Why Character Still Matters

In this post I'm not going to talk about technology and rather I'm going to tackle a issue that I believe is being thrown under the rug in our society today. And that is the subject of character, honor and integrity. In today's society this is hard to find among people. As an example look at the movies that are shown in theater's now a days. Personally if you look at the movies that were made 5 or 6 years ago you will find that for the most part these movies don't have the same things that go on in the movies that we see now a days. The movies and TV shows being made now have no morality in them at all compared to a few years ago. This is evident as it is clearly pinned out in these movies how the dismantling of the family unit is defined as well as how men treat their wives. This brings me to my next point and primary focus of this post "Character In Relationships." This is a biblical principal that (whether you believe in the Bible not) applies to relationships today. In today's relationships between teens and even young adults is this kind of weird relationships based on petty things. By petty things I think most of the readers of this post know what I am talking about. Let's go back to square one. Let's define what a relationship is. A relationship in the form of "dating" is designed to be a period of time when a man and a woman are exclusive to one another and are starting to form a bond between them and seeing if a long lasting relationship can be held between the two individuals. There is a second flaw when looking at relationships and this has to do with the CHARACTER of the person. Inward character is far better than outward looks as the inward characteristics will last through time. This is important as for you girls out there when finding your husband/boyfriend. Make sure that the particular person is a person who thoroughly believes in principles and lives them out in their daily lives. The way they conduct themselves is a good judgement on how he will treat you as well. And guys make sure that you are looking for the same things inside your "significant other". This is extremely important as well as this is a way to avoid getting into a bad relationship in the first place. After relationships should not be some spur of the moment thing for pleasure rather the purpose as crazy as it seams is to find someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with. By judging someone based on their character and morals before you start a relationship can save you from entering a less than perfect one that was not designed properly with roots based on honesty, integrity, and character.

Art Museum Field Trip/Exam

Last Friday was one of the best exams ever. The same teacher that I have been talking about in previous posts (who is awesome for the record). Instead of a traditional exam we instead went to the Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts in Richmond. This was such a fun experience. We actually saw what we were learning about. We got to actually experience the art and culture that we were learning about. Since there are only 3 other people in the class with me we got to eat at a fancy restaurant in the Museum. The food was spectacular!  I could not have asked for a better day or for any better people to share it with. It was really an amazing trip and I am really looking forward to the trips to Washington D.C with these amazing people!

Washington D.C Film Project

Let me just say first off that I have an amazing teacher. No joke. She is amazing. She loves technology and learning and is just simply amazing for lack of better terms. Instead of an exam for this semester we went up to an art museum in Richmond Virginia. However that's a separate post. Recently she won a grant from the "Target Corporation" yes, THE Target Corporation. Basically this grant is for our class of 5 to go to Washington D.C and make a series of educational videos showcasing the memorials and monuments of D.C. I'm really excited about this as the people that I will be working with to do this video are extremely talented people who are passionate about what they do. It will be a pleasure to work with them. We will be making several trips to the big city and I have really high expectations for these trips.

Life Update: December 2012

Wow, it's been just about a month since my last update. Yeah....I've been busy. So let's see, the last post I made was when I was painting my room. That feels like forever ago! It's complete now and I think it looks really awesome! It's complete for the most part and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Thanksgiving: Since most of my family lives up in New Jersey it's hard to get together for
Thanksgiving. So normally we have Thanksgiving with my childhood friend, Michael Berry, and his family. We always have an amazing time reconnecting with my old friend.

After Thanksgiving it was time to hang up Christmas lights and the holiday decor. That's always a fun time with the family :-)

Before we leave the month of November there was one really fun opportunity that I had. I have this amazing teacher and the way that we run the class is through the "Socratic seminar" way of teaching. Personally I'm a huge fan of this type of learning. And since (as most of you know) a technical minded person she wanted me and a couple of friends to film the seminar in action. She then will be sending the finished product that we produced to Harvard, William & Mary and some college in Ohio. This was really exciting (and something else as well which I'll get to in a minute)

December (Almost Christmas): December so far has been an amazing month. December started out with that same teacher mentioned above who won a grant from Target (yes the store) for this world history class that I am in. Soon we will be making some trips to Washington D.C to do a series of educational videos on the memorials and monuments in Washington D.C. I'm REALLY excited about this project as I'll be working with some amazing people who are really smart and will be knowing what they are doing and will passionate about the project. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
I'll be sure to keep the readers of this blog updated on this special project.

That's just about it in the month of December so far. I'll be making some more posts going into some of the things going on as mentioned above that will give those things in more details. Merry Christmas!

-Michael

What To Do In A Power Outage?

Here's some great tips (as a geek) for surviving a power outage! Hopefully with this Hurricane coming for this east coast these tips can be a help to you.

Elevation Dock Review

It's finally here! Elevation Lab had to send me out a new iPhone dock connector. But after that it worked like a charm! Check out my review below!

iMac Is Back!

Sorry about not posting about SO interesting news! Monday evening I was able to stop into my local Apple Store and pick up my beautiful iMac. A quick time machine backup and things were back and booming! Apple truely works wonders and their genius bar is second to none!

-Michael

Without Desktop For A Few Days

Yesterday Apple sent me an E-Mail saying that my iMac desktop was part of a batch with defective hard drives that could fail at any time. Today I went up to the Apple Store with my iMac. I was expecting a quick fix that could be fixed within a couple of minutes. That was not the case. The genius at the bar said that they would give me a call within 1-3 days when my iMac would be ready for pickup. The reason for this longer fix time is due to the fact that they did not have that many genius's on staff to fix the defective hard drive. Mind you the hard drive had not gone out yet. However I didn't want the hassle of fixing the iMac when the hard drive had failed. For the time being I have a smaller setup using my MacBook as a "Desktop". I'll attach a pic of my setup for the next 2 days below. I'm not mad with Apple as I can make do with my MacBook acting as my desktop for a few days. It's just a minor inconveniance and the fact that I'm stuck with my less than perfect normal setup for a few days that's kind of messy and not as efficient as my desktop. I'll be sure to post when my desktop is back!

Until Next Time!

-Michael

My Setup For The Next Few Days!

Hands On With The Elevation Dock!

I've said this before and I will say it again. This is an amazing dock. This is the dock Apple should have made from the very beginning. None the less it is here and I got to play around with it! Check it out!

Elevation Dock Is Here!

After waiting for about 3 months for this it's finally here! Check out the unboxing video below!

Elevation Dock Has Shipped!

A couple of months ago I pre-ordered the Elevation Dock from Elevation Lab. This was a highly sucsessful Kickstarter Project that set records on Kick Starter. While I wasn't a backer on Kickstarter I did pre-order the dock for $90. Today I recieved an email from the kind people at Elevation Lab that my dock had shipped. Wheather they had messed up and thought I was a Kickstarter backer and sent it out before the pre-orders came out or that the pre-orders have actually shipped I am very excited to be recieving my dock! Look forward to awesome coverage on what looks to be an amazing project!

Apple USB Hub

While this isn't REALLY an Apple USB hub i did think it was pretty cool. You can pick one up off amazon for around $20.

Apple Designed USB Hub Is Here!

Earlier in the week I ordered a USB Hub. This hub is special because it looks like a hub Apple would have designed. It has come and as soon as I get home from school look for an unboxing video. I'm pretty excited about it!

Elevation Dock

The Elevation Dock, perhaps one of the best Kickstarter Projects and quite possible the best iPhone dock. I ordered one just a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully they will be shipping in 2 weeks! I'm pretty excited about the whole deal. I'll have full coverage on the dock as well as unboxing and a review of the dock.

New iPad Is Here!

At about 3:15 this afternoon the nice FedEx person delivered my iPad! This followed:

iPad Smart Case Unboxing

Last week I ordered my new iPad 32GB+4G and while that hasn't arrived yet (hopefully today) the case has. The case is the Apple Smart case. It's dark grey and does an excelent job protecting the front and the back of the iPad. As an added bonus it also sleeps and wakes the display. I'll have the iPad unboxing and review video hopefully later on today. But until then enjoy the unboxing of the iPad Smart Case.

ATT Customer Service Fail

Today I had a very difficult encounter with AT&T Customer Service. Let me start off by saying that I made the decision to move my family over to the AT&T mobile data share plan. Not to hard right? Go online make the change and get your data plan and then hopefully soon after have access to a mobile hot spot feature as well as (since I'm running iOS 6 beta) FaceTime over 3G. So yesterday I made the order and got a conformation e-mail with a confirmation number and saying that my order would be complete within the next 24 hours. 24 hours goes by and we only have personal hotspot on only 1 phone. Then we go online to AT&T online live chat and try to solve the issue there. We say to them how's the order coming? We then proceed to give them our conformation number and they are like that does not exist! I then suggest emailing the conformation email that they sent me back to them. Apparently "they can't do that". Later I would actually PHYSICALLY call someone at AT&T. While on the phone with this person I literally feel like the Peggy person from those discover commercials. They could not help me either. So this afternoon I drove over to the local AT&T store and hopefully resolve the problem. I go over there and I hand the guy my phone and he's like this phone is jailbroken. I'm like no, this phone is ruining iOS 6 beta (I'm a developer). He's like "you're not supposed to have this" once again I'm like "I'm a developer". He's like these things happen with pre-release software. I'm like if this is true then why don't my family's other iPhones not work with personal hotspot. He then proceeds over to his computer to look things up. As he is looking things up he's like no wonder I see you have a 3GS. I'm like no. I upgraded that one to an iPhone 4. So in theory we all have iPhone 4's and iPhone 4S'. He's like OK. The last instructions are to go and just restart the two other phones.

And here comes the best part.....as soon as we walk out of the store the personal hotspot feature starts working again......meh... and that right there is why AT&T has the worst customer service period. Because with all this server downtime and countless errors within their (OLAM) {online account management} I mean come on people. You can't get your server's ready for an iPhone launch event that happens EVERY flipping year? REALLY.....And that is why AT&T you are ranked as the lowest in customer service....sigh....and the best part is that I'm locked into them for life basically....Thanks AT&T....Thanks

All The Best

-Michael

Heading Off On Vacation To The Beach!

The second vacation of the summer is about to be underway in just about a week! We are going to a secluded island where NOBODY is. It is very relaxing. We might be taking our dog. I think she'll like it. Which would mean that we'd have to take two cars(more post on that in a moment) but anyway It's going to be fun! We are going for our second year in a row and we really like this place! Boogie Boarding, collecting shells, and building sand castles! It's going to be fun! I'll be sure to update you guys as it's in progress!

Until Next Time!

-Michael

Tech Team Starting Up Again Soon! (And I'm Excited)

So the second season of everything that the tech team at school is starting up again! I couldn't have picked a better group of friends to hang out with! These guys and girl are my best friends and I really like them as people as we share so much and common and SO many inside jokes between us! All of our intros have been made and we are starting everything out on Saturday with a lunch basically going over everything coming this year! I'm excited for everything that's in store!

Until Next Time!

-Michael

New Dog

Backstory time!
Let's just say I'm a cat person. I've always had cats. Always liked cats. They basically come and go as they please cuddle up with you and don't take much. I like dogs but never thought that I'd ever have one. Now I will atempt to tell you the story (with as little bias as possible) how my family got a dog!

It all started out when me and my sister got new beds and thus new sheets. When the time came to donate said sheets my mom called the Humane Society to ask if they wanted any. So we wen't over. The building has a little cart on the outside where you can drop off your donations. So we did. My mom then insisted we go inside just to "look" so we looked and then we found this dog. Her name is Kita. And my family seamed to enjoy her because she was the only one who wasn't barking and yapping up a storm as some of the other shelter dogs do. So the next day they came back with my father. They really liked her and decided to put in an application to adopt her. Thing is. Well. They were the second adoption request so in my head I'm thinking it won't be us and she'll go to a perfectally good home. However that first family never called back. Now there was another adoption that was even before us. Turns out that person was a close friend of my mom. And the person wasn't thinking of getting her. So she came to us. We picked her up and she is now home with us. She is working out very well as she is such a sweet heart. She knows her training and is a very good dog and is starting to get along with the cats (that will take time) So yes. Would I not have gotten a dog yes. But now that I have her I just want things to return to normal as soon  as possible. So yeah basically that's what is going on with the new dog!

Until Next Time!

-Michael

Happy 4th Of July!

Happy 4th of July! Hope everyone is having a great day and remembering how this country was founded! We've come a long way since then but we must always stay true to our country's routes! On a completely seperate note the pool was fun and tonight it's off to the Fireworks with some friends! I'll hopefully be posting some pictures! Happy 4th Everyone!

Vacation Was Cool/Update On Summer

Well...vacation was pretty sweet! Caught some fish and got alot of tubing in and such! Total blast! Now swim team is fully underway and we are winning out meets and life seams to be working out just fine! My summer web show is currently in production and i'm loving life!

Vaction Tomorrow!

Hello people on computers!

I will be going on Vacation to Smith Mountain Lake Tomorrow! It's going to be an absolute BLAST! I'll be posting videos of the trip on www.mandswebsite.com! Thanks!

Last Day Of School!

Today is the last day of school! As I type this I am sitting in my last exam class with 10 minutes to go! After this exam I will be showing a film I made with some of my friends in Yearbook! After that I AM DONE! YES DONE! I'm really exited! But I will miss some of my friends! However tomorrow is an end of the year party for all the 8th Graders! Two days after that I will be on my way to Smith Mountain Lake for a week! So within a couple of hours it will be summer! Only a couple more hours!

Almost Done With School!

I will be done with 8th grade in exactally 3 days now....I'm excited for school to be done and summer to begin as I have many projects to work on between tech and swimming! After school is done i'll be heading up to Smith Mountain Lake for a week! That's going to be alot of fun! I'm really happy with all the strides our tech team at school has made over the year! I can't wait for next year!

Video From Colonial Williamsburg

Video that I shoot in Colonial Williamsburg during a beautiful spring day!

Heading Up To DC

As most of you know, I am a student, and in 8th grade our class takes a trip to our nation's capitol, Washington DC, I'm looking forward to the trip and hope to be getting allot of coverage with some other people that like film and such! I'll be posting an update from there and possibly posting some videos! We leave tomorrow at 7:15 A.M!

A Look At The Backyard In Spring!

Since my backyard is looking so snazzy after we layed down a new layer of mulch and made a cool new passageway It was a perfect day to make a video of all the stuff blooming in the yard! Take a peak! 

Awesome Day At The Courthouse!

Today I had the privilage of (with the fellow members of the WCA Tech Team) film a mock trial. It coulden't have gone better! We actually put microphones on the kids (attorney's) and we were able to tap into the courtroom's audio feed (the podium microphones in the room) which was pretty cool. As when we asked for permission to do it the guy basically just said here is where the audio equiptment is located, from there (for all the geeks out) a quarter inch cable into our mixer. Camera work was excelent! I won't be editing this one but I can't wait to find out how it turns out!

My Film/Tech Gear

Canon XA10

This is the Camcorder that I use for all my videos.

Custom Fig Rig 
My custom fig rig for about $25. Works Really Nicely.

Rode Video Mic Pro
My go-to microphone for recording audio.

Mac Book Pro 13"
This 13 inch 2.4Ghz Mac Book Pro with 8GB of RAM is my best friend out in the field.

Quad Core 27" iMac
My home base. This is what i edit most things on. A true power horse.

Final Cut Pro 7
My editing software of choice. FCP7>FCPX

Motion 5
My compositor of choise. Perfect for lower third making and intros. 

Adobe Design Standard
Consisting of Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. Perfect  for photography editing

Original iPad
Always nice to have laying around.

iPhone 4S
My personal phone. And a very good one at that.