Category: Uncategorized

Lizardfish

In November of 2011 I tried to start a band. I asked Mike the bass player, who has been one of my best friends since 4th grade, and he was interested. My beautiful wife Jennifer, who I love with all my heart, suggested her friend Kevin the Drummer and he was interested too. Steve the other guitarist from my last band joined up, as did Dave the singer. By February I was out. Eventually everyone but Mike and Kevin was out. They hired a new guitarist and a new singer and last night was their first gig.

They sounded great!

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I planned to stay for about an hour or so. Catch a set, say hello, congratulate them, you know… Be a fan! During the first set, however, I got called away. It seems my step son heard noises outside of his window and got majorly freaked out. His attitude was contagious, and soon everyone was freaked out.

Super Step Dad to the rescue!

I got home, explained that I often hear noises outside the back windows on weekends and that they were usually the result of a neighbor having a social gathering. I offered to grab a flashlight and go check out the back yard, but was told that was unnecessary. Just having the old dude around was security enough.

I felt like the freakin’ king. Granted, there are issues there at need to be addressed or else step dad is never going to be able to go out at night without being called back by a scared kid, but we will address that in the future.

For now, congratulations to Mike and Kevin and the rest of Lizardfish on their first gig. You guys sounded seriously tight. I’m looking forward to gig #2!

Letters to Cleo

Letters to Cleo is releasing a live record, recorded on 12/8/08 at The Paradise in Boston during their reunion tour. Yeah, I was there. Yeah, I took this picture at that show. Yeah, I’m getting the record. Yeah, Cleo ruled.

Tell All

I have to hurry up and finish Derek Sanderson’s book.

Terry Francona and Dan “Big Bird” Shaughnessy have written a book giving lots of behind the scenes dirt on the Boston Red Sox during Francona’s tenure as manager.  This is just the sort of thing that a psychotic Sox fan like me needs to read.  Likewise it’s the kind of thing that non obsessed sports fans would look at and think, who gives a rats ass.

Sanderson’s book has been fun.  By fun I mean fun in the way that hearing reformed alcoholics telling stories of drunken debauchery from their drinking days is fun.  In other words, the stories are often really funny, but the subtext is kind of sad.  Reading about him driving down the walkway in the middle of Comm Ave in Boston in an attempt to make it to Logan Airport on time, and then, despite being completely blitzed, getting a police escort into the airport, is one seriously funny story, but knowing what it was costing him is sort of painful.  One thing the book is doing is making me want to read the soon to be released Bobby Orr autobiography.  Sanderson gives the impression that the ’70 and ’72 Cup winning teams were more or less the result of Bobby Orr’s will alone.  Bobby wasn’t the captain, but his word was law.  He was King both on and off the ice.

The other thing that trying to rush through the rest of the book is doing is making my eyes tired.  I’m basically seeing double as I try to type this.  I need a nap.

Feeling Goofy

That picture I posted earlier today that got something like 70 hits out of the blue over on Flickr, along with thinking about what I need to do to get ready for the RPM Challenge which starts next week, has me feeling musically goofy.  I went over to the ancient photobucket account that I stopped using when I joined Flickr in 2009 and found some Break Even stuff.  hehe

My wife (and anyone else who was living in Salem, NH 10-12 years ago) will get a chuckle out of this.
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Here are two of the three Les Pauls in the previous post in action. My sister took this at the Mammoth Road Club in Dracut.
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This was our “press shot”. Taken at Burgundy’s in Derry, NH.
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And finally… the fat boy singing. This is from J Rags in Tewksbury, MA, possibly at our first show.  Laugh to your heart’s content!
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Three Les Pauls

Three Les Pauls by robj_1971
Three Les Pauls, a photo by robj_1971 on Flickr.

There was a run on this picture on Flickr today, for some reason. This will probably go down in history as my last gig. It was Break Even’s reunion, put on by Steve the guitar player. Tim the guitar player, who Steve and I replaced, came back for the fun. All three of us played Les Pauls. Mine is the custom with the black pick guard on the left. Tim’s is the Black one leaning on the amp. Steve’s is the standard with the white pick guard and the awesome trapezoid inlays on the right.

It’s Celebration Time!

Tonight was HUGE!

My step daughter won her school’s geography bee!  Congratulations!!!

I swear I am so proud of and happy for her that I could freakin’ explode!  She’s only in sixth grade and was competing against seventh and eighth graders and she totally freakin’ WON!

10 kids made the finals, one showed up 20 minutes late.  What was up with that?  It was double elimination, but two kids were required to make it to the championship round, and some one had to clearly finish third.  When the pool was down to five, one kid got the question right and the other four got it wrong, including my step daughter.  She looked crushed when she missed the question, but then she realized that the four kids who were eliminated were getting a new life!  Those four kids had to keep going until some one clearly made the championship round, where they would face the one kid who got the question right.  So they went into sudden death with four kids.  And on it went.  They asked a ton of questions before some one took a shot in the dark with an answer of Australia (I was 100% sure the answer was South Africa, but that’s why she’s the champ and I am the chump) and got it correct!  My step daughter!!!  She advanced to the finals of the finals.

The championship round was three questions.  Whoever got the most correct answers would win.  Wouldn’t you know it?  They tied!  Back to sudden death.  We were getting close to the point where the judges were going to run out of questions before an extremely confident answer of Istanbul was given and a champion of the school was crowned.  My step daughter!!!

The sixth grader triumphed over the older kids to take the victory!  Now later in the school year she gets to go to the States.  If she wins there, the Nationals are in Washington, DC!

I am so proud I am going to burst!  She did an amazing job!  CONGRATULATIONS!!!  WOOOOHOOOO!!!!

Even More BRRRR!

Please forgive me for essentially making the same post twice, but before leaving to take the kids to school today I checked the weather channel app on my phone.  It said this:

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Twenty minutes later I was dropping the kids off at their dad’s and my car said this:

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You suck, Mother Nature. S. U. C. K. Suck.

All Kinds of Win!

Behold! The second butt kicking benefit of getting to telecommute one day each week!

So far, the big benefit to working from home has been the obvious one. I don’t have to drive to and from work for an hour plus each way. That is a huge deal for both me and my cars’s mileage.

Tomorrow I will experience a new benefit. I will get to go to a school function for my step daughter and I won’t be late! It will only take me 30 minutes to get to her school, even with traffic. That’s compared to about an hour and 20 minutes or so if I had to travel all the way from the office.

How awesome is that? Can I get a WOOHOO?

WOOHOO!