Category: photography

Four Years Ago

Four years ago tonight. The pandemic had not happened yet. Had we heard of Covid? I think so, but it wasn’t in our area yet.

On this night four years ago, February 1, 2020, my band played its last gig. I used my Gibson SG and my Fender Bassbreaker 18/30 on stage for the first time. 

When will the next gig be? Will there ever even be a next gig? I don’t know. I hope so.

Time Off Timing

I get a certain amount of personal time off from work each year. We accrue one 12th of that total amount of annual time each month. We can carry over some of that personal time off from month to month, but we do have a cap on how much we can have stored up at any given time. The cap is higher than the annual allotment, but it is pretty easy to accrue up to the cap on any given month. With today being the first of the month, our accrual numbers were updated today and sure enough I have hit the cap. Shit. I got a friendly reminder to make sure I book enough time off this month to get back down below the cap so that I don’t fail to accrue any more time next month.

I already had one day off booked in February. My beloved wife and I both took her birthday off. I need to take two more days to ensure that I get far enough below the cap to not have a problem in March. I booked those two days for later in the month. Interesting that this comes up in February… the one month out of the year where I go absolutely bonkers crazy working on writing and recording an album’s worth of music. Sure I do album-in-a-month things throughout the year, but February is the only one that really counts. February, also known as the RPM Challenge, is the one that matters to me. As silly as it is, I get super invested in this thing every year. I am not really sure why it is so important to me, but it is… and now I have a four day weekend near the end of the month where I can cram in tons of music project work.

We are 11 hours into February now. Was I able to get anything done this morning?

Why yes, yes I did.

After finishing my exercise and my breakfast and my daily writing prompt blog post, I picked up my guitar and noodled out three (3) new song ideas. Three of them. Already! Crazy right? Sure is, especially when you realize that just before I punched into work I noodled out a fourth new idea in GarageBand on my iPhone. It’s just a bass riff for now, but it’s there and that means I have FOUR songs in progress already.

I also have two potential album cover photos. Not that these are really in the running, but just expect to see lots of square format pic over the next four weeks. One of them is bound to end up as the cover.

154/365 - February 1st
154/365

In closing, allow me to summarize the progress made in the pre-work hours of day one…

WOOOHOOO!

It Begins…

Well… I sent a message to the guitar shop that put new frets on my 1978 Les Paul. I said I have a 1979 ES-335 that probably needs new frets as well but also might need new wiring and maybe kinda might need to have the neck joint re-glued.

Yesterday I was excited about this. Now I’m terrified again. Uh oh.

DSC_0034

Note on the photo, I already replaced the missing knob. In fact, I replaced all four knobs. That’s about the extent of what I am willing to do myself as far as mods or repairs to any of my guitars.

Unrelated musical note… The RPM Challenge starts in eight hours and 14 minutes. My goal is to write and record either 10 new songs or 35 minutes of music entirely during the month of February. Actually, I am going to shoot for 20 songs or 70 minutes because double albums are fun (looking at you, The White Album and you, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway) so why not go for it?

It’s almost time to start. Will I start at midnight tonight? Don’t be silly, I will start tomorrow morning. I am way too old and feeble to stay up until after midnight on a school night. What do you think I am, young?

I Want to Go Home

I am in the office today. I want to go home. I would like to think that the cats are sitting by the windows, watching and waiting for me to come back. It won’t be for 5-6 hours, cats. I’ll get there as soon as I can though.