using a Windows machine. I didn't have to worry about computer peripherals or a piece of software critical to my Computer Science curriculum not working with my machine, because hey, everything was Windows compatible. In fact, the social miscreants in my dorm who did have Macs would often drop by my room and ask to borrow my computer for a few minutes since they ran into "something" that wasn't Mac compatible.

Beginning in the Spring of 2005, my resistance to purchasing Apple products began to wain. I was at Keesler Air Force Base on the Gulf Coast, and my trusty Diamond Rio 500 64MB MP3 player kicked the bucket after 5 years. The first generation iPod Shuffle had been released a few months earlier, and after seeing a 1GB version on sale at a nearby Circuit City, I decided to join the legions of iPod toting fans. I only needed it for when I ran, so the lack of screen didn't bother me. And picking up an MP3 player for a hundred bucks and change was much different than laying out a couple of thousand for a computer.

In September of 2005, I bought a new BMW 3 Series. Despite being chocked full of technology (on-board navigation, 2 optical disc drives, automatic everything), it didn't have one key feature that I had grown VERY accustomed to in my VW Jetta: MP3 CD capability. As someone who listens primarily to electronic music, I needed a way to get my 2 to 4 hour long DJ sets onto my car stereo, and splitting a file over 4 CDs just wasn't something I was interested in undertaking. Enter the 60GB iPod Photo.

Even though I have close to 1TB of music, there is still something liberating about being able to carry around hundreds of your favorite albums on a very portable device. While I could fit about 10 albums on an individual MP3 CD, it was still cumbersome to jump around between artists, albums, and genres if they happened not to be grouped on a single disc. The large capacity iPod solved this inconvenience. However, had it not been for my car's lack of MP3 CD capability, I probably wouldn't have realized just how convenient the iPod solution was in comparison. (As an aside, I was finally able to get MP3 CD capability via a software update at the dealership last week...I guess 2 years late is better than never.)

So now you're thinking, "Ok, Juston's just describing a classic case of the 'iPod Halo Effect' I've read about," right? Well not exactly. Granted, having exposure to the 2 iPods probably helped mildly deteriorate the psychological disinclination towards Apple products that I'd developed over a decade. But it hardly garnered enough of my mindshare to make me run out and buy a Mac.

What owning the iPods did manage to do was pique my interest enough in the company to follow their new product announcements more closely. And in January of 2006 they announced the transition of their computers to Intel processors. Initially, I didn't think a hardware announcement would have such a significant impact on the way I viewed the computer industry, but in retrospect, this news was huge.

Over the next year, I saw the release of Boot Camp which would allow users to load Windows on their Intel-based Mac and boot into that OS if they needed to run a Windows application. Also released was a virtualization program called Parallels Desktop which let users run Windows as a virtual machine within the Mac OS. Now I didn't have to worry about compatibility issues. This is when I truly began to consider buying an Apple Computer.

Most people recognize there's still probably a big gap between considering a purchase and actually making a purchase, especially when we're talking about a product that potentially costs several thousand dollars. So let me explain why I am ready to make my purchase of a MacBook Pro next month.

It Just Doesn't Make Sense NOT To Buy A Mac Now

In a word: Flexibility. What's ironic here is that prior to the Intel switch, flexibility was perhaps the biggest detractor from purchasing a Mac. And now I consider it to be the biggest selling point.

After I realized that I could run Windows on a Mac, I became curious as to what I couldn't run on Windows. As it turns out, there's a whole world of software developers out there that develop applications exclusively for the Mac OS. While I always knew this, I never had the reason to explore the creations of these "social miscreants" (to use my own probably ill-conceived words from earlier) until I became curious about the Mac platform. Sure, most times there are equivalent programs for Windows that can accomplish the same function. But this is a very utilitarian approach to take. What I've discovered is that (more often than not) the Mac specific programs solve the problem in a much more elegant, visually pleasing, and artistically inspired manner. I'm talking everything from somewhat unnecessary widgets to the more business savvy Numbers spreadsheet program.

Perhaps you skeptics are thinking, "Well that's kind of a right-brained conceptualization of computers. He's just enamored by the eye candy that Apple is known for parading out to their brain-washed cult of zealots." I would propose, however, that much of the eye candy is in fact indicative of something very left-brained: attention to detail. Why just make something functional when you can make it functional AND beautiful? To me that demonstrates an underlying analytical mindset that believes you should focus on all aspects of the computing experience. Function and design are not mutually exclusive, and I think many individuals had just grown to believe they were.

I'm not implying that Mac developers have a total monopoly on artistically inspired yet functional applications. But now, there's such a lower barrier of entry to trying out and using their applications than existed 2 years ago. The reality is that you can now run every Windows application available on a Mac, in addition to all the Mac specific software that exists. Your pool of available software just increased significantly, and you can cherry pick which applications you like best. I might like to run Firefox in Windows and Photoshop in OS X. If I have a Mac, I can easily do that. With a Windows-based computer, this is close to impossible. (I say "close" because there are some technically adept computer users who have managed to load OS X on a PC, but the steps involved are overtly cumbersome and technically illegal.)

For me, the increased flexibility of a Mac was what ultimately influenced my decision to take the plunge. But the usual justifications of increased stability, more frequent OS feature updates, and Apple's noted panache for industrial design really just make the choice even more obvious.

Apparently I'm not the only one whose come to this conclusion, either. Apple's marketshare has (almost) steadily increased over the past 2 years. And amongst "power users" I'd say adoption has been even faster with deeper penetration. While heuristic at best, I like to use the example of what I witnessed in Manhattan. I went to the monthly Google Speaker Series lectures/discussions at Google's Manhattan headquarters from April to June of this year. During one of the presentations, Google's Open Source Program Manager, Chris DiBona, asked audience members to raise their hand if they were a Mac user. Over 50% of the people in attendance raised their hands.

So there you have it. As I see it, the Mac is simply the best deal going right now. I've emphatically recommended the Mac to friends who have sought my advice over the past year, and I'd say I've influenced six people to go with a MacBook or MacBook Pro who were on the fence when it came to a laptop decision.

After much analyzing (as demonstrated in this blog post), I myself will be taking the plunge in October as soon as Leopard comes preinstalled on the MacBook Pros. Once I get it and have completed all the installations/configurations of my various applications, I'll post here for those of you interested in specific programs.

JW / NOLA Memory Map (Google Maps Mash-Up)

I spent about 4 hours this morning using the new tools on Google Maps to create a Google Maps / Flickr mash-up geographically showcasing some of my more memorable events in New Orleans. It's still a work in progress, but it's got about 30+ place markers so far. You can check it out here:

JW / NOLA Memory Map

- JW