When I got home I wanted to record something, so I picked up a lyric which I wrote earlier and gave it a rewrite, it’s no longer called ‘If Only’, it’s now ‘Back Then’.

The track is very much a WIP, the drums aren’t right and the organs / lead guitar / bass needs work.  I’m almost 1/2 tempted to ask a few friends on a forum I’m on give me a hand cause I think this song could really shine.

Apologies for the mix… Back Then

Back Then Demo mp3

Lyrics and Music Copyright Daniel Porter 2010

Let me know what you think.

I’m not too sure if I’ll bring a few songs out of the closet from my old lyric books to get my started.  I think I might just do a couple of writing exercises tomorrow -morning, lunch and ride home to see if I can come up with something to record tomorrow night.

Althought I do want the first track on the album to be an instrumental… so that might make it a bit easier

Tonight I set up my ’studio’ area, got my microphones out, guitars arranged, connected up my sound card and my drum pads and tested everything to make sure it works.

There is a slight hum in my monitors (speakers) but aside from that everything else is ready to Rock’n'Roll!

What I was referring to is the  The RPM Challenge.  The challenge is really simple:

Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.

This page goes in to more depth, such all no previously released material can be used and all recording must be done in February.  They do encourage you to write all your songs during February.  That part I won’t be following 100% (as it’s only encouragement), cause I know with that time won’t permit.  I have a few lyrics which I already have which are either WIP or very close to Finished.

So I’ve signed up – this is me.

So from February 1 expect frequent updates here (and probably on my twitter).  I’ll post my WIP recordings and Final versions of songs on here and just the final versions of my songs on RPM’s Site.

There we go! It’s in writing

1. Physically, I would be classed as overweight. A few years ago I was diagnosed with a Fatty Liver, which can be managed/reduced by weight loss. A side effect of a Fatty Liver is fatigue, which I seem to be suffering from more lately.
2. Career wise I’ve been talking about getting my MCSE for years now but have never gotten around to actually getting it.
3. 3 1/2 years ago I wrote an outline for 2 x 3D animated shorts (to be made in Blender). Thanks to a site I was on, I had a few people interested in helping me out. The site in question was shut down.. politicts etc, but as it goes it now exists at a different domain, the owner is working only on his projects… I don’t believe the site contains any of my data and I’ve still got all my work… that nothing has ever become of.
4. Ever since I saw the “Wizards of Winter” Christmas light display video, I’ve wanted to created a computer controlled (synced with music) Christmas light display myself. I’ve found a site which have instructions on how to build a system which will allow me to do this. I’ll have to learn some basic electronics to build the system from scratch. I’ve had a couple of other ideas of how I can control/sync it to music (which to me programming the ’shows’ would be quite easy).. it’s just finding the time (and money) to purchase all the components and build the control system (which could potentially take a month of my spare time to build).
5. Building / finishing a CMS (Content Management System). Following on from my previous post, I want to build, or more continue building the CMS which I’ve written, eventually to the point of releasing it to the masses. I have an idea in my head for the model of it which will make it VERY modular and easy to expand.
6. The final thing is my music. I’ve got all the equipment and software to record, it just seems at the moment I don’t have the time (and space) to record. Granted a lack of motivation doesn’t help either.

SOOOOOOOOO…….

I guess the very first thing I have to do and commit myself to doing is to get off my butt and get motivated!

Addressing each point above:

1. My health comes before everything, so first to address is weight loss! I believe I’ve improved my diet recently and I admit I do have servings on the larger size some times (such as 5 Wheetbix for breakfast.. my excuse.. stops me snacking). The way I can reduce my weight the most is through exercise. An easy start every day is getting off the bus first stop in the city and walking to my office. Aside from it being faster some days, it’s a good 10 minute walk (at my pace). Next would be stepping on my exercise bike at home which I hardly use or going for walks with my Wife and Son. I wouldn’t get the same work out going on those walks purely because I’d be walking at a much slower pace not raising my heart rate. This will be ongoing during the year (average weight for the start of December 138kgs).
2. MCSE. Motivation.. being a self study course and not having time restraints for sitting exams I believe is where I’ve failed in obtaining this in the past. Compared to my other projects, his should be a priority. How do I do it… set aside time, read my books and set dates as to when I will be sitting the tests. I’ll post my progress on this.
3. 3D movies.. Whilst they are fun I think they will be my lowest priority. Reason being a) it’s just for fun, b)it’s going to take a lot of time and other things should come before them. In saying that.. I might spend some time here and there and blog my updates with that.
4. Christmas Lights.. Well the deadline for this is Obvious… ideally lights up for first week of December. I’ll need to prototype this first (and write the code to be used late), which I can do earlier in the year, then mid year start to build the hardware, after that more testing, then designing the actual light ’show’ during November, installed for December. In the next week I’ll put up my idea as to how I will achieve the final product.
5. CMS.. The website I manage goes live in August, so I guess getting the code up to the next version by then would be the best idea. In saying this, I’ve recently discovered an established CMS which looks promising and expandable, so I don’t know if I might look in to creating ‘modules’ for that instead.
6. Music.. I go through stages of motivation.. I actually played guitar for the first time in a long time the other night. I recorded a couple of tracks for a friends song. If that comes about I’ll post the final mix up here. But I do want to write and record. Do I set a goal of 1 song per month, as opposed to the write and record an album in February (or do I just do that?) I think as long as I ‘Noodle’ occasionally to keep the juices flowing, recording will come naturally.. and I’ll post the results here of course.

Well that certainly was a mouthful :-S But it now exists and I’ve said it, so I’ll come back in 12 months and see where I’m at.

Outside of work a fair chunk of my time has been devoted to a rewrite of the core code of the Sydney Lindy Exchange website. I’ve been it’s Web Admin for 5 years now. What started as a few HTML pages the first year with a simple form mailer for registration has now progressed to an (almost) full CMS.

The rewrite allowed me to break the code in to easier to manage chunks/modules of code. I didn’t achieve everything I wanted to this year as I just ran out of time.  Early on whilst re-coding the site, I wanted it to be developed around a ‘Form builder and manager’ interface, as the main purpose of the site is registration for the event which is a form.

I did make quite a bit of headway with the form builder, however it was starting to get clunky and the deadline approached faster than I realised, so I ended up rehashing the rest of the code.

I did also remove all tables out of the layout this year thanks to css, however realised after the event when I was showing the site off to a collegue that the site didn’t display correct in IE6 thanks to it’s wierd and wonderful way of processing CSS :-S.

The other big challenge I had with this site was a mailing list.  In the past I had a script which bulk sent all the email messages at once.  This worked the first year, however second year not all recipients got the messages.  I found out after the event had ended the reason for this was that a limitation of the host was 200 email messages (or more recipients) per hour.  So this year I wrote a script which a cron job runs every 5 minutes to send a number of emails.  I need to do more work on this so all email from the site (registrations etc) need to be run through the mail queue, plus better management of that to ensure that 200 emails per hour is not met.

I still have all the code for the Form Builder, so in the new year I hope to look at that again.

(And yes this post did take a month to write :-S)

A few years pass and one night I’m looking for something to record.  So I put down a scratch track of this song, just me, guitar and a bad MIDI drum kit.  I put it up on one of the Forum I’m a regular on to see if anyone wanted to add to the base track.  I wanted to keep it relatively acoustic and laid back, ie no electronic keyboards or rock drums etc.

From my scratch track ‘dispelled_myths’ turned up offered a Piano track.  Not listening to his track, another membery ‘Max Output’ recorded a Bass track for me.  And then after a little nudge from a friend who I’ve worked with before on the site, ‘drmscp’ recorded a drum track.

Even though the Bass and Piano were tracked without listening to the other I think it turned out quite relaxed and nicely.. like we were all sitting together when in fact the Pianist is in Ontario (CAN), Drummer in Texas(US) and Bassist in Maryland(US) and myself in Sydney (AUS).

Download: Daniel Porter – I Miss You.mp3

Lyrics:

I Miss You

When it’s cold and windy outside,
and your not here.
All I can hear,
is the refrigerator running in the kitchen,
the sound of my heart beatin’,
and the lonleness of you in my mind.

What are you feeling when your away?
Are you feeling the same way…. that I feel?
Cause I miss you,
yes I do,
yes I do.

The clock is counting the seconds,
of every minute,
of every hour,
that your not beside me and I think I’m
going insane the way I’m feelin’
Just missing you. Yeah, that’s what it is!

What are you feeling when your away?
Are you feeling the same way…. that I feel?
Cause I miss you,
yes I do,
yes I do.

I get a call from you to tell me,
your on your way,
and you miss me,
and you’ll be home just as soon as you can
because you missing me more than
I’m missing you.  Hell, how would you know?

What are you feeling when your away?
Are you feeling the same way…. that I feel?
Cause I miss you,
yes I do,
yes I do
yes I do
yes I do

(c) Daniel Porter 2008

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If you do download this song, please comment and let me know what you thought of it.

But the last week or so my son (2 1/2 now) hasn’t been getting much sleep of a night… I’ve been saying up late with him.

Today at work when I wasn’t thinking (ironically) a got an idea of taking a retrospective look at life.. and I jotted down a few lines, some made it in to what I’m posting below.

But would love to hear your thoughts if you like / hate the song.

I’m think I’m going to keep on writing first drafts for a month now and then go back at the end and see which ones I should record.  But for now, here is “If Only”

If Only

Reading my diary
from the summer of 92
I was surprised at the things I said,
and all the things I used to do.
Well the world has changed a lot since then,
since I wrote those words with my pen.

Back then,
I didn’t have to worry about phone bills
And if I wanted adventure I got my fills
I did some stupid things I will say that
A few times I wore my dunce hat
But if only,
I knew then what I know now…

I had a girlfriend
Who I hardly knew
I wrote her letters everyday,
that ended with I love you.
Giving those words away freely then
Didn’t mean anything in the end

But back then,
I didn’t have to worry about paying the rent
I didn’t have to work for the money I spent
I’ve got my parents to thank for that
And they know one day I’ll pay them back…
But if only,
I knew then what I know now…

Bridge
Now the world hasn’t been the same since 9/11
When innocent people were sent to heaven
Cause we live now with a constant worry
And seem to travel everywhere in a hurry
Taking life a little to fast
We’re just another person in the cast

But back then…
I didn’t have to worry about a child
And now my days are over from being wild
All those speed humps that got in the way
Shaped me to be the man I am today….
Cause now, I know more than I knew then

Now I know more than I knew then

(c) Daniel Porter 2009

But this post came from a suggestion from a twitter ‘tweet’ by @RavenousRaven

“Get off Twitter right now and go and write a song! Go on – yes now! You have 1hr to finish the 1st draft. Go!!! ”

Well I didn’t do it at the time, however I sat down for about 45 minutes and came up with the Lyric below.

My initial rambles which lead to the song were:

I want it to be fun.. not sad… positive song in this depressing world

happy thoughts – sunny days

Feel Happy again
Like standing in summer rain

The last line, actually the last two words gave me the idea for the song.  And it then progressed in to what one of it’s first drafts.  The first verse came out first, then the bridge and I wrote the other two verses after, one before and one after the bridge.  Would love to hear your feedback through here or twitter.

I present the lyrics for “Summer Rain”

Summer Rain

Everything in this world seems to be getting me down.
Wether it’s the news or the economy
that’s all heading towards the ground.
All I have to do to make me happy again is think..
About standing in summer rain.

Don’t want to work but I need the money to keep me going.
I don’t like the job but to me it’s easy,
but I feel myself slowing.
But to make me feel better again I just think
About standing in Summer Rain

Bridge
Those warm drops of water, hitting my face
with rays of sunshine, shining through with grace
My arms wide open, welcoming it all
rain drops racing to the ground I watch you fall…
Sweet Summer Rain!

Instrumental break

I’m always the happiest when I’m home with my family
And even more so on Summer holidays
I’ll play in the backyard happily
And when it rains we’ll stand there with our arms wide open.
We’ll be Standing in Summer Rain

Standing in Summer Rain
Standing in Summer Rain

(c) Daniel Porter 2009

So about a month ago I found this great barebone template called ‘Starkers‘ which is basically the wordpress default theme with ALL css div elements removed from it, which give you a great base platform for developing themes from.  You just need to grab the latest version of the comments.php from the default themes so it will support gravitars which was implemented after Starkers was created.

I migrated the Simply Blue theme in to it and it looks great and now his Next Gen Gallery works and IMHO looks even better in this theme than the old theme which he was using.

I enjoy flying, so on that side I’m lucky.  However being very much a familiy man, I don’t like being far away from my wife and son.

I haven’t posted much (as I always seem to say) because I’ve been too busy or I just haven’t had much to say.

I made a goal at the beginning of the year to record an album…. I want to get that done, however I don’t know if I will.  I set a goal last month to write a song for a competition… I didn’t end up writing it.

I don’t know if it’s because i keep making excuses or if I dont’ manage my time right or if I’m not confident in what I do.

Anyway, QF803 is boarding for Canberra now so I had better end this post and jump on board.