New Years Resolutions

New Years Eve is tomorrow so I thought I’d come up with some resolutions.

First and foremost is eat healthier, lose weight, and try to stave off the inevitable heart attack for another year.

Second is professional.  I want to re-engage with my application.  I feel my skills slipping as more focus is put on management and I’d like to be a little more up on things.  I’d also like to be a better supervisor.  I want to do a better job guiding my staff on their career paths.

Third, I want to keep exploring new music.  I did a lot of that last year and frankly it was a lot of fun.  I want to keep it up.

Forth and final (for now at least) I want to write at least two songs and get the band to add them into the set.  I would like for us to have the equivalent of a single that we can promote.

I might come up with more, but those are the big ones for now.  I’ll let you know how they work out.

A1 Shitty Day

2015-12-25

I post this picture not because it has any bearing on what I’m going to write about, but because it is now my second most favorited picture on Flickr. Congrats to the Owl ornament. Always a winner.

Today sucked. Just sucked. Before I even woke up it was sucking. Snow. That’s a given, right? I brushed off one car, then the other, then I had to brush off the first car again because show is an asshole. I went inside, got ready, came back out and brushed off the car again. I got to work in a remarkably short time. All of the horrible traffic that my beloved wife warned me about was replaced with everyone going 30 mph. I got to work in an hour with time to spare.

That was the last good thing. After that? One work disaster after another, thank you very much. Everything is on the way to being set back to right now, but I will sure be happy when my whole group is back in the office tomorrow.

5:30 comes, I leave work. The driveway is seriously icy but I’m parked in the garage so my car is clean. I drive home with no trouble. 45-50 mph for pretty much the whole drive. I get home in about 45 minutes.

It looks like the main roads near my house were barely plowed. My road, however, is bare pavement (mostly). We got about an inch of snow. Maybe an inch and a half. It was followed by a whole day’s worth of freezing rain. I knew the driveway was going to be icy. I did not, however, expect a six inch high bank of solid ice at the end of the driveway. I got stuck trying to pull in. I dug myself out and started chopping away at the snow bank. I used a shovel, but I sort of wished I’d had a chain saw. Eventually I got enough ice moved to try and get the car in. First though I used every grain of rock salt we had in the garage to try and give the wheels (and our feet) a little traction on the skating rink/driveway. It worked.

So yeah, a kick in the balls of a day. But hey, the Bruins just scored to take a 1-0 lead on Ottawa. Maybe things are turning around now. Here’s hoping!

You Call that Snow?

Snow... Urgh

Why couldn’t this have waited until next week, then we could have said there was no snow in the ’15 part of the ’15/’16 winter.  But noooooooo.

There is barely enough to cover the ground, but my wife just called me from the highway to let me know that traffic conditions are terrible.  It seems that despite all the warning we got, there aren’t any sand trucks out and cars are slipping and sliding all over the place.  The major highways were gridlocked parking lots even before 6:00am.

Yippee.  Screw you, winter.

Caution: Bad Guitar Playing

There are three new devices that need to go on my pedal board.  There will eventually be a fourth, but for now it’s three.  Here’s a video of me noodling with the new toys.

 

A Joyo Ultimate Drive (which is a clone of a Fulltone OCD)
A Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail analog delay
And for the first time ever, a DC power source for the pedals!  It’s an MXR DC Brick.  No more 9-volt batteries for me!*

 

*well… I think I have more pedals than the brick can handle, so maybe a few more 9-volt batteries.

G.A.S. New Pedals Addition

Gear Acquisition Syndrome continues to spiral out of control!   

 
The MXR box is a Brick power supply and the Seymour Duncan is a Vapor Trail analog delay.

Worse?  There is another pedal en route.

GleeGleeGleeGleeGlee

Figured Out the Camera

I figured out the camera on my groovy little drone.  Just as importantly, I figured out how to get the pics off of the drone onto my phone and or computer so I can use ’em.  Even more important, I figured out how to set the maximum altitude for flight:  10 Meters, babie!

 
Selfie:
Rolling Spider Pics and Videos

Woah, I need to rake the back yard!
Rolling Spider Pics and Videos