nothing spectacular

to report. talked to Loren on the phone for a couple brief moments before his mother rushed him off the phone- i gathered that she needed to use it. in any case i got hung up on mid-sentence and not called back, which wasn't altogether surprising considering he'd just told me they were all leaving to go eat pizza with Loren's friend Ruby's father, who i gather is having a little birthday thing. annoying getting hung up on. hope he has fun though. wanted to talk to him about his school stuff but i wasn't given the opportunity then, and i'm certainly not going to get it tonight since it's already 10pm.

let's see....what else is worth typing up briefly.....i'm sorta just hangin' out, doing laundry, debating eating something. it was beautiful again today, 2 in a row now. i think this is the first day since last year that i peeled down to a t-shirt after work. nice to drive my truck again, i'm enjoying that. it's going to be a little more expensive overall, i'll have to keep an eye on how much i'm driving around. i've driven 100.9 miles since monday morning, three trips to work and back, and a detour to Costco. it'll probably work out to something like an extra $40/month in gas cost. growlz.

learned how to do something new with the programming of the machine i generally run at work- worthy. i'm certainly not going to get rich working for the wages i'm at, but there are things to learn there. it's nice to work at a place where everyone's friendly too- some things you can't put a dollar value on. and the commute is definitely much easier, and i'm starting to see the time benefits of spending 2 hrs/day less on the road. if my windshield had gone out in the Geo while i still worked downtown the impact in gas cost would have been enormous- somewhere around $100/month or so. i suppose one must be resigned to frugality when one considers a monthly expense in the neighborhood of $100 as "enormous". much is revealed by language.

got some new tunes floating around in my head. i've been experimenting with some drum machine beats for them- with some mild successes so far. i want to try to record the drum lines in a different manner this time around- sequence the individual drum parts in order to individually EQ and effect them on discreet channels. with the processing gear i've got locally i should be able to get some meatier sounds out of those samples in mixdown if i do- not to mention much more control in stereo placement and dynamic range. it'll be a more complicated recording process and in the end it's a quaint exercise at getting antiquated technology to do more than it was intended for, but i'm optimistic i can get some successful results. before laying anything down though i have to decide what to record next...i've got some old chestnuts rolling around in my "record queue" as well as some (for me, obviously more exciting) new ideas. the drum machine work going on lately seems geared toward the new stuff, but i s'pose we'll see what actually happens when it happens.

some more coffee sounds good. Carolan's Irish Cream Liqueur (off-brand Bailey's) is the best non-Bailey's Irish Creme Liqueur i've found in any of the liquor stores, and easily the best tasting reasonably cheap stuff. this is a considered opinion; i should know, i've tried them all. at $27 a bottle though (the big bottles- slightly more cost effective than the small ones) and the rate i pollute coffee with it, it's a reasonably large expense in itself. i wonder how difficult it is to make? that would be fun and prob'ly cheaper too....

it's becoming apparent to me that i must need to make more money so that the first issue i associate with things is no longer what it costs.

been enjoying reading Magician: Apprentice (the Author's Preferred Edition) lent me by a co-worker. i'm only about 50 pages in, but it's been slowly drawing me in and getting steadily better the longer i read. always a pleasure to find a new author to absorb. i think i enjoy picking apart how they approach and execute their craft nearly as much as i enjoy reading the stories and identifying with the characters. i lent my co-worker Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game in return, and he's enjoying it. it was an easy choice- definitely one of the best sci-fi books ever written. Ender's one of my all time favorite characters. actually- now that i think about it you could look it up on my recommended reading page and see my review of it there, so i'll get off the subject already.

Nichole wrote that Ethan started soccer on tuesday this week (yesterday)- must be summer league. should be fun getting to watch the little guy play- looking forward to yelling my brains out on the side of a field somewhere while Nichole pulls down assistant coach duties- i think that's her role, since being replaced as head coach. i believe she was relieved to be replaced, having been designated de facto coach in the absence of anyone else to run the team. my camera's itchin' for some shots of the E-man on the field- too bad it's not very good for that sort of thing. i do however have a pair of digital camera binoculars which i'm eager to try out, and a perfectly great video camera. my next generation computer (sniff sniff....i can smell it coming) is going to include a DVD burner and a video card that can do digital conversion from analog media- then the old videos start getting ripped concurrently with the old photos being scanned...which reminds me, my printer drivers still aren't installed.

wow it's amazing how much you can type when you just think out loud. or is it really thinking out loud when you're directing thoughts through your fingers rather than your mouth? thinking in public? perhaps that's a better phrase.

Loren's enjoying a little break from sports for the summer. time to get that boy in the water. gotta find out in the next few days if he wants to go white water river rafting, and how much it costs and when everyone's planning on going. i really don't know if he'd think it sounded like fun or not- i hope so, i think it would be great!

ok that's PLENTY more than enough for one post.