For much of my life, if you were to asked me “what” I was, I would respond “a musician”, or depending on the exact moment perhaps a “musicologist” or “composer”. I’ve always had a very broad range of interests, but music was always the where my passions lay. While I was in high school, I played in the drum line and in percussion in the spring – but I also wrote. I used a horribly cheap little app called “Noteworthy Composer” and ran MIDI through a basic keyboard like you’d get at Circuit City. Honestly, I’m still proud today of some of the things I came up with back then. I hope one day to be able to find MIDI libraries and sequencers that can replicate the idiosyncrasies of that system, just so I can get some of it on tape.

Of course, my primary instrument was percussion. Once I got a drum set for Christmas in middle-school, it was my primary outlet for most of my spare time. I would simply queue up playlists and jam along with the music. Ridiculously loud music. I still don’t understand why my parents let me create an amp system loud enough to play over my over-loud playing, rather than drive me to play through headphones, etc sooner than they did. Let me tell you, there is nothing better for taking out stress than drumming. A lot. Loudly.

I even picked up guitar and for a while was good enough (in my own head and in my room alone) to really express myself through music. To actually let my emotion drive my fingers and create music that said what my heart was feeling. On even rarer occasions it would happen on the piano. For brief glimpses there I could feel what it meant to really be a musician. To lean back, eyes closed and just play. Something that happened surprisingly rarely on drums. I think I just had a hard time with the ‘quiet parts’. My drum technique was decidedly un-sophisticated and I simply lacked the skill set to express myself there.

The Practice Space

Now…jamming on the drums with friends? That was a different story. Some of the flat out happiest moments of my life have been while playing drums with friends. I’ve never been the full-time drummer of a “real” band, but much of my college years were spent with Jamie Tyson in our practice space of LaFayette Street. Around the turn of the millennium, we rented out a storage facility in one of the worst parts of town that had converted an entire floor into practice spaces. Walls, floors, and ceilings covered in cheap carpet helped dampen the sound just slightly, and none of the neighbors complained about the noise – no matter what time we played or how loudly. We covered lots of Chagall Guevera, Switchfoot, and anything else we had as a  common reference. Sometimes both of us knowing the song didn’t matter: Jamie would play and I’d do my best to keep up with a beat I thought fit. We also pulled off a decent amount of original material. Jamie was (is?) a really good songwriter and he/we came up with some pretty good music. Stuff I’m proud of anyway. (I still think the “Christmas Here With You” song he/we wrote should be published and covered by someone someday).

Riki Michele – Live in Chicago 2003

There was also that time that Jamie brought me along when he was recruited to be in the live band for Riki Michele. They needed someone to run loops and samples for their live shows. It wasn’t much a creative outlet for me personally, but I did get to help put together an arrangement of a version of “Dig“, and got to play with folks who were and still are professional full-time musicians. We even warmed up for Sixpence None The Richer at one gig.

These days my MIDI controller has died. I don’t have any applications that can open my old composition files (though I have bare MIDI exports), and I haven’t even set my drum set up in at least 2 years. But I bought myself an electric guitar not too long ago (something I’d always wanted), and just got an iRig for my phone so I can play around with different effects without spending a fortune (and tons of space) on pedals. We’ll see if I can stoke some creative juices again. But in the meantime, I at least like that my kids can see me as an amateur musician and know it’s a part who their dad is.

Paul’s Les Paul Guitar

The post A Record Of My Former Life appeared first on A Website.

What can I say:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_shoemaker%27s_children_go_barefoot

At least I have a few drafts from ideas I’ve started a few times. Maybe one day…

The post The Cobbler’s Children appeared first on A Website.

This idea wasn’t entirely original of course. A frequent /r/AskReddit question goes something like “If you had to bug fix humans, what would you put in the patch notes?“. So, my first published blog post in (ok…I’ll look it up…skipping over the 4 unpublished drafts…) 1 year, 11 months, and 21 days is going to be my take on this patch list. Where possible, I’ll link back to inspirations from reddit threads.

Notes:
1) While a significant update, this patch is primarily a bug patch and does not, for the most part, contain feature upgrades. New features and upgrades are planned for future releases.
2) Where possible, all changes are made to systems in such a way that no functional or evolutionary benefits are lost. Example: Getting rid of the ability to become addicted would also mean giving up our extremely useful ability to make major adjustments to body chemistry due changes in our environment and diet. Also, you get to keep your appendix.
3) Arbitrary enhancements like “run faster” or “more endurance” were not allowed. That’s just lazy.

• Major Patch: Improved RNA and DNA duplication and error checking processes to avoid resulting defects both in new individuals as well as remove a tendency for uncontrolled cell growth in some individuals.
• Major Patch: Fixed a glitch in the DNA system that was causing telomeres to loose length upon replication.
• Fixed issues that caused unexplained terminations in infants.
• Fixed lag between digestive system and appetite system to reduce over-filling errors.
• Improved built-in incentive systems including taste and cravings to more closely reflect nutritional requirements.
• Kidneys now properly handle both saline and calcium through normal renal processes.
• Reduced rate of physical abilities nerfing past age 30.
• Optic systems now maintain function as intended.
• Occasional glitches that caused excess occular pressure and lens clouding have been removed.
• Fixed excess sebaceous gland activity associated with unrelated hormone changes between ages of 10-20. (This should also address cases where sebaceous gland imbalance lasted past age 20.)
• Corrected occasional imbalances between matched pairs related to desire for both reproductive and recreational intercourse. Average desire levels lowered to reduce overpopulation and increase productivity.
• Correct hereditary bug in follicle growth in both males and females.
• Corrected occasional bug in color receptors, especially in males.
• Patched bug that often lead to improper execution of erection processes in males, especially between the ages of 10-20.
• Patched speech system to remove tendency to involuntarily repeat syllables in certain individuals.
• Realigned toenail growth with proper guards against lateral creep.
• Improved heuristic virus detection.
• Improved facial follicle patterns on males to avoid gaps along jaw line. Removed excess follicle growth at or below the laryngeal prominence.
• Fixed tendency for serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine production and uptake to become imbalanced.
• Fixed cases where histamine and other mediator substance production could be imbalanced or triggered by inert agents.
• Rolled out lactose tolerance beyond beta test group.
• Improved waste excretion processes to no longer require manual cleanup of insufficiently expelled matter.
• Revert to estrous cycle management of endometrium in females. Note: Do not remove continual ability for sexual activity that was a featured added with the now deprecated menstrual cycle update.
• Reconfigured unconscious rest time from an optimal 8 hours rest for every 16 awake to a more flexible 1:4 ratio over any given 72 hour period.
• Eliminated unconscious rest cycle bug that resulted in prolonged shutdown and/or startup sequences present in some individuals.
• Fixed bug in unconscious rest cycle that caused some individuals to become involuntarily mobile during rest.
• Removed deprecated third molars in all individuals.
• Removed deprecated nipples on male individuals.
• Remove remaining deprecated follicle growth on majority of body that has been replaced by recent user add-on: clothing.
• Removed exploit where users were ingesting psychoactive substances to alter their mental states.
• More UV-tolerant dark skin tone has been rolled out to all individuals.
• Fix occasional feedback loops that would cause a buildup of adrenaline due to unresolved anxiety and fear.
• Fix tendency for unnecessary mucous build up in ears and nose during certain immune system functions. (Note: complete ENT rebuild for v2.0 recommended including separating food and air intakes and improving eustachian tube and sinus features.)
• Fixed a bug that caused short term memory loss while walking from one location to another.
• Added a system check that would prevent accidental mastication of any tongue or cheek tissue.
• Improve capacity for forming stable social relationships beyond the current limit of approx 150 individuals.
• Reworked immune system to prevent it from being hijacked or getting caught in feedback loops and attacking the individual.
• Removed bug that caused repeated involuntary spasms of the diaphragm.
• Fixed bug that occasionally caused jaw muscles to involuntarily clench, especially during rest cycles.

And no. Not all of these patch notes apply to me.

So, without getting too personal (you can comment anonymously) what patches would you add?

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Fred: “I’m struggling with my finances. Please pray that God would help me […and that one of you will drop me one of those awesome anonymous checks I often hear about]”

Leader: “Sure thing! Let’s Pray – ‘God, please help Fred pay off his credit cards first and help them know how to live within his means.'”

I just got tired of it, and took to Jesus’ instructions on how to pray very literally. Normally this is a fine thing to do, after all.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. – Matthew 6 1-14 (also in Luke 11:1-13)

I sincerely tried to research what Jesus and in general all New Testament scripture said on the topic of prayer. Most of it, logically, seemed to backup my conclusion of taking Jesus’ command to pray only where God can hear you. Basically: Don’t pray out loud.

So I started passing on every invitation to pray in a group setting. I would only pray silently to myself. I even introduced the concept to my son older Ian (who I already could tell was giving me his wishlist during his nighttime prayers) and I would even find myself doing it by ending my prayers with “and God, please help us to get lots of good sleep tonight so we can have energy for a fun day tomorrow”. So Ian and I started praying quietly in our heads. Sometimes I would ask him if there was anything he wanted me to pray for him or if he would like to tell me what he prayed about. Sometimes he would, sometimes he wouldn’t. And that was great with me. I felt like he was still taking it very seriously and very much still praying. (I still pray aloud with my youngest as he wouldn’t get the ‘in your head’ concept).

Of course this also gave me great ammunition to look smugly on all other church-goers who participated in praying aloud (read: most of them). Another one of my great faults is enjoying (though not consciously) sitting quietly knowing that I am know something ‘better’ than others around me. You’re reading the blog of the person who still owns the domain Iknowmore.info after all (though I’ve never used it – any one have an idea for a good wiki they want to start?).

The other element of my prayers – the actual content – was something I found sometimes difficult to. I had fallen into a pattern of basically only repeating the first part of The Lord’s Prayer, that is “Thank you God for being a loving God. Your will be done”… and that was often it. It was my overreaction to both the ‘name it and claim it’ crowd and those who would prescribe their preferred solution to a situation in prayer. I knew the Bible told me to take my concerns to him – the core topics at least – and to pray for my daily bread, but it somehow felt weird asking God to specifically address a situation in a way that I specifically wanted him to. I knew perfectly well that I don’t have the perspective that God does. I trusted that God loves me and will provide for me what I need. So why would I offer a specific solution to a situation that I know God already has a solution in mind for. This train of thought went so far as to practically eliminate the need for more than the most truncated prayers of thanks which, quite honestly, were further watered down by my barely subconscious egotistical pride and confidence that I was a self-made man.

Then this past week we were studying Mark 14 at church. While our pastor concentrated most of his sermon on other portions of the passage, I was drawn to vs. 32-42 and in particular:

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” – Matthew 14:35-36

Two pretty major things jumped out to me.

1. I think it’s fair to assume from this passage that Jesus prayed aloud and He was ok with others hearing Him. While we don’t know His exact reasons (companionship? security?), Jesus went out of his way to invite His closest friends, Peter, James, and John, to come with Him and asked the rest to stay. It is fairly safe to assume that the only way we know what Jesus was praying is because he prayed it out loud and one or all of those three heard Him (before dozing off). This is a bit of an assumption from the facts presented, but I feel like it’s a safe one. The only other explanation is that Jesus told someone what he was praying sometime later. While possible, that seems highly unlikely (“Hey, Jesus, welcome back from 3 days in Hell. It’s amazing you’re here and I’m in the presence of a risen Savior and all, but I’ve really been wondering for the past few days, what did you pray about right before you were betrayed?”)
2. Jesus not only specifically asked for something He really wanted in the situation (“take this cup from me”), but it was something he knew He couldn’t have. If the thing he was asking for had been granted to him, His whole reason for coming to Earth would have been for naught. But He asked for it anyway. Think about that. On the brink of it all, Jesus asked for God to reconsider His plan for the Universe. And because I believe Jesus never sinned, that means this wasn’t a sin. It is ok to go to God with a request we know is probably not going to be granted. More so it is certainly ok to go to God with a request of something we would like to see happen. Of course what Jesus ended his prayer with must be ours, “Your will be done.”, but there’s nothing wrong in the asking. I’m reminded of a recent discussion I had with some friends at church over C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. I made the comparison of my two young boys: I have no problem with them asking me for candy or for a toy at the store, as long as they ask me, then leave the request and are ok with my decision (and yes, this actually does sometimes happen). If they incessantly whine and throw a tantrum if I say “no”, then that’s not ok. Rebellion = bad. Sharing your desires with a heavenly Father that loves me = good.

I’m still not sure if I’ll be volunteering to pray at church anytime soon. And when I asked, my son said he still prefers just to pray quietly in our heads together, but at least for now I know that there’s not a thing wrong with praying aloud. And that there’s nothing wrong with not only bringing my needs to God, but sharing with Him how you wish things could be. As long as I stay in a mindset that He’s the ruler of all space-time and has a much better idea of how things should and will turn out than I do.

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“Just so the record is straight, this ordinance did not cost Metro anything but rather is revenue producing while protecting those who wish to use the list from the annoyance of door to door sales persons.” – Phil Claiborne

The Nashville Metro government just enacted a law, described in the below video:

Apparently the Metro Nashville government and councilman Phil Claiborne (sponsor of the ordinance) in particular have found themselves with too much time on their hands and excess budget they needed to spend. Or at least a meaningless man hours to waste in the Clerk’s office, which amounts to the same thing.

How do you take advantage of this amazing new offer new service provided by Metro? You can go sign up on a “No Knock List” on the Metro Clerks website and they won’t be allowed to bother you any more! Of course that’s only if they bother to check the list… and obey it… and you could have already prevented this with just as much legal force as the list with a simple “No Soliciting” sign as described by the Metro Clerk’s website. Oh, and exempted from all of this: Charitable organizations (including churches, schools, etc), Magazine, Newspaper, and Book salespeople, and anyone selling any “expressive works” of any kind. So they won’t protect you against anyone who actually still knocks on doors. But they felt the need to create a list, keep it updated, and waste who knows how much extra budget in a pitifully slim Metro budget. I know it’s not a ton of money, but how many books could we have bought for the schools Councilman Claiborne used to teach in using the money this will cost?

Slow clap. Phil Claiborne. Slow. Clap.

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The first of these new reviews will be for the Rescue Bots Beam Box, a “my first console” of sorts for small kids. I received it free from BzzAgent.

It is worth saying up front that my 2 & 4 year old’s aren’t into Transformers or Rescue Bots, and in general are pretty hesitant to jump into violent or ‘scary’ shows (personal issues and parenting set aside). They don’t like stuff with ‘bad guys’ and I’m not in a hurry to force it on them. They do love video games though. I was hoping that Rescue Bots would fit the bill as a non-violent, no ‘bad guys’ introduction to more ‘action’ oriented games than the puzzle and sports games they’ve been playing.

For those reasons I decided to try the game out myself before giving it to them and I’m glad I did. Because it won’t work for us because I use a Dell projector for our main entertainment system in the house (we have no other TV’s, just computer monitors elsewhere). As it turns out, the infrared remote control for this game just happens to send off signals that match those of a Dell projector, so every time I pressed a button it gives me an overlay error message about not having a USB device plugged in. So this is totally useless for me and my kids. I’m going to give it to some friends who should enjoy it. I’ll make sure to get their feedback and post it here as well.

I did go ahead and use it the best I could though. Reviews and observations follow:

• Overall the games are far more responsive than I expected and solid game play was quite nice on all of the games I played save for one – the fighting game – which gets a little sluggish. It’s a 2.5D-ish hack & slash that brings in “bad guy robots” that you need to beat the crap out of while they barely do anything to you (is this what I’m teaching my 4 year old? no). I know they don’t have the baddies attacking the players too much so it is easy, but I seriously felt like a bully. But overall the games were very nice, intuitive but I think challenging enough for even experienced gamer kids. If you have a kid who plays a lot of advanced PS3/Xbox games, they’ll probably be bored, but this is great as a “my first console” kind of setup, gameplay-wise.
• While it plays most game sounds through the TV/stereo, there is also a speaker built in to the console itself and it is loud with no volume or mute option. If big brother is wanting to play this game while little brother is napping in the next room, you’d best have a pillow handy to muffle the sound.
• The console has to plug in with a wired connection to the TV, but is entirely battery powered (AA batteries). I don’t know how fast it will eat batteries but even with an auto-shutoff, you’re going to go through a lot of batteries if this gets much use at all. I’m guessing this is related to it being a toy targeted at young kids where they are expected to interact with the console directly, so it can’t be plugged into an outlet. Still a pain an additional cost, even if you’re using rechargeables.
• For my setup, there was really bad flicker on most images. The console only outputs old-school composite video (the yellow RCA jack kind) and my Sony receiver had to up-convert that to HDMI to pass it to my projector. I don’t know if this was a result of that upconversion, or would be consistent everywhere. But I’m guessing many people will be doing similar up-conversions to modern HDTVs. This was at-best distracting and I think it would be a likely source of headaches if too much time was spent watching it. You can see what it looked like on this video.

• To load up a set of levels you have to put a little figure into the console. Then you press a button on top and it quickly closes some doors on the front, spins the figure around on a carousel, and switches it to the back while showing an empty side to the kids. Basically it makes it look like the figure disappeared and appeared up on the TV. “wow!” Unfortunately, they cut costs and didn’t bother to put the mechanism on both sides of the carousel. So you can only put the figure in on one side. But both sides are made to look practically identical to keep up the illusion. So if some kid has come along and pressed that button on top many times (as kids will likely do) you have a 50/50 shot that the figure won’t go in to the console at all. Apparently I pressed that top button while putting in batteries because it took me a good 5 minutes of wrestling with the thing to realize why the figure wouldn’t snap in to the console. I can only imagine how frustrated kids might get. At the very least it completely blows the illusion when you have to explain it to little kids.
• In general talks about “bad guys” unnecessarily. I thought that was the point of Rescue Bots – helping people, not beating up ‘bad guys’. More games like the ‘asteroids accidentally being pulled in, fend them off with lasers while we shut it down’ would be great. There really isn’t a storyline in the game, so I really don’t think baddies are necessary. Without it (and without my projector problems) I would gladly have let both my 2 & 4 year old play the game. With that though, I’m iffy on my 4 year old and wouldn’t want him playing it with the 2 year old around, so that basically makes it a no-go.
• There’s no way to stop a level one it has been started. You just have to muscle through it to completion or totally reboot the console. So don’t start the wrong level by mistake!
• The “two player” option given at the end of every level is basically just a chance to play it again. I think the idea is that you hand it to your friend to take turns, which is nice, but there’s no competition or cooperation between players that I could see. Not a good or bad thing, just an observation.

Overall the console is really pretty nice. I think a decent value, and great as a ‘my first console’ for kids that are at the point of watching shows with good-guys vs. bad-guys and some minor violence. It isn’t without it’s technical issues, but for the price it isn’t bad at all. I’d recommend it for any family with little fans of Rescue Bots or similar shows that is looking for a cheap video game option this Christmas.

The post Product Review: Rescue Bots Beam Box appeared first on A Website.

Paul Nicholson

It’s been… let’s just say a “long time” since my last post went live on this blog. I’ve started to write three other posts in that time, and a few are still in the “drafts” folder. We’ll see if any ever see the light of day.

Of course, any of you who know me know that a lack of posts on this blog does not constitute a lack of online activity from me. Quite to the contrary, my increased posting on other platforms continues to lessen the appeal of the long form blog for me as an outlet. It is basically now limited to times when I either have something that ranges longer to say, or something that I wish to be more permanent and really referenced. This post fits both categories to some degree.

This is a “station identification” post. An idea I’m blatantly stealing from someone else, though I can’t give them credit because I don’t remember who it was. Some random Tumblr blog I think.

So, here is me, on the web, in various forms. In keeping with the medium, this station ID post will have lengthily explains of each platform and how I use them. Other station ID posts I’ll make on other sites will fit their respective formats (some just lining back here).

If you’re on any of these platforms and we aren’t connected, feel free to friend/add/like/plus/connect me.

WordPress Blog – Geek Thoughts – http://nicholsonrecords.com/paul – WordPress blog who’s content dates back to an older Blogger blog. When I’m feeling philosophical (or a least long-winded) this is most likely where I’ll post. See also: reviews of products, movies, and general opinion sharing.

Twitter (personal) http://twitter.com/pwnicholson – My twitter feed, started way back at BarCamp many years ago. This is where my fleeting rants, opinions, life updates, and points of interest get posted. Let’s be honest, like most people in Nashville I’m still on Twitter just to follow @jrlind.

Reddit – http://www.reddit.com/user/pwnicholson – Front page of the internet. I’m there.

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pwnicholson – Notify me here if you have any children, pets, or if you are participating in any fundraising activities. Mostly I still have this to manage the neighborhood Facebook group I started, and to manage Facebook pages for work.

Instagram – http://instagram.com/pwnicholson – My presence on the ubiquitous photo sharing app/site. This is for the personal stuff.

Instagram – http://instagram.com/nicholsonphotos – Another place to promote my photography work.

Tumblr (Photos) – http://pwnicholson.tumblr.com – “Best of” collection of my photography, shared to the hipster blog platform of choice for a little amplification.

Flickr – http://flickr.com/photos/paulnich – My main repository of images, along with Google Photos. But these are the only ones I can easily share with the public. If I mark you as a friend or family on Flickr service you’ll be able to see most of the 8,000+ images I have on the site. If you’re browsing as a member of the public you’ll have access to ‘only’ a few thousand.

Flickr (Family) – http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_nicholson_family – All of our general family photo stream goes here now. Pictures taken by yours truly as well as my wife, and even my two boys now that they have cameras.

Tumblr (Fashion) – http://attemptsatfashion.tumblr.com – My blog to attempt to educate myself on how to dress like an adult. Added women’s stuff that I find interesting at the wife’s request. Mostly reblogs.

Tumblr (Marketing) – http://ofmarketingthoughts.tumblr.com – 99% reblogs of cool ad campaigns or other interesting marketing. Gets my creative juices going for work.

Quora – http://www.quora.com/Paul-Nicholson – I’m here, too. Well, sometimes.

500px – http://500px.com/pwnicholson – The artsy photo sharing site of the moment in 2012. Gotta be there too, right?

Society6 – http://society6.com/pwnicholson – Monetizing photography. If you wanted to buy one of my pictures, this is where you can do it.

LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/pwnicholson – Connections for people I have done, am doing, or am wanting to do business with.

YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/pwnicholson – Rarely used archive of random videos. Most will be on Flickr or Google Photos.

Vimeo – https://vimeo.com/pwnicholson – Even more rarely used archive of ‘nice’ videos. Every 3 years or so I scratch the itch to do more video that photo. Here’s where those projects go.

Pinterest – http://pinterest.com/pwnicholson – Yes, I am male. Yes, I have a Pinterest page. It is sufficiently abandoned for me to still hold my Man Card though.

MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/pwnicholson – Yes, it still exists. No, I don’t post there. Never did.

Diaspora – https://joindiaspora.com/u/pwnicholson – Remember that site that was going to change the world and replace Facebook?

Steam Community – http://steamcommunity.com/id/pwnicholson – Check here when they announce Half-Life 3… right… it’ll still happen…

Playstation/PSN – http://us.playstation.com/playstation/psn/visit/profiles/pwnicholson – Decent odds that most of the activity here will actually be my kids playing PooYoo or Sports Champions under my account. I might fire up Burnout Paradise, NHL, or Need For Speed every few months.

EA Games Origin ID: PaulNich

Other Feeds and Sites

My Direct2Dell Community posts – Corporate-type blog posts from my old job.

Twitfinite – Account for the now-defunct Twitter app that forms ad-hoc communities. @PredFans being the most famous example. Currently trying to resurrect it after losing our hosting/developer.

East Nashville Facebook Group – I own and admin the East Nashville Facebook group. Yes, I live in Inglewood. Yes, I consider Inglewood to be a subset of East Nashville.

Flickr Communities – I own these groups: Nashville Predators, The Ground In, East Nashville Tomato Art Fest. And moderate these: Road Shots, NHL Arenas

Reddit – I moderate the /r/Predators subreddit.

The post Station Identification appeared first on A Website.

(continued after the break)

What I often come back to are those stories of the dads who know they are dying and so they record messages for their children to listen to later. They want to show their kids something of how they lived, what life means, and try to cram all the life teaching they were planning to do into a series of letters or videos. I keep wanting to do that myself. Even though I’m not dying, what if I did die suddenly. The fathers who suddenly die in a car crash don’t care any less for their kids, but they don’t get the chance to let their voice be heard later in the same way.

I don’t want to be too morbid about it. I don’t want to be so worried about death that I miss living with my sons in the moment. But I’m trying to find those opportunities to record my thoughts and parts of my life that I can so that if something did happen, Christy would have something she could show them later. Just last week I recorded a ‘day in the life’ video of my traveling to Austin for work. Nothing profound. Not very well done (I’m not even sharing it with other family). But it’s there. It’s a record of what I did that day.

The upside I’ve realized from this is that whether I die prematurely or not, these traces of me as I am now can still be valuable. I’d love to have a recording of how my dad (who is still alive) spent his day at various stages of his life. Not just the highlights that might survive in his memory or my mom’s, but the really mundane details like if traffic was good or bad on his commute or the kinds of things he ate for lunch. Besides which, figuring out how to be a dad to two little boys is hard work, and every little detail of how my dad approached raising a 2-year-old me would help.

The great part of course is that social media as it exists now makes this even easier. Facebook’s timeline feature is a great example, but so are archived twitter feeds and the 7000+ pictures on my Flickr stream. But I’m also hoping to go even deeper occasionally. To share my thoughts on issues of the day. Not in a semi-filtered blog post for public consumption, but in a way that my boys will be able to really see not just what their dad thought, but how. I want to teach them how to let the world teach them. Show them how to be the best men they can be – themselves. And I want them to hear it from their dad – even if I’m not around to say it.

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For those that haven’t seen, our oldest son, Ian, is a huge Predators fan (like his parents, of course). One of his favorite parts of the game is the starting lineups. He cheers loudly through them, and frequently asks us to play intro videos from YouTube when he’s playing. Then a while back we started introducing him like he was a hockey player (I think my parents started it, actually). He loves it and frequently asks for us to do it “a-gin”. Over and over again. (Sometimes he also introduces himself)
See the video below for an example:

So with @i_nich‘s 2nd birthday coming up, wonder if we could get @predpapaul to record a game-style announcement for our own little #9 :-)
03/03/11

And Paul quickly replied:

@pwnicholson I’d be happy to… send me the details and I’ll send it back in email… OK?
03/04/11

So I did.
And this was the result!

AWESOME!!!
I keep telling Paul that they really need to sell these. Offer them to Preds Kid’s Club members for at least $5-$10. Shouldn’t take much time if they knock them all out monthly in sessions and re-use the real players. I know we’d have bought one for double that price.

Thanks again, Paul!!

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The corner 24 hour store will stop having eight pumps offering gasoline and go down to four, then to two, then just one. It’ll be situated ’round the back and you’ll have to go inside and ask the cashier to turn on for you. Eventually that’ll be gone too; finding go juice will start to become a challenge.

Those stores will go from serving gas (which they all say they make no money on to begin with) to just being the convenience store. And between the Walgreen’s and CVS already on every corner, the need for other shops will be greatly reduced. (Now of course we will still need filling stations if (or more likely when) a move is made to hydrogen fuel-cells as the most common source of electricity for cars.)

That got me thinking: what other types of obsolete industries have been totally (or almost totally) dried up by the advancement of technology? What others are at risk?

Certainly there are industries that are endangered by the march of time in general (style: try to find a dedicated haberdashery in your town), but it has been a remarkably long time since an entire industry was threatened by technology. Last one I can think of was the blacksmith being replaced by the auto-repair shop. Even then an argument could be made that many smiths and livery’s converted to working with automobiles themselves (Perhaps a better argument would be feed stores?).

Most others I can think of have been able to adapt: Libraries aren’t being replaced by the internet, they are embracing and taking advantage of it. Libraries certainly look different and librarians have different skills now than 50 years ago – but they are still around. Fewer people are farmers today than 150 years ago and farms certainly look much different – but they are still around in fairly large numbers.

To me this is remarkable because technology has certainly advanced at an amazing pace. In the last 150 years. Countless new industries have been created by that advancement. And we frequently hear about how technology threatens certain ways of life when it comes in (and I won’t argue that). But it is remarkable how few times and entire industry of people has been left suddenly in the lurch when technology rapidly changed society.

Can you think of any other industries that my grandfather or great-grandfather would have found ubiquitous that have been rendered extinct by technology? I ask the question because i’m sure there are many (and there are certainly many if you include your search going back 300-500 years), but I’m having trouble thinking of any industries that vanished due to technology.

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Not too long ago I was watching Jeremy Cowart do a cool online workshop (free when streaming live thanks to CreateLive) on experimental portraiture (read: doing weird stuff and seeing what looks cool). At one point when answering the question “how do you get out of a creative rut”, he said something which was fairly obvious after the fact: change what you’re taking in. Listen to different music, follow different people on twitter, watch different TV shows, etc. That got me thinking: lately about 90% of my twitter feed has been either NHL hockey or Dell (work) related. That’s all fine and good, but that’s not where I want to be going. I’m a hockey fan, and my job is a nice one, but the direction I want to be going is marketing and/or photography, and more so the latter. So lately I’ve been looking for more Nashville area photographers to follow on Twitter, Flickr, blogs, etc…

(continued…)

One of those photographers has already given me another idea. Leslee Mitchell is not only a great photographer, but she’s the queen of self-promotion. As she put it herself not too long ago “self-promotion is the art of spreading ideas, concepts, and a greater vision.” Among other things I’ve seen her doing lately is a “best of 2010” gallery of her work. She created the gallery on Facebook and has been voraciously linking to various pictures in the gallery with comments on why she liked the photos. I realized that it wouldn’t hurt for me to do the same. If I expect anyone to ever take me seriously as a photographer, I have to take myself seriously first. Not to mention that some self-examination and critical analysis could do me some good.

Since my son David was born last week, I’ll be more than a bit busy for a while. So for the moment I’m going to post a slideshow if my current favorite pictures from my portfolio (all taken in 2010). Soon I hope to post a few individual entries on them with commentary. Hope you enjoy.

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Turns out there is a movement for men’s health – I caught on too late to do join last year, but I won’t miss out this time. And yes, I’m asking for a donation…

(continued after the break)

Mustachioed Me

Thanks to a movement that started in Australia a few years ago I will joining thousands of men across the world growing a mustache to help raise awareness of men’s health in the month of Novemeber Movember. The idea being that mustaches aren’t very common and people will ask “why are you growing a mustache?” and give me a chance to spread the word. I have created a Movember team for Nashville Predators fans (assistant coach Peter Horachek was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer), but of course I’m inviting anyone to join and/or donate. So far my team has grown to 5 members and already raised $70 in just a few days. All proceeds are divided between Livestrong and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

So how can you help?

Well, first off I’ll warn you that though the cause is great, the website for Movember still leaves something to be desired, so bring your patience: First, visit my Movember page .

If you simply wish to make a donation, click on “Donate To Me“. It will then prompt you for your name and email address, then for your credit card/payment info on the next screen. You can choose any donation amount you wish to make. Thank you!

If you want to join my team, click on “Join My Team“. It will then ask you if you want to be a team captain, team member , or an individual. Choose “Team Member”. Then fill out the form with your name, email address, etc. Submit that form and that should be it.

Thanks to all for your support!

And yes, due to popular request I will be going fu-manchu with my ‘stache. Be warned.

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I feel like I’ve been a bit of a jerk lately. I know don’t exactly have a reputation as being cuddly. Most of my life I’ve heard the criticism that I’m too sarcastic, too quick to voice my opinion of others and their work, and too casual with my communication of said sarcasm and criticism. But lately I find myself regretting more and more that has been coming out of my mouth or fired off on Facebook/Twitter, etc.

I suppose for those that aren’t up to speed, I should backup provide a bit of a preface before I proceed.

(continued after the break)

My wife, Christy and I are pregnant with our second child. Our son Ian is 17 months old and doing great.  About 3 weeks ago Christy started having a few symptoms that the doctor decided were best checked out with an unscheduled visit. 1 surgery, 5 days in the hospital (in two sessions), and 3 weeks later Christy is doing fine, as is the baby boy, but she is on strict bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy – approx 4.5 months if it goes full term. That has left me as essentially a single parent in terms of work load, etc. Christy has been incredibly supportive emotionally and verbally, but the work is still there to do.

To say this has been challenging would be an understatement.

Now, it is also worth mentioning before I go on that we’ve had no shortage of assistance offered and even provided by friends and family. Both my family and Christy’s live in the area and they have frequently assist in vital ways (Christy’s mom is retired and comes over 8-5 every MWF, my parents frequently run errands for us). Many of Christy’s friends have come over and brought food and visited with Christy or watched Ian for a while to give me a chance to catch up on laundry, etc. My employer has been amazingly accommodating as well. Thanks to the flexibility of my position I’ve been able to take what is normally a 15-20% travel job and cut it down to zero. I’m also working from home 90% of the time, and able to take off ‘long lunches’ to take Christy to weekly doctor appointments when needed and ‘flex time’ that work into the evening. All of these things have been a huge help. But even this can be a mixed blessing when it comes to our mental state. Christy and I are both introverts of a sort – meaning that we ‘recharge’ best with time spent alone – something neither of us is getting very much of. Even from each other, much less all the family/friends visiting. Of course, take away the visits and we very quickly get stir crazy and lonely in the house by ourselves. Just one of our many conundrums.

But overall I’ve really been surprised that this hasn’t been such a horrible experience for me. Sure, the first few days (while we were bouncing in and out of the hospital and getting no sleep and were not sure if we would lose the baby) were complete hell. I broke down and frequently cried every time I was alone for a couple of days there. But now that we’ve settled into a routine it really isn’t bad. I’m spending a tremendous time with my two favorite people in the world and any given moment, any given request really isn’t a burden. I’m able to stay positive in the moment.

But I’ve started to realize that it is really wearing on me. My first indications are that I have no idea ‘how’ I am. You know, when some one asks “how are you?” – I have no idea. I just sort of stare blankly back at them as if to say “I don’t understand the question”. My second indication is that I’m being a jerk. More than usual.

It might be worth explaining that both of these things are already something I have to work at. I’m not going to go into the whole story now, but sufficed to say many years of therapy and a whole lot of good, patient friends have helped me recover a sense of self-awareness and sensitivity that were not natural to me. I’ve had to learn how to identify myself in the mess of facades I used to throw up for everyone else to see when I was growing up. I’ve had to learn coping skills that help me vent my personal frustrations in helpful ways rather than lashing out with critical barbs at friends and loved ones. Sure these are all things most people have to do when they grow up. Maybe I’m no worse than others. But for me these are things I have to work at very diligently. It takes conscious effort to maintain basic life skills that (I can only assume) come naturally to others. But I’m usually pretty good at it these days.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had much extra energy or time to put into those efforts. I am awoken every morning when my son wakes up. Immediately get into gear and get him changed, fed, dressed. Feed Christy. Hand off the household duties to whoever is on deck to help. Then head to work. My day job I mean. Throughout the day my “breaks” from work are to come upstairs and check on the family. Make sure everyone is doing ok and answer questions for whoever is helping run the house that day (Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the questions to assumptions. More on that later). As soon as I’m off work, I have to relieve my assistant and take back over. Make dinner for everyone, keep my son’s curiosity and energy semi-contained. Try to get some amount of time with my family. Then put my son in bed. Usually then do the dishes and clean up the daily chaos. Try to get in some time with my wife. Then go back to work for an hour or three. Finally around 1:00am I crawl into bed and sleep. (note this blog is being posted and edited well after 1:00am)

I do try to take breaks. To do some of those things my therapist calls “self care” to keep myself sane. I’ll make time to play a few minutes of a video game. Read up on hockey news. Take, edit, and post photos. But all of it is crammed into the small amount of time in between running from need-to-need in the rest of the house. I know that every minute I spend away from one of those chores is just getting me further and further behind, and having to schedule and be that thoughtful about the activities makes them feel like just another chore themselves.

Now, I’ll make yet another aside here to cover what I know some of you are thinking: why doesn’t he get more help around the house. Let someone else do the dishes, the laundry, etc. I do. Some. Both grandmothers come will occasionally do a load of dishes or fold laundry when they come over. Unfortunately I discovered very early on in this ‘adventure’ that I was rapidly losing any sense of identity, pride, or adult-hood that I had if I handed my house over to someone else. Again: maybe that’s nuts, but it’s me. It’s great to have the help, but I found myself very frustrated when everything in the kitchen started moving around on me. Things were washed differently and put away in the wrong place. The food in the cabinets and refrigerator was not ‘mine’ – it was stuff that I would never buy that someone else (very graciously) bought for me. People rearranged our laundry into ways that made sense to them but weren’t how Christy and I did things. These are all OK in small doses, but I realized that I could not hand my home over to one person, not to mention a varied group of other people, each with their own systems and ideas – none of which were the one’s Christy and I had been running our house by. Fortunately I’ve been able to slowly let go of a few of these things and the grandmothers in particular have been great about being patient and understanding with my very specific, nit-picky requests (you should see the grocery lists complete with brands and sizes that I give to my mom). So that is getting better. Improving.

But all of this still leaves me with so little time. And so much on my mind. Which leaves room for little else. In particular I mourn not being able to spend more time on my main creative outlets. Cooking and photography.

I rarely get to cook much anymore and when I do, I don’t have the time to allow myself to be creative (side note: not to mention that my pregnant wife’s stomach is not nearly as willing to indulge my culinary experiments). I have a box of Thai coconut curry broth that I’ve been dying to try something with. But every time I look at it in the pantry I just think “I’m not even sure where to start, I sure as heck don’t know where it’s going” and put it back on the shelf. These days a really good cooking session involves making my own, well established recipe (but tasty) for hashbrowns along with following the instructions on the box for making waffles. Even then every other waffle comes out burned because I’m trying to multitask too much. At least I have the pleasure of knowing that Christy enjoys the cooking I do get to tackle and requests some of my recipes specifically. That at least reminds me that someone thinks I’m still good at what I’m doing.

As for the photography… I’ve always been a photo hound, but ever since my parents gave me a D90 last Christmas I’ve really gone for it. I’m finally using gear (especially the 50mm 1.8f lens) that allows me to at least get close to capturing the images I see in my mind. m really proud of some of the shots I’ve been able to pull off. In particular I’ve really loved shooting Christy and my son. But right now Christy just tolerates my pointing the camera her way to document this time for our family, but she’s not really in a position to be my primary artistic subject at the moment. If I had all the time in the world and the money to go with it, I’d be buying more gear to do work with them and others. And there’s the real secret: I’d love to do work for other people. I’d love for someone else to like my work enough to request that I shoot for them. Even for free. Only once before has that happened (a paying gig actually) and that was before I had my new camera. The results were decent, but rushed and nothing like what I know I was capable of and nothing at all like what I could do now. Recently I even looked in to taking a photography course in the area. Ha. Who am I kidding that I could work that into my schedule. For now, I just get to shoot what I happen to find in life around me – which is still quite a lot.

So…

all that to say…

I’m sorry.

Sorry to my coworkers, and most importantly, my friends who I have hurt with my thoughtless jabs or wise cracks. Many of you I consider dear friends – then I get too ‘comfortable’ and feel like I can make a sarcastic jokes at/with. But when I think about it, 1) we aren’t as close as I think because I don’t have time to invest in many friendships right now and 2) what on earth makes me think it’s OK to make hurtful comments only to the friends I care about. Yeah… that’s how my mind works when it’s fried.

And I am fried right now. I don’t feel like it from moment to moment. And I may tell you everything is fine. But I’m just gonna be running on fumes for a while.

This isn’t an excuse, just an explanation. And apology. And request that you provide me a little grace and don’t judge me as harshly as I know I sometimes judge you. I love you all and despite the messages that dominate my verbal jabs, snarky Twitter replies, whiny Facebook posts, and sarcastic blog comments: I never mean to say anything to belittle you or take away from the value of who you are or what you do. I never mean to. But I know sometimes I do. Thank you for being my friends in spite of that fact.

I will leave you with a slideshow of some of my Flickr photos. I really am rather proud of them.

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