Recognizing stuck

Sometimes when I'm stuck for an idea to blog about I look back at what I blogged a year ago and see how my life has changed during that year. It's November 2008 - I look back a year and see that I wrote no entries in November or December 2007. I go back a little further and see that the last I wrote in 2007 was in October. I re-read those posts, particularly the Thanksgiving series (A Thanksgiving Weekend: Prologue, Part I, Part II, Part III, Epilogue) - and what I see there is the posts I wrote about the kids. That is one thing I miss, being Uncle. Like John-boy, from that seventies show The Waltons, I enjoy writing about my family life.

I am reminded of a part of my life where I have got stuck - my Big Brother application. I got a letter from them a while ago. It's what we use to call in my industry, a PFO letter. (The P stands for Please). After reviewing your application carefully and with certain factors to consider, we regret that we cannot continue your enrollment further. Certain factors?!? Care to tell me what they are? I called the coordinator I was dealing with at the BBBST to ask about that when I got the letter; I got voice mail only, I left a message and I never heard back from them.

To tell the truth, I have become really frustrated with the BBBST. There have been frequent occasions when I'd called them and did not get my calls returned. The coordinator who took my original application left the organization and they misplaced my file. Numerous attempts to offer the volunteer time of not only myself but of members of my Men's Division were met with lack of response or interest. Then after I get my PFO letter their president sends me a letter claiming that they have 350 children on their waiting list.

Dear President, although I believe in your mission, I have lost faith in your organization. I think you need to improve the way your organization communicates with the people who want to help BBBST and want to help those children. I think that when I have taken the time and effort to put in my application and provide you with all the supporting documentation and references you have requested, that I deserve to know why you have refused my application. I would like to know what those "certain factors" are; I'd like to know if the decision to not continue my application is a decision that could be reversed if those factors no longer existed. Don't you think that those 350 children on your waiting list deserve that too?

Won bid for laptop

I found a laptop. A Dell Latitude D620. Found one in Alberta on eBay. There were zero bids on it (I counted twice to be sure) and the starting bid was US$300. Why the price was quoted in US$ when the seller is in Alberta I don't know.

I picked the Dell Latitude D620 because it's a model I've used before. I'm familiar with it and I'm comfortable with it and I like it.

Despite there being zero bids initially, I did get into a bidding skirmish. It was a minor scrap and I came out the winner. Yeah for me. I'm expecting to receive it within the next two weeks. Once I get it, I'm back in action for my recording project.

Behold! The tax man cometh

Having signed off on the release form regarding how much severance payout I will receive and agreeing not to sue my former employer, my next hurdle was to protect my severance from the tax man. I learned that were I to elect to receive my severance as a lump sum payment, I would lose about 45% of it to withholding taxes. That's no good!

My best option to protect it would be to flow it into an RRSP. That way I would receive the full amount. Yes, I will still pay taxes on it when I take it out of my RRSP but if I can avoid doing that until at 2009 then at least I will have greater control over the timing, and more options available for planning a tax strategy.

I considered holding back enough out of my RRSP to cover the next 2-3 months of expenses. However, any amount that I don't flow into my RRSP is subject to taxation. On the other hand, one of the credit card companies offered me a great promotional rate plus a lowered transaction fee on a balance transfer. It turns out that it's cheaper for me to pay the balance transfer fee plus the interest rate than it is for me to pay the tax man.

So my course of action then is to put my entire severance into an RRSP and take out a balance transfer to cover a few months of expenses. This way I have a safety net for the next three months and I don't have to feel so rushed to get a replacement source of income.

Cover concept for Let It Rain

This image depicts my concept for the CD compilation I am producing with my church worship team.



The recording project went into a bit of a stall in the summer; gas prices got so high and the musicians were reluctant to travel to the studio, which for some members of the team is quite a drive.

The solution - when musicians won't come to the studio it is time to bring the studio to the musicians. How? A Profire 2626 audio interface, a Firewire interface, a laptop, and some digital audio software should do the trick. In theory.

I've got the Profire interface, I rented one from Long & McQuade. I've got the Firewire interface - I bought one at Best Buy. What I don't have is the laptop. I'm looking for one on craigslist. Once I get one, I'm back in action again.

Runaway Jury

Tonight was a stay at home night with Jan and Fede. Since we each have independent and busy schedules throughout the week it is nice when we occasionally all hang around together. Tonight we had pizza and watched a video, Runaway Jury, with Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman.

After the movie finished we watched some of the DVD extras, some of the making-of documentaries. I was interested to learn that even well established actors such as Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman messed up their lines and were intimated by each other.

Watching the making-of documentaries stirred up memories of my community theatres days. Jan has also had theatre experience and we both had an animated discussion, sharing our memories of those times.

Maybe one of my goals for 2009 will be getting back into theatre and getting involved in another production. It must be about ten years since I've been in a play.

More transitions

This year has been a year of transitions. It started at the beginning of the year when I split up with J and moved out. Settling in to a new living environment and getting used to being single again after living with someone for four years, have been some of the challenges I have faced this year. Getting myself organized to write and complete a book, and starting a recording project with my church worship team have been some of the creative projects I have taken on this year.

The year's challenges are not complete yet. This week my employment agreement with my employer of twelve years was terminated. This feels strange because I have not been without a job since I was in school - some twenty years ago.

Today I am not the same person I was when I started my career in IT twenty years ago. I have learned much and have grown much. What will my next twenty years look like? My journey as a Creative Playful Explorer continues.

Dating and due diligence

After years and years of being in and out of relationships I've finally figured out the concept of doing my due diligence when it comes to dating. The concept sounds really simple now, but I have been sloppy about it in the past.

I have learned that there are two things I want to find out about a potential partner before I get involved: is the playing field clear, and is there mutual interest. As I said, it's simple and obvious when I state it that way, but time and time again I have ignored these two principles and paid the price.

Vetting out if the playing field is clear - I have learned that there are certain subtleties to watch out for. Just because a woman is single does not mean she is available! Doh! How much time and energy have I spent pursuing a woman who, though single, was not available? There are other factors besides the existence of a husband or other male attachment that signal availability. Unresolved emotional issues, unhealthy habits and attitudes, are other indicators of non-availability to me. Of course, a woman might be available by someone else's standards and not by mine - I have learned that in the end I must judge only by my own standards whether she is available.

Mutual interest - I have spent far too much time and energy pursuing women who were not interested in me, thinking that if I said this or did that I will impress them and gain their interest. Forget that game! I have paid the price of playing that game with decreased self-confidence and self-esteem. Ain't worth it, not playing it no more. I am who I am and I'm an interesting person, and I'm better off using my time and energy surrounding myself with people who are genuinely interested in me and want to help me win than in trying to get someone interested in me who is not.

One other thing I've learned about dating. I've learned that when a woman I am interested in says she wants to be friends, it usually means that a woman that I want to sleep with does not want to sleep with me but wants me around to talk to about the guys she is sleeping with. That sucks and that's definitely a game not worth playing.

Designed book cover

Last night I was sitting in front of my computer and playing around with GIMP (the open source equivalent of Photoshop) and I felt inspired so I created a mock up of what I envision my book cover to be for my current novel-in-progress, That Warrior Spirit.

I really like the design I came up with and I am pleased with myself. I'd love to post it here and show it off but I am faced with an ethical, maybe legal, dilemma. One of the images I used in my composition is a photo I took of one of the men in MDI, with my cell phone. Do I need his permission to use a photo I took of him myself on my book cover? Do I need to get him to sign a model release?

I've looked up model release on wikipedia. It says that Publishing an identifiable photo of a person without a model release signed by that person can result in civil liability for whoever publishes the photograph. One of the key words here seems to be identifiable. If I manipulate the image so that the subject is not recognizable, would I still be at risk of civil liability if I did not have a signed model release?

First mix of Thank You

I have four songs in the process of being recorded now. Make that five, if I count the Holy Spirit Rain Down/Let It Rain medley as two separate songs. At tonight's session I went back to the first song of the bunch, Thank You. The last time I worked on this song was when we added the vocals and guitar solo (see Recording vocals).

There are still some guitar parts I've thought of adding, but I've got a lot of tracks down already so I decided to do a "premix" using what was already there. I've come back to this song after letting it rest since July and I have to say that I really like how it sounds. I am proud of the work that the musicians have put into it. A few times I've heard them tell me Remember we're not professionals, and I just have to ask them to stop saying that. They are all experienced, skilled and talented people.

We made three different versions of the mix tonight. The differences between the three are minor though, and lie in how we handled the lead guitar on the ending. In the first version we kept it the way David originally performed it. In the second version we edited his performance so it sounds like he sustained the final note rather than repeatedly picking it. In the third version we edited his original performance so that it sounded like he repeatedly picked the final note longer than he actually did.

I considered making a couple of alternate mixes, one with more emphasis on the piano performance and one with more emphasis on the rhythm guitar - there are so many different things that I can do with this song that if I try out all my ideas I will never finish this project.

Started Let It Rain medley

I had a recording session tonight. I wasn't sure what I was going to record because some of the musicians I wanted to work with where not available (see Opening the floodgates).

A few weeks ago I had a session and started a new project - the remake of Magician's Plea that I'd been thinking of starting for some time now.

So it all came down to Steve O. If he was available tonight and confident enough to track on Let It Rain then I would focus on that, otherwise I would continue building Magician's Plea.

It turned out that Steve O was available and willing to come to the studio. I had envisioned him playing acoustic guitar but he said he was rusty on the acoustic and preferred to play bass tonight.

So it all came together. Three of us at the studio - the two Steves and myself.

I brought a lo-fi recording of the arrangement we played yesterday at church, a medley of Holy Spirit Rain Down and Let It Rain. We used that to chart the arrangement, which we tweaked a tiny little bit.

Steve O played bass and Steve S contributed acoustic guitar. So I now have four songs in progress, four songs being recorded. I've got a lot of balls up in the air now, which is fine with me. It suits my INTJ personality. Plus I have lots of options and flexibility for moving forward even when musicians are not available for a session.

Steve Teller called me a bastard

I think it's cool that Steve Teller called me a bastard.

Who is Steve Teller? you might be wondering.

He is one of the characters in the book I am working on. (See Feet back on home ground). I am developing a scene in which four characters are doing an exercise called This is what I want you to know about me. This is an exercise in which the participants open up and reveal themselves to each other.

In order to write this scene, I have to know what each character is going to reveal about himself - since they're all fictitious characters I have to invent or discover who they are.

A tool I use to do this is the Interview. I ask the character questions and I write down their responses. And sometimes their responses are surprising and colorful.

During his interview, Steve Teller answered one of my questions using a euphemism. So I paraphrased him using direct, blunt language. To which he replied, "You bastard". I must have struck a chord!

Why I think it's cool that he called me a bastard, is that his character is coming to life. He's starting to interact with me, the writer. I like the exchange so much that I'm going to keep that dialog in the story.

You'll have to read the book to find out what I said to him that prompted him to call me a bastard.

...and the show's about to begin!

I've been trying to set up a recording session to start Let It Rain but have not yet coordinated everyone's schedule. I had a window available at the studio for tomorrow night but key members of the team were not available then.

So I decided to book the session anyway and start that project that I meant to start in 2007 but hadn't got around to it yet - a remake of Magician's Plea. (See Come, let me show you my tricks)

My original version of Magician's Plea is some eight minutes long and has some long instrumental passages. My thoughts for the remake are to shorten some of the long instrumentals to the more standard 8 bar instrumental. However, I think some of those instrumental passages that I wrote are interesting so I'm not throwing them away completely. Instead I'll spawn them off into a few side projects - stand alone instrumental-only songs, along the lines of the instrumental version I made of The Great Escape in 2006. (See Should I change the name?) So the result I am envisioning is a collection that I think of as Magician's Suite, featuring a redux of the original song plus a couple of new instrumentals.

Opening the floodgates

After taking a bit of a summer break from my recording project (see Recording vocals), I am starting to move the ball forward again.

I met with Steve O tonight in an offline rehearsal to work out an arrangement for Let It Rain. This song is both simple and complex. It is simple in that it uses only about four chords, has a simple melody, and has only four lines of lyrics and three of those four are the same line repeated. It is complex in that it has potential for rich harmonies and textures and dynamics.

Because the song is so repetitive I wasn't sure how to structure the arrangement. How many times to repeat the verse? Where should it build and where should it come down? How many times should the verse repeat before the instrumental break, and for how many cycles should the instrumental repeat?

Steve O found a chord chart on the CCLI website. I learned that the chord progression is not as repetitive as I thought - there are some minor variations from verse to verse.

So now I'm clear how I want to approach this in the studio. To put down bed tracks, I'd like to invite Steve O to play acoustic guitar, David (who played guitar on Thank You and How Can I Keep From Singing...) to play bass, and Cindy to play keyboard, and I will do guide vocals. Once the bed tracks are done, I will have a second session to add layers and textures and to build the dynamics.

In the meantime I ponder... could all the thunderstorms we've been having this summer have anything to do with all the times that I've been singing this song? Let it rain, let it rain, open the floodgates of heaven, let it rain.

How dating is like football

So without going down to the level of crudity, here is how I see the Dating Game as being like football.

The Dating Game is like football except I have an unlimited number of downs to make touchdown - I am not limited to three or four downs before I lose possession of the ball.

There is no opposing team to tackle me. I may fall or fumble the ball. If I fall it is not because someone has tackled me, it is simply because I fell. Maybe my shoelaces were untied and I tripped over them - I get up, retie my shoelaces and try again. Maybe the most I can run is six yards at a time so I advance the ball as far as I can before I stumble, then get up and move the ball the next six yards. I challenge and stretch myself so that I reach the point where I advance seven yards at a time.

I never lose possession of the ball. When I stumble I might drop the ball and lose track of where the ball is. I find the ball then continue my next play from there.

When the pond is dry I cast my line in another pond. I haven't figured out a football analogy for this one yet so I am murphing my mixaphors.

Shaking the tree

One of the commitments I made at my recent Twenty First Century Leadership retreat (see Rebuild, reimagine, renivent) was to become proactive, and learn what steps I can take to accelerate the process of finding a match to be my Little Brother. I have been waiting for a match for a long time now (see The Big Brother waiting game).

Since returning from Seattle, I've started shaking the tree - I've made several follow up calls and have made some progress. I've learned that the lady who took my application last year is no longer with BBBST. I've learned who has taken over my case file. I now have an appointment set up for an interview with the new case worker.

As far as my leadership commitments go, I am on track with this one. I think I may actually have a match by the end of the month, and I'm getting excited about this new adventure and about writing this new chapter of my life.

Feet back on home ground, mind is miles above

I've been back home from Seattle for over a week now. My feet are back on home ground now, but my mind is miles above.

One thing I took away with me from my 21CL experience this year was a detailed plan to complete a first draft of a book by the end of November. That sounds like an aggressive schedule, considering that I've been working on Mission: Dawn for some four years now. I've learned some things about organizing myself to write a book during those years, and I think my schedule is doable.

This book is not Mission: Dawn, but I think that by following my plan I will gain the experience to finish Mission: Dawn.

This book is about four men who transform their lives when they become involved in a men's organization. I am creating a fictional organization for the book, but am modeling it after the real world Mens Division that I belong to. I have plenty of real life experience to draw on for creating this story - unlike my science fiction novel, for which I work a lot more in order to "discover the story".

The first milestone in my schedule is to write Character Biographies, Character Interviews, and Character Arcs, by August 3. That's just a few days away - I already have most of my Character Bio's done, but I'll have to get motoring to get everything else done by the 3rd.

Improvisation and inspiration

I've completed Twenty First Century Leadership last week and I am now taking advantage of the extra days in Seattle before returning home. I am now a three-time graduate of 21CL.

Last week I came out to Seattle without booking my accomodations for the days that I would be staying after the workshop ended, or what I would be doing with those extra days. Work out the rest when I get there, I told myself. Well that is just what I've been doing. I'm learning to trust my instincts more, trust myself more, trust that I will handle whatever situation comes up. Trust that I have all I need to get where I'm going (physically as well as metaphorically); trust that I need to deal only with the next step and that I will handle the next step after that when the time comes.

My coach often tells me that to inspire others I need to be myself inspired. I am learning that the more I trust my instincts, trust my intuition, trust my gut, and act on that trust and see things work out, the more I find myself in a place of inspiration.

Rebuild, reimagine, renivent

Just a couple more days before I head out back to Seattle, back for another Twenty First Century Leadership workshop. In some ways it's going to feel a little strange, returning to the journey I took last year. A journey I took last year when my life was quite different than how it is now. A four year chapter that ended with a sudden plot twist.

I will be staying in Seattle for a few extra days after the workshop ends. Where - I don't know yet. I haven't booked my accommodation yet. It's not like me to leave this kind of detail so close to the wire. Yet a part of me is saying go with it. Go to Seattle on Monday and work out the rest when I get there. That wouldn't be like me at all.

ITIL certification

I passed my ITIL certification exam this week. Now I'm in recovery mode.

I did a lasagna Mile tonight to get out some of the stress I've been handling this week. The lasagna Mile was one lap jogging, one lap walking, one lap jogging, and one more lap walking. Did it with wrist weights on.

I'm starting to slip from my goal of doing my Mile three times a week. Only got it in twice last week - preparing for my ITIL exam took quite a lot out of me. As for this week, well - it's already Wednesday and I just did my first Mile for the week. I can still hit my target though, if I do one on Friday and one on Sunday.

Recording vocals

Tonight was the third session in this series.

One thing I learned after the first two sessions, when it comes to coordinating studio schedules where several musicians are involved, is to pick a focal person and coordinate everything around that person's schedule. The first session, the focal person was Cindy on keyboards. The second session, the focal person was Aaron on drums.

The focal people I wanted to bring to the third session were not available due to summer travel. However, David (guitar) suggested that he and his wife Diane (vocals) come in and do their parts in the same session so that they would only have to make one trip to the studio. Now logically I would not plan to do vocals and guitar solo in the same session, but the circumstances directed that this was my best option since I wanted to move forward and not wait until August. So David and Diane became my foci. Steve O and Vern were both available tonight as well, so I had four vocalists (including myself) plus one guitarist.

This was a challenge for me because it was the first time I'd done a session with multiple vocalists - in past projects I've always worked with one vocalist at a time.

It was particularly challenging syncing up the vocals on Thank You. There are many syllables and most lines are sung in unison, so it is very important to get the syncing bang on. We did a couple of run throughs and found we were most off on the verses; the chorus and tag were fine. A couple of run throughs of verse 1 and it just wasn't coming together. So we did it line by line and finally got it together the best we could. David then added his guitar solo to the instrumental and added some picking to the tag, and that was the evening.

There are still some guitar and vocal dubs I'd like to add, but those will wait; I'd like to move on and start recording some of the other songs.