Migrating to a New Blog

I'm pulling the trigger on tumblr to host my blog. It may end up a failed experiment, but for now I like the look and the options they have. I'm also taking the opportunity to rename. The new title comes from a Bob Dylan song.

The tumblr blog is at the following link, complete with a few new posts: http://itsallover.tumblr.com/

Leady Kindly Light B-side (Dylan Remix)

Just for fun I decided to take another shot at Lead Kindly Light with a faster Dylan-esque tempo. Nothing fancy, I just recorded it on my phone, but I liked the sound. Let me know what you think.

http://www.box.net/shared/h322i3x1sr

Lead Kindly Light

Here's a recording of Lead Kindly Light that Sarah Hammond and I did in church on June 27. You can paste the link below or click on the post title to download or listen.

http://www.box.net/shared/inezkbb7eh

We'd love to hear your feedback in the comments. You can hear more of Sarah on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/sarahhammondmusic). You can find more of my stuff in older posts.

Amazon Needs Some help with their Recommendations Engine

I thought this was a interesting mix of titles they sent me.

There is a Green Hill Far Away

This the song I played in Church on easter.

http://www.box.net/shared/juutlbg6f8

I also recorded my friend Laney's song "Were You There," which she did without accompaniment, and it was awesome.

http://www.box.net/shared/6x3chq4r6q

Best birthday present ever

Stand By Me All Over the World

I thought video was pretty amazing. I love soulful music, and this is one song done by street performers remotely all over the world. Think "We are the World" for the rest of us.

http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

Man of Constant Sorrow

I tried out my new condenser microphone, a Rode NT1A, and so far I'm loving. I recorded this song with a single track using the rode about a foot away from my mouth.

http://www.box.net/shared/261ukhgmrn

More celebrities photographed with CameraBag

Yeah. What up. Apparently not only are Demi Moore and Aston Kutcher CameraBag Fans, but so is director Robert Luketic who snapped these shots:

http://twitpic.com/2ycub - Katherine Heigl (Helga filter)
http://twitpic.com/2y5o9 - Tom Sellek and Ashton Kutcher (Helga filter)
http://twitpic.com/2ye8s - Ashton Kutcher (Instant Filter)
http://twitpic.com/3hplr - Ashton and Larry King (1974)
http://twitpic.com/3hpxq - Ashton and P.Diddy (Helga)
http://twitpic.com/2vw23 - Demi More (Lolo)
http://twitpic.com/49sgh - Ashton (Instant)
http://twitpic.com/4edrt - Jimmy Fallon with Jessica Alba and Jessica Biel.
http://twitpic.com/54cxn - Ashton Kutcher
http://twitpic.com/5g5jb & http://twitpic.com/5gf8p & http://twitpic.com/5dl4s- Chris Martin from Coldplay

Famous CameraBaggers

This is supposedly Aston Kutcher and Demi Moore taken with what appears to be an iPhone filter with CameraBag (an application I work on). You can be the judge, but I was kind of excited.

http://twitpic.com/2yfzk

New Zealand Trip Part III

2/20 Friday Day 9 – Cold But Not Thirsty. With an open day to start exploring Queenstown and nothing but rain our options were a little limited. We rode up the huge gondola where I might have gone bungee jumping if not for the river boarding. We also went to a place called the Minus 5 Bar. Basically you pay NZ$30 to stand in a room of ice and drink one alcoholic or two non-alcoholic drinks. Awesome?

2/21 Saturday Day 10 – Turning a Corner. Here is where we start getting into my favorite part of the trip. We took a ride on one of the last coal fired steamboats about the lake near queenstown then hit the road for the west coast, which if you are planing a trip to New Zealand I would say is where you want to be. We were tempted to stop every few miles by a waterfall or some footpath over a bridge into fern gulley. It was pretty magical. We ate dinner in Haast. A place with three options on the menu, taxadermy on the walls and a string of music videos on starting with Twisted Sister "We're Not Gonna Take It." We spent the night in the Campervan (the only night with all four of us) in the town near the base of Fox Glacier.

2/22 Sunday Day 11 – Glacial Tramping and 10,000 Waterfalls. This was my favorite day of the trip. I booked an excursion with a group that does glacier tours and spent 4 hours on the ice. One of the more surreal experiences of my life. It was pouring rain. The Franz Josef glacier (just up the road from Fox) is one the fastest moving in the world at about a meter a day and it's pushing right down into the middle of a rain forest, so in addition to the ice time, I spent about 2 hours tramping the the forest, fording streams created by all the rain. Also thanks to the rain, the glacier has been wiped clean of slush so it was clear and smooth, and the there were hundreds of waterfalls where on a typical day there are only a few.

After I got back we took the campervan of to Greymouth, apparently the known as "The Gateway to the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand." More amazing waterfalls on the way. Once we got there we went out the ocean where miles of quivering foam had washed up.We staked out a room at a campground where Adam was summarily dumped by his New Zealand girlfriend via text message. We went out to drown our sorrows at the only place open, McDonalds.

2/23 Monday Day 12 – Pancake Rocked. We continued out journey back to Wellington stopping off at the famous, beautiful and apparently mysterious pancake rocks. We continued to Nelson, one of the bigger citties on the South Island. Feed tried to get us to eat at a liquer store before he realized what it was, but that's about all Nelson had to offer by way of excitement. We rolled in to Picton in time to catch a late night ferry back to Wellington. Sensing suckers, the guys sitting near us on the boat offered to deal us into their card game, but we played Carcassonne instead.

2/24-26 Days 13-15 – Welling-town. Despite Adam's best efforts we ended up with a few days to kill in Wellington and decompress, which was nice. We hit up Weta, the place where adam works making 3D models for Peter Jackson. We saw Botanical Gardens including a tree you could literarlly sit on top of. We did zip lines in two different parks. I did quite a bit of shopping at the favorable exchange rates. And we ended it all with our flight home, landing 2 hours after we left.

Knocking back a cold one at the Minus 5 Bar.

Waterfalls at the base of the Glacier

We had to cross several steams like this to make it to the glacier.

A look at the Valley below.

We only made it a small way up the glaicer. If I were going back I would spring for the helecopter ride to the top.

More glacier formations.

One the beach at Greymouth, near the quivering foam.

Pancake Rocks.

Adam and Tom sitting on top of a tree in the Wellington botanical gardens.

Feed opting not to sit on top of a tree.

New Zealand Trip Part II

2/16 Monday Day 5 – Here Comes the Sun and the Opera House. After a rainy day in Wellington and some rainy days in Sydney we finally caught a window of blue sky. Adam, Tom and I took advantage and hit Bondi beach. It was a short few hours in the sand, just long enough to get sunburned and slapped into the sand by a massive wave, but it felt like the first true escape from Seattle winter.
Later that night we hit the Sydney Opera House to see a performance by Gidon Kremer and the Kemerata Baltica. It was pretty standard string orchestra set up and they played a nice mix of modern and classical. We were in a box surrounded by tourists, and I got a little sleepy, but it was nice. Later that night I caught some additional live music across from our hotel. It was a band doing among other things a cover of “Viva La Vida,” by Coldplay and “Glitter” by Fuel I think. Not quite the same caliber, but still enjoyable.

2/17 Tuesday Day 6 – Here we Go Again. With the half day we had before leaving for Sydney we decided to try to our luck with the Sydney Tower. Once we were inside we found the ride up the big elevator also comes with a ticket to a 3D motion ride. After the Wellington experience we were a little hesitant, but fortunately this time there was no associated aches or pains. After a quick flight across the ocean.We ended the evening watching rugby in a casino in Christchurch.

2/18 Wednesday Day 7 – Off to see the Queen. We burned half in the day in Christchurch picking up the Campervan, the rugged road warrior that would accompany us throughout the rest of the trip (for better or worse.) We also made pilgrimages to two holy places before leaving town: 1. the Anglican Church established by the original utopians around the turn of the century (Tom, Adam and Feed waited in the car), and 2. The top rated photo shop in New Zealand. We left Christchurch around 3 p.m. and spent the rest of the day driving to Queenstown through the Utahesque terrain dotted with sheep and the occasional, “impractically blue” lake. In Queenstown we elected to bifurcate so Tom and Feed could sleep in a hotel and Adam and I would sleep in the Campervan parked outside the hotel.

2/19 Thursday Day 8 – Mistakes and Misteaks. At 8:30 a.m. the next morning a knock came at the campervan door. “Ad, I think there’s trouble.” I could tell by the sound of the knock. Let’s just say we had to park a little further away from the city for the rest of our time in Queenstown.
Since Thursday looked to be the one nice day of weather in Queenstown, the adventure sports capital of New Zealand, I opted to go Jetboating and Riverboarding, which turned out to be a huge mistake for a few reasons. 1. After more time there it was obvious a flight to Milford Sound, which doesn’t happen in the rain, should have been the priority, and 2. I strained my neck riverboarding and wasn’t able to go bungee jumping the next day. 3. While I was Riverboarding Tom, Ad and Feed found a place to go lawn bowling with a bunch of old dudes. Dinner was also a rough go at this place we were all excited about called the Beefeater.

Day at the Beach con Ukelele.

Passing through Hyde Park on the way to the Opera House.

I'm not sure where we are in this one.

Feed raising his hand on the Sydney Tower when they asked if anyone was uneasy.

Impractical Blue.

New Zealand Trip - 3 Ukeleles

We invested some time in Sydney learning the Ukelele. So far we have the first verse of about Three songs, which came in handy impressing people at the beach.

New Zealand Trip - What up Southern Hemisphere

Here's a bit of what's been going down so far on this little trip of ours.

2/12 Thursday Day 1 - The Arrival. We stumble into in to Wellington, after many hours of flight only to find we lost Wednesday. We sleep in Ads deluxe apartment, hit the Te Papa national museum and almost loose our respective lunches on what maybe the worst 3D motion ride in either hemisphere. We also apparently experienced the worst rain the city has seen in some time, but it was still fun.

2/13 Friday Day 2 - Sydnaaay. It's a four hour flight from Wellington to Sydney for those like me who thought everything was close together at the botton of the map. We Checked into a hotel in Chinatown and all instantly fell in love with the city. As feed said, it's a city that rewards exploration. Stores, clubs, restaurants and interested/attractive looking people everywhere.

2/14 Saturday Day 3 - Manley Snooker. With our first full day in Sydney we went to Manly island, a "must see" that I would class as a "could miss." Although if it were a sunny day I could see how the beaches might be more lovely and hopping. We hung out in a club for a bit, played snooker then made it back to the city for an Italian dinner surrounded by valentining couples and groups of single women then walked around Darling harbor and Chinatown. We also purchased ukelele's. More to come on that.

2/15 Sunday Day 4 - Sabbath of Discontent. Unfortunately the Syndey LDS young singles branch seemed very unidicative of the city. We fled after Sunday school to hit a pho place we'd spotted the night before then wandered around Darling Harbor some more a bit and found a highly recommended recommended Thai place, Longgrain for dinner.






Photos from the Trip to Manly. Tom has more pics of other stuff at his blog. http://sixteenbynine.blogspocom/, I'll also be posting more here and on Facebook at some point.

Jenny Lewis is Mezmorizing

I saw her perform on the UW campus a few weeks ago. It was amazing.

Please take this survey about our survery

So I've had this survey from BYU in my bag for a while. I feel like I should complete it since the school paid for my education, but its 12 pages long . Just to filling in the circles without reading the questions would take an solid hour. Anyway, I'm trying to work on it a bit at a time, and today I got this email:

Dear David,

Our records indicate that we never received a completed survey back from you. We recognize there may be several reasons why you did not respond to the BYU Alumni Survey. We would like to learn more about that. Would you please click the link below and take about 2 minutes to answer some confidential questions for us. This will help us better understand your thoughts about the BYU Alumni Survey. (If you have already sent back your survey, please disregard this email.)

Awesome. Please take this survey about why you didn't want to take our survey. :)

Libby is my favorite

It's tough not to love Libby, even when the love isn't returned. (She channels most of her affection to Sesame Street, which is what we are watching on my iPhone.) We've been hanging out quite a bit the last few weeks for Christmas, babysitting opportunities etc. I'm pretty happy that she now recognizes me as Davey.

This looks like a Mormon movie I'd want to see

Turns out when left to my own devices I eat really weird things

Facebook is Killing my Blog

I'm sure others are suffering a similar fate. Facebook is just so interactive and convenient. But I'm not giving up yet.

I think it's safe to say

I've never been more proud to be part of this country.

Just when you think he's only going in one direction ...

...he surprises you at the end. This my niece libby and her friend Reed.

There's something wrong about this picture