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It's been some time since I divulged what's been going on with various projects, so here's a quick update!

Vijana FM:
Working on preparing round 2 proposal documents for Echoing Green's grant application. I passed round 1, but that means there are 300 projects out there competing to be one of the 20 Echoing Green Fellowship recipients! Given that this is my second year applying, I'm trying to give the Vijana FM proposal my best. Getting the budget reviewed by some folks at work, which is a big help. Little feedback from you (the public) has started trickling in through my website's contact page, so that is an immense encouragement - thank you!

I also promise to divulge a whole lot more information about the Vijana FM when there is more time to build Vijana FM's presence on the internet. Right now, I am focussing most of my time on refining the concept, business model and social benefit. I am also happy to answer questions via e-mail, so feel free to use my website to get in touch with me!

Soundworks and DJ stuff:
I've had two brief gigs in New York City in the last month, and it feels great to be breaking into the DJ scene here! There may be a chance that I could be in London next year for school, and I'm definately looking forward to being in the progressive//house scene there. Haven't made any mixes of late because I'm trying to decide my next move with getting new decks. I'm thinking of getting Denons again, and sticking to using CDs (instead of Serato), but the pressure from Pioneer is a little insane here in NYC!

Having said that, the tunes just keep coming. I've been to a couple of shows while in NYC, namely Deadmau5, Kaskade and Markus Schulz. Looking forward to Ferry Corsten and Above and Beyond next month! It's so refreshing to see all the "big guys" spinning progressive and vocal tunes that are constantly innovating the progressive electronica genre. Indeed, the genre's still growing, and I'm trying my level best to stay on board with these developments.

My Youtube favorites page has a solid set of soundworks that I am currently sampling, but I also just found out that I have a 650-favorite-videos limit! I might just create a second Youtube account so I can keep favorite-ing.

Also, I'm still a contributor to BoomBoomChik, a music blog dedicated to shouting out the chillest tunes across a diverse set of genres. Using the PirateFunk alias, I divulge the latest progressive trance/house that I hear on radio by my favorite DJs, so look take some time to browse through BoomBoom to see if there's some tunes for you!

Web design:
I've recently made the Lafayette College Undergraduate Relations Committee website, and the Class of 2008 homepage is still under construction. I've also had the opportunity to work with (the world's first) The Stand-up Economist. Yoram Bauman is a hilarious economist, and needed a Facebook Fan Page made, so yours truly stepped in to fix something up for him. Also, I continue to update the various websites I built while at Lafayette, and need to find some time to give my own website a good tweak!

Speaking of which, I've started working on a new RSS project. I'm trying to merge RSS feeds from several different news networks, and then display the most popular words that come up across the most current headlines. This is being done in an effort to guage what is the most popular news item at that time. We'll see how this goes...

Other // New stuff:
I'm thinking about how the alias Shack518 can become a "house" for my projects. They all seem to be related to a few common things anyway: Economic development, music, and the internet // websites. So there may be a complete overhaul of my website design in the next few months, depending on how this urge scratches away inside me.

... aaanndd I think that's it for now. I completely didn't need the subtitle "other//new stuff", but then again that's how I initially split my thoughts up, so we're just going to have to deal :) To everyone who actually reads this blog - thank you - and be sure to check out some of the other blogs I follow (see "bloglinks" on the right hand side menu here -->).

Carpe diem,
ak

PS: The above photo is from Interfacelift, which is a wallpaper website with some of the best photographs I've seen. Go check it out!

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