Daryl Shawn, a member of the Loopers-Delight mailing list and one half of Chinapainting, wrote this review of my RPM08 record Bittersweet Drive.  It’s a nice surprise when someone likes your work, and even more so when they take the time to write a review.  Thanks, Daryl!

Too much work and other worldly distractions once again threaten the post count value of this blog. Don’t fret. Even this post represents hope.

I see that quite a few loopers have visited - linked from livelooping.org and other forum posts. A special hello to each of you. And thanks to those of you who’ve found the site/blog useful enough to link to.

I had a chance to play at Y2K7 in Santa Cruz, CA this year, but my schedule wouldn’t accomodate. I’ll be there in 2008. In the meantime, most of my looping is happening on a Toshiba laptop armed with Bidule, Mobius, and a selection of real-time VST sound manglers. Hmmm… sounds like a good blog post subject for December.

In other news…

The soundclips link in the main menu (up there ^) will take you to the guitar effects soundclip gallery that I’ve been hosting here (for 2 years now!) It doesn’t see much action these days, but if you’re into that sorta thing, give it a look.

And finally tonight…

I’ve been slowly but surely improving my DIY media server in my house. At this point I’ve got 1.5 terabytes of storage attached - and I’m not afraid to use them, dammit. I decided it was time to get all Web 2.0 up in here and start pulling my favorite content down so I can have it on my lappy or in my car at whatever pace I choose. So I did a little searching and ended up with Juice. Loving it. With so much good content available as an RSS feed, I can see Juice becoming a primary conduit for my steady diet of teh interwebz.

Also…

I envy my dear friend Matt’s commitment to blogging, and the commensurate result. I’ve never fancied myself a writer. But Matt is one, and he doesn’t even know it. After playing a character in some of the earlier chapters of Matt’s life, it’s a joy to read the current chapters. Quite a novel (concept), that Matte Finish.

Wow, the weather has been beautiful in Houston this week. Clear skies, highs in the 70’s, lows in the 40’s. Nice. Makes a guy think he ought to spend more time outside doing more nothing more often.

But alas, it’s been a hard working week. One of those vortexes that pulls you in with it’s challenges and even a few mysteries, and spits you out the other side feeling swelled and spent, and maybe even a little wiser.

See - this week, I’ve been moving from the planning to the execution stages of a very interesting project. The idea is to assess a company’s very-broken-web-portal, decide what’s important about what clients are actually doing there, and then blow the whole thing up and redesign the portal to actually do those things. You’d be surprised how far from the mark one of these B2B web portals can stray. Years of operating with no vision for the product, no standards, no meaningful client input, and no resources… well, that can really mess things up. The good news is that most (ok, a lot?… ok, I’ll settle for “some”) of the functionality that needs to be there is there. The bad news is that the architecture for delivering it is broken, and users have to have a PhD in using the portal to be able to squeeze anything out of it.

These are not lazy or stupid people who built this thing, either. They thought they had all those things. They did the best they could with what they had as they went along. It’s ended up a little bit like the Winchester Mansion. I’m sure it gets much worse than this, but I’m also not sure I want to witness it if it does.

So I’ve managed to wade through the Swamp of Preparation. I’ve done the interviews and read/discussed the as-is documentation. I’ve waded through the wishlists. I’ve listened to all of the assessments of the technical hurdles and the occasional naysayer predicting (hoping for?) total doom and failure. It’s gelled. OK, gelling. I can see how it needs to be transformed.

Now comes the hard part.

In other news, I talked to my dad today and he almost shot his age (75) in golf last week. 76 at Champions on the Cypress course. Champion indeed. He said that putting felt like rolling the ball into a big bucket, and he sank 3 putts over 30 feet. My old man, in the zone.

I bet he could integrate enterprise-wide workflows within a web portal with one hand tied behind his back…

A couple of days ago, I decided that I’d like to put some effort into blogging again. Yes, again . As I upgraded WordPress (they are doing a great job with WP!) and moved some of my old blog posts over here, it became obvious to me - I’ve caught this bug in the 4th quarter of the last 2 years. The only real effort I’ve put into blogging has been in Oct-Dec of ‘05 and ‘06.

Reflecting on this, I think it may be due to a couple of things. First, this is the time of year that I begin to reflect on life, the last year, what I’ve accomplished and what I want to focus on in the upcoming year. Somehow blogging is something I’ve failed at by most standards, yet it keeps coming up on my want-to-do list.

Secondly, this is often the time of year that I get a breather between the worklife crunches of the summer and year end. Another opportunity for reflection and whatnot. Let’s see if I can apply some of the improved focus I have in other areas of my life to this blog, shall we?

In the meantime….

Vivarium Update

For some of us, there should be a standard cut-n-paste post apologizing for blog-neglect. To those very few people who bother to come by my humble little blog: I have no excuses, but a few explanations. Spam was hell (hooray for WordPress 2.0!). Work was busier than ever. Priorities, and all that.

But here I am again, re-committing myself to exploring blogging and some of the great technologies that allow us to share ideas.

So, I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.0, made a few changes, and installed some tools that should help make things easier. And as always, learned a few things in the process.

Podcast. Hmmmm… yes. Podcast. Whatever happened to that idea…

I suppose that many many blogs will reflect on John today. Maybe we can be reminded to reflect on all of the positive things that John gave the world more than once a year. He was just a man… with all of the flaws that come with that lofty title. Yet, he cast a light on us and helped us see what was possible.

Thank you, John.

Rest In Peace.

(Just Give Me Some Truth - John Lennon - (from: Imagine)
[audio:Lennon,John - Give Me Some Truth.mp3]

I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Money for dope
Money for rope

I’m sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mama’s little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now

I’ve had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
It’s money for dope
Money for rope

Ah, I’m sick to death of hearing things
from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

I’ve had enough of reading things
by neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

This is the first post using the new blog configuration. Hello cruel fucking world.

This was supposed to be the second article about live looping, but my previous web hosting company - edatarack.com - decided to ruin that idea.

Screw edatarack.com! If you happen to be reading this, NEVER EVER EVER use edatarack.com as your web hosting provider. They are constantly experiencing downtimes (that they will not acknowledge), server software corruption, hard drive failures, and database problems. Their “customer service” is rude and ineffective (and online ONLY - no phone support). Finally, they are thieves. They do not honor their uptime guarantee, nor their promise of pro-rated refunds.

Avoid them at all costs.

I’m shocked. I’m saddened. It’s all over, kids.

Astroworld is gone.

Actually, the Dexter Freebish rollercoaster was gone a long time ago. That’s just me showing my age. I remember in middle school, my sister (home from college) took me and my friends to Astroworld, and left us to ride the Freebish over and over again. The Dexter Freebish was a smaller rollercoaster, but it had plenty of thrills - including the infamous “pole of death” that the track swung tightly around at full speed. That pole looked like it was going to rip your head off, no matter how many times you rode the Freebish. It was also an excuse not to stand in line for the truly terrifying Texas Cyclone. For a while, at least. Of course, peer pressure and sheer curiosity would get the better of us that day, and soon enough we were on the Cyclone, screaming our lungs out and praying for a quick death.

Later that day, it rained. Hard. Astroworld sorta cleared out as all the moms with kids ran for the train back to the parking lot. My sister was with her friends, and I was with mine, with no plans to reconnect and head to the parking lot until dark. We saw another opportunity to stare death in the face on the Cyclone. As we ran up the ramps, now completely empty of the long lines of parents with despair-ridden faces, we saw that we would only have to wait for 3 or 4 more groups until we could ride again. We were so excited, bragging about how we were going to hold our hands up the entire time, spit in the air, etc. And then… it happened. People still give me a look of disbelief when I occasionally tell this story, but I swear to you - it really did happen.

The Cyclone was a gravity-driven old-school wooden coaster. No magnetic tracks dragging this thing to full speed. It got to full speed (and stayed there!) because of the high first hill, and the well designed additional rises and drops. Well, after all of that rain, the tracks must have been slick - and the operators knew it. They were sending an Astroworld employee in the last car of every group. And while we were standing there, we saw why. After the first few hills, as the coaster would come up to the slow, wide, high arch on it’s farthest edge - it would slow to a complete stop. And this Astroworld guy would *GET OUT OF THE ROLLERCOASTER and walk along the platform next to the track, while pushing the train of cars forward*. He’d watch for the first car to start moving down the incline, and then he’d *JUMP BACK INTO THE ROLLERCOASTER and ride it to the other side*. He had to do it twice for every run. We saw him do it. Four times (2 runs), and then it was out turn. We watched him do it for the first side of our run, but he didn’t have to do it on the far side - we maintained our speed. I don’t know who that kid was, but they were NOT paying him enough money!