Who is James Aric Keith?

Born January 6th, 1972 in Flagstaff, Arizona. Lived in Arizona until the age of 12 then moved to Siloam Springs Arkansas.

Married at 17 in June of 1989, and has been happily married for the entire time to the same wonderful girl Lisa.
Father to kinda three children, Rick and Arica and son-in-law Josh Bishop and one cat, Willson aka Willie, who is just an obstinate but affection seeking tabby, when he's not just after more food.

A proud member of the Scottish clan Keith. But also proud of my Cherokee heritage.

I like to do things with my hands, as well as opening my mind and just letting it flow. I entered the NaNoWriMo Competition in November 2008 and reached the 50,000 word challenge. In progress are five story lines, one of which is a trilogy, another is written for animation in the anime style. Another has been chosen for podcast as soon as it's finished in January 2010.

So I guess I'm a writer too.

Loves to do too many different things. But, cars, computers, music, and audio are on the top of the very long list.

Just spent 25 years in the floorcovering trade, and will be writing more how-to's for DIYers here at squidoo very soon.

Now I am asked all the time about my nickname. Key is derived from my last name Keith. At some point my addiction to hard Christian rock caused someone to call "my music" Key's Tone. Well that was prefixed with Sir, because in my family's history is the fact that our family held the position of Marishal of Scotland so the kids jokingly called me sir.

Now for the zerofourfive(045) part of my name that I use some times. It's my racing number. And eventually I will get back to the track, but the number actually comes from the Arizona license plate that was on my first car. The plate number was VAN 045 and I still have it.

The last sticker was 1982, when we moved from Arizona to Arkansas. My parents bought the car new in 1976 and it became mine around 1988, though it never saw the road after that.

My 1976 Dodge Colt Carousel has lost it's Denim top and most of it's paint, and it's engine and transmission is sitting in the engine bay of a 1978 Chevy LUV. Anyway, that's that story.

Other places I have been (or some of my other projects):
Keystone045 my main dA site
CSC Club a club I run dedicated to the use of Child Stock Photos
5m4rtThr08 where some of my writing is
WEbook where the rest of my writing is
False Hope Band until I get around to doing our website
False Hope Swag

Of course also upcoming is the FAKE band for the podcast of Stage which will start being featured on T61.com If I can ever get a computer put together to record with...

This one is one of my design passions at the moment. New Urbanism is sweeping the nation as a move toward our heritage as well as making things "greener." New Urbanism is currently under fire because many of the projects are being built on fresh ground rather than renewing old neighborhoods and towns.

I'd love to see more from you guys on this subject. And while I haven't started my massive project yet, because of lack of funding, much less I would have to find a town center that would agree to my designs. I have already started work on much of the building design and important changes such as wastewater and storm water removal, and ideas for being self powered and self sustained. More on this later.

Now you can also go to new urbanism dot org for lots more information.

It has recently been suggested to me that my philosophy of being an old fashioned gear-head isn't that far from being a SteamPunk.

Interesting...

I have always liked that genre, and it makes sense. Thanks guys, for find me a genre to fit into!

Cars -
Design and art (from concept drawing to ergonomic design)
Mechanical (several years as my own mechanic)
Painting (I always do my own painting)
Fiberglass (Mostly from the audio work, but have built my own ground effects kit)
Bodywork (Hammer and Dolly, man)
Welding (Not that great at it, but I can get by)
Metalwork (again, hammer and dolly)
Window Tint (Thousands of feet of film and several gallons of the spray)
Vinyl Graphics (don't have a die cutter, so I have to knife cut all of my own)
Audio!!! (sound quality and SPL, design and install, as well as building some of my own components)
Apholstry (years of carpeting staircases has help to create some imaginative designs in interiors and audio sculptures)
Racing (drag, autocross, rallye, drift, dirt)

Computers and Electronics -
Keeping old computers running (lots of different kinds)
Basic software manipulation (pipes, plugins, some compiling)
BASIC and Visual BASIC (especially for PLCCs)
HTML and web design (learning SEO stuff again)
Digital Art (Photoshop and Painter, and 3D. Getting ready to start a comic strip and an anime based on some of my writings)
Robotics (and toyed with traffic light programming in school)
Building hardware (soldering, design, troubleshooting)
Electronic music equipment, see music below
I can fix a TV or VCR or microwave but the parts are worth more to me than the equipment...

Music -
Guitar 6 and 7 string (own 8 - 6 strings and 1 - 7 string)
Bass Guitar 4 and 5 string (own 3 - 4 strings and 1 - 5 string)
Some Keyboard/Piano (enough to get me in trouble)
Drums
Repair (electrical and hardware)
Computers (played with numerous concoctions of Sonar, Acid, Audacity, etc.)

Software I Play With -
Photoshop 5.5 (I'm not going to upgrade either)
Illustrator 8 (I don't use too much)
ImageReady (Optimising images for web is awesome)
HTML-kit (My favorite editor, does HMTL, CSS and also is great for ftp uploading)
FlipBook (A sweet animation software that works much like the old school way of cartooning)
ToonBoom Studio (Even sweeter, creates animations very similar to working in Poser. Can also do 3D camera work and Flash)
ToonBoom Screenplay (A compiling software for working with a group or just putting your outlines together)
Painter 8 (A hearty natural painting program)
Firestarter (The natural progression from ImageReady into a Flash animation)
Acid (A sequencing software)
Sonar6 (Sequencer and Arranging software that can also finalise)
Audacity (Opensource audio that nearly compares to Sonar)

Audio -
Sound Engineer for a number of bands and churches over the past 25 years.
Recorded my own stuff on occation
Mild competition in Sound Quality
Mild competition in SPL
Owned an auto audio shop for a while
Built several custom audio vehicles

I will of course have links to all of my favorite sites on these subject as I open up my hot rod favorites list up to you.

Constantly expanding, this area will be the eventual posting and RSS feed of the False Hope band blog, covering everything about the band from how I set up the sound system or what repairs were made to our old equipment, to what cover songs we are working on at the next rehearsal.

Also, this up and coming blog will feature highlights from each gig we do, and/or what I'm doing to promote us online.

But for now, you get to see the feed from my personal blog, which gets the most attention anyway from me, because I use it to post updates from here and other interests, but as I am building my presence here first, you'll see mostly posts about things I am doing here at Squidoo.

I'm a complete car nut. I follow the old hot rodder ways: If you can't do it yourself then it doesn't need doing. Run what you brung.

I'll be getting to much of my stuff as I go along here. For now check up on my car stuff at my kustom blog.

Interests
Design and art (from concept drawing to ergonomic design)
Mechanical (several years as my own mechanic)
Painting (I always do my own painting)
Fiberglass (Mostly from the audio work, but have built my own ground effects kit)
Bodywork (Hammer and Dolly, man)
Welding (Not that great at it, but I can get by)
Metalwork (again, hammer and dolly)
Window Tint (Thousands of feet of film and several gallons of the spray)
Vinyl Graphics (don't have a die cutter, so I have to knife cut all of my own)
Audio!!! (sound quality and SPL, design and install, as well as building some of my own components)
Apholstry (years of carpeting staircases has helped to create some imaginative designs in interiors and audio sculptures)
Racing (drag, autocross, rallye, drift, dirt)

In a totally related but not really topic:

I love model cars, from HotWheels/Lindsey/Matchbox to custom building my own kit bashed wonders.... More on that later ;-)

Interests
Keeping old computers running (lots of different kinds)
Basic software manipulation (pipes, plugins, some compiling)
BASIC and Visual BASIC (especially for PLCCs)
HTML and web design (learning SEO stuff again)
Digital Art (Photoshop and Painter, and 3D. Getting ready to start a comic strip and an anime based on some of my writings)
Robotics (and toyed with traffic light programming in school)
Building hardware (soldering, design, troubleshooting)
Electronic music equipment, see music below
I can fix a TV or VCR or microwave but the parts are worth more to me than the equipment...
Reverse engineering (so I can put those parts to better use)

software
Photoshop 5.5 (I'm not going to upgrade either well not any time soon)
Illustrator 8 (I don't use too much)
ImageReady (Optimising images for web is awesome)
HTML-kit (My favorite editor, does HMTL, CSS and also is great for ftp uploading)
FlipBook (A sweet animation software that works much like the old school way of cartooning)
ToonBoom Studio (Even sweeter, creates animations very similar to working in Poser. Can also do 3D camera work and Flash)
ToonBoom Screenplay (A compiling software for working with a group or just putting your outlines together)
Painter 8 (A hearty natural painting program)
Firestarter (The natural progression from ImageReady into a Flash animation)
Acid (A sequencing software)
Sonar6 (Sequencer and Arranging software that can also finalize)
Audacity (Opensource audio that nearly compares to Sonar)

This one is still in infancy. It will be a while before this one is ready to put together.

I just have too much to say and not enough time to say it.

Other ideas will also be: guitar lessons, how to lessons in several contruction trades, how to in several woodworking trades especially luthier and miniature modelling.

Music production and mixing, as well as PR and marketing a band how tos will be combined in with the on going How To Build A Band lens group.

I will also be linking to my other online enterprises as I develop them.

Right now I have been focusing my affiliates on music so without further adieu:

Musician's Hut: music for musicians, currently one of my favorite eshops for drums, with either a 10% discount for orders over $250 or a $100 gift certificate. This one of the little guys like me, so I hope to help them against Musicians Friend and Guitar Center (even though I'm an affiliate for them too.)

Ok, first, there are very slim chances that you will find something I can't sit through and have positive comments about. Music has been a mainstay of mine for so long, that you won't find a genre that I won't listen to. Even rap and techno. I may not care much for ska or disco, but each have positive points too.

I think a person is too closed minded if they listen to only one genre of music, though I do tend to lean toward either heavy bass (gotta give those sub-woofers something to do, and I am a bass player) or heavy music, from the hard 80's rock, 90s metal, to especially new stuff from the melodic death crowd, and some techno and hyper soul and everything in-between.

Also, I am putting a fake band together to promote an upcoming novel I'm writing over at WEbook. So I might be hitting the road for auditions soon. Interested? Let me know, I'm also looking for voice actors and artists for the anime.

NEW!!!
Stage may have just been selected as a run for a new podcasting company. So my fake Blown Pageant may have to come sooner than expected! Looking for some help!

my interests
Guitar 6 and 7 string (own 8 - 6 strings and 1 - 7 string)
Bass Guitar 4 and 5 string (own 3 - 4 strings and 1 - 5 string)
Some Keyboard/Piano (enough to get me in trouble)
Drums
Repair (electrical and hardware)
Computers (played with numerous concoctions of Sonar, Acid, Audacity, etc.)

A professional sound tech and designer for 15 years, I run the sound for our band, which everyone knows that from the stage, isn't an easy task, especially if once we're playing, I can't go out front anymore.

Much of my experience comes from running worship systems as well. Any one who has done that knows that's not easy either.

I have competed in SQ and dB over the years with several different systems, and my rebuilt amplifiers and home-built crossovers, line drivers and signal processors aren't just run of the mill.

I have built and maintained many hundreds of sound systems over my 20 years of playing with car audio, and am proud to say I'm going to be starting yet another soon.

I also do all of my own repair work... "If you can't do it yourself, it don't need doin'"

Interests
Sound Engineer for a number of bands and churches over the past 25 years.
Recorded my own stuff on occasion
Electronic repair
Instrument repair
Mild competition in Sound Quality
Mild competition in SPL
Owned an auto audio shop for a while
Built several custom audio vehicles

There are quite a few things about me that aren't really hobbies. There are things about me that I'm not crazy about everyone knowing.

Like my psoriasis from allergies to PVC and latex and how it reacts to my regular use of grout and thinset and other concrete products to push me back to the brink of concrete poisoning again.

Or my personality disorders, like the disgraphia that got me fired from my last job because even though I have an Idetic memory I don't do numbers very well. Some one asks me the price of something, I don't remember. i don't understand that too much either, because if you ask me the Thiele-Small parameters of a common driver with the sensitivity of about 97 dB I can typically tell you the box size the driver needs to go in to tune it to a certain frequency, with the aide of a calculator of course...

My GID, that has along with my art work, managed to get me in trouble on several occasions, not excluding a felony and my name on a certain list that no one wants to admit to and an addiction that I have under control at the moment but is the most unpopular topic in the world right now. In some circles, would probably get me beat down or killed whether it was under control or not. GID... It's funny they have a name for Gender Identity Disorder but no clinical name for a disorder that afflicts many of us: the fear of adults...

I have a hard time admitting that I am an adult, and that's probably why I throw myself at so many hobbies, to keep my mind from admitting that I'm "almost 40."

I also intend on making a page break for my theology, because I have been branded a mormo-adventi-bapti-costal. All the while also embracing a light touch of Celtic Wicca and an interest in Astrology especially in relation to Native American religions, namely the Cherokee and the Mayan religions. But again those are just interests, most of my theology is based on what I have experienced. No real details because those years are typically blocked from my memory unless I wish to add PTSD to the above list.

I will usually shy away from being called a Christian, though I don't refute that point. To me most Christians are stereotypically (and most are usually correct in assuming so) branded with unflattering stereotypes. I just say I am a follower of Christ and that even satisfies most Islamists.

Christians make too many rules.

Christ never made any rules other than Love Your Neighbor. Now wouldn't that change our penal system if that was the only law our government had to enforce?

As far as why I believe in Wicca as well, I think we as humans have devolved considerably. We still don't use enough of our brains to scratch the surface. Several of my writings have dealt with accidentally or purposely opening a channel of our minds that are fully capable of things that we consider to be super natural. I may not believe in Wicca as a religion, but I never said I was religious, now did I? I do think it is possible to change the world around us with our thoughts or prayers. And why not?

I can add so much to my thought stream here.

I am what is called a Social Nucleist. If you change yourself then you start to change to ones around you, then you change your community, then you change the world. The problem is, most of us have too much baggage; too many skeletons in the closet, too many addictions.

I do too.

But we can change this, and this is my goal on the internet!

Like AlterBridge says; "I want to change this world!"