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.)
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.
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 ongoingleft-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.
It’s end-of-the-year time. As has been tradition here over the last coupleyears, I’m going to make a list of things I’d like to do/achieve in the coming year.
I’ve beensick. It’s the usual November/December sinus/lung/whatever garbage. I went through the absolute worst of it over the weekend before last. I think I’m on the mend now for real, and hopefully I’ll be over it in a few days.
Today’s podcast is dedicated to Wesley. Earlier today, I learned that he recently passed away. I am shocked and saddened by this news.
Wesley won an award at SXSW for this short film:
See his other videos here and here. Also, here‘s Wesley’s photo blog and here‘s the Facebook group I mentioned in the podcast. Finally, here‘s the song “Hey, Wesley.”
After nearly 1.5 weeks of constant pain in my left arm (and some helpful prodding from friends on Facebook), I went to a doctor today to get things checked out. The arm problem turned out to be nothing more than an injured muscle. I was relieved to know that I wasn’t having a grabber. Still, I put going to the doctor off as long as possible. I have no health insurance, and in the time between making the doctor’s appointment and getting the grabber-free diagnosis, I imagined I’d get sucked into a spiral of tests and exams that’d cause the dollar signs to quickly pile up. I got lucky. The total cost for the office visit was $97.00. Sure, my bank balance is looking pretty sad right now. But it won’t look that way forever. However, had I needed anything beyond just the office visit, the situation would likely be much worse.
I hurt my left arm. Not entirely sure what happened. But I think it was caused by having to carry our new microwave in its big, bulky box across the Madonna Plaza parking lot. I noticed that pulled-muscle feeling in the upper arm area a few days after. And it’s been relentless ever since.
As I had mentioned at the end of the last post, Jen and I did indeed go out on Saturday to buy a microwave. We visited four different shops, and wound up purchasing a stainless steel model made by Oster.
We chose this one based on size and price considerations. Also, it’s stainless steel, and that’s kinda cool.
We’ve estimated that our previous microwave is somewhere between ten and twelve years old. Considering the layer of crust that’s accumulated on its roof, and the fact that the plastic runners under the platter had completely worn away the finish underneath, it seemed like a good time to retire the old nuke box. I’m going to try and find a place that’ll recycle it. Hopefully, that can be done.
The new microwave cooks faster than the old one, which is nice. It’ll take some time to get used to. I pretty much had cooking with the old ‘wave down to a science. But that’s a good problem to have.
earlier this week. It was delivered yesterday.
