My Brain Dump
Scattered thoughts collected along the road of lifeFred Haring Videos Now on YouTube
Fred Haring has been a friend of mine for many years. He’s a very gifted songwriter (along with all the other things going on in his life). I’ve been meaning to get his two music videos posted on YouTube for a long time, but finally got to it this morning. Check them out on the music videos page on Fred’s site. By the way, the second video is for the song “This Grand Parade”, which Fred wrote with Dan Baird…the driving force behind The Georgia Satellites, who had a big hit in 1986 with “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”. Dan also produced that album for Fred.
If you like what you hear, check out some of Fred’s best songs here (especially Hey Joe Carter and Where to Begin).
While Fred and I both have written a lot of songs during the time we’ve known each other, we only collaborated one time songwriting-wise, when I helped out on his song Carousel…which you can download on this page.
Enjoy!
Amazing Hi-Tech Display Technology
First of all, let me say that I don’t even know enough about technology to be dangerous. But I do love to observe. After reading a recent article in Business 2.0, I was quite captivated by the idea behind a new display technology called IMOD. The general idea is based on an observation of the way the brilliant colors of butterfly wings are reflected in nature. It’s a largely passive process when butterflies do it (requiring neither batteries nor hours of primping in front of a mirror) and in the same way, it uses just a fraction of what is used by current LCD and LED technologies.
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Outsourcing Heaven/Hell
After reading the Tim Ferriss book, The Four-Hour Work Week…I was motivated once again to dive back into the world of outsourcing in order to get some of my personal projects moving.
I did all of my hiring via Elance (now Upwork) and one other freelancer site (now defunct). Unfortunately, I’m only batting about .500 at this point…great for baseball, sucks in real life.
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Music Watch: 8.06.07
I heard from folks in Italy this morning, who have put together a short presentation on autism. It’s in Italian, so if you don’t fully grasp the meaning, consider yourself forgiven.
The even more interesting part of all this is that the song they chose, “I Am Me”, was written by Italian children’s book author…the late Leo Lionni. The book was called Pezzetino, the story of a little jigsaw puzzle piece trying to find its place in the world. Isn’t it fascinating that the song would find it’s way back around the world to Italy, and to become part of a video about autism…a topic in many ways akin to the theme of the book?
8 Out of 1,000,000 Ain’t Bad
Ah well, it’s late at night, and I should be in bed. But I ran across this and just had to share it before I sleep. I visited Aaron Wall’s SEO Book blog tonite and read his post on internet site rankings. He was pondering the relative value of his blog, which came in at #112,095 out of the top millions sites according to the Quantcast rankings (7.04.07). Which on one level, struck him as pretty cool, until he noticed that a site called PornHater outranked him by 5 spots.
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Music Watch: 8.04.07
A couple mentions of my music popping up here and there.
Judy Lombino has recorded one of my songs, “You Never Know”. It’s a musical prayer written about 10 years ago, and has previously been recorded by Angelina West and by The Grace Project.
Judy is a cantor at Guardian Angel Cathedral in Las Vegas. When visiting her site, click on Launch Jukebox, and my song is the second selection there.
“One Love”, an award-winning documentary by Whitney Jackson (Sandpile Productions), features on of my solo piano pieces (“Sweetness & Light”) as part of the soundtrack.
The film documents a mission trip to Jamaica by a group of Purdue students, and takes a look beyond the public face of the country…finding grinding poverty, and children abandoned by parents who couldn’t afford to raise them. They know that the state will care for their children at no cost to them…but the students find that “caring for” is no replacement for parental love. My song begins just before the 25:00 mark in the video.
Ideas for Sale…??
I suppose much of what I say about the blogging/web status quo could be construed as negative. I don’t really see it that way. Rather than just saying something “sucks”, I’m usually suggesting that it could be much better with just a little creative thinking and some standards (i.e., a personal stance not to participate if a project doesn’t isn’t unique and isn’t a legitimate attempt to add value to the customer/visitor experience). And, if it can’t be improved, maybe it should be abandoned altogether in favor of something for which there is a a real need…an itch that’s not being scratched.
Because I tend to fall into the “idea guy” category…and because life is too short, and there are too many other pressing matters…I periodically have to assess where my priorities lie. And it’s at those times that I will often drop an idea or two that I initially believed in, but just didn’t have time to execute.
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Brain Food, Audio Style
For many of you, part of this will be old news…especially if you’re already a fan of NPR (National Public Radio). I’ve been a sporadic listener for over 15 years now…having first noticed them in September 1991 during the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings, when they were the only place I could hear the proceedings on the radio.
Public radio has been criticized over the years for its plodding style and its left-leaning political views. To be sure, you can find plenty of both there. But there are a number of other wonderful things there as well that…in my experience…make it a resource well worth delving into. There are at least four public radio programs that you should know about (and I’d bet you haven’t heard of two of them), plus one other cool audio book.
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Mad, Mad World: 7.28.07
So…was I asleep or something…?? Just exactly WHEN did snowman-building become a world-class sport…?!?
Since it’s nearly the end of July, it’s great to think “chilly” whenever possible…so it was with great relish (much like a hot dog!) that I devoured these pics today of an international snow sculpture competition that has apparently been going on for many years.
Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like them. But…if this kind of thing happens in a small place like Breckenridge, Colorado…similar events probably occur elsewhere as well.
You will be amazed…!!
On Uniqueness & Value
I guess I’m writing this point for one good reason: I just want to make sure it’s written down somewhere, so that I don’t have to keep repeating myself (because I will, and that gets old for me and for you). It’s easier to just refer folks to a single spot if they want to read more.
For me, this whole “make money online” thing is growing a bit old. I think that’s mostly due to the same reason that most music and TV bore me these days: People are so busy reinventing the wheel that we only rarely see anything new, much less anything new that’s worth seeing. I have a degree of respect for the scrappy, creative thinkers who not only think outside the lines, but invest the energy to study what they’re doing and pass along some of the results (i.e., Shoemoney and John Chow), but even moreso for those who seem to have made it their mission to instill some ethics and conscience in an industry that’s sorely lacking (i.e., Darren Rowse, Rand Fishkin, John Reese).
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