Archive

2/16/03 through 2/20/03

Little Basser Boy

For the past three months or so, I have been selling drums at Guitar Center. I don't play drums. I like drums. I like drummers. But I play bass. I know far more about basses and guitars than I probably ever will about drums. That has been a major handicap. I can't tell you the number of time I lost sales just because I didn't know what the customer wanted and they couldn't express in a way that someone who doesn't play drums could understand. Plus, the guitar department in general just moves way more gear. So I knew that if I was going to make decent commisions, I needed to get in on the guitar action.

Almost from the start, I made noise about wanting to be able to sell guitars. I didn't necesarily want to leave the drum department completely. I just wanted to to suppliment my sales and see if maybe I can't make a living at this. I managed to get both the guitar department manager and one of the store assistant managers on my side. Both of them have been wanting a bass player to take over the "Rumble Room" as they call it. But, there was no opening in guitars and there was no one to take my place in drums.

That changed last month. In one day, one of the guys from guitars quit. There was the opening. And several of our drum customers have been putting aps, so there was the replacement. It was all but official that I would be moving as soon as a replacement for me in drums was hired. I was pretty excited. Then, leave it to corporate downsizing to ruin my dreams again.

This time, it wasn't me being downsized, but rather one of the warehouse staff. The store manager didn't want to throw him out in the cold completely, so he was offered my guitar position. Which he accepted.

I was resigned to a life trying to talk the talk in drums. Then Mr. Warehouse stopped showing up for work. At first I thought our paths just weren't crossing. But, it turned out that he up and quit. This time, there was no talk of moving me at first. I started dropping not so sutble hints that it might be time to let me move over. At first, I didn't get much of a response. Finally, yesterday I got the good news. They had hired a new drum guy, and once he is trained up, I am going to be in guitars, specializing in basses. Maybe I can finally turn this thing around and make some decent money. That would be a good thing.

Posted by: Max - 02/20/03 - 8:33pm CST -

One year down!

In case you haven't noticed, we have been here a whole year!

I bought IWDC on the 16th of February, 2002, but the counter didn't start up until several days later - it currently says 364 days. Either way, it's our birthday week. For a few months it didn't look like IWDC would be here on Feb. 20, 2003, but here we are! I'm glad I talked Max, not to mention myself, into keeping The Little Blog that Could.

I'm not sure what the future holds for IWDC. I want to contine face-lifting all the pages to go with the current theme as we see here on the front page. I want to do more features and be less of a blog and more of a magazine. But, all of that will take time. Reader input on what you would like to see out here is always welcomed. Reader input into the site has never been discouraged.

I'm just glad we're still here. I'm happy we again have a growing readership. I'm glad I again have a forum for my views and a place to let loose my wild ideas. I'm glad I have a working project with my best friend. I'm just happy all over about IWDC!

Posted by: Jericho - 2/20/03 - 4:58 pm -

Random Bullshit

Note: You don't want to read this post.

I am probably at least as good as most bass guitarists in most bands that are currently polluting radio and MTV.

I am nowhere near as good a bass guitarist as the bassists I admire and nowhere near as good as I need to be to make the kind of music I want to make.

I want to write more than I want to do almost anything else besides make music. Little feels anywhere near as good as writing. At least little that is legal.

If I was as good at writing as I am at psyching myself out when I sit down to do it, I would be one of the most prolific writers on the planet.

I wish I was wealthy so I could travel and do everything I want to do.

If I won the lottery I would probably waste my life in front of the TV.

Get Fuzzy is what Garfield could have been had Jim Davis not gotten rich and lazy.

I enjoy reading far more than I enjoy watching TV.

I watch TV far more than I read.

I am a pretty good actor but I think my looks and my lisp are too much of an impediment to pursuing acting as a career/activity.

I am a pretty good actor but I think my cowardice and my laziness are too much of an impediment to pursuing acting as a career/activity.

I hate watching TV.

I watch a lot of TV.

TV is easy.

Guns don't kill people.

People kill people.

Almost never the ones who really need killing, though.

This post is a pathetic cry for help.

This post is a pathetic attempt to escape boredom.

This post wasted both of our time.

Posted by: Max - 02/18/03 - 6:33pm CST -

Not So Bad

A round of antibiotics and a good night's sleep has finally returned me to something resembling normal. I guess I have been whining a bit lately. Illness does that to me. I am not good at being sick.

Despite what Jer might think, I am not trying make my job out to be less sucky that his. Yes, my pay is shit, my hours suck and there is an Assistant Manager who takes himself way more seriously thatn anyone with the title Assistant Manager should. Despite that, I enjoy it. Sure I could find something better to do with my time, but if I have to work, my current job isn't too bad.

So, be proud, my upper middle class friend. Your job sucks worse than mine.

Posted by: Max - 02/18/03 - 6:33pm CST -

Final Stages

It's been a bumpy ride, but my project at work is in it's final stages. For the most part, I have done all I can do. There are a few more things to clean up, but we're essentially done.

Tomorrow is all about education, damage control and spin. Letting people know things haven't changed too much, showing them what has changed and convincing them that the changes we've made are good ones. I need to go in a bit early, but it will be worth the effort. When I leave tomorrow, this project is pretty much over. Considering we've been talking about this since September, I'm very glad it's done.

Max and I have been having a bit of a running tally of who's job is sucking more right now. He's working hard and sick with pneumonia at the same time, this is bad. Meanwhile I have given up a three day weekend, racked up 65 hours for last week (Mon. to Sun.), and put in 12 hours just today. While I'm not deathly ill, this hasn't been much fun, either.

I'm just happy it's over. The money from the over time is nice, the sense of accomplishment is good, but I'm just so tired all I want to do is crawl under the bed and hide for a week. I've learned a lot, and I think my boss is impressed with me, but I just want Friday at 5 to poke it's head up.

Wish me luck for tomorrow.

Posted by: Jericho - 2/17/03 - 10:23 pm -

Only one little hitch.

Well, I am not too long in from an eleven hour work day. And, I'll be back at it in about nine hours.

The voicemail conversion went well. I screwed up one thing - all because I didn't uncheck a box at a critical point. The bad news was that the software process to fix this mistake was ugly and took two hours to load the back up database. The good news is that it worked. The other good news was that we had wanted to try to do a full data base back up while we had a test machine to see how that would go. Well, this was on a more critical machine - but the back up process was indeed successful. Good test! Oy!!!

Anyway, after all that overtime, plus the over time I already have this week, more of it I will get tomorrow and next week, I may just go on unemployment! Of course, if my uber-boss finds out I screwed up that badly, I may not have a choice in the matter!

Posted by: Jericho - 2/16/03 - 12:43 am -