Yup, I’m coming back again

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airmiles, amazing, anticipation, arrangement, art, articles, attention, backups, baggage, baking, band, bars, blog, blogging, book, business, clay, cleaning, co-op, cooker, cornet, costco, craft, cutting, deep cove, Deep Cove Jazz Band, degree, donating, dream, editing, engineering, entertain, expire, exposé, family, flyers, friend, future, gig, gigs, glossary, graphics, gym, hair, health, hobby, horn, hunch, idea, index, indexing, influences, intentions, jazz, job, kitchenaid, lead, life, lives, living, malcolm, mechatronics, members, men, michelle, mixer, model, Mondays, money, moustache, Movember, music, musicians, Name Jazz Band, natural, ordered, overdue, Patricia, photoblogs, photography, photos, points, pot, priorities, priority, profession, projects, publish, publishing, purchased, redeem, rice, rice cooker, sale, sang, schedule, seniors, shaving, sing, singer, software, sorting, story, strained, technojungle, technology, u.s., valves, vocalist, voice, volunteer, wash, website, wife, woman, work, workflow, writing, yogurt

It would appear that I have been getting back to this blog less than twice a year and I feel it is time to come back and try to be a bit more regular. II have been writing, truly I have been writing everyday and some of that writing could have gone on this blog and some on the Technojungle blog. I write a little in the morning and a little at night. I can’t explain why I have not been blogging. I hope that may change with this entry.

The last update was pretty comprehensive. I continue mostly in and same directions.

Fir

My hair is now very long, over a foot in many places. However, would you believe it, I have no photos of my hair. I have been enjoying it, although I am surprised at how much comes out when I wash and brush it. I figured recently that, if I only lost ten strands per day, and that might just be a conservative guess, I could have lost 4000 strands since I started. I tried to imagine what that many strands of hair might look like. These thoughts had me thinking that I should get on with cutting it off and donating it before I have little to give. Still, I like having my hair and tending to it. If I cut it off, I might grow it again. Someone mentioned that November is Movember for men’s health and typically means growing and then shaving off a moustache. I think I had better get some photos of my hair before the end of next month.

Writing (& Book)

My book is still in editing mode, although I have not really worked much on it for a week or so, the longest and perhaps only break I have taken since getting on a schedule of writing and then editing the book. I’m not really sure when I will be ready. I might just have to bite the bullet, as they say. Although, I’m sure I could tighten it up. I may add a glossary. The idea of an index just got squashed as I read about what is an actual profession, craft and art called indexing. It could cost over a thousand dollars for this. I’ll hold off for now.

Music

I mentioned something about my dream cornet and that I was going to do a separate entry for this amazing event in my life. As you may have noticed, I did not get to it. I suppose what happened is that I had this cornet out to be fixed up and, in particular, have the valves redone back near where the horn was originally made during 1921 in the U.S. I did lots of before photos, but when it came back, I just got playing it and have not stopped. Well, that means that playing music and all my other projects have take priority. I am still planning to do the photos and then an exposé on the entire matter, so you can wait in deep anticipation for that.

I had mentioned that I was playing in a band to entertain seniors and that I had also started my own band, both giving me a long tiring, nevertheless exciting, blow on Mondays. The evening band, affectionately called the No Name Jazz Band, it still going along and we are improving. I am learning to lead and make-up the arrangement as I go. The Deep Cove Jazz Band was turned over to me, so now I have two bands. This band has been in need of rebuilding and I am happy to report that it looks like this is finally happening and we may, in a few weeks, be able to get back to doing gigs for seniors again.

I must say that it is certainly challenging to keep a band of volunteer musicians together. I am working on acquiring and maintaining a core group of members for each band and backups. It is also challenging to keep all the music in order. We had a long music sorting spree yesterday with the Deep Cove JB music. One other challenge that is working out well now is that I added a vocalist.

I was playing in a band and a woman came to sing. She only sang a few bars when she realized that she would not be available for the gig, so she left. However, I heard enough to form a hunch that she could be a jazz singer, so over the last few months she has been working at it and is a regular member or both bands. Yesterday she experienced what I experience on Mondays and nearly strained her voice.

I am playing a lot and getting better, although, I do find that I have limitations, which I may discuss another time.

Photography

I continue to do very little in this long time hobby area of my life. I still have intentions though. Since my photography seems to be on hold, so are my photoblogs, however, they too will get some attention one day.

Graphics

Turning to the area of graphics and publishing, I had an unfortunate experience. We were doing high-end flyers and then my friend decided to go another direction with his life and work. This left us, my wife and I, without this work. I had built up my workflow with the necessary software and suddenly there was no more work. I decided to take my little graphics business and hold it on the side until I am ready to publish my book. At the moment, I suppose, music and working on my book are the main priorities.

Baking

I have just come off of taking a break from baking. Our KitchenAid mixer stopped. My wife, somehow, managed to return it to Costco and then we began to wait for it to go on sale. Now it seems Costco is no longer carrying them. It may be that Costco is having KitchenAid develop a different model. In the meantime, we needed to use our Airmiles before they expire and my wife was looking on the Airmiles website for items to redeem our points on. Suddenly she said, “Is this what you are looking for?” Sure enough, it was the KitchenAid mixer and it was an even better model. It required points and money, but in the end, we came out $71 ahead. Next she found a fancy rice cooker with a natural clay removable pot. It makes yogurt and other things too. This she purchased entirely with points, so it was free. The item is back ordered, but the KitchenAid has arrived and is in use.

Family

We keep on muddling along. My wife Patricia is still working, as am I, both of us part-time. Michelle has another job at a gym and Malcolm is in the final legs of his Mechatronics engineering degree and is currently working at a co-op job. We are all fine and living, coming and going, under one roof.

The Future

As I realized when I was considering a name for my book, the future never arrives… at least not as expected and it always brings baggage. While my book states this about how technology influences our lives, it seems to be applicable in most areas of our lives.

I have somewhat promised that I would post some photos of my hair and post the story about my cornet and some photos. Before I do that, I think I would like to wash it. I have been playing for many months and it is long overdue for a cleaning.

As for further writing, there may be less here than other years, since I have the Technojungle blogfor all the technology related posts. On the other hand, I have plenty of music going on now and that may become a source for articles here.

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Technology foiled by a gum wrapper of life

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adobe, apple, battery, cleaning, computer, crumpled, daughter, feed rollers, feeding, frustration, gum, indesign, internet, macbook, macintosh, paper, phone, printer, printing, problem, publish, publishing, reboot, tech support, techie, techno, technology, transient, troubleshooting, typesetting, university, wrapper, write

My daughter called me one day to complain that her printer would not work. She lives in another city and I could not just pop over to assist her, so I attempted phone tech support. The problem was that paper was not feeding properly into the printer. It was getting crumpled on one edge on the way into the printer. Of course, I asked her to reach in and feel around to see if anything was in there. I also wondered if the feed rollers might need cleaning. The frustration level was rising. I was sure it was something simple, but she had little time for technology failures.

The next step, was to search on the Internet for similar problems and to find the solution. I found information on how to clean the rollers. I forwarded information on to her. Now, she tends to always be busy and is certainly not a techie type. We all know people in the techno-aversion range who have various levels of interest and ability when it comes to technology. Some love to roll up their sleeves and dive in. Others can’t even imagine doing anything to fix problems involving technology. They just want to plug it in and have it work. Apple Inc. understood this and created computers that could be taken out of the box, plugged in and they were ready to go. There are a range of people that fall between those extremes.

We have all had to deal with a variety of techno-failures. Perhaps you had a broom break. A broom is a type of technology. Call it low-tech. I’m sure we have all had a more complicated technology fail, such as a light bulb. Most of us have also had very complex technology fail like a computer. High-tech devices are so complex that I often think it amazing that they even work some of the time. There are so many things that could fail.

Lately, I have been talking to my daughter about more technology issues. She is learning Adobe InDesign for one of her jobs. I have a background in printing and publishing and ran several Macintosh computer labs for training students to go into the printing industry. We were discussing some of the things that can go wrong and difficulties she has had in getting her typesetting and layout to work properly. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Everybody these days thinks they can write and publish, make documents and do some of the things they see published. My daughter is learning that, at the professional level, it is complex.

I explained to her that, if you can’t replicate the problem, you probably can’t solve it. Some failures or errors are transient. That is, they just simply occur, often at the most inopportune times. I often say, “Technology is great, when it works.” Or, “Technology will fail just when you need it most.”

Another call from my daughter informed me that her computer would not work. We tried everything. She even had a guy friend listen to the strange sounds emitting from the MacBook Pro and then remark, something like, “It is fried.” The local authorized Apple computer store said that it might need a couple of things done and quoted her prices for just looking at it. She was in her final weeks of university and also needed the computer for work, so I said that she should not spend any money on the machine until I could look at it. I told her to go get a new one and that we would help her. When I got the computer, it was indeed completely dead. That, of course, due to sitting for weeks and the battery being fully depleted. So, I charged it overnight. I am writing this article on that very same computer. It is fine. Go figure!

Probably the most used troubleshooting method that everybody knows is, “When in doubt (or, when all else fails), reboot.” While you’re waiting for your computer to come back up, grab a stick of gum and relax. But, don’t crumple and toss the wrapper somewhere on your desk because it might land in your printer and that is exactly what had happened with my daughter. I got her printer and it now works too. Anybody need a printer?