Office Stuff

I worked in the office today. It was the first time in over three weeks. That’s crazy. I went on vacation for the last week of July, and then I had the tooth pain nightmare complete with antibiotics that made me feel sick all the time, and then I had the two teeth extracted and couldn’t really brush my teeth for nearly a week along with another round of antibiotics that made me feel sick all the time.

I just didn’t feel up to working around other people. I felt well enough to work, but not well enough to feel like I could be out in public.

My company wants us in the office 40% of the time but the technical end of it is actually 40% of the month. So this month I’m doing all of it at the end of the month. I generally try to do it by the week but this time I’m going by the book and doing it for the month. What does that mean? That means I’m in the office four days this week. That’s what I used to do pre-pandemic. It used to be normal. Now? Now it’s suck.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 45/90

Yesterday was day 45. We have reached the mid-way point of the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. In the handful of times I have completed this particular nut job of a project, I have never been this far along at the half way point. This year has been a little crazy.

What did I do to honor the mid point? Not much. Some good stuff, but just not too much of it. I mixed one song. That puts me at 34 songs complete. If you split the project into three one-month deals you need to divide 50 songs by three in order to set the pace for each month. 50/3=16.67. Round up to the nearest integer puts us at 17 songs each month. That means I have to have 34 songs complete by the end of August… and I am at 34 songs complete on August 17th. That is nuts.

After work I added another song. That’s idea number 41. I had some time so I wandered downstairs to the music nook in the cellar and added guitars to this new song. When that was done I still had some time on my hands so I added another idea. 42. Insert Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy jokes here. 41 has the full structure and the full rhythm section of guitars, fake bass, and fake drums. 42 has the structure worked out, guitars, and fake drums. I still need to add a fake bass part.

So, halfway through the project I have 34 songs complete, four songs ready to mix, three songs ready for lyrics, and one song that is a bass line away from being ready for lyrics. That adds up to 42. That’s the state of the world right now.

Doctor Teeth

I’ve written about tooth aches and teeth extractions and dental psychosis a lot lately. That didn’t stop me from going to the Dentist yet again today. 

After a lifetime of not being able to have dental x-rays without puking all over the place, I must have set a personal record today by having a shit load of them. I lost count but it was six? Seven? Eight? Something like that. I am literally glowing in the dark right now. The poor tech kept snapping pics and I kept sitting on the very edge of yacking only to have the image not be usable so we had to take it again. That happened a lot, but the tech thought we had enough… only for the dentist to ask for two more… which became three more because one of them didn’t come out. It was simultaneously an absolute nightmare but also weirdly pleasing because we managed to take so many of them. I am serious, I had more dental x-rays today than in the rest of my life combined.

What did it amount to? Let’s put it this way… I now have a solid plan for dental work for the rest of 2026 and an outline of a plan for all of 2027.

Yeah… things are that bad. At one point the dentist said she was going to set up a consult with her implant guy. She actually used the words “implant guy” and somehow that made me happy. I’ve always assumed I had implants in my future but I never had the courage to endure the dental visits that would be needed to get that actual work done. Also, they are fucking expensive. I figured I’d get one this year then another next year and then by the time I was 70 years old I’d have a full set of teeth, or something like that. Turns out I now have a doctor who agrees with that plan. 

We start implementing the new plan two weeks from today. It’s going to suck in epic fashion but hopefully the end results will be worth it. I’m sick and tired of pain and I really don’t want to lose anymore teeth. Let’s do this thing.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 44/90

I got a nice chunk of work done on day 44. Maybe not quite as much as I had hoped, but good progress none the less.

I started the day with seven songs needing work. Three were ready for vocals and four were ready for lyrics. I ended up working on five of them. First I recorded the three songs worth of vocals. Next I wrote the lyrics and the melodies and recorded the vocals for two others. See my previous post for a hint at maybe why I didn’t get into the sixth or seventh songs (the unofficial term for gastric bypass folks is “the foamies” and I gave it to myself pretty bad because I was less than careful while eating lunch).

Later on I revisited all five of those songs by adding lead guitars to all of them. I now still have two songs waiting for lyrics, but five songs ready to mix and declare officially complete. Like I said, good progress.

For Future Reference

If you are a musician working on a home recording project and you are also someone who has had gastric bypass surgery I have a little item of note that I learned today.

Don’t try to eat lunch while putting vocals onto some of your demos. The idea was take a bite, record a verse, take a bite, record a chorus, repeat until both lunch and the demos are done.

Nope. Just pay attention to what you’re eating. If you focus on just one thing instead of both things it will save you time in the end as you won’t have to keep pausing the recording to go to the bathroom and vomit. 

For the probably tiny percentage of musicians in the world who have had gastric bypass and also record a lot of home demos… please learn from my experience. I did some suffering today so that you don’t have to suffer tomorrow.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 43/90

On day 43 I mixed three songs. One, two, and three. None of them are particularly interesting though the third one is the first and so far only 12-bar blues for this year’s 50 songs in 90 Days Challenge. I usually can’t stop myself from doing a few of them.

This brings my completed songs count up to 33. I still have seven more in progress. Three are ready for vocals and four are ready for a melody and some lyrics. We’re not even halfway through the project yet and I already have 66% of the songs completed. What is this crazy mixed up world we’re living in these days?

Photowalk

I went on a photowalk today. A big one. I am so sore, all over.

I had to go into the city to run an errand for my wife tonight. She and my step daughter were attending an event so I took advantage of the alone time to shoot the photos for this months installment of the Frugal Film Project in Boston.

10 minutes into the walk my watch prompted me to track a workout. Almmost exactly two hours later, after having covered more than 4.5 miles and shot two rolls of 120 film and about 1.66 rolls of 35mm film, I was back at the parking garage and I stopped the workout.

Now that I am home my legs are exhausted and my back is KILLING ME. Ooops. I’m thinking about doing another photowalk tomorrow though. I still have that third of a roll of 35mm to finish, and oddly enough, my digital camera never made it out of the bag today. I was cranking out the film photos the whole time.

In unrelated news, I don’t know how those evil nazi mother fuckers in ICE do it. I had to take one of the cats to the vet today for a check up and just putting her into the cat carrier was so much like putting her into a jail cell that I felt unbelievably guilty. Just imagine doing that to another human being. I couldn’t do it. Ever. Fuck those mother fucking nazi fucks in ICE. May they rot.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 42/90

Day 42 (yesterday) is in the books. What progress did I make? I still had three songs that are ready to mix and I was planning on getting to some of those but I never did. Instead, I put rhythm guitars onto two songs (numbers 37 and 38) before work. After work instead of mixing I added two new songs (numbers 39 and 40) and immediately put rhythm guitars on those as well.

I now have three songs ready to mix, three ready for vocals, and four waiting on lyrics and melodies. What will I work on for day number 43 (today)? Who knows. At this rate I’ll probably just add more songs. Why not, right? I have 30 songs finished and 10 more in progress. We’re rolling along nicely.

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2026 50/90 Challenge Day 41/90

41 days into this… we’re almost at the half way point which means the summer is almost over and that is utterly depressing. Here in New England summer ends on Labor Day and winter starts the next day. Like I said: Depressing.

I mentioned in yesterday’s recap that I expected day 41 to involve mixing and it sure did. I started mixing one song about 15 seconds after I posted yesterday’s recap post… almost like I knew what was coming. I finished that song before work.

After work I should have started mixing another song but instead I added another song to the queue. Song number 37 for those keeping count. When that was done I added song number 38. Both have the fake MIDI bass and drums and the full song structure and are ready for rhythm guitars. After that I started mixing another song, and after that I mixed a third song. My total number of finished songs is now up to 30. The project is 60% complete.

The current state of the project is 30 songs complete (as just mentioned two sentences ago), three songs ready to mix, three songs ready for vocals, and two songs ready for rhythm guitars. Doing the math… yup, that is 38 songs. I’m feeling pretty good about things right now. Obviously anything could happen to derail the whole project, but as of this moment in time? I’m optimistic for success.