∴ piece o' cake
It's Cold Out There, performed May 2nd at Kyle and Beth Stephens' home. Our warmup song.
Past Ravings
My Music
Commonsense Entrepreneur
Oak Creek Travelogue
Tahoe Interlude
Know Your Music
Spinhead Web Design
Streamliine
evolt.org
SunnyRose
Rocket Surgery, performed May 2nd at Kyle and Beth Stephens' home. He's not a stalker.
Look My Way, performed May 2nd at Kyle and Beth Stephens' home. This is not country.
Like the Sea, performed May 2nd at Kyle and Beth Stephens' home. Listen to that echo.
The Hillside, performed May 2nd at Kyle and Beth Stephens' home. Love those harmonies.
I'm not sure if it's a reflection of who I am, or just where I am today, but in the past year I've read more business books which have affected me emotionally than I've read fiction.
The Dream Manager is a parable, a story which teaches a point or moral. The point in this case is that a business manager can achieve their own dreams, both business and personal, but helping those who work for them achieve their own dreams. It's a practical application of the Golden Rule, doing for others what we'd like done for ourselves.
It will be easy for business folks to dismiss this book as fluffy and unrealistic. Five years from now, those who do will continue to struggle, and those who actually have dreams and pursue them will be happier and more successful.
I intend to be one of them.
February, the longest month of my life, was followed by March, the shortest month of my life.
I've added a link to all the new music, and my book 49 Commonsense Business Observations is available from my website (or you can get it from me directly and save the shipping cost.
I've set a goal of July 1st to have the new book done, but the bulk of the work will be finished by the end of May so I'll be able to start on my third book, a collaboration on musical entrepreneurship.
It's over. February turned out to be the longest month of my life, I think.
Eighteen new songs, order my new book, and still ate and slept occasionally.
All them new songs and the book will be here some time soon.
Please put your seat trays up and raise your seats to their upright position: it's time, once again, for over 1,000 lunatics to gather at FAWM and try to write 14 songs in 28 days. Well, being a leap year and all, we'll each try to add a collaboration, making it 14.5 songs in 29 days.
Won't be around much during February, since it's also shaping up to be the biggest business month of the past nine.
Read all about the February Album Writing Month at the website, and spread the word, if you so desire, with this here PDF with a bit of pertinent information.
Even if you ignore the marketing parts and focus on Seth Godin's thoughts on curiosity, you'll know more about me when he's done than you probably do now.
A film by Nic Askew
48 tomorrow. That's a good number; not quite a power of two, but divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, and 48.
The 21st would have been Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary. I look at gents like Chuck, who's 73, and think that Dad would have been a year older than he is.
Then, Wednesday, four years of marriage. 1/12th of my life. It's been good.
The songs are still coming, as fast as I can get them out. I'm rapidly reaching the point where I don't care how they get recorded. I just do it, and eventually, I'll have the skills I need to do what I want without waiting on anyone else.
Which may have become the theme of my life. Except for the fact that I couldn't live one minute without Best Beloved, which may be why she figures so prominently in my music.
Despite the struggles and frustration, I love my life and I'll be glad to see a lot of years past 48.
Every day, I try to practice my piano chords, a few bass lines, and some guitar chords. I decided that tiny little incremental steps would be better than a) pretending I would someday take lessons or otherwise invest a lot of time to get up to speed quickly and b) never doing it.
The odd thing is that I've reached a tipping point. My guitar playing improved exponentially over a few days. When I added diminished and suspended chords to my piano practice, it took two days to get comfortable, instead of the weeks it took for both majors and minors. (Check out Duane's free online/email piano lessons. Excellent resource.)
It's had a direct affect on my songwriting, being able to play chords on the guitar. Two completely new songs in a week, and completed music for some lyrics I wrote 18 months ago. The first new song is the first time I've totally given in to my country roots. It came out sounding a lot like Alan Jackson, which makes pretty much no sense at all. Maybe I'll even post demos here.
Practice may or may not make perfect, but it sure makes better.
I wish I could overcome this obsessive need to be doing something useful. I have a really hard time doing something that doesn't feel like I'm creating a useful end result. I'm not very good at frittering.
There's always going to be something else to do. Always another project, another tweak to an existing project, another dream to chase.
I even feel like my recreation has to be focused. Yet, somehow, I still don't feel like a workaholic. But I think about my CommonsenseEntrepreneur tasks more than almost anything else. I'm always considering how this or that fits in with my writing, speaking, etc.
And then, I have trouble sleeping; feel tense and anxious; stop enjoying it all.
Where's the joy in that?
It's right here:
In their book First, Break All the Rules Marcus Cunnigham and Curt Coffman, while discussing the thinking pathways we form in our heads (four-lane highways versus overgrown hiking trails) and various forms of talents (our repeated, natural abilities and actions) say this on page 91:
Similarly, some people have a four-lane highway for constant achievement, a striving talent we call achiever. They may not have to win, but they do feel a burning need to achieve something tangible every single day. And these kind of people mean "every single day." For them, every day—workday, weekend, vacation—every day starts at zero. They have to rack up some numbers by the end of the day in order to feel good about themselves. This burning flame may dwindle as evening comes, but the next morning it rekindles itself, spurring its host to look for new items to cross off his list. These people are the fabled "self-starters."
I'll settle for being 'fabled.'
I'm back up to 277, after, at least once in the past six months, getting below 270.
Bears are supposed to fatten up for the winter. I'm not a bear. I don't think I'm a bear, at least.
Been watching The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard on PBS. I think I'm caught up in the 'regular person breaks into closed circle and changes the world while changing themselves' story, and how I can make it my own. Stories capture me.
Lately everything seems to end up being about business; how it fits with The Commonsense Entrepreneur, or how I can make another dollar today. It's not about money, it's about balancing my obligations with my dreams. When has that ever been easy?
Well, at least under the current Life Regime, it's possible.
Here I am doing my best to assert my individuality, accepting myself as I am and assuming the rest of the world, personal and professional, will do the same.
So why am I all excited that seven years ago some guy I've never heard of came up with the term "Generation Jones" for those of us who know full well we're not Boomers, and sure aren't GenXers?
Almost as befuddling: why am I pleased with the label "Generation Jones" ?
Finally saw the Monkees/Jack Nicholson movie Head last night.
It is bizarre.
Other than the obvious self-referential mocking of the insincerity of the media, it has no plot or point. It does have two Carole King songs, one Harry Nilsson song, two written by Peter Tork, and one by Mike Nesmith.
In one fascinating scene, after Davy Jones sings Daddy's Song by Harry Nilsson, Davy and Toni Basil do a dance routine all dressed in white, against a black background—and the same routine dressed in black, against a white background. Scenes from each are cut together to make a single dance, sometimes flashing back and forth so fast it's like a strobe effect. It is very cool, and uses no special effects whatsoever.
Most people won't 'get' Head either because they wanna know what it 'means' or because it's just plain bizarre.
Fine with me; most people don't 'get' me either, and often for the same reasons.
It's one of those gloomy days where a fireplace makes the difference between 'bleh' and 'oh, isn't this nice?'
The Little One slept until 11:00, and sounds like she has corks in her nose. Mommy didn't sleep well, and it seems like everyone is a little off today.
In what could be a really bad coincidential precedent, as the Little One was standing on the couch yelling at the TV commercial about a dollhouse "I want that! I want that!" (only the second time she's ever done that, the first being about a week ago, also about a dollhouse) there was a knock at the door, and Mommy announced "That's it now!"
Some friends had a dollhouse and a bag of dolls they just didn't have room for, so they'd made arrangements to drop it off today.
I wonder what'll happen next time she stands up on the couch yelling "I want that!" and there's no knock on the door.
The Little One coughed until she threw up last night. Big sister brought her in to mommy, who, sadly, put her in the shower and washed her hair.
Only a three-year-old would prefer vomit-hair to a 2 a.m. shower.
In other news, Best Beloved (a.k.a. 'mommy') and I seem to be on an emotional upswing. Business plan shaping up, old friends getting in touch, and, oh look; a little time caring for the concerns of others. Amazing how therapeutic it is putting aside your own problems for a bit and really focusing on someone else. It also feels good when, in one case, they unselfishly helped you when you really needed it, before they even knew you well, just because it was the right thing to do.
It's easy to love principled people.
It never occurred to me that people might actually make a living doing public speaking.
Some research somewhere says that the two things people fear most today are death and public speaking, and not always in that order.
Since I love public speaking and I'm good at it, I should find a way to market myself. I just need to stop writing like this is a business journal; it's supposed to be my place to vent. Maybe I'll never be comfortable posting what I really feel in a public place (well, not again) no matter how unread I think it is.
The supplemental job search began today. Must be not too demanding mentally or physically, flexible schedule, and close to home, because I'd rather starve than commute.
At least right now.
Forrest, the youngest of my first batch, turned 18 two days ago. It's been four and a half years since I've seen any of them; it's becoming frustrating.
In other frustration news, this .NET project is really getting on my nerves. I'm fairly sure the only reason to learn .NET is because Microsoft is forcing classic ASP into obsolescence. For a hand-coder like me there just aren't enough benefits. Connecting to a database, laying out tables of data, creating forms: all the 'cool' .NET tools are great for simple applications, especially if you just want to use the GUI to design them. But when you have to relearn everything you know about coding and syntax, and then have to customize everything the GUI creates, it's turning out to be more work than if I'd just done it the old way.
It's maddening trying to find the balance between charging the client for my time and being fair about the learning curve. How much of this time is my fault? How much is pure learning, not billable to the client? How much is caused by their insistence on how the work gets done?
While I'm trying to transition the business from pure web development to business analysis and consulting, it's hard finding the balance between what I want to do and what I have to do to pay the bills.
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