Pete Dudchenko

So Matt decided to try-out for the next taping of Survivor coming up on CBS and asked me to help him make a tape last night. My responsibilities included taping the try-out, providing a brief voice cameo, and partial directing/producing/film editing and more. Not to toot my own horn or anything but let’s just say if he doesn’t make it to the next round of interviews, its not from bad camera work!

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...caught in mid-conversation while waiting to checkout:

Clerk: “I live nearby, so I don’t have to drive to work”
Customer: “So do you still walk to work during the cold winter season?”
Clerk: “Yes, unless its really cold like tonight.”

Current (night-time) temperature in San Diego = 56 degrees

Take THAT Chicago!

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My last day at work was Friday. Tomorrow I start my new job. It was both an exciting and difficult weekend as I really enjoyed where I worked for the past 2 and a half years. I look forward with what’s to come though.

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So I added a new section on the right sidebar of this website called Cell Phone Pics. If you scroll down a couple of entries, you’ll see some flash animation that has about 12 thumbnail pictures on it. This is a new area that I’m hoping to add to as time goes on but focusing specifically on pictures I take with my cell phone. No comments will be added (unless I have the time) but they should be interesting even still. This app will show the last 12 pictures taken and since I can send it directly to this from my cell phone, I can send pics on the go rather than uploading them later.

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Google Maps is a fun application for figuring out where something is. What makes it even cooler though is the ability to mark areas on the map to customized locations and customized text. For example, I created one example of Local points of interest here in San Diego (link broken)

Want to learn more?

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I’ve been in a geeky mood lately so I thought I would add to the category a bit more with a post on how to receive text alerts on your cell phone when you reveive an email. Its actually pretty simple but also pretty powerful.

Examples on why this is useful:

• With most cell phones having the ability to check email already, you only need to check when you know you have an email and therefore save on bandwidth usage.


• Waiting for a potential employer to return an email, or perhaps to hear back from a friend? Find out right away when then do.


• Anything time-based that can be emailed to you can now be passed along to your phone as well, you don’t have to be in front of a computer to get notified.

Depending on your email provider the scenarios can vary but the objective is relatively simple. Most email providers such as Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail allow you to set up “rules” to follow when an email is received. An example of a rule that you could set up might be, “Every time I get an email from my sister, automatically delete it (just kidding Britt!)”

Doing the same thing but changing the logic of the rules allows you to set it up to get notifications on your phone. Most cell phone providers create an email address with your cell phone number. They may not publicize this but its true. I could email your cell phone right now as long as I know your cell phone number and your provider (and truth be told, I really only need your cell phone number but that’s another story). For instance let’s say my cell phone number was (858) 555-1234 and my cell phone provider was Cingular. Well, the email address for me would be 8585551234@cingularme.com If I were to send an email to that address, instantly I would receive the text of the email in my cell phone as a text message.

So setting up a rule in my current Yahoo or Hotmail account to automatically forward any email received to this number would basically give me a text message on my cell phone any time someone emailed me. Plus I would be able to see a small snip of the email itself although it would cut off the text after a certain character limit due to text message restrictions.

So what’s your email address? I’ve provided some main carrier information below:

Cingular: your10digitphonenumber@cingularme.com
Nextel: your10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Sprint: your10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: your10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Verizon: your10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
Virgin Mobile: your10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com

Almost forgot to add the legal mumbo-jumbo of “your carrier may charge you for text messages so be sure to understand your plan before setting this up.” Its easy to rack up 100-200+ text messages a month by doing this.

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Seal Beach in La Jolla, California is a pretty interesting site. Its an area that is protected where seals can lay around on the beach without being bothered by tourists trying to get close for a picture. There’s actually someone who sits and makes sure that no one crosses the line in the sand that’s been drawn out.

I checked out the beach as well as the Birch Aquarium on Saturday for a nice day outside.

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