sfegette

Although I haven’t been finishing up many songs, I’m finding my process more a flood of ideas lately – so am scraping to get them written/recorded/documented as quickly as possible lest I lose the muse. It can be really frustrating having 30-40 ‘idealets’ floating around without any cut tracks to show for it, but I’m trying to stay optimistic and look at it as building up raw materials for about 10-15 really good finished pieces down the road.

::churning along::

ok, I totally geeked out a couple weeks ago and bought both my wife and myself those new nike+ ipod kits for our nanos. thought it would be lame, but it’s anything but! it’s been very cool to track my progress and goals, but most cool to compete with my wife. right now we’re neck-and-neck about 1/2 way through a ‘who can run 100 miles first’ challenge- which works wherever I’m at in the world. ya know, sometimes technology’s a crutch, sometimes it’s a distraction, but this is pretty f@#kin’ sweet. running motivation is just a playlist away… :)

Finally solved my difficulty in getting back on my mountain bike regularly over the last couple years- we just had to get a real bike for my wife (she had an older Giant ‘offroad cruiser’ that wasn’t particularly good at either). Now there’s no more squabbling over whether to run, hike or bike- we’ve clipped in and hit the trails nearly every day lately, either before or after our respective day gigs. Sweet.

4 songs, 2 days, Ableton Live is my new best friend (along with Reason of course). I’d been dreading setting up my ProTools/TDM system again for real sessions, so was pleasantly surprised to find that Live 5’s new recording features (and old-standard loop slicing features) make songwriting much, much easier.

(Note to loopers/remixers- I record all my own tracks/samples/loops from real mikes and instruments, so I’m not talking about slapping pre-recorded loops and soft synth patches together- but recording new ideas and snippets live on gtr/bass/keys/drums, then slicing up the verse/chorus/bridge parts in Live to quickly suss out arrangements from them on the fly. Way faster than cutting up tracks in ProTools, totally dope.)

I’m a convert.
ProTools can kiss my azz henceforth. :)

I’ve been travelling a lot, and not sure whether it’s the change of scenery/pace or just the alignment of the stars but I’ve been exercising like crazy and not even really working at it. The only thing I’ve consciously done is switch up my physical habits:

- instead of sitting down to my computer, I got a ‘stand-up’ desk and change positions a lot more often

- stopped driving to work and taking cabs, walking pretty much everywhere now

- instead of turfing out on the sofa and watching TV, I’ve been doing crunches on the floor while catching up on Lost

- etc.

basically- just the act of changing my daily habits ever-so-slightly has made a huge difference. let’s see if it sticks… ;-)

somehow staying healthy became so much easier once I went back on the road again. the hotel-to-hotel life seems to work really well for getting me in a daily workout rhythm, must be the regular change of pace/environment- but whatever it is, something’s working.

I also got a new pair of running shoes (nike free trainers) which rock hard and certainly make workouts a lot more comfortable, but that’s a pretty lame, materialistic source of motivation. I’m sticking with the ‘change of pace’ story. ;-)

I’ve been staring at this goal for months, so my wife and I took a weekend off and CLEANED HOUSE. 12 boxes of clothes/donations for Katrina victims, about 20 eBay auction items boxed and listed, gifted out a bunch of crap that my friends have been ogling for years, and our garage/attic is now bone clear. Seriously. It’s almost creepy how empty things look now.

Talk about binging out on a goal.. jeez. Now if I can only get this mad crazy focused on the ‘be healthy’ goal I’d be a happy freakin camper. At least I’ve got room in the garage to set up a gym again… :-)

just getting a new camera has made all the difference, now that I can really carry one around with me easily, I’m taking more pictures than ever in my life.

Can’t say the quality level of my shots is dramatically better, but the volume is way, way up since getting the new camera. I’ve updated my Flickr photostream each day since getting it, which is almost a miracle given my sordid history of productivity. ;-)

just the portability factor alone of my new Sony T7 is making my photo-taking throughput triple, if not quadruple. wow. and yes- although that means more shitty shots per capita, it also means more potential for good shots (of which there’s been quite a few).

Note to self- always bring cardreader with me on trips- it really sux to be taking record levels of shots yet not be able to do anything with them… yet.

yep- no refills, just ate what I could put on the plate and left it at that. nice! for once I’m not overloaded beyond the conversational level. of course, everyone else pigged out so was fast asleep by the time pie was ready, so conversation was pretty slow anyway. Thank god for the PSP. ;-)

... does that count? Outside of the structured breathing, probably not- but figured it was worth a post anyway. ;-)

Well, I’ve been complaining about how my bulky digital camera didn’t lend itself to taking a lot of pictures- so I just picked up a new Sony DSC-T7, which is roughly the size of a small wallet and should kill any excuses on that line going forward. Even updated my photostream with Hong Kong/Korea pics!

I had some down-time today, and actually got some progress made on the new home page design for my site, although decided against integrating the RSS aggregator for today. Gotta have something to work on this weekend!

I ate a salad instead of a burger today, ran to the train instead of slowly walking w/iPod, and used the stairs instead of the elevator. Had 2 cups of coffee, but skipped the cream and sugar. Now if I can just keep doing this consistently, week to week… ;-)