April 1, 2007
20 photos
20 photos
The Krause Family came to Clearwater for a baseball tournament that Adam and Peter were in. We got to see them play in their first two matches of the tournament.
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March 18, 2007
9 photos
9 photos
Before we get old... yes, we still get down and party :) - we celebrated St. Patty's day with some of our friends that live close to us. We ended up going to a local Irish bar that we frequent called Mickey Quinns. Happy Saint Patty's Day!
March 15, 2007
Jill caught a picture of me while I was sleeping... Max and I were both passed out!
March 12, 2007
4 photos
4 photos
I was hoping to post up engagement pictures but we haven't had a chance to do that yet. So I decided to just post a couple of pictures of Jill's engagement ring. What do you think? We'll get some official engagement pictures up as soon as we can.
March 10, 2007
15 photos
15 photos
The ACC College Basketball tournament was in Tampa this year at the St. Pete Times Forum. Needless to say, Jill and I took advantage of that as soon as we could and ended up getting tickets to the Quarterfinals. After 10 years, I finally get a chance to see my college play in the ACC tournament and what happens... they lose in the first round to Miami. We took a chance at buying quarterfinals tickets hoping Maryland would be there. Nonetheless... the tournament was a blast. We're so glad we got to experience that. Tickets were sold in sessions. We went to the Friday, March 9th early session which meant we got to watch two games. North Carolina vs. Florida State (Jill's team). Florida State lost, sorry Jill. The second game was Boston College vs. Miami which went into overtime from a last second shot by BC which was awesome. BC ended up winning by 3.
March 5, 2007
16 photos
16 photos
Here's some recent pictures of some more house work we've been doing lately. It's just never ending. Most of the new work in the kitchen here was done by Jill. She did an awesome job... very artistic. As soon as I get more time, I'll post more remodeling pictures. We've actually done quite a bit. The back computer room, the second bedroom, and the entry way all have had work done. The latest one we've been working on is getting the front entry way finalized. We're also painting more rooms soon but that's probably still a ways away. Keep your eye out for Max in some of these pictures - I'm sure you'll find hilarious.
January 2, 2007
We’re Engaged !!
Jill Zimmerman, a graduate of the University of Phoenix, is to be married to Michael Reyes, a graduate of the University of Maryland. Ms. Zimmerman and Mr. Reyes are both System Administrator’s/Engineer's at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The Wedding Date is to be announced, however will not be until 2008.
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December 25, 2006
33 photos
33 photos
Merry Christmas! Buffalo was a blast. Past couple of days I've gotten to experience true buffalo wings, chip dip, pizza, hot dogs, and roast beef on kimmelweck - found only in Buffalo. Mouth getting watery just thinking about it again. I also got to meet and hang out with Jill's wonderful family. Christmas Eve we had a little get together at Jill's dads/stepmoms house. Christmas day with Jill's mom/stepdad... and then Jill and I spent an after-christmas day back home in Florida with our dog Max.
December 23, 2006
10 photos
10 photos
For Christmas this year, Jill bought me a plane ticket back to her home town of Buffalo. After already meeting her immediate family I got to meet the whole extended family this time. We had a blast. The set of pictures in this album is when Jill took me to Niagara Falls which is a short drive from her parent's place. We stayed on the America side and got to catch some of the fireworks that was going on. It was extremely cold so we didn't stay that long. Cold for me... but apparently 20 degrees was very warm for that time of year. We also checked out the local casinos where I made my usual deposit. Most of the pictures didn't come out too good as my camera doesn't fair too well in dark light.
December 4, 2006
9 photos
9 photos
Here's some of the decorations we put up at the house for our first Christmas together here in Florida. Christmas in Florida is definitely a very different experience. It's hard to see that Christmas is right around the corner with the weather being so warm.
December 1, 2006
Here's a picture of an armadillo I caught a picture of in the backyard as it was leaving. This is the first time I saw it as these things are nocturnal. Annoying thing is digging holes all over the yard. Max started chasing and barking at something I couldn't see... so I rushed to get the camera to take a picture of it so I can figure out exactly what's been digging all the holes in the yard.
November 24, 2006
7 photos
7 photos
Mom came to visit - and we spent thanksgiving day over at the Estores Family who live about 45 minutes away.
November 22, 2006
22 photos
22 photos
Here's the latest batch of pictures from the house. Jill and I scrambled to get a lot of work done before our visitors arrived. We had about 6 people stay at the house for a 4-day weekend. And then now Mom is in town to visit until sunday. The biggest changes/additions - remodeled kitchen, new dining table/rug, new TV setup, and new outside patio furniture. Enjoy the pictures and let me know what you think.
November 20, 2006
My friends came into town recently and convinced me that I should have a game console in my setup. With little arm-twisting, I was convinced to get the Xbox 360. And just my luck, they just recently released the HD-DVD add-on to the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 comes with component video cables, but I ended up buying the Xbox 360 VGA HD AV Cable - which is a must for all high definition fanatics. Since Xbox 360 came out about a year ago, they were a little late to jump on the HDMI technology. In order to get full 1080p resolution in both games and High Definition movies - you must have a TV that supports VGA connection, and have the VGA HD AV Cable. The HD Component AV Cable will allow games to play up to 1080p but only allow movies to play up to 1080i or 720p.
So my previous discussions about deciding on a DVD player have become un-important. I find myself in a place where I don't have to worry about what movie to go for - HD-DVD or Blu-ray. Now I just get either one. In most cases I dont have a choice though. If it's a movie by Universal - I buy it on HD-DVD. If it's a movies by Fox, Buena Vista, or Disney, - I buy it on Blu-ray since those are the only options available. Now that I do have options - I hope to post my own opinions about the experience with each of the formats. Look for that in the future. Will post pictures of the setup soon.
October 30, 2006
Next on my list to supplement the newly purchased 61" Samsung DLP television was a new DVD player. Since the TV supports full 1080p resolution, I could go no less than a DVD player that outputs at 1080p. The 1080p world of DVD players is fairly brand new in the United States with two different technologies to choose from: HD-DVD or Blu-ray. These technologies are so brand new that my recommendation to most people would be to wait... don't buy into any of these until atleast 6 months from now. However, being the person that I am... I had to buy into one of these pretty quickly. But which one to decide on...?
We've been through a bunch of format wars before in the past - most notably: VHS vs Betamax, DVD+R vs DVD-R, etc... HD-DVD vs Blu-ray is simply our latest competition. Both formats are similar with the following characteristics:
- Both use a blue laser (instead of a red laser) to read DVD media. The blue laser is more precisioned and is able to read more tightly packed data. So studios are able to use larger capacity DVDs and pack more content. More capacity = more High Definition content that can be stored.
- Since HD content can be stored on these higher capacity DVDs, everything can be outputted at full 1080p resolution.
- Both have a technology that allows output of different video panes on a television set. Which basically allows you to watch a movie and then bring up a pop-up menu that overlays on top of the movie. So you dont have to stop a movie to go back into the main menu.
- Due to the higher capacity, most DVD movies are able to include uncompressed audio soundtracks. These are the direct audio transfer from the master - without any loss of quality
The main differences between the formats are as follows:
- The total capacity. HD-DVD claims 15GB for a single-layer disc, 30GB for a dual-layer disc. Blu-ray claims 25GB for a single-layer disc and 50GB for a dual-layer disc. Easy winner here right...? Well, continue on
- Studio/Company support. This is where it gets annoying. Sony is the creator of Blu-ray... and Toshiba is behind HD-DVD. Sony's new playstation 3 comes out in November which will have Blu-ray support obviously. So where does that leave Microsoft... supporting HD-DVD only. Studios for the most part have accepted both formats and will tend to release DVD movies in both formats. However, a few have only chosen one or the other. Most notable ones include Universal (only releasing DVD movies on the HD-DVD format), Disney (only releasing DVD movies on the Blu-ray format) and Fox (also releasing on Blu-ray only). Overall it looks as if Blu-ray has more support from companies and studios.
So, you might think it sounds clear that Blu-ray should be the way to go. It definitely seems so on paper. However, here's how the past couple of months played out so far:
- HD-DVD came out first. Probably a good two months prior than Blu-ray so they've had the head start. Right now HD-DVD has a ton of movie releases already out
- Blu-ray is released but with a very slow start. Direct comparisons showed that it looked as if HD-DVD was better quality. Later was revealed that the only Blu-ray player on the market right now has a bad chip in it... that to date still hasn't been truly fixed (but will be fixed via firmware update soon). The DVD Player (Samsung BD-P1000) was and still is the only Blu-ray DVD player on the market (although a couple of new players just hit the market recently if not soon).
- Initial Blu-ray DVD releases all used an older video codec (MPEG2) opposed to a newer codec used on HD-DVD movies (VC-1). VC-1 codec, not surprisingly - was created/developed by Microsoft
- Lastly Blu-ray fails to perfect the 50GB dual-layer disc
Despite the bad start from Blu-ray I ended up going with Blu-ray mainly because of it's wide industry support and higher capacity discs. I truly believe those are huge factors. So, I ended up buying the only blu-ray player on the market at the time, which was the Samsung BD-P1000. When I bought the DVD player, I was unaware of the 'problem' that a lot of people reported on. The problem is basically a noise reduction alogorithm chip (something like that) that is defaulted to on... and for some reason or another is causing a softer picture than wanted. I personally do not see a major picture degradation. The picture quality is a sight to behold. Granted I dont have an HD-DVD box right next to it to compare. It's been reported that Samsung should be releasing a fix soon... so I hope to get my hands on that shortly. Other than that... all other issues seem to have been resolved at this point. The movie Click was the first movie that was released from Blu-ray as a 50GB dual-layer version - so that problem seems to be resolved. Studios are now starting to use different video codecs as well. So deciding on Blu-ray left me little choice but to go with the Samsung BD-P1000:
As far as pricing goes... DVD movies in both camps range from $25 to $30... so roughly $10 more than regular DVDs. The initial HD-DVD player is roughly $500 cheaper than the initial Blu-ray dvd player... but that's all about to change soon. HD-DVD has gone through it's own fair share of first-generation mishaps. Their next DVD player will be on par with Blu-ray's pricing of a whopping $1000 price tag. Yea, pricey indeed. The image and sound is a sight to behold though. Truly amazing. My future prediction - studios will continue to release on both, or one or the other - but players will be released a year from now at the most that will be able to play and write to both formats. Next up ... Audio System!