Today Adobe is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Photoshop. While, I can’t claim to have been there from the start, I have been using it for about 16 years, maybe more. Photoshop was there when I started working with computer images, it has been apart of my whole career. I think that I probably use Photoshop every single day. I used to say that Indesign was my favorite program, and I still love it, but since I stopped working on a monthly magazine, I find myself using Photoshop much more.
Happy Birthday, Photoshop! I don’t know what I would do without you.

On Saturday I humored Dan, going to a couple of different guitar shops that he never gets to go to, since they tend to be closed when we are in the area. He has been lusting over the Taylor Solid body guitar’s and it just makes me nervous. Great instruments for sure, but how many to we really need.

I feel guilty for my bass contribution to the problem because I don’t play well, or that often. I have my dream bass, a MusicMan Sterling in a gorgeous blue. I also have an American Fender P-bass that I got at a great deal used, a total surprise, but too good a deal to turn away from. Dan and I also share a Vertigo that we had custom painted, cause it’s cool and rare in the states. And I have a Nomad, a travel bass with a built-in speaker, which is short scale. I loved the nomad at first, because of the short scale, but because I have an aversion to playing bass loud enough for anyone but me to hear, I never use the speaker, and it doesn’t “fit” my body that well.

So I was kinda happy that Dan didn’t fall in love with the Taylor’s that he saw in the first guitar shop. When he asked to stop in the other shop, I was a bit worried, but agreed. I actually played with my iPhone in the acoustic room while he looked around. He came back and said that there was some basses he wanted me to see. I followed him and saw the great stick-style upright basses. They were cool and so out my ability and price range. I looked over and saw some cute metallic flake guitars in with some basses, but they looked odd. And then it hit me, they were basses. Adorable basses. I picked up the blue one and Dan quipped “Way to say I’m a girl bassist and proud of it.” They were obviously made for the Hannah Montana set, but I love it. I made Dan play it, because even though it felt good to me, I didn’t want to miss an obvious flaw. Dan plugged it in and tried it. It sounded really good, and it was extra surprising since it was on sale for $159. Insanely cheap.

So, it’s mine. And it’s replacing the Nomad, that will soon be on ebay or some such place. The nice thing is the Nomad isn’t made anymore so it should more than cost the cost of the new bass. Here is a link to Dan’s blog, since he already wrote up all the techy info on the bass. I have already spend quite a bit of time playing it, and it feels really good.

They itunes app stores had a new app that allows me to blog from my iPhone. So this is a test to see how well it works.

When the iPhone first came out I thought it was very cool, but didn’t have a need to have one. I get that need feeling far to often, and we refer to it as gadget lust. My husband, Dan, is very supportive and understanding, which I think is due to his own gadget lust. I tend to jump into being an early adopter on too many things, sometimes that is very good: like TiVo and Palm Pilots.

But for what ever reason the iPhone 1 didn’t grab me that strongly. Then in a surprising twist, my mom got the iPod Touch. I got a chance to play with it in December when I visited home, when I could steal it from my brother Ian’s clutches. I was hooked on the interface. Ian was waiting for the next gen for the iPhone, and I agreed. Faster internets and possible GPS? Yes, please! And in the mean time, I was feeling chained to my computer waiting for email and files from clients. I desperately wanted to be able to move around the house and even leave the house (gasp) without feeling that I was missing valuable work time at home.

So I was so ready for July 11th to roll around. But should a camp out? Our household has done this several times, but always for game systems. Dan, who is the camp out expert, said “Your being silly, they are going to have plenty.” Yes, but I want to make sure I get a 16 gig one, and hopefully, in black. So I decided to get there early. I ended up going to bed much later that I wanted to—1:30am. I was too keyed up to sleep well, since I was planning on getting up at 5am. So I laid in bed, super aware of all the sounds in our neighborhood. Is it like this all the time? How in the hell do I sleep through in normally?

By 4:20, it was clear to me that I wasn’t going to sleep, so I got dressed and left for the store. I took two chairs, and Dan would join me in line by 7am. When I got to our local AT&T store, I was 20th in line, next to a couple who brought sleeping bags. I sat down and read my Kindle while waiting for the morning to arrive.

At 5:50 am my phone rang, Journey of the Sorcerer—Ian’s ring tone. “Your calling from an iPhone aren’t you?” I said answering my soon to be obsolete razer. “Yep” he answered smugly. He had gotten to the Webster, NY AT&T store at the same time (well, 3 hours earlier) and had been 5th in his line.

When Dan finally got there at 7am, he stared open-mouthed at the line that now snaked around the parking lot. “Do you ever get tired of being right?” He asked. I have to say, no, I don’t. AT&Ts computers were slow, and then the iTunes server crashed, so you needed to take your phone home in order to activate it. Dan needed to leave for a business trip, so he had to go to LA without a phone. I was able to get it up and running after several hours and several failed attempts.

And then I spent far too long downloading apps, but useful and silly. And making ringtones—sadly there will be no return of Journey of the Sorcerer, since it is not ringtone enabled. My email and contacts are all set up, and I am tracking down photos of all my friends so there will photos when they call me. I feel so connected, it’s just insane! So I am going to spend so quality time will me new best friend!

For a long time now I have been trying to find a way to keep track of all the skills and habits that I want to form. I will tell myself that I need to spend time practicing piano or bass, or that I need to make sure I get all the water I need or take my herbs. But I loose track of things, and the whole system crumbles to the ground. I always thought, wouldn’t it be great if there was a program that would help me track this info, because I am at my core a tech-loving girl with extreme cases of gadget lust (Oh 3G iPhone–you will soon be mine!). After poking around for a while with no luck, I found joesgoals.com, which lets me do exactly what I want to do. It’s extremely customizable, and FREE! And now you all can see how good or bad I am being, right there in the left column. Here is hoping that it helps make a change. I think I will make posting to my blog a goal!

I love to read. And I love gadgets. So the natural birthday gift for me this year (it’s in May–you missed it) was a Kindle. I adored it–so much so that I got a new purse because it didn’t fit right into my old one (I was also unable to smuggle soda cans into the movie theater, you know you do it too, so a change was coming soon, Kindle or no Kindle. I have been reading ebooks on my Palm XT for years, I love the idea of having a handful of books on me when I get stuck waiting somewhere. The Kindle is such a huge improvement over the ebooks, it’s amazing.

I have traded books with friends for years, sharing favorites, trying things that I wouldn’t have picked up normally(Outlander recommended by Rachelle was a surprise). Having a Kindle makes it hard to share, but I must say the 15 heavily-laden bookshelves in my house are very happy.

Of course the Kindle got it’s true stamina test when Bryn recommended Twilight. I started reading and could not stop. I finished the book in a day, bought the sequel from Kindle’s whispernet and was reading in less the 5 minutes after I finished. Two days later I had read all three books. A week later I had read the whole series 3 times total–okay to be honest I skipped a bit of book two in the rereading, because it was boring. I am sick, but it’s Bryn’s fault. I do have to say that they in no way the best written books I have ever read, nor are they terribly original–I feel like the author was heavily influenced by season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But that is probably why I find it so terribly addicting. If you know me at all, you know that Joss Whedon is the only man in the world that I would leave my husband for–sorry honey, but you know it’s true.

The real killer is the I thought the series was a trilogy. I got to end of the third book and thought, not as satisfying as I hoped, but not surprised. So now I find out there is a forth book due in August. Great, now I have to wait. Bryn, this is all your fault.