TRUE STORY

5:30 AM Labor* day 1998 I was awaken with the sound of loud thunder and flashes of lighting ,at my Southern Ontario home. I thought to myself "6 hours of sleep is enough.", so I got up and trudged down to the "computer room" to cut a test CD for "Plastic World" However, I would check my email first till the storm subsided. If you ever tried working with a CD WRITER you know how finicky they are. Two days before I spoiled 2 CDs when I failed to re-install the CD software after changing sound cards. A power failure is one POSITIVE way to destroy a CD in the "writing session" process.

As you might have guessed, I wasn't overly excited about possibly destroying CD #3, but I have to get this CD finished. Right? Well that's another part of the story. I really wasn't ready to accept any more setbacks on this project. It was over 15 years ago when I met Brigitte and told her that I was a "record producer" and now finally 15 years later "Plastic World" was finally coming to fruition. Anyway, the storm finally quieted down.


As usual, I started the CD writing process and shut off the video display. I thought to myself "35 minutes for a simulation and then 35 minutes more to cut the CD. I better work on the web page with the family computer in the meantime." Well 35 minutes later it was time to decide whether to "RECORD" the CD. Well the rain had stopped. The software was giving me a green light go ahead, so I pushed the CD back into the recorder to start the recording process.


Enthralled in the web page creation process, I was stunned a bit when I again heard the sound of thunder. As almost 30 minutes had passed since the CD began recording, I knew that a power failure would CERTAINLY destroy the CD in progress. Then it happened! The lights flickered. The power was out for more than 1/2 second. The family computer shut off and then rebooted. OH NO! The CD must be ruined!


However, when I went back to the "computer room" the yellow light of the recorder was still on. I turned the display back on. When the video display brightened up I was able to see that the recording process was still going on! But of course this was no guarantee that I had a good CD. Of course this CD would AT LEAST have a glitch in the last song. Would I see my favorite CD recording symbol? My CD writer software draws the most beautiful red checkmark when the process completes without an error. It also draws the ugliest red X when the CD writing process fails. THERE IT WAS BEFORE MY EYES, A RED CHECKMARK "CD COMPLETED WITHOUT ERROR" Was there any glitch on the CD? No not even one pop or click, but should I have ever have doubted?

The Lord God, my Creator, has had His hand on me and this project from the very beginning. He wanted to re-affirm this to me on that day and also ,I believe, this incident indicated ,to me, a sort of "stamp of approval". In other words, the CD ,except for a minor volume/EQ adjustment, IS FINISHED...............finally.


Dan Laskowski
To hear sound bytes from the CD go to..... LEFT FRAME

*labour eh!