The Unrested Mind

There is a lovely seniors’ centre in my town. It’s full of world-class bridge players and very sensible $5 sandwiches. By all accounts, I should be there, winding down and taking up a “gentle” hobby. I haven’t yet tried to join the bridge group, but I will - when I’ve mastered the Stayman! Instead, I’m at a dual-monitor setup at 5:00 AM, caffeinated and squinting at a logic loop.

I don’t think I have a “condition” that needs managing, but I definitely have unspent momentum. After 23 years managing federal databases where a misplaced comma could break the system, my head doesn’t really have an “off” switch. dotBeat is what happened when that momentum met an hour long search for a printable, free, G Scale chord sheet.

This project started because I was tired of being a musical detective. I’d open a chord sheet for a song I didn’t know and stare at a ‘C’ and a ‘G7’ with no clue how to actually pulse the thing.

I tried the “standard” route:

• The YouTube Rabbit Hole: Watching videos where I couldn’t “un-hear” the singing long enough to isolate the strumming.
• The Piano Plunk: Sitting at a keyboard trying to manually decode the timing like a forensic investigation.

I realized that for many of us, the rhythm was invisible. I wanted to pin it down. So, I traded the government filing cabinets for a neon-coloured digital studio.

I’ve become a “Vibe Coder.” That sounds fancy, but it just means I use a team of slightly erratic robots (ask me about my “ADHD Teenager” coding agents sometime) to build tools that feel right.

But don’t let the “vibe” fool you. Behind every dotBeat on this screen is a 20-year audit trail of logic and a stickler’s devotion to accuracy. This is an ad-free, solo project fuelled by coffee and the joy of making the “invisible” rhythm loud and clear.

Now - back to strumming!