leejacksonaudio

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. IMHO, a very smooth farewell to Chadwick Boseman.

I've updated the Commissions page of my website with more information on the synths I use and more samples of the songs I've done. I haven't reopened the commissions queue yet - my health still needs to recover from heart palpitations, peripheral artery disease, and a severe problem with trying to stay awake first - but I am entertaining e-mails about projects that I would take up once I'm healthy again. Please have a look and let me know what you think! https://dleejackson.lbjackson.com/commissions/

I've updated the Commissions page of my website with more information on the synths I use and more samples of the songs I've done. I haven't reopened the commissions queue yet - my health still needs to recover from heart palpitations, peripheral artery disease, and a severe problem with trying to stay awake first - but I am entertaining e-mails about projects that I would take up once I'm healthy again. Please have a look and let me know what you think! https://dleejackson.lbjackson.com/commissions/

Nerd? Me? Never. Geek is what I am. :)

Me and the newest of our trio of cats, Lola. She's barely a year old, but she's already asserting her dominance over the other two cats in the house. And she's just a Foster cat! :)

Me, former Apogee/3D Realms online support specialist Joe Siegler, and former Apogee support tech Steve Quarella, at the Super Bowl LVII party at Joe's house, about to say our goodbyes for the evening. We try to do this every year, although COVID-19 disrupted our schedule the past couple of years. This was our first year back at it.

Starting back in 2019, I used to do what was called the Song of the Weekend over in the Lee Jackson Audio Community Discussion Group on Facebook. Every other week, I'd let the members vote on a group of three of the songs I've written to choose which one would be the Song of the Weekend. I would do a write-up on the winning song, including history, anecdotes, musical analysis (where possible), and any other information I could come up with. This went on until the Spring of 2022, when I started getting sick. Anyway, the write-ups from the Song of the Weekend winners are now available for reading in PDF form from my website! No need to dig through a Facebook thread anymore. Simply go to https://dleejackson.lbjackson.com/music/song-of-the-weekend-archive/ and choose if you want to browse by date or alphabetical order. It's not a complete discography, but it's a pretty big collection of my songs. Please head on over and take a look today!

Starting back in 2019, I used to do what was called the Song of the Weekend over in the Lee Jackson Audio Community Discussion Group on Facebook. Every other week, I'd let the members vote on a group of three of the songs I've written to choose which one would be the Song of the Weekend. I would do a write-up on the winning song, including history, anecdotes, musical analysis (where possible), and any other information I could come up with. This went on until the Spring of 2022, when I started getting sick. Anyway, the write-ups from the Song of the Weekend winners are now available for reading in PDF form from my website! No need to dig through a Facebook thread anymore. Simply go to https://dleejackson.lbjackson.com/music/song-of-the-weekend-archive/ and choose if you want to browse by date or alphabetical order. It's not a complete discography, but it's a pretty big collection of my songs. Please head on over and take a look today! EDIT: I know the Archive is a bit clunky, but it's done the best I know how in WordPress. If anyone has any suggestions on how I could smooth over the user experience while keeping the PDF file format, please reply here in this thread. Thank you!

Wouldn't know - haven't pushed it that hard. I have had the battery run for several days in just Plain Old Phone mode with a couple of alarms set, however.

I'm using a Pixel 6 here. Very happy with it. Would assume I'd be at least as happy with a Pixel 7.

A pound of 7-year-aged cheddar and a shoo-fly pie from S. Clyde Weaver in Pennsylvania:

Thanks to all of you for your kind words and suggestions. Let's take it a step further. If I wanted to get into, say, Quakecon, where would I start? I assume I wouldn't simply call up the owners of the event and say, "Hi! I'd like to be a featured guest at Quakecon, please."

The big developments in F1 - namely, Ford rejoining the sport and Andretti-Cadillac trying to get the boot in - have kept my interest up this off-season. I really want to see a Red Bull-Ford car and an Andretti-Cadillac going side by side down the main straight at Monza one of these days.

For my laptop, which I use for web, e-mail, and general non-music stuff, I run BitDefender. It's been solid, and it's caught several files that have come through e-mail lately. For my music workstation, I use Windows Defender and I stay the hell off of the internet as much as possible. @Murdoch , what thoughts if any do you have on BitDefender?

I'm home from the hospital. The schedule is a bit delayed - I won't be going to wound care until next Friday. I'm going to have home health come in, potentially 3x a week, potentially as soon as tomorrow. In the meantime, I get to settle back in, preferably with some different lifestyle patterns, and become a functional human once again. Thanks for all of your messages of support during my hospitalization. I do appreciate them.

Had a chance to discuss a few things with the hospitalist while I'm waiting to be discharged today. Found out that I was presenting with a kidney injury when I showed up at the hospital, thanks to a creatinine level of 1.8. I'm down to 1.2 now, so the injury has been resolved. However, I'm now in Stage III Chronic Kidney Disease. Not the worst diagnosis (there are 5 stages), but not something I wanted in the first place.

Trying to find a way to pass the time while bedridden in the hospital (see my "Essential Info" thread for details), I'm just curious: If I were to get healthy and show up as a guest at a convention, would you go out of your way to come and see me? Be brutally honest. If yes, which convention should I try to get invited to so I can make my appearance there? Be reasonable - no "E3" suggestions, please. Thanks for playing along!

Update: There is a light at the end of the tunnel. My swelling has gone down, as has my redness. My infection markers are clearing, but they're going to keep me on Vancomycin while I'm still hospitalized. That may not be for very much longer, however; I've been given a tentative discharge date of Thursday, February 2nd (yes, Groundhog Day). It'd be sooner, but we're iced in here in the D/FW Metroplex and there's no way my wife would be able to make it to the hospital. In any case, I'll be right back up at the Wound Care Clinic on Friday for a new wrapping on my legs. I'm going to have to be careful once I get home, however, or I could end up right back in the hospital according to the doctor.

I am in the hospital. Allow me to explain. I had ulcers erupt on my very swollen legs, so I called to have an appointment with a Wound Care Specialist at a Dallas hospital. He also happens to be a specialist in leg swelling cases, BTW. He examined me on Thursday of last week and told me he could not fix my problem without admitting me into the hospital. I agreed to let him admit me, so he admitted me straight from his offices after putting wraps on my legs. Since then, I've had one problem after another. We found out that a muscle relaxant medicine I was taking for muscle spasms was actually causing said spasms, so it was discontinued. I've had a couple of panic attacks in the overnight hours. I've lost so much water weight from diuretics that it's messing with my blood pressure, sending it as low as 83/35 the other day. And, I'm still getting post-concussion headaches. I have no idea how long I'm going to be here. My latest diagnosis is Peripheral Artery Disease, if you want to go look that up. It's supposedly somewhat serious - I don't know, I haven't had time to investigate it yet. I'm in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, room M439. However, in place of sending cards or the like, I'd prefer you buy one of my albums from https://leejackson1.bandcamp.com instead if you haven't already. Either one would help cheer me up.

Many, many thanks for all the kind words. I'm very glad (and very humbled) to hear that people are thinking of me. No, I'm not a perpetual fall machine. I just had a very, very bad day. I saw the doctor for my wounds and maladies on Thursday. First off, he says the headache I've had since my fall is a symptom of a concussion. Joy. Too late to do anything about it now, though, since it's relatively minor. Next up, the gash on my butt. Something cut all the way through my shorts and through my shirt tail before tearing a two-inch gash in my left butt cheek. The skin area around it is blackened, and the gash itself is infected. My wife is putting Silvadene on it to dress it, and my doctor prescribed a week's course of Augmentin to knock out any systemic infection that might linger. Elsewhere, I've got other minor cuts and abrasions on my left wrist and some bruised ribs. My left knee is still out of alignment and swollen. I'm still using the walker for both legs. More annoying is that my edema (leg swelling) is acting up in spades again. My doctor checked my blood for a factor called Creatine Kinase to see if it or its related electrolytes (potassium, magnesium) are causing my leg cramping and my shaking in other muscles. Here are my numbers: Creatine Kinase 36 U/L (normal 44 - 196 U/L) !LOW Potassium 4.7 mmol/L (normal 3.5 - 5.3 mmol/L) Magnesium 2.5 mg/dL (normal 1.5 - 2.5 mg/dL) I e-mailed to the doctor about the results. He said that the normal Potassium and Magnesium results were good, and that the low CK numbers unfortunately don't tell him anything. They represent atrophied muscles according to some websites, which is to be expected because of the atrophied muscles in my left hand caused by my carpal/cubital tunnel syndrome. Can't aim the number anywhere else, though. All I can do is wait for the kidney doctor appointment, which I now have, and hope that he can find something that will help me. In the meanwhile, I'm shaky as all hell. Makes using a cell phone difficult - punching those tiny numbers and letters is hard, much less holding the damned thing still in the first place.

Humpty-Dumpty time. I had a great fall Monday as I was returning from getting blood work done. I was stepping up onto my porch/landing/whatever in front of my front toor, and my leg cramped up as I put weight on it. I collapsed as a result, faceplanting into the wooden beam alongside the left of my doorr entryway. and slamming my leg into the concrete at the base. I cut my hand and my butt. My wife had to call an ambulance to get me up. I'm still shaking from the fall. Still somewhat traumatized. My left knee got knocked out of alignment. My neck hurts on my right side. I'm shaking a lot, and my wife wrapped up my hand in gauze. More details as I can remember them.

You are a gentleperson and a scholar. Thank you. (https://leejackson1.bandcamp.com) ^_^

Don't be silly. Johann didn't have access to the MIDI protocol back when he was alive. :)

Update #1: I have my new hearing aids. They're clearer: less distorted, more focused. Maybe not as loud, but that's adjustable. Comfortable - no change there. Update #2: Finally had my CT scan w/contrast media. No reaction to the media noted, thanks to the pre-medication regimen. I'll get the results soon.