Tag: lessonslearned

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Photo of a sign on a building that reads "NO BALL PLAYING ALLOWED". There is a window on the right side of the photo.
Is it just me, or are these signs rarer than they used to be?

For those of you following along in real time, this is getting posted almost a week late.

Sometimes, short weeks feel longer than they should. That was certainly the case for me this week despite having Monday off. After a nice, long weekend, I was feeling pretty low energy. Not helpful when things are really ramping up at work as people look towards the end of the year and want stuff done.

We did manage a good jam session on Friday. This was the first time together trying a song we’re adding to the repertoire. It was a little messy. The lead guitar practiced it, but didn’t notice the tab he was using was tuned down a half step. The lead singer was still working out the cadence of the lyrics. I sort of had the bass down, but not the backing vocals. So, we launch into this thing and it sounds, um, rough. Despite all that, I think it has potential. We’ll keep working on it. Lesson learned, make sure everybody is working off the same music/tabs to begin with.

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Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking against the Vietnam War, St. Paul Campus, University of Minnesota
Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking against the Vietnam War, St. Paul Campus, University of Minnesota

Monday morning, Stevie Wonder’s Can’t Put it in the Hands of Fate was the first song that played when I hit shuffle on my playlist. A serendipitous tune for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Especially given the other events set to occur on this particular day. Keep fighting people.

I wrapped up the Asterisk Home PBX project this week. Wrapped up for now anyway. It’s working, but there are many fun and exciting things that can be done with it in the future.

A friend and former roommate was in town this week. We hadn’t seen each other for something like 27 years. A long time indeed. Our nostalgia was probably a bore for everyone else in attendance, especially those not even born when we were last in a room together. I hope circumstances allow for more frequent visits in the future.

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In my highly unscientific polling of friends that have visited Japan, “Amazing” is the number one term used to describe trip. “Really amazing” is a close second. I see no reason to be a contrarian: Our trip was “amazing”.

People have asked about my favorites, be it food, places or experiences. I’m not always so good at picking favorites, and I don’t want to bore you with a recounting of the entire trip (for that see the photos in this section). So, here are a couple things that immediately come to mind.

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Screen capture of a video depicting a blue, compact SUV on a Manhattan street sporting a large sign with the text "NEW YORKERS WON! CONGESTION PRICING". A man is standing in the moon roof with outstretched arms.
Screen capture from a Streetfilms montage celebrating NYC Congestion Pricing.

At the stroke of midnight on an icy Sunday, New York City congestion pricing began. I never thought I’d see the day. Let’s hope it sticks!

I finished posting photos from our trip to Japan. Looking at them makes me want to go back.

This Switchable Desktop Power Outlet project is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It was simple enough that I wasn’t sure if it warranted a write-up. However, I learned a few lessons–why not.

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We recorded the Friday jam this week, very exciting. In comparing a couple of the songs from the last recording, I did notice some improvement. Not bad for a bunch of guys that don’t practice enough. Here’s a select track from that session.

Rock n Roll Ruby (Warren Smith cover) recorded from a Jamulus session on 15 Nov, 2024.

In spite of our effort to separate the instrument and vocal tracks by running multiple Jamulus clients, we ended up with vocals on one of the guitar tracks. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until working on the mix. It was just a setting in Jamulus we’d missed. Lesson learned: Take a minute at the beginning of the session to ensure you’re recording what you think you are.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the recording. There are a spots with garbling and noise from somewhere in the network, which is to be expected. There isn’t much audio engineering here aside the volume levels and some panning. There is some compression and reverb added the vocals. And, I tried to highlight the guitar solos. Early reviews are that there wasn’t enough bass in the mix. I didn’t want it to sound like the bass guy mixed it, perhaps I overcompensated.

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