All Done and Submitted

Well, the RPM Challenge is complete. I just submitted my “album” which is really just a collection of rough mixes of shitty demoes of shitty songs. It’s just not very good this year.

I don’t have a playlist to embed yet. I’ll put that together tomorrow sometime. I do have the “album” all uploaded and sequenced with cover art and all over at alonetone.

The Potato Situation

I feel good about being done even if I don’t feel terribly good about the results. I’ll figure out a sequence of the leftovers “album” tomorrow too. For now though… I’m spent.

Kitchen Demolition Starts Tomorrow

Our kitchen cabinets are going to get nuked into oblivion starting tomorrow morning. The plan is for the new installation to start on Saturday. They told us it would only take a day. I will believe it when I see it, but I am also really hoping that prediction is accurate.

I still have a few things to move out of the kitchen before they come tomorrow but I figured I’d take some pictures for posterity’s sake.

The appliances (except for the microwave) are staying, though one is moving to a new location, but the cabinets and the counter tops and the shelves are all coming down and being replaced. While I am at this, let me also post pictures of the piles of boxes that IKEA delivered to us over the last few days. Again, just for posterity’s sake, but also sort of just for shits and giggles.

I’ll post a follow up to this after they leave tomorrow so we can see the changes.

I am both ready for this project to get started and ready for it to be over. Please let it end quickly. I want my kitchen back.

Happy Leap Day

Happy Leap Day, everyone! February 29th! IF today’s your birthday then you’ve been waiting four years for this day. Congratulations and make the most of it!

Leap Day means it’s the last day of February which means the RPM Challenge ends today. I have mixed two of the remaining six songs this morning but I have to put off the rest of them until after work tonight. I also have to finish cleaning out the kitchen so that everything is ready for kitchen demolition day tomorrow. I also also need to setup a little kitchen-esque space in our bed room, just in case we decide we need to cook something.

The mixes have been very quick and dirty and rough at best this year so I am sort of plowing through them with the minimum amount of time and effort. I’ll get the last four in tonight without too much of a problem. The question is whether any of them will be good enough to use on the final album.

I have 20 songs. I need 10 to submit an album to the RPM Challenge website. I will pick the best 10 songs and bundle them into something that resembles an album. I will take the remaining 10 pieces of dog shit and bundle them into something that resembles an outtake album. I’ll submit the 10 good songs and not submit the dog shit. Unfortunately, there are probably only four or five songs that I think are good enough to submit… so some shit is going to make it’s way into the submitted album. Oh well. That’s normal for me. I just have to decide what songs to include.

Here’s one I just finished. It will probably be included, though in a better year it would not have been. Oh well.

Four songs left to mix, then I need a cover image and a sequence. That’s all that remains for this year’s RPM Challenge. Almost there, folks. Almost there.

Happy Leap Day.

Workin’ For a Livin’

Daily writing prompt
Do you enjoy your job?
View all responses

This July I am going to reach the 20th anniversary of my first day with the company I work for. This past Sunday (four days ago) was the anniversary of my promotion that put me into my currect role within the company. That was 11 years ago.

Given all of that, I would say that I enjoy my job. I would not have stuck with it for all of these years if I didn’t enjoy it. I mean, it’s not as much fun as playing guitar for a living should be (theoretically at least) or taking pictures for a living should be (theoretically at least) but it’s a good job and I like it. I feel good doing it. I feel like I am able to indirectly help people who help people for a living. That’s rewarding in it’s way.

If I could make a living playing guitar though, I would drop my job in a heartbeat.

RPM Challenge Update

Here’s a quick update on the RPM Challenge as the penultimate* day comes to an end.

I mixed three songs tonight. All three of the songs are pigs and should never be listened to again.

14 songs finished. Six more to go. One day left. Almost there.

*I am such a pretentious hack.

Avalanche

Ikea Avalanche…

Ikeavalanche…

Ikevalanche…

I think I like that last one. Ikevalanche. That describes what happened to our house. Ikea exploded and it caused an avalanche in our living and dining rooms. Ikevalanche, babie.

The cats are oblivious.

Photo a Day for Today

I am in the office today and my schedule has been insanely hectic. Just crazy busy.

Fortunately I snuck in a photo for the photo a day challenge thing before I left the house this morning.

181/365
181/365

Got it in by the skin of my teeth. Whew!

It’s Just a Phase

Daily writing prompt
Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.
View all responses

I’m having a tough time coming up with an answer to this question. I can’t think of any phase of my life that was difficult to say goodbye to. Every time some major life period ended, there was something better waiting in the wings to replace it.

High school was replaced with college and even though the first time around in college was a mess, it was so much better than high school.

College the first time ended long before I wanted it to and getting a full time job afterwards was anything but a positive experience, at that time though college was becoming a nightmare and it had to end. I couldn’t figure out how to move forward academically, apart from starting from scratch, so I put it aside for a few years… and then started from scratch.

Graduating from college and moving into a career… you’d think that would have been tough to say goodbye to, but really I was ready for it. I had been a student for a long time and I used to joke that I was really a career student. By the time I graduated though, I was ready for that phase to end and I welcomed what came next.

I was depressed when my 20’s ended and became my 30’s. I didn’t want them to end, but I was already so low that I wasn’t sad to see them go. I was, but at the same time, not really. You know? My 30’s started out bad but I was 36 when I met Jen and 38 when we got married. Once I had started a life with her I was ready for whatever the universe could throw at us. I looked forward to time passing and phases… phasing. I was sad to see my 40’s end, but only because I don’t want to be old. I accepted that I was already old though so it didn’t actually change anything.

So I guess the answer to this question is that I never really had a phase in my life end that I had a difficult time saying goodbye to. Sorry if that’s a lame answer. I guess I am just a super mature dude who is able to roll with the changes, as the song says. Maybe I should pat myself on the back for that.