jeffjewell.org 2.0

2009-06-12T14:48:00.001-04:00

ROOMMATES - Episode 1

This is very funny.

The Ultimate Plan or, What the Hell is jeffjewell.org 2.0?

2009-06-02T17:24:00.002-04:00

As I've previously lamented, I have experienced at several points in my life the need for a retooling, a reloading... even a restarting or two... and accompanying periods of research into biological, psychological, and metaphysical tools or methods for retooling, reloading... even restarting... in the perfect cosmically balanced way. I've picked up pointers, gained wisdom, learned techniques, and developed my own processes to leverage those assets in my daily life.

And yet, here I am again... seriously considering a complete restart. Has all that study and effort been for zero practical value?

Basically, the answer to that has to be "no;" if you've truly logically come to the conclusion "yes" then its time for some inwardly-directed thinning of the herd, and even as disconnected as I often feel, I'm just not there yet. So there is a value to the study and effort that simply has not manifest or been recognized yet.

It's in that spirit that I've rebooted my web presence: it is my intention to remake this aspect of my life with the most solid foundations, within the wisest restraints, and to the highest ideals I've collected over the years, with the dual purpose of changing my own life for the better and helping to guide others through their own reboots, reloads, and restarts. Much of the foundation work has begun over the last few months, with domains moving around and web services being consolidated and software being installed. The next step is fleshing out the skeleton.

The main bones of the skeleton are the WordPress weblog at jjewell.com, the phpBB2 bulletin board at jeffjewell.org, the ZenCart shopping cart at cart.jeffjewell.net the MediaWiki-based jjwiki, Google Apps, and this Blogger weblog.

Good news and bad news. And good news.

2009-05-30T02:48:00.004-04:00

So I'm back to making a weblog entry after an absence that I feel good about justifying: although I haven't been making regular weblog updates, I have been making regular progress on my web presence. I've missed having a "real" web host where I could load software and setup databases, and I found a web host that fits my needs so perfectly that I think I'm going to write a post on it, here soon. MediaWiki, phpBB2, and ZenCart are installed and have basic functionality set up. And I've moved some domain names around to reflect the new content hierarchy on jeffjewell.net.

Which is where we come to the bad news.

I already think I made an error pointing jjewell.com to the jjewell.com jjwiki page. Although there are certainly steps I can take to customize MediaWiki's appearance, that page is for a substantially different audience than the rest of the wiki, and will likely always be subtantially different in layout and design. So different, that the best action may be to design that one page separately. Perhaps I abandoned iWeb too soon? Perhaps I'm the only one reading this and no one will ever care?

At any rate, as you can see from the un expurgated post time, I have rejoined this millennium and once again have internet access at home... so the final bit of good news is much improved access, meaning more content more quickly.

Dust... Settling...

2009-05-25T19:34:00.004-04:00

As DNS propagates throughout the Inter-Tubes, jjewell.com now points to the jjewell.com article in the jjwiki, jeffjewell.net now points to the jeffjewell.net article in the jjwiki, and jeffjewell.org now points to the index page of my discussion boards. This page is now available directly at weblog.jeffjewell.net, adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

The weblog will still be used for announcements, but the day-to-day stuff I've been trying and failing to use the weblog for will be more comfortable on the boards.

How do I transfer credit from other online postings?

2009-05-10T00:28:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I know that it looks like I've missed quite a few days here recently in regard to my "post a day" commitment... but that's only because I've made so few daily posts. I would, however, like to direct your attention to the following features, the jjwiki and the jjewell.com discussion boards. I am comfortable that the not insignificant infrastructure work I've done over the past couple weeks meets the spirit of my "daily" commitment, if not the letter of the "daily post" commitment. That's my story and I'm sticking to it... I may even amend the letter of the "daily post" commitment for just this kind of situation.

I'm really pleased to have an ssh/ftp style hosting account again.

Oh, and a Happy Day to all you Mothers out there.

Wheel Spinnin'

2009-05-01T20:38:00.002-04:00

It happens to me every so often... sometimes more often than others... and it's particularly upsetting when it comes (like it did this time) right after an however-brief burst of applied energy and putting-checks-in-boxes; I once again find myself with so many things I think I need to be doing that I'm not actually focusing on any of them enough to get anything done. In order to fix that I decided to just finish something... and that something became this post.

And this post is not going to end up being much of anything... seeing as how it's now hours later than it was when I started. As also happens to me every so often, once I finally get some momentum in a direction, other responsibilities (in this case, my job) sometimes take the fore.

But anyway, I suppose this does count as an entry.

Definition By Association

2009-04-26T16:11:00.004-04:00

So as I'm re-ordering the details of my life, I keep coming across brand names. I guess it's inevitable, I'm a child of the media, so I'm not going to beat myself up for it. But it is interesting to look at what has stuck around... what sorts of things I keep coming back to.

And by brands, that's not always the precise terms. Two things that meant a lot to me in my early days, the Miami Dolphins and silver coins (particularly dimes) aren't brands, but are still part of what I do.

Lego, Scripto, Mego, Atari, Nike (apparently I have a fetish for brands that end in vowels), Disney and Marvel are all companies that I've preferred, long term.

Anyway, I got fascinated thinking about what drew me to or kept me attached to different brands, and how that attachment still manifests. I'm thinking of doing a series a webpages about it.

I'm also thinking of re-doing my website with Scripto K780 style buttons.

Wow, this is good

2009-04-21T00:29:00.003-04:00

I really like this article by KC Joyner from the New York Times. Last year's center for the Dolphins, Samson Satele, is gone, replaced by former Raider Jake Grove. Some fast-fingered internet jockeys found Grove's stats and declared the combination of moves a serious blunder by the men who'd just gone 11-5 with a team that had been 1-15 the year before.

I'd watched the games. I knew Satele got knocked around a lot at the point of attack... particularly in games where it seemed to matter most (Patriots, Jets, for example). And I also knew that Parcells, Ireland, and Sparano weren't likely suspects to be get the short end of the stick in a player evaluation situation.

Thanks, KC, for reassuring me that I'm been right about everything all along.

Here's an idea

2009-04-19T16:24:00.002-04:00

I think I might just call my band jeffjewell.org.

It brings a couple different things into clearer focus, it offers a couple interesting options for sub-branding as different musical genres, and it actually solves a problem or two with regard to acquiring appropriate web presences for my new band name.

Well, I've done it again

2009-04-05T15:13:00.002-04:00

Hey, it's not like someone couldn't have seen it coming. Indeed, I imagine Suzy's recently over-zealous dedication to being at The House early in the week weren't as much about the specials she was making as it was about keeping me away from the people I was most likely to honor with one finger's worth of feedback on their efforts towards making the business a success.

Anyway, late last night or early this morning, depending on how you prefer to slice it, I responded to a co-worker's complaint along the lines of "I don't like this list of things about this place, I'm thinking it might be better to just quit" with words to the effect that "yes, I think that would be best for everyone."

The conversation degenerated rapidly, even for one that involves me. So I'm bracing myself... I'm experienced enough in life to know that when you say something that desperately needed to be said but no one else would say, there are usually repercussions.

New Hours for Suzy's Kitchen at The House

2009-04-04T18:01:00.002-04:00

Starting next week, Suzy's Kitchen at The House will open at 5:30 Monday-Friday and 3:00pm Saturday and Sunday, closing at 10:00pm each night.

The Perfect Weekend

2009-04-03T14:39:00.003-04:00

No, not the perfect getaway after a long week's work. The vast majority of my work week occurs between 5:30pm Friday and 10:00pm Sunday, and I'm trying to see what I can do to make things go more smoothly. First off, I'm in early to prep Bar Crack and Fried Pickles.

Of course, the real first thing I do I get connected... New Millenium Poverty Policy dictates no internet at home, so I have to open up my seven essential pages in Firefox (two Gmail accounts, two Blogger weblogs, MySpace, Facebook, and Google Reader) and my twitter client (currently Nambu... although rumor has it Adium is adding twitter connectivity in its next version).

Anyway, I'm connected, in to work early, and looking to have a great weekend. We'll see how that goes.

Well, you missed it.

2009-03-27T23:59:00.000-04:00

I don't know who you are, but it's still a safe bet you aren't one of the thirty-or-so folks who attended the festive return to the stage of myself and trusty bassman Pick. Too bad for you, it went well enough that I'm hitting up Justin for a return engagement.

I'll let you know the details when I hear them so you'll have plenty of time to plan ahead and not make the same mistake you made last night.

Vintage Gear: Scripto pencils

2009-03-22T13:38:00.003-04:00

So with our new focus on frugality (thanks, economy!), I'm going through the boxes of stuff that once resided in a rental warehouse. Among other treasures from my youth, I came across my stash of Scripto mechanical pencils. I remember finding some of these on closeout at Lechmere in the late 80's or early 90's and buying several just so I'd have a few of the things.

I've always been more of a pencil guy than a pen guy... not sure why, that's just the way it is... most of my Scriptos have rounded off edges from riding inside the coils of spiral-bound notebooks most of their lives.

So, finding them (but not, tragically, the tube of spare leads and box of spare erases I'm absolutely certain I'd compiled at the time), I immediately set out on the internet to find out more about them. Turns out there's one page to rule them all on Scripto, Roger Russell's Scripto history page. Roger also has a page to buy a few NOS Scriptos and supplies.

The countdown begins

2009-03-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

From now until Thursday, there is the very real possibility that every entry I make here will have to do with my show at The House on Thursday. There' s a couple new songs that I want to post fake sheet for (just in case Pick and I don't get to practice together before the show), and then there's whatever clever marketing I can come up with.

Yeah, stay tuned for that one.

WIsdom Applied, Failure Mode

2009-03-20T23:46:00.002-04:00

Alright, it's true, I've missed a few days. And I'll admit I'm currently fighting a couple long-standing tendencies by a) going ahead and writing something even though I don't feel I've anything to say that will make up for several days' absence and b) not offering some kind of explanation for that absence. All a does is delay the inevitable and all b does is give the appearance you're making excuses.

So, horse, consider yourself remounted. And that's all I've got to say about that.

Narrowing down

2009-03-15T23:59:00.002-04:00

Between needing to get this setlist out to a couple people and committing to writing some kind of weblog entry every day, today's post is the most current version of he setlist for my show at The House Thursday the 26th. Comments and requests are welcome.

There's A Story In Your Voice
Things Snowball
Days Are Never Long Enough
Gone
My Last Song To Jenny
Blue Wing
Cracklins
The Red Rose and the Briar
Caroline
Throwin' Horseshoes at the Moon
Way Over Yonder
Sweet Suzanne
Midnight Moonlight
Ballad of Pancho & Lefty

Salvation Song
Carmelita
2000 Miles
Dead Flowers
Blackbird
Childish Things
Play A Train Song
Free Fallin
St. Mary of the Woods
Overkill
Passionate Kisses
Wagon Wheel
I Hear Them All
Mary Jane's Last Dance
What Deaner Was Talking About

Seems To Want To Hurt This Time
Master of Disaster
The Waiting
Tonight We Ride
Bad Enough
Sorryville
Sorry Man
Words of Woody Guthrie
Orphan Girl
The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes
Sister Lost Soul
King of California
Withered and Died
Me And God
Twisting

Souvenirs
You're Still Standing There
Lucky Ball and Chain
Unwed Fathers
Copperhead Road
Galway Girl
Me and My Uncle
Driver 8
How Much I Lied
Sweet Virginia
Another Town
Carl Perkins Cadillac
Don't Go Back To Rockville

Effective grassroots advertising in the age of ubiquitous information

2009-03-14T23:59:00.000-04:00

As most folks reading this weblog will already know, Suzy and I are trying to make a success out of running the kitchen at a local club, The House. We started serving food at the end of August, trying to make our reputation on the simple quality of our food. So sure are we that, once people find out about us and give us a try, they'll be back and they'll tell friends, that in November I cut back my "regular job" hours, and in December gave it up completely.

Although the past couple of weeks have been brutally slow for both bar and food sales, we've enjoyed some success, particularly regarding feedback that, indeed, once you eat at The House, you want to come back again. The reality, though, is there simply aren't enough folks coming in to try things in the first place.

We've stuffed menus in newspaper boxes in the surrounding neighborhoods... we've MySpaced, Facebooked, and Twittered... we've partnered with local hotels and taxis... next week I'm going to see if I can parley my music into some interest in the food by performing Thursday (9:00PM March 26th, The House, 507 W Georgia RD, Simpsonville, at the Georgia RD exit off of I-385).

It's just not happening. Turns out people laregly ignore what's in their newspaper boxes... MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have a miniscule signal-to-noise ratios... hotel and taxi users are almost by definition "not from around here" and don't become regulars... I mean, sure, my show is undoubtedly going to be a standing-room only, affair, but how many nights a week can I reasonably expect them to book me?

So you tell me... how do you advertise your small startup locally and effectively?

MySpace vs Facebook

2009-03-13T23:59:00.002-04:00

I've been on both Facebook and MySpace for years and never really found either particularly useful or interesting. MySpace, in particular, was and is pretty painful to use (all that color... it's like Walt Disney threw up); and it was hard for me to find much value just browsing around the sites, or even many people I knew (I was born in the 60's, meaning the average MySpacer was about a third my age).

I'd been grudgingly and minimally keeping up with MySpace, because one thing it was good for was publicizing when we were playing somewhere, but Facebook just seemed like a place for college students to tell each other which classes they hated.

Over the six months to a year, though, something has been happening on Facebook: people keep signing up. Old people (don't get offended, I mean "old like me" on this one), people I went to middle and high school with.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be much more than an odd factoid, but it does make me wonder just what happened that pushed things over the edge. A particular mention or a critical mass of mentions in other media, perhaps?

Another challenge met!

2009-03-12T23:59:00.000-04:00

I feel terrible.

I'm not just talking about physically... although that is in fact the case: everyone around has been sick for a week or so, which of course affected not-in-the-slightest-way our workload, meaning we're all sick and tired and behind on everything and feeling as though I just don't have the strength to lift myself out of this..

So much of what needs turning around has to do with maintaining a positive outlook... and its hard to do that when you're sick and tired and behind on everything and feeling as though ou just don't have the strength to lift yourself out of this.

But! Instead of using that as an excuse or roadblock, here I am, turning the negative into positive by doing that which I should be doing, even though I don't feel like it.

Which, I suppose, is the dirty little secret of "Just Do It." There's no "if you feel like it" tacked onto the end. Yes, it is important, when you're all up and excited about an opportunity to "Just Do It" rather than over-planning or rationalizing the action out of consideration... but in the long run, it's even more important to to "Just Do It" when you're not up and excited about it.

So here's my daily offering, one I'm not that up or excited about. It wasn't inspired, but it just got done.

Quantity vs Quality II

2009-03-11T23:59:00.000-04:00

Okay, due to the realities of internet connectivity and who happens to be working at The House on particular days, I'm sitting here staring at my own at-this-writing-still-to-be-posted weblog from last night and thinking "So, if I ask, should I attempt open heart surgery, commercial aircraft piloting, or Ultimate Fighting, the answer is "Just Do It," without regard for deceased patients, passengers, or personal persons?"

It's true: I can seem critical. But if you look at my injections from a point of view of "how does Jeff think such-and-such can be improved," I come off much more sympathetically and likeably than if you read me with a "what does Jeff think sucks" mindset.

At any rate, "Just Do It" turns out to be the answer for "how?" not "what?" "Just Do It" is not the method by which I realized that I will be happiest creating and performing songs... it is merely the mantra that must be adopted when I decide how I going to create and perform songs. The method itself is far less important than the act of creating and performing songs. David Bowie has written songs by cutting by newspaper and magazine articles and randomly assembling the parts (he famously had a computer program written to save him the trouble of doing it manually); the DiVinyls wrote a song out of a made-up conversation they had to intentionally freak-out a rubber-necking listener at a diner; there are songs written from events current and historic, human beings and fictional characters; there are songs where the music came first and songs where the lyrics came first; there are both individual and team efforts that have resulted in songs.

The question of "what?" can be a sticky one... and I suppose it's one that I need to think more about, if this weblog is going to cover the ground I hope it will. But the answer to "what?" is also something that is often answered out of need, percieved lack of options, or even pure chance. I never really planned to be a cook, but it turned out that's what happened as I was following the music.

Anyway, I just felt that needed to be clarified.

Quantity vs Quality

2009-03-10T23:59:00.001-04:00

I read something interesting today that I'm looking forward to following up on... I really really want this internet tidbit to be true.

The story goes there's a ceramics class and the instructor draws a line down the middle of the room, tells one half "you will be graded solely on quantity: the more pots you make the higher your grade will be," and tells the other half "you will be graded solely on quality: turn in only one pot, the better it is the higher your grade will be." At the end of the semester, the highest quality individual pots all came from the group that was told they'd be graded on quantity: by making as many pots as they could, they just got better at making pots.

This is exactly the kind of thing I need to hear. I am a person (casts gaze downward in shame) who can slip into a perfectionistic coma, meticulously over-planning a project even past its own due date... ending up half-assing something together the night before. The irony, or course, being if I'd gone ahead and half-assed it the evening it was assigned I could have avoided the came-to-naught planning work altogether. It's hard, in the heat of the moment, to convince yourself of something that feels counter to your experience: what? An increase in quantity is correlated with an increase in quality? Nonsense! But it seems to be true, at least during the fairly early part of the human learning curve.

Like I say, I really want that story to be true, but it just seems too neat and tidy; phrases like the "highest quality... all came from" bit always sound fishy to me. I've got "investigate pottery story" on my list. But I'm trying to apply this wisdom whether or not this anecdote turns out to be true: in the long run, getting out there and doing something that isn't very good is far better than not getting out there at all.

And actually, come to think of it, I have to listen to more proof of this theory on an almost weekly basis. It turns out that the bands that play at smallish local bar and grills, well, some of them just aren't that good. I personally know and have played with musicians far more talented and well-practiced than a quarter to a half of the bands that appear regularly at The House and other local music venues... musicians who aren't even trying to play out because they think they're not good enough. Basically, these folks have talked themselves out of being paid to practice.

There also seems to be a certain amount of people who, for all practical purposes, never start _anything_ because of the underlying fallacy that "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right." The reality, of course, is that if something is worth doing, doing it less-than-perfectly is far superior to not doing it at all.

I'm not sure if whatever ad executive (or, more likely, whatever unpaid intern slaving for some ad executive) that came up with "Just Do It" knew that they might be onto a basic truth of the human condition, but that is clearly the case. Is it important to do this the best way I can? "Just Do It." What if I don't do this perfectly? "Just Do It."

This week at The House: ladies night, Jason Swain, and Kelli Cheats!

2009-03-09T21:08:00.003-04:00

Come out and try The House this week:

Tuesday Night: Ladies Night with Margarita and Martini Specials!

Thursday Night: Jason Swain live 9PM!

Friday Night: Dance Party with DJ Shiver 10PM!

Saturday Night: Kelli Cheats live 10PM!

Or just come out and have dinner at Suzy's Kitchen, 5:30 'til 10:00 M-T, 5:30-2:00 F, 12:30-2:00 Sa, 12:30-10:00 Su

The House
507 W Georgia Road
Simpsonville SC

Wisdom Applied

2009-03-08T23:59:00.001-04:00

So the idea is to take my accumulated wisdoms and apply them to various aspects of my life. Right out of the gate, my web presence was one aspect that passed the scrutiny of Primary-Yet-Still-Generically-Referred-To Wisdom #1, Simplify: the web sites stay. Or some of them do, anyway, which leads us to Primary-Yet-Still-Generically-Referred-To Wisdom #2, Organize: the web sites that stay need to for and/or about something.

This jeffjewell.org weblog, for instance, is going to feature approximately daily updates on what I'm doing and thinking about. Topics that will likely be touched on here include homeschooling and child rearing in general, the Miami Dolphins and pro football in general, singer/songwriter-ing and music in general, my MacBook Pro and OS/X and linux computing in general, and the re-building of my finances and the American Economy in general.

There are some other wisdoms that helped father the new enthusiasm preset here... paradoxically or obviously enough, the first step of getting something done is getting something done, so I've declared the weblog to be the first something. Although the exact number of repititions necessary hasn't been consisent, another wisdom I've gleaned from multiple sources is that if you make yourself do something for 30 (or 45 or 60 or whatever) days, your system will have integrated it as a habit, so I've dedicated myself to daily updates through the summer.* I'll apply the wisdom that writing down goals has a positive effect on the achievement of those goals by saying that my intention here is to build a readership/listenership... One Thousand True Fans, as I've heard it put (I'll write more about this at some point. You can probably just Google it and get the gist).

To sum up: I'm re-evaulating my life and its contents (why couldn't my mid-life crisis have come during the eighties, when I could have just bought a Corvette, snorted some blow off some airline stewardesses, and moved on with life), and not only do I feel an internet presence is important to me, I feel it's going to be both a tool for making and monitoring my revival, and hopefully a worthwhile resource for others.

* - daily, I admit upfront, in this case must have a certain amount of leeway built into it. Although right now I do work at The House most days, occasionally (like today) I'll get a day off. So although this was, indeed, written Sunday night, it will not get posted until sometime on Monday (and maybe possibly even Tuesday) when I return to the magical land of internet-connectivity-dom. I do intend to back-date such posts so they show up on the "right" day, so I thought I'd point it out myself before it looked like I was sneakliy changing dates after-the-fact.

Journey... thousand miles... single step... yada, yada

2009-03-07T23:14:00.003-05:00

So I've been putting together a few different things that I want to get on the web, and making some specific changes in the way I approach things. One of the specific changes is to make a commitment to doing daily weblogs. Another change is to make an concerted effort to re-evaluate what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. Long story short, I'm not where I want to be and these are parts of how and why I'm fixing that.

One of the wisdoms with which I'm now redefining things boils down to a Nike ad: Just Do It. So, even though I intended to have something in particular to post today, it's not ready and it's not going to be ready anytime soon (If fact, it may end up being a much grander scale than I'd originally envivioned). So, in the name of following through on a commitment to myself... here's the next step on my journey.