Things have been a bit sparse around here lately. And if you’ve been following along for the last few months, none of this will surprise you.

I decided a little over a month ago that it was time to retire Shawnogram. The site is coming up on its four-year anniversary. And it has served me well over the last four years. But it’s time to move on.

I’ve been thinking that it’d be good for me to have a real “business-card” type of website. Something I can point people towards to showcase some of the “professional” things I do. And for the most part, I don’t feel Shawnogram (or any other site I’m contributing to) can really do that.

The plan going forward is two-fold. My new professional site can be found here: http://shawn.mx/ The site contains some basic information about me as well as a journal where I’ll be writing about things like music, podcasting and media production. (There are already a couple posts there to get things rolling.) I’ve also started an attendant Tumblr blog where I’ll be posting personal stuff and various digital ephemera. There are already some posts there as well.

My advice is, if you want to get everything, bookmark/subscribe to both sites. The RSS feed at shawn.mx is podcast-enabled, and you can subscribe to it in iTunes or any other podcatching program. It hasn’t yet been submitted to the iTunes Store, so you’ll have to subscribe manually for now. (Contact me if you need help doing this, it’s actually pretty easy.)

I’d like to thank everyone who’s followed and contributed to this site over the last few years. I hope you’ll stick with me through the changes. Good things are ahead.

(The audio enclosure below pretty much just restates everything I’ve posted here.)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:34 — 1.2MB)

It’s happened again. Another one of my financial cards has been compromised. This time, it was my debit card. The one that’s linked to my actual checking account. It looks like the bank caught it in time. It’s doubtful that I’ll actually get stuck with any of the charges, and even if I do, the amounts aren’t all that high. Still, it’s frustrating.

Over the last few years, this has happened to me five or six times with different accounts. Usually, it’s been credit cards. This is the first time it’s happened with the debit card.

I have no idea how it is that my card numbers keep getting stolen. It’s especially curious with the debit card as I really only use it these days for ATM transactions.

Maybe this has something to do with it.

(Thanks to Jen for the video.)

I’ve been busy. Even though it’s been two weeks since the big studio move, there was still some things that needed to be done around the studio. I spent most of last weekend doing those things.

During the week, I’ve had to take care of all of the usual time-consuming life obligations, Beyond that, I had an appointment with a physical therapist for my ongoing left-arm problems. I was given a regimen of stretches and arm exercises to do at home to try and strengthen the muscles in my arms and upper back. I think it’s helping.

Jen’s been summonsed for potential jury duty in L.A. (400 miles away, round trip). I spent part of an evening helping her fill out the online “qualification questionnaire.” We did our best to make it as clear as possible that they really don’t want Jen on their jury. We won’t know for at least a few weeks if she’ll have to go.

I’ve written 2/3 of a new song and I kinda like it. Been thinking about the music thing a lot lately. Got some ideas there. Also thinking of finally making good on my threat of taking this blogging thing to a new location. This may tie in with the music thing. I need a clever name for this new project but I haven’t thought of anything yet. I’d like to get a simple domain name that somehow ties into my name. There is actually one shawn.xx top-level domain name available but it’s one of them weird ones that costs $50.00/year to register. Not sure if I want it that badly. I could just do things under my own first and last names (plenty of domain options there). But, I don’t know. I find my name to be rather dull. Also, it seems that my last name is difficult for many people to pronounce. It’s seemingly even harder for them to spell. Six letters. One syllable. You wouldn’t think it’d be so much trouble. This is why I need a clever alter-name to operate under. Let me know if you’ve got any ideas.

I recorded this yesterday morning but couldn’t post it until today because my web hosting company’s servers were down.

Anyway, as the title suggests, I took a walk to a local coffee shop and let my iPhone’s voice recorder roll during the process. No monologues this time. Just the sounds around me. A bit of a throwback to the old SLOwalker days, perhaps.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 42:08 — 24.2MB)

In what is possibly turning into an annual event, we spent last weekend rearranging our recording studio/computer room. This is our fourth, and hopefully, best version of the setup so far.

The old studio setup. Note my computer on the left-hand side of the photo and Jen’s computer on the right-hand side.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve needed a hand towel holder in one of our bathrooms forever. I ordered one earlier this week. It was delivered yesterday.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first weekend of 2011 has come and gone. It was a good weekend, though things got a little weird at the end.

We had fun Friday evening recording GeminiDragon 18. We were joined by some friends for the live show as we discussed our predictions for 2011 and covered some amusing year-end lists.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s end-of-the-year time. As has been tradition here over the last couple years, I’m going to make a list of things I’d like to do/achieve in the coming year.
Read the rest of this entry »

I had an opportunity to capture this video while I was out for a walk yesterday:

We had fun when we took the train to Monterey. I hope we get to take another train trip sometime in 2011. I do miss being in an area with commuter trains like the ones in the Chicago. Trains in this part of California are for long trips only. No commuter trains here.

My friend Stephanie is on a train right now, on her way to Bakersfield. I hope she’s having an OK time. I said I’d walk down to the level crossing (the one seen in the video above) and wave at her train as she passes through San Luis Obispo. I’m not sure when her train comes through. I do know it’ll be going the opposite direction of the train in the video.

My friends Erk and Squeak are train drivers in Australia. I think that’s pretty cool. Also, my friends Woosang and Drue control the trains in Australia and tell them where to go. That’s cool, too.

This concludes today’s bit of train-inspired randomness. I need to get some sleep.

It’s the end of the year. As such, many of the music blogs I read have been posting their end-of-year lists. I find a lot of stuff on these lists that I’ve never heard. I’ve been giving some thought as to why that is. I have a few ideas.

1.) Since leaving the orbit of a major metropolis and moving to relatively-small San Luis Obispo, I’ve lost certain connections with mainstream media. I used to listen to WXRT a lot, and while the station’s legend grows ever-more blighted in these modern times, it was (and probably still is) one of Chicago’s best sources for new music. I don’t actively listen to the radio much these days, and even if I did, the closest approximation to ‘XRT in my area would be the local college radio station. Most of the time, my stereo receiver can’t even pick up the college station’s low-power signal, and because it’s a college radio station it’s very… college radio-y. It’s not really the same thing as WXRT.
Read the rest of this entry »