Nice reply to "joined at the hip" in the Suggestion Box.

Ive spent most of my life doing things different than most people.

That doesnt mean you'll find me out doing wild and wacky things that only
the strangest people alive would do. I do the same things everyone else
does...I just do them differently.

And it's usually the hard way.

For instance, when bowling, most people take five steps or at least four
before releasing the ball. Not me. I stand almost past the ball return and
take three steps...three VERY small steps and on that third step, I nearly
bury my foot into the floor and cut loose. It's a very strange style
however I can routinely throw a 200 game with a house ball.

Or golf. I position the ball far enough in front of my left foot that it's
like I was hitting a baseball. And I use a baseball grip on my clubs. Im
not quite as successful with golf as bowling...I hand in the low 90s.

The worst example is drumming. I play the drums...well, I did. Havent
really sat behind a set in about 8 years. I started when I was 18 and
played in bands for a couple of years before being sucked into the world of
business. Nowadays, you can play any instrument any way you like and no
one cares however in the mid seventies, there were RULES. And a huge rule
for drummers was you had to play right handed (which I was) and you had to
play cross handed (which I didnt). Cross handed means keeping time on the
high hat with your right hand and hitting the snare drum with your left. I
couldnt do it and keep time. The only way I could play was to keep time on
the high hat with my left hand and hit the snare with my right. This would
cause snorts of derision from anyone watching, especially my younger
brother who was the guitar whiz in our band. He used to scream at me to
"PLAY THE RIGHT WAY" and I, never much of a follower, would scream back "IF
YOU DONT SHUT UP IM GONNA SHOVE THIS DRUMSTICK UP YOUR XXX!!!"

Anyways, the whole point of this lengthy post is Ive gone and been
"different" again. In the middle of this massive heat wave, even here in
Seattle, Ive grown a beard.

Heh.

Playing On KHELP radio (where the hits just keep on
coming...bam...bam...BAM!) tonight is:

Remedy--Black Crowes

I don't care for a lot of Black Crowes stuff but that song rules.

So, let's talk music, shall we? As I putter through the work day (and the
rest of the day, for that matter) the underlying foundation is music,
music, music! It's always playing in the background...or foreground when I
have my headphones on.

Im all over the map with my taste in music. About the only genre I dont
like is rap (although I have a few of those songs too). Otherwise, Im
there, dude.

The Mr. Helpful music collection resides on my Windows machine. Ive gone
through and digitzed 250 cds, 400 cassette tapes and 600 albums (geez, can
you tell what era Im from?). Plus Ive bought a fair share of songs online.


This means Ive got just over 6,000 songs on my computer at the current
time. That doesnt represent every song on all that other media...I actually
went through every album, every cassette and every CD and digitized only
the songs I like. The CD's were fairly easy...I just ripped the songs as
they appeared on my screen. But the albums and cassettes were a different
matter altogether. I had to capture every single song in real time.
Needless to say, it took me a LONG time to create this library. Yeah, I
know. I need a life.

Right now Ive got about half of my library on my MP3 player.

So how about you? How do you store and listen to your music?

Where does the time go?

Honest to God, I swear sometimes I dont know where the time goes!

It was just yesterday we were celebrating Cinco De Mayo and now it's almost
the end of June. What in the heck is going on? Did someone put life on
fast forward?

Or maybe it's that the crystal meth just kicked in.

JUST JOKING!!

Heh heh heh....

It's just past midnight and here I sit on my deck, thirty feet up from the
ground, encased in darkness, listening to the rain fall while Im trying to
think of something compelling to type.

These are the peaceful moments even as the peepers begin croaking once
again. In a few minutes, I'll trudge off to bed, tired but relaxed, ready
to get up in seven hours or so and do this PFB thing all over again.

We've got a lot of stuff going on yet, even as we move forward, it's so
exciting to see how the community is coming together. Sure there are bumps
in the road however, overall, we're in a much better place now than we were
a couple of years ago.

We have you, the site users to thank for that. It may not always seem like
your voice is heard but, trust me, it is. We cant do everything all at
once however we are making incremental progress, day by day. That's
exactly how solid foundations are built.

We'd just like to express our heartfelt thanks to everyone who finds value
in the experience that PFB offers. With your support, things will only get
better.

The peepers have stopped croaking. It's no longer raining. Time to go
to bed.

So I'm sitting here in the breakfast area of the Marriott Residence Inn in
Portland, Oregon.

I need to give a great big shoutout to the hotel. Free wireless internet.
A very comfortable room with a decent size work area. Very friendly staff.
Heck, make that EXTREMELY friendly staff. There was a maintenance guy
fixing the door closer on a sliding glass door next to where Im sitting.
When he was done, he turned and asked if he could take my dirty plate from
my table. That was kind of amazing, to say the least.

All in all, the Residence Inn did a great job!

Little by little, PlanetFeedback is expanding your ability to connect with
fellow PFB users!

Now you have a place where you can express your thoughts beyond just a
response to a letter. And there's more to come. We've just scratched the
surface.

So play with your new toy and rest assured that we're working hard every
day to make sure your voice is heard!