A friend of mine turned 40 last weekend, and being that we share some similar music tastes, I elected to put together a little birthday mix for her of tracks from about 20 years ago. (gasp)
So, during the daily commutes in the metro and the train, I shuffled through my iPod trying to find 16 or so songs that I thought fitting. Identifying them wasn't a challenge, nor was creating the correct order of the playlist. However, I completely forgot that most of my stuff isn't on my PC, but instead solely on my iPod. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but as I tend to procrastinate, I found myself terribly hungover last Saturday(previous night was a going away party for another friend moving to Munich) and trying to figure out just how I was going to get this simple CD burned.
Since I recently got a new laptop with much more capacity, I realized that the best thing would be to simply dump my iPod back onto my PC, then import everything back into iTunes. I spent the 30 minutes waiting for the iPod to PC transfer to complete doing a bit of vaccuming and other random domestic stuff, then the real fun started.
Embarassing enough, I work in the tech industry and forgot that you don't just DUMP a 500mb folder anywhere. As I had 49 folders to muck about with, I suddenly realized that this project was going to take a while. And, this was only to be able to START creating the playlist.
Two Skpe calls, half a bottle of baileys (don't ask) and 30 folders later, I had 13 of the 16 songs. The problem was that each folder contained hundreds of songs, all coded in away that don't easily enable one to just select the immediately required files. Once or twice I pictured someone (namely me) getting really frustrated trying to go through 6000 CDs without any liner notes attempting to find "that really cool song i used to listen to about 10 years ago that i forgot the name of." It wasn't pretty, and thank goodness I came to my senses and decided that I'd just have to bring the gift belatedly. As it was, I stopped dumping files around 10pm, quickly showered, then ran next door to join up with those of us from the Bornheim pub area that were to taxi to the restaurant where the party was held.
The party was fun, but I called it an early night and left around 3.
I resumed my project again when I woke up, and got the result within about an hour: all tunes back in iTunes, particularly the 16, and after a quick burn, I had my gift ready. Even better was the fact that I ran into the birthday girl (whose birthday was actually on Sunday; Germans beging the birthday celebrations at 12.01am on the day of their birthday, which is why the party was on Saturday) in the highstreet, and ticked the box for having given the gift on the right date.
All in all, a fairly decent weekend, one that included the added joy of finally, after many many months of waiting, getting some boots that I'd ordered from England (via the US). Amusingly enough, I initially thought that the boots didn't fit, but then later realized that I was just really hungover when I tried them on. Had I put the shoestrings through the proper eyes, things would have been OK right from the start. So, I'm now bopping around town in a new pair of Gripfast. Cool. Definitely worth the wait.
The week before the birthday party, I was in Edinburgh on business, which turned out to be a really nice time, also. My hotel was in city center right at the base of the castle. It was a bit hard to hide my enthusiasm in front of my supplier, but she accepted the fact that I was a big fan of the city. Alas, I didn't run into Ian Rankin in any of the bars I was in, but I was thrilled to be there regardless.
Workwise, it's been nonstop bop. Q4 forecasts, 2009 budget and plan, a random problem or two created by our facility in Prague, and a few exasperated moments where I called someone a complete prat on a conference call (perfectly justified, i thought) are just some of the highlights of the busy days. My new boss started working this past week, too. Should be very interesting in the coming weeks.
On the social front, things are wacky as usual, and currently they're a bit emotional, but I know that Alles wird gut.
I'll leave you with that. I've got to go and fight for a friend.
keep the faith
bryan
tracklist -
Mana - Nada que perder
Blaggers ITA - Oxygen
Alkaline Trio - Over and Out
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