justin_tx_16

Here is the Jonny Lang shot I got the other night, featured on another thread. Oh and I do have quite a few that follow the rule of thirds but for the lighting effect I was going for, the halo, I really needed a centered shot and being crammed against hundred(s) of people in a street concert makes framing a good bit difficult haha. Fun still!

Well wow, I had no idea that my post would become such a popular one. Off topic and yet somehow on topic haha. Just incase you missed it, www.piczarphoto.com is where MY photos are and I try to update it at least a couple times a week, with some exception. I've been busy doing the university politics thing. I was accepted into the photography course series BUT they ran out of seats. So this week has been a mission of trying to convince professors and advisors at different levels that I'm worth having as a fifth wheel. Yesterday I got my permission number that allowed me to be OFFICIALLY in the course program. Hurray! Otherwise it would push me back another semester. Great to see everyone's varying pictures, styles, techniques and skill sets/levels. I'll go ahead and post one now, my first for this thread believe it or not. It's actually not a particularly special picture to me, I took it last night as this incredibly powerful storm approached my university. You can see the view here from my apartment, it's a pretty sweet location.

I've put up a photography site to kinda showcase some of my work and get an override to an advance photo program at my university. If you'd like to see some of my pics, check it out. http://piczarphoto.com To view all the pics, click the "all photos" link on the top right Thanks, comments welcome

Here's a shot from the concert. Incredible does not begin to describe howhe performed.

Remember Jonny Lang? He was part of the Klipsch Legend's series where famous music performers advertised their love of Klipsch? Well, I just met him, we had coffee together at Starbucks as I was cooling off from my bike ride (iced coffee for me). He was every bit as nice as you would expect and said he still loves the Klipsch speakers he got. He was just so personable and nice and has a concert tonight which I will of course be attending. Klipsch not only makes the best speakers the world over, they choose some of the best people to represent them. Way to go!

All good and valid points, things I have mentioned to my friend. Love the idea of looking of the property records, thanks! I'll send the message over to him. I also agree, it sure is cheap. Though, I can see it being possible. When I lived in San Francisco, I rented a one bedroom place with a living room, full sized kitchen and a bathroom off the entry way for $550/month. http://www.rentalsonline.com/rentalpropst.asp?cid=20568 I dug up some more on it, looked up the owner and yeah, the listed owner is not an Antonio but a lady named Natalie who is selling her co-op for $249,000 with maintenance fees at $750. Wow! Someone is pulling a scam for real. I guess when things are too good to be true... they really are! Thanks for the help guys.

Funny how we see what we want to see. I thought exactly the same thing. But now I don't. Me too at first glance and I wasn't even looking for that. haha

I have a friend who is moving to New York City from Columbia Missouri. He has found an apartment in NYC, great deal, beautiful place, being leased out by owner who lives in London. The owner wants $1400 deposit (two months rent) before handing over the keys to the place. That would be all well and good except he hasn't been into the place yet. My friend is going to NYC this Thursday but the owner is unable to grant him access to the place, holding the only keys in London and does not have anyone to open the doors. I suggested he use an escrow service to hold the money until both parties agree that the apartment is a good idea. Obviously sending $1400 across the pond to someone he has never met for a place he has never seen is a bad bad BAD idea. Have you guys any experience with escrow services? Any other suggestions? Any escrow service recommendations? I have been looking at escrow.com and iescrow.com Thanks guys. This has always been the best place to ask for help with the most random questions. P.S.... how many times did you think I was asking about escort services?

The speech went off without a hitch... well, except for the hitching of the bride and groom (har har). Thanks for the advice guys. I kept it short, sweet and honest and it was perfect. And who would have known that a fellow bulletin board member would have been there! It's true! Course he'd have to come forward with his name since... well I only know his real life name, but what a set of RF--7's he has ;-)

I've been a huge fan of Nellie McKay and have actually met her. She is a wonderful live performer and such a charming, sweet person. I got her debut cd the day it was released and have been hooked ever since.

did the bass suffer too much when you moved yours up?

My brother is getting married to the most wonderful girl I've ever met, next Friday. I, being his little and only brother, have been tasked, honored, with the obligation, pleasure to give a toast/speech at the wedding reception. I'm not sure if you guys know this but I suffer from some extreme anxiety in these sorts of situations and just really have no idea what to say. I am so excited about this wedding, nearly brings me to tears to think of what a perfect couple they are and how wonderful this all is. Nevertheless my mind is drawing a blank as to what should be said in this toast. Have any of you guys been in a similar situation? What should I say?! Thanks guys, I know you won't fail me haha

Then you might like this picture I took of my Nikon F3. It's been put through the paces, for sure, but still works like a champ!

I've bene using Hulu since it was in private beta. It's really quite nice and they are starting to put some HD content on there. I plug my Macbook Pro into my Panasonic 42" plasma and enjoy free TV. Yeah, the picture quality isn't great (ABC.com has all of Lost in HD for free as well as several of their top shows in their HDShowcase) but it's free and we don't have to pay for cable. Yay for that. For movies more than Hulu has, check out Silverscreen

I'm not too worried about bass response really. I'm not sure if it is the concrete walls and ceiling of my apartment or the hard wood floors but I find the bass overwhelming at times. I also have a small Klipsch sub, talking really small, an SWS, that I can use paired with the Heresy's if I need to fill that bottom end. I used to use the SWS when I was in my old place but here, it was just too much. Does that make sense?

I got my friend to pick up a D-40x and she just loves it. I have a D-80 with several lenses and she is able to use them all, it's just that he AF feature DOES NOT work. There is no motor on the lens mount of the D-40's which is why they can only use lenses with built in motors, in Auto Focus mode. She has used my 70-200mm which is not a D-40 lens on hers with great results. My friend just got into photography recently but you can see she is quickly improving now that she has the tools.

Yeah, glad they didn't catch me!!! haha! You think I'm clean... you haven't seen anything! I'm crazy about being clean... It is something that I grew into, definitely wasn't always this clean. So the plans look good eh? Thanks for the comments thus far :-)

I have a little place in the wine valley, in Forestville California, I went through all the wineries on the way home from school/work everyday. It was wonderful. One that I really like, but isn't for everyone, is the Dry Creek Valley's Late Harvest Zinfandel. I believe it was best in 2005. Comes in half bottles for around $20. Check it out! Dark red, rich flavor, just a beautiful wine.

My last fill up... I almost cried! It's the most I have ever paid, lucky Missouri hasn't hit the top yet.

So I need some stands to push up my Heresy's to more ear level while I sit at my desk and when I'm walking around my apartment. Right now they sit on the floor at the sides of my desk. I know they aren't made to be near field monitors but.... It's what I got haha. Can't see them too well, but look to the bottom right and left, printer sits on the one on the left. So I'm thinking about raising these guys up a bit, around 26 inches and at the same time creating shelves for my photography equipment and books. Here are the plans I whipped up... The bottom of the shelf could hold my heavy portfolio books or my gallon jugs of distilled water (used in developing my film shots). I am not too worried about it being top heavy since the base is the same size as the speaker and with the weight of the portfolios/water jugs in the bottom. I tried making this up in SketchUP to give a 3D view but I guess it just isn't made for the mac, it crashed everytime. So back to the pencil and paper! This would be made with 3/4" wood, the back panel would be solid and screws into the other four peices to make the whole deal solid. The middle shelf is screwed to the sides/back to increase sturdiness and I plan to put a few wedges in there to further stabilize. I have hard rubber feet for the bottom of the stand to secure it to my hardwood floors and thinner rubber feet from the speaker to the top of the stand. So what do you guys think? Good idea? Bad idea? Or should I scrap the whole deal and plug in my Promedia's (2.1's or 5.1 Ultras) and just use them on the desk? Love to read any of your thoughts! -justin

I have found that the double flange, smaller ear tip works best for me. Once you get it in, you just forget about it. It is certainly my favorite, never had such a comfortable fit, period.

This is purely a review of the product, not the sound. I want to dedicate more time to listening to these headphones before I post that review. This is an examination of the physical qualities of the headphones and its contribution to the total sound, later on. Klipsch Image Headphones Physical Impressions Headphone jack design is fantastic. The jack fits perfectly into an iPhone without requiring the extra adapter and blends into the 2G iPod Nano seamlessly. Not requiring this extra connection is a simple way to reduce resistance which would count against the sensitivity of these headphones with the already comparatively low powered headphone jack of the iPhone. The ends of the cables meet the headphones and the jack with an abrupt end. Just as the headphone jack and the earphones themselves fade away into their enclosures, it would be a nice touch if the cables entered into the headphones via molded rubber/plastic. Sloping off to nothing is appealing to the eye, prevents shorting out as it extends stress joints and in this case, might simply allow a slightly thicker cable to be used The cables themselves are long enough that you can put your portable audio player in a jacket or pant’s pocket but not so long as you get tangled in its mess. The cables are a bit thin for my taste. I’m not a big high-end speaker cable pushes but just from my experience, a little thicker cables would be nice. The quality of the cables appears to touch and eye to be of lower quality than the sound they carry. Appearances aren’t everything but I do worry about these cables catching on something, being caught in a door jam, rolled over by a desk chair, whatever random anomaly and becoming severely damaged. I have gone through several sets of headphone cables between my Shure and my Ultimate Ear cans. The original cables of the Ultimate Ear ifi 5 Pro’s were just slightly thinner than the Image with less rubber around the wires, they shorted out in three months. They were replaced with heavier duty cables by UEs but the density of the new cables (the wires and the cables were at least twice as thick) caused the Y-joint to short out as well as where the cables meet the headphones. My Shure I2C-M cables feel indestructible at the sacrifice of looking like power cables! There really is a happy medium out there. Overall though, I’m happy with the cables (though the right cable is about 1/2” longer than the left, as expected with a prototype). The Y-joint in the middle of the cable, beyond not fading into the thickness of the cables, is fantastic. It does it’s simple job well. The stress reliefs are key and I’m glad to see them on there. The stress points on the headphone jack and the earphones seem to work very well. I have never actually seen a solid piece work so well, especially when compared to the accordion style options out there (much better than with the Custom 3’s headphone jack). The earphones’ copper color is complementary to the overall package, a little richer, darker copper would better match the Reference line. The way the black blends into the copper is a great touch and the lettering underneath designating R and L is still easy enough to read without scaring the otherwise fantastic finish. The copper enclosure feels incredibly durable, the best I’ve felt. A pair of Ultimate Ear’s I once had managed to crack at the junction of the headphone and the silicon earpiece. This certainly won’t happen with the Image. The tight fit of the earpieces is a welcomed feature. I cannot count the number of times my E3c earpieces found themselves lodged into my ears without a headphone connected. The UE’s are even worse at this once they have aged a bit. A wax guard really should be added. The pair I have had the left earphone full of wax. I at first thought something was wrong with the balance of my source. After verifying my source I checked the headphones and saw the culprit. A careful use of the in-ear-canal headphone cleaning tools fixed this. A short note on the wax guards... One of the ear pieces has a wax guard in it, unfortunately this wax guard easily slips through the earpiece, I can see it working its way out of the earpiece and down into the ear canal. Shure has been using an adhesive screen on their headphones for a while. You typically get a set of six with the headphones and just adhere them to the edge of the earphone before putting on the earpieces and you’re good to go. They seem to stay on even with frequent earpiece changes. The earpieces themselves work better than any I have used. Their oval shape is genius and the rubber’s texture way improved over the dry feeling UE’s and the overly soft Shure and Etymotic headphones. UE headphone earpieces need to be moistened to get a decent fit into your ears and the Shure and Etymotic headphone earpieces slide out too easily. Perfect harmony with the Images, smooth and soft enough to make a solid feel with comfort and yet textured enough to stay in, even while jogging. They also don’t require you to pull and tug on your ear to get them in. Sadly I get a whistling noise when walking with the Image’s, especially with the single flanged earpieces. Pushing the headphones deeper into the ear canal only slightly helps this problem. It’s a pretty big problem to me, walking through the long hallways at work I have to turn up the volume to cover this up. Sound isolation with the double flanged earpieces is top notch, disturbingly good actually. I spent two hours working on a project at a noisy cafe and at a normal listening volume entire Kaldi’s Coffee patronage disappeared behind a curtain of sound. This is better than the triple flanged earpieces of my Shure and Etymotic models. Truth be told, the sound isolation is so seamless and natural, I didn’t even realize how effective it was until this evening. Leaving work and listening to Lara St. John - Bach the Concert Album, jogging up four flights of stairs. I am doing my typical wandering of the garage looking for my car, as per usual I hit the “Panic” button to sound my car’s alarm. I hear nothing. It wasn’t until the end of Concerto No 2 in E Major Part 1 before the flashing of my car’s lights caught my attention. It seems that the comfort, sound quality and noise isolation were all so good, I forgot I had headphones on, despite hearing the Allegro. THese guys blocked out my car’s horn only a few yards away. The horn is 110dB... By the way. Turn these headphones up a bit and you can’t even hear your own voice. Often with these in-ear headphones the outside world is silenced while the user’s voice appears louder. I could only barely hear myself singing (as loud as I could) to Rufus Wainwright’s interpretation of Hallelujah. When using these headphones, I can’t help but imagine them as an iPod implant into my mind. They simply disappear and until you turn on your source, the are inperceptible to your conscious. From their miniscule dimensions to their imaging and transparency (while not perfect, impressive considering their size), they evanesce. evanesce |?ev?'nes| verb [ intrans. ] poetic/literary pass out of sight, memory, or existence. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Latin evanescere, from e- (variant of ex-) ‘out of’ + vanus ‘empty.’ You literally forget you are wearing these things, it’s truly remarkable. I can’t wait to continue listening to these in different situations, especially on my flights to Texas and New York in the next few weeks. Sound Review to come.

Why mess with it? Cause I'm in college haha. If it was a $350 tuneup then I'd be all over it but it sounds like a more expensive venture so I'm gonna have to save up for a new LCD or perhaps another one of these projection types. I love the big screen... So, too many windows for a plasma leaves me with either an LCD or a projection screen. Thoughts? I mostly watch AppleTV until I can get some over the air HDTV in here (help with that too?). I can't get cable or satellite. Don't even mention that one haha, my landlord says no, no, NO! This building is nearly 100 years old with a foot of concrete between floors and 4 inches in every wall (even interior walls!) so they won't let us bring in cable. Plus HDTV programming here would cost me around $70+ month with our local cable company and again, poor college student thing going on here. So, projection HDTV or LCD? I want something between 40-55 inches, 1080i/p though I have been told 720p is the same as 1080i (?) and I can't spend my more than $2000 and anything below that would be absolutely awesome.

So I have been incredibly busy this summer haha. I saw a bunch of you guys at the Klipsch Pilgrimage, had an incredible time there. The Klipsch ppl were so kind and generous, I for one got a ton of one-on-one time with engineers as I marveled over certain new products and the simplicity of the complexity of crossovers with Colter. After the pilgrimage I went to Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and... Now I'm back in Missouri. Just wanted to drop a note to you guys since I didn't really get a chance to say howdy and thanks after the Pilgrimage.

I have a Mitsubishi 55" HDTV WS-55809, love it. Great picture, solid cabinet and ... well it was free from my Dad so that's a huge plus. Recently it has been giving me problems. The screen will have this terrible rainbow effect that happens for about the first 20 minutes SOMETIMES and then goes away. It does this about 30% of the time and then, once it has been on for a while, everything is fine. Today however, I turned it on, terrible rainbow effect... a few minutes later it was perfect and then, it went back to a rainbow. I can open the convergence screen and show you what it looks like. I'm sure you all know that the lines should all be squared and all white. So... Should I just consider it dead OR should I get it tuned up? I mean, when it works, it looks great. If I did a tune up, does anyone have an idea how much it would cost for someone to come out to my house and re-calibrate it? Also, since this guy doesn't have an HD Tuner... how much does one of those cost? Thanks for all of your help guys!