Schedule Shuffle

I woke up this morning with every intention of working in the office. Now it’s 9:07am though and I am sitting at my desk at home.

I woke up a touch later than I wanted to, and that was the first issue. By the time I finished my morning exercise (jogging [pronounced yogging] in place for 45 minutes) I just couldn’t bring myself to drive into the office. Instead of packing up my stuff I just ate breakfast and finished the episode of The X-Files that I was watching (the one where the baseball player in the ’40’s is an alien in disguise… not the best episode).

I am still planning on making tomorrow (Saturday) a major musical day. Jen is going to be at a conference all day so I am on my own. The to-do list includes getting a haircut (which I desperately need) and an oil change for one of the cars. Other than that, it’s music. The Record Every Month Challenge and Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven… and maybe a start on Volume Eight too.

I promise you, owe internets, that there will be guitar playing, song writing, and recording done on Saturday. Unless I change my mind and just sleep and watch TV all day, of course.

Anyway, here’s today’s photo a day challenge masterpiece.

204/365
204/365

Teachers

Daily writing prompt
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
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Just yesterday my friend Larry sent me a text asking if I remembered the names of any of our high school teachers. My first thought was of course I do. My second thought was me trying to remember them and exactly one came to me. My senior year English teacher. Was she influential? She was brutal. Easily one of the toughest teachers I ever had. She kicked our academic asses on a daily basis and I was able to rise to the occasion. My grades in that class were very good. Unfortunately she was the only name I could remember off the top of my head. Mrs Acone.

Larry was specifically asking about our ninth grade Earth Science teacher. Somehow, magically, I was able to come up with it. Now, the very next morning, we get this question? Are the internets reading my mind again? Is this some X-Files level shit here?

Most influential teacher… okay… Mrs Acone is on the short list. Mrs Adams is too. I was in third grade. I was in the second highest reading group in the class. Mrs Adams, for some reason I am not aware of, bumped me up to the highest level reading group. A little bit of faith in a little tiny me and next thing we know I am an A student all the way into my high school career. Well… in every class except math. My math skills went south at some point, but other than that I was at the start of a very good public education career.

One other candidate for most influential requires me to fast forward all the way to my last time around in college. Dr Canning was my Computing I professor. He asked me for my resume one day. At the time it included a mention of attending Northeast Broadcasting School. He jumped on that and offered me a job in a lab he ran. I wouldn’t be doing anything code based in that lab. Instead he wanted me to start a Computer Science department focused talk show on the campus radio station. I took the job. The result was not only a radio show that ran for the next three years or so, it was that I had a peer group in school that I could study with, and a private, locked door lab space where we could meet to study. It was the key to me finishing my Bachelors Degree with some really excellent grades.

So there are a few influential teachers from my very distant past. There are probably a few more I could add but, as implied by the start of this post, I might not remember any of their names.

The Usual Stuff

Daily writing prompt
What do you wish you could do more every day?
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There are a lot of things I wish I could do more of every day. There will be no surprises here. It will be all things that I write about here all the time.

  • Spend more time with my wife
  • Spend time with my step kids. We’re empty nesters, so spending any time at all on a daily basis would be an increase
  • Music. Playing it, writing it, recording it, listening to it, breaking it down and analyzing it in such a way that I know a single piece inside and out and backwards and forwards. You know, the usual stuff
  • Taking pictures. Using the word, “photography” just feels so above my skill level. I’m not a photographer, I am a nerd who takes pictures. I see a clear difference between the two things
  • Watching good TV and movies
  • Reading good books… or bad books if they are fun
  • Sleeping… ah, yes
  • Enjoying the outdoors. That’s a little sarcastic given that the weather in my neck of the woods comes in two flavors these days: Bitterly, painfully cold and soaking, drowning wet.
  • Spending time with family and friends. Two things I barely ever get to do these days that I would like to do again someday

Like I said… the usual stuff.

Saturday. I Promise

I am going to work in the office today and tomorrow. There won’t be any time for morning music. There isn’t even time to post this world-shattering blog entry.

Saturday… I will play guitar on Saturday. I’ll setup some GarageBand files tonight and tomorrow. Maybe a couple of re-recording things and an entry or two for the Record Every Month challenge that I haven’t even given a single thought to yet even though it’s March 21st.

I promise.

AppleTV+ Was Messing With Me

There are so many good Science Fiction shows on AppleTV+. It’s a little crazy. Severance, For All Mankind, Silo, Foundation, Invasion. They are all killer shows. The latest is Constellation, which is weirding me out like mad. There will be eight episodes in this first season. Episode Seven was released today.

So there I was, trying to watch the new episode while sitting up in bed. Suddenly, without warning or provocation, the video started lagging. It went from, huh? to bad to worse quickly. I closed the app and opened it again. When it launched the episode it crashed. I tried again. It wouldn’t launch the episode at all.

I did what The IT Crowd always said to do, I turned my computer off and on again. Reboot city, population me. Did it work? Nope. When the episode tried to launch, the AppleTV+ app crashed. Over and over again.

Shit.

I tried to outsmart it. I know, thought me, I’ll watch something else on another app for a while. That will make AppleTV+ jealous so that it will work for me the next time I try it.

Success. Five minutes or so of Penny Dreadful season two episode five was all it took to guilt AppleTV+ into working again. I was able to finish the new episode of Constellation.

Don’t be a jerk, AppleTV+. I needs me my Sci Fi.