I’m sure most of you have noticed the incessant yet vague hints about potential new things over the last several months in this space. Well, now is the time for the veil of vagueness to be (kind of) lifted.

I officially started a new job this week. I’m doing roughly the same thing (federal contracting systems support and development), though I’m doing it at a different agency, which is (and this is the good part) only about fifteen minutes’ drive from my house. As of Monday, I no longer have to deal with the gruelling 200 mile round trip commute to Northern Virginia.

I’ve had this thing sort of on the hook since late July, if you count the feelers sent out to professional contacts about the position (a slot in a new division, which was actually modeled on the group I was working for). Those feelers led to other feelers being sent back the other way – at a certain point in this business, everybody knows somebody who knows everyone else, which led to what is quite possibly the best interview anyone’s ever given anywhere – seriously, this was one of those mythical interviews where, a few days out, I wasn’t second-guessing a single response I gave. That led to an offer, and paperwork, and several weeks of human resources professionals and supervisors from two different organizations negotiating over my services.

I’ve spent the last month or so detailing and documenting all the processes for the stuff I did at the old place, and training my replacements; my departure left the office short-handed (though I found out today that they are able to hire behind me and several other lingering vacancies – the solicitations are on the street as I type this), so I felt a little bit bad about leaving, but my goal was to do my best to leave the place in a better state than I found it, and I think I did.

The old place was sad to see me go – they all understood the reasoning (I had no work-life balance, because really, I had no life), and wished me well. They gave me a nice send-off gathering, and said lots of nice things about me.

The whole business is a bit of an ego boost, really.

The first couple of days at the new job have been positive so far; The team is small, and made up of people I’ve either worked with in the past, or have worked with folks I know (this agency moved their headquarters south from DC a few years ago, and filled out a lot of the staff with folks I worked with at the old agency’s Richmond site), so it’s comfortable already – it feels kind of like coming home, even though I’ve never worked here before.

I’m starting to get a handle on the new kinds of projects I’ll be working – this agency does some different kinds of things, so it’ll involve some different kinds of systems, and a fundamentally different way of looking at things, but it’s all related, so I’m figuring it out. At this point, it’s been a lot of training and reading and hand-shaking, though I’ve got meetings on the calendar lined up – I’m looking forward to jumping in and being useful. I seem to have a reputation for being highly-skilled and valuable in this particular community, and I really want to live up to the hype, despite my regular bouts with impostor syndrome.

So…yeah. I think it’s going to be good.

I guess it’s one of those date occurrences that really set off some people’s superstitious reflexes. Me? I don’t really care.

Been an okay week, I guess. The usual annoyances are still annoyances, though some are at least winding down a bit. More to come there later, if we haven’t talked about it. If that’s the case, you’ll have to wait.

I can point to one interesting thing I did this week, though. I went over to Guitar Center yesterday after work, and this followed me home:

That, dear friends who care, is a Takamine EG523SC. It’s very pretty, and it plays very nicely.

Why, might you ask, did I buy this, when I have a rather large number of guitars already? Because.

The main reason is that my twenty-odd year old Frankenstein Fender acoustic was feeling it’s age. Don’t get me wrong; I still love the home-made electrification and fancy black finish. That guitar is, in fact, sitting about ten feet from me right now. However, it was a twenty-odd year old cheap guitar that I’ve had since high school. It served me well as my main acoustic axe for a very long time, though that doesn’t change the fact that it’s got cheap plastic tuners and is made mostly out of laminate plywood, which isn’t exactly tone wood. Remarkably consistent, but kind of flat and lacking the character of a higher-end instrument. I’ve been playing a lot over the last year or two, with people (people who have some really nice instruments) and in front of people, and the cheap high school guitar wasn’t measuring up to what I needed.

I’m not considering it a replacement; it’s different in a number of ways. The old acoustic is a traditional “dreadnaught” style. This is what they call a Jumbo – it’s bigger, rounder, and deeper, designed to emphasize bassier tones. This balances nicely with the fact that it’s made mostly out of maple and spruce, both woods that tend to sound bright, so it’s got an interesting alchemy going on.

Secondly, it’s got a nice cutaway to reach the higher frets, and it’s electrified straight from the source, with a fancy electronics package on board including EQ and preamp- in short, it’s a modern acoustic/electric guitar, which is something I was lacking. Takamine is one of the pioneers of electro-acoustic technology, and thus, it sounds really nice plugged in. Also, it’s just pretty, with the flame maple sides and back, nice blonde finish, and all those abalone inlays. I’ve never really owned an instrument with this kind of fit and finish before – it’s really a piece of art before it makes a sound.

In any case, I’d been looking at this model, playing it whenever got a chance, often over the last eight months or so, and finally decided to take the plunge, especially since Tak recently revamped their line-up, and this this particular model isn’t being made any more; so if I was going to get one, I needed to jump on that soon.

I can also proudly say that the herd has actually remained the same size overall – I finally traded in the old pink Peavey Tracer Custom I bought in high school, and have spent the last ten or fifteen years wishing I’d spent the money on a Fender American Standard Strat instead. It’s not that the Peavey “superstrat” style wasn’t a solid, well-built instrument; far from it. It just hasn’t been me for the last decade or so. Also, if I’d bought the Fender for the same $700 bucks back then, I’d have a nicely seasoned instrument now, and one, in the highly unlikely event that I would be looking to unload it, would probably have actually appreciated in value by this point. Instead, I got about enough for it in trade to cover the Tak’s hardshell case and a little extra, and was happy to take it, mostly because I probably wouldn’t have gotten more in a private sale (these 80s metal guitars really aren’t worth a lot these days), and it was just taking up space in the house – I’d barely played it in the last five years – it just wasn’t me. So, I got to replace a dead spot in the collection with something I’d actually play, and it’s Guitar Center’s problem to find the right buyer. I call it a win (although I’ll miss the idea of that old guitar – buying it back then was a big deal).

Having had it only about 24 hours, I haven’t had that much time with it, but I like the time I have spent with it. I’ll get a chance to play with others this weekend, so its public performance debut is only a little ways off. I’m looking forward to it.

So, anyway. That was the big news this week. I’m kind of happy with my new toy right now.

And on that note, here are some tunes…none of which I’ve played on this particular instrument (yet):

1. “Rocket” – Def Leppard
2. “Left of the Dial” – The Replacements
3. “I Summon You” – Spoon
4. “Little Hell” – The Badlees
5. “Where’s My Mind?” – The Pixies
6. “Another One Bites The Dust” – Queen
7. “Istanbul (Not constantinople) – TMBG
8. “Someday” – The Stroke
9. “White Wedding” – Billy Idol
10. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – Ralph Stanley

Just wanted to take a minute to point out (another) article over at The Av Club which I *almost* wish existed ten years ago when I fell into a particular rabbit hole, a Beginner’s Guide to Paul Westerberg and the Replacements, which does a nice job of running through the band’s history and evolution, and hits all the high points.

I say “almost” wish it existed, because if it had, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to wade into this little corner of rock n roll ephemera myself, without the benefit (or hinderance) of the opinions of others. I managed to piece together the same information contained in the article above, but I did it over a couple of years digging around myself. I heard a couple of Replacements tunes somewhere (I believe it was the one-two punch of the end credits of the underapprecaited film Can’t Hardly Wait and a couple of semi-accidentally obtained Napster tracks I happened to come upon early in the 00s), which led to a quest through the bins at lots of used record stores tracking down the band’s catalog, out of order and without much direction; which, in the end, was an interesting way for the whole business to unfold, at least from the experiential perspective.

Stumbling onto a band well after the fact (though ressurections do happen), and being able to piece together the entire trajectory of a band’s career in fits and starts isn’t something people get the chance or opportunity to do anymore, given today’s instant accessibility to nearly any piece of information you’d possibly want*. It was probably the last time in my life I had the opportunity to tap into that experience that so many of us Gen-X music fans (and aren’t we all) had growing up – finding out about something new, then scouring the bits and pieces of information we could glean from record store racks, liner notes, informed friends, and supermarket rock magazines to put together a picture of a band’s career and catalog; and even then, there was still always a better-than-average chance that you’d still stumble upon some weird out-of-print import or bootleg somewhere with something you hadn’t heard before.

I kind of miss that experience.

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* – It’s not even much of a challenge anymore. Two examples from the past week. Example the first: I killed a few minutes watching robot chicken on netflix instant the other day, and ina little one-second interstitial, I heard a familiar, but semi-forgotten nonsense word. A couple of google searches later, and I learned that Fagabeefe (which, for some reason, I remembered as “Bagabeefe”) comes from the 80s cult film Midnight Madness, which I hadn’t seen since the 80s (I originally saw this one on HBO in the 80s like everyone else). Said movie will be in my mailbox on Blu-Ray this afternoon via netflix delivery, so I can scratch that particular itch.

Example the second: I was in my local comics and collectibles shop yesterday afternoon to pick up my weekly comics after work. Loitering around and BSing with the proprietor and staff after making my purchases like I often do, we got talking about the box of vintage Masters of the Universe figures they’d gotten in and were cleaning and cataloging. Many of the accessories had fallen loose in the box, and we spent a good bit of time mining our brains for memories of which guy went with which weapon, until somebody pulled up He-Man dot org on an ipad, which has pictures of everything, leading us to discover that Mer-Man’s “corn sword” was missing after all.

The AV Club recently posted a great Q&A feature discussing suggestions for various official state rock songs, given that a couple of states actually have official ones, and others have generally accepted unofficial ones. There are lots of good suggestions in there: New Jersey writer Joe Keller makes a passionate and lucid defense for Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” over the popular favorite “Born to Run” from Springsteen (I say a case could be made for both, but honestly, “Prayer” feels best for me). This sort of thing is something that isn’t completely unfamiliar to me – my friend Jonah’s latest project is a whole album of songs about South Dakota. I enjoyed reading the piece; lots of good suggestions for new music.

The one that really hit me, though, is the suggestion for my adopted home, the Commonwealth of Virginia. Writer Will Harris suggests a song I’ve never heard before: I-95 from Fountains of Wayne:

Given how much time I’ve spent over the last ten years traversing a particular 120 mile section of I-95, this song hits all the right notes. It’s all trees, truckstops, and inconsiderate drivers, especially when you’re doing it in the early hours of the morning. It’s not exactly complimentary, though it has a certain wistful romanticism, and is, on the whole pretty true to life for anyone who’s been there.

This got me thinking – I spent the first 20 years or so of my life in Pennyslvania, and although that Commonwealth doesn’t appear to have one (I don’t trust idalotor.com’s insistence that it’s the Dixie Dreggs’ “Scranton Rocks!” – wikipedia says nothing), I figure I’d spent enough time as a Pennsylvanian to make an accurate suggestion.

Actually, I have two, both from the same record, released back in 1992 – Diamonds in the Coal, by The Badlees. As I’m sure you’re well aware, I spent most of my college career as a huge fan of these guys, and still remain so today, though that early 90s output really managed, for some reason, to capture the essence of what life in my late teens and early twenties was like; equal parts nostalgia and, I guess, tragedy. it’s like two sides of the same coin – Metropolis is New York in the daytime, Gotham City is New York at night…

Never mind, that’s comics, and we’re talking music and personal histories here…um.

Suggestion the first – “Like A Rembrandt” (which, sadly doesn’t seem to be represented as a video or streaming tune anywhere I can find via a semi-thorough googling*): Perfectly distilled nostalgia in a three minute pop song package. Lots of hazy, yet sort of pleasant memories hanging out with the gang at some out-of-the-way semi-private place (be it “the breaker”, or, in my case, the river), listening to music, and engaging in pleasant semi-illicit youngster hijinks. We’ve all spent a bit of time doing that, and celebrate the memories. However, like the rest of this record (and most of the Badlees’ catalog, honestly), there’s a tinge of melancholy and loss to this one. These little outings are “one-of-a-kind in a shades of grey world”, as the lyrics go. Life isn’t always sweet, in fact, it’s sometimes pretty bleak, but one occasionally finds…

Suggestion the second – “Diamonds in the Coal”: This one actually calls out Pennsylvania by name, in terms of life in a part of the world that is well past it’s prime. Things may once have thrived, thanks to changing economies and depleted resources, has seen better days. the whole thing is pretty much an elegy for Rust Belt America, which most of Pennsylvania finds itself at the heart of. Beautiful, mournful, and again, pretty much on target:

Some of us recognized this turn of events, and got the hell out when the getting was good, looking for greener pastures, and, in my case, mostly finding them. This is the song about those people who didn’t, or couldn’t, for whatever reason. And, in the vast space of the Keystone State that isn’t Philadelphia or (to a lesser extent), Pittsburgh, it rings true for far too many people.

So, those are some humble suggestions. A hell of a lot more appropriate than Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom”, at least (if you must go with Philly, I’d throw my support behind “Beat Up Guitar” from the Hooters. It’s got the same kind of wistful nostalgic feeling as my suggestions above).

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* – Yeah, there’s no “Rembrandt” on Youtube, which is a crime. However, there’s a great version of “Sister Shirley” out there, which is kind of about california, but oh well.

I’m in kind of a countdown mode lately, both working my ass off and spinning my wheels at the same time. That description seems contradictory, but if you’ve found yourself staring down a big change on the horizon with enough time to brace for it and put a few lingering affairs in order before the wave breaks, I suspect you can probably relate.

The last couple of weeks around this remotely hosted drive platter have been largely limited to the occasional link to some interesting piece of music, or a few sentences that probably ought to have just gone up on twitter instead, if it weren’t for my self-imposed requirement to get something up in the space on a semi-regular basis. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the caliber of writing over the past year hasn’t been up to par, and on some level, that bugs me. However, as this year’s been a bit more hectic and eventful than the last few – I’ve been pushing myself really hard to do my best at work, along with pushing myself pretty hard to GET to work everyday. Despite the fact that I don’t have much extra time, the bits I do have I’ve been filling up with social engagements with my surprisingly large and diverse group of friends, that I really hadn’t even noticed I’d built up over the past three or four years. You guys are awesome by the way.

So, I haven’t had a lot of free brain space to gin up philosophical thoughts – I’ve largely been in survival mode (and barring that, social mode, which, for we introverted types, is a bit of work in itself, however rewarding), which has been taking up most of my time.

I’m not complaining, though; not really. In an effor to cope, I’ve found solutions to other lingering problems that weren’t as pronounced, and I’ve learned that I’m actually pretty resourceful when it comes to finding my way through a less-than-always-hospitable environment. Adversity teaches us lessons, right? I’m sure someone said that.

In any case…that’s gonna be the extent of the vague philosophical musings. It’s the best I can do right now; it’s not particularly clever, but it’s true, which counts for something.

As for the mechanical and logistical details of the last couple of weeks, there hasn’t been much – lots of commute related driving (see the last post), though I did make it to the local minor league ball park for a game, and to see some of the ladies in my life, along with fifty or so of their closest friends, sing the National Anthem before the game; got together with some of the same friends (as well as some new ones) for a good old backyard bbq Labor Day weekend, and spent Labor Day Monday doing something new – some dear work friends finally got me out to play 18 holes of golf – I was patently terrible, but my ratio of good shots to bad ones was slightly above average for someone who’s never done it before. Also, driving the cart was fun.

So yeah, it’s been a full life – I also found the time to get a few books in. I did The Silver Linings Playbook on audio, which was pretty good – I haven’t seen the movie yet, though I expect it’s somewhat different; I don’t expect it’s so darkly funny if it appealed as it did to so many mainstream housewives. I also had my hold at the library come in for Robert Gailbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling. Galbraith, of course, is actually J.K. Rowling, attempting to see if her writing can stand on it’s own merits without the benefit of her name and reputation hanging over it. I’m happy to say that it does. The book’s a pretty solid, quirky, droll, and clever British mystery novel featuring an eccentric P.I. in the lead (just to the realistic side of eccentric – just balancing on the edge of tipping into Douglas Adams territory, which, honestly, wouldn’t be a bad thing). I’ve said several times now since the Potter series started winding down, that I was really interested in seeing what Rowling would write next, and hoped it was a big departure from her most famous series. With two non-Potter novels now under her belt, I can say that I’m pleased with the result, and look forward to her continued output.

Oh, and school started this week. All three kids in school now, and one each in the regular levels – Elementary, Middle, and High School. All seems to be going well, though my spouse doesn’t know what to do with herself with a quiet house during the day. I’m sure she’ll figure it out.

That’s about it, really. The playlist below was generated out of pandora, shuffled out of the following stations: Americana, Hair Bands, Indie Rock, 80s Alternative, TMBG, Queen, The Badlees, The Replacements, and R.E.M.:

1. “Chicago” – Sufjan Stevens
2. “Talk About the Passion” – R.E.M.
3. “Nothing Better” – The Postal Service
4. “Armageddon It” – Def Leppard
5. “Waitress in the Sky” – The Replacements
6. “Thinking In Ways” – The Badlees
7. “Turn Up The Radio” – Autograph
8. “I Melt With You- Modern English
9. “Seventeen” – Winger
10. “I Fought The Law” – The Clash

Have a good weekend, everyone. I’m going to try and keep it quiet one.

My not even two month old car rolled over 6000 miles today.

These next two weeks can’t go fast enough, I tell you…

Or I won’t. Not yet, anyway.

Cybertronic Spree…they have the touch.

It’s been that kind of week. Sometimes, you just need a nonsensical post-apocalyptic Avril Levigne video to make things a little better:

There’s a hell of a lot of crazy in this video – and for that (and the whole Winnie Cooper bit, and the G’n’R nod, and the baby, and…well…), I salute it.

Thirty-Nine.

Among other things, from wikipedia:

The traditional number of times citizens of Ancient Rome hit their slaves when beating them, referred to as “Forty save one”

…because, the full forty would likely kill a man.

There’s something to that. This year, my thirty-ninth trip around the sun, wasn’t a particularly easy one; it has been, one could say, rather punishing. My health, both physical and mental, suffered; many times this year, I’ve felt beaten. You’ve read the tweets and the blog posts – you all know how it’s been. But, I’ve survived it.

Because I had help. And for that, I say, “39” (“thank you” in Japanese internet slang – it’s a numeric pun – see above) to the many people who’ve helped me get through it. You all know who you are – well, some of you may not know you are, and given my general vow of vagueness around these parts, I’m not going to name names here; rest assured that I’m grateful, and have probably thanked you in person more than once, and if I haven’t, I apologize.

Otherwise, thirty-nine, I guess, puts me square into what people call “middle age”, I guess, since if I make it to 78 and a half, I’ll be doing really well. I haven’t particularly felt the motivation to go buy a fancy sports car (in fact, I went ahead and bought what might be considered the anti-sports car), though I will admit to looking covetously at a couple of mid-to-high-end acoustic guitars, but that’s only because I’ve been playing a lot with other people this year, and my twenty-some year old main axe is hitting it’s limits, even after I’ve made a bunch of capacity-extending modifications over the years. Nor have a I particularly felt the need (beyond the occasional appreciative glance from afar – I’m not dead, you know!) to trade in the spouse for a newer model – I’m quite happy with the arrangement I have, thank you.

What that last paragraph means, I think, is that I’m not particularly stereotypical about middle age. I my brain still feels mostly young – I still watch cartoons, wear t-shirts with silly slogans on them, play games, enjoy riding bikes through the dirt…hell, I went to the comic shop yesterday, like I do every week. I feel no need to put aside childish things just because some outmoded societal construct says I should. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel the need to do any of those things in the previous paragraph – who knows?

But, I guess, I’ve been feeling some of the aches and pains of old-manhood – My stamina’s great, thanks to lots of cardio, but the knees and ankles suffer. I occasionally feel the urge to wave a cane at the kids and tell them to get off of my poor excuse for a lawn (while I wear an onion on my belt, because, you know…), because, despite having a teenager and an almost teenager in the house, I occasionally miss pop culture references, especially when they have to do with things that are “YouTube famous” or have anything to do with Harlem or Shaking.

I suppose I’m okay with that. Plus, you know, #39 (as in Tales of Suspense) is where Stan,Jack, Larry and Don invented Iron Man:

And Iron Man’s cool and stuff now, right?

I have not been to work this week, at all. I am taking a well-earned vacation, before diving into what we’ll surely be a couple of weeks of total crazy, although there’s a light at the end of that tunnel, which I’ll talk about when the time is right, which isn’t now.

I started my vacation with a good, old-fashioned summer cold, likely brought on by lack of sleep, stress, and lowered general resistance to all the usual infectious crap that floats through our environment that our bodies normally fight off as a matter or routine.

After spending Sunday and Monday fighting that off, we spent a couple of days at the beach. Just two nights in an oceanfront hotel room – which is, frankly, just about the perfect length of time to spend there. Beach resort towns get tedious really fast. Same crap for sale, block after block, and just enough decent (but not really excellent) restaurants to get through in about five meals. The ocean was nice, though a little goes a long way for me. The afternoon at the Virginia Aquarium was nice, as it always is, as was the dolphin watching cruise along the coast. We saw some baby dolphins, it was cool (although they weren’t particularly interested in posing for pictures).

My wife, did, however, take this pretty nice photo:

But, now I’m back home, which gives me a couple of days to recover from my vacation before I head back to the office grind, which is probably going to grind extra hard for a little while, as I mentioned in the first paragraph.