Deliverable

I’m a bit late with this, but here goes:

This ain’t no Disneyland my Dear
So keep your purpose clean and clear
Double Check what’s in your cup; cuz
Electric City can eat you up

Over to you,
King Cockroach

I copied this down a long time ago in an old journal and just recently came across it again. It’s from the liner notes of Chick Corea’s first record with The Elektric Band.

Here’s a better question:

What book “next action” would dramatically help both the book and my weekly teaching?

Answer: Put all of the songs for the book (the appendix) in one place in .pdf format. Start by gathering all existing Sibelius files of songs into one place in .eps format, then arrange these in alphabetical order in a single .pdf document using Acrobat.

If you’re getting answers you don’t like (results) maybe you’re asking the wrong questions.

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgement, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgements that leads us to either fortune or failure. —Author unknown (possibly me?)

I’m not sure if I wrote this or not. It feels like something I came up with, but then again it might be something that I channeled from one of Tony Robbins books. Whichever it is, it seems like solid wisdom.

I’d considered starting the week with some type of “Success & Fear” type of post. I did a quick search of this blog for past posts containing the word fear and decided against it. One of the benefits of keeping a digital record of your thoughts and progress is that you’re able to quickly track where you’ve come from, where you’ve been, and all of the things you habitually do and think. I’ve been a bit down since the big year end push to get the detritus gone from my life. So be it. No one said being successful was going to be easy.

So no waxing poetic on fear holding me back. It’s 10:00 a.m. Monday morning and I’m up, the dishes are done, the apartment is reasonably clean and I have the day ahead of me. I’m not sure that I’m any closer to finding my true North than I was when I put this out there back in July but so be it. I never gave the Universe a timetable. I’m just going to try and fight my way through this day and make myself feel better. It’s all I can do.

By 1/31/06 I will complete the following:

• Bathroom ceiling fixed and bathroom repainted. (completed 1/10/06) Hallelujah!
• Closet doors replaced in front and back living room. (changed: 1/27/06 / see below)
• Arrange a time with the super to come in and fix the closet doors. (forward to next month: see update below) It’s taken abit of doing to keep the super on top of this. The doors are supposed to be in on Tuesday, 1/31/06. I’m supposed to call him on Tuesday to make sure the doors have arrived and to set up a time to install them. Looks like this might not happen until the first part of February so I just wanted to notate that here. (update 1/31/06) – The doors haven’t arrived at the hardware store yet, so no doors in January. I gave it the college try, but should have started earlier in the month I guess. Will move this to my February list of things to finish.
• Bathroom sink fixed. (completed 1/10/06)
• Kitchen sink fixed. (completed 1/10/06)
• Call the management company and have the apartment repainted. (I split the project into it’s various parts: see below)
• Call the management company – re: want my apartment painted (called and left a message: 1/9/06) – I needed to break this project down into parts and acknowledge the completion of this first step that I’d been putting off (calling my management company).
• Speak with property manager and negotiate the painting of my apartment (completed 1/11/06) Spoke with him today. He’s coming by on Saturday to look at the aparment. Details to follow. (Update: 1/14/06 – Property manager looked at the apartment and gave the go-ahead to paint. Will call me on Tuesday to work out the details.)
• Work out a time with the super to paint the apartment (completed 1/18/06) The super will be here next Tuesday to begin painting the apartment. This means I need to get any sanding and spackling that I want done before then. Details of the completion of this project to follow. (Project update: 1/27/06 / see below.)
• After the painting day debacle I’ve decided to paint the place myself. As of today, Friday January 27th I’ve finshed 3/4 of the back living room. I’m going to do as much as I can over the weekend and the first part of next week, but the “paint the apartment” project might run into the first of February. I’m going to break this project into it’s smaller parts and update them as I go. (see below)
• Finish painting the back living room.(forward to next month: see update below) (Burgundy wall painted. White paint touched up on ceiling. Window vacuumed. Windows washed. Window redone with privacy film & molding ala kitchen. Window area painted. (update: 1/31/06) – I’ve had the flu or some other damn thing for the past two days so the painting didn’t get done. Will move to February.
• All furniture restored to back living room with the exception of the brown bookcase and the black bookcase. (forward to next month: see above) (These both will probably be trashed, but I may find a place for the black bookshelf in the front LR for a bit.) Store books beneath side table and/or desk until the new bookcase is set up.
• Redo/reorganize the area beneath my bed. Any remaining detritus gone (especially old cassettes and VHS tapes). Organize the memorabilia box. Prepare the space for my new bed. (Complete for now: 1/8/06) At this point the space under the bed is as organized as I can make it. I have 3 boxes of video tapes under there that I’m not sure I want to part with, but I also have no other place to put them. Ideally these should be accessible in some sort of media storage cabinet. Ditto with the T. Robbins tapes. I did eliminate a box of audio cassettes and I organized the memorabilia box. What I have left is a future “someday/maybe” project entitled “Purchase new media storage cabinet / Reasses VHS tapes under bed. What I’ve done will do for now.
• Assess the content of the file boxes in the top of the front LR closet. Toss as much as possible. Make note of what the rest is and label the box. Likewise with the small “junk drawer” as well. (changed: 1/31/06) – I did manage to trash a bag of papers from the brown bookshelf that was in the back LR. It’s related because the remaining papers that I need to go through are the same type that are currently in the file box(s) in the top of the closet. In a nutshell: I still need to go thru the file boxes in the top of the closet, but the only things that will go on the Expedit bookshelf are books that I want there. No more detritus on visible shelves in the apartment, and the remaining detritus is confined to one and a 1/4 file boxes in the top of the closet.
• Purchase a new bed. (completed 1/6/06) The bed was delivered yesterday (Saturday 1/7/06). It was a big purchase so I’m just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I made the right decision. (updated: 1/22/06) I’ve exchanged the bed I got for another one that’s firmer. It’ll be delivered Thursday evening.
• Purchase new bed linens for new bed. (mostly completed 1/12/06) I’ve got most of what I want… have to decided if I’m going to keep what I got. Stay tuned.
• Purchase a new lamp for the bedroom (completed 1/15/06)
• Sell the bike. (modified: 1/22/06) Making a time based statement like this relies on things that are out of my control… like whether or not someone wants to buy my bike. I’ve broken this down into parts. See below.
• Fill the tires on the bike. Clean it up for sale. Take pictures. (completed 1/22/06) Haven’t really cleaned it up that much. The pictures look decent enough “as is”, and I figure whoever buys the bike can clean it up themselves. I may wipe some of the grease off the wheels if anyone comes over to take a look at it.
• Post an ad on CL for the bike. Create “bike for sale” flyers. Post aforementioned flyers in the building lobby and around the neighborhood. ( mostly completed 1/22/06) Posted the ad on CL and made a flyer.
• Sell the bike

The bike has been sold!

• Research and assess the following purchases: Wardrobe. Bookshelf. Nightstand. Sofa. Chest/end table solution. (changed: 1/27/06) A new wardrobe is beyond my budget for the time being, but I did research it. I’ve also taken a look at sofa’s but new ones are kinda pricey. I haven’t seen a night stand that would fit my new bedroom yet, so I’ll continue to keep my eyes open. Haven’t dealt much with my chest/end table idea so that will push forward into the “Someday/Maybe” category. See below for one of my bookshelf solutions. (I’ll eventually need another for my front LR.)
• Research bookshelf solution for back LR

(completed 1/27/06) – I’m going to purchase the 31″ Expedit from Ikea.

• Be on the first bus (10 a.m.) to Ikea on Sunday, 1/29/06. Purchase 31″ Expedit bookshelf. Bring it back to apartment. (completed 1/29/06) – Ok, I didn’t make it on the first bus, but I was on the 2:00 p.m. bus. Back on the 4:30 bus and in my apartment by 5:45. Woohoo!
• Research and assess possible curtain solutions for living room.(changed: 1/27/06 / see below)
• Research window treatment options for the window in the back living room. Price them out and decide which one I like the best. (completed 1/27/06) – I’ve decided to do the same thing to the window in the back LR that I did in the kitchen. It’ll be cheaper, easier and look better than the privacy film I was considering. I’ll do a simple piece of fabric draped over the top of the window. Also cheaper and will fit the window better.
• Migrate current website from MT to WordPress. (started… more to do) – I did create a subdomain for the new blog and did indeed port the old site to WordPress. The problem is that I’m still not convinced WordPress is the way to go. Version 2.0 has some bugs in it that weren’t anticipated. I like the way you can change themes with WP easily, but there are still some things that can be a pain. Then again, MT also has some really stupid things that they haven’t fixed. I’ll move this into the “to be continued in February” column.
• Assess current book outline and create a “next actions” list. (broken down further – see below…)
• Scan current outline into computer for safe keeping (completed 1/9/06)
• Organize 4 individual .pdf files into one document (completed 1/9/06)

—
Mo’ Stuff – 1/4/06

• Create an A-Z system for my music drawer in the studio (completed 12/4/06) – Ok, I’m totally conscious of the fact that I’m using the “clear and organize” thing as a way to avoid the larger issues I need to face (book, teaching, finances… you name it…). Rather than beat myself up I’m just going to remind myself that I’m clearing space for new things and that these new things will flow to me when I’m ready for them.

—
Mo’ Mo’ Stuff – 1/9/06

• Purchase Voodoo Pad (completed 1/9/06)
• Mail the zip drive to my dad (completed 1/11/06)

—
Book Stuff:

• Find original 1st draft of the book on the Archive HD. Copy to Main HD (completed 1/10/06) – This is pretty big. I thought that I’d completely lost the original copy of the book that I did forever ago in Quark. Apparently it was on one of the zip disks that I transferred to the Archive HD back in December (as part of my detritus clearing). I always suspected that I had it somewhere, but just wasn’t sure where it had ended up.
• Add details/flesh out original outline for “trombone specific” book (somewhat complete) – I need to continue working on this in February.
• Add details/flesh out original outline for “notereading” book (not complete: forward to next month)
• Create a del.icio.us bookmark for music publishers

(completed 1/10/06)

• Put all of the songs for the book (the appendix) in one place in .pdf format (mostly complete: see below)
• Arrange songs from above in alphabetical order in a single .pdf document using Acrobat (mostly complete) – I have a mostly complete appendix now. I took the songs I had on hand and put them in .eps format, then added them in alphebetical order to an InDesign document. I still need to augment this with some other songs and make sure I have all the songs I want for the book. (Thus the “mostly complete” designation).

—

The way that I treated monthly goals in December worked well for me. I plan to “rinse and repeat” that for each month this year. It occurred to me that having goals for the year would help me choose the projects I focus on each month. I’ll review these periodically and add/modify/change as needed.

These things I will complete by years end, 2006:

• Publish the book with a “real” publisher and get paid for it. I will more clearly define what I mean by “the book” and “real publisher” as the year goes along. Stay tuned.
• Be in a play
• Get paid to act… either in a film or tv or a play.
• Take a real vacation. I’ll more clearly define “real vacation” as the year goes along.
• Create a nurturing home environment… one that provides a safe haven from the chaos that is New York City.
• Accumulate one month of living expenses in savings

Habits

• Cook for nutritious meals for myself consistently. (“Consistently” to be more clearly defined as I go.)
• Maintain a consistent sleep schedule. (“Consistent sleep schedule” to be more clearly defined as I go.)

I feel motivated to complete these things. I believe that I can do it. I will find the time.