• Welcome to the New Blog

    My blog will be migrating from wtfisjohnsopera.blogspot.com to here. Posts will be infrequent. They may contain posts about music, technology, programming, angst, or maybe, possibly, even comics. I haven’t decided how to use the space yet. The space now exists though, so, as was so famously put “Build it, and they will come.”

  • How to understand someone else's code.

    I originally posted this in a Slack channel. Note: User’s experience may vary. Use at your own risk. This process has been tested, however, not every codebase may be compatible. You’ll find out relatively quickly.

  • The Keep Me Playing Project

    I began playing trombone as a 4th grader at Tri-Central Elementary School in rural Indiana. It was a bit of a mistake. My family didn’t have money for an instrument at the time, so I was supposed to mark down being interested in a school owned instrument: Tuba, baritone, or French horn. Luck being so kind, I ticked off trombone instead of tuba. Thus began 22 years of trombone.

    Dat 42BO Doh
    Yes, this trombone. Bach 42BO. Now and forever (it seems)

    Flash forward to age 32. I hadn’t played in a few years, not since leaving the country on Fulbright. The trombone had been in storage, with only a little time spent over the summer of 2014 practicing. Since starting at Akamai, music has been far from my mind. Sure, I wrote a piece for highScore, and defended a dissertation, but I hadn’t really been active as a musician. Moving back to Kansas City, I became president of the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance, a more non-profit management and artistic direction than active music making. Composing, and especially trombone performance, were still not priorities.