May 29, 2008
So, there’s a few new updates to The Austin Chronicles (not to be confused with the similarly titled local free paper). First, there’s a new header to replace the really crappy one that previously adorned my site. It’s a picture of the downtown skyline reflecting off Town Lake (or Lady Bird Lake if you’re a news anchor). Second, I updated my About Me section for the first time since this site began (2 months before moving to Austin). Third, I got rid of the Gear section and the never-even-once-used Videoblog section. Finally, I added a section titled My Favorite Things, which should be self-explanatory.
Enjoy.
May 28, 2008
So, I’ve decided that Greg and Sean were incredibly lucky to find a pair of guys like Adam and me on Craigslist (note: this is meant to be a joke with a little bit of truth). I pretty much scour the musician ads on Craigslist daily to see if there is anything interesting. There usually isn’t. It seems like everyone is a guitarist looking for a bassist or a drummer or a keyboard player. If they are looking for a guitarist, the person(s) in the ad is either a) into crappy metal music, b) 45 and still thinking he’s the next George Strait, or c) really bad/derivative.
In the weeks that I’ve been looking at ads, I’ve sent one e-mail–to a singer/songwriter into indie pop stuff. There was one band that I found mildly interesting, but they just seemed not quite what I was looking for (and they looked like they were all total chotches on MySpace). Another band sounded like a bad Interpol cover band. It’s just harder than you’d think. I love the idea of hopping into a project that’s going already or that someone else has done some of the legwork on. I’m just not sure it will happen.
May 26, 2008
So, last night, I went to Austin Shakespeare’s final performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Beverly S. Sheffield Hillside Theater at Zilker Park. The performance was a decently faithful telling of the play with a few modern twists– a lot of leather clothing for the soldiers, a few modern songs done on instruments from the period, and the soldiers riding in on Yellow Bikes. All-in-all, it was pretty enjoyable.
May 25, 2008
Well, friends, family, fans, I got a new job. I have one week left at El Club de Sam, as I have officially been emancipated from the Wal-Mart Family (this would be funnier if you’d ever read the Wal-Mart Daily News). The great divorce occurred over a week ago, when I put in my slightly-over-two weeks notice.
In looking at the way the first two weeks of working at Austin Bible had gone, we (as a team) realized that it wasn’t working properly. It wasn’t that I wasn’t a right fit, and it wasn’t that we didn’t make a great team. The problem was that I wasn’t able to show up for practice–meaning I worked 40 hours a week at Sam’s making it impossible to be at meetings. I wanted to dedicate more time to Austin Bible, and they asked if I’d be willing to up my responsibilities and commitment–asking for a full day of office hours each week. I liked the idea.
Well, to make this new commitment to my job at Austin Bible a reality, I had to exit my full-time job at Sam’s. I looked into part-time jobs. Sam’s offered a part-time opportunity (an admittedly good one), but I decided to go a different direction. This won’t make sense to everyone (especially my father and siblings), but I’m just not the right guy for Sam’s Club. I didn’t believe in the product I was selling, and I knew that I wouldn’t even have a Sam’s membership if it wasn’t free. That makes it hard to sell their memberships for a living. It was time for me to get out of there (yeah, I know I’ve only been there nine months), and now is my chance.
So, to bring this to my point, I accepted a new job on Friday afternoon. I filled out the paperwork this morning. I start training next Saturday. As of today, I am an employee of Apple Inc., as a Specialist (the artists formerly known as Mac Specialists) at the Apple Store at the Domain in North Austin. I now work less than three miles from my house (aka within biking distance) and have a job that I’ll actually enjoy telling people I have.
