You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.

-- Michael Pritchard

Freedom from the Treadmill

I don't want to win the lottery to be rich. Sure, having cool cars, tons of toys, a big house, fancy vacations, etc. all sound good to just about anyone. But really, the reason to me, is too free myself and my family from the treadmill of everyday life.

Some people live for their job. They love clocking everyday, it's their hobby as much as it is their job and employment, their means of income.

Not me. I don't love computers. I don't love helping people with their retarded computer problems day in, day out. Sure, it's challenging at times, and makes me think, which I enjoy. But it's not my love.

I don't like getting up at 4am every morning, driving an hour and a half to work because I can't afford a house closer to work, because real estate has gotten to be so amazingly expensive.

I don't like sitting in a windowless room, crunched into a tiny little space that's neither an office nor a cubicle, but rather a shelf with green fluorescent lighting beating down for 9 hours a day.

I stare at this screen more than I do life; I stare at text more than I look into the eyes of my wife. Fonts and checkboxes, protocols, circuitboards, memory or the lack of it, and I am not talking about the memory in your head.

I'd rather concern myself with the memories in my head, or rather the memories I am not making, spending time with my wife and family, with my little dog.

Instead my memories of my late twenties will be of artificial lighting, silicon, and whining.

So you may be wondering; what's my ideal day spent, if it's not this? Is it cruising the road in $100k+ sportscars, or laying on the beach in Maui? Is it sipping wine on a balcony in Tuscany?

While I wouldn't turn any of those things down, my ideal day would be:

8:00am: The dog wakes me up. Time to go outside to pee. The dog I mean. I still use the bathroom.

8:15am: Go to local little Greek-run restaurant for breakfast. Really, there's nothing like these places. Good food, pleasant people. It's different than going to an IHOP or Denny's, because there's an ambience you can't get from corporate design.

9:30am: go work out at the gym. Yup, even rich people need to work out.

12:00pm: Fire up the guitars. Have my band come over, which, by the way, are employees of A Splintered Life, Inc. A Splintered Life is our band, and since I am rich, I can afford to employ my fellow bandmates as "employees".

4:00pm: It's summer, so the guys have their wives and kids come over, and our families come over too, and we grill out on our patio, with my state-of-the-art huge grill. It's chrome, you know. There's nothing like grilled burgers, cold Coronas with lime, and kids running around chasing each other. My niece throws a mean frisbee, and she's not even 5 yet. My nephew is almost 6, and can kick a soccer ball like Pele. My other nephew would rather crush the ball and anyone in his path. He has no fear. He's only 3.

9:00pm: everybody leaves, and my wife and I can stay up late, because there's no real job to wake up for. Just the job of life, which is a job nearly anyone can love.

So I am in the bathroom at work, at a stall. In comes a dude to use another stall. Business as usual, eyes straight ahead. All of a sudden this fellow lets out a barrage of farts that sound like 16th notes on a snare drum.

To add more to it, this guy is from a company we just merged with, and as such, I do not know him.

The question is, do I:

1. Laugh, because it is funny. Farting is always, always funny. Especially a constant succession.
   
2. Give him a high five for a drum fill well played
3. Ignore it, like I didn't hear it.
   

Now granted, he wasn't being rude, or unprofessional. After all, this is the bathroom, where one usually lets off the steam. I just wasn't sure how to react. BUt I thought it was pretty damn funny.

So, with all this music stuff going on, I am getting more and more into using MIDI as a means of working with software synthesizers and samplers. I've been doing this in two different ways.

One: I load a VST instrument, or VSTi, into my audio/midi sequencer, which in my case is Tracktion 2. The MIDI input from my USB keyboard (M-Audio Oxygen 8) is just data, containing no audio whatsoever, that tells the VSTi what to play. This way, I can change the sound of the instrument, or change the instrument entirely, without re-recording the midi data in the sequencer.


Two: I use Reason rewired into separate tracks in Tracktion 2, allowing Tracktion to control a separate "slave" program, in this case Reason, which is a software sampler/drum machine/synthesizer rack application. Rewire is basically a virtual patch cable that runs from one audio application to another.

Because of this technology, I now have access to More than just a guitar sound or six. I have pianos, strings, trumpets, drums, woodwinds, Moog synths, granular synths, etc. All on a laptop or desktop. Amazing shit, considering ten years ago I was recording demos on a Tascam Porta 7 cassette recorder.

I hope to get some sort of guitar to midi converter within the year, since I am a guitar player and that would make it far easier to input midi data to control the synths.

Being pulled over by a cop......

So, everyone has been pulled over before, at least once. Well, almost everyone. Probably for something stupid, like speeding, blowing a stop sign, a red light, whatever.

When speeding, one knows that it's wrong. We clearly see the speedometer. Yet we do it anyway. Often, we're not even in a hurry to get somewhere.

So then we get pulled over. The officer asks the question "Do you know why I pulled you over?". Clearly the officer is asking you this out of legal obligation, because it's the dumbest question ever to be asked when pulling someone over for speeding.

Then one of three things happen:

1. The officer is cool, and lets you off with a warning. Obviously the best of the three.

2. The officer is professional, but pleasant, gives you a ticket because that's his job, but doesn't do #3, which brings us to....

3. Gives you a ticket, and proceeds with a speech about how dangerous speeding is, usually starting out with "what's your hurry?"

Now, upon completion of this speech, has anyone actually changed their driving habits? I know I haven't. No one appreciates someone who uses their position and/or status to climb upon the almighty soapbox, even a police officer. Especially when police officers are sometimes the worst offenders. When was the last time you saw a cop blazing by, with no gumballs on, no sirens? Probably this morning.

Point is, I understand the cop has to give a ticket. I don't fault them for that, that's their job. But speeches? Not necessary. No one's going to change.

The medical/health industry is jacked up in this country. I go to the hospital for an x-ray. I was referred to the hospital by an "in-network" doctor. The hospital is "in-network".

However, the radiologist fellow in India, is not. So I get tagged with a bill. Granted, it wasn't that much, but seriously, this is irritating.

Well it turns out that there's a clause in the sheet you sign when you get the x-ray done (yeah, I'm an idiot and didn't read every line) that says "The radiologist chosen may or may not be covered by your insurance".

Ok, fine, I screwed up. I should have paid more attention. So I say to them "had I paid more attention, I could have just asked for a different radiologist, one which is covered?"

"no, you don't get a choice."

What? Huh? That's like going to the car dealer, and them saying "we may put on replacement brake pads that are $100 a piece, we may put on brake pads that cost $25 a piece. You don't have a choice, and you have to pay, either way".

It's just poor customer service, something that apparently is lost on the medical industry. Where else can you render services before quoting a cost, and the customer is held to that price, regardless if they approve of it?