Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

Fun with Moving Day

How’s this for a wacky movie day experience.

My step daughter rented a u-haul pod to ship most of her belongings from Massachusetts to her new school address near San Diego. The plan initially was to have it dropped off on campus, then we would show up and unload it, and they would pick it up when we were done.

Nope.

The campus has a one hour parking limit and that includes movie trailers and the like. So what to do?

How about have the pod dropped off at a u-haul storage facility sort of near the campus, then we rent a van and go to where the pod is stored, unload the pod into the van, then drive the van to campus and proceed as expected.

The plan worked like a charm with only one minor hiccup. The storage facility was half an hour away from the campus. No biggie. We got it done. Van rented, pod met and unloaded, van unloaded, van dropped off. Now all that is left is to unpack.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 74/90

Day 74 (yesterday) was super busy moving my step daughter into her new place. There wasn’t much time for anything else, but I did sneak in a few minutes worth of music… now let me think back… what did I do exactly… hmmmm…

Oh yeah, I finished my 50th song! Challenge Complete, kids! I wrote and demoed 50 songs in less than 90 days! Success!

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 73/90

Yesterday was another crazy busy day on our trip out west to help my step daughter move from New England to Southern California. There wasn’t much time for bad music, but I managed.

On day 73 I mixed one song. Not a terribly good song, but it exists and that’s the goal. Well, one of the goals. The primary goal is to write 50 songs in 90 days and yesterday’s mix down brings my finished songs count up to 49. One more to go!

As busy as yesterday was, today is going to be a lot busier. I might get shut out on day 73. We’ll see.

California Camera Woahs

I meant to take my Nikon FG-20 to San Diego but when I was packing the bag I wasn’t paying attention and I grabbed my Dad’s Pentax K1000. No biggie, I love that camera. I just worry about traveling with it because I don’t want to damage it.

Spoiler alert…

I loaded a roll of Kodacolor 200 while we were in the hotel and then I shot it at Pacific Beach and at the Organ Pavilion at Balboa Park. When it ran out I tried to put in another roll. It wouldn’t unwind. Huh? I got it loaded but when I tried to take a shot I couldn’t advance the film. It was jammed up badly. What the hell? I assumed it was the film canister and opened the back, flashing the hell out of the unrolled film, and rolled it back into the can and tried to reload it. Same thing. 

I declared the roll of film dead and loaded another one… and the exact same thing happened. I thought I must have somehow mangled the advance mechanism. The roll itself seemed to get jammed into the slot and I couldn’t move it at all. 

I was so mad… and sad… and heartbroken… and mad. Dad is no longer with us and I had this silly little thing that he bought in the 80’s and then forgot about and never used again but it was his and now its with me and I was just so fucking mad at the idea of it being dead.

This morning as I was getting ready for the day (mattress shopping is first on the agenda) I opened it up and tried again using the same roll of film that got stuck on the second try yesterday. It loaded up without issue and seems to be working fine. I don’t know what I did different yesterday (nothing) but it seems okay now.

Major sigh of relief over here. Let’s see if there are any troubles going forward. Fingers crossed.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 72/90

Day 72 (yesterday) was ridiculously busy out here in sunny, gorgeous, Southern California. I have made a command decision: I am never leaving this place.

There wasn’t a lot of time for anything musically related (though we did go to a concert at the massively huge pipe organ in Balboa Park) but I did manage to sneak in a mix for one song. Unlike all of my usual stuff, I actually like this one. I’ve been trying to make 5/8 time a thing and with this song I feel like it worked. I really like this one. I never like my own songs, but I really like this one.

The 50 songs in 90 days challenge has 48 songs finished. That’s 96% complete. Hopefully I’ll be able to eek out some time for another mix today (day 73) but its going to be another busy one. We’ll see.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 71/90

We are in California. 3000+ miles from home. Still I managed to get some 50 songs in 90 days challenge work done. I am so fucking dedicated it’s disgusting!

I mixed two songs. I was supposed to be doing some work while sitting in the hotel room. There was a task I needed done before I left work Friday so that it could be ready for someone else Monday morning and I didn’t finish it. I was going to finish it last night but I mixed two songs instead because my priorities are fucked. Spoiler alert, I finished the task this morning. All is right with the world.

I now have 47 songs complete. I am so close to the 50 song goal I can taste it. I also have nine songs ready to mix and one more that needs lyrics and vocals and lead guitars and stuff like that. The challenge is 50 songs. I’m shooting for 60. I have 57 in the pipeline and I have 19 days to go.

Also, Steven Wilson has a new single and it’s fucking bonkers and I’m really digging it.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 70/90

I’m typing this while sitting on an airplane. Ain’t life weird?

Yesterday was day 70. What did I do?

I put rhythm guitars on three songs. I put vocals and lead guitars on two of them.

I have 57 songs so far. 45 are done. I’ve been stuck on that number for a while now. Of the remaining 12, all but one are finished, I just need to mix them and upload them to the interwebs and then they’ll all be finished. The one remaining song has bass, drums (both of which are MIDI), and rhythm guitars. Next up I need to write the melody and the lyrics.

50 songs in 90 days. I think I’m gonna make it this year. Fingers crossed.

Pummelled

I just had the shit kicked out of my ears… literally. Well… not quite literally I guess. I actually just had the ear wax build up kicked out of my ears. 

I don’t know the root cause of this issue but for most normal humans, ear wax sort of builds up in your ears and then it drains out on its own somehow. It seems that at some point over the last year or two this self cleaning functionality has stopped working for me. I have had some serious wax build up in both ears.

Around a year ago I stopped being able to hear pretty much anything out of my left ear. I started using ear wax softening stuff in preparation for having my left ear cleaned out and somehow, magically, a path was cleared and I could hear again. Miracle. Unfortunately after a short time my right ear blocked up enough that I could barely hear out of it. 

With an airline flight in the works for tomorrow, I finally reached the point where I couldn’t deal anymore. I have been using the wax softening junk in my right ear all week and tonight I went to an urgent care and had both of my ears cleaned out. I just wanted the right ear done but they did both.

The right ear was a struggle. It took a long time and a lot of a squirt bottle thing blasting water into my head. It was quite uncomfortable. As unpleasant as it was, it was a cake walk compared to my left ear. By the end there were two people working on me. One was pulling on my ear to open the canal up as wide as possible and the other was shooting me in the head with the water gun.

Eventually they got both ears cleared out completely. I don’t hear any difference yet because of all the abuse has left my ears pretty messed up. Here’s hoping that at some point in the next few hours or so they will recover enough for me to know if I can hear again.

Fingers crossed, folks.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 69/90

I often start these recap posts with a warning that golly gee-willickers I can’t seem to remember everything I did yesterday… and then I write everything I did exactly. Today… I honestly can’t remember exactly what I did last night. I know I took song number 57 and finished the structure as well as the bass and drums. When I started it was just two little eight bar bass licks. Now it has a full song form and is ready for me to figure out rhythm guitar parts.

Other than that? I know I replaced a drummer track on at least one song, but I thought I did 2-3 songs. If I did more than just the one then I failed to update my trello board because while I am sure I fixed at least two songs the trello board says I only fixed one. Damn it. I’m usually way better at this sort of thing.

Spoiler alert for tomorrow, something happened to me today that hasn’t happened in forever… maybe since the Carter administration*!

I broke a string!

*Know that I am exaggerating a little when I say I haven’t broken a string since the Carter administration. Especially since Jimmy left office in January of 1981 and I didn’t start playing guitar until May of 1986. Suffice to say though, it’s been a really long time since I broke a string. What’s more, I broke an A string, not the little skinny high E… I broke the A… as in a big heavy steal wound sucker. Crazy.