the life and times of tony kunda
more than you ever wanted to know!
“What happened to the old site?” you may ask yourself. After perusing the old site last week, I discovered that it simply didn’t represent who I am anymore. As an unintended consequence of that, I had abandoned the site. Most of the static content was horribly out of date (according to the tech page, I still used a PowerMac G4!), and the blog entries reference a season of life that I am no longer in. I dumped the old site to my hard drive for the sake of nostalgia and started from scratch. I thought it would be best to turn this domain into a portal of sorts into my online life. I have been pseudo-blogging over at Tumblr for a several months now (I really love the simplicity of their blogging engine), so blog type stuff will be hosted there. I have also posted links to my flickr and facebook for all the Web 2.0 goodness that they offer.
All that linkage aside, there is still plenty o’ fresh content here. I’ll try to keep the music page up to date with my latest iTunes finds, and if I upgrade my technology or find a really cool application, I’ll post it to that page.
“Well, that’s all well and good, but who the heck are you anyway?” you may be asking yourself if you stumbled on my site and don’t personally know me. Let me expound on that a bit. My name is Tony Kunda. I live in Appleton, WI. I’m a musician, worship leader, designer, technology nerd, coffee addict… I’m currently on staff at my home church, Calvary Chapel of Appleton. I’m told that I am the Head of Visual Media. This loosely means that I oversee video production and the website, and I help out with some of the bigger graphic design projects. Also, I often can be found stapling things for the office or helping out with the vending machine. This is the joy of working for a smaller church. I’m also in charge of the network. (Nothing makes people hate you faster than telling them they aren’t allowed on the WLAN)
In my free time, I often can be found working on design concepts, fooling around with unfinished songs in my home studio, taking pictures of random objects during long walks around my neighborhood, and blogging about nothing. I enjoy fine pens, but rarely write. Isn’t that odd? I’m also known as a water snob. I’m a big fan of imported mineral water. (Ty Nant is my favorite brand) Someday I’d love to own a grand piano. (Yamaha C7, to be exact) Oh, and I don’t drive. (long story) Ok, It’s late; I need to go to bed. I suppose that is enough information to get you started…
I spend more money on iTunes than I would like to admit. First and foremost, here’s what I’ve been listening to:
Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
I’ve been impatiently waiting for this album to come out since I first was introduced to “Eyes Open” (Thanks Grubers!) I haven’t sound a single person that doesn’t like Snow Patrol, including my mom. Melodic alt-rock with thoroughly crafted lyrics make this album my current favorite.
Editors - An End Has a Start
I’ve been meaning to buy this album for ages. I heard the the song “The Weight of the World” on a TV show and loved the song, but the best song on the album is “Spiders”. It has great drive and a haunting melody.
A somewhat complete list of artists that I like can be found in my facebook profile.
I guess I’m a musician too? Who would have guessed… Considering that I don’t have any recording of my own music that I’m willing to post at the moment, I’ll just have to fill this space by talking about gear! I’m a Petros Guitars endorser. Bruce and Matt build the finest Accoustic guitar in the world. Period. I’m fortunate to own a EI Rosewood and Sitka Dreadnought. I can’t even imagine life without this guitar, as it has become an extension of my body.
When the song calls for a little electric guitar, I pull out my trusty frankenstein Fender Telecaster. My Tele is unlike anything you’ll find on the market. It’s loaded with 3 Duncan Humbuckers (Neck-Vintage Tele Stack, Middle & Bridge-li’l 59), and this crazy 3 toggle switch thing on the control plate that I don’t even pretend to understand. This runs into my pedalboard and then into a horrid-looking but great-sounding Fender Deluxe amp that I got on ebay, dirt cheep. Here’s the obligatory pedalboard chain explanation for your reference:
Dynacomp -> VPJr -> Crybaby -> Custom Drive -> Sparkle Drive -> Boss DD-20 Delay -> Boss Trem -> Boss Chorus
I play piano and mandolin too, but that’s another story for another day…
Yeah, I’m a Mac user. Isn’t everyone nowadays? I would just like it to be known that I was a Mac user long ago, back when using Mac wasn’t cool. That’s right, I owned a beige 7600 and ran OS8. Take that, freaking posers…
I’m currently toting a 2.16 Core 2 Duo 15″ Macbook Pro. I popped in a 250gig Hard Drive, and maxed out the RAM. It’s been a solid machine for me for the last two years, but it’s starting to show some age. I’m thinking about replacing it with a Macbook Air. Of course, the Air simply just doesn’t have enough horsepower to be my only system, so I need to compliment it with a desktop. I just picked up a super sweet Mac Pro for my home studio. The Mac Pro has taken so much load off of the lappy, so I feel confident that the Air will be sufficient for mobile computing.
Everyone knows about the big name Mac apps (Adobe CS3, anyone?), but there’s a lot of somewhat lesser known Mac Apps that I really dig. Here’s a list in no particular order: Quicksilver, Coda, CSS Edit, Picturesque, Flux, NetNewsWire, Podcast Maker, Smultron, Transmit, Xyle scope, MAMP, Amadeus Pro, PandoraJam, Burn, HandBrake, Videobox, Uplink, Bean, Disclabel, Growl, SizzlingKeys (I REALLY LOVE SizzlingKeys!!!). I’ll link these up to the dev’s sites when I get some free time. I find out about a lot of these apps through MacHeist and iusethis.
I’m convinced that I’m the only person in the world that still doesn’t have and iPhone. Heck, tonight I saw a very grandmotherly looking lady talking on one. I currently have really old Palm Treo 650, but that contract is up in a few months, and I’m hoping to finally get a (if it’s out by then) 32gig iPhone. (Apple: Please Release one. 16gig is not enough for me.) I have learned one lesson: Never sign a Cell contract for a Treo two weeks before Macworld. To satisfy my iPhone cravings for the last two years, I got a 16gig iPod Touch. It’s full. I’m sad.
Wow, I still have room to fill. I guess I’ll talk about my camera. I’m a self-proclaimed lousy photographer. (See my flickr for proof) I’m currently shooting with a Canon 30d. Yep, it’s kind of out of date, but I really don’t deserve anything better. I keep two lenses in my bag: a Canon 28-135mm IS USM and a Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM. I’d still really like to get something in the wide-angle range (like that lovely L-series 17-40mm) and a Canon 580EX II flash. Someday…
