So I had a random idea in the wee hours this morning and thought I would jot it down. These are the notes I wrote down to remember the concept. I just thought you guys might enjoy seeing what pops into my brain before I imbibe enough coffee to kill a mortal man.

I'm not sure what I will do with it (if anything) - this probably falls under that heading of 'too many ideas, too little time'. That said, I could see doing this as:

• Just a collection of sketches / drawings / digital paintings that I expound on in the blog posts I make about them.
• An illustrated short story. (Note: this seems like a concept I should do. A lot.)
• If all my other stuff suddenly, magically gets done, a book. When people talk about writing to market, this seems like exactly what they mean - the nexus of the author's interests and what seems to be 'currently hot' in the market. (My understanding is that Post Apoc is hugely popular right now. Kinda the 'zombies' of 2018.)

The genre of 'post apocalyptic fantasy' is probably already a thing (how could it not be?!) but I hadn't ever heard of it. That was a big part of why this concept came spewing out of me so fast - figuring out how to connect the dots was exciting.

*****

• Our hero is a half orc who lives in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. (See drawing above.)
• Mother (human) taught him to avoid humans - explained that they would never leave him alone if they learned of his existence.
• Hiroshima nukes opened a rift to the Fae Realms. Humans didn't know it. The fae took many years to reveal themselves and when they did, it didn't go well. War ensued.
• World note: Tech doesn't work (think EMP) - something done by the Fae to counter the nukes. Thus, you know, post apoc.
• Humans move into our hero's territory - why? (Zombies?)
• Fae are returning to the world after having fled the war back to their realms of origin - why? Migration because something is happening in their world? (Holy Hell, has this been done to death, but also, it works.) Does this cause them to create zombies to 'clean house' before moving to our world?

I frequently foster dogs for a friend's rescue. It's usually a good thing. This would be one of the times that it isn't.

I've fostered dogs whose owners were murdered in front of them. Dogs that were abandoned in an apartment and only rescued just shy of death's door. Dogs that were owned by an elderly person who had to be placed in a facility. If I had to make a bet, that's what I think happened to my latest dog, Mr. Pickles.

Mr. Pickles, or Pickles as I call him is probably a Fox Terrier / Mexican Hairless crossbreed. He's small, ~ ten pounds or so, long legged and roach backed. He's got almost no hair on his back and the fur on the top of his head has that wispy quality like the Mexican Hairless that have crests. He's six to eight years old and when he was found wandering stray, his left eye was detached and badly infected. So the vet took it.

After he moved into my house I discovered that he is not housetrained. It's not uncommon for a small dog that lives with an elderly person is paper trained, but never housebroken.

But Pickles can't live with me foreever. So in order to have any chance at finding a good home I have to housebreak him.

More news on this story as it occurs.

I've never said or typed "herml-blermbl" before, but it just seems to fit.

I have a buncha half-written drafts here on OPW and I want to finish them and tell y'all what's been happenin' (and also to remind myself later what was happenin'), but I just... don't do it. Herml-blermbl.

So, here's a redux:

-- Beatlefest (July 16-21) was unfathomably satisfying and I really feel like we pulled off a nigh-impossible feat with very high quality... the highest to date. We had top-notch musicians/players who were all incredible readers, which was gonna be the only way we'd ever get to play 215 songs over 6 nights. Reading the charts, listening to each other, and watch Rich or Joe for the ending for the songs that faded out on the actual record. I'm really proud of what we did, and I'm excited it's now officially an annual thing and has caught the attention of all of the Delaware tourism groups and chamber of commerce and politicians and hoteliers and stuff... so they're gonna throw money and marketing behind it next year to make it something that the state celebrates and hotels offer package deals and yadda yadda yadda.  They're also trying to move it to the 1200-seat Grand Opera House, which is pretty amazing. 

-- I jumped back on Facebook because people were "very upset" they couldn't tag me in BeatleFest photos. #firstworldproblems  It is time to disable that shit nowwwww. 

-- We are derg-sitting Riley The Mutt again; she belongs to Nick and Nancy D'Argenio. They actually spell her name "Rylee" but when this derg is here she is MY derg and that's how I spell it, so there. I love having a doggo in the house. She is such a good, good, good, and pretty girl. JD was such a guy-dog, but Rhieleighe is so dainty and girlie, even though she's a mutt and not any kind of fancy foo-foo breed. She's still very much a doggo, though. 

-- I give the WeRateDogs guy sole credit for inventing the little dog-lingo the entire internetz now uses have when talking about dogs. The whole "heckin' good doggo 12/10 would pet" sentence structure amuses and delights me (and I didn't even do it right).

-- I've had a co-worker for the last 6-ish years that I've only ever worked with remotely... I'd never met him before in person. But this week he was teaching in Philly so we invited him down for dinner and for a jam session, because he's about to retire and do music full-time. I'm so happy for him! We had a great time. He said that he's the only democrat/non-Trump guy in his entire neighborhood... ugh, poor guy. I let him drink from our ITMFA mug and he was delighted!

-- Andrew Durkin (my musical collaborator since 1986) flew to the east coast today, and he'll be here for a week. From this-coming Monday to Thursday we're gonna get together and work on Sunnyvale material... Sunnyvale is the band that is me, Matt, Andrew, and Leo. (In the '90s I was in a regionally-successful band called The Evelyn Situation with both Andrew and Leo (and some other folks)... so getting to make music with them plus Matt is a musical dream come true for me.  We're gonna rehearse and record at my folks' place in north Jersey. 

-- My parents' 51st anniversary is this coming week, so we're taking them out to dinner on Sunday night. I asked my brother how many folks from his clan were coming, and he said "Just me and Mindy" (his wife).  I said, "No kids?" He said, "One kid is at camp and the other one has something else going on, and the oldest lives near college now. So yeah, just me and Mindy."  Call me weird, but whether I was 14, 17, or 22 (the ages of their 3 kids), I never had a choice about whether or not I'd attend a grandparent-related event... it was expected I'd go.  It feels weird to me that it's just kinda optional for them.  My folks are gonna be really disappointed, but hey, it's not my call. 

-- Matt and I are going to Burning Man this year... the last time we went was 2011, which was Matt's first time, and we left before the man even burned.  This year we are determined to stay for the man burning (Saturday before Labor Day) as well as the temple burn (Labor Day eve), but I'm not sure if it'll be do-able given his near-daily anxiety attacks.  He is hoping for some mystical, magical, cosmic ass-kicking. Perhaps some, um, molecular encouragement will help... or it'll kill him when his brain separates from his body permanently. We'll see. Or we won't.  But either way, this is the 10th Anniversary of Patty and Mike's Burning Man wedding that I officiated, so they wanna have a Vow Renewal Ceremony with me at the helm again. It won't be nearly as elaborate, but just a little something to commemorate a decade of awesome. 

-- We had our 8th Hot Breakfast Summer Blowout at Bellefonte Cafe on Friday the 27th and it was sold out since the Wednesday before. That was nice to hear. 

-- My music schedule is super-busy between now and the end of November. This is cool.

-- There's a new edition of ITIL (the thing I teach) coming out in Q1 2019, and the ITIL Mothership has chosen me (me!) and my videos to be the one they wanna help be first to market.  This pleases and flatters me greatly. It's nice to be recognized by the creator of the thing I'm a specialist in that yep, they agree I don't suck.  Woot! 

-- Food has been getting stuck in my dumb esophagus for years, which means I only eat a few bites per meal... which means I'm down to 111 pounds which is TOO DAMN SCRAWNY​​​​​​.  So my GP finally prescribed a thing I can take before I eat that will loosen things up and allow me to eat a full meal without having to pause after two bites and sit awkwardly and uncomfortably.  I'm so excited!! Hopefully I'll get some friggin' meat back on my bones. I look like Skeletor. 

-- I sleep on a towel every night and soak through it every night. Very sexy. I wish someone would yank out my girl parts... I DON'T NEED THEM.

--Matt's MiniCooper (Janice) doesn't have too much life left in her, unfortunately. So we need to decide: New Mini? Or Chevy Cruze which we fell in love with unexpectedly on a business trip when I was randomly assigned one by the rental car place?

-- I paid for the NYTimes digital edition as well as for access to the digital versions of their crosswords. I loooove their mini-crosswords (they take me anywhere from 40 seconds to 2-3 mins). But their full-size crosswords start easy on Monday and get harder through the week. I can only do their Monday and Tuesday ones, and then they get too hard for me because I'm dummm. But I love doing them. 

-- I'm sorry I haven't been posting or commenting here much... but I have been reading everything.  I love you all very much. 

-- I'm forgetting stuff but I need to sleep. 

(In fact I just nodded off and dreamt that Nik Everett is Matt's cousin Amy's grandfather and he was giving a speech on a baseballfield about having to give her away at her wedding. But she wasn't there to hear the speech so I was recording it with my phone and then a muslim hardcore/speedmetal band started setting up around him and just started playing playing in full burqas... but they turned out to be guys just trying to push the envelope... but they were really good! My brain is weird.)

Okbye.

Okay, I have a canine problem.

You all know that I love dogs way more than most humans probably should. It's kinda a thing. And it's fun or even cute most of the time, but...

Well, we've all had that experience where we're traveling and we see someone that we're just sure is Soandso from Suchandsuch. Only it's not. It's just someone who resembles that person. And they look enough like that person that you immediately felt a kind of bond with them (or animosity depending on how you feel about Miss or Mr. Soandso).

Well, I recently saw a tweet by Cherie Priest about an opinion her dog was displaying with their face.

I felt an immediate bond with the dog.

From a tweet.

Because (I eventually realized) it's features are a bit of an amalgam of several dogs I've known and been fond of over the years.

Yeah. I have a problem.

I got a new roof put on my house yesterday. I mean, it's not something you rush into. The old roof had been on my house since 1990-ish. So I guess it was fully amortized. Someone must have paid off the inspector, because said old roof had neither a ridge vent or a bathroom fan vent. And this is where the story starts to resemble "for want of a nail..." Because for want of a ridge vent, the plywood on the southern face of the roof started to warp and buckle from nearly 30 years of overheating and no way to vent the heat.

My roof, my roof

My roof was expired

Anyhow, I didn't want to tell the story of the many lacking features of my old roof. But rather how things went awry in the quest to replace the roof.

I bought my house in 2000. The home inspection detailed the lack of a ridge vent, and probable leak at the waste stack vent. No problem! says I. I can save up a couple thousand and get it done. After all, I was working a good contract for a major chemical company. And a week after I closed and moved into the house my contract got cancelled. Panic. Unemployment, scrape by for a couple months, get another contract with a major electrical supplier, nice raise. All is hunky dory. A few months later, a different contract, this time with a internation financial institution. That contract wraps up in July of 2001, but there's a follow-on contract in October in Dallas.

9/11 happens. Plane flies into my employer's building (WTC 1) and it falls on my client's building (WTC 7). And I get to watch it on live TV. Stress. Not a patch on the people who were there. And God bless the people trapped in the buildings and on the planes. But still, stress.

Dallas contract gets cancelled. A year and a half of unemployment, punctuated at odd intervals with small contracts and a last minute reprieve with the same company and same client. Do good work and people remember you when there's more work. Thank you Matt. You know who you are.

Then a couple of months later, just as a third unemployment extension is going to run out, the light at the end of the tunnel. I land a job with a local IT body shop. They farm me out to a local convenience store chain for their ops center. That works for a couple of years, but at a significant cut in pay. Hey, the bills are getting paid.

That job turns into another gig at a local bank and in 2009 I'm nearly back to where I was back in 2000. And then the compay that bought the local IT body shop decides to tell my client that the stuff they contracted to do, they weren't going to do. My client tells them that the contract they have? Yeah, we're not goint to do that any longer.

My last day at the bank, my oldest niece dies. I get told at lunchtime. I had to go back and work the afternoon. It's a testament to my fortitude that I didn't freak out. But yeah, more stress.

And more unemployment in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Job prospects are non-existant in the Carter-esque economic malaise. I get a lifeline from my brother that keeps me afloat, if barely. But the bills are getting paid (mostly) and the wolf is only at the garden gate, not the front door.

And then I get into a hit and run accident in 2015. Yeah, 6 years of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and a drunk hits my vehicle and bolts. Made me wish I had a dashcam (I do now). My right shoulder is screwed up. I start sleeping on my left side exclusively. 

For the next two years.

Revolving door doctors. More physical therapy than I've ever had before. And finally I found a good orthopedist who went through all the steps, and found the problem. Surgery, more physical therapy and eventually, 3 years to the day I was hit, I'm through with medical care.

Small settlement from my insurance (but that's another story). And I can finally pay off my house. Oh yeah, I've never replaced my roof.

So, finally, the roof is done.

The point of writing this all down?

At my lowest, in what I call "The Years of Suck", I re-watched Castaway. It was a good movie. Tom Hanks in the period when he could do no wrong. His character was helpless in that movie. He had no agency to change his situation, or even to kill himself. Until apparent random chance, wind and tide, brought him the tools for his salvation. And even then it was a struggle.

He says, "...And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I'm back..."

In no way was I a castaway. But I have refered to my house as my lifeboat over the years. 

I have to say this to you, and take what comfort from it that you may. Keep treading water. Keep struggling, even when you don't think you can change your course or make a goal you desire. Because your ability to conceive of events outside your grasp, and how those events may impact the arc of your own little story, is insufficient to the task. Sometimes, it's just the ability to hang in there, keep breathing, keep putting one foot in front of the other even though you believe you'll never get where you want, that makes the difference that gets you to your goal.

The improbable can happen and it can happen to you. And that's not a bad thing.

But for tonight I shall sleep under my new roof. And for a change, the pitter patter of rain on my roof won't make me grind my teeth.

I recently turned 50 years old. You would think that I've thought of myself as a grown-up for a long time, but I'm sure most of you don't really, in your heart, no matter how old you are, feel much more than 20. I know my body won't ever be like it was when I was 20, but in my head I don't really feel like I've changed too much.

One of the things that has never changed about me is that I hate confrontation and I always want to help people even if I know I'm getting myself into something messier than I want to deal with. But today I really proved that I have grown up and learned some lessons.

A high school friend of my daughter's (who's 22) asked if she could move in with me because she's taking a semester off from college and she can't take living with her parents any longer. A big part of me really wanted to help her. I love a lot of my daughter's friends like they're kids of my own and while her parents aren't physically abusive I know they're overbearing and hard on her. But she was asking if she could move in with me for five months! If it had been a week or a month, I probably would've said yes, but 5 months with another person in my house?! I just couldn't do it.

My husband and I have only been married for three years and quite frankly we're still like newlyweds. I love that my daughter is grown and succesfully out on her own and that my husband and I get to spend a lot of our time alone. So I told my daughter's friend this frankly and she said she understands, but I still feel badly. I was tempted to carry on the conversation (this was in texts) to try to offer advice, but I was worried that if I continued I would get sucked into letting her stay for some unspecified time. So I just let the conversation drop.

And that's how I know I've grown up because I know where to draw the line. To say "you are a grown-up now too and you have to figure these things out for yourself." But it still leaves me feeling a bit wretched. :(

As seems to happen too often, I had to be a problem. Computers are weird and who knows why, but my first invitation to this forum failed for no apparent reason. I want to thank Tom Boutell so much for working with me to find a work-around. I am a Facebook fanatic, mainly because I'm otherwise anti-social and I would never be able to keep up with people if I didn't have it, but it does get to be a bit much sometimes. So I'm happy to have a place to go to that's less frenetic. And now I'm off to read all those posts that I've missed.

I forget if I mentioned here this ridiculous musical undertaking we decided to attempt: We are putting on Delaware's very first Beatles festival, and this festival means that we are playing every Beatles song ever released (and even two that were recorded and never released) over a course of six consecutive nights... this means we do two albums per night, plus any singles that were released around those albums.  There is one night we're only doing one album, and that's the night we're playing The White Album since it's a double-album... and one other night we're playing three albums because that's just how the math worked. 

The festival started tonight, and we were kinda expecting the lightest crowd tonight since it's a Monday night, and since we just kinda figured this is their less interesting material.  But holy crap, we had 130 people tonight, and the theater only holds about 250... so it felt very full, and the crowd was very enthusiastic. One of tonight's audience members was actually in the audience when The Beatles played on Ed Sullivan!! GAAAH!!  After our show tonight she said she was so happy she came tonight so she could actually hear the songs, unlike the Ed Sullivan show where all she heard was screaming. :-)

We've been rehearsing this material since January-- two rehearsals per week -- one a vocal-only rehearsal, and the other rehearsal was with the whole band. 

The name of the group putting on this BeatleFest is called "The Rock Orchestra," which is an tribute show organization headed up by Joe Trainor and Matt Urban. Joe and MattU (not to be confused with 'my Matt' (aka MattC)) choose what tribute shows they want to perform (basically curating a season's worth of music), and then writes all the arrangements, and hires the right musicians to play it. So there's no set band member list to The Rock Orchestra... but they have an extensive Rolodex from which to draw. :-)

This BeatleFest takes 40 musicians to play all of this music as true to the albums as we can, once you get strings, horns, traditional Indian instrmentalists, harmonica, harp, even sound effects... all in addition to the core band. 

Because we're playing these songs in release order, tonight was the "simplest" material, so we only needed the core band tonight.  But we've been rehearsing in release order, too... so our most recent rehearsals has been the REALLY complicated stuff requiring all 40 players.  We had two final rehearsals this weekend... Saturday was sound-equipment load-in, and Sunday was all 40 of us... and we played all of the hard stuff (we're even doing "Revolution #9" live!)  We intentionally left the stage set up with all the (empty) chairs for the strings and horns, all of my 73,000 percussion instruments were out on display, MattC's guitars and saxes and keys were all set up, even though we don't use them until Wednesday.  We really want the audience to watch and feel this stuff build in complexity as we move through the Beatles' catalogue and timeline. 

So tonight when we got to the theater for Night 1 of BeatleFest to play "Please Please Me" and "With The Beatles" and the surrounding singles, only the seven core band members were needed, and we were like "Where is everyone? Oh, wait, it's just us tonight!"  

We've got Joe Trainor singing mostly Paul McCartney's parts and also playing piano and keys; we've got Brendan Sheehan playing guitar and singing mostly John Lennon's parts, Rich Degnars on drums (he's amazing), Josh Dowiak on bass and some vocals, Joey Lopes on lead guitar (he is freakin' awesome), and then Matt and I are the utility players.  (Utility players are people who can sing and play many instruments, so they play whatever is needed.)  I sing backing vocals on almost everything (I sing lead on a few, too) and I play about 22 different percussion instruments (everything from simple handclaps to timpani and anvil and concert chimes to a motorcycle exhaust pipe), keys a few times, and I also handle all the sound effects (think the animal sounds in "Good Morning, Good Morning").  Matt sings whenever we need 4-part harmony (and he also sings lead on a few), and he's playing guitar, bass, sax, keys/piano, and percussion. 

Tonight was an easy night music-wise, and tomorrow night (Tuesday, Night 2) is also just the core band again because we're playing two more " simple" albums: "Beatles for Sale" and "A Hard Day's Night" (plus some singles).

Wednesday night (Night 3) is "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" (plus some singles). Wednesday night is when Matt and are the guest singers, so we sing lead on a few songs. This night is also when more band members arrive... Indian musicians arrive, some horns and strings...

Thursday night (Night 4) s the big night where we do three albums (‘Revolver’, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ and ‘Magical Mystery Tour’) and also the point when all 40 musicians are on stage through the rest of the festival!

Friday night (Night 5 of 6, also Matt's birthday):  Tonight we only play one album, which is "The Beatles," aka The White Album. It's a double album.  We'll also play any singles released during that time. And once we tackle that, we're brought to closing night, which is "Abbey Road" and "Let it Be," plus the singles. And that's it!

During the show, we have fun projections as a backdrop that sorta gives you an idea of what "era" of The Beatles we're in (in Hamburg, the Ed Sullivan stage, their psychedelic stage, the rooftop, etc... and we have another projector with a slideshow that displays the song name, album title, and a counter that counts up the number of songs out of the 215 we've played already.  

I'm really proud and excited to play this music with these people-- it sounds great, and best of all everyone gets along, so it's been a very joyful experience!  It's also been exciting new really exciting to feel how the songwriting got more interesting and complex as The Beatles' progressed, and also to note how they were able to do all the things they wanted to record thanks to advances in recording technology.  

There was more I wanted to type, but I've forgotten because I've fallen asleep a few times while typing this... haha... and it's now 3:55am so I'm gonna post this now. 

iPhones have a new feature: as of iOS 11, they don't save photos in the familiar JPEG format. They save them in a new format called HEIC. It's very nice. Web browsers can't handle it. Until today, OPW couldn't handle it either.

However, Rabbit was kind enough to point this out with some useful pointers in the right direction, and I found tools to convert HEIC to JPEG.

So, please enjoy the ability to once again attach photos to your OPW posts from your iOS devices.

For those who haven't tried it before, look in the lower right corner of the editor, where you see the words "Add Media." To the right of that, click the little picture icon, then the browse button that follows.

Enjoy!

All seasons of MASH are now available on Hulu, so today we started binge-watching it.  Season 1 is where they are working out the kinks, and finally easing up on the blatant misogyny and tail-chasin'... though I guess it is a period piece. 

Either way, I love these characters so much, and Larry Gelbart is a script god. 

I am happier now that the Father Mulcahy I recognize and Klinger have arrived. 

The show holds up great now that we're half a season in, and it's a pleasure to watch. But you definitely have to get through the first few. Henry Blake is less of a dunderhead and more a dude; Frank and Houlihan aren't just meanies out to foil Hawkeye and Trapper, but are nuanced people.  

I feel like I'm with old friends. :)