This is one of those posts that I had a good idea for, started the post by just putting the title into WordPress and saving it as a draft. Now, two weeks later I have no clue what I was intending to write about. But that’s OK. I might not remember the specifics, but I remember the feeling, so I’ll just make it up as I go along.

What I mean by “getting mixed up” is having so much going on that at times you feel like your sense of focus is completely lost and you’re not making significant progress. It happens a lot these days and I see it as a consequence of the modern condition; people might not be producing meaningful output continually, but society does expect most everyone to be pretty much hitting on all cylinders non-stop. Productive or not, go go go is the way things are done these days.

Nowhere is this more apparent than work it seems. That’s pretty obvious right? I can’t really complain about it; I knew what I was signing up for when I chose this as my field. And honestly, for the most part it’s not even that bad. Sometimes it can be a little trying, but that’s when you really can see what you’re made of in my opinion. The challenge isn’t always just performing the task, but doing it in a positive way so that when you do succeed you feel accomplished.

Of course, you have to balance this with the knowledge that you’re being used.

But I digress. The fact is that getting mixed up isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At times it can certainly be stressful. And yes, if you let it go to far you end up killing your efficiency and getting much less done than you would if you’d focused (or been allowed to focus). But what can you gain from it? In this case I think attitude can make a big difference. Conditioning also helps too though… It’s only through years and years of “getting mixed up” that I’ve learned to see some good in it.

For example, it keeps you expanding your horizons and trying new things. In the software industry I think this is critical. One of my fears is getting forced into specializing in one area and then getting stuck doing that kind of work forever. That would really be boring and potentially limiting to the career as far as I’m concerned. Being able to move around and have a broad set of experiences to draw upon for your resume is definitely a good thing if you want to be anything more than a cog in the machine.

It has its advantages beyond resume experience as well. Personally I have a hard time forcing myself to be productive in something that I’m just not feeling. Call it a muse or whatever you want, but meaningful, truly creative output can’t be forced in my opinion so fighting your creative urges doesn’t really do you any favors. I struggle at it sometimes, but trying to attune myself to what I actually want to work on and then laying out plans on different timescales based on those desires helps me plot a sort of road map to my personal growth.

If you’re open to it a sort of cross pollination can occur between ideas at times too. Recently I’ve been working on house music, wanting to get into hands-on crafting and realizing I have very little art in my home. The more I let those things percolate in the back of my head I started to get some really cool ideas for some light-fixture sculpture that I want to try my hand at that sort of fits with that “musical aesthetic” or whatever you want to call it.

I guess the take home message is to try and look for the good in your situation no matter what, even when it’s stressing you out. Turn that stress into creative energy and then act on those plans and you’ll feel good about what you come up with!

The LA Times has reported that CA will begin subsidizing E85. Now, I know that I’ve made my views relatively clear, so it should come to no shock that I’m not really pleased with California’s decision to push this form of energy (at the very least in its current incarnation). What is a bit shocking (at least to me) is that California is - for the most part - quite well informed when it comes to these things and often makes some good decisions. This one is not though and seems more like hopping on the political E85 bandwagon.

Just as a refresher the reason why I think this is a horrible idea is because E85 produced from corn (which is what they’re hinting at in the article) has net impact on the environment that is worse than gasoline. This is due to the fact that refining ethanol from corn is a very inefficient process. Couple that with the fact that with the fact that current E85 powertrains actually have lower fuel efficiency and higher emissions than gasoline or diesel engines and it’s just silly. Oh and as I may have mentioned before the jury seems to be leaning toward the fact that the ethanol emissions may in fact be worse for the environment than those from pure hydrocarbon based fuels.

Last two issues aside, I would have thought that the fact that it takes a good deal more fossil fuels to create ethanol from corn would be enough to prevent this from happening. The really odd thing is that it’s not like California is even completely unaware of this. Their 2007 Climate Action Programs document states:

[...] When used as a trans-portation fuel, a gallon of cellulosic ethanol (made from rice straw or sugar cane) produces 70 percent less greenhouse gases than a gallon of gasoline. [source (PDF)]

So clearly someone over there understands at least part of what’s going on. Why then this move? It’s a pretty bold one and somewhat troubling too. Up till this point I was rather happy that E85 wasn’t pushed more heavily in California. To me it showed that they realized what the problems with it were and they were holding out for a more sustainable energy product. This then goes back on that in a big way, not only for that state (with its huge population) but because California is in many ways a trend setter when it comes to environmental policy.

The fact alone that it will become a state law in 2010 that all fuel sold in the state will become an E10 blend (nearly double the current ethanol in the mix) will have far reaching impacts. Throw subsidies into the mix and at worst you will get a lot of adoption (which will not be good for the environment or our economy) and at the very least you tie up government funds in a poorly thought out program.

I watch what most would probably consider a below average amount of TV. The shows that I do watch tend to be the kind that usually inform. For example, I’m a big fan of a lot of stuff on Discovery HD Theater. Not just because it makes my Bravia look amazing, but because there’s some genuinely cool stuff on there.

But whenever there’s a show that has to do with nature at all - especially documentaries - I have this constant, underlying fear that they will cut to a closeup of a spider. I mean, spiders are in nature right? Well, apparently nature is made up entirely of spiders in my world view. Shows about forests will have all kinds of terrible wolf spiders and black widows. A show with the desert will invariably have camel spiders the size of small SUVs. Even places that have no right containing spiders will have them. Mountain dwelling spiders. Arctic spiders. Subterranean sonar-using spiders. It doesn’t matter where that NatGeo or Discovery camera crew goes, I somehow feel that you can count on the fact that there will be spiders there and that they feel it is their duty to display those spiders to you in an arbitrary fashion.

This makes no sense. The vast majority of shows that feature nature have nothing to do with spiders. And in fact, I like to enjoy nature in person quite a bit so I have first hand knowledge that there are not spiders waiting for impromptu cameos around every tree. Believe it or not, it can at times be harder to find a spider than it would be to simply not find a spider.

I don’t even hate spiders that much. I’m not a fan by any means, especially when they get above a certain size, but I can deal with them. Something about one-thousand eighty progressive lines of spidery detail (particularly when it is hairy and features numerous eyes) given without any warning bugs me. You could be watching something entirely relaxing, like a tree canopy, or water fowl and then it’s an immediate cut to a horrifying spider view. Put away the fucking zoom lens, mister camera operator.

I’m not entirely crazy for feeling this way since I’ve gotten burned before, but I’m still overreacting. Thankfully I think I’m starting to get over this. It hasn’t been easy but little by little I grow more accepting of spiders and that they simply are in nature and sometimes they get caught on camera.

For the past week or so the 16-story atrium fountain here in the Compuware building has been turned off for maintenance. It’s actually rather weird to not hear that white noise in the atrium; I noticed it much quicker than I would have thought.

I’ve heard it off before now. They stop it late at night, but it’s more interesting during the work day. The massive open space without that water to dampen the noise lets everything echo quite a bit. Just walking to the gym on the second floor you can hear people across the lobby near the main entry talking; the acoustics aren’t so much pleasant as they are interesting.

In general there’s something about running water that’s soothing though. Most people will agree to that, but the reason why I think has to do with white noise in general. Maybe because it’s harder to hear our own thoughts, or for some easier to focus. I guess it depends how much you like thinking.

I remember back in college my buddies and I would often pick the section of the library near the ventilation system because that background noise helped to soften other conversations and let us retreat into our own thoughts. Something about that background noise (even when we had headphones on) was very conducive to concentrating. And it was also nice if we had to talk to each other we didn’t have to feel like we’d be disturbing everyone else.

I’ve always liked the water feature here at work quite a bit and I hope they hurry up with whatever they’re doing and turn it back on again.

I just spent five minutes trying to “fix” my DVR because it wouldn’t fast forward. Turns out I was watching live TV.

Music is one of those hobbies that can consume all your time and money and leave you smiling happily about it. The thing is that there’s just so much to be done with it. Any direction you look there is more that you can learn and accomplish. I like that because I never feel backed into a corner and always have new things to try. That’s one of the reasons I like cooking so much as well (and the software field, now that I think about it).

I took care of my pesky subwoofer issue a couple weeks ago by buying a new KRK Rokit 10s. It’s considerably better than my M-Audio BX-10s, which is now just sitting in my basement. Maybe I can sell it for a few bucks on craigslist or something… Anyway it’s nice to have that taken care of. I’ve also started refining my studio a bit more, getting all the pieces setup properly. I finally fully integrated my RD-500 and JV-1080 into the setup as well. Oh and while buying my new sub I found a brand new Evolution X-Session for (I kid you not) $20 bucks. I guess they’re clearing them out or something, but it’s a perfect companion to my setup. (Finally! A real crossfader.)

After I got the Firebox audio interface (which has a couple quirks but in general I love) I toyed around with the idea of selling my Ozonic (which is sort of an all-in-one 4×4 audio interface and 37-key synth action keyboard with a good assortment of knobs, sliders and buttons). But I’m glad I held off. I may not be able to use it as an audio interface right now, but I can still plug it in with the power adapter and MIDI cable and use all the great functionality the board provides, plus, I have a second audio interface that is wrapped up with all that other goodness. Convenient for traveling. (A pain to manage all those MIDI mappings though.)

As I mentioned I am now using my keyboard and JV-1080 more (which is a great piece of gear, despite being a bit old). I actually managed to snag the House expansion board for it for real cheap (for comparison this place wants $140 for it) just a couple days ago and I’m currently winning another auction for the Techno board which is quite rare and hard to find for a good price.

It’ll probably never end. You hear of it from other producers. The gear just keeps coming and coming…

(P.S. Someone buy me a Korg OASYS. Or a Korg Zero8.)

Last night Paul came by and hung out. As always it was good times. We went to the Coney Island near my house that I’ve been meaning to check out for a few months now for dinner and it was totally great. There’s something about a Coney Island place with friends that is just fantastic in my opinion. The food was pretty good too I can happily say; not quite to Zorba’s level (and certainly not as good as Lafayette) but it was pretty damn good.

We headed back to the house where I gave a quick demo of some of the beats I’m working on and then moved on to Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the NDS. This is a game about solving puzzles. It’s very much like that comic shows actually. Every time you try and do something, a person tells you, “Hey, how about you do this puzzle first.” Being a jerk of a professor who acts like an insufferable know-it-all you have to prove to the simple villagers that their pointless mind games are child’s play.

The game is actually quite pretty, with very nice looking art and a level of animation for critical scenes that surprised me, even voice over work (which was hilarious on in its own way). We hadn’t really gotten too far into the game to see what exactly made the village so curious except for the obvious stack of homes reaching into the sky. We did, however, learn that I am an absolute bloodhound at finding “hint coins.” Must be from those days as a kid playing pixel-hunting adventure games.

The puzzles kind of attempt to fit with the game’s plot/story/environment but sometimes they’re pretty blatant about the “Hey, solve this math problem,” attitude the game has. That said, a couple that we came across were actually quite tricky and fun. I don’t really have any puzzle games like this that encourage actual critical thinking (I have to do a lot of that at work as it is…) but this might be worth picking up when I can find it used for cheap.

After that we watched a few episodes of Flight of the Conchords, one of my favorite shows as of late. Paul seemed to appreciate the dry and often wacky sense of humor that the show has, and that we both also share.

Before it was time to call it a night Paul helped me unlock level 5 in Rez HD. After failing on the final boss (making me realize just how bad I am at this sort of thing now) I realized it was after 11:00 and that I should probably head to bed.

I have no less than seven drafts sitting in my WordPress right now. Seven. Several of these are really good posts too… Or will be when I actually write them. Work is really hitting hard right now and I’m running on all cylinders to keep up. Hopefully I’ll get some time this weekend to do a little writing.

I’ve been listening to Pink Floyd basically non-stop for the past two days now. It’s probably because we heard that tribute band the other night that got me going on this kick, but also because the philosophical nature of a lot of their lyrics is hitting close to home at the moment. The music itself is sublime (Gilmour is one of the greatest guitarists of all time in my opinion, saying nothing of the fantastic bass playing that Waters provided while he was with the band) and when you combine that with their lyrics I can easily say that Pink Floyd is one of the greatest - quite possibly the greatest - bands of all time.

Anyway, one of their songs that I like the most is “Breathe” off of The Dark Side of the Moon. I’ll let the lyrics speak for themselves in this case:

Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don’t be afraid to care.
Leave but don’t leave me.
Look around and choose your own ground.

Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.

Run, rabbit run.
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don’t sit down it’s time to dig another one.

For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave.

I really need to learn to play guitar. Then I need to magically learn to play guitar like David Gilmour.

Last night after Aikido I headed into the city and enjoyed the late-night portion of the first day of the Winter Blast. I met up with several friends in the lobby of the Compuware building and we quickly made our way to one of many heated tents to check out Echos of Pink Floyd (a Detroit based Pink Floyd tribute band). The tent was packed and everyone was really digging it. These guys were good, no question.

A few beverages later we found ourselves outside toasting marshmallows downtown over roaring fires. The place was packed I was happy to see. Everyone was very friendly and having a good time. We even took turns holding a giant chunk of ice meaning it was your chance to talk.

All in all it was definitely a good time. I’m looking forward to going back tonight and checking out the DEMF preview.

In an (admittedly small) effort to make my site a little more broad I have worked little by little to tie in pieces other than the main posts to other “stuff” like my Flickr moblog, Yelp reviews, etc. Well I added another component just now: Event Countdown (click to zoom to it). It’s simple and doesn’t have much in it right now, but my plan is to add events coming up around the Metro Detroit area that people might find interesting. I might not be able to go to all of these myself, but the plan is to put up whatever I think might be cool, regardless if I’m going or not.

Edit: Also updated the archives page so that it actually resembles something useful now.