Musically Speaking

“I am not a king, no
not a hero,
not a fool,

I am only flesh and bones
and I am
exactly what you need”

It turns out that just about 2 hours after I wrote my last post talking about how in a few more days I would officially be a Dad, Omega woke up with contractions and we wound up in the hospital by 2:30am. By afternoon on the 16th of February, I was able to welcome my brand new daughter, Emma Ryan, to our family!

I haven’t had much of a chance to write since then as things have been a bit of a whirlwind around here with visitors and all that, on top of just trying to get into a routine.

It has been truly amazing and I feel very sad that I have to go back to work so soon, only 4 days of vacation left before it is back to the rat race. Oh well, I suppose I have to go back to work sometime, but I wish I had another full week to spend at home. That’s ok, only about a month and I will get a nice 3 day weekend photo trip with Derek. That should be a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to it.

I can’t believe how crazy it seems that in just a few more days I will officially be a Dad! Even though we have been waiting for this time to come, it seems odd to think that there is such a short amount of time left before the little one is here!

It kind of makes me realize all the little things that still need to be done before it arrives, which has me really questioning if I should maybe take the day off of work tomorrow to get it all done. Have to wait and see what happens I suppose.

My new phrase, “anticipation exhilaration” is a good description of my mood right now so what music to listen to before bed tonight?

Guess I’ll have to wing it as nothing comes to mind immediately.

So here are a couple of things that stuck in my mind from today.

#1- At 6:40am this morning when the alarm went off and I rolled over to look out the window, welcomed by the site of…well the site of a pitch dark night, I officially kicked of my day by thinking that my alarm clock was set to the wrong time because it was way too dark still to be almost 7:00am.

#2- The current economic situation in the world today has people scared out of their minds about what will happen and has the average person handling their finances 2-3 times more conservatively than they normally would. Personally, while I struggle with these same issues, feel that it is actually a good and very much needed trend. Hopefully we can all look back at this time as the turning point that may help deflate the current and absurd inflation on the price of everything. *this is me trying to find the silver lining in the storm cloud*

#3- The fall weather was strange today. Being so overcast that it seemed like the sun just never really came up all the way, yet still bright enough that it didn’t feel like it was late evening at high noon. There was a lot of wind that had that mischievous feeling that it could just be speeding a little snow our way soon.

#4- The local Wal-Mart did not fail to produce the usual “interesting” encounters. This evenings trip highlighted by a young man being “walked” by a young woman. Yes, this is complete with him wearing the collar and leash, with her controlling him by maintaining a tight reign on said leash.

#5- As I watch the Vikings play on Monday Night Football I am experiencing a contradiction of emotion. On one hand I really want them to win as I am a lifelong fan of our Vikings, yet by winning it is causing me to lose what was a very, very close match-up this week in my fantasy football league. In the end I wanted the Vikings to win, but needed their defense to have a horrible game in order to pull out the win.

#6- I am 100% sick of hearing about the upcoming election. Period.

Halftime is almost over! Go Vikes!

Last night my wife and I decided to take a little drive over to Virginia and hit up one of the many local Chinese Buffets in the area. After enjoying a typical meal and leaving with that nicely full feeling that you know will never last longer than an hour, we left and hopped into my car for the brief drive home.

As we were getting ready to back out of our parking spot, my wife noticed the small sign on the door of the business right next to our buffet. She was totally grossed out by it, yet I found it strangely comical.

What was this mystery business you ask?

None other than a small, local…

Taxidermy shop.

Well, it’s been quite a while since I have sat down and posted anything. I guess partly because I haven’t had a whole lot to say, a little because I’ve been pretty busy, but mostly because when I do have time I have been more interested in snapping photo’s with my new camera, the wonderful Nikon D300. I made a big leap from the Canon that I had previously and honestly I have not come anywhere near scratching the surface of the potential of this amazing camera. You could say that I have been on a bit of a crash course trying to learn my way around it so that when we go on vacation in June up to Canada for a week, I will know at least the basics of what I need to be able to hopefully capture some awesome photos.

I know this is a very small and very quick update but I just wanted to say hi and let you know that I am still around out here, even though I haven’t been writing much on here. For what it’s worth I have been writing a fair amount in a couple of trusty old notebooks, working on the art of writing in the memoir style, along with trying my hand at a bit of poetry. Yet since I am not at this point ready to share any of that here on the site, I suppose it doesn’t really count for much.

Check out my Flickr site to see a few of the new images I have been able to capture with the new camera and let me know what you think. For those that really care about it, I am also in the process of putting together 2 new book projects through Blurb. The first is going to be a collection of my “finest” work, at least in my eyes, with my trusty old Canon S3 IS. The second will be a themed book, Minnesota nature and wildlife, as seen through the lens of my Nikon. Although a third project may take over briefly after my two vacations to Canada this summer. Once on a weeklong fishing/camping trip and once for a wedding, which should be including a day trip to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls!

Take care and I’ll talk to you soon(hopefully!)

So basically here, I am just posting up a small little nonsensical post to test out how Windows Live Writer works.

Supposedly it will post here to my site from a standalone program and everything will work out smoothly. I guess we will have to see.

Oh, as a side note, my book that I created using the Blurb site should arrive in via UPS tomorrow! I am excited to see how it will turn out. It was an added bonus since it wasn’t supposed to even be ready to ship until tomorrow, which would have meant an arrival of sometime next week!

I’ll keep ya posted!

So I have been home sick with some sort of flu for the last 3 days, which has been boring as all get-out. But today I ventured into a little program I had downloaded back in June called Blurb.

Blurb is a pretty cool company where you can create your own books and then have them published in either hard or soft cover and then put them up for sale online, which is pretty sweet.

Anyway I have not yet had a chance to mess around with this program until today. I figured that since I had nothing much else to do besides coping with the flu, I would put together my first little book.

It is titled “Back Roads and Side Streets”, and it includes a very random smattering of photos that I have taken over the last couple of years. It isn’t a lengthy book at all, a mere 28 pages, however I think it turned out fairly well considering I only put one afternoon into it and didn’t really lay anything out before hand. My copy will be arriving in about a week and a half, so I am pumped to see how they turned out.

If you are interested in purchasing your very own copy of my very first book just click on the link to the right or the link below!

Back Roads and…

A view of the north…

By David Szweduik

Book Preview

It’s a good question, although somewhat difficult to define I suppose.

Why don’t I start by letting you all know what it is not.

Musically Speaking is not a blog dedicated to reviewing music for the purpose of trying to persuade someone why a particular artist is fantastic or simply crap. I’m sure I will talk about the music I happen to be listening to from time to time, but this isn’t a review site.

It also is not limited to simply musical discussion. I will talk about whatever I have on my mind at any given point, including maybe idea’s for songs, prose or other such forms of musical expression.

It is not a “drummer’s only” site either. I will talk drums, be it make and model or be it my favorite (or least favorite) drummers, but not exclusively.

I guess the sub-title of Musically Speaking says it all. This is a site where I will talk about my life, the world around me and maybe just some silly thoughts. Why Musically Speaking then? Because music and drumming shapes a very large part of my life and I think at times gives me a different view of the world around us, which is the basis or backing behind the sub-title. This site will discuss all aspects of life from this drummer’s perspective.

It’s life from a drummer’s perspective.