Spinning up

So things are really starting to hum along nicely here. I've been rehearsing with two bands: one is a blues/rock trio with guitar, drums and me on bari sax; the other is a large Afrobeat group with drums, percussion, bass, guitar, and three horns, and we're looking to add keyboard and vocals as well. It's been fun to get back into playing and just see how things are shaping up. I bought a new bari sax mouthpiece that is sounding good for the Morphine cover songs we are playing in the trio, and I'm still playing my monster Otto Link 8* metal mouthpiece for the Afrobeat group. I haven't played my Eigenharp much at all lately, but I have a list of songs I'd like to try to figure out on the Eigenharp. I'm also thinking about getting this software called Ableton that would allow me to record myself on saxophone, make loops, and then build up layers of loops the way Zoe Keating and Imogen Heap do. That would probably be fun, so we'll see.

My various business-y projects are moving along as well. I sketched out a little rock climbing gadget I've been thinking about for a while and snooped around The Home Depot for ideas. I may try to get someone to make a CAD drawing of it. I've finished a draft of an article, hired an editor from odesk.com to edit it, and sent it out to some colleagues for feedback. I also went to a meetup called Interaction Hour where I got a bunch of good input on Linkzie, most of which have already been coded and published. Still haven't found the right idea yet to dive into in terms of building a real-deal, money-earning web application, but I have some irons in the proverbial fire.

The increased social activity from music and my hard core tech meetup habit is really enjoyable though. I went to a cooking club gathering last weekend with some folks from Startup Weekend, and we're going skiing on Saturday. It seems pretty likely that I will develop friendships with some of these new bandmates as well, which I would also welcome. It's really easy to find activity partners when you relocate to Boulder as a 30-something, but growing those into legitimate friendships is more difficult. Anyway, things are feeling optimistic there though.

Today was sunny and warm. I spent most of the day in Boulder. I went to the 7am "The Rapture" climbing/fitness class and got to work with one of the climbing instructors one on one for ninety minutes, which was good. I climbed a fair amount yesterday as well so now my hands and arms are pretty sore today. After climbing I did some "laptopping" as Michale would say at Ozo and then Atlas. Bumped into Carly and Liz. Came home so I could get in a mountain bike ride before sunset. I rode my home turf of Davidson Mesa. It's nice to be able to mountain bike in shorts and a T-shirt at 70 degrees on Thursday and then ski on Saturday.

Oh, and I had lunch outside in the sun yesterday with Elise, so that should be some good vitamin D this week. Incidentally my doctor tested my vitamin D back in January and it's all good, so I guess I'm getting enough sunshine despite the long hours in the office coding and in the basement honking.