Adventure in Capilano

Today was an adventure! We went for a walk this morning, got up early and walked around the harbour, then went for breakfast. J has discovered, or rather re-discovered, the world of journaling for herself.

After breakfast and a couple of hours changing our travel plans to Seattle, we finally got under way to Capilano. We took a bus across the Lions Gate Bridge to Capilano, paid the hefty admission price and went in. Now I remembered why I hadn't crossed the suspension bridge last time I was in Vancouver, which was about ten years ago - because of the admission price. But anyways, we were already there, what were we going to do, go back? Besides, it might be another ten years before I'm back this way again!

So we did the Capilano Suspension Bridge. I crossed it the first time, and I was pretty nervous. By the time I got across I was sweating! What made me nervous was not so much the swaying, because I usually enjoy that. It was that there were so many people on the bridge ahead of me and they kept on stopping. I was so nervous crossing that I didn't even want to use my camcorder; I was holding on to the railing the whole way across.

My return crossing was a different story. There were fewer people on the bridge so I could walk faster, in the centre, with a wide stance. I held the camcorder in front of me, waist level, for most of the way back, recording. At about the three quarters of the way point I noticed it wasn't recording anymore - the battery must have drained.

We also did the Treetop Adventure at Capilano. It was a series of walkways suspended from trees. Several hundred feet above the ground! It was fun, and we took lots of pictures, videos, and voice recordings, and J wrote more in her journal. So we have lots of material with which to produce a travel documentary!

When we came back from Capilano, we took the SeaBus across the bay. Then we decided to take the SkyTrain for a ride. When we returned to the hotel we were both tired but happy. It was a great day, and a great way to start off for the upcoming 21st Century Leadership program.

Morning in Vancouver

J got up this morning while I was still in bed. She looked out the window and said, Oh my God!. I thought that some disaster had befallen, but she was simply expressing her admiration for the view. She said, Let's get up and go for a walk. I could have used a couple more hours of sleep, but what the heck, I got up anyways. In a couple of days I will be at 21st Century Leadership, getting up for the morning ritual - The Mile.

While I was getting myself up and ready, she wrote in her journal, describing the view she was seeing. My goodness, she was actually writing! I have encouraged her many times to journal, and I was impressed that she was actually doing so.

We go for a walk. J puts her journal down on the sidewalk while she takes pictures with her cellphone. I offer to carry her journal in my camera bag and she declines. What if I need to write something down?. You see - she *is* a writer! Thinking like a writer. Always carry a book, always be ready to capture a moment of inspiration.

I wait patiently while she writes, just as she has waited so many times while I've been tapping away into my Palm Pilot. I think her creative spirit has woke up.

We walk around the Bayshore and make frequent stops so J can add to her journal. (Later, she would count that she had written six pages in her pocket journal). We walk along and stop again to look at the float planes. Two of them take off during the time that we watch them. I shoot some footage with my camcorder but by this time I need to go to the washroom badly and I cannot stand still enough to get those good long shots.

Finally we go to a hotel and I go in to use their washroom. Afterwards, we walk a few blocks more to a breakfast place called The White Spot. We each have Belgium waffles and fresh orange juice. We also read to each other from our respective journals, and thus a seed for a new bonding ritual is planted.

J is amazed with her own rediscovered writing abilities, and realizes that I saw the writer in her. It looks like J has finally started her journey, it looks like she has finally started her own 21st Century Leadership.

She beams when I read out my observations about her, and I take a moment of silent pleasure about something I've done for her that she doesn't know about yet. She didn't bring a CD for 21CL, so I have secretly picked one on her behalf. I will surprise her with it later. The CD I picked is by Louis Armstrong, and the song I picked for her is When You're Smiling. The line that speaks to me that I want to gift to her, is When you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you. I think of this as I look at her beaming face and I know I made absolutely the right choice.

Black silhouetted mountains

I do in fact enjoy travelling, once I actually get out. It's the preparation, the packing, that puts me off. The stress of getting all those things done that ought to be done before leaving on a trip. Knowing that I always pack too much and end up using only a fraction of what I bring with me on a trip. Playing the guessing game of what the weather will be like at my destination for the duration of the trip; playing the prediction game of deciding what clothing to bring and what not to bring so that I am prepared for all outcomes.



Once I'm at the airport, luggage checked in, security cleared, and I'm just waiting to hear the boarding call, I start to relax and get excited about going somewhere.

Saturday July 14 - I am in Vancouver with J. We are here for a couple of days, on a stopover on our way to Seattle. We have a room here at the The Westin Bayshore, overlooking a marina, black mountains silhouetted in the background - the view is gorgeous! This room was arranged for us by a friend with help from J's brother. Thank you both! I greatly appreciate it.

Fatherly urges

I have been feeling some desires to be a dad. The idea kind of scares me. It's a big responsibility and it can be expensive, right? Would I still be able to attain my goal of financial independance?

The idea scares me but it also attracts me. I like being uncle to my nieces and nephews; I like spending time with them and playing with them and being the occasional parental figure with them. But at the end of the day they're somebody else's kids. At the end of the day, after a long long day when they're tired they want to go and be with their own mommy. Someone else decides how to raise them, someone else decides when they come to visit and how often and for how long, and whether or not they'll come camping or come to church. And that is how it should be because all of that is their parents' responsibility.

But there is a piece of me that wants it for me. As I mentioned the other night to one of the men on my men's team, I don't have kids but I'm a dad at heart. It actually felt really good to say that! The other day I was speaking with someone about the subject on the phone. At the end of the call I felt like I was standing at the bottom of a big mountain looking up and saying with a big grin on my face, I'm going to climb that mountain!

Technology, music, physical challenges

The RA I have in my hands is making it difficult for me to learn to play keyboard or guitar or bass well. That's been getting me to thinking - there must be people out there in the world that have a passion for making music but are limited by severe physical challenges. So why not use technology, bring together all the necessary components (they already exist!) and put it all together in a way that a person who has physical challenges can overcome their limitations and be able to play a musical instrument? The way that hand and mouth artists are able to paint despite no limbs.

I know that hardware can be expensive so maybe there is some venture capitalist or philanthropist out there who would find it worth their while to finance such an undertaking.

I feel inspired by the story of Diane Dupuy, the founder of Famous People Players. She created a venue for people with mental and physical disabilities to express themselves in a theatrical context. She had a powerful vision.

So how about a similar vision, a vision of a world in which people with physical ability is not a handicap to being able to express oneself musically.

Thoughts on combining signal delay with pitch bend

So I'm familiar with the technique of using a Delay effect in audio production; this allows a signal to be played back after a slight delay from the original signal. This technique can be used, for example, to play quarter notes and have them sound like eighth notes.

What I'm thinking about is the possibility of running the delayed signal through something that will change its pitch. Reason does not have a pitch-bend device that I know of, but some devices do have a function that can change the pitch. The Subtractor is one that comes to mind. If I lowered the pitch by 4 or 5 semitones, then the delayed notes would actually be played back as a different note in the same chord as the original note. I would expect that this could produce an interesting arpeggiation effect.

Have Metropass, will travel

It is cool having a Metropass. I can get on any bus or any streetcar anytime and I don't have to make sure I have enough change or have a token. I can spontaneously decide to get off the bus I'm on and take a different one without having to make sure I have a transfer. If I'm waiting too long for the subway to come, I can change my mind about going somewhere; I can get off the transit system and decide to walk or drive instead, without feeling like I wasted a token. Or if I have some unexpected downtime when I'm in the core of the city I can spontaneously decide to go for a ride on the Sheppard line just because I have not been on the Sheppard line yet since it opened five years ago.

The Sheppard-Yonge Station used to be called just Sheppard back before the new line was built. Back when I used to ride the subway as a young boy. Just like I did today.

I got off the northbound train heading up the Yonge line and climbed up the stairs, following the signs towards the tracks of the Sheppard line. I got to the top of the stairs - and there it was. Wow! A brand new subway station! It was like seeing something out of my dreams, a mysterious, secret subway station that existed only in my imagination. Only this one existed in the real world.

Like a young boy, I rode at the front of the first car, looking into the tunnel as the train moved. Like when I rode on the Spadina line when it opened.

What secrets do these underground tunnels know? What mysteries do they hide? What tracks exist, going into unknown places, concealed from the general public?

Slept in the tent

J's nieces and nephew visited this weekend. It was not only Father's Day, it was also my baby niece's second birthday (see It's nice to have a niece and Photo-shopping). J got them all stirred up about the idea of sleeping in a tent in the backyard. My four year old nephew was particularly excited about it and couldn't wait for me to finish my dinner so that we could go set up the tent.

I had purchased the tent several years ago when I met J so that I could take her camping with me. I didn't think she would enjoy my previous tent, the small two and a half man tent that I'd had for about ten years. To be honest, not that I like to admit it, but I'd gotten older myself and my body was not as flexible as it used to, so getting into and out of the older and smaller tent was getting more difficult for me. It was time for a tent that was big enough that I could stand up in.

Our first camping experience together was pretty traumatic for J. Between the mosquitoes and a cycling mishap, it didn't look likely that she would ever go camping again. But her trauma eventually subsided and a year later we went on our second camping trip together. On that second trip we combined tent camping with trailer camping. We had some rain and the tent got wet and I got sick so I just put the tent in the trunk of the car instead of packing it into its bag when it was time to return home. When we finally got home, I just was not up to the task of unpacking and putting everything back in its place so the tent poles and fly ended up in one place and the tarp ended up somewhere else - and was not to be seen for the next two years. The missing tarp finally turned up last week in a hidden corner of our shed which we had to empty because we were starting a backyard landscaping project (J's mom found the tarp - thank you!)

So when I finally finished eating I went outside and set up the tent and got the air mattress pumped up and the kids were so excited and jumping on the air mattress. Then we took them down to the waterfront for a walk. We went for a long long walk and it was dark by the time we got back home. We were all pretty tired by the time we got back home.

I want to sleep inside the house with mommy they were now saying. So much for all the excitement about sleeping in the tent. They were more excited about setting up the tent than actually sleeping in it.

I hated to miss the opportunity so I end up sleeping in the tent myself. It's a nice big tent and I enjoyed having it all to myself.

Vicarious Ghost Rider

I was at Chapters the other day, and I've been curious to look at any of the books that Neil Peart has written, so I looked him up in an authour search and found out about a book he wrote called Ghost Rider. The catalogue listed it as being in the Biography section which just happened to be right beside the terminal I was using.

I ended up reading the first three chapters of his book, which cover his motorcycle journey across Canada to Alaska. By the end of that third chapter I felt like I'd been on that cross-Canada trip with him. There was a time in my life when I thought of doing a cross-Canada cycling ride, so reading those chapters at Chapters gave me a sort of vicarious experience of it. It also reignited my desire to write.

LifeBalance and TLI's

A challenge I have in using LifeBalance most effectively is deciding how to set up the TLI's (Top Level Items). My intution is that the number of TLI's I use should be between 8 and 12. I figure if I have much more than that then I am starting to balance too many things and starting to spread myself too thin (then again, J already things I am doing that, so maybe this is a sign for me).

An example: Should I have one TLI called Real Estate, with two subordinate items called Property 1 and Property 2? Or should I have two TLI's called Property 1 and Property 2? Another example: Should I have one TLI called Creativity with subordinate items called Music and Creative Writing (and maybe one called Blogging?) Or should each of those subordinate items be its own TLI?

If I use the design that has Real Estate as a TLI with each property as a subordinate item, then here is what happens: as soon as I check off an item under the Property 1 branch, LifeBalance adds the credit to the Real Estate slice of pie. Then when it re-prioritizes my tasks to balance my TLI's, items under the Property 2 branch get pushed down the list. In essence, LifeBalance is saying You already got your Real Estate slice of pie.

Fine, that's what it's supposed to do. The problem comes up if I have things I need to take care of for both properties. As soon as I take care of something for one property, LifeBalance automatically reduces the priority of the second property, and that's not good.

If I make each property be its own TLI instead, then I end up with two TLI's instead of one. If I follow the same approach for Creativity then I will end up with even more TLI's, and then the list becomes difficult to manage. I can only see so many items on the screen and I would have to scroll around too much to find the appropriate TLI when I want to add a new item.

Maybe this situation is telling me that I've got too much stuff going on in my life and that I should pare down my life. Yeah right - as if I would do that.

Dirk - working out the plot

There is a particular story that takes place in the Dirk Halfspeed universe that I've wanted to write for a long time. I originally tinkered around with this story idea, thinking to write it as the next episode in the original serial. I have written several scenes for it but never quite finished it.

The last episode of the original serial had the trio of Dirk, Joe, and Seran deal with their sudden jaunt into Negative Time by deciding to hibernate their way back to their present time. My writing partner wrote this particular episode as a way of returning the characters back to the familiar setting. Although my partner wrote the story well, over time I have found myself disappointed with this ending to the serial. I felt disappointed because we had an opportunity to take the serial into a whole new direction, and instead we undid every possible change of direction; we hit the reset button.

I started to imagine what would have happened if the characters had actually tampered with the past. What if one of the characters somehow remembered an alternate sequence of events - perhaps a sequence of events that never happened, because Time prevents paradox from occurring. Yet one character, Joe, has vivid memories of an alternate existence, one in which he had fathered a child with one of his women. Then he discovers that in the normal universe, this woman has died while giving birth. Now he wants to go back in time again and prevent her and his child from dying. Only he can't, because nature works to prevent paradox. Now, tell me if that doesn't raise the emotional stakes some!

I like this story idea; I like the possibilities of what it allows me to do with the characters. I've abandoned the idea of writing it as a continuation episode for the original serial, but I am still interested in using it for a reimagined series.

At the beginning of the new story, Dirk is floating in space with no knowledge of who he is, no memory of how he got there. Somehow, I have got to get him from here to meeting Joe and Seran. The Beginning is the part of the story that tells of how the trio meet each other, and why they end up going back in time. The Middle is about their experiences while in the past, and about their return to the present. The End is about Joe's frustrated attempts to go back in time again and save his son. The Climax is when Dirk realizes the truth - that time "takes care of itself" and prevents paradox from occurring. Thus Dirk decides to stop supporting Joe's efforts in order to prevent Joe from self-destructing. Dirk may even have to sabotage Joe's final, desperate attempt - and damages his relationship in the process.

Whew - I've got a lot of work ahead of me here.

ET phone Vonage

In an attempt to head off the umpteen arguments I have with J about sharing a phone line, sharing a computer, sharing an internet connection, I went out and picked up a Vonage phone adapter from Best Buy. According to my understanding of this technology, it should be a simple matter of bringing it home, plug it into my router, plug my phone into the adapter, go online to activate my account with Vonage, and voila! N'est pas?

Well, no. I had hoped to get everything all hooked up this evening before a call I thought I was supposed to have at eight. Online activation, one would expect, means I can activate my account instantly and be able to use the Vonage line for my eight o'clock call.

Except that I used the wrong activation option on the Vonage main page. Since I had already bought a phone adapter through a retailer (instead of ordering one through Vonage and waiting for it to be shipped), there was a different link I should have chosen off the main page. C'est la vie.

So now I'll have to wait around 24 hours until the free device that comes with the package I activated becomes provisioned. After that happens I can reassign the phone adapter I bought at Best Buy to work with my account.

Fortunately, the call I thought I was supposed to be on tonight at eight, was cancelled. No Vonage, no call at eight, no conflict with J.

Short story - My Other Car is a Ford

From WritersDigest.com: While driving to pick up lunch, you accidentally bump into the car in front of you—a light fender bender—that pops open the other car’s trunk. When you get out to assess the damage, you notice that the driver of the other car is none other than your favorite actor. More important, you notice a dead body in the trunk. Who is the actor and what elaborate excuse does he give you to explain the dead body in his trunk? (500 words or fewer).

---

It was a rainy day - no, really; and like every time we have bad weather, the traffic was horrendous. There's no avoiding it - I was going to be late for work again. My stomach growled. I had skipped breakfast so I could get to the office early, but the traffic was going to wreck that plan. Skipped breakfast, and didn't make my lunch. This is looking like the beginning of a bad day.

Since I was going to be late anyway, I decided to get off the highway, pick up some grub to appease my stomach.

The line up at the drive-through was moving slowly also. My mind must have wandered off because next thing I know, I heard a loud crash and the whole car jolted. I first thought the guy behind me had rear-ended me, but then realized it was I who had rear-ended the guy in front of me. Oh, crap.

I got out of my car to check out the damage and the driver of the car I hit got out as well. A few curses come to mind, a few curses to throw at him, but I hold my tongue. I have learned, many times over, the wisdom of not hurling the first words that come to me in a situation like this. The consequences have never made up for the momentary satisfaction that it brings.

It was bad. The bumpers were - well, to say bumped is an understatement. They should be called smashers, or collapsers, or something like that. The lid of my victim's trunk had popped open with the impact, and a bad smell came from within. Like the smell of rotting meat. A couple thousand dollars worth of damage. Oh crap, oh crap.

"Okay, look, the damage is not too bad, there's no need to get the police or the insurance companies involved," said the other driver.

His voice sounded familiar. Hey wait a minute - this is Harrison Ford! Like, no way, man!

His eyes darted to the lid of his trunk quickly then darted back to me. He looked, excuse the pun, frantic. "Yeah," he said. He sounded like he was trying to think of something to say. "Look, son…" He pushed down on the lid of his trunk. "I need to get this meat to the banquet hall before it thaws out." He took out his wallet, fumbled with it, and handed me, get this – a one thousand dollar bill. "This should cover the damage to your car, right? Just take this, I'll pretend none of this has happened."

I was flabbergasted as I reached out and took the bill. The situation seemed so unreal. Then it hit me, what was going on here. I handed the bill back to him.

"Would you autograph this for me, Mr. Ford?"

Come, let me show you my tricks

I've decided that my recording project for 2007 will be a remake of a song I wrote called Magician's Plea. I originally recorded this song on my Cleverly Crafted CD; it was my first rock epic.

The words for Magician's Plea were inspired during a trip I took once with my parents to Disney World. This was back around 1987 or 1988 when I was still in school. I had a brutal exam schedule that term, five exams in the first four days of the exam period. They were all in the first four consecutive days of the exam schedule. It meant that I didn't have a lot of time over which to spread out my studying; I had to manage myself and pace my timing carefully. Fortunately, since all my exams had been crowded into that first week, it meant that after I wrote exam number five I had the entire rest of the summer off.

I used a couple of weeks of that summer to go to Florida with my parents, and one day we drove to Orlando, to see Disney World. I just wanted to be like a kid there and be wowed by everything. My dad was being cynical and pointing out how this part was done with mirrors and that part was a trick, and I was thinking like, yes, I know this is all illusion, but don't spoil it, let me enjoy the illusion. In thinking so, I got the idea that there was a song idea in this.

I decided to write the words from the magician's point of view and to write it in the first person. I was influenced by the song by Gowan, Criminal Mind. There's something about those lines being performed in the first person that make it so much more dramatic for me than if they'd been written in the third person.

I also used another writing device in constructing the lyrics to Magician's Plea, which is to describe a thing without using any words that are commonly used to describe that thing. So my aim in writing the words was to depict a scene that you know absolutely is about a magician, but I was careful not to use the word magic, or abracadabra, or hocus pocus, or even wand.

I picked Magician's Plea as my recording project because it clearly fits into the progressive rock genre. Last year I second guessed myself about what genre to submit Painted Smiles and Heart Like a River. The learning there for me was that I should know my genre better.

Big Brother application

I put in an application with Big Brothers last month. It's something I had been thinking about for a while near the end of 2006. During the Christmas break I spent some time reflecting and writing out goals for the coming year. I attempted to structure my goals according to a model I have found called Wheel of Life.

The Wheel of Life has eight spokes. They are called Career, Physical Environment, Fun and Recreation, Personal Growth, Romance, Friends and Family, Health, Money. Under Friends and Family I wrote "Big Brother". And so it went from being an idea to being a written goal.

When the New Year rolled around, 2007, I decided that the start of a new year is a good time to make changes in one's life. January 2007, I decided, was the time to start taking action. I found a local Big Brother's web site, downloaded an application form, hesitated and struggled with some self-doubts, got over them and finally completed my application and sent it in, near the end of February.

I know that the process can take several months as the organization goes through their screening and matching process, so I am still waiting to hear back from them.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about adoption...

LifeBalance

I've discovered a new organizer for my PDA. It's called LifeBalance. I've downloaded a trial version of the application and started enjoying it in the first couple of days of using it.

One feature it has that I like is the ability to tag each task with a Place. A Place is like a Context in the GTD system. It allows me to filter and see only tasks for a given place. For example, Home or Work. This means that when I am at work, I can see a list of tasks that I can do only at Work and not be distracted by all the tasks I need to do at home but can't when I'm at work. Filtering by Place takes away a lot of frustration.

LifeBalance also has an outline editor which allows me to set up my projects and tasks in a hierarchical fashion. The top items in the hierarchy are called, appropriately enough, top level items or TLI's.

The really cool feature about LifeBalance is that it will automatically prioritize my tasks in a way to make sure I am balancing all my TLI's. Every time I check off a task, I get credit which is displayed in a pie chart. I get a slice of pie! If I check off a lot of tasks under, say the Music TLI, then the Music slice of pie gets fat. LifeBalance will determine which slice of pie is too thin and move the corresponding tasks higher in priority. So tasks will percolate up to the top of my list where they will get my attention, rather than getting stale at the bottom of the list.

Two weeks into my trial run, the LifeBalance crashed horribly and erased everything I'd put into it. I was really out of sorts when this happened because I'd carefully built up a hierarchy that worked well for me and I'd really come to depend onthe automatic prioritization (not to mention that I like getting my slices of pie). Since then I have built up a new hierarchy and continue using the application. I will definitely buy a licence when my trial is up, but I want to be sure that I can restore my data in case it crashes again.

Deep fried coon chops

I was on my way to my client site this morning when I got a call from my team leader - Don't come to the client site, the power is out. Instead the team met at our branch office so we could do our testing remotely.

There is a power transformer in the parking lot at the client site. The transformer is inside a fence. Somehow a raccoon had got in and blew out the transformer. The building was expected to be without power for the entire day until the transformer was replaced.

Poor Rocky. I expect the client will have a barbecue this week featuring coon burgers.

Painted Smiles reviews - Part 3

The best ranking that Painted Smiles attained on GarageBand.com was 242 of 394 in the Indie Rock genre, which is closer to the bottom of the list than to the top. I can't help but wonder how it would have done if I had submitted it to the Progressive Rock genre instead of Indie Rock. I'm tempted to re-submit, as a learning exercise, but I want to understand what is GarageBand.com's policy about submitting the same song twice to two different genres.

From Tacoma, Washington -

Very nice lead mix. Thick Santana guitar. The vocals and backing are sung well, but the mood does not match the beautiful guitar riffs very well. Santana with a Green Jello twist. Very original. Good work.

From Richmond, Virginia -

not too sure how to take this song. it has me thinking tenacious d.
is it serious or not?...I wish I knew.

From Pensacola, Florida -

I'm not sure about that guitar in the first part. But the melody is really nice. And the vocals are cool and really dig the lyrics. Sounds a bit like the 80's or 70's but it's all nice on ice!

From Nashville, Tennessee -

At least it's different. Creativity goes a long way. Not my particular taste, though. I can respect what you're doing, but I wouldn't buy the album. And the guitar solos are a little over the top. Trying too hard to sound dramatic.

From Mount Pleasant, Michigan -

So until the vocals came in this one really gave me a Eagles vibe. I'm not sure how i feel about the talk sing vocals here. They're pretty comanding of attention, but the cliche lyrics make them seem out of place. This one really leaves me wishing i could listen to hotel california instead.

From Bedroom, United Kingdom -

Intro sounded very 80's rock-style. When the voice came in too, it was very much an 80's rock ballad kinda sound. Which is not necessarily a bad thing...

Hmm. Not really that keen on this. Sorry. Sounds dated and the lyrics are trite, not much of a melody. Doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Bland, average sounding rock ballad stuff.

Some nice sounding Queen-esque guitaring.

Funny last line too which leads me to think it's slightly tongue-in-cheek. Still a bit boring though.

From Bournemouth, United Kingdom -

I found the guitar sound and style a bit dated and mixed too up front.

The vocalist has an interesting deep quality to his voice an the lyrics are quite interesting

The line 'Iwon't believe it' is repeated too many times in the middle of the song

Painted Smiles reviews - Part 2

The version of Painted Smiles that I recorded last year is the first song I have submitted to GarageBand.com on which I had someone else do the vocals. So I don't take the feedback about vocals personally here. I do notice though that there are at least two reviews that say the vocals are loud in the mix - I have had the same comments for Heart Like a River, so that is something I will want to pay attention to on my next recording project.

Cheese... what is that about? I had a few comments about cheese on Heart Like a River as well. Is that a musical term? There is an article on Wikipedia titled Cheese (cheesy music), which is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. One of its editors notes that the phrase "Cheese" is pretty well used in the UK. Sure enough, the reviewer who gave me that comment is from UK.

There is one particular review here, I just can't resist doing a little bit of psychoanalysis. He (or she) gives his location as Unspecified, and says my opinion here is not so important. Come on, you're writing reviews of other people's music, your review is your opinion, and I at least hope it's your honest opinion. But know this - I put my music out on GarageBand.com in order to get it reviewed, so your opinion is no more and no less important than anyone else's.

That's enough ado. Here are the reviews.

From Maryland -

Interesting mood and lyrics. Kind of a bland message. Vocals are way too up in the front. Should be mixed better with the music. Overall, a decent production. Sounds vampirish.

From Canada -

I like the musical ideas going on. the riff at the begining sets the tone. The lyrics might be a bit hoaky.

i like the solemn tone from the male lead singer. I think production did a good job here. i think it would be nice to hear some more work on the melody. I am reminded somewhat of pink floyd in a way.

From Eugene, Oregon -

Cool guitars, the synths are a bit 80's, but in a good way. The vocals are a bit loud in the mix.

From Leeds, Yorkshire, United Kingdom -

i really enjoyed the intro but when the vocals came in a couldn't believe the cheese....it is good for this type of song

From Brooklyn, New York -

I don't really know what you were going for with this song. I don't know what direction the rest of your songs could go in. It's recorded well, but the lyrics don't seem to mesh well with the music.

From Unspecified -

No... I don´t like it... sorry. But my opinion here is not so important. I don´t like this kind of mood. Guitar solos irritates me, you know... Well, the recording is very nice, which gives you points. That´s it.

From Australia -

intro sounds like Iron Maiden.. nicely produced song.. very different vocal in verse, contrasts with the music in an odd way. This song sounds really original... which is great. Perhaps needs a few listens for me to really to get into it but it is well written overall and its original sounding which i admire lots.

Painted Smiles reviews - Part 1

Here are the reviews of Painted Smiles; I had submitted it to the Indie Rock genre. One of the reviewers wrote about the lyrics they very loosely rhyme... it allows for the message to be uninhibited by the bounds of rhyme. I don't think I had any rhyming scheme at all in Painted Smiles.

Most songs I write, I don't worry too much about rhyming since I'd rather focus on the story that the song is about. I think that if I focused too much on using words because they rhymed then it would change the meaning and tone of the words too much.

A notable exception in my repertoire is a song I wrote called Tales From The Vinyl Museum, in which I deliberately wrote in a very structured rhyming scheme. In that particular case, I felt that the rhyming was an important element of the song, that it just had to be there.


From New Jersey -

Super-creative song of bitterness. All the elements are there: Good guitar, good song structure, good vocalist (although I think he could belt it out a little more at key emotional points), good lyrics that are graphic in hostilitiy, and good arrangement. Well-done.

From San Antonio, Texas -

The intro guitar made me think I was in for an 80's metal love ballad (not that that's a bad thing), but the body sounded kinda goth, mainly just due to the singers tone and pace. This is definitely original, I can't think of a band to compare you to. Good production and very tight musically. Only negative thing I can think of is the vox seem a bit loud and could be mixed in more, but that's just my personal taste.

From Southport, Indiana -

The intro guitar took me back to the hair band era. I like the dual vocals; it lends a nice effect, and the lead voice is good. The laughter in the accents (as well as the last line) sounds a bit contrived. The "Full of it" lead-in was a nice punch. The first instrumental section seemed a little empty, but I'll have to listen again.

From Appleton, Wisconsin -

guitar with an 80's sound and comedic lyrics crashtest dummies from 1980 a bit of a mellow rock vibe

From Alameda, California -

The beginning is very cool. The vocals are powerful. It sounds really original. I like it. And the lyrics are really good too.

From New York -

I don't think that this song would be very interesting for the mass. But i have to say that it's very nice arangement. Guitar solos, drum parts are very nice. Vocal reminds me about goth-industrial stuff. But it doesn't damage the track. Nice song.

From Dunmore, Pennsylvania -

I like it. If your aiming this song at someone speicial, nice job. Spooky song with a very slight Rocky Horror type theme. This song makes me feel your pain. I too have been there. Nice job.

From Portland, Oregon -

the feel of the song reminds me of earlier metallica mixed with later pink floyd. the lyrics are very literal. they very loosely rhyme. i like this quality in a song, it allows for the message to be uninhibited by the bounds of rhyme. great guitar work and really good dynamic control.

Heart Like A River reviews - Part 3

Here is the last set of reviews for Heart Like a River. It achieved a top ranking of 226 out of 634 in the Acoustic genre. That puts it just shy of reaching the top third. In contrast, The Great Escape last year had a top ranking of 19 out of 87 in the Progressive Rock genre. This tells me that the Acoustic genre is a bigger market than Progressive Rock, and also much more competitive.

From South Farmingdal, New York -

This just may be one of the most melancholy songs I've ever heard. The lyrics are mildly interesting, but the metaphor of and the repetition "my heart is a river" gets old by the end of the song. The melody is pretty and the singer really expresses sadness, but here is a case where the song is "oversung." It sounds like the singer is trying too hard to convey sadness, which ultimately takes away from its effectiveness.

From Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada -

Well I must say that the music is very well done. I'm sorry but I don't think I can say that same for the singer. Get a new singer and this song would be very interesting.

From East Highland, California -

i like the guitar a lot and the melody and the voilin, and the vocals a pretty clean

From Athens, West Virginia -

I liked the almost folky feel of this song...the intro sparked my attention...the song proceeded it gave me a simon and garfunkel feel with just one vocal...I think the song could use a pick me up...and then we'll see what happens.

From Boca Raton, Florida -

nice strings. the vocals sound good but id say trying to find a different mic to better fit your voice. sounds a little creepy with this mic.

From Bedroom, United Kingdom -

Liked the opening guitar - sounded promising and quite moving. Nice violins/cellos too.
Wow - that's a wierd voice. Is that just the mix? Not sure what to make of the voice. Sounds a little like an electronic voice...maybe it's just a question of lowering the vocal track a touch or taking off some of the treble...not sure.
Lovely melody and instrumentals though. Just sort out the recording of the voice, if you please!

From Llandudno, Con, United Kingdom -

This is recorded well. The pan is lovely and the strings are fantastic

The vocals deliver the lines purely but the lines are a little cheesy at times and I find them not to my taste

Heart Like A River reviews - Part 2

Here are some more reviews of Heart Like a River from GarageBand.com. There is a flattering comparison to Enya and Loreena McKennitt and a not so flattering comparison to Sesame Street.

From Tewkesbury, United Kingdom -

lovely intro. reminds me of the solo work of KNOPFLER.

The vocals began.............
very nasal.

Oooooooooooooh noooooooooo

No way can Dissipate into white foam be seriously matched with a 4/4 beat..you sing the phrasing like they are all triplets...or .syncopated

The strings are nice ....for a keyboard....and the arpeggiating doubling up of the appropriate moment of the solo is a good idea.

tehe classical references in the pregression are nice...

This has to be religious as it is so blatently OTT in it's lyrical..cheese

best bit ... ending resolution chord.....settles like dust after a storm

From Ashbourne, United Kingdom -

It's a nice, open production.
Simple arrangement, with some lovely, subtle strings.
The vocals are odd - they made me think of Sesame Street, for some reason - it's not a classic singing voice, not very good intonation, but it does have personality.
The song lacks a focused melody, feeling it meanders around, and even now, 30 seconds after listening, I couldn't hum the tune.
The lyrics are quite poetic, not conforming to easily defined rhyming structures.
The production/recording is very good, well mixed, nice, warm tone.
My favourite part is the string arrangement - very impressive.
Good luck.

From Oswego, Illinois -

very clear folk style here. I thought the lead vocals could use some production, kind of a harsh sound and really brought out in mix. The lyrics were poetic but didn't really hold interest for me. I guess it sounds cliche and would help to have a more personal, emotional theme. The arrangement and strings add interest and done well. I think it sould use some back up vocals also.

From Canada -

This song makes me think I'm going to be hearing a christmas carol or something similar. I don't mean that as a put-down. It's a feel-good thing.

The strings are ridiculously beautiful.

The vocal is very unusual. Sung well, and a very meek tone. And again - not a put down.

This should be in 'alternative acoustic' if such a genre existed.

From Klein, Texas -

the vocal is way to overpowering also the overall vocal track is like how they say one tone making it somewhat boring and hard to follow good voice and backing tracks but it almost seems to flow me to sleep add alittle edge and I think you will have it

From Somerset, California -

Enya, Anuna, and Loreena McKennitt style - celtic. Wonderful guitar playing. The orchestra added a tremendous amount. I'm curious - did you have this recorded at a professional studio, or do you have a software program that allows you to add provided music tracks? Either way, it sounds great.

From San Juan, Puerto Rico -

this track has a very well done mastering. The guitars are great.The lyrics are a bit depressing. But a lot of props for the tune!

Heart Like A River reviews - Part 1

The review cycle for Heart Like a River has completed. Here are some of the reviews. There is lots of praise for the production quality and the instrumentation. There are two positive comments for the lyrics (well written and went with the song, the lyrics are great) and two negative comments (a little cheesy, Not feeling the lyrics) so it looks like a you either love it or you hate it deal.

Vocals received a fair bit of constructive criticism, but no one is comparing it to having their nipples rubbed by a cheese grater, so perhaps that is a sign of improvement.


From Houston, Texas -

Whoever recorded/engineered this did a great job. The vox sounds a bit pitch processed at the beginning, tho towards the end of the song it sounds a bit cleaner. The finish is perfect, the strings are nice and delicate which fit the mood of the song perfect. I like the melody quite a bit.

From Fitchburg, Wisconsin -

The intro to this song is great, I think the production is great, I found the lyrics a little cheesy.Overall good song.

From Slovenia -

I would play this song if I had a guests who I would wanted them to became sleepy and go home already. This band should work more on vocals. I wouldn't mind if it was a female singer. Guitar and violin are great tho.

From Maiden Rock, Wisconsin -

i love the intro, very instrumental. when the vocals come in im a little shocked to hear such a low voice, i was also hoping to hear the song go somewhere, but it kinda drug on. i would try to break up the melodrama, with a better instrument solo starting at 2:00min, you obviously have the talent. i did think the lyrics were well written and went with the song.

From Warwick, Rhode Island -

I love the classical guitar, no one writes songs in that still anymore. Also the lyrics are great, i think the vocals need a little work, but other than that the song sounds very good and whole because of the violin and guitar.

From Fayetteville, Arkansas -

the intrumentation is lovely. could it be sung in a higher key or something. the vocalist's style of voice doesn't quite match the feel of this pretty song. maybe try adjusting the pronunciation of the words if you will be sticking with the same vocalist. more ooo sounds than Ay sounds. less in the nasal area.

From Steilacoom, Washington -

Intro very well put together. Voice has too much bass. Not feeling the lyrics. The voice seems to overpower the song. Voilin is a nice addition.

Dirk Halfspeed Reimagined - Part 4

Joe may be the only one of the trio that has the same name in the reimagined series. Joe King. What is he doing on Nexus station? What has drawn him here? At this stage of his life, Joe is a member of the team that is developing the Sirius prototype - an advanced personality program. He is on Nexus Station as part of his team for some kind of project celebration. He is also here to see a speaker, Professor Leo Rinaldo, who is on the station to give a speech about something that interests Joe. Joe will meet with Rinaldo privately after the presentation and will learn something about Rinaldo's theories about time

Joe has been on the station once before, about two years ago. He was dating a woman then, named Eleisha, and they had a terrific date on the station. Being on the station again reminds Joe of this past fling. Joe reminisces and has several flashbacks about the time he had spent with Eleisha.

Dirk Halfspeed Reimagined - Part 3

The reimagined version of Seran, her last name is similar to Dippity, but it's a name that would actually be found in a contemporary phone book.

Seran is young, she is married, and she has been frustrated and unhappy in her marriage. She has come to Nexus station because she has left her husband Noel and has come to start a new life for herself.

She checks into her room (Nexus Station has a hotel). She is distraught, she is upset. Now that she has left her husband she doesn't know what to do with herself. She flips through the channels on the TV in her room (which is actually called a "television", or "TV" in this universe). She finds nothing that interests her. She flips through a romantic drama, a comedy, a sports broadcast, and a porn movie. Disgusted and upset, she flips off the TV, and cries for a while.

After she has had a chance to get her tears out of her system, she decides to pull herself together and get out of her room. Go for a walk. Go explore the station. She passes a few clothing shops and browses.

At one of the shops she stops to admire a dress that has a black and white checker pattern. Perhaps she tries it on, perhaps she even buys it. The pattern on the dress is a visual symbol that will be repeated throughout the story - the theme of chess. Dirk "Knightly", Joe "King" - these are a few examples of the chess symbolism popping up.

She pops into a book store for a while. Then she decides she wants company, wants to be in a social setting. There are two bars that she knows of because she has already passed them by. One is a real meat market kind of place - men and women provocatively clad, and strange looking aliens too. The other bar is conservative, it is populated by businessmen, and a few women; they are conservatively dressed. She pops into that one to have a drink.

Dirk Halfspeed Reimagined - Part 2

Let's say Dirk's real name is Dirk Knightley (or some variation of this spelling). Let's say Dirk does not find out what is his last name, only his first name, and let's say his real name is not revealed to the readers either, at least not for the first few episodes. So the opening scene he's floating in space unconscious, a la The Bourne Identity. He comes to, he discovers his first name is Dirk and he discovers he knows nothing else about himself.

He discovers he has lots of oxygen remaining, maybe four hours, so he is not in immediate danger of suffocating - but he's in space, who knows how far he is from anything. He tests his thrusters and plays around with them. He can "swim" in space, but what direction would he go in?

Perhaps he is able to determine by reading the stars that he is "near" the Nexus station. "Near" means six to eight hours away at thruster speed. More than the amount of time for which his oxygen will last. His thruster only has enough power for maybe two hours. Maybe only half an hour.

He flips himself around to face various directions but there is nothing to see in any direction. But wait, one of the stars is getting brighter. Or is it? It seems to be getting bigger. Dirk realizes there is a ship heading right for him. It is heading right towards him, like a speeding locomotive train.

He dives straight "down", relative to the axis of the ship's travel. He hears a huge rumble, then remembers sound doesn't travel in space. The sound is his own heartbeat, his own breathing, his own blood pumping through his veins; his sense of hearing has been heightened by fear. He looks up and sees the ship passing overhead, maybe four to twelve feet above him. A close call. The ship is moving quickly but he recognizes that the ship is decelerating. He concludes that the ship must be enroute to Nexus Station and is decelerating in preparation for docking. What is several hours away for him is merely minutes away for this ship.

Perhaps Dirk attaches himself to the ship (How? It is moving very fast. Wouldn't his arms be ripped off if he tried to "grab" it?) Perhaps he is close enough to be pulled along by its wake (some kind of magnetic wake that his suit responds to). In any case, he gets an unexpected boost of speed that allows him to "swim" to Nexus station before his oxygen runs out.

Dirk Halfspeed Reimagined - Part 1

In the eighties, I used to cowrite an adventure serial called The Tales of Dirk Halfspeed. We wrote it in a slapstick, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy style. I and my writing partner wrote about thirty eight or so episodes.

That's a couple of decades ago and I still periodically have thoughts of writing the next episode, or rebooting the whole serial and start something fresh that is based on those characters. It would be an opportunity to clean up all the inconsistencies we'd written ourselves into, as well as an opportunity for the story itself to mature into something more character oriented and dramatic.

So I've had some ideas and I've jotted down some notes, some thoughts on what a reimagined series could look like.

Dirk comes to consciousness, finding himself floating in space. He is in a space suit with no memory of who he is or how he got into this predicament. He finds a label on his suit and learns that his name is Dirk Halfspeed. Perhaps in a plot twist we learn that this was not really his name but that there is some other significance to this name he finds, but he mistakenly believes it is his name. He adopts it as his identity. This perhaps causes him trouble later, as the name is really a code word or perhaps refers to an organization or something, and is associated with a group of people that are up to no good.

How does Dirk survive? How does he find Sirius? How does he hook up with Seran and Joe, and who are these people in the reimagined series? How does the Negative Time link to this?

Somehow he gets to a space station. This station is like a nexus, because Seran and Joe are both independantly drawn there, and that is where the trio meet each other for the first time (unless I decide that Joe really is Dirk's brother, an idea I tried to work into the original series).

More thoughts and explorations to follow.

Tremendous difficulty

I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. It occurs to me as I write these words that should a wormhole suddenly open up in my vicinity then those words could be carried through to a neighbouring galaxy, be misinterpreted as a grievous insult, and instigate a galactic war. However, I'll take my chances, and should they send in their fleet I remain confident that Chandler will defeat them by simply swallowing them.

That being said, this year seems to be starting up too quickly for me. All the stuff I'm involved with is picking up again and I feel like I just don't have the energy to keep up with it all. Maybe I need some recovery time from the holidays.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra from the fourth row

Saw Trans-Siberian Orchestra from the fourth row last night!

Our seats were in the fourth row on the left side of the stage. It was awesome; we could see the band really well, it was like being on stage with them. Great showmanship. They rocked, they were professional, they had a great light show. We could feel the heat from their pyrotechnics. Flame jets! They were classy too, wearing tuxedos with tails.


One of the hallmarks of the approching Christmas season is when I start hearing Trans-Siberian Orchestra music, and I start hearing the song O Holy Night. At the show, it was both in one, since one of the songs they played was an instrumental version of O Holy Night done Trans-Siberian style, on electric guitar.

Mastered Painted Smiles

Painted Smiles is done and mastered. The song is ready for posting to GarageBand.com; I'll take care of that later this week.

I've already put the "finished" version of Heart Like a River to GarageBand.com. I put it in the acoustic genre. Reactions have been slow so far; I've only had one review come in so far. As I recall, the reviews started coming in pretty quickly after I posted The Great Escape earlier this year. I don't know if it's because of the time of year that people just are too busy to be reviewing the music, or if it's because the acoustic genre is a different market from the progressive rock genre and therefore has a different behaviour.

Back to the garage

I haven't been in to my GarageBand.com account for several months, not since the review for The Great Escape started slowing down. I logged into my GB account this weekend, first time in many months, and found that I had a message from a friend with whom I lost contact several years ago, half a dozen unread reviews for The Great Escape, and an invitation from an A&R company in New York to send them my material. Whew.

I'm submitting Heart Like a River to GarageBand.com this week. Next week I'll be getting Painted Smiles mastered and then I'll be submitting that to GB as well.

I like my life today.

Saving the world

Several weeks ago, end of the work day. I pack up my laptop and put on my coat. I have an evening session at the studio, to work on Heart Like a River. "Good night," I say to my co-workers. "I'm off to save the world".

This weekend. Jan's benefit dance. J and I pack up and drive to the hotel where we will stay for the night. I bring a box of Heart Like a River CD's to be sold, proceeds to go to Jan's fund. There is a silent auction. There is goldfish racing. There is dancing, there are speaches. I videotape them. Jan makes a speach. My tape runs out just after she starts. I have another tape, but to unwrap it, replace the tape in the camcorder, will take too long and take me away from from what Jan is saying. I put the camcorder down and give her my full attention instead. She makes a stunning and valiant effort. Her ability to speak is much improved since when I talked to her on the phone about a month ago. She stumbles over her words a few times. She pauses at one point, trying to find the words to express what she wants to say. The audience waits in total silence, gives her the space she needs. Jan finally completes her speach. Everyone applauds.

Near the end of the evening. Jan's sister in-law refers to me as a special friend to the family. Priceless. An honour, a designation I am pleased to hold.

This morning. J and I check out of the hotel. Looking for a place to have breakfast. Decide to stop at the casino. Stuff ourselves at a buffet lunch. Unexpectedly are given two comp tickets for Frankenstein, a rock musical. We eat well and we are entertained well. We came on this weekend to give our generosity at the benefit dance; we receive generosity at the casino.

Almost midnight, we're at home. I am tired and ready to go to bed. J gets a call from her brother. He is in town, for training, he is sick. She boils some water, finds some Neo Citran. "Will you come with me to take the Neo Citran to my brother?" she asks. Is it even an option to say no?

I put on my coat and shoes and find my keys. I guess we're not quite done saving the world yet.

Putting together the Heart Like a River mini-cd

Now that I've completed Heart Like a River, I've been thinking about how I want to present it at the fundraiser. I decided that putting just the one song on a CD won't do it so I've put together a compilation that includes a couple of instrumental mixes I've recorded as well as a worship song that Jan and I recorded a few years ago. When I listened to the compilation, I was totally pleased, if I may say so, I am quite pleased with myself, with the quality of music that is on this compilation. It sounds really damn good, and I'll hold it up to any professionally recorded work.

Legacy Discovery Weekend

It's been a busy several weeks. Heck, it's been a busy several months, and I haven't been keeping up with my blogging.

I was on the training team for a Legacy Discovery Weekend - it's an event put on by the Men's Division. The weekend was great. I did the event last year as a participant, and I can say that doing it as part of the training team was an awesome experience. There were times when I had that feeling of certainty in my gut, that this was exactly where I was supposed to be and it was exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

I also finished Heart Like a River last week. I got a copy of the mastered version but I haven't had a chance yet to listen to it on my car stereo. Jan's fundraiser benefit dance is in a week and a half, and I am looking forward to it. Actually, that's an understatement - I am very excited about it.

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

Those who have read the writings of Douglas Adams know the answer to Life, the Universe, and Eveything. They know that the answer is fourty two. But what is the actual question?

Today, the question is what is my age. It's my fourty second birthday.

This is my horoscope today from yahoo.com:

Think about putting down roots. That doesn't necessarily mean staying in one place. It does mean thinking about an area of your life where you need to make a commitment. Now take one step toward making it real.

Heart Like a River - Day 3

Did a vocal run through from the top. I felt relaxed and natural and thought it was a good performance. I didn't know if Steve was recording since I was doing it as a warm-up but I hoped he was. It turns out that he did catch it.

Worked out where to place the notes for the final verse. I didn't get to record it last session.

The first take was good and usable but we did a second take anyways, and got lots of good bits out of it. I liked how I closed the R's on "river" and "scars" in the refrain - I have had challenges with ending on R's on past projects. We also came up with some different variations on the three repetitions of the "fingerprints of life" line.

Click on the play button below to hear the current mix.


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Heart Like a River - Day 2

Second session - laid down ghost vocals. Got lots of coaching from Steve, feels like a partnership, a collaboration rather than a session artist for hire.

Worked on phrasing.

I had a tight schedule and had to leave the session before I had a chance to do the vocals for the final verse.

Getting things done

Allen, David (2001). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

So I've read a book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen. I'm experimenting with getting my own GTD system set up.

The book describes various key disciplines, or best practices for being organized and productive; however, there are a few key disciplines that I've started practicing that are making a difference for me. These are:
- Inventory of all my projects
- Identify at least one next action for each project
- Associate each next action with a context in which the action can be performed

Inventory of Projects:
I find it useful to have a list where I've written down all my projects. It gets them out of my head and into a tangible form, and it's good to have a place to list any project ideas that come up. It's like the adage, a place for everything and everything in its place - well, that applies to ideas too.

Next Action:
The discipline of identifying a next action for each project helps keep my projects moving along. Even if I don't feel like working on a given project right now, as long as I can think of what next action I can take and write it down then even that helps keep the project moving. Often the projects that stall are the ones for which I don't have a next action. I haven't got this done for all my projects yet, maybe about 40%-60% of them but that's enough for me to feel the difference. I feel like I can keep all of those 40%-60% projects moving along rather than feeling like I can only handle three or four at a time.

Context Lists:
The GTD notion of a context is that it is a place or set of resources that I have access to in order to accomplish my tasks. Some examples are @Home, @Office, @Computer, @Errands, @Calls, etc. The idea is to have a separate list for each context; bydoing so, I can look at all the tasks that I can do in a given situation without being distracted by tasks I cannot do right here. For example, if I am at work and something occurs to me that I need to do at home, I put it on the @Home list. While I am at the office I can look at the @Office tasks and not get frustrated because I have an @Home task that I can't do.

Having separate context lists also helps me see where my bottlenecks are. When I see that my @Errands list is growing and giving me anxiety then I know I can run a series of errands say on a Saturday morning and knock a bunch of things off my list. Similarly if my @Home list is getting too large and I know I've been going out a lot then I know it's time to spend some time at home getting stuff done.

I have a challenge making calls while at work, and some calls need to be made during business hours. When my @Calls list starts piling up then I know I need to make a special effort to take a break from work and take care of those calls.

Heart Like a River - Day 1

I've written previously about my friend Jan who is recovering from an aneurysm she had in February (see Soul of a Poet). Her cousins are organizing a fundraiser, to be held in November, to raise funds for her treatments. They have asked for donations of items for an auction.

An awesome idea popped into my head - why not make a studio recording of Heart Like a River, the song I wrote that was inspired by an article on Jan's blog. The recording would be my contribution to the auction. Since I already had a session scheduled to do Painted Smiles, I decided to use that session to start Heart Like a River instead.

The session went really well (as they usually do) and I am pleased with the tracks we've put down so far. All I brought in to the studio with me to start was a copy of the "quick and dirty" arrangement I made in June and a file on my LifeDrive with a "lyrical treatment" that I'd written. That's being a lot less prepared than I usually aim to be before starting a new studio project; however, the experience has changed my idea of what being "prepared for the studio" can mean.

I was singing to give Steve something to play to, and I was still getting a feel for where the melody can go on various lines, and Steve was feeding off that and tuning in to where the guitar could go and where the synth strings could go, and there was a moment of this is life; a recognition that creation was happening, and this was exactly where I was supposed to be and this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing in that moment.

It was interesting that the next morning when I was driving to work, I had this feeling that the time in the studio was my real work, and this job thing was an extracurricular activity; it was a good feeling.

Click on the play button below to hear the current mix.


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Painted Smiles - next steps

No session this week or next week. I'm taking a break this week to create some space for getting some things done at home.

My thoughts on what to do at the next session - I was thinking that we created a precedent when we worked on The Great Escape in January, by creating an alternate mix (see Great Escape - alternate mix). I'm considering doing the same thing. It's not that there's anything wrong with the current approach; it's more about challenging our imagination. Suppose we were to start with the same bed tracks we've already put down, but used it to create an alternate mix, one that emphasizes different song elements. We'd end up with two versions, two different flavours. I think that could be a good thing.

Painted Smiles 2006 remake - Day 2

Steve added some synth tracks and some synth arps and I put down a guide vocal track. I could feel the effect of the harmonic structure we discussed last week; I could hear it pulling the melody in a few places, encouraging me to choose different notes on certain lines.

I felt like I was off in the You can... verse because the chord progression didn't go where I expected and I compensated by adjusting my delivery. When we played it back, it sounded fine; it worked. What was throwing me off was that in my chart I had the You cans placed as coming on the downbeat, but the music we recorded required that I deliver them as pick up notes. In the end, it's good enough for a guide vocal.

Steve searches for something particular in the synth module. "I'll hunt you down," he says, and finally concedes. "It'll probably come to me tomorrow morning."

Next, out comes the red guitar. Some clean guitar playing, adding the textural layers, followed by some "edgy" guitar playing. Steve looks like he is having a religious experiences when he records his guitar tracks.

Drums. Steve gets an aerobic workout on the electronic kit, adding some human performed hits on top of the drum loops from last week. Playing to a click track allows us to use drums as an instruments rather than as the traditional timekeeping function. I consider that to be one of the distinguishing characteristics of my music; don't use drums just for the sake of using drums, use them because the song calls for them.

Click the play button below to hear the partial mix.


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A new dream vacation

J and I took a few extra days off work and gave ourselves an extra long weekend last week, which we used to take a Thousand Islands cruise. We stayed at an Inn in Gananoque, from where we started a five hour cruise that took us on a tour of Boldt Castle.



I now have a new dream vacation, which is to live in Gananoque for three months in the summer and write a book. I was particularly inspired to learn that the son of a local bookstore owner had written and self-published his first book (Aeldenwood, by M.G. Belanger).

My other dream vacation is to rent a boat for two weeks and sail along the Trent-Severn seaway.

Painted Smiles 2006 remake - Day 1

I had the first studio session this week, to start off the Painted Smiles 2006 remake project. We discussed the harmonic structure of the original recording and ways to approach the remake. The original version was centred around the Am chord; the droning or pulsing of the clavi synth anchored the bass line. Steve suggested an approach in which the bass line moves with the chords, creating a different harmonic structure. We still came back to the droning effect in the outro.

The bed tracks are down now. They consist of two acoustic guitar parts, an electronic drum loop and a bass synth track. This partial mix, as it stands now, makes me think of a soundtrack for some movie or TV show but I can't quite place what it is. Some crime drama I think, like Bourne Identity, or CSI.

Click the play button below to hear the partial mix.


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A decade of service

Here's an excerpt from a letter I received from my employer this week.

Congratulations on your upcoming service anniversary. Your hard work, loyalty and dedication have helped make [company] a world leader in productivity software and professional services.

I made it to the ten year mark! When I was just starting my career in IT, I kept my first job for two years. The first year was good and I enjoyed it. After the first year some changes were made and I became progressively dissatisfied over the second year. Finally I left and went to my second job.

The second job proved to be my job from hell experience. I stayed there for two years as well, but it felt like I'd been there four years. I felt like I had gained four years of experience during those two years. Considering how many 10-12 hour days I put in, I probably did gain four years of experience.

My pattern to that date led me to question whether I was even suited for the work environment. Maybe I should go back to school, stay in the academic environment? Well, I decided to try for job number three before making that decision. I started job three and soon found that it was a much more positive and enjoyable work experience than the ones I had previous. Given that my history to date had been of changing jobs every two years, I resolved to stay with this job for at least three to five years.

The three year mark came and went and I had no inclination to leave. However, one day I was approached by some colleagues who had left the company. They wanted to recruit me to the company they had joined. I didn't really want to change jobs at that time, but they courted me for a while and eventually made me an offer I didn't want to refuse. So I took that job and now it's been a decade!

My own place in music

Here is an inspiring quote I read in an article called How to 'Fix' the Music Industry, by Bob Baker.

"You can't control what happens to the overall music business, but there is something you can control directly: How you conduct yourself and your own place in music. Focus on pursuing a career on you your own terms -- not terms imposed by the industry."

Wow - this is pretty inspiring, especially coming several weeks before I go back to the studio to work on the Painted Smiles remake.

So what exactly is my own place in music? I hope that the songs I write and record will add colour to the tapestry of our musical culture. I am not so much trying to put together a band as I am trying to build a team of musicians to express my musical ideas. It's a sort of cross between Alan Parsons Project and Trans Siberian Orchestra, in the sense that they would use a vocalist that best suits a particular song, rather than having a single identifiable lead singer.

Mosquitoes declared an endangered species

Mosquitoes declared an endangered species.

What are the chances that any of us will ever see this headline in our lifetime?

Saving time for daylight

Thought for the day - let's set all the clocks at work ahead by 5 minutes. Do this every day - in two weeks you'll be able to go home an hour early.

High cost of gas

Gas is so expensive these days. I wonder how much it would cost to convert my car engine to run on coke and menthos?

Let's book some time

Steve S called me back this morning because I left him a message earlier this week about looking for a vocalist for the Painted Smiles project. He told me he's done lots of vocal work and would be willing to do add his voice to my project.

I didn't previously know about Steve's vocal background. I had originally hired him several years ago as a sound engineer for my first CD project, Cleverly Crafted. I had recorded all the instrument tracks for that project by composing MIDI sequences for each song and playing the sequences back through my PSR-620 keyboard. I recorded my vocal tracks at Steve's studio and he did all the mixing and mastering.

During that association I learned that he plays guitar. When I decided that I wanted to raise the bar on my next project, I remade two songs I had previously recorded on the Cleverly Crafted CD, Yesterday Seems So Far Away and Mirrors. Steve played guitar on those remakes and the resulting works sound miles better than the MIDI-recorded versions. I got him to play guitar on almost all the songs I did on my next CD project, Face of Shadows, and I learned the value of letting go of total control of my music.

So I booked some time in the studio; we'll put down the basic tracks, and give Steve's voice a workout.

Order of operations

I've been thinking about the Painted Smiles remake I want to do. A question of logistics comes up - should I start recording the instrumental tracks as soon as I have the funds available to pay the studio fees, or should I wait until I've found a vocalist first?

Normally what I do is record the instruments first, then add the vocal layers on top of that. That's how I normally work - so why should I consider changing my methodology this time? Because I might want to record the song in a different key signature based on the range of the vocalist I find, that's why.

So do I wait until I've chosen a vocalist and record the tracks in a key that works best for him? Or do I make it a requirement that the vocalist be able to perform the song in the key in which I've written it?

I don't know yet. What process will I use to decide? I don't know that yet either.

Making plans for Painted Smiles remake

I wrote in February that I planned for my next recording project to be a remake of Painted Smiles, a song I wrote and originally recorded several years ago (see Goal for 2006).

The time has come to start moving this project forward. My target is to have this project completed by end of August. The first milestone to reach is creating a project budget. I have noticed from past experience (e.g. The Great Escape) that it costs me about $500 in studio fees to complete a recording project. This time around I am aiming for a budget that's twice that amount. I want to give myself lots of extra room because I plan to find and bring in a professional singer to perform the vocal track.

The outcome I want out of this endeavor is:

• I reintroduce vocals to my music in a way that their quality is significantly improved compared to past projects.
• I find creative ways to market my songs, e.g. find a film producer who will use one of my songs for a soundtrack.
• My enthusiasm for pursuing my dream positively influences people around me to live theirs.

Heart Like a River - quick and dirty demo

I've uploaded an MP3 version of the Heart Like a River arrangement. It's a quick and dirty demo I created by importing a MIDI file into a tool called Reason.

There is some kind of interaction happening in the fills layer that sounds a bit like a cymbal swell. It's really subtle. I hear it in a couple of areas, and I like it. Maybe next time I'll do something to bring out the effect.

Click on the play button below to hear this demo.


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Heart Like a River arrangement

The other night I was going through some of the files on my LifeDrive. One of them was a voice memo of a melody I captured last month (see Soul of a Poet). After hearing it again, the melody stuck in my head and has been running through my mind for several days.

I had a chance on the weekend to write an arrangement based on this melody, using a MIDI sequencing tool. I think it's a nice arrangement, but it doesn't synch up with the words that inspired it in the first place. In fact, I don't think the words as written will fit into a 4/4 time signature at all. I'd have to transform the original words into lyrics, or just use my arrangement for a different song entirely.

I'll look into a way to post an MP3 version of the arrangement this week.

Links:

• If my heart was a river - the post that inspired the music.

Projects reviewed

There are a few projects that I want to complete, yet I don't seem to be moving forward too quickly. Getting my will done, getting the pre-nup finalized, getting registered an accessory dwelling unit, making a remake of Painted Smiles, to name the big ones. So how am I doing with them?

Getting my will done - this one has been on my plate for over a year. I did meet with a lawyer last year, and he suggested that we do our pre-nup first, as that will lay the a lot of the groundwork for doing my will. So I've put this one on hold until the pre-nup is done.

The pre-nup - the same lawyer wrote up a draft co-hab agreement. It looked fine to me at the time, but there was this nagging thought, that I should have it reviewed by my own lawyer (the one I used to draft the agreement was J's lawyer). I found another lawyer through an independent referral; they reviewed the agreement and gave recommendations that could make this whole agreement 1000 times more complicated than it was to start with. Then I sat on those recommendations and did nothing about for a couple of months.

Accessory dwelling unit registration - I did actually get the first step done, which was to send in the application form and registration fee. The next two milestones are to get a letter from an architect or engineer indicating Building Code compliance, and a letter from the Electrical Safety Authority indicating compliance with safety regulations.

Painted Smiles remake - I made a commitment in front of the men's team I'm on to do this in the next three months.

Now, I've been reading in some discussion forums about a book called Getting Things Done, by David Allen. The book is subtitled The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Many of the postings I've read in the forums refer to the process of defining the next action, which is the next action that you can physically take on it. So with that in mind, I would be well served to come up with some well defined next actions for each of my projects.

Catchy ring tone

So I've had a few calls come in on my cell phone while at work in the past few days, since downloading the Friday Nights at The Wedge ring tone. Now one of my workmates whistles the tune everytime my phone "rings" and another has said "Thanks a lot - now that song is stuck in my head".

He-he-he. It's working!

Podcatching

I recently wrote that I wanted to be able to listen to podcasts in my car while driving to work. This desire was behind my requirement that my new cell phone had to be able to play mp3 files. I had envisioned listening to podcasts that I copied to my phone on its speakerphone, or even better - over some kind of Bluetooth-enabled car speaker.

Now that I know a bit more about my new cell phone, I think that it won't be a practical device for playing back podcasts because of its limited memory. That leaves me with two playback options. One, to use my LifeDrive as an mp3 player. This works fine when I am at home and listening through headphones. Listening through the LifeDrive's built in speaker sucks though; the audio sounds like it's coming from a cheap transistor radio.

The other option is to burn the audio files to a CD and play them over my car's audio system. This seems like an old fashioned way to do it, plus what do I do with the CD's after I've listened to them?

I've read somewhere that there is an adapter that plugs into a PDA or mp3 player and transmits the audio on a frequency that can be picked up on a car's audio system. I wonder how much such a device costs and how many CD's I would have to burn before it would be worth my while getting one?

The price of knowledge

I thought that putting a custom ring tone on my new cell phone would be just a simple matter of copying an mp3 file to the appropriate folder on the memory card that came with the phone. In fact, I recall the salesman telling me, when I bought my phone, that I could do this by using a card reader device. Well, I figured I could use my LifeDrive for this purpose. I was able to place a copy of a 47-second extract of Friday Nights at The Wedge onto the memory card, but when I put the card back into the phone, do you think the phone could see it? No!!!

So I reasoned that the file has to be in a specific folder on the card to be recognized by the phone, but do you think I knew what that folder should be? Do you think the phone manual documented this? No, and no. So it became time for a little reverse engineering. Maybe if I installed a downloadable ring tone I could inspect the card to see what folder it got placed in and I would place my own file in the same place. I would have to pay for the downloadable ring tone, but that's the price of knowledge, no?

The crappy MIDI rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody cost me $2.00 to purchase, plus whatever the cost is for the data connection. I installed the file as my new ring tone, verified it works. I popped the memory card out of the phone and into my LifeDrive and searched for the Bohemian Rhapsody file - and did I find it? You guessed it - no. It must have gone to the phone's internal memory, to which I have no access. Doh!

Finally I did what I should have done in the first place and saved myself the $2.00. Did an internet search, found a discussion forum full of people who wanted to do the same thing I did, and finally found a step by step description of what I need to do.

Crappy downloadable version of Bohemian Rhapsody - $2.00. Knowing how to set Friday Nights at The Wedge as my custom ring tone - priceless.

Pack rat unpacking

I am a bit of a pack rat. That is as far as I will fess up to. To J, I am a complete and total die-hard pack rat. Periodically we go through a cleanup binge, where I go through piles of stuff and throw a bunch of it away. This activity usually stirs up a lot of emotion for me.

I don't know why I am like this, and I don't really know that I need to know why. Perhaps it works best if I just accept that I am like this; accept it, work within it, and respect it.

The march of technology

I obtained two new pieces of technology this week.

The first was a 30-day evaluation copy of a software application called DayNotez, for my LifeDrive. DayNotez is a mobile digital journal.

I've been using another tool for journaling on my LifeDrive, a tool called Documents To Go. DTG is a mobile version of Microsoft Word. I've been using it for personal journaling for maybe two years now, first on my Palm m500, and then on my LifeDrive. The thing about using a word processor for journaling is that all my entries are stored in a linear fashion. This means that if I want to look up something I wrote several months ago, I have to scroll back through all the entries I've written since.

In DayNotez I can assign categories and keywords to my entries, so I can filter my entries if I want to, say, find all entries I wrote about a particular subject. DayNotez also gives me a list view of my entries. That means I can see a list showing the first line of each entry; instead of scrolling through all the text of everything I've written I can scroll through the list if I want to look up a particular entry. I like these features.

The second was a new cell phone, a Samsung SPH-A920. My previous phone was getting flaky on me. My requirements for a new cell phone were that it has Bluetooth (for communicating with my LifeDrive) and a video camera (because of my interest in media creation). Later I added a new requirement - that it has the ability to play mp3 files so that I could listen to podcasts in my car while driving to work. As an added bonus, I want to be able to customize the ring tone so I can set it to be Friday Nights at The Wedge. How cool could that be, to hear Friday Nights at The Wedge play every time someone calls me! Not to mention the self-promotional value.

So far I have discovered that my LifeDrive does not have a phone driver for communicating with my Samsung phone using Bluetooth. Doh! I thought Bluetooth was Bluetooth and as long as my PDA and phone both have it I'd be able to pair them up. I'll have to find out if I can download a driver.

Application form in

One of my leftover goals from 2005 is getting one of my properties registered with the city as an accessory dwelling unit. It's taken me a while but I've finally reached that all important first milestone, sending in my application form and application fee.

The next milestone is to obtain a letter from an architect or engineer indicating Building Code compliance. Guess I'd better start shopping around for an architect or engineer.

Soul of a poet

My friend Jan continues to recuperate from the aneurysm she suffered in February. She has been released from the hospital where she had her surgery and transfered to a rehab center where she is undergoing therapy to regain the functions she lost as a result of her trauma. Her husband Fede continues to tell the story of her recovery in her blog.

The other day he wrote some amazing and incredibly poetic words in her blog. It made me want to write music to it. A melody started running through my head for most of the morning on that day, but I didn't capture it and by the afternoon the melody was gone.

This morning it came again while I was making breakfast. I don't know if it was exactly the same melody as from the previous day, but it was close. I hummed and captured it on the voice memo recorder on my LifeDrive.

Fede commented that he was just writing what he felt. Fede - you have the soul of a poet. Keep on writing, keep on sharing.

Closer to the heart

In the video projects I've done in the past I've always strived to select a song to use for soundtrack that was suitable for the presentation and felt right for the project.

At the volunteer event this past weekend (see Trail Blazing), I shot several pictures and video segments of volunteers at work and of the scenery. I felt an inspiration on this weekend to put them all together into a new video, and I kept listening to my instincts to come up with a song to use as a soundtrack. If I may say so myself, I have a knack for picking soundtracks for the video projects I've done.

After considering and rejecting a few titles, one came to me - Closer to the Heart, by Rush. It seemed like a good fit. Then I looked up the lyrics on the internet, and I was floored. The words just seemed to be so bang on. It was one of those moments where you just know that's the one.

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mould a new reality
Closer to the heart.