Spinning Media

Lunchtime photo shoot. I took two pics of a spinning record (Rush – A Farwell to Kings. Side two, track four. Cygnus X-1) with the digital camera and then tried to take the same pic with a film camera. Someday in the distant future I may be able to compare the results.

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Spinning media and a blurred background? WOOHOO!

Monday Monday

Monday morning, back at work. The day’s exercise is done, breakfast is done, I’m punched in. All is underway.

I failed to do car music again. I think we can assume that the faux 50 songs in 90 days project ain’t happening this year. I’ll try to keep picking away at it, but there’s zero chance of me hitting 50 songs. I will try car music again tomorrow. We’ll see.

I forgot to fill my pill caddie yesterday. It’s totally empty. I had to take this morning’s vitamins/antacid pills the old fashioned way, straight from the bottle. Let’s not make a habit of that, shall we?

Okay, that’s all for this life update. I need to get busy with work now.

Until later….

Evening Drive

Harry and Jen and I just drove up to the ocean and back while listening to Pink Floyd. It was epic.

The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon all the way through.

Epic.

We all needed to get out of the house. You know how it is when you’re 2.5 years into a pandemic. Sometimes you just need to get out of the house…

…and sometimes you need to blast The Floyd while you’re toolin’ up route 495 North.

Accordion Day

I went to visit my mother today. She slept the whole time I was there.

I had forgotten that Sunday morning was sing along time hosted by the son of one of the residents. He plays beginner song book kind of songs on an accordion and sings along. The residents get together and listen and some of them sing along too.

I think the experience taught me that I am seriously starving for live music. It’s pretty bad.

I wrote down the set list, in case anyone wants to make a playlist on the streaming service (not Spotify) of their choice.

Accordion Guy’s Set list:

  • My Country Tis of Thee
  • Let me call you sweetheart
  • Daisy
  • Michael Row the Boat Ashore
  • He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
  • Doe Re Me
  • God Bless America
  • I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
  • Take Me Out to the Ballgame
  • You’re a grand old flag
  • Yankee Doodle
  • The Bible Tells Me So
  • Beautiful Heaven
  • Battle Hymn of the Republic
  • Baby Face
  • Beautiful Dreamer
  • Star Spangled Banner

Yes, Virginia

Why yes, Virginia. There will be car music tomorrow. Assuming I can get up early enough. It’s been over a month. Maybe closer to two months. I wrote a melody and some ultra shitty lyrics to three of the six songs that are in progress right now. I will try to add vocals tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Friday at Last

It wasn’t really a long week, but now that we’re up to Friday it suddenly feels like a long week. Eight hours and 11 minutes to go until the weekend. Who’s ready?

I was hoping for some car music today but I didn’t get a chance to write any lyrics last night. Maybe tomorrow. The plan as it stands now is to go to see a matinee of the new Thor movie tomorrow. That is both exciting and nervy. It will be our first visit to a movie theater since the pandemic started. That’s why we’re going to the first showing of the day. We’re hoping the place will be empty. We’ll see.

I thought about asking the bariatric surgery facebook group about the pros and cons of small amounts of popcorn, but then I re-declared the facebook boycott so… yeah. I’ll stick to water, thanks. Wicked smaht there, Robert.

I am going to visit my mother tonight. Hopefully I’ll get there once or twice more over the weekend. I need to stop by Dad’s too. We’ll see how things shake out.

I want to do some music, preferably car music and guitar playing and some lyric/melody/riff writing. The faux 50/90 is still happening, but I am about an astronomical unit* behind schedule. There are only six songs in the pipeline right now and none are even remotely close to finished. Also, July ends next week. I should have 13 songs complete by the end of the month. Not happening. Not even close. Still, it’s fun. I just need to get into the groove somehow. I was feeling pretty good on Wednesday. Let’s channel that and do some more.

Photography… I don’t know. Downtown Andover? Downtown Lowell? Boston and Cambridge? We’ll see. I want to have one or two more rolls finished (I have two finished now and one in progress) before I ship off to a lab somewhere, but that could take ages at this point. We’ll have to see.

Okay. Let’s get through the work day before we worry about any of this stuff. Happy Friday, folks!


*An astronomical unit is defined as the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. That is a perfectly accurate description of how far off the pace I am at the moment.

Together at Last

I haven’t had my breakfast yet, but I did play guitar for an hour. I put rhythm parts onto two faux 50/90 songs.

For the first time ever, my new favorite guitar played through my favorite amp and it was glorious.

Well… the second song was glorious. The playing was sloppy as hell but the tone was epic. The first song… I might want to try that one again. It’s sounds good, but I think I can get it to sound better.

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Together again for the first time.

Today’s Lunch Break Projects

Lunch break project number one was finally unboxing the folding card table. It’s been sitting here waiting for me since early May and now it’s finally setup and useable.

Lunch break project number two was merging the two stay-at-home pedal boards.

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For the first time ever I have mounted a power supply underneath.

The chain currently runs:

  • Real McCoy Custom RMC10 wah wah pedal.
  • Korg Pitchblack Tuner.
    • I want to add one pedal to this board someday, but the power supply can only handle eight lines. If I ever get that little flanger pedal I have my eyes on, then this tuner will be the thing that gets replaced.
  • Earthquaker Devices The Depths uni-vibe pedal.
  • MXR Phase 95 phaser pedal.
  • Wren and Cuff Super Russian combination Big Muff style fuzz pedal combined with a clean boost (that I very rarely use).
  • Klon KTR overdrive pedal. The best overdrive pedal I’ve ever played.
  • Keeley D&M Drive dual overdrive pedal. One side is a higher gain overdrive, the other is lower gain with a big mid-range frequency push.
    • This pedal might be swapped out for a Wampler Plexi Drive Mini overdrive pedal. I need to test drive the Plexi through my Deluxe Reverb amp before I decide for sure.
  • MXR Carbon Copy Mini delay pedal

Now I just have to plug this sucker in and see how it all sounds together through my Deluxe Reverb. The Deluxe Reverb that is finally home!