Gettin’ an Ivy League Education

Sorry for the lack of posting. I’ve been working at Princeton University all this week on the Reunion Weekend/Commencement. I’ve been there since Monday, and I’ll be there every day through next Wednesday. It’s hard work, but I’m enjoying it.

On a much cooler note, I will once again be working with Pulver.com on the Internet Freedom Rally in Washington, D.C. on June 24th. Last year’s event was on possibly the hottest day of the summer, and it took place on the steps of the Capitol Building. The act was The Voices of Classic Rock. The results, on my end, were fantastic. The turn-out was less than spectacular. I had a meeting with the organizer the other day, and let’s just say that this year’s act may be MUCH more satisfying. I don’t want to list any specific names, yet, for fear of starting rumours that might turn out to be untrue, but as soon as I can confirm anything, I’ll let you know. Let’s just say it could be a very exciting event for me….

Okay…so, Blogspot is apparently back (FINALLY). But BlogVoices is still down, so I think I will be contacting Dan soon and looking to install Dotcomments.

I’m just doing this so that my blog will be re-published….I hope.

“If you don’t look after your people, they won’t look after your customers,” said Charlie. “And when they do, if you say thank you and reward them, they’ll do it again and again.” Charlie paused and added in a firm voice, “It’s called common sense.”

How ExoSkeletons Will Work

Excellent. It’s only a matter of time before the army of stormtroopers is a reality…..

Honor student arrested under zero-tolerance policy

My god…did they have to throw her in jail? This is just getting out of hand. I mean, violence in the schools disgusts me…it literally makes me feel sick to my stomach. But this is not the way to correct it. Instilling fear in these kids, and automatic punishment of people who haven’t even done anything wrong…this is not the way. The kids who want to do wrong are still going to do wrong. This just makes them angrier, and more suspicious of authority, and less likely to listen to the people who really care and are trying to make a difference. What happened to listening to kids, to finding out what’s really bothering them, and to honestly trying to help them?

Given the reason discussion on Alissa’s weblog, I felt that I had to post this:

Collateral Damage

Angry Swan Tries to Drown Woman

Oscar, a Norwegian swan famous for his short temper, attacked an elderly woman, dragged her into a lake and pulled her under twice before letting go. The woman said Oscar only let go when her daughter started throwing rocks.

I know this was not intended to be funny, but I couldn’t help cracking up when I read it…

Alright, quit your speculatin’. Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…..

Friday afternoon I was finishing up a show in Newark. The show was two days, and it was fairly large, and it took a great deal out of me to prepare and run the whole thing. I was pretty mentally exhausted by the middle of the day on Friday. I was working with a really good crew there, though, mostly people who I had never worked with before, but all of whom proved themselves to be very good. I had a show booked for Saturday night with a client who I had worked for once before, Scared Turtles, at a club in Wildwood. I was supposed to do this show with Harlan, who was driving back from a weekend with Alissa in order to do the show with me. For a variety of reasons, including my exhaustion, and my desire to spend some time with my wife, and my desire to try out some new crew members, I decided that I would pass this show off to one of my freelancers instead of doing it myself. So on Friday afternoon, I asked one of the crew members at Newark if he would be interested in doing the show on Saturday. He accepted, and things were underway….

I never mentioned this change to Harlan. He went to Alissa’s on Friday night, and on Saturday, as he was driving back and called to let me know what time he would arrive, I informed him that I would not be going to the show and that this other person would be going with him. I could tell that he was not happy to hear this. Hence, my post from 5/19. I’m sorry, Harlan. I should have been up-front with you from the start and explained to you as soon as I thought about doing this, and told you the reasons I was doing it.

So…to make matters worse. I get a call at around 12:30 am Sunday morning from Harlan. The show is not going well. The sound is very bad, and there are all kinds of problems. End of the story…the client is obvoiusly not happy, they have apparently lost this venue as one of their places to play, and I have very likely lost a client. I did not get paid the full amount that I should have (understandably), and have undoubtedly lost money on last night’s show. Hence, the post from earlier today.

I’m not sure what lesson to walk away from this with. If you want a job done right, do it yourself? Well, that doesn’t seem practical from a business point of view. There’s really no good way to deal with this except to accept that it’s probably one of those things that happens along the course of a business’ life, and that it would most likely happen again, sometime, and all I can do is try my best to minimize the number of times these things happen. I apparently have to be more careful in my screening process of freelancers (or employess in general, whenever I get to hiring actual employees).

So, that’s it. That’s the story.

Well, we got trouble,
Right here in Capitol City…