Matt Sandy's Blog

Under the Aeroplane over Tempe

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:08:08 +0000

Phoenix skips spring, so I am leaving my favorite photo from winter now that summer is here.

Under the Aeroplane over Tempe

Not sure what will come of this year, but it looks like taxes this year will wipe me out. I really want to have all of my adventures, so maybe it is time to start spending a little wiser… that or just create an iPhone app that takes off. I like the latter idea, so I am putting some of my non-monetized projects on hold until I at least get the ball rolling with making some apps.

Following the Sunset

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:26:52 +0000

Friday

My weekend was pretty awesome. Friday night started with seeing the movie “Hunger Games” which people seem to have been clamoring to watch. After the movie got out I decided to just hang out in Downtown Phoenix and grab some food before the concert. While on my walk to Five Guys (first time there) I took a few photos I liked.

Phoenix Flowers

Following the Sunset

No Pedestrian Access

After I made it to Five Guys I sat down for some food until my brother made it up to the downtown area. We then headed down to The Trunkspace for a great show with Emporor X playing with bands from L.A. (Body Parts) and Sweden (Solander). Body Parts gave me a free CD which was really nice of them, so I gave them the three dollars I had on me after picking up Solander’s record.

Saturday

Andrew Jackson Jihad, Laura Stevenson and the Cans, and Roar played a show at Crescent Ballroom which had tons of people. Naomi and her new boyfriend showed up for the show despite being sick, along with Mike, Ben (Porches), Matt Neff (from YEARS ago) and others. SO MANY PEOPLE! It was a little awkward before people started showing up, so I played Batman by hanging out on the ledge of the nearest parking garage.

I AM BATMAN

Sunday

After having brunch with my grandpa, my brother and I went by the bike shop to pick up some puncture proof supplies for the bike. New tires and new heavy duty tubes are now on my old maroon Raleigh, so both my brother and I have ridable road bikes down here. Definitely more busy than my usual weekends, but it was nice.

Out with the Netbook, In with the Macbook

admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:28:10 +0000

As some of you know, I have been working from a $300 netbook for the past year whenever I travel. The netbook is fine for editing text and checking email, but falls short when trying to handle anything more. Luckily I can code most things without the help of an IDE, but coding an image pixel by pixel can be difficult to say the least. Well, I finally gave in a put a Macbook Air on my credit card. Having more pixels on the screen at once is also incredibly nice, and the full-screen function built into Lion comes in handy.

I can also finally have Spotify play in the background while I hop into an IDE or Photoshop for design. I will post an image of the new layout I am working on for a client once finished. What better way to commemorate getting a new laptop made by a company known for design, than to design a website? I think I should have some good rough drafts done tomorrow actually. Sunny really helped me out with the logo. Even her rough drafts are better than what I could have come up with, haha.

Once I get all of my FTP servers set up on here I will update my plugins to include some of my routes that I have been riding while back in Phoenix. I found an interesting route that goes by the “hip” parts of both Tempe and Phoenix, which means awesome hip food at both stops for fuel. Having a laptop that can actually handle a web-based editing interface also means I should be updating this more often, but only time will tell.

Bike Ride Photos

admin — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:22:04 +0000

Here are a couple of the photos I took while biking up South Mountain Yesterday. I did get a little lost and went up the wrong way to a hiking trail the first time. Granted, a pedestrian only trail would have been safer. There were so many cars, many of which I only were were approaching through auditory indicators, since the road wrapped around the mountain so tightly at many points.

Awesome Road Ahead

Phoenix from a Distance

South Mountain Updates

admin — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:53:39 +0000

This is a long overdue post. I am visiting Phoenix, and have been for a while now. I spent Christmas, New Years, and today down here. This was the first Christmas without Grandma, and it was the white elephant in the room for quite a while. Not going into sad things here, because why leave something sad to look back on later?

New Year’s Eve was fun. Ash invited me to something in Tempe at a place called The Compound. It felt like a more organized house show, without completely wasted people included. I saw one guy repeatedly falling over, but there was good music, including a band called North Dakota. Two people kissed me on the cheek, one person I knew and one stranger and then I went to sleep at Ash’s to avoid navigating the drunk drivers who would certainly be flooding the streets. I am glad I finished up the Battlestar Galactica finale before New Year’s Eve… I don’t think I would have wanted to stay inside.

The Trunkspace has had a couple fun shows since I have been down here, including a Kepi show that I brought my little brother to. Speaking of him, I picked up a new cartridge/holder for my old turntable I left down here and got that all fixed up for him. I also picked up a few records I will be leaving down here for him. One is the red Beatles compilation album which was a pretty good find, and one is Roar’s 7″. Once I leave I am sure he will enjoy them more, as the setup is in the room I am staying in at my mom’s.

There definitely has been a lot I should have been updating with, but I think having to update from my netbook makes me less inclined, as the screen is so small and the processor is pretty slow. I think I should be upgrading my laptop. I have some money saved up, but I don’t know if I want to spend the money on a laptop considering I wouldn’t be using it nearly as much once I get back to my desktop in Minneapolis, unless of course I start developing iPhone apps… which could be fun. Something I should think about.

I also rode up most of South Mountain yesterday. That was fun, but soooo many cars and so many bends around the mountain that could hide my position on the road. I was hoping today was Silent Sunday for South Mountain, where only non-motorists are allowed. Turns out that was last Sunday, and it won’t be again until February 26th, and I don’t know if I will even still be here, haha. I did grab some photos I am really happy with though. I will be posting them in my next entry.

First Snow of 2011

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:23:35 +0000

This post is a bit delayed, but Minneapolis received its first snow of the season on the 19th. I walked to downtown and headed to my usual perch. Turns out elevators are disabled to those without keys during the weekend. I ended up climbing the stairs to the 25th floor, and ran into security on the 18th. I gave a smile and a polite “how are you?” that seemed to make it look like I belonged. Here is the view from the 25th floor.

From my Perch

…after climbing down the 25 flights I headed toward Nicollet and took this photo.

First Snow

Better late than never for the update, right? Well, that is it for now.

Old Seattle Photos

admin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:43:22 +0000

I was going through my old photos and stumbled across the ones I took while in Seattle. I decided to try my hand at editing them again, as it has been around 4 years and my post-processing skills have hopefully gotten a little better. The first one is a heavy crop from a 6mp camera (inside a car). It isn’t the best shot I have taken, but it goes with the set.

Pike's Market (Public Market before Place and the clock were added)

I absolutely love this one of Mckenzie from the Dandilion Junk Queens. I saw her the first day but didn’t have time to snap a photo. The next day I went back to Pike’s Market and saw her getting coffee. I asked about her playing later and she gave me a time and place as well as the okay to take photos. I later found out who she was through Sean and Ben from Andrew Jackson Jihad.

Mckenzie from Dandelion Junk Queens

This last one I absolutely love as well. I didn’t catch his name, but I caught a lot of shots from different angles. This is one of the better I think.

Man with Guitar

Going through my old photos makes me really want to start just taking photos every day. I have taken a few recently that I will probably upload later this week… once I make sure this piece of software I have been writing is fully functional.

Return a Date Range Array in PHP

admin — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:41:43 +0000

I think this code might come in handy for me as well as other programmers. It lets you pass two dates and returns an array containing the range of dates between them. I had found code previously, but there was a glitch and so I decided to just write my own. Copy and paste version here.

function createDateRangeArray($startDate,$endDate)
{
$range[0] = $startDate;
$startDateInt = preg_replace(‘/[^0-9]/’, ”, $startDate);
$endDateInt = preg_replace(‘/[^0-9]/’, ”, $endDate);
if($endDateInt>$startDateInt)
{
while($range[count($range)-1]!=$endDate)
{
list($year,$month,$day) = explode("-",$range[count($range)-1]);
$range[count($range)] = date("Y-m-d", mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, $day+1, $year));
}
}
return $range;
}

Music Filled Weekend

admin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:09:12 +0000

Friday, Saturday, and Monday had music filled nights.

Friday Norman and I headed out to the Shonen Knife at 7th St. Entry. It turns out the opening bands were way better than I had hoped. Blind Shake was the opener, followed by Heavy Cream which was good enough for me to decide I needed their LP, and signatures. They reminded me of Those Darlins which is another great band from Nashville, and they actually turned out to be friends. I picked up the Shonen Knife LP as well just because they are not from this country, and definitely worth listening to.

Saturday Norman, Libby, John Volpe (he rides a Volpe), and I saw tUnE-yArDs who put on a great show. Very very dancy. The show actually sold out the main room and was so packed it was impossible to move. We ended up getting pretty good views though, mostly because Norman made a friend pretty quick who was farther up than we were. I think I am going to have to listen to more tUne-yArDs (funky capitalization).

Monday was Noah and the Whale Noah & The Whale which was a lot more low key. They were very British and put on a good show… the singer reminded me of The Doctor. The opening artist, Nikki Lane, reminded me of a southern Zooey Deschanel. She mentioned thrifting before the show… I couldn’t tell if that was to win indie points. Some nights I definitely prefer the 1st Ave. shows that don’t sell out… more room, and more intimate feeling. I definitely felt a bit old though when I saw the crowd that showed up for the show. *shrug*

Riding Weather

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:44:48 +0000

I love the fall for the colors of the leaves, the brisk air, and the overall beautiful riding weather.

Fall Colors

The Wayzata ride I normally do was absolutely gorgeous. I have missed out the couple Saturdays before last weekend, but I think this Saturday I am going to try and make it out there again. I am not sure how much longer my rides will be feasible with winter approaching so I really should be getting out as much as possible. I wish I had the money to invest in a really nicer 29er for this winter, but considering the time I spend in Arizona I just couldn’t justify the purchase. Next winter