Boilin’ water, induction style!
Induction Burner
Moody Cat
She sprawled out on the bed. I sat down to pet her but she moved out of my reach. Moody little feline.
Out Running Errands
I’ve been out of the house today. Weird, eh? I took a pic at each stop, using the Hipstamatic camera app on my iPhone, because… it’s me.
Okay, ready for the fun, goofy part of this post?
Now for the same pics, only in color!
Wasn’t that fun? Now that all of this is done I can focus on the laundry! Happy Sunday, everyone!
48 Years to Go
This one is dumb. Why would I write a letter to my future self? My future self would know everything I wrote about before I wrote it. Writing to your past self is an interesting exercise because your past self does not know what went down in the intervening time. Writing to the future? I guess you can argue that it is a time capsule. It works on that level. I guess. Oh well.
Hey, 100 year old me, it’s 52 year old me. Remember when you wrote this? We just had the kitchen remodeled. I hope the new cabinets and counters lasted a good long time. I hope you didn’t have to do it again, at least not too soon. How is Jen doing? How are the kids doing? If it is May 8, 2071 then Bellana is about to turn 70 and Harry is 68. I assume one of them is President by now, right? That assumption being on top of the assumption that We the People were able to do something about those pesky fascists who are trying to take over, of course. There is so much I want you to tell me about but you can’t because this silly exercise is not a two way street. I mean my future is a much more interesting topic than your past, right? Are they still making Star Wars movies and shows? Are they still as good as Andor? What about Star Trek? Still as good as Strange New Worlds?
There. I’ll send that off in the post, Back to the Future style.
Catching the Bug Again
Daylight Savings starts tonight. Just a few hours from now. The weather has been getting noticeably warmer of late. Spring is coming, and with it comes the return of the bug…
The photography bug.
I was looking at my camera bag today. The bag that has two film cameras inside. They are calling me. The bug is back, folks and I am going to have to give in to it at some point soon.
Boston… I’ve been saying for two years that I want to bring the cameras into the city and shoot everything there. This is the year, I’m telling you. This is the year.
Bring on that good weather. Give me some clear skies at sunrise and that sweet golden light. Bring me some stuff to photograph and a digital camera in one hand and a film camera in the other. The time is almost upon us, folks. I will be ready.
Happy Birthday, Robin Trower
Today is Robin Trower’s 79th birthday. Happy Birthday!
He is unusual for a guitarist of his generation in that he hasn’t seemed to have lost a step at all. Most guys who are pushing 80 years old are not playing as well today as they did a couple of decades ago. Not Robin Trower. He’s as good, if not better, than he was 20 or 30 or even 40 years ago. I wonder what his secret is. Probably something lame like taking care of himself and practicing a lot.
Kitchen Remodel Postscript
I think our kitchen remodeling project is done. We’re looking at getting a piece of art to hang in one of the empty spaces, and there are still a few things that need to find their new home, but other than that we’re done.
Proof?
See this empty space?
When we woke up this morning, our dining room set was in that empty space. Now?
I moved that insanely heavy-ass table back to where it belongs. Why? Because we’re done and we don’t need to store stuff in the dining room anymore. Done and done. The most important item to note as the project comes to a close?
I love the new kitchen. It’s wonderful. That also proves that I am a boring old person now, but whatever. I love our new kitchen.
In closing, here is Robin the kitty roaring like a lioness.
She might be yawning instead of roaring, but it’s more fun to imagine her roaring like a man eating feline monster from your nightmares. Good kitty.
RPM Challenge Postscript
Okay, it’s March 9th which means this post is about nine days late. Here’s my final mention of the 2024 RPM Challenge.
Two playlists. One is the “album” I submitted to the RPM Challenge website. The album is called The Potato Situation, after something Jen said to me about making dinner that was really funny and I decided would live on forever in album title form. 10 songs. One or two might be better than crap. The rest are meh at best.
The second playlist is also 10 songs and officially qualifies as an RPM Challenge win in it’s own right, but I did not submit it to the website. Why? Because these are the 10 songs that weren’t good enough to make the final cut. As meh as the official album is, these are worse. There are some really boring stinkers in this pile, but the point of the challenge is to ignore your internal censor and just make stuff happen. In that respect, this playlist is a winner.
And there you have it, folks. Two, 10 song playlists representing two sides of the same project coin… or something like that. Another successful February. I wish the quality were a little better, but I’m happy with the win. I’ll take it.
Now I can get back to the Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven that I’ve been picking away at for a couple of years. Maybe I’ll mix a song or two this weekend. We’ll see.
Shopping Spree
Is this a fantasy type thing? Meaning money is no object, or are we supposed to give a realistic answer.
A realistic answer could have been IKEA, given that we basically just went on an insane shopping spree there in order to remodel our kitchen. It’s a case of blog imitating life… or the other way around, maybe?
For a purely selfish answer, I would go with a music dealer. Guitar Center would be the easiest answer. There was a story the members of Rush used to tell about when they got their first advance from Mercury Records. They all went to the best music store in Toronto and upgraded all of their gear. Neil Peart bought the Chrome drum set, Geddy Lee bought his first Rickenbaker bass, and Alex Lifeson bought his first(?) Les Paul. That’s sort of what I would do. I’d go into the store with nothing and come out with a whole new gig rig. A custom shop Gibson guitar, a high end Fender (or Marshall) amplifier, and maybe a few new pedals.
That’s a fantasy answer, but if I were really going nuts I’d go to a shop like Chicago Music Exchange (is there an equivalent in the Boston area? I’ve been Googling and found a few possibilities) where rather than shopping for new, high end stuff, I could shop for actual vintage gear. Legendary stuff. A Les Paul Standard made between 1958 and 1960 and a tweed Fender amp like a 4×10 Bassman from 1959 or so. The real stuff, not reissues. The stuff that’s worth about as much as a small house. Yeah, that would be my uber-fantasy shopping spree.
Honorable mentions would be someplace that deals in vintage cameras (if such places exist), or books, or records, or cats. Vintage cameras, books, or records, but not vintage cats… that would be weird.
Traffic
The ride home from IKEA tonight should have taken a bit less than an hour. Then I got stuck behind an accident on route 128. After that I got stuck behind an accident on route 128. Oh for crying out loud. It took almost two hours.
Here’s a cat to cheer me up.
Inside the Red Head's Head 