Played on the first scorching day of summer, harking back to the sweltering days of years gone by, and to the hope of the heat breaking under a late August thunderstorm.

 

 Dry Hot Long Ago [3:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Off the Path is now available for retail sale at the High Hand Gallery in Loomis.  I had given them a copy to play in the gallery and apparently had a number of inquiries about it – so now they have a stock of albums for sale.  My first retail outlet!  Deanna is a member of the gallery cooperative, and there are some amazing other artists showing there as well – my current favorite is Foothills by Merle Serlin.  Drop by, stroll the amazing gardens, have a top-notch lunch in the conservatory, enjoy the gallery, and pick up one of my CDs as well.

Have a gallery or other outlet near you that you think would be an appropriate retail outlet?  Let me know, I’m looking for more ways to share!

Starts as a great conversation should - with a simple question.

 

 Do You Think So? [3:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My first album Off the Path has been available from iTunes and Amazon for a while now, and I’m very pleased to finally be able to make CDs available as well!  My first shipment came in and looks pretty good – the printing on the CD and sleeve look great and of course the CD has slightly higher quality sound than a (compressed) MP3.  I’ve enabled Paypal payments, and look forward to filling my first orders!

I even have an introductory offer for you – for a limited time I’ll ship it anywhere in the US for a penny.  (That sounds generous but I really just have yet to determine my actual shipping and handling costs…)

Off the Path makes a great gift, especially in CD form.  Many people find it a more tangible, and more widely accessible format than MP3 downloads.

If you have any questions or problems, don’t hesitate to let me know!

Today is the first full day of summer vacation in the Marsh household.  Each of the kids have a few wonderfully empty days before our summer schedule kicks in, with travel, visitors, summer camp, and some fun summer school programs.  Of course, for us fully-employed parents it just seems the work schedule hits full on during the summer.

With today’s economy though, full employment and security in your profession is increasingly rare.  We know many people impacted by the downturn, looking for new opportunities both within their current position, and in far too many cases whole new professions.

We at WSO2 feel fortunate to be weathering the downturn well – although there’s nothing “cheap” about the way our software performs, the Open Source label has attracted many new customers that are looking for lower cost options.

WSO2 also has a strong tradition of community service within Sri Lanka, from regular fundraising for local charity groups to responding to the Tsunami and other disasters around the world with an open source disaster management system still going strong today.  We wanted to help people caught in today’s global economic disaster in whatever small way we could.

Introducing WSO2’s SOA Summer School.

WSO2 has put together an eight-week series of free online SOA training events, to help enterprise architects and developers acquire or hone their skills and become more valuable to their employers or prospective employers.  The curriculum covers SOA architectural patterns, deployment patterns, security, governance, mashups, business process management, and much more.  Check out the whole schedule and register at the WSO2 training site.

And the best part, is that the whole program is FREE.  Our gift back to the global SOA community.  So far the response has been fantastic!

This sure makes me proud to work at WSO2.

I hardly can leave home without seeing a deer, or a turkey, or a crowd of the other critters that inhabit our bit of wilderness – fox, bobcat, skunk, coyote, possum, raccoon.  But although my neighbors see the occasional bear I’ve never seen one till our return from school this afternoon.  Momma and her three cuddly cubs hastily scooted up a tree and we were able to inch close enough to get a decent snapshot from the wide angle iPhone camera.

Another advantage of the Prius – it’s a good car for stalking wildlife when on battery power. I practically ran over a red-tailed hawk devouring a woodpecker in the middle of the road the other day; only rolling down the window and sticking the iPhone out for a snap excited him enough to take his lunch elsewhere.

While I’m at it I don’t think I ever posted my pic of the small bobcat that peeked in through a window at me before enjoying some r&r poolside a couple of months ago.