BrainDrain

Image Update '09 - Off the Top 'O Me Head

2009-11-17T04:19:48Z

I visited my first haberdashery on Sunday, an honest to God haberdashery. I've been wanting to go to The Hatbox (billed as a Modern Haberdashery, not sure why "modern" is emphasized) for quite some time, and since I've also had an itch to update my image before Life On Loan goes out giggin' again, I figured that there was no time like the present to visit the Hatbox. I've also been wanting to get more headwear besides baseball caps, but wasn't really sure what to get and what looks good. A couple of cohorts who wanted to go with was all I needed to make the trek down to 6th Street.

The Hatbox is a really cool place. I tried on all sorts of hats, from bowlers to balaclavas to top hats, but ended up settling on three - a driver cap and two small-brimmed fedoras in slightly different styles for every day wear and also for dressin' up a little bit. Both my compadres and the folks at the store gave me the thumbs up on the hats I chose, so I'm reasonably confident that I don't look like a complete dork wearing them around. I think the fedoras are going to be primarily gig wear, though, because I don't think the world at large is really ready to head back to the time when men always wore hats and trenchcoats. Then again, I could be the herald of a new age in style. Stranger things have happened, you know.

The other cool thing was that I had a little brush with fame (not mine). It would seem that The Swell Season was in town to play a show, and Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova stopped in to buy a hat for a friend. They starred in the movie Once and also composed the soundtrack which won an Oscar. Anyway, I had no idea who they were and was just making polite chit-chat when the clerk at the Hatbox asked me for ID to go with my check card. Glen, in his Irish accent, was caught a little off guard and says, "Oh, my...ID might be a bit of a problem. Perhaps I can borrow yours, yeah?", to which I promptly replied, "sure, as long as you haven't done anything nefarious back in Ireland." It was at that point that Ballenger pipes up and says, "I think I know who you are. You're Glen Hansard, right?" Glen brightened up and responded, "See? There now, I don't need any ID - this guy'll vouch for me!" Scott asked him where they were playing, we bantered for a few minutes, and then they went on their way and we went on ours. Man, I love this town.

I also had to get some new jeans now that it's getting colder (I was down to two pair) and also needed to continue the image update, so I went out tonight to get some and also picked up some button-down long-sleeved shirts in gray and black for cheap, which will also be used for giggin', church, and times when I want to dress up a little bit. I think the wardrobe update is nearly complete for this year after this trip - all I need now is a couple of club/bowling shirts (or maybe cabana shirts? Not sure what you call them) and I think I'll be good. Fewer tees and polos, more button downs and collars, I think.

The only thing left to do is to drop off the other clothes that I'm no longer wearing at Salvation Army so that someone else can get some use out of them and as I said, it's getting cold outside so there's no better time.

Get Yo ZING On!

2009-11-13T05:35:51Z

The other day I was turned on to the magic of ZINGWater, what I like to think of as the perfect caffeine delivery system. It's water plus caffeine, and that's it. Nothing more. No cups and cups of sugar, no horrible taste or aftertaste, and no pretense at being EXTREME fuel for the EXTREME lifestyle. In fact, if the bottle didn't say it had caffeine in it, you'd never know it.

I call it the perfect delivery system because it gives all the caffeine pick-me-up potency of a Red Bull but with the hydrating and super-clean taste of purified water. How many of us slam down multiple cups of coffee or diet Cokes in a single day for the caffeine rush? Hate having your teeth squeak from pop syrup or dislike that coffee tongue and post-java halitosis? Me too! I don't know about you, but when I'm working, I find that I drink far less water than I should and that can wreak havoc on the body. Thus, finding a way to hydrate AND also get the energy boost that I need to keep me alert at work is a pretty important thing - and it's all found in ZINGWater.

Who would drink it? The computer programmer in me would drink it for the reasons I've already mentioned above. The musician in me would drink it for the hydration factor plus the energy to rock out extra hard during a show. And the health-conscious side of me (yes, there is one in there...somewhere) would drink it because I know that it's healthier than any other drink out there that delivers that kind of caffeine punch with zero side effects (other than the caffeine, of course).

Oh, and did I mention that ZINGWater is local? Yep. Made right here in the Texas Hill Country. Hit up the link to check out the site, read the story, and then find out where you can buy your own. You can even order direct from the company, and I hear tell that they're also trying to get hooked up with some humanitarian organizations to help provide clean and available drinking water in places of the world where they can't get it.

SO...

Not only are you helping YOU stay lubricated and energized, you'd be supporting a LOCAL company to keep money here in the Austin economy, and you'd be helping OTHERS get water in places where the idea of bottled water seems like some ludicrous extravagance of heaven. Everybody wins! So give ZINGWater a try the next time you need that little something extra to put some pep in your step.

If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'.

Ecclesiastical Living

2009-11-10T05:03:58Z

My home team has been going through the book of Ecclesiastes and for me, there is not a more timely study to undertake at this stage in my life. I'm finding that having the mindset of living for today with a view towards Christ's Lordship in my life is as difficult as it is exhilarating. I'm really starting to identify with Solomon and his conclusions.

Follow the jump to read how.

]]> I could consider the last year of my life to be very much like Solomon's point of view in Ecclesiastes - I have been employed, a slave to work, unemployed, free to indulge in whatever I wanted, given some of my heart's desires, and felt the feelings of uselessness and idleness. I wrote in an earlier post that the grass is brown on both sides of the fence, but I'm coming to see that perhaps this is a wrong perspective, too cynical to be useful. The grass is green on both sides of the fence; it is just that the lenses of my glasses are dirty.

I'm coming to the conclusion that living life day-by-day is the best solution, with a simple prayer asking God each morning to help me accomplish what He has for me to do that day. Living for the future, or with the thought of the resolution of a future goal as a requirement for success, has just left me empty because the future is something that can never be possessed. I've found that enjoying the challenges and gifts of each day as it happens is a lot less stressful than always laboring under the specter of the unknown future and the tyranny of assumed expectations. Savoring versus voraciously consuming without chewing.

However, even today I experienced that emptiness and futility in relation to the band's studio experience. I was remarking to Justin how I had the post-partem depression that one often gets after coming back to "reality" after a great vacation. The recording only happened two days ago and here I was, already lamenting the fact that it was over. I was surprised at how quickly my elation and excitement over being able to realize a personal dream was gone and how much I wanted to hold on to something in the past - which made it much harder to enjoy today. As we talked a little bit, the realization came that only a small part of this process is done and that there is still much to do. I had the mistaken perspective that my part was done and now I was going to be sitting around waiting, and that notion robbed me of my joy over the experience I had participated in just 48 hours prior. Plus, it had made work today seem like onerous drudgery because it wasn't vivid and exciting like the new recording experience had been.

I began to see how holding on too tightly to my own dreams can make me dissatisfied with the now, and how living in the past or the future is a recipe for discontent. I also became acutely aware of our society's media contribution to this unrest, presenting an idealized escape which is designed to make the viewer wish for unattainable things and buy product. Deep down, I believe that we all desire to live the exciting life of The Most Interesting Man In The World, but life is not like that. The hardest part of Ecclesiastes to accept is the notion that nothing in my life - absolutely nothing - is anything but meaningless vanity apart from the Lordship of Christ, which is precisely the proof that life can never be like any media-crafted hyper-reality for long. This means that I have to get over myself and realize that I am the creation, put here to glorify and please my Creator, and the reason for my existence is not to have an exciting life but is rather to fulfill God's purpose - whatever that may be.

The studio experience was a pretty dramatic revelation to me at just how fleeting moments can be and also that Satan and his ilk are pretty much waiting right at the door to rob us of our joy as quickly as possible. God allowed me to experience yet another personal dream realized this year - another one! - and here I am, hours later, lamenting the fact that it's gone. I'm wondering if this is kind of how Peter felt when the rooster crowed that third time and he realized that he had just done the thing that he said he wasn't going to do.

A mantra that has been used in our band bible study as of late has been "Live creatively, friends!" Eugene Peterson's The Message paraphrase used this and we've sort of latched onto it in a joking manner, but I think that it applies superbly here. I would change it to "live passionately, friends!" as the mantra of my life after the Ecclesiastes experience. It's good to plan for the future, but not to be bound by it, for plans always change; it is good to remember the past but not to get mired in it, because the past will never change; always live for the present, because that's where God is and where life is lived abundantly. Life has already happened in the past, it will never happen in the future, but it IS happening NOW in the present. Grab onto it and enjoy whatever God has given you to do right now! As Jesus said, "let tomorrow worry about itself." And as Ferris Beuller said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and take a look around every once in awhile, you could miss it."

Indeed. Live passionately, my friends!

Recording Session One Is Done

2009-11-09T05:37:28Z

The recording session went beautifully - picture perfect, one might say. We were able to get into the studio to setup our instruments the night before, and we started tweaking mics about noonish on Saturday. We were able to record the drum tracks for seven songs in roughly 7.5 - 8 hours, which was pretty good if the reactions of our producer was any indicator. It was tough, though - we played each song a minimum of three times before taking a break to listen to the recordings, and there were one or two that we had to do more than that (my fault). In fact, any extra takes we had to do were my fault because in this session, it was really only my performances that mattered - the rest can be fixed later and elsewhere. Well, that's not entirely true; I think that the bass tracks were also being monitored but there was a lot more leeway for Travis on the mistake front than there was for me. However, we did get all the drum tracks we came for, and probably the bass tracks as well, and even had some time to do some vocal tracks, background vocals, and auxiliary overdubs of various instruments. We ended up leaving the studio about 11:30pm on Saturday night, almost 12 hours after we got there. That, my friends, is a long freakin' day!

Here's some pics that Gavin and I took during the day to help you get the feel for the Life On Loan recording experience (and to prove that I'm not just making all this up - we were actually there! Honest!):

In some ways, this was what I expected and in other ways it was not. On the one hand, it was a very long day - playing drums for 8 hours in a day (with probably the equivalent of 25-30 songs in that time) was physically demanding. So much so, in fact, that I knew it was time to quit when I got cramps in both my forearm and leg attempting to redo our fastest song at the end of my time in the session. I was worn out! On the other hand, I brought a legion of extras - extra snares, extra cymbals, extra mallets and sticks, extra drum heads, etc. - and was under the impression that we'd do a lot of retakes with different sounds and such, but we did not. I'm guessing that's pretty much dependent on the producer and what kind of sounds he wants, and the Tama recorded beautifully. Listening to the tracks as they were finished, I was amazed that the sounds I was hearing actually came from the kit I had just played and honestly, I don't think that any additional sound textures or anything were needed for this record. Perhaps if we do a full-length album, we'll do more of that.

I also gained a newfound appreciation for Pro Tools. I had come into the session with the impression that Pro Tools was just a tool to make bad bands sound good, and that a heavy reliance on PT was kind of a crutch. From reading Modern Drummer, you'd think that only real bands complete records without using it and that anyone else who does is somehow "cheating". Well, that's not the case. What PT allows a band to do is fix some minor discrepancies without having to do an entire re-take of a whole song just for one small spot. Case in point: on the third take of a song, everything came out good except for one spot where I missed a beat due to getting my sticks crossed up. It was a three-measure repeating pattern and the third one didn't sound right (although the rest of the band decided that they kind of liked it). Patrick was able to copy one snare hit from the previous "good" measure and put it in right where the missed shot was to fall in the "bad" measure, making it sound as if I had played it just right in the first place. That meant we didn't have to go back and record a whole song just for that one hit. Technology is amazing when used properly and sparingly.

All in all, it was an amazing experience, ranking right up there in the handful of "best days of my life" at the top of my memory pile. I want to give a shout out to Michael Landon over at Premium Recording, who was an immense help to us during the day and is probably one of the nicest guys I have ever met, and also to our producer and lead engineer, Patrick Conway, who is helping us to craft the most awesome album EVER!!! My world has been rocked and I hope to rock yours soon, with the help of my band. Stay tuned, true believers!

Going Into the Studio

2009-11-05T05:40:21Z

So the big news around my water cooler is the fact that Life On Loan is finally heading into the studio this weekend to record our first EP. We'll be working on getting at least five songs recorded at Premium Recording on Saturday from 1pm - midnight, and maybe have to trickle over into Sunday if something relatively untoward and unforeseen happens. My personal goal is to have the EP ready to release by the end of the year, but that may not happen. We'll see.

I will admit that I am really enjoying being able to throw out the "yeah, well my band's going into the studio this weekend, so..." line in conversation - whether it's an excuse why I can't do something, or in response to the ever-popular "got any big weekend plans?" question, or just telling someone what's new, being able to say I'm going to be in the studio totally kicks ass! I totally feel like a rock star now, and I'm loving every minute of it. God's allowing me to participate in so many cool things musically this year, and the studio thing is just a great way to cap off the year. Truly amazing!

I'm trying not to totally let it go to my head, though. It's funny - people sort of respond with the same awe and wonder when I mention going into the studio as the non-technical folks do when I say that I work for IBM. Going into the studio is something that pretty much anyone can do if they have the money and the time, and the current state of the music biz pretty much makes it possible for any band to get well-produced music out there to a niche market. You could have five fans and make an EP or a full CD if you have the money to block out the time at the studio.

However, I think that the phrase "going into the studio" still carries a lot of weight behind it from the old days when the only people that ever did that were bands that were backed by a record label. I think that phrase shows that you're really serious about your music - either someone likes you enough to pay your way into the studio (rare) or you believe in your stuff enough to spend the hefty chunk of change to get a professional recording done. I think the studio for musicians is akin to the minor leagues for baseball players - it signals that while you're not quite there in the "big show" yet, you're definitely more serious than just playing pickup games on Saturday nights.

So, yeah...this is kind of big for us. Big for me. Another personal dream, and I'm looking forward to having something in my hands that I can play for people and say, "yeah, that's me on the drums and my band made a recording. Me and three other guys took songs from nothing, created them, crafted them, and recorded them and here they are." The songs have been reworked, sound very little like the ones that we recorded for the demo, and will hopefully come out the other side sounding professional and ear-catching. This is one of the most awesome things I have ever done, and I am thankful to God that He is allowing me to do this.

I'm also hoping to tweet and twitpic the studio recording process, so hopefully I'll have a good real-time diary going on of how things are going and what the experience is like. I also need to update the MySpace page as well.

This is going to be so much fun!

The New (Old) Gig: Week Three

2009-10-27T03:21:37Z

Now that I've been back at IBM for a couple of weeks, the questions are starting to roll in regarding my impressions of the gig and how I like it. Since I happen to have this nice blog here which is quite useful for putting out general all-points bulletins that pertain to the Drewverse, I figured I'd just write out my impressions here and y'all can read about 'em at your leisure. So buckle up, buttercup, because the train's leavin' the station and we ain't turnin' it around anytime soon.

Honestly, I'm not really sure what to make of my current position. On the upside, I'm learning a lot and have been challenged pretty much from the get-go to work out my brain on a daily basis. I'm learning some good skills which will make me pretty valuable in the future: J2EE, WebSphere, DB2, Struts 2, DWR, dojo, perhaps some Hibernate, and all sorts of other acronyms that I don't even know the meaning of yet. And, I'm doing full site development from the ground up, and that will be really valuable as well.

The downsides are that I feel like I'm constantly chasing after the bus that is supposed to take me to school; I don't really know the technologies I'm being asked to work with, and it's taking me a lot longer than I would like to grasp the ideas. My team is almost 100% remote, even the ones here in Austin - I and one other woman are the only ones that come into the office on a regular basis. Therefore, it's not only hard to connect with my teammates on a personal/social level, it's hard to catch up on the development side of things because I can't just go next door and bug one of the other devs to sit down with me and help me out. People don't respond too quickly to instant messaging or email and NetMeeting and phone conferences can only take one so far and thus, I think I could really benefit from an hour or so of XP coding until I get my Struts 2 feet under me and really get a better feel for the nuts and bolts of the application that I'll be working on half of the time.

(As an aside, the reason I'm in the office is because my manager has a three-month "probationary" period before working from home. I guess he wants to ensure that I get going rather than work from home and have to battle potential distractions, which I completely understand. The odd thing is that nobody else is in the office, which leads me to feel slightly more isolated than I would feel if I worked from home because IBM is not comfortable. It's kind of a terrible work environment. I would understand the requirement a bit more if everyone was in the office, but since they're not, I'm kind of constantly wondering why I have to go in. I could potentially be more productive at home, having access to more computers and/or monitors.)

So, the summation is that it's hard work and it's challenging, which I like, but it's also somewhat isolating and frustrating because I'm not able to adequately get the help and contact which I believe that I need right now. I've been a "software developer" for twelve years now, and yet this is the first time that I've really been able to do what would be considered full-on, hardcore development work. I still need help because in this respect, I'm a n00b. This does, of course, lead to a lot of inner monologues and haranguing of myself about what I should and shouldn't be able to do and how quickly I should be able to pick it up, and that's probably not helping matters much. I really don't know what the expectations of me currently are, and so my mind has gladly made up extreme possibilities on its own; all I know is that I'm getting tired of reporting that I'm still stuck on the same form I was last week on our daily status calls.

We've just started studying Ecclesiastes in my home team and I'm really trying to put those lessons into practice by not worrying so much about the end product and just taking each day for what it is and trying to live it in the moment. Hopefully, this pattern of thought will help the next two weeks to get better and the two weeks after that to be even better still. God has put me here for some reason, and so I know that I have the capability to do the job, but maybe I need to ask Him for a little more help this time than I have in previous stints. I just don't really like that catching-up feeling, which is the situation that I have found myself in for the last two weeks, so I must learn to deal with it and, hopefully, overcome it sooner rather than later.

And that, as they say, is that. Aren't you glad you asked?

Telegraph Canyon: The Return (to Austin)

2009-10-25T20:25:17Z

I headed down to the Parish Room on Friday night with Ballenger to see one of my new favorite bands, Telegraph Canyon, play with Quiet Company and The Morakestra. While Quiet Company was the headliner, I was really there to see Telegraph Canyon:

The other bands were good, don't get me wrong. If you like Rooney, I'd suggest you check out Quiet Company - they were really tight, had a ton of style, and stage presence to last for days. The Morakestra was also good, with a lot of tight instrumentation and jamming (although their stage presence needs a little work).

Telegraph Canyon is just really interesting to watch because they have so many musicians on stage and such different instrumentation. Their music is quite varied in dynamic volume, and they have a lot of good fun and are not your run of the mill band. I guess that's why they got a writeup in Rolling Stone's online edition last month. It's not the kind of music that I would normally listen to (and thus I don't have any comparisons to make of the "if you like {x} you'll like Telegraph Canyon" kind) so I think that speaks to how good their music is because it has earned me as a convert. Plus, they've released their latest album on vinyl, and that's got to count for something.

So if you're looking for some new music, check out any one of these three bands and I think you'll be glad that you did.

Music As An Occupation

2009-10-20T03:39:00Z

A conversation had with Jacob whist we were tooling around Houston before the gig on Friday has had me thinking ever since. It was about the sacrifices one has to make in order to pursue music seriously and with the advent of my second coming at IBM, it has me wondering if I'm willing to make them.

Editorial note: From this point forward, the term "musician" will refer to those individuals trying to make music a major part of their monetary sustainment. A "professional" musician, if you will, but not necessarily a signed artist or one with big-label or studio backing of some sort. I get tired of repeating myself.

Being a musician is a big commitment: a commitment to style (hair, tattoos, attitudes, clothing/image), a commitment to learning to play the instrument well, a commitment to the fans, and also a commitment to gear. Musicians don't have company subsidized health insurance, so most of them go without. Gigs pay but they don't pay much once it's all divided up amongst the band members, and even though you may be playing four nights a week, two to three of those nights might be weekday gigs with low numbers and therefore low pay. Everything costs money: gear, touring, recording, threads, practice space. Sometimes shows come up at the last minute and a band that is limited in time is also limited in audience. Particular style choices can be detrimental to corporate jobs (or even some service jobs). Mohawks and tattoos are generally frowned upon by corporate types.

Musicians also tend to have lower-strata jobs tending bar or working retail or service and the like because those jobs can be more flexible (due to fluid schedules) and can be easily blown off in the event that a big opportunity comes along. Some places are more understanding of the life of a musician and are much more flexible to absences on short notice. The problem is, these jobs don't typically pay much. I recall reading somewhere about one band who would get minimum-wage jobs when they weren't touring to barely make ends meet because they could quickly leave them to go back out on the road. There's no attachment to the company or much loyalty, and there's not a career ladder to be left. Jobs that don't require the arduous trek up the corporate ladder structure are a dime a dozen (and pay about that much).

Not to mention the fact that lugging your gear around (especially if you're a drummer) is a gigantic pain in just about everywhere.

All of this flies completely in the face of any type of career job where the work ethic seems to be the unspoken mantra of "overtime is expected". Companies expect their employees to give more and more to them, and that conflicts with the similar demands that music makes on a musician. The career job supplies all those things that makes music possible - money, insurance coverage, etc. - but demands more than its share of time which means that music must take a secondary place. New bands have to start at the bottom of the ladder, which means early-week shows at night; the more popular your band gets, the later the shows get because headliners always go last. That makes it really hard to get up for work the next day, my friends, and that lifestyle doesn't make good bedfellows with a corporate culture that prizes high output over a healthy work/life balance.

So here I am, newly back into the corporate culture, struggling to come to terms with my new hourly status (you mean I have to actually be working at work for 8 hours a day and I have to clock out to eat?), unsure of how much my new team toes the IBM party line when it comes to the unspoken policy of the expected 55-hour work week, and I've just come off of one of the better musical experiences in my life and wishing I could do that for a living. I really like to make music, and I really want to be part of something big musically. Life On Loan may be it; Five Dollar Friend might be it; or it could be some other opportunity with another band that I haven't even thought about yet. I want to be a part of that, but deep down inside I'm not sure that I'm willing to risk the hand-to-mouth potential that being a professional musician requires just to be in the (hopefully) right place at the (hopefully) right time with the (hopefully) right band. I don't know that there is a such thing as a "moderately successful" musician - you either have to make it big or you're always going to have to supplement it with some other work.

There's not really too much that can make me miss an opportunity to play music, and so I know that music is a driving passion in my life. But how much of a passion is it if I'm not willing to risk it all for its sake? Can it move me to the edge, and can I stay there long enough to wait? I had seven months to do that, and I failed to turn it into anything beyond a few experiences here and there. Am I Jack-Black-in-School-of-Rock hardcore? Is that a desirable place to be for me?

I don't know. That's my quandry.

Consider Fitzgerald's Played

2009-10-17T22:46:08Z

Five Dollar Friend asked me to play a show with them last night at the venerable Fitzgerald's in Houston. Fitz's is kind of like Texas' version of CBGB - a lot of really good pre-signed and signed acts have played here over the years, and usually the bands that play upstairs on the main stage are pretty good local acts. If you show up to a weekend show at Fitz's, you're pretty much guaranteed to hear some good music. Thus, for me, this was another personal goal realized as I got to rock a relatively famous club with a good band and with decent sound.

Deep Ella headlined the bill as they capped off their latest tour with the last show in Houston until next year. They're currently going back into the studio to record their next record and won't be touring again until the new joint is done. The rest of the bill had a band from Austin called Eyes Burn Electric (formerly Dremnt The End) and Floorbound, with Five Dollar Friend starting the whole thing off with a 6-song set at 9pm. It was kind of rough for the other bands as we had to work around Deep Ella's stage setup, but things went well and all the bands were great.

Fitzgerald's is a great club, with an actual backstage area for the bands to congregate in and relax before or during the show. They have a bathroom back there and a room with a bed (ostensibly for "napping"...yeah, right), but I pretty much stayed away from all of those places because they made that hotel that rents room by the hour that you know sound like the Ritz Carlton. But it was nice to have somewhere to stow gear without it being in the way of the crowd and also have a place to get away from the noise for a few minutes. I wish I had thought to take some pictures when we first got there, but I failed in that mission. Next time I play there, I'll be sure to take more pics. I was more concerned about getting my gear in and setting it up for sound check than I was about taking pictures, though.

My new Tama Starclassic was the belle of the ball back stage, with every drummer from the other bands making a comment on how great it looks and sounds. I was able to swap some gear tips with some of them as well, and even may have found a buyer for my nicked up K Custom crash that I had to replace. The green sparkle looked pretty fantastic under the green/blue light setup that they had at Fitz's, and it was a total blast and a half to play with FDF again. I posted some pictures that I took with the Pre of Deep Ella on my flickr page (see left sidebar), and as soon as I can get my hands on any pictures that were taken of FDF rockin' Fitz's I'll post them as well. Here's a sample:

And, this was the highest-paying gig that I've had so far, especially if you count the money that might result from selling the K Custom. All in all, a spectacular night and I hope to do it again before FDF calls it quits officially before the end of the year.

One last thing...it was kind of intimidating for me to play on a bill with such accomplished musicians, some of whom have been playing drums for 20 years or more. I always face that demon whenever I get on stage, wondering which person is watching me like I watch other drummers and critiquing my performance. But every one of the other drummers in the bands after us had great things to say and that they enjoyed my performance and my sound, and that just boosts my confidence like no tomorrow. I think the perception outside the bands is that each band is out for themselves, but almost every band that I've been on the bill with in Austin or Houston has had many complimentary things to say to the other bands. Yeah, we're all trying to get signed and make it big, but it's not a cutthroat thing and people have been willing to share instruments, drum keys, guitars, etc. and that's a great environment in which to make music. Being able to play in front of "elder statesmen" in the band scene and have them say that they enjoyed our show or specifically my interpretations of the music are worth their weight in gold to me.

Last night was an amazing show, and I had the time of my life. Super ultra mega awesome! I hope I can do it again in the near future!

Back & Blue

2009-10-17T21:35:52Z

Well, the first week back at work is in the bag. After a day or two of logistical issues, I am back in the Big Blue fold and it's almost like I never left. My new team is going to be an interesting one, and I received my first actual work assignment on Wednesday. I'll be working on the Business Infrastructure and Tools Services team of the ITD group within IBM. Basically that means that we provide tools and services for use by internal IBMers - either for the IBM Intranet or for field personnel out on customer sites. My current project is to help with the conversion of an old Lotus-based application to a WebSphere/DB2 application that is a little more efficient and user-friendly.

The new team seems to be pretty cool, although I find myself being in a situation that I did not want to be in - that of coming into this position on a project that is already somewhat under the gun because my predecessor couldn't do the job. So now I feel that I not only have something to prove (e.g. that I can actually do the job where the previous guy failed) but also that I need to be able to ramp up super quickly and get some production going. I don't really have a benchmark for how long a ramp-up operation should take in my particular case: on the one I hand, I already know the IBM system and don't have to mess around with learning Notes or the ins and outs of the internal machinations; on the other hand, I'm not familiar with the base technology that the site design is using and therefore am having to learn a lot of new terms and systems in order to make my part of the project actually do something.

I'm also still trying to get a feel for the level of work that is expected, and how much overtime people actually put in. My team is almost 100% remote - not necessarily all outside of Austin, but definitely outside the office - and so far I've only met two of the eleven team members in person. It's hard to get to know somebody remotely, and it can be especially hard to find out someone's legitimate work habits because it's easy to appear working when you can just leave yourself online and answer emails in a timely fashion. It's a cultural thing but with the culture removed from the picture, it becomes something that is ridiculously hard to define. Just because someone is online at 11pm, does that mean that they've been working 12-hour days? Probably not. Or maybe so. I can't tell.

Speaking of hours, the whole contracting/hourly thing is kind of a new idea. It would seem that I don't get paid for lunch time and that means in order to get my 40 hours in I am going to need to put in an extra hour somewhere. This isn't a new idea where hourly work is concerned, but it's definitely a different feel for me because that means that if I have a 9-5 core time, let's say, that means I either have to work through lunch or come in at 8 or stay until 6 just to get in an 8-hour day. This is a lot different than my salaried existence, and it is going to take a pretty significant adjustment to my line of thinking. As I have mentioned before, I'm really wary of immediately jumping back into the "I'm so busy I can't even think straight" mentality going from work straight into the evening's activities and then to bed and then right back to repeat the next day, so this idea of thinking about what (to me) seems to be an "extra" hour already is going to take some work.

But, overall, I'm glad to be back working and having a daily purpose. I'm learning quite a bit already and I'm sure I'll learn a ton more in the next couple of weeks and months, so it will definitely be a positive experience in the long run.

Dead Man Walkin'

2009-10-09T18:33:15Z

** This post is based on my experiences and, while I believe that I am a typical single person and my views expressed here are common to other singles in general, my point of view may not represent everyone. I'm not really attempting to be the voice of a whole demographic here, but I do feel that I'm not the only one that feels this way. This post is an attempt to bring to light something that I've been ruminating on for quite some time and is maybe more for informational purposes only. Just like Charles Barkley, "I am not a role model." **

One of the touchiest subjects to broach with single folks is that of the relationship. You never know if someone that is not in a relationship is going stag by choice or whether they desperately want someone to canoodle with on a regular basis. One thing that has a high likelihood of being true is that discussions of relationships with single folks will engender hurt - either they're single now because they've been hurt by someone before or they're hurt that nobody seems to want to be in a relationship with them (or at least not the right people, that is). There are, of course, exceptions to this rule - some have decided to be single by choice and not as a reaction to some hurt or social ineptitude - and they are, therefore, beyond the scope of my discourse here today.

Whatever the case for singleness may be, there is one aspect of romantic relationships that affects every single person regardless of their choice of coupling - the loss associated with relational changes when one of their friends gets into a romance. Sometimes there are feelings of bitterness, of a "why them and not me?" reaction, but that's a discussion for another time because I don't think that feeling affects everyone upon hearing of their friend's new love. The feeling that does affect everyone, however, is the feeling of being replaced. This feeling is doubled when there are two friends involved in the relationship; rather than just losing one friend, now two friends have been lost.

]]> I've heard the analogy of divorce being a "walking death" because the tearing asunder of a marriage relationship is akin to death, yet the other person hasn't died - they're still there and, if the two parties choose to live in the same city or share children and such, there's a good possibility that interaction will still happen, but it's just not the same. The parties have been cut out of each others' lives and yet since they still actually exist, that almost makes the separation worse than death. And, I'm not going to equate the pain and trauma of divorce with the loss of a friendship to a new relationship. That being said, I will say that I believe them to be similar and, depending on the strength of the relationship being changed, perhaps a similar degree of hurt will be the result. Never having been divorced, I can't say for sure, so please take my assessment with a pillar of salt.

One thing that people who remain single long-term have to deal with on a fairly regular basis is the radical changes in friendships that occur as romantic relationships blossom among their friends. I'm guessing that this happens with married folks as well, but to a lesser degree since the married couple has far fewer close friendships with single people (and thus a lower instance of catastrophic change to relationships on a regular basis). The one constant that a single person doesn't have is that spouse to rely on when these changes occur; a single is, by very definition, alone. The single is constantly in the process of forming new friendships and then having them drastically changed by relationship or radical life changes (e.g. the itinerancy of particularly younger singles who have yet to be established in any one place), and does not have the constancy of a life partner to rely on to help deal with the hurt. The single person is on their own.

To paraphrase from King Solomon a little bit, "I have seem something strange under the sun" insofar that this type of friend death seems to only happen in the Christian community - and perhaps to take it even more granularly, the evangelical (perhaps fundamental) sub-group. This is due in large part, I believe, to the practice of sequestering oneself with the new significant other away from the rest of the group for long periods of time, as if now being in a relationship requires that every free moment of time is spent in the relationship and only obligations with other individuals are met. The Christian relationship never seems to come out of the infatuation phase before moving directly into the engagement phase. This is really what I want to focus on with the rest of this post.

I don't notice this behavior with what I'll call "secular relationships" - those outside of the church framework. There is, just as in any relationship, a period of infatuation where the newly formed couple is spending a lot of alone time, but usually that tends to die out in a month or two and the couple then starts integrating back into social activities. The "new addition" is present a lot more, maybe in activities where they weren't present before, but I find that secular couples tend to be more willing to do a lot more things apart and don't feel the need to always be together as a unit for everything. There definitely seems to be a "I can't wait until you meet my friends" vibe that is present in secular relationships that isn't present in Christian relationships.

Christians, on the other hand, start dating and everything gets all serious. The couple has usually gone on one or two dates quitely and under the radar before they "come out" and announce their dating publicly, and once they make that announcement they are inseparable from that point on. Family engagements take on a lot more prominence; the couple stops coming to group activities unless they're required to do so; they only do things together, rarely are they seen separately. Long gone are spur-of-the-moment activities because their free time has now been planned for the foreseeable future - one partner can only hang out with their friends if the other partner is unavailable for some reason. For all intents and purposes, the couple might as well be married. Furthermore, as I referred to before, if the two people involved happen to be friends of the single person in (perhaps) separate contexts, now that single has lost two friends because neither one of the people will be available to hang out. For example, if I am friends with Joe and Mary in a church context and then Joe and Mary start dating, if I call Joe and he's unavailable that usually means he's with Mary. That also means that I now can't call Mary to do anything, because she's out for the same reason Joe is, and I'm suddenly quite the third wheel. I've now got to find someone else with which to do something.

I'm not quite sure why this happens in church circles and not secular relationships. Perhaps it is the seriousness of "dating with a purpose" in Christian circles that isn't present in the secular realm; perhaps living together in the secular realm or no limitations on physical interaction in secular relationships breeds a familiarity that moves through the infatuation stage more quickly than in church relationships. It could also be the church culture which sets being married as the ideal and therefore sets up a lifestyle barrier such that married folks don't interact with single folks, and thus a couple is treated as de facto married from the church's point of view because God has probably brought them together. For whatever reason, though, the Christian relationship becomes much more serious more abruptly, and that leads to this "walking death" feeling on the part of those who get left behind.

And the relationship will change, my friends. You can be sure of that. I've had several friends that have tried to make an effort to maintain their close relationships with friends they had before the relationship (specifically, me), but the number of successes has been very small - I can count them on one hand with a couple of fingers left over for other things. As this begins to happen more and more in the life of a single person, they start to get into the habit of steeling themselves for the loss of one friend and the gearing up to find a replacement. Depending on how long someone has been single, it may actually be the single person that begins to cut off the relationship as a knee-jerk response (and perhaps a protective measure). What then often happens is that once one of the couple gets a free night, they call their old single friends expecting to have things be spontaneous and just like the old days - and then get their own feelings hurt then the single has other things to do. The friendship has atrophied and so when the one in the relationship wants to have some fun, there's no relationship to rely on with the single anymore such that it's a crapshoot as to whether or not they'll be available.

So, the next time that your single friend doesn't react quite as favorably as you thought they would to your announcement that you've finally found the love of your life, or reacts with a bit of melancholy, maybe this post will come to mind and give you some insight into what they're most likely feeling. They're coping with loss because to them, that announcement sounds more like a death knell than a reason for celebration. They've already started missing you, and the body isn't even cold. I didn't say it's right, but it's more than likely true. They are happy for you, 99% of the time, but singles are a self-centered lot because they have to be and they just will need a little time to get used to the new arrangements. Remember, you just gained a new friend in the person of your significant other but to them, they just lost a friend to the "walking death". You've been waiting for this new significant person but they are, most likely, just trying to keep some good friends around for as long as they possibly can. For people that have been single a long time, they may be getting tired of losing good friends every one or two years.

Dead man walkin'....

Free Association Time!

2009-10-07T22:29:32Z

Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's edition of my random, non sequitur-ial, and somewhat unrelated stream of questions that are bouncing about within my grey matter! Are you ready to play? Well, buckle up, buttercup...cuz the thought train's leavin' the station and we don't brook no whiners.

If human beings were the first beings created by God with free will, the assumption being that angels do not have free will, then how did Lucifer ever get uppity enough to think he was better than God and rebel?
I'm not a details-oriented person - not a knob-twiddler or a bit-flipper. I am, however, a creative individual. How am I going to do in my new development job with this mindset since I am not anal enough to closely monitor and resolve the tiny details?
Ampache is setup and working like a charm from the coffee house down the street from my pad sans wi-fi. Looks like EVDO and a clear cell signal will do the trick after all.
If I claim to be a Christian and yet my practical day-to-day actions would place my philosophy more in the materialist, dualist, or deist camps, how would I ever know unless someone tells me?
Assuming the above question is true, where is the balance between trusting God for nothing and trusting God for absolutely everything (e.g. the whole "so heavenly minded they're no earthly good" mindset)?
Prius owners all look alike to me.
My new job scares me insofar as I'm afraid that I won't be able to find the middle ground between having nothing to do (i.e. being unemployed) and becoming a "good employee" (i.e. workaholic). I don't want to go back to the cavalcade of busyness that I was locked into before I got laid off.
Sound-isolating headphones with active noise cancellation are great things to have and allow me to hear things in music I've never heard before. If you don't have a pair, I'd strongly recommend that you make the investment in a good set - your ears will thank you.
Is it rude to stop at a fast food restaurant and just take your kids to the bathroom without buying anything? The woman in the white minivan at the Sonic next door looks like she's trying to hide the fact that she and her kids are using the facilities without buying anything. Perhaps she thinks the carhops will grab bats and lead pipes and assault her if the figure out what she's doing. Perhaps I've just seen too many movies.
Sweet baby ray, I love my Pre!
Jega is excellent coding/blogging/digitally ambient music.

Feel free to chime in on any answers to questions, although feel free to keep your "you should do this..." instructional posts to yourself.

Device Convergence, the Homebrew Way

2009-10-06T19:54:20Z

You may notice that the BrainDrain is running a little slow today, and that's because I've installed the Ampache media server on the box so's that I can get to my audio collection from anywhere. There's even a Pre app for Ampache (a couple of them, in fact) which means that once I get it setup I should have access to my music collection via my phone. And that means that my Pre will have just taken one step closer to being that "all-in-one" media device that I keep talking about because I can leave the iPod in the car or at home more often - so long as I can get to my music collection via wi-fi or EVDO on the Pre, that is.

The only bugaboo here is that whole network availability thing - I'm not sure if my signal will be strong enough to stream the files while I'm driving or if I happen to be in a cell-blocking building. I don't know where I'm going to land on the IBM campus next week, and there's a good possibility that I'll be in a location that has poor cell reception. The Pre defaults to the old Sprint network - which I call "1x" due to the icon on the phone - when the cell signal is weak and it cannot connect to the EVDO "Sprint Speed" network, and I'm not sure that the old data network can stream the music fast enough to make Ampache useful. Plus, the more I use my phone as an iPod, the more often I have to charge it up, although I suppose that if I just keep it on the Touchstone or plugged in I won't really have to worry about that.

Anyway, if I can get this thing setup like I believe I should be able to, I am hoping that this will make the Pre my One Device to Rule Them All (to borrow from Mr. Tolkien) and may relegate my iPod to the center console of the G35 for roadtrips and Pre backup. With this 1-2 combo, coupled with the coming of Flash to the Pre later this year, I think that Apple is starting to look a little rotten if all works as I envision that it will.

I'll keep you posted.

Delay Of Game, IBM: 5 Yard Penalty, First Down

2009-10-02T16:57:43Z

In the "what's God up to?" file, my start date with IBM has been delayed by a week. I talked with my new employers, CDI IT Staffing, today to find out what was happening with my new gig at IBM and it turns out that I will be starting on the 12th rather than the 5th. IBM's cutting back on hours for employees and their current plan is to tell all the contractors that they need to take 6 unpaid days off between now and the end of the year. So, rather than have me start on the 5th and then have to take 6 days spread out throughout the year (which would be fine with me, actually), they just decided to have me start 5 days later and get it all out of the way up front.

Going on this scenario, it sounds like I would get an extra day that some others won't get (only having to delay five days instead of six), but Five Dollar Friend has asked me to play a show with them in Houston on the 16th. Thus, on my first day of work, I will be asking for that Friday off. CDI thinks that they shouldn't have any problem with that (seeing as I'll have just started and also have - technically - one more day that IBM wants me to take off), but you never know and I hate to tell FDF that I'm in and then have to shank them the week of saying I can't get off work in time to get over to Houston for the gig.

When it rains, it pours, I guess. But it's good to know that I'll be back working soon - I hope. That would kind of suck if a succession of delays ends up just being a non-starter. It seems I'll have to file yet one more unemployment request before I get regular employment. Then again, what fun would a rollercoaster be without ups, downs, AND corkscrews, eh?

Today Was Costly

2009-09-30T05:34:54Z

I awoke this morning to find my tv totally dead. It wouldn't turn on at all, neither by remote nor power button. I unplugged it and let it sit for a while and even plugged it into the wall and...nothing. I'm not sure what happened, but the tv was finished. Hey, I got it for free, so I'm amazed that it lasted this long. It's been having some trouble lately and I've kind of been waiting for it to fail so that I could replace it with an LG LCD that I had my eye on.

However, I wasn't really planning on doing that today. I guess it's good that I have the new job starting next week, but I did have to defer the payment until I can get the money coming into the coffers on a regular basis to pay for it. I didn't go crazy - I got a 32" LG LCD HDTV (the same size as the one that cratered) that runs at 1080p and 120Hz. Turns out that that combination of size and feature set are kind of odd and hard to find, but Best Buy had the one that I was looking for. Normally I probably would have welcomed the forced television blockage but since I had to trade in my TWC cable box last week for one that actually works, I've lost all my DVR season passes and didn't want to miss anything of the new season tonight.

Plus, I needed to check my Xbox one last time and it appears that my GPU is well and truly fried. I ran it without the housing and the chip is just incapable of any sort of decent display and only ran for about 5 mintues before overheating. Looks like my repair was short-lived at best, and that also means that it looks like I'm going to have to locate a replacement console for any long-term gaming. Right now I'm borrowing an Xbox from Foxshark so I can attempt to finish Batman: Arkham Asylum before I have to go back to work, but I'll have to return it on Friday and the clock is tickin'...

I'm just glad that the tv made it until I had a job before crapping out.