Nerd Boy Screws Up His Plans

I had every intention of going to visit both of my parents today. Unfortunately I suck at eating and my lunch angered my stomach and I was nauseous enough to not want to leave the house. I did buy a whole new wardrobe this morning but that is the best I could do.

I played some guitar in the hopes it would make me feel better. It didn’t. Emotionally or digestively. I played with the self timer and the remote shutter on my camera in between takes of tracks for National Solo Album Month (up to three songs now. Yippee). I have redefined the word “Nerd”.

HeHeHe... Nerd. — Robert the Slack Jawed Yokel, coming soon to a Simpsons episode near you.

This one was taken in manual mode at least. No self timer or remote shutters here.

DSC_0027 (1) — I just love that red jewel light on the Deluxe Reverb.

The doofus in those pics might look like a total goof, but that guitar is a thing of beauty, isn’t it? Did I mention that Jen bought me that for my 50th birthday? Good work, Jen.

Digital vs Film

I did a little comparison experiment today. Just cause.

I took this picture of me gitter using my DSLR. I set the ISO as low as it goes, put the camera on my broken tripod (it doesn’t tilt) with the legs closed all the way because otherwise I would have had a picture of the wall above the top of me gitter. I then used the light meter on my iPhone to figure out the aperture and shutter speed, used the auto focus and snapped.

I then put Dad’s film camera on the tripod and did the same. The ISO of the film in the camera is 100, which is lower than the DSLR goes so it’s not an exact duplicate test. I did set the aperture the same on both cameras but the shutter speed was a smidge lower on the film version. I manually focused and compared the light meter in the camera to the app and they were very similar. I then snapped the pic. The shutter was open for one second but it felt like 15 years.

Someday I will get the roll of film developed and in theory I will compare the two images. I say in theory because I can pretty much guarantee I’ll forget all about this by then and will never compare them at all. Oh well. I have a photo for the photo a day thing though, so that’s good.

Two Recent Items of Note

Two things that I have been wanting to post here just so that I could find them if I need them in the future. One music related, one marriage related.

First, the music one. I plugged one of my USB audio interfaces into a USB-C adapter and then into my iPad. It works perfectly. I can bring up the mic input in GarageBand, pick an available channel from the interface, and record without lag or errors. Sigh of relief. Now I actually have to have a song to add guitars and vocals to. Maybe I can still sneak in a Record Every Month Challenge song for October. There’s NaSoAlMo next month to think about too. Also, I haven’t played guitar in ages and I am starting to get the shakes from guitar withdrawals. You know how it is. I still haven’t tried GarageBand on my MacBook since taking the last OS top off update. It shouldn’t make a difference. I don’t think anything audio related was included in the update. I am still thinking about wiping the whole thing and restoring from a backup and seeing if that fixes whatever crap was wrong last month. Have you tried turning it off and on again? Yes. Have you tried killing everything and reinstalling it? Not yet.

That’s the music thing I wanted to write down. What’s the marriage thing? My wedding ring is in the shop. I took it back to the jewelry shop we bought it from back in 2009 to get it resized. It was a size 14. It will be a size 12. I mentioned the cause of the weight loss and asked if it will be okay if I need to get it resized a second time. They said sure. We did that on Saturday, October 22nd. They said I could expect to be without it for a week or so. Jen also dropped off her engagement ring as one of the clasps that holds the diamond in place is broken. Hopefully they will both come back at the same time. I seriously miss my ring. I keep absent mindedly reaching for it and being surprised that it isn’t there. I am looking forward to not having to wrap yard around it to make it fit better though. I won’t miss that annoying little thing.

There. Now we’re all up to date.

PRS

As I was sitting in the living room feeling terribly nauseous and sick I put on Youtube and poked around. I found a rig rundown video with Alex Lifeson’s guitar tech from the Time Machine Tour in 2010. They checked out his guitars. Most of them were his signature Les Paul model, the Les Paul Access. There were a couple of older Les Pauls too and his gorgeous ES-355, and that one Telecaster he plays now and then. There were also a couple of 90’s Paul Reed Smiths.

Lifeson started playing those in the late 80’s or early 90’s (I think) after he stopped playing those Signature strat copy things that I think he was a part owner of the company. I was so happy when he stopped playing those things and I really liked how he sounded playing those PRS guitars but I was sort of hoping he’d start playing Les Pauls again, which eventually he did. I mean, Geddy Lee once said something along the lines of Alex doesn’t sound like Alex unless he’s playing a Les Paul. I don’t remember the exact quote but it was something like that, and once Mike my lifelong bass player said the same thing about me and that was pretty much the best compliment I’ve ever heard.

Anyway…

After I watched that rig rundown video I found today’s new episode of That Pedal Show and who should they have as a guest? Paul Reed Smith himself.

Maybe someday after I win the lottery and buy a bunch of Les Paul Standards from 1957-1960 I might treat myself to a two humbucker Paul Reed Smith model. They are great guitars. Even that weird strat copy they make for John Mayer is a great guitar, even if it’s basically a stratocaster with a funny looking headstock.

Nope

I tried to goad myself into playing the guitar at lunch today. I even took a picture for the photo a day thing.

Nope. I had a bad reaction to a piece of chicken instead. I guess it was just too big of a bite. It took me three hours to get through 4.4 oz of chicken, but one hour of that was just dealing with stomach pain and nausea and another hour was spent in a meeting at work. You know how it is.

Speaking of problems eating that stem from my gastric bypass surgery, the organization that determines the rules for qualifying for weight loss surgery has just rewritten those rules. They lowered the BMI requirement from 35 to 30. According to that I still qualify. My BMI is 34.4 even after losing 169 pounds. Can they bypass more of my stomach? WOOHOO!

Lunch Break

How about some random thoughts about nothing important to close out my lunch break?

Tomorrow is October’s work-in-the-office day. It might be my last day at my current desk. So many memories… no, wait. Almost no memories. I’ve only sat at that desk about 10 times since moving there in 2020 (I think). I need to plan out how I am going to get my 80 (not 60) grams of protein for the day. I’ll bring some chopped up chicken and maybe a protein snack or two. Maybe a protein shake in the morning before I go and a protein bar in the car on the way? I’ll figure it out tonight.

I haven’t played my guitar in ages. I am sad. I was thinking about taking my Les Paul out of the case just for today’s photo a day thing. I am hoping if I do that it will goad me into playing some. I need to play. This is stupid. I need to play. I think I am afraid that if I do try to play I will try to record something and find that I am still having the lagging problems I had with GarageBand last month. I may wipe my MacBook and then restore it and see if I still have the problem. I am frankly terrified. We’ll see.

Film is coming. I had a little stash of cash in my wallet that I was saving up to use for film purchases. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any place near home that sells anything other than cheaper color drugstore film. I wanted to get some cheaper black and white film to play with, and I wanted to get some slightly better film to use at Disney World in January. I couldn’t find anything like that anywhere. To remedy this, I rolled my cash stash into an Amazon gift card. I spent it all yesterday. I bought some cheap film, some decent film, and a couple of rolls of pretty good film. Amazon has shipped most of it already. The first package might be here tomorrow. We’ll see. I also bought an adapter that hopefully will let me use the Pentax lenses on my Nikons, including (maybe) my digital SLR. I’ll have to figure out how to let the DSLR use a manual aperture setting for it to work, but if I can figure it out it could be freakin’ cool.

Okay. Lunch break is over. I still need that photo a day thing. Maybe I’ll sneak into the yard and snap some colored leaves. Maybe I’ll document Bertha the House Plant’s newly forming leaf. Maybe I’ll take my Les Paul out of it’s case. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

Lunch Time Photo Shoot

I took a bunch of pictures of my Strat at lunch today. I ended up using the DSLR, the point and shoot, and the iPhone. I don’t know if I can use any of them. The color is too blue. The guitar finish is more green than you can see in any of the images. I tried flash, I tried no flash. I tried low ISO, I tried high ISO (even though ISO doesn’t have anything to do with color, I was just hoping more light would improve the look).

Oh well. We’ll see.

Milestone Achieved

Last night, as expected, I achieved another post-weight loss surgery milestone.

I ate pasta.

Oh the glory! I only ate a tiny bit. 1.5 ounces to be exact. There was a little red sauce and about four ounces of meatballs as well. Protein, dontchaknow. No stomach issues. No nausea. No anything but happiness. Tiny amounts of pasta are back on the menu, boys!

In today’s episode of That Pedal Show, which was almost exactly the length of time I needed for my morning walkies, Dan buys a new Telecaster and gets it refretted, rewired, and has a pickup respun.

Oh, has that lit me up or what. Both of my 70’s Gibsons needs to be refretted, one needs to be rewired, and one is in line to get new pickups. I want to sell my USA Stratocaster to pay for some, if not all, of this work but I’ve been afraid to actually list the guitar anywhere. After watching today’s show… the guitar might go up for sale this weekend. We’ll have to see. There’s a distinct possibility that today’s photo-a-day submission might be for-sale pics of the Strat. I am equal parts excited about this and really scared to do it. I honestly have no clue how much I should ask for.

Speaking of this coming weekend (eight hours and 11 minutes to go!), the agenda includes hanging new curtains in the living room and getting a flu shot and the new Covid booster. I expect to be wiped out for at least some of the weekend. We’re trying to arrange things so that the worst of the vaccine push back will happen over night while we’re sleeping… or at least trying to sleep. I’ll let you know how that goes. My first three shots didn’t really affect me. The fourth did. It wasn’t terrible, but I definitely felt ill the next day. Fingers crossed.

Crappy Song Alert

Here’s one of the four awful songs written and recorded in September 2022. It’s probably the best of the four, but that’s not saying much. Maybe I’ll redo it someday in the future when I have an actually functional home recording setup and when I’ve actually been playing the guitar for a while and not on a five month break.

Pain Pain and More Pain

I put leads on four songs before work this morning. It was a bad experience in three ways. First, I am so rusty it’s embarrassing. Second, the interface problems left me on the verge of screaming in fury and frustration the whole time. Third, I have no callusses on my finger tips anymore and I am in searing, burning agony right now. I played for about 45 minutes and oh my god the finger tip pain.

Fun.

I have four songs to mix by the end of the day. I don’t have an album-in-a-month for September, but maybe I have an EP in a month? At the very least I’ll have my first RPM Challenge Record Every Month song since RPM ended in February. That’s nice. The four songs I have to pick from are AWFUL and the guitar playing is AWFUL and the singing is AWFULAWFULAWFUL, but at least they exist. I guess.

My iPad has a USB C input. I am thinking of trying to use one of my USB interfaces with the iPad to see if the same problems with lagging will happen on that machine. If not, then I can keep writing and recording without wanting to punch holes in the wall in furious angry anger as the input signal drops out for a fraction of a second and fucks up a solid take… again and again and again and again. That would be nice. If the iPad work around doesn’t work… I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll need to upgrade to a faster USB interface but I most definitely do not have any money for that. Two kids in college, you know? Urgh.

Pics…