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Perpetually Busy
It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I’m really busy with lots of projects and such, but it seems that things have really picked up as of late.
Music
Things have really ramped up in this realm as of late, as “A Chip off the Shizz Block, Volume Two” is coming out on Tuesday and I’ve got to prepare the Concatenation site as well as send out copies to the participants (and then to the buyers after Tuesday). There’s also another CD going up for pre-order that will be unveiled on Tuesday as well.
I’m working on a track for this month’s Dwelling of Duels that I should be able to finish in the appropriate time, three tracks that are in the works which could be August’s track for the website (one of which I’ll go forward with this weekend), and a four-song EP that’s completely different from the four-song EP that was started under my Philistine on the Sidewalk project is in the works. I went out and took some pictures for the artwork last night (it’s tentatively titled “Summer Nights”) and enjoyed doing so until getting swarmed by mosquitos.
I’ve been working on Reason presets for synths and I’ve put together a pretty solid drum kit preset to complement the drum loops that I’ve been working with. I’ve also been toying with the idea of doing a project that would be the polar opposite of the stuff I’m doing under my own name (harsh, fast, noisy, abusive), but I’m sensing it would run out of steam pretty quickly, so maybe an EP in the future under my own name would be the best course of action. I suppose they don’t all have to be chilled-out jazzy trip-hop albums.
I’ve also got another compilation to put together and an eight-song album of video game covers from one game to put together in the fall, but I’ll worry about that when the time comes.
Fitness
I’m thankful that things in this realm are relatively quiet, save for finally making it under 190 pounds this morning. I’ve been doing my routine in the morning five days a week and making progress with it, though I’m thinking of jumping from four exercises a morning to five in order to speed up on the road to 185 and potentially below.
Gaming
Of course, a game that I’ve been waiting for over the past two years came out on Sunday – that being Dragon Quest IX, and of course I picked it up the day it came out. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to put into it, but I’ve greatly enjoyed what I’ve played so far, so I’ll likely be going the distance and beyond with this game. I’ve also got a bunch of 360 games I want to catch up on, but who knows when I’ll get around to those.
Beer
I drink it on the weekends and it still tastes great! I should have some time to read about micro brewing in the future, but when is the question. As for beers I’ve been enjoying lately – 21st Amendment’s Brew Free or Die! IPA, Widmer’s Deadlift Imperial IPA, Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale (though that’s a long time favorite), and Blue Moon’s Honey Moon have been in regular rotation.
Finances
I thought I was about caught up with this realm and ready to focus on building – boy, was I wrong. I’m not sure what triggered it (probably last week’s blog), but I got a wild hair about me and decided to go through and check all of the stocks that have increased their dividend every year for the past 25+ years and see which ones would fit well in my portfolio. Long story short, it turned my portfolio inside out, my watchlist has changed a lot, and it changed the way I think about buying stocks and reinvesting dividends.
A lot of my old portfolio doesn’t follow the yearly dividend increases, but they’re still solid stocks that have lots going for them. I can say that with some confidence, as my portfolio has held pretty steady throughout all the ups and downs of the market as of late. It is down about 0.3% as of last quarter, but compared with my 401k accounts which are down 7.4%, 10.4%, and 11.6%, I think I’m doing alright. In fact, I’m rather tempted to cut the amount I put into my current 401k (the 11.6% one) and put it into my portfolio. Of course, the 401k contributions aren’t taxed until I withdraw in less than 29 years, so it’s something to think about.
Cats
Another low-key area is nice, though I was just running around the house with Barclay. I jogged into the living room, he took off into the kitchen while I jogged behind him. Then I jogged back into the living room and he followed me in. Rinse and repeat a few times and we both got some exercise and had some fun. He’s chilling in my room now and I’m taking a breather by blogging.
He’s been acclimating to being here even more over the past month, especially when I come home exhausted after work, crash on the bed and put him on my stomach. He’ll lie there for a few minutes and purr away while I pet him. One night, I fell asleep with him on my stomach and when I woke up about half an hour later, he was still there. He still doesn’t quite snuggle like Mouse used to, but he is sleeping next to me on the bed when I wake up in the morning now, which is nice.
I also found out that he’s a Norwegian Forest Cat, since he looks almost identical to the other Norwegian forest cats that I’ve seen. It’s an interesting coincidence, considering my background in Scandinavian culture and the Norwegian language.
I can’t forget Bootsie either – she’s doing well too and still can’t tolerate Barclay. He’s sniffed her nose-to-nose a few times without incident, but sooner or later, the hissing starts up. It’s funny how grouchy she is with Barclay, since she’s so sweet with me (most of the time).
The Jobby Job
Work has definitely picked up over the past couple of months thanks to a new development in the program that basically doubled my workload. Coupled with the downsizing, I’m earning my paycheck these days, I’ll tell you what.
It’s getting to be like when I got there in May of 2006, but thankfully the workload is about half of what it was then, which is nice since I’m the only one doing my job these days. I got pretty swamped last week and especially the week before (since there were only four work days), but I’m mostly caught up at this point.
I definitely need to stay on top of things now if I can, which definitely means there will be no vacation for me this summer. I hope things slow down by MAGFest or I might have to bail on that too. I think they should, so that shouldn’t be an issue.
No Time to Relax
At least not for a while. I’ve got some other things in the works that will be revealed when the time is right, and then of course there’s the continued overhaul of this site and I’ll be redesigning the Concatenation Records site similar to this one after I finish here. I’m also working on making a more focused push into spreading my work through social media outlets.
I won’t be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel for quite some time, but when it does arrive, the rest will be well worth it.
Discuss this post at the For the Love of Creativity Forum!
Posted on July 17th, 2010.
External Links
• 21st Amendment – Brew Free or Die! IPA – Brew Free or Die! Ipa India Pale Ale in a can | 21st Amendment Brewery
• A Chip off the Shizz Block, Volume Two – A Chip off the Shizz Block, Volume Two – CCN022 – Concatenation Records
• Blue Moon Brewing Company – Blue Moon Brewing Company
• Concatenation Records – Concatenation Records
• Dragon Quest IX – Dragon Quest 9 for the Nintendo DS – Nintendo DS Games
• Dwelling of Duels – Dwelling of Duels
• MAGFest – Join Us! | MAGFest – the official site
• Norwegian Forest Cat (scroll down to the grey one) – Norwegian Forest Cat – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Philistine on the Sidewalk – Philistine on the Sidewalk
• Reason – Propellerhead Software – Products – Reason
• Rogue – Dead Guy Ale – Rogue Ales
• Widmer – Deadlift Imperial IPA – Deadlift Imperial IPA – Widmer Brothers
• Xbox 360 – Xbox 360 Consoles & Accessories – Xbox.com – Xbox.com
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