Always wanted what you don't understand...

Wednesday Night Music Club: I emailed long-time friend of the blog Erik a detailed breakdown of the twenty or so new CDs that have piled up in my apartment, several of which had as my only comment “still haven’t gotten around to listening to it yet.” I think that is a sign of being a collector (or completely insane) in that I’ll buy something with no intent of actually listening to it. However, one disc that I have listened to is “Fables” by Immaculate Machine. You haven’t heard of this band other than the fact that I tend to prattle on and on about them. Last year I drove to Lawrence to watch them play at Replay Lounge. They only had one CD at the time so I essentially drove two hours to see a forty five minute set from a band playing in front of pinball machines. That’s how much I like these kids. This is the best song on the new disc “Jarhand”. Fun video that shows what happens when you let a bunch of art students from Vancouver loose with a video camera. Plus, it has my music crush Kathryn Calder in it so I’ll enjoy it at least.

Had to deal with another bit of car trouble yesterday as I had another flat tire to deal with. For those of you scoring at home (lucky bastards) that is the sixth flat I’ve had to deal with in slightly over two years. This is what I get for living in a town that believes that raised steel plates make for a perfectly fine roadway. I ended up having to replace a tire that we patched earlier this year because it had a nail in it. Now this does raise the question as to why we didn’t just replace the tire in the first place. Or more importantly, why I didn’t make a big stink given that I took it to the same shop both times and made me pay twice for the same tire. Basically, as everyone knows, I suck at negotiations. If I tried to cut a deal they would have ended up with the title to my car.

Otherwise things have been pretty quiet today. I’ve been just completely swamped at work with meetings and trying to get my head around an entirely new product line. I’ve even had to take off my marketing hat and put the finance hat back on, which may or may not be a good thing. I don’t think we need any more blog posts about excel spreadsheets and NPV calculations. Somehow I’m considered an expert in that as well as pop culture knowledge, two things that really don’t seem to go together.

I’ve had to explain to people that my career path can best be described as schizophrenic. Within two months of become a full time member of the workforce I was staring into the core of a nuclear reactor. I then spent five years building mathematical models of the nation’s electrical grid and working on deregulating it just so guys from Enron could then call me on a daily basis to swear at me. Then after a sojourn at the Backer (and occasionally a classroom) I was off to the great plains to run business cases. Or spend some time doing bond pricing models. And then this weird pop culture role that I have absolutely no training for other than I watch an awful lot of tv and I pay attention to everything. It really is a bizarre career path.

I have to say that I like it though. I could still be in the energy biz, working in the same cubicle or possibly a slightly larger one and making good money. But I was getting burnt out on it and couldn’t figure out what would change. The laws of physics are rather stable and electricity is only going to flow one way. So change was good for me. It usually is. Given the rut I’m in in many aspects of my life I should probably ponder that point some more.