The Alchemist

Things sure weren’t like this when I was in high school! Or perhaps I just missed it. After all, I didn’t see any drugs around either…

Yup. I was a very sheltered lad…

Ok. There’s an audition coming up for Forever Plaid. And the best part is that this is actually a paying gig! (I know what you’re thinking, but hey… there’s a first time for everything!) Anyway, I have 3 weeks to prepare and I’m determined not to meltdown like I did in the Damn Yankees audition. I just can’t. There will be no second chance with this one.

So… I’m auditioning (i.e. listening to) all the 40’s - 50’s vocal music I can. I need to quickly choose 2 contrasting songs to sing so I can practice my little heart out and nail this audition. I’m mainly looking at songs by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Dean Martin. (Love those guys.) Songs like “Smile,” “Firefly,” “Strangers In The Night”, or even “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” all seem pretty good and there are so many more!

Sigh. I gotta get focused… and I start Damn Yankees rehearsals Monday… Oy.

I read this CNN headline this morning and couldn’t help but laugh:

Poll: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider

Check out the Darth Tater! doll!

Um… wow.

The Apple faithful are dreaming again… This could be big, though. Could Apple finally be entering the home multimedia business with the iHome Media Center? Or could it be an elaborate hoax? Only time will tell…

Update: Sigh. Yup, it was a hoax.

Good news! Despite what I believed were my best efforts to the contrary in the audition, I’ve been cast in the musical Damn Yankees at the Civic Theatre downtown Indianapolis! I’ll be playing the role of Smokey, one of the ball players in the show, and I’m really looking forward to the chance to perform at such a prestigious community theatre. Looks like I’ll be staying busy for a while…

So earlier this evening we had our first session of a Swing dance class that Amy signed us up for at the YMCA. We’ve both danced and have done a little Swing before (long ago) so we thought we’d be fine in this class even though it is actually a 2nd session class. I have to say, though, we were more than a bit taken aback when the teacher came into the class, put on some music, and said: “Ok, let’s see what you know!” So… we just stood there and watched for a while.

Well, fortunately, the first class was a “review” class! So… we made every effort to remember what the other dancers had obviously done just a few weeks prior. It wasn’t exactly pretty… but we’re fairly quick learners (well, Amy is anyway) and we did… alright. Now I just need to learn how to count to 8 before our next class! Really. That was my biggest problem… I kept losing count. Well, that and forgetting to move my feet. Sigh. I’m apparently the stereotypical white man with no rhythm. (And I can’t jump, either!)

Well, the good news is… we can only get better!

I just got my copy of Lucene In Action by Otis Gospodnetic and Erik Hatcher. It looks good. Especially so since my name is on the back cover with a quote.

Seriously, it’s a good book and both Otis and Erik are very active on the Lucene mailing list. If you need to understand Jakarta Lucene, this is a great place to start. (And, given the awesome power of Lucene’s full text indexer, who doesn’t need to understand it?!?)

Sometimes you get what you pay for. My 15″ PowerBook has been a paragon of stability for the year that I’ve owned it… until I installed some cheap memory I recently found. Of course, I should’ve known better, but the deal with difficult to pass up: a 1 GB RAM chip for $150 that generally sells for $500 was really attractive. Now, however, every time my PowerBook needs a lot of RAM… it crashes. Needless to say, the memory is going back.

This morning I tendered my resignation from Fusion Alliance. I’ll be here another two weeks and before starting in my new position at Moongate Technologies. At Moongate, I’ll be helping start a new company again with, I’m sure, all the trials and tribulations that generally come with such a project. Right now, though, I’m just looking forward to the opportunity to help create something great!