I personally don't see as as that technical. I try to maintain the melodies more than the technique when I compose. We're not very well-educated in music, I personally had a guitar teacher for a short while in early age (he was a great Blues guitarist, travells in the US nowadays) that gave me the correct basics, and from there it was all purely self taught, lots of practice and mainly listening to songs and developing my ears all the time.
Hadas my sister sings in early albums.
About "The Storm Still Rages" in Mabool - thank you for the compliments. yes, I did write the solo as well as the rhythm, which was then deliberately taken to "Ocean Land" to create a conceptual sequence (The vision of the flood - Ocean Land, and the Storm itself).
As to how I share my time between Software development, studies, family, band etc,- I am used to being busy 24x7, I don't sleep longer than the minimum and I crave to squeeze life to the max it has to offer. I keep all fronts healthy, including work. it's all about good time management (Outlook controlls my life) and balancing.
I don't have time to learn new music, when I compose I sort of "teach myself" new stuff. I always love to explore new and different instruments, and yes, it takes time to learn to play a new instrument well...
I enjoy programming very much, in fact, it's one of the highest joys in my life. Software has a certain magic that cannot be explained to non-programmers. in a way it's parallel to music, creation is creation, whether it's in the virtual world or through the strings of the guitar.