BrainDrain

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.

Brown Grass All Around

2009-09-29T04:37:24Z

Now that the prospect of my returning to work has reared its ugly head, I think it is past time to reflect on the last seven months because this was the sabbatical that I had desired for quite some time. I have now been on both sides of the fence, to see if the grass really is greener on that other side and I have found what most anyone with any life experience already knows - the grass is the same shade of brown no matter which side of the fence you're on.

]]> I had so many grand plans for things that I was going to do once I was free of the strictures of corporate America: devote my life to music and practice my drums for hours a day; get in shape and lose some weight; try my hand at writing a book; develop relationships with people; deepen my walk with God by long periods of contemplation, study, and Bible reading; play video games until my eyeballs dried out; see a bunch of things that I'd never seen before; spend much time at a coffee shop, especially late at night; spend time reading books while smoking a nice cigar; catch up on movies for cheap at matinee prices. Now that my time of unemployment is coming to an end, I've done a little bit of some of those things and most of them not at all. What happened?

I learned a lot about myself during this time. One of those self-revelations was that I don't like to spend as much time alone as I thought I did. There have been so many people getting laid off these days and yet none of them were people that I really knew well. I didn't have any other unemployed folk to pal around with during the day and several of those things on my list of to-do's are a whole lot more fun to do with someone else. Consequently, I would spend most of my days on my own and then look to the evenings to be with people and hang out with them (my evenings were the one part of my busyness that didn't go away when I lost my job). The trouble is that none of them had free days - they all still had jobs and so whereas I was fresh and ready to interact with people in the evenings, most of them were just trying to make it through yet another activity so that they could go home and rest. I felt completely backwards from everyone else.

Another facet of my personality which was revealed to me (and yet, I believe it was something I already knew if I were honest with myself) is that, left to my own devices, I'm just kind of a lazy, sedentary person. I would go to bed extremely late and get up equally late the next day and unless something had to be done, it was a rare occasion that I got up enough initiative to actually do something of import (the trip down to the AMOA being one notable exception). My F-14 model has been sitting on my table 3/4 of the way finished for almost two months now and my coffee table is littered with books which I have borrowed and yet still not read. Some of my ambitions were thwarted due to weather; it is quite uncomfortable to sit outside reading in order to enjoy a cigar at the same time when the mercury in the thermometer is somewhere north of one hundred degrees, and reading at night with a book light is more trouble than it is worth. With seven months to look back upon, I must come to the conclusion that, when reporting to no one but myself, I am more apt to park on the couch and watch television than I am to go out and do something. The empirical evidence would confirm this in spades.

I then found myself in the odd position of being somewhat bored (even with a whole city of distractions at my disposal) simply because there was no one dictating that I do anything or requesting that I do things with them (the aforementioned pal that I was lacking). I think I've mentioned this before, but I was struggling with spending money while not having a secure future in view which sometimes made me feel guilty about doing things which cost money to have fun. I just felt mainly and wholly unmotivated.

And now it looks like I have a job. The prospect of going back to work, however, has put me in a different head space because I am dreading being back in the same burnt-out place that I was last year at this time, hoping and praying for a respite. I don't want to go back to being a rat in the maze, a person who's life is constantly lived just this side of exhaustion and where weekends become craved bastions of free-time that never relax because they're crammed too full of "relaxing" things or errands. I'm relaxed now; I don't feel high strung and I'm certainly not stressed out. When I was working, I wanted nothing more than to not work so I could do what I wanted when I wanted; when unemployed, I wanted someone to tell me what to do so that I would do something instead of nothing.

I'm not sure whether to consider the past seven months as a success, a failure, or a wash. While I didn't do a lot of those things on my list, I did get to do some pretty awesome things - I played SXSW, went to movies and the AMOA during the day, went to Galveston to help rebuild, got a lot of relaxation, re-read almost all of William Gibson's books, and spent a lot of time at the pool. I am de-stressed and ready to return to work - so much so that I'm even ready to return to the place which I left. I do love the fact that for the past seven months I have not been held to a clock; meaning, if I get on a writing jag and want to pontificate on the BrainDrain until 2:30 in the morning, I can do so because I don't have to be up and focused for work at 7:30 the next day and I can just sleep in to whenever I feel like it to always get at least 8 hours of sleep.

I find it hard to stay out of the classification system of checklists to determine if a given activity or time frame is worthy of being called "successful" or not. My idea of success, I suppose, was that I would take some time off to decompress, then spend some time with God where He would gloriously reveal my vocation for which I was created and start me on a whole new career path in which I would be happy and fulfilled for all the remaining days of my life. And with that as a definition of success, it is no wonder that I am asking myself whether or not this time was "successful" or not because it is an unrealistic definition on my part. I'm looking in the wrong place, as I am wont to do, and I must constantly refocus my attention on who I am now as opposed to who I was then, regardless of what I have actually done. I'm a better person for this layoff, for sure.

So, as being one who has gone from one side of the fence to the other and back again, I can't say which one is better. They both have their advantages, and they are both able to be mismanaged and misused. We would all like to be our own managers and be on our own time schedules, but I would wager to say that most of you are not much different from me. Oh sure, you might start out doing things you've always wanted to do or start new projects or hobbies but I daresay that most of you wouldn't finish them and eventually ... eventually ... you'd find yourself in the same place I find myself now. If you're employed, do your best at the job you have, be thankful that you have it, and try not to let the job rule your life. If you are unemployed, enjoy the time you have to not be under someone else's thumb, get some rest, and do whatever you want to do (whatever that is). I've come to finally realize that I always want what I can't or don't have and this time has served to start me on the road to being content in whatever state I find myself. I'm much more open to things now from an employment perspective than I was a year ago, that being contract or temporary positions, and that is most definitely a good thing and a "successful" outcome.

The last thought that this time has brought to my mind is that the much-praised and touted "American Worth Ethic" (AWE) has gotten totally out of whack and out of control. I believe that most other industrialized countries have it right when they mandate vacation - sometimes an entire month at a time (e.g. Italy and Germany in August and October, respectively). I believe that the AWE causes many of us to work too much (either due to our personal interpretation of the AWE or the twisting of it by so many corporations which yields the misguided equation of AWE == workaholism == company loyalty) such that a weekend or a vacation day here and there - or even a week or two of time off- is just not enough to combat the burnout. My idea of the perfect job would be one that would allow me to work from anywhere with the single stipulation that I either work 40 hours in a 7-day period however I choose to break them up or to simply get paid by the project milestone (e.g. have weekly goals that, as long as they are done by COB on Friday, I get paid based on percentage completed). This would allow for me to work when I'm inspired to do so (oddly enough, oftentimes between the hours of 10pm - 2am), wherever I am, and would also give me the flexibility to do things on a whim without having to always be available, request time weeks in advance, or feel guilty about enjoying life and not being in the office between 8am - 5pm. I know, I know, this is an unrealistic idea because what business could function if people are randomly available, how can you have any sort of team unity, how can you make sure that people are doing their work and churning out quality deliverables, and blah, blah, blah? I didn't say I had an answer to it, I'm just saying that if I could design my own job parameters, this is what they'd be. I'm sure someone could figure out how to implement it and answer all the other logistical issues that go along with it, right?

Anyway, those are my thoughts on my unemployment experience. May you find them coherent and perhaps in some respect entertaining and possibly thought-provoking. I'll catch y'all on the flipside, and I'm sure that there will be a flurry of bloggery this week as I try to empty my brain of all those free-form thoughts floating therein before the data from the new job crowds them all out.

It Was Good While It Lasted

2009-09-29T04:15:20Z

It seems that my exhilaration over fixing my Xbox myself was to be short-lived, and perhaps I was just fooling myself. The Xbox crashed again tonight, this time with something known as the E74 error. Starting Friday, the graphics on the XBox would get all wonky after a short time of gameplay - like all of a sudden the anti-aliasing was turned off. Everything I was reading indicated that this was a precursor to another type of failure, and late tonight the error occurred. My last attempt to resurrect the machine will be to disassemble it once again and perhaps play it with the housing off, just to get maximum airflow over the heatsinks. I'll also tighten down the heatsink screws just to make sure that there's no more flexin' happening. But if that doesn't work, then I'm pretty much out of luck. At least I got some Batman Arkham Asylum out of it before it rolled over and died.

Welcome Back, Kotter

2009-09-24T00:03:16Z

And just like that, I'm back in to the Big Blue Borg Collective. This time, however, I think things are going to be different. I'll be doing strictly development work and will finally be able to hone some skills and really learn a lot about some of the technical things that I didn't really get to concentrate on in my previous position. This is a bit of a junior position as well which will provide me a little leeway to flex my skills. While I have a lot of experience, a good chunk of it is in post-release sustainment, which tends to make the new development skills a little rusty. So, I'm kind of excited about this new opportunity and I could be back to work as early as next week.

When I was informed that they wanted me for the position, I will admit that I did sort of hesitate out of a question of pride - is agreeing to come back to a company at a lower pay rate AND who was the one that laid you off to begin with akin to failure? Kind of like a kid who leaves home for college only to return after a couple of years to move back in with the parents? I thought about it, and I really think that was personal hubris and a whole lot of pride.

Instead, I have chosen to view it as God giving me the sabbatical that I wanted and also having IBM foot the bill for a good portion of it rather than me having to do it all myself. Plus, I'll be able to do what I wanted to do and will also be able to learn more of my craft. In the time that I was unemployed, I didn't receive any clear indication of a different call on my life - I do know that engineering is somewhat contrary to my innate skillset, but I also know that I can do well at it and I enjoy it when it is challenging. I do not think that it is a coincidence that after all this time, the one position that would move quickly and decisively (also contrary to it's nature) would be one at IBM, and that has a huge God stamp of approval on it in my mind.

Honey, I'm home. At least I don't have to plan out a whole new route to a new place of work. ;)

Oh, the Irony...

2009-09-23T05:26:10Z

I've actually seriously been searching for a job for the last two months now, and things haven't gone quite as well as I would have expected. However, about a week and a half ago I got a bite on one of the jobs that I applied for via the WorkInTexas.com site, which is Texas' unemployment job site. It's a contract position for the State of Texas on behalf of...wait for it....IBM! I have an interview tomorrow and if they like what they hear, I could be working for Big Blue again by next week. That's right, the same company that laid me off will now bring me back into the fold as a contractor (assuming all goes well).

I had wanted to move into a development position in another group when I was employed by IBM before, but couldn't get there for various reasons. This contracting opportunity will allow me to do just that - a full-on development position that doesn't involve direct customer support, weekends, or off-hour availability if the job description is to be believed. While being a contractor to a big company like IBM has some disadvantages (no benefits, having to manage my tax deductions myself, being hourly), I believe that the advantages of being paid time and a half for weekend work or having hours strictly monitored and counted will work in my favor. Sure I don't get paid for holidays or days off, but on the flipside I can use those same conditions to ensure that I'm correctly compensated for the actual work that I put in. When you're salaried, it's a lot easier for the company to take advantage of "flex time" than it is when a contract is involved. A salary is based on a 40-hour work week but where I was in IBM before, the average employee worked a lot more than 40 hours a week - which meant that they were not getting actual compensation for hours worked.

I just find the irony of me going back to work for the company that laid me off to be too much. I'm not sure whether it's sad or insanely humorous, but I figure if God wants me back there, this has to be the right place for me. Nothing else has really come along, so even if this is an interim place, apparently it seems like God has plans for me with the Big Blue Crew.

Jehova Ha-ha indeed.