ebstone | redrumskippy

Insight
What is “The Project”?

It is the “working title” to something that has been years in the making, literally. How many years? About 25. When taking a moment to think about how long that is, be rest assured, that is a mighty long time to be working on something. Its many months, weeks, days and hours … countless hours. Something that takes that long to create, has certainly been so much more then a labor of love. For me, its been a continuing, and ever evolving journey. One that has no foreseeable destination in the near future. Its only boundaries, are those of my mind in imaging how much bigger it will become. This thought process is what makes it great. Its what makes it worth building on and, still to this day, some 25 years later, just as much fun as it was the day I started it.

Revealed
Some people collect trading cars, some shoes, some arts and some antiques … any number of things. I collect music CD’s. I have collected them for more than 25 years. I continue to collect them. I’m not speaking of collecting one or two at a time, Im speaking of collecting many at a time, and they … as you can imagine, after 25 years number in the many thousands. I myself at times sit and stare in amazement at the shear number that I have amassed over the years. Each and every one of them when I look at it, I can tell you where I was at the time I bought it, and more than likely can tell you why I bought it. The reason always seems to come down to the same thing at the end of the day though. Its my love of music that has given me this vast collection. And let me say, it is vast.

Spectrum
Rock, pop, jazz, country, classical, soundtracks and the list goes on. You name it, more then likely its in this collection. Its Bill Haley & The Comets, Its Elvis, Its Led Zeppelin, Its Winton Marsalis. Its Garth Brooks, and its The Nixons. It is, in fact, music history. Its an education, and its a walk down memory lane. For many, its the soundtrack to their lives before their eyes.

Organize
You might think something of this magnitude would be hard to organize. You would be correct. Its taken me many years to come up with some kind of “method to the madness” as I like to say. Because you do understand, this is sheer madness. Its all part of the process in making the collection what it is. Each CD is in alphabetical order, by genre, name, and order of released date. It would be pretty hard to find anything in the collection if they were all just spewed about in a reckless manner. And if you’re finding it hard to wrap your mind around that level or organization, just try imagining moving the entire collection, not once, but three times!

Which brings me to the point and the purpose of all of this here …

Vision
About 18 or so months ago, I started to think about how big the collection had become. It started to grow and become larger then I had room for. It became increasingly more difficult to keep the organization that I had worked so hard to perfect. It was starting to become a chore of management, rather then one of enjoyment.

All the while the collection had been building, technology had been progressing at a faster rate, and lately its been changing more and more. I continued to purchase CDs by the stack, and the management of what I was buying seemed almost unimportant. It began to get messy and unorganized.

It was then that I decided to start spending a good amount of time researching and looking into solutions for the collection. The key was to think about, and find a solution that would counteract the speed of technology and how it was changing at such a rapid pace, and at the same time create a new management and organizational system that would sustain a method and process I could keep simple, yet had scalability to allow for growth of the collection in the future. No small task. Lets just say there were alot of brain cells spent on figuring this one out. But after many sleepless night, reading till the screen was blurred on my Macbook and with the input and suggestions of some good friends, some 18 months later … born “The Project”

Beginnings
And so, I have created, after much consideration and thought, what I believe to be probly one of my best ideas in over 40 years. Yes, its 2009 and we are going digital. I have built a computer system that will house the past, present and future of the collection. From the ground up, and more then sure its pretty unique in many aspects, I have begun the task of transferring every single CD in the collection, to digital media.

Almost insane in scale, and with the undertaking of such a task, you now see why I have named it (at least for the time being) “The Project”. It is nothing sort of a tremendous task, that will take, time, stamina, consistency, and the drive to complete it in a timely manner. In the end, it will be something that is both modern, as well entertaining.

Im more then convinced, from the work I have put into it thus far (starting it Memorial Day weekend 2009), it will be well worth the effort. Its an idea on paper and in my mind that I knew would be pretty cool, and then once I started it, its superseded even my wildest thoughts of exactly how cool it is, and Im a little short of being halfway complete at this point.

Yes, since the beginning of this summer of 2009, I have been building, tweaking, tucking, ripping and organizing this task. Im working on it every night, with very few night taking a break from it. Thats seven days a week, and sometimes more then 15 hours a day.

The process is something, that quite frankly, has taken me by surprise. One might think that it gets repetitive after a while. I also expected that, but what has actually happened, is I cant wait to work on it every day. Its brought a whole new dynamic and perspective on music to me. After so many years, I didn’t think that was possible, but it has indeed been more fun then I have imagined.

Join
So, now after many months of me talking about it, and people asking “The project that you keep mentioning, what is it”? — now you all know. I invite you all to climb aboard and take the ride with me the rest of the way. For some, you’ll actually be able to do that — literally, but you’ll have to wait and see what future plans Im willing to reveal about that in the coming months. Mostly because its gonna be really cool, and two, Im not done planning it all out yet. Let’s just say this is one train you want to get on board …

Stay tuned, there is much more information to be published on the following pages & thanks for stopping by …

Peace

If you should have any questions about “The Project”, please feel free to contact me

“I went outside once, the graphics are not that good”