Month: March 2024

Fotoz 2023, Part 3

As this crazy world keeps spinning ’round, spring poked its head out then went back into its burrow this week. Saturday was a huge rainstorm, all night and all day. Way upstate and in Vermont they got snow a good foot of snow, and we toyed with the idea of going skiing, but it’s a long drive and an overnight say. Instead on Sunday I took the mustang out for the first drive of the season. It started right up and continues to run well, sounds and feels good, engine brakes transmission and everything.

In musicland, mixing and mastering my new Buzzy Tonic record Plutonium Dirigible is on hold while I turn my attention to mixing and mastering the spacecats record. I’ve made a rough stereo mix of each take, and now it’s on to deciding which is the best take for each song, and if we want to do any edits. More on that soon, I promise.

And, here’s a bunch more photo galleries. This takes thru Florence and Venice and the end of our Italy trip, and on to the rest of the summer and into fall. Up next: California!

https://zingman.com/fotooz/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-11/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-12/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-13/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-14/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-15/

New Song – Sisyphus Blues

This is a reworking of an older song, with a new melody and updated lyric. Because life is like that. Enjoy:

…

Sisyphus Blues

(D minor, drop D tuning)

Just when you think that life’s looking up
And you might drink from that flowing cup
Then comes the day when it all turns around
Just then you think that life’s looking down
Climbin’ up that hill
Slidin’ down that hill

Life’s looking up then it’s looking down
Ramblin’ up that hill
Tumblin’ down that hill

You might drink from that silver cup one day yeah but now you’re
Holdin’ on to what you will
Ridin’ on up and down that hill

Then comes the day when it all turns around yeah
Holdin’ on to what you will
Ridin’ up and down that hill

Fotoz 2023, Part 2

It feels like spring is really right around the corner.  We had a few arm and sunny days, but surely it will revert to stormy and cold in the days ahead.  Probably not much hope left for skiing.

However, life comes at you fast and it’s time to move forward.  We’ve begun the spring cycle of yardwork, having raked off the old leaves and debris, and panted some new stuff in the flowerbeds.  Good to spend some time outside.  Next weekend hopefully I’ll get the Mustang out on the road.  Meanwhile Michelle is home for spring break, and has been busy baking.

Last week I completed a major project at work.  We migrated the backend our of app Permission Slip from of homespun R&D server hosted on Heroku to CR’s enterprise infrastructure.  This involved alot of people from alot of teams, and alot coordination and development effort.  As the deadline grew near, I ended up quarterbacking alot things just to be sure nothing fell thru the cracks.  In the end, the cutover went smoothly and everyone was very happy with the result.  The Innovation Lab VP Ben said to me that my presence raised our group’s credibility with the organization, which I consider a huge compliment.

Meanwhile in the recoding studio, I finished tracking and mixing Sisyphus Blues, the last song for my upcoming Buzzy Tonic record Plutonium Dirigible.  Now it’s on to final mixing and mastering, and releasing the record sometime this spring.  So watch this space for updates on that.

And not a moment too soon.  This Saturday was the long-awaited recording session for my jazz group Spacecats.  We did a whole album, ten songs, in one day.  All in all, it couldn’t have gone better.  Now it’s on to mixing and editing.  Lots to say about the songs, the session, and how it all came together.  So watch this space for storytelling and updates on that too.

Finally, been busy putting together more fotoz galleries, and have a bunch of new ones to present.  I’m up to halfway thru our Italy trip, which is Rome and Naples.  I usually try to get the year’s fotoz galleries done by the first day of spring, but last year was our biggest travel year by far, so there’s still a ways to go.  We’ll see if I make it.

https://zingman.com/fotooz/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-06/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-07/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-08/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-09/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-10/

Fotoz 2023, Part 1

Well it’s that time of year again, when winter is over but spring has not yet begun.  It’s been in the 40’s and rainy pretty much every day the last couple of weeks.  We’re vaguely holding on to hope for one last ski trip, but they got rain in the places nearby. We’d have to go way up to Vermont or the Adirondacks, which would mean an overnight trip.  I guess we’ll see. 

Meanwhile, following on from migrating the web site, and continuing with incremental updates, I’ve been working doing a new batch of photo galleries.  2023 was an epic year of travel and adventure.  I’m up the the halfway point of the year and have completed five galleries, including our trip to Bogota.  I’m midway thru our trip to Italy at the end of July, but there’s tons of pics to go thru.  So look for an update on that coming soon.

https://zingman.com/fotooz/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-01/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-02/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-03/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-04/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2023/2023-05/

The galleries remain password protected. Please contact me if you need credentials.

Liftin’n’Shiftin’

After what feels like and endless amount of effort, I’ve finally migrated my web site to a new host.  The site had outgrown its old host, and the hosting company was absolutely terrible with their costumer service and trying guide me to an upgraded tier of hosting, so it was time to move on.

Ideally, everything would appear and function as it did before.  But I was in the middle of doing some upgrades to various parts of the site and some things have gotten out of sync, so if you click around you may find the occasional broken link or missing image.  I hope to rectify this soon.

The major area of concern right now it this blog.  You may notice the its styling has changed.  Not that it was particularly beautiful before, but at least it matched the rest of the site.  I was able to migrate the blog content, but it had been using a customized version of a very old theme and I was not able to migrate that.  So I picked something in the ballpark, and will have to do some new customization it.  Plus whatever widgets and config setting need to be brought up to date.  Then it’s reviewing all the old posts to make sure the links and media are correct there.  Hope it doesn’t take too long.

I’ve also begun putting together foto galleries for 2023, as is my habit in late winter.  2023 was a huge year for travel, with three major airplane trips and lots of other stuff.  I’m halfway thru the year, up to our big trip to Italy last July, which will be a bunch of galleries by itself.  So watch this space for updates coming soon.

Meanwhile, it seems winter is over by spring has not yet begun.  We got one more ski trip in the last weekend of February, but conditions were not great and the mountain was crowded with kids on winter break skiing in all random directions.  One cut me off at the bottom of a run and I had to swerve to avoid running him over, and ended up falling.  Ugh.  After that the weather turned warm and rainy, so unless we get a major late-season snowstorm, it looks like we’ll have to wait for it to turn nice enough to start biking and doing things outside.