sketches towards a biography...
(entries are listed from newest to oldest)
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02.03.01, 18.21
a cool link i was sent today. check it out, won't you?
01.31.01, 11.57
yet more time between journal entries. i've been having some major problems coping with reality recently, partly out of fatigue and frustration, partly out of going off my zoloft for three or four days which led to a combination of physical illness and emotional distress. i'm still feeling it...i'm still having a difficult time feeling normal. i'm feeling very anxious, nervous, edgy. i hope the medication starts kicking back in soon, because i'm honestly not too sure how to cope with it otherwise.
missed the last three days of work, honestly mostly because of what i wrote above. also because the brakes on our car died yesterday on the way into work and I was afraid to go any further. so i took the car to a garage, hopefully it'll be done very soon, and i'll be going in late today. part of me doesn't even want to...the stress of working there is getting unbearable. i don't know how much more i can take...
in other news...
...nothing, really. just trying to cope, i guess.
NP: nothing. silence. waiting for the phone call that the car is done.
picture of the day...courtesy of my loving and tolerant wife donna:
01.15.01, 23.08
another ten days...life has kept me busy. radiation has been kicking my lilly-white butt hard, and i've been having difficulties breathing. i've been put on steroids to try and help my lungs fight back a little. i'm about two weeks into the radiation cycle, and then we get to deal with the pre-testing and stuff for the stem cell transplant. i still don't want to do it, but i have no choice. if i don't, i die. i'm afraid of dying more than i'm afraid of the transplant. lesser of two evils, i guess i'll go to philly for the transplant.
been doing quite a bit of music trading over the last ten days or so. as i mentioned below, my CD-RW drive went bye bye on me, causing roughly 12 cd's to go out bad. i listened to them on the dying drive, they sounded fine, so i sent them. the lesson from all of this is that i listen to the burned cd's on my stereo now rather than on the computer...it's more reliable that way. i also extract each cd to the hard drive before burning, which has led to more reliable results. it's rough learning the hard way, especially when it ends up affecting other people as well. they took it well at least, and were willing to work with me through my problem, which was heartening.
tonight while doing website updates i'm working on correcting a show that was sent to me. mike gardiner, a fellow member of the freakout mailing list, sent me a most unbelievable genesis show from the calling all stations tour...the final tour and the only tour with new singer ray wilson. it's from the national exhibition centre in birmingham UK. but the person who burnt it for him burned it track at once, leaving 2 second gaps between the tracks. i'm now manually going through the tracks and editing out the gaps thanks to the wonderful program sound forge 4.5 xp. then i'll burn off a few copies (a new one for me, and one for mike, and then one for a trading partner of mine). this is the fun stuff...makes me feel like i work in a recording studio.
today was a quiet day for everyone, and i got kinda sullen on everyone. later in the day veronica and i built a huge lego castle from all my old castle pieces. i'll be putting up pictures of it in a day or so i figure...it was loads of fun and a nice way to get away from everything for a while.
one of the bad side effects of the radiation, other than the shortness of breath, is the fact that i am getting irradiated on my throat, and now i'm having a little bit of a hard time swallowing...feels like something burning in my throat or a little constriction. so it's time to begin making shakes. today i whipped up a cool one from milk, vanilla ice cream, and 2 cut up oranges. tasted like an orange creamsicle. yummy! i assume i'll probably get tired of shakes too, but not for a while at least...
almost done editing tracks... :-)
spent part of the weekend helping veronica with a project on bobcats for her class. it's a fantastic report, she did a wonderful job gathering information and putting it together in an intelligent orderly manner. i even learned a lot about the cats from her project. my task was to print out her report and find pictures for her, which i attacked with great gusto!
tracks done! i probably won't begin burning till tomorrow though...
let's see, what else is new...?
not a whole heck of a lot. trying to get well, get back to work on a regular basis, but it's been hard. i've been tired, and irritable too. not a nice person to be around, mostly.
np: blood on the rooftops, genesis (wind and wuthering)
01.05.01, 23.32
rough past two weeks. i haven't had much time to update the website with anything of interest, but i'm taking the time tonight. the biggest update to the website (and yes, i know i have a section for updates, but want to write about it here for a moment) is in my music trading section, where i added two new artist pages for marillion and yes, and updated several others. 14 new cd's in the mail today, and several more shows still forthcoming.
i write about it here because the biggest source of frustration for me over the last 24 hours was the discovery that my cd-rw drive went belly up on me, forcing me to replace it. i discovered this after finding out that several of my trading partners got stuck with bad disks from me. this is the worst example of something like this happening to me, ever, since i began trading over a year and a piece ago. it's going to take a lot for me to recover the kind of trust i've built up with some of these people, and if you are reading this, let me take the chance once again to apologise profusely for my mistake. it won't happen again...and it shouldn't have happened the first time.
now, what else is new?
christmas was good, with family and friends over. i did well gift-wise, with a good joystick, some cool software, and a most excellent gallilean (sp?) thermometer which rests safely atop our tv. the biggest gift i got was from the freakout mailing list, of which i am a member. they clubbed together to get me a 230.00 gift certificate to amazon.com. i got a whole load of cd's (flower kings, jethro tull, gentle giant) and some dvd's too. it was a shock and a wonderful surprise.
i also got gift certificates to a local mall and blockbuster video from people at work. but the best gift was being home for christmas.
turns out the chemo cycles i did did nothing to my tumor, so it's full steam ahead for the transplant. i didn't want to do this, but i have no choice it seems. i'm doing the radiation thing now, which tires me out very badly. and my immune system is way down, so i'm getting sick pretty easily.
loads of snow the past week or so, with a 18" snowfall 30 december and another 3 or so inches today.
work has been trying, between me being sick and disagreements with some co-workers, it's been stressful. we're in flux again, with several people leaving or preparing to leave again. things have been so unstable there, i don't honestly know how much more i can physically/emotionally/mentally handle/stand/cope with. i'm staying out of a sense of loyalty to brian (gm) and eileen (ops manager) because they have stood by my side through thick an thin. i owe it to them for now.
enough for tonight...tomorrow is chocolate chip waffles (yum!) and then a session of ad&d with our friends missy and jay. we just started a new campaign, so i'll probably put up a section for that too sometime...
NP: heart of the sunrise, yes (live at wembley 1991 roio)
12.24.00, 11.13
after working till midnight last night, my brain has the rough consistency of prune whip yogurt. So I'll instead post here two e-mails I sent out over the last few days, outlining my top 10 CD's and top 10 live albums of all time.
From: Bill
Knispel <moonglum@e...>
Date:
Thu Dec 21, 2000 11:16pm
Subject:
the CD's I cannot live without...
In no particular order, they
are:
Hawkwind: Live Chronicles. I am in a deep Hawkwind rut now, and this is my
current favorite. A 2 CD live set showcasing their Elric set. Killer!
Hawkwind: Space Ritual Alive In Liverpool and London. Their 1970's classic
live album. Space rock doesn't get any better than this at all.
Roger Waters: Amused to Death. Some cynicism to temper things. I love the
title track. And the Ballad of Bill Hubbard is the most emotional piece I
have ever heard. Jeff Beck is on this one, too!
King Crimson: Islands. Their lost classic album, and vastly under
appreciated. I love the title track, it is the most elegaic piece they have
ever done.
Genesis: Nursery Cryme. The Musical Box. I need not say more. Better
than
Supper's Ready, IMO. (Blasphemy!!!)
Marillion: Afraid Of Sunlight. Four words: Out Of This World. 'Nuff said.
Mozart: Requiem, Leonard Bernstein conducting. A fabulous rendition of the
infamous unfinished work by the Master, conducted by the Master.
Alice In Chains: Dirt. Unrelenting, dark, brooding, morose. Minor
harmonies, wah guitar, murky lyrics and dark, personal demon themes.
Gentle Giant: Playing the Fool Live. A weird pick, but I love the baroque
styling, madrigal-influenced multi-part singing, and intricate counterpoint
playing. Difficult music, and the best they have out!
Renaissance: Novella. Just as good as the well known Scheherazade, with
wider influences (Spanish guitar, rockier arrangements, madrigal style
vocals). The Sisters and The Captive Heart are two classics.
OK, that's my top ten...
From: Bill
Knispel <moonglum@e...>
Date:
Sat Dec 23, 2000 9:35am
Subject:
10 live CD's I couldn't live without
Boy, this one is
tougher...especially as two of my favorite live albums are
on my other list. I won't cheat and pick them.
Yes...Yesshows. I won't go along with the crowd and pick Yessongs. To my
ears the album was always too muddy for me, and really detracted from the
overall experience. I much prefer the crisper sound of the later live
album. And it has a live version of 'The Gates Of Delerium' on it. How can
you go wrong?
Genesis...Live. I'd really like to cheat and take this, along with the live
CD from the same basic show from the first boxed set, and combine them into
one all singing, all dancing double live CD. But I can't, so I'll pick this
one.
King Crimson...Cirkus. I can't pick one era of Crim to take with me, so
I'll take a compilation of all the eras. I won't get everything I want, but
I'll have variety...
Jethro Tull...the live in concert CD from 1970 that's in the 25th
anniversary boxed set. It's from Carnegie Hall I believe, and it's a really
cool set, with some old old stuff and 'My God' from Aqualung and all that...
ELP...Works Live. Again, I'd like to pick WBMFTTSTNE, but I'll take the
road less travelled and pick the later live album, as I loved hearing ELP
with the orchestra in 1977. Too bad I was only 4, and my parents listened
to mostly country at the time...I'd have loved to hear this as a child when
it was new...
Pink Floyd. They've been given the live treatment on three sets (Delicate
Sound Of Thunder, Pulse, and the first half of UmmaGumma), and while I like
all those, none is completely satisfying. So I'll pick a boot I have titled
Interstallar Fillmore, which is a stereo soundboard recording of the Floyd
live at the Fillmore West on 29 April 1970. Killer setlist...Grantchester
Meadows/Astronomy Domine/Cymballine/Atom Heart Mother/The Embryo/Green Is
The Colour/Careful With That Axe Eugene/Set The Controls For The Heart Of
The Sun/A Saucerful Of Secrets/Interstallar Overdrive. Phenomonal...
OK, those are the 'Big 6' bands...here's the last 4 live disks...
Nik Turner...Space Ritual 1994. Not a new remake of the original Hawkwind
live set, but a recording from the HW founder member's 1994 tour of the US
with some former Hawks, members of Pressurehed, Genesis P-Orridge from
Psychic TV and a few others. Really really great stuff...
Renaissance...Live At Carnegie Hall. This makes up for not taking any
earlier Ren material on my other list :-) Great renditions of the classic
Renaissance repertory, including side long takes on Song of Scheherazade and
Ashes Are Burning...
Rush...Different Stages. A great look at most all of the classic Rush
material.
Metallica...Live Shit Binge and Purge. The band, arguably at their height,
on a triple live CD that covers everything.
NP: A Saucerful Of Secrets, Pink
Floyd, Ummagumma
12/21/00, 8.24
the triumphant return of bill's picture of the day...taken yesterday morning:
our little one playing in the first real real snow of the year.
NP: nothing.
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