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By coscooper
Job hunting is almost a full time job, but the tasks are tedious and frankly boring. I mean, if you were asked by your current employer to search through a myriad of job sites, poke through every company web site you’d like to work with looking for that perfect job description hoping that they magically posted a new option, writing compelling, relevant cover letters and going through every variation of a job application, you’d tell your boss you were nuts, right? Well, that pretty much sums up my mornings, among other things.
When people ask how it’s going or what’s your status, I tell them I’m still “underemployed”, meaning, I work, but not enough to pay the bills. Besides reaching out to my network, following up on leads and the dreaded seek and apply work, I also do other things to stay busy. While it’s not a stigma anymore to be “underemployed” for a period of time, it does look good that you’re busy filling in your time with related work rather than catching up on the latest soap-opera or catching all those “new career” commercials. (Okay, I watch a little daytime TV, but not much.)
Besides the job hunt, I find myself writing a lot more than before. I bang out more blog posts, like this, and I pump out a number of articles for various online venues like Examiner, eHow and several others. Elance also has some freelance optional work, but it’s hard to land projects with all the “off-shore” contractors. Along side the article freelancing, I’ve been really catching up on those two novel projects I’ve worked on and off the past few years. In fact, I’m finished with one, High Lies, it’s now on the back burner, I’m letting it settle out of my brain. I’ll pick it up in a few weeks to review my handy work and decide if it’s worth selling to an agent or not. Jodi says that being a novelist is my retirement plan, we’ll see.
In my spare time, I also come up with every business idea I can think, Pro-Services company, news website, IT Project Management company, several software ideas for the iPad, to name a few. I hearken back to the early days of Jeff Bezos and J.K. Rowling thinking that if something pops into my mind for a good business plan or a great book, maybe that will work out. Pipe dreams to be sure, but I’m busy, underemployed really.
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By coscooper
With age comes maturity, age appropriateness, sacrifice, boredom, jazz music, humming show tunes,
HAHHHH…. NAH!!! WTF did you think I was going to write next?? Like that’s really me. While the business persona might have a conservative facade, that’s not the REAL ME.
I love rock, head nodding, head banging, loud ROCK! always have and always will. Hard core, metal, head-banging was pretty influential in my youth. While I like a lot of different kinds of music, I still love a good hard rock song. I’m NOT into roaring and growling, well, not constantly through the whole song. However, a modern metal rock band has really caught my attention the past few years and they’re about to release a new album.
I’m speaking of the venerable, “DISTURBED“. While they hit the hard riffs and rapid fire drums, they also have a mix of melody and you can actually understand their lyrics. With a mix like that, you can’t miss. I’ve seen a few interviews with them on music shows and their lead singer appears to be a decent guy.
I typically switch between two or three local radio stations, but my favorite that’s on in my jeep any given day is KPBI, the local rock station. They’ve been playing the new single “Inside the Fire” and it really hits it hard. While the subject, suicide, is sensitive, it’s something you hear about daily. They hit it head on and rock the speakers. Check out their videos on YouTube.
If you love metal and the Disturbed, then check out their new album, Indestructible . NUFF Said!
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By coscooper
No, I don’t have the worlds tiniest cell phone stuck in my ears and Yes, I’m well, over 40. So, the day after a concert I spend a lot of time say, “What?”. Fortunately, it usually wains after a day or so. It’s the price you pay going to a “Live” concert in a small venue. Even though the sound was balanced and quit good, it still pummels the ears.
We spent the evening at the BlueBird down on Colfax. It was the first time going to the theater and to be honest, it was a great little venue. The headliner was “I Hate Kate“. They’re an up-and-coming band from Southern California that has a following here in Denver and they’re played on 93.3 all the time, so we, Jodi and I, thought they were a pretty big band. However, one of the local DJ’s liked them and he played them all the time increasing their popularity.
Both the BlueBird and the bands were great. How can you go wrong with a place that serves Guinness on tap? You can’t. Before the headliner, there were a couple of “local” bands doing their “warm-up” sets, which again, in all honesty, weren’t half bad. The drummer of the first little band, which I do not recall their name, something 5, was a bit over-the-top. After listening to Dylans drum teacher talk about “too much filler”, this guy pounded it out in spades. “Nerf”, one of the 93.3 DJ’s that likes “I Hate Kate” had his band, “The Frequent Sea” warm up right before IHK came on. They were a little rough at first, but once they warmed up, they really rocked the house.
Headlining of course, was “I Hate Kate“. They really put on a great show. Their front-man, Justin, was engaging and got the audience going. At one point, he had someone in the audience on stage to help with a fist pump number. They started the show with a bang playing, “I’m in love with a Sociopath”. A more recent “theme” song of mine. They did their whole album for the most part along with the cover “Major Tom” and ended with “Always Something”.
All-in-all, it was a great night out. Good friends, Guinness, great burger at “My Brothers Bar & Grill” before hand, what else could you ask for?
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By coscooper
This past weekend was to be a “belated” Christmas gift to the Cooper family. We’d held off on a few things this past Christmas. Not that we have big gift giving extravagant events, but we kept it “simple” this year. However, since we all love music, especially concert going, we thought we’d kick the winter blues by seeing Linkin Park, again. We’ve seen them in concert before and they put on one amazing show connecting with the fans and really putting it all out there.
So, back when the tour announcements were made back circa Nov/Dec of 07, Jodi was on her laptop hitting buy the moment the tickets went on sale. Rather than get just …any… seats, she decided to get the “Hot Seat” package which included exclusive front row seating, hospitality room and special LP gift, it was suppose to be special so we could enjoy ourselves AND be right there near the action.
Friday, Feb 29th, leap day and we’ll just pretend really never happened, we took off for Albuquerque New Mexico to attend the concert. Road trip!!! 7 hours later, we pulled into our hotel, had dinner and got some rest. The plan was to hang out most of Saturday before picking up the tickets at will call later. Our first order of business was shopping at Trader Joes! Closest one to Denver. We then took a side trip to Petroglyph National Monument to check out the trails and Indian drawings. Then down to Old Town for a light lunch made up of Mexican food and cervesa. Nice easy going morning.
The afternoon went down hill from there. Back at the room, Jodi just happened to stop by on the Linkin Park web site to check out some music videos and see about the venue we were heading to later. Low and behold, only to discover that LP had canceled. Not only was Albuquerque canceled, but they had to cancel El Paso as well. Chester Benefield, the lead singer was sick and couldn’t perform. Bummer.
Jodi and Dylan were extremely bummed out about this situation. Of course, now we had the prospect of heading home and not getting to see the show. We quickly packed our stuff, checked out of the hotel and started our road trip home. Needless to say, it was 7 hours of solid gloom in the car. I don’t think we even turned the radio on once. No music. Although, on the bright side, it was a really great drive. New Mexico desert is beautiful at sundown and the vista’s we took in were spectacular.
I guess the moral has two points of view. One, performers are just people and subject to illness like everyone else and we shouldn’t hold it against them. Second, when you travel for a schedule event, show or otherwise, it’s a risk pure and simple. There are no guarantees sometimes you have to take the highs with the lows. Sure, it stinks that they canceled, but that’s the risk you take and the way it goes.
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