Going Pro

I received my first income as a musician today. While waiting for my six year old's piano lesson to finish, I sat in a shady spot outside the music store and practiced trumpet. After my second song (Misty) a family out for a bike ride came over and the Dad insisted on giving me some money. I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted, saying it was one of his favorite songs.

Two bucks, cold hard cash, without even trying. Do I have to declare this on my 2010 taxes?

Microsoft Office 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 shipped recently. I am a Microsoft employee in the Office division, but not a Rah-Rah  Buy Our Awesome Product kind of guy (shocking news to those who know me).

My elementary school kids use PowerPoint and Word (via Mac Office 2008), and their mother uses Word 2007 to write college reports. Away from work, I am not a frequent Office user. It is installed on my home computers, upgraded to the latest versions, but only because I get an employee discount. In my "tech support" role at home it is easier to have the same version I use at work. Office feeds my family, so it is painful to admit that it has become less and less relevant to me through the years I've worked on it.

One Office application I've wanted to use at home is OneNote. It's a cool app nobody seems to know about that first shipped in Office 2003. Among other things it captures free-form notes, screenshots, and web clippings in a single notebook file that can be easily searched and organized into sections and tabs. Hard to explain until you've played with it.

On our Microsoft intranet we have the ability to keep the OneNote file on a server, automatically synced back into the OneNote client on multiple computers. I work on several computers, so having my notes available on all of them without any special steps (and the bonus of my notes automatically backed up) is great. The downside has been that you have to have the OneNote client software installed, and I can't do that on some of my work computers.

I haven't used OneNote at home because I want my personal notes to roam seamlessly between multiple computers just like my work notes. I want my notes on my home PCs (Windows and Mac) and I want the same notes available up on my work computers. I am not willing to tinker around with Sync This or Mesh That to accomplish this. I could have accomplished a less-slick form of this via Google Docs, honestly, but I like the rich client; it's still a slicker way to edit, especially when dealing with images and other non-textual material.

Now for the infomercial part of our program. Office-2010 includes online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (yay!): the Office Web Apps.

A big part of this is to compete with Google Docs and other "good enough" productivity suites, but unlike Google, it also lets you work in the client applications or the web applications. For OneNote, this gives me (almost) exactly what I want. I can create a Notebook online, and view or edit it either in a web browser on PC or Mac, or I can use the OneNote 2010 client and sync the online notebook the same way I do on my corporate network. Sweet. I've created my new personal online notebook, and no doubt the FBI will be adding it to their watch list almost immediately. I'm not a privacy nut, I air my crazy out in plain sight for all to see, so the hosted aspect of it doesn't worry me a whole lot.

My only sad part is still no rich OneNote client for the Mac (or iPad or iPhone or iWhatever for all you mobile hipsters out there).

Huh, what?

Watching more than an hour of TV makes me feel icky. So does a minute-turned-into-hours session of pointless web browsing ("Hmm, I wonder what that actor from that 70's sitcom is up to...").

I'm not against entertainment of the mind, body, emotions, or taste buds. I don't aspire to be an ascetic. I have ascetic tendencies by nature and have to work hard to relax and enjoy myself (which rarely works out). Left to my own devices, I'd still be living in an apartment with a chair, a bed, a pot for cooking my Kraft Dinner, and the props for whatever hobby was my current obsession. Visitors would take one look and ask, "Oh, did you just move in?" "No. I've been here 18 years." Uncomfortable silence as they inch towards the door and wonder what I keep in the freezer.

I don't feel entirely comfortable criticizing popular culture, since it appears that everybody else is enjoying it, or at least accepting it, far more than I am. If it makes them happy but not me, do I have a right to be critical, or should I be jealous instead?

The Buddhist perspective would be that these distractions are just that, a way to learn to fly (making sense of life) by throwing yourself at the ground and missing (preventing yourself from thinking about it). Reality TV shows, religions (hmm, Reality TV Religions--note to self for future business opportunity?), mind-altering substances, or watching or reading "news" are distractions removing us from the current moment. Combine that with fretting about past indecisions, and pining for future acquisitions or conquests (new car, caviar, four-star daydream), and how much awareness do we devote to the present? Does the present exist?

Our economy doesn't need the present, because it doesn't encourage us to consume. We aspire to buy something, we buy it, and then we move on to dreaming about the next thing we need. The present pops up long enough for cash to change hands, or a computer to add and subtract, then vanishes again.

Whatever lofty philosophy I may spout, I am the poster child for the Age of Distraction, hence this blog post.

Not So Hotmail?

I've been lucky with Hotmail, had an account since 1998 and no significant problems until today. My account has been unreached for over 16 hours, with nothing but Eddie the shipboard computeresque "Hi! We're making improvements to make your e-mail experience more spiffy!!! Thanks!!!!! Try again later!!!!!!!!" responses to my login attempts.

I've witnessed others losing access for hours or days, and delayed incoming and outgoing mail. In one dramatic case, the same mail was sent to me and another Hotmail account; One received it immediately, the other over six months later. Yes, six months later. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

Northwest Folklife

On Saturday, I took my boys to the Northwest Folklife festival in Seattle. Doing so required trickery; direct queries of the form "Do you want to do "X?" where "X" is not equal to playing XBox, watching TV, or wrestling with me and almost breaking my nose, result in "No!" followed by whining.

Instead, I urgently told them it was time to go, and to get their shoes on. We were on the road before the questions began. I simply said we were going to Seattle ("Moan!"), but that I thought there was a big arcade there with "ticket machines" (slot machines for kids who aren't old enough for serious gambling dens). There was also mention of lunch, and a possible train ride.

I parked downtown to avoid the Seattle Center crunch, we had an unhealthy lunch (the guilt I feel over allowing them to eat crap versus the relief from whining is a tough call, but sometimes you gotta do it), then hopped on the monorail. It was only then I revealed that there was "Some music thing..." happening. Evan actually said, "I didn't agree to this." I bit back several inappropriate but heartfelt replies, as visions of child protective services dragging me off in a straitjacket danced through my head.

We wandered and watched some cool bands and street performers, ranging from seriously talented to seriously pierced and, uh, experimental. The boys' favorite group was a family of four. Dad on upright bass, Mom on guitar, a boy around 12 on fiddle, and a younger brother (maybe 7?) on 2-string banjo. My boys were mesmerized. The family was playing some simple bluegrassy countryish stuff, and having a blast. The youngest boy was quite the entertainer, stopping at one point to put on a metal washboard tie which he proceeded to play. What an awesome family activity.

I have never attended Folklife before and wasn't aware that you just show up, find a spot, and start playing. The Ritchie family band will be staking out a spot next year. Perhaps Alex on drums, Evan on guitar, and me alternating between bass and trumpet? I'm sure juggling could be involved, too.

We wandered through the sad remains of the Fun Forest, and the boys hit some rides. Alex was coughing a lot so we headed back downtown. I kept my promise, and we visited GameWorks. A decade ago this was a kinda cool place, but now feels like going into a video store. Quaint, and you have to wonder how many weeks or months, or maybe single-digit years, the place will survive.

The boys, though, love ticket machines. If you haven't had the pleasure, this is a system whereby you pay $20 and 45 minutes of your life standing on a sticky floor for $0.25 worth of candy and a $0.75 toy made of radioactive lead. All attempts to illustrate this insanity to the boys (and suggesting I buy them $1.00 worth of candy and, heck, a $3.00 toy) were met with, "But you get STUFF when you hand in the tickets!"

All-in-all, it was a good outing. The notion of making noise with my guys in front of a crowd is inspiring. After I brought them home (with healthier Subway sandwiches), I headed right back to catch a couple more hours of the festival sans kids. If I had a few more songs memorized on trumpet I would have gone the next day as a street performer, but I don't want to play from sheet music.

Going Dark (or is it Dork?)

I deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts. The entertainment value of stalking old acquaintances and playing micro-celebrity helps pass the time, but I don't want to pass the time. It's the equivalent of a solo session in RockBand. Fake instruments, fake performance, fake human interaction, and another hour of life slips away. I'm not passing judgment, but for me, hiding from messy humanity and practicing until I'm good enough at being human to actually be human is not healthy.

Boring personal information

Hi, I'm Gary, and I'll be boring you today. My last post to this blog was five years ago. How's that for un-Twitter behavior?

Ah, 2005. I was a spry 30-something lad with a sparkle in my eye. Now I'm a crusty 40-something who squints in the dark.

At times I get down, wondering if I wasted n years of my life. Then I remind myself it doesn't matter; the past is done, and the future has no limits. My kids smile, and know my military school threats are mostly in good fun.

Some color and music has transpired since my last post.

After an accidental decade apart, I reconnected with my best friend, triggering ascents of many mountains, with many more to come, and interesting times on the streets of Vancouver, Portland, and San Jose Costa Rica. I resumed playing the trumpet after a fifteen year break, triggering my kids' interest in learning instruments. I sat quietly in the presence of Buddhist masters with thousand year lineages, wondering if I should be stoic or laugh out loud. I haven't decided.

Today I shall write this post, play some songs, and try something new before I sleep. Oh, and that whole job thing, that's still happening, too. I switched teams, then I went to Apple, then I came back to Microsoft, then I switched back to my original team. Enough said about that.