Strobelight.

So yesterday I received notice that season two American Idol contestant Kimberely Locke (she came in third, I believe) started following my tweets on Twitter. I must admit that I found this a little bit strange but then realized she must have started following me when I mentioned that I was working in the studio the night before. I mean, why else would Kimberely Locke start following a man who describes himself as a “technology geek with the heart of a country boy that loves his partner, likes guys and enjoys Macs, photography, travel and interesting facial hair.”?

I wasn’t as surprised by her this morning, however, when she sent me a Direct Message because the DM contained a mention that her new single “Strobe Light” (or is it “Strobelight”) was available on iTunes starting today. I took the bait and downloaded it and took a listen.

As a Top 40 radio program director (my actual title was “Director of Operations”) I used to listen and judge music for a living and whilst I’m not the best person in the world at this task, I do think that I have a pretty good ear. I always base my feelings on that first listen because there’s a good chance that a radio listener is going to be listening for the first time and if they don’t like what they hear they’re going to jump to another station.

At first I thought that iTunes had a bad copy of the record because the effect used on the first few bars of the song make it sound like it’s a warped 12-inch record. Okay. I guess we’re going for a retro song. I got past that weird thing and then into the track.

Kimberely’s voice soars along nicely in the track but honestly, it’s not that well written of a song. A few parts of the mix feel like she’s out of step with the rhythm track and the entire thing is not as DJ friendly as you would want a retro dance track to be. This is unfortunate.

My second impression of the song was that it was a rough copy, because there’s parts of the second verse where it just feels like they forgot to put some instrumentation in or something. Kimberely sings along just fine, but she outclasses the mix by a mile. She’s always been classy and frankly, I think she’s worthy of a better mix.

The hook is a little odd in that it focuses on a melody that moves in a downward motion instead of an upward motion. Yes, the contrariness of this will make it stick out, but when you’re singing lyrics about moving with the flow and soaring high and such, you don’t want the melody leading you down the basement stairs.

I enjoy Kimberely Locke very much and I wanted to love this record. It’s intentions are good. It’s a shame that the result is rather mediocre. If I were still spinning in the clubs, it’d be an early night record. If I were still on the radio, it’d be “lunar rotation”.

If you’d like to hear the track, a sample is available on YouTube. Click here!

6 April 2010 by Everyone's A Critic. 0

Scenery.

IMG_0259.jpg

It is scenery like this that makes me smile. It is scenery like this, as taken along my commute on “New Turnpike Road” that was a contributing factor to my change in jobs at the beginning of March. Today I drove home with all the windows down, the iPod playing my favorite tunes on the radio and the beautiful countryside gently rolling by.

Spring has sprung in these parts. And my heart is soaring.

1 April 2010 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Subway

The Subway (sandwich shop) closest to the office gets a lot of my business. They are the healthiest choice around for the days that I don’t pack a lunch and they are always busy. This store is situated in the only mall nearby (which has six stores) and is owned by a beautiful straight couple who appear to be hardworking. I like their attitude and their dedication to the store. Plus they’re not bad to look at and they also honor the Subway card points system where I basically get frequent flyer miles.

I always eat the same thing; I ask for a meal deal that includes a six inch veggie on wheat with no cheese and the red vinegarette dressing. I opt for baked chips and unsweetened iced tea. One day when my work badge was hanging out the wife noticed my name and now she calls me by name each time I pay for my order. I like that. She even does it when my badge is in my pocket as I tested my theory.

I was telling someone that part of why I’m enjoying my new job so much is because I’m working in a smaller town where people just seem nicer to me. Whenever I go to the Subway near the house I’m always grateful to get what I ordered without a side of spit. God they are surly at that store. Half the time you can put your tray on top of the trash bin when it’s time to go because the tray is stuck to the dirty table. That’s why we don’t go to the Subway near the house very much.

The new job has me working in a town that hearkens back to my days of growing up. Ironically, I now work for the same telephone company that serves my hometown. When I was in second or third grade I remember wondering what it would be like working for the phone company in our small town.

Now I know.

31 March 2010 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Visit.

My cubicle at work is on the end of the row closest to the windows. As I was up to my elbows in PHP and MySQL programming today, totally focused on the two monitors in front of me, I noticed a little bit of commotion outside of my cubicle. My co-workers were lining up and looking out the windows at our visitors.

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With this little visit from our friends in the woods and the ensuing conversation, I learned a little more about my co-workers. None of it was unpleasant.

29 March 2010 by Ponderings and Musings 1

Just Stop!

So a downstate elected official introduced a bill to ban the use of salt in restaurant kitchens in an effort to get the populous healthier. Do I find this intrusive? Of course I do. While moderating salt intake is a good idea, it is the responsibility of each individual to be sensible, not the government’s.

Now this same official has introduced a bill to require the use of helmets on ski slopes. He has admitted he’s never been skiing. Again, this is another attempt of an elected official to try to legislate personal responsibility. Helmets on skiiers and snowboarders? Yes, if they’re young children or if you want to but it shouldn’t be a law.

I believe this official, who’s name escapes me at the moment and I’m typing this in the car so I can’t look it up, should be relieved of his overzealous approach to governing the people at the earliest opportunity. However, I want this to go a step further.

If the folks in Albany truly cared about it’s citizens, they would introduce legislation that would split the state into two parts for bills of this nature. Elected officials that have never been north of Yonkers have no right to introduce laws that will affect people that live 400 miles away in an area that some in NYC describe as a “snowy Alabama”. This would be like a Buffalo legislator introducing a bill requiring the use of snowmobiles on all city streets in the state when there is more than two inches of snow on the ground. Upstate (north and west of Kingston) is an entirely different world than downstate and I firmly believe that both sides of that cultural divide would be better off if they split into two legislative districts. I don’t know how this would be accomplished but I wish someone would figure it out.

26 March 2010 by Why. 5

Butt Dialing.

The iPhone: a symbol of the modern age, the very depiction of leaps and bounds beyond the tricorder from the future, the epitome of all that is hip, cool and edgy. Right?

It has made me feel very foolish tonight. It butt dialed our friend Mark during dinner. He got to listen in to various rants about religion, sleeping habits and other family business during our dinner.

I didn’t think that a touchscreen phone would be able to butt dial but mine apparently does.

The iPhone. It’s just another phone that’s made me feel like an ass.

25 March 2010 by Ponderings and Musings 1

Somewhere.



Somewhere., originally uploaded by iMachias.

I was enjoying the Zen experience of my evening commute when my iPhone vibrated next to my stick shift. Amongst the eye rolls of the critics and against the letter of the law, I picked the phone up, hit the fake “Answer” button and said “hello”. It was my sister.

We exchanged some idle chit chat as well as some geek speak. During our conversation she asked me a question I have heard a lot lately, “How is the new job going?”

I answered her truthfully.

“I still can’t believe that I have this job.” She sounded worried when I said that so I reassured her with the more of the truth, “It has been my dream job since I was 20 years old, I feel like I’m solidly back on my career path for the first time in a long time and I’m making more money than I thought I would at this age. And I really love my commute.”

That last statement is in reference to what I consider the icing of this new gig. I have an hour drive in each direction on my commute. Being somewhat more of a morning person than I have in a long while, I still opt to take the fastest way possible to work in the morning: I head down the Thruway, get off at one of the many rural exits and go up the hill six miles or so to the office, which is nestled in between two small cities. The drive takes me just an hour. I have mastered navigating the small traffic jam of buses, Wal*Mart Distribution Center trucks and other commuters near the Thruway interchange. Other than that, it’s a piece of cake.

I come home at a more leisurely pace as I opt for the back roads that take me through Amish country. The ride is shorter by distance but because I can’t drive as fast, it takes a few minutes more than the morning commute. The ride is well worth it though. After some experimentation during the first week of the new job, I have come up with a route that is very rural and involves many back roads, so I see very little traffic. I do, however, see the bridge that I snapped a photo of as pictured above. This bridge is a hundred feet or so from the Montgomery-Herkimer County line. It crosses the Barge Canal (which is the modern version of the Erie Canal) and it carried the predecessor to the road I travel everyday (aptly called ‘River Road’). In the foreground is the Erie Canalway Bike Trail that crosses New York State.

While it looks like that bridge now leads to nowhere, I kind of think of it as showing me that I’m somewhere. I feel like I’m somewhere again and it’s a really good feeling.

Here’s another interesting note about my commute. As I have mentioned before, I keep a dream journal; a place where I jot down my more memorable dreams in as much detail as possible. I don’t extrapolate, I record what I dreamed of and that’s it. I was flipping through it the other night when I came across an interesting entry:

“September 19, 2003: It’s windy. Feels like mid summer. The sky is dark. I’m driving home from my job in Johnstown(?) in a black car. I’m between Canajoharie and Fort Plain. I can see the Fort Plain sign and behind it in the distance, a tornado. I pull the small car over and head for ditch as I see the tornado getting closer. The sky goes green as I jump into the ditch. The tornado passes but the car is untouched and I am safe. Then the sun came out.”

This is a little interesting, because in 2003 I never dreamed of working in Johnstown (one of the two cities that my office building is in between), nor did I drive a black car at the time (the Acura is black and was purchased in 2005) and my commute brings me between Canajoharie and Fort Plain.

Summer storm season might be interesting on my commute.

23 March 2010 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Sensible.

So today I met a fellow iPhone user. This in itself is not remarkable as I see lots of iPhone users everyday. What is remarkable about this is that this particular guy has an original iPhone and it looks like it’s been dragged behind a car for a couple of dozen miles. The metal back is all dented up and scuffed and a corner of the glass is cracked. I overheard him say that there’s no sense in buying a new phone because this phone still works; he can text, make calls and listen to the iPod.

I find this attitude to be quite refreshing. I often have my eye on the next goody on the tree. I like buying new toys, even when the older toy isn’t worn out, it’s just not as shiny anymore. In the grand scheme of things this doesn’t make much sense.

I have been thinking of getting a new phone just because I’m tired of my iPhone and because I’m not entirely onboard with the closed nature of the architecture of the device. but it works and it does what I need it to do. When either of these things are no longer true, then I will get a new phone. the same goes for my computers.

It’s time to be a little more sensible.

20 March 2010 by Geek Ponderings and Musings 0

Happy.



Happy., originally uploaded by iMachias.

We are back from our final day at a theme park. Today we spent the day at Epcot, concentrating mainly on the World Showcase. This is one of my favorite parts of Walt Disney World.

We decided to go clockwise around World Showcase instead of the usual counter-clockwise way, so we ended up eating lunch in China. It was quite good. Table service had no reservations left but fast food was quite acceptable and just as enjoyable so we made the best of it.

One of my favorite countries in World Showcase is that of our northern neighbor Canada. I always get chills during the circle-o-vision 360 presentation of “O Canada!” and since they updated it in 2006 it has been even more enjoyable. (Prior to 2006 the attraction played the movie dating back to the opening of the attraction back in 1982). If you have seen this attraction before, you’ll notice one scene from the first film in the second. I’ll let you figure out which one it is. The update also includes the beautiful “Canada (You’re A Lifetime Journey)”, this time sung by 2006 Canadian Idol winner Eva Avila. You can hear the track here.

We wrapped up the day by taking a spin on the GM Test Track. After the attraction you get to walk through a little showroom of the latest GM vehicles. I noted that there wasn’t any mention of the Chevy Volt; I expressed an interest to one of the attendants and she is going to e-mail me some information. Earl and I first sat in a Chevy Impala at this attraction 10 years ago and we ended up buying one shortly after our visit. Who knows, we might buy a Volt next.

All in all this has been a great trip. I feel very relaxed and centered. Tomorrow we hit the road to head back north.

19 March 2010 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Centipede.

So yesterday we went to DisneyQuest, Disney’s mega arcade type place at Downtown Disney. DisneyQuest has five floors of all types of games, including elaborate virtual reality challenges, tabletop games such as air hockey, games you dance to the beat with and more importantly, there are classic arcade games scattered throughout the facility. I wandered about looking for a particular logo to catch my eye. As I reached the fourth floor, what I was looking for was finally found…

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… my heart leapt with excitement as I stumbled across a bank of classic Atari games, including one of my favorites, CENTIPEDE!

It’s been a really long time since I played Centipede and I needed a few warm-up games to get my game on, but after a few run throughs I was back on my game as if it was 1982.

centipede_large.png

As I was spinning the trackball like the Atari Ace that I used to be, a few youngsters gathered ’round to see what the middle aged guy was doing to this arcade machine. I believe I was cheering out loud and probably a little more demonstrative than I realized. One kid remarked, “you’re really good at this game!” That made me feel good.

So I spent a good hour or so playing Centipede. I would glance around from time to time and noticed that the classic arcade games were being played by folks around my age.

I guess that’s what Disney had in mind the whole time.

DisneyQuest is pretty cool. We also became somewhat addicted to a game called “Flamin’ Finger”, which involved tracing a maze on a touchscreen with your finger before the timer ran out. It wasn’t as easy as it looked but a lot of fun.

By the way, I just installed the Atari 2600 version of Centipede on my computer. When we get home I might have to go hunting for an old Atari 2600 for the house.

I’ll be the coolest kid on the block once again.

18 March 2010 by Geek 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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