First off, I’m happy to announce the Spacecats record is complete and submitted to all the streaming services. The release date is July 1. I’ve also sent off the order to print a small quantity of CDs, just because I feel like it’s important to have a physical artifact to really make the project complete. More announcement around this as the links go live.
For the first time we’re also looking at doing a vinyl record. It turns out you can get 100 vinyl records made for a thousand bucks. Not a bad deal when you think about it, even compared to CDs at two dollars apiece. However, you can only fit a little over twenty minutes of music on a side, and our record is over fifty long, so we’d need to cut two songs for the vinyl addition. On top of that, we don’t know anyone who has experience mastering a record for vinyl, and it’s really it’s own thing compared to digital.
We’ve had continued nice weather until just a few days ago, and then it turned hot toward the end of last week. Lots of barbecuing, and got the mustang out last weekend. Did a big round of trimming the willow tree growing into our back yard, and now the cycle starts over again with the weeding.
I’ve been doing lots of biking. In fact, I’ve been biking seven of the last nine days. I’ve reversed my route thru New Rochelle, so it starts downhill, then the middle is mainly uphill, then a big downhill at the end.
I finally got on the Empire State rail trail with Jeannie and Michelle on Father’s day. Found a new place to park off Tuckahoe Road. I got a flat tire, 6 miles out, which was a bit of a drag. So I took it to the shop, all better, but now I’m thinking of getting a new bike.
On Juneteenth Jeannie and I both had the day off, so we took our bikes down to Robert Moses State Park on Long Island, and took the bike trail out to the little towns on Fire Island. There’s no cars allowed there so it’s really cute and fun to bike around, kind of like Hobbiton but full of rich people’s beach houses. Ended up with a nice hang on the beach and a swim in the ocean. A perfect day for it.
By Friday the weather turned hot — ninety-five degrees, so I actually got out early and did my ride before work.
Saturday Nick and Lisa came over for a visit and Martin came down from Albany too. We did a big ol’ barbecue and built a fire and played games, it was a great hang. For the party I made a new playlist, as is becoming tradition. This summer the theme is 76 Favorite Saxophone Songs. I’ll post a link to it soon, so stay tuned.
Martin stayed over and Sunday morning joined Jeannie and me for another bike ride. We went fourteen miles, the longest of the season so far.
He also brought his guitar so we jammed a while. I’ve been re-organizing my big book of rock songs. I used to have it alphabetical by artist, but then as I moved thru it I’d spend a couple weeks doing only Steely Dan or Billy Joel for example. Now I have it alphabetical by song title. I’m in the letter B and recently added a bunch of B songs, including Bad Sneakers, Bloody Well Right, Break On Thru, and others. Martin brought his book of rock songs too, so we basically took turns calling the tune. We tend to know alot of the same songs, but if not there was a chart. I learned Everybody Wants to Rule the World, which I’ll now have to put into my book.
A couple other things: The OUSA convention would normally be this weekend, but this year it’s in July instead. Feels more relaxed. I’ve ramping up my folding the last week or two. Right now I’m refolding a bunch of models I have out of good paper to exhibit and photograph, including my Platypus and a new and improved version of my Space Cat. Next it’s on to new models, including some more single-sheet polyhedra ideas combined with tessellated flowers, and some animals and insects.
Lastly, at my day job in the Consumer Reports Innovation Lab, my MVP prototype integration the Data Rights Protocol into the Permission Slip application is on the cusp of completion. I’m sort of in the Zeno’s paradox phase, where every day brings me half the distance closer. I’m nominally code complete, and have moved on to integration testing which involves two separate apps, and am encountering pesky deploy roadblocks, cross-domain permission issues, and that sort of things. Ah well, hopefully I’ll be able to declare victory soon.