The Music Mogul

I love music but don’t have the talent to make any.

When I way young my father would play his chanter. This is the bit of the bagpipes that produces the notes but modified to play standalone. He was my hero. He could play just about anything that could produced music. I think one of his disappointment was my inability to learn music. I guess he saw him and me heading of to band practice together.

I have often wondered if I had applied myself would I have been able. I can hear melody, pick up rhythms and pound out a beat with my hands and feet. Maybe it was just my stubbornness and lazyness that stopped me.

When I was a bit older I bought a synthesiser. I think I thought that I could learn music through diffusion or something. Anyway I fiddled with it quite a bit making sounds but not producing music, maybe I was a pioneer of atmosphere?

I was a DJ for a while after I quit high school. It was the best job in the world. My Dad cautioned me that there was no future in it and so I got an apprenticeship as an electrician. I did a few gigs after that but not many.

I was going to rabbit on about my music collection but I guess the journey was more interesting than the destination……

The ageing process

Everything that exist ages. What about things that don’t exist?

Well it makes an interesting sub heading anyway……

I am now into the final week at this company. I have started to clean up my desk, book shelf etc. I am also diligently cleaning up my electronic file. Deleting stuff and making a quick exit archive. You see I have one of those 30MB portable music players that also does data storage. I will take my email file and the music files that I have stored at work but not at home.

I am fairly meek and mild but this leaving work business is a kind of tonic. When clients say something stupid I normally would have agonised over how to tell them there idea/plan/opinion was stupid. Now I just say “That’s stupid” or No. A short lived touch of courage.

Bro

I had some good news over the weekend. My older brother is coming to town in July. We meet up every few years and its always good to yak about politics and conspiracy theories with someone who agrees with me. Seems like Dad did a good job implanting his ideas into both our heads. Bro is a bit more paranoid than me so that adds to teh game.

He moved away about 7 or so years ago. I miss him. We catch up too infrequently by phone but its not the same. I have went over to see him once and this upcoming trip will be his 2nd return.

I think he is a bit down on himself. I think he thinks too lowly of himself. You see he made a very definitive lifestyle choice. He left full time work, his wife and most of his kids to live a more bohemian existence.

I remember the first time I saw him after he left. He had lost a fair bit of excess weight and looked fit and healthy. I find that I admire his courage for taking the plunge and giving up the suburban dream.

So for all my success I dream of a simple life. I guess I must be happy?

My partner and seaweed

The jobs stuff is all settled down for the moment, still getting a few well wishes ect so I though a bit of a glimps into my home life would be fun.

I though I would spend a few words on fame and my life partner. But before I do that there is a story that is worth thinking about. It is in context so please read on.

In Japan the fishermen of old used to get through the off season by collecting seaweed. Not just any sort but the stuff you wrap around those sushi rice roll things. I think it is called Nori. Every now and then there would be a season where the seaweed would not appear on schedule and the fishermen (and families) would go hungry. It turns out that the life cycle of the algae responsible for this sort of seaweed is complex. Now around the other side of the world an English lady was researching the mysterious life cycle of a seaweed that grew around the English coast.

She developed the model that basically gave the recipe for successfully growing the stuff on demand. A scientist from Japan read her paper and made the connection and the fishermen never went hungry again (and ensured a plentiful supply of the weed allowing the mass popularity of sushi rolls). The lady in question was made a hero by the grateful fishermen who made a statue for her and reserve a day of the year in her memory.

Unfortunately she died before she learned of her fame. Apparently here name is well known in Japan but virtually unheard of in the UK.

Life has its’ doubles and here is my partners story.

She has a PhD is microbiology and has a great love of living systems, the forests in our part of the world in particular. Unfortunately our government does not fund science or research very well and so she was forced into research on the environmental aspects of a human pathogen as part of our health system (on a wage less than our local garbage truck drivers get).

She put a lot of effort in and developed a useful set of tools for identifying the pathogen in environmental and biopic samples. SWhe wrote a couple of papers and funding ran out.... Now it turns out that the pathogen in question is big news in Brazil.

To cut to the chase she was asked to got to Brazil to show a few of the locals her technique. Through this she got on local TV, front page of the papers and numerous articles in the local press. She was famous in Brazil, luckily she experienced her fame and the high regard of her Brazilian peers.

Well now she is back in home, she does some demon-straighting for the local university (in a unrelated field) and is finalising some papers on the pathogen above (for free). Her old boss keeps talking about funding for further research but so far nothing real, welcome to the third world….

Going Going……

Amazing. I did the deal yesterday. You know you don’t realise how much you are loved till you say good by. I am starting to feel a bit guilty for leaving the team in the lurch but I have committed to my next master so that is that.

So far my manager and his boss (one of the company owners) have offer more cash and valuable prizes. I have a lunch time meeting with the other owner over lunch. I hope it is more about succession planning and how to deal with the clients rather than another attempt. I very much want to leave on good grounds. Not really looking forward to it (I think I will go with the fish).

It has been a very clarifying experience. I have fairly much bumbled along most of my life shuffling along on a whim. As luck would have it I have always ended up in a fairly good spot. And basically when I get bored or restless something has always come up. I guess being a good geek has its advantages.

In this case I was not getting the ownership or stewardship or something of my projects. I was getting screwed around by the client and couldn’t see a real way out and stay with in the company. And basically I am an engineer not a negotiator (now there’s a disadvantage of being a geek with poor communication and people skills).

I filled out all the induction type forms last night for the new company – you know offer and acceptance, confidentiality, superannuation, health cover etc…. Given I have a month at the present co before I start at the new place I was contemplating asking my new boss for some background reading, specs, functional definitions etc. Will that be perceived as a suck job?

Wonder if they will issuer me a new phone? May be a lap top. Maybe I should have negotiated that…..

My spouse seems happy with the move and my son, while wise in some respects, doesn’t seem to understand. It was funny. Last night over dinner he said “why leave XXX? They are nice people and they pay you a fair wage”. I know he was paraphrasing something we had discussed many months before (Probably while I was contemplating leaving the co).

Such is life

An interesting day at the office.

Today I will quit my job. It is something that I have done in the past and it doesn’t get any easier with practice. As I sit here waiting for my manager to get out of a meeting I am reflecting on the questions I think he will ask.

I know he will take it personally and to some small extent he should. But, well, such is life. I have a better offer so of I go. I wonder if he will attempt to bribe me with more cash. I hope not.

Are feelings of guilt normal in these situations? I have given three years of my life to this organisation and they have profited from my experience, knowledge and creativity. For my part I have been fairly well paid.

My reasons for leaving (apart from the cold hard) are mixed. But basically I like being a leader rather than a follower. I will go from being a service provided to a client role.

It will become interesting over the next few weeks, I have to give four weeks notice and I suspect that I will have to work them. My clients will undoubtedly ask all the hard questions but you can’t please every one. I sincerely hope that the company is not to badly impacted by my departure.

The job I have accepted is parallel with and not in competition with the business of my clients so there is no conflict of interest to deal with so at least that is good.

And of we go

I guess I have been online for about 12 years basically leaching of others so now it's my turn to return a bit back to the either.

I sort of know it is important to contribute and, well that is my intention. With any luck I will return on some sort of regular basis to share what I am thinking about and what is important to me.

I chose the name of this blog to fix me geographically but remain anonymous. I know, I know, that it is impossible to keep hidden on line but well I guess I will remain hidden from the folks that know me in solid space (is that a bad cliché?).

Any how let me introduce my self. I am fast approaching 40, hmm, maybe that’s why I am going for this bit of extra exposure?, A bit overweight, and, well, basically setting into what will become the rest of my life in suburban grey.

I find it amazing that I can perceive the change of my mindset and the dulling of my sensory perception of the world. I don’t think I am over obsessed with this milestone in life but more of a keen observer.

I do enjoy listing to music and on occasion even find enough space to try a bit of composition and recording. My taste in music is fairly wide but I mainly listen to hip hop and blues roots.

I have noticed that I have started all paragraphs so far with “I”. I must try not to. But well when you are writing about yourself what can you do. At some point I will start writing about things that are important to me of stuff that I have found good, outrageous or just interesting on some level.

My work would classify me as a sever hardware Geek. My time is spent creating, fixing, investigating etc E/I systems for large multinationals. May be at some point I could go into some mind numbing detail……

I have once child, a boy, who is trying hard to give his mum and I a hard time. I find one of the challenges of parenthood separating my sympathies for the boy with keeping him in line.

I lean to the left politically and am always flabbergasted at the poor level of political dialogue in this country (don’t know about yours). There is only one local paper where I live and it is basically an organ for the conservative government.

Any how that’s about it for today. Hope my failing memory will allow me to remember how to get back into this blog….

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