I live in Omaha.

New Music

So I decided to go against my “all or nothing” plan and actually put up some songs.

After working on a new album for five years, It’s really pretty stupid to lock this stuff away on hard drives so nobody can listen to it.

So I selected four songs from the new album “The Longest Post” for your listening pleasure.  They’re obviously not mastered for distribution so you may have to adapt your volume as needed.

I hope you enjoy listening to them like I’ve enjoyed making them.  There’s still plenty more locked away for you to get soon :)

Not for Me 

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Live Life Drunk 

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Hypocritical Declarations (Feel Free) 

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Revelations/Revolutions 

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Next step… there is no next step. Yet.

I love hearing people’s plans for the future.  If they’re graduating from college, or just have their first real job and have big plans… hearing that stuff is cool.  Having vision and goals are what keep people alive.  You need to be driven to continue to do something.  A stagnant life isn’t really  life at all.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.  What is my next step?  And I don’t mean personally, or professionally.  But something of both.  It shouldn’t really be that separate.  Thinking of yourself as two halfs is really a shame.  To think you have to live two lives that cannot intersect is limiting your potential.

But that’s kind of where I am.  Personally, I’m confident I live in one of the best cities in the world, surrounded by some of the most talented, influential, and intelligent people I’ve ever met.  This is not an overstatement.  I have friends who make things, who write things, who organize things, who turn dreams into reality.  They make things happen, and they’re damn good at it.  I am absolutely honored.

Professionally, I have an awesome job a ton of people would love to have.  Seriously.  I make things happen at a multi zillion dollar company.  I get paid well, I have good benefits.  I would completely look up to myself if I met myself while younger.

But there’s a sense of synergy that is missing.  The sum of my parts equal exactly how the math says it should.  But damnit, I want more.

This is a common theme with me.  If you’ve known me any length of time I’m rarely satisfied.  I thought for the longest time it was just because it was simply that, I’d never be satisfied.  But after making major changes, I see major changes.  Who knew?

Professionally I’m kind of where I wanted to be.  So my vision and goals professionally aren’t there.  What do you do when you’re doing what you wanted to do?  Maybe I just never had lofty enough goals.  I never wanted to be president, or an astronaut.  I wanted to be a badass IT guy.  Sure, I learn more every day, and I will always continue to grow.  But again, I’m rarely satisfied.  I always need something to work towards.

I only start thinking about all this stuff when my two halfs start to actively start fighting each other.  It’s one thing if 1+1=2, but it’s another when 1+1 < 2.  I’ve had more and more reactions at work that are similar to “Oh come on.  I didn’t have any problem with this kind of stuff, but now you’re just pissing me off.”  And that sucks.  Little jab after little jab.  It bothers me only because I liked it when I was content.  But new management and increased scrutiny change how/when/where we perform our jobs.  But that’s the corporate world . They squeeze and squeeze until some things slip out of their hand, but still have a much tighter grip on what is left.

Again, not complaining.  But sometimes things are enlightening.  I want 1+1 >= 3.

I’d love to have a conversation with those that can relate, or have have posed similar questions to themselves.

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Tweetup #4

Omaha Tweetup #4 is over.  All together, not bad.  But certainly the curve his heading downward in the “coolness” chart.

It seems as it gets more successful, in better venues, the less charm the event has.

The first tweetup had about 40 people there.  It’s the first time I met a lot of great people.  Not only people I’d start following on Twitter for the first time, but people that are now friends of mine.  I can’t say the same has happened at any of the other tweetups.

Last night there was so much space, so comfortable of a venue, that it’s easy for people to stand/sit/hide in their respective groups.  You’re not forced into a corner with strangers.  A part of the reason I initially started introducing myself the first time around is the fact that you look stupid standing by yourself in front of everybody.  Last night it was perfectly OK to be by yourself, nobody would notice.  And aside from the name tags (that some may not even be wearing), you could just be a normal Nomad frequenter.  You’re not embarrassed into awesomeness.

Ideas to resolve this?  Food, of course.  Put up a table with snacks or pizza.  That gets people to all congregate around a single location in a venue and even by accident start talking to people.  And even though I really do like Nomad, it’s a great place, it just had the feeling of a night out having drinks with friends.  Well, aside from the business card pushers anyway.

(Photos by @programmerman)

When the Tweetup came to an end for KT and I she came up with this crazy idea to pick up some stranger that she knew off of twitter and head to the 49r.  So we did.

I tweeted later “The tweetup isn’t over, it’s just not going on there anymore“, and it was true.  We were having a blast.  KT eventually left and our new friend, the previously unfollowed by me, @kfred85, and I kept drinking and then went for pizza.  The night ended around 1:30am.

Tweetup?  meh.  Alternative Tweetup.  Rockin’.

On a side note, there needs to be a term for “alternative tweetup”.  I don’t know what that is.  AlternaTweetup is too long.  TweetAlt?  Twalt?

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Welcome to the new face of Gabe

Real-ity.com has a long standing history.  One that I don’t take lightly.

“Gabe’s Digital Life v3.1337″ at real-ity.com was born five or so years ago.  Before that it was another, much more simple blog.  And before that, collections of links.  This dating all the way back to 1997.  As my friend BobbyT once said, “I was blogging since it was just called updating a web site.”

But with the culture of the internet as it is, I felt the need to change with it.  My moniker, Real-ity, is no longer how I need to be identified online.  Even though still a valid piece of my personality, Real-ity is no longer the public facing identity for me.

So this new website is me, Gabe.  And everything I do online will show up here.  Twitter, videos, music.  Not a ton different than the content that was available before, but I hope to make it a bit more accessible

I’m a little tired, and blabbing… but I felt the need when I came home tonight to blog and say a little something about this new piece o’ web that I’ve claimed.

Thank you for checking it out.

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Congratulations Erin!

Just wanted to say congratulations to Miss Erin Standley!  She just won the Cut & Paste Chicago design competition!  Now she’s off to New York in June to compete again.  She’s quite the badass.

Way to kick ass, Erin!

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