Joel Kehle's Blog

It’s Not Far to My Heart

Joel Kehle — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 08:36:19 +0000

I’m pleased to finally have a my best song uploaded to the interwebs.

Click the link to listen to It’s Not Far to My Heart

In wrote this song in the early 90’s and recorded it over a weekend with the help of the masterful Fred Drake.

Listening to it brings back so many memories – Leaving Quorum Software in the middle of the day to walk around San Francisco and cement the song in my mind, hanging with Fred in the studio in Hollywood which had all the mythical and magical overtones of Francesca Lia Block’s Weeztie Bat, writing the song’s interlude during a dream… I’m very proud of this particular piece of work and feel exceedingly lucky to have spent a weekend recording with such a gifted and lovely musician.

Enjoy.

Music Page

My 44th Birthday

Joel Kehle — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:26:10 +0000

I turned 44 on Tuesday March 9th 2010.

Anthony and I were going to celebrate on the Saturday prior by going to dinner at our friend Lauren’s new restaurant on Highland, but Anthony was under the weather. A strong antibiotic was giving him and the infection a rough time. Instead we went to the Come On In Cafe for lunch, walked over and saw Crazy Heart at the arclight and then bought a copy of BioShock for the PS3. It’s an old and popular game, so we had to go to two different GameStops to purchase the game. The rest of the day was spent at home with Anthony napping will I got my geek on blowing monsters up in an underwater Ayn Rand fantasy gone very wrong. I’m not much of a first person shooter guy but the game conception was smart and the graphic design was evocative, ironic and beautiful.

On Sunday I finally opened my mail which includes two cards – one from my mom and one from my dad and Sylvia. Both had checks. It’s so funny that I’m old enough to have kids in college and my parents are sending me checks. I think I will always be their child no matter how old I get.

On Monday I started working out with a personal trainer at work. Yet another Qualcomm perk. Great trainer. Qualcomm gym. Very good rates. My birthday gift to myself. I need to invest some time on the machine. The trainer seems like a perfect fit. A guy named Gabriel who does free weights and yoga. He also trains people of all ages (up to the 80s) so he knows not to train me like a 20 year old. Exactly what I want right now.

On the actual birthday I was floored by the amount of Facebook love I was experiencing. So many well wishes! Work itself was fun. I got some great news (that I will discuss at another time.) After work I had a great cardio kick boxing class. For some reason the teacher played an “old” tape that had some of my favorite music: Lady Gaga, Pink, Katie Perry… It’s so funny to think hits from the spring of 2009 as old but that’s pop for you. I capped off the day by dining with Jopsy at Ono Sushi. The most excellent host Tony sat us at the sushi bar where chef Kato served his own choice of mouth watering sashimi, Mark made an equally delicious dirty sapphire martini (3 olives. Up.) with a birthday shot of his own devising thrown in for good measure. The staff at Ono is so cool! Since Jopys is lactose intolerant we passed on the ice cream and had frozen yogurt down the street. Not as high brow or hip but tasty nonetheless.

Later when asked how my day was going, I replied “The universe has been blowing copious amounts of rainbows and unicorns up my ass all day long. I like it! ”

Life is good.

Back at Qualcomm

Notes to Myself

Joel Kehle — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:53:21 +0000

I changed the tagline for my blog today. Instead of “I wonder if I can make soup out of this” (which is a joke that only about three people will get), the tagline is “Notes to Myself”. I don’t consider myself “a blogger”. I don’t write with enough frequency and I’m not really writing for others. Instead I’m writing to remember. My partner Anthony and I both find that we are having trouble remembering what happened during “milestone” events in our life. What did we do for that anniversary? That birthday? New Years? With so many memories from my teens and twenties crystallized in my brain, its odd to find that my 30s are a blur… or at least not very well organized in my head. So enter the blog. It’s time to start writing little notes about events like anniversaries, birthdays and holidays. Yes – this could be called a diary but I also like to post things that I think are interesting at a particular point in time. I think we are living through an exciting period of history and it’s fun to document from my own point of view. So not quite a diary. More like notes to myself… which of course anyone is welcome to read.

Posting from phone

Music Page

Joel Kehle — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:58:52 +0000

I’ve added a music reference page to my site at http://www.kehle.com/music/ This is a reference page for all of the pop music that I’ve either been involved in creating or performing. Some of the recordings on this page were used for live performances and won’t contain a vocal track. I am putting the reference page up first but plan on writing blog entries to go with each of the bands. The reference page will link back to the blog postings for more detailed information about the songs.

Songs that I have written are “Escape with Me”, “Give it up to Rhythm” and “It’s Not Far to My Heart”*. All the other songs were written by other artist.

*due to technical details I can’t upload “It’s Not Far to My Heart” yet – which is a shame because it is my best work. As soon as I get the technical issue worked out, it will get a post of its own. In the meantime, enjoy the music.

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Test blog from iphone

Joel Kehle — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:21:31 +0000

Just seeing if the wordpress client for my iPhone works. Let’s see if I can post a picture too.

Great Ray Kurzweil Interview

Joel Kehle — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:28:28 +0000

Brad Feld just turned me onto a great Ray Kurzweil interview here.

The video is well worth the 25 minute cost. One great line from Ray “Failure is just success deferred”. Enjoy!

Testing the Wordbook plugin on Wordpress

Joel Kehle — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:32:04 +0000

Let’s see if this gets posted on Facebook. Yes! If I edit and update the post will it get reposted? Nope! Related posts:Testing Reposting via MarsEdit Related posts:

Testing Reposting via MarsEdit

Getting Things Done in Gmail

Joel Kehle — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:23:42 +0000

A friend emailed me recently to see if I wanted to hire a “starving student” part time. I realized there were several projects that I was working on that I could use a little help with. It would free up some of my time and give the student some pocket change.

To prep for this, I am migrating my personal Getting Things Done system from outlook to gmail. That way, my assistant can access my todos from any web browser.

I’m using a system recommended by Kelly Forrister. The article to set up the system is here.

So far it looks good and simple.

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Robots to Watch Our For

Joel Kehle — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:21:26 +0000

Heartland Robotics – Making it affordable to manufacture in the United States

For a bonus view, check out this robotic hand:

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Dear Diary

Joel Kehle — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:57:01 +0000

This is a story I wrote in college. I think the assignment was to write from the point of view of the opposite gender. I’ve clearly used it to process some life experiences as well. It’s sad but I wanted a record of it anyway.

Dear Diary,

The Doctor says he doesn’t know how long I have. He says that I found the lump in my breast about two weeks too late… just two damned weeks! He says he doesn’t know if the therapy will help. It’s supposed to be painful; I’ve heard those stories. God I need a cigarette! Harry took it pretty good when he heard the news about the tumor being malignant and spreading and all. Spreading… oh my God, did I really write that? I say good because he didn’t break down or anything the way Mama did on the phone. That’s been one of the worst parts of this so far; seeing everybody around me fall to pieces except for Harry. I guess that’s what husbands are for. Jesus, you would think that they were all going to … I mean you would think that they were all sick and not me. Well Diary, I’m very tired and I need rest for the chemotherapy so goodnight.

Dear Diary,

I never new life could be so painful. I went to Johnson’s Hospital for my third chemotherapy session. The stuff they use on me is called cist platined salt or something. I can’t tell whether it is helpin’ me or making me sicker than the cancer. I felt horrible the first time they gave it to me and apparently it gets worse each time. I know it was the second. First the nurse sticks that I.V. needle into my arm then that fluid starts runnin’ down into my arm from that little bag. Then drops of sweat start to break out all over my forehead then my whole chest HURTS. It hurts like somebody just hit my breast real hard. Then my stomach feels this horrible cramping pain worse than any pain from the flu and I start to vomit all over the place. It’s like my stomach wants to fold up and leave my body through my throat. Got it’s terrible. It takes me three days to recover from the stuff and as far as I know it’s much more tiring than the cancer. I know it’s silly to say but at least my hair hasn’t fallen out or anything . My face is real pale but with a little makeup I can still look pretty nice. Whenever I look in the mirror and look good it gives me courage to think that everything might come out all right. Well that’s all for tonight Diary, goodnight.

Dear Diary,

I’ve been out of the hospital for a week now. Today I had enough energy to go down to M.C. Jenny’s and buy some nightgowns. You see lately I’ve been sweatin’ a lot at night, so much that one night I thought I’d wet the bed. So I decided to get some more nightgowns so that I would always have a fresh one. I got my neighbor Janet to drive me to the store and help me pick out the gowns. After picking out the robes I waited in line for a long and tiring time. Finally I got to the stupid checkout lady and gave her my credit card. After ringing everything up she goes away for a minute and comes back and says loudly so that the whole line can here “I’m sorry but you have no credit rating” shocked and embarrassed I tried to convince her that it was a big mistake. She was in a real bitchy mood and disagreed. Well we got into a big argument and finally I shouted out “for Christ sake give me a break I have cancer!” and started sobbing and sank to the floor from the physical and emotional exhaustion. Well, Janet paid and somehow got me out of that stupid store with the bitchy clerk. Later I mentioned this story to my doctor. He told me that sometimes computers talk to one another. Apparently a medical computer told a credit computer that I was terminally ill and slashed my credit rating so I wouldn’t go on a mad shopping spree. Terminally ill? Is that really happening? God I don’t want to die. Well that’s all for tonight. Good night.

PS. Oh Vera that stupid maid quite yesterday. She called up and made some excuse but she really is afraid of catching my illness. Now I need to find someone else to clean the house while I’m in the hospital.

Dear Diary,

Well I’m in the hospital now. I heard the doctor talking with Harry yesterday. he told hjim to get use to the idea that I might not come home again. You guessed it the drugs aren’t working as well as they should. So much for the wonders of modern science. God I hurt. I hurt all over like my body is on fire. Every time I breath it is painful. Even the large amounts of painkiller I’m on don’t stop it. It does make me sleep alot thought and that is good. When I sleep I forget about how much it hurst, about how my chest is all swollen, my body riddled with tumors. Instead I dream of pleasant things: of my early days with Harry, of college, even of being a cheerleader in junior hiugh. Well I’m feeling very tired so I guess that’s all. Goodnight.

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