One Week to Go...

I bought a new Ford F250 Tri-Flex Fuel Truck
Go figure it runs on either hydrogen, gasoline, or E85.
I returned to the dealer yesterday
Because I couldn't get the radio to work.
The service technician explained that the radio was voice activated.

'Nelson,' the technician said to the radio.

The radio replied, 'Ricky or Willie?'

'Willie!' he continued and 'On The Road Again' came from the speakers.

Then he said, 'Ray Charles!', and in an instant "Georgia On My Mind" replaced Willie Nelson.

I drove away happy, and for the next few days, every time I'd say, 'Beethoven,' I'd get beautiful classical music, and if I said, 'Beatles,' I'd get one of their awesome songs.

Yesterday, some guy ran a red light and nearly creamed my new truck, but I swerved in time to avoid him.

I yelled, 'Ass Hole!'
Immediately the radio responded with,
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Ladies and gentlemen, The President of The United States
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Damn I love this truck....

Pieces of Nine

If I make a list of all the things going on in life, I'd settle on nine major things:

1. Work
2. Karen's work
3. Alex's schoolwork / basketball / jazz band
4. Megan's schoolwork / Fareway / jazz band
5. CEW planning
6. LP conversion to MP3
7.  Holiday planning
8. Water softener issue
9. Roof

Falling Apart

Is it all falling apart
What was so strong
Is it all falling apart
Too short, too long
Is it all falling apart
Days end into nights
Is it all falling apart
Turn off all the lights

In the haze of the past
Seeing what should last
Commit me to you
My heart remains true
Not the beginning
Not the end
A constant reminder
Do not bend

Is it all falling apart
Days end into nights
Is it all falling apart
Turn off the lights
Is it all falling apart
What was so strong
Is it all falling apart
Too short, too long

Since I've been this way
Since I've asked to stay
Since you've been away
Since I began this long and lonely day...

[pause]

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I used to write lyrics like this and filled up 19 spiral notebooks. Not all of them were as awful as the above, but some were worse...

CHRIS ADLER

OH! How I wish I was going to Des Moines to see them on my birthday this year! This is my favorite song on their last release.

Dream Theater

I do not listen to Dream Theater as often as other bands that I like, but this is re-energizing my enthusiasm for the band. I may need to weave them into my daily playlist. I don't know who I would drop into bring them into the rotation...

Ron Jefferson

Just converted "Ron McCann plays the Truth" to MP3. This is some seriously good jazz! This post is called Ron Jefferson so I do not forget the name of the amazing drummer on this recording.

Paha Review

I graduated from Mount Mercy College (now a university) with a English major, secondary education minor. One of the activities I was involved with was the literary magazine that published short stories, poetry, and art. I was the editor for the 1992 edition. It was called Reflections and I really enjoyed working on it, so much so that I didn't turn in my hours that I worked on it in order to get $ since it was my work study job. Call me crazy to not turn that in.

I bring this up not because I want to return to the world of poetry or even editing literary magazines. I bring this up because I received the 2012 version of Reflections this week. It is called "PAHA review." Paha is a ridge and Mount Mercy University is located on a Paha.

Like it was 20 years ago, there are a lot of contributions from the arts people. I read the bios in the back and there were no business or accounting or nursing or computer science or social work students that had their work published. How unfortunate that they were not recruited to contribute. I remember that is what I did. I know there was at least one nursing major and at least one business major, through I can't say their name at the moment.

The content of the Paha Review is good. I liked some of it while other parts I just shrugged and thought, "That's good poetry? Really?" It's not my place to go through each poem and short story.

I will say this. A lot has changed for me in the last 20 years. I am actually coming up on 18 years as a Technical Writer and that is exciting for me, considering that 20 years ago, I didn't know there was a career for writing technical documentation.

Recording the Metallica Black Album

People's Court Closes

There was a notice on Facebook that People's Court in Des Moines is closing.
I saw three shows there:

1. Gomez
2. Fear Factory
3. Bayside

Good place. I didn't make it to nearly as many great shows that they hosted, but when I was there, it was an awesome place.

Crazy Day

It was an interesting day. Mostly, I dealt with the ramifications of not having a single template for our Word docs. What looks fine on my PC doesn't transfer to another. It's a hamster wheel. We don't have time to create a template and we don't have time to  deal with the resulting Word docs that do  not have a single template.

If I made a Life CD today...

I am such a music person. I listen to music all the time, even crappy stuff I don't necessarily like. I am constantly seeking new music, which is why I began writing music reviews years ago. I have not dedicated nearly as much time as I should to that hobby lately. Only 5 reviews on http://www.dailyvault.com in 2012. Pitiful.

I've written about creating Life CDs before. I would take the songs that resonated in me at the given time. Since getting into listening to music on my 1 TB external hard drive, I've given up burning CDs. I think what I may do is create playlists, four a year (one for each season) and go that route.

If I *were* burning a Life CD today, I would include these songs. The first 10 are about Hate and the last 10 are about Hope. Notice it would fit on a CD (it's under 80 minutes).

The Future

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I plan to be where I work for years. I have zero intention of leaving. I have casually scanned job sites but, really, it is more out of habit than of really wanting to do anything different. I am challenged to do good work and I am challenged to develop my skills. I work with great people and I smile a lot at work. It's a difference that I have no intention of disrupting.

EVER.

The Present

My present employment situation is one that brings a smile to my face, much like the time I realized my wife loved me as much as I loved her. I still feel that feeling. It is so fantastic. When I get up in the morning and I know that I am going to work with like-minded people with the same goal, I am happy. I am in a good place. Are there any issues?
Using my post about the past, let's review:

1. The work. Of course, there are challenges with the work I do. We maintain user guides in MS Word and there is a lot of content that is shared across documents. For example, if there is a global change that affects all clients, we write once, copy, and paste into multiple documents. It is not effective.
   
   And here's where I make a distinction between where I am now and where I was. We want to use the correct tool, the tool that will make our work that much easier. We want to adopt a tool, whether it is a tool that continues to use Word as its word processor or not, that will take content that is tagged for a specific client and spit out documentation that can then be published. And here's the kicker: we would write once and apply it to multiple companies. It's a concept called "single-sourcing." Yes, other companies have known about it for years and used it for years, but we are just now getting to it.
   
   And it is wonderful to be able to analyze and question "what makes sense?" and then do it.
2. The people. It is easy - so easy - to draw a distinction between where I was and where I am now regarding the people. I start with my manager, who rocks. She is so easy to work with. She knows that we know what has to do and *challenges* us to find the best way to do it.
   
   On top of that, I work with Joe, who is a musician and plays in the band, and I work with Matthew, who is a musician and plays in the band. The three of us are friends. We share a common bond, both at work and outside of work. We are all different personalities, for sure, but we find a common ground.
3. The commute. It is a quick jaunt, usually about 15 minutes. The irony of where I work now is that it is in the same area of town as Iowa City Regina, which is the school my kids used to go to. Now, when I work near their school and getting to school functions would be easy, I now work further away from their schools.

The Past

Last Thursday, 10/18, was an anniversary. It was the two year anniversary of starting at a company I've never mentioned by name on this blog (and never will). I've always maintained that separation. So, if you read my blog in 10/2010, you may recall I had resigned from my job that I had held for a dozen years and, on 10/18/10, I started at a new place.

The "new place" was not what I wanted. And after only a few short weeks, I was unhappy. I flirted with the idea of returning to my previous employer - both I and my former co-workers wanted me to return - but I felt it was important to stick it out and to work that much harder to be successful.

Early on, the stress of the new place started eating away at me. I wasn't hungry. I remember it was a 'big deal' one day for me to go out for lunch - previously that week, I had not eaten lunch. I remember buying breakfast pizza one morning and not being able to finish eating even a single slice.

What was the problem? There were a lot of things in play.

1. The work. When you're told to "put one space after a period unless it looks funny, then put two", there's not a lot of pleasure. In addition, the tool I had to use, InDesign, was like trying to fit a square in a circle. For the type of software documentation I was writing, and for the type of documentation that this company wanted in the future, ID was not the right choice.
   
   And it wouldn't have been as bad if they were using the tool properly. The TOC was manually typed. There were no styles in the docs. It was basically a Word doc using only Normal style with manual formatting to get it to look the right way.
2. The people. While I do think about some of my former co-workers with fondness, the majority of the people I worked with... weren't nice people. There was this air of stuck-upness and, I admit, I didn't really fit in. I remember that for a bowling party, I had asked when people left. I said, "Tell me when you go."
   
   And no one did. I eventually got up from my desk and when I went to find those that I thought were my friends, they had already left. It kind of broke my heart.
   
   When I arrived at the bowling alley, my former boss and co-worker with whom I worked with every day, never came over to chit-chat. I had been with the company only a few months and no one made any effort, on that day, to welcome me into their world.
3. The commute. While I remember some days as it being nice to think about my life during the 30 minute one way drive, it also became a time when I would question who I was and where I was going. On the way to and from work, I started listening to Life 101.9 and while that helped, there was still an emptiness. Things got better when I started driving I-380 to Riverside instead of a straight shot down Highway 1, but still, it was a lonely commute.

And so, in April 2011, when it all blew up, I was sad that it didn't work out but, in some way, relieved. I tried to return to my former employer.  By that time, my replacement had been hired. That began a frantic job search that ended up with me being hired where I work now and where I have been for 1 year, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days. I am in a much better place.

Haven't Done this in a While

I haven't updated the status of the conversion from CD & cassette to MP3s lately. Yes, I'm working on it. But I am also balancing out converting LPs to MP3. I have converted 24 and have ~48 to go. Thus, it does not look like I will hit my goal of 50000 by the end of the year.

So, as of now, I have 47632 File(s) converted and, if I go by my schedule, I'm looking at 368 between now and next week, followed by 1000 each in November and December.

When I convert a LP, I convert it as a single MP3, so that doesn't really help my numbers increase. I also have not been working on the cassette conversion with the LP conversion taking on more urgency. But I will do my best.

Winner: Romney

"Attacking me is not a policy."

This was the line of the debate that resonates with me.

Barack Obama, if you are the winner in 15 days, you had better plot a course for us that doesn't include even MORE people out of work.

Another line that resonates is that government shouldn't be investing in companies. I agree with that.

Anniversary!

Yesterday was an anniversary that is bittersweet. The positive is that I began work at a new job, the negative is that I ended up hating the new job after only a few weeks. One of the reasons I hated being there was the inane things I was required to include in the user manuals I wrote and edited. I probably have written about this before, but the notion that the UI and the doc must match still drives me nuts. Consider this screen print:

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Why do you really need three bold periods, followed by a non-bold period. No one says, "From the File menu, click New Patient dot dot dot." That's not effective communication. People would say, "From the File menu, click New Patient."

The dot dot dot means that, in the software, there is a window that opens.

"Oh, the doc has to match the software *exactly*!"

BULLSHIT!

That was just one of the stupid rules I had to follow.

Another was this. "What is the standard for spaces after a period?"

Answer: "Use one unless it looks funny, then use two."

Yet another was using InDesign to maintain a user manual that was over 100 pages. Use the right tool for the job! And that wasn't all. The TOC? MANUALLY TYPE IT and if there's a change to the document, REVERIFY that the page numbers are not off.

And here's the kicker. I spent hours - days - trying to get InDesign's built-in TOC to function. I set up styles, I defined a template. I created mock sample documents.

Nope. No one was interested. It looked too hard. In my opinion, I think the work had to take as long as it did so that the work would seem valuable.

I am in such a better place now. Great boss and great co-workers. Good work to do as well. I know now that I had to go through 5 months, 3 weeks, 5 days of HELL to end up where I am now.

Top 10 Movies I Do Not Envision EVER Getting Tired of Watching

And yes, as hard as it is to say, these are in order.

1. Any of the Star Wars movies (yes, including Episodes I-III)
2. Any of the Lethal Weapon (yes, even IV)
3. Any of the Indiana Jones movies (yes, including Kingdom Skull)
4. Any of the Die Hard movies
5. Breakfast Club
6. Rudy
7. Hoosiers
8. The Shawshank Redemption
9. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
10. National Lampoon's Vacation (original)

Gothic Slam

The first thrash metal band that tripped my trigger was Gothic Slam, not Metallica. I complained that "Master of Puppets" was too fast. It's the kind of asinine comment I heard from a drummer that complained that Neil Peart wasn't a good drummer because he was too busy. The drummer that said that sucked. I saw his band play.

Full-Time Job, keeping up with Politics

Each day, the candidates of both parties are jabbing at each other. Last week's debate was round 1 and Romney came out ahead. Even MSNBC admitted as much. Since then, the Left has been trying to say, basically, "Yeah, our Savior looked weak but it was because of the altitude and such." When that excuse didn't hold water, it became, "Oh, Romney is going after Big Bird (PBS funding) and letting Wall Street run wild." He never said that, in what I read in the transcript of the debate. Now, because there doesn't seem to be any signs of Romney flubbing up, an AP photographer snaps this picture.


Predictably, Bill O'Reilly is calling for the photographer to be fired and for the AP to resist the urge to post photos like that in the future. http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/oreilly-fire-ap-staff-for-romney-a-photo/

In the same way, this photograph shouldn't have been published either:

 Gee, I bet explaining that to his wife was a lot of fun...

Birthday Czar

Three Bold Periods... and a fourth Unbolded

I was looking at options for automatically creating an index in Word and it led me to http://indexres.com/downloads/pdf/Win_Guide.pdf

It’s bad enough that the author chose to include the … when referring to the menu option but it gets worse when they don’t do it consistently. Three bold periods, followed by an unbolded period looks SO wrong.

And it’s kind of creeping me out that “Cindex will ask you to name the tag set” – I would have rewritten it to say “to start a new tag set, click New and name the tag set.” Software is not alive, it can’t ask you anything. It can prompt you to enter information.

And then to not have the 4th bullet for Delete… .

The Joke

We live near Iowa City. It is not difficult to find what Karen calls a "tree hugger." By definition, a tree hugger wears odd clothes and, traditionally, socks and sandals. Tree huggers want love, peace, and granola.

Now, Iowa City has officially launched a project.

Excuses!

I am sick of the liberals making stupid excuses for how Obama performed in the debate on Tuesday.
Al Gore weighs in and it's really not funny.

Not Sure

I crossed the threshold for my goal for September, as far as how many MP3s I wanted to have converted, last night. I now have 47005 File(s).

My goal for 10/31 is 48000. My goal for 11/30 is 49000 and, by the end of the year, 50000. I think I have around 600 more CDs (I can see 6 spindles of 100) and if you estimate that each one has 10 songs, you're at 6000. I'm sure there are plenty of CDs in the 600 that have more than 10 songs.

And that's not factoring in the cassettes I have slated. I'm actually way behind in cassettes. I'm actually way behind in every thing. I would like to clean out my bookshelf in the den as well as the desk as well as the closet. The den is just a collection of projects I have not completed!

I'll keep trudging along.

Johnny Cash

Les Metallica

I am not the biggest Les Claypool/Primus fan. Yes, by God, he does overplay.

My First Band Got a Shitty Review

I was going through some photo albums and I came across this letter that was published in the Mount Mercy College newspaper The Minstrel. 

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Dear Editor,

The last issue of The Minstrel included a review of Standing Room Only, the talent show held during interim. As MC of the show and vice president of the Drama Club, I appreciate the recognition given to our first production of what will hopefully become an annual event. However, I was disappointed that your comments about the band Prophecy did not include reference to the one member who is a student here at MMC. Paul Hanson's talent was evident as he entertained us all on the drums; his energized solo received an enthusiastic response from the audience. I was sorry that this was seemingly overlooked in your article.

Thank you again for your critical comments. Hopefully, practice will make perfect, and the show will get better every year.

Desire Steigauf

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I still get a kick out of that letter.

The review in question states this:

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Prophesy was up next. I really don't have anything good to say about them, so I'll keep my comments to a minimum. The music was too loud. I couldn't distinguish what was being sung. That may have been for the better because the singer had a tough time at what he was trying to sing. Prophesy brings new meaning to the word "garage band."

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This week

We, as a family, are in the thick of a busy week. This is all from my perspective.

Last night, I went to Megan's sax lesson to deliver her sax b/c Karen had picked her up from school to take her to her doctor appt. Alex's drum lesson was cancelled or else I would have been playing drums at West Music from 5:30-6. After returning from dropping off Megan's sax, I went to my Bible study class from 7-830. When I got home, Karen and I breezed through our recorded shows (How I Met Your Mother, Mike and Molly) and then after she went to bed, I watched WWE Raw. Then I went to bed.

Tonight, Megan works. Private Practice is on. Woo-hoo!

Wednesday, Alex has Religious Ed. Survivor, The Middle, and the Real World Challenge are on. Woo-hoo!

Thursday, Alex makes up his drum lesson (Time TBD). Megan works. TNA Wrestling, Grey's and ... something else are on. Woo-hoo!

Friday, Megan marches at the West v. City High football game. Shark Tank is on.

Saturday, we may possibly go up to Norwood and spend time with my brother-in-law/sister-in-law and two nephews. Megan works all day.

Sunday, Megan will need to go to 11 AM Mass.

THEN... it starts all over.

Between all that, I am working on the LP to MP3, the CD to MP3, and cassette to MP3 conversions.

Who are You?

I've been asking myself that question a lot. Who are you? There are many ways to answer it.

I start with God. I am a God-fearing Catholic so I believe in God.

Then I move on to worldly definitions. I am a husband, father, and son.

Then I move on to my hobbies. I am a musician (okay, fine "drummer"), writer, and that's about it for hobbies. Music and writing. Writing about music. Things like that.

Then I move on to what I want to be. I want to be a provider for my family and a role model for my kids. That's important to me. I want to be a good husband and be a good spouse.
 

CDs and the Evolving View of My Musical World

Benjamin Ray's post this AM made me write!

From: Benjamin Ray

Let's hear it for the birthday of the CD, which turned 30 on Oct. 1. As a depressing side note, I turn 30 in July of 2013. The CD is the defining musical delivery system of my generation and the one I still prefer, though vinyl and mp3s both have their charms and drawbacks. I wonder if people older than myself feel that vinyl is their medium of choice and those younger prefer mp3s. Discuss?

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I wrote back:
I turn 43 in just under two months.

I grew up on cassettes. I can remember 1980 as being when Casey Kasem's American Top 40 was on the radio on Sundays and I'd put my tape recorder up to the stereo speaker and record it to cassette. That same year, my friend JR (still my friend after all these years) and I would trade songs. We'd put the speaker of his tape recorder up to the speaker on mine (the concept of there being a microphone was lost on us as we were in 4^th grade) and we'd exchange songs.

Eventually, I got into cassettes and dubbing every and any release that my friends or friends of friends had. I spent a lot of money buying 20 packs of Maxell UR 90 tapes and TDK D90 blank tapes. Due to budget constraints (as in I was not old enough to have a job and relied upon my parents for funds) I went with "Normal" bias instead of the "High" bias tapes.

1989 was huge for me. My friend in the dorm, Mark, went back home for the summer and let me use his stereo. He had a CD player and that was when I first really became aware of them. I listened to Van Halen's "OU812" repeatedly. Eventually, Mark retrieved his stereo and I began buying CDs. That same summer, I began playing with my guitarist friends Ken and James on a regular basis and taping our rehearsals. It helped grow my collection into one that was envied by my friends. It was huge. I began to track its growth in an Excel file, faithfully recording when I obtained a dub of a tape. I also got heavily into trading dubs of tapes from around the country. I'd dub a 10 pack of cassettes and send them to other states.

Eventually, I stopped buying cassettes and invested in a lot of 100 pack spindles of CD-Rs. I liked this because I could store 100 CDs on a spindle and it took up much less room than storing 100 CDs in hard cases. I worked my way up to 22 spindles of 100 CDs each. A friend that I traded CDs with, Kevin, eventually started creating "data CDs" which were albums in MP3 format. I'd get a data CD and rip each release on it (say there were 12) onto 12 separate CDs because (I thought) I wanted to be able to listen to it on my CD player, which didn't read his data CDs. I would use a free CD ripper to rip a CD to MP3 and then to record burn a CD with those songs.

The next step in my revolution was buying a 1 TB external HD. By accident, I discovered Windows Media Player would rip a CD when it was inserted. The days of carrying a shoebox of CDs to work ended. I now store 244 GB of music.

I am in the middle of multiple conversions. I'm converting my 1000 cassettes to MP3. I'm converting my 1000s of CDs to MP3. I'm converting my LP collection to MP3/CD. I have the converter for converting VHS and mini-VHS tapes to DVD. It is somewhat disheartening that I will do hours of work for these conversions, only to (someday) be faced with these collections in an obsolete media. I can remember when VHS tapes were expensive and now those VHS tapes are a fraction of what they were as DVD and now Blu-Ray have replaced them.

I don't have the magic answer for all this. New technology will come out and prices of what was expensive goes down. I bought a 1 TB external hard drive a couple of years ago for $150. Now, at Best Buy, I can get a 3 TB external hard drive for $150. And that's fine. It's a hamster wheel, I guess, as the industry and consumers strive to find the best way to do things.

So happy birthday CD as a format for bringing awesome (and not so awesome) bands to my ears!

Paul