1. First, there was the review of Bielebny’s Punxsutawney, a release that I thought was okay, but it was a bit challenging to listen to.  This was a first time issue for me: the artist was soliciting reviews, and I felt that what I had to say wasn’t exactly positive.  Well, as it turned out, on the whole I had more positive things to say than negative.  Which is always a good thing.  (I personally would like to keep the reviews mostly positive.  There is so much material out there to listen to that’s worth highlighting the material I think is worthy, rather than spending time on the stuff that isn’t worth it.)
2. Next I reviewed graphicsgroove’s graphiqsgroove2009 a recording that I really loved.  This is one that will end up on my playlists for years to come.
3. And then came the “long quiet” until I published an article about the San Diego School and Local Authorities over reacting to a kids science project, and in the process Viloated the Parents Privacy when it was known there was no issue.  This was a story that caught my eye yesterday, and something I just had to write about.

And that’s all that was published on the site this week…  The reason being I’ve run into some technical issues that left me in a position of not wanting to make too many changes to site in the event that something broke.  (I have one of two issues resolved now, so I know there won’t be any major issues that would cause the loss of anything.)

Despite the technical issues, there have been several other events and things going on:

• Space Weirdo has published my review on their website in English and Spanish. This was a real honor.  This is the first time that anyone has approached me to re-publish any of my writings, and a double honor to have it translated into Spanish.
• I received the Cowon iAudio 7 and iAudio 9 to replace my currently non-functional iAudio U5.  I will write an article, there’s been plenty of reviews of these devices, but getting the pair of them together was quite an interesting experience, and even has one or two common points between them
• I recieved a new box set of Grieg Songs & Lieder. To be honest, this isn’t my normal area of musical interest or expertise, but given that the works are by Grieg I felt the need to give them a run.
• I’ve been listening to a lot of new material.  I’ve plowed through something along the lines of 30-40 hours worth of music.  There will definitely be some articles about my listening this week, some of which may be formal reviews.
• I’ve started several more articles, which will also be published this week.  There are two editorials, and another Shoestring Classical Collection.
• During the week I started considering some new columns or series to start writing.  Hopefully I will get to start one of them this week.  (Part of the expanding line of ideas I’ve been working on for the site.)
• I’ve started working on my other website – a more geeky linux thing called LinuxTweakers. That site is not ready for prime time just yet, but it should be up and running pretty well within a day or two.
• The final event of the week: I got a new phone.  I got a Droid.  I mention it here becuase I am looking at some of the music apps that are available for it, and am impressed thus far.  I will be writing something up about that in the near future once I get some more time to play with it.

So, that’s about it for now.  Hopefully I can overcome my last technical issue, and I will get to start adding some new and different things to the website.

Yeah, so it seems the tradition is to write a post about the highs and lows of the old year, and write about the dreams, desires and expectations of the next year.  Yeah.  Okay.  I guess I have just never been long on imitating everyone else, so I want to do something different.  Something unique and inspired.  The only problem is: what is there to be inspired about?

Well, I could say that I am inspired by the fact that I have found a somewhat like-minded group of Atheists.  Oh, that was something that I was going to post about, but scrapped in a moment of “who really gives a rats a** about that” feeling.  Yeah, the fact is that during the past year I have decided that I am an Atheist.  I hadn’t been particularly religious or ant-religious in the past.  However, during the Bush administration I had come to realize that the “tolerance” being shown for those of the religious persuasion were not being extended to Agnostics and Atheists.  This pushed me over the line from being an “okay, I don’t really believe, but it’s just best to not say anything” Agnostic to really being an Atheist in all senses.

I’ve started forming more opinions about “Free (Libre) Culture” or “Open Culture”. Those who know me know how I feel about the delusion of “Intellectual Property”.  What?  How is it that I say that “Intellectual Property” is a delusion?  Aren’t we seeing lawsuits about “Intellectual Property” all the time?  Not exactly, we are seeing Copyright, Patent and similar lawsuits.  However, if the companies behind these lawsuits and their lawyers have their say, there would be an “Intellectual Property” section of the law that lumped all of these others together into a single ball.  That would not be good for the advancement of culture, the arts, sciences, and other areas where people need to have the freedom to work and innovate based on the works that others have done before them.

The Obama Administration is  failing us in this area. This is the single biggest disappointment I have seen so far.  (Don’t get me wrong, there are other disappointments with this administration, some fairly large, others smaller.  I won’t go into them.)  This is one area where they seem to be getting things wrong, very wrong. By not including all of the voices that should be heard on these subjects, they are heading down the wrong path and it could have negative affects on us for many, many years to come.  If there is any one “call to action” point for me, this is it.

Finally, I would say that this past year wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  Even with the economy being in the toilet, and a lot of things that weren’t going well, things didn’t get as bad as they could have.  I will attribute that to our current adminstration.  I know they would have liked to have done better (just look at the stupidity over Healthcare reform, and the last ecological summit), but I do think that things could have been, or gotten, a lot worse.

Okay, evnough about government and politics.  I don’t like talking about it.

So, I am ending this here.  Certainly I could go on for pages talking about a lot of things from the last year, and espousing my wishes and desires for the next year.  But that isn’t me.  Better to live in the moment and keep moving forward.  The only things worth talking about are the things that are guiding us now.