No post in December. The holidays were just that busy.

Needing to revisit some old tech I haven't touched in a while. Figure I'll add Valkey in there for good measure. Just booked a restaurant gig with the OPJB on Valentine's day. I enjoy those gigs.

This year's pantomime went well. I have gigs booked up until early May with Main & Abbott and AKA, plus a couple of gigs early in the new year with my friends in The Whiskey Ghost.

Exploring KDE. I've come full circle as one of the badges of honour when I first started using Unix, a quarter of a century ago, was being able to build KDE and show off a fancy new non-CDE/OLVWM looking screen. No need to build from scratch these days thankfully.

A week away from production week for this year's Lakeside Players Pantomime, Snow White. It's a family affair for us so the household is pretty busy at this point in the year. The big band is still going strong, and AKA had a gig a week ago. So ya, much music has been played.

On the technology side we've dipped our toes into some generative AI at work as it's all the rage right now. It's tough to pull the substantive from the hype, but it'll have some place in our technology toolkit going forward I would guess.

Been recording with some friends and going through a couple of method books as planned. It's never as much as I had hoped, but actually doing these things is a win. Also exploring a bit with MongoDB. I've never had a reason to check out the NoSQL world, but I've been curious.

The Habit album recorded last summer can be listened to through Apple Music.

Bunch more Main & Abbott shows, particularly at Buster's which has become a hangout of sorts for the Big Band types in the city. AKA will be providing pre-show and intermission entertainment at The Lakeside Players spring show in April. Facebook didn't work out. Having someone, impersonating one of my friends, reach out for money was the nail in the coffin.

Work hasn't had much to do with container technology, but I've found myself needing to spin up a few at home. Podman looks like a decent container engine. I like how they've made it systemd-aware, creating unit/service files so that you can treat a container like any other service on a machine.

I was doing well there for a bit with a post a month. Seems I missed a few...

The new year brought a job move back to The Agency. Happy to be back in one of the few old school Unix environments. As with many such environments these days, it's being pulled into modernity leaving it a frankensteinian relic begging to be refactored. It should be a technologist's hell, but it's my hell. A hell with character.

On the music front, I was fortunate to play two Christmas gigs this year. Such performances are novel these days as adults aren't supposed to care about such things I'm told. Got enough big band gigs the rest of this season to keep me busy. The Habit tracks appear to be finished. Not sure how we'll get them out.

So much for writing at least once a month. The time flew by:

• Listening to final touches of the Habit EP made this summer
• A few gigs with Main & Abbott
• Subbing for friends in Whiskey Ghost (a sampling of the show)
• Yearly performance of the Lakeside Players pantomime

Add a move to another department at work for good measure. I'm keeping busy and the next few months should prove to be as productive as the last few.

Keeping busy on vacation with family and music. Tech not so much.

Did some more recording with Wander Automatic, a project I hope will get some more exposure in the near future, a Habit show and another AKA outdoor jam. Getting concerningly close to developing a snare drum collection.

I've also been experimenting with social media for music "promotion". I'm not a fan of the technology generally, but one needs to go where the people are. Surprisingly, it's much more useful as a broadcast rather than a consumption medium. Facebook is where I've landed for now. Oddly, Instagram suspended my account days after I created it despite (or perhaps because?) having no activity since I created it. Unhelpful.

Had beautiful weather for an outdoor jam with AKA this afternoon. Sunny, not too hot, with a periodic cool breeze. We started doing these outdoor jams during COVID and it's become a nice summer tradition. Great way to start the summer vacation.

Started upgrading the various computers around the house to latest Debian release. Pretty uneventful upgrade as is the norm for these things.

My friends in The Habit and I have booked some recording time and a private party performance which should be good fun. Oddly my fall season is getting pretty busy already.

Oracle: some things you just can't avoid...

Already spring. Finished the last big band gig of the season and already have a couple of gigs for next season booked.

Started migrating a few homemade JavaEE apps to Jakarta EE. Nothing much to that migration.