Today is Robin Trower’s 79th birthday. Happy Birthday!
He is unusual for a guitarist of his generation in that he hasn’t seemed to have lost a step at all. Most guys who are pushing 80 years old are not playing as well today as they did a couple of decades ago. Not Robin Trower. He’s as good, if not better, than he was 20 or 30 or even 40 years ago. I wonder what his secret is. Probably something lame like taking care of himself and practicing a lot.
Okay, it’s March 9th which means this post is about nine days late. Here’s my final mention of the 2024 RPM Challenge.
Two playlists. One is the “album” I submitted to the RPM Challenge website. The album is called The Potato Situation, after something Jen said to me about making dinner that was really funny and I decided would live on forever in album title form. 10 songs. One or two might be better than crap. The rest are meh at best.
The second playlist is also 10 songs and officially qualifies as an RPM Challenge win in it’s own right, but I did not submit it to the website. Why? Because these are the 10 songs that weren’t good enough to make the final cut. As meh as the official album is, these are worse. There are some really boring stinkers in this pile, but the point of the challenge is to ignore your internal censor and just make stuff happen. In that respect, this playlist is a winner.
And there you have it, folks. Two, 10 song playlists representing two sides of the same project coin… or something like that. Another successful February. I wish the quality were a little better, but I’m happy with the win. I’ll take it.
Now I can get back to the Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven that I’ve been picking away at for a couple of years. Maybe I’ll mix a song or two this weekend. We’ll see.
Happy Friday, everyone. Hopefully Friday has meaning for most if not all of us. It has extra meaning for me this week. Starting this month my company has changed it’s hybrid work requirements. Where it used to be that we had to be in the office for 20% of each pay period (basically one day each week), as of March 1st we have to be in the office for 40% of each pay period (basically twice per week). Today is my first, second day of a week. None of us our happy with this, but it’s a whole ton better than being back 80%, which is what we had prior to the pandemic shut down. Oh well. I’ll deal with it. I am still coming in every Wednesday. My group has Wednesdays as a mandate and the second day each week is at everyone’s personal discretion. I am sort of planning on making Mondays my regular second day, just to get it over with, but that didn’t work this week due to the contractors working in the kitchen. Friday was the only day that worked for me. Fortunately there was zero traffic today. I made the 40 mile drive to the office in 45 minutes. If only it were like that every morning.
In other news, the kids are on the ground. Bellana’s flight landed in Georgia (the US state, not the European country) before I went to sleep last night. Harry’s first flight landed in London well after I nodded off for the night, and his connecting flight landed in Scotland before I woke up this morning. All is well on both of those fronts. Here’s hoping they both have a great time on their trips.
I am taking advantage of the fact that I am 40 miles from home right now to make my way to IKEA after work. IKEA is about 60 miles from home, but only 20 miles from work. I will head down there as soon as I am free and go to the returns department and bring back a great big pile of stuff that IKEA included in our kitchen redesign blue print that we didn’t end up needing. There is a lot of stuff to return. A lot of stuff. If I get it all done tonight then we don’t have to worry about it, and with the money we get back maybe I’ll be able to afford a hair cut this weekend because damn, do I need a hair cut!
Anyway, here’s today’s photo-a-day picture. I took it before I did my workout this morning at about 5:40am. It’s only 9:14am now but it’s already felt like a long day.
I took today’s photo a day picture before I did my exercise this morning because I knew it was an in-the-office day and I wouldn’t have a lot of opportunities for snappin’ pics.
Little did I know that just before I left the house, the cats would pose for me. I could have used one of these instead.
Oh well. Two Hipstamatic camera app pics of the cats because artsy and stuff. I can get behind that.
The progress being made in the kitchen is stunning. The demo is done and they are installing cabinets. It feels like they might be as much as half a day ahead of schedule. We’re already starting to talk about things that weren’t supposed to happen this weekend. Tiling and painting, specifically. The tile guy is coming on Sunday. It’s absolutely nuts!
Anyway, here’s today’s photo a day pic. I took it before the kitchen guys got here this morning because I didn’t know if I would get a chance for anything once the crazy arrived.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Got it in by the skin of my teeth. Whew!
I just did a quick and terrible mix of song number 11 for this year’s RPM Challenge. We’re officially into the second album’s worth of music. This one might make the final submission. It might not. I can’t decide yet.
Nine more songs left to mix and not enough time to get to it all. I’m pretty sure I’ll finish them all, I just won’t have much time for anything else.
Inside the Red Head's Head 