Picasa is available for Mac

I mentioned in a recent post that I was totally dissatisfied with the picture managing software that comes with a Macintosh computer (iPhoto). Just today, I remembered that I had heard Google had finally released Picasa for Mac, which I was thrilled to find out to be true. I don't know when Google did this; I know it had been rumored for a long time, but it finally happened. I'm sure this is old news, but I'm so excited. I'll be trying it out as my new picture manager instead of Adobe Bridge (which is wonderful).

So far so good. I've uploaded my first batch of pictures using Picasa and am now ready to do a little editing.

If you're interested in downloading Piacas for Mac for free, you can do so here

One more Neko Case post

I took the color out of this picture (even though I thought that might be kind of a cliche thing to do), and I think it looks awesome, so I'm posting it. And just to be clear, I did take this one. It makes me wish I had my better camera...

Neko Case

Neko Case was in town this past Thursday and I took video of her singing a couple of songs. She is unbelievable. So is Kelly Hogan, her back-up singer.

Here she is singing "I Wish I Was the Moon"




Here she is singing "Star Witness"




Here she is singing a new song that's going to be on her new album due out March 2009

I've rid my life of iPhoto

Thanks to a terrific tip from my friend Matt, I've successfully replaced iPhoto as my photo manager with Adobe's Bridge. For those who don't know, iPhoto is easily Apple's weakest program; I've experienced nothing but frustration with it. Bridge, on the other hand, is absolutely terrific, although a little bit advanced for me right now. Ideally Google would release a version of Picasa for Mac. Picasa is the greatest base-level picture manager I've ever used.

A really great deal

I've decided to take up tennis again and to show my dedication, I've purchase a new racket:



This is a racket that retails for $300, but I got a really great deal on it--$225 off the original price! I'm really excited to see how it will improve my game.

I've also started taking tennis lessons. I got these for free too, so I feel really great about that.

Let me know if any of you want to play.

South Carolina

I recently enjoyed a trip with my two oldest sisters to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. I took a bunch of pictures there (mostly of my nieces and nephews) that I'd like to share with you.


















This picture (obviously) is not of my nieces and nephews. It's of a building on River Street in Savannah, GA. It dates back to the 1700s which is really cool. If you get the chance to visit Savannah, do it.

Back pain is the worst

Several weeks ago I was at the gym. Some of you might not know that I go to the gym, but I do, and I'm usually very careful while I'm there. Two and a half years ago, I was at the gym doing an exercise with my legs and I reinjured the herniated disc in my lower back. I did the same thing a few weeks ago.

Only this time, I knew immediately that I was hurt, and hurt really bad. I immediately stopped what I was doing and began to head home. I was immeasurably inconvenienced when I realized that I had ridden my bicycle to the gym that day. Because the pain this time was setting in so quickly, I knew there was no way I could get on the bike to ride it home. I thought at least I could walk--slow as it may be.

I began, but only lasted about one quarter mile before I collapsed on the side of the road. I laid (I don't care if this isn't the accepted past tense form here. The word is impossible to get "right", so I'm telling all of you to just go with your ear--whatever sounds right, in this case, is) there for about an hour until a woman in her sixties stopped and asked me a question.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I think I'll be fine--I just injured my back pretty bad."

"Do you need anything?"

"Well, um, do you think I could get a ride to my apartment? I live just down the road."

"Oh, I'm actually late to babysit my grandkids. I could call my husband though."

"Oh that's fine--I think I'll be ok."

I don't blame this lady for not wanting to let a 25-year-old stranger into her car. It's just too dangerous these days. I don't know why I didn't have her call her husband, though. I was in a lot of pain.

So there I laid for honestly 30 more minutes. I very slowly regained some strength during that time until I could sit up straight. This was a huge improvement for me. Eventually I was able to get my whole body on my feet and even take a few steps.

Now at least the bike I brought with me was coming in handy: I could use it as a walker so I could walk totally hunched over without having to use my back to keep my body upright. I walked this way nearly half the way home to my apartment before an incredibly nice lady and her son stopped and told me "You look like you're walking really gingerly. Can we give you a ride?"

Sweeter words I have seldom heard. They loaded my bike into their car and within a minute, I was at home in a warm apartment lying on a carpeted floor--much better than the side of the road.

It took only one week to completely heal this time, which is pretty fast. I'm glad to report that I'm back to full health. And I'm no longer embarrassed to admit that there are just some things my body can't do. It's not worth going through that process again.

Amazon has awesome customer service.

My best guess is that everyone who will read this post has made a purchase or two from amazon.com. But I don't guess that everyone who will read this post has had to interact with an employee at amazon.com's call center before.

This is a good thing. I take it to mean that Amazon's website works seamlessly enough so people don't have to call them up with complaints or complications. I did have to call them, but it turned out the problem I faced was entirely my fault.

For my birthday, my sister had given me an electronic gift card to Amazon (such a wonderful wonderful gift), which was easier to apply to my account than I could have imagined. I planned to use it in the near future, but I wasn't sure just then what purchase I would apply it to.

Last night--late--I decided to buy a Logitech mouse with Bluetooth technology for my computer. I'll be doing some large projects on my computer soon and thought having a mouse would be a little more convenient than only using the laptop's track pad. When I went to make my purchase, however, I noticed that the money from the gift card was no longer applied to my account. I could only think to call someone at Amazon to see what they could do, but it was so late, I thought there was no way I could talk to someone and get the problem fixed that night.

Despite my doubts, I did a search for the Amazon's customer service phone number and was impressed to see a button labeled "We'll Call You!" right next to the toll-free number.

So I don't have to make the call and be put on hold? I thought. Someone will actually call me and save me all that time? I was so curious to see if this was too good to be true, I thought it was worth a shot.

Please keep in mind it was nearly 1:00am when I clicked the call button. Within a matter of twenty seconds, I was on the phone with one of the friendliest people I had ever spoken with over the telephone. The gentleman helping me told me that I had set up two Amazon accounts by mistake, and that the money from the gift card was applied to my other account. He logged me in to that account, I made my purchase, and now we're in the process of closing down my unnecessary account.

I just loved the whole experience. I love good customer service and now I've got three companies on my list of Greatest Customer Service Givers. I recommend any of these to you:

Costco
Apple
Amazon

It's nice to know that these people genuinely care--or at lest they make me believe they do time and time again.

I'd love to hear your great customer service experiences. Make some recommendations to the rest of us. If we all band together, none of us will ever have to suffer through Best Buy-esque customer service again.

Tuna Melt part 2

Some of you will remember reading a post a few weeks ago where I shared a secret recipe for a delicious tuna melt. I've now perfected it and I'd like to share the updated secrets with you.

The biggest difference between the old and new tuna melts is the cheese. Remember the old one used feta cheese? It tasted good, but feta cheese didn't melt in the broiler, which made the melt loose quite a few points when it came to texture. To fix this problem, I've replaced the feta with fresh grated asiago cheese, which melts to a beautiful golden brown. Plus it's delicious.

The only other difference between the two melts is that I now mix the dry tuna with a little bit of olive oil and rosemary in a bowl before putting it on the bread. Just these few changes have made this one of my favorite meals.

Here's what it looked like after it came out of the broiler today.

Perfect description

This is taken from the description of the Decemberists on stubhub.com. I particularly like the last three words:

The Decemberists are one of the fastest-rising indie bands on the scene, and one of the most recognizable, as front man Colin Meloy stands out for his country twang and black-rimmed glasses.

The line is drawn here.

I have to draw the line somewhere and here it is: when I'm looking on the internet for a great restaurant to visit and one of the restaurants in the list is Burger King. There is no need and no excuse to include Burger King on a list of restaurants in a decently-sized city. My gosh. Now I don't know what I'm going to do.

Oh no!

I came home from school just about 10 minutes ago and, upon looking in the mirror, found that I had unknowingly been walking around like this:


!!!. I may as well have been wearing a pair of flip flops with my jeans.

I was cheered up, though, when I remembered that this beautiful book came for me today in the mail:


Royal Skousen thinks the world of this book, which means there's a great chance that I will too.

Lucky to still be alive

I wasn't too thrilled last night when I found out I had a dentist appointment in Murray during my holiday. I woke up extra early today to call and find out what time I had to be there, and when I found out that time was 10:30, and that it was snowing so hard, I thought I should leave right away to give myself plenty of time.

I haven't been so upset in recent memory when I was stopped on the freeway around Thanksgiving Point due to traffic. It was a full half hour before I moved faster than 5 miles per hour again. I was so so so so irritated. By the time I was able to drive at a comfortable speed, I made a bad decision: I tried to release some of my frustration by driving faster than was safe. Around 45th south, I drove too aggressively right into about six inches of dirty slush, which sent me spinning 180 degrees. The next thing I knew, I was looking into the faces of the people behind me.

I think one of my strengths is staying way calm in a situation such as this. I simply waited for a large gap in traffic, all the while hoping that everyone who passed me would become aware of me in time to slow down. I eventually got turned around and made it to the dentist only about 10 minutes late.

I was reminded again today how important it is to drive carefully in this weather, no matter how much I loathe it.

Still my favorite

I turned on the TV after getting home from the Sundance Film Festival last night to find that this movie was on TBS :



and I was again reminded that this movie lives up to my every expectation, despite years and years of talking it up to myself, and remains my vote for best movie in the world.

I'm still sore

Remember that dance party that happened nearly a month and a half ago? I had a great time, despite putting a gash in my forehead that made me think I needed stitches immediately. Now I'm wondering if I didn't do something to my ankle. It still hurts at times. Maybe it's a hairline fracture? I'm not sure.

I shouldn't trust myself when it comes to diagnosing my sicknesses. I remember a while ago I fell down hard, but caught myself with my hand and arm in locked position. Shortly after my fall, I began experiencing a clicking sound in my elbow joint every time I straightened my arm. I went to the doctor expecting the worst, but he told me it would just go away in a few days, which it did. Another time, I had re-injured by back by trying to lift too much weight with my legs. I was paralyzed for a day and had to miss work. I went to the back doctor and he told me the soreness would just go away in a few weeks, which it did. I don't think I should go to the doctor for my ankle because, if history has set any kind of pattern, he'll tell me the pain will go away in a few months. I think it's best to keep waiting this one out.

Tuna Melt

Lately my favorite kitchen appliance is the broiler. Today I made a delicious lunch with it, and that's what I'd like to share with all of you today.

All I did was take two pieces of whole grain wheat bread and set them on a cookie sheet. I buttered them and then crumbled some feta and parmegiano cheese on the pieces. After that, I drained a can of tuna fish until the tuna was bone dry and flaky. Then I broiled it in the oven until the tuna was browned, the cheese was melted, and the bread was toasted. I ate it with a knife and fork and it was absolutely delicious! Way better than that gross tuna melt I got at Apollo Burger one time where it was just a cold scoop of tuna and cheese between two pieces of bread.

Give this a shot and see if you like it as much as I did.

It's nice to be blogging again.

The End

Everyone,

Most of you who read this already know, but last week I found myself in the hospital again getting an emergency surgery on another infection that needed to be taken out. This occurence combined with the strange infection on my finger that has lasted for weeks and puzzled the doctors has lead me to the decision to come home a few weeks early from Germany. This means that I'll not be able to go on my scheduled trips to London, Rome, or Prague, which is really sad. But to be honest, now that I've had several days to think about things, talk to the doctors, my teacher, and my parents and family and friends, I know that coming home is the right thing to do, and I feel very at peace with the whole idea. That's not to say that I wouldn't have loved being able to see more of Berlin as well as the other cities I had planned to visit, but I'm excited to get home and get better for once. I've been sick for a while and think I just need some good old American health care to get me back to 100%.

So, I will look forward to seeing a lot of you soon.

London

I had a little bit a scare recently. But first let me back up a few weeks.

About two weeks ago, I started seriously considering ways I could get to London for a weekend while I’m here in Berlin. London is super expensive (thanks mostly to the fact that the Pound is worth nearly twice what the dollar is worth), so it was a little difficult finding ways that would make it affordable. But I found a cheap flight there and back (more on that later) and after some thought and planning regarding lodging, I had a realization: my sister has a friend who lives just outside of London. I contacted her, asking for any recommendations on where to stay or what to do while I’m there, and she responded with an invitation to stay with her and her husband at their house for free! This was unbelievable news to me, and immediately put the trip in my price range. I booked my flight, which turned out to be 50% off from the time I looked at the pricing before (now don’t think this is that good of a deal. The airline Ryanair lets you fly from Berlin to London and back for about $60.00 which is really good. But the way they do things is advertise the flight at $0.99 and then tax you the rest of the $60.00. So when they advertise that the flight is half off, it doesn’t mean the flight is now $30.00, it just means that the flight is now $0.49, with almost the exact same amount of tax. A brilliant business scheme), so I booked and felt great about going to London.

I had planned the trip for the time that Ben Kweller would be playing a show there, which I was really excited about. Tickets would have been kind of expensive—again, thanks to the terrible exchange rate—but still well worth it. I contacted my friend Sarah-Ashley, who has personal connections with Ben Kweller, to see if there was anything she could do about getting me on BK’s guest list, thus making the concert free. She immediately pulled through, sending me an email the next day telling me I was all set and on the guest list. I felt great. Things could not have worked out more smoothly, I thought.

But then just this last Wednesday, one of the students here was working on getting her visa because she arrived in Europe one month before everyone else did. As she was talking to the people at the Goethe Institut who were helping her with that, she mentioned that all 25 of us were going to need to get our visas taken care of soon too, which caused the Goethe Institut to panic. We all had an emergency meeting the next day, where we were told that we would need to give up our passports to the German government so they could get our visas in time, thus making it possible for us to get out of the country in December without getting arrested. This would have been no problem at all for me if I hadn’t already planned this London trip, booked my flight, arranged my lodging, and gotten on Ben Kweller’s guest list. As it stood, I wasn’t going to be able to go to London because I wasn’t going to have a passport on the day I was flying out and I was devastated.

All day I felt sick to my stomach. I went to the British embassy with my teacher and another student to see if there was any kind of temporary papers they could give me to get me into the UK when I had planned, but they said that without a passport, there is no way to get into the UK. I then went to the American embassy with another student to see what they could do. They were considerably nicer than the British embassy, but still didn’t seem too hopeful. The passport office was closed, but the man at the front desk told us that if we came back tomorrow, they might be able to get us a second passport, but they couldn’t guarantee it would come in time for our flights and we would have to pay for it. I was willing to pay a little bit for another passport, but I had no idea how much it was going to be. So we made plans to head back to the American embassy the next morning and see exactly what they could do for us.

I went back to school for the afternoon and had a pretty good class, but was still really bummed. Just before class was over, however, I got a phone call from my teacher, which I couldn’t answer. I went downstairs after class, though, and found him there with some of the other students surrounding him. When I approached him, he told me that I was going to be able to go to London on the days that I had planned because by some miracle the Goethe Institut was able to get the German government to release our passports (those of us going to London) just before we go, then we are to give them right back to the government when we get back to Berlin. Anyone who has ever had to deal with any government bureaucracy knows that this is a total miracle. I felt so good getting this news! So now the trip is back on, with only one minor flaw: I was planning to see Footloose the musical while in London because I grew up next door to the kid who stars in it now—Derek Hough. And I would have loved to see it, but it ends the weekend before I get there. That’s not a big deal at all though—especially considering the fact that for almost 24 hours, I was under the impression that I couldn’t go to London at all. But everything’s worked out now, and I’m so excited.

Institute

Everyone,

My class at the Goethe Institute is going just fine now. I was really worried at first that five hours per day in the same room was going to turn out to be too much, but it goes by really fast, and I love the way my teacher talks, so it feels like the time flies.

There are people from all over the world in my class--Brazil, Cambodia, Spain, Turkey, and NORTH Korea (!). Everyone's very nice, but sometimes it's hard to understand people. It's different than taking a German class at BYU becuase often times, German is the only way we can communicate with each other; we don't have another choice. But I must say that it's interesting that a lot of the students will default into English when they don't know the German word. English really is where it's at. We have to work in parters a ton and I kind of get tired of that, but that's ok. Things at the Goethe Institute have worked out just fine.

The other day in class, we read a story about a kid who was a punk, wore punk clothes, and had a mowhawk and because of all this, he couldn't get a job. Then we had to divide into two groups--one saying that he is responsible to change his look and do what it takes to get a job, and the other saying that he should be able to get a job despite his look. There was another lady from America named Judith in our group (the one saying he should just change his look if he really wants a job) and as the arguement was getting way more heated than it needed to, she started saying something like, "well in America, you can't get unemployment pay...". Right after she said "America", the teacher was very quick to point out that we were in Germany. It kind of made me cringe to hear that student say that. And then I thought it was interesting that anyone else from another country could have said something similar to what Judith said, and I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. It's weird that that's how things work.

I'm a little bit nervous about getting everything I need to get done done. We've got this major assignmet where we're supposed to see 100 examples of different kinds of architecture or art or objects and write a one page paper on each one. I've only got about 15 or 20 finished. It's going to be a busy next couple of weeks.

I sat in on a discussion with the missionaries tonight with a guy who is really close to setting a baptismal date. Naturally, I was pretty quiet, but I said a few things (some in English becuase he understood English), but I tried my best at German. It's still terrible, but it's getting better. That was cool to see missionary work in another language. I've only seen it in Spanish a few times before, so it was cool to see it in German.

It's really cool to be feeling more at home here. The my hostlady is out of town for a few days, but no big deal. She told us when she gets back, she will have a little more time and can cook for us. I'm excited for that.

I'll write again soon. With pictures.

Colder Weather

(This was written a couple days ago, but it's just now getting posted. It's still pretty up-to-date though)

Everyone,

It has finally become cold in Germany. The weather today was what I expected it would be like all of last month: cold and grey and rainy. I had an umbrella which made it really kind of fun. I’m really glad it’s become cold because I have not been able to get cool in this country up until a few days ago. It’s not so much the fact that there’s no air conditioning, but no fans even—no way to even move the air. My bedroom window faces into a courtyard, so wind isn’t really an option. But now it’s getting colder and that’s really nice.

I write this blog as I am sitting WITHOUT my little donut cushion! I am healing from my operation each day and it’s getting to the point where I can get around pretty well now. I have been seeing the doctor everyday so he can check the wound and redo my bandaging for me, but today he told me he wants to see me in two days—a pattern that I think will continue, which is nice. He says my wound is getting smaller and smaller and that it looks like just what he wants to see. So things are going really well in that category.

I went to the Goethe Institute (the place where I’ll be taking my German language classes) today and took a placement test. I did about as well as I should have, I think. I start my classes there tomorrow. As far as I know, I’m there from about noon till 5:00pm each day. That’s kind of a long time, but I’m looking forward to having more of a set schedule and to feel like a student again.

I went to the KaDeWe today. The KaDeWe is a super upscale shopping center with stores for Louis Vuitton, Dior, Chanel, Mont Blanc, and every other super expensive brand you can think of. It’s kind of weird because on one of the top levels, there is a super market where you can buy lots of American things: a Fifth Avenue bar (almost $2.40 per candy bar) or root beer (almost $6.50 per liter!). I was excited about the Fifth Avenue bar, but clearly that was way too expensive. As far as the root beer goes, there is one KFC/A&W in Berlin and it offers free refills, which is something totally unheard of here. It’s one of our favorite places to go for a cheap, filling meal.

A few days ago, we, as a class, went to the Technik Museum where we got to learn about printing. It was really cool because we got into groups and set some type and printed a little poster of whatever we wanted. I’m into that kind of thing. We’ve visited a lot of museums and seen tons of historical things. The museums we’ve been to have all had so many different kinds of exhibits, it’s really hard to soak everything in.

I have a pre-paid cell phone so that I can keep in contact with my classmates when I have to and so people can call me. When I bought it, I put some money on it and I thought that money would last me for quite a while, but just the other day, my phone told me that it was only good for emergency use. I couldn’t send txts or make calls, and I wondered what could have possibly happened. I was worried that the phone company was charging me for the incoming calls I’d received, which were supposed to be free. But just today, a friend from school told me that I had left a 10 MINUTE message on her phone. Then another friend said I called her during Sacrament Meeting last week and another friend said I called her earlier this week too. This was all news to me. It turns out that, because I didn’t know how to lock my keys, I was wasting all my minutes by inadvertently calling people from my pocket. I was kind of embarrassed to find this out, but glad to know the reason for my quickly-used minutes. I learned how to lock my keys today.

I’m really liking it here, and time is going really fast. I’m so glad to be healing faster than the doctors had thought (did I mention they originally thought that by Christmas time, I should be about healed!). I saw that Morrissey is coming eight days after I leave, but that’s ok—it’s on a Sunday anyway. Plus there’s a concert coming on November 30 that I’m looking forward to: Regina Spektor. I’ve met some friends at the institute (as in the Church institute) who are going also, so it’ll be fun.

Thanks to all of you for reading this and for your support. It’s really fun to hear from you. I hope everything is going well for you.

Jordan