For Your Listening Pleasure…

Tags

life, personal, work

…the dulcet tones of STEVE?

Yes.  Steve.

This past Wednesday, I recorded a voice over at a tiny professional recording studio.  I walked in with a script in hand, was greeted by an energetic young brunette engineer and escorted to a little room, with a closet sized room in the corner that was lined with acoustic foam, a music stand, and an adjustable height microphone with a round spit shield in front of it.  She handed me a glass of water, asked me if I am claustrophobic (I lied and said no), gave me some instructions about how the session would go, then closed the door.  I could see her and multiple monitor screens, essential for me to follow each segment of the recording as we recorded the script in bits.

There was a choice to wear the headphones or not.  I chose to wear them — I wanted to hear my voice.  We began with a long sound check as the engineer monkeyed with the levels, brought out a little more of the bass in my voice.  I have to say, it was pretty cool to hear myself!

Breath control was more difficult than I anticipated.  I managed to make it through most of the takes without snorting in the microphone or breathing heavily like a deranged pervert.  There were a few repeated bits as I worked on inflection, as well as slowing down and adding pauses, cleaning up a few places where I slurred or dropped a pronunciation.  Some of the challenge for me is simply forgetting what is left of my southern Illinois accent.

I made it through 90 minutes, a bit tired when the session was finished.  The engineer seemed impressed, told me that I sound like the guy who narrates some of the How It’s Made videos.  That made me feel good.  However, when I listened to the finished product later on that night, I still felt happy about the job that I did on the voice over, but realized that I am far from professional.  It was a good experience, though.

The voice over was for the first of a series of product training videos the company I work for is producing.  My employer is based in Hungary and I was chosen because, and I quote, “Steve sounds very, very American”.  That’s a compliment, right?

If my voice over actually is used, I will post it here.  Here is the link to the audio files, if you are interested in hearing this dork’s voice — SteveSuckedAndItIsRecorded

 

 

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I Am An Adult

Tags

fun, life, work

Yesterday, I chose to be an adult.  It doesn’t happen often.  A little of the choice happened by accident, by circumstance.  I bought new tires for my mountain bike Friday evening on the way home from a ride, in a rush, and didn’t buy new tubes (I should go tubeless).  While changing tires, I punctured the tube.  Sooooooo, Saturday morning, I had to wait for the bicycle shop to open before I could fix the flat tire.  Thus, I made an adult choice as a result.

I actually did my chores before riding.  Usually, I ride then chore.  After all, playing is far more important and most the time I have enough energy left after playing to work.  The bicycle shop opened early, so I had new tubes in hand by 8:30 AM, but instead I went home without riding.  The lawn was mowed, trimming done, driveway edged and cleaned, then the asphalt sealed.

By 2 PM, I was done with chores.  Time to play.  And I did.  15 miles of dirt single track, enough to work out the soreness from the chores as well as work out the tightness from the previous two days of riding.

It was a beautiful weekend here in Chicagoland.  Stevie played.  I tried to take a rest day today, but the weather was just too nice to waste.  More singletrack this afternoon.

I am tired.  My muscles are pleasantly worn out.  With my annual mountain bike trip with my friends coming this Thursday and Friday, this weekend will have helped get me ready.

That’s right… more play for Stevie is coming SOON!

First Snow Saturday Morning

Tags

mountain biking, Nick, sheltie, snow, work

Here in Chicagoland, we are having our first snow of the season, one of those spectacularly beautiful and quiet storms that allows the snow to stick to the tree limbs.  Saturday morning is a pleasant time, in the warm weather months the day that I get a ride in with my friends.  When the snow hits our first instinct is to lament that the snow has put the brakes on our regularly scheduled ride.  Snow before the first freeze makes the trails muddy and slick, not good or appropriate for riding.  Not only does the mud cover the bike and damage shifting components, but riding muddy trails damages the trails.  Additionally, riding in mud is not as much fun as it sounds.  I could ride the streets, but it really is not worth the uncomfortable mess and the clean up required afterwards.  No.  I will likely give myself a few days rest from the bike, then set up the indoor trainer.

That means I need to get the rear wheel of my road bike rebuilt.  I rode my old Neuvation wheels one season too many, paid for it by a spoke nipple cracking the rear hoop and breaking through.  I need a new hoop.  Problem is that my car and family have required more than my bank account can handle, so I have put off replacing the wheel.  With my back up wheel loaned out to a friend and my back up bike sold for car repair money back in September, I may be forced to break out the old steel hybrid to ride on the trainer.  Such is life.

Until the end of December, I have access to the work out room at my office complex.  It’s equipped with bikes and nice big TVs, as well as a full weight room.  I will go there too, probably working out at the end of my work day.  Between Christmas and New Year’s, our three person office is moving out of the Regus center where we are renting individual offices.  We are leasing our own office suite, a very nice suite with our own lobby, glass fronts to each office, a large office for our managing director with room for a conference table.  It’s exciting for us because it feels like we are taking the next step to growth.

My little company is growing.  Well, it’s not “mine”, it’s the USA subsidiary to a Hungarian company, but since our subsidiary is just three people — managing director, office manager, and me (owner of many hats/responsibilities) — each of us feels like the subsidiary is ours.  In my first year with the company, our subsidiary won the global sales award and exceeded our sales goal by quite a bit.  We just signed a 2.3 million dollar contract with a company who wants to private label one of our products in the USA, as well as locking in several $100K orders with a few more cooking.  I am one busy man.  I like that.  I am getting credit from my boss for being a busy man, rewarded on a regular basis, and the three of us are working very well together.  It shows.

I could pick out the negatives of working for a Hungarian company.  There are several that make my work days challenging, but those challenges also are part of what makes my job interesting.

So I sit at the kitchen table, listening to the music I like, writing, waiting for my slumbering 16 year old to trudge out of bed in a few hours.  He will likely wake up in time for me to fix breakfast/lunch for him.

There is another person with me who likes the first snow of the year.  I absolutely love watching him dive into the snow as soon as I let him out the door.  Nick the sheltie is a little kid when it comes to snow, mesmerized by the white magic outside.  His thick coat of fur is perfect for this snow, so much that he is more comfortable outside when it snows.

This is an old picture, but I have already been greeted several times by a snow covered Nick.  He looks just like the picture right now!

 

Conventionally Unconventional

Tags

sick day, stress, unconventional manner, work

Unconventional.

One’s first impression of me, if that one is only looking at me, is not going to be screaming “unconventional”.  My appearance is basic middle aged Midwestern male, lower middle class father who is still transitioning to bald, a bit of a gut — real average.  My guess is that most people think I do pretty much everything by the book, as any reasonably intelligent male of my social standing does.

For the most part that is true.  For the most part it is true, but not always.

The way I called in sick to work today might be one example of that not always.  This morning was one of those mornings where I woke up early with what can only be described as a stress induced whopper of a headache.  They happen, are bound to happen considering the stress of fatherhood and trying to stay financially afloat in today’s economy.  A dull pain filled my head in a foggy halo even before I opened my eyes to the bark bark bark of my morning alarm (I love that alarm).  Today was supposed to be a ride my bike to work day, as the rest of the week needs to be by necessity of a weak checking account balance, and the ache in my head as I struggled out of bed told me that riding was not going to be a realistic option.  We also were out of the only pain reliever that works for my headaches, a few generic ibuprofen were all I could find.  I popped three, downed a slug of Pepto, then returned to bed hoping that the pain would be dulled to a manageable roar an hour later.  One problem — the zoo called my family was stirring and the panic filled hour of school prep did not allow for rest.  An hour later there was no relief.  To top it off, once my wife discovered I was still in bed, her incessant questions just made the ache worse.  So I got out of bed, took a shower, shoved off for work with about 20 minutes left.  Maybe coffee would help.

It didn’t help.

So I sat in the coffee shop, wondering what to do.  It’s Tuesday, not a good day to take off of work for any reason simply because it will be a mad house at work tomorrow if I miss today.  My eyes were not focusing well, the woozy halo of the headache still affecting my vision.  It usually does.  I could go to work, hope that I would recover in an hour or so like I occasionally do, or I could go back home and rest.  Since much of the headache is likely stress related — I made a mortgage payment by phone last night to stave off the foreclosure hounds for a few more weeks — I knew that going to work was not likely going to help my head.  Neither was going home.  What to do?

I drove to work.  Sat in my car outside the building for a minute while mulling over what to do.  I went in.  The time clock said 8:31, which meant I was 31 minutes late.  Really it was best to just take the sick day.  I sat in the company cafeteria for a few minutes, finished my coffee.

Go to work.  Don’t clock in.  See what needs to be taken care of right away.  Do it.  Go home.

So I did just that.  I went to my desk, logged in to my computer, looked at email.  I kept quiet.  There WERE a few issues that needed my attention immediately.  I took care of them, communicated with the people who needed to be communicated with, made sure my boss was copied so that he could take care of any further issues today should they come up.

I felt a bit of the stress leave.  Strangely enough going to work and knowing what was there for me helped my state of mind.

My boss wasn’t at his desk, didn’t even know I had come in.  He must have been in a meeting.  So it felt real strange calling him from the phone at my desk for the purpose of calling in sick.  That can’t happen very often!

The house is quiet.  The headache persists and I need to quit looking at a computer screen — because everything is starting to swim.

Maybe I am not too unconventional, I guess I just do things my own way.