travis johnson

Rachel and I went to Brandon and Nicole’s wedding on Sunday. Rachel has more to say about it, but they got their pictures developed from the cameras on the table and Brandon sent me this one of us.

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Rachel and I have been discussing doing our own mix tapes and then sending them out to whoever wants them for quite a while. The rule for our mix tape (don’t worry, they will actually be on CD) is that all the songs had to be from about the last year. Rachel was afraid (with good reason) that I would dig deep from my library of songs and make the ultimate masterpiece, putting her mix tape to shame. I think I have achieved the same result, while still sticking to the ‘from the last year’ rule. Some songs are older than a year, but not too me. All these recording were legally purchased by me within the last year. At first I had songs on my mix tape that were obscure enough to make the listener think I was a true music connoisseurs, but ended with the mix I would take with me if I could only listen to one CD.

It is good and ready to be sent out. Want one? Just send me your mailing address and Rachel and I will send you (or if we will see you soon, hand deliver) both our mixes.

Track listing (subject to change):

1. Do You Remember - Jack Johnson
2. Sweet Illusions - Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
3. We’re All In This Together - Ben Lee
4. The Late Greats - Wilco
5. American Baby - Dave Matthews Band
6. New Madrid - Uncle Tupelo
7. Nineteen (Live) - Old 97’s
8. Wreck Of The Old ‘97 - Johnny Cash
9. Theologians - Wilco
10. Another Travelin’ Song - Bright Eyes
11. Qué Onda Guero - Beck
12. So Alive - Ryan Adams
13. Ocean Breathes Salty - Modest Mouse
14. Let It Ride - Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
15. New Slang The - Shins
16. Days Of Wonder - The Wallflowers
17. That Was A Crazy Game of Poker - O.A.R.

3 Comments » Categories: Music

I was on Amazon the other day trying to see if Arrested Development: Season Two has been announced for release (it hasn’t) and found Wonderfalls. It was recommended to viewers who like Arrested Development. I read some reviews and was quite interested. All the reviewers loved the show and from the synopsis, it looks like the show just ran into bad luck and was cancelled after only four episodes. For the DVD set, they included the 9 unaired episodes. I had some time to kill last night out in Lees Summit, so I headed over to the Best Buy and picked up the complete series and even got to watch the first two episodes.

From the first two episodes, I think I can see how it got cancelled. That is not to say that I think it is bad, I have enjoyed the show so far, but it isn’t the type of show that lasts on TV.

Although a recent graduate of Brown University, Jaye Tyler decides to ignore her degree, live in a trailer and work at a tourist gift shop in Niagara Falls called Wonderfalls-much to the despair of her well-to-do family. But Jaye’s aimless life takes a startling turn after a lion figurine begins talking to her. Her family calls it an ‘episode,’ but Jaye knows better. Fearing for her sanity, Jaye nevertheless starts doing exactly what an increasing number of inanimate objects tell her to do and is amazed when her outrageous actions begin changing people’s lives in unexpected ways.

The creators of the show came up with the idea for the show based on Joan of Arc. In the interview I watched on the disc, they don’t mention why they came out with the show since Joan of Arcadia was already out. I am guessing they were already well into the process of making the show when JoA first aired three years ago, but I could be wrong.

I’ll keep everyone updated on the remaining 11 episodes.

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I had a pretty fun week, even if I did have to work. I spent the week working with Ruby on Rails and AJAX. The two together are unbelievably cool. My explanations won’t do either of them justice, but not only do they make the web fun to use again, they make programming web pages a blast.

Ruby on Rails is such a smart framework and simple to learn. Clearly, the framework is built upon Ruby, which is a very intuitive object oriented programming language. I have been working for less than a month with Ruby (and rails for that matter) and picked it right up. The stuff I am doing at work don’t have any applications outside of work, so I can’t really share what I have been doing. You will just have to trust that it is cool. For an example of how easy Ruby on Rails is let me tell you what I did today alone. I implemented BOTH an XML-RPC client that talks to our web store and retrieves sales AND I implemented the MetaWeblogAPI (and a little bit of the BloggerAPI, too). Both were so easy. I plan to work on a RoR project for fun, but I am having trouble coming up with a project to create. Any ideas? What do you wish you could do on the web that doesn’t already exist? In what other ways can users be connected?

Yesterday Rachel emailed me and told me I had to post on my site because she wanted to know what was going on with me. I don’t think Ruby on Rails was what she had in mind, but that’s all I have going on.

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The Wallflowers will be on Letterman on Tuesday and Ryan Adams will appear on Wednesday. And a few more this week.

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Rachel and I rented Mean Girls tonight and let me be the first to say, that Tina Fey is so funny. It really was a great movie. Rent it if you haven’t seen it yet or watch it again if you have. It had a lot of SNL people in the cast, including Tim Meadows which was maybe my favorite in the movie (next to, of course, Tina Fey).

In addition to the fun Rachel has already shared, I went to the Royals game again today thanks to tickets from my cousin Aaron (AJ from some comments). The seats were really good, about 20 rows back, right behind first base. We sat in the sun and I got a decent burn, but not too bad since I wore long sleeves. I would have taken pictures, but someone still has my memory stick (and someone else has my batteries). Anyway, the Royals destroyed the Cardinals 9-2. Even though they only won one of the three games, they were clearly the better team since they scored five more runs over the series. No foul ball this time, but the seats were great and I had fun. Thanks for the tickets Aaron.

Finally, Scott asked me to be a groomsman for his wedding to my sister. Like my sister, who said yes when he asked her to join him at the wedding, I also said yes. I was quite surprised and very happy to be a part of their wedding. Despite the many things I have said about Scott (both on this blog and in person), I really like him and can’t wait to actually be getting a good brother-in-law (only kidding Seth, Adam and Aaron). I was expecting to be the usher that gets to seat the really important guests, but this will be even better!

5 Comments » Categories: General, Kansas City

Rachel and I went out for a walk and dinner tonight and it was spectacular. I really wish I had my memory stick and/or batteries so I could have taken some pictures (hint hint), but let my words try and do it justice.

It started off innocent. After a lovely dinner at Panera (only the best for my wife) we took a stroll down Nichols - and the fun let loose. On the southwest corner of Nichols and Broadway three twelve year-olds were handing out those tracts that inform the reader how to be saved. Rachel took one and we crossed the street. On the southeast corner stood a rival saver handing out a different tract. We took his handout and proceeded to Halls (nothing fun happened here).

After heading up to 47th, we crossed the street to see some man with a makeshift booth and a plasma screen trying to show people how great Google Local is. He asked the few people around to ask for a location they were looking for. A lady asked to find Restoration Hardware. The man pulled up RH on Google and tried to direct her toward it. After he could see he wasn’t getting anywhere using the internet, he turned around and pointed across the street. And the lady was on her way. Thanks Google Local!

More tracts, more tracts, and more tracts. Eight tracts in all! Pretty successful night. One of the kids handing out tracts had on a sweet t-shirt. It read, ‘Everyday is voting day. Vote for Jesus.’ I am not quite sure what these tracts are supposed to prove. One of my favorites says, ‘Someday… you will stand before God!’ and it has a picture of a man really, really (cheesy) afraid. Is he scared of God? And the one that has two people burning in the fire, ‘If they only had one more chance.’ The best is the one with a picture of the grim reaper, ‘Death: It happens EVERY day!’ If that’s not proof that I must read the ‘How to be Saved and know it’ tract, I don’t know what is.

In addition to the craziesbrainwashed children kids handing out tracts, there was literally a musician on every corner. The best was some young kid playing the drums. I am thinking about starting a Plaza band. Our first single will probably be ‘Shenandoah’ (I almost have it down).

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Get them while they’re hot!

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‘Star Wars’ grosses record $50 mln in first day: ‘LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The final chapter of the ‘Star Wars’ movie saga grossed a record $50 million from its first 24 hours in North American theaters, the highest box office tally for a single day, according to studio estimates issued on Friday.’

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Wright Hopes to Spore Another Hit: ‘It’s what they call a massively single-player game.’

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