Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

RPM Challenge Day 12/28

Nothing. Again. Two days in a row with no progress at all.

Day 13 has already been a little better but I’ll spell that out another time. Am I running out of steam? Yes and no. I think my internal, gimmicky challenges (10 electric and 10 acoustic songs, and using two different guitars for the rhythm tracks) are probably about to be toast, but the project as a hole is still on, though getting to be massively behind schedule.

Genesis Birthdays

Today is Steve Hackett’s birthday. Tomorrow is Peter Gabriel’s birthday.

Let’s listen to some Genesis while wishing them both a happy birthday.

I’ve probably posted this video before. It’s actually pre-Peter Gabriel wearing costumes on stage. Not by much, but it is. Weird, huh?

Four Nations Face Off

Are any NHL hockey fans psyched up for the Four Nations Face Off? The first game is tonight. Canada and Sweden are going to start in about 10 minutes. USA and Finland play tomorrow.

Do I care?

Usually I get pretty hyped up for this sort of international challenge. When NHL players are in the Olympics it is THE BEST HOCKEY EVER. Now? Today? With the United States crumbling into a fascist cesspool? It’s really hard to get up for an international hockey tournament when you are completely fucking ashamed of your country.

If there were a Massachusetts team, or a New England team, instead of a US team I might be excited. Otherwise I wish the US weren’t involved. If it were Canada, Sweden, Finland, and someone else (not Russia either) then I would be more excited. As it is? I just don’t care.

Network Fun

I had 15 minutes to go until a meeting with a customer. Not just any meeting, but a meeting where I was going to have to present something to them. Now I don’t talk to customers directly. It’s not in my job description. That being said, we’re all in this together and we are all one big happy team, and if the folks who usually do talk to the customers directly are tied up in other things I am happy to pitch in. Happy yes, stress free? Hell no.

The information I needed to present would, best case scenario, involve two, maybe three sentences and that was it. If they asked me questions I told the people I was covering for that I would panic quietly and then mumble responses until they stopped asking. I was kidding, of course. I didn’t expect any questions. I expected my speaking time to be wrapped up in a manner of seconds. Still… yikes.

Then that happy moment, about 15 minutes before the meeting… when our entire network went down. Oh… no… now what do we do??

I wasn’t going to be able to join the call… potentially neither was any of the other 50-70 or so people who were scheduled to represent my company… and we had no way of letting each other know, and no way of letting the customer know. What do we do?

One guy in my building who fortunately sits near me found a work around and yelled it out. Everyone else yelled it out too. I got onto the call with seconds to spare, then waited about 20 minutes for my turn to speak, then spoke my two sentences and asked for questions and there were none.

Oh, what a relief that was. Over and done.

After that I spent two hours on another meeting and now I am going to spend the next 90 minutes on yet another meeting. What a thrill! I just want to go home and go to bed.

Stressed Out

Yesterday I was a bundle of stressed out, frayed nerves because the morning commute was such a disaster it spoiled my brain for the whole day. Today I am a bundle of stressed out, frayed nerves because of all the meetings I have to go to today. I am flat out all day long. I’m kinda scared for my stomach. It took me a full week to recover from our trip to Florida* and further along than that, yesterday was the first day since that I almost went the whole day without any problems (almost) and now today I am in meetings all day and may not be able to stop for lunch. I am at risk of a bad stomach day.**

*Florida will henceforth be known as MoonPieTown due to this post.

**I am referring to post-gastric bypass side effects and various related issues. Food/diet/digestion-wise I need to be a creature of habit and routine to succeed without weird problems and I am going to get bounced out of my routine today. I’m not happy about it, but what can you do?

RPM Challenge Day 10/28

Not a lot of progress on day 10 (yesterday) but a couple of noteworthy things.

First, I added song number 12. We’re hoping to hit 20 this year. Not sure if that’s in the cards or not, but every little bit helps.

More importantly, I added lyrics to one song. Just one. I am hoping to have 4-5 ready to go by Thursday morning so I can sneak in some singing in the car before work. Vocal tracking is always the sticking point for me on these projects so anything I can do to make that process a little easier is a big deal. One vocal part written, at least 11 but hopefully 19 to go. Yikes.