Although summer is not technically over yet, Labor Day has come and gone, and the vibe now is changed. We ended the season with a nice little vacation down to Ocean City, Maryland, where we hung out on the beach and the boardwalk, went swimming in the ocean, rode our bikes out to Assateague Island, did happy hour at the hotel beach bar, went out to a few nice meals, and listened to tunes on the car trip down and back.
I’m still working on the Global Jukebox as my main gig this fall, as I was over the summer. It’s coming along nicely, although it’s hard to say when it will be ready for release because there’s still alot to do on the data side. We’ll probably start seriously planning the launch before the end of the year. Meanwhile I’m trying to pick up a second gig, helping Origami USA redesign their website and a bunch of associated development work. I’m low-key looking for a new job, but there’s no hurry as long as the freelance project keep rolling along. It’d have to be the right project. Anyway, it’s more relaxing this way and gives me time to work on other things. And there’s plenty to do.
After I got my saxophones fixed, the next thing on my list was to get the Mustang worked on. The windshield wipers, fuel gauge, turn signals and stereo all stopped working sometime over the summer. I figured it was most likely a blown fuse that supplies the dashboard, but I didn’t feel comfortable pulling and replacing the fuses myself, so I took it to the garage. They found the problem was actually a wire with a flaky connection under the dashboard near the fusebox (it is an old car after all), but I had to bring the car back several times before they actually fixed it fully and completely. Well at least that’s taken care of (hopefully), and I can start in on the next phase of the plan, which is to get the body painted.
The major thing with this is to find a place that will work on a classic car, and is reasonably priced. Lucky for me, there’s a couple guys in my neighborhood (both named John) who like to sit around in the mornings on the patio of my local coffee shop, which is next door to the garage. We’ve had a “hello, good morning” kind of thing going for a long time, and sometimes I’ll talk with them about stuff. One of their favorite topics is cars, especially sports cars and classic muscle cars (the Buffalo Bills being another favorite topic). They each know of a body shop in the local area that they were able to recommend. Next week I’ll start calling around.
I’ve also made progress on Michelle’s room since she moved out, touching up the walls with some fresh paint, moving furniture around, and getting rid of old junk. The next step is to get her to come over and organzie and/or throw away the things she left behind. And of course there’s always another yardwork cycle, things are really growing this year (although the wasps aren’t gone yet, that’s another thing), and more organizing the garage and my studio. I finally put away all the origami paper I bought at July’s convention!
In music, Josh is set to come back to rehearsing with the group this week. We’re all very excited. Meanwhile we’re still trying to reschedule the gig that was supposed to be this week, that we had to punt on. Ah well.
On the Spellbound project, I’ve started rendering our all the midi instruments and transitioning to working on the mix. I still have the big guitar solo left to do, but that’s the last bit of tracking. If it turns out to be too much to play the part myself, I have several guitar player friends I can ask to do a guest appearance. We’ll see.
The weather has been beautiful, although it’s getting dark earlier faster these days. It remains great for biking, not too hot. Hopefully it’ll stay that way for a while.