christian crumlish doing stuff
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Getting timey-wimey
I’ll still adjusting to my new non-routine routine, oddly busy for someone on administrative leave from a job I’m losing at the end of next month. On top of job interviews and plans for several different projects outside of regular jobs, I’ve been working hard on the release plans for my record, and we have…
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Maps and legends
The record is starting to exist now in two digital senses, a sort of digital conception as they come together. First, it now has a commercial pointer in the universal pricing code namespace. This currently has no relevant data associated with it, but it soon will. It comes courtesy of the shop that will be…
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Caturday
Finished my tax workbook today and sent it over the tubes to the old family CPA firm back in Staten Island to find out if I did my withholding right during my one year of federal employment. I’ve still got bills to pay, a parcel tax coming due, a home office to set right, a…
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Sticking the landing
Hard to believe it’s been three weeks since the great 18F massacree. Hard to believe it’s only been three weeks. Hard to believe this administration has only been at it for eight weeks. Five more weeks to go of administrative leave. We keep meeting and making plans and helping each other stay organized and look…
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Triggered
A number of years ago, at right around the same time I came down with Bell’s palsy, I experienced an intense muscle spasm in my neck and a subsequent stiff neck and shoulder that persisted for more than a year. At time things like massage helped a bit, but it was clear that the problem…
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Countdown checklist
We are hearing about more layoffs at TTS today, apparently targeting Talent (including PeopleOps). If so, then what was reputed to be by far the best onboarding experience in the federal government is no more, and TTS is now subject to GSA’s OHRM and really the “HR@OPM” mail server that seems to be calling the…
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Working for no one but me
The other day the Reverend Bill jinxed me by complimenting me on my recent blogging streak, during which I managed to get something posted here at least once a day since sometime in January when all hell started to break loose. And just like that I took a day of rest yesterday, without really planning…
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Weekending
Heading over to the east bay soon for a birthday lunch (cassoulet is the rumor!). just had a good chat with the fellow who is going to print my CDs and maybe make my vinyl as well. The record release is still probably OK for June, but LPs may have to come a few months…
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A funny thing happened on the way to the charger
Last night I saw a hot damn show up in Sebastopol at a brewpub called the Hopmonk. The main act, Pokey LaFarge (and band), and the opener, Cicada Rhythm, were both a hoot. It felt like a walk through the 20th century, from hot jazz to jump blues to texas swing to jumping jive to…
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Making merry
Ending another long week in the company of friends. This afternoon I took advantage of my administrative leave to drive up to Sebastopol through several rain squalls and traffic jams to have dinner at the Goldfinch (mostly seafood — I had champagne with my oyster) and then see a show at the Hopmonk brewpub. Still…
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Connecting dots
I’m surely not the only person who’s had the clever idea of describing themselves on some form somewhere as a “dot connector.” In this period of diaspora as the team I was on goes into its second week of ghostly “administrative leave” paid to not work on our jobs, I am finding myself busier than…
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Low ebbing
After the high spirits of last week I’ve settled into a more even paced routine. TodayI had two great meetings, one related to a potential community support venture and another for a plan to stand up an incubator to help launch and accelerate civic projects and entities. There may even be crossover potential. But I…
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Fuck cancer
Today I read the horrible news that an old friend had just lost his beloved. Another old friend lost their life partner last year. Another old friend just got a treatable but unpleasant and scary diagnosis. Another person I’m close to just got a scan that is going to call for monitoring. We lost Mary…
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What’s the story?
Well, that’s weird. Did I pocket-edit my blog template? For some reason the old Mediajunkie logo with the west-facing avatar disappeared from the header of this site. I found it and put it back but what the what? We had a power outage last night (unrelated, pretty sure) and I’m reminded that my CPAP has…
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The view from here
I’ve been working remotely since 2015. First I was on sabbatical. Then I worked for a fully remote startup. Then the founder fired me and I worked for myself for a while. Then I worked for a volunteer project during Covid. Then I was a contractor for the state of California. Then the governor appointed…
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On the 8th day we rested
Spring weather is definitely breaking through. We took a long walk. I got some errands done. The carpenter bee tried to warn me off his territory again (the eave of the house by the front door). I had to make two lists to keep track of things. One is jobs leads that have crossed my…
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Graduation day
Less than a week ago our whole team at 18F found out we were fired. The past week has been amazing. It was immediately clear that they could not break us, they could not divide us, and that we will win. I said at some point that the power we have discovered is stronger than…
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With a net
When I heard that the Public Buildings Service was getting hit hard yesterday, with entire regions almost entirely shut down, closure of the historical buildings teams and leaked lists of historical buildings on the chopping block, it made me realize that not everyone can get the attention of a laid-off team of techie do-gooders, and…
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So much for the preliminaries
Got back down to Goody Sound Studio today and we wrapped up the preliminary mixes on all twelve songs for my record! Today we tuned up “Giving Zoo Wolves Lessons in Music” and David Gans added some ethereal backing vocals. This track also has David on guitar, Robert Wade on bass, Javier Navarrette on congas…
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Lessons for wolves
Heading up to Oakland today to work at Goody Sound Studio on one final preliminary mix, in this case for “Giving Zoo Wolves Lessons in Music.” After that it’s time to plan the listening party so we can make final decisions about the mixes and the sequence. It’s been a while since I did a…
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Hope springs eternal
I try not to amplify rumors even while lately most rumors I’ve been hearing have either come true or turned out worse than rumored. Especially now I don’t want to spread stories that may not be true or might actually be in flux right now. So I’m glad I didn’t report that people at TTS…