2007-10-18, Thu

Books	Music	Movies	TV
	Jack Johnson | Regina Spektor		Prison Break (Season 3) | House (Season 4) | Smallville (Season 7) | King of Queens | The War

It's been quite some time since my last post, and I must admit I've pushed this website to the back burner since about April. That so happens to coincide with the time that Beth and I started dating. It's been great. Here's a montage of photos we've taken together.

I've also been into Facebook, and its ease of creating photo albums is quite useful. It was a little hard to figure Facebook out at first, but once you get into it you're hooked.

2007-03-08, Thu

Books	Music	Movies	TV
	Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town | Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A. | Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska		Prison Break (Season 2) | House (Season 3) | Lost (Season 3) | Smallville (Season 6)

I haven't updated in a while. I meant to post a short update here when I revamped some of the photo pages a month or two ago, but didn't get around to it. I also went to the 2007 Philadelphia Auto Show in the beginning of February. It was pretty awesome. Crowded...but awesome. I tried a new setting on my camera that lets in more ambient light, but since the shutter is open longer, the pics sometimes turn out blurry.

I went to Asbury Park today for work to look at a condo project on the boardwalk. When I was done with the walkthrough I did a tiny bit of sightseeing, as Asbury Park is Bruce Springsteen's hometown. It was freezing though, so I walked about a block on the boardwalk and decided to call it quits. There really wasn't all that much to see anyway, so I decided to get out while we're young, 'cause baby, we were born to run.

2006-12-20, Wed

Books	Music	Movies	TV
George Wilson - "If You Survive"	Skillet - "Rebirthing"		Prison Break (Season 2) | House (Season 3) | Lost (Season 3) | Smallville (Season 6)

Things have been rather busy at work lately. There was a period of a couple weeks when I was in the office only about one day each week, the rest of the time was spent in the field. Among other projects, we stayed at Caesar's Atlantic City for two nights while we tested their facade for leaks. We stayed in the rooms which we were testing, which wasn't too shabby...even with holes cut in the drywall around the windows.

Joe and Levi have recently started a 3rd Floor Memorial blog. There aren't many people involved yet, but I hope it grows into a way we can all keep in touch with each other.

I've been looking into other sites to host my photo gallery and I finally settled on Photobucket. I will eventually load all my pics over there, and linking to them should free up some storage capacity on Geocities. This means it should be faster, and I can post some pics from beyond graduation, which is starting to get to be a long time ago.

2006-10-23, Mon

Books	Music	Movies	TV
	Queensryche - "Silent Lucidity"		Prison Break (Season 2) | House (Season 3) | Lost (Season 3) | Smallville (Season 6)

Mark S. was back home this weekend on Fall Break from Geneva. We talked briefly after church on Sunday. He's an aspiring film-maker and I asked him if he had any movies available on the web. He mentioned that he has a number of films up on YouTube. Check them out here.

2006-10-16, Mon

Books	Music	Movies	TV
	Explosions in the Sky	Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn	Prison Break (Season 2) | House (Season 3) | Lost (Season 3) | Smallville (Season 6)

So, the Phillies didn't quite make the playoffs this year. Oh well. There's always next season.

On Tuesday of last week one of my junior-year college roommates and fellow electrical engineer, Joe, e-mailed me that he was in the area. I haven't seen him since Joel & Melody's wedding in 2004. We met at the King of Prussia mall and caught up over dinner at TGI Friday's. Joe is working for First Energy out in western PA and is involved in NRC license renewals, which sounds pretty awesome. He and Ann are expecting a son in February. Congratulations again! I was saddened to hear of the unfortunate demise of the VW Fox wagon last winter. I learned to drive manual in that car (well, at least I had one lesson from Joe...that was an interesting day).

In other news, all my car show pics have been posted to www.cardatabase.net.

2006-09-27, Wed

Books	Music	Movies	TV
	Kutless - "Hearts of the Innocent"	Hoodwinked	Prison Break (Season 2) | House (Season 3) | Lost (Season 3) | Smallville (Season 6)

It's time for an update. I have been working to post my car pictures to a new website, www.cardatabase.net. It allows high resolution photos, which I like. To find my pics, go to their main page and click on "Advanced Search." From there you can enter my name in the "Photographer" box and my pics should display. There are quite a few of them.

Also, the Phillies are again dangling the thread of hope for the city of Philadelphia. With four or five more games in the regular season, they trail the LA Dodgers in the Wild Card race by only 1 game. I can't tell you how excited I'll be if they make it into the post-season. Go Phils.

2006-07-09, Sun

Books	Music	Movies	TV
Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front		X-Men 3: The Last Stand	Dukes of Hazzard (Season 4)

Phil invited me over to watch the World Cup finals (Italy vs. France) this afternoon. It was a great game...1-1 tie, diving headers, slide tackles, overtime, a shootout, fouls, a red card...it had everything you ever wanted in a soccer game. Italy won after France missed a penalty kick in the shootout.

06-06-22, Thu

Books	Music	Movies	TV
Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front	Depeche Mode - "Precious" | New Order - "Crystal"		Faulty Towers | Monty Python's Flying Circus

Well, it's been a busy month. My grandmother and great-aunt (who are twin sisters) had their 90th birthday about a week ago, and there was a large family gathering last Saturday. My mom went through loads of old photographs (most of them from the '20s and '30s) and asked for my help in scanning and touching up about 135 pictures. The plan was to get reprints and put them into a poster format, but Rite-Aid did a less-than-adequate job (everything's gone green!) so I ended up throwing together a PowerPoint slideshow at the last minute. I am happy to say that it turned out well, and everybody was fascinated to see the pictorial history of the twins. Overall the whole event was a success. We all got to see a bunch of relatives whom we hadn't seen in a long time, which was very nice.

I also was asked by Jeremy to cat-sit while he and Mary went to visit his brother Mike and family in California for a week. Miles is a black and white one-year-old who is extremely friendly. Due to the photo project I was only able to cat-sit for a couple days, but my sister spent time each night with Miles (she watched most of 24's third season during this). I brought over a paper bag to entertain Miles with, and he took to it immediately. I got a great video of him stalking, attacking and playing with the bag. I like cats so much more than dogs.

06-05-16, Tue

Books	Music	Movies	TV
John Le Carre - The Spy Who Came In From The Cold	Mozart - Requiem in Dm, K 626	Ben-Hur	24 | Lost | Monty Python's Flying Circus

I added a page that lists all the movies I have acquired over the years, both by recording off of TV and by buying the DVDs.

06-05-01, Mon

Books	Music	Movies	TV
Mark Bowden - Black Hawk Down	Relient K - mmhmm | Five Iron Frenzy - "The Wizard Needs Food Badly"		Prison Break | 24 | Lost | Smallville | Monty Python's Flying Circus

Not much going on...I bought a tennis racquet last week - hoping to play a little this year. I haven't played tennis since 7th or 8th grade. I got into racquetball in college, but I don't know of any free racquetball courts around here, so tennis is a good alternative.

06-04-03, Mon

[What's in my CD player:] Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit
[What's in my mp3 player:] WWMT - Frantik (Remix)
[What's in my DVD player:] nothing
[What's on my TV:] Prison Break | 24 | Lost | Smallville

New color scheme today...thought it might be time to mix it up a bit.

06-03-25, Sat

[What's in my CD player:] nothing
[What's in my mp3 player:] Petra - All Fired Up | Petra - Midnight Oil
[What's in my DVD player:] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
[What's on my TV:] Prison Break | 24 | Lost | Smallville

I've been working on a few new songs lately. I've added samples to the Music page.

06-03-06, Mon

[What's in my CD player:] nothing
[What's in my mp3 player:] Jimi Hendrix - Crosstown Traffic | The Doobie Brothers - Long Train Runnin'
[What's in my DVD player:] Wallace & Grommit - Curse of the Were-Rabbit
[What's on my TV:] 24 | Lost | Smallville

Well, after a good long time, I finally decided to see what was wrong with my guest book. Apparently, everything was. Geocities had switched formats or something, and I hadn't a clue. So, I finally updated it, and it ought to be functional. You can access it through the "Links" page.

06-02-06, Mon

[What's in my CD player:] Modern Rock mix
[What's in my mp3 player:] CCR - "Wrote a Song for Everyone" | Bad Religion - "Inner Logic" | Gorillaz - "19/2000 (Soulchild Remix)"
[What's in my DVD player:] Tom & Jerry: The Spotlight Collection
[What's on my TV:] 24 | House | Bones | Lost | Smallville

This weekend was the start of the 2006 Philadelphia International Auto Show. I went down on Saturday morning. I've been to one of these before, so I knew what to expect for the most part -- lots of everyday production cars, a handful of preview production cars, a selection of antique and classic cars, a dozen exotic cars, and maybe one or two concepts. Nothing like the Detroit, NY, LA, Frankfurt, SEMA, or other major auto shows. It would be such an awesome experience to go to one of those.

Still, I took over 100 pictures, and had a good time. If this was a judged show, and I were giving out the prizes, here's what I would award:

06-01-19, Wed

[What's in my CD player:] Brahms - Clarinet Sonatas No. 1 and 5
[What's in my mp3 player:] Jefferson Starship - "Jane" | Foreigner - "Urgent" | Toto - "Hold the Line" | The Cars - "Moving in Stereo"
[What's in my DVD player:] Lost (Season 1)
[What's on my TV:] 24 | Lost | Smallville | House

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and welcome to the 7th Season of LisasBrother.com!

A couple updates to post: I was given an awesome book, "The World's Worst Cars", for Christmas; I bought a sweet laptop a week or two ago; and I opened a MySpace.com profile. Mostly, this is to keep in touch with those whom I have lost touch with. Anyway...

In mid-December, I went to Biloxi, Mississippi, as part of a building survey trip my company took. Biloxi is just east of Gulfport, and used to be a casino town...until Hurricane Katrina sent a 28' storm surge their way. In the storm the casinos (which had been built on barges, as the building code required) floated up, over the coastal highway, and into other buildings, trees, whatever. The whole place was a mess. It was certainly a unique experience.

I've been reading a book that Matt let me borrow called "Shadow Divers", by Richard Kurson. It's a non-fiction account of a group of deep wreck divers who discovered a German WWII U-Boat wreck off the north New Jersey coast in 1991. It is a really interesting story. Check it out if you get the chance.

05-11-29, Tue

[What's in my CD player:] Plankeye - Relocation
[What's in my mp3 player:] The Cure - "Just Like Heaven" | Supertramp - "Give a Little Bit" | The Who - "Eminence Front"
[What's in my DVD player:] War of the Worlds
[What's on my TV:] Prison Break | Lost | Smallville | House | 24

I created a page at www.cardomain.com where I posted pictures of my car. I plan to put up more pics of cars that I took at some of the local car shows.

05-11-27, Sun

Happy Thanksgiving

05-11-09, Wed

October slipped by without an update, so I guess I'm due for one.

Last Saturday was Kevin's wedding, so my family went out there (Mars, PA) for the weekend. It was a very nice occasion.

A couple weeks back I was at Matt and Rachel's and we watched the play from our senior year at Phil-Mont, 1984. I had written the music for it, and Matt wanted to know if a copy of the soundtrack was available. I had recorded the original tapes to my computer in college, but had not really worked on cleaning them up. So, I decided to remaster all the tracks and put out a cd. If you're interested in a copy, send me an e-mail.

05-09-23, Fri

Well, it's been a busy last few weeks to be sure. When not at work, I've immersed myself in this season's television offerings. Prison Break, Lost, and Smallville are my "must-see" shows this fall. I am so glad that reality shows are now a dying breed. I was a bit hesitant as I watched the Lost season premiere this past week, afraid that they might fall into "sequel syndrome". But my fears were unfounded. It has the potential to be better than last season (which was excellent). I started watching Smallville season 4 reruns in the summer. I hadn't watched the show in a while, but it got pretty interesting by the season finale.

When not watching TV, I've been working on a side project. My parents bought a new (to us) vehicle last spring, and it got me interested in the automotive aspect of my family history. I've been creating a html-based interactive database of the family cars, extended family cars, and cars that belonged to or were regularly driven by friends. Information included in the pages are owner's name, make, model, year, trim, body style, purchase date/mileage, sale date/mileage, a short history of the car, a short history of the model, and photos of the actual car or similar models. If you'd like to contribute, just send an e-mail to me with that information and maybe even a picture or two.

05-08-20, Sat

I was forced to strip the cars page down to links to Supercars.net and Ultimatecarpage.com (both are great sites). I had some site space issues to deal with and this was the best option. It's a free site, so I'm not complaining too much. This is so I can begin to post some pictures from post-college.

05-08-01, Mon

Big update for the pictures page--I uploaded and posted about sixty pics from high school. I had to scale back on the quality and resolution due to site limitations. They're mostly 800x600s at a medium 72ppi res. If you really want a higher quality pic from me, drop me an e-mail. College pics should be up within the week.

05-07-21, Thu

A couple things have prevented me from making some updates to the site in the past weeks.

First, I've seen a couple more movies since the last update. I saw Batman Begins with Phil. It was great. I was a bit hesitant about the new Batmobile, being a huge fan of the 1955 Lincoln Futura Batmobile (1966 TV series) and the 1989 Chevrolet Caprice-based Batmobile (Batman and Batman Returns). The other ones haven't thrilled me too much. (I recently found a great site on the subject, www.batmobilehistory.com. There are pictures of virtually every incarnation of the Batmobile from comics, cartoons, movies, etc.) But I thought that they did a good job with this film. One thing I've noticed about recent action movies is that the fight scenes are shot at very close quarters--it's very difficult to distinguish indiviuals on screen. I talked about this with Mark, who is a communications/film major, and he agreed with me. It was hard to tell which arm was Batman's and which was the poor other guy's.

Second, I got the most recent Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the mail on the 16th, and promptly sat down to read it. I liked it much more on the first time through than I did Order of the Phoenix, though I did come to like OotP after subsequent reads. I've read some reviews and some seemed to think that this book was "just a staging ground" for Book 7, but even so, I thought that it was an invaluable step in the series.

05-07-01, Fri

I went to see War of the Worlds with Matt and Joel last Wednesday. I thought it was pretty good. It's now on my "DVDs to get" list. I read the book yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed each as a seperate artistic medium. I had only read the opening chapters of the book back in middle school, so I had only a vague idea of what to expect when seeing the movie. I've been trying to get my hands on Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds which was made in 1975. I was familiar with "Forever Autumn" from it, but I looked up all the lyrics online yesterday and decided that I'd like to hear the whole thing.

05-06-17, Wed

The final Narnia study, from Prince Caspian, has been posted.

05-06-07, Tue

An additional Narnia study has been posted in the Art Pictures section.

05-06-06, Mon

Today is the 61st anniversary of D-Day. Following is the speech delivered to the troops involved in this operation from Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. (source: http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/ssa.htm)

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!

Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

05-06-06, Mon

A few events have occurred since the last time I updated the site. A British car show, the Willow Grove Air Show, and a World War II Air Show.

Matt and I went to "The Brits are Back" car show which was held at Hope Lodge in Ft. Washington on May 28. There were all sorts of classic roadsters and convertibles, as well as some newer cars. Triumphs and MGs were most abundant, but there were also cars from Austin-Healey, Jaguar, Lotus, and some lesser-known marques such as British-Leyland, Jensen-Healey, Morris, Morgan, and Sunbeam. My personal picks were the 1985 Lotus Esprit Turbo, the 1948 Jaguar, and the 1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air Nomad (in the parking lot--Chevy's not British).
Also at the show were some WWII SAS (Strategic Air Service) reenactors. The SAS is an elite British military unit that was started in WWII. They have seen action in Africa, the middle east, Burma, and the Falklands. Since the mid-80s their mandate has shifted to anti-terrorism (they are featured as one of the Counter-Terrorist units in the Counter-Strike computer game). The reenactors were in uniform and explained some weapons and tactics.

After the car show we went back to Matt's apartment and watched the Willow Grove Air Show on tv. It wasn't bad watching it on tv, except we could have done without the color commentary. The Blue Angels were the highlight. In addition to just the F/A-18s they flew a C-130 (we get a lot of them out of Willow Grove) and performed a Jet-Assisted short runway takeoff demonstration. That was pretty cool.

This past weekend was the World War II weekend at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Reading. I wasn't able to make it up there this year, but I have been there in the past. There are a lot of static displays on the ground that you can walk around and take an up-close look at, but they also do a number of flying demonstrations. I have an excellent photo of a P-40 Warhawk in flight as well as some pictures of Japanese planes flying.

05-05-23, Mon

Cars page in the pictures section is up. Pics from "A" through "C" manufacturers are posted.

05-05-21, Sat

I saw Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith last night with Phil and Matt. It was pretty sweet to say the least.

I found out how to do some web coding in CSS (cascading style sheet) format, so I implemented some changes to my format. I created a css file which contains the layout colors, background image link, and other properties. Each page header links to this css file and follows the style. So, if I want to change from the current blue scheme to a red scheme, I just have to change the single css file, rather than editing every page on the site. It makes life so much simpler. Maybe someday I will find out how to let you the viewer change the color scheme.

05-05-18, Wed

The Picture page was started today. I posted a series of CGI paintings I had done based on scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia. I re-read them recently and thought that maybe I'd try painting some scenes, but doing these computer pics is as far as that idea has gotten.

05-05-17, Tue

Today I created this page to serve as a news center for the site. It's all text for now, and the links at the top don't go anywhere yet, but this is essentially what this page is all about. I'll post information here (I'll try this blog format) and the links will allow navigation throughout the whole site. Someday I'll try to get some cool background graphics or something like that.

I attended the Ambler Car Show on Sunday (5-15) and took my new digital camera out for a test drive. I was very happy with the results. I'll try to post some of those pics on the Pictures page a.s.a.p. There were a whole lot of Mustangs. Not that I'm complaining. I love the Mustang. However, my personal top picks were the 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air, the pair of 1952 MG roadsters, and the 1957 Lincoln Premiere. There was also a Ferrari Mondial 3.2 Cabriolet that didn't enter the show but was in a nearby parking lot.

05-05-09, Mon

Today marks the groundbreaking for work on LisasBrother.com (2.0). After years of neglect, I am finally revamping "Jon's Rockin' Page". I first started the site back in 1999, my freshman year at Geneva. It turned out fairly well for being a Geocities PageBuilder site, but I just didn't keep it current. I think I've only edited one or two things in the past couple years just so that Geocities wouldn't yank it.

However, now I've decided to scrap most, if not all of the current site and build something better. I want it to be clearer, more informative, and have better picture galleries.

So check back often...maybe this time I'll actually maintain the site.

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