Testing Blogger. It's been a while.

Somebody Works Too Much
That somebody is me.

Dinner for Four
This evening was spent with Alison, Kim, and Erin at Brio in Cleveland's Premier Lifestyle Center. It sure was nice hanging out with those gals. Our service was questionable - I think we determined we had four different wait-staff, yet it still took unnecessarily long to get our food - but the food was enjoyable. Plus it gave us more time to talk. I haven't been able to get out and see friends as much with my work schedule, so hopefully this will change. I won't be traveling in the near future, though I will be working late shift, so that pretty much affects any weekday, evening plans (which includes several shows). That's the way things go, I suppose.

Websites Take Time
This is something I have lacked an abundance of lately. I'm probably about 75-80% done with the new site. Movable Type is truly a wonderful tool, and I'm really looking forward to digging in and creating some dynamic pages. I'm even considering throwing my bootlegs into my SQL database so I can manipulate that data anyway I like.

One huge difference between MT and Blogger is that I currently only have to worry about one template. Well, MT has at minimum five templates I have to concern myself with. It's no biggy, just a little time consuming, that's all. It'll all be worth it once I get it finished up.

The Object at the End of History @ The Grog Shop
Rick's been bugging me about this band for what feels like three years now. With his help, they finally rolled through town last night. Excellent excellent set. They are a five piece (3 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drum kit) instrumental rock band, that ranges from dreamy post-rock, to syncopated math-rock, and even leans towards the heavier side at times. I grabbed their CD for $5. It's not as impressive as their live show. I hope they make their way back again and this time I'll bring my bootleg gear.

The Face of Things to Come
I have successfully implemented Movable Type on my server account. This is to say that you should expect a change to this page in the coming months. I have to tool around in it some more and get comfortable (not to mention transfer over my archives), but I don't suspect it will be too much longer. I'm looking forward to the power that will be granted me with the switch

In other news, I went record shopping today. What's the damage? 7 CDs and 4 LPs for $22.42. I certainly could have done worse. It felt good to sift through records for a couple hours. I don't get a chance to do it quite as often as I'd like.

Edit: Comments are working again. One of the many reasons I'm moving to MT.

File Under: More Activity Than I Had Anticipated
I got off my plane last night at 10:05 after having spent four days in Henry, IL, on business. Long nights of working added up to getting home a day earlier than anticipated. Another thing we didn't anticipate was having to worry about tornado producing storms. Consider the map below:

Henry is on the left hand side, denoted by the red star. As you can see, tornadoes hit just about everywhere around us on tuesday night. We heard several calls over the plant radio as they were sited. It kind of elevates your concerns a bit when you are in a chemical plant and tornadoes are touching down all around you. Between the caustic fumes and the explosions I'm not sure there would be much left if one hit the middle of the plant. Fortunately, none did and we carried on work as usual. It was kind of creepy though.

Funny Thing About Business...
One day you're employed by one company, the next day you are employed by another. It has been officially announced that Noveon, the company which I work for, has been bought by The Lubrizol Corporation. Being that I have been on vacation, I haven't been in the work environment at all to understand the ramifications of this. But based on the press release I've received from our CEO I can tell a few things:

1. Noveon will be a subsidiary of Lubrizol and essenstially run as a separate company.
2. Noveon will maintain its global headquarters in Brecksville, Belgium, and Hong Kong.
3. My contract comes up in June regardless of who owns Noveon, so I'm still kind of iffy about a job anyway.

That being said, the following statement from the Lubrizol press release presents a question or two:

Lubrizol expects the acquisition to result in a total of $40 million in cost synergies. “These synergies are anticipated to come from savings in raw materials, rationalization of manufacturing operations and other consolidation opportunities,” said Hambrick. “We plan to capture these synergies over the next 36 months.”

That's about the extent of my knowledge at this point. Am I a "consolidation opportunity"? Don't know. Based on what I do know, I feel pretty comfortable about having future opportunities within the company. Tomorrow I head out to our Henry, IL, plant to continue our server/email migrations. My boss may or may not know more than me. Regardless, this should prove to be an interesting next couple months.

Just Another Day in Paradise
My five days of fun in the sun was really more like three, after one takes into account the time for travel. Admittedly, it was nice to have no responsibility for a few days. I found myself walking around our resort, somewhat aimlessly, finding myself in strange hallways disguising themselves of "Emergency Exits". Riiiight. I also got a chance to take notice of the exotic wildlife, such as hummingbirds and little lizards.

 

Two of my mornings were spent playing 18 hole rounds of golf on the resort course. I'm a 9 hole a day kind of guy, so both days once I hit about the 12th hole I was just a little bit tired of chasing around a little white ball and trying to get it in a slightly larger hole. I did see some interesting (if not morbid) yardage stones, and got to bask in the glory of nearly out driving my father with my 1 iron. I never could get the hang of woods.

 

The temperature was seasonably mild, not really getting much above 72 degrees, and relatively windy. To me this is near perfect, but it's not exactly the perfect conditions for "beaching it". We hit Xanadu beach so we could see the beautiful blue ocean and feel the scorching heat of the sun when it did decide to come out from behind the clouds. Wiping the sweat from the brow after 5 seconds of sun exposure quickly reminded me how close I was to the equator.

 

It was an okay vacation. Again, it was nice to get away, but I felt kind of like a 5th wheel (in fact, I pretty much was one), sharing the vacation with my mother and father, brother and sister-in-law. Whatever. I was in the Bahamas, but I'll be just as happy to stop a few hundred miles shorter and land in Florida next time around. It's good to be home again (even if it is only for 20 hours). Tomorrow morning I'll be boarding a plane heading for Chicago/Midway.

This Week's Destination...
After several months on and off the road, I will finally be traveling for vacation. Tomorrow I will be going with my family to the Bahamas. To be specific, we will be visiting the Crowne Plaza Golf Resort & Casino. Five whole days of fun in the sun. I don't remember the last time I had a tan, but I might not have a choice but to come back with one this time.

We've got two rounds of golf planned, and that's really about it. I'm thinking about trying to do some snorkeling or something. Maybe some tennis with my Bro. I might even take a look around for a low-stakes Blackjack table...hmmm. Anyhow, I'm taking along my camera and laptop with hopes of posting pictures one evening, but we'll just have to see how things work out.

Riddle of Steel @ The Ravari Room
The Ravari room is an interesting place. It's certainly more of a bar than it is a rock club. Most of that observation is based on the attention paid by the patrons to the bands on stage (which was relatively little). Serendipitously, I found out when I arrived that Flotation Walls were on the bill as well. I haven't seen them play since I was a student at OSU. They've changed a bit since I saw them last. I don't like their songs as much, and they are certainly not as tight as they used to be, but who am I to judge. They still have the same general feel as they used to, but I just wanted them to bust out with "I'm a Bear," or their spectacular cover of Neil Diamond's "America". I knew that was wishful thinking.

Riddle of Steel performed a modest set to a good sized crowd (better than most I've seen in Columbus). Unfortunately, this crowd wasn't very receptive. But, I guess it's better to play to a bunch of seemingly uninterested people that to no one at all. It was good to hang out with the guys. I've seen them three times now, but never in my home town. The more I hit shows around here though, the more I think they should keep up this trend. The recording is available in the temp folder.

The Reputation @ The Beachland Tavern
It had been about a year since I'd seen The Reputation play. Last year they hit Northeast Ohio twice in February. I couldn't be so lucky this time, so I simply had to settle with once for the month of April. They split their time evenly between tracks of their self-titled debut and their new disc, To Force a Fate. Being that they opened up for John Vanderslice, and locals Six Parts Seven started the evening, the Thursday night show was well attended. For that, I say good for them.

I made a pretty quick trip of the show. I happened to see my old friend Dave there, and had a few words with him. Apparently, his band The New Wave has plans to move out to Seattle in hopes of making it. Best of luck to them. On an observational note, there were a lot of girls in the crowd; more than I'm used to, having recently attended a string of metal-ish shows. I think that may have had something to do with the headliner.

It's Not All Work and No Play
I just want to correct any impressions I may have given you about the project I am working on. Though we do put in regular 10-15 hour days, we do find 2 minutes, on occasion, to have some fun. I figured I would share a picture with you that documents one of those moments:

That's me taking full advantage of some absolutely SPECTACULAR safety glasses we found around the lab (which I may or may not have snuck into my luggage and brought them back home with me).