Category: Music

Two Therapy Sessions

I was able to sneak into the cellar and play the guitar twice today.

I got a lot done for 50/90, which was nice, but I reached the point on the second go-round where my hands just wouldn’t do it anymore. That’s actually not a bad thing. I really need to build up more stamina, but I’ll get there.

On a gear note, I have my little recording nook in the master bedroom that has my current recording pedal board and my little 15 watt Fender amp. My big use-with-the-band pedal board and my Vox 15 watt amp (and my 30 watt Fender amp) are all in the cellar because Covid was slowing down and I thought they would be traveling to Mike the Bass Player’s house soon… and of course that hasn’t happened because the universe has intervened. The upside is I could set all of that stuff up in the cellar to keep working on 50/90 while I’m locked out of my bedroom. I bring my new Les Paul and my MacBook Pro up and down with me, as there is no way in hell those puppies are staying down there in the humidity. I set everything up far away from the flood zone, but you may note from the previous pictures that none of the electrical stuff is actually on the floor. The pedal board is, but the pedals themselves are not. That’s for flood damage prevention reasons.

So that is what I am doing to keep 50/90 going this week.

I also wanted to start with the exercising again. I started a couple of weeks ago and then fell off the wagon. I wanted to start up again today, what with it being a Monday and the iPhone Activity app starting its week on Monday. Jen wanted to do the same thing and she totally kicked ass all day today. Me? I was at two minutes of exercise as of 7:00pm tonight. Looked like I was going to fail for the day. Well, screw that folks. I’m up to 17 minutes now with 3.5 hours left in the day. I’ll get to 30 minutes, you betcha.

Okay. I need to go get a bottle of water and do another few minutes of exercise.

Looking for the bright side of self isolation. It’s tough to find, but it might be out there. Probably not, but maybe I might be able to pretend.

I don’t like Being Quarantined

I sat at the desk in my step son’s room all night tonight. My wife was down the hall. A few times we masked up and had distanced visits in our own home. Yeah, this sucks.

Once I am at work on Tuesday you can expect lots of shit like this:

I am going to be working this weekend too, on top of all of the other stuff, so maybe you’ll get something before Tuesday. I don’t know.

I wrote a song for 50/90 tonight too, so that’s positive, right? Right? I strongly believe that if you sit alone in your car in some random parking lot and don’t interact with other living creatures then you are still within your quarantine. So maybe car music tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Or maybe the day after that. I don’t know.

I miss Jen. She’s right down the friggin’ hall, yet I miss her. Boo.

Wrapping Up

My parent sitting shift is coming to an end soon. It’s going to run a smidge late tonight, I think but that’s okay. I still don’t feel comfortable (or confident) in sharing what’s been happening, though the images from the last 24 hours probably paint a pretty good picture.

After my three hours and 20 minutes of sleep overnight last night, I have been more or less taking Diet Pepsi via an IV directly into my veins. Anything to keep my system as caffeinated as humanly possible. Give me that caramel colored, carbonated, caffeinated, gold.

Further proof that things are changing on the parent sitting front, I am going home tonight and coming back in the morning. Current theory is I’ll get here at some time between 8:00 and 9:00. I’m sure there will be further discussion between the siblings tonight. I might be asleep though. I’ll likely be sleep-texting or something 21st century like that.

I was off work today and most of the goings on were wrapped up before noon. That means I had a lot of time to mess around with 50/90. I got some work done, but not as much as I should have. The whole no-sleep thing held me back a little, I think.

I’m sure there are other things I would normally write about at this point, but I think I am going to wrap it up and put my computer away. Jen and I are going to have a simple dinner tonight. I miss her like crazy after being away for 24 hours. I wanna go home. I wanna see her. I need to give my sweetie a hug (or two).

Right then, clicking Publish now. Until next time….

Stay at Home Day

Today is a simple pandemic shelter in place day. I am staying home and not going anywhere. The work day is 33 minutes away and I have a truck load of stuff to do today. After work I don’t go to my parents so I’ll make a big dinner for me and the love of my life and take the opportunity to get some stuff done at home.

One big focus will be evaluating the current lake asshole situation in the cellar. We are still getting enough rain that I can’t rule out the ground water level as the source of the mini floods, but at this point I am really leaning toward something inside leaking. Hopefully within the next week or so we can get someone out to take a look and see if they can find the root cause. Until then, wet vac plus dehumidifier equals a false sense of security.

I might try to get some musical therapy in tonight. Not sure. I actually had a 45-60 minute window last night where I could have done something/anything and I chose to watch an episode of Toast of London (I still have seven to go and it looks like today is the last day it’s on Netflix. I thought it was being removed today but I just refreshed my Netflix tab and it’s still there. Unless I’m just seeing the cache?) and play a video game. Star Wars: The Old Republic. On a scale of 1-10 I give it a four. Maybe a 3.5. I am playing a Jedi character and he doesn’t have a light saber yet. Maybe once I get that far in the story I’ll give it a higher rating. At my current point, still super early in the story, I do get to slaughter bad guys in an awfully un-Jedi like manner so… it’s okay. For music, I do know that I am currently slightly behind the pace I kept in the two years that I finished 50/90 as far as completed mixes goes, but I think I might be a smidge ahead overall. Who cares. I’m hoping to make a big push this weekend. We’ll see. Still lots of shite going on.

Want a blog stats update? Sure you do! Always remembering that if you have one of a thing and add another of that thing you can rightfully state that you have a huge, dramatic increase… know what I mean? When I talk of growing numbers, they are still very small numbers. Right? Right. I’ve mentioned in the past that my total page views per month stat took a huge jump at the start of the year. January blew away my previous monthly high, then May beat the record by a very tiny bit, then June shattered the record again. July didn’t beat it but it was so close that we can call it a virtual tie. How’d August do? Well, with 15+ hours to go… it shattered June’s record. I don’t know what I am doing to get people to visit, and I am pretty sure most of the page views are spam-related, but thanks for coming folks. I hope I am not boring you to death… I’m pretty sure I am boring everyone to death.

Okay, I am going to punch into work and get my day started. Happy Tuesday, everyone. Wear a mask, wash your hands, practice social distance, get the vaccine if you haven’t already. Be a decent human being and not a selfish, nazi shit.

Resolved

There was stuff going on outside of my parents house tonight and it’s all resolved happily. Kick ass, dude!

While trying to disctract myself from, well… everything, I mixed a second song. That’s it. Nothing else is ready for mixing so this is all you get tonight.

I don’t hate this one. I almost like it. The one I posted an hour or so ago is tons better, but this little 5/4 thingie is better than most of the shit I write.

On the parent sitting front, the floor fan in the living room is starting to squeak. If that sucker dies it will be like losing my closest friend. I love that little spinning bastard. It’s been so good to me over the last five months. I don’t know what I will do without it. HANG IN THERE MY FAN FRIEND!

Who Needs Sleep?

Both of my parents are asleep. That is good. I’m not. There’s stuff going on that I want to stay awake for. I’m distracting myself from the fact that I am here when I don’t want to be here by mixing some music. Magically, there’s a song that I think might be pretty good. Short and sweet and good.

Prime Meridian

I was upstairs at the parents house trying to take apart a twin bed and I found an old roll of pictures. Included were a couple of shots from a band practice in, probably, 1999.

My Les Paul Custom as it was when I bought it, before the pick ups and machine heads were changed. Also, my old solid state Fender amp from before it took a bath in gasoline (literally):

Also, more significantly, Mike’s black Rickenbacker!

Half Way

I mixed two songs tonight. They both kinda suck so I won’t post them. The first of the two was completed mix number 25. I have reached the halfway point of 50/90. Hooray, right? The pipeline is up to 41 songs now so I won’t have that much more to add in September. I’ll just have to finish off whatever is left. Good.

Song Number 24 of 50 (I Hope)

I mixed three songs tonight. Hot Damn! My brain feels like mush now, so I am going to bed.

My mother was asleep when I checked on her a minute ago, but she was still up. Explain? Okay. She’s sitting up on the edge of her bed, slumped over to one side asleep. I woke her up and told her she should lie down. She said she will and then went back to sleep without moving. Her back is going to be searing agony tomorrow. It’s like talking to a brick wall sometimes, except you can usually get pissed off when people act like that. I can’t get pissed off now. I don’t think she can actually process that she’s doing anything that will have a negative consequence.

It’s pretty friggin’ frustrating.