I won’t say his name but I stopped someone’s musical career once. He was an up and coming young guitarist, getting performing gigs here and there, and teaching guitar students to help pay his bills while waiting for a break. I took some lessons from him and as part of general chatting it came out that I worked with computers. He thought that was interesting and asked good questions, so I brought him some programming books. He became a full time programmer a couple months later and a very good one too. I’m glad it worked out for him, but I always wonder what we lost.
This was decades ago. I don’t remember the specific books but they were about programming in C. By now that is considered a neckbeard language. The first thing the guy did, with like zero experience, was write a video compression program in C.
My coach used to tell the story of a really promising track and field athlete who might have had a serious shot on the world scene, but quit to play in his band called The Barenaked Ladies. I never fact checked that, so I have no idea if it was true or not. But it stuck with me because it made me think of all the people who might have been incredible in one field or another who just never gave it a shot.
“Ike At The Mike” by Howard Waldrop. Award winning short story. An elderly Dwight Eisenhower is invited to the White House. Ike famously gave up his West Point cadetship to become a jazz musician. Among the attendees honoring him is the young Elvis A. Presley, Senator from Mississippi.
One for every room I intent for humans to survive in, plus one in each car. Also recently upgraded to hardwired CO/smoke detectors and each bedroom also has a combination alarm that uses Z-Wave to alert me anywhere, just as a backup. Also, we practice fire and earthquake drills monthly, along with a couple of other scenarios that are more rare/less dangerous.
Take a look at the fault lines around California. There’s lots of seismic activity, and we’re close to train tracks so we have gas mask drills too (added after what happened in East Palestine). Given the major large-scale risks in our area are fire, earthquakes, and a train derailment spilling chemicals, those drills seem prudent.
I don’t normally listen to rap, but ngl that song does slap.
I’ll throw in something completely polar opposite that I’ve been listening to a lot again lately. Chill vibes; not sure if I can call it EDM or what exactly it falls under.
I worked retail for exactly one Christmas. The day I worked the toy department they had one album on repeat for eight hours. I hated Christmas music for years, and now it just annoys me.
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