Flight

I can’t believe how fast time passes with kids. My oldest is turning 10 in a couple weeks. Holy crap! Staggering.

We’re shifting stuff around in his room, pulling out the train table and putitng the extension back on the desk I gave him. That would be one of the two desks I used to have in my studio. He gets expanded study space and I have reduced tabletop for rock and rolling.

It’s a good thing I save all this stuff, even if it is way crappier than it used to be. His desk could never support the old school desktop computers we had. Or, God forbid, an electric typewriter. No freakin’ way.

I have this one desk I have tricked out 8 ways from sunday over the years. I’ve attached and removed drawer slides and hutch-like shelves. I’ve drilled holes to snake cables. I’ve attached power strips to the sides. I’ve alternately added risers and removed inches from the legs to allow for varying clearances in different apartments. Now that’s the kind of quality a guy wants in his desk, right?

Incidentally, this latter desk is the one I still have in my studio. It is an “L” style desk that currently supports my hard disk recorder, desktop and widescreen monitor, computer speakers and subwoofer, studio monitor speakers (love my KRKs), a turntable, a dual cassette deck (don’t ask), a lamp, a fan, a phone, and last, but not least, two PA speakers.

Yes, I keep a PA on my desk. What do you have? A laptop?

Wuss.

Sweet Shelves

 Speaking of making stuff last… I bought this industrial shelving unit when I graduated for college – my ersatz bureau. Seriously, I had a tiny TV and VCR on one shelf, books on another, and my folded t-shirts and jeans on the others.

I still have those shelves in the garage and they’re way more solid than the ones I bought a couple of years ago. Same chipboard shelf on steel frame except the steel frame is now something not quite steel-ish and made in some far away land. The chipboard is 1/2 inch instead of 3/4 inch, and the weight ratings are in the toilet. My old shelf can hold more on one shelf than all shelves combined on this new unit.

I bought the new one oln sale for roughly twice as much as the old one. I know time has passed, but…come on. What’s happened to expectations of quality? It seems like we are supposed to be happy with something lasting 4 or 5 years these days. Does anyone remember the lifetime guarantee and the expectation that things would actually last a lifetime?

Files

I’m sick of the virus threat culture we live in. Computer virus threats are what I’m specifically referring to. We have a billion dollar firewall/virus protection/malware blocking industry and it really pisses me off. What is wrong with us, as a species, that there are so many people who spend inordinate amounts of time writing malicious code?

I mean, I get identity theft. I don’t support it, of course, but I understand the criminal allure of stealing stuff from people. There’s some history there.

I also understand the evil plans of government agencies, both domestic and otherwise. Again, not something I support, but I get the whole cyber terrorism thing… intellectually.

But the people who write code that just destroys data and takes hours out of people’s lives and makes Norton and Mcaffee mega-corporations… what the hell are they thinking. Unless you have a contract from Norton to create a virus to prove the necessity of Norton to potential customers… what the hell? Why?

Personally I have had very few problems with viruses and such. I stay away from some of the mainstream targets, MS Outlook being one of them, and I rarely visit Websites that might host malicious content – intentionally or otherwise.

In fact, these days my PC backup is a memory stick with all the working files for Skateboard Heroes, Mad Science The Card Game, and Pour More. What’s Pour More you ask? Oh… just the new card game I’m developing. All about Winemaking. Oh yeah, it’s totally going to rock.

Partying with interchangeable body parts

Did I mention the launch is coming? That would be the Mad Science The Card Game launch party. In case you were wondering. Saturday July 21, 4pm at Alterniverse in Salt Point. Be there or be Spongebob’s super lame cousin in right angle pantaloons.

We’re inviting friends and un-creepy acquaintances from far and wide to crash at Casa Mad Science aka the Laboratory aka the Skateboard Heroes secret hideout aka Lulu’s domain. I may even invest in an industrial strength shower fitting so we can offer group sanitation without the lye-overtones of prison induction.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit much. We have two showers and a third half bath so any guests who take us up on the offer can get clean without the threat of public indecency charges.

Unless that’s what you’re into.

Mad Science…

Yay!

My Only Slightly Larger Princess

My three year old daughter rules our house with an iron fist. Sure she has a wrist full of silly bands, an older brother’s Star Wars t-shirt cum ballerina dress, and a pink tutu, but she is totally in charge. When she barks an instruction, we jump to attention and follow it because no one is willing to suffer her wrath… all 30 pounds of it.

Nevertheless, she is still my baby girl. My little pink princess baby girl. Although she made a bit of a step forward. She left her crib behind this week and moved up to her “big girl bed.” No more Glenna Jean bedding crib sheets and vertically sliding crib walls. She’s got a twin with a Jenny Lind headboard from the 60s (the same one I inherited in the 70s) and it’s all alright.