Couple of us here on Hubski lost a good man this week to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a particularly wicked form of dementia that is also (thankfully) exceedingly rare. I seem to remember reading somewhere that 13 people have died of it in the last 5 years, or something. They don't know why it happens. They don't know the mechanisms of its operation. Someone just starts showing signs of early stage dementia, it progresses at lightning speed (faster than any other dementia diagnosis), and they are gone in 3-5 months.

I considered him my "extra Dad". He and his wife were friends with my parents before any of them were even married. We lived our lives side-by-side and even moved a couple states away to be near each other. When all four parents retired, they wound up buying a house together, and living two couples in one big house. It was pretty cool and many wonderful memories were made there on holidays and special occasions.

He was a brilliant man, and excelled at anything he put his mind to. So losing his cognitive abilities was particularly hard on him, but the speed of CJD was sort of a blessing there... he didn't suffer long.

I am filled with both a sense of loss and a sense of relief. I'll miss his sharp wit and clever comebacks and crafty endeavors. Rest well, my friend... you will be missed.

Fall happened in one day in Seattle, this year.

Last Thursday it was 80 degrees F, with an Air Quality Index of 200 (or "harmful to most people") due to wildfires across the state.

Friday it was raining and 55 degrees with an AQI of 10.

The rain has continued on and off ever since, and the temps haven't gotten above 60 degrees F, and all forecasts show that we are now fully into Fall and heading into Winter. The trees are suddenly all changing colors very quickly, and leaves and falling everywhere.

It's like fall landed with a big wet thump, all at once.

And I love it. I love this time of year...

Gonna try to take Dad (with Alzheimers) to a Seahawks game tomorrow.

He gets uncomfortable sitting in the car for long periods. The drive is going to be about an hour to get to parking, then we are going to have to Lyft to the stadium.

He can't walk very far, and has some days where his stability is better than others. We'll need to walk from the parking lot into the stadium and to our seats, which are not front row midfield...

He sometimes just "phases out", or loud sounds can annoy him. In a football stadium.

When his brain just shuts down and needs a break, he switches off pretty quickly. Much faster than I get get us out of the stadium, get him to a place outside where he can sit, while I run off to get a Lyft to my parked car and race back to the stadium to pick him up... and hope he hasn't had a forgetful episode and just wandered off somewhere in the interim.

Tomorrow is going to be capital-I INTERESTING. That's for sure!

Welp. It's been a few weeks of the usual weirdness in my life.

I'd almost beaten the cold/flu that everyone is getting and simply calling "not COVID", when our Seattle Seawolves rugby team were eliminated from playoff contention. We had an AMAZING game and played REALLY well... but didn't have the aggregate points throughout the season to make it into the post-season.

Except... the top team in the league was suddenly disqualified for management misconduct, so we were suddenly in 4th place in the Western Division, with one game to play against our oldest rivals, the San Diego Legion! We beat them handily, and suddenly were in the playoffs!

The head cold was abating, my team got a sudden reprieve and got into the semi-finals, and...

... that evening my Father-in-law died.

My wife and I went from the height of sports-feelings to dealing with parental loss, funeral planning, estate issues, and estranged family members going crazy, in about 5 minutes.

The next day we flew to Minneapolis for his funeral. Turns out he has left an estate that will keep all of his living relatives (me included) fiscally secure for the rest of our lives. The estranged family members were kept calm and the drama was avoided by having off-duty police officers at the funeral and the shiva at the synagogue.

On Thursday of that week, I woke up in our hotel room with my arm oddly positioned under my head, and a weird pain in my shoulder. That slowly developed over the weekend into a seriously pinched nerve that rendered my left arm useless, tingling, and in severe pain that kept me up all night.

That Sunday the Seawolves played the last game of the season, against the best team in our division, and completely decimated them! This was a team that "the team to beat", and two weeks before we had been in 5th place in a 7-team division. The turnaround by the Seawolves has been astounding, and we are playing the best rugby we have ever played.

Medical attention (massage, acupuncture, etc.) for my shoulder and some strategic pillow use and borrowing some opiates from friends got me some sleep during the week. But things at work exploded with a lot of new work coming in for me to do a lot of writing for... with my left arm hanging useless at my side. Typing 100-page sales proposals with one hand is Not Fun.

My electric lawn mower (Black Decker) died, and since DeWalt now owns BD, they closed their only B+D service center in the Pacific Northwest three months ago. I now have to ship my mower somewhere to get it fixed... meanwhile my grass continues to grow amazingly fast, as my left arm hangs limp and useless.

The Seawolves then whomped the Houston Sabercats at their home field in Houston, winning the Western Division, and putting us into the Championship against (it turns out) Rugby New York.

Got into my doctor for the shoulder, finally, and she prescribed Oxycontin and Prednisone - for the pain and nerve inflammation, respectively - and within 3 days my arm is probably 60% useful again!

But I cannot travel like this, so I am going to miss my Seawolves play Rugby New York for the Major League Rugby Championship on Saturday. We have won the Championship twice before, and I was at both of those games, and am shattered that I can't go to this one. :(

So my wife and sister-in-law are both going to travel together and go to the game!!

Meanwhile, Moxie - my lovely Anatolian Shepherd/Malamute - is in heat, and FEELING SO MANY FEELINGS right now... I'm trying to keep her entertained, but we can't visit the dog park or run off-leash at all until she isn't fertile any more.

And also meanwhile, I have now changed my work schedule so I am off work Tuesdays and Thursdays to spend time with my Dad, who has early stage vascular Alzheimers. My mom and sister take care of him 24x7, and need a break. And, he "charges up" when he's with me. He is more lively, engaged, and more communicative when we have spent time together, and it usually lasts a day or so. It's nice to be able to give them a break, and also have such a positive effect on him and his enjoyment of life.

Today I get another massage on my shoulder. Tomorrow my Physical Therapy starts. And Saturday at 9:AM (pacific time) the Seawolves take the pitch to try for their THIRD championship in the Major League Rugby league's short 5-year history.

And with the family windfall... I now get to consider the possibility of retiring. Which is weird. What would I do with my time if I didn't have a job to get up and go to? For approximately 20-25 years?

I've had a job every day since I was 16... and never had any possibility of retiring. Ever.

Life is weird, man.

When I moved back to the US from Budapest, the last leg was Heathrow to SeaTac via the Great Circle route at night ... and the aurora was visible at eye level outside the aircraft for almost the entire flight.

People were all asleep, and I was standing looking out the portal on the door, watching the aurora for hours.

It's the only time I have seen it.

I didn't get the groovy job I really wanted... I think they probably gave the job to a woman. The company has a LOT of really amazing women working there already, and when faced with a generic middle-aged white guy with a broad work history and widely varied talents, or hiring a woman with specific relevant skills, I suspect they went with the woman.

And that's cool. Honestly, more power to them. Just makes me want to work there more, honestly. So tired of companies run by sad old white men... it'd be refreshing to work with people who have the actual skills to do the job, and aren't simply white men that failed their way to the top. The longer I work in corporate America, the more I realize that the men at the top are simply the survivors of attrition ... not the talented ones. The good ones leave. Old men just get promoted to the C-suite.

---

My sister is - right this moment - texting from the ER where she is with my Dad, who is experiencing severe dementia (Alzheimers with Loewy Body diagnosis), after only being diagnosed on Friday. The Alzheimers came on like a truck, and by Monday he was fully deeply into the Alzheimers journey. He's manic and hasn't slept much, and is hyper-fixated on irrational things ... the one that sticks with me is that he was insisting he needed a pair of scissors so he could cut circles out of the LED clock next to his bed ...

Meanwhile, Mom's breast cancer surgery on Thursday went well, and she is in recovery... where she can't raise her arms for the next 6-8 weeks. With Dad's mania running through the night, she's unable to sleep, but is still feeling better and healing well.

My dog and I are gonna head up to their house in a few minutes to see Dad when he gets home. Both me and the dog have the power to pull him out of wherever he is, and into the present. Hopefully we can connect with him, give him some peace for a bit.

But ... this is Alzheimers. This is the journey. He won't get better. And every day his brain will be different, will work differently, and he will be a different person. You just grab on to the seat and take the ride...

I have friends in Ukraine, and a friend with a Ukranian wife whose family is still there. I am invested.

In other news, I did my Annual Performance Review for 2021, and in every single metric and measure far exceeded my goals. So I gave myself a glowing write-up and a rating of "Outstanding", which I have never done before.

My manager just completed their half of the assessment and rated me "Below Acceptable". In his review of my performance he claimed multiple of my ideas and achievements for himself, dating all the way back to 2019. He also said I don't appreciate our products, because I point out their flaws. Well dude, my job is literally to take a long list of customer-supplied requirements and measure them up against our products, and then sell them our products as the answer to their needs.

If the customer is expressing needs our products don't deliver on, that's not my fucking problem, is it?

My rebuttal to my annual review - with receipts going back to 2017, showing the projects I have been responsible for that came to fruition last year, and made last year so epic - is up to 9 pages now, and will be the basis for my legal action against my employer.

And hey - in other news, my second interview in two days went well! The company wants to hire within the next two weeks, and I have one more interview coming up.

The only constant is change...

My wife has found a vacation home on the Washington coast that she REALLY wants us to look closely at. So we are gonna do that.

Really weird to think that I am in a place to look at purchasing a vacation home... but here I am.

The big problem is that it has an attached heated shop... which my home doesn't even have! I may never come home again... :-)

It's the little things that make my life full and happy right now.

The chicken korma I made last night was yummy.

My dog comes into my room in the morning, checks if I am awake, and if I am, she places her head on my bed next to me so I can cuddle her face, rub her head and neck, and we have a little love sesh every morning.

Fallout 76. I know I'm the only person in the world that still plays this game, but I like it. It's calming, and it goes at my pace. I can go out a do battle, if I want, or I can stay home and build my camp and sell equipment and supplies to other players. Simple and relaxing, brain-switched-off time.

My job continues to pay me, despite having no work to do, no direction, and no management. I've decided to accept the free money as long as they want to give it to me, or until someone else offers me something interesting to do. I was all fired up to quit Jan 1 in some fit of righteous indignation - "how dare you fail to maximize your use of my skills!?!" - and then I realized how many things I have auto-billed to my credit card every month and thought, "ya know... having money coming in is a Good Thing." So I have chilled out.

My family is healthy and well.

The fridge is full of food.

I've checked off the full Maslow's list, I think. And that's an accomplishment to be proud of in this day/age/time.

The drama at work increases... I had a direct, no hold barred, somewhat contentious discussion with a manager 3 levels up from me about my job. I said I had nothing to do, I had received no direction from my manager on what I am supposed to be doing, and my official job title and department are both no longer extant... but I still am a "Program Manager, Channel Sales".

He was aggravated with me for bringing this up, and I said I shared his aggravation, because I LIKE work, and having a career path, and knowing what metrics I need to hit on a quarterly basis to get my bonuses and promotions... neither of which I have had in three years, because I haven't had the same manager for two consecutive review periods during my 6-years of working here.

TURNS OUT, there is a huge reorganization of our sales department happening TODAY, several Executives are losing their jobs, and the whole department is being rebuilt from the ground up.

Confidentially, my manager told me my job is safe (I refrained from asking, "what job is that, exactly?"), so I wait and refresh my email, awaiting notice of the changes...

I have just discovered an entirely new-to-me underground niche... and I slowly back away, close the door quietly, and go on about my business like I never ever saw that door nor opened it.

Narrowing down the job offer that the Aussie company is sculpting for me. Emails going back and forth pitching ideas, work schedule - like, how do I help teams in Australia, New Zealand, San Diego, and London, and not work 24 hours a day?!? - and how to measure my deliverables and set good metrics for achievement. Also, how much of a chunk of the biz do I get when they/we sell in 4-5 years?

Current job: People have pretty much forgotten I exist. Which is OK by me. Saw a New Hire notification of someone being hired in another department/team... with my same job title, and role. (Functionally speaking. Technically my role is broader-focused, but in reality all the work I do falls directly within this new guy's domain.)

Dealing with in-law stuff is hard. My wife is the youngest of three daughters, and I overhear conversations where she is still treated as the baby - like a child - when she's in her 50's now. Familial roles are hard to shake, man! But, fortunately her skillset is becoming very valuable to her elderly parents, as their lives wind down, and they are beginning to understand the powerhouse capable amazing woman their youngest daughter has become. That part is kinda cool to witness... and then they are back to talking-down to her like she's a child again.

Meanwhile, my dad continues to just fade away, with moments of bright sharp lucidity interspersed with long periods of not really engaging or participating in life/conversations/anything, really. It's hard on my Mom, who is much more vibrant, capable, and cognitively engaged... yet needs to throttle those things to be my Dad's caregiver for most of the time.

And my knee is responding well to acupuncture. Again. I hate acupuncture... it works EXTREMELY well, but does not, in any way, shape, or form, conform to my worldview of How Shit Works. "Energy flows" and "pressure points" and fucking meridians and other hocus-pocus bullshit is NOT how this world or life works. It's all just simple chemical and electrical processes that can be broken down and examined. Not "energy flows" and other hokum.

But holy fuck, does it work! My knee has been under Western Medical Care for a month, with little to no improvement. A single session of acupuncture has reversed the badness probably 80%, and I already know that the two-sessions-a-week will put me in great shape for hiking later this month in Sedona.

But I still don't understand it, or how it works, or why. But I know it does work, and I just need to stop denying it, and do acupuncture regularly.

Welp. I'm still kinda-sorta sick. I think this makes it three weeks now?

Weird thing is, literally everyone I know - except my parents - are sick with the same symptoms. Negative Covid test. Dry cough. Congestion. Poor sleep. Kinda like a head cold that just sticks around. For EVER.

Five of my neighbors.

Eight of my coworkers who have not been into the office in close to 2 years, and live in different states.

Dozens of friends online, both here in Seattle, and internationally. (UK and EU, mostly.)

Really tired of this shit.

In unrelated news, it started raining here in Seattle. First time in ... months?

My dog failed to wake me up last night to go outside, and shit and pissed on the floor in the rec room... which is where my office is. So I woke up to a shit-smelling house, after missing my alarm and going straight into three back-to-back hour-long meetings.

Dog feels terrible about this.

I'm just fucking done with little annoying shit, this week. And it's only Wednesday. Fuck.

+1

Ever since my rugby event, three weeks ago, I don't go out. I don't socialize. I stay at home and work, watch TV with my wife, walk my dog, water and trim my garden, play Fallout 76, and once in a while go to the dog park, where I keep distance from anyone else and conversation to a minimum.

And now I have a head cold.

Sheesh.

Welp. My rugby event went off excellently this weekend. 43 teams, 120 games on three fields, 2 days, 600+ players, and about 2k fans. Everyone was pretty thrilled with the event as a whole, and new teams took the trophies. We had about 6 weeks to plan this. Over 100 volunteers. And the entire event was filmed and streamed online, with full professional commentary from Olympians and USA Eagles players, as well as MLR luminaries.

It was quite an extraordinary thing to be a part of.

Now I'm downloading the 50 gig video files (ten of them) so I can chop them up into individual matches and get them posted to The Rugby Network and YouTube. Gonna be a few minutes, I tell ya!

Especially since I set the biggest part of the download to happen last night after I went to bed ... and we had a power outage from 2:AM to about 9:AM, that corrupted all of the files... so I need to do it all over again.

Sheesh.

Oh. And I have a day job, too.

Two big things:

1. I've started taking vacation time regularly.

2. My big rugby event is this weekend, and it's shaping up to be epic.

So, as a tech guy who grew up in Silicon Valley and learned that you are your job and nothing else... it took me a long time to realize that I EARNED vacation time and DESERVED to take it and the company would be JUST FINE without me for a few days here and there.

Having, once again, maxed out my vacation accrual, I've made it a policy to take time off regularly. So I've got a series of long weekends planned now through November. I'm taking three days this week - Thu, Fri, and Mon - to give myself time to produce the rugby event. Then a weekend to do special effects for a friend's documentary he's shooting in the desert. Then a really long weekend in Vegas for the USA v Ireland rugby match (and my sister-in-law's birthday). And going to the Jet Sprint Boat races another weekend.

And I'm really happy about all of this.

Tomorrow we go into crunch mode on the National Rugby 7s Championship tournament we are hosting here in Tukwila, WA. I'm building several structures for the event, managing all of the 15 vendors, and all of the Media for the event. Fun fun fun!

My wife is running all the volunteers (over a hundred of them!), and infrastructure stuff like signage, hospitality for the broadcasters and referees, etc.

The event will be streamed live on The Rugby Network (which currently has our ad on the front page), and will be shown overseas on Sky Sports, apparently?!?

Over 500 players. 43 teams (both mens and womens). 100+ games, on 3 fields, over two days. $20 for a ticket, or watch online for free.

It's going to be epic.

My boss had a 3-story, 5-bedroom, 5-bath house in primo Bellevue (high-priced area just outside of Seattle, close to Microsoft), and saw what houses were going for, and that he had the ONLY house of this size in the area, so he decided to pull up stakes and make the Big Move to the country. Buy land. Put a couple houses on it for his family. Get away from The Big City.

The house went up for sale, sold for an astronomical price after a bidding war drove it way past asking, and got no inspections, no questions asked, and two months to live in the house free while they found a new home.

They scoured Eastern Washington, found the perfect place on acreage with property rights to build another house on the site, put in the offer, was accepted, and packed up all their things.

They move this week.

Well... they WERE going to move this week.

Turns out the bank won't give him the money without an appraisal. Appraisers business model has changed dramatically since the subprime mortgage debacle (not going to get into it right now), but now appraisals are done anonymously, and at the appraisers discretion.

The appraiser said they'd be able to come out in 11 weeks. But for an additional $2500 they could come out this week. ahem.

Assessing the value of a home is done according to some fairly strict rules. Like, comparable homes must be within a certain distance of the appraised home.

Which is an issue when you move out to the country... my boss has ONE neighbor within the approved appraisal-comps radius.

So the bank has An Issue With The Appraised Value, in that it doesn't compare with the one other house in the area... which is apparently a doublewide trailer, not a new 5-bedroom home built in the last 10 years.

So the sale is on hold.

My boss is - literally today - moving all of his stuff out of his perfectly fine home in Bellevue, and moving it into 6 storage spaces in Eastern Washington. His family is moving into a hotel in Eastern Washington. The contractors that were supposed to start this week on critical renovations to the new home have been put off, and won't be available for another 2-3 months.

Real estate is fukt.

My home is paid off and my wife and I are leaving this house feet-first.

I've kinda fucked myself at work. Been unable to produce much, at all, for about two weeks. I am now within three days of three massive project deadlines, which I cannot miss because the documents need to be filed by a specific date/time to even be considered.

Just can't find my mojo. And the next three days (and probably my weekend) are going to SUCK because of it.

But we did figure out the design for our front yard that used to be a desert that used to be a lawn. Parking spot for my car. Dogwood tree. Japanese Maple. Various gorgeous low-lying plants like this Japanese sword grass, daphne, a butterfly bush, and about 6 other varieties of flowering and pretty-year-round perennials.

Of course now I have to borrow a truck to get the rental rototiller so I can till up the fresh soil we brought in last year, so I can drop another 6 yards of fresh new growing soil on top of that, so all these plants will have something to grow in... and need to have that done before next week so I can smother the ever-encroaching grass before it goes to seed and becomes a Serious Issue for my fledgling garden.

Oh. And i need to fill the four 169-gallon steel feeding troughs that are going to be our vegetable garden, so my wife can plant those right away so we can get some produce this year.

And then I need to finish the back patio that I got 3/4 finished last year before the weather changed and I couldn't work outside any more.

And I still need to replace the deck with the new composite (TimberTech Azek) decking.

And I need to do all this without using my right wrist too much and exacerbating my tennis elbow/nerve issue.

And I have my second vaccine dose tomorrow... which might not affect me at all, but also could put me out of commission for Thu/Fri this week, when I need to make SIGNIFICANT progress on my three projects that are due (one on Friday, two on Tuesday).

And yesterday my wife and I committed to helping produce a Rugby 7s tournament in Seattle in August.

So ya know. Same old same old. Boring stuff, really. :-)

The most common form of birth control taken by millions of women every day has a 10x greater chance of blood clots as a side effect.

Nobody worried about that tho...

Unsticking the boat leaves me stuck.

Good on her! She's better off without you. We all know you. We know what you did. You should be ashamed of yourself... treating her like that! She is a WONDERFUL woman, a generous wife, and honestly, she's a brilliant cook! I could die eating her papadam, they are so good!

Man. You really fucked this one up. Now nobody will ever love you again. Ever. You'll die alone.

Have a nice day!

This is all SO MUCH WEIRDER for those of us who have known you for decades...

There was no doubt you were totally smart and capable, but I never thought you'd get out of your own way enough to make something like this happen.

And dude... it makes me INSANELY HAPPY to see "retired at 44"!! That's fanfuckingtastic.

Got to getaway for the weekend with my brother and his wife, to a friend's vacation home which has been sitting empty for a while. Wood stove ... Washington peninsula forests and beaches ... nice weather two days, and a howling windstorm the last day that had us worried about the windows blowing in!

We did puzzles. Watched Ted Lasso. Drank many single malt whiskys (Scottish and American ones!). Made lovely food. And just had a good, chill time together.

COVID sucks, but we all got tested two days before getting together, so we could just chill like we used to back in the olden days...

Really needed that ....................

I'm happy for them. They have killed it... absolutely killed it... what...? Seven times?

At some point you want to break out of that golden shell you've built for yourself, and do Something Different. I'm happy they have had the success they have had. I am happy for the music they have created. And I'm happy that they are calling it quits on their own terms.

Maybe someday I'll be lucky enough to get to quit something epic! :-)

Glad he got to see the collapse and failure of everything he has worked his whole life for, before he died. Trumpism and the Republican party are in shambles, running scared. He got to see everything he believed in and worked for fail.

Good riddance.

Life is weird, part... holy hell, I dunno.

Work

I'm doing less work than I have ever done in my life, and the work I do is more effective and more appreciated than almost ever before (at least at this company). I don't think those two things are causally related; what has happened is that I have a great manager who has found a way to bring me in at crucial moments on big projects, I give them a little flourish, and get a buncha credit for my contribution.

I diminish my contribution (in my head) because I'm good at it, and it is generally 'easy' for me. But the value I bring to the overall projects is undeniable.

It's just weird to have work not occupying 130% of my brain, soul, and energy... and still providing excellent value. For much of my life my identity was inseparable from my job. It's refreshing to have a life outside of work, and for my work and personal life to never cross paths.

Music

The songwriting class I have been doing the whole month of January has now resulted in me writing, recording, mixing, and mastering two whole songs from scratch. The third is the project this week, and it is writing and singing a lyrics-based song.

Everything else has been more along the lines of modern music producing, using samples, drum machines, synths, etc., to create "modern style" music. Most of my classmates submissions fit comfortably into any of the various "electronic music" categories.

So my song is gong to be punk/rock, guitar driven, with a Tom Waits-meets-Les Claypool kind of vocal style, I am thinking. It will also be from a distinctly mid-life perspective (I'm expecting there to be a huge rise in new punk bands where every member is over 50 years old), complaining about the various midlife issues. (The Tom Waits grumpy/gravelly thing, and the Les Claypool goofball think makes more sense now, doesn't it?)

But I have to sing. A melody line. That doesn't just follow the guitar. That has me worried a bit...

Life

The neighbors recovered from COVID. My parents and sister got vaccinated. My vaccination appointment was cancelled by the State because... well, they don't have enough vaccine or appointments available, despite my eligibility.

My wife's parents are on the decline, and not coping well with it. It is very hard to be so far away and unable to help them out. Mom would be best in a senior care center now, but they aren't taking anyone new (See COVID above) and even if she got it, she'd basically have to be confined to her room (See COVID), which wouldn't suit her at all. Dad's grumpy as fuck and kinda in a "burn it all down" mood all the time. Which is hard for us to see, and hard for his wife to live with him.

My Dad has reached the stage in life where most of his friends have passed, and his mental capacity is diminishing. He tends to find something "bad" or "negative" in the world and obsess on it. So we try to feed him good stories as much as possible... but his only living relative is a gunsmith in bumfuck Alabama who does nothing but forward emails all day... so you can imagine the "information" my dad gets from him...

Life, man. It has it's ... ways.

Daily Fun

I gotta tell ya... if you haven't popped for one of mike and his wife's DragonFjord A-Puzzle-A-Day calendar puzzles, you are really doing yourself a disservice:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonfjord/a-puzzle-a-day

These are just wonderful and cost about 2 lattes. (Yesterday's - Dec 23 - took me all day to figure out. Today I got it on my first try.) And they are great during Zoom meetings... I can listen and focus on what is going on, while doing something with my hands that doesn't detract from my participation in the meeting.

I'm giving five of these as Christmas gifts this year.

Sitting and Waiting

Today my company closes down until January. Everyone is already checked out. I can see who is online via Slack, and it is basically customer support, me, and ... that's it. But I have a meeting in two hours, so I sit here and do my Syntorial synth tutorials, and wait for the day to end after the meeting... at which point I will continue my Syntorial progress, just as if the meeting never happened... :-)

Making Music

It looks like there are several of us here on hubski who like to make music, and I've just signed up for a month-long music writing/producing class that I think others might want to join in with.

Andrew Huang is a YouTuber who has been making music online for more than a decade. He had a project where he wrote a new song and created a video for it every single day for a year, which was audacious, amazing, and led to him running out of ideas and using YouTube comments for inspiration... which resulted in the epic Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows.

He is an EXCELLENT product reviewer and demonstrator of all kinds of music-making hardware and software, and recently released his first music production app called Flip for the iPhone, which is quite a stunning tool.

Now he has worked with Monthly.com to do an intensive one-month course on modern-day songwriting: https://monthly.com/andrew-huang-music

In the class you will write three complete songs, end-to-end, even if you have never written a song before. He goes through the equipment and tools for music production, how to actually write a song (using good music theory), and - here's my point - people get to go through the course in pods/cohorts and work together as a group.

It is a 7-10 hour per week commitment and the class is about $250. But at the end of the class you will have three songs, completely written, recorded, mixed, and mastered... and most importantly, will have an agility with the tools of the modern bedroom songwriter... DAWs, synths, drum machines, etc.

I've already signed up.

If anyone else wants to do this, I can refer you and you'll get a $20 discount. And we can work together in a collaborative pod throughout the month. Class starts on Jan 4th. If you want in, DM me your email address and I'll get you invited.

Have a great holiday, everyone. 2020 officially ends on Jan 20th, so let's see if we can survive it all for one more month... good luck to all my hubskites!

Found the light switch this week, and turned myself back on. Feels good.

Dental Drama.

At my routine cleaning last Thursday, the doc took an xray of #14 and said, "That don't look right. Go talk to this Endodontist". So I did.

Endo said, "Wow. You have a helluva infection there, my friend. Looks like that root canal (from >10 years ago) wasn't done properly, and the bone in your jaw has receded massively around #14. I don't understand why it doesn't hurt more. We need to either do another root canal to get the missing root out ($2k), or pull the tooth entirely and put in a fake one ($6k). Lemme know what you want to do."

I took the weekend to think, and got the root canal yesterday. Painless. Easy. No sweat. They found I had a 'hidden' 4th root on a tooth that should only have 3, and they cleaned it out. I watched two episodes of the Great British Baking Show while they worked. We will know in 6 months to a year if the bone is going to regrow or if an implant is in my future.

Synthesizers/Musicmaking

I've bitten off a LOT and am having a hard time chewing. Switched from GarageBand (>15 years) to Logic Pro, and the learning curve is steep. I am learning how synthesizers work in software (first with flac and now doing Syntorial), which is mind-blowingly good) and learning how to play piano again (with Melodics) while trying to figure out my two synths, the Novation Bass Station II which is half knobs and half software and half keyboard, and my Warfield Blofeld Desktop which is all software and few knobs and no keyboard, all while applying what I have learned in Syntorial to the built-in software synths in Logic, and being unsure how those things apply to the Bass Station and the Blofeld...

But to connect all this equipment together properly I went from "the dumb guitar player's audio input", aka a Focusrite Scarlett Solo to a Scarlett 4i4... which turns out to be an enormously configurable and capable input, mixer, and MIDI device, that is confusing to set up when you don't have a fucking clue what yer doing.

But while convalescing yesterday from my root canal (took the day off work) I made a BIG breakthrough with my understanding of routing cables, and what device should speak to what and via what type of cable/protocol, and I MADE SOME COOL MUSIC that wasn't accidental!

Worked out.

Well, got on the exercise bike for 30 minutes, which I used to do every day at noon because the downstairs where I have my home office gets cold, and if I take a break at noon and exercise for a bit, I am warm for the rest of the afternoon. And I hadn't done that in ... a while. Felt good to work up a sweat and something other than a resting heart rate.

Talked to my wife.

We discussed the dark space I have been in for the last week or so, and how I was feeling, and that I have broken through... it was the tooth, the frustration with largely failing to learn new things I wanted to learn, and some work pressures I was trying to get finished before my tooth went completely to hell on me. It's amazing what having a loving partner is like... you can just talk about your weaknesses and feelings and it only deepens your connection.

And I watched Blade Runner 2049 again, and ... I love this movie so much. Definitely want to spend the Christmas holiday pretending to be Solar Fields' writing the "Mirror's Edge" soundtrack, but with 2049 and Fury Road as my inspiration...

Feels good to be back on track.

I don't see anybody in the chat, but I'll check back in after my next meeting... maybe around noon PST. waving to everyone