Category: Generic

Did it Work?

I mic’d up all of the instruments in our rehearsal room and recorded seven tracks at once in GarageBand. How did it come out? I don’t know yet! I need to listen back! AAAAAHHHRRGGGHH!!!!

Addendum: Five hours later, I have listened to the first four songs we played. The recording isn’t perfect. I had some trouble with my vocal mic, and the drums aren’t close mic’d so the kick drum is way to low… but otherwise? Holy crap, it doesn’t suck! WOOHOO!

It’s Electric, Some of the Time

I just had a unique hybrid/electric car experience. Something that’s never happened to me in all my years of driving.

I drove the new car over to Dunks to get some caffeine for my beautiful Mrs. When I came home I parked in front of the house, not in the driveway because there is still a dumpster in the driveway. I unplugged my iPhone (I was listening to Hot Tuna’s first album. I’d give my left nut to be able to play finger style half as well as Jorma) and picked up my stuff and opened the door to get out…

And the dashboard popped up a warning: The Car is Still Running.

Is it?

Holy crap, it is still running! It was on battery and it was silent. It has a proximity key thing, so I didn’t have to turn a key to turn off the engine. It was as quiet when running as our CRV is when off. Silent.

I’m going to have to get used to that, huh?

Last Night

I feel like I should post something about what happened last night. For me personally, I can summarize by saying that nothing happened at all. However…

Around 4:30 pm yesterday there were a series of gas explosions in towns near mine. Apparently, a gas line was over pressurized or something and it caused somewhere around 70 incidents in the towns of Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover. When I say incidents I mean, as I heard it last night, either explosions, fires, or calls to 9-1-1 reporting smelling gas. I don’t know how many actual fires or explosions there were, but it was more than enough. After about an hour or so it was announced that all Columbia Gas Company customers in those three towns should evacuate. Later in the evening it was further announced that everyone in the city of Lawrence South of the Merrimack River should evacuate. Also, all power was shut off for all three towns.

I was working from home when it happened. I saw a couple of social media posts shortly after it all started, and I could hear sirens in the distance. When I got off of work at 5:30 I figured out how to stream one of the local TV networks on my iPad and I brought it to the kitchen while I started making dinner for the kids.

I live in Methuen, which was not affected at all, and we have a border with Lawrence that is only a few miles from my house. Andover is right across the Merrimack from us, and North Andover is close enough that we sometimes order take out from a couple of restaurants there. While we were not involved, we were close enough to the action that it seemed prudent to stay as informed as possible. Also, my house is a Columbia Gas customer.

The kids came home a little after 6:00. I gave them dinner and let them know what was going on. They already knew some of it. My step daughter went off to karate class, my step son watched the tube, and I sat at my desk watching the news on my iPad. Jen, my beloved wife, was still at work in Woburn.

I never smelled gas. I never heard a hissing sound that might have been a gas leak. The Methuen Chief of Police was on television saying that there was nothing wrong in the city, and all of our local government social media accounts were telling us we had nothing to worry about. The only thing that affected any of us was the traffic. The ramps to and from route 495 within the city of Lawrence were all closed. The River Road exit off route 93 in Andover was closed this morning and I have to assume it was closed last night as well. The Methuen Police Twitter account (it might have been Facebook, now that I think of it) announced that all ramps to and from routes 495 and 93 within the city would be closed, but I am not sure if that happened or not. Jen had an urgent issue come up at work and it kept her at her desk much later than usual. As a result she spent an hour stuck on 93 starting just before River Road. I had told her to expect to stay on the highway until exit 1 in Salem, NH but I forgot to ask her if she had to go that far or not. I’ll find out. My step daughter was able to get to and from her karate class without issue, but she didn’t use the highway and getting to her class took her further away from the Lawrence line.

By 10:00 I was toast. Jen and both kids were home and there wasn’t much new information being reported, so I called it a night and went to bed. I haven’t had much time to follow the story today (I’m spending my lunch break writing this instead of checking the news) but from what I hear the power is still out, the gas lines are still down, at least some of the highway exits are still closed, and no one seems to know much about what caused it all. It sounds like there were not that many injuries as a result, though there was one fatality.

The fires are out. Cleanup commences. At some point soon Columbia Gas is going to have to answer for all of this. For now though, let’s just keep everyone safe.

And that is what happened last night.

Remembering

I had a class that Tuesday, but it was either in the afternoon or late morning. I can’t recall, but it meant I got to sleep in a little. I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, yadda yadda. I had some letters I needed to mail, probably bills, but no stamps. The hardware store a few buildings down Main Street from my house had a post office branch inside so I headed there. I had WEEI on the radio (an all sports AM station) but they weren’t talking sports. It sounded like network news, but I wasn’t in the car long enough to get the gist of anything. Everyone at the hardware store seemed kind of dazed, but it didn’t really register with me. I bought my stamps, mailed my letters, and left.

Back in the car, heading to school. The plan was to get some work done in the Systems Lab before my first class. That was when the radio got through to me. Unbelievable. The news was scattershot to say the least. At least three hijackings, but maybe more. Maybe a lot more. New York, Washington. More planes inbound? Who would be next? The White House? The Capital? Fox Hall, the UMass Lowell dorm that is the tallest building in the city? Probably not. If they were going to hit a dump like Lowell, surely they’d target the nuclear plant on North Campus.

I got to school. The commuter student lot was near empty. There was a campus police officer at the gates turning everyone away. The University of Massachusetts Lowell was closed for the day. I asked him if we were closed or were we evacuating. He said closed. I can’t remember the tone of his voice, but it was somewhere between polite and fuck off, you fat punk.

I went home, sat on the couch, and commenced to watch television for the next 12 hours or so. Flipping between the networks and the cable news channels. CNN and ABC were my usual go to’s (still are, more or less) so I spent most of my time there. I had missed the planes, but I saw the collapses. I think.
The first tower might have come down while I was in the car. The scenes were replayed so many times throughout the day that it’s hard to keep the timeline straight.

Strangely, it was the first time in my life that I was aware of being all alone and not liking it. Not at all. I called my folks at work. They didn’t answer. I called Larry at work, which I don’t think I had ever done before or since. We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. I just needed to touch base with someone. I think I needed to get a second opinion that all of the shit was real. It was.

Eventually my parents came home and we watched and speculated together. After a while the facts began to take shape. Four planes, three buildings. Hours later they went to bed and I moved to the cellar to keep watching. The coverage was pretty much bullshit by then. Anytime a new camera angle was found we would watch it a few hundred times. Every network brought in their “experts” to explain what happened. They were all just as shell shocked as the rest of us, and I don’t imagine a single useful piece of information was shared. We started getting clues as to who did it. I started wishing we could bring them back to life so that we could kill them again. I think now that the most frustrating thing was not knowing who to direct my hate toward. Not knowing who to get revenge from.

My parents had Kennedy. Their parents had Pearl Harbor. My only hope now is that my step kids never get an event of their own.

Times are Tough

It’s been like a month since the band had a practice. Every week there is something legitimate that blocks us. Today it was a band member feeling ill. What can you do?

The good news is that we booked a gig for November 9th. Save the date.