The OCD and the Tumnus are on the board. Cool! The D&M Drive is off. Boo. Granted, the D&M is essentially a Klone and an OCD, and the Tumnus is a Klone so… yeah. Rock on.

I was just running through some new songs before leaving for band practice. Yeah, I was playing through two amps. It really makes a huge difference and it might be impossible to not sound good. I’m kinda hooked.

Jen left for a business trip this morning.  It’s been a little over an hour.  I already miss her like crazy.  It’s an important trip and it’s great that she’s going, but it also sucks ass.

Last night I had a super great idea.  If the mask on my CPAP machine is being a jerk and regularly losing its seal against my face, maybe I need a new mask, right?  Even though I spoke to the folks who fitted me and they told me to just be patient and that it might just take a few weeks to get used to it.  Well, I still have the mask I wore when I did the sleep test in the hospital, why don’t I just try that mask?  I know the hose fits because I am literally using it every night.

I pull the bag of stuff the hospital sent me home with out of my bedroom closet, dig around, find the mask… crud.  It’s exactly the same mask.  Right down to the model number and the placement of the velcro straps on the harness.  Sonofa…

What the hell, I’ll try it anyway.  Maybe there is something with the harness adjustment that will help.  I washed it, hooked it up, put it on, laid down and did my absolute best to not move an inch.  Almost immediately I could feel it sliding around on my face.  After less than 15 minutes I sat up, ripped the friggin’ thing off, threw a minor temper tantrum, woke my wife, packed up and moved to the couch so that I wouldn’t wake her again, put the original mask back on, and again tried my best to not move.  It sort of worked.  It came loose a few times, but not as bad as some other nights.  I got a shade less than five hours sleep over the course of about six and a half hours before I couldn’t fall asleep again.  That’s what passes for a good night now.

But at least I’m not snoring!  And the MyAir app is telling me that I have dropped from around 80 apnea events per hour to three or fewer.  Both are good things.  I just wish I could sleep through the night for a change.

But Jen is gone for the next few days.  As previously stated, it sucks.  I’m sad.  I need to come up with stuff to keep myself busy while I impatiently wait for her to come home.  Today I told my father I’d run an errand for him.  I’m going to leave to do that now.  I might go somewhere for lunch while I’m out.  The Border Cafe?  Maybe.  Maybe not, but maybe.  Then it’s home to learn a few new songs for band practice.  I lost a small battle verses gear acquisition syndrome today and bought an inexpensive attenuator that I can use with my Fender Deluxe Reverb.  I bought it on reverb.com… my first reverb purchase.  I will do all I can to keep the flood gates from opening.  Turns out it’s made by a boutique builder based in Tyngsboro, MA.  Like, half an hour from here.  If I’d have known that I would have just driven over and knocked on his door.

I miss my Jen.

Band practice tomorrow.  Fifty/ninety starts on Thursday.  Changes to the boards are on the table.

When I did RPM/Fawm this year I restricted myself to a small number of pedals.  I’m thinking about doing that for 50/90 too.  I’m just not sure how I want to do it.

For rehearsal tomorrow, I am thinking about taking the Keeley D&M Drive off of my band board and replacing it with either the Wampler Tumnus or the Klon KTR and the Fulltone OCD.  The OCD is happening but I’m not sure about the other pedal.  The KTR is my shiny new pedal so I am thinking that will stay home, assuming once 50/90 kicks off I will likely be playing more at home than with the band.  So the Tumnus and the OCD go to Mike’s tomorrow.

As for the stay at home setup, the little Vox Wah thingie whose model number I can never remember is a given.  So is the little MXR Phase 95.  I don’t plan on using a delay, so my Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail can come off the board.  The OCD and the Tumnus come off too.  The way it’s setup now, the Tumnus was a post-gain boost and I don’t need one of those for recording, so I don’t need to replace it.  What about the OCD?  I have a cheap Chinese OCD clone, the Joyo Ultimate Drive but I don’t think I want to pull that out.  Fulltone is actually teasing the holy hell out of us by hyping up the imminent release of a OCD pedal that uses germanium clipping diodes instead of silicon (I think it actually uses both, but whose counting).  Should I A: win the one he’s giving away on July 4th, or B: let my G.A.S. control my life and buy one as soon as he makes them available (probably going to happen) I could use that.  Until then, I am thinking about giving my Keeley Super Phat Mod one last chance.  I like it, but I don’t like it, but I wonder how it will sound paired up with the KTR.  Finally, what about fuzz.  I have a Wren and Cuff Tri Pi ’70 on the board now, but I am thinking about going Russian Big Muff.  Maybe one last hurrah for my Way Huge Russian Pickle before I decide to sell it.

That leaves a home board of Vox wah->Phase 95->KTR->Super Phat Mod->Russian Pickle.  Once I decide, and once July 4th comes, I will not allow myself to change anything (baring a Ge OCD magically falling into my hands).

That all sounds good to me.

After 50/90 the KTR can go onto the band board and the Tumnus can go back onto the home board, and the D&M can move into the living room to stay with the Vox MV50 I paired up with the electric keyboard the kids use.  I expect there will be plenty of occasions where I want to play guitar in the living room through that fun little amp, and I am going to need a supremely awesome overdrive pedal when I do.

What all this means is, I think I need a nap.  Night, everyone!

We took a random road trip up toward the mountains today. We didn’t actually make it, but we did drive around some of our favorite New Hampshire roadways. It was a nice day/evening out with the love of my life.

We stopped at a Dunks to use the rest room and I looked across the street.

We did not go to the beach, but we could have if we wanted to.

This theater is like 80-90 miles from home. If it were at all closer I would be going to see Aimee Mann on Saturday. Totally.

Our lunch came with rain protection. Fortunately we didn’t have to put it to the test.

I find that I only use snapchat when the kids are away from home. Hence the video shot on snapchat.

Just leaving this here.  I’ll get back to it soon enough (literally).

 

This is across the street from weight watchers:

I Googled it, it’s real. It’s a podcast studio you can rent and it’s also a coffee shop.

Ummmm…. podcasters, just get an SM58 and GarageBand and DIY that shit!

(Prices here start at $99 for a one hour session…music recording studios are a dead industry, but podcast studios exist… weird. Wonder if they need an audio engineer?)

The mighty Spicket is low and muddy, but my weight was up. Only by 0.8 pounds though. The driveway bunny is disappointed, but not mad.