zen's journal

Let's see, where are we...my 40th birthday was alright, never made it to Providence, like I'd wanted though. I did take the day off from work...for principle. I actually love my job, and get paid decent money--which I need lol; so it wasn't an easy decision.
I've been working here since March of this year, after leaving the auto center, after 3 yrs there. After a very short "courtship," I got hired here as The equiptment repair tech/building maint guy; a job I am, it seems, uniquely qualified to perform.
My company produces photographic prints of classes (dance, schools, et al), which our roving packs of photographers have captured into the "cameras".
The "cameras" are actually digital capture systems, complete with a tablet pc, bar-code scanner, cf card reader, and slr-type camera body. All is enclosed in a metal case.
Inside these metal cases is, of course, the expectant spaghetti of wires that come with all computing systems. However, in our case, the cam orientation gets changed, so that that it can get shot wide, or long. That means the camera, and all wires attached to it also pivot and swivel. This of course means that all the wires have to be secured in such a way that they will allow for some travel. And since, by their nature, the capture systems are mean to go traveling all-over with the photographers, whom are oft less-than-careful, I have to look at them from the mindset that it's being used as, oh I dunno, as a battering ram. Everything has to be bolted down tight, and sealed up.
All this expensive photography equipment has to keep going, and
with a minimum of downtime. I also have to keep track of all the serial nos, on the equipment, and keep an updated log of when everything is due for periodic maintenance.
Lots of paperwork, and organization gets my job two-thirds done. The other third is the actual work itself.

One of the first things I did, perhaps one of the more fun jobs, was to review my predecessor's work notes, emails, and logs; in addition to his personal data on the computer.
As far as the work logs, What a waste of space these things are. I've actually printed-up a few of the more laughable of these pieces of fiction. I printed a few and showed one of my supervisors. He asked me not to spread it around too much. Apparently it's demoralizing knowing you had a slug working there for a year and a half, and didn't fire him till he actually stole something.

Well, there's more I'll have to share about work, but it's 4:20pm, now, and I have to start getting ready to leave.
Which also includes posting this...

30 Aug 2007
That was the date of my last post.
01 Oct 2008
That is today. It is my birthday. I am now 40.
Sitting at my speaker-cum desk, I actually had this feeling of boredom. How could this be...I have so much going on.

My first though in combatting boredom is this thought: if you have such free time, how come you aren't making a post on your online journal?
Well, probably for the same reason it's taken me for forever to write my credit companies to tell them that i'm not working. Actually, I've gone back to work. I was on layoff subject to recall, and got recalled. So of course the bills piled-up.
Just today I mailed out the letters to my creditors that said, well I realize things would've been better had I contacted you earlier, but I'm broke and chronically depressed.

14 Oct 2008
This is the date of my arraignment. I got arrested the other night for possession, and paraphernalia.
I'll go into that story some other time. In fact, I'll save that for describing what happened when I tell my boss at work, tommorrow.

Thursday --tommorrow, 2 oct 2008
I have a "date" with a professional lady. Not the kind I have to pay for. I answered an ad on Craigslist where she named off, like 4 crazy movies, of which I only heard of Choke, based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk, which I've actually read. It's one of the few.
So this is particularly noteworthy because this will be the first date with a female I've gone on in many many mooons.

I think that I have more dates to tell of, buyt I think i'm going to spread those around the the different forums .
There's been a nuymber of things happend in this past year where I've wanted to write and journal about, but I'm such an aweful procrastinator.

So, I'll keep this short so as not to tax my procrastinating head...oh, and Project Runway is on right now...

Still here on the web, looking for love and romance, and a little sanity in an otherwise crazed world.

what have i been busy with these days?
well, my music library. Everyone else is bored hearing about it, so I'll tell you so you too can get bored with it.
I've backed-up my and my sweetie's discs onto my hard drive--actually a number of drives. My library is quite large, literally expanding everyday. I can easily get 150 songs on the average day. a good day is 500 songs for me. I've gotten 5200+ in one shot; that being the complete Billboard collection from '46-05.

To be clear, I'm not using Limewire. I do not illegally download.
I simply get music that noone wants, adding it into the stew. It's amazing what I have got for free, or next to it. Sometimes bartering is involved. Sometimes it's a matter of backing-up a computer-less friend's 50 CDs or so. (There are those who are HARD on their discs, and need an external storage to counter-act their stupidity. [I like to provide this free service to my technologically-deprived friends.])
Not insignificantly, radio is a huge portion of my .wav captures. I digitize my tapes, LPs, 45s, 8-tracks, 78s, and any other electronic sound I can pass through my receiver I've caught. Even CB conversations were taped starting years ago.

I've actually saved alot of songs, good music, from obscurity (musical purgatory) through, well, surreptitious means. Our raids would yield promotional albums. These promos might well be listed in the category of things noone with good sense wants.
One story involves raids on the collection of promos accumulated by my friend's dad, Jimmy. Jimmy worked for record companies for a number of years. The UPS truck stopped by his house at least once a day. Most of the crap that he got was not worth saving, really; although a small slice of it was decent.

This massive store house of 45s, cassette tapes, lp records, cds, posters, teeshirts, ashtrays, paperweights, notepads--all bearing some band or subsidiary of the parent company: B.M.G. (formerly: A&M, Arista, RCA), has come to be know locally as the Jimmy Fund. Technically The Jimmy Music Fund.
All my promos, regardless of the origin, I still credit to the Jimmy Fund.

Did anyone say A&M Records? Yes, that was one of the companies. As I'm sure everyone knows, A&M was the brainstorm of Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. The lable is most famous for introducing the album Frampton Comes Alive to the world. Subsequently, that album sold more than almost any other single album.
That album sold so many copies that Jimmy put an addition onto his house to hold his rapidly growing music, specifically LP collection. This room was dubbed "The Frampton Room." On the walls was hung, among all the spoils was his collection of Gold and Platinum disks he wa awarded with from the company.
We remember, musicals soundtracks can go gold and plat.

I'm not necessarily advocating for a company, especially not a record-business one. However, in there case i make an exception. They were a very progressive, and fair company. The artists and acts got complete creative control over the finished product, and a royalty rate that was second to none.
The company is a model for all businesses, but the record-business specifically.
They were generous with the employees, and field reps, like Jimmy.

Jimmy had so much promo crap, that he'd give out 45s and cassingles out at Halloween. We'd launch those into the pond at the end of the street every year.
They're all still there, as with all the hockey goals, pucks, broken sticks, no dumping signs, and bikes that were launched into the drink, when we were growing up.

These promos, and imports, cause nothing but problems.
First-off, no one is supposed to actually own them, even though they frequently get sold. They're stamped "company property, returnable upon demand..." or some such language.
Often, the cover is different from the actual one appearing in production.
The order of the tracks is frequently different, and there will be different versions not appearing on the production disk.
Frequently, the songs will not be recognized by Windows Media Player
...and before this gets into a technical issue of which player authenticates through which database, I'll tell you I've tried, and use, a number of players, out of necessity. Believe me, where it comes to these things, there is no "automatic". It's often entering the songs, info, and album art manually.
But that's OK. I love doing this stuff. Even though it's alot of work, I still love this job.
I've amassed a huge collection, for someone who's not a professional DJ. To maintain this thing correctly, it takes alot of work.
But at the end of the day, when I can introduce my friend The Kerbinator, a local dj to the A&M July/Aug. 95 Monthly Sampler, or the Atlantic 1998 Alt. Radio First Quarter Sampler promo I culled from The Fund.

What, one might well ask, was on said 1998 sampler?
Well, the best known of the bunch is probably Poe, with her well-known single: "Today".
Also offered by Atlantic Records that year: David Garza, Glitterbox, Victoria Williams (wasn't that the defunct Ms. America??), Athenaeum (a word you don't want to type baked), Mighty Joe Plum, and of course Kacy Crowley.
Beuhler?? Beuhler?? Anyone, Beuller??
This would have found its way to the bottom of Circle Street Pond Oct 31., I assure you.

I look through dreck like this, or the A&M offering above mentioned, and think to myself, that's alot of crap. Is it worth the effort I have to go through to enter each song info by hand?
Or what about the 5-song EP featuring the same some, 5 different mixes? To be sure, awesome for a DJ, but I don't listen to very many of the average alt. mixes. Madonna perhaps. Underworld, yes. Most though, remixes aren't worth it.
Eventually, I decided that all the 5-same-song EPs will go into my SHARE folder. Hell, they're such a pain in the ass to track, that I gladly share them with the world, the rare occasions I do f-swap online.
Personally, I think that all music should be available to everyone, despite the amount of money in his or her bank account. Why can't I have all the Metallica songs, you selfish, greedy prick?
Last week I moved a log blocking the middle of the road. Everyone could benefit from my work, but do I ask every single person to pay me for that? Society benefits by being non-selfish.
Besides, on principle alone, given the choice to give the artist money directly or through the means of the royalty system, I'd prefer to give it to the musician directly.

But that's a discussion for another time.
I'm talking about free music in this discussion.
Promos are usually given freely, unless they're part of a huge collection, which the caretaker stored they away like a squirrel his nuts. In that case a raid to liberate the crappy promos is usually in order. With the help of the Fund owner's son, it was really fun.

Jimmy has since departed his mortal coil, about 2 yrs ago now. He is eternal. His many boxes, and boxes, and boxes, and boxes of records, tapes and stuff has been split among 5 principles, myself included.
I have thousands of Fund cassettes, most are crap. I'm digitizing the few worth while ones, while they're till playable.
The LP records are the true jewels of The Fund. Many of them never-used, or unopened. All in the Inventory Control bags protecting them till the end of time. Thousands, upon thousands of these things; many to be digitized, many probably never will be, forever lost to time. Perhaps, that's not such a bad thing in the case of some of them...better off a slow painless death.

This post was edited by zen on Aug 30, 2007.

My skin is flayed
every nerve
raw
exposed
to you
don’t touch
please don’t touch me
as long as I can recall
i’ve always felt this way
contageous
unclean

Dirtified in
your presence
dirtified by
ur lack of presence

Im available
but not for you
im available
but not
im unavailable
at all

Jesus Christ alone
can’t save me
its all there
a thousands years
living under
a millenia of sins
nerves are raw
and i feel ur thoughts
pressing deep

Youve dirtified my nind
i knew it all along
dirtified my soul
with your burning

Im not here
unavailable
to your touch
I’m available
but not for you
your love

What's new with me...
it's 209pm, my time, and i slept in this morning. Since we didn't have class, i thought I'd make it a point to stay home, get high, and update my NAO journal. It's one of the few journal/blog things that I've started over the past few years, that I still maintain with any type of regularity.
And considering how little I'm spending over here lately, that's saying alot.

Hmmm...the biggest news all year and I never said anything to let you guys know my great and wonderful news: I got a new car. Actually it's a 97 Saab 900s convertable, with 132,000 on it now. Fire-engine red my boss calls it. That's probably the best descriptor.
It was ell, my stepmom's, car first. She got an '04 Saab 93, so she sold me this one. We worked-out a deal where I'm going to build her stone walls around her pond in exchange for the car.
At this point, I'm down to 145 hours left to pay off the car. Singly, this is the nicest car I've ever owned, and it's in incredible condition.
Not to mention I got it a year earlier than we had originally planned.
All of which is really cool.

The walls are going very nicely. I have pictures I'll post soon. It's funny, I don't show them to many people because I know that most people can't really tell what they're looking at when they see a stone wall under construction.
My friend cj, who does construction-based stuff, can decypher the heiroglyphics of stone wall construction. So we talk about the project and he gives suggestions, as friends are wont to do.
However, for the average person, say rich my ex-/roommate, who doesn't do that kind of work for a living, or for fun for that matter, and it's much different. His eyes glaze over. I consider him to be the average.
In all fairness, since he does know ell, has been to Christmas Dinner ther for the past 6 years, he knows the property. Since he's acquainted with the area I'm working, it's interesting to him to see how it's progressing. He's following along from an interested parties' stance. Because this makes me happy, he's more willing to be receptive to "rock talk."

At work I got a new boss. She has experience with auto-related things. She's ASE certified for brakes. She's doing well, but it's always tough getting a new boss. Lots changes.

Which brings me to sign-off, as I have to get ready for work.
A day on-a day off this week. I love that, but of course I'm not getting paid. Well, my sanity is a large price to pay for the rent...

2:03 am

i'm drunk.

and high

and listneing to 10cc "i'm not in love"

and i'm trying to convince myself that i'm not in love with you.

and i can't

so then i remind myself of your bible

and eyes glaze

mind drifts

love eludes

Zen thoughts

all is one

all is love

all is lost

all is life

all is the all

all is excitement

all is exhileration

all is adreneline

all is peace

all is tranquility

all is harmony

and in the end

all we're left with

is one question:

In those moments hidden from all else, did you have fun, or did someone else have your fun for you?

Zen~