the Sixth day of July in the two thousand and fourth year of our Lord

As you are probably aware, February is over and so is FAWM. I actually completed 14 songs by the end, though it was a very narrow thing. I mistakenly thought that month ended on a Monday so I was content to finish things up then. My Beautiful Wife informed me of my mistake, thank God, and so I ended up cranking out the last 4 songs in a much shorter amount of time than I had planned. It all worked out, though.

As you are also probably aware, from the date listed above, that February is not only over, but, indeed, well past us, as to be almost buried in the mists of time. I admit to neglecting this site and you, the dedicated reader (all 2 of you... to whom I owe much thanks). If this page were a paper journal, I would now, maybe, be on page 2. At this rate, a standard journal would last me till the ripe old age of 87.

So, you ask querulously, what prompted me from my creative stupor and nudged me back into updating this site. It is simply the imminent release of an "album" of sorts. An explanation is probably in order

For the past several years I have been promising the good folks at Northland Bible Conference, the annual week of Camp which is hosted and maintained by my parents, who are missionaries with American Missionary Fellowship, an album of my music. Every year I write a new song for camp and then fail to do much else. FAWM pushed me to write, to get up off of my duff and actually practice what I preach, so to speak. It is amazing how much can be accomplished if we give ourselves motivation and a deadline and then, ignoring all other distractions as best we can, get down to the business at hand.

So I decided to set a new deadline for myself. I would finish an album's worth of material, getting it recorded and mastered, even if it is only of "demo" quality. If you are anticipating pickup up this album, I warn you now that many of these songs will not have had the time put into them that they deserve and the quality may be lacking throughout. My only justification is that a slightly rough album of demo's is better that nothing at all.

One thing of note about the album is that, since I have no skill in playing drums and don't have a drummer at my disposal, all of the drum tracks on the disc are programmed by me in a drum synthesizer, usually as minimally as possible. I'd rather under do it and have the rest of the music come out than over do it poorly and possibly wreck the songs. Hopefully, it will all work out for the best

In other news, I started a new job at Helgeson Enterprises in April. It is a much better working environment for me and I am a lot happier because of it. I also got a new car, in the midst of February. It is an '03 Buick Century and is performing beautifully. Oh the joys of functioning-air-conditioning! So those quandries I mentioned previously have be solved. God is good to me! Gloria in excelsis Deo!

So in closing for this section, I am adding a section called Album, which will be for detailing the lyrics and explanations of the songs. some songs might warrant an explanation, so I will add that in as well if it is pertinent. I am also updating the MP3s section to point to some of the songs I wrote for FAWM. I'm also putting in a downloads section to facilitate putting out stories that I am writing, as well as other miscelaneous files. I have added the Blackadder ITC font to the download section, so that you can experience this page in it's terribly-illegible glory,. If you want to, download the font and copy it into your Windows Fonts directory. You may have to reboot your PC afterwards. I will understand if you'd rather see it in a default font.

So that's all for now. As the title and details of the album become available (i.e. as I make them up) I will update the page and the album site.

the Fourth day of February in the two thousand and fourth year of our Lord

FAWM is here and I am already behind schedule! I apologize for the late update.

A lot has been going on. I have had a large bit of controversy with my employment, mostly in the "Do I want to work here or someplace else" sector. I have some lines on some jobs that could decrease my stress factor significantly. My Boss found out about the pending issue and made me a counter offer.

On top of that my car is nearly dead. It really showed it's true colors during the latest bout with the snow. I am seriously looking into other options, but some of those options will depend on where I am employed.

To top it off I have a migraine hitting me in the midst of the head-cold I already have.

Other than that life is peachy! (=

But through it all I managed to get one song done for FAWM. You can get Wanderlost in the MP3s Links.

The vocals are pretty bad, mostly because of the afore-mentioned cold and Migraine, and I'm not particularly in love with the song, but that is what FAWM is about.. writing and more writing and not criticizing. (I believe I mentioned my stance on this in the last entry.. here is my first entry into the category of non-masterwork.)

Enough self-deprication for now. I'm going to go lie down in a dark corner and forget about songs, and cars, and jobs for a bit.

the Twentieth day of January in the two thousand and fourth year of our Lord

Welcome to my new blog. This is a temporary design until I have the time to sit down and actual create something. The font was the closest thing I could find to my own handwriting, I.E. Unreadable... (It is called Black Adder... The name sold me. If this page isn't horribly illegible, then you may not have it installed. The logo above is an example of the font.)

If you are not already aware, my name is Eric Distad. If you stumbled on this page by accident, I apologize in advance. If you are here on purpose because I have given you the link, I apologize retroactively. To anyone I may have missed, I apologize. To my wife, I apologize for apologizing so much. (if that didn't cover it, I apologize)

The cattle prod that jolted me out of my normal sloth and into a bout of verbose creativity was the impending arrival of FAWM -February Album Writing Month. This effort challenges songwriters to write and record fourteen songs in twenty nine days. They don't have to be masterworks (nor will they be from me...) just demo worthy. This means one or two takes for each instrument, half-finished lyrics, and little to no mixdown. The point of the exercise is not to produce a finished work but to be creative and write.

My hope is to crank out some material and just let it lie as it comes out, which is a great weakness for me. I have that nagging problem of self-deprecation mixed with a dash of perfectionism and a pinch of overreaching ambition and a large helping of hyper-self-criticism... I am my hardest critic. If I can write some material and let it lie as it falls, I may be able to eventually appreciate the good in it and not denigrate it before it is finished.

So I'm putting this most unreadable page out in the hopes that I can use it as a repository for thought, lyrics, music, and other general flotsam that issues from my brain.Some of it will be pure crap, possibly all of it, but it might be worth a laugh anyway.