I have a long overdue ‘Thank You’ to send out. I’m going to cover may ass by telling you that I was waiting for the right time…which is now.

You see, about a year ago I was sitting in my office when my boss came a knockn’ and asked me if I could take a guy to lunch who had been interviewing at The MathWorks for most of the day. She said, ‘you don’t actually have to interview him, just keep him busy for an hour.’ Great. Do you know what a challenge it can be to take a complete stranger to lunch, be on your most professional behavior, not talk about the reason he is there to begin with, be interesting so the guy doesn’t think our company hires a bunch of bozos and not spill something? Since I like both my boss and my job I agreed to humor the guy for an hour.

The guy’s name was Luke Stark. Ten minutes into lunch we both realized that we had lots in common and before long we were yammering on about traditional music, electronic music, recording and audio on the web. I told him that I had started a recording a bunch years back but have been fairly inactive as of late, parked at a musical rest stop you might say. In any case, we exchanged contact info in case the job thing didn’t work out. Fortunately for me it did. It was the best non-interview I ever conducted.

Once at The MathWorks Luke began nudging me.
Luke: When are you going to get back to recording some of that fife music?
Me: Geez, I’d love to but I really don’t have any equipment, time, motivation…
Luke: Don’t be lame, I’ll bring in my rig and we can try it out.

Thus, he dragged me back onto the musical highway. We tried out some of his equipment, which was like dangling a hooked worm before a catfish. He then loaned me some equipment. Mmm, tasty worm. And then, he forced my to buy my own equipment, which I never would have done were it not for the barbed hook in my lip. Now I spend hours nestled away in my basement recording the Celtic equivalent of Time Out, which my wife is really thrilled about because she knows it will be just the biggest hit and once the royalties start rolling in we’ll be able to take that trek in Nepal that we’ve always dreamed of. Then, of course, I had to start a damn blog, sucking every last morsel of energy I have, so that I can share my progress.

So, Luke, in all sincerity, thanks. I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing this today if it weren’t for you.

Now, if anyone is interested finding out more about this Luke fellow and his cool music you can do so at his fresh new blog called Mighty Bee of Ynturest. I expect great things so pay him a visit.