Apple fanboy preps for travel… again.

Last night was a really bad sleep.  Really bad.  The mask was a nightmare, and I couldn’t fall sleep and my back was hurting and I think I was probably just overly excited about being on vacation.

Because I’m on vacation.

I went to bed last night at a little before 11:00.  Once I fell asleep I didn’t wake up until just before 2:00.  I made it almost three hours without a problem.  Granted, I barely made it to six hours total, but going three hours without the mask coming unsealed is kind of a milestone.  I was happy.  I’m still seriously exhausted today, but I’m happy.

Yup, I’m happy.

I’m super happy.

Music progress progresses.  I’ve got eight ideas for 50/90 underway.  Only one seems like it might be good.  I haven’t recorded any guitars yet, but I have all the gear I need to record my new two amp setup that I have going on in the bedroom.  I might test drive a little recording tonight, if I get the chance.  I also haven’t hooked up my attenuator yet, though I have everything I need to use it.  I might be a little nervous about messing with that one.

If only I could explain why I am so happy.

This made me sad.  A little, at least.

Appeals court rules Trump can’t block people on Twitter

It has been one of my stated goals for the four years Trump spends in office to be blocked by him on twitter.  It hasn’t happened yet, and based on this Appeals court ruling it may never happen.

No amount of calling out his fascist, anti-American, racist, colluding, obstructing behavior will get me blocked.  No amount of pointing out his low IQ, or inability to spell, or speak in complete sentences will get me blocked.  The Nazi moron just isn’t allowed to do it.

Oh well.  I guess I’ll just rejoin the majority of Americans by focusing on voting his ignorant, fascist ass out of office next year.

We took the kids out last night.  I had to miss band practice, but it’s worth it for quality kid time, even though I feel bad about missing band practice.  We got home at a little before 10:00 and I was exhausted.  Completely out of gas.  I took a minute to make myself lunch for work today and then went to bed.

The numbers were okay.  SleepWatch tried to tell me that I was asleep from 7:45 to 9:30.  Nope.  I was not asleep and I have witnesses to prove it.  I was able to delete that entry from the stats.  It also had me asleep from 10:45 to 4:35 with one 10+ minute wake up in between.  That’s pretty accurate.

It still came up under six hours for my total sleep.  I would really like to start getting that total up over six, I tells you.  Six hours of sleep is beginning to feel like an unattainable goal.  Even when I go to bed early, I still wake up five hours and 45 minutes later.  It’s getting annoying.

I need to figure out how to travel with my shiny new CPAP machine.  It came in a nice case that doesn’t have space for the mask or the hose.  I don’t know if I will be able to fit it all into a carry on bag or not, but that’s the goal right now.  I’m also going to have to bring a bottle of distilled water.  I highly doubt I’ll be able to buy one of those at the hotel.  Disney thinks of pretty much everything, but I don’t think they’ll think of that.  Water will need to go into my checked bag.  No biggie.

Our vacation is so close that it’s becoming difficult to think about anything else.  Must… stay… focused…

I just had a thought about my CPAP mask.  Is it possible that the failure to hold the seal against my face is due to me missing some back teeth?  Maybe I move my head in the wrong way and my cheek pulls in around a missing tooth and it creates a little gap between my cheek and the mask?

I wonder.

I just scared the crap out of myself.

I have all this fun guitar gear but when push comes to shove I really don’t know how any of it really works.  I plug it in, I play through it, rock and roll all night.  But what if something goes wrong with one of these toys?  I have no idea how to fix it.  That’s why I never do anything to disturb the apple cart.

Earlier today I did something that might have disturbed the apple cart.

My amp is a combo.  That means the amplifier and the speaker are included in the same box.  In my case there is a cable with a quarter inch jack that connects the speaker to the amplifier.  In some cases the two are connected with solder.  Not in my case though.

Out of fear of screwing something up, I have never ever touched the cable that connects the speak to the amp.  Never.  What if I fiddled with the plug and then it stopped working?  Nope, not touching it.

I have an attenuator now though.  That changes everything.  To use it, you have to place it into the signal path between the amplifier and the speaker.  That means, I have to unplug the speaker and plug it into the box, then run another speaker cable from the box to the amp.  Never having touched that plug before I didn’t know if there was enough slack on the cable to reach the top of the cabinet.

There is.

I know this because I just unplugged the speaker from the amp and checked the length of the cable.  When I pulled out that plug, my heart literally stopped for a second.  Yikes, that scared the hell out of me.  I was already planning on hitting a Guitar Center today to pick up a mic, so now I have to grab another speaker cable too.  Then I will be in business.  Granted, I will be terrified every time I hook this little guy up, but that’s just because I am a wimp.

But first… episode one of the new season of Stranger Things.  Let the creepy commence.

My first toe dipped into the vast sea of amplifier attenuation.

The SleepWatch app on my phone told me I was asleep at 11:00 last night.  In truth though, at 11:00 I went from watching TV with my step son to sitting in the office on my computer, listening to Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow pondering the eternal question of how could Graham Bonnet have been soooooo effin’ amazing on the Down to Earth album and then soooooo terrible on stage and couldn’t Ritchie have figured out a way to keep Bonnet around for studio records and then bring someone else in for live shows?  He was soooooooooo good on that record and yet his replacement was just bad in the studio and on stage.  Questions for the ages, you know?

Really I was just waiting for Bellana to come home.  She walked in the door at midnight, and at that point I went to bed and sat up reading on my iPad for a while.  When I couldn’t keep my eyes open I hooked up the machine and went to sleep.  I checked my watch as I was laying down and it said 12:40.

And yet my watch says I was asleep at 11:00.

Not even close, guys.  Not even remotely close.

The good news is I only took my mask off a couple of times.  I was only in bed for about six hours, but the mask stuck pretty well for most of that time.

In closing, here’s a little Rainbow with Graham Bonnet.  He was sooooooooo good on this album.

and then….

That’s actually not as bad as some of the tapes I’ve heard.  I just wish Ritchie’s tech could have figured out whatever was wrong.  He tends to get pissy when his equipment acts up.  Also… umm… mixing engineer?  There are five guys on stage, not one.  M’kay?  Thanks.