JOHN WOODEN

I was creating a program to help people learn to skate today and thought of John Wooden. John is a legend of a coach in the United States and someone, along with Dr Vincent Peale, I have huge respect for and wish I had known his teachings earlier in my life. If you are based in Britain you may not have heard of him.

I thought I would like to include some quotes so I needed to see if I can get in touch with his publishers. I found he had died in June this year aged 99.

I'm sad to never have had the chance to meet him or write. I should have acted earlier... But his legacy is strong in what he leaves by way of a structure to give the best you can which I try to embrace.

If you want insight into how to be the best you can be Google John Wooden. It is wonderful timeless wisdom. I have a clip on my site http://www.nickyslater.com/NOTES.html - scroll down and have a watch and a listen I also watched this http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/news/story?id=5253601

I'm very aware that I have short comings against some of the criteria Johnny Wooden established in his Pyramid - God help me to get better at these areas...

An inspiring man.

Love

Nicky

TOO BUSY TO BLOG...

Christiane my beautiful wife has gently berated me for not blogging or Tweeting or anything like that. My response "I'm too busy to Blog!" "Well tell people..." came her gentle reply.

I think it's more like the Blogging thing is ongoing - like a footsoldier - keep on keeping on.. But I am a Commando in my makeup so right now - with no specific deadline for much of the development and learning I do I'm not feeling provoked to blog / tweet...

Addressing scales, 12 bar blues, circle of fifths on piano, guitar barring (hurts the finger!), iambic pentametres, ternarys and troichaic and pyrrhic substitutions all becoming clearer in poetic mode and various areas of songwriting and website marketing stuff being drilled. I have been writing too. It is never a problem being creative. Oh yes and there are some specific projects being brought to life as I write.

But all that is perhaps a bit boring, unless you're doing it, in which case it all starts to cross reference and becomes rather fascinating and takes every waking hour.

Having a shoulder that crocked when I was lifting heavier weights and a cough doesn't help but all will repair shortly. I sound like an old fashioned Carlsberg advert at present...

If you lived in my world you would be seeing a range of characters developing and music and personalities developing for these. You would see the possibility of a mixing and matching of these characters and the fun in that. But that is my world... for now; so it's a secret and the subject of obscure ramblings..

Enough - "I am too busy to blog..." I am getting on, getting on..."

I hope you are enjoying the summer.

Love N

One foot cable!!!

I used to know a man who owned a Pools Company. Every weekend millions of people predicted the winners of the football matches and could themselves win millions if they got the right answers. The lottery killed the business. One weekend his computers weren't working. It was a nightmare; results are shown on television and broadcast on radio - to not be able to announce the winner was terrible - customers might not trust you again...

Experts were brought in to see the state of the art computers and fix them. All to nought. A helicopter brought in a super specialist. Still no joy. Then, one of the employees asked what he thought might be a silly question. "Is that the plug for the computer? The one that's not quite in it's socket?" Of course it was and no one had remembered to check it! Everything else worked but the power was intermittent and was 'upsetting' the computer results - as you might imagine.

In my studio, after much deliberation, I had choosen a certain type of USB mixing desk. This links directly to the software in the computer. It should be brilliant. It wasn't. Time and again one part of the system worked and another didn't - always a different part. I thought it was me.

Over weeks that became months I worked away to fix it. I know I am configuring it correctly, I know it should be seeing it work, I am getting in to midi controller programming- Ahhh... not somewhere I want to be!

Anyway - long story short - one midi cable 12 inches long was a dud. I finally saw that it worked sending but not receiving and started to spot quirks and isolated it to that problem, more by luck than judgement. So, £4.99 has delivered me a beautiful mixing desk that works like a dream. I showed Christiane and she was delighted too. So, in a happy mood I went for lunch. Came back after lunch and... it didn't work again!!!!!! Calm down check the wires. The new one was not pushed in far enough... and it all worked again - pretty lights, faders et al. Thank goodness. I can track across 72 tracks with two key pushes... joy...

Step by step I'm getting there with my studio set up. Just hope I can get there before I'm 96!

Love N