Time Enough to Read

If you're like me and find yourself on the road a lot you get tired of listening to the radio and your music collection. The audio book is the best remedy for these lackluster times of boredom while you're in your car, in a waiting room or even jogging. Recently, I've been checking out audio books from my nearby library (which I highly recommend over sipping a latte at Barnes and Nobel.

There is a major collection of audio books available for free from LibriVox, a division of The Internet Archive. I just downloaded a large collection of H.P. Lovecraft's work for free. LibriVox also has embeddable players on their site that you can place on your own site if you have an audience. I'll be adding the H.P. Lovecraft collection to one of my other websites, Miskatonic University.

Do you know of any other Audio Book Archives online that are free?

Essential Videos for Guitarists and Bassists: Learn How to Fix your Action

Any musician can tell you how frustrating it is to play an instrument that is not set up properly. Factors such as intonation, action and truss rod alignment can be huge issues that can determine how well you play an instrument. It will also affect its sound. In order to change these three factors on any type of guitar is seen by many as a highly complicated task. Recently I had to tackle this with my bass guitar and instead of finding a qualified guitar tech (good luck finding one in Miami) I decided to see what the Internet had available. It's amazing how much you can learn from the web especially through video. I came across this wonderful site called Expert Village and they have video tutorials that can help simplify this task.

I tried it and it made my Fender Squire feel like a Fender Standard P bass.

How to Adjust Intonation on a Bass Guitar:
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46259_fender-bass-intonation-adjustment.htm

How to Adjust the Truss Rod on a Bass Guitar:
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46257_fender-bass-truss-rod.htm

How to Adjust the Bridge Saddle on a Bass Guitar:
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46258_fender-bass-bridge-saddle.htm

What a great site. This knowledge is priceless to any guitarist.

Bringing Lodges to the World Wide Web

So I decided on starting a new business for 2009. I ran a company several years ago called Portalpoint and it worked out really well for about 3 years. Learned things to avoid, pitfalls to having a corporation and the benefits and strengths it provides. In the past 2 years I've been thinking about a particular type of business involving social organizations meant to connect people.

I'm a member of a Lodge and I redid their website about 3 years ago. As a result, most of our current membership is solely based on the website. The website is www.hibiscuslodge.com and it has worked out wonders for our membership. I've noticed that in these economic times, groups such as leagues and lodges could face problems and so the idea of getting the word out becomes limited. Enter...my company - Travelling East.

Travelling East is an online marketing company who's current purpose is to help lodges in need of web marketing. It's diffucult in our daily adult lives to want to join so many organizations and play an active role with them. Travelling East is meant to take the role of the marketing to the lodge or the league. We wrap up a bunch of social media that's availeble on the web for free and bundle them up for an organization that is not familiar with these resources. We set up an organizations:

Website
Facebook/Myspace profile
Youtube Channel
Google Analytics Tracking
Wordpress/Blogger Newsletter
Flickr Photo Gallery

By encompassing all these free technologies, the website can be populated by any or all members of the lodge and maintaining these services in the future is free. All the lodge/league has to pay for is the hosting fee for the website.

If you're interested in learning more, visit Travelling East.

Norwegian Black Metal: Kind of like a painting

Burning churches. Hooded men in concerts, naked with bags over their heads crucified. Heads of goats put on polls in front of the stage. So these are just some images from a Black Metal concert by Gorgoroth. This documentary goes into the world of Black Metal to explain its roots and follows the exploits of Norwegian Satatic band - Gorgoroth to uncover the mystery behind this type of music. I'm not so much into the music or its marketing, but I am into great documentaries and I just had to share this. This one goes out to my metal friends. Quote of the movie: "It's like with a painting you don't stop until it's finished." Scary!

Music World: True Norwegian Black Metal

Obama and Shakespeare

Obama delivered his moving Democratic nomination acceptance speech earlier this evening. His speech dealt with a moment in time that we can reflect and remember how we succeeded over a challenge. A change in administration is one thing but a change for Washington is another. It is a poetic example of a true king's speech. If you take step back you can even hear the words of Henry V coming through his message.


Henry V:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Obama:
And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again...Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.


The evening has been charged with politics and it's night's like this that I'm proud to be a part of this country.