I came back, it took me 14 hours 40 minutes. I didn't get out of the car from the VA/NC border until Columbia. My legs didn't work right, and I really wish I had someone here to sit on my lower back, but you take what you get, which is a shot of whiskey in the hopes of getting some sleep so you can go to the beach tomorrow.
A proper update (with photographs... hah) will be coming up in the next week or less.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
I almost forgot
I'm going to Florida today. I'll be back briefly next Monday evening, then I'll be max super plus grade back Tuesday (did I just say that?).
Uh... leave me a message, I guess. Or you know how to get me on the horn.
Uh... leave me a message, I guess. Or you know how to get me on the horn.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
I'm done with finals
Yeah... uhh, done with finals. Spring 2005 ended with me having a B- in some class, an A- in corrections, a B in family studies, and a god knows what in Race and Crime. My grade in that class is still out, pending an investigation of the 2.5 pages of completely made up "I think race is necessary if only to curb racism" [edit from 2019: I am sure I no longer line up with where I thought about that in 2005, as I've been alive and paying attention to how the world works for the last decade-plus]. Anyway, I may make a 3.5 this term. That would be supernice. As it is now, I'm happy expecting my 3.3.
So what have I been up to? All last week, I spent most of my time sleeping or being awake at 6. Needless to say, this led to me being utterly unproductive. Since finals ended, I have taught myself many things. The last couple of weeks have been good for the ol' interpersonals. That's an as-it-happens though. Uhh... work is good, I'm waiting to propose that I work full time until it's time to work.
I leave for Florida on Tuesday. I think. I may wait until wednesday, but who knows at this point. I'm taking my bass and amplifier; I want to maybe have my brother experience what life is like on a pro-grade rig and a mid-level bass. This also makes for a convenient excuse to show you what I did today.
I fashioned a custom bracket to mount my SansAmp bass driver to my amp and cabinets.
Why? Well, many a year ago, my dad presented me a SansAmp Bass Driver DI for christmas. I loved it because, at the time, I had a super-el-cheapo bass that it magically forced into sounding good. Eventually, I bought a better bass, and used it to make my little cheap amplifier sound good. Then I had to sell my bass in November of last year because I had to go to California. In February of this year, I bought my Warwick, and that's been nice, but in March, I had to sell my practice amp and bass processor (because I had to go to California), leaving me with only my stack.* My SansAmp had been, up until today, sitting on the floor where I had been using it with my practice amp. I got sick of this and decided to do something about it. A trip to Home Depot and a couple of bucks later, what you see above is what we have now. It's nice because it can create some natural sounding distortion without worrying me about tube life. More importantly, though, is that it's at an easily adjustable level, which allows me to turn on and off the "sweet spot" more easily and effectively than trying to build a pedalboard to control my amp's equalizer sections. So yeah, that's that. I'll probably update you with how my trip down to Tallahassee goes. I'm planning on showing my brother I already wrote about this.
sigh.
At least I get to go to the beach when I get back.
* - The rack is as follows:
ETA Lighting systems PD9
Shure LX Wireless Receiver
Korg ToneWorks DTR-2 Tuner (somewhat comparable)
--blank--
Ampeg SVT3 Pro
all of that in some plastic 6-rackspace ... rack
Then that sits on top of two Bag End S15X-D speaker cabinets (one of which has casters attached to the bottom).
Yeah... Music. Basically, 450 watts of wireless bass goodness that I never use because I'm not in a band. I'm good enough, dammit... you've heard me play if you've read this long enough. I taught myself "Too Many Puppies" today, for crying out loud.
Never mind.
So what have I been up to? All last week, I spent most of my time sleeping or being awake at 6. Needless to say, this led to me being utterly unproductive. Since finals ended, I have taught myself many things. The last couple of weeks have been good for the ol' interpersonals. That's an as-it-happens though. Uhh... work is good, I'm waiting to propose that I work full time until it's time to work.
I leave for Florida on Tuesday. I think. I may wait until wednesday, but who knows at this point. I'm taking my bass and amplifier; I want to maybe have my brother experience what life is like on a pro-grade rig and a mid-level bass. This also makes for a convenient excuse to show you what I did today.
I fashioned a custom bracket to mount my SansAmp bass driver to my amp and cabinets.
Why? Well, many a year ago, my dad presented me a SansAmp Bass Driver DI for christmas. I loved it because, at the time, I had a super-el-cheapo bass that it magically forced into sounding good. Eventually, I bought a better bass, and used it to make my little cheap amplifier sound good. Then I had to sell my bass in November of last year because I had to go to California. In February of this year, I bought my Warwick, and that's been nice, but in March, I had to sell my practice amp and bass processor (because I had to go to California), leaving me with only my stack.* My SansAmp had been, up until today, sitting on the floor where I had been using it with my practice amp. I got sick of this and decided to do something about it. A trip to Home Depot and a couple of bucks later, what you see above is what we have now. It's nice because it can create some natural sounding distortion without worrying me about tube life. More importantly, though, is that it's at an easily adjustable level, which allows me to turn on and off the "sweet spot" more easily and effectively than trying to build a pedalboard to control my amp's equalizer sections. So yeah, that's that. I'll probably update you with how my trip down to Tallahassee goes. I'm planning on showing my brother I already wrote about this.
sigh.
At least I get to go to the beach when I get back.
* - The rack is as follows:
ETA Lighting systems PD9
Shure LX Wireless Receiver
Korg ToneWorks DTR-2 Tuner (somewhat comparable)
--blank--
Ampeg SVT3 Pro
all of that in some plastic 6-rackspace ... rack
Then that sits on top of two Bag End S15X-D speaker cabinets (one of which has casters attached to the bottom).
Yeah... Music. Basically, 450 watts of wireless bass goodness that I never use because I'm not in a band. I'm good enough, dammit... you've heard me play if you've read this long enough. I taught myself "Too Many Puppies" today, for crying out loud.
Never mind.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Hey, look at that
I redid the header. It's all fancy now, what with the picture and some margins and a box. You like it, I know you do.
You're jealous?
No? Oh, okay, I can only ask so much, after all.
So yeah, concert was good. Gin Blossoms put on a pretty good show, although the one guitar guy kept staring vapidly at the closed concession stands behind the endzone. Their singer crowdsurfed and sang into cell phones. Good times.
Chevelle was allright, although the sound person was something of a moron and mixed everything too hot, so all you heard was raspy distortion. Additionally, one of the drummer's toms was on too loud. The bass player didn't sing half as much harmony as he does on the recordings I've heard, and the guitar player did almost nothing but yell. Good high energy at first, but the "power ballads" toward the end just made everything seem to drag on.
Nancy and I left after three songs. She managed to get me to say they were boring; I guess that's true. I maintain they weren't that bad, but certainly as a follower to chevelle and as closer to a late show, it wasn't high energy enough to keep me interested. That and Guster fans anger me. Not quite as much as chevelle 'fans,' though.
Anyway, we shivered about the mall for a while before heading our separate ways, then the rest of the weekend, I was trying to recover from yelling and being pneumonic (is that a word) all day Friday. I consider it worthwhile, though.
In Other News
I installed Tiger Friday. Runs fine, a bit faster graphically speaking than Panther was. I've made an automator workflow already, it moves files and opens them for me. Dashboard is neat, but it takes up too much memory to justify using right at the moment. When I get around to buying a new system later this year, I'll probably put a gigabyte of RAM in it, and then I can really start dinking around with things.
This leads me into my stylistic change. I like it. The real purpose of this particular update was to move images off the main screen so I could tell if it looks good. Hopefully this is the case, as I don't feel like changing it, nor do I feel like reverting it.
I'm so lazy.
You're jealous?
No? Oh, okay, I can only ask so much, after all.
So yeah, concert was good. Gin Blossoms put on a pretty good show, although the one guitar guy kept staring vapidly at the closed concession stands behind the endzone. Their singer crowdsurfed and sang into cell phones. Good times.
Chevelle was allright, although the sound person was something of a moron and mixed everything too hot, so all you heard was raspy distortion. Additionally, one of the drummer's toms was on too loud. The bass player didn't sing half as much harmony as he does on the recordings I've heard, and the guitar player did almost nothing but yell. Good high energy at first, but the "power ballads" toward the end just made everything seem to drag on.
Nancy and I left after three songs. She managed to get me to say they were boring; I guess that's true. I maintain they weren't that bad, but certainly as a follower to chevelle and as closer to a late show, it wasn't high energy enough to keep me interested. That and Guster fans anger me. Not quite as much as chevelle 'fans,' though.
Anyway, we shivered about the mall for a while before heading our separate ways, then the rest of the weekend, I was trying to recover from yelling and being pneumonic (is that a word) all day Friday. I consider it worthwhile, though.
In Other News
I installed Tiger Friday. Runs fine, a bit faster graphically speaking than Panther was. I've made an automator workflow already, it moves files and opens them for me. Dashboard is neat, but it takes up too much memory to justify using right at the moment. When I get around to buying a new system later this year, I'll probably put a gigabyte of RAM in it, and then I can really start dinking around with things.
This leads me into my stylistic change. I like it. The real purpose of this particular update was to move images off the main screen so I could tell if it looks good. Hopefully this is the case, as I don't feel like changing it, nor do I feel like reverting it.
I'm so lazy.
Sunday, May 8, 2005
I'm still not dead
Title says it all, I'm just out of energy this weekend. Concert to tell you about, that was hot (in spite of the fact that it was quite the opposite in temperature). uhh... yeah. pictures coming monday, too. Now, here's what the taco has to say [edit from 2019: I believe there was a drawing of a talking taco I had here that I don't remember anything about except for the context of the post]:
Sunday, May 1, 2005
I have a paper to write
I don't know what I want to do with this space... but I do know that there are a lot of things I want to write down. It's a paradox that's been with me since about October, during my miniature bout with depression. I want to write, but I don't know what I want to write because I don't know who my audience is. I can't write for nobody, just as I can't talk to myself about anything important. I think that's why the content here has been so hollow and distant, if not outright stupid: I'm talking to either myself or nobody. It's rare that I get that email from anonymous, so I ask myself "why the hell am I still trying?" as I type up a 1200 word rant about crap nobody outside slashdot cares about.
It pains me to say it, but I agree with Jeff: I miss Terrapins Gone Wild. As much as I hated most of the people there, it was something to do. I knew who was there, I knew who cared to click on my topics. Nothing else I've tried since then has had any degree of success in replacing that environment. People on fark are either idiotic or oblivious, and nothing on there is anything I care about anyway. On slashdot, you're ignored if you don't post in the first thread, or on the first page even. I've had, to six posts or so, one response, and one moderator point spent on me. Again, like here, it's just not worth opening up.
Next weekend, I am going to go see my grandmother. I'd like to talk about that, but I already did so where I think more people will appreciate it, so that's out. I've been avoiding talking about how happy I've been in the last five weeks, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Yeah, I was miserable while I was out in California, but I guess it's awfully hard to be happy when you're in the midst of a weekend-long breakup of ... well, I'll call it a relationship that lasted two months shy of two years, and you're dealing with that and the sacrifice of having gone out there, and the depressing reality of what's going on around you that you're only observer to. Worst of all, I still cared, and care now, although that's hard for me to admit. I tried to be happy... but I couldn't manage it all that well at the time. I've come to realize now, though, that I probably should have let go earlier. It was selfish of me to expect all that to work, so if she has someone more accessible, then everyone's happier in the end. Call it a load off my shoulders, I suppose. I'd like to brag about how good I am at music. Unfortunately, I don't have any structured environment to tell people to come watch me in. Why? I'm too busy. I don't feel like recording myself all that often, either, for the simple reasons that A) I know it's not going to get me work, and B) only two people download the files in the first place, and one of them doesn't remember anything about them after the fact. I have too much crap to do for school. I'd like to whine about that, but I'm absolutely certain that if 'you' did read this, you wouldn't give a shit about that, either. I'd love to pimp myself for finally being in a position of power at my job after five years of dedicated service, but there's little more to say than what I've said already. I've worked for the university for so long, I should be receiving a service commendation in October.
This summer, I don't know if I have work. That scares me, because I have work I need to get done for the EMC (database redesign), and they're paying me enough to actually make me want to do that, but they haven't cleared any funding for our office. If that doesn't work out, I'm not going to be able to live through the summer. I have already sold my laptop, and I'm not getting rid of my bass again. I like this one far more than the last. I can't sell any of my amp equipment, because I sold my practice amp in March to live through April. I don't have many more CDs that CDepot will take. Worst yet, I don't have much in the way to offer other employers, simply because I don't have the ability to continue working beyond the summer. It's like, I need a job, but I won't be able to get one and have no other way to support myself. Frightening times. Well, only one more semester of this nonsense, then I'll have to find a temporary job to live out the lease on the apartment and go find a job in a juvenile justice department somewhere. Probably Florida, although I have to look at Utah, too.
I can't leave behind family, I've seen what that does.
It pains me to say it, but I agree with Jeff: I miss Terrapins Gone Wild. As much as I hated most of the people there, it was something to do. I knew who was there, I knew who cared to click on my topics. Nothing else I've tried since then has had any degree of success in replacing that environment. People on fark are either idiotic or oblivious, and nothing on there is anything I care about anyway. On slashdot, you're ignored if you don't post in the first thread, or on the first page even. I've had, to six posts or so, one response, and one moderator point spent on me. Again, like here, it's just not worth opening up.
Next weekend, I am going to go see my grandmother. I'd like to talk about that, but I already did so where I think more people will appreciate it, so that's out. I've been avoiding talking about how happy I've been in the last five weeks, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Yeah, I was miserable while I was out in California, but I guess it's awfully hard to be happy when you're in the midst of a weekend-long breakup of ... well, I'll call it a relationship that lasted two months shy of two years, and you're dealing with that and the sacrifice of having gone out there, and the depressing reality of what's going on around you that you're only observer to. Worst of all, I still cared, and care now, although that's hard for me to admit. I tried to be happy... but I couldn't manage it all that well at the time. I've come to realize now, though, that I probably should have let go earlier. It was selfish of me to expect all that to work, so if she has someone more accessible, then everyone's happier in the end. Call it a load off my shoulders, I suppose. I'd like to brag about how good I am at music. Unfortunately, I don't have any structured environment to tell people to come watch me in. Why? I'm too busy. I don't feel like recording myself all that often, either, for the simple reasons that A) I know it's not going to get me work, and B) only two people download the files in the first place, and one of them doesn't remember anything about them after the fact. I have too much crap to do for school. I'd like to whine about that, but I'm absolutely certain that if 'you' did read this, you wouldn't give a shit about that, either. I'd love to pimp myself for finally being in a position of power at my job after five years of dedicated service, but there's little more to say than what I've said already. I've worked for the university for so long, I should be receiving a service commendation in October.
This summer, I don't know if I have work. That scares me, because I have work I need to get done for the EMC (database redesign), and they're paying me enough to actually make me want to do that, but they haven't cleared any funding for our office. If that doesn't work out, I'm not going to be able to live through the summer. I have already sold my laptop, and I'm not getting rid of my bass again. I like this one far more than the last. I can't sell any of my amp equipment, because I sold my practice amp in March to live through April. I don't have many more CDs that CDepot will take. Worst yet, I don't have much in the way to offer other employers, simply because I don't have the ability to continue working beyond the summer. It's like, I need a job, but I won't be able to get one and have no other way to support myself. Frightening times. Well, only one more semester of this nonsense, then I'll have to find a temporary job to live out the lease on the apartment and go find a job in a juvenile justice department somewhere. Probably Florida, although I have to look at Utah, too.
I can't leave behind family, I've seen what that does.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)