Mile High Music Festival Schedule Out

Jeromey Balderrama

I mentioned last spring that Dave Matthews Band was coming to the Mile High Music Festival.  Originally I wasn’t too enthused with only seeing them in a festival setting, but after digesting the lineup I’ve really warmed up to the idea, and happy spent my summer’s concert budget on the festival (which $150 for 2 days isn’t really that bad).

MileHighMusicPoster

The performers schedule was finally released last Friday and I’m beginning to plot my itinerary for the day.  I’m a little disappointed because many of the bands I was excited to se will be overlapping, although some just overlap slightly.

Also when planning the itinerary it’s also important to remember that it’s impossible to see all the bands, and you physically can’t watch shows from 11am to 11pm in the hot sun both days.  As much as I’m looking forward to seeing the bands, I’m just as excited about tailgating in between shows.  It reminds me of football games, where sometimes tailgating beforehand can be just as much fun – or even more than – seeing the actual game.

With that in mind, here’s my in-progress schedule:

Saturday

  • 12:00pm Tailgating
  • 2:00pm Gavin Degraw
  • 3:00pm Jason Mraz
  • 4:00pm Steve Winwood (or Tailgating)
  • 6:00pm O.A.R.
  • 7:00pm Michael Franti & Spearhead
  • 9:00pm Tom Petty

    • Sunday

  • 12:00pm Tailgating
  • 2:00pm OneRepublic (although I’ve heard they’re not great live)
  • 3:00pm Colbie Caillat
  • 4:00pm Rodrigo Y Gabriela or Flogging Molly – that one’s up in the air
  • 5:30pm Flobots
  • 7:00pm The Roots
  • 8:45pm Dave Matthews Band

    • Do you have any suggestions for bands that are worth seeing?  As you can see,  I need to do some listening of the other bands, especially before 2pm.

    Sad News: Star Trek The Experience Closing

    Jeromey Balderrama

    Got the sad news by reading Wil Wheaton’s blog (who got it from Wired):

    Offering a sad commentary on the state of the Star Trek franchise, the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas will shut down Star Trek : The Experience this fall.

    Part simulator, part environment, part museum and (of course) part gift shop/restaurant, the Experience opened 10 years ago during the height of popularity for the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies.

    But, the exhibit isn’t drawing the fans it once did — just as the franchise is fading off the public radar. While J.J. Abrams is hustling to save Star Trek on the big screen, it’s too late to save it in Vegas.

    I had the opportunity to go see Star Trek: the Experience last summer when I went to Vegas.  As a Trekie, I was basically a kid in a candy store.  If you get a chance to swing by Vegas before September 1, be sure to stop by the Hilton in Vegas and check this out.  I’m not sure what the Hilton is going to replace The Experience when it goes away. The Hilton is off the strip and aside from being close to the convention center, it doesn’t have much else going for it.

    Just more signs that a franchise that’s such a big part of my life is on life support – Damn you Rick Berman!

    Backup Gripes: Mozy (Re-)Backup

    Jeromey Balderrama

    Given that the majority of my life is stored on a computer now (photos, tax returns, other important docs), it has become all the more critical for me to have safe, accessible backups of my machine. For the last year I have set up 2 tiers of backups.  The first is a weekly job that backs data up to an external hard drive connected to the machine – this is in the scenario of my machine going down or simply deleting a file I shouldn’t have.  As a second tier, I have been using Mozy’s MozyHome Unlimited for about the last year – this covers the need for off-site backup, should something happen to our home that would wipe out the computer & the drive.

    Yesterday I was forced to rebuild my Vista desktop, reformatting the hard drive and doing a fresh install of the OS.  Everything came up without incident, and when it came time to restore the files I used my external drive (obviously the faster solution).  I’ve had pretty good luck in restoring my computer.

    Then came time to install Mozy, revealing my gripe with them. I installed Mozy using the default settings on the same computer, that has the same machine name, on the same OS, with the files in the same location.  The files retained all of the same date-stamps as pre-backup.  I was hoping that Mozy would figure out “Oh, you’ve already got a similar backup already on our servers, would you like to scan that backup for changes?” Unfortunately not.

    Mozy treated the backup as a brand new backup set, wiping out my current backed up files and attempting to upload all of my files again.  With all of the pictures and documents I have, we’re talking nearly 30 GB of bandwidth that’s going to flow through the pipes.  In the age of bandwidth-conscientious ISP’s, a 30 GB bandwidth increase isn’t exactly what I was hoping for.  At the same time, I’m wasting Mozy’s money in uploading 30GB of the same files that were already on there server.

    This is obviously a lose/lose situation for the both of us.  For a backup company, I wish Mozy had a more graceful way of dealing with restored PC’s.  Now I’m going to be uploading data for the next 2 weeks.

    Update: I have to give Mozy some credit. I started the large backup and it somehow failed, when I tried to re-start it, it somehow saw the rest of the files and took those into account.  Now I’m just uploading a few GB of data rather than the entire backup set.  I still wish that the Mozy interface would allow you to say “Hey, this is the same computer, use the previous backup set”.

    No more Mr. Big on Criminal Intent

    Jeromey Balderrama

    I came across this on MSNBC last night:

    “Mr. Big is out, and Mr. Goldblum is in.  Jeff Goldblum will be joining “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” while Chris Noth – Mr. Big in the “Sex and the City” TV show and movie – is leaving after three seasons, a series spokeswoman said Thursday.”

    This is welcome news.  I love watching Criminal Intent, mainly because of Vincent D’Onofrio.  When they went to the split-detectives a few years ago, I basically stopped watching every other episode.  The best part of Criminal Intent is the Columbo-like character in Detective Goren, always spouting off these random bits of knowledge and having these socially awkward interactions.  Goldblum should be able to play into that tone pretty well, and will compliment the D’Onofrio team.  Now only if they could get more shows out of the season and get it back onto NBC.