Some snaps from my morning out of the house. Just because.
One more. This is what we call, “a mistake.”
Scenes
Month: March 2024
Starting to Get Nervous
The nervousness is creeping up on me.
No details will be forthcoming, but we have an appointment with my father’s doctor today. It will be Dad, the doctor, my brother, my sister, and me. There is a potential for some difficult conversation about my father’s care going forward. There isn’t anything wrong right now, but it’s just day to day stuff that might need to be adjusted, and those adjustments might lead to some tough talk.
The appointment is about 2.5 hours from now. I have some errands to run (I might share the source of those later because it’s a “funny” story) and then I have to go and pick up my dad.
Stay calm, Robert. It will be okay.
Nope
Daily writing prompt
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
No is a hard word to say. I should learn to say it once in a while.
I’m not what you’d call a people person. I rarely get where they are coming from. I still want to be helpful though. I still want to make things easier for these weird people that I don’t understand. That makes saying no to them tough to do.
It is so tough to do that I rarely bring myself to do it. At work, in personal life situation. I’m rarely able to just say no. That doesn’t mean I don’t do it because sometimes I do. That is when the guilt takes over. I say no to someone about something and then I feel terrible about it for ages.
Saying no sucks, even when it is clearly the right thing to do.
How About a New Mix
Hey, I mixed one of the songs that I put the vocals onto yesterday and the lead guitars onto today. It’s a song from the RPM Challenge a few years ago that is now part of The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project, aka Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven.
I’m not sold on the mix, but when am I ever sold on something I’ve mixed?
Cats
I didn’t have my phone with me when I stumbled upon this scene. Thankfully the cats waited patiently while I went and picked it up. Snap.
More Recording
I finished recording all of the guitar tracks I wanted to do yesterday but didn’t end up having time for. Hooray!
I played through a speaker again, but unlike yesterday I had to lower the volume to a tolerable level. I had the house to myself yesterday so I could approach ear-bleeding volume. Today my wife, the love of my life Jen, is home so I had to tone it down a lot. That’s okay. It’s still more fun playing through a speaker than playing direct into the computer.
I put rhythm guitars onto one song for the Record Every Month Challenge, and lead guitars onto three songs for my re-recording old songs project, aka The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project, or also aka Quarantine Tunes.
My leads weren’t good, but they were better than most of the stuff I’ve recorded of late.
Self Deception
Last week I promised myself I would not go back to the sugar free bakery for at least another week. Then earlier today this happened:
Stop lying to yourself you big dumb red haired liar.
We Need a Plan
I need to fix what’s left of my band. I don’t know how. I think we need to come up with a plan. Something we can work through that will result in getting everything moving again.
We need a singer. I tried craigslist and got a surprising number of responses, but we weren’t organized enough to act on any of it. Here’s what I am going to suggest to the other two guys…
- The three of us pick a handful of songs. Maybe 5-10. They will be our singer-audition songs.
- The three of us start practicing again. Once a week. We rehearse the holy hell out of those 5-10 songs for a month or so, maybe a little longer. We get them to where we can play them in our sleep.
- We put up another craigslist add. This one will have the responses forwarded to all three of us. If anyone answers the add we immediately schedule an audition. We give them the list of songs and give them a week, two weeks tops, to work on them and then we all get together.
- Eventually we offer the job to one of two people and then we’re off and running.
I am going to send this list to Mike the Bass Player and Kevin the Drummer, probably tomorrow at some point. Hopefully they’ll be up for it and we can get things moving in the right direction again.
A Particular Set of Skills
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.
Liam Neeson in the movie Taken
Skills that I have, or wish I had. That’s two questions in one right there. I’ll take a crack at both.
We are talking about super powers here, right? Well, I am at least. I don’t know what you kind folks are focusing on, but this i smy post so it is super powers. Spoiler alert.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, everyone in the fandom (mostly) hated the character Wesley Crusher. He was in the original cast but after a few seasons he was gone. Then in the final season they brought him back for an episode to wrap up his story. In that final episode they gave him a sort of super power that I have always been very jealous of. It was kinda neat. Sure, things like invisibility and flying and super strength are cool, but Wesley Crusher could pull himself out of time. Essentially he could stop time’s forward progress for everyone around him but not for him. The universe would freeze in place but he could still move around and interact with everything. How cool is that? Imagine you’re about to get in a car accident. You hit pause on the universe, move out of the way, and then hit play. Accident avoided. Say you needed another few minutes to prepare for a meeting or something. Just hit pause, do what you need to do, hit play and give a killer performance. If I could have a super power, that might be what I would want. That’s a pretty cool skill.
What about a skill that I already have? Well, there is one thing. One super power-esque thing. Based on the name of this little blog site, you already know what it is. I have red hair. I was born that way and at 52 years old I am still a red head*. This gives me a hidden super power. No, really. It does. I have the power to affect the universe around me in positive ways. Most people don’t know this, but there is a type of positive energy called “red head vibes” that only people with red hair can control. My sister and I used to send out these magical red head vibes to people we knew who needed a little positivity boost. Anyone can send happy thoughts, or positivity, but only red heads can send the super powerful red head vibes.
I expect that the Illuminati’s council of red heads will be very upset with me for sharing this information with the universe, but call me a rebel because I am about to hit publish and let you all know what’s what.
*I am 52 years old and I still have red hair, but my days are very much numbered. I see more white in my hair every day. I’ve held on for a lot longer than most people manage to, much longer than my big sister did, but the end is in sight. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts though.
Remember the Jedi Knight I used to do? I had to go to a new AI image generator, but the Jedi’s are back… for today at least.
generate an image of a jedi knight with red hair using the force
That’s not a Jedi though, that’s a Sith. The red lightsaber is fitting though.
Waiting Room
You can guess where we are, but I’m not going to spill the beans.
Inside the Red Head's Head 