Say No to Ice

robertjames1971's avatarRob Shoots Film

Forrest Lake in Methuen was frozen the last time I was there. It’s still pretty cold out, but the temps have been hitting the 50’s on most days. Here’s looking forward to the next time I visit Forrest Lake when there won’t be any ice to be found anywhere.

191006760028_###

View original post

Overslept

I set my alarm for 5:00am and didn’t get out of bed until about 6:40. Oh well, after a rough few days I think I needed it. I still do, I am feeling super tired still.

I was planning on getting my exercise in for the day, then getting ready for work, then (assuming Jen was awake and not in an early meeting) I was going to add the final guitar parts to the two songs I’ve been working on. Nope. It’s after 8:00 now and I just closed my exercise ring and had a protein supplement breakfast. My stomach is okay so far, though not really 100%. I’m still feeling a little beat up after the rough week, but yesterday was 99% fine and I am hoping for a trend. I’ll use the stop watch at lunch and dinner and see if it keeps me on track. It doesn’t always work, there are other ways to fuck up apart from just going too fast, but it worked for me all day yesterday. I still don’t know what went wrong with the late night pudding cup snack last night. I was really shocked at how that one turned out.

I am planning to go food shopping after dinner tonight. Once I get home I will try to add the last guitar parts to the two songs so that I can start mixing and get them in before the end of the month.

We did a lot of planning for Bellana’s college graduation weekend last night. Once we get through all of the logistics I am going to start obsessing over the photography options. I’m hyper focusing on lens options (yes, the pun was intended… focusing… get it?). I was thinking about trying to get a long zoom so that I could get close up shots of the stage from our cheap seats. Now I’m not so sure. Now I think I might want to go for something super wide so that I can get the whole scene when the family is all together. Like, what if we go to dinner to celebrate afterwards. If I have a 40mm lens on the digital camera and a 50mm lens on the film I’m not going to be able to get multiple people into a shot unless I stand up and walk away. Maybe I want to look into getting a 28mm, or even an 18mm lens so that I can grab nice wide group shots.

Oh to be able to actually know what I’m doing. Heh heh.

Okay, time to go get showered and dressed and get ready for work. Happy Monday, he said with biting, dripping sarcasm.

Car Music for March

Musical progress, folks! The Record Every Month Challenge is still happening for March 2023! I went to my favorite singing-in-the-car parking lot this morning and put really terrible vocal tracks onto two songs. The challenge is to record a song each month. I am upping the ante to recording two songs every month because I am insane.

The view out my “studio” window, complete with my rubber duck assistant audio engineer:

DSCN3245

Weight loss surgery has changed a lot for me in terms of singing. My lung capacity is WAY down, which seems odd but maybe not that surprising. There is a new finding that I just came across today. Car music workflow had me putting the laptop on the passenger seat and leaning over to read the lyrics off of the notepad. Today it occurred to me that without my huge stomach I can do this instead:

DSCN3246

Finally, in closing, I drove through the center of town. I actually brought Dad’s film camera with me, fully intending to stop somewhere and snap a few pics. When the time came though, I just drove home… like I always do. I did almost get hit by a guy running a stop sign, and then get hit again when he decided to change lanes without looking while I was literally right next to him. 9:00am and already driving drunk. Dude’s gonna have a banger of a day, methinks.

207/365

Good Morning Cats

We slept pretty late this morning. The cats welcomed us to the land of the conscious by running around all crazy like, following us everywhere we went, and literally building a pillow fort.

DSC_1156
DSC_1159
DSC_1155
Lily was not in the pillow for when I took this. She had just run out. Trust me though that she did burrow under the pile of pillows and try to stalk Robin from within.

Quality Cat Time

I can’t figure out what they’re looking at, but they keep jumping up onto the window sill and starring at the same general place. There was a squirrel in the next yard, but I don’t think that’s it.

DSC_1150

These over the shoulder, quality time hanging with cat pics are harder to take with my real camera than with my iPhone, but the results can be a ton better.

DSC_1149