we are from the sun

An email from an English friend in Madrid came wandering my way today. It links well with my comments a few days ago about not letting friends drop from the radar. This one was after a spectacularly long gap.

So I sent a reply and referred to some of the places I'd visited in a city that I know more from the blog posts of another.

And then a different friend's email was playfully critical of my home-made music. Their review comment translated that the music was not their cup of tea. It was too poppy, too middle of the road. This person is more avant garde in their taste. I considered this criticism a positive result, however. The original intention (as part of a curry house bet) was to make music that was mainstream.

The critique got me thinking and I decided to cut another track this evening. I wanted to take some of the same pop elements I'd used in the other music and mix them in a more electro-jazzy way. I loaded some of the loops onto a keyboard, added a midi trigger for some drums and bashed out the three minutes or so that's below. It's really only a lumpy practice track, complete with over loud fuzzy guitar, but it's an excuse to plug in a synth keyboard again.

As inspiration I wanted to call it 'Sun', faintly acknowledging all that Yes/Topographic Oceans type music, where a single track lasts 25 minutes and is named 'nous sommes du Soleil' or similar.

So my Madrid friend's email came at the right time. When I needed to think of Sun, I could instead think of Sol.

I looked quickly through my pictures from Madrid, but other than the Tio Pepe building, the only other one I could spot of Sol was the metro station.
Maybe I should add a train into the mix.


Esperando del sol (small room mix)

component object model strikes back when all I want to do is type

The last day has been a bit of a blur. I had a report to finish and some fancy calculations and it took pretty much from waking up until time to go to bed.

I finished the report and did the defensive 'double save' to ensure there was more than one copy around but then as I opened it again to check, I got one of those cryptic messages. Word popped up a little extra box in which it triumphantly proclaimed "Ole!"

Or more precisely "Ole error!" - I could almost hear the castanets.

Totally unhelpful. A Spanish error between me and all my hard work.

I shut down Windows, tapped my head whilst rubbing my tummy and then located an earlier version of the saved file. Hold breath and "File Open".

Fine. I was back in business, but now have a nagging doubt that Windows will be looking for another opportunity to eat the document I've created.

the bridges of early morning London

Early morning meetings in Central London followed by a walk across Westminster Bridge. I'd been particularly early for my session and had time for a pre-meeting latte in a coffee shop across the way.

I was the only person sitting outside at one of the pavement tables, yet it's my preference to sit outside when possible at this particular place, which has a view right across towards Downing Street.

Come to think of it, there were also only a few regular tourists blocking the main crossing at Parliament Square although this was more than compensated by the coach loads of exchange students doing visits to London Town.

They arrive in a sort of soundscape. You can hear them long before they come into proper view. Loud conversations, foreign languages, headphone music and giggling with loud shouting related to the road crossings.

Even London's loud traffic doesn't drown them.

And then, about two seconds after I took this picture, I ran into a friend crossing the bridge in the opposite direction.

first creme egg sighting

Yep. Cracking, as they say.

tracking mileage

I've decided I might need to compromise on my cycling objectives a little. I suppose I can make some sort of sliding scale from the dark winter months back towards the lighter finer weather.

In the last week, I've recorded three sets of mileage from different days, as follows: 16, 18.8, 20.8. It gets past the target of 40 for the week, but includes mileage on Sunday (today), which I'd rather include in next week's total. I decided its better to front load the objective rather than have the whole weekend used to claw back missed objectives.

At this stage, for week 1, I've decided to compromise and split Sunday's mileage down the middle and to use half for week 1 and the rest for week 2. Therefore Week 1= 45.2 and Week 2, so far, = 10.4. It feels better to go into a new week with something clocked up rather than all zeroes.

Of course the whole thing will also be dependent on where I am/access to bicycle/remembering to take something that helps me monitor mileage. Overall this might be a tricky objective to track.

Re-entering the Ozone layer

For one of the events over the seasonal break I had to make a sort of mix tape of old music. We are talking about music from way back in the twentieth century here. It needed to include mainstream guitar rock music, punk and pop and I decided it would be best to produce it as a mash-up.

That's where (e.g.) Led Zeppelin is played cut to the beat of the Jackson Five - it's as easy as A,B,C etc - OK and Lady Gaga did get a look-in too.

The mix was boshed together in about half an hour on Logic Pro and then dropped onto CD, complete with a whimsical label - referred to as "Cheesy Dip 2011"(click to play ).

Of course, it became the slope to re-awakening my interest in mixing music and last weekend I found myself slipping from the bananas section in the local supermarket to the magazine racks and sliding a copy of 'Sound on Sound' into the trolley.

The magazine is full of gadgets and advertisements, but I've resisted the temptation to buy new stuff, realising that I'm probably only using about 1/10th of the technology and instruments I already have stashed away in the home office and the 'music room'.

And the iZotope Ozone 5 upgrade doesn't really count*.

* I'm sneakily getting things ready in case I decide to try FAWM (February Album Writing Month) again next month.

gateway

A quick stocktake on the various trials and tribulations associated with my Resolutions for 2012.

The various 'no wine/change food' type plans are going along okay at the moment (I didn't even eat any of the jelly babies!), although with only such a short amount of time it will be interesting to see how that runs into weekends and similar.

The linking with friends is going okay, although I'm now at risk of having a backlog of people to meet. There's been some good contacts with people I haven't seen for ages included in the mix though.

The bicycle riding hasn't really got started properly. The meter on the bike shows just 16 miles since I wrote the plan last Sunday. But I suppose technically it's still less than a week. But a long way from 40 miles.

As for the novel...I have restarted the writing of Volume 2. I need to work out some plot points next.

And for work...At the moment I've just restarted but not really steering it yet.

Still. It all feels suitably "directionally correct" with the various plans - it is fun going forward.

jelly baby violence averted

Out in the traffic jams around London.

My sat-nav had told me to go North around the M25, and I dutifully followed its instructions. I was in good time for my meeting and even found a new car park that was highly convenient.

As I opened the car door, everything blew around inside like in a comedy sketch. The full force of the wind was making itself felt having been blowing hard through the whole 100 mile journey. Still, I was only a short walk to the office, admittedly via a shop where I could buy the meeting attendees some New Year Jellybabies.

Successful meetings and then the journey back. My sat-nav still telling me to stay away from the M25's Dartford Crossing where the bridge had been closed. That ruled out clockwise on the M25.

Unfortunately, as I and my returning passenger discovered, the anti-clockwise direction was also closed part way around because of an accident. Both directions blocked.

We'd left the Jellybabies in the meeting room, so we couldn't bite off any heads.

simply sipping soup

My work email has buzzed back into life today. There's been a few days with hardly any traffic and now its back to squeezing in extra meetings tomorrow and re-arranging logistics.

I've also moved the remaining festive decorations back into their store-away boxes and the house has regained its normal composure, although I expect we'll discover a lurking Xmas decoration sometime around Easter.

Some of the resolutions I mentioned are also creaking into life. Alongside the 'less of' ones (which are relatively easy) I've got the more demanding ones around cycling (yet to start this week - gulp) and the 'contact friends' and 'novel writing'.

Strangely enough, the 'contact friends' one has been easy to set going and is surfacing some unexpected good results. We shall see. I've also picked up 'The Square' again and been working out the rest of the plot line.

Now, if I can get out on the bicycle on Friday/Saturday, then I could be on the way to starting all the main actions.

Meantime, I shall enjoy this bowl of soup.

getting back to normal

Everything is edging back to normality now.

Tomorrow I'll be taking down the tree lights ahead of the twelfth night and we'll put the remnants of the decorations back into a big cardboard box for another year.

This year the tree isn't completely blocking the doorway from one room to another, like it does some years, but we've reached the stage where walking close to it generates a small cascade of needles filling to the floor.

It's also reached the time where the fridge needs restocking with some normal items. The fancy armagnac cream and special stilton needs to make way for more day-to-day produce. Worryingly, there are still about a dozen mince pies awaiting demolition, and I'm not sure we have anyone to entice with them.

There's also only two mis-placed presents left. One is fully wrapped but in completely the wrong location and also slightly difficult to post. The other one is some kind of foaming bath thingy and I've no idea who it was destined for. It hasn't been labelled and I'm wondering if it somehow got into the decorations box last year and has made a return appearance.

I'll also be firing up the work computer tomorrow and then on Thursday I start travelling around again.

New Year Resolutions

I'm something of a sceptic about New Year Resolutions. It seems strange to only pick a single day to start new goals.

But...I also heard today that people that set resolution goals are ten times more likely to achieve goals in general compared with people who don't.

Or maybe I imagined it?

So last year I managed to do a couple of things:

• Less 25 by 8 working (thats an extreme form of 24x7) 
• Increased cycling as a modest exercise 
• Setting up and getting functional my own small company 
• Some time for art
• Continued time for blogging and similar pursuits (although it did splutter towards the end of 2011)

I didn't manage to finish the second book of the Triangle trilogy, nor learn any new tunes on the guitar or banjo.

This year I'll start a small number of goals as we start the year, as part of my ongoing blog projects.

1. Detox post Christmas (starting today)
2. More water and less wine (should be easy but I'm not sure I could do less coffee or tea)
3. Cycle - er - 40 miles per week (may need to review that one and increase it)
4. More salad and less sugar (also starting today)
5. Create a sensible operating model for the company I've created
6. Phase from all 'consultancy' work to more 'arty' work
7. Link up with a few more friends that are sliding off the radar
8. Complete 'The Square' novel

The above list is somewhat arbitrary and top of head, but can act as an initial spur. The first four items are also quick to test.

As is my way, I can also think of a few more (read a book a week/ replace the bathroom/ organise the music room/ empty the middle strip of junk from the garage), but I'd rather have a short-ish list and hit a few good ones first.

And, as a helpful cross check, here's the most popular New Year Resolutions (no particular order):

• Drink less alcohol
• Eat Healthy Food
• Get a Better Education
• Get a Better Job
• Get Fit
• Lose Weight
• Manage Debt
• Manage Stress
• Quit Smoking
• Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
• Save Money
• Take a Trip
• Volunteer to Help Others

Hmm, too many ideas...

Happy Twenty Twelve.

Happy 2012.

As we move to saying "Twenty" in front of the year, we managed to see some of the fireworks and chink some glasses for the new year. The singing below is probably best left unlistened.

Although you can press here for an earful.

When do we start leaving the "Twenty" off and just saying the last part?