Better with Age

Daily writing prompt

What do you think gets better with age?

Okay then, this is an interesting question. I am not sure how to respond. The standard answer is booze, right? I don’t drink though so I can’t use that as the answer.

Star Wars. That keeps getting better with age, doesn’t it? Odd that the prequels are getting more popular and more widely accepted as time goes by. Does that mean they are getting better?

It goes against popular convention but I feel marraige gets better with age. Hollywood tells us that the fire and the passion go out after a while, but to me the connection grows deeper and that makes things better. The longer we’re together the more I love my wife and the better our relationship feels. When I come home after a day in the office, the feeling I have when I see her… It’s magic. Truly. I don’t tell her this enough and maybe that’s a negative change, but inside? The way I feel? Yeah, it gets better with age.

We got a pretty late start. I was 36 and she was 32. That was 16 years ago. We didn’t have a wild youthful relationship period the way younger folks in their 20’s do, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I just need to do a better job making sure my beloved bride knows how deeply I love her, and how that love continues to grow with each day.

That’s something that keeps getting better with age.

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 10/90

90 days is about three months. What is 50/3? 16.6. Rounding to the nearest integer means in order to complete 50 songs in 90 days you should average 17 songs per month.

How did I do on day 10? I added two more loose song ideas. How many song ideas are in the pipeline now?

17.

Yeah, babie.

Close but Not Quite

10 minutes before I was supposed to leave for the first full band practice in 3.5 years our singer let us know he was going to be stuck at work and had to back out.

Damn it.

The rest of us still got together. It was loud and fun, the way it should be. I’m not sure when we will be able to try for all four of us again but hopefully it will be soon.

My playing was terrible but most of the songs we played came back to me… eventually. It was good to see Kevin and Mike, and it was fun to play music with other people.

Until next time….

Playing

Packed Up and Ready

I have an amp and a pedal board at Mike the Bass Player’s house already. Pretty sure there are a bunch of mic stands too. I packed the bare minimum. A mic and a cable. Two guitar cables and an over drive pedal. One electric guitar. One pack of emergency strings.

Assuming my amp works… I’m ready to play.

Now I just have to finish the work day and drive to Mike’s house. I’m ready, kids!

Tennant

Finally! While I was cooking my lunch on the grill today I got a picture of one of the birds living rent-free in one of the bird houses!

Now I need to see if there are baby birds in there too.

Fire

Scenes from lunch time.

Fun with Depth of Field

I filled the bird feeders and did a photography exercise.

The same view, with different depth of field.

Example #1, aperture set to f2, shutter speed set to 1/5000 seconds, ISO set to 800 (because that is the speed of the film in Dad’s camera right now).

Example #2, aperture set to f8, shutter speed set to 1/500 seconds, ISO still at 800.

Final example, aperture set to f16, shutter speed set to 1/100 seconds, ISO again at 800.

So the lower the aperture number (lower numbers mean wider aperture, so f2 is as wide as my lens gets and f16 is as narrow as it gets) the shallower the depth of field and the less of the image that is in focus. Get it?

A New Game

Lily and I have a new game. I try to make the bed and she tries to get under the blankets while I make the bed. I won today by keeping her out. She won yesterday. It’s a thing we do now.

1,258 days

Last night I sent a message to the band’s Facebook messenger chat. I asked if we were still on for a practice tonight. Everyone said yes.

It’s been almost exactly a year since Mike, Kevin, and I got together without Greg. It has been a whopping 1,258 days since the last time all four of us were together.

I’m really looking forward to this. I should put new strings on my Les Paul, right?