Sat Mar 03 23:10:03 PST Boston and Tom Waits:

Boston's eponymous first release and Tom Waits' Small Change were both released in 1976. In fact, Small Change was being recorded when I was born. Coincidence? I think not.

(1) Thu Oct 06 12:28:45 PST i've got a job and other news flashes:

I've got a job! Apparently the interview yesterday was a success from the client's perspective and I will be starting next week! The people from the hiring company told me that the client had actually looked around at some other candidates but didn't find anyone that was anywhere near as good a fit. I am super excited about the job, so that's cool.

In other news -- I am surprised by how little people here use their horns. In Chicago, if the light was green for half a second and you hadn't started rolling forward, people were honking. But on a scale of 1 to New York City with Chicago being a 7, I think that LA has to be a 3 or a 4. I don't know if I've been honked at once.

I was listening to the band Barenaked Ladies today, as a nostalgic romp back in time, and listening to them embarasses me a little, because I hear a lot of my own musical sensibilities that were shaped in early college when I listened to BNL a lot. Much of what I would like to cut out of my own musical stylings was put there (or amplified by) BNL. I don't even say that to dis them; I think they're great musicians and they put on a great show (at least they did in 1994 when I last saw them). But I don't want to be them.

Finally, our hot water is out. We're pushing about 36 hours with no hot water, but they are working on it. Our dishes are stacking up like lepers around the pool of Siloam, except that the pool is dry as a bone. Monday I heated water up on the stove to do dishes just like we used to a boy scout camp, but I'm not going to do that today.

Maybe the cold shower before the interview was what did it?

Tue Sep 27 19:26:07 PST tuesday afternoon:

Getting ready for my friends' wedding this weekend. Also spent some time working on a new music project that is pretty exciting... I'll be sure to link to it as soon as there's something to show.

I've been thinking that I will declare the original "skates sharpened and repaired" project as complete (for what it's worth), and put together a CD of the best of that project (maybe all of that project). I have two new things in the works, both similar, but different than *Skates*, and I don't plan on adding to *Skates* any time soon. I still like that name though, and can definitely see using it for something else down the road.

Fri Sep 23 14:32:23 PST time!:

So, as I was doing dishes today, I listened to the Skates Sharpened and Repaired Christmas demos, and was really taken back a long way in space and time. My good friends Dave and Crystal are getting married next weekend, and I'm participating in the wedding (I'm the Master of Ceremonies), and I remember being really excited about this music, sitting in my van in the cold outside Dave's apartment, playing it for him. He had helped me record one of the songs, and we had just had a goofy night of hanging out in Duluth. I remember feeling very joyful about the music that I was making, and joyful of the process and the product. Listening to the music now, I understand why it made me feel that way; I'm still proud of it, and I still feel like it captured something then that was unique and simple -- a one of a kind moment, and something that I created that nobody else could have. That music was all recorded, or mostly recorded, 4 years ago, and I have been too busy with other things in the meantime to do anything quite like it. That needs to change.