| Volume Eleven: 25 October 1997 | ||
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I've officially joined the Fourth Estate. I've pointed folks at the
Bass Frontiers web
site for a while now, in recognition of the quality of their online
presence. Of course they also have a more tangible magzine,
one I've been reading for a while now. They're a little different
from many of the other "player" magazines, though, in that they actively
solicit input from members of the playing community. Never one to invest
my two cents when I could share it with the world, I sent Dale Titus,
who's recently spelled Jim Hyatt as Editor, four album reviews. What
I'd had within reach was about what you'd expect: the
Jamiroquai,
Charlie Haden/Pat Metheny, and
Queensryche reviews that I've already
put up, along with a review of Altura's Mercy that I'll get up
here soon. The problem being that they were all in serious need of
a diet if they were going to find a home anywhere less esoteric than
my own site. So I chopped them down to a manageable (publishable)
size and sent them off. Dale benevolently decided to use the Queensryche
and Altura reviews, which underscored one problem with the Barnhart
Diet. The dumb things look like I did a search-and-replace on the proper
nouns in the review and called it a day, at least to my eyes (the friendly
voices in my life have been less harsh in their assessment). In any event,
I may see them as dogs, but someone saw fit to publish my dogs, which is
reason for (minor) celebration in these parts.
Aside from that, I guess it's incumbent on me to explain the recent inactivity of the site. I apologize for that, but the deluge that was my workload when I wrote about the vacation I took in August has become a Noah's Ark-style flood. I've always considered it imperative to have a life outside of the workplace, and spending the precious free seconds I had before a computer just didn't seem the appropriate thing to do to get away. So you've seen the signs of atrophy around here lately. Hopefully, everything will be looking streamlined and renewed again soon. I haven't done much with the larger projects recently, but I have expanded the Humor section a bit. Back in Volume Nine of the News, I talked at some length about Allison Massenzio, using the phrase "peach of a human being" to describe her willingness to deal with my periodic not-quite-fully-successful experiments in CATI Programming. She's since gone on to Veterinary School at the University of Liverpool (doing things somewhat backwards, she's managed to become published in the field before beginning graduate work), and I've found her even more "peachy" a human being outside of work than as a client. So my offical well-wishing for this volume of the News belongs to her. But fear not for Work-Adam. The part of her job that I'm interacting most on a day-to-day (or, at least, week-to-week) basis has fallen into the competent hands of Jeannine Bogan. Since the picture I used to refer to Allison previously is half-Jeannine, I've given the whole thing an honest-to-God description and I'd be beyond remiss if I didn't mention than Jeannine's been supremely patient and peachy herself. I suppose that's quite enough about my work. I haven't yet become vain enough to thing than anyone but the people closest to me care a whit about any of this. Unfortunately, in stepping away from my work, I've left the majority of the recent history of Adam behind. Perhaps that's for the best; I'm a long-winded guy even when brevity is a goal. This gives me an opportunity to make this mercifully short. And so I will. |
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