Variations on a Theme

I had no idea that you could take the vocals of a song and somehow replace the music with other music.

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Metallica

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How do you do that? In other news, 'the unnamed band' has two songs to work on. We rehearse on Sunday.

FUNNY!

Political Song

Becoming Aware Drums (Fed to the Forest)

Becoming Aware Drums (Fed to the Forest)

3 Pill Morning

Soon, I hope to review this band for DV...

OMG!

Partying In IC

In case you didn't hear, the University of Iowa (Iowa City) is the #2 party school. I work in Iowa City.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120820/NEWS/120820023/University-Iowa-moves-up-No-2-party-school

So, for the first home game, there were 140 citations, 15 arrests:

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120911/NEWS01/309110005/First-home-game-sees-140-citations-15-arrests

Then, this past weekend, "Football fans in and around Kinnick Stadium appeared to take it a little easier Saturday for the in-state showdown versus Northern Iowa."

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120918/NEWS01/309190001/Gameday-arrests-down-from-ISU-game

The one that made me confirm my belief that there are some really stupid people in my area was this snippet of brilliance:

• Molly E. Brown, 18, of Iowa City; Brianna J. Zumhof, 19, of Cedar Rapids; and Lauren C. Blyth, 19, of Iowa City, all were found passed out in Kinnick Stadium restrooms within 30 minutes of each other. Blythe was vomiting and Brown had defecated on herself. All three women had blood-alcohol contents between .127 percent and .177 percent. They were arrested for public intoxication.

Family Values

Not Working Out

I thought this was an excellent e-mail on the TWer list:

-----Original Message-----
From: William Sherman
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 2:27 PM
To: TWer list
Subject: RE: Cover Stories for Job-Hunting Absences

I'm talking about those you want to leave off your resume or do.  These have gone a month or two usually.  One I left a solid long term contract with no end in sight for better pay ($7 more/hr) and closer to home (9 hr vs. 18 hr). Who wouldn't, right?

It fell apart at 6 weeks, when I couldn't get John the manager to move the project I was working on up the queue in typing, even though he insisted it had priority and was a rush job necessary for buy-off of a big contract. It sat there over a week. (Turn-around was normal 1-2 days.) The same day he got it back, his boss called looking for it. John immediately dropped it on my desk and said I was sitting on it. His boss said to get rid of me and put someone on it who could get it out.

Semi-satisfaction came at the end of the week as most of the guys in the group wanted to have a going away lunch before I left the area. They said John was struggling to handle all the work I had produced that now was coming back in to be processed out to the manufacturing area. Now John was having to explain why he cut someone who had produced so much work.  Also, they said John said he wished me the best of luck and hoped there were no hard feelings.

John wasn't a bad guy, just inept. He had only worked in documentation about

6 months and was being groomed by the previous manager to take over the group when he retired in about 5 years. Unfortunately, the previous manager died, and John was suddenly the manager, as he had the most seniority of the work company workers in a group of contractors.  John was not manager material, as he couldn't make a decision to save his life, changing his mind

8 times over what to get for lunch one Saturday.

Another I quit one that probably had another 2 or 3 months in it for another with higher pay in the Carolinas. I thought I'd like to live there and looked like a good opportunity to find out. The first week I noticed not too many talked to me. On the third Monday, I came into work, no one said anything to me, at about 10:30 I had a call from my shop that they would like me to stop by their office at lunch to take care of some paperwork.

When I got there, they asked for my badge and said not to return to work.

I was not happy with the shop at all, as I had walked out at lunch leaving my case with personal papers and stuff on my desk and I had a devil of a time getting my stuff back from them.  I never found out what the problem was.

A shop I worked with several times and had several very successful jobs through offered to move me into a better one. I took it, despite the superstition.  Seven weeks into it, my recruiter called me at home, asking what the heck was going on. He said they called and wanted them to ensure I didn't come back in the next day.

At least this one had a somewhat better outcome later. The lady who went in after me called the recruiter, said she was amazed I could survive that long, had done some great work but didn't understand why the company hated not just mine but apparently everyone's work, and she wanted out.  Two days later, the company told her not to return also. 

That's what I mean about not working out. 

As such, I don't leave anything personal at work. No pictures, no mouse pads, no pens or pencils, nothing.  I also set a file to delete anything I might have on a computer automatically, like timesheet files, pictures for screen saver or desktop.  When I walk out each night, it looks like I don't even work there.

Out of over 30 jobs, many lasting a couple of years or more, having 3 crash and burn isn't too bad. Still, I don't want to repeat crashing and burning if I can help it.

From: Gene Kim-EngSent: Friday, September 14, 2012 3:57 PMTo: William Sherman+Subject: Re: Cover Stories for Job-Hunting Absences

How do you define "work out?"  Length of job, congenial environment or...?

Having worked a lot of start-ups, I'm accustomed to jobs at new companies not lasting much longer than two or three years (my "personal best" since moving from engineering to technical writing has been five years), and it doesn't seem to make any difference whether I decided to leave because the bloom wore off the rose or because the roots rotted out from below and I didn't recognize it in time (thankfully, that's only happened twice in 20 years).

Gene Kim-Eng

Status

Made progress this weekend on the conversion: 46531 File(s)
Roughly, 550 more CDs to go. Also, converted some cassettes. A LOT of cassettes to go...

Inspriration

Editor's Note: I have ZERO idea what was in this picture. Something is messed up in my pictures.

Songs we are playing in the Unnamed Band

Around four years ago, I wrote a post called "Ideal Band" and detailed what I thought would be an ideal setlist. But things have changed and I'm able to adapt. Joe, Matthew, Brian Guitar, and I have rehearsed since late June. We rehearsed today from 2-4.

1. Knocking on Heaven's Door. This is the Dylan version, but I play the drums like the Guns-n-Roses version.
2. Sunshine of Your Love
3. Rocking in the Free World

And, next rehearsal, we plan to add Petty's "American Girl," U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)", and Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride and Joy." These are not the only songs we have played around with, but the ones that have seemed to sift through the strainer. We are interested in writing originals as well.

Editor's Note: There were many ideas for a band name for this band, including "Hairy Eyeball" and "Scary Robots." We eventually settled on Lou's Classic Ride.

Media Bias

Life Twists

I'm converting a cassette called College Tape (#4) and it's kind of funny. There's an answering machine message from my mother, who now has dementia and doesn't know me. This tape is from 1990. I had no idea in 1990 that in 2012 she would not know me.

FINAL GCC

There it is, the final graph for the 2012 Global Corporate Challenge.

 

 

And here's the final stats:

While those numbers are good, my weight loss goal did not go as expected. I have recently made changes to my diet to hopefully assist with reaching my ideal weight. It's those damn BMI charts I see and when I look @ my height and where I should be, I'm *at least* 20 pounds over where I should be. Hello diet pop and water!

I intend to continue wearing a pedometer and recording my daily steps even though the GCC is over. I think it is good for me to have that push, that accountability of taking 10,000 steps a day. Hopefully, it'll work for me.

More JL info

Scary!

Conversion

The priority assigned to the conversion of CDs to MP3 has been lowered due to many other things going on in life. It's a priority, of course, but there are other more important things to be done.

As of today, here's where I am at:
     Total Files Listed:
           46054 File(s) 251,059,878,950 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  564,378,488,832 bytes free
The goal, each month, is to convert 1000 files. At this moment, right now, I do not really think I will be able to hit that goal unless I work on the conversion during the Iowa v. UNI game. I'm not really sure I will fire up the PC tonight to work on it.

I'm expecting a LP to MP3 converter to arrive before the end of October (sorry, that's just a broad stroke guess) and will then start that process.

Of course, I also have the cassette to MP3 conversion. I wrote a while back about plotting out every box so that I am done by the end of 2014. I have not completed the box I assigned myself for July / August so I'm behind on that project. Of course, there is no real hurry. It's just something to work on. However, having a goal and a timeline of getting things done is a good thing for me - otherwise, it never gets done!

I'll admit that I need to get away from the TV at night. I watched the season finale of "Breaking Bad" and some of WWE Raw and then, of course, "Two and 1/2 Men." Then it was 11:30 and I went to bed.

Just a Bit to Go...

With two days to go in the Global Corporate Challenge, these are my stats and the stats of the team:

 

And this is the overall graph since day one:

 

Back to School

I went to Megan's back to school night and, I admit, I am SOOOO glad I am not in high school. Admittingly, it was adults walking around. I saw one dad at least twice with a blank stare on his face as he was trying to find his child's next class. It turned out that the last two teachers were gone so I was out the door at 8.

I also do not think I would miss learning the stuff they are learning. Intense.

Break time is Over...

What a whirlwind two weeks.

Work has picked up its pace and there is no shortage of projects to be completed. I have a planning meeting tomorrow from 8-10 and, at 10:30, I have a meeting about a user guide with a client. Somewhere tomorrow I also need to finish the changes to yet another user guide as well as see if some help text displays in the Prod environment for yet another system. We are all working on "tagging" our existing user guide for what will hopefully become a single source for our user guides and that's still on my plate. I'm already losing sight of working on that project this week as various other priorities are competing.

Summer hours are 'officially' over so I am back to five 8 hour days. I'm not exactly pumped about the change in schedule but that has more to do with how I spent some of my Friday afternoons. I got together with Joe (vocals, bass, guitar), Matthew (guitar, bass, vocals), and Brian Guitar. We've had some good rehearsals and, hopefully, we'll make it out and play some gigs. That's what I'd like to do.

I've spent a lot of time on youtube, finding complete albums, like KISS' Dynasty: