Geez it got cold! I wouldn’t have noticed so much if I didn’t have to walk my small furry son each
morning before I go to work. Luckily, I had the sense to pick up a flight hat the other day. It came
extremely handy on this morning’s 43 degree walk. Warm ears = golden. Not sure where I saw a hypothermia
instructional film (probably elementary school) where your head is one of the most important things to
cover to keep warm. That image of a hat is stuck in my head. I’ve never been a “hat” guy really, ballcaps
were the extent of my headgear – not that they are great, but I did get a very early COOP ballcap from
Nicholas James Group back in the 90’s. It’s pretty torn up now.
It was before COOP really blew up. But knowing how brutal the winters
are becoming, I had to find something that would cover my head/ears sufficiently. Ballcaps do not cut it.
I also picked up a nice army trenchcoat from the army surplus store. I’m somewhat addicted to jackets so I cut some loose this morning at the donation place. The trenchcoat is very geek-chic (not in a good way), but there’s a point for me where function is more important than form – dog walks require a coat that would keep the majority of me warm and dry for
when it really starts getting nasty.
I could spend hours in the surplus stores. My first major surplus store adventure was at Col Bubbies in Galveston. I was probably eight or nine years old. For some reason, we purchased a really old air force shirt for me. It had a patch or two on it and I loved it. It was even worn as one of my Halloween costumes (with a skull mask).
As much of my lifetime wardrobe has been, it was oversized and pretty ratty. One of my favorite teachers ever, Mrs Craig, at Parker Elementary (Beyonce went there!), hated that shirt. And I mean HATED. She cut me a deal one day where
she said she would allow something (that I don’t recall) if I promised to NEVER EVER EVER wear that shirt again.
I agreed to it and now I’m not sure what ever happened to that shirt….
Either way, it’s now been a month (yesterday) that we picked Jax up from the Dallas Animal shelter. Things are getting steadily more stable every day. He’s still
pretty excited by cats (or anything moving) but he’s getting better at not reacting to them all. He went after one of the cats in the first week, the cat bit the hell
out of my hands (requiring multiple doctor visits with much concern and antibiotics). There was also an incident with a stray dog that got too close and Jax grabbed his ear. While
separating them the tiny dog bit my hand a bunch. Speaking of which, the stray dogs in my neighborhood are getting on my nerves. One in particular is about two houses
away and is getting out ALL the TIME. It’s a pit bull mix (of some sort). There was one entertaining episode where that dog rooted out a rat from my front yard
and chased it across the street. All in all, Jax is calming down more but the strays in the neighborhood make his walks a little disconcerting.
My workload fluctuates which gives me a chance to persue some light reading.As such, I’ve been able to pick up a few things that i didn’t know before.
Most primarily are the uses of DI boxes and expander/compressors. I went “off list” and picked up Guerilla Home Recording : How to Get Great Sound from Any Studio (No Matter How Weird Or Cheap Your Gear Is) which is cluing me into some basics – like “record each track with all effects first – don’t slap them on after the fact because it may/will jack up your mix if you add it later”. Seems obvious really but just one of those things I never thought enough about. As there is plenty of references to the Beatles in all the books I’m reading (four at a time??) it’s all about mixing as you go rather than recording it straight and putting effects on after.
Unfortunately, one of the hard drives that died recently had all my ProTools song edits on it. So the finals of whatever I’ve got are final.
No editing available now.
