Here is a picture of the band. Actually, the almost band. That’s Brian and his tendon is not getting better. We played a few tunes tonight with him strumming along, but it was really a proof of concept. He has absorbed the lessons and we were able to get through unfamiliar music covering all mistakes and recovering from all errors. It is a pity we came so close but he understands that I [now] have to team up with another working musician, at least until he can play again.
Whatever is wrong with his tendons is serious, plus he admitted he is predisposed to such conditions. I will still hope for recovery because he has the rare good attitude toward playing in a group. Oddly, he is what I would have been if I’d married and I’m what he would be if he’d stayed single. Did you know he traveled to China to adopt his daughter?
My circle of musician friends here is much smaller than back on the left coast. I always knew somebody I could stand in with back there. By the way, I have the gossip. The G has got his gig back at the coffeehouse. Funny, he never mentioned it to me the way he normally would. Then again, I was never competition before. What he does not know is I don’t care for open mics and expensive coffeehouses nor the mumbo-jumbo crowd that hangs out there. I should show up and read my poem “The Man Who Lived to Be One Hundred”.It’s Cort’s Coffeehouse, out on University Drive. I just scanned (meaning I looked at them) 28,000 pictures and I do not have one of that location. Videos, yes, but no stills. The place came up before I knew about the G, because for me it is always a tradition to play something live, even with groups that don’t make it. I suggested a week from next Saturday. Cort is not there any more, he sold out.
Like most, I sometimes get to wondering where all my conspiracy against the establishment may lead. In my world, all jewelry stores, period, and doctors who charge more than $40 an hour would go broke. I sat down and did some serious think-stuff about the direction of computers. There was a customer in late last week who pointed out that until this generation dies, we [collectively] will continue to do things on the computer in a manual fashion, the way we understood them before. Good point. (Only after that time will we begin to do things totally computerized, which parallels my theory that it would be wiser to change the way you do business than to program.)
However, I don’t have time to sympathize and I’ve spotted something. The Korean guy, Sean, has not responded for over a week. This made me realize I am a sucker to be confining my offerings to the South Florida market. I figure peeling a dollar out of the locals is more trouble than it is worth. I’ve long felt that way. Why should I pay good money for an ad here, only to face a restrictive and difficult market, when the same service is not even available in China?
A black eye to AOL. It seems they want $25 for the browser, so my client uninstalled it. I did not check it myself, but this particular client is unlikely to make a mistake with money. So I replaced it with an AOL product called Openride. It is basically four tabbed screens that you can resize in several ways. It breathes a little new life into a saturated market. It also makes the people who think about it a bit more aware that email and browser are not the same thing.
The blog pictures need to be “optimized”. Fred showed me how to take the dimensions and number of colors way down to make them load faster. Brian also mentioned about You Tube, or is it Toob. I can’t remember, the few times that I looked at it was just to see the feature of the day. He was quite unaware of the enormous difficulties of putting something together for that, even a short clip of just a few minutes.
I talked to JP, who reports that his dad has gone in the hospital again. It’s the first I’ve heard of it, but apparently they are going to add a third kidney, placing it next to his stomach. I thought kidneys had to be donated by a close relative. I hope for the best, more than usual. While medical procedures are not on my reading list, that is something I’ve never even heard of before.
Big Al called, he’s one of my students from last summer. He took a bunch of computer lessons, but did not [I feel] completely investigate the requirements for running a home business. He’s been looking at all manner of projects that promise work at home plans. Most of them predictably turned out [so far] to be pyramid schemes, telemarketing or required unsavory sales positions. (Unsavory being anything that requires a sales pitch before anyone would buy it. Like time-sharing condos.) He’s the one who signed up for virtual jury duty and we have an agreement that if he actually finds anything that works, he’ll let me know. He’s got a great computerized home office, but without any work he can actually do. I wonder how many of those already exist in Florida.
Health, I mean I should mention my own once in a while. My pulse shows a steady decline over the past three weeks. I’m reminded of Groucho Marx who (taking a pulse) said, “Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.”
I may be able to correct this by changing the batteries on my sphygmanomometer. (Yes, that is the correct spelling. Not sphygmanometer, that is wrong. Both spellings fail the MS spellchecker, a product that has no cure. What? Well, I figure you should already know how to spell before you start typing, see. Yes, I make typos all the time, but that is a completely different issue than not being able to spell. Their system works best for people who really can’t string alphabet letters together in the correct order. Among my top beefs with MS spellchecker is that if you spellcheck the last word in a sentence, it will try to spellcheck the period. Try it, and duh, MS.)
