So, despite the fact that I’ve got 8 months to go on Massage Therapy school and somewhat out of the blue, I was offered and accepted a new contract role with Wells Fargo. I’ve been away from the organization, this time for almost 3 years. Things have really changed here. Very few familiar faces to be seen, largely due to the advent of something called, “Flex Space,” Many folks now shuffles between various Flex Space cubes in two separate. I did find one common sight from back in the day. These two gents eating lunch in the 3rd floor break room. Ravi & Jeff Bill Bailey a peer from way back in my design days ran into me this morning and went so far as to hug me. We are both Veterans from FUNB and Wachovia. Those were heady times that always warm my heart. There is so much construction going on downtown it’s hard to believe. In the light of a clear morning I can see that’s what’s causing all the difficulty with the traffic on Independence Blvd. Construction Boom For the next week I’ll be dealing with that daily but expect to largely avoid it with flex time allowing me to drive in post rush hour and home pre-rush hour. The new position is legitimately interesting to me. To seriously over simplify it, the role is User Acceptance Testing for New sure functionality. My many years experience with authoring in SDL Tridion sort of feeds into this position as I’ll be working with those authors in this job. For now it’s pretty dry until I get my laptop. Looking at lots of walk through and taking notes on my phone. What The Cup Says I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth but the free green tea here is a far cry from the Happiness Green Tea at Albemarle Nutrition. I’m happy to be back in the...
Read MoreFinishing Touches
We are drawing ever closer to the end of the line on this record.
Read MoreNashville and Beyond
The timing had to be just right to pull off a weekend trip to Nashville to record my second solo album. With night school two nights per week a full 1.5 hours away from home, I knew I’d be sliding into the experience a little frazzled. The week of the trip was nothing but cold and wet Monday through Wednesday. As it turned out we wound up skipping class that Thursday night in response to the weather. One concern I had about driving so far then having to be focused on my game was mitigated when my friend Rob agreed to drive us. It shouldn’t go without saying that none of this would have been possible without the help and hospitality of friend and former local guitar hero, Tim Galloway who graciously hosted us in his home. Tim also served as band leader and co- producer on this record. The following is a bit of a play by play so that I don’t forget the details of such a unique experience. Nashville and...
Read More50For50
The gist of this post is that the time has come to make a commitment to change. Chainging my diet and excercise habits as well as my habit of getting my fingers into too many projects. There are things I want as an artsit. I have to really find the maturity to manage those desires better than I have in the past and prioritize what is clearly more important. My primary focus has to be physical fitness, at least for the next year so that I can get that lost energy back. I’ve just gotten too heavy. I’ve been slowly trying to work back to my fighting weight for the last 4 years. I started at a whopping at 340 lbs and today weigh in at around 315lbs. I’ve inched in the right direction but that is not going to cut it. Not by a long shot. The time has come for a greater committement and more direct results to get me below 300lbs and back to something close to my higher energy levels weight of around 260 lbs. The really hard part is putting that exercise and diet ahead of my music and art projects which so ensnare my mind. Nevertheless, it ha to be done. Steps have been taken. The new diet is underay and the new training regime starts...
Read MoreA Perfect Dream
Last night I had the most amazing dream that perfectly encapsulated my time working in IT and really a large portion of my life. Before I get into it I need to quantify it somewhat with the following: I almost never dream or really even think of my times past working for First Union – Wachovia – Wells Fargo. Forgive the hyphenation. To me it’s largely the same community and occupies the same address in my memory. Most nights in my dream state I’m either writing songs with Elvis Costello, making epic Spielberg – esque film works or communing with my father who passed on years ago. I don’t use term, “dead” because to me, in my inner most reality, he’s more alive and more a part of my psyche than ever. Strange I know, but I digress. In this dream I was putting the final touches on a shelf and a half of books I was planning to leave behind in an upper mezzanine of other shelf’s of books at the bank. It was Wells Fargo, but it really looked more like eChannels floors converted to a sort of library. Now on these shelves of mine were all manner of books in various stages of use. Some were Japanese manga series still in plastic. There was the very same Japanese language book for children to learn to read katakana which a tutor once got for me in Japan. Keiko I think it was. There were also books written in Spanish and English. There were also tapes and cd’s on the smaller shelf. One CD which I picked up and examined was a home produced album from my friends band, Borghal Rantipole. It lacked the front slip cover and someone had drawn 4 dudes faces staring up from the cd in black sharpie. Nearby on a table there was a table where someone had made a pleasant country scene with a farm, barns, horses, chickens and Sasquatch peering over a brown stained rail fence. In a moment it occurred to me that these shelves were memories I was consigning to the past as I move into a new chapter. Now, fully two years removed from the Information Technology field and back at night school training for what’s next (more on that another time) I really just never think of IT, at least consciously. On the whole I’m slightly ambivalent about it I supposed. At times my work there was both esteemed and at other times woefully taken for granted, but I suspect that’s most peoples experience at most jobs. I walked away with no hard feelings and mostly just thankful for gainful employment for so many years. I do, however still really miss the people. It was an eclectic community of diverse individuals whom I respected and valued as a formative part of my life. Some, I follow from...
Read MoreVacation Blowing Rock September 2018
I’ve been through Blowing Rock on several occassions in my lifetime but never once stopped to visit the tourist attraction that gives the town it’s name, until our visit some 14 days ago. also for the first time in my life we took a beloeved pet along with us. It was fun to have Beauty in tow and the place was very dog and cat friendly. This time out we stayed in an extremely nice cabin called, “The Gray Fox.” Beauty for the most part seemed to really enjoy her time out of town with us. She always gets treated like a queen but this came with more adoration of random strangers which just took largely in stride. There are 3 or 4 other dogs at the Blowing Rock attraction with the exception of one little fella who really wanted to be close to her, if you know what I mean they are seemed well adjusted animals who enjoyed being out with their human families. The plan was to visit Tweetsie but by passing up an early arrival to go get coffee and breakfast, we found a huge line when we got bac kso we decided to go to the rock instead. I’m glad we did because that place is fantastic. Over a billion years in the making, I guess that it ought to be. I’ll take in my 360 camera next time and get an amazing shot of the observation deck which conveniently has a flat topped pole right in the center of it. These dudes wouldn’t stop climbing on it though so it keep me from getting any really great shots of it. I don’t think I even walked all the trails as Mom was getting tired and Nancee as well. They are moslty on this platformed walkways which put you above the tree tops. Very interested feeling. BTW, the weather had been calling for two days of rain and muggy weather. Instead, as shown in these photos the weather was absolutely briliant and not too...
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