Music by composer Peter Weis placed in the show Wreck Chasers. You can hear the cue at the beginning and end of the clip with the Wreck Chasers logo.
Music by Peter Weis placed in NCIS Los Angeles
(Total reading time 1 minute)
It is always nice to see your hard work pay off. I was combing through a recent list of cue sheets and found more of my music being placed. My music has once again surfaced on MTV, found its way on to other networks like VH1 and A&E and even into the show NCIS Los Angeles.
As a kid I grew up listening to LL Cool J’s records. Actual vinyl records. It feels pretty weird to watch him walking around a scene as a federal agent, with my music playing in the background behind him. Even more interesting it wasn’t anything close to hip hop.
Back to writing more new music.
Thats All I have to say.
This is the last post of my WordPress Postaday2011 Challenge. I would like to thank everyone that read post/s from time to time and left comments. Even more I would like to thank my wife Meredith for letting me interrupt our evenings, trips, events, and life with a daily post to this blog. She also had the painstaking task of reading through many of my posts and editing them. 2011 was an exciting year and I look forward to the challenges and successes that 2012 will bring. And I hope that you may have your best year yet!
Thats all I have to say.
Peter Weis
Some of my favorite posts from the last year.
The following posts highlight memories, pictures and more importantly progress in my life over the past year. Of course many of these posts are not as meaningful to others as they are to me but that was not the point of the doing the postaday2011 project. The people who know me understand each and every one.
2nd Place this was a great day for me.
First Day In The Pool is a short post on my first day in the pool as I learned to swim.
My Swimming Video in November shows the great progress I made.
Another Goal Marked Off The List my bike ride from the house to the beach.
Just last week I did the same bike ride and then some on my new bike and in the cold.
My new niece’s Little Fingers
My visit to the Louis Armstrong Museum
The day my wife and I decided to Turn Off The TV
One Of The Coolest Things I’ve Ever Seen a baby turtle about the size of a United States quarter.
Every Boy Should Have A Dog a reflection of memories about the loss of my dog and of course Steve Jobs And What Mac Means To Me.
While I was posting only photos for a month I took this picture of a cuban man fishing on a bridge in the keys. The adventure that took place in this hour would be a short story in itself. I wish I had taken video from this.
Another one of my favorite pictures from that same 30 days of silence as my wife and I celebrated 7 years of marriage.
My favorite books.
Unbroken
The Stand
A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
And A few short flash fiction things and exercises that I had a lot of fun writing.
A Kiss
A Bedtime Story
The House Is Quiet
If You Were Here
I Am Music
One more post to go.
Thats all I have to say.
It is the end of the year once again. Right now my wife and I are continuing our annual tradition of the yearly purge. It is important to take a moment every so often and look around you. As human being we are all collectors of stuff. (For a good laugh watch George Carlin talk about stuff.) Have you ever taken a look around at the things that surround you and ask.”Do I really need that?” Having things around us that we do not need clutters our life with unwanted noise. I also believe that if you want better things in your life you have to make room for them. When I say the word better I don’t mean just physical things, I mean every aspect of your life. If you want a better job, at some point your going to need to get rid of the old job. The idea of purging is universal. Mother nature does it, human beings do it after every few meals, there is not reason why your life and the space around it wouldn’t need to as well.
Now go get rid of something and open up some space in your life.
Thats all I have to say.
Peter Weis
I am convinced that youtube.com is one of the greatest resources in history. I find it mind blowing that at anytime of day, 365 days a year you can type http://www.youtube.com into your browser and search the a vast world of video for anything you want. Yes it entertaining to watch funny little viral videos like Charlie Bit My Finger and laugh at little girls dancing and singing like Niki Minaj but there is much more to it then that.
Youtube is an endless resource of information for any subject you might be interested in. Lets say at 3:00 am you decide to you want to decorate cupcakes. Easy just search youtube. Have the sudden urge to learn to play the harmonica or maybe learn the latest Alicia Key’s song on piano? Easy just search youtube. Youtube is such a vastly growing library of information that I don’t think there is any resource in the world that compares to it. The trick is you must see youtube as an education tool and not just something that people use to put up silly videos.
What makes me think of all this is my adventures in trumpet practicing late last night. I was working through a few pages in a a famous trumpet method book called The Arban Complete Method. I got stuck and was needing a little inspiration. I went to youtube and typed a few things into the search field. In seconds I found numerous trumpet players from beginner to expert levels playing the piece of music. Very cool. 15 years ago when I was studying the trumpet in school that question would have had waited till the next lesson I had with my teacher. There were no easily accessed recordings of etudes in the Arban book. If you went to a really good music school there might be something as a reference in the schools music library. Even in that rare circumstance you would be forced to search through catalogs of records, CDs and cassette tapes and then be tethered to a desk with headphones at a listening station. Your instrument was no where you near you. I can search youtube from the computer in my studio, with both the music and my instrument in front of me. The tools to make practicing product and efficient have never been better.
As my practicing continued I browsed through related videos on youtube and found a cool series of play along videos from NY trumpeter Charlie Porter. I sat and played with Duets with another trumpet player for 30 minutes and had a blast. Again ten years ago this would have had to wait for a trumpet lesson or an after school session with friends.
Youtube is all about letting you connect with other people so you can learn from them. It’s okay to let it make you laugh but use it for something educational or motivational first. You can never stop learning.
Thats all I have to say.
Peter Weis
The year is almost finished and I raced to cram one more book onto the year’s list. How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael Gelb. I had wanted to read this book after reading Brian Johnson summary of it in his Philosophers Notes series. If you want to step up your self development game and get your mind right but aren’t sure where to begin I strongly suggest you check Philosopher’s Notes out. For me they were a perfect overview of 100 hundred self development and business books that helped me decide what I wanted to get into further. The best ideas of the book are in the first half. While some of the exercising can get a little “New Age” ish they are all more or less excellent had helping you gain insight to the way you think and more importantly how to become more aware of your surroundings in all aspects of life. My favorite exercise was the “100 hundred questions”. In this exercise you free write a list of 100 hundred questions and then look back at the repeating themes. The other gem of the book is a section on mind mapping. Mind mapping is a visual way to take notes, brain storm, and empty your ideas onto the page with out being bound by expressing your self in a linear way. The technique is by no means new, but when I started using it to take notes a year or go a so I found it was much better way to get ideas down as they flow with out letting the paper get in the way. I have tried mind mapping with both computer software and jsut with pen and pencil on a large piece of paper. I love working my ideas and notes out on paper however I hate not being able to search then in the computer. A Program I found online called mindnode allows you to mind map in the computer, maybe not as free as on paper but it is a sacrifice worth making for search ability. There are other interesting chapters in the book but those were by far the most valuable to me. It’s a simple read and a good selection to add to your list.
Thats all I have to say.
Peter Weis
Other books I have read this past year
Only 5 days left in 2011. Last year I made a change in my New Year traditions. Instead of setting meaningless resolutions on New Years Eve I started a week of pre game motivation before the New Year hit. I spent sometimes glancing back through my notes, journal, lists of goals, accomplishments and yes failures. For me the New Year has just become a check point. A time to see where I am at in reference to where I would like to go with my life and then get motivated. And it works. Last year as the New Year began I was more motivated then ever.
Take a look at where your going in your life and make sure your on track. It doesn’t matter how fast your heading, just that you know where your going. Then do what ever gets you motivated and Crush It.
360 Posts done. 5 more to go 
Thats All I have to say.
Peter Weis
My first Christmas Eve in the Kitchen. I have a new respect for anyone that cooks for the holidays.
Here was the menu.
1st course.
Assorted sliced cheeses and meats.
2n Course.
Homade Neapolitan thin crust style pizza’s.
3rd course.
Salad with orange segments, fennel, apple and a parmesan crisp.
4th course.
Homemade 4 cheese ravioli’s with goat cheese, mozzarella, parmesan and ricotta cheese.
5ht course.
Stuffed pork loin with baked asparagus.
Desert.
Assorted sugar cookies.
That’s all I have to say.
Peter Weis
I spent the whole afternoon and evening in the kitchen today preparing for our Christmas Eve meal. Sometimes things do not work out as plan, but the best know how to improvise and over come their problems. I was hoping to have gotten a bit more then I did done today but that is usually how holiday cooking goes. Excited to see how the whole meal turns out. Pictures from the days cooking events and the meal tomorrow will be on my blog and facebook.
And only 8 more posts left to go in the Postaday2011 challenge. Yes.
Thats All I have to say.
