Category: grindstone

All about breadwinning.

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work-shirking


Lots of words, little to say. Random stuff I put together to make an entry.

So what do you think folks? I mean, about the blog, that is. How’s the blog doing these days? Still keeping your interest? Still inserting enough media and humor and current-event stuff to be relevant and entertain you? I dunno, I’m not thinking of giving up or anything – just interested in a blog “physical” of some sorts… wondering what’s working and what’s not. Strange I guess, when, ultimately, I don’t care… I’ll write what keeps me writing in the end. But I try to keep a good pace: funny stuff, pictures, charts, etc. I feel like I post often enough to consider myself a “regular” blogger, not some fly-by-night joker who posts next to never. I think I’m doing a fine job… right?

Does being a dad make you dumber?

I, for one, am beginning to wonder. Before we had Keaton, I prided myself on my ability to multitask, think clearly and logically, and plan with multiple contingencies. I was the “solid” one between Sharaun and I: the one who paid the bills, the one who would’ve been on time had she not held me up, the neat-freak, etc. But now, something seems off… ever since Keaton was born, I feel sometimes like all my cylinders aren’t firing properly.

Take for instance Sunday night, we had been invited to a birthday soiree down at the local pizzeria for a friend of ours, had known about it since early in the week and was actually looking forward to it. Come Sunday though, Sharaun and I both blanked on it. Sitting on the couch, eating some Chinese takeout, and watching TV – we got a call from someone at the fete asking us, “You guys still coming?” Case #2: After missing my 2nd Lasik evaluation last week, I’d rescheduled for Monday morning – even blocked out my work calendar from 8am-1pm so I’d get no meetings scheduled on top of it. Problem is, I didn’t write down what time the actual appointment was. Feeling like a heel, I just headed up guessing 9am (and got lucky). Strange though, those kinda brain-farts never used to plague me so…

Interestingly enough, I picked up a copy of Scientific American while sitting in the waiting room of that Lasik eval and happened on an article about how women’s’ “multitasking and cognitive” abilities actually increase during pregnancy and after childbirth. In addition, the study noted that fatherhood had quite the opposite effect on men, their multitasking and cognitive abilities showing a decrease upon the miracle of childbirth. Almost like a trade, the man seemingly giving up some of his mental-mojo so his mate can better care for the new life they created (my editorializing). Anyway, it was comforting to see that I’m only getting stupider because of science, not because of anything I’ve done (unless you count making a baby). Now… what the heck was I talking about…

Well, despite a series of hiccups with my Lasik schedule – I did manage to bottom out on price and dates and setup an appointment for lasering this Thursday. That means, as you read this, I have only two more days as someone who’s vision-impaired. I managed to do a little wheeling and dealing, bringing the cost down to something I feel is fair – although I still have this feeling I could get a couple hundred more knocked off if I really played hardball. For me though, I have the money – and at some point during the negotiations I began to feel guilty, quoting “fake” prices I’d got from “other” Lasik places… but I did manage to get the original quote reduced by $400 per eye. That’s on the best laser currently available, at least according to my research. I’m now more excited than ever, and literally can’t wait to go under the knife/laser and get it over with. I have high hopes that I won’t be one of the unlucky 1/10,000 folks for whom the surgery actually worsens their vision… keep your fingers crossed for me, k?

Work has been hard for me lately. Not the part where I get up and go to a building every morning at 8am, not the part where I sit at my desk or go to meetings or send mails. No, not even the part where I meet deadlines. The part that’s been hard has been the actual “work.” With some recent shakeups that’ve been going on, I’ve become horrible unmotivated. Oh, I’m still getting things done, sure… but I haven’t cared for more than a week now. I know this will pass, it always does… and then I realize my “not caring” has put me into a little hole that I’ll have to do double-time to dig out. This is fine with me, it’s a known cycle and I’ve accepted it. It’s almost like I have a manic-depressive or bipolar work ethic. For months I’ll be balls-out, 200% burning the candle at both ends and proud as hell of the work I’m doing. Then the lull will take over, and I’ll go into a “maintenance” phase where I’m simply reactive, doing enough to get by and keeping a low profile. Thankfully, the overdrive times seem to outnumber the lulls, leaving me with a solid B+/A average – again something I’m comfortable with. I don’t see an easily identifiable endpoint to this current funk; Thursday’s surgery won’t help, neither will the long weekend or the following weekend’s planned camping trip. The week-and-a-half long trip to FL in July certainly won’t shore up my dedication, and sunny summer days are like the crack to my work-shirking crackhead personality.

Love ya peoples, goodnight.

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once more to the skies


Not much meat today, but I didn’t want to do one of those skip-two-days things again. We fly to Oregon tomorrow (we’re already gone as you read this), for a work/vacation thing (I work Wednesday through Friday, hang with the folks in the evenings and on the weekend). Keaton’s first flight, and we have to roll out of bed at the ungodly hour of 3am in order to get ready and catch out 6am flight. Wish us luck, OK?

Work’s got me in a rut… some recent goings-down there have shaken up my responsibilities and rendered a good part of the planning I’ve done over the last six months moot. Gave me occasion to sit aimless for a bit, without direction, wondering where and how to get back into things. I’m reluctant to go back and redo all my careful planning, as I’m somewhat concerned the dust hasn’t quite settled and it may all be for naught. I will admit, though, that a Tuesday with no direction and no solid deadlines was kinda nice…

Progress on ripping the very last remnants of my CD collection is moving along swiftly, thanks to the bootleg-wizard script I wrote to tag-up the resultant MP3s. I’m working through the Beatles at a breakneck clip, and excited about the prospect of finally getting down to zero physical CDs and an all-digital music library. Well, to be honest I do have plans to box up some of my original Beatles bootlegs and store them for safekeeping – as they’re rather rare and have a high sentimental value. But all the CD-R copies of stuff I traded for over the years is going right in the bin – trash.

Until Oregon, goodnight.

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toting around a powder keg


Luckily, my customer meeting in the bay ended early enough that I was able to catch an earlier flight home – putting me on the ground and at home with enough daylight left to mow the jungle we call our lawn. Blissfully isolated from the cacophony by virtue of my new headphones, I trudged around in the so-tall-it’s-seeding green stuff, stopping every minute and a half to empty the dang bag. It’s high time I got a new mower… it could make the job so much easier.

Before having a baby, I never realized how self-conscious parents can be. Having one myself now, I can tell you that, for me, at least, toting around my powder keg of a daughter can, at times, be very nerve-wracking. The minute she tears off into a crying fit with people around, I immediately feel eyes on me. Some people, likely parents themselves, flash knowing smiles – but in my over-thinking head those same smiles come with hinted undertones and accusations: why can’t you quiet your baby, why’s your baby always upset, are you not a good parent? I know most of these fears are likely unfounded, but I have them nonetheless. I can actually understand why new parents often end up cloistering themselves with other new parents, as they likely feel none of these “all eyes on me” fears when in similarly self conscious company. May sound odd, but I bet I’m not the only one to have felt this way… am I?

No more writey, sleepy.

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hey! all i have to type is ‘y’

Monday, and a hectic one at that. One of those stupid-busy days where you get a invitation at 8am to a 2hr meeting that starts at 8:30am – and every usable minute of time until 5pm is otherwise booked. A frustrating day where you can barely run one task to completion before getting derailed onto something else. And now I have only an early wakeup and flight to the Bay to look forward to… not much in the way of comfort. OK… OK… get ready for some boring crap, you can glaze right over if you don’t care about music and MP3s and whatnot, but you’re not gonna get much otherwise.

As I sat thinking this past Sunday night about my recent CD offload, my mind drifted back to the amount of work that’s stiff unfinished in my CD ripping project. Thus far, I’ve converted nearly 600 CDs to MP3 format, subsequently selling off the now “redundant” physical discs. However, I’ve got that many over again, slightly more actually, left to rip – consisting entirely of bootlegs (the majority being Beatles bootlegs). I chose to rip commercial CDs first because they are commonly available and their information can be located online, merged into most CD-ripping programs, and auto-added to the resultant MP3 files’ ID3 tags. This automated tagging process is great. Bootlegs, however, are by nature unauthorized recordings and therefore not commonly available – and they just don’t auto-tag nicely via CDDB or any other large online database. This leaves he who desires to rip his bootlegs to manually add ID3 tags to his bootlegs – a grueling, arduous process to which I was not looking forward. However, back to my Sunday night thinking…

I started thinking how great it would be if I could auto-import ID3 tag info from the great bootlegzone.com website. Bootlegzone contains album details for nearly every Beatles CD in existence, bootleg or not, as well many other artists. Too bad common MP3 tagging softwares can’t parse that database and grab information… or can they? The Godfather, a completely freeware MP3 tagging application, supports Delphi script add-ons which can be used to parse webpages and import information over already-ripped albums. Could I write a Godfather add-on that could parse bootlegzone.com pages and import the data onto ripped bootlegs? You bet I could, and did. Four hours of tinkering later, and I had a script that reads in bootlegzone.com pages and imports album title, artist, song titles, year, label, and even album artwork in JPG form. You have no idea how much time this will save me. Now I can just give a disc a placeholder title (for later ID) when I rip it, and run the resulting folder through the Godfather/bootlegzone script as post-processing – and all my files are tagged instantly. Sure beats entering song titles and information one-by-one off the back of the CD.

If you’re interested in my Godfather script to read in MP3 information from bootlegzone.com, you can always get the latest version by clicking this link. Note: Before you use this script, please read the 11/11/06 update below and make sure you grab the “automate.scl” file that solves a potential Windows-related filenaming problem.

A general update history for the script is as follows:

  • 5/2/06, Script complete; grabs artwork, track number, track name, album name, artist name, comments, year, and label information from bootlegzone.com disc pages.
  • 5/3/06, Fixed the script to remove the trailing periods after track numbers, tracks now tag-up in the preferred ‘0x’ format. 5/3/06, Fixed an issue where not all tracks were being grabbed (ambiguous string compare), and added some extra error handling to track string ops.
  • 5/4/06, Added “intelligent” support for ‘various artists’ albums. Script will compare album artist to each track artist, and determine if the album is of the ‘various artists’ type. If so, tracks will be named accordingly (i.e. artist_name – track_name).
  • 5/9/06, Fixed a bug in “intelligent” support for ‘various artists’ albums where a track could be skipped if no track artist was specified.
  • 5/14/06, Added support for medley-type tracks (track titles which are simply placeholders for multiple sub-titles). Track grabbing now comprehends sub-tracks of a single track, and combines them into a single track name string. Looking at adding a switch to turn this and the various artists feature off, in case that’s desired.
  • 5/23/06, Added a bit of code to strip underscores from track titles (bootlegzone’s automated entry system relies on underscores, but they do ugly things to TGF’s tag/file case matrix).
  • 11/11/06, Discovered and interesting issue with the script. If you use the bootlegzone.com grabbed ID3 info to rename the corresponding file under Windows, and the combination of the number of characters in the filename and its containing folder are greater than 256 (for NTFS filesystem) – you’ll get a completely unusable file. It’ll rename itself to be longer than 256, and then you won’t be able to rename or delete it. I fixed this bug by changing the “automate.scl” script that I run on the “post processing” after scraping the tag info from bootlegzone. So, here’s the important bit: If you’re going to be renaming files as well as ID3 tags – make sure and use the modified “automate.scl” to avoid the >256 character filename issue. You can download my modified “automate.scl” by clicking this link.
  • 03/12/07, Sadly, www.bootlegzone.com is dead. Unfortunately, all my work is now for naught. I hope that you got some use of the script while the great site that was bootlegzone was around. Thanks for the good years, tilleul.
  • 04/14/07, Bootlegzone has risen from the ashes, and my script is once again useful. Enjoy.
  • 06/01/07, Just a little helpful hint for basic Godfather configuration. I like to name my files with a “track# tracktitle” formatting – no dash, no artist name, no album name. Whatever your preference for filename (we’re not talking ID3 info here), I encourage you to incorporate the track number. This way, you’ll avoid “unable to rename file” errors when an album may contain two ore more versions of the same song (especially common with bootlegs). You can set your renaming mask preference in the “Use Variables” entry-box under The Godfather’s “Rename” tab. I know The Godfather can be overwhelming at first, but this should help avoid confusing errors.
  • 11/25/07, The script now grabs two additional pieces of BootlegZone track information: the “version” and “sub-version” strings (when available). This is a nice improvement, as you’ll get detailed information about the tracks, such as take-number, live venue, etc., embedded in the ID3 tag and filename. The version/sub-version information is appended to the track title string in parentheses. An example of the improved information this addition provides would be as illustrated below:

Previous naming scheme:

01 I Am The Walrus
02 I Am The Walrus

New naming scheme, with version/sub-version data included:
01 I Am The Walrus (Take 2, Overdub)
02 I Am The Walrus (TV, David Frost Show)

Grab the latest version from the link above to get these changes.

  • 06/17/08, Fixed a small bug in the medley track naming routine for the case when there are more than 10 sub-tracks in the medley.  Also refined the naming scheme to account for some bootlegzone medley naming irregularities.

Enjoy it!  Goodnight.

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mover and a shaker


Hung over?! Are you serious? I thought that didn’t happen to me; steel constitution and all.

German Dopplebock, something called “Alligator,” if I recall. Not only that, but the dang cigarettes finally caught up with me. I still don’t know what it is about those beastly things that my psyche holds an attraction to – something about looking “Euro” perhaps. I’ll trade this pain in my throat and sickness in my belly for looking Euro anyday though – as is always the case when I try and extend my “cool” via those awful, awful things. I have to give Pat the nod for attempting to contact my common-sense department when the idea to “try some local German smokes” crossed my mind. “Why?” He asked, “Won’t they just make you feel like ass like any cigarettes?” Yes; yes they will indeed. It’s like going to a different country and wanting to taste their version of the shit sandwich – you’re pretty much guaranteed it’ll be just as bad as the one they serve at your local cafe. Enough… let’s move on.

Killed another presentation today, or, at least I thought did. When I sat down, Pat told me I bounce and sway too much. Unfortunately, this is not news to me – it’s been one of the banes of my public speaking skills for as far back as I remember. I suppose, bouncing isn’t as bad as being totally unengaging or dry – but it’s still a downfall. Anyway, I thought the discussion went rather well overall, and was happy with my effort. Still not sure it was worth a week in Germany, but I’m not protesting too much.

Right now, though, it’s close to 7:30am on my body’s internal California clock – but it’s only 4:30pm here and some guy is presenting in a thick German accent that’s making me sleepy. I’m stuck here for another hour at least, I fear. So, I write. I’ve got my iPod plugged into my laptop to charge, but I can’t plug the laptop in for the wacky German plugs and my forgetting an adapter – so it’s really just trading electrons from one battery to another. At least the iPod will be ready for the journey home, that’s all I care about.

The city we’re staying in is actually really cool, and dates back to medieval times (you can still see remnants of the original city wall from the olden times). Our hotel is on a cobblestone street in the older section of town. The whole place feels very “Euro” to me: with its outdoor cafes and tiny cars. We ate dinner at a small cottage-looking place, out on a vine-clad patio as the sun set. The food, and beer, were excellent, and by the end of the meal I’d developed a nice swimmy head from the combination of sleeplessness and dunkel bier. I debated on joining the folks who’d come over on the short UK flight for another round of beer, but my fatigue got the best of me and I turned in around 9:30pm. Had a nice restful sleep and hit the ground running at 6:30am this morning. Now, to catch you up to the present so I can continue writing: I presented, we had more dinner, we went for beer (see the “hung over” bit above), slept, and it’s 7am Thursday here as I write this (I’ll get to sneak this entry in just under the wire for US Wednesday).

Yesterday, I’d mentioned I’d be posting some images from Germany as well as Keaton. Believe it or not, I think I’m going to be able to come through on both. Not having near as many pictures of Keaton as I thought I did, I had actually decided yesterday to postpone my semi-regular weekly-ish update to her gallery. But, talking to Sharaun, she’d mentioned she’d taken quite a few good ones since I’d been gone – so I decided to walk her through taking them off the memory card and uploading to my server whereupon I could retrieve and post them from the other side of the globe. Worked great, and I’m happy to be able to follow through and give you this update to Keaton’s Gallery. But wait, there’s more. I was also able to cobble together a short set of images from our first couple days – even going so far as to produce one of my little movies. You can watch it here: autobahn.unregulated, and check out the rest of the stills here.

And, that’s about it folks – the laptop is down around 20% battery and I didn’t bring the goofy German plug adapter. I’m off to catch the end of this episode of the German Flintstones and grab a shower before a sausage and potato breakfast. Not sure about posting Thursday and Friday US, as most of those days will be devoted to travel for me – but we’ll see.

Good-day to ya.

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steerage no more


Mowed the lawn after work today, by the grace of daylight savings time. I had been looking forward to it, not only because it was badly needed, but because I would get to try out my new E2c headphones in a situation where it’s notoriously difficult to hear music over ambient noise. I was amazed… the normally overpowering rumble of the mower’s motor was reduced to a barely audible background drone. I could hear every note of even the softest songs the iPod shuffled up – it was like I was sealed off from the world. Man, I love those things. Getting out in the sun with crisp tunes in my ear and a brown bandana tied ’round my head really helped to force the cobwebs of work out of my head. Work has been… cruel… lately, neverending. I’m ready for my trip to Germany, but only because I won’t be in the office every day.

I feel like a fool, y’all. All this time I kept wondering why my VIP 100k mileage status on United hasn’t been garnering me more upgrades. Then, today, I was browsing my mileage account on United’s website and I noticed a link called “E Upgrade Summary.” Hmmm… what’s that all about, I wondered. Turns out, I have this massive stockpile of e-upgrades just sitting there… accruing with me being none the wiser. They are wholly separate of my miles, different animals altogether – just plain old “free” upgrades. Turns out I have 14,000 miles in “bump one service class” upgrades for domestic flights, and 6 “bump one service class” for international flights. I was stunned. All the time, these things have just been sitting there. I flew three times last week, and could’ve been 1st class every time, had I only known. Needless to say, I used one of my international bump privileges to get into business and 1st class on my trip to Germany next week. What’s more, because I’m a 100k flier they don’t disappear when the expire, United actually converts them into miles straight up… I’ll never fly coach again.

I had stuff written last night, but it blew – and I worked until midnight.

Tonight, I didn’t do that. Goodnight.

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all the better to hear you with


Almost 8pm on a Monday night and it’s still light out. I love this time of year, when I can still have light enough to mow the lawn after work. In fact, I think I’ll do just that tomorrow evening – get this jungle of a yard under control before I leave next Monday for Munich. It’s hard to stay on top of a yard when unending rain not only prevents you from mowing, but also works like grass-steroids.

I was actually hoping for a slight respite at work this week, maybe a break from the pace set by my last pre-travel week. Looks like I’ll have no such luck. Things are intense, and look like they’ll remain that way for a while actually. Being a manager is starting to become a little easier, I think I’m getting slightly better at it. I still have a lot to learn, and I think I’ll only take the lessons to heart when they’re real-world things, as all the training and scenario-play can’t really build experience like real experience can. Good at my job or not, I’m certainly consumed by it of late… I think this week will be another storm right up until Friday. I am, however, excited about the trip to Germany… work or not, I’m planning on having a grand time regardless.

Germany! Too bad I’ll be one week too late to miss this show where one of my favorite bands of last year is supporting the Stars, who I’d love to see again too, consequently.

I learned something in recent travels-by-air: I hate my current iPod earbud solution. Having quickly abandoned the ubiquitous stock white iPod earbuds, I’d been using an over-the-ear pair a friend bought to replace a pair he’d lost. They were nice, but they hurt my ear after just a short while. I must have sensitive ears, or not understand how to use traditional earbuds properly… because the vast majority I’ve tried end up leaving my ears sore in short order. Previously, I thought I’d found the solution in those over-ear foam ones (not in-ear, they just rest round foam speakers against the ear). However, on a plane, or mowing a lawn, or doing anything where ambient noise is a detracting factor – they just don’t cut it. You really need that in-ear isolation that earbuds can give to get rid of the outside stuff. And, with my long flight to Germany looming – I figured it was time to get serious and drop the requisite dough to get a decent pair of earbuds.

So, having some Best Buy gift cards stored up – I hit the web to check the reviews. Confident in my research, I went in today after work fully intending to buy the reasonably-priced Sony MDR-EX71SL earbuds. I instead left with a pair of $100 Shure E2c earbuds. I know, $100 for earbuds? But man, let me assure you these things are amazing (and I only paid $30 for them after the gift cards anyway). When they are wedged in, you hear absolutely nothing – Shure’s “sound isolating” tagline isn’t just marketing fluff. I had Sharaun scream at me while listening to the Allman Brothers belt out “Dreams” live at Ludlow – and heard nary a peep, just watched her mouth open in a wide, soundless wail. The bass response is amazing for such little things, and they’re surprisingly comfortable for how “stuck” in your ear they have to be to work right. It is taking me a little while to get used to the increased pressure in my ear, which is a product of the tight seal they rely on – and I can actually “feel” the flex of the small waves of air in my ear canal. But man, even as I sit and type this while doing an extended-listening comfort test, I can’t hear a single keystroke over whatever Deep Purple track the iPod has shuffled to.

Goodnight friends, I’ve no more in me this evening.