Author: Zingblog 2

Signed Sealed Delivered

Things have calmed down and gotten back to normal around here. The weather has been beautiful, and I’ve been watering the new grass every day. Then the weekend turned unusually hot and we had to put in our air conditioners several weeks earlier than usual. Today it got cold again. Go figure.

In all the excitement of the last week I forgot to mention that I’ve been busy doing origami stuff. First off, the Pacific Coast Origami Convention (PCOC) is in San Francisco this year, coming up in the fall. Jeannie and I are planning on going. It’ll be the first in-person origami convention, and the first time we’ve travelled outside of New York State in almost two years. They put out a call for models with a California theme for the convention book, and the deadline was last week. I contributed a California Sea Lion, after the famous denizens of Pier 39. It was a new original model, using the base for my Walrus and Elephant Seal. I finished the diagrams last Monday, the day we got back home. Now I’m thinking of doing a seal with a ball on its nose. I also had some ideas for California Seabirds, the Canvasback, Greater Scaup, and Bufflehead. All have a similar duck-like shape but with interesting and different color-change patterns. I ran out of time to draw up diagrams, but hopefully I’ll be able to exhibit them at the convention.

Meanwhile the OUSA Annual convention is coming up in just about a month. This is an online convention, and I’ve been on the convention committee by virtue of my handling the class schedule. I finally got to use the scheduling software I wrote last winter. I’m happy to say it worked flawlessly, although going through the process for real made me think of a few enhancements I’d like to add to make the workflow faster and smoother. The schedule is complicated compared to other years because each class is a zoom session and requires OUSA people to manage the tech and play host, in addition to the teacher. Also they’re having an empty session after every class to allow for the possibility that it runs over time. So about 100 people signed up to teach about 160 classes. I originally thought I could schedule 125 to 140 or so, so we ranked the classes, giving preference to original, unpublished models, plus some rarer categories like simple, supercomplex and presentation/lectures, as well as aiming to have every teacher teach one model. Then I got the news that a few tech and moderator volunteers dropped out, so there will be fewer classrooms that originally anticipated, and we’ll be lucky to get 120 classes in. Unfortunately, most teachers who signed up to teach multiple models won’t be able to. So I presented a first pass of the schedule to the committee, and explained the constraints. Now everyone has an opinion, and they want to schedule more meetings to discuss it. Ah, committees.

Ev’ry New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning’s End

I feel like things have been coming back to life, slowly but inevitably increasing. Things are new and hopeful on many levels. A few weeks ago I got my second shot of vaccine, and have slow been starting to go out and do things. We went out to dinner one night to celebrate Michelle’s birthday. Jeannie’s parents dropped by for a visit one afternoon.

I got a haircut, the first in over a year. Having long hair again was kinda fun, but it was time to move on. I went out and bought some clothes – a sports coat, slacks and a couple neckties. I haven’t had an occasion to get dressed up in a long time. It’s funny, a year and a half ago, even before the pandemic, when I started working from home full time, one of the first things I did was to go thru my closet and get rid of some old clothes. Now it feels like it’s come full circle. Soon it’ll be time to tune my piano, get an eye-exam, and all the other things made difficult to impossible by the pandemic.

Michelle’s last day of high school was today, which means I’m done picking her up after school (before the pandemic she took the train). She’s got a job lined up for the summer, which should be fun and exciting. Meanwhile, my workdays will be a little easier and more flexible. And safer.

I couple weeks ago I was on my home from picking up Michelle, sitting at a traffic light, when I was hit from behind by another car. It was a pretty strong jolt, but my car was basically unharmed; the only damage was the tip of the chrome cuff around the tailpipe was dinged. His car, a Mini, was a wreck. Bumper, hood, radiator, the whole front end smashed. It looks like he was driving without a tier, just a bar wheel. Maybe the tire came loose from the wheel and that’s why he couldn’t stop. He told me he was driving with a flat because Minis have no spare tire, and was on his way to the garage to have it fixed.

I took my car to the shop for inspection, and while they were at it I asked them to look and see if there was any serious damage underneath, but all was good. Then an oil change, which they didn’t notice I needed when they did the inspection. So I brought the car back for that. While I was at it I told them to rotate the tires. Then it turned out the needed new brakes too, which somehow they also failed to notice when they did the inspection. But then it takes a few days to order the parts. So three different days the car was in the shop. Yeesh! We had a big road trip coming up, so I had to get this all done ASAP.

Lots more happening. I’ll tell you all about it in the next post.

New Song: Mo’bility

My new song Mo’bility is ready. You can listen at:

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/bziv/Mobility29.mp3


This sure changed alot since I wrote it. It was originally more of a Hank Mobley vibe. As mentioned before, now it’s sort of a hallowe’en cartoon-jazz jump stride swing thing, featuring the Hungarian minor mode and 7/8 meter. The arrangement is for soprano and tenor saxes, with some midi trumpet and vibraphone rounding out the melody instruments line. The rhythm section consists of piano, bass and drums, with bass being more-or-less double tracked fender electric bass and midi synth bass. Additionally there’s some mellotron strings in there for extra sweetness/spookiness. Finally, I wanted a gong sound but didn’t have a good sample, so I recorded hitting the cymbals of my drum kit with mallets and letting them ring. It turned out to sound great, and perfect for the part. Enjoy!

Also updated mixes of some previous songs.
https://zingman.com/music/mp3/bziv/HeavyWater37b.mp3
https://zingman.com/music/mp3/bziv/AutumnEyes32.mp3

Hippity Hoppity

Spring continues. The days are getting longer faster, and the nice weather appears more often than not. More and more people I know have gotten the vaccine and getting hopeful about life returning to normal soon.

We didn’t have much of a spring break this year, but it was enjoyable. Busy with work and stuff. Jeannie and I both took a long weekend off from work, and Lizzy came home for the weekend. Hard to believe she’s graduating college in just a month or so. We had family game night Friday night, which was lots of fun. On Sunday we went down to Queens to visit Jeannie’s parents, and Lou and my neblings came over too. It was good to see everyone in person, even if it was pretty low key.

We normally try to go to a museum or day trip this time of year. We haven’t picked a place yet, but we’re looking at next weekend. Most places are running at limited capacity and you have to get tickets in advance. Michelle has asked that we go Washington D.C, this summer to visit a few more museums. That might happen. We might even get back to Ohio for the Centerfold origami convention, and swing my the National Air Force Museum while we’re out that way.

I finished diagramming my Platypus model, called Gladys the Platypus, for the Origami USA 2021 Convention Collection. This is my first new diagram in some time, and hopefully I’ll get back into the groove with that. I hadn’t been that motivated to do much origami during the pandemic, cuz all the conventions were cancelled, and I don’t enjoy the online ones that much. But I’ve been involved in planning and setting up the 2021 OUSA, that includes a virtual gallery, and there may even be some live, in-person conventions later this year. So I’m starting to get back into folding again.

Project dirt continues. I’m up to thirty wheelbarrows of dirt, and have gotten maybe two-thirds of the way around the yard. I filled in one really big low spot on the north side of my house that took four loads by itself. It’s good to spend some time outside, and it’ll be really nice when it’s finished. I made a pretty good dent in my neighbor’s dirt pile, but he has a whole swimming pool’s worth, so there’ll be plenty left.

Smarch Smadness

We’re coming up on a year under the pandemic. Last year on February 28 was my last live gig with a band. At least the first hopeful stirrings of spring are afoot. A week ago I was a-shoveling snow, and it seemed endless. Then we had a few days of warm weather and rain, and vast quantities melted away. Now only the rump ends of the biggest snow piles remain. Only downside is we didn’t go skiing this weekend as planned. Ah well, it’s supposed to turn cold and snow tonight. In fact it’s storming out right now. Hopefully we’ll get back on the slopes one more time next weekend.

I’ve been working on my Computer Jazz record this whole winter. I’ve been mainly focused on Lift Off, but it’s taking a long time because it’s a difficult song and I’m trying to capture some subtlety in the arrangement. I got the organ part done, including the solo, and made some changes to the piano part to make them fit together better. Also been working on the drum solo and the overall form. Even laid down a first take of the sax part, which was not too bad. But it was starting to feel like hard work. So I took a break from that to focus on Mo’bility instead.

I wrote Mo’bility for my last jazz group and it always went over really well live, with it’s danceable gypsy-jump vibe. For the studio it was shaping up okay, but didn’t really have the tone and character I wanted. It needed a bit of Raymond Scott cartoon vibe. The other night at rehearsal we working on a different original of mine, and somehow the the feel shifted to 3/4 time. It was pretty interesting, and got me thinking about different ideas for the meter and groove for Mo’bility. I changed it to 7/8, and it was just the thing the song needed. The arrangement fell together pretty quickly, and is very satisfying, just a little unbalanced. I quickly got up to the point where it was time to record the live instruments, soprano and tenor sax, and bass guitar. Unfortunately it’s much harder to solo on and groove on now, so I have to practice it a bit. Still this song should be in the can pretty soon.

As I’ve mentioned, it’s been a long pandemic. We’ve been watching alot of movies on the weekends, and seem to have fallen into a zone that includes a good amount action-adventure-scifi-fantasy. In addition to a number of family all-time favorites, there are lots of great movies that Michelle has never seen and I haven’t seen in along time, and lots of great movies out there that I’ve never seen. So we’ve started making lists of movies we want to watch.

I tried to make a list of my 100 favorite movies. It ended up more like 70 or 80 all-time favorites plus an equal number that might or might not make the cut. Still there are some definite trends. The oldest movie is from 1940 (Fantasia) and the newest from 2017 (Thor Ragnorok). By decade so far there’s 8 from the 1960s, 12 from the ’70s, 30 from the ’80s, 8 from the 90’s, 21 from the ’00s and 5 from the ’10s. The most movies in any single year is 5, for 2003 (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Big Fish, Underworld). Favorite directors (appearing more than twice) include Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Chris Nolan, James Cameron, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Robert Zemeckis. For directors I counted multiple movies in the same franchise if I like them (e.g. all the LotR movies but none of the Hobbit ones). For actors I didn’t count them again if they reprised the same role in a sequel, even if both movies are favorites. Favorite actors (in 3 or more movies) predictably include guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, and Samuel L. Jackson. Perhaps more surprisingly it also includes Billy Crudup (Princess Mononoke, Almost Famous, Big Fish, Watchmen), Keith David (The Thing, They Live, Princess Mononoke), Frank Oz (Star Wars, The Muppet Movie, The Blues Brothers), and Ian Holm (Alien, Brazil, Lord of the Rings).

Our newest hobby these days it to re-imagine a favorite movie as done by the Muppets, and try and and fill out the cast. Go ahead and try it. it’s lots of fun! Like I said it’s been long pandemic.

Bring on the Night

Winter continues. Cold and dark, but at least we made it thru January. Too bad the Bills did not win the AFC championship game, but KC and Mahomes were just really so good. We did enjoy watching a few games with wings and nachos and beers. Josh Allen is young and the Bills are up-and-coming, and at least they’ll avoid renewing the Super Bowl curse.

Meanwhile, we had an epic snowstorm the last two days. A good eighteen inches, maybe two feet, the biggest snow in probably five years. I went out yesterday around noon to shovel and there was already a good foot on the ground, but light and fluffy. By the time I was done another inch had fallen. Today the snow stopped and we went out to shovel again, and it was all wet and heavy. Ah well, it’s done.

In preparation for the storm we watched the classic 1982 John Carpenter movie The Thing. Still a great movie after all this time. Great soundtrack too.

We’ve reformulated our Thursday jazz group with a new piano player Josh. He used to be in a group with Ken and the old drummer from Haven Street, Dan. He fits in quite well in terms of playing, vibe and temperament. In addition to standards we’re doing jazz adaptations of rock and pop songs. So far we’ve hit You Can’t Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want), by Joe Jackson, which is a favorite that we used to do in a couple rock bands. Also Walking on the The Moon, which works great and turns into something dreamy and ethereal, and Peg by Steely Dan, which also works great, bouncy and bluesy. Next week we’re gonna try Some Skunk Funk by the Brecker Brothers. I went back and listened to the record Heavy Metal Bebop, which I haven’t put on in quite some time, and it just blew my mind, just how far ahead of its time it was. I also forgot that the drummer was Terry Bozio, before he joined Zappa.

In home studio land, I finished my guitar-driven rock song, Why Not Zed, back around Xmastime, and started recording another, All of the Above. I also hashed out the first few minutes, from the intro thru the verse and chorus and into the solo section, of the prog epic Plague of Frogs. But I put these all aside for a while to work on another jazz number. Lift Off was a song I wrote for Haven Street, inspired by John Coltrane’s Countdown, and featuring lots of half-step modulation inside ii-V’s superimposed on a harmonic structure borrowing tonal ideas from the standards Have You Met Miss Jones? and A Foggy Day. Gary brought his Wes Montgomery mojo, which fit the song perfectly and helped sharpen the arrangement.

For the studio version I’m recasting it for tenor sax and organ, with a typical rhythm section of piano, bass and drums. For bass I used an 80’s-sounding synth bass, just as scratch part, but then I like the sound of it and may very well end up keeping it. The tempo of the song is 210 bpm and I don’t know if I can walk that fast on the fender bass anyway. I’ve been experimenting with two bass parts (synth and bass guitar) for alot of this record, so I’ll come up with something else to do on the fender: counterpoint, accents and embellishments. Meanwhile I put down the piano track, which I really played. There’s an arrangement behind the head, then many choruses of comping, and a solo. I laid down the solo last night, and it came out well. even playing at the real tempo. Next comes the organ, which is key to the arrangement. I might end up swapping some parts between the piano and organ; we’ll see how it sounds. Then there’ll be a pass tweaking the bass and drums to give them more dynamics. There’s a drum solo in there too, trading fours with the sax and then just horn and drums for a chorus. Might add in a layer of live drums. Lastly, I’m really psyched to lay down the sax part. I feel like my playing has gotten alot better over the last year and I can really slay an uptempo bebop number.

At my new job I’ve been learning the Google Firebase platform. This is a so-called “serverless” suite of infrastructure components to run the backend of web and mobile applications. It seems to be just the thing we need, and includes services for hosting, auth, file storage, database, backend logic, and analytics. Saves us from having to spin up our own servers and databases and build it all ourselves. So far it all seems to be pretty good. There’s lots of admin controls and vast documentation; not surprisingly there’s alot to know to come up to speed. Still, after less than two weeks starting from zero I have a site with auth and file storage working end to end, and I hope to be talking to the DB tomorrow. Hopefully next week I’ll turn the corner into actual application development and figuring out how my piece fits in with our other products. I guess if there’s one thing Google is good at, it’s writing software. Nevertheless, it feels a bit like a deal with the devil you don’t know. They have their tentacles in so many pies, and the days of “don’t be evil” are long gone. Just this week I read about how they wiped out something like 100,000 negative reviews of the Robinhood app after it locked its users out from buying shares of some stocks, in order to protect some greedy hedge fund guys who way overreached. Interesting times, one thing for sure is they keep on a-changin’.

New Song: Heavy Water

The second of three new songs is nearly done. Listen at:

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/bziv/HeavyWater36.mp3


Heavy Water was originally envisioned as a funk-fusion thing a la the Headhunters, built on a riff played on the fender rhodes and clavinet, but it took on a more videogame vibe. Structurally it began with an idea of writing a song with four chords in a loop. This turned into two contrasting four chord loops alternating in an AABA pattern, with a middle section in a BBAB pattern, and then iterating in a fractal sequence. Layered on that are different levels of space and intensity to the groove.

Keeping with the whole computer jazz concept, the music explores the interplay between the human and the machine. There’s both a sequenced synthesizer bass and a fender electric bass played live. Similarly, there’s a synth in melody ensemble along with the saxophones.

I had a pretty specific idea of how I wanted two saxophones to weave in and out with the synthesizers. The middle part of the song features fugue-ish noodling in lieu of a more traditional solo section. It builds from being mainly tenor sax, to tenor and soprano together, and then all three. A breakdown and build before the final recapitulation of the head gives the return more momentum.

One great source of inspiration for the interplay of the two saxes came from a record called Two of Mind by Jerry Mulligan and Paul Desmond. I came across this record last year while listening to different versions of All the Things You Are. The way these two guys interact is just fantastic, a real joy to listen to, a forgotten gem of the cool jazz era. It turns of this is actually the second record they made together, and the first one is just as good, with a great version of Body and Soul.

Lastly I mixed in some machine noise. This was sort of a happy accident. I was down in my studio when Michelle fired up Jeannie’s 3-D printer to make something (a dice jail, I think). It made a really fascinating noise, kinda rhythmic but also melodic, kinda repetitive but also not predictable, in short very jazz-like. So I had to record it. It got me thinking about how one might print our specific shapes to make the printer play a melody. But that’s a whole ‘nuther project…

New Song: Autumn Eyes

The first of three songs I’ve been working on is pretty much done. All that remains is the final mixdown and mastering. You can listen to it at:

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/bziv/AutumnEyes30.mp3


I wrote Autumn Eyes for my former jazz group Haven Street in the winter of 2019. Lots of moody, modulating jazz chords and a strong, undulating melody. I originally called it Winter Wolf Whisper. I had the image in my mind of wolf cubs frolicking in freshly fallen, powdery snow, in gentle slow motion. Once I brought the song to the band the sound changed. I had envisioned it as a swinging mid-tempo number like Maiden Voyage, but as we developed it, the song pretty much became a ballad.

Of course doing it on the computer required changing the feel too. One big change was the drums. The main drum part is sequenced, and the playing is pretty minimal. I had the idea to augment it with a live drum part, mainly to get the sound of brushes, which I can’t to do with samples.

The spine of the tune is the piano part. The beginning has the sax and piano playing the melody in unison for eight bars. This was always a challenge to get tight playing live; maybe we should’ve changed the arrangement. But I wanted to use it in the studio version. For the sound, I blended a grand piano with a Fender Rhodes, to give it a bit more smoothness, fullness and shine. I did the bass part on the electric bass but adjusted tone to be jazzier. When we did this song live Jay played upright; the electric changes the character of the piece. I wrote the song with soprano sax in mind. I recorded a version on the tenor, but ultimately went with the soprano. It all hangs together nicely and gives a convincing illusion of spontaneity among a group of players. I tried to approach each solo differently in terms of melody, rhythm and pacing.

I added in some synth strings and bells, just some subtle backing. Last thing was I recorded a live drum part to blend in with the electronics. It’s mainly brushes on the snare drum and a few tom fills and cymbal hits too. I used the Jimmy Page/Gyln Johns method of mic’ing a kit with two mics. One is overheard focused on the snare. The other is well out in the room in front of the kit focused on the kick drum. As a sound check I played some grooves and fills and hits, just to get a sense if how this might work for other songs. It came out quite well.

Na-Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye

It feels like I’ve been so busy recently I have no time to get anything done.

The patio is all finished, and it came out great. I got the patio itself done before the end of October, finishing up on Halloween day by filling in the cracks between the stones with sand. The last week of October was kinda stormy and rainy but the first part of November has been mild and beautiful again. The leaves area all golden all around right now. But the days are getting short fast. Suddenly it’s nighttime at five o’clock.

After the patio there was some landscaping to do. The main thing was to use up the pile of dirt that I created digging out the area. Some of it went to fill in low spots in the yard, and the rest to making a slope from the edge of the patio into the existing yard.

I have a hydrangea shrub in my year, right at the edge of the patio where it meets the house. The last task was to move it a couple feet so it would have more room to grow. Unfortunately the thing has grown so big that I was unable to get it out of the ground. I dug around it but couldn’t actually get underneath, and it wouldn’t budge. So I filled it back in and that’s that.

With that done and winter coming, hopefully I’ll get a bike ride or two in before the end of the season. And get back to origami soon.

The recording project proceeds apace. I got my strings and bells in on Autumn Eyes, just a subtle of backing in a few parts. For the bells I’m going for an 80’s DX7 era ice chimes kinda sound. Still gotta track the drum brushes and mallets parts; been thinking that thru.

I did a first pass at a sax solo on Why Not Zed, and the mood is right but I need to get more facile on this changes. It’s an easy part on guitar but on sax it’s got alot of modulation. Kinda like Well You Needn’t by Monk. I added a synth part too. Each new voice is pulling it in a different direction. I like the chaotic effect but it might be a bit much.

And the Cradle Will Rock

It turns out it’s alot easier to listen to all the Van Halen albums than all the Rush albums. There were only six of ’em back in the day with Diamond Dave, and many of them are barely over a half hour long. I guess I’ll try some of the Van Hagar stuff to, since I stopped following them after 5150 and only came back for A Different Kind of Truth. In other listening, I’ve been getting into Mingus, Gershwin, Ravel and Franz Liszt lately.

The patio project is on! Two weeks ago Friday I went down to the stoneyard and met with the guy and placed an order. A couple days later he called me saying he didn’t have all of the big 2’x’3′ stones in inventory (yeesh!), so I had to adjust my plan. A week ago Friday the stuff was delivered.

Last Saturday I started digging out the area, down 8″ or so. Shoveling is probably the hardest single job because dirt is pretty heavy and after hundreds of reps the stress accumulates on lower back. So I decided from the beginning to mainly work in sessions of a couple hours every day.

Since the project involves alot of heavy lifting, I’ve temporarily modified my workout to reduce the number of reps and amount of weights I’m doing. Unfortunately I haven’t been doing much biking recently cuz the time I would spend doing that is going toward the patio instead. Ah well.

Sunday I started laying in the stones to form the edge. I’m using 16″ x 8″ concrete pavers for this, and need 21 of them for my perimeter of 28 feet. The work involved more digging out, and lots of measuring, as well as actually seating the stones and packing them in with dirt and fill. So the first session I only got three done. Next day my pace improved and I got five in. The day after there was less measuring, just filling across in a straight line, so I got six done, and the last seven on Wednesday.

Thursday I took a day off. Friday I pulled out the old stones on the edge of the patio where I’m extending it, leveled out the bottom, and started filling in the fill. This was an extra long session, three or four hours. I got 10 wheelbarrow’s worth of fill in, probably half the total if you include what I brought in to seat the edging stones. Sunday I was hoping to finish the fill, but it got harder to shovel as the pile got lower, so I stopped after another nine wheelbarrows. I have about that amount remaining.

Today it rained all day, and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow too, so I’ll get back to it in a few days. After putting in the fill I have to tamp it all down, then start in with the sand and the actual stones. Finally there’s some landscaping, moving a shrub, grading the edges, filling in low spots in my yard with leftover dirt, putting down grass seed. I’m hoping to be all done by the end of October. Jeannie is already shopping for a fire pit to put on the new patio.

The weather had been super nice the last few weeks up to today. September just kinda slid into October without us even noticing. It’s been sunny, in the low 70’s and dry; we haven’t had rain in weeks. Last night was the first night it got cool and today I even ran the heat for a little bit. I’ll probably take out the air conditioners this week.

…

My recording project is proceeding apace. I tracked the bass parts for Why Not Zed? and Heavy Water. Once the bass part is down, the song feels reel because it’s the first audio (as opposed to MIDI) instrument. No more going back to change the tempo or key or structure or feel. I’ll usually practice and do a few takes over a few days, to really get a feel for the song. While I’m at I’ll tweak the drum part if necessary to make it groove better here and there.

This evening I also laid down the guitar part for Why Not Zed? Y!Z is a heavy rock song, while the others are jazz ballad and a sorta funky fusion number. A few months ago I did the guitar for The Story Lies. It felt so laborious and involved alot of experimentation before I got the setup right. This time it couldn’t have been easier. I split the output of the guitar and recorded one channel clean and the other thru my stomp box. I used preset #60, a basic heavy distortion, very meaty. The part went down just like that, in one take. I discovered a great voicing for a 7#9 chord to end the song on. I recorded a second take, even though I probably didn’t need to, just cuz I was having fun. I almost feel like the guitar is secretly easier than any other instrument, at least at a certain level. Maybe that’s why there are so many mediocre guitarists out there.

Anyway, next up is vocals for Y!Z, then it’s on to saxes on all three songs, and then whatever synths and keyboards I need to round things our.

Meanwhile, my drumming is continuing to improve. I’m up to 5- and 9-stroke rolls in my rudiments, and that’s also really improving my long roll. I can jam thru all kinds of basic rock grooves with different patterns on the kick drum, with more endurance, precision, dynamics and phrasing, and I can sustain faster tempos. Also learning my first Latin patterns, and some grooves in 5/8 and 7/4.

…

I’ve been learning Drupal for the OUSA web project. Recently it’s been alot of reading documentation cuz there’s alot of baked-in concepts, and bit of poking around and experimenting. Then the other day my friend Mark up in the Adirondacks called me up (yes they’ve already had snow) and asked if I wanted to help him with a freelance project. It’s in Drupal too, so this gives me a chance to sink my teeth into something way less complex, leveraging what I already know. The timing couldn’t’ve been better.

Lastly, Jeannie and actually left the house to do something social. We didn’t feel like going to a restaurant or anything for our anniversary. But then my friend Nick out on Long Island had an Oktoberfest party. He usually has a few parties a year, but not so much this year. This one was greatly scaled back, just a dozen or so people, and was all outside. We ended up staying late and talking half the night. Good to catch up with friends, but these are strange days and lots of people are going thru different things.