Hockey is Stressful for Me

I knew the Boston Bruins had a game today but I didn’t realize until the last possible moment that it was a 1:00 game. I took a vacation day today without realizing that it was an actual holiday (not one that I get off, but still a holiday) and the Bruins often play day games on holidays. Nice!

I watched the first period while eating my lunch. The period ended with the score tied at one. As the second period was starting I was going to write a quick post about how the Bruins have been bad since the all star break and they didn’t look all that great today. They haven’t been bad, it’s just Dallas has been better. Right as I was opening my laptop to write the post Dallas scored to take a 2-1 lead. Damn it! I don’t want to write a hockey post now. Blah. Just as I had made that decision, Boston scored to tie the game at two. WOOHOO! Go Bruins!

The mood swings I feel while watching hockey are unprecedented in human existence. I have similar mood swings when I watch baseball games, but the nature of the game is different and they are much less intense. The playoffs are close, but the chances of the Red Sox making the playoffs any time soon are too slim for that to be a consideration.

Let’s go, Bruins. Let’s get back to those pre-all star break winning ways, shall we? M’kay?

New Ottoman Day

Do you like it? I like it. I had to screw the legs on, but otherwise it came assembled. Thankfully.

The cats were fascinated by the construction process.

On an unrelated cat note, I caught both cats sitting in the little house on the new cat tree. Both of them!

It’s hard to see, but Lilly is definitely in there
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Shoes

Daily writing prompt
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
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Nope, I gots nothing for this one.

I’m not going to declare that this is a dumb question. I’m sure for both shoe lovers and deep, metaphysical thinkers today’s daily writing prompt might lead to a fascinating essay and discussion, but I am neither of those people.

I don’t have a favorite pair of shoes. I never have and it is likely that I never will. What I am is large. I’m somewhere between six feet four and six feet five inches tall. That’s 193-194 centimeters (or so) for our metric friends. I was hoping I would hit the magic two meter mark, but I came up a bit short. Maybe that’s the source of my deep seated sense of failure in life (he said mostly kiddingly). Who knows.

Along with my ridiculous height I also have really, really big feet. Like my feet are too big to buy shoes off the rack at any normal shoe store. When I shop for shoes at the New Balance website I need to order size 14eee. My feet are both too long and too wide for my own good. That is probably the reason why I have never had a favorite pair of shoes. I simply cannot be choosy about my shoes. If I find a pair that fits I grab them. Shoes are nothing to me beyond that.

And that, gentle readers is why I don’t have an answer for today’s daily writing prompt. Sorry, folks, but if the shoe fits…

Generate an image of a Jedi Knight trying on new shoes at a shoe store.

My Finger Tips Hurt Again

Two days in a row. I’ve played guitar two days in a row. It feels good, except for my very sore, callus-free fingers. Ouch, babie.

I worked on four songs. I put rhythm tracks onto two songs and leads onto two others. All of that plus the four vocals this morning makes it a pretty good day, RPM Challenge wise. I have a lot more that I need to get to today though. With tomorrow being a vacation day for me, I want to do more vocals in the car in the morning. I don’t have any songs that are ready for that yet, so I want to try and write lyrics for 3-4 songs before bed.

In closing, the obligatory pics. This time with Hipstamatic and shake-to-shuffle.

Sunday Blues

How’s your Sunday going? Relaxing? Nice weekend day off? I hope so.

I am finding motivation very hard to come by. I got up a little late, did my exercise, ate my breakfast, wrote my daily writing prompt post, recorded a bunch of songs worth of crappy vocals, made the bed, and…

Apart from making lunch for me and my wife (burgers in a frying pan and french fries in an air fryer) I haven’t been able to push myself to accomplish anything else. I am going to try and play some guitar right now. Maybe for an hour or so. I am going to make dinner later, another Dinnerly meal like last night only hopefully my wife will cook it with me. If she does, she does. If she doesn’t, that’s okay too. I just wish I had a little more pep in me step, so to speak. I slept okay last night. Not great. I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep right away. Eventually I did, and then I overslept a little. Funny how that happens on the weekends. Tomorrow is a vacation day (not related to the presidents day holiday which post-trump I will no longer capitalize) and I am wondering if the oversleeping will happen again. Who knows. Who cares.

It’s been an hour since I ate anything which means (by gastric bypass rules) I can drink something now. I think I’ll top off my water bottle with some sugar free Crystal Light lemonade and trek down to the cellar to play some guitar. What do you think? Good plan?

Get to it, red head.

Like Some Kind of Lame Canary

I did some RPM Challenge work this morning after finishing my exercise and my breakfast and my daily writing prompt. What did I do? Vocals. I drove off to an empty parking lot in town and recorded the vocal tracks for four songs while sitting out in the cold. I really wish I wasn’t so shy about recording myself singing. It would be so much easier to just do this at home. The negative then would be all the noise I make and how annoying it would be to my wife, rather than me just being a wimp who is too shy to sing when other people can hear me. I’m fine singing with the band, but in those cases there is enough noise that I can trick myself into thinking I am hiding behind it. Also, I am playing guitar at the same time and for some illogical reason that makes a difference. Why? Who knows.

The only interesting thing about today’s car music is that I only had three songs prepared with a melody and lyrics. After I cranked out the vocal tracks for those three songs I wrote the lyrics and melody to the fourth song while I was recording. I wouldn’t say I improvised the vocal parts, but they are lame enough that you might think they were improvised. Who cares. I sure don’t. This means I have 11 songs with vocals, and the RPM Challenge definition of an album is 10 songs or 35 minutes… which means that even if I don’t record another vocal track for the rest of the month, I can still finish a full album. Nice.

Here are some pics from my “studio” for today.

Can you guess where the snowplows dump the snow when they clear the mall parking lot? I can.

Also, here’s the obligatory down town clock, because reasons…

171/365
171/365

Also, because I can’t resist, I happened to catch the cats sitting together on the old cat tree just before I left the house, so you get that picture too.

Best Gift Ever

Daily writing prompt
Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.
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Share one of the best gifts I’ve ever received? No. I’ll share two of them. Today’s daily writing prompt is a two-for-one special babie, yeah!

When I was a little kid one of my friends had a toy Tonka ambulance. It was awesome. It was the best ambulance on Earth. It was the best Tonka truck ever. Damn if I wasn’t one jealous miniature red head. I did what most American kids do when they want something awesome. I asked Santa Claus to bring it to me for Christmas. Santa failed me. I asked again the next year. Santa failed me again. Santa never came through at all.

Fast forward to December 2007. I’d been dating this amazing woman for about eight months. She was amazing. I was nuts about her. I think she may have liked me a little in return. I say that because she went to Ebay, found the legendary Tonka ambulance and bought it for me as a Christmas present. Holy shit, what an amazing gift! I could not, and literally still cannot believe it. I told you she was amazing. I should note that I am still absolutely crazy in love with her. We have been married since 2009. She’s the one.

The second part of this two-for-one extravaganza comes from 2021. It was my 50th birthday. Things were very tough for me that year. My father was in the hospital and my mother was dealing with an advancing case of dementia. My brother and sister and I were taking turns staying with my mother while my father was recovering. I woke up at my parent’s house on my birthday and didn’t get home until the afternoon. When I did, my wife and my step son threw me a little birthday party. I was so happy. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy they made me that day, and that was before I opened any birthday presents.

There was one gift that they were both practically giddy over. I opened it and saw this:

They bought me a guitar. Holy shit snacks, My wife got me a guitar for my birthday. What a legendary surprise! Before I even opened the case it was already tied for first for the best gift ever. Then I opened the case and found a brand new Gibson Les Paul Standard ’50s. Absolutely epic!

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There you have it. Two absolutely Earth rocking gifts. By far the two best gifts I’ve ever received. No question. I told you my wife was amazing. I told you!

Hey Gemini, generate an image of a jedi knight sitting under a christmas tree opening an amazing christmas gift.

Success at Last

We have been using the online meal prep service Dinnerly for a couple of months now. The goal was for my wife and I to cook the meals they send us together, but sometimes one of us has to run with it without the other.

I have made steak dishes on my own three times. The first time the steak was massively undercooked. The second time was better but still undercooked and the side dish burned. I was starting to believe that I just sucked at Dinnerly.

Tonight was my third try and it finally came out okay. The steak was good and the side dish, French fries from scratch, was really good.

I’m glad I no longer suck at Dinnerly. Insert the sound of my sigh of relief here.