Tag: tech

I Need to Play

I haven’t played my guitar this week and the stir crazy is getting to me. I’ve done a lot of work on 50/90 but none of it on guitar. I’ve got eight songs with vocals recorded that are just waiting for leads. I have three that are ready for rhythm guitar. Tonight. I hope. All totaled, I’m up to 47 songs now. Three more to go and then all I have to do is the gigantic mountain of work left to finish them up.

The Agents of Shield re-watch is up to season five episode one. It opens with a montage set to a Talking Heads song. At least I think it’s a Talking Heads song. It’s definitely David Byrne singing. It lead me to the question: The year is 2020, is it time for me to give Talking Heads a try? I more or less ignored them back in the 80’s. Should I change my mind? Change my tune, so to speak?

Jen and I have been trying to exercise. I’ve been getting 30 minutes or so in each day for the last few days. I’ve been slacking a little today though. One of the things the Apple Watch activity app tracks is calories burned. I had the goal set at 640. I can’t remember if I set that or if it defaulted that way, but it’s been like that forever.

My SleepWatch app has been giving me notifications stating that I get better sleep if I burn 800 calories. That’s interesting. The last few exercise filled days have seen me going way above 800 and I have been sleeping a little better than normal. I guess that settles it. My activity app has been upped from 640 to 800 calories. Yup. I need to go for a 5-6 minute walk now.

50/90 Day 12 Update

I suppose it’s time for a 50/90 update. Let’s do some math, shall we?

July 4th through October 1st. 90 days over three months.

90 songs in three months means 16.67 songs per month. Thanks for coming out even, stupid math. So at the minimum, two of the three months need 17 songs and one needs 16. Since July starts on the 4th instead of the 1st, July is the shortest month, therefore logically July should be the month that only needs 16 songs.

Math is hard.

As of bed time last night I have 16 songs in progress. All of them have the song form set, half of them have very badly performed guitar parts recorded, none of them have lyrics or melody yet, and all of them pretty much suck so far.

But….

I am on the minimum pace.

I want to record some guitars tonight, and I’m hoping that by the time the weekend is over there will be some vocals down too. We’ll see. That might be a tall order.

I also feel that I should warn you, faithful readers (he said like he was Stephen freakin’ King or something) that a few minutes ago I started on what could be the nerdiest project I have ever undertaken… and that’s saying something.

Jen and I have become a little weirdly obsessed with candles during our four month lock down. All through our work days we both have a candle or two (or three) burning near our desk. I don’t really know why, and I don’t think she does either, but we do.

This morning when I lit my desk candles I started taking a time lapse video of one of them. I pointed my iPad at a candle, started recording, and lit the bastard. I was planning to let it run for an hour or so out of fear that the battery wouldn’t last for much longer than that. As I was writing this though, I found a lightning cable long enough to plug my iPad in without moving it from it’s video-ing location.

It is possible that I could take a full 8-9 hour long time lapse video of this candle. Oh. My. Nerd. Hopefully I don’t accidentally knock over the iPad or something. Knowing me like I do, I’ll probably do something stupid to screw this up and spare you, faithful readers, from my epic nerdness.

We shall see.

Notice Anything Different?

Hey you guys. Do you notice anything different about this page? Something subtle and under the covers like?

We just rebuilt our entire home network. Can you tell?

Actually, I am just logged onto my work PC to make sure I still have a connection. I do. Next I’ll check my MacBook.

Be right back.

White Light of Death

Buying a huge new TV and changing up the living room reminded us that we have a Play Station 4 that we never use. Jen and I were both inspired. I started playing EA Sports NHL 2020 and she stared playing this kick ass Star Wars game whose name escapes me.

On Monday, just before work, I had a little open time. Just enough to play a hockey game. I switched on the PS4, grabbed a controller, and when I tried to pair them nothing happened. The console couldn’t read the controller. I tried another controller. Same thing. I then sent the PS4 to its room and told it that I was not mad, I was just disappointed (in English: I shut it off and went to work).

Today I was up very early and had time for multiple hockey games. I had to watch the last episode of the last season of Rick and Morty first, but once that was done (which Beth is the clone? Will we ever know? Does it matter?) I switched on the Play Station to prepare for some hockey goodness.

The same thing happened. The controller wouldn’t pair with the console. Huh. I also noticed that the little blue light on top of the box was not blue, it was white. Well, that is probably trying to tell me something, right? Off to The Google!

The first hit I saw was titled, “White Light of Death.”

Uh oh. I think I’ll go sign in to work now.

Apple Watch Faces

On my first Apple Watch I made two watch faces. When I upgraded from Series One to Series Three I kept them and didn’t create anything new.

I only used the Mickey Mouse face when I was on vacation, or when I had nothing important going on.

Now that I have a Series Five I’ve been playing with new watch faces. So far I’ve put two together that I kinda like.

I’m not sure which one I prefer. I’ve got the blue one on now. I might switch to the white one.

So many options!

Really, Mickey is still the best.

Apple Watch Status

A few days ago, my love and I were discussing the status of our respective Apple Watches. Hers is a Series 4. Mine is a Series 3. Hers has more features, but mine has better battery life. I need the better battery because I wear my watch to sleep so I can’t recharge it over night.

We talked about the pros and cons of getting a series 5 when they come out.

Assuming they hadn’t come out yet.

Did you know they’ve already come out? I didn’t… until the one Jen bought just showed up at our door.

It’s synching to my iPhone now.

Gadget happy. Thank you for the surprise, Lovey!

Monday Morning, Again

The bad news is, it’s Monday again. The good news is, thanks to Independence Day it’s only a four day work week. Bliss.

I did some car singing today. June Music is done, 50/90 doesn’t start until Saturday. What did I do? The Great Re-Recording Project. Actually, in my mind I still think of it as The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project because that’s what I originally called it. The old name doesn’t quite work anymore.

Anyway, I worked on vocals for two songs. I spent a little more than an hour. When I do album in a month or demo projects like I’ve been doing I don’t mind copying and pasting vocal tracks. If a song has two choruses I sing it once and paste it everywhere else. I don’t want to do that on The Great Re-Recording Project so it takes a lot more time to finish a song. I want each note played by a human to be unique. I did copy and paste the MIDI instruments. Drums I can’t really help because it’s the GarageBand Session drummer. I might do a unique tweak to each section. Bass… I’m really thinking about redoing all of the bass parts so that I don’t copy or paste anything. We’ll see.

Anyway, I did two songs. They both sound a smidge better than the scratch tracks I already had, so it was worth it. It was, however, definitely stressful. There were a lot of people around. No one actually close, but I was most certainly not alone. I pulled into a spot at around 7:30 and there was a “work” crew two sections away. I put work in quotes because they weren’t actually working. They were just hanging out and they were pretty clearly watching me. Could they hear me? Doubtful, but I was belting as loud as my meager voice can get. Maybe? Doubtful. I think they were on the 8:00 shift with the grounds crew and were just early. There were a lot of additional people on the crew wandering around and there were cars and trucks (and a crane?) driving in and out.

A second work crew showed up at 8:00. Three cars, four or five people. They were in the same lot I was in, but on the opposite end. They were much closer than the not-working peanut gallery, but they only stayed outside for a few minutes before moving into the movie theater. Still too close for comfort though. There was probably enough time, battery, and bladder capacity for me to start working on a third song, but I bailed. There were just too many people. When I pulled out of my spot I saw a third cheering section. Two cats in an SUV only two rows behind me. Way too close for singing comfort. They were okay by social distance standards but what the hell guys, there’s a whole string of parking lots. Pick one of your own.

I’m thinking I need a new parking lot for morning singing. Either that or I have to leave the house 60-90 minutes earlier. On the way home I went to another spot to check it out. I drove up to the Tenney Castle grounds. It was mostly quiet (one jogger in the middle of the driveway with headphones on who couldn’t hear my nearly silent Hybrid car until I beeped. It was pretty funny), but I had actually forgotten that there isn’t a parking lot there. The driveway ends in a rotary. Bummer. Maybe early mornings at the library? They have a pretty remote overflow parking lot there. Maybe.

Anything else going on today? UPS? My amp is back in Out for Delivery Status with a date/time of today by 9:00pm. Should I hold my breath? Look at me. I’m totally holding my breath. Wow, I might actually turn blue from all of this holding my breath.

We did some minor furniture rearranging in some of the bed rooms last week. Over the weekend we spent some time planning for future changes as well. Nothing to report yet, but discussions are being had. Maybe the quarantinie life might lead to a slightly rearranged house. Maybe not. We’ll see. We did add a bunch of new smart light bulbs to a lot of the rooms. Most of the house already had some. Now we have more. The Internet of Things and all that. Groovy. Just don’t hack my lights, dude. M’kay?

Welp, it’s 9:00am on a Monday morning. Enough of my yappin’, let’s boogie… and by boogie I mean start the work day.

Talk to you all later.

Some Notes on a Saturday

How long does a modern TV last? This morning Jen started thinking about a new TV. We don’t need a new TV, I said. When did we buy our current living room TV, she asked. Off to the blog I go!

The blog holds all the answers. The new TV was purchased on September 28, 2014. Just shy of six years ago. The blog is wise. The blog knows.

So then we asked how long do TVs tend to last these days? Off to Google Jen goes! 5-7 years. Well, that settles it then. Conspicuous Consumerism dictates that we need a new TV. We’re going to hold off until Christmas… I think. We agreed to that, but Jen is hovering around BestBuy.com which means maybe she won’t be able to wait.

Second Saturday note: UPS again… oh boy. Just when I came to grips with the fact that I was going to have to file a claim with GuitarCenter.com over the amplifier that will never be shipped, UPS updated the tracking number to say that once again (take three) it is on a truck and out for delivery. The estimated delivery date/time is today by 9:00PM. I’m taking bets on what time this afternoon they change that date to Monday. Anyone?

The third Saturday note is the only actually important one. There is a story suggesting that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers. It is also being said that trump knew about it and did nothing.

I don’t know if any of it’s true. I’ve only seen it on Twitter. I haven’t read any of the source articles. I don’t know if it is true or not. I just know this:

iPhones are Helpful

I’m getting old. I’m out of shape. Bending down to see something that’s on the floor is no picnic these days. Also, I’m going blind. My eyesight is getting suckier by the day. Also, the printing on the Keeley D&M Drive pedal is really, really small, and the color scheme doesn’t help. The little sucker is hard to read.

Fortunately I have an iPhone. I can reach down and take a pic with the 2x lens, then zoom in on the image and magically I can read the labels on the knobs.

I love living in the future.

Except for the whole pandemic thing. That bites. The other stuff, the tech stuff, is cool.