Tonight I started and almost finished the framework for my first Android app.
1. Edit my manifest to give me permissions to receive and read SMS.
2. Edit my manifest to point to a receiver class for SMS events.
3. Create a main class to stop and start the background Reader service.
4. I create a TextReceiver BroadcastListener that listens for system SMS messages from the OS.
5. I start a Reader service that listens in the background for notifications (an Intent stuffed with Extras from my TextReceiver using startService(Intent))
When a new inbound message arrives in my TextReceiver class, I pass an intent to my TextReader class. (Android MAKES you do it this way. They say you can’t do any asynchronous stuff in your system event listener classes)
Right now all this does in the TextReader class is just pop up a Toast every time a txt message comes in (until you stop the service manually). This is great because it works no matter what other app you might be in.
It’s just a simple matter of checking “Are your headphones plugged in” and then instead of a toast message, invoking Android’s TTS function inside of TextReader. Other steps after that will be to pull the calling party name from inbound calls, as well as sender name and message content for XMPP messages.
I should have this app completed in a few more nights of hacking. Awesome.
I was able to piece this together with chunks from developer.android.com, as well as some Google searching. It’s just a matter of stringing together a bunch of other people’s samples to do what you want.
I’m pretty frickin excited about some upcoming shows. I haven’t yet bought tickets because I think I’m the only one that expresses any excitement. I’d prefer to drag someone along with me so here is my sell:
Menomena – Thursday, October 7th @ 8PM @ Cat’s Cradle.
Menomena is phenomenal. They thrive on an interesting sound that is very emotionally invocative.
Take a look at the first Menomena song that drew me into the band: (You’re required to crank the volume)
Here is another great Menomena video:
After seeing those, and hearing how awesome it is, how could you not want to come to Cat’s Cradle with me next Thursday.
The Thermals – Saturday, October 16th @ 8:30PM @ King’s Barcade
I first heard of this band in the closing credits of Weeds. Damn they were good. Here is an example:
Muse and Metric, Tuesday, October 26th @ 7:30PM @ RBC Center
Muse, I don’t even need to show you why these guys are awesome. If you don’t know already you’re not invited.
Metric, here is why I love this band:
Say Anything, Motion City Soundtrack, and Saves The Day – Saturday, November 13th @ 7PM @ Somewhere in Charlotte.
Say Anything rocks my socks off. Let’s see if I can find a decent example:
ANYWAY – you should clearly come with me to see these bands. Whoever you are.
This past weekend I went up to Buffalo for Don and Tiffany’s wedding. You can find some great pictures of the wedding here:
I drove the Z up on Thursday to stop by and have dinner with my dad, and to go see Jaime. That’s an interesting story because I “met” her at my HS reunion. I know what you’re thinking, how do you meet someone at your HS reunion, don’t you know them already? Well yes I suppose that’s true, but when you have a terrible memory for people like I do, and 10 years go by, it’s like meeting someone again for the first time.
I drove the 10 hours up to my dad’s then the 35 minutes out to East Aurora for coffee, then around EA, then back out to Delevan, than back out to EA. We wound up staying out WAY too late, which turned out to be a fun time for everyone. I didn’t make it back home until somewhere around 5AM, at which point my dad was already working on getting up and doing chores.
Friday I went out to see Elementary school friends Janette and Will. That’s always a blast from the past when you can hang out with someone you remember from 2nd grade!
Friday night I spent at my Uncle’s place where my grandmother cooked dinner. Home cooked meal == win!!!
Saturday was the wedding proper which worked out really well. I was partially responsible for some of the decorations. It was my job to light all of the candles hanging from the trees in mason jars. After a few drinks I don’t know what I was doing at the top of a ladder, but I survived. The lights came out great:
You can look through all of the pictures to find some ridiculous dancing, and me getting to hang out with a ton of old HS friends. Always a great time.
On Sunday I made it home from the wedding at about 7AM, just in time to eat breakfast at my Dad’s, and then go to sleep! When I woke up I made a trip out to Rochester to hang out with Kaija and Devon. It was interesting to meet Kaija for the first time after chatting with her online for nearly a decade (wow).
Monday I made the long trek back home to Raleigh.
In the end the odometer says 1700 new miles, and 31 hours of seat time!
My left leg calf was really sore from all that clutching. I’m just not that used to it. The Z drove great minus some hydroplaning issues in the rain. I enjoy road trips more than any sane and normal person should! My friends told me I should be a truck driver since I love driving around so much.
Now I’m back in Raleigh after being in DC for business. Just back in time for Matt and Candra’s wedding. I need a weekend of rest to prepare for it!
Thanks to a very helpful Devon Kerr I now know what parts of my PC were causing my prior trouble.
I was running a Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz LGA 775 in an Asus Striker Extreme mobo with 4GB of DDR2 800 RAM.
I played around with every possible video card and ram combination (since I had multiple’s of each) and had pretty much ruled those out.
Devon was kind enough to provide a Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz CPU, some XMMS RAM, and an ASUS P5B deluxe.
I swapped out my RAM for his RAM, no go.
I swapped out my CPU for his CPU, no go.
I swapped out my motherboard for his motherboard, CPU, and RAM – system fires up.
I put my CPU into his motherboard and RAM – no go.
Put back in his CPU with my RAM – system still works.
Problem identified: 1 x Bad Mobo, 1 x Bad CPU. Really unexpected, but that’s what it looks to be. My mobo won’t work with a known good CPU, and his mobo won’t work with my CPU, even though all compatibility checks out.
Now what to do? I have enough components now for a slower (but working) desktop solution. Maybe instead of buying replacement / upgrade parts I’ll just leave things like they are until something else dies. Either that or go all out with new CPU, Mobo, and RAM.
My home PC died. I could fix it but just don’t care enough. I’m posting from my phone now. I’m addicted to the computer anyway. Maybe a few weeks off will help. Maybe I’ll just be addicted to my phone instead.
When I think of girls that catch my interest I think of Say Anything lyrics:
Across the room
I hear ‘hey, hey hey hey, come polinate me.’
It really is like that on a non verbal subconscious level. It’s just something I can feel.
My complete and utter disregard for speed limits will most likely end with me in jail, dead, or worse. I’m not entirely sure how to temper my need for speed. Maybe I should spend some time at a race track so I’m slower on the street. Get the speed out. Maybe I should get a chauffeur like the guy with the Maserati that goes 185.
I find myself caring less and less about more and more. I’m hoping I’ll find something worth caring about. Selfish interests and indulgent pursuits have been my forte… I just don’t know how much longer that’s sustainable. There must be some purpose to work for besides the weekend?
Does anyone want to come see Menomena, The Thermals, Say Anything, Saves The Day, or Motion City Soundtrack? I’m planning on ditching any and all obligations so I can make those shows in NC.
I’m heading back to NY this weekend for Tiffanys wedding. I can’t get enough of solo road trips. I like my own company in the car apparently. Having music and time to think also helps.
I’ve been ridiculously busy since my last blog post. I’m starting to keep track of things by having my picture folders include the full date in the folder name. Otherwise I’d have no way to remember what order things came in.
In chronological, photographical order here is what I’ve been up to:
Marcy came down to visit Lauren and we all spent a few nights hanging out. It was a really great time.
Raleigh Times:
The Pit and The Saucer:
Matt’s House for Matt and Lauren’s Birthday, followed by Napper Tandy’s:
That one is a pic of Marcy trying out the Rum siphon. Engineering + Alcohol = WIN!
The weekend after Marcy visited, I went out Jeeping with Brendan, Garland, Andy, and Shapess in Mountain City, TN. It was a full Jeep caravan to Callalantee. This place was pretty awesome. We found a Jeep playground to jump over things, as well as some very cool logging trails up mountains!
After Jeeping in TN I decided it would be an amazing idea to ride my motorcycle to NYC from NC to go to a Brewfest on Governor’s Island. I was correct.
I stayed with Pete at his Parents’ place on Long Island for a few nights, as well as spending a drunken night in Manhattan with Munns. It was fun to finally visit Munns and see him in his natural concrete habitat.
Here is the gang drunk on the island. Just like old times:
My back, hands, and wrists were sore for a week after that trip! It’s a hell of a long ride on a motorcycle to just tackle on a long weekend, but definitely an adventure.
I took the weekend of June 25th off for actual relaxing (I think).
The next misadventure was the 3rd of July party at Justin’s house. I proceeded to get liberally sloshed and make a new drinking partner (Ruri) who can drink more tequila than I can, while at the same time thoroughly making an ass of myself. It seems the two go hand in hand. I woke up the next morning on Justin’s couch.. knowing that there was something I should apologize for – but not what exactly. Either way – I had fun!
If I hit on your friend, girlfriend, fiance, or wife (or any combination thereof) I’m sorry. That just happens.
I don’t even remember this picture at all! No one should have let me near fireworks.
I hear they found me asleep in a chair on the back porch and then wrangled me to the couch. I have no recollection of that either.
After much recovering, it was decided that I should start drinking at a more moderate pace.
I spent a weekend of general sobriety Jeeping at Gulches ORV Park in South Carolina with Andy, Nadine, Cam, and Shapess:
Sobriety lasted until the weekend after that – when I decided I hadn’t yet put enough miles on the Jeep, so I drove it to New York. That’s NY trip number 2 of the summer. Probably the 4th time I’ve been to NY so far this year!
Marcy has a cottage up on Seneca Lake in NY. Finger Lakes Wine Country! There was a Wine Fest in the infield at Watkin’s Glen. I drove up with Lauren and Brendan to spend a very long, very relaxing weekend. We floated around in the lake, drank some wine, and took a lap around the race track in a pace car. We even managed to fit a trip into Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse.
Here’s the view from the Lake House
Here’s Brendan very sad about the number of our sign for picking up the wine:
Here’s Brendan and I taking a drunk ride (as passengers) around Watkin’s Glen:
After spending so much time in the Jeep it was time to spend a little less time behind the wheel.
That doesn’t mean I was done travelling though!! This past weekend I went BACK up to New York for my 10 year HS reunion. It was certainly an interesting time. Seeing everyone again brought back a bit of nostalgia (which was to be expected), but also turned out to be a much better time than I thought it would:
After the reunion we drove around town looking for bars that were still open. Quite an adventure.
This weekend I helped Pete move from his small 2BR in Chapel Hill to a big house with a 3 car Garage Mahal. We loaded up a massive truck with furniture and assorted boxes of crap. The best part of helping was getting to pilot his BMW R1200RT over to his place while he towed his other two motorcycles on a trailer. Woo motorcycle.
I’ve finally unpacked from all that travelling and done some laundry.
I’m beat.
I’ve become unstuck though. I want to go somewhere else now.
The summer has one more trip to NYC planned, and then WHO KNOWS? More motorcycling? More Jeeping? A road trip in the Z? We’ll see.
I passed my CCIE Voice recertification. It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I did pretty well and spent more time stressing about it that I should have. It’ll be nice to get the recert money.
Brendan invited me down to the beach. I have pictures here:
Now back to work after the amazing weekend. So much fit into the weekend.
Junkyard hunting for Andy’s cruise control parts
Meeting a new roommate
Motorcycle Ride and BBQ #1 at Andrae’s
BBQ #2 at Samir’s
Beach Trip to Wilmington for BBQ #3 at Sundeep’s
Back home for BBQ #4 at Scott’s
Delicious, fun, exhausting. Also, downloading the day’s New York Times for 99 cents on the Kindle makes for a great way to kill the 2.5 hour car ride back from Wilmington.
I haven’t posted in quite a while. That time has been filled with all sorts stuff. I’ve been riding my motorcycle around, going camping and Jeeping, Ward’s wedding, more motorcycling, and just hanging out with people around Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
I guess I’ll start with links to albums in chronological order, just to document things. I have such a backlog of stuff that I can’t really write it all out in detail. Instead, we’ll skip straight to the pics, and brief blurbs.
Pete and I took our motorcycles down to the beach one random day for lunch. We ate, walked around looking at girls in bikini’s then we turned around for Easter Dinner.
I went to Ward’s wedding and met up with a whole bunch of RIT and Cisco folks. It was incredible to have everyone together again. There was a lot of bittersweet talk about how this was the first and maybe last large reunion of so many RIT grads in one place.
There was camping and Jeeping after that.
Brendan and I took a random Thursday after that and went up to Richmond, VA to see Flogging Molly and Big D and the Kid’s table. They added ridiculously hot dancers. I was immediately in love. We also met up with Esther and her friend that night. It made for a long night. I eventually wound up riding my motorcycle at home from the Cisco parking lot at 3AM. Heated grips are AMAZING!
The next night we went out for Sasha’s birthday party. Raleigh was in full blown skirt season. It was excellent.
The first week of May is a Blur. Brendan’s friend Daniel had a grad party
I saw Steve’s band Idiom play at The Berkely. We met a cute Brunette that worked at an Animal Hospital
Aric had a house warming party where it was decided that everyone loved this girl
We also ran into another short Brunette who had opinions on whether or not Earth should be keeping a backup planet in the works for disaster recovery. Awesome.
Shapess, Andy and I had a random day out at Uwharrie. I had time to dial in the scope on my 22, AND spent some time shooting Shapess’ AK-47. Too much fun there.
On May 12th Kenneth, Pete, and I drove down to Charlotte to see Say Anything and Angels and Airwaves. Say Anything put on a good show but the set was too short unfortunately. It was nice to know that the girls belt out the lyrics to “Every Man Has a Molly” even louder than the guys.
You god damned kids had best be gracious with the Merch money you spend.
Cause for you I won’t ever have rough sex with Molly Connolly again.
I met a beautiful girl with so many awesome traits it’s hard to believe she actually exists.
1. Bartender
2. Graduated Culinary School
3. Loves the music scene
4. Gorgeous
5. Incredibly friendly / nice
6. Brunette
7. Tiny
8. Likes jeeps and motorcycles, knows how to replace a radiator.
Doubtful that said girl will actually get in touch with me – but it was a good night regardless. Another weeknight of getting home around 3AM. Energy drinks are my savior.
Just last night I went to a Skinny Tie Party at Justin Tiexera’s place.
I proceeded to introduce myself to a girl so forcefully that she immediately notified me she was someone elses wife. I need to do a better job looking for rings.
I also met another beautiful brunette who can bust out the quadratic equation at the drop of a ‘hat’. Math teachers for the win. There was Rock Band. People rocked out to Coheed and Cambria, and I sang my heart out to NIN – The Hand That Feeds. I don’t even need the scrolling words to sing this one:
And finally – today I went on an awesome motorcycle ride out to Wilson NC with my motorcycle gang. We hit up Parker’s BBQ and it was delicious. There was some really beautiful back country and great roads between here and Wilson if you avoid the highway.
After riding around NC I went over to Andy’s house and helped him tinker on his new front axle. We removed the diff cover and took out the locker, getting it ready for the new axle. We also greased up his lower control arms, and I drilled some holes for his new bump stops.
I am now VERY tired just thinking about all of that.
The future holds a trip to DC to see the air and space museum, and hopefully a trip out to the mountains with my Mom to check out the roads there.
In other non fun related matters, I’ve REALLY got to recertify my CCIE
I went down to Team Powersports in Smithfield on Saturday morning. Justin let me test ride the 09 demo model they had there. First, everyone in the shop seemed very cool. Second, this bike is big and heavy, but once you get on it that all disappears. It handled like a featherweight at slow city traffic speeds. U turns and figure 8s are no problem. At highway speed it would lay over left and right with just a little flick.
In 4th gear when pulling out to pass someone at about 60 mph you can do about 100 by the time you’re at the front of the car you’re trying to pass. It doesn’t have a buzzy high revving 600cc sportbike power. It’s a sneaky, large 1.4L displacement power that just rockets you up to speed without much noise.
The adjustable windshield was pretty awesome. I’m really excited about putting on some serious miles now that I have a machine made for it.
After the test ride I wound up buying the 2010 ABS model. They’re putting it together from the warehouse and it should be ready sometime this week.
The rest of my time and energy will be spent on hooking up my Zumo 550 and maybe even the XM radio feature, and planning routes. Anybody want to ride up to Indianapolis for MotoGP in August with Pete Slow and myself?
I’ve been destroying books lately. They are great for plane rides, and great for taking your mind off of things. However, I always find myself more depressed than when I started. Something about holing yourself up for days at a time in a fantasy land that isn’t particularly helpful.
I need to remember to throw in more non-fiction every now and again.
I started two new fantasy series at the same time.
George RR Martin’s – A Game of Thrones (A Song of Fire and Ice)
and
Patrick Rothfuss – Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles)
I like them both. I like almost all books though.
I also just recently polished off 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea. Jules Verne is a grand chronicler / cataloger. That means there are whole pages you can just skip. Oh, he’s still listing types of fish in the Indian Ocean three pages later? Next, Next, Next, oh the story starts again. Overall though – great book worth reading. You can see the influence his work in the late 1800s has on modern science fiction. To me that’s fascinating.
Read 20,000 leagues under the sea and then pick up a copy of Michael Chrichton’s Sphere. Makes me want to re-read sphere. I’ve been through that book something like 4 times by now. Great read.
