You can't always ignore everything.

The world is so corrupt and awful now, that you have to force yourself to ignore or shake off a lot of the bad news. But something has been really bothering me lately, and a recent headline just hit me and made it worse. I'm so sick of all of these senseless killings. Granted, I believe that the majority of times one human takes the life of another are senseless...these are just blowing my mind. In case you don't know, here's what has happened locally in my area lately. At the middle school across the street from my parents house, also the house I grew up at and the middle school I attended, one 9th grader walked up to another 9th grader, pulled out a gun, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger. He died soon after. One week later, a faculty member at UAH opened fire during a faculty meeting. She killed 3 and injured more. There have also been a few more around Florence and Huntsville since then. But now Kendall Berry, who was a running back at FIU, was stabbed to death outside the rec center. While minding his own business.

I don't get it. I just can't fathom what would motivate one human being to take another's life. Even when you nullify the fact that it's wrong and it's against the law, it is still completely pointless. Think about it this way. If you're totally lacking any grace or any love and you want to get back at someone for what they did, why would you kill them? There's no justification in that. They're dead. They've moved on. Now you're the one who has to live with the guilt. There's no sense of revenge, unless you count the families that you've emotionally destroyed. Even in that sense, the victim is no longer in this world and is no longer being affected by tragedy and grief. So all you've done is ruined the lives of innocent people. Regardless of that slightly morbid statement, it still blows my mind. Almost brings me to tears. These people were robbed of the rest of their lives because of a bad decision. There are so many decisions we make every day. But these are completely irreversible. I just don't get it. It's tearing me apart right now. I don't really even know what else to say. It just breaks my heart. All of these people had a family. Some had kids. They had moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents and friends. All of these survivors will have to live with this the rest of their lives. There won't be a day that goes by that they don't remember they are gone. The main thing that bothers me is how senseless all of these murders really were. Amy Bishop was denied tenure. So that means you should kill your fellow staff members? Todd Brown was in 9th grade. What can you possible do in 9th grade to justify being murdered? Even if he "deserved" it. When I hear about terrible people doing terrible things, I don't wish death upon them. I never have. Maybe I haven't been put in the right situation. But I pray that I never will.

It all just seems so senseless. These people are no longer living. It absolutely breaks my heart to see this stuff in the news. People dying over a girl. Over firing someone. Over wannabe gang related crap. Over a petty disagreement. Why?

Alexithymia and Asthenia

Worn out. I've never worked so much in my life. This is when I'm at my best in the blog world. It's 4am. I have no idea what I want to talk about. I'm kind of tired. Either something interesting will come out, or it will be total crap and I'll have to apologize for wasting your time. I had Tourway tonight. I'm surprised I'm still alive. Here goes something.

I'm always the type of guy who tries to find all these philosophies to live my life by. I like to read, I like to debate, I like to be informed. That's why you'll constantly see new blogs about this life changing bit of knowledge that I'll get from some book, or some guy, or just a random thought. Still. I think think my favorite bit of wisdom came from Garden State. When Andrew wished Albert good luck in exploring his infinite abyss. Albert, in turn, wished the same thing to Andrew. I might have blogged about this before. If I have, my apologies go out to you. Negating the fact that I could die at any moment now, my life is an infinite abyss. I think a lot of people fail to realize that. Our lives are similar to that natural underground cave in which no one knows anything about. The possibilities are endless. Confession: my number one greatest fear in life. Are you ready? Here it comes. My greatest fear is that I will not explore the endless possibilities of what I can do. I don't want to be able to finish a bucket list. I always want to have ambition. That's what I'll strive to do. I don't want to ask why when a challenge or change comes my way. I want to ask why not.

Part two of this post. Which relates to the first word of the title. The second one is just a cool word and describes how I've felt for a while. No need to talk about that one. I've done that plenty. I realized the other day that it was kind of funny that this is really the only place I feel free to express my emotions and feelings. To the entire world. Whoever chooses to read it. Meanwhile, I feel weird talking about it in a one on one with a friend. I find that quite odd. I have a book started right now that tells things that not a single person in my life knows about. Why is it that I feel more comfortable telling the world something than a best friend? If you're waiting for an answer, I don't have one. It's like a keyboard or a pen can really let my emotions out. Maybe it's just because I'm really bad at thinking before I speak and have a constant fear of saying the wrong thing. But with this, I can delete. Though I don't normally edit or delete any of these, or even read them before I post. That's why you'll find sentence fragments and ADD sections. And stuff never flows together. But you still come back and read it. Weirdo. I'll leave you with a favorite quote of mine. It's from a song. It's up to you to guess where it's from.

There's a lot more to living than being alive.

Spring Break Todo list

Since I'm staying in Florence all of spring break next week, I decided to make a to do list. I'll still be working a lot, I just won't have to worry about school and homework.

-Finish editing and mixing Derek Summer
-Wash Teggy
-Clean inside of Teggy
-Clean my room
-Wash clothes
-Track vocals for Ben Skipworth
-Rewire light in the studio
-Buy new light fixture for the kitchen area
-Install new light fixture for the kitchen area
-Run
-Catch up on sleep
-Clean shower
-Go outside
-Clean carport
-Watch TV
-Play video games
-Remember how to relax
-Fix intonation on Tom Delonge strat and P-Bass
-Buy groceries
-Break the motorcycle out of hibernation and go for a ride

That's all I can come up with off the top of my head. Hopefully between working 50+ hours, I'll find time to take care of some of that. Also need to figure out what I'm doing after I graduate in May. But...I'll take care of that when the time comes.

10 Weeks

Graduation is 10 weeks away. I decided to compose a graduation present wish list to help further my career. And to give you an idea of how much money I'm going to need eventually. Of course...this is only a dream.


1. Mac Pro

Specs
-Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors
-Axiom 32GB 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM - 8x4GB*
-1TB Serial ATA drive @ 7200 rpm
-Western Digital 2TB Serial ATA drive @ 7200 rpm
-Western Digital 2TB Serial ATA drive @ 7200 rpm
-NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800
-Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)
-Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card

List Price - $8993.99

2. Neve 5088

Specs
-32 Channels
-8 Group Busses
-8 Auxiliary Sends
-4 Stereo effects returns with stereo and group bus assign
-1 Stereo Buss
-Rupert Neve Custom Designed Transformers
-Comprehensive Monitor section
-Full rear panel patching
-Compatible with full range of Portico 50 Series modules

List Price - $118,500.00

3. 2 Digidesign 192 I/O's + 2 Lynx boxes + HD3Accel cards




















































List Price - $26,781

4. 4 Tube Tech Compressors (CL 1B), 2 Empirical Labs Distressors, 1 UA compressor (1176LN).










































































List Price - $17,660

5. Lots of microphones
I won't include pictures because I'm lazy. But I'll make a short list. some are 300 dollars. Some are 4,000.

AKG C451 (2), AKG D112, Audix D6, Nuemann U87 (2), Nuemann TLM 103, Shure SM81 (3), Rode Classic (2), Sennheiser MD421 (4), Samson C02 (2), Royer R-122 (2), Royer R-122V, Cascade Fathead (2), Studio Projects C3 (2), Audio Technica 4050 (2), Electro Voice RE20, Blue Microphones Bottle.

I think that covers the basics. I won't even start on plugins and software. Or mic cables and stands. Or patch cables. Or furniture. Or studio monitors. Or a proper building with proper rooms. Or a headphone system. Or headphones. Or power conditioners. Or racks. Or a control surface. Or anything else I may have forgotten about. Happy shopping. I hope you get that I'm kidding. If anyone buys me any of this stuff, you are crazy.

Kindo

Ok. I feel like I need to start spreading The Reign of Kindo around. Not because I have anything to do with them, or even know them. I just think that this amount of talent needs attention. Every single person in this band is absolutely incredible at what they do. It doesn't get much better than this. Check it out.