The Project I Thought I’d Never Finish

Originally posted on http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com on May 1, 2007.

Not that millions of people out there follow my blog, but for those of you who check in every now and then, you may have been wondering why I haven’t posted lately.

 Laziness would be a reasonable guess.  It would also indicate that you know me well.  That, however, is not the reason.   Work would be another likely culprit.  And while it has been busy at work, that also is not the reason for my absence.  Thankfully, it is not health related, either.  And my dear old Dad is recovering slowly but surely from heart surgery (and he didn’t want all that many visitors anyway) so it wouldn’t have been a big deal to throw out a post here and there.   Surely, six little rugrats and family life is to blame, right?   Well, as much as I’d love to say that I am Superdad and have spent all my waking moments trying to re-create “It’s a Wonderful Life” at my house, that would be a lie.

So, what would it be that has eaten up all my free moments?

The answer, my friend, is burning right now.  Not making smoke burning.  Making a CD burning.   As I am wont to do, allow me to elaborate with the history of the project that has now come (mostly) to fruition, and of which I am – as the youngsters say -”like, totally psyched!”

About 8 years ago (yes – 8 years!) my sister, Cyndi, approached me about doing a CD.  You see, Cyndi has been a singer (a darn good one at that) for as long as I can remember, but she never really put together a professional music project.  I am a songwriter in my spare time (as if I have “spare time”) and she enjoys the music I write.  And so, after some discussion, I agreed that I would do this and she would sing vocals on the music I wrote.  We both agreed that we wished to make it a Christian CD.  However, this would not be typical “easy-listening” Christian style.  I simply don’t write that kind of music.  I go with what I like, and while I will write some toned-down material, I’m an 80s rock guy-slash-keyboard player.  Basically, there were no rules about what I was to write.  I do what I want, and it’s just our little project.  So, it’s admittedly kind of weird telling people that you have been working on a Catholic/Christian Rock CD.  But it is what it is.

 And so I began on my 6-track cassette recorder.  But obviously, a professional project requires something fancier than that.  Should we rent studio time?  That is not inexpensive.  After further discussion, Cyndi decided to purchase a Roland VS-1680 in home Studio.  This was given to me, in return for the promise of a future CD.

Well, at that time we had two children.  We now have six children.  I took an actuarial exam and passed last year, which takes a ton of time.  Between more responsibility at work, more kids, a wife, life in general, outright laziness, and any number of other things, this project went forward in fits and starts.  I’d go strong for a period of time, then things would interrupt the project, and pretty soon it would be back on the rear burner.

Well, I never let that weight fall off my shoulders.  Cyndi had purchased this Studio, and I felt an obligation to make good on my promise.  One of my issues is that I can’t help but be a perfectionist.  I spent a lot of time trying to get these things just right.  Now, keep in mind that I’m pretty much a schlub who doesn’t necessarily know what he’s doing.  It’s not as if I’ve ever produced music before on a professional basis.  And so, trying to get things perfect when you aren’t familiar with all the tricks can be difficult.  I will not claim that it all came out as perfect as a true professional’s recording, but I did what I could.  Also, I’m mainly a keyboard player.  Yet, I programmed all the drum parts, and played all the other instrument parts, including the guitar.  What do I know about drums?   Pretty much zero.  How good am I at guitar?  All I can say is “Thank God for the punch-in button.”   So, being a perfectionist and trying to accomplish all this, you may well imagine that it took me a lot of time and effort to figure out how to get this right.  And you would imagine correctly.

To make matters worse, I kept writing more songs.  I should have made this a ten song project.  It ended up being a 15 song project, and I haven’t added it all up yet, but I don’t think all the songs will fit on a single CD.  Yes, I also write some long songs.  Hey, it’s my music, I can do what I want!

Well, despite all these imperfections of mine and the hurdles I put up for myself,  I finally reached a point about two months ago where I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  This really energized me.  And with that energy came somewhat of an obsession to finally get this thing finished.  My poor and saintly wife has endured endless hours of me at the studio recording music, mixing music, mastering music, and sending my hearing south in a hurry.

But tonight, the time has finally come.  The music is done.  I am recording a version with my vocals, and that is done.  Everything is mixed.  Everything has been mastered.  I have now started the CD burning process.  I am thoroughly excited.

Now, a couple caveats here:  Cyndi still needs to put on her vocals, and so the actual project as originally defined is NOT completed.  And once we get near the end of that, we still need to decide what the heck we’ll actually do with it, if anything.  Do we order copies and make a nice cover and try to sell it and all that stuff?  Or is it just a personal project?  A final caveat is that I am not even ready to declare my version finished until I have a chance to listen to the mastered CD and see how the EQ comes out and all that.  I may even re-mix things altogether if I feel it’s necessary.   But all that said, an initial final version is complete (if that makes any sense) and I feel a huge weight off my shoulders.  It’s now up to Cyndi to find the time to put on the vocals, which takes the pressure off me.

So, anyone who is interested in hearing some music, let me know.  I’ll figure out something so you can check it out.

2006 Christmas Letter

(Originally posted on http://digitalditribes.wordpress.com on 1/28/2007)

OK, so I’m entering the blogging world at the behest of my legions of adoring fans. I cannot promise the amount of time I will be able to devote to this little activity, but to get things started, here is the slightly edited version of the 2006 family Christmas letter. As we go along, you will see that I am willing to comment on just about anything, and the purposes of this blog are to simply provide a creative outlet for the writer, to entertain the reader, and perhaps occasionally offer up a tidbit of wisdom. I have no illusions that this venture will likely garner any more readers than me, my wife, and uh… sheesh. I can’t even say my Mom, because she doesn’t have the internet. Nonetheless, there is a certain fascination with thinking that the entire world is about to converge on your latest entry and dutifully proclaim it to be the greatest thing they’ve read since, well, your previous blog entry. So, with that introduction, here is the letter. It should give you a brief glimpse into our lives, and provide a backdrop for future posts. I’ve already got a great one brewing on Bingo. Stay tuned.

Dear <insert your name here>. You are very special to us. We think of you and your <family/children/dog/personality – please circle all that apply> often. One of these <days/years/decades – please underline one> we really need to get together again. It’s been too long. Greetings! We are pleased, once again, to announce that we are alive and well and relatively sane. As with everyone, it has been a busy year for us, and I would be foolish to attempt to reconstruct the entire saga on one page. Therefore, I will try to do it in two pages (with smaller type). Please do not attempt this feat on your own without professional guidance.

I would love to convince the rest of the world that our children are prodigies, and that it is only a matter of time before they rule us all. Unfortunately, I can make no such claim, for I have witnessed my children in action. If they are our future rulers, then we are doomed. But I love them all the same, and would not trade them for anything less than a new guitar and a baby grand piano.

Before I ramble on much longer, I need to address a controversial issue that reared its ugly head a year ago. I realize that you count on these letters for accurate information, and it is not lost on me that I announced in the previous edition of this annual missive that we were NOT expecting. Yet, as most of you know, we were indeed expecting. I have no better explanation than the fact that I was working with flawed intelligence reports. I had to make a critical decision based on the available information. I did not lie, nor did I manipulate any reports to produce the story I wanted to share. I was simply misinformed. I apologize, and will try to do better. And, no, we are NOT expecting (insofar as I have been briefed) again.Anyway, we have welcomed a new addition to our family.

Thumbsucker was born September 7th, and we are acclimating to him wonderfully. At the risk of saying something positive about one of my kids, he’s a very good baby – no screaming fits, likes to smile, all that good stuff. My largest complaint is that he’s got this attitude of entitlement that exudes “it’s all about me.” It’s just take, take, take. He has yet to offer a helping hand cleaning up the dishes, or any such thing. My patience is wearing thin, and that ego must soon be broken. His brothers and sisters love him, perhaps too much. I try to remind them that he’s not a pet, and while I think they understand that general concept, I fully expect to see him being dragged around the house on a leash one of these days.

I’ve learned a lot this year, myself. For example, I learned that if you have navy pants, and then a shirt with black and grey, then this doesn’t match. However, if you have a shirt with navy, black, and grey all in the same shirt, then it does match. I also learned that if you buy a new gadget that is supposed to take corn off of a cob real easily and you don’t know how to use it, you will soon be calling yourself an idiot while running to the bathroom to stop the bleeding. And one last piece of advice: when your wife says “shouldn’t you get that noise on the truck checked out?” and you think you are really smart by waving your hand and saying “it will be fine,” then you better not drive it after the battery light comes on and then end up needing to replace the motor when if you would have stopped it would have been a $100 job. I’m just saying…

As for Wendy, she has decided to start blogging. I’m not sure what that all means, but I suspect that it means that my three pairs of pants that need hemming will continue to not get hemmed. But the blog is indeed a nice way to allow people to have a glimpse of our Catholic-home-school-family-with-six-kids way of life, and a nice way to keep in touch. Check it out at www.thebluehouse.wordpress.com. (ahem… and now you can also check out www.digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com!)

Because of a busy schedule this summer, and Wendy’s impending due date, we did not utilize our camper nearly as much as we would have liked. We managed a couple weekends, and the kids had a great time. But I hardly did any fishing at all, which means I caught approximately 5 less fish than I did a year ago when I went fishing all the time.

We are still homeschooling. I must credit my lovely wife for our success in this endeavor, as she does 95% of the work. My modus operandi is to step in after all the hard work is done, and point out some insightful things that come to mind. For example, just the other day Amanda finished up a lesson on Paul Revere. Nowhere in the history book could I find information on his band of brothers called the “Raiders.” Thankfully, I was there to fill them in on that.

So, Wendy blogs, stays home, and home-schools our kids, and also works with the 4H group and leads a Familia group. People often talk to me and refer to her as “the Saint,” or “Superwoman,” or “My Hero.” I note for the record that I also exist, although nobody ever seems to realize that Wendy would not be near the hero she is if she wouldn’t also have to feed and clothe me as well. I demand some credit!

ByTheBook (10) is working very hard and doing very well at the Piano, Violin and her studies. She loves music and art. More importantly, she is starting to enjoy watching football. SweetTooth (8) is very imaginative. She’d rather not study, or work hard, or really do much of anything except play with her horses, listen to music, and eat candy. But she studies anyway, because if she doesn’t then she knows her brain will shrink and cave her head in. (We really haven’t told her that, but mostly because I just thought of it. Note to self…) She is also liking football, and this brings me to the wonderful news (much to Wendy’s chagrin) that watching football on Sundays has now become a beautiful, life-giving, soul-sharing family activity! A tear comes to my eye just thinking about it. Erin and Amanda both made it to a Packer game with good old Dad this year, and we look forward to many of those times to come. We also went to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert for my birthday. Very cool. They both also enjoy swimming and ice skating.There was also SweetTooth’s infamous “finger incident.” I won’t go into details, but she now knows what it’s like to get multiple stitches on the tip of a finger. A rock, a sandbox, and SweetTooth. Need I say more? Outburst (5) is starting to pick up on some words and reading as well. One of his favorite pastimes is “wrestling.” To him, wrestling means curling up into a ball and letting me toss him around. But he still hasn’t changed all that much. When cacophony and discombobulation reigns, there resides Outburst. BustructionWorker (3) speaks with a British accent. We don’t know how that happened, but I swear it’s a British accent. And he likes tea. I’m not kidding. He falls asleep on cue every night – during prayer time. Hmmm. NoFear (2) is known at our house as the “human cannonball.” This genius actually enjoys jumping off of our couch and landing on the floor on his stomach. He really has no fear of anything, and we have already pre-paid for ten future visits to the emergency room (they were running a “buy 9, get one free” special). Remember that wrestling I spoke of earlier? In contrast to Outburst, his idea of wrestling is backing up 20 feet, running as fast as he can, not slowing down, and slamming into whoever is in his way head-first. As for the whole talking thing, he is also speaking with a foreign accent – English. His native language is gibberish.

As for Wendy (38) and I (39), we celebrated 15 years of Marriage this year. Just a week later, my Mom (49) and Dad (107) celebrated 50 years! It was a nice opportunity for a reunion of family and friends. And seriously, can one ever hear too many polkas? No, seriously…

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our garden. I know what you’re thinking… “Who cares?” A valid point, but one which I will ignore. Prior to this year we did minor, small-time gardening. But this year my Dad was putting in his own garden, and offered to till up some extra area where we could grow some things. “Some” meaning over 100 quarts of corn, which we learned to prepare, can, and freeze. And then there were the gazillion potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, watermelon and pumpkins. We learned so much about how people used to prepare their food, that we have a newfound appreciation for all that. We also learned a lot of other things. For example – when you let a 2 year-old and a 3 year-old plant a section of garden, 100 pea plants will grow up in a 2-square-foot area. We also learned that when you plant a lot of corn, you get a lot of corn. And, finally, we (especially Dad) learned that potato bugs are evil.

Well, there you have it. We all wish you a very Merry Christmas. Please keep Christ in mind during this Season. Please also keep all our military personnel who are away from their families in your prayers. If you would, send up an extra prayer for a dear friend of ours, Brian, who is serving our country in Iraq right now. We are blessed to have all that we have, and to have these people who are willing to serve.

Our Family – Joe and Wendy, and the kids.

Phase One of this Blog – Old Posts

As you may or may not know, this site is branching off of my original site, “Digital Diatribes (http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com).”  That has become more of an analytical/science/global warming site.  I have decided to run a separate blog for personal/anecdotal stuff.  Welcome.  It will take a bit to get things up to speed, but in the meantime, enjoy the past posts that I am pulling over from the other site.