Change (B)log
Written by Joseph Weidinger.
The release of "Hiss"
June 29, 2020As I mentioned numerous times towards the end of my 2019 blog series, I was working on some new original tunes that I wanted to release…
2019 Wrap Up
January 04, 2020Well, and just like that, 52 weeks are over. Here’s how I did… 1. 52 people interviewed 48% completed. As mentioned before, I reformulated…
Writing without Judgement
December 29, 2019I’ve been spending most of my days this past week alone in my room. My only objective is to write as many songs as I can before January 4th…
Song-Writing Sabbatical (AKA Christmas)
December 22, 2019Today I spent most of the day working on various new songs for some projects next year. In addition to doing more stuff with Sizable and…
Snowy week at Centro Cellar
December 17, 2019In the last week or so, Sizable has been in the studio four times mixing our last record for the year. We have two more sessions booked…
Reflections on the lyrics and melody of Nirvana's Nevermind
December 09, 2019I was thoughtfully listening to / studying Nevermind the other day and writing reactions I had to each song. Here are those thoughts with a…
How I write songs in 2019
December 03, 2019I’ve been lately spending a lot of time trying to write songs to “satisfy” my interview goal. Here’s a basic summary of my process with some…
The Last Shakes Shift
November 23, 2019“This is it,” I spontaneously declared as a 12” crust rotated to a halt on my left hand. A few moments earlier, I had just watched the clock…
The First Week at EquipmentShare
November 17, 2019My first week at ES was long and all over the place… my kind of week. I spent most of my first day getting my computer set up for ES’s dev…
Why I left Carfax
November 11, 2019Disclaimer Before I get started, I want to mention that, while I currently feel this way, it doesn’t mean I won’t have a different…
The Last Day at Carfax
November 05, 2019Last Friday was my last day at Carfax. I awoke at 3:30 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep. I had a new simple song in my ear, so I fleshed it…
My First Medium Article
October 27, 2019As I’ve mentioned in countless other blogs, I’ve been working on a GraphQL Library for . A week or two ago, I finally got it to a state I am…
India Nite 2019
October 22, 2019India nite was October 19th. It went well. This year, Anup and I made some lineup changes. We had Zack Clark return on bass and my long-time…
Q3 Update
October 12, 20191. 52 people interviewed Not on track. I’ve reformulated this goal to be a composite of a few goals. You can read more about that here and…
The Streaks
October 04, 2019I downloaded this simple app that helps build/break habits after listening to a co-worker talk about it months ago. I think it’s called…
The Third Album Home Stretch
September 27, 2019We’re getting close to wrapping up the third album with Sizable. A lot of my time this past week has been spent on that. I tend to focus on…
The Week Off
September 20, 2019In addition to playing a lot of pedal steel I recently purchased (which I’ll detail more below), I spent a lot of time this past week…
The Pedal Steel
September 14, 2019Starting this past Wednesday afternoon, I am taking a week of time-off to learn the pedal steel guitar. It arrived last Monday, and I’ve…
The Exodus
September 06, 2019Five of my co-workers have left Carfax for another company. Three of those had their last day today. While I’m happy for them, I’m pretty…
The Car Break-In
August 30, 2019My car got broken into sometime early Sunday morning. They busted out the window on my Volt, opened my glove box, and that’s about it. I don…
The Cat
August 23, 2019Got a cat named Sophie. She’s a nine-year-old cat from a neighbor lady. The neighbor is moving away and wanted the cat to stay with someone…
The Green Screen
August 16, 2019I bought a green screen for my streaming experiments. Caleb set it up for our Dead Slice stream. It just works. OBS is a pretty fantastic…
The Fresh Look
August 09, 2019I got a haircut. And for almost the first time in my life, it was not done by my Mom… alt text My roommate Caleb and I both got our hair cut…
Q2 Update
August 02, 20191. 52 people interviewed I interviewed only three people this quarter and gave up on the idea that I’d be able to interview 52 people. I…
Week 28 Update - The Time Tracker Rewrite
July 19, 2019I’ve been working on the time tracking system that my friend and Carfax co-worker Conner built. I’m working on a pretty significant rewrite…
Week 27 Update - The Raid
July 14, 2019The Raid After all the equipment came in for streaming, Caleb and I hosted our first twitch stream. It was 3-4 hours long. We made a lot of…
Week 26 Update - The Stream Revival?
July 05, 2019A year ago I tried creating an entertainment channel on Twitch where I played Fortnite while walking on a treadmill while trying to…
Week 25 Update - The Goal Reformulation
June 28, 2019I’m giving up on the goal to interview 52 people, but I’m replacing it with a new goal(s). I’m tired of hassling people to interview them…
Week 24 Update - The Hack Win
June 21, 2019Like a few months ago, there was a Hackathon at Carfax yesterday and today. And like a few months ago, I won the same award: Best…
Week 23 Update - The New Scenes
June 14, 2019As I mentioned last week, I bought a banjo recently. Last Saturday I made a trip to St. Louis to buy some more stuff from Music Folk. I was…
Week 22 Update - The SoundCloud divorce
June 07, 2019I decided to not host my interviews in SoundCloud any more. I’ve used SoundCloud as the host of all my audio files since day one. When I…
Week 21 Update - The Tinnitus Story
May 31, 2019I smiled when thinking about the tinnitus I have for the first time in a while. I gave myself tinnitus 2.5 years ago when I played drums in…
Week 20 Update - The Data Model
May 24, 2019This past week at Carfax has been one of great excitement! I’m working together every day with our platform engineers to design and…
Week 19 Update - The Card Pusher
May 17, 2019At this point much of my life is organized by cards: digital notes that tell me what to do at any given point. At Carfax we use Jira…
Week 18 Update - The Failed Job Interview
May 10, 2019I applied for a different coding gig and after doing all the interviews and such I found out that I didn’t get it. I kind of promised that I…
Week 17 Update - The Side Music Projects
May 03, 2019Spent time in the studio with Wil Reeves again mixing and mastering two songs I produced. One song was with Anup and one was with Caleb. In…
Week 16 Update - The Unexpected Carfax Projects
April 26, 2019This week has been a pretty dynamic one for my work life. Early on in these blogs I wrote about some work-related projects that I had been…
Q1 Update
April 21, 2019Q1 ended a few weeks ago and I want to check on how I’m delivering on the goals I made a few months ago. 1. 52 people interviewed So far, I…
Week 15 Update - The Nirvana Rediscovery
April 19, 2019I’ve been listening to a lot of Nirvana recently. I started listening to them heavily when I was around 10 years old. Since the very…
Week 14 Update - The Roommate Projects
April 12, 2019I’ve been doing a lot of projects recently with my roommate and friend, Caleb Salyer. For the last few weeks we’ve been recording podcasts…
Week 12 Update - The Mix Master
March 29, 2019Just got done with a long day in the studio with Wil Reeves and Sizable. We mixed the last few songs for this record and he also added some…
Week 11 Update - The Pop A Shot Tourney
March 22, 2019It’s March Madness. Every TV at Shakes has a different game on. Everyone at work is talking about their brackets. In the spirit, Carfax…
Week 10 Update - The Surprise Birthday Party
March 15, 2019Today is my dad’s birthday. All of us kids surprised him by showing up in Vienna today. It’s hard to call it a surprise though. He pieced…
Week 9 Update - The Week 9 Grind
March 08, 2019Here are some things I did this past week… Interviews I interviewed Thomas Blower last Saturday. We did the interview at Nourish at 10 AM…
Week 8 Update - The Anniversaries
March 01, 2019Today marks the first anniversary of me buying my little home. I’m still in love with this pad and feel so lucky that I was able to be in a…
Week 7 Update - The First Mix Session
February 22, 2019Sizable met with Wil Reeves earlier this week for 3 hours to mix 2 songs. It was awesome! I worked with Wil a few years ago on these two…
Week 6 Update - The Awkward Dinner
February 15, 2019Last week my younger brother Phillip hit me up to go grab a beer and some dinner at Jazz, a New Orleans themed restaurant. He knew some…
Week 5 Update - The Music Idea
February 08, 2019A few hours ago I was at Shakespeare’s rolling pizza dough. It was my first shift back wearing Andrew Pracchia’s old hat. I had lost track…
Week 4 Update - The Time Optimizations
February 01, 2019I feel like another week has gone by and I haven’t done anything. But that’s a lie. My log shows me otherwise. (And at some point in the…
Week 3 Update - The "Passion" Project
January 25, 2019A quick run down Just got back from Carfax’s annual Employee Appreciation Party; it was a good night of talking (shouting… it was loud) with…
Week 2 Update - The stiff neck
January 18, 2019Just took a shower after working at Shakes. It was steady but not that busy. Woke up Sunday morning with a stiff neck. Or maybe it was just…
Week 1 Update
January 11, 2019Hello from Vienna, MO. I’m trying to write this blog at the dinner table and my family members are playing Rummikub at the other end. I…
52 Weeks Until 2020
January 04, 2019I have 52 weeks until I’m 30 years old. By the time my own father and grandfather were 30, they were married, had kids, and created…