So maybe we won’t be having a full band practice tomorrow. One guy can’t make it. The rest of us will be there though. We’re just going to plug in and think of christmas.
I’m going to see my Tumnus pedal and my Phase 95 pedal and my Deluxe Reverb amp. It’s going to be so wonderful to see those guys again. I am also going to see a fulltone pedal but that one’s going straight into the trash. Fuck that guy.
After seeing everyone post pictures of their new stuff I have made the guitar player command decision that I will be bringing my Vox AC15 and using that for no reason other than no one in the band has heard it before. It, along with my Les Paul Standard, is a Covid Lockdown acquisition. Further, I’m bringing the big pedal board because the Ryra The Klone pedal and the Cry-Baby wah are also Covid purchases.
Rock and roll, kids. Groovy.
I still don’t know what time we’re getting together tomorrow, but our drummer just posted a picture of the new kit he got since last we played together. The bass player posted a picture of the new bass he bought since the last time we played together. Now I am posting pictures of the new guitar I got since the last time we played together.
I had to crank the ISO a little in order to get the shutter speed fast enough to not take overly shaky pictures. As if I knew what I was doing, right?
The long weekend is over. It was nice, even though July 4th is now meaningless. Mostly Jen and I just hung out, but I also visited mom a few times and bought some clothes that fit (for now) and took a shit load of pictures on both Dad’s camera and my camera. We also went for a random drive to enjoy the nice weather yesterday. It was a pretty good weekend.
And now it’s over. We have a couple of contractors coming today to give estimates on fixing a potentially huge issue in the new bathroom. We’re pretty much guaranteed to lose the shower in there, which makes me sad. It is a walk in shower and I always wanted a walk in shower. Unfortunately there is a leak somewhere and there is evidence that the wall behind the shower stall is rotting so… buhbye walk in shower. Not sure what we’ll do with the space once it’s cleaned up. A linen closet? Maybe?
As for everything else. I did not get a chance to work on any music last night. I’ve been so hung up on the photography stuff lately that I haven’t been thinking music much at all. Time to find a middle ground where I can obsess over both topics. Music needs to be written, guitars need to be played, thrift stores need to be combed for inexpensive old film SLR cameras. Lizardfish needs to reunite. I sent a chat to the band yesterday saying if we don’t practice soon I am going to die. Here’s hoping they can save my life.
Okay. Get to work.
Two things. First, weather.com says it is going to be sunny in the morning. I am going to try to get up around sunrise and go find a place in the city to take some film photo tests. Maybe just downtown before everything opens. Maybe the cemetery near the railroad station. Maybe the castle ruins. Maybe something else. I don’t know, but I want to do it and I only want to bring dad’s film camera. We’ll see what (if anything) happens.
Second, In regards to the previous post, Jen read an article tonight saying that people recovering from Gastric Bypass surgery probably should not try to eat broccoli until after three months or so. Something about the fiber causing food to get stuck. Well then I’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but I do feel perfectly fine at the moment. No worries.
Bonus third topic. I am in the middle of a third straight photo a day project thingie on Flickr. Every day for two years and nine months I have taken a picture with my iPhone. As of now, 9:14pm, I have not taken a picture with my iPhone. The streak lives, however, because I have taken a picture with my D90 and it’s on Flickr. The streak continues, babie!
Ain’t she sweet?
I am just not ready for this… Monday. Crud.
I’m on track today. I started work before starting breakfast, which I don’t like, but otherwise all is well. My day’s exercise is done, the laundry is running and the bed is made and things are looking good. I just want another day for the weekend, that’s all.
I only got four hours of sleep Saturday night, thanks to the sunrise chasing. Last night I got seven hours but the numbers were as good as I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if that’s enough though because I am pretty seriously sleepy right now.
I stayed up later than I should have last night because I was being a camera nerd. Well… a camera researching nerd. Is that a thing? I was on youtube watching videos of common film photography mistakes, and tips and tricks for film photography beginners, and videos of people taking their Pentax K1000 on street photography photo walks around various places. I’ve done that a couple of times in Boston and New York. Well… usually I was doing something else and just took my camera with me and pretended I was on a photo walk.
I want to do it again with Dad’s camera now. Like… lets do it now! I need to get some fast film so I can do it at night too (assuming I don’t screw up loading the film again). I want to start at the old Tower Records location and just walk down Newbury Street to the Common, and then walk through the theater district, and then go back up to the building formerly known as the Hancock building and the church next door, and then go to the North End and go through the farmers market, and then, and then, and then. Man, I friggin’ love Boston. Screw Covid for keeping us away.
Oh, and then we need to go to New York, and then we need to go back up to the mountains and find waterfalls. All of it.
Also, if I don’t play my guitar soon I am going to die. Just saying. Thursday is the day I have pegged for trying to trade in my Strat. If they give me cash I will use that cash for the upgrades to the two 1970’s Gibsons.
Okay. Time to take on Monday. Mondays suck. I wanna go to Boston and wander around instead. Unless it starts raining… and it’s supposed to rain. Crud.
I went back and tried to redo the picture of the guitar from the previous post. I did this in manual mode on my DSLR. Inside the camera, I had the aperture set to f/5.3 and the shutter set to 10. The ISO was set to 400 because that was the speed of the film I had in Dad’s camera.
The EXIF data in Flickr mostly matches, but where I would expect to see a shutter speed it gives an Exposure of 1/10. The too dark pic on the previous post was in Aperture priority mode, I think. This pic was in manual mode. The too dark pic was f5.0 and Exposure 1/30. Does that mean the shutter was 30? I don’t know. I think it might be time for me to finally start paying attention to these values. I’ll also note that I don’t think Dad’s camera can match these settings exactly, but I am hoping my camera can match what Dad’s camera does. I guess.
Anyway, this one looks pretty good to me. Not great, but pretty good.
I have nothing to say right now. It’s felt like a long day, but it really hasn’t been. It’s one of those days.
I just had 2.9 ounces of tuna fish for lunch. Isn’t that special? I’m up to 59 grams of protein for the day. The goal is 60 grams and I still have dinner to go. Sweet. I am feeling like I am on top of things today.
I want to play my guitar. I want the mental boost that I used to get from junk food to come from music, but there is so little time in the day. I want to play but I want to spend time with my family more. The band will help, but I don’t think I can try to get the band happening again until my parents are settled. I hope that will be soon, but who knows.
I’ve been having this thought go through my head about maybe starting a second band. I absolutely want Lizardfish to go on with the same four guys for the rest of time. I absolutely love playing in that band. It’s absurd how much fun it is. I was thinking of a second band that would play only original music, like we did back in the 90’s. I think I would like to do that, but I don’t think I would like to do the work to put it together, and I also don’t think I would like to be the only person contributing songs. So I doubt it will ever happen.
I thought that maybe I might want to start pretending to be a photographer again. I thought about sunrise pictures at the ocean. Could it happen this weekend? Probably not. The 10 day forecast calls for clouds for the next 10 days. There goes that idea. Maybe we could take a stroll through the Methuen Bird Sanctuary one of these weekends and see if we could catch a pic or two of some eagles. I don’t know.
Okay. Lunch break is over. Back to it, red head.
I slept a little late this morning but I was still able to get all 30 minutes of my daily exercise goal in, and I finished Breaking Bad. Finally. I know I still have the movie and the whole run of Better Call Saul to go, but the main show is done and all is well.
Last night I got all excited about the third period of game one of the Stanley Cup Final, only to see Tampa lose in overtime. As I wrote last night, I think I am on the Tampa Bay wagon, but if Colorado wins the cup I will be pretty much equally as happy. I have to admit that I sided with Detroit in the Great Avalanche vs Red Wings blood bath back in… whenever that was. Then Ray Bourque was traded to the Avs and I obviously switched sides. I’ve been a casual Avalanche fan ever since.
Still… threepeat. We haven’t had one of those since the Islanders won their fourth in a row in 1983. The Oilers then won four of the next five and five of the next seven, but the last actual threepeat was a fourpeat in 1983. It would be cool to have another one. I guess I am rooting for the streak more than I am rooting for the team. Whatever. It should be a fun series.
Did you see episode four of Obi-Wan Kenobi? Did you have your mind absolutely blown the way we did last night? Holy shit, I could not love this series more. I have been listening to a lot of Star Wars podcasts during this series’ run and a lot of them are down on the show. I think those people need lobotomies because this show is amazing. It’s bordering on perfect. I can’t overstate how much I am loving this show.
I read yesterday (or was it the day before) that they are going to show the entire series in theaters, and Obi-Wan Kenobi will sort of become the next official Star Wars movie. I am all for it. I told Harry last night and he was so excited he almost exploded. I don’t know how I am going to feel about it Covid-wise, but we’re already thinking of trying to go to a matinee of Thor: Love and Thunder as a possible first trip back to the theater. We’ll have to see.
What else… I was thinking of doing some car music today but I slept too late. Maybe tomorrow. Definitely over the weekend. I don’t have any songs ready for guitars yet, other than one that is ready for leads, so I want to finish the bass/drums bed for a couple more songs too. I have my big amp, the one I used at the last gig, in the music nook now and I want to use it. Things to do, things to do.
Look at me, lifting heavy stuff like a boss.
I celebrated my sixth weekaversary by weighing myself. I was down 4.4 pounds and happy about it. I then (finally) changed the cat’s litter box. It was beyond time. Patches, sorry about that buddy. Enjoy shitting in your clean box, my furry friend.
After the litter box I took a big box that had been sitting at the top of our driveway for at least five of the six weeks. It’s just a folding card table, but it weighed a little more than 25 pounds so it sat under the overhang next to our porch and waited. Now it’s in the cellar. I haven’t actually unboxed it yet, but it’s finally inside.
I had one more lifting item on my agenda but I pushed that off until lunch. I did my 30 minutes of walking in place and then it was about 8:50 and time for work. Jen did ask me to do one lifting thing for her. She asked me to move a monitor off of her desk and replace it with another one. I don’t think they were above the 25 pound threshold, but one of them might have been in the ball park.
Come lunch time I took a few minutes to make a phone call and then finished my heavy stuff agenda for the day. I moved the Vox AC15 amplifier from my cellar music nook to the storage closet (for now) and replaced it with the gigantic Fender Bassbreaker 18/30. That big sucker is probably 50 pounds or so (Google tells me its exactly 50 pounds) and it was far and away the heaviest chore of the morning. It’s also the loudest. Is there a cause and effect thing there?
No. No there isn’t.
Okay, lunch break is over. Time to get back to work. I might sneak in some loud guitar playing tonight, but there is a new episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the Stanley Cup Finals start tonight. So… maybe not. We’ll see.
Inside the Red Head's Head 