This Yellow Taxi Cab In Which I Ride

I put another video up on YouTube. I had intended on uploading "Endless", however the length of the video is five minutes and two seconds -- which, YouTube tells me, is two seconds too much. So, I'm going to have to cut it a little to fit it in. Of course, that will take a little time, and I just don't feel like taking that time right now. Instead, I uploaded "The Road to Nowhere." ----------- On another note, I just spent the last two and a half hours listening to new age Celtic music. I'm trying to find a really dynamic and modern representation of traditional Celtic music. Why? Long story. Trust me, don't get me started. At any rate, do you think I could find a decent collection? Just one? No. There is a lot -- I mean, A LOT -- of new age Celtic music out there, but it all seems so compressed and repressed. It's all too "nice." What I've listened to is mostly on the verge of elevator music. There are no highs and lows; it's a

Insomnia -- I have not been sleeping too well. Pretty much since I started teaching summer school, I have been over anxious and my typically high level of anxiety has skyrocketed. Basically, this is caused by uncertainty -- something that I often write about in songs. I'm uncertain as to if I will succeed as a teacher. I'm afraid to do the wrong thing -- an unfounded fear, as I have been well trained to teach and I, for the most part, know what I'm doing. But, for some reason, I think that I don't know what I'm doing. Which, if you think about it, is quite rediculous. I should just get some confidence and stop worrying... but, I can't. It's 12:03am -- which is just after midnight in case you are one of those people who can't figure out if 12:00am is midnight or noon -- and I'm at my computer because I'm not tired. Even if I was tired, I know I wouldn't fall asleep for at least an hour if not more. I got home from Lena's about 15 minutes

Last Thursday was a great open mic night at Lena's. Some friends, whom I have not seen in quite some time, were there. We shared songs and stories and got caught up. It was really cool. One such friend suggested forming a songwriter "super group," in which I replied, "Like the Eagles?" I'm not sure if the group will ever be more than just a dream, but I'm hoping to at least rehearse some songs and play them randomly at each other's solo gigs. I have been kind of stale -- as far as song writing goes -- for a while now. I'm not sure of what my deal is, but I'm trying not to worry about it. I went through a similar stint of what might be considered writer's block a year or so ago. I was afraid, at the time, that I was at the end of my inspiration and that I might not be able to write anymore. However, I eventually broke out of it and wrote a pretty decent song. Anyway, I'm looking forward to branching out a bit (for example: playing in

I have finally had some good fortune in the realm of music. It may be not seem like a big deal, but after all of the failures that I have been having, it's good to at least accomplish something. A few weeks ago I took some video of a few songs. The sound was bad for some reason, and the picture was quite dark. I tried again yesterday. The video turned out well quality-wise; however, the beginnings and endings needed to be clipped (I had to turn the video camera on and off myself, and before singing I took a deep breath and cleared my throat -- something potential viewers didn't need to see). This caused a problem when I tried using MovieMaker. For some reason the sound became distorted when I imported the file. I thought this was going to be another failure for me. Luckily, however, I was able to import the files back into the camera and clip them appropriately. The only thing that is mildly disappointing is that it doesn't fade in and out, and there are no titles or credit

I decided to make some updates on my website. Some of them are quite obvious to the keen observer; most of them, however, are behind-the-scenes type updates that are going to make my life much easier should I need to make any major changes to the site. First, and probably most obvious, is the home page. I changed the layout a little and added a little journal/blog entry teaser. I got the idea for it from neilgaiman.com -- the webpage of my favorite author. He has a pretty famous journal, which many of his fans read often. It is quite entertaining. Anyway, I liked how his home page reveals a few sentences of his journal as a teaser. I tried so hard to replicate it for my own site, but was failing miserably. I couldn't get the right code to work with the set up that I had. A lot of the code that I was finding was way more involved than I needed it to be and, thus, quite cumbersome to figure out. So, I decided to email Neil's site administrator to see what they used. The next day

Do people even read the titles of blog posts? Hopefully not. My friend, Bill -- who attended my show at MochaBlend last week, and who took pictures and video with his digital camera and cell phone -- sent me the aforementioned pictures and video. Here are a couple that Bill took with his cell phone -- Verizon, I think. The rest of his pictures, as well as the ones that Stephanie took, can be found here . Unfortunately, the video didn't come out too good. While it certainly depicts me playing and singing and generally looking like a hip, confident rock star -- something I am most certainly not -- the sound quality is rough. I could only stand to listen to it for a minute or so before I turned the volume off. I may decide to cut and paste bits and pieces of it into a brief showcase video, where you can see/hear parts of a few songs. If I do decide to do it, it will be under a minute in length.