Travis Bell

iRobot: SciFi movie or reality?

Travis — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:31:26 +0000

I’m going to go out on a pretty safe limb and predict that we’ll have walking, talking robots in the lifetime of the next generation (if not in my own lifetime).

Link to article

FC Dallas 2008 Goals

Travis — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:11:49 +0000

FC Dallas compiled a video of all 59 goals in 2008. Pretty cool.

FCD Goals 2008 from FC Dallas on Vimeo.

Pandora

Travis — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:49:11 +0000

Even though I didn’t go to ACL this year, I still managed to come out of Austin with a new music discovery. Muchos gracias to Mark for tuning me in to Pandora. Pandora is a product of the music genome project, which aims to ”capture the essence of music at the fundamental level” using over 400 attributes to describe songs and a complex mathematical algorithm to organize them.

Basically, you tell Pandora what kind of music you want to listen to by selecting a song or artist, and it creates a great big playlist of similar music for you. I think this is what Apple is ultimately trying to do with their iTunes “Genius” feature, but Pandora has a huge head start. So far, Pandora blows Genius out of the water.

Did I mention it’s free? A great way to discover new artists!!

You can listen from pandora.com, or there are standalone applications for PC, Mac, the iPhone, and a gob of other internet-capable mobile phones.

24 hours

Travis — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:43:24 +0000

This time next high tide’ I be boardin’ a plane t’ th’ good old USA. `Tis been a great six moons o’er here in th’ UK, but I be lookin’ fore t’ goin’ homeport. I’ve made a top-ten list o’ things t’ do when I get homeport. Half o’ th’ list be food/drink related…
10. Sleep in me very own bunk
9. Drink a Shiner Bock
8. Eat a pizza
7. Be havin’ a pub night at Th’ Flyin’ Saucer
6. Eat a hamburger
5. Hang ou’ wi’ Th’ Horde
4. Go t’ an FC Dallas game
3. Hang ou’ an’ play wi’ me puppies
2. Visit Mark, Heather, an’ th’ twins in Austin
1. EAT SOME TEX-MEX!!

Oh, an’ in case ye didna notice…today be National Talk Like A Pirate Day.

The Graditude Campaign

Travis — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:42:58 +0000

Next time, don’t be afraid to show your gratitude.

iConcertCal

Travis — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:40:36 +0000

Paul from work just told me about an awesome plugin for iTunes called iConcertCal. Basically you provide your city and state and then the plugin will scan your iTunes library and cross-reference all of the artists against a concert database. Then it populates a calendar with upcoming concert dates/times/locations. It will even export to your iCal. VERY cool.

Download it here: http://www.iconcertcal.com

Google Sketchup

Travis — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:43:29 +0000

After toying around with Google Sketchup for a while, I’ve decided it is awesome. It took me a little while to figure it out, but I think I’ve got the hang of all the basic stuff. They’ve got a ton of tutorial videos online, so that helps for sure. Did I mention it’s free? (it’s google, duh!)

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to fix up the room upstairs, and now I got to render it on the computer. Wicked!

From Townhome

Paris

Travis — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:03:58 +0000

This past weekend’s road trip was to Paris for a few days. I left Friday after work and took a train to London, then the Eurostar rail to Paris. Not a whole lot to blog about, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

Los Angeles and Dallas

Travis — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:59:33 +0000

I finally got to go home mid-June to see friends and take care of errands/appointments. I really didn’t have a chance to sit back and fully relax, especially since I worked most of the time, but I did have a little fun.

I started it off with a great trip to LA. The US national team started World Cup Qualifications on the 16th, and a few of us Dallasites made the trip. Not much to say about the game except they actually showed up this time. Oh, and it was
8-0! Yeah, yeah, it’s only Barbados. I know…it was still fun. The rest of LA was pretty much spent in pubs or our hotel pool. (by the way, there’s nothing wrong with swimming in your underwear when you don’t have your swim trunks!)

Back in Dallas, I just worked and ran errands. I did get to have a gathering with Inferno friends and with The Horde, though. I also managed to spend a day with my puppies who I miss very much.

Pictures:

London

Travis — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:51:03 +0000

I went to London back in late May (can you say delayed blog?) for the USA vs England game and a bit of touring around. The game was pretty bad ’cause the US players didn’t seem to be trying, nor did they apear to care. But any time you get to go see the national team play, it’s still a good time.

I met up with Adelaide and Jose after the game and spent the next couple of days touring around London with them. I didn’t go everywhere I wanted, but the city’s not going anywhere…I can always go back. Here are some pictures of the game at Wembley Stadium, the BBC headquarters, QPR’s stadium, Craven Cottage, and the Sherlock Holmes Museum: