• Relaxation can be incredibly difficult for type-A personalities, but not entirely unattainable.
• There is never an end to odd jobs one can find to do around, within and upon one’s home (assuming, of course, you are not a renter).
• If you stare at any cloud long enough, you can watch it make far more than one shape.

I can, of course, take life way too seriously at times. Just not right now.

• There is not a musical instrument known to man that I will not attempt to master, or at least wrestle into submission, when given the opportunity.
• Although I fully realize it’s long-term economic ramifications, I’d give up my job and gigs in a second to be a full-time dad. Fatherhood is the most fun I’ve had in a long, long time. Who knows…
• I can’t wait to see how chill I get after 5 more weeks of this.
• I haven’t turned on a ‘real computer’ in a full week (except for the one powering my studio, and then only to record stuff).
• You really can be more creative when you’re completely uncluttered or distracted. But you can also get cabin fever much faster. Finding myself ‘out for inspiration’ more often than actually writing, but my writing time is now much more focused and at least 3 times as productive as when I’m working the day job. Dizzamn.
• Removing due dates from all my to-do lists actually resulted in them getting done a LOT faster. Maybe it’s the reduced time pressure, but that’s an interesting and cool trend.
• Getting my inner Hunter S. Thompson out and exercised last week will help me get back to my inner, and much healthier muses. But it has been fun to blow it out a bit.
• I’m really glad I decided to take this sabbatical at it’s own pace. Getting back to roots is beautiful.
• How Des and I created such an amazing little boy in our son, Devin, is beyond me – and more in the realms of miracles and/or divine providence. He amazes and inspires me daily.
• Although I’m not going to waste much time thinking about it now, I’m really going to miss this sabbatical when it’s over. A lot.

And now, back to the slacking. Cheers!

It’s clear that I’ll be working on some personal music but I have consciously avoided thinking about it beyond one overriding goal – to wade through the last decade worth of half finished (or less) ideas that I’ve written, and recorded to varying degrees. As I’ve been mostly playing on other people’s material or projects it’s been a pretty diverse decade, but I honestly couldn’t tell you much more about what’s in that pile ‘o ideas as it’s stuff I documented in quick momentary flurries of inspiration – and didn’t spend much time with overall. The idea was that I’d eventually come back to them and finish each and every one – though at this point that obviously never happened nor was it likely to unless I made a concerted effort to set aside some time and do something about it. I guess that’s what sabbaticals are for, eh?

The hope is that either I find enough gems in that pile to justify finishing out a demo, or horrify myself into writing something better. So I’m going to call it creative semi-block- I guess when you’re starting with a surplus of ideas it can’t exactly be a tabula rasa type of situation. But given I have little memory of or faith in those ideas at this point, it is a bit unsettling. Here’s hoping the combination kicks me in the ass the right way. Keep posted.

That being said, it’s time for a change, partially motivated by the impending ‘migration’ of my Adobe blog to a new Movable Type framework. I’m not particularly happy with Movable Type in general, and much more comfortable with WordPress or Drupal, so although I already did merge in some of my old Adobe blog posts here a while back (just look for the ‘Adobe’ tag), I may be doing it officially soon, and dusting off this default template with one I’ve been puttering on for a little while now.

While I figure out how this will all shake out, I might very likely be temporarily distracted with this.
Pls don’t hold it against me.

I’ve been using this randomly on conference calls lately, too. Enjoy

For years, I’ve gotten used to interacting with high-tech/web colleagues via social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and the like, but the deeper life connections being made within Facebook are just too strong to avoid. Staying in touch with industry colleagues is great- don’t get me wrong – but the depth and breadth of connections on Facebook trump any of the other social sites hands-down.

So- I’m probably going to find myself posting on Twitter less and less, and Facebook more and more (especially as FB can send Twitter my status updates anyway). Interesting.

If you’re anything like me, this spells disaster.

I’ve NEVER been in and out of a DMV in less than 2 hours for something like this (at least since moving to the Bay Area where everything’s busy), so the thought of carving said chunk of time out of a rather insurmountable daytime schedule wasn’t particularly thrilling. Then I saw the note at the bottom- I could set an appointment online! God bless them Intertubes. I visited their form, made a few clicks, and had an appointment set for 2pm the following Wednesday- i.e. today. After the confirmation message was displayed, I realized that I was still going to have to go to the Oakland DMV and probably sit around for an ungodly span of time just to get waited on, so have been dreading today all week. Particularly because this week has been an absolutely freakin’ insane one at work.

I’m shocked. My fears were totally unfounded.

I waited for about 3 minutes to ‘check in’ at the front desk, and things seemed like they were headed in a Southward direction almost immediately when my name wasn’t on the appointment list, a multi-page behemoth in 8-pt Helvetica the bored desk clerk listlessly scanned thru at least three times until I saw an odd entry on the third page that didn’t seem like a name – ASP. Come to think of it, they did build that server app in ASP (Active Server Pages), so WTF. I had her check the confirmation number, and sure enough- it was mine. Gleeful at not being shunned at the gate, I took my number and sat alongside all the other bored-looking patrons in the waiting area with a prime view of the Keno-esque queue monitor so I wouldn’t miss my number being called.

My ass was in the seat for about as long as it took me to fire up my Kindle and read the next paragraph in the book I’ve been devouring (Small Favor) before my number was flashing full screen above me. Much to the chagrin of my fellow wait-ees, I walked up to desk 10, handed them my form and 25 bucks, they sent me to desk 24 for a picture and thumbprint, and I was back in the Audi before I even knew what hit me, new temporary license in hand. I hit the freeway home and checked the clock as I set the parking brake- 2:25 pm.

I left the house at 1:50. That’s 35 minutes, door-to-door, for a DMV appointment. May not be a record for you, but it’s easily halving my next best time, which to me- is one amazing feat. I may just have to renew my faith in public services at some point here, cause I sure as f@#k didn’t see that coming. With the time I saved, I could still read the rest of that chapter in the sanctity of my own home, grab a quick bite from the fridge, and get back on the clock before my belated lunch hour expired.

Now THAT’S what a DMV appointment should be like. I’m impressed.

Update: screw that- I’m testing out WordPress right now to see if it’ll work better for me.  So far, the import in WP 2.5 is working like a champ, and aside from losing my tags seems to have migrated everything pretty well.  We may be moving to WordPress in short order.

volume knob

Originally uploaded by sfegette

Devin’s favorite ‘toys’ around the house these days are pretty much all the personal items I swore I’d never let my kids play with. Mainly my guitars. He’s gotten quite good at plinking strings and just recently learned how the volume knob works. Amazing.

What’s even funnier is when I play the bass (or guitar) and let him mash buttons on my footswitches. He again really loves the volume pedal (very obvious he’s making changes), but recently discovered my distortion pedal, which is a new fave.

I can only hope that he retains all of this learning until his finger dexterity (and body size) is a bit more amenable to actually PLAYING the instruments. I’m already proud as hell that he’s taken a specific interest in music, but if he shows any inclination/interest I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he grows up with an instrument in his hands.

Seriously. Now that Devin’s 7.5 months old, he’s almost instantaneously transformed from a little crib lurker into a highly mobile and VERY fast little man. He can’t walk or stand up on his own yet, but with the right solid surface near by he’ll get up on his feet in no time flat. And instead of just laying on the floor flailing his arms, he’s now got the concept of ‘arms lift, legs push’ down really well. Between a sort of inchworm style of crawling and his ability to roll laterally he can cover a lot of ground very quickly now.

Hence, we’ve started looking into more self-sufficient toys for him, like this doorway jumper he’s relaxing in here. Trust me, 10 seconds before the camera came out (he likes cameras) he was jumping up and down like a mad boy giving the springs in this unit a run for their money.

And although sometimes he’s quite happy playing with his toys, he does like some quality romp time with Mom and Dad, which has essentially wiped both of us out today. His energy level and mood were at all-time high points, causing him to blow mostly thru his 2 regular naptimes today. I can hear him carousing in the living room right now, in fact. If anyone were ever able to harness this energy it’d be a goldmine, I’m telling you. Little boys are like one big shot of adrenaline, it seems. If it’s any indication, the first word he uses with regularity is ‘Up’, which means he wants to get his play on in most cases. We used to say it to him as an infant when we picked him up, and I only just recently realized he’s been saying it to us – in a slightly more obscure voicing of course – when he wants to be picked up.

Note: Desiree would argue that his first word was ‘Mom’ – actually ‘mamama’, but since it’s been a bit inconsistent and he’s not used it so obviously to ask/tell us something, we’d both agree that ‘Up’ is his first tactically-important word. But she’s right, a variant of ‘Mom’ was technically first.

Devin’s demeanor is amazing- he doesn’t make fusses in public (well, at least not yet), he’s almost always happy and smiling, and most who’ve met him attest he’s one of the most calm/chill/relaxed babies they’ve met. Not today, though. He’s been like a bat out of hell today.

Anyway, I’m back out to the living room now for another game of “copy Dad’s face” (he’s been trying to mimic my faces and sounds/words lately) accompanied by much bouncing around and baby wrestling. It should go without saying that I’m going to sleep like a log tonight.
I just hope Devin does, too!

The timing of our move – Saturday the 29th – was fortuitous as it both got us settled in time to pop a bottle of champagne on New Years’ Eve in the new place, and also get things sorted out a bit before the recent NorCal rainstorms hit. The rainstorms weren’t without event- I found a new leak in the basement (not bad, just a teeny 1′ puddle in a corner after 3 days of downpour) and an old leak in the garage that was exacerbated by a plugged-up drain. We were using the garage as temporary unpacking storage (and to stockpile the boxes/packing material for a recycling run), along with all my big stage gear and everything from our old garage in San Francisco- so it was incredibly unsettling to open the door a few mornings ago and find the forward right corner about 2″ deep in standing water to roughly a 6′ radius from the corner. Normally a little water in the garage ain’t a bad thing, but as I’d hastily stashed an old subwoofer, our camping gear and an old Linux desktop CPU in that corner, the rainstorms left us with two pieces of expensive junk and a good day of cleaning for the camping stuff. I waded in and snaked the drain and everything’s all dry now, but as it’s not raining today, for good measure I also moved everything away from the drain and low water point. Argh.

The rest of the house was as watertight as a frog’s ass, though. Nice to know the new roof is holding tight.

Now we’re pondering the first wave of renovations, as I’ve a buttload of spare cash to work with. First order of business is repainting the kitchen, which is currently an atrocious salmonesque pink color. We’re going with Behr 420/Sagey (along with a slightly darker variant) for the color, as it’ll really bring out the natural wood cabinets and bamboo flooring beautifully, which both are lost by the completely horrid pink walls right now.

The second big project will be the dining room/living room, which currently sport popcorn ceilings and a peach/tan paint job atop wallboard that’s not quite leveled correctly. We’re taking both rooms down to the studs, pulling up the carpet and restoring the hardwood floors underneath (gorgeous!), and then rewiring both rooms with more sockets/cleaner power – something already done in my office of course – before putting in double-paned windows, hanging fresh wallboard and slapping a new coat ‘o paint on – color theme TBD. My Sony Bravia 1080p flat-panel will probably be wall-mounted at that time, too- although I kinda like having it on my Boltz steel stand so I can roll it around a bit.

On a geek note, to supplement the Bravia we also picked up a Sony Playstation 3- mainly as a cheap Blu-Ray player – which has been a lot of fun, too. Devin really loves Aquatopia- a virtual aquarium game that uses the Playstation Eye (camera) to let you interact with the ‘virtual fish’. It’s also a lot cooler than the repeating fireplace DVDs we used for holiday gatherings in the past. Although I got Motorstorm with the PS3 and picked up Resistance: Fall Of Man as a little FPS fun, the Gran Turismo demo (downloaded from the Playstation Network) is what I’ve been tripping out on the most- the graphics are so insane I get distracted from the gameplay to check out the visuals a lot. Now that HD-DVD is essentially dying (note recent news/whining from Toshiba on this subject here), I’m really glad we went PS3/Blu-Ray. Besides, the only reason to consider an XBox 360 (IMHO) is Halo 3, which aside from better graphics and new weapons/maps is the same f@#king game Halo 1 and 2 were. And I’m not that much into online frag-fests, anyway- getting spanked by 12-year old foulmouths with no parental guidance in sight ain’t my definition of a good time.

All in all, Oakland/Maxwell Park is very cool- more ethnic, or at least ethnically-diverse, than San Francisco was for me- and our neighborhood/neighbors are awesome. On one side we’ve got the local neighborhood council chair and her husband – two really nice people, and on the other side we’ve got a family of original G’s who’ve been watching this hood for the last 40 years(!) and are great for keeping an eye on things in general. The neighborhood is gentrifying quickly, and given the deal we got on the house I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to turn it over in 4-5 years to a nice return, assuming we don’t want to stay longer than that.

We probably should have bought sooner, but better late than never!

And for what it’s worth, we used Redfin.com as our service/agent, and the experience was amazing. Easy escrow process (despite some white-knuckle moments that are part and parcel of the process, not the agents), responsive agents that didn’t try to force their favorite properties down my throat… and a 2/3rds refund of the buyer’s agent commission to boot (which covered closing costs and then some)! Highly recommended if you’re in their service area, and like to shop on your own.