Category: Software

Party on the Patio

As sometimes happens, I’m in the middle of a number of things, all of which are at a point where there’s obstacles to moving forward.

Fall is here, the days are getting shorter and nights are turning colder. Soon the season for biking and rollerblading will be over. We ran the heat for the first time yesterday morning. Jeannie is back to commuting into the city, at least for the next few weeks. Michelle has started school. Last week she attended classes online; this week she’s going into the the school. She’s pretty happy and excited about that. I’m picking her up in the afternoons, since we don’t want her taking the bus or train under the current circumstances. I have the house to myself in the daytime for the first time since March. I’ve started getting up early again.

I narrowed down the number of songs I’m actively recording to three. They’re all coming along. This is the most satisfying thing I’m doing at the moment. Mostly it just takes time, but it’s fun to spend time on it. Doing creative work of any kind means a certain amount of thinking and exploring, which to an outsider can look an awful lot like doing nothing, and of course there’s always has the risk of coming up empty, or with an unsatisfactory result. So one must keep trying or move on to something else. Then, once in a while and idea comes together and way forward is clear, at least until the next obstacle.

For Why Not Zed? the chords and song structure came together pretty quickly and I’ve laid down a basic track with midi bass and drums. I’m practicing the bass and guitar parts to lay down fairly soon. It’s a fairly heavy, rocking uptempo number. I originally envisioned it as something like They Might Be Giants might come up with, but it’s leaning more toward Crimso Astronomy Domine with a pop-punk edge.

Heavy Water is also coming along nicely. I have the song structure, the piano part, a synth bass, and a sketch of the melody, which will weave between the sax and synthesizer. Also practicing the bass guitar part, which I’m gonna lay down at the same time as Why Not Zed?

Autumn Eyes (a.k.a. Wolf Whisper) is further along. The main thing it needs is the sax part, which I’m gonna record when I do the sax for Heavy Water. I took my midi drum part and sliced up up so I can control the level of the different elements of the drum kit, but the drums are pretty minimal on this one. I’m thinking of recording some live drums on it too, to get sounds I can’t get from a drum machine, like brushes.

Plague of Frogs and the others are on the back burner for now. I’ll continue to work on the arrangements while I track these three.

I’m improving playing the drums. I can do a roll now, although there’s room for greater speed and evenness. Working on that and a handful of other rudiments. I can play more and more beats with more solidity and consistency at different tempos. Working on solid kick drum and building up endurance, especially for double and triple hits. In addition to the grooves I’m reading out of books, I’m putting together a few in 5/8 and 7/8 time with different feels.

And – this is potentially exciting – I’ve put together a new jazz group. I think I mentioned I started playing back in July at Lagond, with Mike O. and Rich F. and a new version of the old jazz circle. I haven’t played with them for over a year, so it’s good to be back and nice the group is finding it’s sound and seems to be hitting pretty strong. We’re doing an interesting mix of material, some of which is new to me.

But that’s just a rehearsal band. So in addition, back in August I hooked up with a piano player named Steve, who was looking to get together and jam. I invited Ken on bass and Steve on drums (it seems there’s always two guys with the same name) and we had a quartet. In addition to jazz standards we’re doing some fusion things like Metheny, Joco, Michael Brecker, Chick Corea and Weather Report. Well dig prog rock too. We’ve gotten together three or four times. So far it’s pretty fun, sounds good, and it seems like everyone is on the same wavelength. Too early to really tell, but it may have legs. Or wings. On the downside, the piano player seems to have to travel alot for his job, so that may make it hard to get a weekly thing going.

Alas, the original-oriented rock group remains grounded for want of a guitar player, even though Ken and Steve are into it.

…

In other news, my origami book got to be far enough along that I’ve begun looking into publishing options. I have diagrams and page layouts done for nine models, and was working on the table of contents and planning out how many photos I’d need and of what models. The book was looking to be around sixty to sixty-four pages. I reached out to my friend John M and Marc K, who have a lot more experience publishing than I do, and they both had some good advice.

The main thing is I’ve decided to bring my book up to 120 to 128 pages or so, because that seems to be more commercially viable sweet spot. This of course means adding more models. In addition to the nine I already completed, I have five more diagrammed and ready to go; I just need to do the page layouts. Then I have three of four more designed and partially diagrammed, and another five or so that are partially designed but not yet fully worked out or diagrammed. So we’re looking at a few months at least. In the meantime I’ve decided I’m going to take some of the models and put them together in groups, essentially like a chapter of the book, and sell them as digital downloads on the Origami USA web site. So watch this space for that.

Speaking of the OUSA web site, I’ve signed on to create a new scheduling app for conventions and such, and began actively working on it in July. I’ve been working with Robert L., our webmaster, to get up to speed. The level of software to install and configure is pretty heavy. There’s Drupal, Drush, CiviCRM, PHP, a bunch of custom scripts, and whole host of other technologies on the stack. I’m the first person Robert ever tried to onboard, so we worked our thru issue after issue until I finally have the whole web site running on my local machine. Whew, it only took about six weeks.

Now I’m starting in the actual design and development. So far that’s been reading the existing code, the Drupal User’s Guide and Developer’s Guide and discussing thins with Robert. I’ve never written a Drupal module before, and the requirements are only partly clear. Ah fun.

Elsewhere in software development, the Global Jukebox proceeds apace. We’re looking to do another push to live in a few weeks, so it’ll be all shiny for the school kids using the classroom module. I recently put in a new piece of UX/UI to browse the new world taxonomy. It’s called the New Wheel, and unlike the Old Wheel, which radiates out from the center, but became too dense wit the introduction of the new Taxonomy, this one winds inward like the tumblers on a combination lock. It’s built entirely out of javascript, svgs and css and features cool animations. Very informative, intuitive and beautiful, plus the code itself is really quite good if I say so myself. After my last job at that chaotic startup, it’s so nice to able to have control over the codebase and actually write high-quality, well thought-out and well structured code.

Now we’re in the long tail of of random little bug fixes and usability issues, plus we want to get in a couple more minor features. I spent the last few days tweaking icons and going back’n’forth with Anna and Kiki about what everything things looks good and communicates the right idea.

Meanwhile Martin’s been looking at the backend, where our creaky old django/python app is in danger of being made obsolete due a pressing need to upgrade to a newer version of linux on our servers, in order to fix a timekeeping issue. Long story, big headache. Anyway he’s been doing alot and we’ll get there.

…

And lastly, the topic that was the point of this whole post, the Patio Project. Well this is actually Patio Project part II. Back when Michelle was a baby and our house was new I built a stone path around the side of the house and patio in the back yard. My dad came down and helped me with the patio part. It’s made of bluestone flagstones on a bed of compacted sand over crushed stone. It took us five days if I recall, and one of those days was making a concrete step.

Well now I want to enlarge the patio to go deeper into the yard, so I’m adding an extension of 4′ x 20′. There have been a few delays getting going on this project. I first started thinking seriously about it last summer, but it was too hot to work on it then. The fall came and went I was too busy with other stuff. Then I figured I’d do it in the spring, but then it was the pandemic and the lockdown, and suddenly building supplies were scarce and I was sick for a month anyway. Then it was summer and too hot again. But at least I made a plan and figured out what materials I’d need.

Shortly after Labor Day looked up the place where I got the stones and other supplies for the original patio. But they’re out of business, and the lot is now a parking lot for school busses. So this weekend I researched where else I might get stones and sand and all that. I found three places within a reasonable distance and sent them each an email describing the project, listing the materials I think I need, and asking for a quote. Two of them got back to me and were both helpful, although one forgot to actually attach the quote to his reply.

In any event, it looks like it’s on! Hopefully this week I’ll go to one of these places and pick out the actual stones and arrange the delivery. I figure it’ll be three or four full days of work on my own, all though I’m more likely to break it into several sessions of a few hours each spread out over a few weeks. I figure I should get done pretty easily by the end of October.

The Global Jukebox 2.0

I’m happy to announce that last Friday, July 31, we released The Global Jukebox version 2.0. This is pretty much the culmination of my last year’s work, with the help of alot of people including my brother Martin, our administrator Kiki, our visual designer Alona and the project director Anna Lomax Wood.

There’s lots of exciting new stuff in it. The top three new things are an extensive style redesign, a whole new world taxonomy, and an all-new education section, including the Musical Roots classroom experience. So take some time and explore the world of world folk music and culture.

https://theglobaljukebox.org

There’s lots more in the offing, so hopefully it won’t be long before release 2.1. Enjoy!

Some Like It Hot

This has got to be the hottest July I can remember. It’s been above ninety pretty much every day the whole month, and alot of days above ninety-five. I usually like the heat but this is a bit much even for me. It’s not even enjoyable to be be outside except in the morning and the evening. No end in sight.

We took a mini pretend beach vacation this weekend. Saturday we went out to Jones Beach on Long Island to swim in the ocean and enjoy the scene. It was very nice. The water was warm and as calm as gets. Lots of fun swimming and floating. It was less crowded than usual because the parking lots were only allowing parking in every second space. We had originally intended to go to Robert Moses Beach but the parking there filled up before 10 am.

Sunday we went to an outdoor restaurant at Rye Beach, on the opposite end of the beach from the Tiki Bar and Playland amusement park, and enjoyed the sunset, some yummy seafood, and some live music with a sax player, percussionist, and a guy with a laptop computer playing loops and tracks. I’d never been to this place before but since the Tiki Bar is closed this summer we went exploring. Perfect chill vibe.

…

In origami land, I’m drawing ever closer to finishing my book. The diagrams have been basically done for a while, but then I went back and picked out a harmonious color palette, with different colors for model with different themes, and re-rendered all the steps. Along the way I made a few improvements to the folding sequences and page layouts. I’m really going for a good-looking and high-quality book. Next step is model menu/TOC and then test folding and photography. Too bad it’s so hot. I might have to put in the air conditioner in my studio downstairs.

Also in origami land, I’ve resumed my scheduling project for Origami USA. If you recall, back in the winter, before the pandemic, I’d taken on managing the scheduling tool and the actual scheduling for the OUSA Conventions. The tool itself was an MS Access Database with a bunch of custom views and lots of macros. The plan was to use it for this year’s convention to get up the learning curve on the whole scheduling workflow, and then design and build a new tool in time for the new Chicago convention in the fall.

Well the OUSA June convention was replaced by the Un-Convention, which was a great success but had no need of scheduling. The Chicago convention is not happening either. But we figured we might as well go ahead and build the new scheduling tool, and hope the world is back to normal for the 2021 convention. So now I’m underway with that. First step is to install Drupal and a suite of plugins, since the what drives the OUSA web site. Next is to identify the points of integration and then come up with a design and a tech spec. Should be fun.

…

Since I’m doing these blog updates rather infrequently these days, I might as well cover all the bases. We did a surprise soft launch The Global Jukebox at the end of June, for the benefit of our partner/sponsor CityLore, with whom we created an education section and interactive Musical Roots experience for use in New York City (and other) schools. However, there were a few loose ends in the app we didn’t have time to properly address. We’re just about finished with them and are preparing for the official Global Jukebox 2.0 release to live. Coming soon, very exciting. Watch this space for a future announcement.

…

In the world of music, I’ve been going to the jazz jam sessions the last few weeks. All is cool so far, and it’s good to making music with other people. At first I felt pretty rusty, but now that I’ve shaken off the cobwebs I’m realizing my playing is reaching a higher level than before.

It still remains to get the new rock band off the ground, but there’s signs of hope.

Meanwhile, I’ve been continuing on working on a new batch of originals in my studio. Did I mention it’s really hot? The song I’ve zeroed in on is a medium-slow jazz number called Winter Wolf Whisper (although I’ll probably change the name) that we used to do in the Haven Street Quintet. Of course doing it on the computer requires changing the feel, so working thru that. One big thing is drums. I’m torn between making sound more natural and human, versus more electronic and machine-like. I’ve always been fascinated by bands with two drummers, or with a percussion section, so I’ll probably try combining both approached.

Still, I feel like I’ve gone as far as can with my current approach to drums. So I decided to buy a drum set. Something to practice on, and potentially record. Actually having drums has been on my list for a long, long time, and they’ll also come in handy if I ever have band rehearsals at my house again. I was pretty amaze at the kind of deals you can get these days on a new kit, complete with cymbals, stands and a throne. It should be here on Thursday, so mare on that soon.

Searching for a Ghost in the Machine

I’ve been low key looking for a new gig recently to compliment the Global Jukebox, either another consulting project or a something steady that would let me work from home. Luckily (if you can call it that) the software industry these days has shifted largely to remote work and it seems the trend to a large extent won’t be reversing. On the downside, many startups have miserable attitude towards their employees that begins with the hiring process. They say the only want the best of the best, and then start pushing you around like you have nothing better to than stick around and take it. Some want you to take a coding test before you ever talk to a human. One place recently asked me to submit a video, like an audition tape, in lieu of an interview. You must be kidding me. One place a few months ago asked me to take a one-hour coding quiz that turned out to be three hours. I ignore all these places cuz my time is valuable. If they’re like that when they’re recruiting they’re probably not very good to work for.

So it was refreshing today when I had a second interview (the deep tech one) at a place that actually cared about my experience, my approach to problem solving, how I work in teams and all that, rather than treat me like I must be some kind of liar trying to bluff my way into a their precious organization.

There was the usual coding quiz, where you have to write a working program on the spot. I must say I usually dread these. They tend to focus on low-level stuff you may not have used in a long time and you can just google if you need to in real life, and often as not they throw in arbitrary gotchas or they’re hung up on syntax or some library or something. In short, not modeling a real code situation and not testing high-level ability.

As luck would have it, the quiz was something I implemented just a few days ago in the course of work on the Jukebox. Basically it was to take a list of strings that might contain duplicated and return a list with no dupes. I did this to provide autocomplete prompts in our search component. When I was writing it I thought to myself, gee this is just the kind of thing they like to ask on coding quizzes. Maybe I should google it to see if my solution is optimal. I did and it was. So when the quiz came today I just flew right through, literally just writing out some code that was already in my head.

Sea of Tranquility

We’re now into week seven. Not too much going on. Or should I say everything that’s happening is happening slowly. Spring has been pretty cold and rainy so far. I mowed the lawn last week for the first time.

I’ve finished the style redesign on the Global Jukebox, and now I’m doing data work, updating the model for the cultures tree, and adding in 700 pop songs. We should be going live before too long.

In music land, I’ve been working my way thru Patterns for Jazz on the sax, I’m up to pattern 78 now, getting into flat thirds and fifths. I’ve also been working thru the Real Book, sight-reading every head and running down the changes, doing a few every day. If there’s a song that’s interesting I’ll take a few days and study it and try and memorize it. So far all the Charlie Parker songs have been interesting in that way. Right now I’m up to Blues for Alice, and the next few songs after that are Bluesette, Boplicty and Bright Size Life, so that’s a fun place to hang out for a while.

I ordered the Charlie Parker Omnibook in Bb. I studied the thru whole book back in high school, but in Eb on alto. I always thought playing Bird songs on tenor was kinda weird, cuz they don’t lay on the horn as well. They tend to wrap around the octave in funny ways and are often either too high or too low, since Bird made use of the full range of the horn. And his tunes are hard enough to begin with. But now I’m thinking it’s worth it to try and get some of his riffs in my bag.

On piano I’m also working my way thru the Real Book, but at a much slower pace, picking and choosing songs to work up as solo piano pieces. Mainly ballads, with alot of emphasis on voicings. I’ve finally gotten pretty good at Body and Soul, and I’ve been playing ‘Round Midnight for ages. Next tune I’m gonna woodshed is either My Romance by Rogers and Hart, or Naima by John Coltrane, or maybe both.

It also occurs to me I know literally hundreds and hundreds of rock and pop songs on piano and voice, and there’s many more I kinda know, but I rarely play more than a handful of them. So I’ve started putting together a notebook of all the charts so I can rotate them in and out of my practice and keep them fresh.

In the recording realm, I’ve finished my sax and synthesizer parts on The Story Lies and Who Speaks on Your Behalf (actually only WSoYB had synths), so now we’re up to the vocals, and then it’s just the mixdown. At the start of the year I was hoping these songs would be done by end of June. Together they’re about 10 minutes, which would put me on track for 20 minutes of produced music for the year. Now it’s looking like they’ll be done in early May, and with luck it’ll be more like 30 minutes of music this year. Woo-hoo!

In origami land, I’ve been continuing to work on my book. I settled on eight or maybe nine models, somewhere between 50 and 60 pages. I have six of the models done with new diagrams and layouts complete. The others are mostly done: the diagrams are finished and I have a draft of the layouts. That is, except for one model. The Martian appeared my previous kit book, and although it’s a great idea I was never really satisfied with the final design. So now I’m redoing that model without the constraint of having to keep it to an intermediate level with a low step count. Changing the body proportions, adding more detail to the head, everything. It’ll be substantially a new model in the end.

Don’t Get Around Much Anymore

Sometimes work can be fun. I recently completed an assignment for The Global Jukebox to put together a list of the greatest jazz singers of all time, along with representative songs to showcase their greatness. It’s been very enjoyable listening and curating the list, and I learned alot along the way. For example, Nina Simone used to live in my neighborhood.

Originally I had wanted to do the top ten or maybe twenty artists, but it was hard to stop. I extended it out to thirty, albeit with fewer songs as you get on down the line. The list features both old and newer singers, spanning the entire history of jazz. Some central to the genre, others maybe coming in from neighboring forms such as blues or pop, but nevertheless great contributors to the legacy of jazz as an art form, and particularly to the vocals. It also really gets across the variety oh jazz styles out there and how it’s evolved over time.

Even though list is definitive because I say it is, naturally that’s absurd. It’s necessarily pretty subjective. Of course Ella, Satchmo and Lady Day are 1-2-3. After that you can debate the relative ranking of the performers or maybe point out someone that I neglected to include. That’d be a fun debate. Regardless, all the performers and songs listed here are pretty great.

Here’s a link to the playlist on Spotify. Enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VZSjgb7157yUQ9KmrSvvd?si=S0mnQa89RGK3_Og5q0KVRg

…

Greatest Jazz Singers of All Time for The Global Jukebox

1. Ella Fitzgerald – How High the Moon, I’m Beginning to See the Light (w/ Duke Ellington), My Romance, I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, The Lady is a Tramp

2. Louis Armstrong – Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Jeepers Creepers, Cuban Pete, Hello Dolly, What Wonderful World

Bonus: Ella & Loius – Cheek to Cheek, Dream a Little Dream

3. Billie Holiday – Gimme a Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer, Strange Fruit, Lover Man, Stars Fell on Alabama, God Bless the Child

4. Tony Bennett – (I Left My Heart) In San Francisco, Anything Goes (w/ Lady Gaga), There Will Never Be Another You (w/ DaBrubeck)

5. Sarah Vaughn – Black Coffee, Lullaby of Birdland, Body and Soul

6. Johnny Hartman – Lush Life (w/ John Coltrane), My One and Only Love (w/ John Coltrane), Our Love is Here to Stay

7. Frank Sinatra – Fly Me to the Moon (w/ Count Basie Orchestra), Summer Wind, Luck Be a Lady

8. Dee Dee Bridgewater – Afro Blue, St. James Infirmary (w/ New Orleans Jazz Orchestra), Love from the Sun (w/ Theo Croker)

9. Kurt Elling – Nature Boy, Matte Kudasai, Steppin’ Out

10. Esperanza Spalding – I Know You Know, Cuerpo Y Alma, Funk the Fear

11. Gregory Porter – Liquid Spirit, Holding On

12. Chet Baker – Do It the Hard Way, Everything Happens to Me

13. Nat King Cole – Unforgettable, Smile

14. Shirley Horn – A Foggy Day, Makin’ Whoopee

15. Mel Tormé – They Can’t Take That Away from Me, The Christmas Song

16. Etta Jones – Bye Bye Blackbird, Etta’s Blues

17. Joe Williams – Five O’Clock in the Morning, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore

18. Nina Simone – I Put a Spell on You, Mississippi Goddam

19. Bessie Smith – Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, Devil’s Gonna Git You

20. Ray Charles – Mess Around, America the Beautiful

21. Joni Mitchell – Goodbye Porkpie Hat

22. Billy Eckstine – Oo Bop Sh’bam

23. Dinah Washington – Destination Moon

24. Jazzmeia Horn – Out the Window

25. Patti Cathcart – I’ve Got Just About Everything (w/ Tuck Andress)

26. Dianna Krall – Peel Me a Grape

27. Bobby McFerrin – Thinkin’ About Your Body

28. Norah Jones – Don’t Know Why

29. Harry Connick Jr. – It Had to Be You

30. Etta James – At Last

Global Jukebox in the Classroom

Just before my trip we completed a a major round of work on The Global Jukebox. We’re adding an education portal; we now have a working prototype. You can see it at:

http://dev.theglobaljukebox.org

Just scroll down to the bottom of the landing page to find the entry point.

We’ve been partnering with a group called City Lore to create this section for use as a classroom tool in the New York City Public Schools. We created an experience where students can search for the musical roots by listening to the music of different cultures, then create and share a playlist of songs from cultures associated with people in their family tree. We demoed it the other day with City Lore for a group of teachers doing a day of professional development. It went quite well; they were keenly interest in the app and the Jukebox as a whole, and afterwards was an interesting and productive discussion. This was the culmination of a long period of planning and work, and it’s good that it paid off. must say also that it’s been a long while since I gave a demo and it’d lots of fun.

As part of the project we’ve added a visual designer to the team to skin the portal and reskin the site. Her name is Alona and she’s doing great work and I finally got to meet here F2F at the demo. The next phase of the project for me will be integrating her comps into the actual software, while Martin will be focused on backend integration. Hopefully we’ll be pretty much there in the next few weeks, to give us some time for testing and tweaks before the start of the school year.

New Home Page

Hey everybody, go on over and check out the new home page to my website:
http://zingman.com

It’s now split into two main entry points, one for music and one for origami, with the rest of the stuff below. The current features are the Haven Street album for music, and the Origami Air and Space book for origami. This way I can update the features for the two front page elements independently. While I was at it I updated my origami publications page with the new book and some improved layout.

There are some updates in the offing. I figure I’ll want to finesse the styles on the home page. And I realized I never made a page on my site for G-Force. I also want to add some more media to the Haven Street page. And it’s getting time to put up some new photo galleries.

Wind ‘Em Up

Well we’re winding things up for the year. The last few weeks have just flown by. The Xmas tree and decorations are all up and the shopping is mostly done. Lizzy is home for winter break, Michelle is done with school and Jeannie and I are off work until the New Year. All the deadlines were slain and we ended it up with a nice holiday party for my work, at a cool event space near our Manhattan office. Work has been going pretty well recently. We’ve hired a couple new guys into our team and feels like everyone is working together effectively and even having some fun.

You’ll be happy to know our chimney and furnace have been fixed, I got a new car key from the hardware store at a quarter the price the dealer wanted, and we even got a new deadbolt installed on our front door. I got new the tires on my car and the oil changed too, but since then the engine has been a bit, um, funny. More on that in a future post.

Things have been progressing with the Global Jukebox as well. I have been working with Martin on a suite of features to let users and build and share journey-style content, and a tool for building a musical/cultural family tree. Last week had a meeting last week to check in with Ray, our design consultant, in which Anna & co. ratified the wireframes and direction for a new landing page and multiple, configurable entry points into different areas of the app with an optional interstitial page to provide contextual content. The following day we had a meeting with an organization called City Lore, whose goals align with ours and are looking to provide the project with some funding. Happy news.

It’s nice to have a few days of time off to look forward to. Of course our time immediately fills in with things we haven’t gotten around to in a while. Yesterday was Jeannie’s family’s big Xmas party. Denis and Sarah came into town. I played Super Smash Bros. with Michelle and her cousins.

Been working on music. In our rock band we decided to learn twelve new songs over the break and be prepared to get them together as a group in the new year. Alot of 80’s stuff plus some other thins. I’m singing lead on five of them. So today I found copies of the lyrics and chords as well as audio recordings, and started practicing them on piano.

I learned Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano, which is alot of fun even if the sheet music is not totally correct to the record. I’ve even been playing a handful of Christmas Carols including Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas (which as it turns out was kept from being number 1 on the charts back in the day by Bohemian Rhapsody), Steely Dan’s Charlie Freak (not often thought of a Christmas song despite the hipster Dickensian twist on the story of the Gift of the Magi in the lyric and the sleigh bells in the arrangement), plus a couple of numbers by Vince Guaraldi.

In jazz world we’re preparing for our gigs in the new year too, so I’ve been woodshedding a good handful of standards on the sax, as well as our originals. I’m going to make some demos of a couple of my new compositions and arrangements soon, hopefully over the break.

One last piece of news. The remix of my 2010 Buzzy Tonic record Face the Heat is done. I’ve been listening back and making finer and finer tweaks until it’s become as good as I can make it. So now all that’s left is getting the CDs made and setting up the online distribution. So more on that soon.

Here Comes Summer

Been busy as always. It seems that winter dragged on forever and spring came and went in the blink of an eye. Now we’re basically into summer, frequent rainy days notwithstanding. We’ve been having more and more beautiful warm sunny days. Last weekend we were upstate to pick Lizzy up from college, and for a quick visit with parents. Fun little road trip that seemed to give the summer and early kick-start. Realizing we ought to make some vacation plans.

Work has been busy. We had a big reorg of the whole software engineering department. I went from being in the Foundation team of the UX group to the UX team of the Foundation group. Our last major release seems to be a hit and has bought us some breathing room on the features race.

After all this time of building everything as fast as we can, we’re taking a step back and rearchitecting things to make them more performant, extensible, reusable, testable and all-around better. My first project is to create a component system for our UI elements. If feels like we just got going but we’re already transitioning from the figuring-out-what-we’re-doing phase to closing in on the first round of deliverables.

But the big news the Haven Street CDs are finally here!