And... I have no idea what I'm doing

 
Umm, I realized I don't know a lot about computers after I got my fancy Zanzabar 2000 (my and Jay's nickname for my fancy new 'puter), and all I want to do is upload (or download?) pictures from the digital camera and use some Photoshop-like program to resize and compress it. That's all I want to do. Did you know that Windows XP still has Paint as an accessory? Paint? What really can you (or anyone??) do with that? Seriously!

Anyway, I opened this thing called Picasa, and I hate the kind of software that does everything for you and won't let you do anything you actually want to do. This is one of those pieces of software. Oh, I can 'reduce red eye' or 'adjust color' or even 'crop,' but all I want to do is resize and save for web! Oh, easy-as-pie parts of Photoshop, where are you?

Long story short, I chose something along the lines of "Blog this!" after I selected an image I wanted to actually edit, and it opened up a Blogger window with some fancy HTML code at the beginning of the post, and I just left it there and wrote this disdainful post. Now I'm going to post it and see what happens. 

I can't EVEN stand it!

I know I haven't posted in a really, really long time, but I have good excuses. I've been busy researching CAT software (computer-aided transcription) for the last few weeks, and it's taken up a lot of time, but mostly it's taken up a lot of my brain. So this so-called CAT software is something that was originally created for steno machine users (y'know, the little court reporting machine you see on TV), but now they have updated a lot of the software so that it supports voice recognition as an input rather than steno type.

There's not a lot of info about these companies and the software they have, only because out of the billions of Americans out there, only a select few are court reporters, and out of those select few, only a more select few are voice writers (ones, like me, who use voice as the method of court reporting). So these are pretty small, specialized companies, and finding an objective viewpoint about the various programs out there is very tough, because each person that uses a certain program is only using that program, and there's no comparing and contrasting with other programs because they've never used them.

Anyway, I'm getting off the subject. The reason I titled this post "I can't EVEN stand it!" is because in order to be able to purchase and use a CAT software program, I needed to upgrade, if you will, my work computer. And, oh shit, I did! I purchased (well, Jay and I purchased - I mean, it's all from the joint checking account) a Toshiba Satellite with I-don't-even-know-what specs (something like 2 GB of something and 2 GB of something else and 4, count them, 4 USB ports), and HELL, it's orange! I'm not kidding! I somehow picked a computer that was customizable, and when I was online and picking out the specs I want, they let me have an orange computer for free (it's usually an extra $35)!

I guess the reason I'm so excited about it is because I'm writing this post as I sit on the couch in our living room. Hell! I have wireless Internet! I don't know how computers work, but sheesh, I'm sitting here watching some basketball with Jay and typing a blog entry! I can't even stand it!!

Can you tell that I've never really had technology comforts such as a good laptop or wireless Internet? I feel guilty! Is life this good? Weeee!

Also, we somehow acquired a huge effing TV today. Bucka wha?? I guess Jay's old boss was back in town, and he had a huge effing TV that he was trying to sell/give away because he couldn't move it halfway across the country. He was going to give it a buddy of his, but that buddy was moving to LA and couldn't take it. So Jay's old boss called up Jay and asked if he wanted a huge effing TV, Jay said, "Well... I guess...?" And now we have a TV that weighs 150 pounds and is HUGE. Okay, it's not as huge as the TV my parents have (they have a fancy, fancy flat-screen thing), but it's one of those fancy HD TVs that came out before the flat-screens came out. It's a monster. Rrrroar.

Again, anyway, I've been typing this blog entry piecemeal over the past 45 minutes, because we were watching the Celtics game, and during that, Jay would check his fantasy basketball scores... on my new computer!... and now he's watching some other games whilst checking his fantasty basketball scores... on my new computer! I can't even stand it!!

So tomorrow I should be receiving a 30-day trial version of one CAT software program, which I shall put ... on my new computer! For those who care or are interested, there is a difference between simple voice-recognition software and a full-fledged CAT software package. I had a tough time understanding that concept...

So a primer on what my job is: I talk into a mask. I sit in the courtroom during court proceedings and repeat what everyone says into my mask and identify speakers and note when nonverbal things happen, such as "Court confers with clerk" or "Witness points" or something. My mask has a microphone in it. I have a Marantz tape recorder that uses cassette tapes, and I plug a mixer with room mikes (placed at counsel table, at the judge's bench, at the witness stand, at sidebar, etc.) into it along with my mask. So I end up having a cassette tape (that I have to flip every 45 minutes - a big distraction during murder trials, I tell you) with two tracks: my voice from a mask and the room tracks. In the meantime, I take notes in a notebook about what time the proceedings start and stops, if the defendant is present, who counsel is, and any weird names/words I don't know that I have to ask someone about. (I hate that part of my job!)

When a transcript is ordered, I then find my notes, figure out what tape has that proceeding on it, pop the tape into my transcriber (which is a tape player with a foot pedal that I can play, rewind, or fast forward with), and listen to the tape and type what I hear. I can type about 15 pages an hour. Then when I'm finished typing, I proofread the transcript to the tape. Then I print it. Then I proofread the printout and make corrections as needed.

If I buy the CAT software, what will happen is that I will have my computer in the courtroom. I'll have my mask and my room mikes hooked up to the computer (somehow). I will open the CAT software, and the software will utilize a speech-recognition engine (like Dragon NaturallySpeaking or ViaVoice) and bring it into a 'realtime' screen where I can see the text, it gets formatted as it goes (through voice commands and 'macros'), and there's an audio recording attached to the file.

That will hopefully take out the typing component of my job, which takes the most time (I mean, 15 pages an hour? Come on!! I takes me months to type a 5-day trial!) If I can just go in and correct the text and proof it and pring and proof again, it'll save so much time. And I AM SO EXCITED about it! I am so excited about the challenge of learning a whole new aspect of my job!

All right. My post is already too long. I'm just super excited that I'm typing it from my couch, and I'm getting excited that I'm talking (or typing, I should say) about the CAT software. Am I a geek or what?

<-----------------------------GEEK

More homebrewing

Yes, it's been quite a while since beer has been brewed in the Bailey household. Oh, but won't things change soon... won't they...

Jay lended me a hand last Sunday in brewing a batch of IPA. We got the recipe out of the one and only recipe book I own, and we wanted an IPA, because we both enjoy the IPAs, and the book only had three IPA recipes, and two of them were for all-grain brewing (which I don't know how to do - I like the cans of malt extract syrup or the bags of dried malt extract), so that left us with the Taken Liberties Ale. We went to the homebrew store in the afternoon and we started to brew later on in the evening. I hadn't read the instructions, but there was a lot of waiting involved, which isn't always the case with brewing a batch of beer. So it took a little longer than expected, but it all turned out fine.

The most exciting part was dry-hopping the beer. I'd never done that before. Usually you put hops in while the beer is boiling, and the longer you let them boil, the more bitter the beer will be. The hops you add later on in the boil (like during the last 5 minutes) are "finishing hops," which means that the beer will smell and taste like hops, but those finishing hops won't actually contribute much to actual bitterness. (Kind of confusing; I'm still trying to figure out the difference between hop flavor and bitterness.) But when you dry-hop your beer, you just put in more hops once the beer's been fermenting for 4 or so days, and I guess that contributes more to the hop flavor and aroma of the beer. And it being an IPA, you might as well have some of that, you know?

And today I am going to brew yet another batch. We went to the homebrew store yesterday after much deliberation. They were holding a 'teach your friend to homebrew day' event, which probably isn't much different than any other event that might be named anything else, because mostly it consists of 7 people in the back parking lot drinking and brewing all-grain beer. Jay was concerned that we'd be outcasts because we don't really know anybody, and all those people probably already know each other, but I was saying that we'll just go, look around the store, and if there's a friendly soul that starts chit-chatting, we'll go out to the parking lot and shoot the you-know-what.

So we ended up chatting with some different people, we met some nice folks, specifically an older gentleman who just retired from teaching math for 35 years. We went around and checked out all the different set-ups for all-grain brewing, which I think are specifically designed to intimidate amatuer homebrewers like me. Jay and I decided one day we'll try doing the all-grain thing... one day... But I ended up purchasing a beer kit that they put together, which is around $30 and comes with all the ingredients for a batch. I decided on a dark wheat beer that they call "Deep Winter Wheat," which should be pretty tasty, I hope.

So off I go to do some brewing. Hopefully we'll do a few more batches in the coming weeks so we can have a nice stockpile of tasty homebrew to keep us going, because as we all know, that's what keeps the Baileys going: beer. Specifically, homebrewed beer. Mmm. So tasty.

And brewing beer makes the house smell so nice. At least Jay and I think so.

Life change!

So Thursday was Jay's last day of work, and now he fancies himself a "domestic goddess," even though he's male. He went grocery shopping yesterday, picked up some veggies, came home, grilled the veggies for a grilled veggie salad for dinner, picked up the house a bit. Then Matt came over to watch the C's game.

On my way home from work, I smelled something burning, saw some smoke coming from under my hood, and then my power steering went and I had strange lights coming on in my dashboard. And I was in the third lane on the Pike in stand-still traffic. I freaked out, tried to cut people off as I frantically headed towards the Watertown exit, and no one would let me in. Massholes! I'm not one to cut people off on highways - I put my blinker on and patiently wait until an opening comes up. I hate when people just cut out in front of you and you have to slam your brakes on. Anyway, I had to cut off a Mac truck. Luckily I was able to get off the exit and head into Watertown (there's no sharp turns, so the fact that my power steering went was sort of okay). I stopped at the first gas station I could find that had a garage bay, barely made the turn into the lot, and asked the guy if they fix cars. Right across the street was their service station, and it was open till 7:00!

So Jay and Matt had to come pick me up while they worked on my car. I guess a belt snapped because the water pump was leaking hot coolant on it, and then some pulley thing locked up. ?? Whatever. It's just funny that that happened the day after Jay quit, because now we can handle being down to one car!

We'll keep you up to date on how Jay's handling his new role as househusband. He's doing great so far!