The Music Blog of the Infonistacrat!

ACOUSTIC SUNDAY!

Well, my friends, my absence the past few days should be a clue as to just how busy I’ve been. I am desperately trying to get my data center built, so that I can get my ass back to Michigan, and back home. A funny little story. Friday, I’m on a design authority call with representatives from the customer, including their network engineer. He asked how I was doing, and I mentioned I was trying to build a data center out from bare tiles to completely cabled and fibered server racks, network racks and storage area networks all in 2 and a half week. His reply? “Who’s stupid fucking idea was that!”. I just left it at that, since the persons whose idea it was, the customers director of IT who escalated to get it built, was also on the call. I got a HUGE satisfaction out of that one!

So, from the comments the other day, I have some fellow IT workers out there. That’s good to know, and cheers to you all. It’s a tough business, and I don’t think most people know exactly the insane working conditions we suffer so that when you want to print that Word document, or send that email, or surf the internet, it all goes smoothly. The IT business, especially as you rise up the ranks, it just a tough, grueling business, where 18 hours days are not uncommon, and being home 3 weeks in a row is not all that unusual. The earliest I left the raised floor this past week was midnight.

One of the younger guys on my project asked me how I did it. I have no clue. I told him that IT tends to weed out the weak and those without the stamina to work super long hours. Not everyone can do what we do. Enjoy the music!

A DELAYED DOSE OF JACK UP MUSIC FOR YOU ALL

Check it out…I wanted to get this posted yesterday, and have something else completely cool for you all today, but the events of the past three days have kind of kicked my ass. More on that in a bit, because I REALLY need to vent. So, if you’re not interested in some severe ranting on my part over my job, I would read this paragraph and skip to the tunes. Like I said, I originally had this lined up for yesterday, but music never dies, and it never gets old, so one day won’t really matter, I don’t think. I have some more tunes based on the Jack FM format…I am seriously loving the freshness of it. At least for now, it’s keeping me sane for 20 minutes in the morning, and 20 at night.

Now on to my rant. Work of getting kind of completely out of hand, and today I’m pretty much going to put a stop to that today. It’s become apparent that the project managers in my company are content to allow me to take over the effective management of all areas of their projects, including resource management, ordering, priority setting, etc. I am an architect. My role is to provide a sound technical solution, and a map for them to integrate complex applications across the board. Instead, I have been doing so much project manager crap that I’m behind. Way behind. And I just had a come to Jesus meeting where I laid it all out, and told my lead PM that either he gets a team here tomorrow, or I go home.

So, hold on…I have to be in Boulder for yet a third week in a row, and the second weekend. No, my wife is not happy, and no, I am seriously not happy.

IT CAME FROM THE 90′S, UPDATE EDITION!

Today’s list is my update of one of my favorite blog series called “It Came From The Nineties” over at Can You See The Sunset On The South Side. The author of this blog, which, by the way, if one of my favorite reads, has a pretty good eye for talent, and usually posts outstanding stuff. A month ago, I did a 3 day series on what I thought was the best of…if you get a chance, I still recommend going over and visiting his blog.

Of today’s list, maybe the song that means the most to me is The Nixons’ Sister. It was a moderate hit in 1995, but the words really hit me pretty hard. In 1995, the relationship I was in had fallen apart, due to the distance between us…I was in Chicago, and she was in California. We were both going through pretty nasty divorces, and though we loved each other pretty dearly, the stress just tore us apart, and we went months without speaking to each other. I heard this song, and the words just kind of shot through me, and I realized that I was making a mistake I would never recover from by letter her go. I mailed her a copy of the song, and fortunately, she felt the same way. A few months later, with both our divorces complete, she moved to Chicago. A year later, we were married, and this December, it will be 12 great years. Never has a song made such a difference in my life.

JUST ANOTHER MELLOW MONDAY

Happy Monday, everyone out there in the internets. This weekend, I was away from home for the first time in years. Usually, my business trips end on Fridays…this time, it’s a full two weeks. I’m not ashamed to say that it’s damn lonely. See, this past week was my daughters 13th birthday. There’s nothing harder for me than to be away from my family, but when I have to miss something as important as my baby becoming a teenager…well, lets just say it’s completely fucked I was away.

So after just hanging out in Boulder, sleeping and relaxing, and trying to get caught up on my work. And preparing for the week ahead. I still have a tremendous amount of work to get done. I think we’re gonna thread the needle and pull off a miracle for this customer, but it’s going to come at a price, that’s for sure. I’m happy with the progress we made last week. By far this is going to be one of the biggest success of my career.

So, enjoy. I’m having a mellow day, just trying to maintain until I can get back home.

I DON’T KNOW JACK ABOUT MUSIC…OR DO I?

One of the nice things about traveling for business is that I sometimes find some great music stations on the radio. It’s rare, but when I find one, I get pretty jazzed. Well, my friends (as John McCain is so fond of saying), this week, I have found one, though it has a little twist, as you’ll see. First of all there is a Denver Station that calls itself Jack FM, and I gotta admit, they play one hell of a variety of songs. Not every song is great, or even a song I like. But unlike most stations, I can listen to 3 or 4 songs I really enjoy for everyone I don’t. Normal stations are lucky to have the reverse ratio.

Now for the controversy. I guess that Jack FM is a new type of format, or so says Wikipedia (who we all know is NEVER wrong!). The playlist creation is centralized, and market research driven. Their catalog of songs are, I guess, twice as large as other stations, and they are no where near as specific to one genre of music. Honestly, I find none of those things disturbing, and in fact, it’s a nice change. The stations (and there are several across the US, Canada, and now even in the UK), have no local programming. No DJ. No local voice to add that local touch. I guess that upsets people. To be honest, though, there are very few DJ’s I honestly care to listen to. The last one passed away a few years back (I hope your jamming your ass off up there, John Peel!). It’s all about the music…the other stuff is just fluff.

That brings me to today’s list. All the songs on the list are from a 2 hour period. Of course, I choose the ones I liked the most, and left off the clunkers like Neil Diamond and Kool and the Gang (apologies to those that like those two artists…I have nothing again em. Hell, I even dig the hell out of Neil once in a while.). But the stuff listed here is pretty typical of the range of styles, both in genre and in decades, that they play around the clock. Like I said, it works for me, and makes that drive to and from work a little more bearable. Enjoy!

CHILLIN’ ON A 80′S NEW WAVE SATURDAY

Well, my friends, it’s been one hell of a week for me. I have another week to go, and I’m hoping that all the work that I’ve done this week sets the stage for next week. I still have a lot of loose ends to tie up, but over all, I’m happy.

Now, most people really never give the technology and infrastructure that runs the modern world much thought. The reality is that building an environment for a corporation to run on from the ground up is a pretty complex ordeal, and when you have to compress the building of that data center from 5 -6 weeks to a little over 3 weeks…well, lets just say that that’s not exactly a smart move. But still, I am doing everything I can do to make it happen.

So this week, I was able to get built all the Unix and Intel servers, including all the VMWare servers that will run a hundred or so applications. All the storage is in place…2.4 million bucks worth in fact. I have to complete Tandems…about 800 thousand grand worth. Over all, my guys did a HUGE job of getting all this stuff done. If it was up to me, I would give em all one hell of a raise. Unfortunately, I don’t have that power.

Now, for those that aren’t asleep yet, please, enjoy some tunes, and enjoy the weekend. For me, I have a lunch date with my boss…may I’ll pitch those raises! Enjoy!

MUSIC FROM THOSE CHEESY 80′S MOVIES

There’s nothing I like better than all those old cheesy movies from the 80’s. I’m pretty sure you know, and have seen, all of them, just like me. Pretty In Pink, 16 Candles, Fast Times, Valley Girl, Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, etc. etc. The list is endless. No, I’m not ashamed to say I went to see them…I mean, mostly, because my girlfriend/wife at the time wanted to see them…yeah, that’s gotta be it! Anyway, no matter how bad those movies were, you could always count on one thing, a great soundtrack. And by great, I mean, they invented, and perfected the modern movie soundtrack. Since the 80’s (with some exception of some of the Cameron Crowe movies in the 90’s), movie sound tracks have tried to be that cool, with very few successes. It was just the greatest 10 year span ever to be in my late teens / early 20’s. I love watching those movies now because it really does remind me that at one time, I could flit about the halls at high school, being an outsider, scorning the “in” crowd, and generally not giving a shit about anything. Maybe the reason I still listen to the music I do is because for 4 minutes at a time, I can still be like that.

The real reason I used to watch those movies, to be honest, is that, among my other crushes in the 80’s, Molly Ringwold just rocked my world. I thought she played some of the coolest characters back then, and it’s a shame her career died when she pissed of John Hughes. I don’t know where she is now, or what she’s doing, but for me, she’s just one of the coolest chicks from one of greatest times of my life. Here’s to you, Molly! Enjoy!

SONGS YOU MIGHT NOT EXPECT ME TO LIKE!

Alright, as the title suggests, this post is made of songs that, having read my blog and seen my tastes in music, you might be surprised to find I like. Crazy as it may seem, everything here, at one time or another, was a song I really liked a lot. Some because they remind me of special places, people and things in my life. Some, just because I like the songs. So, you can see what I listen to when I don’t listen to my normal playlists.

Now, as far as what I have been up to this week. As a profession, I’m an infrastructure architect, which means I design and build the environments that companies run their IT systems on. The infrastructure I build is a lot more complex that normal environments…in fact, this one I am here to build now is extremly complex. I have an older mainframe, a 3745 front end process, which I have to integrate with an HP Tandem, and several start of the art Power 6 AIX servers. Add on the storage systems, the tape systems for back up and recovery. Plus, I am building a pretty world class VMWare environment, complete with a separate VMotion infrastructure. Simply put, I have about 10 million dollars in cutting edge servers I am building and integrating. Well, i don’t do the work…I am the lead architect for the project.

So, this week, I’m here to make sure that everything gets put in the proper racks, all my cables get run like I designed it, as well as all mir fiber optics. Long story short, I am slowly going insane, managing things to a detail that kinda freaks me out a little bit. Complicating things even more is that I originally had 5 weeks to build and test everything…but the customer changed their minds, and decided that two works would be more than enough time, and the powers to be agreed. So here I sit, busting my ass for 2 weeks, working 16 - 18 hour days. And believe it or not, we are going to be very close to getting it all done! Go figure. So enjoy the tunes…and if I miss another post, please know that it’s because I am slowly going insane! Enjoy!

SMALL UPDATE FOR WEDNESDAY, SEPT 24TH

OK, so this week has been one hell of a lot busier than I thought it would be, thus the second day of no updates. However, I will be making an update tonight, no matter what happens, so expect some new tunes tomorrow, as well as some details on what’s going on in my life this week. Cheers!

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF NONE MONDAY!

I’ve made it to Boulder, where I’ll be living for the next few weeks. And as it always seems to be the case now days, the trip was maddeningly crazy. I fly out of the Flint, MI, regional airport, which means I always need to connect somewhere. Today, that somewhere was in Chicago. The flight to Chicago was scheduled to take off at noon. At 3 minutes til noon, the plane was still not at the gate, and in fact, I knew from the status board it was still in the air. So, I called American Airlines. See, I only had 45 minutes between flights in Chicago, and since I knew we would probably be taking off 30 - 40 minutes late, I wanted to see what other flights were available the next day.

Now, here is a dirty little secrets that the airlines never really share, but if you travel a lot on business, it’s invaluable. The airlines can double book you on two flights, so that if you miss one, you have a seat on the other. As soon as you realize there is going to be trouble, call the airlines, and get them to book, before it’s too late. Trust me, the rebooking line is for people who don’t have a clue how to travel. So, yesterday, I called, and the guy booked me on a later flight. But here’s the kicker…the flight was full, except for first class! I’m pretty sure you can see where this is going. I got in to Chicago, rushed to my gate, only to find, like I anticipated, that I was 5 minutes too late. The harried gate agent was busy closing the flight out (what ever THAT means), and kind of brushed me aside, and told me to go to the rebooking line. Like I said, that line is for suckers.

I politely told here that I had already been rebook on the 3:40 flight. That changed her tone a little, and she asked me to wait, and she would help me. Second secret. Treat these people like humans, and they will do everything in their power to help you. After all, they are just trying to do their job, and it’s not their fault that the airlines suck now days. So, when she was finished, I smiled, asked her how the day was going, and listened for a minute while she vented a little. When she was done, she typed in my info, and out came a first class ticket…even though she could have given me a gate pass to get a seat as one came available, probably in the back of the aircraft. Trust me, first class is a LOT better than coach.

So, here I am, and here I will be for the next two weeks. I’m going to do my best to post every day while I’m here, but if I don’t, just know that it’s because I’m working, and hit a busy day. Either that, or I spent too much time at the Left Hand Brewery! Enjoy.

RICHARD WRIGHT: SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND!

I’m pretty sure that everyone knows by now that Richard Wright of Pink Floyd passed away this past week. Pink Floyd is not a band I normally list up here, mainly because while I liked their stuff, I was never really a fanatical Pink Floyd fan. But even I can appreciate the monumental influence Floyd had on the music industry. So today’s list is dedicated to Richard Wright.

I can say that there was a couple points in my life that I did listen to a lot of Floyd. Like any other teenager in 1979, my and my friends instantly fell in love with The Wall. We listened to that album incessantly, mostly while intoxicated on certain smokable items, if you catch my drift. We would sit in my basement bedroom (affectionately named The Swamp after Hawkeye’s tent in MASH…I was a HUGE fan of the original book.), smoke endlessly, and listen to the record on a cheap record player I had found and fixed. It was heaven. It even inspired us to grab a tape recorder, and record a few songs of our own. Considering I couldn’t play the drums, and my best friend couldn’t play the guitar, and neither of us could sing, we managed to come up with something that, if out stoned little minds, sounded amazing. Go figure.

The other was in the Navy. My best friend was a HUGE Floyd fan, and loved Dark Side Of The Moon. I spent a lot of time at his house (he was one of the few married guys I knew, and his kids were great kids. It felt like a little “normalcy” when we hung out there), playing cards, drinking, and just listening to music with him and his wife. Over the course of the weekend, I would invariably hear that record play. Hearing it now brings back some great memories.

So, here’s to you Richard Wright. That great big rock band in the sky just got a hell of a lot more talented.

SOME SATURDAY JAMS FOR YOU ALL!

Welcome to the weekend. I’m getting ready to head back to Boulder, CO, tomorrow, so this is a brief little post. Still some great tunes, just a small little update.

I went out and played some more gold yesterday. Since I first went a few weeks ago, I’ve been two other times, nine holes each, and been to the driving range a few other times. So yesterday I played 18, and shaved 25 strokes off my game. It was a beautiful day, and even through I started roughly, I finished pretty strong. I joined up with two other guys. One was a former Marine, and the other was an older guy who retired from the Navy. Lets just say that both of them we a hell of a lot better than I was. But they were pretty patient, and gave me some great tips, and that may have been the reason I finished so strongly.

Enjoy the Saturday, and enjoy the music!

MO’ MONEY, MO’ MONEY, MO

I watching Wall Street gradually melt into a big pile of goo the other day, wondering how much of my 401K actually exists anymore, which led me to wonder what it will be like to still be working at the age of 80. Hey, how bad an it be? Except for the fact I’ll need to take more naps, and change my adult diaper during breaks, it might be so bad. But watching all that chaos unfold just kind of reminded me of one thing…In Living Color! I’m pretty sure most people know it as the shows that launched the Wyans and that other douche, Jim Carey. And it launched the phrase “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money!”

I thought it might be a hoot to come up with a list of songs with Money in the title, as a tribute to the innate greed of the average Wall Street CEO. I hope you enjoy the music…it’s about all I can afford to give out anymore!

A DAY OF PEEL SESSIONS

First, for everyone who commented about Mr. Sicks, a huge thanks. It really did make my wife feel a lot better reading them all, and for that, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. There are a lot of really great people in the world, and I’m lucky enough to have quite a few of them reading this blog.

Someone left a comment the other day about this blog having the influence of the great John Peel running through it. I take that as a high compliment, indeed. John Peel had the finest taste in music, and sadly, most people over here have no clue who he was, or what his influence on modern music is. Never let it be said that I am guilty of either of those. I’ve done numerous posts featuring the Peel sessions, but it’s been awhile, so I thought I would gather up some great tunes from Peel sessions, and pass them on to you all.

The thing I love best about the Peel session is that the songs all have a rough edge to it, yet not as rough as a live recording. I’m not a fan of live recordings…usually, I just don’t find the music as good. But the Peel session gives some of that live quality, while still keeping a bit of the studio polish. It’s just good stuff. Enjoy!

A MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO MR. SOCKS

I mentioned a few days ago that a stray cat had come to live on our back deck. We informally named him Mr. Socks. That him there in the picture. The rains of the past few days, along with the coming of fall, and eventually winter, spurred us on to take him to the vet this morning, to get him checked up, immunized and try to get him ready for winter.

My wife took him into the vets office this morning. An hour later, I got a call from her, and on the other end, I heard only sobbing. The vet had done a feline HIV test on the little guy, and the test came back positive. Further more, the vet said he was already pretty sick, and could not survive a winter. Unfortunately, it was time to make a very rough decision. Mr. Socks has been living on the back deck for two months now, and we honestly have grown extremly fond of the little guy. But this morning, we made the decision to put him at rest. It was hard, and it sucks, and it’s left a little bit of a hole in our home, but we just could not stand to watch the poor guy suffer, and gradually pass away. So it’s with more than a little sadness that today, we said goodbye to our little friend, Mr. Socks.

SONGS ABOUT CARS FOR A THOUSAND, PLEASE…

You can tell I’m going a little stir crazy. After three days of non-stop rain, this is the best title I can come up with. For some reason, I was sitting here playing some xBox, watching football, and generally trying to not be bored out of my skull, when somehow, the thought came into my head to try to come up with 10 songs that mention cars in their title. You know what? It wasn’t even close to being as hard as I thought it would be! Plus, I think I actually put a great list together to boot!

There’s something for everyone here…some old stuff from the 70’s (Adam and the Ants), to newer stuff (Arcade Fire), and everything in between. There goodies from the 80 and 90’s. If you can’t find a song you like in this list…then you must not like songs about cars. What the hell ever that means! Like I said, it’s been raining here for 3 straight days, and will be for another 3 it looks like.

Enjoy the car tunes!

A CELEBRATION OF NEW YORK PUNK

There is nothing like good old fashioned New York punk to get the juices flowing on a lazy, rainy, sleepy Sunday morning. It’s funny…in 1977, most of the music here was considered pretty radical, even to the point of some people calling it noise. Yet 31 years later, it still sounds as fresh and relevant…more so than most of the crap that was “mainstream” back in the mid 70’s. Compared to what punk eventually splintered off into, especially some of the more hard core streams, it’s was also pretty damn tame.

As I’m writing this, I’m waiting to watch the USC - Ohio State football game. For those not aware, I am true blue Ohio State Buckeye fan, and have been my whole life. Having grown up in northeast Ohio, Buckeye games, whether on the radio or on TV have been a fall tradition since I can remember. In fact, I still have the Akron Beacon Journal from 1978 when Woody Hayes was fired. So, I have this sense of dread right now, because I hate to see my Buckeyes loose. We’ll see what happens.

Enjoy the music!

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE: Ok…the Buckeyes were not just beaten, they were destroyed. I honestly don’t find fault with loosing to a team that is better, provided you did everything you could, you left every part of yourself on the field. Sometimes, even when you play your absolute best, you will loose, because the other team is better. There is no dishonor in that. But there’s not a chance in hell the Buckeyes can say they left their best on the field last night. Not even close. They took a serious beat down from a better team, and looked like scared, panicked little girls the whole game. I’m sorry, but I can’t respect half efforts. Half efforts are the product of hubris, of thinking your better than someone else, when in fact your not. Half efforts are for losers. Congratulations USC. It was a well deserved victory, as much as it pains me to say that.

HAVE A GREAT DAVID BOWIE DAY!

First, anyone that has family or friends in the Houston/Galveston Texas areas, I hope you all have been able to get a hold of them and everyone is safe. After having lived through numerous tropical storms and hurricanes when I lived in Florida, I can tell you first hand they are big, bad and can be extremly destructive. I have a feeling that there is going be a lot of clean up after Ike…let’s hope that the government continues to handle this stuff better than New Orleans.

Here, it’s a rainy, mellow Saturday. Somewhere along the line, we adapted a little outdoor cat. He’s very tame and socialized, so I thing it’s a cat that was just left behind when someone moved. How someone could do that is beyond me, but there he is. He’s been living on out back deck for about a month now. So last night, I build him a nice little house to live in, including a shingled roof with some old roofing shingles I had sitting around. I used scrape wood from other projects, so it really cost me zero dollars to build, and the little guy now has a warm, dry place to live.

Anyway, while I was building it, I listened to David Bowies “Singles” album from about 8 years ago. If you want a really good collection of his greatest stuff, it’s a very nice primer. The problem with that is that Bowie is one of those album oriented artists, and to truly appreciate his greatest singles, you really need to listen to the entire albums. Since I can’t do that, at least enjoy some of my favorites of his. Enjoy!

MY WEEK OF AWESOME POST PUNK, DAY 4

Friday, at last. which also means the last day of my post punk posts. I hope you all enjoyed this half as much as I did. Post punk is, more than any other genre of music is my favorite, and this week of listening to tunes every evening to pick out the right one has been a blast.

On a more personal front, I think I mentioned the other day I fashioned myself a treadmill desk, and have been walking while I worked. Well, a little update on that whole deal. I’ve been averaging 3 miles a day, while “walking” at 1.3 miles an hour. So far, I’ve dropped 5 lbs. I haven’t changed my diet, haven’t done anything other than walking a little while I’m working. So far, it looks like it’s paying off. Enjoy the tunes, enjoy the weekend!

MY WEEK OF AWESOME POST PUNK, DAY 3

Good Wednesday morning to you all. For some reason, this week is just dragging by. Luckily, we have some great tunes to listen to, and I have definitely been doing that. More than ever this week, it has allowed me to drown out the world and actually get a little work finished.

On a side note I also tried something a little different this week. Call it a little experiment if you will. I’m a pretty big guy…not fat, more like a linebacker (or rugby player for those who don’t know what a linebacker is) big. I was an amateur power lifter years ago, and still lift for enjoyment. Over the years, I’ve also collected an extra 20 pounds I want to get rid of as well. I’ve tried it through adjusting my diet…really doesn’t work too well. I came to the conclusion I just need to get active.

So, I moved my treeadmill into my office, and constructed a desk on it, so that I can walk at a slow pace while I’m on my endless phone calls and doing work. So far this week, I am averaging 2.5 miles a day. It’s working out pretty well, believe it or not. No, I haven’t noticed a difference after only 2 days, but I’m tracking it to see if it helps any. Who knows…the whole thing could end up as silly as it seems!

No, that has absolutely nothing to do with music. But then again, if you read this blog, you know that it’s mainly about music in the context of my life…this blog is like the soundtrack of my life. Enjoy!

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