April 2005

I currently have four computers sitting on my workbench, all in need of my geek abilities. All four of these machines run a variation of Microsoft Windows. I’m almost done with the first computer, which is less than six months old.

It currently has 126 spyware/adware files and 21 virii infecting it.

I’ve created a little web page with the tools I use to clean up computers. Feel free to use them as well.

Today I learned that Debralee Scott passed away on April 5 from natural causes. She was 52 years old.

You may remember Debralee from a handful of television shows in the 70s… she was Hotsie Totsie, the female Sweathog on “Welcome Back, Kotter”. She played Donna Pescow’s sister on “Angie”. She was on “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”. And she was a semi-present fixture on that old game show “Match Game.” Believe it or not, she was also on an episode of “Isis”!

I always thought Debralee Scott rocked. She had that 70s appeal and the 70s hair. She worked what she had and always had a street-smarts vibe.

May you enjoy your return Home. Blessed Be.

During lunch today I decided to head home and play around with the music studio a little bit. I’m still getting to know my way around the equipment and over the next week or so I’m going to have a lot of reading to do, familiarizing myself with Garage Band and the various settings on my vocal processing equipment. It’s all very fun and exciting and a challenge that I’m eager to tackle.

So today I thought I’d break up the day and sing a little bit during my lunch break. I popped in an instrumental version of “Could It Be Magic” by Barry Manilow. I cranked up the mic, passed the vocals to my headphones, turned up the speakers and for the first time in a very long time, I sang in full voice, completely uninhibited. And in doing so, I broke a sweat while singing.

It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve been able to expend so much energy singing that I was able to get all hot and bothered doing so. The last time I sang on a mic was in 2000 when I sang the National Anthem for the local minor league hockey team. While I did sing full voice and with lots of conviction, I didn’t really break a sweat doing so. Not that I’m a calm, cool and collected performer. Quite the contrary. I get lots of butterflies in my stomach when I’m performing in front of others. But I usually have a very small touch of “timid” on the performance that keeps me from singing really hard.

Being in the comfort of our home and our studio, I was able to sing like I haven’t sung since my days at SUNY Fredonia.

So while I may being a bit more stinky at work this afternoon, at least I was able to break out of my shell and share a little music. Now if I could just get this stuff into the Mac Mini so I could share it! 🙂

Earl and I are winding down the weekend. He’s catching up with online buddies and I just finished mixing some dance tracks in my new music studio.

“That’s What Love Can Do”, Boy Krazy.

That’s right, the studio is up and functional. I took Thursday afternoon off to meet the guys from Lowe’s when they delivered the cabinets and countertop. When I got home, everything was sitting on the front porch without a delivery truck in sight. I guess they didn’t want their tip. It was a little disconcerting, because they said they would be here Thursday afternoon, and here it was 12:10. According to their mildly agitated note they were at the house around 10:00 a.m. I guess they didn’t teach the delivery department how to tell time. ‘Tis a pity, as Earl and I are famous big tippers.

Oh well. Thursday night we headed to Connecticut for the weekend, which I’ve mentioned before. We weren’t big winners Friday night at Foxwoods Casino but we did manage to make it out of there while breaking even, so we didn’t have any tears in our beer.

“Happy”, Legacy of Sound.

Saturday morning we decided to take a little road trip on our way home. If you’re looking at a map, we live about three hours northwest of Hartford, Conn. So of course we headed northeast and drove through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont on the way home. We made a quick stop at Chick-Fil-A in Nashua, New Hampshire for lunch and then enjoyed the drive across the more scenic parts of New Hampshire and Vermont. We took a little hike at the Quechee Gorge and took a moment to breathe in some fresh air and just listen to the sounds of the evergreen forests. I find the evergreen forests so enchanting. The whispering of the wind through the pines, the blanket of needles on the ground. Very relaxing.

We then continued the trek home across Vermont, stopping for a bite to eat at one of our new haunts, the Circle Diner in Latham.

One of the reasons we took this little ride was to celebrate the 9th anniversary of our first date, where Earl and I took a ride up through Vermont just getting to know each other. It was great to relive the past and look ahead to the future.

“You Keep Me Hanging On (Dance Remix)”, Reba McEntire.

Today has been a productive today, putting together the sound studio and such. Tom has this urge to sit on the turntables and doesn’t really appreciate the scolding I’ve given him. I have a feeling that I’m going to find cat fur on them when I get home from work tomorrow, but we shall see. He likes the felt slip mats.

Having a recording studio like this has been a dream of mine for a long, long time. I’m so excited that’s it’s all coming together. I have one more piece of gadgetry to install so that I can record from my mixing board into my Mac Mini and then I’m good to go. Tonight I messed around with Garage Band a bit and played some ditties on my MIDI keyboard. Very cool! I’ll have to share some creations here once I get confident with what I’m doing.

Earl and I enjoyed a nice supper at California Pizza Kitchen at WestFarms Mall outside of Hartford, Connecticut tonight. We were having a discussion about something that has escaped me, but the conversation involved me saying to Earl “Witches Honor” and doing the Bewitched witches honor sign.

This made the woman behind Earl, facing me, giggle. Apparently she watches Bewitched too.

Earl and I have just returned from business meetings with two of his vendors for work. It’s been a wonderful day here in lovely Connecticut. This is the first time in nine years that I’ve ever accompanied him on business meetings so I got to witness him in action first hand.

I’ve found yet another reason that I am in love.

One of the many, many things I find attractive about Earl is that he has a certain charisma. He knows how to handle himself and he does it well. He’s in command of a situation (even with a nutjob such as myself) and has a certain quality to his character that engages others around him. I was quite excited to see that this trait translates well to the business arena.

I have been in many conferences and meetings in my life. I’ve worked for a huge 120,000+ employees company. While there, I attended many staff meetings, development meetings, programming meetings and strategy meetings. I’ve seen a lot of men and women in action.

Earl tops them all.

He knows his business and he knows it well. He has a way of remaining strictly professional yet reaching a personal level that brings a sense of comfort to those in attendance. It’s something I’d like to emulate in my professional life. I profess that I probably can’t come close as it only comes with experience.

But it’s a goal to strive for.

Earl and I have safely arrived in Hartford, Conn. after driving and driving and driving in rain. A trip to the east is not complete without a stop at the Windmill Diner in dubious Amsterdam, N.Y. I didn’t give in to the cheeseburger, but I did have a bison burger that was quite fabulous. Their little advertisements point to a web site, but I went to look and there is a sex site there. I guess it’s kinky sex if there’s windmills involved.

So now we’re settling in for the night here at the Sheraton in East Hartford. I’m looking forward to the day tomorrow. Earl says that this activity is going to convince me that I need to retire and start traveling with him. How could we support my spending habits if I was retired? Oh well, at least it’s something to dream about.

Maybe we’ll win the lottery tomorrow night. Now that would be fabulous!

I have declared this week officially a “crazy week”. You may think that I’m referring to the fact that I’ve been very busy. No, that’s not it. I’ve completely lost my mind and am desperately looking around trying to find it again.

I’ve been somewhat of a mess at work. For some reason I haven’t been as motivated as usual and that kind of disappoints me. I can just imagine what it does for my supervisor! Always the perfectionist, I say that if you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all. I’m not going to waste the energy to half-ass a project when I could sit back and relax and chat about American Idol. Thank goodness I work for a company that has a nice internet connection.

Then there’s the whole eternal diet thing. I declared this past Sunday that I was going to abstain from meat and try to eat healthier (AGAIN!) this week while my body shifted into spring mode. What did I know? I’ve pretty much lived on the no meat policy but I’ve eaten anything that’s not nailed down. Please let me know if I belch up a TiVo remote. I’m desperately craving a cheeseburger from someplace, anyplace, anywhere. Except Burger King, because that new plastic Burger King guy that looks into windows on the television commercial is just damn creepy and I don’t want to be molested at a Burger King. I really want a greasy, diner derived cheeseburger. In a pinch, I’ll settle for Mc Donalds. Hell, in a pinch, I’ll settle for a shoe with Cheeze Whiz.

I thought this week would just fly, fly, fly right by because I’m off this afternoon and all day tomorrow. I guess the lack of motivation at work made time slow down or something, because the clock was having none of it.

Tonight we are headed to New Haven, Conn. Earl has business meetings tomorrow and I get to officially live the dream of Guy Friday. I’m looking forward to bouncing on the bosses knee and seeing him in action (take it as you will). Tomorrow night we’re going to give Foxwoods Casino or Mohican Sun a spin and come home with a ton of money.

That’s if I don’t lose my marbles completely.

You’d think at almost age 37 that I would be smart enough to follow my instincts. When I woke up this morning, feeling remarkably refreshed and centered, I had five or six topics to write about in my blog swimming around in my head. I remember thinking, “Yeah, that’s true!” “Why is that?” “If it could only be that way.”

Here it is lunch time. I sit down in front of the PowerBook to throw out my latest dialogue upon the masses and … nothing.

I think in titles. If I were to write about trains, I’d probably title it “Petticoat Junction.” If I were to write about wigs, I’d probably title it “Green Acres” (let’s see if you can follow that train of thought). I remember tossing around some damn witty titles this morning. I even amused myself to the point of giggling out loud. I remember saying to myself, “I really should write these down so I remember them later today!” Did I follow my instincts and write them down? Of course not. I pride myself on my steel trap memory. I can recite to you every license plate number that has adorned any vehicle I have owned. I can recite to you the license plates from 30 years ago of my parents, my grandparents and my aunts and uncles. What I was thinking about this morning? Not a clue. I think my steel trap is rusting.

Wait, I remember something about scents. Smells. There was to be discussion about … damn. Maybe it was just Earl and I sharing the bathroom.

That being said, I do think there is something humorous about the word “jot”. Jot. J-O-T. It’s a funny looking word to me. It’s a funny sounding word to me. You’d think that since I find something so trivial so amusing, I’d remember to do it.

I’ll have to jot myself a note to remind myself to jot notes down.

Here it is the first Monday in April and I’m once again suffering from my self titled affliction of “Bad Timing”. For innocent bystanders, I’ll say it laymen’s terms.

Its once again “Daylight Saving Time”.

Golly I hate the time change every April. It just feels so unnatural to me. Now I have to travel to the Central Time Zone as much as possible to feel in sync with my body’s natural rhythm. To many, this concept doesn’t really make sense, but my body just knows when it’s the wrong time. For example, as I type this, my body is screaming 7:30! 7:30! 7:30! I look at the four clocks within eyeshot and they all scream 8:30! 8:30! 8:30!

Why do I resist this?

For the next few days I’ll go to bed when I’m not tired, wake up when I am tired, eat when I’m not hungry and well, you get the idea. All this just for a few extra minutes of daylight. I’d rather fly to Sydney, Australia and back and suffer from a serious case of jet lag instead of going through this one hour adjustment that we must endure.

Local folklore says we do this for the farmers. What a crock of bull poo. The farmers hate the time change as much as I do, as Bessy and her friends don’t like the change in schedule. Chickens get cranky and hold back on the eggs. Milk production actually goes down. I don’t blame the livestock one bit. If I could let out an indignant “moo” with any sort of meaning I probably would.

I can’t fight it. I can’t go around pretending that it’s only brunch time when it’s lunch time. I can’t get to work late. So I have to comply.

But I won’t like it.