Category: Uncategorized

Is My NaSoAlMo Project Toast?

I think my NaSoAlMo project might be a lost cause. At least as far as finishing on time is concerned. If I am going to finish vocals, it has to be before work. I have two Mondays and two Thursdays left in the month, but this coming Thursday is out because I was added to a meeting that day. The second Thursday is Thanksgiving. That gives me two Monday mornings to finish five and a half vocal tracks. It’s just not enough time. It might be… I don’t know.

It seems to me at this point, that if I am going to finish I will need to burn a vacation day, probably next week. Given the last few days at work I can honestly say that taking a day off would be beneficial to me for more than just musical reasons. Sanity might be helped as well. I was supposed to have Jury Duty on Tuesday, but that was cancelled. Maybe I’ll replace that day out of the office with a vacation day on either Wednesday or Friday. I don’t know. We’ll see. Being home on Wednesday afternoon would also help my beautiful wife out a little. I don’t know. We’ll see how bad Monday and Tuesday are at work before I decide.

I want to finish this stupid project. I am just not so sure that there are enough available hours remaining.

To Do List

I am trying to make a to-do list for today. I want it ordered so that the things I most want to do are at the top of the list, and the things I least want to do are at the bottom of the list.

Going to work falls just behind getting slammed in the face by a sledge hammer. It still ranks higher than being killed in a nuclear holocaust, but not that much higher.

Wish me luck.

Crud.

San Diego

It has been decided. We are moving to San Diego so that I can fulfill my lifelong dream of being a busker on Mission Beach. We have rented a beach front condo with 100% glass walls facing West. My beloved Jennifer has been offered a position as CTO of both Google and Apple. She will run both companies remotely from a home office with an ocean view. The kids, while only aged 12 and 10 have been given full scholarships to the University of California, San Diego. True they will be 10 years younger than their classmates, but the university has assured us that they are also at least 10 times smarter and 10 times more mature than the rest of the student body, so there will be no issues for them.

As for me, I’m just going to sit on the beach with my sweet new 12-string and play old blues tunes. I won’t even ask for money. After hitting the Powerball last week I don’t need it.

I’m living the dream!

At least I was until I woke up. You mean I have to go to work tomorrow?

Ah, crud!

NaSoAlMo Day 11 Update

Today is November 11. The day we honor those who fought for our country. For me, it’s also been a NaSoAlMo day. I have all the “songs” I am going to need. Right now the count is at seven songs and 33 minutes. That’ll do. All of the songs have the full arrangement spec’d out, all of the rhythm guitars, bass, and drums finished, and a random keyboard here and there. All that remains is lyrics, melodies, vocals, and lead guitar.

The mess that is the new version of GarageBand has taken 90% of the fun out of this for me. There are little things that are just infuriating. When in measure display mode, you used to be able to click on a beat within a bar and the play head would snap to that spot. Now, it snaps to the spot until you let go of the mouse button, then it moves a fraction of a beat to one side or another. Sometimes it would take four or five clicks to get it into place.

Other changes are gigantic. Where are all the effects? What do you mean I can’t add anything other than compression and EQ? And while we’re on the topic of compression and EQ, where the hell are all of those incredible presets that the old GarageBand had? This alone has pretty much destroyed any chance I had of ever being happy with a recording again.

Anyway. Seven songs. Lots of padding, I’m afraid. None of the songs are under three minutes. Very proggie of me, if I don’t say so myself. I have an idea of how to tie everything together into one big suite. I bought some sound effect tracks from iTunes last night. I think I am going to try and make the full 33 minutes sound like a listener flipping around a radio dial. Silly. Stupid, even. It’s just my sort of stupid silliness though.

19 days to go. Really, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of finishing this one on time. I don’t care though.