many of these trees were my friends...

Yesterday EMI Music, the company I work for, restructured and layed off 20% of it's North American workforce. Crap. There's no good way to say that. In Nashville we lost almost 30 people in our company of 200.

I feel like Treebeard, one of the Ents from Lord Of The Rings, when he stumbles out of the forest into a clearing and sees all of his young trees chopped up and lying on the ground, and says, "...many of these trees were my friends...." So sad. Work was just not the same today without them.

Some of them had been working at EMI for 10 to 15 years. Some for just a few months. It was like a tornado coming through... a few people here, a few people there, and then they're gone. It was odd, awkward, and very very foreign. In the midst of it all I almost feel guilty still being here. I just happened to get hired into a division that was growing in sales two years ago, so here I am. As much as work frustrates me many days, I feel very blessed to still have my job.

The fact that the music industry is suffering, and that people are illegally downloading music, became very real yesterday. The growth in sales at services like iTunes is not countering the decline in CD sales. People are getting their music off the internet and burning it from their friends CDs.

And yesterday it cost 30 of my friends their jobs.


Today you should listen to...
Future Of Forestry "You And I"

night at the alley

Ah yes... Saturday night we all piled into the car and headed down to the local bowling alley to roll a few rocks. Good times. In truth I've never been that great of a bowler. I always feel very accomplished when I break 100, and topping out at 125 the other night made me feel pretty good. Steph has invented a style of bowling all her own... maybe we should call it "trot, hop, drop". It's kinda cute actually. I worked with her a little bit to smooth the release down a bit, but then she ended up doing worse, so I let her go back to "trot, hop, drop". Whatever works right?

Of course this all leads up to me making fun of our favorite local blogger, Uncle Tim. Do you all know that he was quite the bowler back in his day? A competitive bowler I might add... the whole family actually! He was one of those guys who had his own bowling ball, along with it's cute little bag and polishing cloth. He always harrassed me because my trumpet in highschool was so shiny - trumpets are supposed to be shiny - but I could actually shave in the reflection of his bowling ball. Amazing.

Tim the bowler. League and everything - had the jersey, had the shoes. Was even on the highschool team (and I've got yearbook photos to prove it). Rumor has it he was the anchor though. Tim was actually seriously considering bowling professionally. I remember sitting in physics class with him actually reviewing his college choices based on the performance of the school's bowling league.

Oh what's that Tim? You wanted me to update my blog? Ok, here you go.

Go Colts!


Today you should listen to...
Damien Rice "Grey Room"

eye phone

On Tuesday our favorite company whose name begins with Apple announced the debut of their highly anticpated iPhone, a "trademarked" name which has since come under fire in a lawsuit filed by Cisco yesterday... but I digress.

So the iPhone. Say what you want about Apple, Macs, and such, but this is one heck of a beautiful product they have created. It's an iPod, a cell-phone, and internet communication device all in one. It's widescreen. It's wireless. It's thin. It's about as small as you could make it with all of the things it is capable of. A modified version of OS X is actually built into the thing. It automatically shifts from portrait to landscape mode based on the way you hold it. It automatically shuts off the buttons when you hold it to your ear so you don't accidently hit a key while you're talking to someone. It's all touch-screen... I'm pretty sure there is only one actual "button" on the whole thing. It's web-capable like no other phone before it. It will change the landscape of music devices, cell phones, and PDAs from this day forward.

A $600 price tag and two-year Cingular Wireless contract aside, you gotta just admire the sheer genius of it. Spend some time on the website (also one of the most beautiful websites I've ever seen) and check this thing out - if you're a fan of iPods and electronic gadgets, the iPhone will blow your mind. Seriously.


Today you should listen to...
La Rocca "Goodnight"
(while a little disjointed, this is such a good album... hard to choose one song)

if this is winter, i want a refund

This is ridiculous. It’s January 5th and 64 degrees outside. Normally I would blow it off as, “this is Nashville… it’s warm all year here.” And it generally is, and I deal with it, and whatever. But for the love of pete, I was back home in Minnesota for a week and a half over Christmas and there was NO snow at all (well, except for a couple inches on New Years Eve, which in the end was irrelevant).

I’m sick of all this warmth all the time. Nashvillians claim that they are blessed with 4 seasons in the south…I have yet to distinguish a difference between fall, winter, and spring down here. Meanwhile, I see a headline yesterday that they predict 2007 to be the warmest year on record which means another unbearable summer of ridiculously high heat and 197% humidity.

Look, I know all of you that live up north get sick of the cold too in the winter. I’m not wishing the Arctic on you. I’d just like to see a little snow a few times a year.

I’m going to move to Alaska.


Today you should listen to...
The Album Leaf "Thule"

3,491

3,491: This is the number of miles driven in the last 12 days.

58: This is the number of hours driven in the last 12 days.

We do this to ourselves every year. I don’t know why we have chosen to live so far away from every stinking member of our family. From Nashville to Minnesota, to northern Minnesota, to Nebraska, to Kansas, to Nebraska, to Minnesota, and back to Nashville. The holidays become this strange caffeine-induced blur of dotted white road lines interspersed with segments of the traditional family griping about politics, religion, and why the kid working at the grocery store can’t keep his hair cut a decent length… the gall.

So, another Christmas season in the books. It was good to see all of our family and friends, and it was worth the 3,491 miles. We got my parents an iPod nano… spent several days instructing them on the intricacies of digital music. My grandparents got a couple DVDs, so we spent some time instructing them on how to use their DVD player (again). Many family board games enjoyed, much chocolate and cookies consumed, some good gifts received. And I love the Midwest – I get claustrophobic with all of these hills around me all the time. It finally snowed New Years Eve… would have enjoyed the snow a week earlier, but it will have to work for this year.

I just put new tires on the car two weeks ago. It’s time for a rotation and another oil change.


Today you should listen to…
U2 “New Year's Day”