Category: News

  • Inside My Creative Chaos: Tech Failures and the Utah Mammoth Anthem

    Inside My Creative Chaos: Tech Failures and the Utah Mammoth Anthem

    At what point did the world make such a strange turn? Have you seen Stranger Things? Are we in the upside-down? Or are we in the matrix?

    I’m one of those people where the world generally tends to make sense, but in the past few months there’s been some little things that seem like the world is going off on a bizarre tangent. Such is my week.

    As this week is getting started I’ve had one issue after another that has set me on a path of putting out odd fires that shouldn’t have started in the first place.

    To start, my distributor failed to add some pertinent information in to the last 5 weeks of releases. That is easy to rectify, but it shouldn’t have happened due to the fact that they acknowledged the information prior to release. Argh.

    Moving on to two nights ago, my podcast website had a crazy issue with only one table in the database. It stemmed from the transition from the old server to the new one. The table appeared to be ok, but after several weeks of use, it proved that everything worked but that one table. It took 5 hours to solve. It should have only taken 1 hour or less.

    Next up, there’s another tech issue I won’t bore you with, it was working and suddenly got hosed without any intervention. Needless to say it’s going on hours of wasted time attempting to get it working again.

    Earlier yesterday, I was in a need to restart my computer after working with a musician friend over screen share. During which my headphone output suddenly stopped. This was a software issue. The restart got the audio output working again, but it caused my workstation software to require being authorized again.

    In the effort of getting the software authorized again, it wasn’t working. A quick call to a friend had me restarting the computer again. Upon the 2nd restart – all was working again. What in the world?!?

    I’d say this also translates to the recent switch made by an NFL team. The coyotes moved to Utah last year. They spent a year being the Utah Hockey Club – ooh, there’s a real winning name (not). Then they decided to throw a few names out to fans.

    The end result is the Utah Mammoth. Which is a tad strange because Utah is not known for mammoths. Snow, yes. Mammoths, no. Either way, in my recent updates of all things sports, I’ve finally gotten around to doing a version of Do You Want to Play Utah Mammoth.

    Am I happy there is a professional hockey team here now, yes. In fact they do off season training in my home town. Will be nice to run into some of the players from time to time.

    Here’s to fixing old issues and resetting to the world to right-side up!

    Stay tuned…

  • Finishing the Tech Battle and Releasing a New Anthem for Lehi Pioneers

    Finishing the Tech Battle and Releasing a New Anthem for Lehi Pioneers

    As a follow up to last week, the journey of tech hasn’t fully ended. But it is getting very close to being finished…

    While out on vacation in the Northern California area, I didn’t have a lot of downtime while my girlfriend and I were running around to wine tastings and amazing meals. Despite that, I was able to fix some email issues I had.

    The fantastic thing is, my email has never worked this well. Very consistent, and not getting stuck anywhere. Plus substantially better spam removal before it even hits my inbox. Ahhh.

    Websites are working smoothly without choking. Which means I can update the web store. Another ahhh thing, where it’s a sigh of relief.

    There’s a few more websites I have to transfer over, but they’re low hanging fruit. The task at hand is an sftp server so that I can transfer files with co-writers and music supervisors. Once that is done, I’m ready to fully relax and use it to its potential.

    Last week I heard from my girlfriend’s co-workers that they really appreciated the anthem for their school’s team. I was told they thought it was super cool. Apparently there is a plan in place to get it into their games for audio backing. Which is music to my ears.

    This week is the follow up release for Lehi High School with a version of Do You Want to Play for Lehi High’s basketball team. As they say: “Go Pioneers!”

    Stay tuned…

  • Back to the Music: New Anthem Drops After Tech Hurdles Resolved

    Back to the Music: New Anthem Drops After Tech Hurdles Resolved

    Time has arrived. My tech journey with Kubernetes has made it over the hill and is now on the downhill side. Meaning I will get back to spending more time with creating music than sussing out issues with a server.

    Which means if you’re reading this, it’s coming from a Kubernetes cluster.

    The most ridiculous portion wasn’t the web server. It was the email. In today’s world it’s insane to think we can operate without email. Can you? I know I could, but I definitely felt pretty bare after launching the server a few days back.

    Mainly because I got bad information about how to deal with the email after shutting my previous server down. Initially I could only send it. then I could only receive it. Fortunately it’s now able to do both. Whew.

    That took about 2 months longer than anticipated and expected, but it will be well worth it.

    I caught a former guitar student of mine on the radio this morning. An L.A. radio show called Heidi and Frank had him on to talk about his new music and getting a little older. The phrase: “You look like an old Tony Danza.” Was mentioned and I started laughing in the car, as my girlfriend and I were driving to a wine tasting.

    I texted Thomas Nicolas that phrase when the show ended, to tell him I heard the segment. he thought it was funny as well. If you’re not familiar with his band, definitely go check it out.

    As for me this week, it’s another release of Do You Want to Play. This time for the Lehi Pioneers football team. Due to dating my girlfriend the last couple of years, I’ve been to more high school sporting events than I attended when I went to high school. She’s an assistant principal.

    They don’t seem to have a consistent anthem so I decided, why the hell not? Go Pioneers, and start blasting this at your games!