Family Trip to Maui - Feb. 19th to Feb. 27th - Part 1 of 2

(from the It's much better in the islands department)

Hi everyone,

To celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, and our first trip to Hawaii together, Dana and I decided to go back to the islands.  However, rather than go back to Oahu - which I've visited repeatedly - we decided to go to Maui, which I've only been to once, and Dana has never seen at all.

After scrambling for airline tickets, arranging lodging, and frantically e-mailing everyone for advice, we found ourselves waking up early Thursday morning and heading to the airport to start our vacation.

Five or so hours later - we arrived at the Kahului airport:

and picked up our rental car.  Yeah - we rented a red convertible Mustang.  Hey - if you're going to drive around the islands, you might as well do it right:

I took that photo on one of our first long driving excursions - up the 'Iao Valley to the state park.  This is what we saw:

This was quite a contrast to the desert-like conditions we experienced where we were staying in Kihei.  Basically - Maui has a desert side and a rainforest side.  What you're seeing above is the rainforest side.

We did a few more things like visit a swap meet and get shave ice:

attend a Polynesian dance exhibition:

pose dramatically:

and take pictures of working, well-maintained payphones:

Our next big excursion was driving the Hana Highway.  This is not an exercise for the faint of heart.  Although it's only a 52 mile stretch, it takes 2 1/2 hours to drive without stopping - there are 59 bridges, 620 curves and many stretches where the road is only one lane wide.

Still - the scenery was amazing:

Finally - we got to the outskirts of the Hana area, and went to the Wai'anapanapa State Park with their famous black sand beaches:

While we were there - we found a cave lava tube (as Rose corrected me):

Then - back to the beach:

Finally - we reached the Hasegawa General Store in Hana, which is considered a landmark and a sign that you'd "completed" the Hana Highway.  I bought a celebratory t-shirt and mug, and took a couple of pictures:

We'd done it!  We'd made it to Hana!  Unfortunately - the remaining highway doesn't connect around the island.  So, to get back to Kihei, I had to drive the entire Hana Highway again - in the reverse direction.  Oh - and did I mention that the sun had set before we started back?  And - there are no streetlights on the Hana Highway, and it's pitch black?

Yeah - that was kind of nerve racking - 620 hairpin turns and 59 narrow bridges on an occasional single lane road in the darkest dark.

But - we made it with out any damage - except to my nervous system - and we were ready for the next phase of our Maui adventure.

To Be Continued in Part 2! --> The Ideal Copy: Family Trip to Maui - Feb. 19th to Feb. 27th - Part 2 of 2

Cheers,
Paul

Merry Christmas from Santa and Rose (part 8)

(from the Yes, there's definitely more than just Rose and Santa in this picture department)

Hi everyone,

Happy Holidays everyone!  Here's our new Santa photo for December 2014:

This was one of the easiest photos we've ever taken.  We actually took two - and they were almost identical.

Afterwards, we had dinner at Piatti's and got ready for the arrival of Santa.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Pietromonaco family!

Cheers,
Paul

Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room - Seattle Grand Opening - December 5, 2014

(from the It's better when it's freshly roasted department)

Hi everyone,

Dana, Rose & I attended the grand opening of the first Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room.  I saw the announcement that this one of a kind Roastery was opening up on Capitol Hill in Seattle today, so, with the promise of lunch, I bundled the family in the car, and we went on down.

Located in an old car dealership building, the entrance is quite impressive:

Inside, there are no green aprons to be seen.  The Roastery uses a different color scheme - more like a khaki.  The place was packed - so Dana, Rose & I sat down at the Tom Douglas "Serious Pie" restaurant inside, and watched the people mill about:

After we placed our order for lunch - pizza, of course! - I walked around the space and snapped a few photos.  First up, the merchandise - those are custom glassybabies:

Down below is a classroom area and you can also see the large batch roaster just off to the right.  The large batch roaster is the main production line for Reserve coffee.  This coffee is not sold in-store, but is vacuum sealed, boxed up and shipped around the world:

There's also an upper coffee bar with pour over stations, clover machines and all sorts of other coffee makers.  Note the pipes sending coffee beans from the small batch reserve area of the roastery to the coffee bar:

Coffee holding tanks for the upper, small batch roaster:

Another shot of the large roaster down below.  You can just see the coffee library behind it - it's the large glass-walled room with the bags of coffee lining the walls:

The upper coffee bar, including the coffee bean pipes and the baristas with the khaki aprons:

I wandered over to get a closer look at the small batch roaster:

Here's a very quick clip of the small batch roaster in action:

And the finished product - ready to buy fresh from the roaster:

NOTE:  The master roaster at the large batch roaster downstairs recommended letting the small batch roast age at least 8 days before brewing.  It allows for the beans to out-gas properly and increases the flavor.

Finally - our pizza arrived.  In a word - YUM!

And that was our coffee roasting/pizza eating adventure.  We had a great time, and it was fun to talk coffee with everyone there.

If you're into coffee, I definitely recommend stopping by!

Cheers,
Paul

Creating MP4 files from EAC using Nero AAC Encoder

(from the High Quality Audio department)

Hi everyone,

I use EAC - Exact Audio Copy - for much of my CD Archiving.  It works great - except that it doesn't create MP4 files directly.

However - I just figured out a way to do that using a custom EAC compression string and Nero's free AAC Encoder, which you can download here:  http://www.nero.com/enu/company/about-nero/nero-aac-codec.php

Now what follows is not a step by step guide - but my quick cheat notes for a Windows 7 system.  Follow at your own discretion:

1. Navigate to your Exact Audio Copy installation directory and create a Nero folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Nero)
2. Open the NeroAACCodec-1.5.1.zip file, and navigate to the win32 folder.
3. Extract the three files - neroAacDec.exe, neroAacEnc.exe & neroAacTag.exe - from the win32 folder and place them in your newly created Nero folder.
4. Start Exact Audio Copy - making sure that you're in advanced mode
5. In the resultant program window, from the EAC menu, select Compression Options...
6. You'll want to set the following:
   
   • Check "Use external program for compression"
   • Set Parameter passing scheme to "User Defined Encoder"
   • Set Use file extension to .mp4
   • Set the Program, including path, used for compression to the location of your cmd.exe (e.g. C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe)
   • Set the Additional command-line options to the following:
     /c ""c:\program files\exact audio copy\nero\neroaacenc.exe" -br %bitrate%000 -if %source% -of %dest% && "C:\program files\exact audio copy\nero\neroaactag.exe" %dest% -meta:artist="%albumartist%" -meta:album="%albumtitle%" -meta:track="%tracknr%" -meta:title="%title%" -meta:genre="%genre%" -meta:totaltracks="%numtracks%" -meta:disc="%cdnumber%" -meta:composer="%composer%" -meta:totaldiscs="%totalcds%" -meta:year="%year%" -add-cover:front:%coverfile%"
   • Set Bit rate to whatever you prefer - (e.g. 128 kBit/s)
   • Check Delete WAV after compression
   • Uncheck Use CRC check
   • Uncheck Add ID3 tag
   • Check Check for external programs return code
   • Select the High quality radio button
7. Click OK to close the Compression options dialog box.

So the way this works is that it ties two of the Nero programs together - the Encoder and the Tagger - by launching them from the Windows Command shell.  The number of " in the additional command-line options are important - don't omit them or it won't work.  

The good news is that this does fill in the album art and a fair amount of metadata.  I don't like lyrics in my audio files, so I didn't implement them, although the Nero Tagger supports it.  You can adjust the bit rate via the pulldown in the Compression Options... menu - the script interprets the variables correctly - but the MP4s will be Variable Bit Rate (VBR) not Constant Bit Rate (CBR), so they won't match exactly.

Have fun!

Cheers,
Paul

Flashback Friday: Mad Love (EP) by Lush

As I've mentioned before - I'm a huge fan of the Shoegazer movement.  One of the first Shoegazer releases I ever heard was the Mad Love EP by Lush. 

Lush was a relatively young band signed to the prestigious 4AD music label.  Their initial mini-album - Scar - was kind of punky - but their follow-up - Mad Love - found them working with the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie who moved them firmly into Shoegaze territory with a wall of swirling guitars, buried vocals and dense layers of sound.   

You can hear it here: Mad Love (EP) by Lush

After a follow-up album with Guthrie - entitled Spooky - they moved away from their signature sound and became one of the forerunners in the Britpop movement with their final two albums, Split and Lovelife.

Sadly, Lovelife was to be their last album, due to the tragic loss of one of the founding members of the band.

If you haven't heard Lush before, I think Mad Love is a perfect place to start.  If you like what you hear, then dive into the rest of their catalog.

NOTE:  4AD put together an American compilation album of Lush's first three releases entitled Gala.  The Gala collection includes the Sweetness & Light, Mad Love and Scar EPs/Mini-albums, plus bonus tracks.  If you still collect physical media (i.e. CDs) this is the easiest way to get their initial EPs stateside.  I recommend it highly.

Give this a spin and let me know what you think.  Comments are always welcome.