Category: Generic

Favorite Artists

Daily writing prompt
Who are your favorite artists?
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My favorite artists are all musicians. I’ll give you a short list, okay? I think the word “art” is probably a little too pretentious given the type of music all of these folks make/made. That’s okay. I like what I like, you know? You know it when you see it and all that.

  • Rush. I was a kid in 5th grade the first time I heard Rush and they had a monumental effect on me. They rewrote my future, musically and pretty much socially. They set me on a path as it were. It was odd how as their musical directions changed over the years it always lined up perfectly with how my own musical tastes were changing. They were always right where I needed them to be.
  • Throwing Muses. Rush changed my musical outlook when I was a kid and then continuously adjusted it again and again throughout the rest of my life. Throwing Muses did the same thing to me when I was in high school. Like most high school kids I was sure that I had the world figured out, musically speaking at least, and hearing The Muses for the first time turned that entire outlook upside down and backwards and inside out. It was a monumental change. I owe this band so much.
  • Eric Clapton. I share this one with a frustrated sigh. His career has been long and varied and huge swaths of it are totally uninteresting. Also, he’s demonstrated on a couple of occasions that he is a bit of a schmuck, and that is upsetting to me. Really, he’s just a spoiled child who seems to believe everything he reads even when what he reads is idiotic and clearly untrue. Putz. Still, from the start of his professional career through his first drug fueled semi-retirement in 1971 or so his guitar playing inspired me to play guitar in a way that no one else ever did. Before I heard Cream I was curious about learning the guitar. After I heard Cream I was obsessed with the idea and HAD to learn to play guitar. Clapton did that to me.

Those are the big ones. If art is meant to inspire then those three are the biggest sources of inspiration for me. It seems too short a list though, so let’s add a few honorable mentions for luck.

  • Jeff Beck
  • Yes
  • Pink Floyd
  • Genesis
  • BB King
  • Jimmy Page
  • Albert King
  • The Pixies
  • Nirvana
  • Pearl Jam

Just to name a few.

Be Careful Out On Those Internets, Kids

I am not going to share any details because a: it’s not my info to share and, b: it’s none of your damn business.

Having said that, be careful out in the wilderness that is the internets, kiddos. It’s dangerous out there. You click the wrong link and someone scoops up your login credentials and BOOM, you’re private info is public. Worse, it happens at work and your company’s private info is public. Worse, worse, it happens to your customer and your customer’s private info is public and then you have to dive in and try to clean up the mess.

No one I know or work with was involved in such a thing, but the clean up when it happens to other people around you can be super stressful.

So be careful out there. You don’t want to go through any of this crap, and you don’t want to accidentally put your friendly neighborhood support staff through it in your place either. Yikes, bro.

Favorite Hobbies

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
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It’s been a while since the daily writing prompt was so blatantly a repeat. They’ve already asked us about our hobbies, and recently. Oh well, once more into the breech?

My Number One hobby is music. Playing it, listening to it, writing it, recording it, thinking about it, everything. Guitar and saxophone, analog and digital, if it’s musical I’m into it. Except country music. Hell no on that front.

Honorably mention go to photography, I’m not good at it but putting a camera (digital or film) into manual mode and getting an exposure right is pretty cool. Another would be writing this silly little blog. I sure do it enough, right? Being a hockey and baseball fan is another, though my 21st century attention span keeps getting shorter and shorter and it makes it tough to watch games. I like good TV and I love a good movie. I used to list reading near the top of my hobbies list but ever since I started wearing bifocals it’s just become more difficult to focus my eyes than I ever thought it would, and they get really tired really fast.

So there you go, probably the same list of hobbies as the last time they asked about hobbies.

Leaf Peeping

The weather forecast was kinda crummy today but the reality isn’t too terrible. Jen and I are going to give leaf peeping a shot. That will let us go out in the world while still being paranoid about spreading any last vestiges of the Covid… even though that is literally not a thing.

I have my Nikons in the camera bag. The Z5 mirrorless with the new 28mm lens, and the FG-20 film camera with the 35-70mm zoom. I even turned on the SnapBridge app connection so that I can possibly post Z5 shots to the blog while we’re out. There was only one shot on the memory card and it crossed to my phone and it’s Robin, of course.

Lets see how it goes today. Fingers crossed for some cool views and decent shots.

Possessions

Daily writing prompt
What would you do if you lost all your possessions?
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Possessions are fun and all but they are just stuff and stuff can be replaced.

The rebuild would need to start with a home to live in, including some basic furnishings, and a car to get around in, specifically to the office and back. I need a computer and a phone for work so those would come next. After that I would need mental health items. Specifically a guitar and an amplifier with a cable to connect them, and a digital camera with a memory card.

In other words, if I lost all of my stuff I would just start over and rebuild my collection of stuff. I would not end up with exactly the same stuff, but the stuff that I truly need (professionally, mentally, and personally) would be replaced. It would likely be a painful and slow process, but I’d get there eventually.

Change My Mind

Daily writing prompt
What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?
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Topics about which I’ve changed my mind. Well, off the top of my head there are bunch that I can think of. On closer inspection though, are some of them more as though I convinced myself that something was true only because the reality didn’t appeal to me? I’ll explain along the way.

  • I once believed that I would always be alone, romantically speaking. Jen proved me wrong and changed my mind. I am extremely pleased to have been wrong about this one. My question though is, did I really believe I was going to always be alone or did I just convince myself that was the case because it was safer to believe it than to ponder the reasons behind it? Something like that at least.
  • I once believed that I didn’t want kids. Harry and Bellana changed my mind. I don’t have kids of my own, but if you search through the history of this little personal blog you’ll find a few thousand posts where I mention that I can’t possibly imagine loving kids more than I love my step kids. I have to assume it’s possible, but I feel like to do so would result in your head exploding. Again, I was very happy to have my mind changed on this subject. Also, I may never have truly believed this one but instead convinced myself that it was the case to avoid being hurt by the reality. I don’t know and I don’t care. I am very happy with how things turned out.
  • I used to think that fascism was a historical movement with no connection to current reality. Boy was I wrong about that. Consider my mind changed.
  • I used to think that god might be an actual thing. Those days are over. Mind: changed.
  • I used to think that given the choice between traveling to San Diego or Los Angeles the correct choice would be Los Angeles. Now all I want is to go back to San Diego and then never leave.
  • I used to hate country music with the furious passion of a thousand burning suns. I still do. I’ll never change my mind about that one. That one is fundamental to my being.

There you have it. A few topics upon which I have changed my tiny little mind.

Home Grown Peanuts

I so want to do this next Spring. I’m pretty sure I won’t, but as of right now I really want to. I just need to learn how to protect against the rodent wild kingdom in my yard.

I really want to grow my own peanuts next year. I do, I do.