New Job, Old Role?

So, out here in Grand Rapids, I've been floating around a little for the past couple weeks, applying to too many places from bookstores to Guitar Center to coffee shops, and I finally got something!  I'm teaching and fixing things at Grand River Music in Grand Rapids, so if you send your guitar or amp or anything there to have some electronics fixed in it/them, I'll likely be the guy doing it!  I've been doing this kind of thing for a long time for friends (and family), so I probably won't break your stuff. :)  There's a fun bench where I've worked so far too!  Check it:

I'm really quite pleased with the whole situation. :)  Maybe some fun stories of fixing will turn up here too!  More soon!

And also (if this isn't enough of a plug already) here's more about them: grandrivermusic.com

Bookshelf Funtime

My good friend and colleague built a bookshelf the other day.  I don't know if we saved any money with this project, and we certainly didn't save any time, but we got a pretty sweet place to put our books out of it, and it has a special Wurlitzer cubby!

We also do lots of our projects together, and we agreed to time-lapse everything we possibly could.  Here's one!

Mechanical Mower

This was a fun project.  Screwed the handle back on to this mechanical mower of my parents', and now we mow our lawn with it!

cueStick...

It may be early to post about this, but my friend Dave and I have an idea.  Numbers are nice inside the computer, but they're even better in a funny little box.  With JeeNodes, some java and shift registers, you can get just that!  This idea is more developed than that, I promise, but like I said, it may be early to post about this.  Here are some pictures:

Washtub Bass!

My friend Corrina and I made a washtub bass together.  I was going to play it in a play (called the Grapes of Wrath, maybe you've heard of it?) with my friends Meredith, Linnea and Emily, but I forgot I had a thesis I had to finish and an opera to play in (oddly enough, also called the Grapes of Wrath!) and I was very disappointed, but the bass lived on!  Here's how we made it:

I don't remember now, but I'm pretty sure I got most of my details from this website. These instructions are good too!

In fact, their directions are good enough, so here are some pictures instead.  Lazy blogging!

First Show!

So, I had my first gig!  This is a short update, and you can see my set here on vimeo.  Thanks to Wisaal, The Anatomy of Frank and Tim Lane at Scene Metrospace.  More Soon!

New Audio Interface

I think I'm going to buy a new audio interface, with more ins/outs.  I really just need one more than the two that I have, but I'm tempted to go all out and get this Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, but I'm waffling about it, because I'd love to use it with linux too.

(image from sweetwater.com)

More research to do, but I was reading a little about firewire audio devices with linux here.  More soon!