Category: Generic

Disappointed

I’ve been working at the same company for 11 years.  Throughout that entire time I have lived very far north of any of our buildings.  The shortest drive I’ve had was 39 miles(ish), but while I was in that building I moved even further away.  

Now the company has a new building that is only 33 miles away.  Practically next door!  On a good traffic day I could possibly get there in half an hour.  What’s more, three of the other four guys in the group live close to this new building too!  We all put in for a move last year.

And then we waited… And waited.  Until!

Four desks together opened up… A move request was finalized… A move date was set!  We are actually going to be north of the Mass Pike!  Holy cow!  The moving day is September 2, 2015!  Tomorrow!  Until…

About 11:00am today we are told there was a conflict.  Someone is already in one of our desks.  We found another desk right near the others.  Put in a request.  Approved.  Then at about 2:00pm, we are told the people who are already there are going to move so they can all be together, and we can all be together.  Okay.  That’s a good thing… But… Don’t move until you hear back from us, probably on Thursday.

But… But… I want to work north of the pike tomorrow.  I don’t want another day in the Deep South.  It’s only going to be a day or two, but this delay is one of the most depressing things ever.  I wanted a 10 mile reduction in commute distance.  I don’t want to wait another day or two.

I’m so sad.

Not Going to Share

I finally did it last night at band practice.

I set up mics on the drums, on the bass amp, and on the guitar amp, and ran a line out from the PA, all into my Mackie board, then into my Lexicon USB interface, and then into GarageBand in stereo. It worked!

But I ain’t sharing any of it. Not this time at least.

The bass guitar is UBER loud (although the tone has a nice snap to it). The drums are really, really quiet and have no bottom end at all. The guitar is a little low compared to the vocals. Kevin’s voice is a touch on the loud side but not too bad. My voice is WAY low in the mix (just how I like it!) and needs to come up.

In other words, the mix is all but unlistenable. I knew that would happen though. I will make some adjustments on the board next week and see how it sounds, and then repeat the process the following week until I have a mix I can live with. I don’t want to take time out of practice to adjust things, so I will just do it week to week based on what sounds bad on each successive tape.

Also, I don’t think we were terribly good last night. After the last two practices being really great. I am pretty disappointed in myself. Listening to a nice clean recording just makes my shitty playing all the more obvious.

Next week I hope to have something to share. Maybe.

The New Rodent

At last, I have a picture of the new rodent living in our back yard. I’m not sure what kind of rodent it is. I thought either a groundhog or a gopher. I put two pictures on Flickr a few minutes ago and so far we have one vote for groundhog. Does the WordPress.com community agree?

What is this? Is it a gopher?

What is this? Is it a gopher?

So what do you think this little critter is?

To-Do List Check In

Let’s see how I did with the to-do list today.

1. Dunks. Check
2. Munchkins. Mmmm Mmmm good. Check
3. McKinnons. Steak tips for today, chicken breasts for tomorrow. Check.
4. Mow the lawn. My back is KILLING ME now, but it’s all done. Check.
5. Shave. Dolphin smooth. Check.
6. Poland Springs. Check.
7. Buy a Twin Reverb and a Big Muff Pi. Eh, not so much.
8. Set a timer. Done, but no reaction yet. The love of my life is very busy today. Check.
9. Buy a recycle bin. I had to do it online as Home Depot didn’t have any, but check.
10. Practice the gitter. Umm…..
11. Cook dinner on the grill. As mentioned previously, steak tips. Mmm Mmm Good. Check.
12. Watch Fear the Walking Dead. Not yet. Maybe tonight before bed. I have chimed in on a number of discussions on reddit though.
13. Sleep. It’s not bed time, but… check. I may have nodded off after dinner. More sleep to come though.

All in all, not too shabby.

I Hate Abridged Audiobooks

Watching Fear the Walking Dead has given me the urge to re-read World War Z. I figured I’d go for the audiobook and listen in the car driving to and from work. I bought it from iTunes, something I’ve never done before. It’s cool, it downloads into iBooks and plays from there instead of the Music app. Nice, huh?

The audiobook for World War Z has three tracks and runs for a little under six hours. Uh Uh, kids, that doesn’t seem right. I know it’s not that long a book, but a six hour read? No way. Too short.

Sure enough, there was nothing in there from the discussion of pre-panic profiteering in the United States (no vaccines against African Rabies). There was also nothing about the decimation of the Russian military during the panic (the word decimation being used in the literal sense, not the figurative sense. Look it up). There was also nothing about the Japanese net nerd who was so locked into the web that he didn’t realize the zombies had overrun his building. All really good stuff from the book, all missing from the audio book. I just finished and there is actually a mention in the end credits for “abridgment by”. Hey, why don’t you just bite me?

At least the character from whom we learn of the Battle of Yonkers was read by Mark Hamill. That is one Jedi Knight who can kick ass at anything he sets his Jedi Knight mind to.