musical revival

So until recently it's been over ten years since I touched my guitar with any kind of serious intent to play it. I've tried a few times over the years to get myself back into it, but it hasn't ever stuck.

I reached this point because shortly after "retiring" from the band I was in, and a few days before starting my first job in software development (an internship at the University of Arizona), I broke a finger on each hand. Imagine the sheer nerve of me showing up for my first paying job with each hand sporting a splint. My boss just stared at me for a few moments. I hunted and pecked for a few weeks.

Anyway, my guitar playing was put on hold during that time, and then the sheer pace of life kept me from returning to it.

A little over a month ago, on a whim I purchased Cakewalk's Music Creator. It's a software virtual musical studio. It's lightweight, easy to use and comes packed with virtual instruments ranging from the parts of an orchestra to a bunch of synthesizers. Since then I've been writing a song a night; I use the term 'song' a bit loosely. In some cases it's a complete song, and in other cases it's just a section of a song. As a side effect of this I pick my guitar up several times a day and it's been great fun.

I'm currently saving up for a usb audio interface so I can plug my guitar directly into the computer and record tracks with the software. And then I'd like to get a Gibson SG and a fender tube amp. And a wah pedal. Maybe a vocoder rig. And then I want to teach myself drums: it's been a blast creating drum lines on this software. Some of the lines I've written probably aren't actually possible for one drummer to play w/o grafting a third arm onto their torso. Good luck w/that.

Somewhere in this house, Emily is cringing. So I'll assure her that the only part I'm serious about is the audio interface. And the SG. And..and..

What the hell is this?

I forgot I had a blog!

Anyway, during the last year or so I've been working to change my career. I love being involved with designing and writing software, but I really don't enjoy doing it for other people, and having to do so has slowly but surely strangled my love of all things softwarish. So I decided to pursue a dream I've always had: to be a novelist, writing things I'd enjoy reading as opposed to things that can be considered 'literary fiction'.

For most of my life I considered creative writing to be an innate skill: either you have it or you don't. This has recently changed. I realized (and then felt quite foolish for not realizing it right up front) that writing is a craft that must be improved through practice. It's like playing the guitar: all the best guitarists spend a large part of their time practicing their craft. I read somewhere that Eric Clapton spent 5+ years basically locked in his house playing this guitar from morning to night with the obvious breaks during the day.

I guess that I still believe that an active imagination is still something that you have or don't have. I've always had that in spades. Most of the times I really value it and love it, and sometimes it's gotten me in trouble. I can't think of how many times I got myself in trouble in school by daydreaming. One such event was when I was in middle school and evidently the teacher had changed subjects to discussing Haiku. After a short silence when the students were paying attention, I was off in some dream world rescuing the damsel in distress and in general making a nuisance of myself to eViL everywhere. Suddenly the teacher asked me to share my feelings on baseball. I guess that was the topic we were supposed to be writing a quick Haiku about. So being completely out of touch with what was going on, I nervously started expounding on why I liked baseball. The entire class laughed and I still carry emotional baggage from that moment where my imagination got me in trouble. Let it go, Jeremy, let it go!

But other than the imagination, the technical aspects of writing, including learning to allow characters to drive the action, the ability to create and maintain a solid plot, and being able to allow what a character says and does give insight into who they are rather than freak out on adjectives and TELL the reader those things. Those are just a few of the things that I focus on every time I write, and over time I've gotten better at those things. Where I had to put a lot of conscious thought into doing the right thing, it's become more second nature. As my craft improves I find myself becoming more prolific. I'm sure that means I'm turning out a lot of complete shit, but the sheer enjoyment I find myself taking in telling a story is one of the things that makes me the happiest in life (kids & wife being others).

It's funny how writing used to be hard work: I always thought of it as the painful process of producing something that people will want to read. A story they'll find engrossing. But now, while it's still hard work and must be committed to entirely, it's not painful at all. It's joyous.

Anyway, I'm sure most, if not all of you, are sitting there saying 'Duh, Jeremy.' And if so, that's fine--it's well deserved. But this realization has dramatically improvement my relationship with my writing. Don't get me wrong--it's still immature and often I miss what I'm aiming for, but I'm taking a lot more joy in it these days and the dream feels much more attainable as a result.

Best buddies!

So Theo and I have been spending a lot of time together. His favorite activity currently (as the last time I posted) is watching me play World of Warcraft. If he's been good, I 'allow' him to watch me play. As you can imagine its really terrible to have to play a video game like this. I'd much rather do chores, or stay 'at' work longer or even just go to the dentist for a root canal.

Interestingly enough, this has allowed us to bond in a way I wasn't expecting. Last night he told Emily that he and I were 'best buddies'. This, of course, is the easiest way to make me deliriously happy and extremely suggestable. Hopefully he won't ever figure out the last part.

Worthy quotes from work

Here's a few things I've seen recently via email at work.

1.) A coworker's car wouldn't start and he was looking for jumper cables in the evening. He started with "Anyone got a pair?". It turns out that only myself and a few others were still online, and everyone but me was from either Russia or Hungary originally. None of them picked up the rather unsubtle reference.

2.) I told my boss (not meaning to--it just slipped out) that I was experiencing a little burn out recently, and he said "Let's get together over dinner and discuss your bo..." I don't know if he intended to be funny or not.

3.) Again with the ex-east bloc developers. The one from Russia--a wonderful person to work with and hang out with--sent an email out that said "Does anyone have a knife I can use to cut the cheese?". My pal Morry immediately responded to everyone saying "You need a knife for that? Sounds painful!"

There are many more, but these are the recent highlights...

The ongoing video game saga!

Otherwise entitled Theo Gamer II: Out of control!

We've managed to impose a 'system' on his gaming life at this point. He earns 'good' checkmarks and 'bad' checkmarks throughout the day...if he has more good than bad, he gets a half hour of video game time. if he does something extra special that we ask him to do (like read a book aloud for 30 minutes, or fold some socks) he can earn a 15 minute increment on that. This seems to be working sort of...he definitely wants to earn the good, and he gets upset when he earns a bad one. And we have a timer going when he uses up his playtime.

The new problem though is that he absolutely hates stopping, and is completely ungraceful about it. Last night he pitched a fit unlike one I'd seen in quite some time. I ended up picking him up and cradling him on the couch while he worked it out. At first he was punching and kicking to get away from me, but I just held onto him and spoke mellowly to him (imagine that!!). After a few minutes he subsided and we talked it out.

Internally I was completely aghast. My first thought was to remove all computers and video games from the house. But 1) that's a knee jerk reaction and wouldn't actually address the REAL issue, and 2) I'd have to move out with my computers and video games, leaving Emily in the parenting-lurch.

So I resolved that if I can help him through those moments when he simply can't have something he really wants, then eventually he'll learn to cope with it. I just have to remember to be cool and calm about it (not one of my stronger skills).

At any rate, the saga continues! Did Emily tell everyone about our Washing machine experience?

Posthumously posted

Not me...this:

http://www.andrewolmsted.com/

Its fairly intense. Now, personally I find some of the many quotes of Babylon 5 slightly cheesey, but that in and of itself seems to give the post a certain sense of reality. If it was really contrived for the sake of contriving it, it would have had much more pseudo-intellectual quotes and such. I also really loved the minimization of the political aspects of his death. It felt personal and all in all, I felt kind of sad that he wasn't someone I'd met in real life. I'd gladly substitute someone like this for any one (or ten) of the software wrecking ego laden primadonnas I've met in my line of work.

Anyways, read it (its long) and discuss!

Video game junkie??

My son has discovered the joy of video games. This is not surprising given my own interests in the subject. We obtained a game that he loves to play at school--Hot Wheels Velocity X and he craves playing it 24x7. This is not surprising either. He is very young and hasn't learned to exercise the discipline and will power necessary to avoid falling into the deep hole of video game addition, and all the addictive behavior related (you know, stuffing the dog in the closet, arranging snacks and water and a little bucket for...waste, and then completely ignoring the outside world and the body's need for sleep). Unfortunately, neither have I at the ripe age of 40...so its a fairly bleak outlook. All of this is fairly normal for a youngster his age.

What's not very normal is that while he LOVES to play his video game, the word 'play' has a whole different meaning for him. For the most part what he really wants is to force Dad (that's me) to play the game while he sits nearby watching and bossing me around. "Turn there, Dad!" "Oh, you missed it AGAIN, Dad!" and various frustrated noises fill the room and for a change they aren't coming from me.

We have him on this somewhat complicated system of reinforcement and control whereby he can earn or lose video game time on a daily basis by being good or not. The system has a certain arbitrary aspect to it (its well designed to support the somewhat arbitrary needs of the Parental Units). So at any given time, he's got a fairly limited amount of gametime and he regularly chooses to have ME play ("Unlock the purple car next, Dad!" or "You drive and I'll shoot, Dad!") rather than playing by himself.

What does all this mean?