There was nothing wrong with our AC. It was just filters. My bad! We did get a new thermostat installed out of the deal though. Digital. Connected. (well, it will be once we get it on the wifi)

It’s nice and cool in here now! WOOHOO!

The upside here is that our central air conditioner didn’t go on the fritz on a night when we had a big graduation party.  That’s a positive, right?

We just lost power for about half a minute.  The local network took a while to come back, but when it did the Internet was still down.  Let’s get it together, Comcast.

One interesting item of note.  When you jump on the Internet of things bandwagon and start using connected light bulbs, and the local area network goes down because the power just went out… You can’t shut off the lights without going back to the light switches.  It’s like stone knives and bear skins all over again!

Also note:  typing this on my phone.  The AT&T cell network is still purring like a kitty.

Out of the blue…

At the start of band practice on Sunday everything was working fine. A couple of songs in though… the new Green Muff pedal started screwing up. It worked fine when it was on, but when it was off I lost all signal. I don’t think it’s buffered, so did something break lose in the bypass circuit? I need to mess with it before the next practice.

So what did that leave? I took the fuzz face off the board earlier that day. I still had the white Nano Muff pedal. I had so set my heart on having different fuzz settings for rhythm and lead that I didn’t want to just go with one sick ass setting. So what did I do?

One characteristic of a good fuzz pedal is the ability to tone down the noise by lowering the volume on the guitar itself. That worked out well. For rhythm I had both pickups on, but the neck volume was down almost completely. For leads I used the bridge pick up alone, full up.

It worked. Here’s proof:

I don’t ever want to have to do that again though. I may need to make another (effin’) purchase.

Memorial Drive

Cambridge

Home away from home.

Why am I suddenly curious to know what Brandon Stark is up to?

Today is an insane musical day.

My step son has been playing guitar in a band that his guitar teacher put together that is made up of a bunch of his students. He’s played with them in front of an audience a couple of times at various recitals. A couple of months ago my step daughter joined the band as a singer. She has yet to perform with them.

That changes today.

They are playing a really cool gig on a big stage in a very public place. I am very excited for them. This is going to be super cool.

On top of that, they also have a piano recital tonight. They are going to be freakin’ super stars by the time they get home!

Playing music RULES!

I practiced my guitar for about an hour tonight.  Just the Les Paul, a fuzz pedal, and the Fender amp with the volume down as low as it goes.  I made it into the proposed 2nd set before packing up.  My left hand was hurting pretty bad.  That is by far my biggest issue with three weeks to go until our first show.  Ouch, babie.  Ouch.

Now I just have to practice like that every day and maybe I won’t embarrass myself on July 1st.