Two New Galleries at Seanrainer.com

I've updated seanrainer.com with two new photo galleries. One from Dunsmuir and the other is just some misc. photos I wanted to share. Enjoy! And please let me know what you think. 

Turtle Twins

Ok, I couldn't mention Scott without posting this adorable picture of two of his beautiful daughters.

We got to spend the day at Dodger Stadium with them and Jessica on Sunday.

Headed for the Atmosphere

Headed to see Son Volt again on May 4th. This is a picture I took from the Son Volt show last fall. It was a truely amazing show and I expect this one at the House of Blues to be just as magical.

SV is co-headlining the show with Drive-By Truckers, who my cousin Scott assures me I will love. Opening the evening is Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets). We're trying to round up the troops to go with us. If you're interested, send me an email.

It's ok to open this Pandora

Happy Thursday! Time for another web site recommendation. This is one of my favorite "Web 2.0" programs. It's called Pandora and it's like "Tivo Wishlist" for music.

Basically, you create "stations" by entering in an artist or band that you like. Pandora then compiles a variety of songs based on... based on... well, it's based on some complicated stuff but that's not important. What is important is that it finds new music similar to your favorite artist. And it's all free.

It's amazing how many new artists you will find mixed in with some classics.

Just in the course of this post I've heard several great songs from artists I've never heard of... but will now look into now:

Aberdeen
Tyler Hilton
Devics

Anybody know anything about these artists? Especially Devics... this song is awesome! I'm going to iTunes right now to buy it. You go to Pandora.com and see what you can discover!

Wilco World

There's a full Jeff Tweedy acoustic concert freely available on the Wilco site. I've listened to it twice. Check it out before they remove it.

She's Got Legs

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

30 Boxes

Softball game tonight. The Master Batters are still looking for our first win but I think we have a good chance tonight.

Not that I would forget about the game, but to keep track of all my appointments, I use a little web site called 30boxes.

I have tried to use event calendars in the past and I've always given up on them after a few days. I've been using 30boxes for about 3 months now and it's the first site I check every morning.

The reason? EASE OF USE. If I have a doctor appointment next Wednesday, all I do is type "Dr next Wed." And POOF, there it is. Type "Softball every Monday" and it creates a recurring event.

Of course, there are all of the regular options for reminders, invites, etc. But I don't have to mess with those if it's not needed.

Lots of other great features like sharing and RSS integration make this an excellent choice for your calendar program.

Saucy Monky

Last night was Saucy Monky at O'Brien's in Santa Monica. These Irish girls have a sexy sway and great pop sensibilities.

Last night they had a new drummer... another cute girl that can really play.

I highly recommend catching their monthly gig at OB's. If you can't wait that long, they'll be at the Lounge in Hermosa next week.

Blue October

We saw a sold out Blue October show last night at the Roxy. They are a Houston band that is getting a lot of buzz right now. Their latest Unversal release, "Foiled," debuted at #29 on Bllboard's Top 200. The first single from the album is a warped love song called "Hate Me."

Vote for the video at VH1.

Their moody debut cd, "The Answers," still ranks as one of my all time favorites. These days, they are a much harder band than when I followed them in Texas. But the passion, intesity and, yes, dementia of lead singer Justin Furstenfeld are still there... just a little louder.

Venice Surf

Check out the picture on his board!

Where did the snapshots go?

So someone wants to know:

Where is the snapshot section we all loved so much? Will it be returning?

One of the casualties of the redesign was the big snapshot section with lots of pictures of friends and family. Most of the photos were pretty old and I thought it was time to clean house. Of course, many of those photos are available at seanrainer.zoto.com.

The Snapshot section is still on the Photo page (at the bottom) but there's only one gallery at the moment. I suppose if there is a specific gallery you want to see, I could put it up. Just leave it in the comments or email me.

Mail Big Files

Here's my internet tip for the day: Say you have a file that you want to send to somebody but your server says it's too big to send through email. What are you gonna do? Burn it to a cd and snail mail it? No way. Not anymore.

There's a great web site out that there solves this problem completely. It's called mailbigfiles.com. It allows you to send up to 1GB completely free!

No more FTPing big files, no more burning cd's... even those cute little USB flash drives aren't as important anymore.

Give it a try. I use it all the time.

Working out the kinks...

So maybe I put the redesign up before it was ready. Almost immediately after uploading it on Friday, I got reports of broken/insufficient navigation. Most of it was in the "Snapshot archive" section which has since been removed.

The other thing I did this weekend was to rely a little more heavily on seanrainer.zoto.com because it offers 2GB of storage and an easy way to create galleries. The more I work with Zoto, the more I like it.

Go Bruins!