A lot of memories of my youth involve sitting around and listening to music. Of the various forms of entertainment I had available at the time and well into the mid-1990s, it was the only thing that was truly available “on demand.”
One of my first memories is me getting up to my mom’s turntable and putting on Dark Side of the Moon, second side. I liked Money, what can I say? There was a cassette tape of that album and Wish You Were Here that I had for many years and subsequently wore out I played so much. I never bought records, as by the time I could afford them, they switched to CDs, but I did buy some music on cassettes.
I have a few things on cassette that I never managed to buy on CD, but most of the cassettes that I still have are either mix tapes I made or albums that friends gave me. That’s how music was “traded” back in those days–you made a cassette of a friend’s album or CD and gave it to them. Don’t worry, I eventually bought most of the stuff on CDs.
In fact, I bought quite a lot of CDs–something close to 200 of them. I’ve got a couple of booklets of them. I’ve even bought CDs recently (as in the past year) for stuff I wanted to truly “own.” Perhaps I’m old school in that when I buy something with money, I like to get something physical in return. At least when it comes to music.
Earlier, I ran across a blog post that referenced a video showing how the Pink Floyd song Money was put together. That led down a YouTube-induced rathole that led me to a video that talks about the making of Dark Side of the Moon.
It got me to thinking about something it seems I rarely take the time to do anymore–listen to music. Not as a background to some other activity, but as an activity in and of itself. I used to do that for hours, well into my college years. Sure, it was background at times as well, but there’s something about putting in an old album and just kicking back and relaxing.
A good record album–particularly a concept piece like Dark Side of the Moon–is like a good book. It tells a story, it makes you use your imagination and makes you think. Unfortunately, Dark Side of the Moon and other Pink Floyd albums are the gold standard for concept albums, and even low-quality “concept” albums are few and far between.
Part of that is few bands know how to do it. These days, though, people don’t buy CDs (though I hear vinyl records are making a comeback). People are buying their songs for $0.99 a pop on iTunes, Amazon.com, or getting it as part of a subscription.
Of course, with a wife and family, my life is simply not conducive to sitting around all the time listening to music. Some of it isn’t exactly kid-appropriate. Then again, I heard the word bullshit in Money at a very young age (not to mention other naughty words in other songs) and I turned out ok. Maybe I should kick back and listen to some music more often
Tuesday was officially my last day at Nokia. However, it was also the day that I started fully transitioning to Check Point Software. I signed all the various forms and non-disclosure agreements, read through the employee manual. One of the forms–the I-9–requires an “authorized representative” of the company to look at my passport and sign. For me, this meant a trip to Seattle, which fortunately, didn’t take too long mid-day.
The other pressing goal of the day was to get my laptop transitioned from Nokia to Check Point. This involved a hard drive swap and a lot of phone calls to Check Point’s IT staff to get appropriate passwords, reset locked accounts, and generally get up and on the corporate network. After all that, I’m in and mostly working, though there are a few nagging issues.
Meanwhile, I am getting acquainted with the new policies and procedures, reading the various Intranet pages, and otherwise acquainting myself with Check Point. In the morning, we get the benefits orientation. Shortly after that, a call with my new boss
When I was about my son’s age, I was in Cub Scouts. One of the things you inevitably do in Cub Scouts is build a Pinewood Derby car. Or, rather, your father mostly builds it. My son is not in Cub Scouts, but we are doing something similar through the YMCA. We are doing a group campout an d one of the activities is a Pinewood Derby.
I have no illusion here that my son wants to do most of the hard work. I know at that age, I didn’t. What I did ask him to do was come up with a basic car shape, which he came up with. I then went to work cutting the block of wood into something approximating the shape he drew. I never took shop class. I don’t know the first thing about wordworking. I barely have any tools for this stuff. However, I am determined to turn this block of wood into a car.
After some sawing and sanding, here is the result. It is not completely smooth–there are some divots I still need to even out–but it vaguely looks like a car! More work on the car tomorrow.
I can’t help but listen to this Ronald Reagan speech from 1964 and realize how much of this applies today. The examples he gives are dated, of course, but are still relevant today. Government is growing increasingly bigger, more wasteful. Social Security is insolvent. Our budget is nowhere near balanced. We are spending far more than we’re taking in.
Unfortunately, none of the politicians today come anything close to espousing or upholding the ideals in this speech. Then again, I’m not sure Reagan was able to carry out the ideas here, either. Despite great leaders like Reagan who state otherwise, the political machine simply won’t cede control to the people.
As much as I think President Obama is trying to help by bailing out various industries–including the banks and homeowners over their heads–I believe that the best course of action is to simply let these industries fail. The government can instead fund FDIC and pay off the depositors in these failed banks–the real victims of these economic problems. American ingenuity will fill the hole left by these failed banks and other industries.
The older I get, the more I firmly believe that the government does not know what is best for anyone except the betterment of itself.
A friend of mine did this and I thought it was cool. Do this: Google “<your name> needs” and write out the first 10 results that complete the phrase.
1. A haircut
2. To rest and evaluate
3. A new website
4. A long overdue bath
5. Kato Unitrack layout with 19.25″ radius (WTF is this?)
6. Scams Letters from Dating Scammer Svetlana Shestakova
7. $21441 to live here
8. Knoppmyth
9. Free streaming MP3s
10. The PhoneBoy Blog
When people say it rains a lot in Seattle, they might envision the kind of weather we’ve had the past couple of days, which is to say fairly constant and sometimes heavy rain. Having lived several winters here, I can tell you that while it is not unusual to have periods of heavy rain, it’s not usually this constant.
The additional 2 inches of snow we got on Sunday quickly became a non-issue thanks to rising temperatures and all this rain. However, the Puyallup River is now flooding, so it’s causing some problems in the area, though nowhere near me, thankfully.
Global warming? Doubt it. According to Professor Don J. Easterbrook, who is in the Dept. of Geology at Western Washington University, suggests we just exited a 30 year “Global Warming” cycle and are now entering a 30 year “Global Cooling” cycle. These ~30 year cycles go back ~500 years–well before we humans started causing the large-scale CO2 emissions that are supposedly killing the planet!
In other words, we can expect more rain and snow here in Seattle over the next few decades. Great.
Meanwhile, between the official meetings about the announcement and people wanting to talk to me about it to exchange thoughts, I was on the phone for several hours. After all the talking, and finally some breakfast, it was time for action: shoveling out the driveway.
The driveway had accumulated about 6 inches of snow thanks to this year’s snowmageddon. After last night’s experience getting the minivan stuck in the snow (my fault), shoveling the driveway was now mandatory if we were to leave the house anytime soon. I started this process around 11:30 this morning.
A little after 3, the driveway looked like this:
You can’t see the part in front of the garage, but that took much longer than I anticipated. At 4:45, I was almost done, but the daylight was rapidly leaving:
By 5:30, I finished the last of it and declared victory!
Of course, during this time, I had to take a few pauses to take Advil, drink liquid, and rest for a few minutes. The occasional neighbor would stop and talk to me as well.
While I was disappointed that Governor Bill Richardson didn’t win the Presidency, I am glad that he’s still going to the White House–as Commerce Secretary:
Ok, so he still has to be confirmed by the Senate, just like all the other people that Obama is picking for the various cabinet positions. I’m not thrilled with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but I guess he had to do something to placate the whiners in the Democratic Party.
Right now, the trick is staying busy, not worrying too much about that which I don’t know about the new company, which if you think about it, is quite a lot. Oh sure, my boss and management line won’t actually change. But there’s a lot of underlying infrastructure that simply must change as a result of having to break away from Nokia.
It’s a lot to digest. It’s a lot to think about. And, unfortunately, a lot of questions can’t be answered until the deal is officially signed. That’s life.
Meanwhile, back to work. There’s certainly no shortage of it right now.
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