David Erlick

So, I haven’t touched this website in over 8 years.  The last time I had anything meaningful was back in 2015.  Well, a lot has changed since then.  I ended an 8 year career at Nextgen to move on to another opportunity at Oracle.  Thus far things have been good but we’ll see what happens. At least I’m in a much better financial and well being place now than I was back then.  Here’s to more successful years in the future.

Well, I’m thirty years old now.  Not sure how I should feel about it though.  More updates at some point.

About 2 years ago, I was let go from Comcast Business Services.  It was a job that I genuinely liked and felt as though I might have a future at.  Nevertheless, I was getting ready to end a day as normal and was called into the HR office and told point blank that I was no longer a Comcast employee.  When I asked the reasoning behind the dismissal, their response was that they were going in a different direction and would not specify anything further.  This struck me as being very odd giving this as the reason for my departure.  I had been a model exemplary employee; nearly filling up a chart with awards and being recognized as best of the best for Q2 in 2013.  In addition, I was actively being considered for a Tier 2 support or a Senior CAE position within the department.  But that didn’t seem to matter at all and that leaves the taste in my mouth even more bitter.  It’s something that I’ll never forget and will have to learn to get over.

This left me in the doldrums for over half a year, during which time I was fortunate to land some well paying subcontracting jobs that helped a lot.  All that time I was searching for another job and eventually I was recruited and hired by a healthcare business that is, ironically enough, located in Horsham, PA and not too far from Comcast Business offices that they have on Enterprise Drive that house sales and retention departments, among others.  I’ve been working there for nearly a year now; approximately 7 months of which I was in a temp to hire status.  I was eventually brought on full time and have been doing well in this position; far better than even what I had hoped for.  It still bothers me that somehow a reason was found to remove me from Comcast and I approach every day now with the idea that I’m never going to give my future employers a reason to let me go.

For many years now, I’ve been making music as a side project in life.  My main tool has always been Apple’s GarageBand, whether it be for Electronic Based Music or for my guitar work.  I can still remember its introduction and knew that it was a game changer for those who were not into unfathomably complex music making programs such as Pro Tools, Logic, etc.  Plus the fact that it was included free with iLife made it that much better as those programs listed above require an to purchase, therefore making it very difficult for mere mortals to make music. Add to that all those plugins that you have to pay for and, you get the idea. In any event, I’ve got a SoundCloud page up which has two of my latest tracks on it: The Breath of Wayra and Nuova Generation. The first one is a classic “tension and release” Trance track that has a couple of surprises in it. The second, is a slower, sort of more “modern” trance sound that you’d maybe hear on BPM Sirius or something like that. Nuova Generation is a work in progress but The Breath of Wayra is more or less done. It’s not the final version but I’m waiting to post that final version for a time. Enjoy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have 2 Washburn CS-780’s, which are electric guitars.  I actually own four guitars, the two CS-780’s, which hasn’t been made since 2002 or so, a Fender MIM Stratocaster in Agave Blue, which is a color that they don’t have anymore, and a Carlo Robelli CW-4103, which had a headstock redesign a couple years after I bought it.  The Washburns are the only one that I’ve bought used; the Fender and the Carlo Robelli were both bought new.  Speaking of the Fender, I got that for $300 brand new, whereas today, it’s well over $600.  Back when I got it, that’s how much an American Stratocaster cost, which now costs a scary $1,400.  I’ve been playing for a few years off and on and sadly I haven’t been very dedicated to it.  So while many other people have been playing it for a shorter time, they are far more skilled than I am.  Additionally, I lack that trust in my playing ability to sing and play at the same time.  It is far more difficult than it looks and requires a good deal of trust in your muscle memory in order to pull it off.  Anyway I digress.

It may seem odd that I own two of the same guitar but I want to use one of the CS-780’s as a test vehicle for new pickups and wiring, whereas the other one I would leave stock.  I know quite a bit about setting up the guitars and working with the notorious Floyd Rose tuning.  They say it’s hard to tune, but I don’t think so.  I’ve never had a problem when replacing strings or setting it up afterwards.  I have more difficulty with the Carlo Robelli, which had bridge pins and requires a bit of juggling the bridge pin and the wire to catch properly on the bridge pin and seat properly.Anyway, they sit dormant, but every so often I grab them and play them.  Maybe one day, I’ll pick it up again.

One of the things that I’ve found myself doing over the years is collecting old Apple Computers. I have always enjoyed them, having grown up on several different ones over the years. They have always had a very unique aesthetic to them and there are specific designs that are highly desirable and/or collectible for many people. In addition a lot of the older merchandise, such as posters (Specifically the “Think Different” education posters), pins, shirts, etc. are prized as well. So it was both an outgrowth of having some money from my jobs, being in the right place to purchase them relatively cheap, and gradually getting older. I said I’d update this at some point so here it is.

My most loved and cherished machine now sadly gathers dust. It’s of course my Powerbook G4 Titanium 800. It was originally part of a gift from my grandfather and at my persistence and insistence from me, my dad eventually purchased it in 2002 so it is now a full 11 years old. It’s seen me through the last year of high school and several years of college but time has marched on and sadly it has not been good to it. It was plenty fast then but nowadays, it’s just simply outclassed, like most PowerPC Macs are.  However, it still remains the most beautiful laptop ever made.  If you think about the era of when it was developed, we had these huge monolithic things that people lugged around with them and called them notebooks.  Even Apple was slightly guilty of that, but then they came out with the Titanium.  Like Concorde and the McLaren F1, it was designed without compromise.  One inch thin.  5.3 pounds.  And the piece de resistance was a widescreen 15.2 inch display, which to recent memory was the first for a notebook.  Even 11 years on, it wouldn’t look out of place on a store shelf.  Heck we now have “ultrabooks” that emulate that same philosophy (except they lack optical drives which the Powerbook did not).  I mean, just look at it:

Still don’t believe me?  Listen to the collective gasps at MacWorld:

It is simply one of the best.

Well, I am going near on 3 months at my new employment at Comcast. So far, so good, I guess. I’m still at a stage where I’m feeling things out and I still question my actions to a large extent. I mean, I’m helping people but I still fail a lot at helping them sometimes. Ultimately, there is our responsibility, and there is the customer’s responsibility. We can only be responsible for so much. Otherwise the customer will demand more from us than we could ever give. Sometimes people are screwed and that’s a real unfortunate place to be in. Nevertheless, you cannot just expect to cruise through life and expect things to always be perfect. You need to stay on top of things, lest they run you over with your own hubris. Well, there I go waxing philosophical again, I’ll update when I can.

As I write this, I am on a break and sitting in a training room (classroom) at the Comcast Business Class call center in Horsham PA. I am in training right now to be a call center rep for Comcast and will be done in about a month. How do I feel about this? Happy, glad, thankful; these are all words that come to mind, but the overriding feeling that I have is that it’s about time. For two years, I have struggled to find full time employment and now that I’m here, its all a bit surreal. I have achieved what I wanted; a stable position with a company that I can grow in and succeed with. Nevertheless it is bittersweet. I have lost and sacrificed too much getting here and nearly lost myself along the way and I am not sure if I deserve this success. Then again, a person once said “David, accept the miracle and move on.”

One of the things that I’ve found myself doing over the years is collecting old Apple Computers.  I have always enjoyed them, having grown up on several different ones over the years.  They have always had a very unique aesthetic to them and there are specific designs that are highly desirable and/or collectible for many people.  In addition a lot of the older merchandise, such as posters (Specifically the “Think Different” education posters), pins, shirts, etc. are prized as well.  So it was both an outgrowth of having some money from my jobs, being in the right place to purchase them relatively cheap, and gradually getting older.

I currently own an LC520, a Power Mac 6100, 2 Power Mac G4 MDD’s (One is a 1.0ghz DP, the other is the granddaddy 1.42ghz DP), a Powerbook G4 Titanium 800mhz, a Powerbook G4 1.67ghz Aluminum, a Power Mac G4 Cube, and finally a Macbook Pro Early 2010.  Now this may sound excessive and it probably is, but most of them are still highly usable even in this day and age and some have quite a bit of sentimental value as well.  I am referring to the LC520, which was my dad’s and was a computer that I used for many years when growing up.  The 6100 I’ve had for some time and can’t remember how I got it; I am unsure whether it works or not as I do not have an adapter for the Macintosh Display connector to VGA.

The two Power Mac G4’s used to be property of Temple University, but I was able to purchase them through the Computer Recycling Program.  I think they were $50 and $100 respectively, which is ridiculously cheap even when they’re worth at least triple that price. The 1.0 is currently idling, but I use the 1.42 quite a bit and have “pimped it out”.  I added a new 250gb hard drive, a 120mm ducted fan to help cool the PSU + PCI cards, a new 120mm fan to replace the noisy stock one, an Airport Extreme card, and the pièce de résistance has to be the BFG Nvidia Geforce 7800GS graphics card that I flashed to work with the computer.  I am still testing it at this stage to make sure there is enough power, but I’ve got a backup Ati Radeon 9800XT that I also had in it that I know works flawlessly.  That one I also flashed as well.  The computer is still pretty quick, given its age but it does slow down on some content that decides to use the processor instead of using the hardware accelerated graphics (FLASH!!!).

The PowerBook G4 Aluminum has a bit of an interesting story.  I bought it off craigslist for $200, with the reason they were selling it being that the battery was effectively dead.  I jumped on it immediately, because they again sell for double and triple that price and was able to get it.  I remember talking with the original owner and how she received a slew of emails expressing interest in the computer but I was the first.  I confirmed that the battery was effectively dead as the mAh reading was 500 or something like that (New ones ship with 4400mAh), so all it needed was a new battery and it was usable.  Unfortunately it developed the lower ram slot failure problem since I’ve owned it so it is limited to 1gb of ram.  It’s still an excellent computer and the second fastest PowerBook ever made.

Now the PowerMac G4 Cube’s story really gets to me.  I know that it might be weird to have feelings about inanimate objects but when The New York Museum of Modern Art holds a G4 Cube, along with its distinctive Harman Kardon transparent speakers, as part of its collection, it really is something quite special.  Again it was a Craigslist find, but for the unbelievable price of $60 along with a keyboard, mouse, documentation, CD’s, and an Apple 15″ LCD monitor.  Naturally I jumped at the chance immediately and was able to get it.  It was located in Bala Cynwyd not too far off Route 1.  I remember that as I was testing it to verify the functionality of it, I was talking with the owners.  Unbelievably, they wanted to get rid of it and were going to put it on the curb with the trash until one of their family member suggested that they put it on Craigslist to sell.  I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  They were prepared to simply throw this computer away.  Now I’m not sure how other people are supposed to feel, but the computer, monitor and equipment all worked just fine.  Add to that it was a 500mhz G4 Cube, the fastest one ever made, and it just gets to me.  I just can’t understand why someone would have such a cavalier attitude towards something like that.  Fortunately, it now rests safe and secure in my apartment and I will keep it and treasure it forever, for it is one of the best looking computers ever made.  Don’t believe me?  Look for yourself (Note, this is a stock photo, but it is the same setup as mine):

Well, that’s it for now, I’ll have a part 2 written for you sometime.