These Are My Axes …

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GuitarsThese are my axes. There are many like them, but these three are mine.

I’ve had a love / hate relationship with the guitar my whole life. I love playing it, but I hate how I sound and I’ve always had a hard time being disciplined enough to make progress in a way that actually makes me feel satisfied. Bottom line, I’ve always hated how I played.

One guitarist I always admired when I was younger was my younger brother Ed. He had an incredible love for the guitar from the time my Dad picked up our first “Hornsby’s special” $20.00 acoustic guitar for us when we were 10 and 12. He never put it down. I remember walking into our bedroom and seeing him sitting on the floor next to the bed working through Jimmy Pages solo from HeartBreaker on this little crappy accoustic guitar and actually sounding pretty good. I could never do that. I didn’t have the patience.

I still always loved the guitar though. When I was seventeen, I put an Ibanez on layaway and paid on it for months in order to get it. That’s it on the right hand side of the picture. Ed bought a red Ibanez later on. When Ed was around 15, he had a friend that had a 4 track studio complete with a PA and a drum machine and he and this friend locked themselves in this studio for weeks working on a song. This was really cool to watch, as I had no idea at the time what was involved and it seemed like Ed knew everything. He sat in that studio doubling guitar tracks, harmonizing leads and blowing me away with how much he intuitively knew about the process, at least from where I was standing.

That picture has always stuck in my head. It was so cool seeing my younger brother in a basement studio creating music. I was so proud of him, and to be honest, just admired him for how committed he was to the guitar and how well he was able to play. To this day, the solos for this song have stuck with me, though the tapes are long gone. I lost them.

In June, Jonna bought me an Ibanez JEM, a guitar I had wanted for a long time. Since she had made the investment, I figured I should at least attempt to start practicing again so that the JEM didn’t just sit there like the Ibanez (and later the Jackson Randy Rhoads Custom pictured on the left) had for so many years. I figured the best way to get back into the swing of things was to try to transcribe one of these solos that had stuck in my head forever as kind of a tribute to my favorite guitar player.

So here it is. My tribute to my favorite guitarist. This is the ‘outro’ solo to that song that I watched my brother write and record in that little home studio 20 some years ago. I have recreated it as best as I could given my memory and limited playing ability. I am playing all rhythm, lead, and bass guitars. I also doubled all lead guitars as I remember he did.

This was recorded sitting on the floor in my bedroom on my Digitech GNX4 8 track recorder.

It’s definitely not perfect, but it is what it is. A tribute. I hope you like it.   If not – he wrote it 🙂   Add to the formula.   He was about 15.

Addendum:   After that muted part at the end he did this weird arpeggio stuff that was supposed to be faded out.   It was amazing, but I have no idea how he did it, so its missing.

Concerto Suite For Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E flat minor Op.1

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Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar & Orc Today on the way to take Kelsi home we stopped at the mall and as I was browsing through CD’s I came across Yngwie J. Malmsteens Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E flat minor – Op.1.

Needing a change of pace, I picked it up.

This album is extremely cool. Its a full concerto, written for an orchestra with the electric guitar as a solo instrument. Before you shrug it off as just another orchestra CD like Kiss Symphony or Metallica S&M, it isn’t. This is a completely different animal. This is an actual classical piece of music, written by Malmsteen himself, with the guitar as the lead solo instrument — not a rehash of existing songs with an orchestra behind them.

The only albums I’ve really liked from Malmsteen are his first, Rising Force and Trilogy. All of his other albums seemed “more of the same”, where you are essentially beaten over the head by how fast he can play and how much he can dominate the song. This album, however, is amazing, and its quite obvious that this is the type of music Yngwie was meant to play. I think this is by far his best album to date.

If you see this in the store, pick it up. It is, dare I say it, a masterpiece. On a scale from one to five in both originality and just plain beautiful music, I give it a seven.

A Genius Explains …

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Browsing slashdot this morning, I came across an article called "A Genius Explains" in The Guardian. Its a pretty inspiring article about a 26 year old autistic savant who is a mathematical genius and can speak seven languages (including one he is creating on his own).

The cool part of this particular story is that the subject of the article is extremely articulate and can explain what goes on in his head as he is doing math problems and the reasons for the routines that he has to go through in order to feel comfortable. In addition, his ability to create a career teaching and writing online courses is amazing.

The article also talks about his friendship with Kim Peek the man who inspired the character of Raymond in the movie "Rain Man". One interesting fact about Peek that I did not know was that he has the ability to read two pages at one time (one with each eye) with a 98% retention rate.

This is a long article, but really worth the read. Its a truly amazing story.

There is apparently a book written on Kim Peek called The Real Rain Man: Kim Peek that I might pick up. It looks facinating.

Some related stories

Steve Vai: Real Illusions Review Section Opened on Vai.com

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The folks at Vai.com have opened a section of the message board dedicated to reviewing the new album, Real Illusions:Reflections.

The album is due out on February 22. Check out the reviews and when your done, click on the Amazon link down to the upper right of the page if you want to order it.

Update: February 20, 2005:
The April 2005 issue of Guitar World Magazine is “The Virtuoso Issue” and has a really good interview with Vai and a lesson on playing “Freak Show Excess” off of the new album. Pick it up if your a Vai fan.

This issue also has a pretty good interview with Zakk Wylde as well.

Site upgraded to WordPress 1.5

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The site has been upgraded to WordPress 1.5. Everything seems to work fine, except the WP-Amazon Plugin.

When I get some time, I might debug it, but until then, I guess I’ll have to do my Amazon links manually.

The upgrade was completely painless. The main thing that slowed me down was keeping my new vendor branch up to date and merging it in with the main codebase. It also took some time to figure out where to put the customizations I’ve done to the site like the FireFox button, and Google Ads. Otherwise, it was a breeze. What a great product!

Some things I really like about the new version, after playing with it or a few minutes:

  • The templating system – not only is Kubrick built in now, causing less customization, but you can switch through themes seamlessly. Absolutely beautiful.
  • The dashboard – All wordpress news and site statistics on one screen. Very cool.
  • The ability to manage “non-blog” pages.
  • New spamming features – I haven’t gotten into these yet, but those online poker people are in for some trouble!

I’m really looking forward to sitting down at some point and going through the details of the codebase. I have a feeling I’m really going to miss the Amazon plugin though, so I hope I can either find time to debug it, or that there is an update coming out soon!

I still have to take some time to integrate the AuthImage plugin into the site. This is one plugin that should have become a part of the overall product.

Update: February 19, 2005

I have gotten the WP-Amazon Plugin to work under WordPress 1.5 with the following changes to wp-admin/wp-amazon.php: 

==================================================
--- wordpress/wp-admin/wp-amazon.php	(revision 36)
+++ wordpress/wp-admin/wp-amazon.php	(working copy)
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
 < ?php           
+require('../wp-config.php');
+
 /*
 WP-Amazon Plugin for WordPress 1.2+
 Version 1.2.3 2005.01.25
@@ -66,12 +68,12 @@
 
 $areMagicQuotesOn = get_magic_quotes_gpc();
 
-require_once ('../wp-includes/wp-l10n.php');
+require_once(ABSPATH . '/wp-includes/wp-l10n.php');
 
 $title = 'Insert item from Amazon.com';
 $standalone = 1;
 
-require_once ('admin-header.php');
+require_once (ABSPATH . '/wp-admin/admin-functions.php');
 
 parse_str($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]);

I’ll be sending a patch to the author within the next couple of days.

Update – Februrary 20, 2005
The patch I posted yesterday showed the admin menu on the popup window. I have updated the code with the final one, that looks like it did in WP 1.2 without the admin menu. You can also download the patch here.

One note: This patch is based on WP-Amazon version 1.2.3, which you can find at the authors site.

Update – March 23,2005
For those who don’t want to much with the patch, I have put the file full file here for download. Just copy this into your wordpress/wp-admin directory and everything should work fine.

Illinois proposes to raise cigarette tax (again)

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So I’m sitting here this morning, minding my own business as everyone is getting ready to leave and as I get up to go to the garage to have a cigarette (I don’t smoke in the house), I hear a news report that Illinois Governer Blagojevich is proposing yet another tax hike on cigarettes – an additional $.75 a pack charge. There’s a story in the Chicago Sun Times on it as well.

Now, I fully understand that smoking is a disgusting habit and that if you smoke you should quit. I get it. I also get that it is no longer in vogue to be a smoker. However, I’m getting a little tired of constantly being penalized for a choice that is unpopular.

Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t be opposed to it if I got something out of it — and fixing roads and opening schools doesn’t do that for me because I already pay taxes for that. For example, requiring employers to build shelters for us lepers that need to go outside in order to smoke, so that we don’t have to stand in the only area of the property with no wind cover. Maybe we can create smoking shelters like we do for homeless people.

Or maybe we can use the funds to create our own ‘colonies’, so that we are away from the mainstream of society and we do not bother anyone. I’m sure this would reduce the occurances of ear infections, second hand cancer, and the other horrible illnesses that second hand smoke causes that I never suffered from growing up with smoking parents.

The next step of discrimination is on its way, where employers can deny employment based on whether you smoke or not.

Here’s a question. If Ron started a company in which he refused to hire anyone that did not smoke, how quickly do you think he would be dragged into court for discrimination?

This completely irritates me. If I am to be taxed for my behavior, I want the following people taxed as well, just because they bother me:

  • People who still write checks in the grocery line
  • People who still don’t know how to use an ATM
  • People who still don’t get that they have to learn how to use a computer
  • People who drive under the speed limit
  • People who push their views on other people, whether they be views on smoking, religion, or what should be seen on TV or heard in music

If we tax these people, I’ll be ok with the additional cigarette tax. After all, its only fair that people be penalized for ‘bothering’ me if I have to pay for bothering them.

Trac: Integrated SCM and Project Management

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This post is more a reminder to myself than anything else. As I was browsing the wordpress plugin repository I saw they are using version 0.8 of a product called Trac that integrates with Subversion and provides basic project management and defect tracking.

The site says the software does the following:

  • An integrated system for managing software projects
  • An enhanced wiki
  • A flexible web-based issue tracker
  • An interface to the Subversion revision control system

This looks really interesting and I need to remember to check it out. I tried to download it this morning, but it seems the download area of their site is down.

Update: Edgewall.com is not down. For some reason, FireFox was giving me zero reply error. When I went to a Windows machine with IE, I was able to download the software.

Upgrade to WordPress 1.2.2

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I have upgraded the site to WordPress 1.2.2. This also required me to synch up all of the changes I’ve made to the code since I originally installed WordPress 1.2 with Kubrick and finally bring my Subversion repository up to date with the current production code. I’ve not been following my own advice and have been making modifications directly on the web site.

So, I have everything updated, and a development server created that I can change things on and then move the changes to production after I’ve tested. A lot of work, but in the long run definitely worth it.

I think I got everything, however I might have missed a few things. If you run into problems, please email me at ron_at_bieberlabs.com and let me know what the issue is.

The Excitement in the Early Days of the PC

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While browsing around this morning I found a cool article that outlines the history of the ZIP archive format and, more specifically, the guy who created it, Phil Katz.

I’ve posted about this before on previous incarnations of the web site. The “compression wars” are one of the things I remember most about the early days of the PC. It was, for computer geeks, the equivelent of the O.J. trial. Everyone tried to keep up on what was going on, and everyone had an opinion.

Patrick Grote also wrote a great article describing the environment in those days. Patrick, during this time, was actually writing shareware software reviews and had reviewed a program I had written and released as shareware at the time. I still remember how great it felt to get a 9.2 rating out of 10 “for the promise of being better than Norton and following through”. What a great thing for a young kid to read as he’s learning C!

As I was writing this I looked around and found the original (1989) documentation for this program, which might be fun to read. When I can get to it, I’ll post the source code as well. It’s not pretty, but I was just learning.

I had a great time reading Patricks article, as I can remember the excitement in the air when all this stuff was going on. What an exciting time in computer history!

The computer industry is no where near as exciting from a cultural level as it was back then, when you could change the world from your garage.

By the way, I did receive one check for $10.00 for this program, in case anyone was wondering.

Update: The source for QF800 is on ibiblio.org. Working binaries for DOS can also be found there. I realized when I started looking around that I had donated this stuff to the FreeDOS project a while back, though I don’t think they’re using them.